Each of Chesterton's readers can think of a hundred instances of this inspired fooling: many have been given in this book and many will yet be given. But the thing went far deeper than fooling: it has been compared by Mr. Belloc to the gospel parables as a method of teaching and of illumination. "He made men see what they had not seen before. He made them know. He was an architect of certitude, whenever he practiced the art in which he excelled."
Belloc's analysis of this special element in Chesterton's style, alike written and spoken, is of first rate importance to an understanding of the man whose mind at this date was still rapidly developing while his method of expression had become what it remained to the end of his life.
His unique, his capital, genius for illustration by parallel, by example, is his peculiar mark. The word "peculiar" is here the operative word. . . . No one whatsoever that I can recall in the whole course of English letters had his amazing—I would almost say superhuman—capacity for parallelism.
Now parallelism is a gift or method of vast effect in the conveyance of truth.
Parallelism consists in the illustration of some unperceived truth by its exact consonance with the reflection of a truth already known and perceived . . .
Whenever Chesterton begins a sentence with, "It is as though" (in exploding a false bit of reasoning), you may expect a stroke of parallelism as vivid as a lightning flash.
. . . Always, in whatever manner he launched the parallelism, he produced the shock of illumination. He taught.
Parallelism was so native to his mind; it was so naturally a fruit of his mental character that he had difficulty in understanding why others did not use it with the same lavish facility as himself.
I can speak here with experience, for in these conversations with him or listening to his conversation with others I was always astonished at an ability in illustration which I not only have never seen equalled, but cannot remember to have seen attempted. He never sought such things; they poured out from him as easily as though they were not the hard forged products of intense vision, but spontaneous remarks.*
[* On the Place of Gilbert Chesterton in English Letters, pp. 36-41.]