A Circle of Friends
IN THE LAST chapter, this chapter and to a considerable extent those that follow, down to the break made by Gilbert's illness and the war of 1914, it is unavoidable that the same years should be retraced to cover a variety of aspects. For their home was for both Gilbert and Frances the centre of a widening circle. Although I visited Overroads, it seems to me, looking back, I saw them just then much more frequently in London and elsewhere. Several times they stayed at Lotus, our Surrey home. The first time it was a weekend of blazing summer weather. Lady Blennerhassett was there—formerly Countess Leyden and a favourite disciple of Döllinger. I remember she delighted Gilbert by her comment on Modernism. "I must," she said, "have the same religion as my washerwoman, and Father Tyrrell's is not the religion for my washerwoman." We sat on the terrace in the sunshine and Lady Blennerhassett asked suddenly whether the soles of our boots were, like hers, without hole or blemish. We all looked very odd as we stuck our feet out and tried to see the soles. Gilbert, offered a wicker chair, preferred the grass because, he said, there was grave danger he might unduly "modify" the chair.
After a meeting of the Westminster Dining Society (the predecessor of the Wiseman), he wrote my mother an unnecessary apology:
DEAR MRS. WILFRID WARD—
I have wanted for some days past to write to you, but could not make up my mind whether I was making my position worse or better. But I do want to apologise to you for the way in which I threw out your delightful Catholic Dining Society affair the other day. I behaved badly, dined badly, debated badly and left badly; yet the explanation is really simple. I was horribly worried, and I do not worry well; when I am worried I am like a baby. My wife was that night just ill enough to make a man nervous, a stupid man, and I had sworn to her that I would fulfill some affairs that night on which she was keen. As she is better now and only wants rest, I feel normal and realise what a rotter I must have looked that night. As Belloc wrote in a beautiful epitaph—
"He frequently would flush with fear when other people paled,
He Tried to Do his Duty . . . but how damnably he failed."
This is the epitaph of yours sincerely,
G. K. CHESTERTON.
My father and mother were hardly less excited than I at the discovery of the greatest man of the age, for so we all felt him to be. Gilbert later described my father as "strongly co-operative" with another's mind, and this was perhaps his own chief characteristic in conversation. The two men did not agree on politics, but on religion their agreement was deep and constantly grew deeper as they co-operated in exploring it. Our headquarters were in Surrey but when we came up to London every spring my parents wanted to bring the Chestertons into touch with all their friends. They tended to think of their luncheon table as Chesterton "supported" by those most worthy of the honour. One of the first was of course George Wyndham, already a friend and admirer of Gilbert's. At this luncheon they discussed the modern press, 18th Century lampoons, the ingredients of a good English style, the lawfulness of Revolution, the causes of Napoleon, Scripture criticism, Joan of Arc, public executions, how to bring about reforms. It was absurd, G.K. said, to think that gaining half a reform led to the other half. Supposing it was agreed that every man ought to have a cow, but you say, "We can't manage that just yet: give him half a cow." He doesn't care for it and he leaves it about, and he never asks for the other half.
Talking of the Eastern and Western races Gilbert said it was curious that while the Easterns were so logical and clear in their religion, they were so unpractical in every-day life; the religion of the Westerns is mystical and full of paradoxes. Yet they are far more practical. "The Eastern says fate governs everything and he sits and looks pretty; we believe in Free-will and Predestination and we invent Babbage's Calculating Machine."