Did you see my letter in Tuesday's Times? Magnificent!
My love to Mrs. Chesterton, and my most distinguished consideration to Winkle.* To hell with the Pope!
[* The Chestertons' dog who preceded Quoodle of the poem.]
Ever
G.B.S.
P.S. I told Sanders to explain to you that you would be entitled to half the gate (or a third if Belloc shares) and that you were likely to overlook this if you were not warned. I take it that you have settled this somehow.
At the second of these debates Belloc opened the proceedings by announcing to the audience "You are about to listen, I am about to sneer." His only contribution to the debate was to recite a poem:
Our civilisation
Is built upon coal
Let us chant in rotation
Our civilisation
That lump of damnation
Without any soul
Our civilisation
Is built upon coal.
Bernard Shaw was on the friendliest terms with the others and admired their genius but thought it ill directed. Belloc, he had told Chesterton, was "wasting prodigious gifts" in the service of the Pope.
"I have not met G.K.C.: Shaw always calls him a man of colossal genius" writes Lawrence of Arabia to a friend.