As a lecturer Chesterton's success was less certain than as a debater. Many of his greatest admirers say they have heard him give very poor lectures. He was often nervous and worried beforehand. "As a lecture," wrote the Yorkshire Weekly Post after a performance in this year (1911), "it was a fiasco, but as an exhibition of Chesterton it was pleasing." Although his writing appeared almost effortless he did in fact take far more pains about it than he did in preparing for a lecture. He seemed quite incapable of remembering the time or place of appointment, or of getting there on time, if at all. Stories are told of his non-appearance on various platforms. My husband remembers a meeting in a London theatre at which Chesterton had been billed as one of the speakers. The meeting, arranged by the Knights of the Blessed Sacrament, was well under way before he arrived, panting but unperturbed. His apology ran something like this: "As knights you will understand my not being here at the beginning, for the whole point of knighthood was that the knight should arrive late but not too late. Had St. George not been late there would have been no story. Had he been too late, there would have been no princess."
Even more annoying was his habit of beginning his lecture by saying he had not prepared it. Such a remark is not likely to please any audience, least of all an audience that has paid for admission and knows that the lecturer is receiving a large fee. But money, whether he was receiving it or giving it away, meant nothing to him. He had not a strong voice, and I have seen him, when a microphone was provided, holding a paper of notes between himself and it. An ardent admirer of his writing told me he made far too many jokes about his size. Yet how pleasing they sometimes were: when his Chairman for instance, after a long wait, said he had feared a traffic accident: "Had I met a tram-car," Chesterton replied, "it would have been a great, and if I may say so, an equal encounter."
He thought badly of his own lecturing and began once by saying: "I might call myself a lecturer; but then again I fear some of you may have attended my lectures."
Actually, in spite of the jokes, his thoughts were centred entirely on his subject, not on himself. An anonymous Society Diarist quoted by Cosmo Hamilton writes of an occasion when: "he was given, rather foolishly, a little gold period chair and as he made his points it slowly collapsed under him. He rose just in time and sinking into another chair that someone put behind him began at the word he had last spoken. No acting could have secured such an effect of complete indifference. It was evident that he had barely noticed the incident."
Ellis Roberts completes the picture. He knew Gilbert already as a brilliant talker and came to hear him from a platform:
"I remember the manner of his lecture. It seemed to be written on a hundred pieces of variously shaped paper, written in ink and pencil (of all colours) and in chalk. All the pages were in a splendid and startling disorder and I remember being at first a little disappointed. Then the papers were abandoned and G.K.C. talked."*
[* Reading for Pleasure, p. 96.]
At this time Bernard Shaw scored a victory over his friend. For beside lecturing, journalism and the publication of three considerable and two minor books, Chesterton between 1911 and the War wrote the play that Shaw had been so insistently demanding. The books were: Manalive 1911, A Miscellany of Men (Essays) 1912, The Victorian Age in Literature February 1913, The Wisdom of Father Brown 1914, The Flying Inn 1914. The play was Magic produced at the Little Theatre in October 1913. One who admired it was George Moore. He wrote to Forster Bovill (November 24, 1913):
I followed the comedy of Magic from the first line to the last with interest and appreciation, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I think of all modern plays I like it the best. Mr. Chesterton wished to express an idea and his construction and his dialogue are the best that he could have chosen for the expression of that idea: therefore, I look upon the play as practically perfect. The Prologue seems unnecessary, likewise the magician's love for the young lady. That she should love the magician is well enough, but it materialises him a little too much if he returns that love. I would have preferred her to love him more and he to love her less. But this spot, if it be a spot, is a very small one on a spotless surface of excellence.
I hope I can rely upon you to tell Mr. Chesterton how much I appreciated his Play as I should like him to know my artistic sympathies.