Keats died young; but he had more pleasure in a minute than a Eugenist gets in a month. Stevenson had lung trouble; and it may, for all I know, have been perceptible to the Eugenic eye even a generation before. But who would perform that illegal operation: the stopping of Stevenson? Intercepting a letter bursting with good news, confiscating a hamper full of presents and prizes, pouring torrents of intoxicating wine into the sea, all this is a faint approximation for the Eugenic inaction of the ancestors of Stevenson. This, however, is not the essential point; with Stevenson it is not merely a case of the pleasure we get, but of the pleasure he got. If he had died without writing a line, he would have had more red-hot joy than is given to most men. Shall I say of him, to whom I owe so much, let the day perish wherein he was born? Shall I pray that the stars of the twilight thereof be dark and it be not numbered among the days of the year, because it shut not up the days of his mother's womb? I respectfully decline; like Job, I will put my hand upon my mouth.*
[* Eugenics and Other Evils, p. 57.]
When the Stevenson itself appeared, Sir Edmund Gosse wrote:
I have just finished reading the book in which you smite the detractors of R.L.S. hip and thigh. I cannot express without a sort of hyperbole the sentiments which you have awakened; of joy, of satisfaction, of relief, of malicious and vindictive pleasure. We are avenged at last. . . .
It is and always since his death has been impossible for me to write anything which went below the surface of R.L.S. I loved him, and still love him, too tenderly to analyse him. But you, who have the privilege of not being dazzled by having known him, have taken the task into your strong competent hands. You could not have done it better.
The latest survivor, the only survivor, of his little early circle of intimate friends thanks you from the bottom of his heart.
Don Quixote is a fantasia about the future: in which the study of heraldry leads to the discovery of England and the centuries of her happiness and of her faith. Increasingly Gilbert saw the only future for his country in a re-marriage between those divorced three hundred years ago: England and the Catholic Church. Don Quixote is among the less good of his books, but like all the works of these years it is saturated with Catholicism. I wondered whether I felt more admiration or amazement when a man once asked us to publish a book on Chesterton saying, "I am an atheist myself but that doesn't matter, as I don't deal with his religion."
As a young man Gilbert had wanted to marry the religion of Dr. Johnson to the Republicanism of Wilkes and in his Catholic faith of today he saw simply the rounding out and the completing of the religion of Dr. Johnson. The Judgment of Dr. Johnson, his play about that great man was, like Magic, an immense succès d'estime but not a stage success: it was brilliantly acted and appreciatively criticised but could not win a public. Bernard Shaw was still constantly urging Gilbert towards the drama. Belloc too believed he could write a successful play and he and Anstey (author of Vice Versa) suggested the dramatising of a Belloc story. But neither the scenario they jointly sketched for Belloc's Emerald nor another made by Gilbert alone for his own Flying Inn ever reached the stage.
I remember going with the Chestertons to a pre-view of a Father Brown picture. Two of the stories had been cleverly combined, the cast was first rate, including Una O'Connor and Walter Connolly, and I came out feeling convinced that Father Brown would become another Charlie Chan. The stories would adapt so well, abounding as they do in scenes impossible for the stage but perfectly easy for the screen—high walls, windows, ladders, flying harlequins. But the first picture failed (possibly because it was too short) and no more were made. The drama remained the one field in which he had no success.
Shaw's name for Gilbert and Belloc—the Chesterbelloc—had come by the public to be used for the novels in which they collaborated. Belloc wrote the story, Chesterton drew the pictures, and the resulting product was known as the Chesterbelloc. A number of letters from Mr. Belloc beg Gilbert to do the drawings early in order to help the story. "I have already written a number of situations which you might care to sketch. I append a list. Your drawing makes all the difference to my thinking: I see the people in action more clearly." And again, "I can't write till I have the inspiration of your pencil. For the comedy in me is ailing."