Mr. Gilbert Chesterton requests the pleasure Of humanity's company to tea on Dec. 25th 1896. Humanity Esq., The Earth, Cosmos E.
G.K. liked everybody very much, and everything very much. He liked even the things most of us dislike. He liked to get wet. He liked to be tired. After that one short period of struggle he liked to call himself "always perfectly happy." And therefore he wanted to say, "Thank you."
You say grace before meals
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
Each day seemed a special gift; something that might not have been:
EVENING
Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world round me;
And with tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?
THE PRAYER OF A MAN WALKING
I thank thee, O Lord, for the stones in the street
I thank thee for the hay-carts yonder and for the
houses built and half-built
That fly past me as I stride.
But most of all for the great wind in my nostrils
As if thine own nostrils were close.
THE PRAYER OF A MAN RESTING
The twilight closes round me
My head is bowed before the Universe
I thank thee, O Lord, for a child I knew seven years ago
And whom I have never seen since.