Chapter 8

Anarchy is a very interesting subject and is used to denote very different things. It may be something that puts a bullet through a king with the insane hope of ending the monarchy; it may be an act of a God-fearing Protestant clergyman when he attempts to harry the Catholics by denying that the crucifix is the proper symbol of the Christian religion; it may be the act of God when a village is destroyed by an earthquake or an island created by a seaquake.

'The Man who was Thursday' is about an anarchist, and we are not sure whether Chesterton is not pulling our respectable legs and laughing that we really believed the party of desperadoes were real anarchists. The fact is, the book starts in a highly respectable suburb that might be anywhere near London and could not be far from it.

There are two poets strolling about under the canopy of a lovely sky; one believes in anarchy, the other doesn't--the one who does invites the one who does not to come with him and see what anarchy is. This he does, and, after a good supper of lobster mayonnaise, the two get down to a subterranean cavern where are assembled half the anarchists of the world, precisely six; they call themselves by the names of the week, with a leader, who is met with later, Sunday.

Syme, the visitor, is appointed as a member, and becomes, Thursday; he has a great many adventures, including breakfast, overlooking Leicester Square, and gradually discovers that the said anarchists, unknown at first to each other, are really Scotland Yard detectives.

The only real anarchist is the poet who believed in it, whose name is Gregory. He has the pious wish to destroy the world; he may be Satan, if that person could ever pretend to be a poet.

What does Chesterton mean by this strange weird tale that is almost like a romance of Oppenheim and is yet like an old-world allegory? Is he laughing at anarchists that they are but policemen in disguise? Is he saying that policemen are really only anarchists? Or does he mean that the Devil masquerades as the spirit of the Holy Day of the week 'Sunday,' or is 'Sunday' really Christ?

Chesterton calls this novel a nightmare; a nightmare is usually a muddled kind of thing with no connections at all; it is a dream turned into a blasphemy. The book may mean several things; it is quite possible that it may mean nothing; there is no need for a novel to mean anything so long as it is readable. 'The Man who was Thursday' certainly is that, but it leaves us with an uneasy suspicion that it is a very serious book and at the same time it may be merely a farce.

* * * * *

Space does not permit us to more than mention Chesterton's two detective books, 'The Innocence of Father Brown' and 'The Wisdom of Father Brown.' They are a highly original series of detective tales. 'The Club of Queer Trades' is a volume of quaint short stories full of Chesterton's genius.

Since Chesterton wrote these books an event has occurred to him which may have a considerable effect on his writings. His novels have always shown a Catholic tendency when they have touched at all on religion. They have not, of course, the propagandist setting of the works of Father R.H. Benson, nor do they have a contempt for other Churches that so often blackens the writings of Roman Catholic apologists.

The event is one that has occasioned the usual mistake in the Press. They have said with loud emphasis, 'Mr. Chesterton has joined the Catholic Church.' He has not; there is, unfortunately, no Catholic Church that he could have joined; what he has done is to be received into the Roman part of the Catholic Church.

This is a matter of importance to Chesterton; it is a matter of far greater importance to the Roman Catholics. If the Roman Church is wise she will not put her ban on Chesterton's writings--his intellect is far beyond the ken of the Pope; his utterances are of more import than all the Papal Bulls. She has secured, as her ally, one of the finest intellects of the day, one of the best Christian apologists.

If, then, we have further novels from the pen of Chesterton we shall expect them to have a Roman bias, but we shall hope that they will not bear any signs that Rome has dictated the policy that has made many of her best priests mere puppets, afraid, not of the Church, but of the Pope, who often enough in history has been a very ignorant man.

Of present-day novelists it is in no way fair to compare them to Chesterton; 'some contemporary novelists are better than he is, some are worse.' These are statements the writer of this book has often heard; they are entirely unfair. Chesterton, as I have said, stands apart; his works are for the most part symbolic. This is their difficulty: any of his books may be the symbol for several points of view with the exception of his religious position, which is always on the side of Christianity, and, I think, the Roman Catholic interpretation of it; his dialogue is worthy of Anthony Hope, his dramatic power is intense, his satire is never ill-natured, it is always cutting, his humour is gentle, pathos is rare in his novels, he has never described a woman, he is undoubtedly a philosopher, but he is not one who is academic, above all he is the genial writer of phantastic tales that are as wide as the universe.

_Chapter Nine_

CHESTERTON ON DIVORCE

It may be somewhat arbitrary to proceed straight away to nearly the end of Chesterton's 'Superstition of Divorce' to find an argument that shows that he doesn't quite understand what divorce aims at; but it is well, when taking note of a book on an alleged abuse of modern society, to also see that the writer has got hold of the right end of the stick. It is no doubt unfortunate that many marriages said to be made in heaven end in hell. Divorce may be a sign that men have no reverence for marriage, it may equally be an argument that they reverence it very much; but there is no good reason for attributing to divorce only very low motives and one of the lowest that can be found; consequently I have started in the middle of this book.

In a chapter on the tragedies of marriage, Chesterton remarks that 'the broad-minded are extremely bitter because a Christian, who wishes to have several wives when his own promise bound him to one, is not allowed to violate his vow at the same altar at which he made it.' What most people who wish for a divorce want is that they shall have, not several wives, but one, who shall prove that Christian marriage is not a horrible farce, that the words of the priest were not a miserable blasphemy. Chesterton has made a very big mistake if he thinks that the exponents of divorce wish the Church to be a party to polygamy; what they want is that the Church shall show a little common sense and not rely on the tradition of hotly disputed texts.

I think it is perfectly clear that Chesterton can see no good in divorce at all. I have said it may be a very good argument for those who wish to make marriage what it is said by the Church to be--a Divine institution. Many people seek divorce, not that, as Chesterton implies, they shall run away with the wife of the man across the square, but that, having been unlucky in a speculation, they wish quite naturally and quite rightly to try again, to the infinite satisfaction of all parties. If the Church does not agree that divorce is ever right, so much the worse for that Divine institution; if the Church is right in holding that marriages are made by God, then civil marriages are not marriages at all, and there is no need to worry about divorce, because the most ardent reformer does not imagine that man can undo the Divine decree; on the other hand, the Church never will face the fact that, if all marriages in a church by a priest are Divine, then it is rather strange that the result of them very often would be more consistent with a Satanic origin.

I am dwelling at some length on this theological argument because, though Chesterton does not base his case on that argument, he undoubtedly considers that divorce is against the Church's teaching, and the Church to which he now belongs would not allow him to think otherwise. Before I finally leave this side of the question there is one other consideration that must be faced. Whatever the texts in the New Testament relating to divorce may mean, it is rather unfortunate that they are attributed to a bachelor. Whether Christ had any good reason for knowing anything about divorce is not an irreverent one, but it is one that the Church must face to-day.

Another thing that Chesterton does not seem to realize is that many people do not want divorce to marry again, but to be free of a partner who is not one in the most superficial sense of the word; at the same time a separation does not meet the case, as it is always possible that a man or woman may wish to take the matrimonial plunge again. Chesterton seems to think it is amusing to poke fun at those who are sensible enough to wish to make lunacy a sufficient ground for divorce. 'The process' he says, 'might begin by releasing somebody from a homicidal maniac and end by dealing with a rather dull conversationalist.' He might have added, to make the joke complete, or from some one who snores, or keeps cats, or reads Bernard Shaw.

'To put it roughly,' says Chesterton, 'we are prepared in some cases to listen to a man who complains of having a wife. But we are not prepared to listen at such length to the same man when he comes back and complains that he has not got a wife. In a word, divorce is a controversy about remarriage; or, rather, about whether it is marriage at all.' To a certain extent Chesterton is right when he says that the controversy about divorce is really about remarriage, but what he forgets is, that for the hundreds who want divorce to be remarried, there are thousands who want it to be unmarried. The reason a man complains of having a wife is, of course, often that he prefers a mistress; but it is equally true that another cause for complaint is that his wife has for him none of the recognized attributes of the normal state of wifehood.

I have always understood that in some sense Chesterton was a journalist of the kind who is rather hard on journalism, but I did not know until I read this book on divorce that he so little understood newspapers and their writers. Commenting on the fact that the Press is sensible enough to use divorce as a news item, he says: 'The newspapers are full of an astonishing hilarity about the rapidity with which hundreds of thousands of human families are being broken up by the lawyers; and about the undisguised haste of the "hustling" judges who carry on the work.' I wonder if Mr. Chesterton ever reads the leaders of certain papers, leaders which never fail to regret the enormous amount of divorce there is. If it be true that there is a great deal of news of divorce in the Press, it is because the Press does not give news of an imaginary world that is a Utopia, but of the dear old muddle-headed world as it is. Does Chesterton fail to see that if the newspapers did not report the Divorce Courts, the numbers of cases would increase from thousands to millions. It is useless Chesterton sighing that lawyers have become breakers of families; they have also become restrainers of suicide. If the judges hustle, it is because they are sensible enough to see that most of the divorces are justifiable; when they have not been, they have not been slow to say so.

Yet again Chesterton repeats the somewhat superficial argument against divorce that its obvious effect would be frivolous marriage. The normal person on his or her wedding day luckily does not think about anything beyond the supreme happiness they have found at least at the time. It is lightly said that the modern Adam and Eve think of the chances of divorce before marriage whatever may be the cause of divorce afterwards; at least it will be agreed that it is a failure of a particular two people who thought that their lives together would be a mutual happiness. Therefore, when Chesterton says that divorce is likely to make frivolous marriages he is saying that couples about to marry do so expecting it to be a failure. If this be so, then the young men and women of to-day are more hopeless than they are commonly made to appear by correspondence about them in the papers. If, on the other hand, every couple on marriage knew for a certainty that it was 'till death us do part,' it is more than likely that marriage would be a thing that was abnormal, not normal. It might even be that the Church would have to listen to reason, and be disturbed over worse things than divorce, and whether she should endeavour to take a Christian attitude to those who had been unfortunate or indiscreet.

Chesterton is very concerned that the time will come when 'there will be a distinction between those who are married and those who are really married.' This is precisely to state what is Utopia. At present many people who are really married are in the chains of slavery; the more who get out of it the better. As the number of those whose marriages are a farce will gradually diminish, thus will divorce be a godsend. Divorce is, in certain cases, a godsend, but the priests refuse to listen to the Divine revelation.

Chesterton sketches at some length the nature of a vow. He considers that Henry the VIII broke the civilization of vows when he wished to have done with his wife. It is quite possible that he did, but it is also possible that she did precisely the same thing. The question in regard to our inquiry is: Is the marriage vow entirely binding even when the other party to the contract has broken it? The opponents of divorce, amongst whom are Chesterton, will quite easily say that it is, yet they cheerfully ignore the fact that in a marriage two persons make a contract, and if one breaks it there is quite a good reason that the vow made is no longer one at all. It is a very interesting question whether a vow should ever be broken. Should Jephthah have broken the vow that sacrificed his daughter? Should Herod have broken his vow that laid the head of John the Baptist on a charger? Should two people remain together when (if they have not broken their actual vows) they have lost the spirit of them? The opponents of divorce, who are so eager over the keeping of the marriage vow, are they as eager that it shall be but a miserable skeleton?

Chesterton does not see any particular reason why the exponents should be anxious to secure easier divorce for the poor man. It is, he thinks, 'encouraging him to look for a new wife.' If he has a wife who isn't one at all, the best thing for him is to look for another who will prove to be so, otherwise he will search for the nearest public-house and a cheap prostitute. Surely it is better that it be granted his first marriage was a failure and let him try decently for a better.

Of course, the most sensible plan would be to give divorce for all sorts of small things; people would soon then tire of it. Chesterton tells us that already in America there is demand for less divorce consequent on the increased facilities over there. In England there is demand for more. Let it be given freely and the demand will soon cease. Why should our policy be dictated by a celibate priesthood? Does Chesterton think that people who hate one another are going to live together as though they were the most ardent lovers? Does he consider that it would be better to have no divorce and no marriage as a consequence? Does he consider that ill-assorted couples will make happy nations? Does he really consider that divorce can destroy marriage? Does he consider that the newspapers print the divorce cases because they have no other copy?

Chesterton's book is, I think, unfair on some points. He considers divorce is a superstition; he holds that it is pernicious from a social standpoint; he considers that it encourages adultery; he considers that it is the breaking of a vow; but has he ever seriously considered that if all divorce is wrong, that marriage very often is the most miserable caricature of Divinity possible? Has he thought what the state of the country would be if no marriage could ever be broken or a fresh matrimonial start made? If such a thing happened it might make him write a book on the 'Superstition of Non-Divorce.'

_Chapter Ten_

'THE NEW JERUSALEM'

There are four ways of going to Jerusalem--the one is to go as a pilgrim would go to Mecca; another is to go as a tourist in much the way that an American staying in Russell Square might start for a trip round London. Again, it is possible to go to Jerusalem for yet a third reason, that of wishing quite humbly to be in some way a modern Crusader. There is yet a fourth way, which is to be made to go for reasons that are called military and are really political.

'The New Jerusalem' is, above all, a massive book. It is the record of a tour, and it is something more, it is an appreciation of the Sacred City on a Hill. It is, in a limited sense, a philosophy of the Holy Land; it deals in a masterly way with problems connected with the Jews; it is so unscholarly as to insist that the scholars who refuse to call the Mosque of Omar that at all are pedantic; it has a fine chapter on Zionism; it describes Jerusalem, not so much as a city, but as an impression that fastened itself on the mind of Mr. Chesterton.

There are some very fine passages in the book that deal with the curious question of Demonology, that peculiar belief which finds a place in the New Testament in the story of the Gadarene swine, and who, Chesterton felt, might still be found at the bottom of the Dead Sea--'sea swine or four-legged fishes swollen over with evil eyes, grown over with sea grass for bristles, the ghosts of Gadara.'

One of the most interesting chapters of this book is that which is entitled 'The Philosophy of Sightseeing.' There is, of course, a philosophy of everything, of boiling eggs, of race-horses, of the relations of space and time--in fact, Philosophy is a sort of Harrods, that sums up anything from a Rolls Royce to a packet of pins.

To some people there must be almost something incongruous in the idea of sightseeing in the Holy Land, yet it is probable that of the crowds round the foot of the Cross, on which was enacted the world's greatest blessing, a great part were idle sightseers who, twenty centuries later, might have been a bank holiday crowd on Hampstead Heath. Chesterton found that there was a philosophy in sightseeing; he had been warned that he would find Jerusalem disappointing, but he did not. He could be interested in the guide who 'made it very clear that Jesus Christ was crucified in case any one should suppose that He was beheaded.' He could see that the 'Christianity of Jerusalem, after a thousand years of Turkish tyranny, survived even in the sense of dying daily'; fascinating as Chesterton found Jerusalem, much as he insists that the 'sights' of the city must be seen in their right perspective, yet he has sympathy with the man who only 'sees in the distance Jerusalem sitting on the hill and keeping that vision' lest going further he might understand the city and weep over it.

* * * * *

Chesterton devotes a long and careful chapter to the question of the Jews, of whom Christ was the chief; but, notwithstanding, thousands of His so-called followers quite forget this, and scarcely will admit that the Jew has a right to live. The reason is, no doubt, that the Fourth Gospel uses the word [Greek: ioudaios] in the sense of those who were hostile, consequently many entirely orthodox Christians are anti-Jewists, quite oblivious of the very reasonable request of St. Paul that in Christ are neither Jew nor Gentile. This is, in brief, the theological side of the vexed question of Zionism. Chesterton makes it quite clear that he thinks it desirable that 'Jews should be represented by Jews, should live in a society of Jews, should be judged by Jews and ruled by Jews,' which is of course to say that the Jews should be a nation. But the fact remains, do they wish to be so, and, if they do, is it necessary to them, or even congenial, that it shall be in Palestine? It is no way the province of this book to go into this question; it has been enough to say that it is perfectly evident that Chesterton desires for the Jew the dignity of being a separate nation.

* * * * *

Is there any particular characteristic in this record of Chesterton's visit to Jerusalem? Is it anything more than an impression of a wonderful experience, when a great writer left his home in Buckinghamshire and passed over the sea and the desert to the city that is older than history and is now new? I do not think that the book can be called more than a Chestertonian impression of Jerusalem, with an appreciation of the vexed history of that strange city which is Holy. It does not forget the problems in connection with Palestine, but it has no particular claim to having said very much that was new about the New Jerusalem. Yet it has avoided the obvious: it is not of the type of book that is read at drawing-room missionary meetings, which are more often than not written in a surprised style, that the places mentioned in the Bible are really somewhere.

I almost feel as if this book is something of a guide-book--in fact, it was inevitable that it should be so. I rather fancy that descriptive writing is for Chesterton difficult; it is a little bit too descriptive, which is to say it is not always easy to imagine the scene he is trying to describe. I am not sure that the Jews will be flattered to be told that Chesterton thinks they are worthy of being a nation; it is slightly patronizing.

Yet the New Jerusalem is a book to read, but it is not of the Holy City that St. John saw in the Revelation; it is of the New Jerusalem of the twentieth century, which is very imperfect, yet is Holy. It is a book of a city that was visited by God, Who did not deem Himself too important to walk in its streets; it is of a city teeming with difficulties; it is of a city that has felt the iron hand of the conqueror; it is finally Jerusalem made into a symbol by the hand of Mr. Chesterton.

_Chapter Eleven_

MR. CHESTERTON AT HOME

There is a very remarkable fascination about the home life of a great man whatever branch of activity he may adorn. If he is an archbishop, it is interesting to know what he looks like when he has exchanged his leggings for a human dress; if he is a pork millionaire, we like to see whether he enjoys Chopin; if he is a great writer, the interest of his home life is intensified. For the tens of thousands who know an author by his books, the number who know him at home may quite well be measured by the score.

There is always an idea that a great man is not as others; that he may quite conceivably eat mustard with mutton, or peas with a spoon; that his conversation will be of things the ordinary man knows nothing about; that he is unapproachable; that he is, in short, on a glorified pedestal. This love of the personal is demonstrated in the absurd wish people have to know about the private doings of Royalty, it is shown in the remarkable fact that thousands will hang about a church door to see the wedding of some one who is of no particular interest beyond the fact that they are in some way well known; it is again seen in the interest that people display in those parts of a biography that deal with the life of the public man in his private surroundings.