Chesterton Sesquicentennial: Confronting minds that don’t move.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English novelist and critic trained in commercial art who discovered he could write--his finest gift. He is best known today for his Father Brown stories about a mousy priest who solved deep mysteries and was generally more than he seemed to be. But Chesterton was adept at other genres and protagonists. He remains an influential proponent of the Christian worldview eighty-seven years after his death, and his critiques of science and the arts are as fresh today as when they were formulated in the lost world of pre-World War II England.

He is one of my favorite authors from one of my favorite cycles of history. I find it takes great effort not to like him. 

I read G. K. Chesterton’s All Things Considered several years ago. While I enjoy his razor-sharp wit and (get this) his plethora of memorable aphorisms, I am always a bit shocked at how narrow his understanding of the Puritans was. I notice his prejudice not only because I have studied the Puritans for years but because I am one of them, or as Chesterton would be forced to say of me, “He is a Zulu.” Before you conclude that I am comparing apples and oranges or mad, please read the book of Chesterton that I will mention. One of his stories will make my murky allusion clear.

“I must say you were rather severe upon eminent men of science such as we.”

“Bosh,” answered Grant. “I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a new sort of religion and an uncommonly nasty one.”

Chesterton’s characterization of Puritanism was undoubtedly popular in his era, but it is unfair to my co-religionists. For example, I am not sure one can be both a Rump separatist and one who wishes to purify the English church simultaneously, though Chesterton assumes it. In several essays, he takes his straw killjoys to the woodshed for a whuppin’. But I leave discussing his views of Cromwellian times for another time. I can easily forgive him for his confounded views about seventeenth-century history because he writes darn entertaining stories with biting social critique. I approve.

An anti-Sherlock protagonist.

My collection's most prized work is The Club of Queer Trades, published years before the Great War, when Chesterton was thirty-one. Mad sleuth Basil Grant is my second favorite detective–even above Hercule Poirot. I am an avid reader of books from the Golden Age of the mystery genre. I especially crave the locked-room mysteries. In these, a murder occurs in a way that looks like the victim could only have committed suicide. Windows and doors are all locked from the inside. Readers in the pre-World War II era ate these locked room mysteries up. And I can understand why. Fans wanted to work out the solution before the sleuth revealed the answer. I dig this form of cozy murder, but sadly, I believe readers came to value mindless entertainment, except that murder in a locked room as a regular feature of mystery asked too much suspension of disbelief, even for entertainment hounds. Unfortunately, Basil Grant, Chesterton’s mad former judge detective who is an anti-Sherlock, only appears in this brief volume of six loosely connected stories with no locked rooms but plenty of improbable situations that apparently involve crimes. 

Here is my favorite descriptive extract from the book. I offer it in honor of Chesterton’s upcoming 150th birthday (May 29, 2024). I love these paragraphs because they have brought forth rivers of imagination flowing through my mind. The story’s narrator, Charles “Gully” Swinburne, AKA “Cherub,” and Basil Grant meet one day on a late Victorian London double-decker omnibus and engage in a conversation while the city rushes by:

Basil Grant and I were talking one day in what is perhaps the most perfect place for talking on earth–the top of a tolerably deserted tram car. To talk on the top of a hill is superb, but to talk on the top of a flying hill is a fairy tale.

The vast blank space of North London was flying by; the very pace gave us a sense of its immensity and its meanness. It was, as it were, a base infinitude, a squalid eternity, and we felt the real horror of the poor parts of London, the horror that is so totally missed and misrepresented by the sensational novelists who depict it as being a matter of narrow streets, filthy houses, criminals and maniacs, and dens of vice. In a narrow street, in a den of vice, you do not expect civilization, you do not expect order. But the horror of this was the fact that there was civilization, that there was order, but that civilization only showed its morbidity and order only its monotony. No one would say in going through a criminal slum, “I see no statues. I notice no cathedrals.” But here there were public buildings; only they were mostly lunatic asylums. Here there were statues; only they were mostly statues of railway engineers and philanthropists–two dingy classes of men united by their common contempt for the people. Here there were churches; only they were the churches of dim and erratic sects. Agapemonites or Irvingites. here, above all, there were broad roads and vast crossings and tramway lines and hospitals and all the real mores of civilization. But though one never knew, in one sense, what one would see next, there was one thing we knew we should not see–anything really great, central, of the first class, (p. 28) anything that humanity had adored. And with revulsion indescribable, our emotions returned, I think, to those really close and crooked entries, to those really mean streets, to those genuine slums which lie around the Thames and the City, in which, nevertheless, a real possibility remains that at any chance corner the great cross of the great cathedral of Wren may strike down the street like a thunderbolt.” – (“The painful fall of a great reputation,” in Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. The club of queer trades. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1987, pp. 27-28)

In what sense is talking on the top of a hill a great experience? Is it the solitude or the prospect of all that surrounds the hill? And so, how does talking on the top of a bus exceed that experience and vault us into the category of a fairy tale? Literary critics have argued about the proper definition of fairy tales for at least a century. In what sense does the narrator mean this experience is a fairy tale? Is it being a part of Basil’s mad world, or is it something sublime and indeed transcendent? Do you see? This is what Chesterton does to me. Even in his madcap prose, he evokes his love for England and metaphysics. The commercial artist turned literati paints his scene and then folds his philosophy in through the protagonist. Consider a scene from the Basil Grant story, “Seclusion of the Old Lady.” Two Oxford students have an old lady locked up in a room, apparently against her will. Basil’s brother, with Basil tagging along, attempts to free her, but Basil engages the students in a discussion about evolution and then agrees to accompany them to their living quarters. At the students’ flat, one of the students says, “I must say, Mr. Grant, you were rather severe upon eminent men of science such as we. I’ve half a mind to chuck my D.Sc. and turn minor poet.”

“Bosh,” answered Grant. “I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a new sort of religion and an uncommonly nasty one…[the] Darwinian movement has made no difference to mankind, except that, instead of talking unphilosophically about philosophy, they now talk unscientifically about science.”

Chesterton hastens us to the denouement of a delightful story and injects his hatred for scientism at the same time. Few can do this as well.

As I said before, Basil is my second favorite solver of mysteries. My favorite sleuth is Dr. Gideon Fell from a series of Golden Age mysteries by American-English author John Dickson Carr. Carr based the character, Dr. Fell, on his favorite author. Perhaps you already guessed who that might be. Yep. G. K. Chesterton.

I suspect Chesterton enjoyed writing the Club of Queer Trades as much as his fans are delighted by reading it. As a historian, a curator of stories, I am inspired to cast a bit of G. K. fairy dust on a story of my own entitled. “Minds Don’t Move.” I have mentioned madness quite a bit in this post. I think we all enjoy the freedom of madness, and I am about to invite you to join me in a bit of lunacy of my own. As you listen to this experiment, I encourage you not to think too deeply about it. Just enjoy the listening.

“Minds Don’t Move,” inspired by G. K. Chesterton.

Drained from incessant grilling by the army of reporters during the news conference, Mr. Slight was escorted out of the building and across the street by four older men in expensive, dark suits. Feeling a light drizzle on his face, Mr. Slight glanced at the lowering gray skies and heard the quick splash of his loafers on the pavement. His companions led him to a highly polished black door atop a stoop with three well-worn concrete steps. The sole bearded man in the group opened the door for Mr. Slight and invited him to enter the building first with a wave of his hand.

Beyond the door was a square anteroom, a dark hallway with sconces and rich oak panels. Directly opposite the entrance was an enormous double door of oak. Somehow, the bearded man stepped to the front again and opened the doors with both hands, and this time, Mr. Slight followed into a room that glowed a rich red from the largest fireplace Mr. Slight had ever seen, and it contained a blazing fire of alarming proportions.

The bearded man addressed Mr. Slight: “Please, make yourself comfortable and sit wherever you like.” He and his companions left the room by a side door.

Mr. Slight thought this simple instruction was easier said than done. Every couch and chair in the room, save one, had a tweed-coated occupant engaged in conversation, cradling a brandy snifter or both. The room smelled of cigars, though it was strangely free of smoke. The one available chair was a red leather wingback near the giant blaze. Beside the chair was a side table with a carafe of red liquid and a black lacquered cigar box. On the other side of the table was an identical wingback chair with a completely bald man sitting in it. In his right hand was an unlit cigar, and he balanced a partially full snifter of brandy on the cushion between his legs. To achieve this balancing act, only his toes touched the floor and were turned so that he appeared pigeon-toed. Smiling, he waved the cigar toward the empty seat in a summoning gesture.

“Please sit down,” said the bald man. “And welcome to the Curmudgeon Club. My name is Eggith. I am a retired professor of philosophy.”

“Thank you, Professor Eggith,” replied Mr. Slight with a smile that matched his name.

“I watched your press conference. You handled yourself well.” Eggith broke into a friendly smile as he said this.

“What, did I utter no nonsequiturs?” asked Mr. Slight.

“Oh dear, I am afraid I haven’t looked for those since my undergraduate days. After all, we philosophers are human beings and must live in the real world. Most talk is chatter to me, but when I must, I will form a general impression of an oration in the form of its principle–if it has one.” Eggith laughed though the joke was lost on Mr. Slight.

“Very interesting,” said Mr. Slight. “How would you frame your general impression of the press interview?”

Eggith narrowed his eyes and looked away thoughtfully. “Well, hmm. Yes, yes. Here it is…”

Eggith paused for more than ten seconds and then dramatically turned to Mr. Slight and looked him directly in the eyes. Mr. Slight could see his jaw muscles twitching. Eggith opened his mouth.

“Minds don’t move,” Eggith said triumphantly.

Mr. Slight nodded his head slowly as if he understood this obscure comment. “Yes, yes, I think I see what you mean.” But he didn’t. This was sheer nonsense, and he wondered if Eggith was a bit cracked. He suppressed a laugh at the thought.

“But then,” said Mr. Slight. “Before we get too hasty, You need to tell me whether the sense in which you used the word ‘move’ is intransitive or reflexive.” This was more nonsense, made up for effect. It hit the mark: Eggith nodded vigorously as if he understood. “He’s cracked,” thought Slight. Thus, Slight pressed his case further. “If I say that I think minds are active, what then?”

Eggith’s features became completely screwed around on his face. Starting with his ears, his entire chameleon-like countenance reddened until his head looked like a great tomato with white eyebrows. He stood to his feet more violently than abruptly. Mr. Slight’s sight was drawn to Eggith’s hands. He noticed that they were unnaturally small, and now he clenched them tightly into little balls so that his arms looked like two enormous tweed matchsticks. He thrust his arms forward so they were suddenly extended straight before him. “So here is our angry philosopher,” thought Mr. Slight. “Insane with the continually buried pain and resentment of being unloved, if not abused.” These musings were interrupted by an outburst from Eggith that ended his flourishing of contortions.

“No! Minds are filtered receptors of the One Mind!” bellowed Eggith, and he turned on his heel and fled the room. Sixty or more astonished eyes crowned silent, gaping mouths as the heavy oak doors crashed behind him. Mr. Slight’s greedy eyes were on the cigar box as he lifted the polished lid.

“Well,” he whispered. “This dream is over.”

(Happy birthday, Gilbert Keith Chesterton.)