by Ian Ker
There had, in fact, been no editorial comment in May and June as the crisis intensified, but the editorial in the 18 July issue had condemned colonial imperialism in Africa. However, it argued that there was one mitigating factor in Italy’s favour and that was that it was not intent on ‘crude exploitation’ but on an ‘outlet for emigration’. However, to seize somebody else’s land as a solution of one’s population problem was ‘an assertion of the doctrine of force in its ugliest form’. Unfortunately, Britain, with its much bigger empire ‘acquired by methods which the most hard-boiled fascist would repudiate with disgust’, was hardly in a position ‘to administer a moral rebuke’. In his ‘Straws in the Wind’ column of 29 August, Chesterton commented that the worst that could be said against Italy was that it had only adhered to the ‘cynical colonial tradition’ of other European nations. As for Fascism in Italy, it was no worse than a corrupt parliamentary system and a Capitalist press—not that he was advocating Fascism. He apologized that the paper had not dealt at greater length with Abyssinia, but he had been away for ‘a short holiday’, ‘a thing at this time of the year not uncommon’. In his column in the next week’s issue, he complained that, while Italian aggression was condemned on all sides, nothing was said about Protestant violence against Catholics in Belfast. Besides, Mussolini was only doing for his country what countries like England and France had done. The editorial in the same issue pointed out that Britain was ‘not virtuously intent upon defending the honour of small nations’ like Abyssinia, but was actually concerned only about the threat to British interests if Italy, with its superior power in the Mediterranean, got possession of the raw materials of Abyssinia. In his ‘Straws in the Wind’ column of 19 September, Chesterton claimed that British imperialism was always alleged to be ‘for the protection of the oppressed’, and he particularly cited the case of the Boer War. As for Italian imperialism, the Capitalist newspapers were already full of denunciation. But the main purpose of G.K.’s Weekly was to attack plutocracy. Certainly, he, Chesterton, detested Italian imperialism, but he also detested the spectacle of an English capitalist, acting for an American company, secretly buying up Abyssinia in bits without fighting for it’. The ‘Straws in the Wind’ column in the next issue of 26 September categorically condemned the Italian aggression, while pointing out that it was hypocrisy’ to suggest that Mussolini had ‘discovered a new sin’.
On 16 November Chesterton and Bertrand Russell took part in an ‘unrehearsed debate’, broadcast by the BBC, on the subject ‘Who Should Bring up our Children?’ Russell, the BBC told Chesterton, had agreed to participate in a broadcast debate—‘but only with you as an opponent!’81 Russell began by asserting that parents were ‘unfitted by nature’ to bring up their children, not that anybody else was so fitted, he admitted. The most important thing was that children should live not die, and the huge reduction in the infant mortality rate was due to scientists and other experts not to mothers, let alone to fathers, whom Russell dismissed as obviously totally unfit to bring up children. The education of children was best left to qualified educators, while health and safety were bound to be better in a nursery school than at home. The problem with mothers of large families was that they tended to get irritable, whereas in small families mothers became excessively attentive. Russell conceded that the best people to give children affection were their parents, which was another reason why they should not be burdened with educating and looking after them. In reply, Chesterton pounced on the phrase ‘unfitted by nature’. ‘Who is nature?’ he demanded. This goddess was purely mythological. All animals were looked after by their mothers, and human beings were no different. It was true that some people were especially good with children, but they were few in number. Russell was in favour of ‘cutting off a natural force that exists and deliberately paying out money … to supply it by an artificial machinery’. But in the nursery school that Russell advocated, one teacher had to look after not one child, like a mother, but many children. As for mothers getting irritable, were teachers never irritable? The fact was that teachers were far more likely to get tired of a child than its own mother. Russell responded by again insisting that in a school environment a child was safer than at home. True, the classes were too big, but then they were too small at home. Russell also objected to the fact that in small, well-to-do families mothers expected a return for their sacrifice, an emotional pressure that interfered with the development particularly of boys. Chesterton agreed that those paid to bring up children did not have the kind of feelings that Russell objected to in mothers—but then they did not have any feelings.82
Early in January 1936 Chesterton wrote, or rather dictated, a letter to his old friend J. M. Barrie. The letter, which was nothing more than a begging letter, is a reminder of what a wonderful letter-writer he was and what a loss it is that he had so little time for correspondence. He was writing to ask Barrie for ‘a bald, banal, blatant favour’. And, since Chesterton was ‘sure’ that Barrie’s ‘generosity’ must lead to his being ‘pestered with millions of such requests’, ‘the only decent modification’ he could think of was ‘to make it as bald and banal and blatant as possible’: ‘Then at least you will not have to read through a long letter, full of fine shades of diplomacy; I receive a good many such letters, and I prefer them short if crude.’ He was writing about ‘a sort of niece and protegée’ of Frances, who was ‘normally on the stage and therefore (as things are) off the stage’. He had heard that Barrie’s new play was about David and Goliath, which might suggest an opening for her: ‘she is kept out of most modern feminine parts because she is (accidentally) statuesque and (unintentionally) stately; and so is better fitted to be a part of the pageantry—I might say of the scenery …’. And he wonders if she might be ‘a leader of the chorus of the Daughters of the Philistines who rejoiced; or what not. Do not be alarmed. She will not want to act Goliath.’83 The letter is a perfect example of Chesterton’s extraordinary combination of courtesy, tact, and humour. Unfortunately, Barrie had to write back to say that all the parts in the new play were already filled, but he would let Chesterton know if he heard ‘of a part to suit the stately lady, whom you describe very attractively’.84
On 23 January Chesterton wrote to Coulton suggesting that their opening statements in the proposed work of controversy should be 7,000 words in length.85 But unfortunately he then fell ill. Because of Chesterton’s inability to produce his statement within the agreed timeframe, Coulton proposed, since he was going abroad, that they should first publish the original broadcast talk together with the ensuing correspondence in the Listener, postponing ‘the fuller and more formal discussion’ for a subsequent book.86 Chesterton agreed, but wondered if Coulton would prefer to postpone the whole thing.87 Subsequently Coulton wrote to say that the publisher he had approached had advised against separate publication of the Listener ‘stuff’. He presumed that by June or July Chesterton would be able to complete his 7,000-word essay.88
Chesterton’s wife thought the controversy was ‘useless’ and just another obstacle to her husband doing, as she put it, ‘his own job properly’. Poor Gilbert’, she wrote to Father O’Connor, ‘gets so overwhelmed with all the questions and letters he is supposed to answer …’ But work had at least now become easier—at any rate for Dorothy Collins. ‘Did you know’, Frances asked O’Connor, ‘we had built a new study?’ It was ‘a great success’. Her husband had remarked that, whereas previously ‘he had not room to swing a cat’, now he had ‘room to swing a tiger’! But at least the new room was ‘warm anyhow and Dorothy rejoices’.89 Chesterton himself had not looked forward to the new study. The previous September Frances had written to O’Connor: ‘we are building on to the hou se—a nice large study for him and he’s not a bit pleased about it!’90
Early in 1936 Chesterton completed his Autobiography, a book that should be included among his half-a-dozen or so major works. According to Dorothy Collins, he had written the beginning some years before but had then laid it aside. She h
ad feared urging him to complete it, as if finishing the account of his life would mean the end of his life. But, at Maisie Ward’s urging, she did in 1935 retrieve the manuscript and put it on Chesterton’s desk, whereupon he read what he had already written and then proceeded to dictate the rest of the book to her. Apart from a collection of essays published three days before his death, it was to be Chesterton’s last book; the books he planned to write on Shakespeare and Napoleon would never be written.91 On telling some friends that the autobiography was complete, one of them ominously remarked, ‘Nunc dimittis’, words that seemed ‘chilling’ to Edward Macdonald, ‘though he seemed to be in fairly good health. But certainly he was tired…’.92
Another holiday on the Continent seemed the obvious remedy. And so in the spring Dorothy Collins drove the Chestertons through France. They left Beaconsfield on the afternoon of 27 April 1936.93 On arriving at Dover, they took a walk on the front; it was a fine, sunny evening. Next day they lunched in Calais and arrived in Rouen that evening, after getting a puncture at Abbeville. The following day they visited the cathedral, where they saw some English visitors behaving badly. Next day they were in Lisieux in time for lunch. They attended Mass at the Carmel on the morning of 30 April, before leaving for Caen; on the way they saw the birthplace of St Thérèse of Lisieux at Alençon. Chesterton, who had hoped the church in Beaconsfield would be dedicated to the English martyrs rather than the Little Flower’, told Dorothy Collins, who had a great devotion to St Therese, that he could not feel the same, ‘with all apologies to you, Dorothy’.94 They arrived in Tours in time for dinner via Le Mans. Next day, the first of May, they went on to Poitiers for lunch, arriving at Perigeux in the evening. They reached their second place of pilgrimage, Lourdes, the following evening. After dinner there was a torchlight procession. The next day, 3 May, was a Sunday, and they went to an early Mass in the famous Grotto. They were back at the Grotto two days later for Mass; in the afternoon there was a procession of the Blessed Sacrament and a blessing of the sick, followed by a huge torchlight procession in the evening. After one more visit to the Grotto on 7 May, they left Lourdes in the late morning en route to Montpellier via Toulouse. The following day they left Montpellier for Arles, where they spent the night before leaving for Menton, where they arrived late that evening. From there they drove one day to Nice, which they did not care for. After nine nights in Menton, they travelled on to Digne, which they reached in time for dinner, having lunched at Grasse. They arrived the following evening at Le Puy, where they spent the night. Next stop was Clermont Ferrand, where they attended Mass the following day, Ascension Day, in the cathedral, when Chesterton felt unwell. After lunch they left for Bourges, where they spent the night. Next day, 22 May, they had a long drive to Beauvais; they lunched at Orleans, reaching Beauvais in time for dinner, having visited Chartres Cathedral on the way. Two days later they left for Calais after Mass in the cathedral. Next day they took the afternoon boat back to Dover; there was fog in the Channel and the sea was choppy. They got back to Beaconsfield at about 8.30 in the evening.
As they drove through the French countryside, Dorothy Collins had asked Chesterton to “sing us something”. For the whole way he sang all he knew, repeated verses and cracked jokes at the top of his form.’95 According to Dorothy, the songs from Gilbert and Sullivan were sung with much gusto and less tune’.96
A fortnight after returning home at the end of May, Chesterton began to fall asleep while dictating, something he had never done before. He also began repeating himself, as though he were losing his powers of concentration.97 When first sent for, the doctor had not been worried, although Chesterton had been: he was always nervous at the thought of illness. But as his condition rapidly worsened, he grew calm. At first he could not lie down but sat up in his large armchair. But eventually he had to go to bed.98
Edward Macdonald, who had failed to receive a message saying Chesterton was too ill to be visited, called, but Chesterton had not lost his wonderful sense of humour, promising a poem on St Martin of Tours for the paper: ‘The point is that he was a true Distributist. He gave half his cloak to the beggar.’ After apparently dozing off, he woke up and remarked: ‘The issue is now quite clear. It is between light and darkness and every one must choose his side.’99 According to Dorothy Collins, this saying had become habitual with him as he saw ‘the future which was coming to Europe’. But he had remained ‘spiritually happy and serene in his faith in God, to the glory of Whom his daily work was always dedicated—by a cross on the top of the page, and even on the line below his signature, and by a sign of the cross made as he entered his study’.100
That work had now come to an end. And on 11 June his last book to be published in his lifetime came out, As I was Saying: A Book of Essays, more of his columns collected from the Illustrated London News. All that he wrote, he says at the outset, he wrote in the conviction that ‘the only way to say anything definite is to define it, and all definition is by limitation and exclusion’. Another favourite topic reappears, that new kind of arrogance and superiority about the contemporary age that appears in the nineteenth century, epitomized by the ‘nineteenth-century sceptics’ who were sceptical about the other world’ but ‘dupes about this world’: ‘They accepted everything that was fashionable as if it was final; and the revolutionary romantics, who thought they would see the end of religion, never thought they would see the end of romance.’ Again, the ‘Victorian evolutionists’ were not wrong ‘because they opened the evolutionary question, but because they closed it’: ‘They were so fond of having convictions that they came prematurely to conclusions.’ Then there is the usual condemnation of the intellectuals who talk about the ‘masses’, whether capitalist or communist in their politics:
in both cases I think that habit of dealing with men in the mass, not merely on abnormal occasions, as in a war or a strike, but in normal circumstances and as a part of ordinary social speech, is a very bad way of trying to understand the human animal. There are only a few animals, and they are not human animals, who can be best judged or best employed in packs or herds.
Even if communism, ‘the child and heir of Capitalism’, were to bring about ‘the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, there would be the same mechanical monotony in dealing with the mob of Dictators as in dealing with the mob of wage-slaves. There would be, in practice, exactly the same sense of swarms of featureless human beings, swarms of human beings who were hardly human, swarms coming out of a hive …’. For human beings were not ‘fundamentally happier for being finally lost in a crowd, even if it is called a crowd of comrades’. Finally, Chesterton turned his guns on the intellectuals who embraced eugenics. Pagan sacrifices were ‘infinitely more decent and dignified’: ‘the pagan altar at least treated a man’s life as something valuable, while the lethal chamber treats a man’s life as something valueless’. But eugenists who did not believe in the existence of gods’ ended by not believing ‘even in the existence of men’: ‘Being scientific evolutionists, they cannot tell the difference between a man and a sheep.’ Compared with the intellectuals’ talk of ‘eliminating the unfit, getting rid of the surplus population, segregating the feeble-minded, or destroying the hopeless’, ‘in the very vilest blood-rites of barbarians, there may have been cruelty, but there was not contempt. To have your throat cut before an ugly stone idol was a compliment; though perhaps a compliment that you would have politely disclaimed and waved away.’ A human sacrifice, after all, meant in the literal Latin meaning ‘to make a thing sacred; or, in this case, to make a man sacred’. But love of eugenics was bound up with hatred of the masses and ‘the tendency to deal with men in herds; to treat them like sheep; and not only to class them with the beasts that perish but to take particular care that they do perish’. Chesterton ends this essay, the best in the book, by warning, against the ‘progressive’ historians, who were no longer very obviously progressing’, that ‘complex civilization’ was no ‘safeguard against unnatural creeds or cruel ceremonies’. Those Vic
torian intellectuals who so admired Germany as the most civilized and cultured country in Europe would have done well to read Chesterton’s grimly prophetic words: ‘Culture, like science, is no protection against demons’101—demons like Hitler and the Nazis.
The day before the book’s publication Dorothy Collins wrote to Coulton to warn him that Chesterton was ‘very ill’. He had completed about three-quarters of the essay for their book, but still had some research to do in the British Museum.102 The Protestant idea of liberty, Chesterton had argued before he ceased dictating to Dorothy Collins, ‘rests on one enormous blunder; a mere muddle in the mind. It muddles up two totally different things: the notion of opinions being spoken freely; and the notion of opinions being favourable to freedom.’ The private opinion, for example, that the Pope is the Antichrist ‘could not remain a private opinion, in the sense of needing no public action’. It obviously meant the persecution of Catholics, since the original Protestants did not believe, any more than their Catholic contemporaries, in religious freedom. However, this muddled Protestant idea of liberty began to be rejected in the nineteenth century, first of all by Carlyle, ‘who put mastery above liberty’. He was followed by Nietzsche, ‘who put mastery even above morality’. Subsequently, Trotsky’s contempt for democracy began in the British Museum, where Marx exercised private judgment’. And now there was Hitler’s ‘frenzy about Race’, which had been anticipated by Carlyle and Nietzsche and other nineteenth-century enemies of Catholicism’. In a Protestant country like England liberty had come to mean not democracy but plutocracy’ and the slavery of the Servile State. Unlike Catholic France, Protestant England had become less a land of yeomen and more of a land of squires’. Even trade unions in ‘proletarian’ England accepted proletarianism’. The individualistic competition of nineteenth-century industrialism in England had assumed that there would be ‘a free fight’ and therefore ‘a fair fight’, but the result was the monopoly of the big Trust. At this point Chesterton’s argument became repetitive before petering out altogether.103