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GILBERT KEITH
CHESTERTON
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
ODDMENTS
SUGGESTIVE FRAGMENTS
Photograph reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Speaight Ltd., London
GILBERT KEITH
CHESTERTON
By PATRICK BRAYBROOKE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
ARTHUR F. THORN
LONDON, MCMXXII
THE CHELSEA PUBLISHING COMPANY
16 Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea
Printed at
THE CURWEN PRESS
Plaistow, E. 13
Preface
It is certain that up to a point in the evolution of Self[v]most people find life quite exciting and thrilling. But whenmiddle age arrives, often prematurely, they forget the thrilland excitements; they become obsessed by certain other lesserthings that are deficient in any kind of Cosmic Vitality. Thethrill goes out of life: a light dies down and flickers fitfully;existence goes on at a low ebb—something has been lost.From this numbed condition is born much of the blindanguish of life.
It is one of the tragedies of human existence that the divinesense of wonder is eventually destroyed by inexcusable routineand more or less mechanical living. Mental abandon, theexercise of fancy and imagination, the function of creativethought—all these things are squeezed out of the consciousnessof man until his primitive enjoyment of the mystical partof life is affected in a very serious way.
Nothing could be more useful, therefore, than to write abook about a man who has done more than any other livingwriter to stimulate and preserve the primitive sense of wonderand joy in human life. Gilbert Keith Chesterton has neverlost mental contact with the cosmic simplicity of humanexistence. He knows, as well as anybody has ever known,that the life of man goes wrong simply because we are toolazy to be pleased with simple, fundamental things.
We grow up in our feverish, artificial civilization, believingthat the real, satisfying things are complex and difficult toobtain. Our lives become unnaturally stressed and tormentedby the pitiless and incessant struggle for social conditions whichare, at best, second-rate and ultimately disa