IS CHESTERTON A MAN ALIVE?
To the Editor of The Idler.
Dear Sir: If I were a writer of biographical sketches, I should begin these remarks with the statement that Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in the year 1874; but I am not a writer of biographical sketches. On the contrary, Sir, I am one who aims to tell the truth as often as it is possible to tell the truth without appearing eccentric. I do not begin these remarks in the fashion I have suggested because I am restrained by scruples which would never trouble a writer of biographies. The fact of the matter is, I do not know that Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in 1874. I do not know that he was ever born at all—at most I only suspect it. I suspect it because I never knew a man who had never been born to attract so much attention. His books may be urged as evidence of his birth, but they are by no meansconclusive evidence. So far as my personal information goes, he may be nothing more than a name, likeBertha M. Clay. Perhaps he is only a creature of the imagination, likeInnocent Smith, created by some author who chooses to write under the name, “Gilbert Chesterton.” I do not suggest these things as probabilities, but only as possibilities. And yet, what could be more improbable than Chesterton himself? Is it not, after all, more probable that he has been evolved from pen and ink, than from the clay of Adam?
We come now to the question which I borrow from the title of this paper: Is Gilbert Keith Chesterton a man alive? Is he not, rather, a very amusing conception of what a man might be? Let us consider the matter.
Of course the fact that you and I have no positive proof of his having been born does not argue that he is not a living man. Every day we meet men who are unquestionably as real as ourselves (providing we do not lean to the theory of Bishop Berkeley, that we can be sure of no existence but our own), yet we knowlittle or nothing of the origin of these men. They may have been born, or they may not. If you were to ask them, they would probably insist that they were born at one time or another. They believe this because they can not account for their existence upon any other hypothesis. But they believe it on hearsay evidence. Not one of them really remembers anything at all about it. People sometimes grow up to learn that they are changelings; that they are not at all the people they had thought they were. Is it not possible, then, that here and there may live a man who was never born at all? I should not be so bold as to deny the possibility. There have always been legends of men who can not die—men who live on in spite of age and accident. I see no reason why one man should not escape birth if another may escape death. I do not, therefore, insist that Mr. Chesterton prove himself to have been born. It is only that I find it hard to believe that he really exists in the flesh.
Now, Mr. Chesterton, in all his works, dwells upon the subject of madness or insanity. Doesthis prove that Mr. Chesterton is mad? By no means. As he himself has said, the man who is really mad seldom suspects that he is unbalanced; it is the man who fears madness who finds madness a fascinating subject. Sir, Mr. Chesterton is not mad, but I think he fears madness. It is almost impossible to find one of his essays in which there is no mention of madness. I think it fair to assume that he writes of madness because he has a fear—not necessarily a terror, you understand, but still a fear—that some day he may be afflicted with this malady. Mr. Chesterton also writes a whole book upon the subject of being alive. Are we to assume, because of this, that heisalive? By no means. It is quite possible that he only fears he may some day come alive; that he may some day cease to be the whimsical creation of some author’s fancy and become a real man of flesh and blood.
Do you see no reason why he should fear such a metamorphosis? Surely you must. From time immemorial, men have shuddered at the thought of becoming a spirit, an infinitebeing composed chiefly of memory; a purely intellectual organism having nothing material in its make-up. Now if men are disturbed, as they are, at the prospect of becoming ideas, why should not ideas be disturbed at the prospect of becoming men? Is it likely that an idea, immune from all the evils of mortal existence, superior to the weaknesses of the flesh and possessing, at least, a potential immortality, would be pleased with the prospect of becoming mere man? Would an idea willingly abandon the clear atmosphere of a purely intellectual plane for the muggy mists and murky fogs of London? Assuredly not.
Lucretius, ridiculing the theory of reincarnation in his work,De Rerum Natura, drew a ludicrous picture of disembodied spirits eagerly awaiting their turn to enter a vacant human tenement. Lucretius was thoroughly appreciative of the absurdity of his picture. He knew that no disembodied spirit would be so foolish as to desire imprisonment in a mortal frame. And as it is with spirits, so we may suppose it to be with ideas. It is one thing tobe put into a book; it is quite another to be put into a body. No matter how often an idea may be put into a book, it can not be confined therein. It is still free to travel where it lists. It can leap from London to Overroads in the twinkling of an eye—or it can be in both places at one and the same time. It may appear to a dozen different men in a dozen different aspects. It possesses the Protean faculty of being all things to all men. But confine that idea in a human body; transform that idea into a human being—and what is the result? Why, the result is an immediate loss of liberty. The man, who was formerly an idea, can no longer flit about with lightning-like rapidity. If he wishes to travel from Overroads to London, he must go by train or motor-car. He can by no ingenuity contrive to be in both places at the same time. He must wear the same face wherever or in whatever company he may be. Whether the body which he inhabits is known to its neighbors as Smith or Chesterton, the result is the same—he has lost his liberty. And what has he gained? He has gained the abilityto prove his mortal existence—the right to say that he has been born.
It is easy enough to see why an idea should fear to become a man. And when we consider such an idea as Chesterton, the matter is even clearer. Whimsicalities and contradictions which may have been useful and even ornamental in the fictitious Chesterton—in Chesterton the idea—might, Sir, prove most embarrassing to Chesterton the British Subject. You can not prosecute an idea for treason, nor sue it for damages. You can not even confine an idea in a mad-house for being crazy. Most ideas are crazy; none more so perhaps than the one which I am presenting to you now. It is true that a few ideas have been confined in a mad-house, but of those few which have been shut up with the persons claiming them, the great majority have been quite sane. Just as many sane men are devoted to crazy ideas, so many sane ideas are devoted to crazy men; so devoted to them that they will follow them anywhere—even to a mad-house.
If my idea that Mr. Chesterton is an idea iscorrect, I am sure I do not know whose idea he may be; but he is just such a crazy idea as might belong to a sane man and should therefore be safe in sticking to his originator. If Mr. Chestertonisan idea and is thinking of becoming a man, I should strongly advise him against adopting any such course. I like him much better as an idea. He is so much more plausible that way.
I am, Sir,A. Visionary.