MR. CHESTERTON ON

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 775, 26 March 1910, Page 9

MR. CHESTERTON ON

Mr.; J. K. Chesterton, whose devotion to Dickens has produced 'the-,, finest' critical study of the novelist' that '.has been written', delivered an excellent lecture before the Dickens' Fellowship in Manchester last month. He said there was an eternal snobbishness in'human nature. They were always tending to think a'little too much about rich people. He did not' say thinking too well of rich people; that was quite a different thing. The objection to aristocracy was quite simple. It was not, that aristocrats 1 were all asses and blackguards. It was that in,an aristocratic' stato people sat in a huge, 'darkened theatre, and only the _stage was lighted.. They saw fivo'-.or six people walking about, and they said: "That man looks very heroic striding about. with a sword.' Plenty, of people outside'.in the street looked moro heroic 'striding about with an umbrella'; but thoy did, not.see those thuigs, all the lights being turned out. That was tho really philosophic objection, to an aristocratic society.: It was not that the lord was 'a fool".' He was about as clever as one's own brother oi- cousin. It was because one's attention was confined.' to a few peoplo that one judged, them as one judged actors.on the stage, forgetting everybody else. 'J'liero had always been tb.it great tendency to snobbishness, to forgot tho people with moderate incomes, and, to remember tho people with lots of inoney.

It was the tendency to writo all their novelettes on "the.' assumption that all baronets wore at least six "feet"high, whero as most of them were not even of normal stature. -.That-tendency had bomi in ali history, and bad existed, though not more than at'the present

time, in the feudal days. Nevertheless, if they wanted to know exactly how much the Micldlo Ages wero aristocratic, and : exactly how bad their undemocraey was, they . should consider a sentence which ho had read some days -before. "After all, tho knight in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was not any morel chivalrous than Colonel Newcome." That was quito true. But the.real difference between Colonel Newcomo and Chaucer's knight was that Colonel Newcome never would have gono on tho Canterbury Pilgrimage. After Chaucer's time this snobbishness, this class feeling, had risen until, it had overpowered them all and they were the snobs they were. Hero and there, there appeared in history ono of those great voices which .called thorn back to their common humanity. It was one of those that they \vero celebrating. Tho comparison between Chaucer and Dickens was ono which might be carrie.l considerably further. A great many of the ordinary vulgar accusations against Dickens (ho said "vulgar" because they wei(! generally advanced by weedy, cultured people) could .bo equally advanced against Chancer; for instance,, the fact that Dickens saw first •of all about a man the trade he worked at. The answer was that that was the way living men saw . living men. In recent years-tho power of the people who did not earn their own living, but attempted to teach othor people to do so, had inCreased, aiid therefore literature about straightforward and rugged and plainspeaking people had proportionately.de. creased. , There was just the. same thing; in Chaucer and Dickens. Ho hadhearS Dickens blamed for what was called his superficiality. That, again, they wou(d find in the great medieval poet. Dick- . ens was in the nineteenth century what Chaucor had been in the fourteenth. Chaucer had been so strong and living that his influence had lasted for hundreds-, of years after;'and for hundreds of years people had done nothing but imitate Chaucer. Dickens's . art had been so violent and living that it had had an even stronger effect still, so that-very few people; had tried, and certainly,nono had succeeded, in imitating' Dickens. ;"■■■•'.'■• '■''. .; -

There were some people who : would tell them that Dickens's characters wero exaggerated. The literary .ai'tdid-not propose to;deseribe things, as).they were.. The literary art proposed to discuss jpeople -as' they appeared to , other people. People saw other people as exaggerated; and literature did hot correspond to life, or to truth, but to speech-'and an oration. That was a very important point. Literature'was not supposed to bo God Almighty summing' up;; at the cend of' tho world. It was supposed;to bo some-' body telling a' story about somebody else.. The second thing to remark, about, the charge of exaggeration, was, that at times Dickens. did exaggerate,: having an. extraordinary genius for invention, but tho degree to which he ex-: aggerated had been enormously exaggerated, in .its own turn! It was, for this reason,-, bpcause they had;the, mis-., fortune .to'live in a .snobbish country;■ The, rich had ahvays one'ideal;dignity; they, liked' tb-'look- impassive.' ;The--re-sult.was that,they had,in their public schools -and ; universities "tho attempt to produce; a considerable. degiee of' tho pretence' of uniformity.;... They, had .now in. tho ;u'pper. classes: ri vast amount of wdiat .was called", good^-form;-.which ■ was simply: everybody trying to be'mist'aken for everybody else. ■; They, tended, - to judge' all -mankind.,by': this, class;':.but if they 'once', came in .contact with the :qf^mankind,' l if-.quo. began /'tpi'discuss~ finance :with : reasons, why i one;'should^riot; ; be^jtlirb ivn out .with'.-a -potman,:;if Tone',' bnce?''gpt fairly to; human grip's^with .that'fqrmed .tho.'.v'astiniassi'Of;mankind, one 'would', find qhe!s self ;"inside'a'.'pago of Dickens.;; J, C;.-.i--.'-V-'. ;;, .'!'.-^;'''.-'-f.t''' l i- :^''i It' was. very:hard '.tb,lsum':,up:'s'a ; eventual' good : to tho.'world. He had Aaujeh't-alLtoi-re-gaid .their had created - great 7 comedy {.eye'fl' who.'-might be;regarded-as;, a ; bore.:-;-He had: created,: Comedy,' hv.-'tKe<, domestic ' life ;,- The. riglrfc.^wfry'^td^r^'gwd'tlio-rbtld aiid the. tiresome in one's life was tho Diokens .nay. That, was the essential thing about Dickens, that he had taught people to see the comic romance about daily life.: ;He had ; ;taught' people to look- into other people for the comic part of .other people; and by "doing that he had been so great that ho had survived the great abyss of pessimism that had - come. after him, and had risen again. to his just and'final reward.