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books and berates his own critics, we shall not find it difficult to guess why it is that Stevenson at
least found a final philosophy of some sort to live by, while Mr. Moore is always walking the world
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Heretics Gilbert K. Chesterton
looking for a new one. Stevenson had found that the secret of life lies in laughter and humility. Self
is the gorgon. Vanity sees it in the mirror of other men and lives. Pride studies it for itself and is
turned to stone.
It is necessary to dwell on this defect in Mr. Moore, because it is really the weakness of work
which is not without its strength. Mr. Moore s egoism is not merely a moral weakness, it is a very
constant and influential aesthetic weakness as well. We should really be much more interested in
Mr. Moore if he were not quite so interested in himself. We feel as if we were being shown through
a gallery of really fine pictures, into each of which, by some useless and discordant convention,
the artist had represented the same figure in the same attitude.  The Grand Canal with a distant
view of Mr. Moore,  Effect of Mr. Moore through a Scotch Mist,  Mr. Moore by Firelight,
 Ruins of Mr. Moore by Moonlight, and so on, seems to be the endless series. He would no doubt
reply that in such a book as this he intended to reveal himself. But the answer is that in such a book
as this he does not succeed. One of the thousand objections to the sin of pride lies precisely in this,
that self-consciousness of necessity destroys self-revelation. A man who thinks a great deal about
himself will try to be many-sided, attempt a theatrical excellence at all points, will try to be an
encyclopaedia of culture, and his own real personality will be lost in that false universalism. Thinking
about himself will lead to trying to be the universe; trying to be the universe will lead to ceasing
to be anything. If, on the other hand, a man is sensible enough to think only about the universe; he
will think about it in his own individual way. He will keep virgin the secret of God; he will see the
grass as no other man can see it, and look at a sun that no man has ever known. This fact is very
practically brought out in Mr. Moore s  Confessions. In reading them we do not feel the presence
of a clean-cut personality like that of Thackeray and Matthew Arnold. We only read a number of
quite clever and largely conflicting opinions which might be uttered by any clever person, but which
we are called upon to admire specifically, because they are uttered by Mr. Moore. He is the only
thread that connects Catholicism and Protestantism, realism and mysticism  he or rather his name.
He is profoundly absorbed even in views he no longer holds, and he expects us to be. And he
intrudes the capital  I even where it need not be intruded  even where it weakens the force of
a plain statement. Where another man would say,  It is a fine day, Mr. Moore says,  Seen through
my temperament, the day appeared fine. Where another man would say  Milton has obviously a
fine style, Mr. Moore would say,  As a stylist Milton had always impressed me. The Nemesis
of this self-centred spirit is that of being totally ineffectual. Mr. Moore has started many interesting
crusades, but he has abandoned them before his disciples could begin. Even when he is on the side
of the truth he is as fickle as the children of falsehood. Even when he has found reality he cannot
find rest. One Irish quality he has which no Irishman was ever without  pugnacity; and that is
certainly a great virtue, especially in the present age. But he has not the tenacity of conviction which
goes with the fighting spirit in a man like Bernard Shaw. His weakness of introspection and
selfishness in all their glory cannot prevent him fighting; but they will always prevent him winning.
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Heretics Gilbert K. Chesterton
X. On Sandals and Simplicity
The great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they are more boastful than other
people (they are not); it is that they are boastful about those particular things which nobody can
boast of without losing them. A Frenchman can be proud of being bold and logical, and still remain
bold and logical. A German can be proud of being reflective and orderly, and still remain reflective
and orderly. But an Englishman cannot be proud of being simple and direct, and still remain simple
and direct. In the matter of these strange virtues, to know them is to kill them. A man may be
conscious of being heroic or conscious of being divine, but he cannot (in spite of all the Anglo-Saxon
poets) be conscious of being unconscious.
Now, I do not think that it can be honestly denied that some portion of this impossibility attaches
to a class very different in their own opinion, at least, to the school of Anglo-Saxonism. I mean
that school of the simple life, commonly associated with Tolstoy. If a perpetual talk about one s
own robustness leads to being less robust, it is even more true that a perpetual talking about one s
own simplicity leads to being less simple. One great complaint, I think, must stand against the
modern upholders of the simple life  the simple life in all its varied forms, from vegetarianism
to the honourable consistency of the Doukhobors. This complaint against them stands, that they
would make us simple in the unimportant things, but complex in the important things. They would
make us simple in the things that do not matter  that is, in diet, in costume, in etiquette, in
economic system. But they would make us complex in the things that do matter  in philosophy,
in loyalty, in spiritual acceptance, and spiritual rejection. It does not so very much matter whether
a man eats a grilled tomato or a plain tomato; it does very much matter whether he eats a plain
tomato with a grilled mind. The only kind of simplicity worth preserving is the simplicity of the
heart, the simplicity which accepts and enjoys. There may be a reasonable doubt as to what system
preserves this; there can surely be no doubt that a system of simplicity destroys it. There is more
simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats grape-nuts on principle.
The chief error of these people is to be found in the very phrase to which they are most
attached  plain living and high thinking. These people do not stand in need of, will not be
improved by, plain living and high thinking. They stand in need of the contrary. They would be
improved by high living and plain thinking. A little high living (I say, having a full sense of
responsibility, a little high living) would teach them the force and meaning of the human festivities,
of the banquet that has gone on from the beginning of the world. It would teach them the historic
fact that the artificial is, if anything, older than the natural. It would teach them that the loving-cup [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]