Monday Chesterton

GKC, from the opening chapter of Orthodoxy (1909) -- one, I might add, of the finest books of theology written after the death of Victoria, or so it seems to me.

I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas. I always find, however, that I am either too busy or too lazy to write this fine work, so I may as well give it away for the purposes of philosophical illustration. There will probably be a general impression that the man who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by signs) to plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be the Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather a fool. I am not here concerned to deny that he looked a fool. But if you imagine that he felt a fool, or at any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant emotion, then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the rich romantic nature of the hero of this tale. His mistake was really a most enviable mistake; and he knew it, if he was the man I take him for. What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again? What could be better than to have all the fun of discovering South Africa without the disgusting necessity of landing there? What could be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, that it was really old South Wales. This at least seems to me the main problem for philosophers, and is in a manner the main problem of this book. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being our own town?

He goes on: 'I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht, who discovered England. For I am that man in a yacht. I discovered England ... if this book is a joke it is a joke against me. I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before.' It would make a fine fable.

I suppose it seems to me that what this imaginary traveller would actually embody is not so much the conceit of seeing England as if for the first time, but rather an I think more profound and interesting psychological drama of the man who had lost the capacity of recognition; the many upon whom habit had lost its hold. But then, I'm no Chesterton.