Some of his local auditors were so taken that they were rereading him at his centenary. “I know one stranger at least, who will never forget him.” Of course, Chesterton was just the man to warm the heart of an arts college at a time when there was much less demand than now for specialization and perhaps more joy in learning. Among us, Chesterton was grateful for little favors and made great friends, for instance with Charles Phillips who was a popular professor. We can understand why the publishers Sheed and Ward, launching their house late in Chesterton’s life, would feature him: Sheed an Australian Catholic and Masie Ward Sheed of an old English Catholic family and each of them interested in apologetics and propaganda. American and Australian as well as English Catholics had long been in a state of siege, a fact well known to Chesterton, and for this man, a convert in 1922 to Roman Catholicism, to come and not only lecture to and for us, but to live with us, was naturally a compliment, above all for a school then entirely under graduate and with its emphasis on the humanities. Of course, as a man of distinction who went on doing works of distinction, he was a phenomenon for at least the American public, and much more for the Catholic part of that public. He fell in love with the chauffeur, an unsophisticated Irishman as clever and charming as himself it was a chore to get all of Chesterton into and out of a car, and advised to try getting out sideways he quickly replied, “I have no sideways.” Most commonly in and around this school, people remember him as an impressive presence, a magnanimous man, and not merely as a celebrity. I remember best the moments when an idea would amuse him somewhere in the recesses of his soul his face would slowly crinkle his delight would work its way outwards till his whole huge frame shook with laughter. For my part, I could say with his countryman and friend, C.C. When he came to Notre Dame University in the autumn of 1930 and spent nearly a semester lecturing on English history and English literature, people were captured even by minor mannerisms such as how he fondled his watch chain, how small a chair looked with Chesterton on it, or how he would break off a more or less prepared lecture to recite a long poem, or to surrender to a fit of his own laughter. But he had recommendations that meant more than these obvious ones, meant more to him and to his fans and devotees, and at least to his heyday, say from 1900 through 1936. Everybody who knows Chesterton at all knows that in the line of character he would match any of those featured in his great work on great men and a great cultural event.īig and fat and jolly-with these credentials he became an international household word, and several of his works were made available in foreign languages such as Spanish and Danish. Johnson or Browning, was a Character, with a capital C. In his Victorian Age in Literature Chesterton said that any of several major figures in that arena, e.g. Now at his centenary (1874-1936) is a good time to review the man and his works.* But for all his funny side and indeed right through that side he was radically serious he never made fun of anyone. Chesterton most commonly know that physically he was gigantic and that he was adept at and fond of seeing most of life’s situations as funny what could be funnier, he asked, than a man starting off in full pursuit of his hat? But, Chesterton remarked, come to think of it, that chase is much like man’s life: comic-tragic, man chasing and not sure he will ever catch up. What was it that this non-expert, the funny fat man, had to say? Why did his works become for many a sort of bible? How was it that an artist-turned-journalist was accepted as the idea man as well as the entertainer of people?
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