topical
We can accept the idea of a deficient divinity, a divinity that would be forced to create the world out of poor materials and, thinking in this way, we would eventually arrive at Bernard Shaw, who said: God is in the making. That is to say, God is not something that belongs to the past and God is possibly not something that pertains to the present in Eternity. God can be something that pertains to the future, and if we are just, if we forgive our enemies, also if we are intelligent--if we are lucid--we would be helping to create God.
Nazism was invented by Carlyle, but H.G. Wells said that Hitler had taken the theory of a chosen race from the Jews, who also believed themselves to be a chosen race, and that everything Hitler said could be found in the Old Testament, except that he applied it to a distinct nation. Of course, Hitler was murderous to an exaggerated degree... kind of like God herself in Deuteronomy.
I believe that women think too much of the world, that they grant it too much import, including every object and themselves, right? And circumstances, too. Especially, circumstances. They judge everything one by one, and besides that, they're afraid of playing a bad role, or they see themselves as actors, right? The whole world is watching them and of course admiring them. I have known women that are very intelligent but completely incapable of philosophizing. One of the most intelligent women I have ever known was a fellow student; she studied literature at about the same time as me; also, like myself, she knew how to delight herself with literature and poetry outside of pedantry and scholastic requirements; however, when I asked her to read the dialogues of Berkeley, just three dialogues, she couldn't make anything out of them. Then, I loaned her a book by William James, a few philosophical exercises, and even though she was a very intelligent young woman, she couldn't hack it. She simply couldn't see why people would engross themselves with matters that to her seemed very simple. So I told her: Right, but are you sure that time is simple? Are you sure that space is simple? Are you sure that the conscious is simple?--Yes, she said. Well, okay, can you define those concepts? She responded: No, I don't think I can, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest. That, I suppose, is what any woman would respond, right?
Jonathan Swift was an odd case. He was such an original writer. How strange then his satire against science. Because, today, if anyone writes against science, it has to do with deeming it a modern evil. Detractors see it as a powerful enemy. But he was a very intelligent man, a genius, and despite that he thought science was futile. I mean, he laughed at scientists, not because he considered them a threat, but because he seemed to see them as idiots that were wasting their time ... Don't you think that's odd? Despite being a very intelligent man, he had committed this error. He thought that all those who worked in laboratories were simpletons.
Robert Louis Stevenson died while making a salad. He had never eaten a salad. In fact, he hated salads. When someone told this to G.K. Chesterton, he said something to this effect: Now I can believe that Stevenson has died. He has always been a man committed to the unexpected ...
Aside from being a first-rate writer of mysteries, Chesterton was a clever Catholic apologist. Unfortunately, like all writers who profess a credo, he is judged by it. He is also disapproved or acclaimed by it. The intelligence with which he argued his religious position must have been intimidating for his opponents and alienating for some of his serious readers. Strong beliefs can make a nice man seem disagreeable and nasty. Worst of all, they may invalidate him. He became the butt of many fat jokes. Who can forget Wodehouse's irreverent nod?
... the drowsy stillness of the summer afternoon was shattered by what sounded to his strained senses like G.K. Chesterton falling on a sheet of tin.
Now, he wasn't nearly as fat as President Taft [tale of a tub], but his proportions were such that he can be easily spotted as a character in Neil Gaiman's graphic novel, The Sandman. There he comes alive as a compassionate, jolly Englishman, with trusty cape and sword stick, the personification of a living, paradisaical world named Fiddler's Green, a fecund planet with diverse life which becomes a man for the purpose of social interaction. His high standard of imagination and creativity, evident in his wondrous works, combined with his lampoonish girth, would demand no less a tribute. This character is not made unappealing by Chesterton's brand of consistent preachiness, calculated wit or theory. On the contrary, the reader is invited to imagine his gallantry, his gentleness, the embodiment of his beliefs in practice. Chesterton died in 1936 but his abstract goodness would cruise forth unabated to 1986, splashing in color. Imagine Chesterton revived in the here and now, in full 300+lb glory, those eyes of his perusing words once more, on the page where he was so at home, and finding the essence of his virtues in a curious, fantasy picture book! Who could predict this redemption, more human than artistic? A ripple of our own, a small means for immortality. No essay can revive one's moral character quite like a fellow artist's simulacrum, done in good faith. I have felt great sympathy for this echo of his, this likeness that adds a vivid dimension to the man behind the letters. For when it comes to genius, the reader is spared the living and breathing writer, the writer becomes the text, a stream of words without the flesh in telepathic congress. The reader assumes all kinds of falsities about the person behind it but truth and personality find a way. You inspire joy in others and thereby leave a seed that grows into the best of you. He was a writer of this germinal sort, the portrait of a gentleman--albeit an enlarged one. I will end this reflection with an anecdote. Once, it was said that Chesterton was sitting in a train, reading a daily, when a group of passengers entered his car. It's important that you imagine him perfectly ensconced, practically merged with his seat, because without the slightest hesitation, he rose up from it--a formidable task indeed--so that he might offer his place to three ladies. Of course, this is much more than can be expected out of his contemporaries, men like Everett True.
Nazism was invented by Carlyle, but H.G. Wells said that Hitler had taken the theory of a chosen race from the Jews, who also believed themselves to be a chosen race, and that everything Hitler said could be found in the Old Testament, except that he applied it to a distinct nation. Of course, Hitler was murderous to an exaggerated degree... kind of like God herself in Deuteronomy.
I believe that women think too much of the world, that they grant it too much import, including every object and themselves, right? And circumstances, too. Especially, circumstances. They judge everything one by one, and besides that, they're afraid of playing a bad role, or they see themselves as actors, right? The whole world is watching them and of course admiring them. I have known women that are very intelligent but completely incapable of philosophizing. One of the most intelligent women I have ever known was a fellow student; she studied literature at about the same time as me; also, like myself, she knew how to delight herself with literature and poetry outside of pedantry and scholastic requirements; however, when I asked her to read the dialogues of Berkeley, just three dialogues, she couldn't make anything out of them. Then, I loaned her a book by William James, a few philosophical exercises, and even though she was a very intelligent young woman, she couldn't hack it. She simply couldn't see why people would engross themselves with matters that to her seemed very simple. So I told her: Right, but are you sure that time is simple? Are you sure that space is simple? Are you sure that the conscious is simple?--Yes, she said. Well, okay, can you define those concepts? She responded: No, I don't think I can, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest. That, I suppose, is what any woman would respond, right?
Jonathan Swift was an odd case. He was such an original writer. How strange then his satire against science. Because, today, if anyone writes against science, it has to do with deeming it a modern evil. Detractors see it as a powerful enemy. But he was a very intelligent man, a genius, and despite that he thought science was futile. I mean, he laughed at scientists, not because he considered them a threat, but because he seemed to see them as idiots that were wasting their time ... Don't you think that's odd? Despite being a very intelligent man, he had committed this error. He thought that all those who worked in laboratories were simpletons.
Robert Louis Stevenson died while making a salad. He had never eaten a salad. In fact, he hated salads. When someone told this to G.K. Chesterton, he said something to this effect: Now I can believe that Stevenson has died. He has always been a man committed to the unexpected ...
Aside from being a first-rate writer of mysteries, Chesterton was a clever Catholic apologist. Unfortunately, like all writers who profess a credo, he is judged by it. He is also disapproved or acclaimed by it. The intelligence with which he argued his religious position must have been intimidating for his opponents and alienating for some of his serious readers. Strong beliefs can make a nice man seem disagreeable and nasty. Worst of all, they may invalidate him. He became the butt of many fat jokes. Who can forget Wodehouse's irreverent nod?
... the drowsy stillness of the summer afternoon was shattered by what sounded to his strained senses like G.K. Chesterton falling on a sheet of tin.
Now, he wasn't nearly as fat as President Taft [tale of a tub], but his proportions were such that he can be easily spotted as a character in Neil Gaiman's graphic novel, The Sandman. There he comes alive as a compassionate, jolly Englishman, with trusty cape and sword stick, the personification of a living, paradisaical world named Fiddler's Green, a fecund planet with diverse life which becomes a man for the purpose of social interaction. His high standard of imagination and creativity, evident in his wondrous works, combined with his lampoonish girth, would demand no less a tribute. This character is not made unappealing by Chesterton's brand of consistent preachiness, calculated wit or theory. On the contrary, the reader is invited to imagine his gallantry, his gentleness, the embodiment of his beliefs in practice. Chesterton died in 1936 but his abstract goodness would cruise forth unabated to 1986, splashing in color. Imagine Chesterton revived in the here and now, in full 300+lb glory, those eyes of his perusing words once more, on the page where he was so at home, and finding the essence of his virtues in a curious, fantasy picture book! Who could predict this redemption, more human than artistic? A ripple of our own, a small means for immortality. No essay can revive one's moral character quite like a fellow artist's simulacrum, done in good faith. I have felt great sympathy for this echo of his, this likeness that adds a vivid dimension to the man behind the letters. For when it comes to genius, the reader is spared the living and breathing writer, the writer becomes the text, a stream of words without the flesh in telepathic congress. The reader assumes all kinds of falsities about the person behind it but truth and personality find a way. You inspire joy in others and thereby leave a seed that grows into the best of you. He was a writer of this germinal sort, the portrait of a gentleman--albeit an enlarged one. I will end this reflection with an anecdote. Once, it was said that Chesterton was sitting in a train, reading a daily, when a group of passengers entered his car. It's important that you imagine him perfectly ensconced, practically merged with his seat, because without the slightest hesitation, he rose up from it--a formidable task indeed--so that he might offer his place to three ladies. Of course, this is much more than can be expected out of his contemporaries, men like Everett True.
