A Few Passages from "The Man Who Was Thursday" - By G.K. Chesterton
This was my first attempt at The Man Who Was Thursday and I listened to it as a audiobook, so my comprehension of the text may be lacking in places. I do not have much analysis to speak about this work at this point that hasn't already been better said in essays like: The Man Who Was Thursday Revisiting Chesterton's masterpiece by Martin Gardner . But there were two passages that connected to much of my own thinking in philosophy, namely regarding the existence of immaterial essence in things and the precedence of order over randomness.
He said that he (Syme) was a poet of law, a poet of order; nay, he said he was a poet of respect-ability. So all the Saffron Parkers looked at him as if he had that moment fallen out of that impossible sky.
In fact, Mr. Lucian Gregory, the anarchic poet, connected the two events.
"It may well be," he said, in his sudden lyrical manner, "it may well be on such a night of clouds and cruel colours that there is brought forth upon the earth such a portent as a respectable poet. You say you are a poet of law; I say you are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder there were not comets and earthquakes on the night you appeared in this garden." The man with the meek blue eyes and the pale, pointed beard endured these thunders with a certain submissive solemnity. The third party of the group, Gregory's sister Rosamond, who had her brother's braids of red hair,' but a kindlier face underneath them, laughed with such mixture of admiration and disapproval as she gave commonly to the family oracle.
Gregory resumed in high oratorical good-humour.
"An artist is identical with an anarchist," he cried. "You might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an art-ist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything. He sees how much more valuable is one burst of blazing light, one peal of perfect thunder, than the mere common bodies of a few shapeless policemen. An artist disregards all Governments, abolishes all conventions. The poet delights in disorder only. If it were not so, the most poetical thing in the world would be the Underground Railway."
"So it is," said Mr. Syme.
"Nonsense!" said Gregory, who was very rational when any one else attempted paradox. "Why do all the clerks and navvies in the railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket for that place they will reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be Victoria, and nothing but Victoria." Oh, their wild rapture! oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next station were unaccountably Baker Street!"'?
"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If what you say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry. The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a distant sta-tion? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I say!" & "Must you go?" inquired Gregory sarcastically.
"I tell you," went on Syme with passion, "that every time a train comes in I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, and that man has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuously that when one has left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. I say that one might do a thousand things instead, and that whenever I really come there I have the sense of hair-breadth escape. And when I hear the guard shout out the word 'Victoria, it is not an unmeaning word. It is to me the cry of a herald announcing conquest. It is to me indeed 'Victoria'; it is the victory of Adam." 9
Gregory wagged his heavy, red head with a slow and sad smile. "And even then," he said, "we poets always ask the ques-tion, 'And what is Victoria now that you have got there?' You think Victoria is like the New Jerusalem. We know that the New Jerusalem will only be like Victoria. Yes, the poet will be discontented even in the streets of heaven. The poet is always in revolt."
"There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical. Revolt in the abstract is—revolting. It's mere vomiting.."
The girl winced for a flash at the unpleasant word, but Syme was too hot to heed her. "It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry. Yes, the most poetical thing, more poetical than the flowers, more poetical than the stars— the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick." "Really," said Gregory, superciliously, "the examples you choose- "I beg your pardon," said Syme grimly, "I forgot we had abolished all conventions."
For the first time a red patch appeared on Gregory's forehead. "You don't expect me," he said, "to revolutionise society on this lawn?" Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweetly. "No, I don't," he said; "but I suppose that if you were serious about your anarchism, that is exactly what you would do." Gregory's big bull's eyes blinked suddenly like those of an angry lion, and one could almost fancy that his red mane rose. "Don't you think, then," he said in a dangerous voice,
"that I am serious about my anarchism?" "I beg your pardon?" said Syme. "Am I not serious about my anarchism?" cried Gregory, with knotted fists. "My dear fellow!" said Syme, and strolled away. With surprise, but with a curious pleasure, he found Rosa-mond Gregory still in his company. "Mr. Syme," she said, "do the people who talk like you and my brother often mean what they say? Do you mean what you say now?" 1
Comments
Post a Comment