New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-09-11
4 NEW ESSAYIST.
HIS EFFORTS TO SAVE THE WORLD
FROM ITSELF.

THE DEFENDANT. BY c; X ChestertOn Emo
PIP III Dodd. Mead & Co
Mr. G. K Chesterton is a young English jour-
naIist VINO woke up one fine morning not so very
long ago. thrilling with the discovery that the
world needed to be set right about a great many
things and firmly convinced that he was the
man to do il. He has been busting ABOUT III
print ever since, with seriousness that would
be appalling if it were not as the seriousness
of extreme youth so often is. little funny he
suffers agony of mind because man. in his opin-
ion. insists upon putting number Of the things
IF this world in wrong perspective, and he
Laws about him. therefore, with all the Vlgor OF
an Infant Hercules. Mr.. Max Beerbohh'
sympathetically remembering, we suppose MS
own salad days. has lately called him mus
Mr. Chesterton deliberately defends things when,
as matter of fact need no defence, since no
body but himself is under any illusion ABOUT
their true value all Setting up man OF
straw he attacks the ef11gy with a bludgeon'
roaring the while like any Berseker on the war
path. 1t is really, without meaning 10 De-
rather droll-
We" il appears-which is to say, the eou-
Gated ones of earth-are indignant that boys
read penny dreadfus." and we are surprised
that they do not read George Meredith ana
1bsen OF course. no intelligent person lees
this indignation, or this surprise any more tha1l
he thinks of justifying the dime mover pS d
reference to SCOTS Rob Roy or Byrons COZ
sair," which Mr. Chesterton thinks il iegl'liiid'e
20 do But if the latter could not do TINS sor'
OF thing we would have, in all probablnH, 10
essay from his hand. Having nothing really
new or thoughtful to say, Mr.. Chestertor pro
ceeds TO utter what he thinks are paradoNes OF
amazing originality. When he is told, what Is
lF,T-HF qEh
he retorts that books recommending prohigacy
and pessimism at which the high souled errand
boy would shudder. lie upon all our drawing
room tables. And with a hypocrisy so
ludicrous as to be almost unparalleled in his
tory. we rate the gutter boys for their iEn1nor-
atty al the very time that We are discussing
tyvith equivocal German professors whether
morality is valid at all OF blood and tnun-
GER literature he says that il is las simple as
the thunder of heaven and the blood of men,
which sounds very well, but would sound even
better If it happened TO mean something
But the most amusing Of Mr.. Chesterton s
charters is that which he entities "A DEFENCE
of Skeletons That the human skeleton is com
,nonlv regarded with horror strikes him Trys-
ferrous .One would think he says. making q
most portentous joke, that it would be most
,;nNise in a man TO be afraid Of a skeleton,
since Nature has set curious and quite insuper-
able obstacles to his running away from IL
A skeleton is less fearsome to contemplate than
IS that Joke Humanity is infected, we are
told. by strange idea that the skeleton is
typical of death. 1t is strange, terribly strange.
"A man might well say that a factory Chin
ney was typical OF bankruptcy Us TINS also a
3oke0 Mr. Chesterton once met some rustics
who seemed to think that trees did not look as
well in the baroness of winter as in the luXuri-
saF czgr1a f1pF'G1l
that 1.-THE idea that its leaves the chief grace
of a tree is q vulgar one. a par with the idea
that his hair is the chief grace of a pianist
When winter. that healthy ascetic, carries his
gigantic razor over hill and valley, and shaves
ali the trees like monks, We feel surely that
they are all the like trees if they are
shorn. just many painters and musicians
would be ali the more like men if they Were
left less like mops." Now some kind friend
should have logged Mr.. ChesJertons elbow at
this moment and told him number Of things,
among them that no human creature caring for
trees al all ever dreamed of thinking Of them as
ne thinks of them. His figure OF winter a
barber shaving the trees is about silly and
offensive we have ever encountered 1t
is the kind of thing that one really &C
ouainted with trees would dream of saying; the
kind of thing expect TO find only in the pro-
auctions OF very literary young person,
writing for effect
That. we fear is the kind of person Mr.. Ches-
terton is. He is amusing because he is pre-
posterous. but confess that ind a whole
volume of his prattle very tiresome. In some
quarters. we believe. such prattle is considered
clever, but we cannot see just where the clever
ness comes ia If take 1t at all seriously It
is because too much Of this literary snlartness
IS abroad these days, and We conceive it to be
the duty of those who have the interests Of lit
erature at heart to point out its true character
A cheap and twaddling essay, like a cheap and
swaddling sonnet novel, is insult to the
masters of the literary form employed This
book with its bumptiousness. its affectations.
end its lack of interesting thought generally
IS of the kind which only deplore Mr.
Chesterton may improve in time. We hope So
Meanwhile We urge him 70 abandon in particlI-
lar the callow notion that il is witty 10 enforce
one OF his unimportant little points by a refer
ence to sacred things It is not nice to find him
closing his introduction with allusion to the
Crucifxion; and elsewhere, notably in "A De-
fence of Publicity" he paws over, with the same
vulgar jauntiness. subjects which 1t has been
left to him regard as legitimate material for
nght-very light-journalese.
AN FS0TTNAT .TOTPNATTCT