Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-05
BY G. X. CHESTERTON.

Lewis brilliant and stimulating
articles on The Doom of Youth"
Il was somewhat mixed for me, be-
cause l had been asked to an
swer him. and I found out that to very
large extent 1 agreed with him. I think
he will understand that l mean no dis
respect II even 60 so far as to say that
he agrees with me. For it is an odd
coincidence that my friends and have
held in certain obscure dens OF reac-
ton and superstition some of the very
things that he has since discovered far
along the high road of innovation and
skeptical inquiry.
I entirely agree that feminism and
things like the commercial appeal to
youth are mere modes of exploitation,
and have often said so. Feminism is
so called because 1t forbids females to
be feminine as long as it is useful to
the weather. males that they should
be masculine. I have often said that
the economic independence of women"
is about as much of a declaration of
independence as Chinese cheap labor.
And my friend "Agag" a member OF
my own little gang. whom l in my par
TALLY think one of the best satirists
now alive) was moved. very much in
the manner of Wyndham Lewis to an
nounce solemnly that he was about to
issue AN appeal to youth to make more
and more appeals to youth" Wydnham
Lewis, of course, has never seen the
funny little rags in which we poor old
reactionaries write our opinions, but he
would be surprised to find how similar
in some ways they have always been to
his own opinions.
Scorns big Business"
AS for big business. l have always
thought it very small business small
headed, small-hearted small in the
sense of being essentially local and pro-
vincial in its conceptions and probably
in the long run small even in It's place
in history, for 1t Is extremely recent
and it Is already breaking down in
bankruptcy and bewildering despair. BY
the way. touching its pathetic Appeal
to Youth" l am glad that Wyndham
Lewis knows how to parody the news
papers by the usual travesty Of Gray.
He Is right to say Youth at the Helm :"
for the words are always quoted
iournalistically and, therefore. gen.
orally quoted wrong. 1t Is very in
nocent quotation, with very irontcal
echo. For the original line, Youth
at the prov and Pleasure at the
helm" does not describe hopeful, but
a very hopeless situation. The poet in
Fell Thirst and Famine scowl." And
anybody who has really seen the sort
OF youth thus commercially appealed to-
amusing itself, can we'll believe that
famine may not be far off. The thirst
is already obvious.
In short. Wyndham Lewis Is perfectly
right on all the points which will be
generally condemned as wrong and
especially on the point that much that
masquerades as regard for youth Is
really a very dirty disrespect for age
People used to talk of the decadence Of
women painting their faces: 1t is much
more of a sign Of decadence when mid
dle-aged clerks dye their hair. But
while fully approaching the intelligence
and importance of his suggestions in
these matters, there are two or three
basic differences which 1 find extraordi-
narlly interesting to observe. There are
about three big blunders or errors into
which, as it seems TO me, all men fall
when they are outside certain philoS-
ophy or religion which I believe to be
the central truth of civilization: even
the most genuinely emancipated. the
most widely we'll informed or the most
dexterous and delicate in distinguishing
ideas fall into these erroneous ideas, and
even Wyndham Lewis has fallen.
The first fallacy is that this sort Of
philosopher Is perhaps the first OF all
philosophers to doubt even his own OBJ
ject, for the Nihilist at least knew that
his object was nothing. I defy any