A POET DETECTIVE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

A POET DETECTIVE.

MR. CHESTERTON'S LATEST. PRACTICAL MEET AND MYSTICS (By CYRANO.) The great bulk of Mr. Chesterton —I refer to his works, not his figure, which, by the way, is not nearly so vast as is supposed —may be divided into four main parts —essays, literary criticism, romances, and poems. Assemble four Chestertonians, and you might find that one preferred the essays, another the "Dickens," another "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" and "Father Brown," and another "Lepanto" and "The Ballad of the White Horse." If I had to choose one Chesterton book I think it would be the "Dickens," the most acute and most readable piece of criticism of our time. All four might agree, however, that though they worshipped G.K.C., they found him slightly wearisome at times, and they would give for this two reasons—that he wrote too much, and that in his eagerness to pour out his ideas he was not sufficiently self-critical of his work. They would agree—certainly, I think —that Chesterton is always more or less the same—that he is always, in a sense, a propagandist, and that whether is writing a weekly essay for the "Illustrated London News," a rollicking drinking song, or a mystery story dark with the flowers of evil and aflame with the glory of God, he is the r same preacher preaching the same gospel. It is a curious' jumble this preaching of his — curious and jumbled enough to mystify some and infuriate others. Love of bright colours and romance —"The very colours of her coat were better than good news" —love of common men and women; a very deep religious sense; a profound distrust of what generally passes for progress; ideals rooted in mysticism and medievalism; love of laughter and good cheer; the imagination of a poet allied with tonic simplicity and humour—all this is Chesterton, arid all of it is in every book he has written. Exploration of the Soul. Here is his latest,* a companion to the Father Brown stories. Gabriel Gale, the solver in these new mystery tales, is simply the round innocent-eyed little priest transformed into a tall, thin poet with a jutting chin and untidy hair. Father Brown is a specialist in exploration of the human soul, and his stories are s&idies in sin rather than stories in the sheeting home of guilt. Father Brown does not whip but' tape measures and magnifying glasses, or pore over test

tubes; he leaves that to Holmes and Thorndike. He surpasses both, howevbr, in spiritual insight. So does Gabriel Gale. As he himself explains, he is not a practical man. He cannot investigate a crime in the orthodox brisk business way by the measuring of footprints; but he can see into minds. He does this because he is a poet. We have here the familiar Chesterton thesis that the poet is superior to the practical man, the man of business. In the first story Hurrel poses as a business man in charge *of Gale, * the unpractical poet. Advance to the edge of tragedy shows that it is Gale who is practical and Hurrel who is in his care—in fact, Hurrel is a lunatic. Mr. Chesterton's bias against business must be taken into account, but he is stating in a heightened way w.hat is an important truth.. The poet has more insight that the average man?'else-he would not be a poet. The business. man; the man who prides himself on being practical, is often hopelessly wrong, for one thing, because he has no imagination, and for another because his special business is to walk along a narrow track with his eyes glued to the ground. You might as well ask a bloodhound hot on the scent what it thinks of the scenery as ask some business men what they think of life. They know only one thing—how to make money, and perhaps how to'make it in one way. The mistakes made by business men when they are taken off their narrow track and confronted with a new problem are at times appalling.. The Limits of the Practical. In this book we have the thesis stated again with the familiar poetry and gusto. Gale's painting of the inn sign is typical. "After all, one doesn't fancy an English inn on the top of Mount Everest, or somewhere in the Suez Canal. But one's life would be well spent in waking up the dead inns of England and making them English and Christian again." And a little further on. "Is it more dignified to paint an Academy portrait of some snobbish mayor in a gold chain, or some swindling millionaire's wife in a diamond tiara, than to paint the heads of great English admirals, to be toasted in good ale? Is it better to paint some nepotistical old noodle wearing his George and Garter than to paint St. George himself in the very act of. killing the dragon?" Then when the nearly bankrupt innkeeper tries to hang himself on his own sign, and handing .him over to the police is discussed, Gale tells them what they want is an unpractical man. That is what people always want in the last resort and the worst conditions. What can practical men do here? Waste their practical time in running after the poor fellow and cutting him down from one pub sign after another? Waste their practical lives watching him day and eight, to see he doesn't get hold of a rope or a razor? Do you call that practical? You can only ■ forbid him to die. Can. you persuade, him to live? Believe me, that is where" we come in. A man must have his head in the clouds and his wits wool-gather-ing in fairyland, before he ciu io anything so practical as that.

' To many mystery story "fane" ■ these tales will be unsatisfactory. Their very mysticism will repel, and, as in some of the Father Brown stones, the outlines of both deed and investigation are sometimes blurred. But as spiritual adventures they have their own place in the vast body of detective literature. Several men can write a neater story; no one can make the heavens •"•flame so gloriously or hell gape so. menacingly as can *G.K.C. Nor can the plot be separated from the almost riotous humour of the telling, and the flaming reiteration of the Chesterton creed. This ie seen in little touches and big strokes. "They say that travel broadens the mind; but you must have the mind." There have been men and women in this country who, after going round the world, have illustrated this saying in their conversation. The Really Simple Life. "I should imagine," says Gale, "that a mad house would be an excellent place 'to be sane in. I'd a long sight rather live in a nice, quiet, secluded mad house than in intellectual clubs full of unintellectual people, all chattering nonsense about the newest book of philosophy. . ." Much of the Chesterton philosophy is in this passage, which is but a repetition of "A Ballade of an Anti-Puritan": They spoke of Progress spiring round, Of Light and Mrs... Humphry Ward — It is not true to say I frowned, Or ran about the room and roared; I might have simply sat and snored — I rose politely in the club And said, "I feel a little bored. Will someone take me to a pub?" A similar plea for the joye of the really simple (and humble) life—for "virtues growing from the ground"—is to be found in one of the stories in this collection, that of the famous poetdramatist who suddenly disappeared and was found to have changed places with his obscure shop-keeping brother. Gale's explanation of why this man gave up fame and position in the great world is this: He tried it and found that this was what he wanted; the things be had not known since childhood; the silly little lower, middle-class things; to have to do with lollie-pops and ginger beer; to fall in love with a girl round the corner and feel awkward about it; to be young. That was the\ only paradise still left virgin &lA unspoilt enough, in the imagination of a man who has turned the seven heavens upside down. This passage may help to explain why some of us think,G. K. Chesterton a better guide to life than Bernard Shaw. If he would only deal faithfully with the Sitwells and others of the intelligentsia ! *"The Poet and the Lunatics," by G. K. Chesterton (Cassell and Company, through A. J. Harding, Limited).