Caught in the Act

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 937, 26 July 1957, Page 19

Caught in the Act

"SNAPSHOTS OF MY SENIORS" was the title of a most engaging talk I heard last week by Hesketh Pearson, recalling the ebullient personalities of Chesterton and Belloc. By way of introduction to his chosen pair, Pearson recalled the great intellectual quartet they made with Shaw and Wells, all scraping away on their chosen instruments for dear life, united in pairs, with two Catholics and two Socialists, yet inspired soloists, too, improvising the most spirited and invigorating cadenzas with a total disregard for the prevailing harmony, There has been nothing like them since. Chesterton appears as a Falstaffian character, not only in respect to his bulk, but in his love of life, of beer, of food, and of young people: there was a Shakespearian delight in the man. Belloc, on the other hand, was much less demonstrative, more elusive and bizarre, from the pages of Cervantes perhaps, not quite Quixote, not quite Panza; something between the _ two. Pearson’s account of how Belloc held up a long queue at a railway booking office with,a long and precise account of his financial difficulties, and also the physical difficulties of reaching his destination, was pure.Cervantes. The queue strained and sweated behind him, and finally, one man began to swear echoingly. Belloc turned round, presented the man with a volume of trigonometry, and resumed. Both men had trouble with trains, and Hesketh Pearson recalled Chesterton’s famous telegram to his wife: "Am at Wolverhampton. Where ought I to be?" The talk was splendidly evocative of a vanished |

world.

B.E.

G.M.