“Here, after twenty lone years of useless toil, he had his reward. … He bounded to his feet like a boy; he saw a new youth opening before him. And as not unfrequently happens to middle-aged gentlemen when they see a new youth opening before them, he found himself in the presence of the police.”

I’ll also scout around for a Chesterton Society in my country. Haven’t heard of one, and I’ve been thinking of joining the Phil. Tolkien Society…until you guys started delving on Chesteron here. Maybe Tolkien will take a back seat for now if I do find a group that focuses on Chesterton and his works =)

Pansy,

Not until you mentioned it. Thanks!

Sunnday,

I envy you.

Any of Chesterton’s works are a good place to start, and Pansy’s suggestions of Orthodoxy and What’s Wrong with the World are good ones, to be sure, especially seeing as they were written relatively early in his literary career.

Before diving into one of Chesterton’s books, which can be hard to understand at times–I’ve found them to be so, at least–
I would suggest starting with some of his essays. A handful of them can be found in a section titled The Essayist on the American Chesterton Society’s website.

The ACS website also has sections titled The Poet, The Artist, The Murderer[!], The Distributist, The Historian, The Critic, The Philosopher, and The Theologian, all of which contain a smattering of Chesterton’s writing in these various areas. [N. B. The Murderer is a sampling of Chesterton's ideas about detective stories.]

I would also suggest checking out the eminently useful Bibliography for Beginners compiled by the ACS to give you a flavor of each of GKC’s books.

This is just a side note but it occurred to me now that highly esteemed authors (particularly the ones I know who are anchored on Christian ideals) seem to use initials — G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien. I wonder if there’s a significance to that…

absolutely…they’re Fulton Sheen’s not mine…
from a book called the “Seven Words of Jesus and Mary”.

MK

* “Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” – ILN, 10/23/09

* “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” – ILN, 5/5/28

# “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” – Everlasting Man, 1925

* “Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.” – Christendom in Dublin, 1933

# “My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.” – New York Times Magazine, 2/11/23

# “If there were no God, there would be no atheists.” – Where All Roads Lead, 1922

# “The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.” – ILN 1-3-20

“We are learning to do a great many clever things…The next great task will be to learn not to do them.- “Queen Victoria” Varied Types

# Urban Planning
“The whole structural system of the suburban civilization is based on the case for having bathrooms and the case against having babies.” -G.K.’s Weekly 7-6-29

# Reproductive Rights
“Let all the babies be born. Then let us drown those we do not like.” – Babies and Distributism, GK’s Weekly, 11/12/32

# “There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it.” (“The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett” Fancies vs. Fads)

BRAVO!

I saw that list and it was awesome. I was going to ask if I can borrow the quote about three people to make love for my blog.

BTW, my AIM away message says:
“By experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men.” – GK Chesterton, ILN, 3/25/11

BRAVO!

MK

Pansy,

You have excellent taste.