Read The Life and Words of GK Chesterton for Free Online

Paradox,” led a life of contradiction. He was born into an era that was forward thinking, forward dreaming even, increasingly secular, and more scientific than ever, but, as timely and even futuristic as many of his books and philosophies were, G. K. Chesterton was, according to his critics, positively medieval in his alliances.
     
    He was a modern city man, drawn inexplicably to the folk religion of the countryside that in his own time bored him to tears. He was a lazy schoolboy and a workaholic adult whose overworking may have caused him an early death. 
     
    He was a modest man but failed to moderate nearly every aspect of his own life, doing everything to excess.
     
    He was happily a loner but grew to crave companionship so much that he could fall ill from loneliness. He was an incredibly serious man, who could, at the drop of a hat, build a pillow fort and play war with the neighborhood children.
     
    At the same time, Chesterton led a life of strong convictions and principles strictly adhered to. He was a pious man and a loyal friend. He had a good nature and a reliable character. He happily gave of himself to others and honored his commitments even at great personal cost. He did not hold grudges and could argue fiercely with friends and family without harming the relationship.
     
    Unlike Chesterton’s own prediction of his future biography, it is not at all “difficult to understand the cause of even such publicity as he obtained in his own way.” It is perhaps more difficult to understand why so much of that publicity has dissipated over the years.

The Words of G.K. Chesterton

From Heretics

A hundred years ago our affairs for good or evil were wielded triumphantly by rhetoricians. Now our affairs are hopelessly muddled by strong, silent men.

I do not say that there are no stronger men than these; but will any one say that there are any men stronger than those men of old who were dominated by their philosophy and steeped in their religion? Whether bondage be better than freedom may be discussed. But that their bondage came to more than our freedom it will be difficult for any one to deny.

Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.

In the fifteenth century men cross-examined and tormented a man because he preached some immoral attitude; in the nineteenth century we feted and flattered Oscar Wilde because he preached such an attitude, and then broke his heart in penal servitude because he carried it out. It may be a question which of the two methods was the more cruel; there can be no kind of question which was the more ludicrous. The age of the Inquisition has not at least the disgrace of having produced a society which made an idol of the very same man for preaching the very same things which it made him a convict for practicing.

A Prayer in Darkness

This much, O heaven--if I should brood or rave,
         Pity me not; but let the world be fed,
         Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead,
    Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave.
    If I dare snarl between this sun and sod,
         Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own,
         In sun and rain and fruit in season shown,
    The shining silence of the scorn of God.
    Thank God the stars are set beyond my power,
         If I must travail in a night of wrath,
         Thank God my tears will never vex a moth,
    Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower.
    Men say the sun was darkened: yet I had
         Thought it beat brightly, even on--Calvary:
         And He that hung upon the Torturing Tree
    Heard all the crickets singing, and was glad.

The House of Christmas

There fared a mother driven forth
    Out of an inn to roam;
    In the place where she was