Schall on Chesterton: Timely Essays on Timeless Paradoxes

"An Awful Instance of the Instability of Human Greatness"

“An Awful Instance of the Instability of Human Greatness” We have a public radio station here in Washington that plays what is rightly called “good music,” that is, classical music. The only flaw in this station is that it also broadcasts National Public Radio “News.”When you forget to turn this news off as quickly as you hear it come on, it forces you to go about the rest of the day annoyed at the unrelenting propaganda that passes for information on this station. In any case, there is a program on this station called “Desert Island Discs,” a program that consists in getting some congressman or other public figure to select the music he would take with him were he to be stranded on a desert island.This whole approach, of course, goes back to Stevenson and Robinson Crusoe and no doubt to a hundred other stories designed to force us to think about what we would need or want were we to find ourselves in a similar situation. Indeed, the whole exercise is to teach us to ascertain what is important in life. I bring up this unlikely topic because John Peterson sent me a copy of a short collection he did that tried to give us some insight into what it might have been like actually to have heard Chesterton debate or speak. Peterson’s essay is called,“And Now Mr. ChestertonWillTake a Few Questions from the Floor,” from a book called Crossings:A ‘Liber Amicorum’ for Denis Conlon, published in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1992. Evidently, Chesterton was once actually asked from the floor, “What single book would you choose if you were cast on a desert island?” Chesterton’s response was as follows: 214 It would depend on the circumstances. If I were a politician who wanted to impress his constituents, I would take Plato or Aristotle. But the real test would be with the people who had no chance to show off before their friends or their constituents. In that case I feel certain that everyone would take Thomas’s Guide to Practical Shipbuilding .l.l.l. And then if they should be allowed to take a second book it would be the most exciting detective story within reach. But if I could only take one book to a desert isle and was not in a particular hurry to get off, I would without the slightest hesitation put Pickwick Papers in my handbag. This list of Chesterton desert island books got me to thinking, I must say, not in the least because I have a half-read edition of Pickwick Papers on my shelf someplace. Chesterton in fact did an introductory essay to these very Pickwick Papers.1 The fact is that I myself would think that Plato or Aristotle would be exactly the right book to take to the desert isle. I cannot imagine any book, except the Bible which Chesterton did not choose either, that would save more civilization or teach more about life than Plato or Aristotle. I hope that does not necessarily make me a politician trying to impress my friends and constituents. I love Plato and Aristotle and we very much could use the solitude of the said desert isle to read them as quietly and as often as might be necessary really to understand them. Unfortunately, Chesterton did not tell us what book he thought to be “the most exciting detective story in reach.” I guess it might even have been Father Brown, but perhaps he did not care. My own problem with an exciting detective story, as opposed to Plato or Aristotle, is this: once you read the detective story, presumably for a time to distract you from the loneliness of the island, you would not have the same joy and marvel on reading it a second time (in case the boat did not come to find you) that comes from rereading Plato or Aristotle I don’t know how many times. This brings us to ponder why would Chesterton choose the “An Awful Instance . . .” 215 Pickwick Papers. Notice that the condition of choosing this famous Dickens volume would be that of leisure (another word familiar to Plato and Aristotle)—“and was not in a particular hurry .” Mr. Pickwick, SamWeller, Mr.Tupman, Mr.Winkle, and Mrs. Cluppins will delight us again and again every time we meet them at the “George andVulture Tavern and Hotel, GeorgeYard...