The Defendant

The Defendant

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Title: The Defendant
Author: G.K. Chesterton
Release Date: May 3, 2004 [EBook #12245]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE DEFENDANT
BY G. K. CHESTERTON
AUTHOR OF 'THE WILD KNIGHT' AND 'GREYBEARDS AT
PLAY'

SECOND EDITION
LONDON. MDCCCCII
R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON
* * * * *
The 'Defences' of which this volume is composed have appeared in
_The Speaker_, and are here reprinted, after revision and amplification,
by permission of the Editor. Portions of 'The Defence of Publicity'
appeared in The Daily News.
October, 1901.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
IN DEFENCE OF A NEW EDITION
INTRODUCTION
A DEFENCE OF PENNY DREADFULS
A DEFENCE OF RASH VOWS
A DEFENCE OF SKELETONS
A DEFENCE OF PUBLICITY
A DEFENCE OF NONSENSE
A DEFENCE OF PLANETS
A DEFENCE OF CHINA SHEPHERDESSES
A DEFENCE OF USEFUL INFORMATION

A DEFENCE OF HERALDRY
A DEFENCE OF UGLY THINGS
A DEFENCE OF FARCE
A DEFENCE OF HUMILITY
A DEFENCE OF SLANG
A DEFENCE OF BABY-WORSHIP
A DEFENCE OF DETECTIVE STORIES
A DEFENCE OF PATRIOTISM
* * * * *
_IN DEFENCE OF A NEW EDITION
The reissue of a series of essays so ephemeral and even superfluous
may seem at the first glance to require some excuse; probably the best
excuse is that they will have been completely forgotten, and therefore
may be read again with entirely new sensations. I am not sure, however,
that this claim is so modest as it sounds, for I fancy that Shakespeare
and Balzac, if moved to prayers, might not ask to be remembered, but
to be forgotten, and forgotten thus; for if they were forgotten they
would be everlastingly re-discovered and re-read. It is a monotonous
memory which keeps us in the main from seeing things as splendid as
they are. The ancients were not wrong when they made Lethe the
boundary of a better land; perhaps the only flaw in their system is that a
man who had bathed in the river of forgetfulness would be as likely as
not to climb back upon the bank of the earth and fancy himself in
Elysium.
If, therefore, I am certain that most sensible people have forgotten the
existence of this book--I do not speak in modesty or in pride--I wish
only to state a simple and somewhat beautiful fact. In one respect the
passing of the period during which a book can be considered current

has afflicted me with some melancholy, for I had intended to write
anonymously in some daily paper a thorough and crushing exposure of
the work inspired mostly by a certain artistic impatience of the too
indulgent tone of the critiques and the manner in which a vast number
of my most monstrous fallacies have passed unchallenged. I will not
repeat that powerful article here, for it cannot be necessary to do
anything more than warn the reader against the perfectly indefensible
line of argument adopted at the end of p. 28. I am also conscious that
the title of the book is, strictly speaking, inaccurate. It is a legal
metaphor, and, speaking legally, a defendant is not an enthusiast for the
character of King John or the domestic virtues of the prairie-dog. He is
one who defends himself, a thing which the present writer, however
poisoned his mind may be with paradox, certainly never dreamed of
attempting.
Criticism upon the book considered as literature, if it can be so
considered, I should, of course, never dream of discussing--firstly,
because it is ridiculous to do so; and, secondly, because there was, in
my opinion, much justice in such criticism.
But there is one matter on which an author is generally considered as
having a right to explain himself, since it has nothing to do with
capacity or intelligence, and that is the question of his morals.
I am proud to say that a furious, uncompromising, and very effective
attack was made upon what was alleged to be the utter immorality of
this book by my excellent friend Mr. C.F.G. Masterman, in the
'Speaker.' The tendency of that criticism was to the effect that I was
discouraging improvement and disguising scandals by my offensive
optimism. Quoting the passage in which I said that 'diamonds were to
be found in the dust-bin,' he said: 'There is no difficulty in finding good
in what humanity rejects. The difficulty is to find