ed from _T.P.'s Weekly_ by
courtesy of the editor, Mr. Holbrook Jackson.

HILAIRE BELLOC

THE MAN AND HIS WORK

CHAPTER I

MR. BELLOC AND THE PUBLIC

A CASE FOR LEGISLATION _AD HOC_

We stand upon the brink of a superb adventure. To rummage about in the
lumber-room of a bygone period: to wipe away the dust from
long-neglected annals: to burnish up old facts and fancies: to piece
together the life-story of some loved hero long dead: that is a work of
reverent thought to be undertaken in peace and seclusion. But to plunge
boldly into the study of a living personality: to strive to measure the
greatness of a man just entering the fullness of his powers: to attempt
to grasp the nature of that greatness: this is to go out along the road
of true adventure, the road which is hard to travel, the road which has
no end.

Naturally we cannot hope in this little study to escape those
innumerable pitfalls into which contemporary criticism always stumbles.
It is impossible to-day to view Mr. Belloc and his work in that due
perspective so beloved of the don. No doubt we shall crash headlong into
the most shocking errors of judgement, exaggerating this feature and
belittling that in a way that will horrify the critic of a decade or two
hence. Mr. Belloc himself may turn and rend us: deny our premises:
scatter our syllogisms: pulverize our theories.

This only makes our freedom the greater. Scientific analysis being
beyond attainment, we are tied down by no rules. When we have examined
Mr. Belloc's work and Mr. Belloc's personality, we are free to put
forward (provided we do not mind them being refuted) what theories we
choose. Nothing could be more alluring.

In a book about Mr. Belloc the reader may have expected to make Mr.
Belloc's acquaintance on the first page. But Mr. Belloc is a difficult
man to meet. Even if you have a definite appointment with him (as you
have in this book) you cannot be certain that you will not be obliged to
wait. Every day of Mr. Belloc's life is so full of engagements that he
is inevitably late for some of them. But his courtesy is invariable: and
he will often make himself a little later by stopping to ring you up in
order to apologize for his lateness and to assure you that he will be
with you in a quarter of an hour.

We may imagine him, then, hastening to meet us in one of those taxicabs
of which he is so bountiful a patron, and, in the interval, before we
make his personal