odoxy is
exactly what we should expect to find. There is a great deal of what is
undeniably true in this book; there is also, I venture to think, a good
deal that is undeniably untrue. I do not think it is unfair to say that
in some respects Chesterton allows his cleverness to lead him to certain
errors of judgment, and a certain levity in dealing with matters that
are to a number of people so sacred that to reinterpret them is almost
to blaspheme.

I am thinking of the chapter in this book that is a reply to Mr. McCabe,
an ex-Roman Catholic, who, being a keen logician, is now a rationalist.
He accuses Chesterton of joking with the things _de profundis_.

Certain clergymen have also taken exception to Chesterton's writings on
the ground of this supposed levity. It is merely that he sees that the
Bible has humour, because it has said that 'God laughed and winked.' I
do not think he intends to offend, but for many people any idea of
humour in the Bible is repugnant, and this view is not confined to
clergymen.

In an absolutely charming chapter Chesterton writes of the literature of
the servant girl, which is really the literature of Park Lane. It is the
literature of Park Lane, for the very obvious reason that it is probably
never read there; but the literature is about Park Lane, and is read by
those who may live as near it as Balham or Surbiton. What he contends,
and rightly, is that the general reader likes to hear about an
environment outside his own. It is inherent in us that we always really
want to be somewhere else; which is fortunate, as it makes it certain
that the world will never come to an end through a universal
contentment. It has been said that contentment is the essence of
perfection. It is equally true that the essence of perfection is
discontent, a striving for something else. This, I think, Chesterton
feels when he says of the penny novelette that it is the literature to
'teach a man to govern empires or look over the map of mankind.'

Rudyard Kipling finds a warm spot in Chesterton's heart, but he is a
little too militaristic, which is exactly what he is not. Kipling loves
soldiers, which is no real reason why he should be disliked as a
militarist. Many a servant girl loves a score of soldiers, she may even
write odes to her pet sergeant, but she is not necessarily a militarist.
Rudyard Kipling likes soldiers and writes of them. He does not, as
Chesterton lays to his charge, 'worship militarism.'