yet more powerfully. He might have
claimed for himself what he said of earlier writers--it is not true
that they did not see our modern difficulties: they saw through them.
Never before had this contest been won by any but an Eighth Form boy,
and almost immediately afterwards Gilbert was amazed to find a short
notice posted on the board: "G. K. Chesterton to rank with the
Eighth.--F. W. Walker, High Master."

The High Master at any rate had travelled far from the atmosphere of
the form reports when Mrs. Chesterton visited him in 1894 to ask his
advice about her son's future. For he said, "Six foot of genius.
Cherish him, Mrs. Chesterton, cherish him."

CHAPTER IV

Art Schools and University College

WHEN ALL GILBERT'S friends were at Oxford or Cambridge, he used to
say how glad he was that his own choice had been a different one. He
never sighed for Oxford. He never regretted his rather curious
experiences at an Art School--two Art Schools really, although he
only talks of one in the _Autobiography_, for he was for a short time
at a School of Art in St. John's Wood (Calderon's, Lawrence Solomon
thought), whence he passed to the Slade School. He was there from
1892 to 1895 and during part of that time he attended lectures on
English Literature at University College.

The chapter on the experiences of the next two years is called in the
_Autobiography_," How to be a Lunatic," and there is no doubt that
these years were crucial and at times crucifying in Gilbert's life.
During a happily prolonged youth (he was now eighteen and a half) he
had developed very slowly, but normally. Surrounded by pleasant
friendships and home influences he had never really become aware of
evil. Now it broke upon him suddenly--probably to a degree
exaggerated by his strong imagination and distorted by the fact that
he was undergoing physical changes usually belonging to an earlier
age.

Towards the end of his school life Gilbert's voice had not yet
broken. His mother took him to a doctor to be overhauled and was told
that his brain was the largest and most sensitive the doctor had ever
seen. "A genius or an idiot" was his verdict on the probabilities.
Above all things she was told to avoid for him any sort of shock.
Physically, mentally, spiritually he was on a very large scale and
probably for that reason of a slow rate of development. The most
highly differentiated organisms are the slowest to mature, and
without question Gilbe