down
the French wealth; and had then seen pass before him that awful
panorama of the wrecks of the French Republican Army; heart-shaking,
like a resurrection of the dead. . . . I do not admit, therefore,
that in supporting the French peasants and soldiers against the money
dealers and wire-pullers of the town, I am attacking America or even
merely defending France.*

[* _G.K.'s Weekly_, Sept. 1, 1926.]

On November 6 and 13, 1926 he writes two articles on "The Yankee and
the Chinaman," in which he contrasts the philosophic spirit with the
so-called scientific. Like Bishop Barnes in England wanting to
analyse the Consecrated Host, Edison was reported in America as
having said that he would find out if there was a soul by some
scientific test:

Any philosophic Chinaman would know what to think of a man who
said, "I have got a new gun that will shoot a hole through your
memory of last Monday," or "I have got a saw sharp enough to cut up
the cube root of 666," or "I will boil your affection for Aunt Susan
until it is quite liquid."

In 1927 Gilbert, Frances and Dorothy spent a month in Poland where
immense enthusiasm was shown for the man who had consistently
proclaimed Poland's greatness and its true place in Europe.

Invited by the Government, "all the hospitality I received," he says,
"was far too much alive to remind me of anything official." One of
the multitude of unwritten books of which G.K. dreamed was a book
about Poland. The Poles and the English were, he felt, alike in many
things but the Englishman had never been given the opportunity to
understand the Pole. We knew nothing of their history and did not
understand the resurrection we had helped to bring about. "The
nonsense talked in the newspapers when they discuss what they call
the Polish Corridor" was only possible from want of realisation of
what Poland had been before she was rent in three by Prussia, Austria
and Russia. Thus too we did not realise "the self-evident fact that
the Poles always have a choice of evils." Pilsudski told him that _of
the two_ he preferred Germany to Russia, while Dmowski voiced the
more general opinion in telling him that _of the two_ he preferred
Russia to Germany. For the moment at any rate tortured Poland was
herself and incredibly happy. Revival in this agricultural country
had been amazingly swift. Peasant proprietors abounded and lived well
on twelve acres or so, while even labourer