ubstance the complainants against _Orthodoxy_ grown more
vehement with the passage of years.

The idea had been adumbrated of calling one of his books: _Joking
Apart_ and only rejected because of the fear that if he said he was
_not_ joking everyone would be quite certain that he was. This
greatly amused G.K. and he began the book (it actually appeared as
_The Well and the Shallows_) with "An Apology for Buffoons." After
defending the human instinct of punning he remarked that "many
moderns suffer from the disease of the suppressed pun." They are
actuated even in their thinking by merely verbal association.

I for one greatly prefer the sort of frivolity that is thrown to
the surface like froth to the sort of frivolity that festers under
the surface like slime. To pelt an enemy with a foolish pun or two
will never do him any grave injustice; the firework is obviously a
firework and not a deadly fire. It may be playing to the gallery, but
even the gallery knows it is only playing.*

[* _Well and Shallows_, pp. 11-12.]

Such playing was a necessity if the gallery, i.e. all the people,
were to be made to listen; if the things you were thinking about were
important to them as well as to yourself: if the ideas were more
important than the dignity or reputation of the person who uttered
them. In this book Gilbert sketched briefly one side of his reason
for feeling these ideas of paramount importance for everybody. "My
Six Conversions" concerned reasons given him by the world that would
have made him become a Catholic if he were not one already.

He had been brought up to treasure liberty and in his boyhood the
world had seemed freer than the Church. Today in a world of Fascism,
Communism and Bureaucracy the Church alone offered a reasoned
liberty. He had been brought up to reverence certain ideals of
purity: today they were laughed at everywhere but in the Church. The
"sure conclusions" of Science that had stood foursquare in his
boyhood had become like a dissolving view. Liberalism had abdicated
when the people of Spain freely chose the Church and English Liberals
defended the forcing upon them of a minority rule. "There are no
Fascists; there are no Socialists; there are no Liberals; there are
no Parliamentarians. There is the one supremely inspiring and
irritating institution in the world and there are its enemies." Above
all, he felt increasingly, as time went on that those who left the
Faith did n