or the winter months. One can only suppose
that Mrs. Cecil was so little intimate with them that she did not
realise all this.

And then Beaconsfield itself--parties in the Studio; people down from
London, visitors from Poland, France, America, Italy, Holland and
other countries; the Eric Gills, the Bernard Shaws, the Garvins, the
Emile Cammaerts and others living in the neighborhood; the guest room
always occupied by some intimate. Meanwhile the books poured out of
the little study. Mrs. Cecil thinks Gilbert hardly ever again wrote a
masterpiece after leaving Battersea, yet in support of this idea she
lists as masterpieces _The Ball and the Cross_ (written at
Beaconsfield), _Lepanto_ (written at Beaconsfield), _Magic_ (written
at Beaconsfield), _Stevenson_ (written at Beaconsfield) and _The
Ballad of the White Horse_(mainly written at Beaconsfield). Of all
the books she mentions in this connection only three were written in
London! And she admits that the world at large did not share her view
of the sterilizing effect of Beaconsfield, for she writes, "Meanwhile
his fame grew wider, his sales greater. In exile he ruled a literary
world."*

[* P. 83.]

Gilbert left to Mrs. Cecil Chesterton sums equal to those later left
to her by Frances--L1000 for herself and L500 for Cecil Houses.

The ingratitude that omitted all mention of these benefactions struck
the imagination of several of the Chesterton family as the worst
feature in the book. But to Gilbert and Frances the giving of money
even in their own lifetime was a slight matter. They had given
something far greater.

Why is the memory of Cecil Chesterton alive today? Because of his
brother's labors. Why is it possible for Mrs. Cecil to declare that
he was the greater editor, to imply that he was the greater man?
Because Gilbert kept saying so. Never has such devotion been shown by
one brother to the memory of another: never has the greater man
exalted the lesser to such a pedestal.

We are told in _The Chestertons_ that Frances sacrificed both Gilbert
and herself on the altar of her family. Truly there was much
self-sacrifice in the lives of both to family, friends and causes.
They did not feel it as self-sacrifice to enrich the lives of others
even at cost to themselves.

But the heaviest cost they paid lay in the years of a toil that was
literally killing Gilbert while Frances watched him growing old too
soon and straining his heart with work crushingly heav