William got his coveted impression.

The two must have suited each other a good deal better than
Chesterton and the more conventional brother. Of Henry's reactions
there was a comment from the other side of the Atlantic.

The _Louisville Post_ reported that Henry James, being asked on a
visit to his native country, "What do you think of Chesterton in
England?" replied "In England we do not think of Chesterton." The
_Post_ commented rather neatly "This 'we' of our compatriot must be
considered as either mythical or editorial--unless indeed it refers
to that small and exquisite circle which immediately surrounds and
envelopes him." In his _Autobiography_ Gilbert is appreciative but
amusing, describing Henry James's reactions to the arrival of Belloc
from a walking tour unbrushed, unwashed and unshaven. After reading
_Dickens_, William wrote from Cambridge, Mass.:

O, Chesterton, but you're a darling! I've just read your
Dickens--it's as good as Rabelais. Thanks!

Wells, asked to debate with Gilbert, wrote to Frances:

Spade House, Sandgate. (undated)

DEAR MRS. CHESTERTON

God forbid that I should seem a pig [here a small pig is drawn] and
indeed I am not and of all the joys in life nothing would delight me
more than a controversy with G.K.C., whom indeed I adore. [Here is
drawn a tiny Wells adoring a vast Chesterton.]

But--I have been recklessly promising all and everyone who asks me to
lecture or debate; "If ever I do so again it will be for you," and if
once I break the vow I took last year--

Also we are really quite in agreement. It's a mere difference in
fundamental theory which doesn't really matter a rap--except for
after dinner purposes.

Yours ever,

H. G. Wells.

Frances thought Wells was good for Gilbert, he tells me, because he
took him out walking, but when the two men were alone Gilbert would
say supplicatingly "We won't go for a walk today, will we?" "He
thought it terrifying," said Wells, "the way my wife tidied up."
Frances, too, tidied up, but cautiously. "She prevented G.K.," says
Wells, "from becoming too physically gross. He ought not to have been
allowed to use the word 'jolly' more than forty times a day."

He could not, Wells thought, have gone on living in a London which
was that of ordinary social life, whether Mayfair or Bloomsbury.
"Either the country or Dr. Johnson's London." And of the relation
seen by Chesterton between liber