ty and conviviality he said, "Every
time he lifted a glass of wine he lifted it against Cadbury."

In spite of growing restrictions as to sales and hours the Inn still
remained for Chesterton a symbol of freedom in a world increasingly
enslaved. It was pointed out to him how great a peril lay in drink,
how homes were broken up and families destroyed through drunkenness.
After the war began, a letter from one of his readers stressed a real
danger:

Now I do beg you, Mr. Chesterton, much as you love writing in
praise of drink, to give it a rest during the war. . . . You may have
the degradation of any number of silly boys to your account without
knowing it. . . .

I have written with a freedom--you will say perhaps rudeness--which
a casual meeting with you, and a great admiration for your work by no
means justifies, but which other things perhaps do. I beg you to
forgive me.

It seems to me that this charge he never quite answered. To claim
liberty is one thing, to hymn the glories of wine is quite another.
And when he was attacked for the latter he always defended the
former, saying that he did not deny the peril but that all freedom
meant peril--peril must be preferred to slavery. There were things in
which a man must be free to choose even if his choice be evil. This
was a part of Chesterton's whole philosophy about drink--a subject on
which he wrote constantly. It is interesting to note the stages of
its development in his mind.

The Chesterton family had not a Puritan tradition in the sense of
being teetotal. But Lucian Oldershaw tells me that in their boyhood
he always felt G.K. himself to be a bit of a Puritan and I have come
upon a boyish poem that seems to confirm this in the matter of wine.

THE TEA POT

Raised high on tripod, flashing bright, the Holy Silver Urn
Within whose inmost cavern dark, the secret waters burn
Before the temple's gateway the subject tea-cups bow
And pass it steaming with thy gift, thy brown autumnal glow.
Within thy silver fortress, the tea-leaf treasure piled
O'er which the fiery fountain pours its waters undefiled
Till the witch-water steals away the essence they enfold
And dashes from the yawning spout a torrent-arch of gold.
Then fill an honest cup my lads and quaff the draught amain
And lay the earthen goblet down, and fill it yet again
Nor heed the curses on the cup that rise from Folly's school
The sneering