Paradoxes of Mr. Pond
G. K. Chesterton
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1937.
G. K. Chesterton is almost as good as his fanatical devotees (the G. K. Chesterton society, from whom I learned about the author when I wanted to identify a quotation by 'Chesterton' sent to me by Ben Alamed) make him out to be— and they deify him.
The paradoxes of Mr. Pond are clever, well-written stories. G. K. Chesterton could write about his stories as stories in the story without taking you out of the story, such as when discussing art versus life. I want to read more Chesterton, especially his more famous Father Brown series and more serious philisophical treatises.
As is my wont with fiction, I transcribe fewer excerpts than with nonfiction.
“Three Horsemen of Apocalypse”
Paul Petrowski was one of those utterly unpractical men who are of prodigious importance in practical politics. [. . .] At home [. . .] he was a torch and trumpet of revolutionary hopes, especially then, in the sort of international crisis in which practical politicians disappear, and their place is taken by men either more or less practical than themselves. For the true idealist and the real realist have at least a love of action in common. And the practical politician thrives by offering practical objections to any action. What the idealist does may be unworkable, and what the man of action does may be unscrupulous; but in neither trade can a man win a reputation by doing nothing.
“The Crime of Captain Gahagan”
“I believe,” began Mr. Pond, rather nervously, “that your paper is inquiring about what some call Private Execution, and I call murder, but––”
“Love never needs time. But friendship always needs time. [. . .]”
“When Doctors Agree”
Paradox has been defined as “Truth standing on her head to attract attention.” Paradox has been defended; on the ground that so many fashionable fallacies still stand firmly on their feet, because they have no heads to stand on. But it must be admitted that writers, like other mendicants and mountebanks, frequently do try to attract attention. They set out conspicuously, in a single line in a play, or at the head or tail of a paragraph, remarks of this challenging kind; as when Mr. Bernard Shaw wrote: “The Golden Rule is that there is no Golden Rule.”; or Oscar Wilde observed: “I can resist everything except temptation”; or as a duller scribe (not to be named with these and now doing penance for his earlier vices in the nobler toil of celebrating the virtues of Mr. Pond) said in defence of hobbies and amateurs and general duffers like himself: “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” To these things do writers sink; and then the critics tell them that they &30147;talk for effect”; and then the writers answer: “What the devil else should we talk for?”: “What the devil else should we talk for? Ineffectualness?” It is a sordid scene. [Page 63.
Nice swipe at newspapers
“To speak with candour, my dear Pond, I should say that of all the trackless and aimless and rabling human statements I have ever heard, the most rambling was the narrative we have just been privileged to hear form you. [. . .]”
“I know,” said Mr. Pond patiently, “all I’ve said is quite relevant to what really happened; but, of course, you don’t know what really happened. A story always does seem rambling and futile if you leave out what really happened. That’s why newspapers are so dull. All the political news, and much of the police news (though rather higher in tone than the other), is made quite bewildering and pointless by the necessity of telling stories withot telling the story.”
Pages 77-78.
“The Unmentionable Man”
“I understand the horrid truth that you yourself are a perfectly honourable and high-minded person and that your own problem is extremely difficult to solve. I assure you that I am quite incapable of taunting you with it. It was to the Republic, the idea of equality and justice, that you swore loyalty; and to that you have been loyal.”
[. . .]
“You had better say what you think,” said Marcus gloomily. “You mean that I am really only serving a gang of crooks [. . .]”“No, I will not ask you to admit that now,” answered Pond. “Just now I wanted to ask you quite another question. Can’t you imagine a man be sympathizing with the strikers, or even being a sincere Socialist?”
“Well,” replied Marcus, after a spasm of concentration, “I suppose one ought to imagine. I suppose he might hold that, the Republic resting on the Social Contract, it might supersede even free contracts.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Pond with satisfaction, “that is exactly what I wanted. It is an important contribution to Pond’s Law of Paradox, if I may be pardoned for expressing myself so playfully. And now let us go and talk to M. Louis.”
He stood up before the astonished official, who had no apparent alternative but to follow him as he passed swiftly across the café. Some vivacious and talkative young men were taking leave of M. Louis, who courteously invited the newcomers to the empty chairs, saying something about “my young friends often enliven my solitude with their rather Socialistic views.”
“I should not agree with your young friends,” said Marcus curtly, “I am so old-fashioned as to believe in free contract.”
“I, being older, perhaps believe in it even more,” answered M. Louis smiling. “But surely it is a very old principle of law that a leonine contract is not a free contract. And it is hypocrisy to pretend that a bargain between a starving man and a man with all the food is anything but a leonine contract.”
Pages 140-141. (Transcriber changed "aross the café" in the text to "across the café" here.)
Arguing for as opposed to from principles
“[. . .] Men may argue for principles not their own, for various reasons; as a joke in a rag debate, or covered by professional etiquett, like a barrister, or merely exaggerating something neglected and needing emphasis; long before we can come to those who do it hypocritically or for hire. A man can argue for principles not his own. But a man cannot argue from principles not his own; the first principles he assumes, even for sophistry or advocacy, will probably be his own fundamental first principles. The very language he uses will betray him. [. . .]”
“Ring of Lovers”
“As I said before,” observed Mr. Pond, towards the end of one of his lucid but rather lengthy speeches, “our friend Gahagan here is a very truthful man and tells wanton and unneccessary lies. But this very truthfulness—”
Captain Gahagan waved a gloved hand as in courteous acknowledgement of anything anybody liked to say [. . .] But Sir Hubert Wotton, the third party at the little conference, sat up. [. . .]
“Say that again,” he said, not without sarcasm.
“Surely that is obvious enough,” pleaded Mr. Pond. “A real liar does not tell wanton and unnecessary lies. He tells wise and necessary lies. It was not necessary for Gahagan to tell us once that he had seen not one sea-serpent but six sea-serpents, each larger than the last; still less to inform us that each reptile in turn swallowed the last one whole; and that the last of all was opening its mouth to swallow the ship, when he saw it was only a yawn after too heavy a meal, and the monster suddenly went to sleep. I will not dwell on the mathematical symmetry with which snake within snake yawned, and snake within snake went to sleep, all except the smallest, which had no dinner and walked out to look for some. It was not, I say, necessary for Gahagan to tell this story. It was hardly even wise. It is very unlikely that it would promote his worldly prospects, or gain him any rewards or decorations for scientific research. The official scientific world, I know not why, is prejudiced against any story even of one sea-serpent, and would be the less likely to accept the narrative in its present form.
“Or again, when Captain Gahagan told us he had been a Broad Church missionary, and had readily preached in the pulpits of Nonconformists, then in the mosques of Moslems, then in the monastaries of Tibet, but was most warmly welcomed by a mystical sect of Theists in those parts, people in a state of supreme spiritual exaltation who worshipped him like a god, until he found they were enthusiasts for Human Sacrifice and he was the victim. This statement was also quite unnecessary. To have been a latitudinarian clergyman is but little likely to advance him in his present profession, or to fit him for his present pursuits. I suspect the story was partially a parable or allegory. But anyhow, it was quite unnecessary and it was obviously untrue. And when a thing is obviously untrue, it is obviously not a lie.”
Pages 149-150.
Life and art
“[. . .] Life is artistic in parts, but not as a whole; it’s like broken bits of different works of art. When everything hangs together, and it all fits in, we doubt. I might even believe that Gahagan saw six sea-serpents; but not that each was larger than the last. If he’d said there was first a large one and then a little one and then a larger one, he might have taken us in. We often say that one social situation is like being in a novel; but it doesn’t finish like the novel–at least, not the same novel.”
Page 151.
- deify
- 1. to make a god of. 2. to worship; exalt.
- Theist
- believer in the existence of a god or gods.
- transcribe
- to write or type a copy of.
- wont
- customary habit, practice.