Tremendous Trifles
Jul. 29th, 2014 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliTremendous Trifles by G. K. Chesterton
A collection of essays in which Chesterton holds forth on all sorts of topics -- some actually trifling, some not -- in a vast, expansive manner. Not for people not in a mood for whimsy.
An extended metaphor about the wind and the trees and the realities of life: "You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind."
A mediation on the pleasures of lying in bed, "Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
The time he found himself stymied for a piece of white chalk until he remember he was sitting on a rock in Sussex -- it was made of chalk, that rock.
The time he went on a trip:
And his experiences on a jury, and how he found himself on a train carrying a dead man, and much more.
A collection of essays in which Chesterton holds forth on all sorts of topics -- some actually trifling, some not -- in a vast, expansive manner. Not for people not in a mood for whimsy.
An extended metaphor about the wind and the trees and the realities of life: "You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind."
A mediation on the pleasures of lying in bed, "Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
The time he found himself stymied for a piece of white chalk until he remember he was sitting on a rock in Sussex -- it was made of chalk, that rock.
The time he went on a trip:
More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, a friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded with half-packed luggage.
"You seem to be off on your travels," he said. "Where are you going?"
With a strap between my teeth I replied, "To Battersea."
"The wit of your remark," he said, "wholly escapes me."
"I am going to Battersea," I repeated, "to Battersea viâ Paris, Belfort, Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained simply the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once more I find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, somewhere in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little island which I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great white cliffs. Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch travellers tell me that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour that somewhere in the heart of it there is a beautiful place called Battersea."
"I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you," said my friend, with an air of intellectual comparison, "that this is Battersea?"
"It is quite unnecessary," I said, "and it is spiritually untrue. I cannot see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or any England. I cannot see that door. I cannot see that chair: because a cloud of sleep and custom has come across my eyes. The only way to get back to them is to go somewhere else; and that is the real object of travel and the real pleasure of holidays. Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? I shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking. I am seeking Battersea. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. Now I warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and heavy, and that if you utter that word 'paradox' I shall hurl it at your head. I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical. It is not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go to England is to go away from it."
And his experiences on a jury, and how he found himself on a train carrying a dead man, and much more.