Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/214

188 THE GUILT OF MR. CHESTERTON It is a violence that seems somehow daemonic. It is a vividness like the unclean clarity that comes with drugs. It is like moving in a world of gargoyles, among the devils on Notre Dame. Now the change may be merely due to sudden spurts of real energy — Mr. Chesterton's true gifts, tired of tomfoolery, burst- ing out into mutinous roars. Or there may be some- thing in it of that kind of devil-worship, that fascinated insistence on evil, which goes along with some fiery sorts of religion. Or, again, it may be only the result of lashing an invention tired of its nice new game. These are matters for the moralists. But the technical crime, which is all a mere Valentin may deal with, is in any case the same ; and it is that technical transgression which produces this atmosphere of evil, this sense of unlawful powers. It is the evil of ugliness, of deformity — and the deformity is fundamentally due to the disparity between energy and outlet. It is this inadequacy that drives the perspectives mad and fills the trees with a frightening energy — hints at solemn significance where there is none and darkens impossible crimes till they swell into symbols of Sin. *' Pooh ! " cries Mr. Chesterton cheerily. " You are too easily terrified nowadays. The men who carved gargoyles did it out of jollity, sitting in the sun and drinking ale like brothers." Maybe ; but at least they did it to lighten an ancient faith, not to give weight to a joke. That, indeed, was the true superiority of the Middle Ages : they did give their dreamers and carvers a task even bigger than their power. And even later on, with cathedrals all cut and dried, lyrics could still be complemented with campaigns — or, better still, the blood and the ink could be blended by writing books which relied on men's living bodies as much as they did on dead words. Born too late for campaigns, Mr. Chesterton has to try to satisfy the militant side of