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    The Man Who Was Thursday
    The Man Who Was Thursday
    The Man Who Was Thursday
    Ebook217 pages2 hours

    The Man Who Was Thursday

    By G. K. Chesterton

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    First published in 1908, G. K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday” has been described as a metaphysical thriller. It is the story of Gabriel Syme, who is recruited by Scotland Yard as part of an anti-anarchist task force. When he meets Lucian Gregory, a poet and member of a secret society of anarchists, he gains access to the underground movement. The group is lead by a central council of seven men, each named for a day of the week. Gabriel convinces the local chapter to elect him to the vacant position of “Thursday” and he soon discovers that he is not the only one pretending to be something that he is not. What follows is one of the most absurd and clever plots to ever have been written, one in which Chesterton’s wonderfully high-spirited prose carries the reader along in a boisterous rush. Arguably the author’s finest work, certainly his most popular, “The Man Who Was Thursday” is a wild, mad, hilarious and profoundly moving tale that ultimately defies classification. This edition includes a biographical afterword.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateSep 27, 2018
    ISBN9781420958904
    Author

    G. K. Chesterton

    G.K. Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, and theologian who lived and wrote at the turn of the 20th century. He was a prolific writer, producing fiction and nonfiction along with essays, poetry, and plays. Chesterton is best known for his creation of the priest-detective character Father Brown and for his book Orthodoxy which has become a classic of Christian apologetics.

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    Reviews for The Man Who Was Thursday

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      A strange and startling book. At one level, a spoof of anarchism. At another level, a spoof of police efforts to infiltrate gangs and expose them. At still a deeper level, a metaphysical dream novel. The last point comes to sneak up on you, and hits you hard in the last few chapters of the book. It does well to remember the subtitle of the book, as Chesterton himself pointed out very shortly before he died.
    • 5/5
      I suspect that this dream will linger within me for years to come. The philosophical and political currents pale compared to the intrinsic visions within, the idea that the six all saw their childhood in the penultimate geography is a telling terror.
    • 4/5
      A poet who is converted by Scotland Yard into an undercover policeman trying to take down a group of elite anarchists finds himself thick in their midst, elected to their top council of seven leaders, each going by the name of a different day of the week. As his adventure unfolds, Syme (aka Thursday) begins to question not only his own role in the drama, but the very fabric of the world.Whoa, this was one crazy ride. I'm not certain that I completely understand what's going on in here, but I do know that it's a complete hoot. Think The Prisoner meets a darker, more urbane Narnia.
    • 4/5
      Expect the unexpected.
    • 4/5
      Once the story was established, it was quite predictable, but nonetheless enjoyable. The last chapter was perplexing to me, though. Not sure how I feel about it.
    • 4/5
      Unique. And very, very good. While some things are clearly forseeable, the book leaves you puzzling until the end, and after (if you count what Chesterton wrote about it 30 years later). The little notes that appear during the (paper?) chase are hilarious. ("What about Martin Tupper now?" What indeed.
    • 1/5
      I don't know why this book is listed as crime. There is no actual crime involved. Just a lot of hysterical policemen running around trying to arrest each other when they are all undercover. If you want to read this book start by expecting Alice in wonderland. It make about as much sense. It even references Alice a few times. It then devolves even further to some sort of religious allegory that even the author says he was pulling out if a hat. ( last couple of pages on the penguin edition I read ) In short, if you want a story that has no logic, reason or intelligent characters but is heavy on religious symbolism this is the one for you. Personally it just made my brain itch. And not in a good way.
    • 4/5
      Strange story, typically Chesterton, magic realism of his own kind, wonderful details. There is some point to this book, I think, but with GK the point is not the thing. The magic is more interesting than the realism, and there is more of it.
    • 3/5
      I do love Chesterton's writing, but this one got away from me a little bit. I had difficulty following the characters (could have been a personal problem).Gabriel Syme, poet & undercover detective, meets a man on the street, and after challenging him about his supposed anarchism, follows him to a meeting of anarchists. Somehow, Gabriel ends up being voted to the "grand council" of anarchists, all of whom are named after the days of the week. Gabriel becomes Thursday, and finds himself caught between planning a bombing and, of course, the fact that he is a policeman. The story gets more and more bizarre and convoluted, often hilarious, until towards the end, when I found it a mess.But it wasn't long, and I'm glad I read it.
    • 5/5
      This is a heck of a book. Do not shelve it next to The Iron Dragon's Daughter because I think they would annihilate each other or something.
    • 4/5
      A long time ago I read several of the Father Brown mysteries. This is a less-conventional bird, but didn't live up to its billing as an unpredictable ride. This novel's genre is heralded as difficult to pin down, but it's easily categorized as Christian allegory. There's plenty of meant-to-be-fun nonsense about police versus anarchists that becomes a slog if you see the emerging pattern. Much of this tale rings less farcical in today's world. Anarchists are anything but comic when anyone with an extreme viewpoint seems abundantly prepared to inflict massive casualities to make their point. Modern perspective's wounding of this story comes to a head with the conclusion. Read as giving answer to terrorists, it's a terribly poor one. I'm not convinced it was a great answer by the allegory interpretation either, but at least more palatable.
    • 5/5
      Allegories aren't my favorite kind of stories, but this one really stands out.
    • 3/5
      Bizarre but interesting story. At first, this seems to be a straightforward suspense thriller of police versus anarchists, but as the story progresses, it gets stranger and stranger.
    • 4/5
      Both policemen and anarchists go undercover as anarchists. If there were a central message, it escaped me, but the novel contains many entaining parts.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed reading this startling, at times riotously funny, often gorgeously written book. The ending perplexed me, however, and that's why I ultimately dropped my rating to 4 stars. I wouldn't recommend this as anyone's first foray into Chesterton, but if you've enjoyed Orthodoxy, this is likely a good place to start with his fiction. He's a marvelous writer.
    • 4/5
      Welp.

      This started off as a charming and fast-paced mystery story, and went completely fantastical/nuts by the end. Reminded me a bit of the Temptation of Saint Anthony combined with Kafka. As if PKD was plopped down in Victorian England and told to write a story before his drugs kicked in.

      I've always liked G. K. Chesteron - for distributism, for fighting eugenics, etc. As it turns out, he's also a very charming writer. I'm glad to become more acquainted with him.
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed this book until I got to the end. I was expecting a straightforward mystery/thriller, and then the ending was really strange. G.K. Chesterton is hard to understand sometimes.
    • 4/5
      ‘Humanity crushed once again’. ‘50 dead, 120 injured’. ‘Grave face of terror strikes again’. Familiar headlines scream through the pages of the newspapers each time a bomb goes off annihilating blameless lives. Through teeth gritting resilience, public outcry resonates through the deafened ears of failed intelligence and faith in the state’s law and order hangs by a thin string. As the weeks pass by rapid sketches of the alleged bombers, email links, forensic reports, collected evidence from the attacked ground and pictures of rehabilitating victims are splashed across the dailies. If by any chance the investigation comes through, anonymous visages covered with black rags are photographed outside the courtroom, readied for trial procedures, which may go on for months, maybe even years. As the days go by, life returns to normalcy (yes! It is a tricky word); everything is forgotten and the news fade until once again “humanity is crushed” by another dastardly attack. The analytical carnival starts once again. This is the time I dearly wish we had ‘philosophical policemen’ just like Chesterton describes in his book. Policemen- (officers of law), who would discover the book of sonnets and verses from where the crimes will be committed; those that recognize the intricate web of intellectual crimes. The derivation of dreadful thoughts- the human mind, so malicious and calculating camouflaged within an affluent, composed and erudite exterior. It is that very egocentric brainpower which churns out sadistic alterations from harmless verses and then picks vulnerable actors to craft that design into realism.

      “Evil philosopher is not trying to alter things but to annihilate them”.

      This book is more than a mere plot of undercover detectives and their clandestine exploration of the Secret anarchist Councilmen. Chesterton pens that a small time criminal is more of a good person. His aim is to eradicated only a certain obstacle and not annihilate the edifice. What caught my eye in one of the chapters was the elucidation of stereotyping poverty to rebellious festering.

      “You’ve got that eternal idiotic ides that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats are always anarchists; as you can see from the baron’s wars”.

      When a bomber or an active terrorist is caught, he mostly turns out to be from an impoverished background, where his ravenous mind and mislaid faith is manipulated to find refuge in an illusionary godly abode. These are mere actors for crying out loud, chosen by the scheming selfish elements who are coward enough to remain behind the backstage curtains. The affluent as elucidated in this narration are the ones to be feared. They have an abundance of monetary resources, have sheltering capacity in far away lands, if need be and have a mind that concocts the unexpected. Where do you think the enormous funds come for fertilizing terror? I do not want elucidate detailed reports of various pathways of monetary funds wired to definite cults or “charitable” institutions that ultimately fund the immoral actions. But, the currency sure is not a bequest from the poor or some excise complements from our paychecks. The respective courtesy comes from those societal fundamentals that remain unscathed or unfazed by decree. Who do you suppose manages the advanced scientific technologies in various bombing devices? The knowledgeable elite, isn’t it? The erudite or should I say the crème de la crème of religious preachers who instead of spreading peace and equality manipulates vulnerable populace digging their raw wounds every time through words that revolt in their bleeding wounds? I could go on and on, as it angers me to see such naivety among the elements of law and order or purposefully turning a blind eye on the so-called modernists who may be responsible in concocting the ongoing mayhem of lawlessness. Why couldn’t there be some ‘philosophical policemen’ here in India or any place that incessantly plays the role of a powerless victim?

      Chapter 4- The Tale of the Detective is the deciding chapter that outlines infinitesimal details of who Gabriel Syme really is. Syme sneaks his way into a clandestine council of seven men, each named after a day of the week. Syme becomes the inevitable Thursday though a pact he made with Lucian Gregory ,a poet and a true anarchist. Fear catches with Syme as his path deepens into the sinister world of the other six council men; the President being the most feared of all. Chesterton throws a light on various aspects of fear that thrives within and outside us. We rebel against the only side that corrupts us. What makes a mutineer and destroy the very notion of survival? We try and run from fear and pain, until one eventually catches up and makes us susceptible to uncouth rudiments that shelter our mental nakedness. It is the most treacherous survival, if every time we need proof of familiarity to feel safe. When fear caught up with Syme suffocating his senses, he would feel protected only if a blue card ( a source of identification given to every policemen in England) was shown to him. How vulnerable was Syme to live in a world of treachery and deceit? Makes me think of all the trepidation we feel every time we walk outside our homes or travel; the security checks, the sense of familiarity that we seek in bloodcurdling situations, the proof of safety that we search or reveal; spins a web of utter vulnerability that looms within the safest corners of our thoughts. The Man Who Was Thursday is a treasure that needs to be dug up by reading between the lines of a puzzling narrative to know what Chesterton is really saying.

      “Revolt in its abstract can be revolting. It is like vomiting.”

      Lastly, if everything leads to God and when nature if dissected reveals the face of God, then should I assume that evil is illusionary? Is malevolence the creation of couple menacing minds? If God means endurance then why is such mutinous extermination carried in God’s name after all?

    • 4/5
      'You spoke of a second question,' snapped Gregory. 
'With pleasure,' resumed Syme. 'In all your present acts and surroundings there is a scientific attempt at secrecy. I have an aunt who lived over a shop, but this is the first time I have found people living for preference under a public-house. You have a heavy iron door. You cannot pass it without submitting to the humiliation of calling yourself Mr Chamberlain. You surround yourself with steel instruments which make the place, if I may say so, more impressive than homelike. May I ask why, after taking all this trouble to barricade yourselves in the bowels of the earth, you then parade your whole secret by talking about anarchism to every silly woman in Saffron Park?'Gregory smiled.'The answer is simple,' he said. 'I told you I was a serious anarchist, and you did not believe me. Nor do they believe me. Unless I took them into this infernal room they would not believe me.'First published in 1908, "The Man Who Was Thursday" is the story of secret policeman Gabriel Syme's infiltration of an anarchist gang and election to its ruling council whose code names are taken from the days of the week. The subtitle says it all really, as the events become more and more dreamlike as the story progresses, and less and less like a real world spy story.
    • 5/5
      Oakes is right about this one. Of course, Oakes is usually right.
    • 5/5
      It's a classic spy novel of sorts. It's also absolutely hilarious, beautifully written, and happens to be a Christian allegory. I didn't quite catch all the allegorical elements, but I enjoyed it immensely just the same.
    • 4/5
      How does one review this? Let's see, it is the story of a dream, and as with all dreams I suppose, is open to interpretation. I'm not sure what to make of the meaning of it, the meaning floats in and out of my mind and I can't pin it down. However, the story itself was fun, quick to read and full of lovely word images. Now I must go and read more about it, then possibly read it again. Reading it again would be a pleasure.
    • 1/5
      I found a recommendation of this book in an article in the Atlantic, sought it out online and acquired an unusual printed on demand hardcover - it has Harry Lyme from the Thin Man movie on the cover. I was disappointed. The plot is the gradual revelation of a group of anarchists as all being in an intellectual police force, all recruited by the same man who is also the head of the anarchists association. They are named for the days of the week, with “Sunday” as the chief anarchist. There is a great deal of philosophical speculation and discussion, and an improbable chase across London, ending in the revelation that Sunday is somehow God Almighty. Antique language, unbelievable plot and characters, ending in religious blather.
    • 3/5
      The first half of this book is amazing, wonderful and very tightly conceived but I think it loses itself a little in the second half, when they go after Sunday. It is still memorable, though, and scenes have stayed with me. The ending is odd, as I was warned, but not uncharacteristic and I think it leaves a lovely taste in the mouth.
    • 5/5
      This is one very good book! Well written, short and fun. I need to re-read it though, thoroughly deserves a re-read.
    • 5/5
      first line: "The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset."I love Chesterton's language: from brilliantly witty dialogue to perfect visual descriptions. While social philosophy is not something about which I'd generally read, I love how this book presents it. Chesteron sublimates the silly, and treats the cosmos like a carnival. In his world, things may not always make sense...but I think that for Chesterton, more important than complete understanding is complete experience.
    • 5/5
      A fantastical story with more twists and turns than a labyrinth; this was a great read. I was able to anticipate some of the “surprises” but that in no way diminished my pleasure and the ending was magnificent—although many reviewers disliked it because it did not neatly tie up all the loose ends. However, this book was not about answers but questions.
    • 5/5
      Few books managed to give us the sensation that the world may be dream. This is one of those books. Chesterton's allegory give us a feeling of unreal world, where we are no more awaken than the protagonist. He created a world that Robert Louis Stevenson and Lewis Caroll before him and Borges and Kafka after managed to create. A nightmare that we follow with hardship.
    • 3/5
      Not having read Chesterton before, but knowing of him generally, I was expecting something along the lines of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, at least as regards the struggle between fiction and religion. In that novel, I have always found Raskolnikov’s conversion to Christianity to be unconvincing. What makes that novel amazing is its ability to conjure up Raskolnikov’s psychological character in full, and his jailhouse conversion seems to run contrary to what the novel has spent the bulk of its effort establishing, namely the interior of Raskolnikov’s mind. Christianity emerges not from within the novel, not from within Raskolnikov’s nature, but from without, imposed by the author.As he was a devout Christian, I expected Chesterton to fall into a similar trap in The Man Who Was Thursday, and to allow his convictions to delimit his imagination. In that regard, I was pleasantly surprised. The ending is wholly consistent with the rest of the novel, but in transitioning the novel fully into the realms of allegory, it leads to a different set of problems. The novel is not a form especially conducive to allegory, and if you don’t believe me, try to read Pilgrim’s Progress. As a set of ideas, it makes perfect sense, but to modern readers, it will seem like the barest skeleton of a narrative. Syme, Bull and the Marquis de St. Eustache are not fully imagined human beings in the way that Raskolnikov is, but Chesterton avoids Dostoevsky’s problem because he does not intend his characters to be anything other than what they are.As such, if Thursday is to be judged, it must be judged as an allegory. Allegories can take an abstract, intellectual argument and make it come to life. Two exemplars that suggest where Thursday falls short are Kafka’s “On Parables” and the story of the Prodigal Son from the New Testament. In a quarter page, Kafka produces a phenomenal riddle that seems to contain one of the mysteries of life. In the tale of the Prodigal Son, the whole essence of Christ’s message is condensed into the story of one man.It is no accident that both of these examples are parables. Part of the genius of allegory is its ability to condense whole lines of argument and give them a tactile reality, a genius that is best displayed in parables. The novel is a far more expansive form that the parable, and it is unclear what Chesterton accomplishes in a 200-page allegory that could not be performed more concisely in a parable. Those two hundred pages are not at all painful to read, but they add little to the allegory revealed in the final chapter. Furthermore, allegory cannot achieve its own end. In the story of Sunday, the text hopes to present a convincing theodicy, a mark it falls far short of.I also find it striking that when Chesterton and so many other turn of the century authors (Conrad, Dostoevsky) cast about for a danger that would imperil society, they fingered anarchism, not knowing that World War I lay just around the corner.
    • 5/5
      I wish there were an entire genre of books in which surreal turn-of-the-century anarchist conventions become nightmarish costume parties presided over by sinister, size-variable criminal masterminds, but I only know of this one. And, er, I guess there's some allegory or something to it as well.

    Book preview

    The Man Who Was Thursday - G. K. Chesterton

    cover.jpg

    THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY

    By G. K. CHESTERTON

    The Man Who Was Thursday

    By G. K. Chesterton

    Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5889-8

    eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5890-4

    This edition copyright © 2018. Digireads.com Publishing.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

    Cover Image: a detail of Piccadilly Circus at Night, c. 1911 (w/c and gouache on paper), by Thomas Prytherch (1864-1926) / Private Collection / Bridgeman Images.

    Please visit www.digireads.com

    CONTENTS

    Preface

    Chapter I. The Two Poets of Saffron Park

    Chapter II. The Secret of Gabriel Syme

    Chapter III. The Man Who Was Thursday

    Chapter IV. The Tale of a Detective

    Chapter V. The Feast of Fear

    Chapter VI. The Exposure

    Chapter VII. The Unaccountable Conduct of Professor De Worms

    Chapter VIII. The Professor Explains

    Chapter IX. The Man in Spectacles

    Chapter X. The Duel

    Chapter XI. The Criminals Chase the Police

    Chapter XII. The Earth in Anarchy

    Chapter XIII. The Pursuit of the President

    Chapter XIV. The Six Philosophers

    Chapter XV. The Accuser

    Biographical Afterword

    Preface

    A WILD, MAD, HILARIOUS AND PROFOUNDLY MOVING TALE

    It is very difficult to classify The Man Who Was Thursday. It is possible to say that it is a gripping adventure story of murderous criminals and brilliant policemen; but it was to be expected that the author of the Father Brown stories should tell a detective story like no-one else. On this level, therefore, The Man Who Was Thursday succeeds superbly; if nothing else, it is a magnificent tour-de-force of suspense-writing.

    However, the reader will soon discover that it is much more than that. Carried along on the boisterous rush of the narrative by Chesterton’s wonderful high-spirited style, he will soon see that he is being carried into much deeper waters than he had planned on; and the totally unforeseeable denouement will prove for the modern reader, as it has for thousands of others since 1908 when the book was first published, an inevitable and moving experience, as the investigators finally discover who Sunday is.

    TO EDMUND CLERIHEW BENTLEY

    A cloud was on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather, Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together. Science announced nonentity and art admired decay; The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay; Round us in antic order their crippled vices came— Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame. Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom, Men showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume. Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung; The world was very old indeed when you and I were young. They twisted even decent sin to shapes not to be named: Men were ashamed of honour; but we were not ashamed. Weak if we were and foolish, not thus we failed, not thus; When that black Baal blocked the heavens he had no hymns from us Children we were—our forts of sand were even as weak as eve, High as they went we piled them up to break that bitter sea. Fools as we were in motley, all jangling and absurd, When all church bells were silent our cap and beds were heard.

    Not all unhelped we held the fort, our tiny flags unfurled; Some giants laboured in that cloud to lift it from the world. I find again the book we found, I feel the hour that flings Far out of fish-shaped Paumanok some cry of cleaner things; And the Green Carnation withered, as in forest fires that pass, Roared in the wind of all the world ten million leaves of grass; Or sane and sweet and sudden as a bird sings in the rain— Truth out of Tusitala spoke and pleasure out of pain. Yea, cool and clear and sudden as a bird sings in the grey, Dunedin to Samoa spoke, and darkness unto day. But we were young; we lived to see God break their bitter charms. God and the good Republic come riding back in arms: We have seen the City of Mansoul, even as it rocked, relieved— Blessed are they who did not see, but being blind, believed.

    This is a tale of those old fears, even of those emptied hells, And none but you shall understand the true thing that it tells— Of what colossal gods of shame could cow men and yet crash, Of what huge devils hid the stars, yet fell at a pistol flash. The doubts that were so plain to chase, so dreadful to withstand— Oh, who shall understand but you; yea, who shall understand? The doubts that drove us through the night as we two talked amain, And day had broken on the streets e’er it broke upon the brain. Between us, by the peace of God, such truth can now be told; Yea, there is strength in striking root and good in growing old. We have found common things at last and marriage and a creed, And I may safely write it now, and you may safely read.

    G. K. C.

    Chapter I. The Two Poets of Saffron Park

    The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its sky-line was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical. It was described with some justice as an artistic colony, though it never in any definable way produced any art. But although its pretensions to be an intellectual centre were a little vague, its pretensions to be a pleasant place were quite indisputable. The stranger who looked for the first time at the quaint red houses could only think how very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit in to them. Nor when he met the people was he disappointed in this respect. The place was not only pleasant, but perfect, if once he could regard it not as a deception but rather as a dream. Even if the people were not artists, the whole was nevertheless artistic. That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face—that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem. That old gentleman with the wild, white beard and the wild, white hat—that venerable humbug was not really a philosopher; but at least he was the cause of philosophy in others. That scientific gentleman with the bald, egg-like head and the bare, bird-like neck had no real right to the airs of science that he assumed. He had not discovered anything new in biology; but what biological creature could he have discovered more singular than himself? Thus, and thus only, the whole place had properly to be regarded; it had to be considered not so much as a workshop for artists, but as a frail but finished work of art. A man who stepped into its social atmosphere felt as if he had stepped into a written comedy.

    More especially this attractive unreality fell upon it about nightfall, when the extravagant roofs were dark against the afterglow and the whole insane village seemed as separate as a drifting cloud. This again was more strongly true of the many nights of local festivity, when the little gardens were often illuminated, and the big Chinese lanterns glowed in the dwarfish trees like some fierce and monstrous fruit. And this was strongest of all on one particular evening, still vaguely remembered in the locality, of which the auburn-haired poet was the hero. It was not by any means the only evening of which he was the hero. On many nights those passing by his little back garden might hear his high, didactic voice laying down the law to men and particularly to women. The attitude of women in such cases was indeed one of the paradoxes of the place. Most of the women were of the kind vaguely called emancipated, and professed some protest against male supremacy. Yet these new women would always pay to a man the extravagant compliment which no ordinary woman ever pays to him, that of listening while he is talking. And Mr. Lucian Gregory, the red-haired poet, was really (in some sense) a man worth listening to, even if one only laughed at the end of it. He put the old cant of the lawlessness of art and the art of lawlessness with a certain impudent freshness which gave at least a momentary pleasure. He was helped in some degree by the arresting oddity of his appearance, which he worked, as the phrase goes, for all it was worth. His dark red hair parted in the middle was literally like a woman’s, and curved into the slow curls of a virgin in a pre-Raphaelite picture. From within this almost saintly oval, however, his face projected suddenly broad and brutal, the chin carried forward with a look of cockney contempt. This combination at once tickled and terrified the nerves of a neurotic population. He seemed like a walking blasphemy, a blend of the angel and the ape.

    This particular evening, if it is remembered for nothing else, will be remembered in that place for its strange sunset. It looked like the end of the world. All the heaven seemed covered with a quite vivid and palpable plumage; you could only say that the sky was full of feathers, and of feathers that almost brushed the face. Across the great part of the dome they were grey, with the strangest tints of violet and mauve and an unnatural pink or pale green; but towards the west the whole grew past description, transparent and passionate, and the last red-hot plumes of it covered up the sun like something too good to be seen. The whole was so close about the earth, as to express nothing but a violent secrecy. The very empyrean seemed to be a secret. It expressed that splendid smallness which is the soul of local patriotism. The very sky seemed small.

    I say that there are some inhabitants who may remember the evening if only by that oppressive sky. There are others who may remember it because it marked the first appearance in the place of the second poet of Saffron Park. For a long time the red-haired revolutionary had reigned without a rival; it was upon the night of the sunset that his solitude suddenly ended. The new poet, who introduced himself by the name of Gabriel Syme was a very mild-looking mortal, with a fair, pointed beard and faint, yellow hair. But an impression grew that he was less meek than he looked. He signalised his entrance by differing with the established poet, Gregory, upon the whole nature of poetry. He said that he (Syme) was poet of law, a poet of order; nay, he said he was a poet of respectability. So all the Saffron Parkers looked at him as if he had that moment fallen out of that impossible sky.

    In fact, Mr. Lucian Gregory, the anarchic poet, connected the two events.

    It may well be, he said, in his sudden lyrical manner, it may well be on such a night of clouds and cruel colours that there is brought forth upon the earth such a portent as a respectable poet. You say you are a poet of law; I say you are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder there were not comets and earthquakes on the night you appeared in this garden.

    The man with the meek blue eyes and the pale, pointed beard endured these thunders with a certain submissive solemnity. The third party of the group, Gregory’s sister Rosamond, who had her brother’s braids of red hair, but a kindlier face underneath them, laughed with such mixture of admiration and disapproval as she gave commonly to the family oracle.

    Gregory resumed in high oratorical good humour.

    An artist is identical with an anarchist, he cried. You might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything. He sees how much more valuable is one burst of blazing light, one peal of perfect thunder, than the mere common bodies of a few shapeless policemen. An artist disregards all governments, abolishes all conventions. The poet delights in disorder only. If it were not so, the most poetical thing in the world would be the Underground Railway.

    So it is, said Mr. Syme.

    Nonsense! said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else attempted paradox. Why do all the clerks and navvies in the railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket for that place they will reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next station were unaccountably Baker Street!

    It is you who are unpoetical, replied the poet Syme. If what you say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry. The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I say!

    Must you go? inquired Gregory sarcastically.

    I tell you, went on Syme with passion, that every time a train comes in I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, and that man has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuously that when one has left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. I say that one might do a thousand things instead, and that whenever I really come there I have the sense of hairbreadth escape. And when I hear the guard shout out the word ‘Victoria,’ it is not an unmeaning word. It is to me the cry of a herald announcing conquest. It is to me indeed ‘Victoria’; it is the victory of Adam.

    Gregory wagged his heavy, red head with a slow and sad smile.

    And even then, he said, we poets always ask the question, ‘And what is Victoria now that you have got there?’ You think Victoria is like the New Jerusalem. We know that the New Jerusalem will only be like Victoria. Yes, the poet will be discontented even in the streets of heaven. The poet is always in revolt.

    There again, said Syme irritably, what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I’m hanged if I can see why they are poetical. Revolt in the abstract is—revolting. It’s mere vomiting.

    The girl winced for a flash at the unpleasant word, but Syme was too hot to heed her.

    It is things going right, he cried, that is poetical I Our digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry. Yes, the most poetical thing, more poetical than the flowers, more poetical than the stars—the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.

    Really, said Gregory superciliously, the examples you choose—

    I beg your pardon, said Syme grimly, I forgot we had abolished all conventions.

    For the first time a red patch appeared on Gregory’s forehead.

    You don’t expect me, he said, to revolutionise society on this lawn?

    Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweetly.

    No, I don’t, he said; but I suppose that if you were serious about your anarchism, that is exactly what you would do.

    Gregory’s big bull’s eyes blinked suddenly like those of an angry lion, and one could almost fancy that his red mane rose.

    Don’t you think, then, he said in a dangerous voice, that I am serious about my anarchism?

    I beg your pardon? said Syme.

    Am I not serious about my anarchism? cried Gregory, with knotted fists.

    My dear fellow! said Syme, and strolled away.

    With surprise, but with a curious pleasure, he found Rosamond Gregory still in his company.

    Mr. Syme, she said, do the people who talk like you and my brother often mean what they say? Do you mean what you say now?

    Syme smiled.

    Do you? he asked.

    What do you mean? asked the girl, with grave eyes.

    My dear Miss Gregory, said Syme gently, "there are many kinds of sincerity and insincerity. When you say ‘thank you’ for the salt, do you mean what you say? No. When you say ‘the world is round,’ do you mean

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