of
life and the universe. In a time when clever people are so busy
criticising life that they are in danger of forgetting that they have to
live it, so busy selecting such parts of it as suit their taste that
they ignore the fact that the other parts are there, he ignores nothing
and wisely accepts instead of criticising. Mr. Bernard Shaw, as we have
seen, will consent to tolerate the universe _minus_ the three loyalties
to the family, the nation, and God. Mr. Chesterton has no respect
whatever for any such mutilated scheme of human life. His view of the
institution of the family is full of wholesome common sense. He
perceives the immense difficulties that beset all family life, and he
accepts them with immediate and unflinching loyalty, as essential parts
of our human task. His views on patriotism belong to the region of
politics and do not concern us here. In regard to religion, he finds the
modern school amalgamating everything in characterless masses of
generalities. They deny the reality of sin, and in matters of faith
generally they have put every question out of focus until the whole
picture is blurred and vague. He attacks this way of dealing with
religion in one of his most amusing essays, "The Orthodox Barber." The
barber has been sarcastic about the new shaving--presumably in reference
to M. Gillett's excellent invention. "'It seems you can shave yourself
with anything--with a stick or a stone or a pole or a poker' (here I
began for the first time to detect a sarcastic intonation) 'or a shovel
or a----' Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing
about the matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical
vein. 'Or a button-hook,' I said, 'or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram
or a piston-rod----' He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, 'Or a
curtain-rod or a candlestick or a----' 'Cow-catcher,' I suggested
eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic duet for some time. Then I
asked him what it was all about, and he told me. He explained the thing
eloquently and at length. 'The funny part of it is,' he said, 'that the
thing isn't new at all. It's been talked about ever since I was a boy,
and long before.'" Mr. Chesterton rejoins in a long and eloquent and
most amusing sermon, the following extracts from which are not without
far-reaching significance.

"'What you say reminds me in some dark and dreamy fashion of something
else. I recall it especially when you tell me, with such