The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alarms and Discursions, by G. K. Chesterton

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Title: Alarms and Discursions

Author: G. K. Chesterton

Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9656]
Posting Date: June 16, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALARMS AND DISCURSIONS ***

Produced by Georges Allaire and Martin Ward

ALARMS AND DISCURSIONS

By G. K. Chesterton

CONTENTS

1: INTRODUCTORY: ON GARGOYLES

2: THE SURRENDER OF A COCKNEY

3: THE NIGHTMARE

4: THE TELEGRAPH POLES

5: A DRAMA OF DOLLS

6: THE MAN AND HIS NEWSPAPER

7: THE APPETITE OF EARTH

8: SIMMONS AND THE SOCIAL TIE

9: CHEESE

10: THE RED TOWN

11: THE FURROWS

12: THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIGHT-SEEING

13: A CRIMINAL HEAD

14: THE WRATH OF THE ROSES

15: THE GOLD OF GLASTONBURY

16: THE FUTURISTS

17: DUKES

18: THE GLORY OF GREY

19: THE ANARCHIST

20: HOW I FOUND THE SUPERMAN

21: THE NEW HOUSE

22: THE WINGS OF STONE

23: THE THREE KINDS OF MEN

24: THE STEWARD OF THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS

25: THE FIELD OF BLOOD

26: THE STRANGENESS OF LUXURY

27: THE TRIUMPH OF THE DONKEY

28: THE WHEEL

29: FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE

30: ETHANDUNE

31: THE FLAT FREAK

32: THE GARDEN OF THE SEA

33: THE SENTIMENTALIST

34: THE WHITE HORSES

35: THE LONG BOW

36: THE MODERN SCROOGE

37: THE HIGH PLAINS

38: THE CHORUS

39: A ROMANCE OF THE MARSHES

Introductory: On Gargoyles

Alone at some distance from the wasting walls of a disused abbey I found
half sunken in the grass the grey and goggle-eyed visage of one of those
graven monsters that made the ornamental water-spouts in the cathedrals
of the Middle Ages. It lay there, scoured by ancient rains or striped by
recent fungus, but still looking like the head of some huge dragon slain
by a primeval hero. And as I looked at it, I thought of the meaning of
the grotesque, and passed into some symbolic reverie of the three great
stages of art.

I

Once upon a time there lived upon an island a merry and innocent people,
mostly shepherds and tillers of the earth. They were republicans, like
all primitive and simple