aracter and so popular
with his fellow journalists that stories of all kinds abound:
concerning him there is a kind of evidence, and very valuable it is,
that may be called a Boswell Collective. It is fitting that it should
be so. We cannot picture G.K. like the great lexicographer
accompanied constantly by one ardent and observant witness, pencil in
hand, ready to take notes over the teacups. (And by the way, in spite
of an acquaintance who regretted in this connection that G.K. was not
latterly more often seen in taverns, it was over the teacups, even
more than over the wine glasses, that Boswell made his notes. I have
seen Boswell's signature after wine--on the minutes of a meeting of
The Club--and he was in no condition then for the taking of notes.
Even the signature is almost illegible.) But it is fitting that
Gilbert, who loved all sorts of men so much, should be kept alive for
the future by all sorts of men. From the focussing of many views from
many angles this picture has been composed, but they are all views of
one man, and the picture will show, I think, a singular unity. When
Whistler, as Gilbert himself once said, painted a portrait he made
and destroyed many sketches--how many it did not matter, for all,
even of his failures, were fruitful--but it would have mattered
frightfully if each time he looked up he found a new subject sitting
placidly for his portrait. Gilbert was fond of asking in the _New
Witness_ of people who expressed admiration for Lloyd George: "Which
George do you mean?" for, chameleon-like, the politician has worn
many colours and the portrait painted in 1906 would have had to be
torn up in 1916. But gather the Chesterton portraits: read the files
when he first grew into fame: talk to Mr. Titterton who worked with
him on the _Daily News_ in 1906 and on _G.K.'s Weekly_ in 1936,
collect witnesses from his boyhood to his old age, from Dublin to
Vancouver: individuals who knew him, groups who are endeavoring to
work out his ideas: all will agree on the ideas and on the man as
making one pattern throughout, one developing but integrated mind and
personality.

Gathering the material for a biography bears some resemblance to
interrogating witnesses in a Court of Law. There are good witnesses
and bad: reliable and unreliable memories. I remember an old lady, a
friend of my mother's, who remarked with candour after my mother had
confided to her something of importance: "My dear, I must go and
w