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    The Man Who Was Thursday
    The Man Who Was Thursday
    The Man Who Was Thursday
    Ebook210 pages3 hours

    The Man Who Was Thursday

    By G.K. Chesterton

    4/5

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    Set in London in the early 1900s, this metaphysical thriller follows undercover policeman Gabriel Syme, who, in partnership with a Scotland Yard task force, attempts to take down underground anarchists. Syme encounters Lucian Gregory, a passionate anarchist who eventually takes him to a secret meeting place. Once there, Syme begins to influence the anarchists and is eventually elected to the central council. In his attempts to destroy the council of anarchists from the inside, he starts to uncover more secrets, each more mysterious than the last. Thick with Christian symbolism, this classic G. K. Chesterton novel will have readers on the edge of their seat until the final secrets are revealed
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media
    Release dateAug 21, 2018
    ISBN9781974998876
    Author

    G.K. Chesterton

    G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was a prolific English journalist and author best known for his mystery series featuring the priest-detective Father Brown and for the metaphysical thriller The Man Who Was Thursday. Baptized into the Church of England, Chesterton underwent a crisis of faith as a young man and became fascinated with the occult. He eventually converted to Roman Catholicism and published some of Christianity’s most influential apologetics, including Heretics and Orthodoxy. 

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    Reviews for The Man Who Was Thursday

    4/5

    1,429 ratings71 reviews

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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
      At first, I was a little unsure of what I was reading. I'd missed the subtitle 'A Nightmare'. But in a short time the tone of the book, and its brilliant humour become, more clear. In the moment comes the delight. The recruitment of those who become what they think they're supposed to oppose, in order to stop it, only to discover they all share in that task, that none of them are who they thought, and that even the real opponent is not who they assumed; the impossibility of appearances at telling the truth, and our own personal vulnerability at seeing what is true; the experience of being pursued as something you are, or might not be, when the truth of a situation is lost to opinions and perspectives and conjecture: all these are the foundation of the nightmare. There is a role we're to play in the world: what if someone confused and scuttled it, or rendered the task impossible to really discern? What if reality and God Himself were somehow disguised beyond our description, and we had no bearings among our peers left? A clever depiction, perhaps, of the horror the secular world has brought. Some spectacular quotes lie within for whomever is willing to see the truth ;-p
    • 2/5
      I simply didn’t understand this novel. From the beginning to the very end, there was almost no logic in this novel, and the ending was completely nonsensical. For starters, the character of Syme is more concerned about his Word that he gave to an anarchist than saving lives. Six different characters in this novel all think they’re working for the police against the anarchists solely on the basis of a conversation with a shadowy man that they can’t see and who has no identification. If they were truly working for the police, wouldn’t they have some official training, documents to sign, etc. Not to mention, if they were on an undercover assignment, wouldn’t they be alerted to other police that are operating on the same exact undercover assignment? Not to mention, why would you need so many police officers operating undercover to take down the same organization?The ending was a complete headscratcher. I couldn’t make heads or tails of not only the ending, but what actually happened in the novel. If you could make some sense of it, then more power to you. For me, this was a waste of my time reading it, and based on the reviews, a very overrated novel that I would recommend skipping.Carl Alves – author of Battle of the Soul
    • 4/5
      Concise, fast moving, profound, and often funny. What's not to like?
    • 5/5
      With amazing suspense and continual anticipation, Chesterton positions the reader to the edge of their seats on a wild ride with twists, turns, and delightful encounters. It was a joy to read this work of genius. It was a shorter book. However, with the style and prose of Chesterton, it takes longer than usual. It was well worth the time and investment.
    • 3/5
      Read this at 20 and now again 35 years later. Chesterton can certainly write. Some of the images are startlingly beautiful, but the philosophy is a bit much to take. I'm sure the Chesterton lovers can make sense of it all, but to me it was a hodge-podge of conservative Christianity and Buddhism.
    • 5/5
      When The Man Who Was Thursday was first published, in 1907, the big terrorist threat came from anarchists, who threw bombs and assassinated people for a variety of complicated reasons. They turn up quite regularly in the literature of the time, quite often as vague caricatures representing some kind of destructive force or forces of evil. This is the case in The Man Who Was Thursday, where Chesterton uses the anarchists to represent all that is negative in the world, and doesn't tie them in to any particular political movement.The book's an allegory, so no character can be taken at its face value--and to complicate matters, within the novel every character is revealed to be quite different from what he seems. (This is almost exclusively a male tale, born of a society where the men of the English ruling class were expected to move in men-only circles from an early age, through boarding school to clubs to Parliament.)The plot is relatively straightforward: the poet Sykes infiltrates a group of anarchists nicknamed according to the days of the week (Sykes is Thursday). He is co-opted into the anti-anarchist police by a mysterious personage whom he meets in a completely dark room. The anarchists are led by a larger-than-life, terrifying character called Sunday.The book has a repeating pattern of wild chases and moments of revelation that build on one another to become funnier as the plot thickens. For this is a comedy, although a subtle and disturbing one. I'd hate to spoil the book for you by explaining exactly what's going on, but I can say that terror alternates with relief and a sense of the ridiculous. The climax of the book is quite thrilling and profound. The novel's subtitle, A Nightmare, may give you a hint about the plot's strange shifts and reverses.If you ever liked the Narnia books, you'll like Thursday, which in some ways is the adult counterpart to C.S. Lewis's books. One day I will go through my bookshelves and make a special section for books that deserve to be re-read at intervals during my life; this book will make the cut.There are many different editions of Thursday: the one I read was published by Ignatius Press, edited by Martin Gardner. I did not particularly like the edition, which was idiosyncratic and self-serving. There must be a better one out there.
    • 4/5
      Levity with a purpose is how I might describe the overall feel of The Man Who Was Thursday. Chesterton creates a tangle of wonderful characters fighting out order vs. anarchy without really knowing who is on which side, and although the prose is light and the dialogue is clever, the allegory certainly has serious things to say to the reader.
    • 4/5
      Loved the symbolism, disorientation, and potent dose of philosophy at the end. A goldmine of ideas in a dream narrative, but not really a thriller by today's standards.
    • 4/5
      There are so many reviews which comment on the religious allegory of this book so I will refrain from doing that, except to say I enjoyed the "dueling with the devil" scene the most. There are also many reviews that mention how weird the story gets. Agreed. Completely. This is one of those situations in a story where purpose overshadows plot because the whole thing is really quite ridiculous. In a nutshell, Gabriel Symes is an undercover detective who infiltrates an anarchist group (Council of the Seven Days) only to find that the entire membership, with the exception of its leader, is made up of undercover New Detective Corps members. Each member goes by a day of the week for an alias, hence the Council of the Seven Days. Symes has just been nominated as "Thursday". As a collective week they are all trying to get at the elusive leader, "Sunday". Except, they are all in the dark as to each others true identities. What I find curious is that when Sunday sniffs out a spy his fears are confirmed when the undercover policeman reveals he is carrying his membership card to the anti-anarchist constabulary. Wouldn't you remove that piece of evidence, especially if you bother to go through the trouble of wearing an elaborate disguise? Gogol posed as a hairy Pole, accent and all. The Professor posed as an invalid old man with a huge nose. Turns out, all six policemen are carrying the tell-tale blue identification card. Not one of them thought to leave it at home. But, I digress. For most of the story it is a cat and mouse game with the good guys chasing the bad guys (until one by one, they find out they are all good guys). The theme of "who can you trust" is ongoing.
    • 4/5
      Warning, spoilers. I have been wanting to read this book for some time, primarily because it is universally admired. The book deserves its reputation. Chesterton is an apologist for christianity, albeit a very cogent and intelligent one. This work of fiction functions on its surface as an intriguing detective story, but ultimately is an allegory on free will. I will have to reread it several times to fully plumb its depths. Put simply, the protagonist Symes is a police detective who infiltrates an anarchist group, which ruling members are code-named after days of the week. Symes becomes Thursday. The group's leader is Sunday. A bomb-throwing assasination plot is launched in France, and in the course of attempting to thwart it, Symes discovers that all members except Sunday are in fact policemen who have infiltrated a group composed essentially of themselves. The unsolved mystery at the novel's conclusion is: Who is Sunday? The book is short, and contains some fantastical, almost Bond-like, elements: a spinning table that screws itself into a subterranean chamber; chases by motorcar and horseback; Sunday's flight mounted atop an elephant; and, Sunday's attempted escape in a hot air balloon. The images of London are almost psychedelic in their imagery. The book is a page turner and I finished it in a Saturday morning.
    • 4/5
      At once lapidary, rich with ideas and a farcical romp.
    • 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.
    • 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
      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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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
      A note in the front of my paperback copy of this 1908 novel says 2/16/1967. That's when I bought it, and soon afterward I enjoyed a first reading. A few years later I reread it with the same pleasure. And then it sat in the hidden second tier of a shelf among hundreds of other books for at least four decades, until something sent me looking for it about a month ago. Amazingly, I was able to go right to it. Hurray: I haven't yet lost that store-and-retrieve connection. I'll be in trouble when I do, because there's nothing overtly systematic about my system. I usually find things by snapshot visual memory.But as to the story, all I recalled was the main setup of the plot, namely, that a man named Syme infiltrates an anarchists' cell whose members have as code names the days of the week. The anarchists set off on a mission to prevent the prevention of a planned bombing incident. Our main character plays along while trying to think of ways to foil it himself.Then, 7/8 of the way through this short (194-page) novel, it suddenly turns metaphysical. In fact, we begin to see that it has been allegorical all along, even though the fantastic element had seemed well anchored in a recognizable terrestrial reality. It has been so long since I last read this that it surprised me; so I guess what was memorable about it was less its own particulars than the fact that I enjoyed it so long ago.Now it seems to me a bit manipulative, although not crudely so, and treats of themes that I am well tired of meeting as if by ambush around shadowy corners.But this is not the fault of the book, which is unchanged--indeed, demonstrably so, for I am reading the selfsame edition that I purchased more than 40 years ago. This is one way that a book or movie or memento or landmark can be a mirror to us: if we know that it is a constant, then our altered perception of or response to it denotes a change in ourselves. In the case of this novel, I felt as if I had been conned, and yet at the same time it's hard not to feel elevated as well, even from the point in the story where the balloon goes aloft. Chesterton achieves his transformation competently and respectably, and the element of mystery still enchants.I just don't think I'll be going along with it again. There's too much left that I've never read at all.A sampling of passages that I liked:Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy. (page 89)[Syme speaking] "Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front..." (page 176)The philosopher may sometimes love the infinite; the poet always loves the finite. For him the great moment is not the creation of light, but the creation of the sun and moon. (page 183)When I first listed this book in my library, I rated it five stars based on the old memory. Now I find it very hard to rate, never mind classify; but I settled on three and a half stars just to hold as consistently as possible to my own ratings values. I would still recommend this book, though, to any reader who likes to think about things from different angles.
    • 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
      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.
    • 2/5
      The author's vivid descriptions of scenery and settings, as well as certain philosophy, make for memorable reading.The plot moves along with intriguing mystery and excitement, then becomes redundant and thoroughly improbable, but worse, boring.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      You've got to be curious about any book described as a "surreal anarchist fantasy" (Wordsworth edition introduction). I was pleased to find the classic wit of Chesterton on every page.This book's paradoxical. Chesterton's writing is expansive and leisurely, yet the pace of the mystery is breathtaking at times. It's difficult to find a writer who can make paragraph length blocks of dialogue come alive so effortlessly.The plot itself is very curious. The story's about a group of seven anarchists (named after the days of the week), who have been infiltrated by a spy from Scotland Yard. I hesitate to share any more lest I give too much of the plot away. By the last couple chapters, I found myself questioning how Chesterton could possibly bring such a tale a fitting conclusion without being predictable. He exceeded my expectations. I'll return to that last chapter more than once to let it sink in.Chesterton's at his best: relaxing and thrilling, silly and profound. The entire narrative is laced with Christian symbolism that comes to a poignant theological head without sounding preachy. This is a great summer read.
    • 5/5
      The question "What is your favorite book?" has always been impossible for me to answer, but this is the only book I have ever felt comfortable defaulting to. I've read it at least a half a dozen times since I discovered a copy of it in a used bookstore when I was in middle school; I will probably reread it a dozen more in the next ten years. I get something different out of it every time I reread it.The story itself makes no sense, until you come back to the subtitle: A Nightmare. Like a dream, or a nightmare, there is a thread of sense beneath the nonsense, and the mad escapades of the Supreme Anarchist Council are some how more deeply real even in their absurdity. One could call the story a parable, or a fable, but like the costumes worn by the protagonists toward the end of the book, the disguised elements of the story serve only to reveal more of its inner truth.This book is full of great quotes and is one of the finer examples of Chesterton's witty and unique style of storytelling. Like quite a lot of his fiction, it is a story with Christian meaning woven into it; it's not necessary to be a practicing Christian to understand or get something out of the story, but some of the allegory may escape a reader who is unfamiliar with the basics of the book of Genesis. When I finish this book I always feel a little bit bewildered, sort of mentally out of breath. I usually end up reading it in one or two sittings, propelled irresistibly toward the fantastic (in the original sense of the word) conclusion.This book defies genre, plot summary, and most attempts at interpretation, so all I can say is that you should read it for yourself, and see what you make of it.
    • 4/5
      This book is part thriller, part fantasy, and even part comedy. It is certainly a strange combination, and not always successful. The was written during a time of anarchist bombings in London, and takes the core idea of the plot from those events. Detective Syme is assigned by Scotland Yard to infiltrate a group of anarchists. Each man is named for a day of the week. As he gets to know the men, he begins to fear for his safety. But the more he learns, the more he realizes none of them are exactly what they appear to be on the surface. The complete title of this novella is The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. I think one must keep that in mind when reading, as the events and situations can come at the reader at near breakneck speed. The book's ending was a bit disappointing, but overall I will give this one 3-1/2 stars.

    Book preview

    The Man Who Was Thursday - G.K. Chesterton

    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 a 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! 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 what you say? No. It is true, but you don’t mean it. Now, sometimes a man like your brother really finds a thing he does mean. It may be only a half-truth, quarter-truth, tenth-truth; but then he says more than he means—from sheer force of meaning it.

    She was looking at him from under level brows; her face was grave and open, and there had fallen upon it the shadow of that unreasoning responsibility which is at the bottom of the most frivolous woman, the maternal watch which is as old as the world.

    Is he really an anarchist, then? she asked.

    Only in that sense I speak of, replied Syme; or if you prefer it, in that nonsense.

    She drew her broad brows together and said abruptly—

    He wouldn’t really use—bombs or that sort of thing?

    Syme broke into a great laugh, that seemed too large for his slight and somewhat dandified figure.

    Good Lord, no! he said, that has to be done anonymously.

    And at that the corners of her own mouth broke into a smile, and she thought with a simultaneous pleasure of Gregory’s absurdity and of his safety.

    Syme strolled with her to a seat in the corner of the garden, and continued to pour out his opinions. For he was a sincere man, and in spite of his superficial airs and graces, at root a humble one. And it is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely. He defended respectability with violence and exaggeration. He grew passionate in his praise of tidiness and propriety. All the time there was a smell of lilac all round him. Once he heard very faintly in some distant street a barrel-organ begin to play, and it seemed to him that his heroic words were moving to a tiny tune from under or beyond the world.

    He stared and talked at the girl’s red hair and amused face for what seemed to be a few minutes; and then, feeling that the groups in such a place should mix, rose to his feet. To his astonishment, he discovered the whole garden empty. Everyone had gone long ago, and he went himself with a rather hurried apology. He left with a sense of champagne in his head, which he could not afterwards explain. In the wild events which were to follow this girl had no part at all; he never saw her again until all his tale was over. And yet, in some indescribable way, she kept recurring like a motive in music through all his mad adventures afterwards, and the glory of her strange hair ran like a red thread through those dark and ill-drawn tapestries of the night. For what followed was so improbable, that it might well have been a dream.

    When Syme went out into the starlit street, he found it for the moment empty. Then he realised (in some odd way) that the silence was rather a living silence than a dead one. Directly outside the door stood a street lamp, whose gleam gilded the leaves of the tree that bent out over the fence behind him. About a foot from the lamp-post stood a figure almost as rigid and motionless as the lamp-post itself. The tall hat and long frock coat were black; the face, in an abrupt shadow, was almost as dark. Only a fringe of fiery hair against the light, and also something aggressive in the attitude, proclaimed that it was the poet Gregory. He had something of the look of a masked bravo waiting sword in hand for his foe.

    He made a sort of doubtful salute, which Syme somewhat more formally returned.

    I was waiting for you, said Gregory. Might I have a moment’s conversation?

    Certainly. About what? asked Syme in a sort of weak wonder.

    Gregory struck out with his stick at the lamp-post, and then at the tree. "About this and this, he cried; about order and anarchy. There is your precious order, that lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren; and there is anarchy, rich, living, reproducing itself—there is anarchy, splendid in green and gold."

    All the same, replied Syme patiently, just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree. Then after a pause he said, But may I ask if you have been standing out here in the dark only to resume our little argument?

    No, cried out Gregory, in a voice that rang down the street, I did not stand here to resume our argument, but to end it forever.

    The silence fell again, and Syme, though he understood nothing, listened instinctively for something serious. Gregory began in a smooth voice and with a rather bewildering smile.

    Mr. Syme, he said, "this evening you succeeded in

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