(The Original) The Napoleon of Notting Hill
Book Description
Excerpt:
TO HILAIRE BELLOC
For every tiny town or place
God made the stars especially;
Babies look up with owlish face
And see them tangled in a tree;
You saw a moon from Sussex Downs,
A Sussex moon, untravelled still,
I saw a moon that was the town's,
The largest lamp on Campden Hill.
Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home
The big blue cap that always fits,
And ...
MoreExcerpt:
TO HILAIRE BELLOC
For every tiny town or place
God made the stars especially;
Babies look up with owlish face
And see them tangled in a tree;
You saw a moon from Sussex Downs,
A Sussex moon, untravelled still,
I saw a moon that was the town's,
The largest lamp on Campden Hill.
Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home
The big blue cap that always fits,
And so it is (be calm; they come
To goal at last, my wandering wits),
So is it with the heroic thing;
This shall not end for the world's end
And though the sullen engines swing,
Be you not much afraid, my friend.
This did not end by Nelson's urn
Where an immortal England sits--
Nor where your tall young men in turn
Drank death like wine at Austerlitz.
And when the pedants bade us mark
What cold mechanic happenings
Must come; our souls said in the dark,
"Belike; but there are likelier things."
Likelier across these flats afar
These sulky levels smooth and free
The drums shall crash a waltz of war
And Death shall dance with Liberty;
Likelier the barricades shall blare
Slaughter below and smoke above,
And death and hate and hell declare
That men have found a thing to love.
Far from your sunny uplands set
I saw the dream; the streets I trod
The lit straight streets shot out and met
The starry streets that point to God.
This legend of an epic hour
A child I dreamed, and dream it still,
Under the great grey water-tower
That strikes the stars on Campden Hill
G. K. C.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE ART OF PROPHECY
THE human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.
For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned the false prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophets with a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.
More Reading:
Other Books by G K Chesterton by ADB Publishing
(The Original) As I Was Saying
(The Original) Four Faultless Felons
(The Original) Tales of the Long Bow
(The Original) The Club of Queer Trades
(The Original) The Everlasting Man
(The Original) The Man Who Knew Too Much
(The Original) The Man Who Was Thursday
(The Original) The Napoleon of Notting Hill (This Book)
(The Original) The Paradoxes of Mr Pond
(The Original) The Poet and The Lunatics Episodes in the Life of Gabriel Gale (1929)
(The Original) The Return of Don Quixote
(The Original) The Sword of Wood (1928)
(The Original) The Trees of Pride
BIOGRAPHIES:
(The Original) Charles Dickens
(The Original) George Bernard Shaw
(The Original) Leo Tolstoy
(The Original) Lord Kitchener (1917)
(The Original) Milton Man and Poet
(The Original) Robert Browning
(The Original) Robert Louis Stevenson
(The Original) St Francis of Assisi
(The Original) St. Thomas Aquinas
(The Original) William Cobbett
Publisher | ADB Publishing |
Binding | Kindle Edition (16 editions) |
Reading Level | Uncategorized
|
# of Pages | N/A |
ISBN-10 | B0044XUZA4 |
Publication Date | 09/27/2010 |
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