Background: When I was the editor of Gilbert Magazine, I was responsible for the "Tremendous Trifles" column. It was occasionally hard to find a sufficient amount of interesting GKC material to fill the page, so John Peterson sent me a file full of Chesterton ancedotes. They were idiosyncratic, historical, and Chestertonian. He recently gave me permission to use them here. I hope y'all find them as interesting as I have over the years. Most of them have never been published.
Chesterton Short(s)
In his Hilaire Belloc: A Memoir, J. B. Morton quotes Chesterton on the difference between Belloc and himself. He said, "I like gargoyles and every kind of grotesque thing, whereas Belloc likes diagrams and military maps." And Chesterton maintained (to Morton) that Belloc and he differed in every respect–except for their complete agreement about religion and politics. [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955, p. 78]
