Wednesday

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 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)

Here is an excerpt from the published reminiscences of Hilaire Belloc's daughter Eleanor Jebb:

For a few weeks late in the summer of 1903 Mamma and Papa rented Bleak House at Slindon. Frances and Gilbert Chesterton came to stay nearby for a few days. Gilbert and H.B. seemed to talk the whole time. We children could not understand one word of the torrent. H.B. was lying on the lawn with head pillowed on his arm. Talk, talk, talk! We heard it through the bushes, where we were up to mischief as usual.

[Belloc the Man, Westminster, 1957, p. 114]