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)
In June of 1921, Max Beerbohm wrote discouragingly to a prospective biographer that he, Max, was not (as Shaw had labeled him] "the incomparable Max," but rather (as the humorists had it) "the comparable Max." Beerbohm continued,
I am not incomparable. Compare me. Compare me as an essayist (for instance] with other essayists. Point out what an ignoramus I am beside Belloc, and how Chesterton's high spirits and abundance shame me.
And so on. The biographer, Bohun Lynch, had mentioned he was planning a little book. "Oh, keep it little!" begged the incomparable Max. [S.N. Behrman, Portrait of Max, Random House, 1960, 21-22]
