A writer in the Yorkshire Evening Post is very angry indeed with my performances in thiscolumn. His precise terms of reproach are, "Mr. G. K. Chesterton is not a humourist: not even aCockney humourist." I do not mind his saying that I am not a humourist-in which (to tell thetruth) I think he is quite right. But I do resent his saying that I am not a Cockney. Thatenvenomed arrow, I admit, went home. If a French writer said of me, "He is no metaphysician: not even an English metaphysician," I could swallow the insult to my ...
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A writer in the Yorkshire Evening Post is very angry indeed with my performances in thiscolumn. His precise terms of reproach are, "Mr. G. K. Chesterton is not a humourist: not even aCockney humourist." I do not mind his saying that I am not a humourist-in which (to tell thetruth) I think he is quite right. But I do resent his saying that I am not a Cockney. Thatenvenomed arrow, I admit, went home. If a French writer said of me, "He is no metaphysician: not even an English metaphysician," I could swallow the insult to my metaphysics, but I shouldfeel angry about the insult to my country. So I do not urge that I am a humourist; but I do insistthat I am a Cockney. If I were a humourist, I should certainly be a Cockney humourist; if I werea saint, I should certainly be a Cockney saint. I need not recite the splendid catalogue of Cockneysaints who have written their names on our noble old City churches. I need not trouble you withthe long list of the Cockney humourists who have discharged their bills (or failed to dischargethem) in our noble old City taverns. We can weep together over the pathos of the poorYorkshireman, whose county has never produced some humour not intelligible to the rest of theworld. And we can smile together when he says that somebody or other is "not even" a Cockneyhumourist like Samuel Johnson or Charles Lamb. It is surely sufficiently obvious that all the besthumour that exists in our language is Cockney humour. Chaucer was a Cockney; he had hishouse close to the Abbey. Dickens was a Cockney; he said he could not think without theLondon streets. The London taverns heard always the quaintest conversation, whether it was BenJohnson's at the Mermaid or Sam Johnson's at the Cock. Even in our own time it may be notedthat the most vital and genuine humour is still written about London. Of this type is the mild andhumane irony which marks Mr. Pett Ridge's studies of the small grey streets. Of this type is thesimple but smashing laughter of the best tales of Mr. W. W. Jacobs, telling of the smoke andsparkle of the Thames. No; I concede that I am not a Cockney humourist. No; I am not worthy tobe. Some time, after sad and strenuous after-lives; some time, after fierce and apocalypticincarnations; in some strange world beyond the stars, I may become at last a Cockney humourist.In that potential paradise I may walk among the Cockney humourists, if not an equal, at least acompanion. I may feel for a moment on my shoulder the hearty hand of Dryden and thread thelabyrinths of the sweet insanity of Lamb. But that could only be if I were not only much cleverer, but much better than I am. Before I reach that sphere I shall have left behind, perhaps, the spherethat is inhabited by angels, and even passed that which is appropriated exclusively to the use ofYorkshiremen.
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