"The founder of the Christians has put into their heads the idea that they are brothers." -- Lucian.
THE mirthful crusading of Gilbert Chesterton seems inseparable from a gallant trade like journalism; it does not fit in so naturally, for instance, with the studious pursuit of history. And yet without this pursuit, especially as it has been undertaken by one of the friends of his bosom, the author of "Orthodoxy" could scarcely have conducted his campaign. Let it be granted that the historian is usually a mole in some library, enchanted or otherwise; but it is not at all necessary that he be a mole. The past justly remains for most people a land of varied adventure, crowded with places and people that are, above everything else, interesting. The historian may, therefore, consider himself a benevolent detective whose business is just as much human entertainment as it is the quest of truth. If, for example, one were to arrive for the first time in the city of Chartres at the lonely hour which just noses out the dawn, one would see, standing like an awful throne in the luminous darkness, the form of Notre-Dame. It is likely that as the bell, which surely is of gold, whispered the time, the neighboring streets would fill with the majestic and unfathomable people who once gathered from the surrounding country to build the cathedral; it is even probable that if one's historical imagination were satisfactory the structure would seem just to have been completed. "Is it not an enormous business merely to stand in such a place? I think it is," says Hilaire Belloc.
And here is the first reason why this historian has a right to his own corner in modern letters. Belloc has looked upon the past not as a record but as a reality, as something like a gigantic novel which the peoples of the world have actually lived. His outlook and method are as fresh and concrete as those of any healthy business carried out in early morning. He goes to work upon some knotty question much as a man might sit down to a puzzle, with a good-humoured intentness on solving it. History is a matter of personalities and of ésprit, at least, if not of the spirit. Because of his philosophy, which will be considered briefly later on, Belloc brings to the analysis of the past what every sane person ought to instil into his life: a sense of humour. Perhaps we can bring out this side of the man best by recalling the coincidence that he was born in 1870, the year when Dickens died and France fell. The great novelist divined the truth of popular tradition; it is Belloc who verifies it by refusing to believe that France has fallen. Both are ample and robust, but both are quite unflinching on the issues for which they really care.
The next thing to note about Belloc is that he believes not only that truth is stranger than fiction but that what passes for truth is often more fictitious than fiction. His work generally assumes a critical attitude and he is forever hammering the sophist. This, too, is in the real spirit of the adventure, for battle is what lends zest to the careers of Ulysses and d'Artagnan. Belloc writes history because he is defending the central tradition of Europe with the one irresistible weapon of experience. Just as his presentation of the past is convincing by reason of his sense of its contemporaneousness, so he writes with a constant eye on what Professor Perry calls "The Present Conflict of Ideals." A large share of Belloc's best work is not constructive history at all, but inspection of someone's opinions: an inspection made sharply and often accompanied with stern reprimand. There is no compromise in his blood.
Such a manner is natural to the man and his creed. Hilaire Belloc is of mixed French and English ancestry, and is descended from people who were soldiers and artists. As a boy he attended Newman's school at Edgbaston, and it is significant that he has defended many of the great Cardinal's views. Being a French citizen, he served for one year as a driver in a regiment of artillery stationed at Toul, in northern France. After a varied tour of Europe and the United States (like Stevenson he married in California) he entered Balliol College, Oxford, taking honours in history, to the study of which he had intended to devote his life. There were reasons, however, why no fellowship was awarded him, and after a period of waiting he journeyed to London for a try at journalism. Very fortunately he got a foothold, made a friend of great value in Chesterton, and found a publisher for his earlier books. Some of these, it will be remembered, were illustrated by G.K.C. Belloc, now a naturalized British subject, decided to enter politics and was elected to the House of Commons in 1906. His sturdy liberalism made a strong impression and he seemed on the threshold of great success; but other principles, such as a pronounced anti-Semitism, a radical labour policy, and an uncompromising Catholicism, could not fail to ruin the career of any modern statesman. Belloc retired from the arena, founded the Eye Witness (which has since become the New Witness under Chestertonian editorship) and wrote extensively. A large part of his ablest writing has been journalistic in character and must be sought out in magazines. During the war his articles and lectures on the military aspects of the struggle gained him a wide reputation, although as the years dragged on and strategy blurred in the labyrinth of trench warfare, this subject was stripped of the dramatic definiteness which Belloc is most successful in presenting. Of late years he has become simply a journalist and literary man who, despite opinions which are not commonly shared, is looked upon as a leading spokesman of English Catholicism.
What, then, have been the central beliefs of Belloc's philosophy? First of all, it would seem, there is a strong, confident grasp of the Catholic idea of civilization. We follow our ancestors not in straggling groups or individually, but rather socially: we have come out of the past in a body. History, therefore, is coherently human and not a vast museum of isolated specimens. A synthesis of early European civilization had been successfully completed in the Roman Empire, whose social discipline had steadily pushed back the boundaries of barbarism. The Catholic Church, not a vague philosophy but a compact organization, preserved the culture of Rome while the rule of Caesar withered away. This Church also undertook the reformation of Europe by insisting strongly on religion and democracy, and succeeded better than any other agency in history at the attempt to unify the Western world. That unity, however, has been broken up and a number of evils have resulted. The obvious thing to do is to return to the older faith and to the older social order. Acceptance of these must be based in turn upon a full recognition of liberty. It will mean the end of capitalistic industrialism and the collapse of bureaucratic government. It will mean that property, which is the pledge of freedom, will be held by the great majority of citizens whose rights will be protected against class aggression by a strong and popular central government. Such a return to mediaeval social practice cannot, Belloc is convinced, be wrought by any kind of legislation, but must be the result of a new state of mind, the will to freedom of a spiritualized, a Catholic democracy.
It will be observed that all this stands in rather vivid opposition to the general direction of modern English thought. But although Belloc is hardly miserly of words in attacking contemporary politics and historical doctrine, he is not romantic in any sense of the term. If anything he is too rational, too devoid of emotion, in his dissection of motives and movements. The ordinary man will find in this appeal for a new social order much that seems dry and disenchanting. Belloc's French mind and training are thoroughly different from what Britain has become accustomed to during the last century. But although he must rank with Swift, Patmore, and Samuel Butler in the class of writers who cross the grain of the English mind, Belloc views social institutions with much of the calm common sense and firm reliance on tradition that were displayed by Napoleon in the making of the Code Civil. It will be recalled that the Emperor decided against large estates and for many small ones; that he upheld firmly the Church and such moral institutions as marriage, and that he smiled at philosophies of the State which did not rest squarely upon experience. All of this was the view of a bon Français, but Napoleon lacked the religious conviction, the spiritual selflessness, that would have made his scheme a revival of the Christian age. In teaching the lessons of the past Belloc, however, is consistently a belligerent defender of Catholic ideas. He understands England, too, with the clarity of love; no one has written more discerningly of her tradition and her beauties, and no one is more sincerely concerned with her future.
The manner which Belloc has chosen for the expression of these views is individual. To a great versatility -- he has mastered nearly every literary form except the drama -- is added a style that belongs to no one else, which combines the wit and clearness of Voltaire with the logic of the schools. Invariably he begins by stating a thesis which in these times is sure to be warlike, much as a revolutionary patriot might hoist a strange flag. Not concerned with the ideal as an apostolate, he champions it simply because it is true; where Newman, for instance, would have been eager to arbitrate, Belloc opens fire. The thesis is then established step by step, with a remarkable ability to make each point concrete. Nothing drifts into the realm of theory, but is tied to time and space, is fastened by a vivid and steely empiricism. Facts, the stock in trade of the rationalist, are also the weapons of Belloc's apologetics. There is never a dearth of satire, which is always directed at those who have failed to observe how facts cohere and establish principles, but great verbal brilliancy, or rather eloquence, is rare. The diction has the ring of swords on armor; it is never soft and seldom tender. Belloc's work is Napoleonic in the sense that it is done in the belief that an army of words must travel on its stomach -- on something substantial and very evident. Moreover, the argument is conducted to win, and there is no pretense of concession. Very often it seems dogmatic in the extreme; and it must be admitted that wherever Hilaire Belloc loses his sense of humour he is likely to become pompously stubborn, like a pre-Revolutionary pamphleteer.
Since, however, he is generally something of a pamphleteer, it is difficult to examine his work in detail. Let us begin with the histories, for the excellent reason that Belloc himself began with them. A Frenchman born into England would naturally, if his mind concerned itself with the past, turn to the great epic of the Revolution, so significant as a popular and dramatic effort to change the face of the earth. A little book on "The French Revolution" will seem to many Belloc's most fascinating narrative; it has the glamour of Carlyle, a much better grasp of the situation, and the indispensable French logic. Compact though it is, this volume manages to cover much ground and is not the off-hand essay which its brilliant style might suggest. Nevertheless, the author's skill is based upon a previous diligent study of personalities who dominated the Revolution and who are still largely misunderstood. "Robespierre" and "Danton" are dramatic biographies, but every chapter is visibly the product of scrupulous care. Taken alone they are sufficient evidence for Belloc's genuine historical ability -- his exactness and narrative skill -- but as life-stories they do not equal the later "Marie Antoinette." The author is sympathetic with the unfortunate queen but does not spare the truth, and the result is a portrait that convinces and moves like great fiction. Even Taine, whom Belloc resembles by reason of crisp, unemotional intelligence, could not have surpassed the psychological insight of this book or equaled the splendid art of its final chapters.
Taken altogether, these books present a more accurate account of the Revolution than is given by any other work in English, and their value lies precisely in the circumstance that they were written with the British public in mind. If there is any part of modern history which that public has failed to understand and profit by, it is the amazingly democratic uprising of the modern French. Characterized by excesses, the Revolution nevertheless blocked the progress of capitalism in France just when its power was most tranquilly being established in England. It is hazardous to assert that Belloc set forth this history as a prologue to his attack on the British social system, but certainly he could have found no better matter for an introduction. Here is the parable; the commentary will follow. From the technical point of view these books are uneven and betray, despite their general vividness and individuality, the hand of one learning to write.
Belloc is not a master of style like his brother-in-arms, the incomparable Chesterton. His writing is calmly scintillant, seldom contagiously emotional, and his horseplay even is not always mirth. "The Path to Rome," however, is a book which challenges attention to its craftsmanship. Here is a perfect travel record, set down with the shrewd insight, the kindly sympathy, and the odd whimsicality of an ideal if unusual voyager. The flavour is so rare that one can suggest it only by means of an outlandish comparison: it is a blend of the modern Samuel Butler and the mediaeval Brother Bozon. For the benefit of those who have not traveled to Rome with Mr. Belloc, it may be stated that the book claims to be an account of a pilgrimage, made on foot and without notable deviation from a straight line, from Toul on the Meuse to the city of Rome. With the exception of the mountainous vistas (curiously the only tedious matter in the book) one does not see much of the landscape, but rather a great deal of the Catholic spirit of this elusive and altogether delightful countryside. The traveler arrives in quaint towns, converses with simple folk, gathers entrancing legends, drinks wine, and goes to Mass. Finally, before one really understands what has happened, pilgrim, staff and scrip have reached the city of the Popes.
The author is attempting, of course, to uncover the mediaeval walls upon which modern Europe rests. He laughs with the Catholic peasant at the expense of the modernist; he joins eagerly in the dozen democratic things which people who are free in practice think it natural to perform. The observations, while not paradoxical, are none the less satisfying, and one drifts out of industrial society without the least semblance of a shock. Meantime the author is going about his business very skillfully and actually does reconstruct a social environment that may be called mediaeval. "The Path to Rome" is a polemic in disguise, like some gentle, ancient allegory, and the disguise is admirable. The style has spice and vigour, but above all things a kind of ruminative reasonableness which needs a reader just the least bit sympathetic. For the truth about Belloc is that his arguments are almost never adorned with smiles for the enemy, are militaristic. This book is also the manifesto of its author's mysticism, a joyous but rational discernment of the Truth in the little things of life. None of his other travel sketches, among which "Paris" and "The River of London" may be mentioned, seem to reach the level of "The Path to Rome," although their eye for the adventure of history is interesting and fruitful for the mind. Hilaire Belloc is a master of travel literature because of his instinct for the poetry of places, which lies not so much in the scene that makes a picture as in the history that makes a song.
The books mentioned so far may be considered the foundations of Belloc's journalistic career which, opening about the time of the Boer War and amid the triumph of imperialism, had for its purpose the restoration of the idea of liberty. It is impossible, of course, to review the whole of this endeavour, so much of which was dedicated to a particular hour and to a select audience. For instance, the files of the Dublin Review contain two of the most striking papers that their author has written: one on Bury's "History of the Freedom of Thought," and the other on H. G. Wells' "Outline of History." For the purposes of the present discussion, we shall practically confine the matter to Belloc's most important book on social problems, "The Servile State."
When this volume appeared it made clear to everybody that there is a solution of the social injustice which cuts across the positions which leading modern schools of thought have drawn up. Previously any discussion of industrial economics had seemed a struggle between Capitalism and Socialism, though either of these might assume peculiar forms. Belloc, however, boldly declared that Capitalism is an imperfect, a transitory, social condition, and that the real struggle lies between what he called the Servile State, wherein 'so considerable a number of families and individuals are constrained by positive law to labour for the advantage of others as to stamp the whole community with the mark of such labour,' and the Distributive State, wherein the ownership of property is divided among the great majority of citizens. The purpose of this book, however, is not to make a brief for the distributive ownership of property, but rather to show that the Servile State is the easiest solution of our present difficulties and is, in fact, the one which is gradually being adopted. The historical chapters explain how paganism was complacently servile and how the Christian civilization which superseded it almost proved successful in setting up the distributive state. Some of these declarations have long been commonplaces in France, but the temper of England is still quite foreign to them.
It was expected that the book would be attacked and it was built to offer sturdy resistance. Written and arranged with the logic of an able schoolman, its case rests stubbornly on facts which are difficult to conjure away. History is the soil upon which Belloc's sentences stand like trees, well-groomed and scornful of puny blows. They defy criticism of the ordinary sort because they do not plead for anything, but simply state the situation. While there is never any doubt of Belloc's preference for the freedom of the Christian State, he realizes very fully that its restoration is everywhere dependent upon the regaining of a free mind, which is the social aim of the Catholic Spirit everywhere. One sees at a glance that this book crystallizes into a few phrases the basis of the instinctive opposition of the Church to Socialism; that Chesterton's championship of "peasant society" is built upon it, and that dozens of others have profited by the definitions and conclusions it presents. Belloc himself undertook in several essays to outline more completely the distributive state and to suggest practical measures by which it could be promoted. In "The Party System" (written in collaboration with Cecil Chesterton) he exposed in a telling way the secret and venal political combines by which the British government is actually administered. The book does not seem of sufficient general interest to be called more than a brilliant pamphlet.
Belloc's social criticism, akin to the Code Napoleon in many of its legal principles, suggests his writings on military subjects. A year's service with an army is not ordinarily a reason why a man should be credited with an understanding of strategy, but granting his natural gifts and studious preparation for the writing of history, it will supply him with a directness of perception and an understanding of details not easy to obtain in other ways. In many essays written before the war Belloc proved an astute discoverer of clues to military mysteries, and in his account of the battle of Valmy unearthed what seems to be a satisfactory theory to account for the strange outcome of that struggle. During the war his analysis of the First Battle of the Marne attracted wide attention and seems to have been a remarkably correct bit of deductive reasoning. It is quite evident that he enjoys exploring battlefields which, the pacifist notwithstanding, are the cradles of new eras.
Underneath all of this, however, there has lain the deeper and more permanent earth of Catholic tradition. Every page of Belloc's work bears the imprint of the Creed, but in what seems his most important book after "The Path to Rome" the Church is the immediate subject-matter. "Europe and the Faith" adopts for its thesis the proposition that the soul of European civilization, the inner power which has purposefully shaped it and given it a cogent unity, is the Catholic Faith, and that a return to this Faith is the only possible escape from social ruin. Belloc proceeds to show how Europe was originally welded together and civilized by Rome; how the Church preserved and transformed the culture of the tottering and sunken Empire; and how the unity thus established was dissolved by the Reformation which, originally concerned with ecclesiastical abuses, ended, by reason of the defection of Britain, in the disruption of Western civilization. Most of the elements of this doctrine are not original; many have been taught by Saint Augustine, by Bossuet, by Newman, and various others. But they have probably never before been set down so symmetrically and arrestingly in one book.
Criticism of the historical data of "Europe and the Faith" must be left to competent historians. No one else is able, for instance, to offer an opinion on the validity of Belloc's theory that the Anglo-Saxon language spread over England because the missionaries sent from Rome adopted it. The manner in which the book is written may, however, be legitimately commented upon here. In the first place, the tone is characteristically belligerent. What of it? If history is worth troubling about, surely one is permitted to attack error savagely. If records and common sense show plainly that the Church was not despotic, surely a little harshness is not out of place with people who assert blandly that she was more tyrannical than a Cossack chieftain. There is nothing that prejudice fears more than to be called prejudice. Next, there is no unfairness in the book, excepting perhaps a somewhat abnormal and unfortunate antipathy to the Germans. The evidence for Belloc's theory is stated without any subterfuge, is put so clearly that one is never in doubt of the concrete testimony upon which the case rests. There is question of nothing except history; the argument is concise, scholarly, and manly. If mistakes have been made they are obviously not intentional. One may state without hesitation that "Europe and the Faith" is not only a challenge, but also an honourable and respectable challenge, worthy of attention.
The book is important enough to make an examination of the style interesting. Throughout the language is simple and direct, the language of a man earnestly addressing a thoughtful audience. No word has been set down for the mere sake of literary effect, and if there are metaphors it is because the argument requires them. The most interesting trait of style is, however, the manner in which the distant past is made real by simple pictures of the daily life of the time. As the exposition proceeds, propositions to which we have perfunctorily assented, as one does to abstractions of comparative aloofness, become as plainly sensible as if they were incarnate in our own day. Belloc must have learned not a little psychology from Newman. Never before has the formation of Christendom been so succinctly and realistically set forth or made to seem so genuinely the Divine Adventure. "Europe and the Faith" is unique and necessary because of the clarity, the logical power, of a very great historian. Into a few staunch chapters he appears to have compressed all that an honest observer can say about the continuity of Christendom.
It is somewhat remarkable that so diligent a student should have what may be termed the finer gifts of poetry. Nevertheless, in "Verses" Belloc has collected stanzas that admit of comparison with the finest of modern English lyrics. They are, as might have been expected, distinctly French, resembling Beranger much more closely than Tennyson, and masculine in form and verve. Belloc is not a conscious, brooding artist begetting inspiration from the sweat of his brow, but rather a jovial singer whose tunes come to his lips quite naturally. As a general rule, the note is satirical, with a stanza or two of sheer wisdom, whimsical, tender, and yet not romantic. Perhaps, however, such poetry will be admired rather than loved.
"The South Country" sings the praise of Sussex with a haunting refrain through which peers the melancholy of life:
"A lost thing could I never find, Nor a broken thing mend: And I fear I shall be all alone When I get towards the end. Who will be there to comfort me Or who will be my friend?"
This looks far off from the downs of England into the lonely stretches of human mystery, a gaze that is the secret of Belloc's grip on the heart in such other poems as "The Prophet Lost in the Hills at Evening," "Courtesy," and "The Rebel." There is excellent satire in "Dives" and keen burlesque in "Newdigate Poem," which is attributed to Mr. Lambkin of Burford, who has chosen for his subject, "The Benefits of Electric Light." The attack, however, is never local or personal but directed always at the vagaries of modern thought. Even Belloc's poetry is belligerent, but then soldiers have been known to make verses. It is an interesting fact that his favorite form is a compromise between the lyric and the ballad, a form admirably befitting a man of action in whose nature there is a saving touch of reflection, of human sadness, of kinship with the earth and its beauty. There can be no doubt that Belloc is a good poet, although one is not ready to believe that his verses deserve the extravagant praise that some of his friends have buried them under. If Belloc the poet merits attention, Belloc the novelist and essayist is probably more interesting. The word "novelist" must be used reservedly here, for his books are not great social outlines of life but rather satiric allegories that have to do with politics. "Emmanuel Burden" is diverting and incisive symbolism, between the contours of which lie buried a host of first-rate leading articles for a somewhat revolutionary newspaper. Englishmen in general do not seem to have taken to it kindly, and Americans are too remote from the scene to be deeply interested. Belloc the essayist, on the other hand, is a universal figure. A man who has written "On Everything" and "On Nothing" may reasonably be expected to be dull occasionally, but the average Bellocian essay is a stimulant. Many of the papers gathered in "First and Last" and "Hills and the Sea" are shrewd comments on historical writing, quaint travel sketches, or interpretations of human nature made in a fresh and unusually thoughtful mood. The essay is a prose lyric that is saved by its flavor of didacticism from the excessive influence of romantic imagination, and it seems, in fact, the avenue that leads to classic art. No literary form could be better suited to the natural gifts of Hilaire Belloc, and this he has not failed to discover.
In speaking finally of the great service which he has rendered to Christendom in these days of its partial revival in England, one may say that Belloc has found that service difficult but not discouraging. By nature a good fighter, he has not feared to battle against odds. Freedom, the distributive state, and the Catholic conscience of history are Christian ideas, but they are acceptable to few even among Catholics. To assert them dogmatically, to make practical issues of them, and to accompany their defense with barbed arrows of satire, is to invite hostility and to limit one's audience.
It is characteristic to Belloc that he has not thought of these consequences. Resolutely conscious of a mission to assert principles, he has left to others the task of popularizing and discussing them. Fortunately, Chesterton, the man best fitted to undertake such a task, has performed it with a success that need not be dwelt on here. The two men have leaned on each other and have drawn proud strength from their alliance. The truth of the Chestertonian maxim, "Two times one are not two, but two thousand times one" has never been more fully proved.
Belloc is a man of no illusions, and one might almost say of no dreams. There is no Utopia in his philosophy, although he would agree with Ruskin that the saddest thing which can happen to people who see how bad matters are is to believe them incapable of betterment. Only, he insists that only one system of life, only one principle of action, can effect a permanent betterment because in fact only one has done so. The logical French mind that has fed on Bossuet, Pascal, and Taine will not be weaned from the experience of history. And it is characteristic of that French mind again that it should, for all its common sense, love both truth and laughter. The mirth of Belloc is not the humour which is the meat of English literature, but rather the wit that is the kindly wine of France's thought. Two men more different in philosophy than Stendhal and Belloc cannot be imagined, unless one takes into account their mutual admiration for Napoleonic methods. And yet in instinct and manner they are strikingly alike. Stendhal's analysis of love is no more empirical or incisive than Belloc's dissection of modern politics, and the verve of phrase is similar in both authors. If Newman is like Ernest Renan, is it out of place to say that Belloc resembles the elusive Henry Beyle? Many, of course, will prefer to find a counterpart in Joseph de Maistre.
Belloc has aroused Catholics to a better understanding of their ancestry and their duty. Not everything he champions will be accepted, and not everything ought to be accepted. Nevertheless, he has done more than any other living Englishman to uphold steadfastly the social principles of Christendom and to restore these to a position of public importance. Philosophies to which Catholic opposition was instinctive but scarcely well organized have now become unmasked and human adversaries. The renaissance of Catholic social action in English-speaking countries has accepted his distinctions and his phrases. It has been an honest career, noble in its inspiration, selfless in its motive, and human in its preoccupations.
BOOK NOTE
Several of Hilaire Belloc's most interesting volumes are temporarily out of print. Many of his finest essays must be sought out in the files of the Dublin Review, Studies, The New Witness, and The Catholic World. See "Chesterbelloc," by Theodore Maynard (Catholic World, 1919); J. Kilmer's introduction to "Verses"; "Socialism and the Great State," by H. G. Wells; and several articles in The Living Age. It is useful to compare Belloc's historical position with that assumed by various French authors: Bossuet in the "Discourse on Universal History," Louis Bertrand in "Saint Augustin," and P. Imbart de la Tour in "Histoire Politique." Of interest as bases for comparison are Stendhal's "Napoleon" and J. de Maistre's "Soirées." The student of history proper will, of course, see the influence of Guizot, Fustel de Coulanges, and Charles Maurras.