I've been reading a lot about G K Chesterton lately. One of those people I love to spend time with. So smart they seem scary. So smart they keep losing me and I have to back up circling around and around to pick up the trail again. So smart that every sentence they write, almost, is worth pausing over to contemplate and ponder.
About Francis of Assisi Chesterton wrote: "...all true joy expresses itself in asceticism. It was 'the universe itself' that made Francis's followers 'mad with joy' - 'the only thing really worthy of enjoyment....' Ultimately, people in Chesterton's view are either optimists or pessimists: either they see 'life black against white' or 'white against black.' And the Franciscans embraced sacrifice because they saw life as 'full of the blaze of an universal mercy,' whereas pessimists indulge themselves because they see only 'a black curtain of incalculable night.' But Chesterton concludes: 'The revelers are old, and the monks are young. It was the monks who were the spendthrifts of happiness, and we who are its misers.' "
Chesterton wandered through early 20th century London thinking like this, writing like this, wearing a cape and a sombrero and a sword-stick, talking to himself and getting lost because his mind was so often present elsewhere.
He wrote somewhere around 100 books including poetry, fiction, essays, travel, literary criticism, Christian apologetics, and detective stories.
Scary smart.
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[Read this great biography of the scary smart G.K. Chesterton.]
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