All Things Considered

by G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. As an author he created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and produced several notable works on apologetics including Oethodoxy (1908) and The Everlasting Man (1925). He routinely referred to himself as an 'orthodox' Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicisim, eventually converting to Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. He was born in Kensington, educated at St Paul's School, and later attended the Slade School of Art, a department of University College London, to become an illustrator. He also took classes in literature at UCL but did not complete a degree in either subject. His first positions were within publishing houses, during which time he also became a freelance art and literary critic, and in 1902 the Daily News gave him a weekly opinion column, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in the London Illustrated News for which he continued to write for the next 30 years. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg who played a large role in his career as amanuensis and personal manager. Throughout the course of his career Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays, and several plays. His writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour, and he would often employ paradox while making serious comments on the world, politics, economics, philosophy, theology, and many other topics. All Things Considered (1908) is a collection of 34 essays, the first of several books comprised of essays that had previously appeared as columns in the Illustrated London News. The contents of this collection are quintessential Chesterton, covering subjects from poetry to patriotism, anonymity to impartiality, from demagogues to mystagogues, from science to religion, from phonetic spelling to running after one's hat.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Christian, Classics, Philosophy, Religion, Politics

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1908

About the author

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.

He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.

Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.

Reviews

[MihaElla · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I have my own little notions of the possible emancipation of women; but I suppose I should not be taken very seriously if I propounded them. I should favour anything that would increase the present enormous authority of women and their creative action in their own homes. The average woman, as I have said, is a despot; the average man is a serf. I am for any scheme that any one can suggest that will make the average woman more of a despot. So far from wishing her to get her cooked meals from outside, I should like her to cook more wildly and at her own will than she does. So far from getting always the same meals from the same place, let her invent, if she likes, a new dish every day of her life. Let woman be more of a maker, not less. We are right to talk about "Woman;" only blackguards talk about women. Yet all men talk about men, and that is the whole difference. Men represent the deliberative and democratic element in life. Woman represents the despotic.”

As I need hardly say, I fear that I feel an almost savage envy on reading G. K. Chesterton! doubtless, human nature is a positive thing, even when it is an inconvenience. This book consists of a total number of 25 short or long-length essays, defined by the author himself as a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon the current or rather flying subjects that went out with all their imperfections needless to say, this sense of wrong was really subjective and relative.

Same like with the collection of essays titled What’s Wrong with the World I can't praise Chesterton enough, he really did a brilliant job in the way he played with words, for me he is a really sparkling and funny writer, although I am not supporting 100% all his comments or views on the subjects he had treated with perfect candor in his essays, that's because our present times are so much different than what used to be valid 100 years ago. Yet I feel frightfully annoyed with myself that I am not having the opportunity to have him commenting on the current affairs of the world. Definitely he would not have repented of one shade of opinions expressed, on some of the maddening cases of the present life of this earth.

I would like to add a soft warning that possibly for some readers this book will be unintelligible gibberish, but the fact is that to me it all sounded wonderfully enlightened and lucid :)
So to conclude that it is perfectly obvious that I shall continue my decent occupation of reading him, and I am thinking especially about Father Brown, and that's no anomaly to my logical mind ;)

[Skylar Burris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly entertaining and insightful compilation of musings on a wide variety of topics, All Things Considered sometimes seems time-bound (I am not always familiar with the people and events to which Chesterton is referring) but is often oddly a propos of the current moment. For example, Chesterton is not speaking of the “War on Terror” when he discusses why we should not fight our enemies “with their own weapons” of torture, but he could be. He is not speaking of modern American politics when he discusses the lack of truthfulness that undergirds the party system, but he might as well be. When he writes of “modern journalism” in England in the early 20th century, he could just as well be writing of “modern journalism” in America in the early 21st century.

The collection, which consists of just over thirty columns he wrote for the London Daily News, is of varying quality, but the parts that were good were so good that I must give the compilation five stars. Even when Chesterton is being a chauvinist, of either the male or Eurocentric variety, I cannot help but like him. There is something perpetually affable about his writing.

I laughed out loud at a rate of at least once per ten pages, and I am not a reader who often does so (out loud, at least). And I highlighted far more lines than I can reasonably add to my favorite quotes.

I was once asked in a scholarship interview whom I would wish to meet if I could meet any person, living or dead. I found myself stuttering for an answer. My first, and quite conventional, thought was Jesus, but I did not want to come off as a religious freak, so, after some stammering, I settled instead, quite spontaneously, for…drum roll please…John the Baptist. Yes, the wild-haired, locust-eating, prophet-hollering John the Baptist...Yeah…I didn’t get that scholarship. Unfortunately, I had not read Chesterton in high school. Today, I’m quite certain what my answer would be. And I really do wish I could sit down to a glass of port wine with the man…

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished."

Here is the thing about G.K. Chesterton: he begins discussing Christmas traditions, veers off into why he anti-vivisectionist, and concludes with turkey. Somewhere in-between he dropped an aside about the king's crown and "Tolstoian non-resistance." It ought to come across entirely nonsensical and yet over a hundred years later, I read it and go..."Oh, why, that applies to what is happening today! It is like he writes for 2020!"

In some ways, he reminds me of the Mad Hatter. His flow of conversation sounds nonsensical. But unlike the Mad Hatter, when you get to the end of it, somehow everything fits together and makes sense.
This is not my favorite Chesterton--the essay format emphasizes the rambling nature of his writing (which even he makes fun of) and the subjects fit together quite loosely. Yet despite the lack of focus, the essays never ceased to startle me with their perspicacity. I started collecting quotes to share in this review but I realized it would never do the book justice. So I guess, I can only leave it with this commendation:
I've been reading this short volume since March. Being 2020, any number of crazy happened over those few months. But no matter what, an essay in this volume felt pertinent. From "The Zola Controversy" (which discusses statutes and how and when we recognize great thinkers) to "The Boy" (including a story about vandalizing statues) to "Patriotism and Sports" (the title speaks for itself) to "The Worship of the Wealthy" to "The Error of Impartiality" to...well, I could probably name all of them. It is not that he faced anything remotely similar to what we face. Or even that he could imagine it. Rather, he writes about the fundamentals and foundations of society. And as the world around us seems to be in the business of shaking the fundamentals of society, his observations cut to the mater in a way we like to obfuscate them at the moment.
So, even though this was probably more of a 4 star read, I will give it 5 stars for timeliness. (Or perhaps I mean timelessness?)

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've heard it said of some writers, I would read his grocery list. If this is Chesterton's self-admitted collection of writings scraps, I would say he is in that league. Taken alone, his thoughts on sensational "American style" journalism, are worth the read. Only the word "soundbite" has yet to be coined

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a highly entertaining read. While much of it had to do with the issues of Chesterton's day, his insight into things still applies today.
There were a couple of times he rambled, but I still enjoyed every minute of this book.

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I read a book by Chesterton, I come away with a ton of quotes that I just want to memorise. This book is no exception.

All Things Considered is a collection of Chesterton's essays for London Daily News and covers a wide variety of topics. Some of the topics are light-hearted (for example, when he talks about canvassing for votes), while others are a bit more serious (basically when he starts talking about religion or science). But even when he's serious, he's not ponderous. Then again, he does say in the second paragraph of the book:

Their [the essays] chief vice is that so many of them are very serious; because I had no time to make them flippant. It is so easy to be solemn; it is hard to be frivolous.

It's ok Chesterton, I think you weren't that serious.

There's even a chapter on fairy-tales (and I love reading Chesterton when he talks about fairy-tales), and of course, I loved it. He compared journalists to fairies, which is something you definitely don't read about every day. But my favourite quote doesn't talk about journalists, it talks about the nature of fairyland. If you've read Orthodoxy or anything that involves fairy-tales, you'll notice that Chesterton is sort of like C.S. Lewis. Lewis believed that all myths foreshadow Christianity (see The Weight of Glory). So does Chesterton. It's a really long quote, but I don't feel I can cut anything out!

If you really read the fairy-tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other - the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales. The whole happiness of fairyland hangs upon a thread, upon one thread. Cinderella may have a dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance, but she must be back when the clock strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies or frightful results will follow. Bluebeard's wife may open all doors but one. A promise is broken to a cat and the whole world goes wrong. A promise is broken to a yellow dwarf an the whole world goes wrong. A girl may be the bride of the God of Love himself if she never tries to see him; she sees him, and he vanishes away. A girl is given a box on condition she does not open it; she opens it, and all the evils of the world rush out at her. A man and woman are put in a garden on condition they do no eat one fruit: the eat it, and lose their joy in all the fruits of the earth.

I love how Chesterton goes from the traditional fairy-tales, to the myths and finally, to the Bible. I think that by using fairy-tales and myths, he makes one see the Bible in a fresh light.

I don't agree with his viewpoint on a lot of things (what he says about Asia, for example, feels a lot like a White Man's Burden mentality), but he's just so entertaining that I wasn't even offended.

This is definitely a book that you should read. It's entertaining and will give you food for thought.

This review was first posted to Inside the mind of a Bibliophile

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

ENGLISH: A collection of press articles written by Chesterton and published as a book in 1908. His invectives about the press are still as applicable today as they were over one century ago.

This book is filled with Chestertonian wit and paradoxes. Among its many quotable quotes, I have selected just three:

An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.

A great classic means a man whom one can praise without having read.

For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers.

ESPAÑOL: Colección de artículos de prensa escritos por Chesterton y publicados como libro en 1908. Sus invectivas sobre la prensa siguen siendo tan aplicables hoy como lo fueron hace más de un siglo.

El libro está lleno de ingenio y paradojas típicas de Chesterton. Entre las muchas citas citables, he seleccionado solo tres:

Un inconveniente es solo una aventura considerada equivocadamente; una aventura es un inconveniente considerado correctamente.

Un gran clásico es un hombre al que se puede alabar sin haberlo leído.

Por temor a los periódicos, los políticos son aburridos, y por fin llegan a ser demasiado aburridos, incluso para los periódicos.

[Zachary Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very enjoyable book missing a 'point' yet containing the wonderful thoughtfulness and humour of a Cockney patriot.

[Anie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I were to rate this based on how often I actually agreed with Chesterton, this would probably get a two. Chesterton is an English Christian apologist from the early 1900s; I am very much none of those things, and I'm a feminist to boot.

Luckily, I can enjoy essays without agreeing with them. Chesterton is damned hilarious, while also being at times quite compelling. The man has an excellent turn of phrase, he's sharp, and I think that I would very much like to rant and argue with this man over beers. He makes you laugh and he makes you think, and that's worth having around.

[Noel Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topics are quite dated. I like the writing style and I’m assuming Christopher Hitchens did too as there are some great similarities in his own essays in terms of phrasing at least. The Worship of the Wealthy is easily my favourite essay in the book; he gets to the point quicker than usual and with great humour.

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Somebody writes complaining of something I said about progress. I have forgotten what I said, but I am quite certain that it was (like a certain Mr. Douglas in a poem which I have also forgotten) tender and true."

Dearest Chesterton, one of my favourite writers, he is mentally ataxic, no different than the almighty Borges, but this is how all great literary people think - they can't keep their minds strictly to the concept at hand, the mind likes to wander off to identify old connections and discover new ones, therefore their non-fiction feels like having one's brain explored with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel, sometimes drawing blood before one can even feel the cut, but Chesterton throws in his British humour into the equation, making this a supremely rewarding read.

On Phonetics:

"Suppose any sentence you like: suppose a man says, "Republics generally encourage holidays." It looks like the top line of a copy-book. Now, it is perfectly true that if you wrote that sentence exactly as it is pronounced, even by highly educated people, the sentence would run: "Ripubliks jenrally inkurrij hollidies." It looks ugly: but I have not the smallest objection to ugliness. My objection is that these four words have each a history and hidden treasures in them: that this history and hidden treasure (which we tend to forget too much as it is) phonetic spelling tends to make us forget altogether. Republic does not mean merely a mode of political choice. Republic (as we see when we look at the structure of the word) means the Public Thing: the abstraction which is us all. Properly spelt, these words all tell a sublime story, like Westminster Abbey. Phonetically spelt, they might lose the last traces of any such story. "Generally" is an exalted metaphysical term; "jenrally" is not. If you "encourage" a man, you pour into him the chivalry of a hundred princes; this does not happen if you merely "inkurrij" him. "Republics," if spelt phonetically, might actually forget to be public. "Holidays," if spelt phonetically, might actually forget to be holy. This does seem to me the case against any extreme revolution in spelling. If you spell a word wrong you have some temptation to think it wrong."

On Fairy-Tales

"Science denounces the idea of a capricious God; but Mr. Yeats's school suggests that in that world every one is a capricious god. Mr. Yeats himself has said a hundred times in that sad and splendid literary style which makes him the first of all poets now writing in English (I will not say of all English poets, for Irishmen are familiar with the practice of physical assault), he has, I say, called up a hundred times the picture of the terrible freedom of the fairies, who typify the ultimate anarchy of art-

"Where nobody grows old or weary or wise, Where nobody grows old or godly or grave."


But, after all (it is a shocking thing to say), I doubt whether Mr. Yeats really knows the real philosophy of the fairies. He is not simple enough; he is not stupid enough. Though I say it who should not, in good sound human stupidity I would knock Mr. Yeats out any day. The fairies like me better than Mr. Yeats; they can take me in more.

If you really read the fairy-tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other-- the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, is the core of ethics. Cinderella may have a dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance; but she must be back when the clock strikes twelve. A girl is given a box on condition she does not open it; she opens it, and all the evils of this world rush out at her. A man and woman are put in a garden on condition that they do not eat one fruit: they eat it, and lose their joy in all the fruits of the earth. It is surely obvious that all ethics ought to be taught to this fairy-tale tune; that, if one does the thing forbidden, one imperils all the things provided. A burglar just about to open some one else's safe should be playfully reminded that he is in the perilous posture of the beautiful Pandora: he is about to lift the forbidden lid and loosen evils unknown. The boy eating some
one's apples in some one's apple tree should be a reminder that he has come to a mystical moment of his life, when one apple may rob him of all others.

If I have drunk of the fairies' drink, it is but just I should drink by the fairies' rules."

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays about odds-and-ends of the era. His first essay is on the empheral and how insignificant the essays all are -- and how their worst fault is that they are so serious, since he could not expend the effort to make them funny.

But he touches on canvassing for vote, inconvenience, higher culture, jokes, Christmas and much more. He tells the soldier who said his religion was Methuselahite -- to live as long as he could -- but then, why was he enlisting as a soldier? The famous incident of the Captain at Koepenick. (Who was, if you haven't happened on this story, an imposter who did a lot of stuff merely by feigning to be a captain.) The essay on fairy tales touches on themes that will later be elaborated in Orthodoxy. He discusses the reporting of speeches by describing how Mark Anthony's speech in Julius Caesar could be reported, and actually would be.

But the true delight of this collection is that it's Chesterton who's saying it all. There is no substitute for actually reading him, because you miss out on such gems as:

I have known some people of very modern views driven by their distress to the use of theological terms to which they attached no doctrinal significance, merely because a drawer was jammed tight and they could not pull it out.

or

When some trick of this sort is played, the newspapers opposed to it always describe it as "a senseless joke." What is the good of saying that? Every joke is a senseless joke. A joke is by its nature a protest against sense. It is no good attacking nonsense for being successfully nonsensical.

or

I have even seen some controversialists use the metaphor, "We must fight them with their own weapons." Very well; let those controversialists take their metaphor, and take it literally. Let us fight the Soudanese with their own weapons. Their own weapons are large, very clumsy knives, with an occasional old-fashioned gun. Their own weapons are also torture and slavery. If we fight them with torture and slavery, we shall be fighting badly, precisely as if we fought them with clumsy knives and old guns. That is the whole strength of our Christian civilisation, that it does fight with its own weapons and not with other people's. It is not true that superiority suggests a tit for tat. It is not true that if a small hooligan puts his tongue out at the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Chief Justice immediately realises that his only chance of maintaining his position is to put his tongue out at the little hooligan. The hooligan may or may not have any respect at all for the Lord Chief Justice: that is a matter which we may contentedly leave as a solemn psychological mystery. But if the hooligan has any respect at all for the Lord Chief Justice, that respect is certainly extended to the Lord Chief Justice entirely because he does not put his tongue out.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

G.K. Chesterton was, I think, right about a good many things. But there is one thing that I think he most certainly got wrong. It comes to us at the end of the first essay in this book. He says of his book All things Considered, "Brief as is the career of such a book as this, it may last just twenty minutes longer than most of the philosophies that it attacks." Chesterton seems to say that his book will soon become irrelevant because the philosophies that he attacks in it are so silly as to be unendurable. I think he was probably right at the time, but 110 years later (the book was published in 1908) many of these philosophies have resurfaced and are in need a good knock on the head. And there is no better person to administer that knock (again) than Chesterton.

Probably we should not be too surprised that silly ideas resurface, since we humans are very comic people who seem to make the same mistakes over and over. Chesterton himself says in one of these essays, "A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice." There is nothing new under the sun; and so it seems that this book is once again relevant. The best way I can think to describe it is "a charitable beat-down of muddleheaded ideas." It is not however, a beatdown of the people who hold these ideas, and I think that is what makes Chesterton so good. Chesterton makes us laugh at ourselves and the strange and incomprehensible ideas that we all sometimes hold. It's good medicine for the mind.

[G.R. Hewitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic Chesterton - always a pleasure to read and although this book was published over 108 years ago, the content is still current. My favourite chapter in this book is entitled 'The Fallacy of Success' and I am in full agreement with it; the sad thing is that no-one was listening then and they still aren't - our bookshops remain crammed with books on how to be successful. Chesterton writes, and rightly so, that “...there is no such thing as Success.” and states that “... there is nothing that is not successful ... That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey.” With various other examples and observations it is hard to refute his logic or his advice that those who have purchased such books have a “moral if not legal right to ask for their money back.” The other chapters on various subjects are all treated to the hallmark Chesterton wit and insights, by which the reader cannot fail to be impressed, amused and edified.

[Daniel Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

Physics, you can take back your Diracs and your Einsteins. I raise you Chesterton, the maddest genius of his day.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I literally LOL'd multiple times. Loved this collection of essays.

[Simona Sanduleac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chesterton doesn't only cut through the human heart, but he is also riding a jolly old tractor while doing that. As one of my friends said: "Every time I read Chesterton, I think to myself: what have I been doing with my life when I wasn't reading Chesterton?"
This book is a collection of articles, and being a journalist he is writing about real events and real people and real dilemmas. And because his writing is so rooted in reality, it has flesh and bones, he is able to speak about the great things and about the great ideas of life. One thing Chesterton will always do: he will not let you be comfortable in your lazy snobbishness, he will make you come down from your high throne of superiority and enjoy life in a way that only a humble man can.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chesterton wrote brilliantly- his musings are quite eloquent and almost always witty. As I read the book I found myself sending entire paragraphs via text because I found them so laughably clever.

At the same time, I must note that it tends towards political incorrectness. Both because he was born in the mid/late 1800's and times were quite different and also because Chesterton seemed to care very little what others thought of him.

He was quick-witted and wrote a thought-provoking book (and if nothing else I believe/hope many readers would enjoy All Things Considered simply for that reason).

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd never read any Chesterton before this. I loved this book. Witty and interesting. The only downside was that he makes reference to people of his day who are generally unknown to modern Americans. I had to look up many of the people discussed. This didn't detract, though, as I now know more than I did before I started reading it. Many of the topics are still applicable today. I highly recommend it.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can disagree with Chesterton's opinions, but there's no disagreeing with his style and wit. The man was a genius, and each essay in this collection (or in any of his collections) reads like a tour de force. The only reason I give it four stars rather than five is because a few of the topics are dated and probably of little interest to anyone other than the Brits. As far as I'm concerned, however, Chesterton can write about any ol' thing he pleases, and I'll happily gobble it up.

[Abdelrahman Mustafa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chesterton's critical outlook and unwavering voice of Truth opens up gates and windows of understanding the present condition through inspection of the past, in addition to the wit of a genius and the incomparable sense of humor which left me roaring with laughter like no other writer did. This is a much more 'philosophical' writer than most 'philosophers' you've heard about, because he dared to dissent from the traditional philosophical 'form' yet his insight remained powerful and intense.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

When skimming the consumer reviews before downloading this from Amazon (not something I generally recommend) I saw someone comment to the effect that these essays have nothing in common except excellence. I would have to agree. Whether I always agree with Chesterton or not, I always find myself appreciating the sharp clarity of his reasoning and the bright lift of his humor.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I know why I like Chesterton so much: not because he's the great Christian apologist, but because he's the great Christian sophist.

Turns of paradox, disregard for conventional wisdom, all paired with a fierce dedication to the idea that there are something worth fighting for, not least of which, the welfare of our brothers and sisters.

[Rex Libris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another set of essays by Chesterton. In this volume he elaborates on topics that he had been able to discuss in the fullness they required when he wrote about in the newspaper. Among the topics he wrote about include Cockney humor, Joan of Arc, and the forerunner to the over-commercialization of Christmas.

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the more eclectic and disorganized collections of his essays, but it's worth reading if only for the sake of chapter 24, which is brilliant and an excellent introduction to the spirit that bursts through almost all of Chesterton's writing :o)

[Stefan Dion Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may not share Chesterton's conservative views but the man can make anything contentious sound obvious. His plain and funny writing does sound like a good conversation with someone not very popular but surprisingly wise. Dated yea, but we can learn how to create beautiful articles like these.

[Leslie Moellering · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chesterton is an incredibly intelligent rambler. If you can wade through all he says, you are sure to pull out gems of insight to ponder and to apply in your life.

[Ben Thurley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the concerns of several of the pieces are pretty opaque to a twenty-first Century reader, this collection of essays and articles is of more than antiquarian interest. G.K. Chesterton was an astute observer of human nature, a genuine eccentric and wit as well as a lovely prose stylist, so there are plenty of thought-provoking snippets to be gleaned throughout the collection, as well deeper offerings on human dignity, wealth and privilege, humour, democracy, identity, nationalism and – of course – religion and the Catholic faith.

I particularly liked his description, in "Conceit and Caricature", of the peculiar and unjustified satisfaction that some develop

which is neither a pleasure in the virtues that we do possess nor a pleasure in the virtues we do not possess. It is the pleasure which a man takes in the presence or absence of certain things in himself without ever adequately asking himself whether in his case they constitute virtues at all. A man will plume himself because he is not bad in some particular way, when the truth is that he is not good enough to be bad in that particular way.

This is a great collection to have at the bedside or next to the loo. Skip over the essays that don't appeal to you, and savour the ones that do.

[Joseph Sverker]

F. Scott Fitzgerald writes in The Beautiful and the Damned that one tires of Chesterton because of his sheer natural cleverness, or if it was talent (ironically, maybe the same thing can be said about Fitzgerald?). Nonetheless, the latter part of the statement is certainly true. Chesterton is incredibly clever in his articles. However, I certainly don't tire of him, but this is only a selection though. There are many snippets that I will take away with me from this book. His point about science and religion is very interesting. He argues that science brings nothing new in the argument between materialism and supernaturalism since if one has seen a corpse decomposing and still is able to believe in a God and after-life, then nothing that science brings will change things. I don't know if it is quite true, but it is certainly a good point. I think the problem might be rather that so few in today's society has really seen a corpse. Chesterton writes very insightfully about humor in this book as well and draws very interesting theological conclusions. There are twists and turns and enjoying phrases scattered throughout this book. Very well worth reading and a good way in to Chesterton's non-fictional writing. Next step, I would recommend Orthodoxy or Everlasting Man.

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes Chesterton’s brilliance leaves me breathless with awe, but most of the time he leaves me feeling like an intellectual midget (not a feeling I particularly enjoy). All Things Considered has moments of genius, but at times it reads like garbled nonsense. Chesterton’s own assessment of himself was that he “suffered from a simplicity verging on imbecility” so maybe that explains it.

Chesterton excuses himself in the book’s introduction by saying that “This is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current subjects for it is mostly concerned with attacking attitudes which are in their nature accidental and incapable of enduring. Brief as is the career of such a book as this, it may last twenty minutes longer than most of the philosophies that it attacks.”

He was right in saying that the book would be outdated twenty minutes after publishing because many of the subjects of the article have long been forgotten. Nevertheless nuggets of gold are sprinkled throughout the book and patient digging turned up treasures.