Five Days Left Till Dale's Visit! Woo Hoo! Go Big...wait a minute...
Actually, red was Chesterton's favorite color.
And now for a Sesame Street Style presentation on the Number Five.
(To be read out loud)
''''' 5
lllll 5
<<<<< 5
55555 Fifty Five thousand, five hundred and fifty-five.
6 comments:
You're cracking up Old Fashioned Liberal. :-) I've never seen anyone so excited about the number 5.
AGP: perhaps you missed his essay, "Five Hundred and Fifty-Five" in Alarms and Discursions.
OFL: why did you say that about GKC liking five? Was it that essay? And what about red? I recall it being important in "The Coloured Lands", but red comes up a lot - it would be interesting to write a Chestertonian essay about it using as much of his stuff as possible. I'd try it but have too much to do just now. If you want the concordance let me know.
All I could find was this: "But the test for painting the town red is whether I like red, not whether I like the day before yesterday or the middle of next week." [GKC ILN Oct 30 1920 CW32:117]
And when you see Dale, tell him I said hello. He'll be glad to know we're in contact. The e-cosmos is a wonderful thing.
Chesterton did like red, though I don't remember any specific liking for the number 5. Something about red being the closest to eternity, or God, or something like that. I can't quote Chesterton verbatim like Mr. Alquhist.
Oh, yes, sorry I missed this:
Red is the most joyful and dreadful thing in the physical universe; it is the fiercest note, it is the highest light, it is the place where the walls of this world of ours wear thinnest and something beyond burns through. It glows in the blood which sustains and in the fire which destroys us, in the roses of our romance and in the awful cup of our religion. It stands for all passionate happiness, as in faith or in first love.
[GKC "The Red Town" in Alarms and Discursions]
Remember, I have AMBER. When you need help, just ask - though the Quotemeister is the preferred way.
I imagine GKC liking five as much as any other number - he was not a math guy, nor a scientist, but he had a lot of respect for those who were authentic students of these subjects.
Yes, I can easily picture red as being the best of the good, and the worst of the bad (is that what he's trying to say here? Something like that?).
Chesterton didn't like math?!?!?!?! I think I'm going to make it a PRIORITY to read more Chesterton now!!!!
AGP: I did NOT say that. I said he was not a math guy, or a science guy.
I am not a lit'ry guy, or a classics guy, or a history guy, but I admire these subjects and have read such books, and even tried (sometimes) to think about these topics.
True, GKC did not ever do proofs, or solve equations, but he actually knew something more important: he understood the foundations of the subject, and (as I said) he respected those who specialise in these disciplines.
Just to give you a sample:
The case is very strongly exhibited, for instance, in the common idea that mathematics is a dull subject, whereas the testimony of all those who have any dealings with it shows that it is one of the most thrilling and tantalising and enchanting subjects in the world. It is abstract, but so, to all appearance, is theology. Men have hurled themselves on the spears of their enemies rather than admit that the second person of the Trinity was not co-eternal with the first. Men have been burned by inches rather than allow that the charge to Peter was to be understood as a charge to him as an individual rather than to him as a representative of the Apostles. Of such questions as these it is perfectly reasonable for anyone to say that, in his opinion, they are preposterous and fanatical questions. And what men have before now done for the abstractions of theology I have little doubt that they would, if necessary, do for the abstractions of mathematics. If human history and human variety teach us anything at all, it is supremely probable that there are men who would be stabbed in battle or burnt at the stake rather than admit that three angles of a triangle could be together greater than two right angles.
[GKC "A Defence of Bores" in Lunacy and Letters]
NO, I will not comment on the topic (the spectre?) of non-Euclidean geometries here. But thank God that is not at stake just now. (hee hee!)
It would take too long to explore all of what GKC says about math - or science, though there's a book on that available: Jaki's Chesterton a Seer of Science (available through the ACS). But please do read more GKC. I think you will enjoy it.
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