The Extraordinary Cabman
by G.K. Chesterton
From: London’s Daily News and Tremendous Trifles
From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed by some practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, which occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon despair.
On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate and terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to this: that the question is whether a man can be certain of anything at all. I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually to entertain certainty, what is this certainty which it is impossible to entertain? If I have never experienced such a thing as certainty I cannot even say that a thing is not certain. Similarly, if I have never experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as green as possible for all I know if I have really no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening’s sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
[Editor’s Note - From other writings of Chesterton, we know that the “open-minded” friend referred to here is H.G. Wells. Also, we learn from the paragraph to follow that Hilaire Belloc was another of those present at this Soho meeting. And it is quite possible, even probable, that George Bernard Shaw was also in the party.]
Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the corner of Leicester Square to the members’ entrance of the House of Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a discussion between us which still continues.
It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few hundred yards to an office in Victoria Street which I had to visit. I then got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but not with the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is not unknown among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, clearly quite genuine. “Do you know, sir,” he said, “you’ve only given me 1s. 8d?” I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. “Now you know, sir,” said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, “you know that ain’t the fare form Euston.” “Euston,” I repeated vaguely, for the phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. “What on earth has Euston got to do with It?” “You hailed me just outside Euston Station,” began the man with astonishing precision, “and then you said …” “What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?” I said with Christian forbearance; “I took you at the south-west corner of Leicester Square.” “Leicester Square,” he exclaimed, loosening a kind of cataract of scorn, “why we ain’t been near Leicester Square to-day. You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said …” “Are you mad, or am I?” I asked with scientific calm.
I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and humble, and with great big blue eyes protruding like a frog’s, if ever (in short) a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one second the old nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What was certainty? Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the dull rut of the sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future life. The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we possess past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically considered, except a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate details of the gesture, the words, the complex but consistent course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite equally firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment the universe and the stars swung just a hair’s breadth from their balance, and the foundations of the earth were moved. But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the same reason that I believe in free will, for the same reason that I believe in fixed character of virtue, the reason that could only be expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic, I continued to believe that this honest cabman was wrong, and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner of Leicester Square. He began with the same evident and ponderous sincerity, “You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said …”
And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like a lamp from the inside. “Why, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester Square. I remember now. I beg your pardon.” And with that this astonishing man let out his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, is strictly true.
I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac about him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me from my adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended earlier in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that my sense of reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained erect.
The Extraordinary Cabman first appeared in London’s Daily News. It was later collected in the volume of essays Tremendous Trifles.
The Extraordinary Cabman
by G.K. Chesterton
From: London’s Daily News and Tremendous Trifles
From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed by some practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, which occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon despair.
On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate and terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to this: that the question is whether a man can be certain of anything at all. I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually to entertain certainty, what is this certainty which it is impossible to entertain? If I have never experienced such a thing as certainty I cannot even say that a thing is not certain. Similarly, if I have never experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as green as possible for all I know if I have really no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening’s sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
[Editor’s Note - From other writings of Chesterton, we know that the “open-minded” friend referred to here is H.G. Wells. Also, we learn from the paragraph to follow that Hilaire Belloc was another of those present at this Soho meeting. And it is quite possible, even probable, that George Bernard Shaw was also in the party.]
Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the corner of Leicester Square to the members’ entrance of the House of Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a discussion between us which still continues.
It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few hundred yards to an office in Victoria Street which I had to visit. I then got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but not with the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is not unknown among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, clearly quite genuine. “Do you know, sir,” he said, “you’ve only given me 1s. 8d?” I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. “Now you know, sir,” said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, “you know that ain’t the fare form Euston.” “Euston,” I repeated vaguely, for the phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. “What on earth has Euston got to do with It?” “You hailed me just outside Euston Station,” began the man with astonishing precision, “and then you said …” “What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?” I said with Christian forbearance; “I took you at the south-west corner of Leicester Square.” “Leicester Square,” he exclaimed, loosening a kind of cataract of scorn, “why we ain’t been near Leicester Square to-day. You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said …” “Are you mad, or am I?” I asked with scientific calm.
Lo Straordinario Vetturino
di G.K. Chesterton
Da: il Daily News di Londra e Tremendous Trifles
Di tempo in tempo ho introdotto in questa rubrica di giornale la narrazione di episodi realmente accaduti. Non intendo insinuare che, sotto questo aspetto, essa stia sola tra le rubriche dei giornali. Intendo soltanto che ho scoperto come il mio pensiero fosse meglio espresso da qualche pratica parabola tratta dalla vita quotidiana che da ogni altro metodo; perciò mi propongo di narrare l’episodio dello straordinario vetturino, che mi capitò appena tre giorni fa, e che, per quanto in apparenza lieve, suscitò in me un momento di genuina emozione rasente la disperazione.
Il giorno in cui incontrai lo strano vetturino avevo pranzato in un piccolo ristorante di Soho in compagnia di tre o quattro dei miei migliori amici. I miei migliori amici sono tutti o scettici senza fondo o credenti del tutto incontrollabili, sicché la nostra discussione a pranzo si volse verso le idee più ultime e terribili. E l’intera disputa si ridusse infine a questo: se un uomo possa essere certo di alcunché. Io credo che possa esserlo, poiché se (come dissi al mio amico, brandendo furiosamente una bottiglia vuota) è intellettualmente impossibile ammettere la certezza, che cos’è questa certezza che è impossibile ammettere? Se non ho mai sperimentato una cosa come la certezza, non posso nemmeno dire che una cosa non sia certa. Similmente, se non ho mai sperimentato una cosa come il verde, non posso nemmeno dire che il mio naso non sia verde. Per quanto ne so, potrebbe essere verde quanto è possibile, se davvero non ho alcuna esperienza della verdezza. Così ci gridavamo l’un l’altro e facevamo tremare la stanza; perché la metafisica è l’unica cosa pienamente emotiva. E la differenza tra noi era assai profonda, perché era una differenza quanto all’oggetto di quell’intera cosa chiamata apertura mentale, o l’aprirsi dell’intelletto. Il mio amico infatti diceva di aprire il proprio intelletto come il sole apre i ventagli di una palma, aprendo per il gusto di aprire, aprendo all’infinito per sempre. Ma io dicevo che aprivo il mio intelletto come aprivo la bocca, allo scopo di richiuderla su qualcosa di solido. E lo stavo facendo in quel momento. E, come giustamente osservai, avrei un’aria straordinariamente sciocca se continuassi ad aprire la bocca all’infinito, per sempre e sempre.
[Nota dell’editore — Da altri scritti di Chesterton sappiamo che l’amico “dalla mente aperta” cui qui si allude è H.G. Wells. Inoltre apprendiamo, dal paragrafo che segue, che Hilaire Belloc era un altro dei presenti a quell’incontro di Soho. Ed è del tutto possibile, anzi probabile, che anche George Bernard Shaw fosse nella comitiva.]
Ora, quando questa disputa fu finita, o almeno quando fu troncata (perché non sarà mai finita), me ne andai con uno dei miei compagni, il quale, nella confusione e nella relativa follia di elezioni generali, era in qualche modo divenuto membro del Parlamento, e con lui viaggiai in una carrozza dall’angolo di Leicester Square fino all’ingresso dei membri della Camera dei Comuni, dove la polizia mi ricevette con una tolleranza del tutto insolita. Se pensassero che lui fosse il mio guardiano o che io fossi il suo, è una questione, tra noi, che ancora prosegue.
È necessario, in questo racconto, conservare la massima esattezza dei particolari. Dopo aver lasciato il mio amico alla Camera, presi la carrozza per qualche centinaio di iarde fino a un ufficio in Victoria Street che dovevo visitare. Poi scesi e gli offrii più della sua tariffa. La guardò, ma non con quel torvo dubbio e quella generale disposizione a tentare il colpo che non è ignota tra i vetturini normali. Ma questo non era un vetturino normale, forse nemmeno umano, questo vetturino. La guardò con uno stupore ottuso e infantile, chiaramente del tutto genuino. «Sa, signore,» disse, «lei mi ha dato solo 1s. 8d?» Osservai, con una certa sorpresa, che lo sapevo. «Ora, sa, signore,» disse con fare gentile, supplichevole e ragionevole, «lei sa che non è la tariffa da Euston.» «Euston,» ripetei vagamente, perché quella parola, in quel momento, mi suonava come Cina o Arabia. «Che diavolo c’entra Euston?» «Mi ha chiamato proprio fuori dalla stazione di Euston,» cominciò l’uomo con stupefacente precisione, «e poi lei ha detto…» «Di che cosa in nome del Tartaro stai parlando?» dissi con cristiana sopportazione; «ti ho preso all’angolo sud-ovest di Leicester Square.» «Leicester Square,» esclamò, sciogliendo una specie di cateratta di disprezzo, «ma se oggi non siamo neanche stati vicino a Leicester Square. Mi ha chiamato fuori dalla stazione di Euston, e ha detto…» «Sei matto tu, o lo sono io?» chiesi con scientifica calma.
I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and humble, and with great big blue eyes protruding like a frog’s, if ever (in short) a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one second the old nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What was certainty? Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the dull rut of the sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future life. The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we possess past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically considered, except a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate details of the gesture, the words, the complex but consistent course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite equally firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment the universe and the stars swung just a hair’s breadth from their balance, and the foundations of the earth were moved. But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the same reason that I believe in free will, for the same reason that I believe in fixed character of virtue, the reason that could only be expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic, I continued to believe that this honest cabman was wrong, and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner of Leicester Square. He began with the same evident and ponderous sincerity, “You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said …”
And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like a lamp from the inside. “Why, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester Square. I remember now. I beg your pardon.” And with that this astonishing man let out his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, is strictly true.
I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac about him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me from my adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended earlier in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that my sense of reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained erect.
The Extraordinary Cabman first appeared in London’s Daily News. It was later collected in the volume of essays Tremendous Trifles.
Guardai l’uomo. Nessun cabman disonesto qualunque penserebbe di creare una menzogna tanto solida, colossale e creativa. E quell’uomo non era un cabman disonesto. Se mai un volto umano fu greve e semplice e umile, con due grandi occhi azzurri sporgenti come quelli di una rana, se mai (in breve) un volto umano fu tutto ciò che un volto umano dovrebbe essere, era il volto di quel risentito e rispettoso cabman. Guardai su e giù per la strada; un crepuscolo insolitamente scuro sembrava calare. E per un secondo il vecchio incubo dello scettico mi posò il dito sul nervo. Cos’era la certezza? Era qualcuno certo di qualcosa? Cielo! pensare al monotono solco degli scettici che continuano a chiedersi se possediamo una vita futura. La domanda eccitante per il vero scetticismo è se possediamo una vita passata. Cos’è un minuto fa, razionalisticamente considerato, se non una tradizione e un’immagine? L’oscurità si fece più fitta dalla strada. Il cabman mi diede con calma i particolari più minuti del gesto, delle parole, del corso d’azione complesso ma coerente che avevo tenuto fin da quella notevole occasione in cui l’avevo chiamato fuori dalla stazione di Euston. Come sapevo (direbbero i miei amici scettici) di non averlo chiamato fuori da Euston? Ero fermo nella mia asserzione; lui era del tutto altrettanto fermo nella sua. Era evidentemente un uomo tanto onesto quanto me, e membro di una professione assai più rispettabile. In quell’istante l’universo e le stelle oscillarono d’un capello dal loro equilibrio, e le fondamenta della terra furono scosse. Ma per la stessa ragione per cui credo nella Democrazia, per la stessa ragione per cui credo nel libero arbitrio, per la stessa ragione per cui credo nel carattere fisso della virtù, la ragione che si potrebbe esprimere solo dicendo che non scelgo di essere un pazzo, continuai a credere che questo onesto cabman avesse torto, e gli ripetei che l’avevo davvero preso all’angolo di Leicester Square. Egli cominciò con la stessa evidente e ponderosa sincerità: “Mi avete chiamato fuori dalla stazione di Euston, e avete detto…”
E in quel momento sui suoi lineamenti calò una sorta di spaventosa trasfigurazione di vivo stupore, come se fosse stato acceso al pari di una lampada dall’interno. “Ma, vi chiedo scusa, signore,” disse. “Vi chiedo scusa. Vi chiedo scusa. Vi ho preso a Leicester Square. Ora ricordo. Vi chiedo scusa.” E con ciò quest’uomo sorprendente fece schioccare la frusta con secco colpo sul suo cavallo e se ne andò sobbalzando. Tutto questo colloquio, davanti allo stendardo di San Giorgio lo giuro, è rigorosamente vero.
Guardai lo strano cabman mentre si rimpiccioliva nella distanza e nelle brume. Non so se avessi ragione nell’immaginare che, per quanto il suo volto fosse sembrato tanto onesto, vi fosse qualcosa di ultraterreno e demoniaco in lui, quando lo si vedeva di spalle. Forse era stato mandato a tentarmi dalla mia adesione a quelle sanità e certezze che avevo difeso poco prima nella giornata. In ogni caso mi diede piacere ricordare che il mio senso della realtà, per quanto avesse vacillato per un istante, era rimasto eretto.