A Piece of Chalk
By: G. K. Chesterton
Transcribed by John Ainsworth ainsje00@wfu.edu
(Published in “Tremendous Trifles”, Methuen and Co Ltd, London, 1909. Originally appeared in the DAILY NEWS, November 4, 1905.)
I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a walking-stick, and put six very bright-colored chalks in my pocket. I then went into the kitchen (which along with the rest of the house, belonged to a very square and sensible woman in a Sussex village), and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown paper. She had a great deal; in fact she had too much; and she mistook the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do; indeed it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental capacity. Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, apparently supposing that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown paper wrappers from motives of economy.
I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not only like brown paper, but I liked the quality of brownness in paper, just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-colored chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one’s pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pockets. But I found it was too long and the age of great epics is past.
… … … … … … … … … …
With my stick, my knife, my chalks, and my brown paper, I went out on to the great downs. I crawled across those colossal contours that express the best quality of England, because they are at the same time soft and strong. The smoothness of them has the same meaning as the smoothness of great cart-horses, or the smoothness of the beech-tree; it declares in the teeth of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty are merciful. As my eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly as any of its cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. The villages in the immense valley were safe, one could see, for centuries: yet the lifting of the whole land was like the lifting of one enormous wave to wash them all away.
I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven’s sake, imagine I was going to sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colors on brown drawing paper. They are much better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much easier to draw. When a cow came slouching by in a field next to me, a mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds. So I drew the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly walking before me in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all beasts. But though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the landscape, it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the best out of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care very much about Nature because they did not describe it much.
They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but they sat on the great hills to write about it. They gave out much less about Nature, but they drank it in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had stared all day. They blazoned the shields of their paladins with the purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. The greenness of a thousand green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo.
… … … … … … … … … …
But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that a most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all of my pockets, but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted with philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I cannot avoid remarking here on a moral significance. One of the wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white is a color. It is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. In a sense our age has realized this fact, and expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that white was a blank and colorless thing, negative and non-committal, then white would be used instead of black and grey for the funeral of this pessimistic period. We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of spotless silver linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. Which is not the case.
Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk.
… … … … … … … … … …
I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town nearer than Chichester at which it was even remotely probable that there would be such a thing as an artist’s colorman. And yet, without white, my absurd little pictures would have been as pointless as the world would be if there were no good people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients. Then I suddenly stood and roared with laughter, again and again, so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hourglass. Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt water with it with him for some chemical experiment. I was sitting in an immense warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely out of white chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped and broke a piece off the rock I sat on; it did not mark so well as the shop chalks do; but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, realizing that this Southern England is not only a grand peninsula, and a tradition and a civilization; it is something even more admirable. It is a piece of chalk.
A Piece of Chalk
By: G. K. Chesterton
Transcribed by John Ainsworth ainsje00@wfu.edu
(Published in “Tremendous Trifles”, Methuen and Co Ltd, London, 1909. Originally appeared in the DAILY NEWS, November 4, 1905.)
I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a walking-stick, and put six very bright-colored chalks in my pocket. I then went into the kitchen (which along with the rest of the house, belonged to a very square and sensible woman in a Sussex village), and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown paper. She had a great deal; in fact she had too much; and she mistook the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do; indeed it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental capacity. Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, apparently supposing that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown paper wrappers from motives of economy.
I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not only like brown paper, but I liked the quality of brownness in paper, just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-colored chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one’s pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pockets. But I found it was too long and the age of great epics is past.
… … … … … … … … … …
With my stick, my knife, my chalks, and my brown paper, I went out on to the great downs. I crawled across those colossal contours that express the best quality of England, because they are at the same time soft and strong. The smoothness of them has the same meaning as the smoothness of great cart-horses, or the smoothness of the beech-tree; it declares in the teeth of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty are merciful. As my eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly as any of its cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. The villages in the immense valley were safe, one could see, for centuries: yet the lifting of the whole land was like the lifting of one enormous wave to wash them all away.
I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven’s sake, imagine I was going to sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colors on brown drawing paper. They are much better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much easier to draw. When a cow came slouching by in a field next to me, a mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds. So I drew the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly walking before me in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all beasts. But though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the landscape, it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the best out of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care very much about Nature because they did not describe it much.
They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but they sat on the great hills to write about it. They gave out much less about Nature, but they drank it in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had stared all day. They blazoned the shields of their paladins with the purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. The greenness of a thousand green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo.
… … … … … … … … … …
Un pezzo di gesso
Di: G. K. Chesterton
Trascritto da John Ainsworth ainsje00@wfu.edu
(Pubblicato in «Tremendous Trifles», Methuen and Co Ltd, Londra, 1909. Apparso originariamente sul DAILY NEWS, 4 novembre 1905.)
Ricordo uno splendido mattino, tutto azzurro e argento, durante le vacanze estive, in cui a malincuore mi strappai dal compito di non far nulla in particolare, mi misi un cappello di qualche foggia, presi un bastone da passeggio e infilai in tasca sei gessetti dai colori assai vivaci. Entrai poi nella cucina (che, insieme al resto della casa, apparteneva a una donna assai quadrata e assennata di un villaggio del Sussex), e chiesi alla proprietaria e occupante della cucina se avesse della carta da pacchi. Ne aveva in gran quantità; anzi, ne aveva troppa; e fraintese lo scopo e la ragion d’essere della carta da pacchi. Pareva avere l’idea che, se una persona voleva della carta da pacchi, doveva volerne per legare pacchi; il che era l’ultima cosa che desiderassi fare; è anzi una cosa che ho scoperto essere al di là delle mie capacità mentali. Perciò ella si soffermò a lungo sulle diverse qualità di robustezza e resistenza del materiale. Le spiegai che volevo soltanto disegnarci sopra, e che non desideravo affatto che durasse; e che dal mio punto di vista, dunque, non era questione di tenace consistenza, ma di superficie recettiva, cosa relativamente irrilevante in un pacco. Quando comprese che volevo disegnare, si offrì di sommergermi di carta da lettere, supponendo evidentemente che facessi i miei appunti e la mia corrispondenza su vecchi involucri di carta da pacchi per motivi di economia.
Cercai allora di spiegare la sfumatura logica piuttosto delicata: che non solo mi piace la carta da pacchi, ma mi piaceva la qualità della bruneità nella carta, proprio come mi piaceva la qualità della bruneità nei boschi d’ottobre, o nella birra, o nei ruscelli torbosi del Nord. La carta da pacchi rappresenta il crepuscolo primordiale della prima fatica della creazione, e con uno o due gessetti dai colori vivaci vi si possono far spiccare punti di fuoco, scintille d’oro, e rosso sangue, e verde marino, come le prime feroci stelle che balzarono fuori dalla divina oscurità. Tutto questo dissi (con noncuranza) alla vecchia; e riposi in tasca la carta da pacchi insieme ai gessetti, e forse ad altre cose. Suppongo che ognuno debba aver riflettuto su quanto siano primordiali e poetiche le cose che si portano in tasca; il temperino, per esempio, il prototipo di tutti gli utensili umani, l’infante della spada. Un tempo progettai di scrivere un libro di poesie interamente sulle cose che avevo in tasca. Ma scoprii che era troppo lungo e che l’età dei grandi poemi epici è tramontata.
… … … … … … … … … …
Con il mio bastone, il mio coltello, i miei gessetti e la mia carta da pacchi, uscii sulle grandi colline erbose. Strisciai attraverso quei contorni colossali che esprimono la miglior qualità dell’Inghilterra, perché sono al tempo stesso morbidi e forti. La loro levigatezza ha lo stesso significato della levigatezza dei grandi cavalli da tiro, o della levigatezza del faggio; proclama, a dispetto delle nostre teorie timide e crudeli, che i potenti sono misericordiosi. Mentre il mio occhio spaziava sul paesaggio, il paesaggio era benevolo quanto una qualsiasi delle sue casette, ma quanto a potenza era come un terremoto. I villaggi nell’immensa valle erano al sicuro, si vedeva, per secoli: eppure il sollevarsi dell’intera terra era come il sollevarsi di un’unica enorme onda pronta a spazzarli tutti via.
Attraversai un’ondata di zolla viva dopo l’altra, cercando un luogo dove sedermi a disegnare. Per amor del cielo, non immaginate che stessi per ritrarre dal vero. Stavo per disegnare diavoli e serafini, e vecchi dèi ciechi che gli uomini adoravano prima dell’alba del diritto, e santi in vesti di cremisi iracondo, e mari di uno strano verde, e tutti i simboli sacri o mostruosi che stanno così bene, a colori vivaci, sulla bruna carta da disegno. Valgono assai più la pena di essere disegnati della Natura; e per giunta sono assai più facili da disegnare. Quando una mucca passò dinoccolata in un campo accanto a me, un semplice artista avrebbe potuto ritrarla; ma io sbaglio sempre le zampe posteriori dei quadrupedi. Così disegnai l’anima della mucca; che vedevo là chiaramente camminare davanti a me nella luce del sole; e l’anima era tutta di porpora e d’argento, e aveva sette corna e il mistero che appartiene a tutte le bestie. Ma sebbene con un pastello non riuscissi a trarre il meglio dal paesaggio, non ne consegue che il paesaggio non traesse il meglio da me. E questo, credo, è l’errore che la gente commette a proposito dei vecchi poeti vissuti prima di Wordsworth, i quali si supponeva non si curassero molto della Natura perché non la descrivevano granché.
Preferivano scrivere di grandi uomini piuttosto che di grandi colline; ma sedevano sulle grandi colline per scriverne. Davano assai meno riguardo alla Natura, ma forse la bevevano assai di più. Dipingevano le bianche vesti delle loro sante vergini con la neve accecante, che avevano fissato tutto il giorno. Blasonavano gli scudi dei loro paladini con la porpora e l’oro di molti tramonti araldici. La verdezza di mille verdi foglie si addensava nella viva figura verde di Robin Hood. L’azzurro di una ventina di cieli dimenticati divenne le vesti azzurre della Vergine. L’ispirazione entrava come raggi di sole e usciva come Apollo.
… … … … … … … … … …
But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that a most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all of my pockets, but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted with philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I cannot avoid remarking here on a moral significance. One of the wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white is a color. It is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. In a sense our age has realized this fact, and expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that white was a blank and colorless thing, negative and non-committal, then white would be used instead of black and grey for the funeral of this pessimistic period. We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of spotless silver linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. Which is not the case.
Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk.
… … … … … … … … … …
I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town nearer than Chichester at which it was even remotely probable that there would be such a thing as an artist’s colorman. And yet, without white, my absurd little pictures would have been as pointless as the world would be if there were no good people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients. Then I suddenly stood and roared with laughter, again and again, so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hourglass. Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt water with it with him for some chemical experiment. I was sitting in an immense warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely out of white chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped and broke a piece off the rock I sat on; it did not mark so well as the shop chalks do; but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, realizing that this Southern England is not only a grand peninsula, and a tradition and a civilization; it is something even more admirable. It is a piece of chalk.
Ma mentre sedevo scarabocchiando quelle sciocche figure sulla carta marrone, cominciò ad albeggiarmi in mente, con mio gran disgusto, che mi ero lasciato dietro un gesso, e per giunta un gesso dei più squisiti ed essenziali. Frugai in tutte le mie tasche, ma non riuscii a trovare alcun gesso bianco. Ora, chi ha dimestichezza con la filosofia (anzi, con la religione) che si simboleggia nell’arte del disegnare sulla carta marrone, sa che il bianco è positivo ed essenziale. Non posso trattenermi dall’osservare qui un significato morale. Una delle sagge e terribili verità che quest’arte della carta marrone rivela è questa: che il bianco è un colore. Non è una mera assenza di colore; è una cosa splendente e affermativa, feroce come il rosso, definita come il nero. Quando, per così dire, la vostra matita si fa rovente al rosso, disegna rose; quando si fa rovente al bianco, disegna stelle. E una delle due o tre sfidanti verità della migliore moralità religiosa, del vero Cristianesimo, per esempio, è esattamente questa stessa cosa; l’asserzione capitale della moralità religiosa è che il bianco è un colore. La virtù non è l’assenza dei vizi o il tenersi lontani dai pericoli morali; la virtù è una cosa viva e a sé stante, come il dolore o un particolare odore. La Misericordia non significa non essere crudeli o risparmiare agli uomini la vendetta o la punizione; significa una cosa piana e positiva come il sole, che o si è visto o non si è visto. La castità non significa astensione dal peccato sessuale; significa qualcosa di fiammeggiante, come Giovanna d’Arco. In una parola, Dio dipinge in molti colori; ma non dipinge mai tanto sfarzosamente, avrei quasi detto tanto vistosamente, come quando dipinge in bianco. In un certo senso la nostra epoca ha compreso questo fatto, e lo ha espresso nel nostro cupo abbigliamento. Perché se fosse davvero vero che il bianco è una cosa vuota e incolore, negativa e non impegnativa, allora si userebbe il bianco invece del nero e del grigio per il funerale di questo periodo pessimistico. Vedremmo signori di città in redingote di immacolata tela argentea, con cilindri bianchi come mirabili gigli d’aro. Il che non è il caso.
Intanto, non riuscivo a trovare il mio gesso.
… … … … … … … … … …
Sedevo sulla collina in una sorta di disperazione. Non c’era città più vicina di Chichester dove fosse anche solo remotamente probabile trovare una cosa come un negoziante di colori per artisti. E tuttavia, senza il bianco, i miei assurdi quadretti sarebbero stati inutili quanto il mondo sarebbe se non vi fosse in esso nessuna brava persona. Mi guardai attorno stupidamente, spremendomi il cervello in cerca di espedienti. Poi d’un tratto mi alzai e proruppi in risate, di nuovo e di nuovo, tanto che le mucche mi fissarono e convocarono un consiglio. Immaginate un uomo nel Sahara che si rammarichi di non avere sabbia per la sua clessidra. Immaginate un gentiluomo in mezzo all’oceano che desideri aver portato con sé un po’ d’acqua salata per qualche esperimento chimico. Ero seduto in un immenso magazzino di gesso bianco. Il paesaggio era fatto interamente di gesso bianco. Gesso bianco s’ammucchiava per miglia e miglia fino a incontrare il cielo. Mi chinai e staccai un pezzo dalla roccia su cui sedevo; non segnava tanto bene quanto i gessi da negozio; ma faceva il suo effetto. E rimasi lì in un’estasi di piacere, comprendendo che questa Inghilterra meridionale non è soltanto una grande penisola, e una tradizione e una civiltà; è qualcosa di ancora più ammirevole. È un pezzo di gesso.