Transcriber's note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printererrors have been changed, and they are indicated witha mouse-hoverand listed at theend of this book. All otherinconsistencies are as in the original.
WORKS BY HILAIRE BELLOC.
Paris
Marie Antoinette
Emmanuel Burden, Merchant
Hills and the Sea
On Nothing
On Everything
On Something
First and Last
This and That and the Other
A Picked Company
HILAIRE BELLOC
THE MAN AND HIS WORK
BY
C. CREIGHTON MANDELL
and
EDWARD SHANKS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
G. K. CHESTERTON
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published in 1916
TO
H. L. HUTTON
OF MERCHANT TAYLORS' SCHOOL
INTRODUCTION
BY
G. K. CHESTERTON
When I first met Belloc he remarked to the friend who introduced us thathe was in low spirits. His low spirits were and are much more uproariousand enlivening than anybody else's high spirits. He talked into thenight; and left behind in it a glowing track of good things. When I havesaid that I mean things that are good, and certainly not merely bonsmots, I have said all that can be said in the most serious aspect aboutthe man who has made the greatest fight for good things of all the menof my time.
We met between a little Soho paper shop and a little Soho restaurant;his arms and pockets were stuffed with French Nationalist and FrenchAtheist newspapers. He wore a straw hat shading his eyes, which are likea sailor's, and emphasizing his Napoleonic chin. He was talking aboutKing John, who, he positively assured me, was not (as was oftenasserted) the best king that ever reigned in England. Still, there wereallowances to be made for him; I mean King John, not Belloc. "He hadbeen Regent," said Belloc with forbearance, "and in all the Middle Agesthere is no example of a successful Regent." I, for one, had not comeprovided with any successful Regents with whom[viii]