Yet it was all but impossible to teach Gilbert a tune, and Bernard Shaw felt this (as we have seen) a real drawback to his friend's understanding of his own life and career. Music was to Shaw what line and color were to Chesterton; but to Chesterton singing was just making a noise to show he felt happy. Once he wrote a poem called "Music"--but only as one more flower in the wreath he was always weaving for Frances--who was, says Monsignor Knox, the heroine of all his novels.*
Sounding brass and tinkling cymbal, He that made me sealed my ears, And the pomp of gorgeous noises, Waves of triumph, waves of tears,
Thundered empty round and past me, Shattered, lost for evermore, Ancient gold of pride and passion, Wrecked like treasure on a shore.
But I saw her cheek and forehead Change, as at a spoken word, And I saw her head uplifted Like a lily to the Lord.
Nought is lost, but all transmuted, Ears are sealed, yet eyes have seen; Saw her smiles (0 soul be worthy!), Saw her tears (0 heart be clean!)
*Against the background of all these activities the books went on pouring out as fast from Overroads as they had from Overstrand. A town full of friends forty minutes' journey from London was not exactly the desert into which admirers had advised Gilbert to flee, but he would never have been happy in a desert: he needed human company. He also needed to produce. "Artistic paternity," he once said, "is as wholesome as physical paternity." And certainly he never ceased to bring forth the children of his mind. Within two years of the move seven books were published:
The Ball and the Cross, February 1910, What's Wrong with the World, June 1910, Alarms and Discursions, November 1910, Blake, November 1910, Criticisms and Appreciations of Dickens, January 1911, Innocence of Father Brown, August 1911, Ballad of the White Horse, August 1911.
Of these books, _Alarms and Discursions_ and the Dickens criticisms are collections and arrangements of already published essays. Meanwhile other essays were being written to become in turn other books at a later date.
The _Blake_ is a brilliant short study of art and mysticism. After reading it you feel you understand Blake in quite a new way. And then you wonder--is this illumination light on Blake or simply light on Chesterton? It must never be forgotten that the writer was himself a "spoilt" artist--which means a man with almost enough art in him to have been in the ranks of men consecrated for life to art's service.