Thursday or Napoleon

Today, I’m going to write about my favorite work by Chesterton. Some of you may guess, from my pseudonym I presume, that my favorite book is “The Man Who was Thursday;” however, you would be wrong. While I do love TMWwT, the name was chosen for more mundane reasons, I like alliteration. No, my favorite Chesterton is “Napoleon of Notting Hill.” Somehow, “Wayne’s Wisdom,” or “Quin’s curiosities” just didn’t have the same impact as “Thursday’s Trifles.”
“Napoleon of Notting Hill” was the first book by Chesterton that I read, so maybe that is why it is so dear to me. Or, maybe it is that I see myself as the common ploughman, whose brain is made up of the practical joker of Auberon Qunin, and the unflinching idealist of Adam Wayne.
The reason that this entry popped into my head is, I think, a result of researching Civilization IV, Age of Empires III, and several other strategy games that are coming out soon. It just brought to mind that line of Adam Wayne’s:

"Notting Hill is a nation.
Why should it condescend to be a mere Empire?"

This book examines the question of what is greater, an empire, or a city. It expounds on the “What have the Romans ever done for us?” argument of Monty Python fame. It, it true, that Empires do many great things, but they can never compare to the gifts of two cities, Athens and Nazareth.

"Cannot you be content with that destiny which was enough for Athens,
which was enough for Nazareth? the destiny, the humble purpose of
creating a new world. Is Athens angry because Romans and Florentines
have adopted her phraseology for expressing their own patriotism?
Is Nazareth angry because as a little village it has become
the type of all little villages out of which, as the Snobs say,
no good can come? Has Athens asked every one to wear the chlamys?
Are all followers of the Nazarene compelled to wear turbans?
No! but the soul of Athens went forth and made men drink hemlock,
and the soul of Nazareth went forth and made men consent to be crucified."

This is a big part of the book, but not all of it. The last several pages are the answer to many philosophers questions about the “meaning of life.”

" A smaller figure seemed half to rise in the dark.

"Suppose I am God," said the voice, "and suppose I made the world
in idleness. Suppose the stars, that you think eternal,
are only the idiot fireworks of an everlasting schoolboy.
Suppose the sun and the moon, to which you sing alternately,
are only the two eyes of one vast and sneering giant, opened alternately
in a never-ending wink. Suppose the trees, in my eyes, are as
foolish as enormous toad-stools. Suppose Socrates and Charlemagne
are to me only beasts, made funnier by walking on their hind legs.
Suppose I am God, and having made things, laugh at them."

"And suppose I am man," answered the other. "And suppose that I
give the answer that shatters even a laugh. Suppose I do not
laugh back at you, do not blaspheme you, do not curse you.
But suppose, standing up straight under the sky, with every power
of my being, I thank you for the fools' paradise you have made.
Suppose I praise you, with a literal pain of ecstacy,
for the jest that has brought me so terrible a joy.
If we have taken the child's games, and given them the seriousness
of a Crusade, if we have drenched your grotesque Dutch garden
with the blood of martyrs, we have turned a nursery into a temple.
I ask you, in the name of Heaven, who wins?""


I’ll leave you to dwell on that passage for a bit.
Yours in Christ,
Thursday