Ball and the Cross Chapter 3
Some old Curiosities
The following is a continuation of a Study Guide for the Ball and the Cross. When this study guide is complete, it will be published and made available for sale. In the meantime, follow along for free as we make our way through this wild ride of a book!
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You can also find the Ball and the Cross many places online for free as it is in the Public Domain.
Plot Summary
This chapter begins with a description of a street full of shops. Evan MacIan and James Turnbull enter a sword shop to obtain swords for their duel. The shopkeeper, Henry Gordon, is described using stereotypes about Jews. There is some discussion of Jews with typically Jewish names and Jews with non-Jewish names. This man is described as the latter. Turnbull points out that this man also owns the pornography shop across the street. The dualists quickly decided to tie up the shopkeeper after he protests at the idea of a duel in his garden. They bind him and gag him and proceed outside. They figure they have about half an hour to duel which they think should be sufficient for their duel.
The men duel, and Gordon, the shopkeeper gradual makes his way free from his bonds and begins shouting for the police. They attempt to duel, but are interrupted by the arrival of the police, so they jump the wall surrounding the garden. They attempt to hail a hansom cab, but the cabbie puts up some resistance, and the police are closing in, so they steal his cab.
They travel through the city at a breakneck pace, and have a discussion about the conditions necessary to have a debate with an intellectual opponent.
Vocabulary
vista- a mental view of a succession of remembered or anticipated events
dexterity - skill in performing tasks, especially with the hands
hansom cab - hansom cab, low, two-wheeled, closed carriage patented in 1834, whose distinctive feature was the elevated driver’s seat in the rear. It was entered from the front through a folding door and had one seat above the axle with room for two passengers. The driver spoke to the passengers through a trapdoor on top.
parry - ward off an attack with a countermove
riposte - make a quick return thrust in fencing
trepidation - a feeling of fear or agitation about something that may happen
Selected Passages and Discussion Questions
“This whole civilization is only a dream. You and I are the realities.”
How do you think Turnbull means that he and MacIan are the only realities in a civilization that is a dream?
“Religious symbolism,” said Mr. Turnbull, through the trap, “does not, as you are probably aware, appeal ordinarily to thinkers of the school to which I belong. But in symbolism as you use it in this instance, I must, I think, concede a certain truth. We must fight this thing out somewhere; because, as you truly say, we have found each other’s reality.We must kill each other — or convert each other. I used to think all Christians were hypocrites, and I felt quite mildly towards them really. But I know you are sincere— and my soul is mad against you. In the same way you used, I suppose, to think that all atheists thought atheism would leave them free for immorality - and yet in your heart you tolerated them entirely. Now you know that I am an honest man, and you are mad against me, and I am against you, Yes, that’s it. You can’t be angry with bad men. But a good man in the wrong - why one thirsts for his blood. You, open for me a vista of thought.”
“‘All duellists should behave like gentlemen to each other. But we, by the queerness of our position , are something much more than either duelists or gentlemen. We are, in the oddest and most exact sense of the term, brothers — in arms.”
What is Chesterton telling us about the necessary conditions to have an honest intellectual duel in the above passages?