The Ball and the Cross - Chapter 4
A Discussion at Dawn
Plot Summary
The men escape, but they make an error - they forgot about the fact that their antics would get the attention of journalists. Chesterton takes the opportunity to point out that journalism ought to focus on the ordinary, instead of the extraordinary, but unfortunately for Evan and James, they have caught the attention of the entire country.
The men decide that they could not have a legitimate disagreement unless they respected one another. They are again interrupted in their attempt to duel one another.
Vocabulary
Agapemonites - The Agapemonites or Community of The Son of Man was a heretical “Christian” religious group or sect that existed in England from 1846 to 1956. It was named from the Greek: agapemone meaning "abode of love". The Agapemone community was founded by the Reverend Henry Prince in Spaxton, Somerset. The group claimed to spiritualize marriage, but attracted mainly wealthy single women. The “marriages” contracted in the group were not just spiritual as many illegitimate children were conceived during its brief tenure. Chesterton makes reference to this group to provide an example of a scandalous and ubiquitous news story that has nothing to do with ordinary, and therefore important, life.
Selected Passages and Discussion Questions
How do you think Turnbull means that he and MacIan are the only realities in a civilization that is a dream?
“It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, “Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe,” or Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet.” They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complete picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority.
What is Chesterton telling us about the necessary conditions to have an honest intellectual duel in the passages below?
“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.”