Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Name: The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV
Author: Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (1914)

Summary

“The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV”, published in 1914, is a work by Gilbert Keith Chesterton. It explores elements such as donkey, Dorian Wimpole and poet.

Quotes from The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (1914)

“ Thus, when the Captain began by lightly alluding to the fact that after all it was his donkey, since he had bought it from a tinker for a just price, the police station practically vanished from Wimpole's mind--and I fear the donkey-cart also. Nothing remained but the necessity of dissipating the superstition of personal property.
"I own nothing," said the poet, waving his hands outward, "I own nothing save in the sense that I own everything. All depends whether wealth or power be used for or against the higher purposes of the cosmos." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (1914)

“ But I think even the poet would have been enlightened if he had seen the white, set, frantic face of the man on the driver's seat of his vanishing motor. If he had seen it he might have remembered the name, or, perhaps, even begun to understand the nature of a certain animal which is neither the donkey nor the oyster; but the creature whom man has always found it easiest to forget, since the hour he forgot God in a Garden. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (1914)

“ Nature herself has sealed it with the hard seal of eternity. The creature man forgets bears against him a testimony that cannot be forgotten. For the tears of widows and of captives are wiped away at last like the tears of children. They vanish like the mists of morning or the small pools after a flood. But the tear of the oyster is a pearl."
The Poet of the Birds was so excited with his own speech that, after the meeting, he walked out with a wild eye to the motor car, which had been long awaiting him, the chauffeur giving some faint signs of relief. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (1914)

“ To the mystical mind, when it is a mind at all (which is by no means always the case) , there are no two things more impressive and symbolical than a poet and a donkey. And the donkey was a very genuine donkey, and the poet was a very genuine poet; however lawfully he might be mistaken for the other animal at times. The interest of the donkey in the poet will never be known. The interest of the poet in the donkey was perfectly genuine ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (1914)

“ His speech was graceful and well worded and enormously long, and it was all about an oyster. He passionately protested against the suggestion of some humanitarians who were vegetarians in other respects, but maintained that organisms so simple might fairly be counted as exceptions. Man, he said, even at his miserable best, was always trying to excommunicate some one citizen of the cosmos, to forget some one creature that he should remember. Now, it seemed that creature was the oyster. He gave a long account of the tragedy of the oyster, a really imaginative and picturesque account ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (1914)

“ He can't stand a motor car, for instance, especially one that throbs like that while it's standing still. He doesn't mind a fur coat so much, but if you wear a brown velvet jacket under it, he bites you. And you must keep him out of the way of a certain kind of people. I don't suppose you've met them; but they always think that anybody with less than two hundred a year is drunk and very cruel, and that anybody with more than two thousand a year is conducting the Day of Judgment. If you will keep our dear donkey from the society of such persons--Hullo! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (1914)

“ The driver stared for several instants at the cheese, with the knife shaking in his hand. Then he began to hack it, and in that white witchlike light the happiness of his face was almost horrible.
Pump was wise in all such things, and knew that just as a little food will sometimes prevent sheer intoxication, so a little stimulant will sometimes prevent sudden and dangerous indigestion. It was practically impossible to make the man stop eating cheese. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (1914)

“ It is enough for you that you have left it in the hands of the only person who could really understand it; one who searches the skies and seas so as not to neglect the smallest creature."
"This is a very curious creature," said the Captain, anxiously, "he has all sorts of odd antipathies. ”

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

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Quotes from The Flying Inn — Chapter XIV (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

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