Why Jesus Wept

D E D IC AT IO E XT RAO RD IN AR IA Dear Mr. Chesterton, Alone among the puerile apologists of your detestable reli- gion you hold a reasonably mystic head above the tides of criti- cism. You are the last champion of God ; with you I choose to measure myself. Others I can despise ; you are a force to be reckoned with, as Browning your intellectual father was before you. Whether we are indeed friends or enemies it is perhaps hard to say : it has sometimes seemed to me that human free- dom and happiness are our common goal, but that you found your muddied oafs in Gods, ministers, passive resisters, and all the religious team — the “ Brixton Barnshuts ” we might call them ; while I, at once a higher mystic and a colder sceptic, found my Messiah in Charles Watts, and the Devil and all his angels. While נחש and משיח alike add to 358, indeed, it is no odds : did you once see this you were not far off from the Heart of the Qabalah. The occasion of this letter is the insertion of a scene equi- valent to an “ appreciation of the Brixton Chapel ” in my masterpiece “ Why Jesus Wept.” You asked me for it ;