The Man Who Was Thursday | Page 3

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The Man Who Was Thursday
by G. K. Chesterton

A WILD, MAD, HILARIOUS AND PROFOUNDLY MOVING
TALE
It is very difficult to classify THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY. It
is possible to say that it is a gripping adventure story of murderous
criminals and brilliant policemen; but it was to be expected that the
author of the Father Brown stories should tell a detective story like
no-one else. On this level, therefore, THE MAN WHO WAS
THURSDAY succeeds superbly; if nothing else, it is a magnificent
tour-de-force of suspense-writing.
However, the reader will soon discover that it is much more than that.
Carried along on the boisterous rush of the narrative by Chesterton's
wonderful high-spirited style, he will soon see that he is being carried
into much deeper waters than he had planned on; and the totally
unforeseeable denouement will prove for the modern reader, as it has
for thousands of others since 1908 when the book was first published,
an inevitable and moving experience, as the investigators finally
discover who Sunday is.

THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY

A NIGHTMARE
G. K. CHESTERTON
To Edmund Clerihew Bentley
A cloud was on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather, Yea, a
sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together. Science
announced nonentity and art admired decay; The world was old and
ended: but you and I were gay; Round us in antic order their crippled
vices came-- Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame.
Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom, Men
showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume. Life was a fly
that faded, and death a drone that stung; The world was very old indeed
when you and I were young. They twisted even decent sin to shapes not
to be named: Men were ashamed of honour; but we were not ashamed.
Weak if we were and foolish, not thus we failed, not thus; When that
black Baal blocked the heavens he had no hymns from us Children we
were--our forts of sand were even as weak as eve, High as they went
we piled them up to break that bitter sea. Fools as we were in motley,
all jangling and absurd, When all church bells were silent our cap and
beds were heard.
Not all unhelped we held the fort, our tiny flags unfurled; Some giants
laboured in that cloud to lift it from the world. I find again the book we
found, I feel the hour that flings Far out of fish-shaped Paumanok some
cry of cleaner things; And the Green Carnation withered, as in forest
fires that pass, Roared in the wind of all the