AUTOBIOGRAPHY-Chesterton

And when they ask us how it’s done
We proudly point to every one
Of England’s soldiers of the Queen.
I cannot help having a dim suspicion that dignity has something to do with
style; but anyhow the gestures, like the songs, of my grandfather’s time and
type had a good deal to do with dignity. But, used as he was to ceremonial
manners, he must have been a good deal mystified by a strange gentleman
who entered the office and, having conferred with my father briefly on
business, asked in a hushed voice if he might have the high privilege of being
presented to the more ancient or ancestral head of the firm. He then
approached my grandfather as if the old gentleman had been a sort of shrine,
with profound bows and reverential apostrophes.
“You are a Monument,” said the strange gentleman, “Sir, you are a
Landmark.”
My grandfather, slightly flattered, murmured politely that they had
certainly been in Kensington for some little time.
“You are an Historical Character,” said the admiring stranger. “You have
changed the whole destiny of Church and State.”
My grandfather still assumed airily that this might be a poetical manner of
describing a successful house-agency. But a light began to break on my father,
who had thought his way through all the High Church and Broad Church
movements and was well-read in such things. He suddenly remembered the
case of “Westerton versus Liddell” in which a Protestant churchwarden
prosecuted a parson for one of the darker crimes of Popery, possibly wearing a
surplice.
“And I only hope,” went on the stranger firmly, still addressing the
Protestant Champion, “that the services at the Parish Church are now
conducted in a manner of which you approve.”
My grandfather observed in a genial manner that he didn’t care how they
were conducted. These remarkable words of the Protestant Champion caused
his worshipper to gaze upon him with a new dawn of wonder, when my father
intervened and explained the error pointing out the fine shade that divides
Westerton and Chesterton. I may add that my grandfather, when the story was
told, always used to insist that he had added to the phrase “I don’t care how
they are conducted,” the qualifying words (repeated with a grave motion ot the
hand) “provided it is with reverence and sincerity.” But I grieve to say that
sceptics in the younger generation believed this to have been an afterthought.
The point is, however, that my grandfather was pleased, and not really very