Utopia of Usurers

Utopia of Usurers
and other Essays

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Utopia of Usurers by G. K. Chesterton

Published:

1917

Pages:

84

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2,346

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Utopia of Usurers
and other Essays

By

0
(0 Reviews)
What is it that angers Chesterton and fills him with grim forebodings for the future of his island? Many things and, especially, many persons. But chiefly the capitalists, the upper middle class, the usurers, or however they be termed, and the fear of the servile state, the state in which art and literature and science and efficiency and morality and everything else that has value in the eyes of mortal man become the humble servants of the money-changers, in short, the "utopia of usurers." --The Dial, 1918.

Book Excerpt

with the saintly charm of Snelgrove.

Any man can be praised--and rightly praised. If he only stands on two legs he does something a cow cannot do. If a rich man can manage to stand on two legs for a reasonable time, it is called self-control. If he has only one leg, it is called (with some truth) self-sacrifice. I could say something nice (and true) about every man I have ever met. Therefore, I do not doubt I could find something nice about Lyons or Selfridge if I searched for it. But I shall not. The nearest postman or cab-man will provide me with just the same brain of steel and heart of gold as these unlucky lucky men. But I do resent the whole age of patronage being revived under such absurd patrons; and all poets becoming court poets, under kings that have taken no oath, nor led us into any battle.

III. Unbusinesslike Business

The fairy tales we were all taught did not, like the history we were all taught, consist entirely of lies. Parts of the tale of "Puss in Boots" or "Jack and

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