Speaker 1: The Perfect Game by G. K. Chesterton. We have all
met the man who says that some odd things have
happened to him, but that he does not really believe
that they were supernatural. My own position is the opposite
of this. I believe in the supernatural as a matter
of intellect and reason, not as a matter of personal experience.
I do not see ghosts. I only see their inherent probability.
But it is entirely a matter of the mere intelligence,
not even of the motions. My nerves and body are
altogether of this earth, very earthy. But upon people of
this temperament, one weird incident will often leave a peculiar impression.
And the weirdest circumstance that ever occurred to me occurred
a little while ago. It consisted in nothing less than
my playing a game, and playing it quite well for
some seventeen consecutive minutes. The ghost of my grandfather would
have astonished me less. On one of these blue and
burning afternoons, I found myself, to my inexpressible astonishment, playing
a game called croquet. I had imagined that it belonged
to the epoch of Leech and Anthony Trollope, and I
had neglected to provide myself with those very long and
luxuriant side whiskers, which are really essential to such a scene.
I played it with a man whom we will call Parkinson,
and with whom I had a semi philosophical argument which
lasted through the entire contest. It is deeply implanted in
my mind that I had the best of the argument.
But it is certain and beyond dispute that I had
the worst of the game. Oh Parkinson, Parkinson, I cried,
patting him affectionately on the head with a mallet. How
far you really are from the pure the sport? You
who can play, It is only we who play badly
who love the game itself. You love glory, You love applause,
You love the earthquake voice of victory. You do not
love croquet. You do not love croquet until you love
being beaten at croquet. It is we, the Bunglers, who
adore the occupation in the abstract. It is we to
whom it is art for art's sake. If we may
see the face of Croquet herself, if I may so
express myself, we are content to see her face turned
upon us in anger. Our play is called amateurish, and
we were proudly. The name of amateur for amateurs is
but the French for lovers. We accept all adventures from
our lady. The most disastrous or the most dreary, we
wait outside her iron gates. I allude to the hoops,
vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, impetuous and full
of chivalry, will not be confined within the pedantic boundaries
of the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek honor in
the ends of the earth. They turn up in the
flower beds and the conservatory. They are to be found
in the front garden and the next street. No Parkinson,
the good painter has skill. It is the bad painter
who loves his art. The good musician loves being a musician.
The bad musician loves music with such a pure and
hopeless passion. Do I worship croquet? I love the game itself.
I love the parallela gram of grass marked out with
chalk or tape, as if its limits were the frontiers
of my sacred fatherland, the four seas of Britain. I
love the mere swing of the mallets, and the click
of the balls is music. The four colors are to
me sacramental and symbolic, like the red of martyrdom or
the white of Easter day. You lose all this, my
poor Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence
of this vision by the paltry consolation of being able
to go through hoops and to hit the stick. And
I wave my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety.
Don't be too sorry for me, said Parkinson, with his
simple sarcasm. I shall get over it in time. But
it seems to me that the more a man likes
a game, the better he would want to play it.
Granted that the pleasure in the thing itself comes first,
does not the pleasure of success come naturally and inevitably afterwards?
Or take your own simile of the Knight and tis Ladylove.
I admit the gentleman does first, and foremost want to
be in the lady's presence. But I never yet heard
of a gentleman who wanted to look an utter ass
when he was there. Perhaps not, though he generally looks it,
I replied, But the truth is that there is a
fallacy in assimile. Although it was my own. The happiness
at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness
which can be extended without limit. The more he is loved,
normally speaking, the jollier he will be. It is definitely
true that the stronger the love of both lovers, the
stronger will be the happiness. But it is not true
that the stronger the play of both croquet players, the
stronger will be the game. It is logically possible. Follow
me closely here, Parkinson. It is logically possible to play
croquet too well to enjoy it at all. If you
could put this blue ball through that distant hoop as
easily as you could pick it up with your hand,
then you would not put it through that hoop any
more than you pick it up with your hand. It
would not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly,
you would not play at all. The moment the game
is perfect, the game disappears. I do not think, however,
said Parkinson, that you are in any immediate danger of
affecting that sort of destruction. I do not think your
croquet will vanish to its own faultless excellence. You are
safe for the present. I again caressed him with the mallet,
knocked a ball about, wired myself, and resumed the thread
of my discourse. The long warm evening had been gradually
closing in, and by this time it was almost twilight.
By the time I had delivered four more fundamental principles,
and my companion had gone through five more hoops, the
dusk was verging upon dark. We shall have to give
this up, said Parkinson, as he missed the ball, almost
for the first time. I can't see a thing, nor
can I, I answered, And it is a comfort to
reflect that I could not hit anything if I saw it.
With that, I struck a ball smartly and sent it
away into the darkness, towards where the shadowy figure of
Parkinson moved in the hot haze. Parkinson immediately uttered a
loud and dramatic cry. The situation indeed called for it.
I had hit the right ball. Stunned with astonishment, I
crossed the gloomy ground and hit my ball again. It
went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop,
but it was the right hoop. I shuddered from head
to foot. Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily
after that impossible ball again. I hit it away into
the night in what I supposed was the vague direction
of the quite invisible stick, and in the dead silence,
I heard the stick rattle as the ball struck it heavily.
I threw down my mallet. I can't stand this, I said.
My ball has gone right three times. These things are
not of this world. Pick your mallet up, said Parkinson.
I'm another go I tell you, I daren't If I
made another hoop like that, I should see all the
devils dancing there on the blessed grass. Why devils, asked Parkinson.
They may be only fairies making fun of you. They
are sending you the perfect game, which is no game.
I looked about me. The garden was full of a
burning darkness, in which the faint glimmers had the look
of fire. I stepped across the grass as if it
burnt me, picked up the mallet and hit the ball somewhere,
somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull
click of the ball touching, and ran into the house
like one pursued. End of the Perfect Game by G. K.
Chesterton