Mr. Chesterton's Hat

"No one who has followed those things of interest can have failed to mark the important part played in Mr. Chesterton’s spiritual expansion and, lately, in the popular development of the League, by Mr. Chesterton’s hat. I do not suggest that the influence of Mr. Chesterton’s hat is to be compared with the influence of Mr. Chesterton’s head, for they are things in their nature different. But I do feel that when we have paid proper tribute to Mr. Chesterton’s head, a distinct and separate homage is due to Mr. Chesterton’s hat.

Deliberately I suggest that the homage to the hat should be distinct and separate; because it is characteristic of it that it very seldom performs its normal function of covering his head. I speak figuratively, I would have you know. It is continually being blown off his head, to illustrate the ravishment of man’s dignity; and being chased down the road, to illustrate the splendour of human endeavour; and being blown on to his head again, to illustrate the wondrous bounty of Providence; and being sat upon, to illustrate the divine simplicity of humour: in short, its life is passed in a perpetual whirl of wild hatly adventure.

Even in the comparatively rare moments when it does repose on his head, it is rather as a banner than as a hat. Then it is the symbol of individuality of his personal freedom and of his personal dignity. Before an astonished world it flaunts the legend: “Chesterton-- one and indivisible”. And in this way the hat has so faithfully served Mr. Chesterton and, through him, us; has so often gone out of its way, as a hat, to provide us with a parable; has sacrificed in our interests so much of the normal ease and comfort of a hat’s life; that it seems inevitable that it must take an honoured place in the symbolism of the Distributist state. I do not suggest that it will be adopted as a national crest, for I take it that in a Distributist state each man’s hat will be his own crest; but undoubtedly it will be regarded with honour as the prototype of all proper and heraldic hats.

And here, at weary last, I come to my point, which is that, in view of this, it is of the utmost importance that we should leave for descendants an exact and graphic account of the Chestertonian hat, as it appeared in life. If we fail in this it is certain that strange heresies will spring up around it. In a century or two, perhaps, there might be erected, bestriding the Thames, a statute of Mr. Chesterton in a golfing cap. Conflicting schools of thought might visualise it as a bowler, or as a top hat, or as a crown, or as a shako, and base all their philosophy upon the fallacy. And it is certain that out of the welter of evidence there would finally arise the inevitable scientist, who would prove conclusively that the hat never existed, that the myth merely embodied humanity’s yearning throughout the ages for hat-perfection.

But let me make it quite clear that I do not offer myself for the post of Recorder of the Hat. I lack the talent and vivid and accurate description which the work must demand. If a mere impression is of any value at all to record, let me say at once that, sensible as I have shown myself to be of the hat’s unique public services, as a hat it simply repels me. Indeed, in a list of “Reasons for Thanking God that I am not Mr. Chesterton,” which I once wrote, for my souls good, drew up, the third or fourth article read “I do not have to wear Mr. Chesterton’s hat.” To those who know only my hat, this sentiment my seem fanatical, unreasonable and violent; but those who know Mr. Chesterton’s hat, will, I think, understand.

On the whole, I think that the work should by done by some expert, a hatter’s auctioneer, perhaps, who would be able to appreciate the thing and note its features with technical accuracy. And appended to his record, there should be certainly be a short biography of the hat. Is it, in fact, as I have heard disaffected men declare, a mass-produced hat? Or did Mr. Chesterton, as I prefer to believe, years age, in is early youth, weave and fashion the thing with his own hands, from the materials produced from his own ground? This is an important matter, and it should be made clear.

And now let me apologise to Mr. Chesterton for having deliberately written upon his hat. If I am to vindicate myself at all, it must be upon the grounds which he once took when he vindicated, in the abstract, the conduct of a man who sat upon another mans hat. He declared that the action might be excusable if the motive was pure, as, for example, if it were done for the amusement of children. I have written for the instruction of children, of generations unborn. And I claim in further extenuation that, while Mr. Chesterton can, so long as the inexplicable desire possesses him, continue to wear is hat even after I have written upon it, it is unthinkable that any man could wear again a hat upon which Mr. Chesterton had once sat." ('Mr. Chesterton's Hat', G. K's. Weekly)