He was, apparently, just too elitist. But, of his critics, that assessment of Patmore is actually one that spatters the least amount of contumely of the lot, and that was from a friend! He was elitist, yes, but he was also very, very insightful. There is no figure more interesting or more difficult to analyze on the poetic stage of our generation.
In that he was correct. Hence, he wrote about well born ladies and hedgerows more the prostitutes and dark alleys but his observations on, and fury at, what he saw as coming era of mediocrity were just as trenchant. Patmore detested such mettlesome popular legislation because it infringes on the liberty of the superior man; Chesterton, because it is an attack, by another kind of superior man, on the liberty of the populace. For both it is not so much the drink that matters as the freedom; not so much the reality as the symbol.
Here is only another instance of the remarkable unity of principle which the Catholic spirit made a chief among men of diverse temperaments. Another instance, and the subject of this short piece, is the issue of politics; specifically democracy and it connection to despotism. Chesterton, for his part, thought the Reform Acts simply tricks to make everybody think they could exercise political power.
Whereas, in reality, his votes could be bought and his representatives ignored. We have become a despotism.
Have you not noticed how continually in history democracy becomes despotism? People call it the decay of democracy. It is simply its fulfillment. Why take the trouble to number and register and enfranchise all the innumerable John Robinsons, when you can take one John Robinson with the same intellect or lack of intellect as all the rest, and have done with it? The old idealistic republicans used to found democracy on the idea that all men were equally intelligent.
