Tremendous Trifles

Коллекция текстов · essay

The Great Man
XXII The Orthodox Barber XXIII The Toy Theatre XXIV A Tragedy of Twopence XXV A Cab Ride Across Country XXVI The Two Noises XXVII Some Poli…
Tremendous Trifles
Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly in the front garden, because their villa was a model one. The front garden wa…
A Piece of Chalk
I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing not…
The Secret of a Train
All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a loose memory. I will not merely say that this story is true: because, as you…
The Perfect Game
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…
The Extraordinary Cabman
From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to insin…
An Accident
Some time ago I wrote in these columns an article called “The Extraordinary Cabman.” I am now in a position to contribute my experience of…
The Advantages of Having One Leg
A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either in…
The End of the World
For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious town of Besançon, which stands like a sort of peninsula in a horse-shoe…
In the Place de la Bastille
On the first of May I was sitting outside a café in the Place de la Bastille in Paris staring at the exultant column, crowned with a caperi…
On Lying in Bed
Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. Th…
The Twelve Men
The other day, while I was meditating on morality and Mr. H. Pitt, I was, so to speak, snatched up and put into a jury box to try people. T…
The Wind and the Trees
I am sitting under tall trees, with a great wind boiling like surf about the tops of them, so that their living load of leaves rocks and ro…
The Dickensian
He was a quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw hat; with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, but…
In Topsy-Turvy Land
Last week, in an idle metaphor, I took the tumbling of trees and the secret energy of the wind as typical of the visible world moving under…
What I Found in My Pocket
Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have made the Empire what it is a man in an astracan coat, with an astracan moustache…
The Dragon’s Grandmother
I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. I do not mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated in them that…
The Red Angel
I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad for children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him I can…
The Tower
I have been standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great Belfry Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought (though n…
How I Met the President
Several years ago, when there was a small war going on in South Africa and a great fuss going on in England, when it was by no means so pop…
The Giant
I sometimes fancy that every great city must have been built by night. At least, it is only at night that every part of a great city is gre…
The Orthodox Barber
Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhap…
The Toy Theatre
There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys takes…
A Tragedy of Twopence
My relations with the readers of this page have been long and pleasant, but perhaps for that very reason I feel that the time has come when…
A Cab Ride Across Country
Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there lies a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, but…
The Two Noises
For three days and three nights the sea had charged England as Napoleon charged her at Waterloo. The phrase is instinctive, because away to…
Some Policemen and a Moral
The other day I was nearly arrested by two excited policemen in a wood in Yorkshire. I was on a holiday, and was engaged in that rich and i…
The Lion
In the town of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is…
Humanity: An Interlude
Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, the City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything no…
The Little Birds Who Won’t Sing
On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that in a few hours I should be in England, my eye fell upon one of the details of Got…
The Riddle of the Ivy
More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, a friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded with half…
The Travellers in State
The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught a train; it was a train going into the Eastern Counties, and I only just caught it. And w…
The Prehistoric Railway Station
A railway station is an admirable place, although Ruskin did not think so; he did not think so because he himself was even more modern than…
The Diabolist
Every now and then I have introduced into my essays an element of truth. Things that really happened have been mentioned, such as meeting P…
A Glimpse of My Country
Whatever is it that we are all looking for? I fancy that it is really quite close. When I was a boy I had a fancy that Heaven or Fairyland…
A Somewhat Improbable Story
I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read it through very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come to the conclu…
The Shop of Ghosts
Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the m…
The Ballade of a Strange Town
My friend and I, in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed affection for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there was so restful t…
The Mystery of a Pageant
Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take a small part in one of those historical processions or pageants which…