D E D IC AT IO  E XT RAO RD IN AR IA  
 
Dear Mr. Chesterton, 
 
Alone among the puerile apologists of your detestable reli-
gion you hold a reasonably mystic head above the tides of criti-
cism.  You are the last champion of God ; with you I choose 
to measure myself.  Others I can despise ; you are a force to 
be reckoned with, as Browning your intellectual father was 
before you. 
Whether we are indeed friends or enemies it is perhaps 
hard to say :  it has sometimes seemed to me that human free-
dom and happiness are our common goal, but that you found 
your muddied oafs in Gods, ministers, passive resisters, and 
all the religious team — the “ Brixton Barnshuts ” we might 
call them ; while I, at once a higher mystic and a colder sceptic, 
found my Messiah in Charles Watts, and the Devil and all 
his angels.  While נחש and משיח alike add to 358, indeed, 
it is no odds :  did you once see this you were not far off from 
the Heart of the Qabalah. 
The occasion of this letter is the insertion of a scene equi-
valent to an “ appreciation of the Brixton Chapel ” in my 
masterpiece “ Why Jesus Wept.”  You asked me for it ;