G K Chesterton

Tremendous Trifles G K Chesterton

Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly in the front garden, because theirvilla was a model one. The front garden was about the same size as the dinner table; it consisted offour strips of gravel, a square of turf with some mysterious pieces of cork standing up in the middleand one flower bed with a row of red daisies. One morning while they were at play in these romanticgrounds, a passing individual, probably the milkman, leaned over the railing and engaged them inphilosophical conversation. The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, were at least sharplyinterested in his remarks. For the milkman (who was, I need say, a fairy) did his duty in that state oflife by offering them in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. And Paul closedwith the offer with a business-like abruptness, explaining that he had long wished to be a giant thathe might stride across continents and oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas in an afternoondinner stroll. The milkman producing a wand from his breast pocket, waved it in a hurried andperfunctory manner; and in an instant the model villa with its front garden was like a tiny doll'shouse at Paul's colossal feet. He went striding away with his head above the clouds to visit Niagaraand the Himalayas. But when he came to the Himalayas, he found they were quite small and sillylooking, like the little cork rockery in the garden; and when he found Niagara it was no bigger thanthe tap turned on in the bathroom. He wandered round the world for several minutes trying to findsomething really large and finding everything small, till in sheer boredom he lay down on four orfive prairies and fell asleep. Unfortunately his head was just outside the hut of an intellectualbackwoodsman who came out of it at that moment with an axe in one hand and a book of NeoCatholic Philosophy in the other. The man looked at the book and then at the giant, and then at thebook again. And in the book it said, "It can be maintained that the evil of pride consists in being outof proportion to the universe." So the backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, working eight hours a day for about a week, cut the giant's head off; and there was an end of him