Nobility, Valor, and a Great King: England’s King Alfred: G.K. Chesterton’s ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’

Nobility, Valor, and a Great King: England’s King Alfred: G.K. Chesterton’s ‘The Ballad of the White Horse’
In the ballad, the White Horse symbolizes the keeping of religious faith pure and fervent. “The Vision of the White Horse,” 1798, by Philip James de Loutherbourg. Oil on canvas. Tate, London. Public Domain
Jeff Minick
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He was a big man, standing 6 feet, 4 inches tall and weighing nearly 300 pounds. To that mountainous physique, add his characteristic appearance in public—a pince-nez, capes and great coats, papers jutting from his pockets, a walking stick, and cigar—and you had a subject that caricaturists could, and did, love.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) wrote poetry, fiction, history, treatises of lay theology, biographies, and, most prolifically of all, essays ranging in subject matter from Christian doctrine to contemporary affairs. He entertained readers with his Father Brown mysteries (which recently gained a new audience through a television series), gave Christians and non-Christians alike points to ponder in books like “Orthodoxy,” and, nearly a century after his death, found fans in such commentaries on society such as “What’s Wrong With the World” and “The Outline of Sanity.” As quotable a writer who ever lived, Chesterton had enough beloved and witty aphorisms to become collections in books themselves.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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