'Paradoxes flung up in the air'

G.K. Chesterton was born on this day in 1874. Max Beerbohm first met him in 1902 and described him as 'like a mountain, and a volcanic one – constant stream of talk flowing down – paradoxes flung up into the air – very magnificent.' They became friends, and Beerbohm admired him – within limits: 'I am not nearly as witty as Chesterton for one, but certainly I have not prostituted and cheapened my wit as he has' – harsh words, by Max's standards, but fair enough: the unstoppably prolific Chesterton did turn out plenty of substandard stuff. Beerbohm parodied Chesterton in full flow in the great parody collection A Christmas Garland. Chesterton is represented by 'Some Damnable Errors About Christmas', a fine stream of paradoxes which asserts that 'for nearly two thousand years mankind has been more glaringly wrong on the subject of Christmas than on any other subject. If mankind had hated Christmas, he would have understood it from the first.' Among the 'more obvious fallacies' are the…