too short; some objected to his fatness, some lamented his leanness;
some thought him too dark, and some too fair. One explanation (as
has been already admitted) would be that he might be an odd shape.
But there is another explanation. He might be the right shape.
Outrageously tall men might feel him to be short. Very short men
might feel him to be tall. Old bucks who are growing stout might
consider him insufficiently filled out; old beaux who were growing
thin might feel that he expanded beyond the narrow lines of elegance.
Perhaps Swedes (who have pale hair like tow) called him a dark man,
while negroes considered him distinctly blonde. Perhaps (in short)
this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at least
the normal thing, the centre. Perhaps, after all, it is Christianity
that is sane and all its critics that are mad--in various ways.
I tested this idea by asking myself whether there was about any
of the accusers anything morbid that might explain the accusation.
I was startled to find that this key fitted a lock. For instance,
it was certainly odd that the modern world charged Christianity
at once with bodily austerity and with artistic pomp. But then
it was also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself combined
extreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic pomp.
The modern man thought Becket's robes too rich and his meals too poor.
But then the modern man was really exceptional in history; no man before
ever ate such elaborate dinners in such ugly clothes. The modern man
found the church too simple exactly where modern life is too complex;
he found the church too gorgeous exactly where modern life is too dingy.
The man who disliked the plain fasts and feasts was mad on entrees.
The man who disliked vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers.
And surely if there was any insanity involved in the matter at all it
was in the trousers, not in the simply falling robe. If there was any
insanity at all, it was in the extravagant entrees, not in the bread