Daily Short Stories - Mystery & Suspense
The Perfect Game - GK Chesterton
Listen Ad Free https://www.solgood.org - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and meditative sounds.
- Duration:
- 11m
- Broadcast on:
- 27 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
The Takono Music and Spirits Festival returns to Centennial Park, Saturday, August 3rd from 2 to 10 p.m. And it's free! Live music from The Warren Treaty! ♪ Live music ♪ Chris Daniels and the Kings is Callie and More. Enjoy a Spirits Competition, Kids Zone and Fireworks presented by Oxy and the City of Dacono. Admission and parking are free! The Takono Music and Spirits Festival brought to you by Breckenridge Brewery and City of Dacono. Go to thecityofdacono.com for more information. 5280 Exteriors James Hardy Siding is a low-maintenance siding made primarily of cement that resists flame spread and repels woodborne insects and woodpeckers. Through the month of July, you'll receive free rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole house siding. That's installing additional insulation behind your siding, for free! But only for the month of July! Call today for more details or visit 5280exteriors.com. 5280exteriors.com, a James Hardy Preferred Contractor, 5280 Exteriors, The Altitude of Quality. The Perfect Game by G.K. Chesterton We have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernatural. My own position is the opposite of this. I believe in the supernatural as a matter of intellect and reason. Not as a matter of personal experience. I do not see ghosts. I only see their inherent probability. But it is entirely a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions. My nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. But upon people of this temperament, one weird incident will often leave a peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance that ever occurred to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted in nothing less than my playing a game, and playing it quite well for some seventeen consecutive minutes. The ghost of my grandfather would have astonished me less. On one of these blue and burning afternoons, I found myself to my inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called Croquet. I had imagined that it belonged to the epoch of leech and antonytrolop, and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant side whiskers, which are really essential to such a scene. I played it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had a semi-philosophical argument which lasted through the entire contest. It is deeply implanted in my mind that I had the best of the argument, but it is certain and beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. "Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!" I cried, patting him affectionately on the head with a mallet. "How far you really are from the pure love of the sport? You who can play." "It is only we who play badly who love the game itself. You love glory, you love applause, you love the earthquake voice of victory, you do not love Croquet. You do not love Croquet until you love being beaten at Croquet. It is we the bunglers who adore the occupation in the abstract. It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. If we may see the face of Croquet herself, if I may so express myself, we are content to see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is called amateurish, and we were proudly the name of amateur, for amateur is but the French for lovers. We accept all adventures from our lady, the most disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates, I elude to the hoops, vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls in petuous and full of chivalry will not be confined within the pedantic boundaries of the mere Croquet ground, our balls seek honour in the ends of the earth. They turn up in the flowerbeds and the conservatory, they are to be found in the front garden and the next street. No Parkinson, the good painter has skill, it is the bad painter who loves his art. The good musician loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With such a pure and hopeless passion do I worship Croquet. I love the game itself, I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or tape as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred fatherland. The four seas of Britain, I love the mere swing of the mallets, and the click of the balls is music. The four colours are to me, sacramental and symbolic, like the red of martyrdom or the white of Easter Day. You lose all this, my poor Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence of this vision, by the paltry consolation of being able to go through hoops and to hit the stick, and I wait my mullet in the air with a graceful gaiety. "Don't be too sorry for me," said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. "I shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more a man likes a game, the better he would want to play it. Granted that the pleasure in the thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure of success come naturally and inevitably afterwards? Or take your own simile of the night and his lady love. I admit the gentleman does first and foremost want to be in the lady's presence, but I never yet heard of a gentleman who wanted to look an utter ass when he was there. "Perhaps not, though he generally looks it," I replied, "but the truth is that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which can be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, the jollyer he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the love of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness, but it is not true that the stronger the play of both croquet players, the stronger will be the game. It is logically possible--follow me closely here, Parkinson--it is logically possible to play croquet too well to enjoy it at all. If you could put this blue ball through that distant hoop as easily as you could pick it up with your hand, then you would not put it through that hoop any more than you pick it up with your hand. It would not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly, you would not play at all. The moment the game is perfect, the game disappears." "I do not think, however," said Parkinson. "That you are in any immediate danger of affecting that sort of destruction. I do not think your croquet will vanish to its own faultless excellence. You are safe for the present." I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired myself, and resumed the thread of my discourse. The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this time it was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four more fundamental principles, and my companion had gone through five more hoops, the dust was verging upon dark. "We shall have to give this up," said Parkinson, as he missed the ball almost for the first time. "I can't see a thing." "Nor can I," I answered, "and it is a comfort to effect that I could not hit anything if I saw it. With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. Parkinson immediately gutted a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, indeed, called for it, I had hit the right ball. Stunned with astonishment I crossed the gloomy ground and hit my ball again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop, but it was the right hoop. I shut it from head to foot. Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that impossible ball. Again I hit it away into the night in what I supposed was the vague direction of the quite invisible stick, and in the dead silence I heard the stick rattle as the ball struck it heavily. I threw down my mallet. I can't stand this," I said, "my ball has gone right three times. These things are not of this world." "Pick your mallet up," said Parkinson. "Have another go. I tell you I dent. If I made another hoop like that I should see all the devils dancing there on the blessed grass." "Why devils?" asked Parkinson. "They may be only fairies, making fun of you. They are sending you the perfect game, which is no game." I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness in which the faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across the grass as if it burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball somewhere. Somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull click of the ball's touching and ran into the house like one presumed. End of The Perfect Game by G.K. Chesterton. The Dakono Music & Spirits Festival returns to Centennial Park Saturday August 3rd from 2 to 10 p.m. and it's free live music from the Warren Treaty. Staniels and the Kings is Kali and more. Enjoy a spirits competition, Kid Zone and Fireworks presented by Oxy and the City of Dakono. Admission and parking are free. The Dakono Music & Spirits Festival brought to you by Breckenridge Brewery and City of Dakono. Go to thecityofdakono.com for more information. 5280 Exterior's James Hardy sighting is a low maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resists flame spread and repels wood-borne insects and woodpeckers. Through the month of July, you'll receive free rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole house sighting. That's installing additional insulation behind your sighting for free, but only for the month of July. Call today for more details or visit 5280 Exterior's.com 5280 Exterior's.com, a James Hardy preferred contractor 5280 Exterior's, the altitude of quality.