“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has always been the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the most earnest medieval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of quick and capering feet...In the old Christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue or gold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in the heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like the rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards, for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky.”

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About G.K. Chesterton

English Christian apologist and writer

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English Christian apologist and writer. He was a major presence in early 20th-century literature, known for his wit, his fondness for paradox, and his defence of tradition. His work and public writing were shaped by a style that often turned ideas on their head to make a point. He is remembered for arguments grounded in Christian belief and for a voice that was sharp, playful, and attentive to older social and cultural traditions.

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