Was Chesterton merely indulging his sense of fun or was he at heart a vernacularist? This question struck me after reading the following quotation from a letter written by G.K.C. to a young friend on hearing that she was engaged to be married and is taken from Maisie Ward's
book, Return to Chesterton: "... Mes felicitations, Felicite
or in more antiquated terms from the mummery of the Mass ... Benedicat te Omnipotens Deus . . . or again in a tongue understanded of the people . . . God bless you, dear old girl . . . the last term being literal, the second ritual, the first emphatic or operative."-A CORRESPONDENT.