"Г.К.Честертон. The Club of Queer Trades " - читать интересную книгу автора

Long ago as it is, everyone remembers the terrible and grotesque
scene that occurred in--, when one of the most acute and forcible
of the English judges suddenly went mad on the bench. I had my own
view of that occurrence; but about the facts themselves there is
no question at all. For some months, indeed for some years, people
had detected something curious in the judge's conduct. He seemed
to have lost interest in the law, in which he had been beyond
expression brilliant and terrible as a K.C., and to be occupied in
giving personal and moral advice to the people concerned. He
talked more like a priest or a doctor, and a very outspoken one at
that. The first thrill was probably given when he said to a man
who had attempted a crime of passion: "I sentence you to three
years imprisonment, under the firm, and solemn, and God-given
conviction, that what you require is three months at the seaside."
He accused criminals from the bench, not so much of their obvious
legal crimes, but of things that had never been heard of in a
court of justice, monstrous egoism, lack of humour, and morbidity
deliberately encouraged. Things came to a head in that celebrated
diamond case in which the Prime Minister himself, that brilliant
patrician, had to come forward, gracefully and reluctantly, to
give evidence against his valet. After the detailed life of the
household had been thoroughly exhibited, the judge requested the
Premier again to step forward, which he did with quiet dignity.
The judge then said, in a sudden, grating voice: "Get a new soul.
That thing's not fit for a dog. Get a new soul." All this, of
course, in the eyes of the sagacious, was premonitory of that
melancholy and farcical day when his wits actually deserted him
in open court. It was a libel case between two very eminent and
powerful financiers, against both of whom charges of considerable
defalcation were brought. The case was long and complex; the
advocates were long and eloquent; but at last, after weeks of
work and rhetoric, the time came for the great judge to give a
summing-up; and one of his celebrated masterpieces of lucidity
and pulverizing logic was eagerly looked for. He had spoken very
little during the prolonged affair, and he looked sad and lowering
at the end of it. He was silent for a few moments, and then burst
into a stentorian song. His remarks (as reported) were as follows:

"O Rowty-owty tiddly-owty Tiddly-owty tiddly-owty Highty-ighty
tiddly-ighty Tiddly-ighty ow."

He then retired from public life and took the garret in Lambeth.

I was sitting there one evening, about six o'clock, over a glass of
that gorgeous Burgundy which he kept behind a pile of black-letter
folios; he was striding about the room, fingering, after a habit of
his, one of the great swords in his collection; the red glare of
the strong fire struck his square features and his fierce grey
hair; his blue eyes were even unusually full of dreams, and he had
opened his mouth to speak dreamily, when the door was flung open,