I’ve received an e-mail from a StAR subscriber querying a reference to Chesterton in James Bemis’s film review in the latest issue. I thought the connection between Chesterton and Evelyn Waugh would interest visitors to the Ink Desk and am therefore posting the e-mail and my reply.

Here’s the query from the subscriber:

In the July/August issue, the article by James Bemis on “Nazarin”  attributed “a twitch upon the thread” to Chesterton. I thought it was from  Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited”.     

And here’s my reply:

You are correct that Waugh used the metaphor of “a twitch upon the thread” in Brideshead Revisited but he plucked it from one of Chesterton’s Father Brown stories, which Lady Marchmain reads aloud to members of her family in the novel. James Bemis is, therefore, correct to attribute the phrase to Chesterton.