Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green The above is the last line from Chesterton’s The Rolling English Road , which begins: Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. Chesterton was a monumental pain in the backside, and scarily anti-Semitic, but as a Jewish friend said to me, he had a very engaging way with words. The Father Brown stories are beautifully told, and he wrote a number of poems, with strict metre and rhyme, which can touch your heart no matter what your origin. Many of these poems were epigrammatic prefaces to his novels. The introduction to The Napoleon of Notting Hill, begins: For every tiny town or place God made the stars especially; Babies look up with owlish face And see them tangled in a tree. You saw a moon from Sussex Downs, A Sussex moon, untravelled still, I saw a moon that was the town's, The largest lamp on Campden Hill. Clearl...