Student Question
Why does Chesterton discuss the paper conversation in "A Piece of Chalk"?
Quick answer:
Chesterton discusses the paper conversation in "A Piece of Chalk" to contrast the practical attitude of the old woman with his whimsical artistic preoccupations. This highlights his view of white as a positive color, analogous to virtue. He humorously concludes by realizing he has an abundance of white chalk, symbolizing God's generous provision.
In the first paragraph of "A Piece of Chalk," Chesterton mentions his conversation with the "very square and sensible old woman" in the kitchen, partly to establish what he was doing (drawing pictures on brown paper with colored chalk) and partly for the humorous contrast between her practical attitude and his whimsical artistic preoccupations. This attitude to his art (Chesterton was, in fact, a very talented artist who studied at the Slade School and sometimes illustrated his own work), is further demonstrated by his extravagant descriptions of what and how he intended to draw:
Brown paper represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-colored chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness.
This is related to his point about white and virtue....
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Chesterton wants to use brown paper because he regards white as a positive color, not the mere absence of color. Brown is his background, analogous to the nothingness out of which God creates everything. White is too important a feature of his work to be the background. This is why he compares white to virtue as a positive presence: white is not merely the absence of color, just as virtue is not merely the absence of vice:
Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell... Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colors; but he never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.
Chesterton's point in the last paragraph is that he has forgotten to bring white chalk with him, then he suddenly and joyfully realizes that he has vastly more white chalk than he could ever use:
Imagine a man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely of white chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped and broke a piece of the rock I sat on...
This conclusion extravagantly reinforces Chesterton's point that God provides for him far more generously and thoroughly than he would ever think to provide for himself.