Jacintha Buddicam remembered fondly her youthful conversations with Eric Blair (George Orwell), a childhood friend, beginning in the year 1915 when Blair, or Orwell, was about 12 years old. "He was crazy about Chesterton," she recalled, and reported that he had given her a copy of Chesterton's Manalive. [Jonathon Rose, The Revised Orwell,
This didn't last, unfortunately, for Orwell eventually went on to declare in an essay on nationalism that Chesterton was a very clever man whose intellect, style and integrity were being corrupted by both his love of England, among other things.
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