Look here; I'll tell you if you like, but I'm
afraid it involves an introduction. You've got to understand one of
the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey
without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn
with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about
telling everybody that this was only a corruption of King George and
the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry,
from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic. It
turns something romantic and legendary into something recent and
ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is
unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to
remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French
romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would
just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern
intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept
anything without authority. That's exactly what has happened here.
"When some critic or other chose to say that Prior's Park was not a
priory, but was named after some quite modern man named Prior,
nobody really tested the theory at all. It never occurred to anybody
repeating the story to ask if there _was_ any Mr.
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