Chesterton, Belloc, Wells, and Shaw

An anecdote that Lance Sieveking (a godchild of Chesterton's) remembered:

I was present in my godfather's house when those four giants- [H.G.] Wells, [George Bernard] Shaw, [Hilaire] Belloc, and Chesterton - were shouting, interrupting each other, arguing and laughing...

Once, I remember, they argued about the desirability or reverse of personal immortality. Chesterton remarked: "H.G. suffers from the disadvantage that if he's right he'll never know. He'll only know if he's wrong." Wells gave an exasperated exclamation, whereupon Belloc said: "There is something sublimely futile about discussing the desirability or undesirability of the inevitable." At which Shaw accused Belloc of habitually begging the question and then he trounced Chesterton for consistent evasion of all points at issue in any argument on any subject and then, without letting the other three get a word in, he proceeded to hold forth on immortality, personal, impersonal, metaphorical, mythological and so on and so on and so on. At last, after twenty minutes, he paused and [Chesterton] observed to the ceiling: "That, I suppose, is what is known as putting the whole thing in a nutshell.

[quoted in Wisdom and Innocence by Joseph Pearce, p. 133 (1996)]