Alarms and Discursions

If Mr. Chesterton had been permitted to have his own way this handful of papers would have been sent out under the title of "Gargoyles." Perhaps the publisher foresaw horror upon the faces of really unimaginative readers when once brought face to face with a "monster" title; so it was changed to "Alarms and discursions, " as indefinite and capable of possibilities as one could wish. "Fragments of futile journalism or fleeting impressions, " Mr.
Chesterton calls his essays. "This row of shapeless and ungainly monsters .