# Expecting nothing, inheriting everything

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH03.P003](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P003/#char=293,380): "By asking for pleasure, he lost the chief pleasure; for the chief pleasure is surprise."

The same link between humility and surprise already appears in *Heretics* (first published 1905). In chapter IV, ‘Mr. Bernard Shaw,’ Chesterton rewrites the maxim about expecting nothing: the reward is not merely avoiding disappointment but being ‘gloriously surprised.’ Lowering one's demands makes roses, grass and sunlight newly astonishing. The surrounding argument criticizes the imagined superior being used as a standard against which actual people seem deficient. Here, too, the problem is an appetite whose constantly increasing requirements obscure what it already receives. [Heretics, chapter IV](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/470).

Chapter V, ‘Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants,’ extends that argument from receptivity to adventure. Chesterton distinguishes what a person deserves from what that person can seek: adventures need not be earned as wages. His example of humility enjoying scarlet and gold makes the point particularly clearly. Self-importance can prevent delight in splendour; humility permits it. The towers and giants in this paragraph therefore condense an earlier account of romance: imaginative enlargement requires a spectator willing to occupy the smaller place. This is a connection between Chesterton's own arguments, rather than evidence that any particular giant or tower alludes to a specific tale. The inspected witness is Gutenberg ebook 470, whose prefatory source statement identifies the twelfth John Lane edition (1919). [Heretics, chapter V](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/470).

## Sources

- [G. K. Chesterton, Heretics (1905), Gutenberg 470, text derived from twelfth edition (1919)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/470), Source statement; chapter IV, paragraphs beginning ‘The truth is, that all genuine appreciation’ and ‘Now this is, I say deliberately’; chapter V, paragraphs beginning ‘There is one striking instance’ and ‘And this gay humility’

Revision 1 · 2026-11-07 · https://glosses.org/a/a_rwdb542b/