Two treasured coins instead of an endless income
one sovereign and one shilling
The colours have a material point: the sovereign was a circulating gold coin worth one pound, or twenty shillings, while the shilling belonged to Britain's silver coinage. A shilling equalled twelve old pence. Thus the schoolboy possesses two distinct coins, with the gold one worth twenty times the silver one. The pairing makes the ‘golden sun’ and ‘silver moon’ into a small, countable treasure. These are familiar coins of Chesterton's prewar world, not merely decorative names for riches. The Royal Mint, ‘The Sovereign in the First World War,’ opening paragraph; Royal Mint Museum, ‘Shilling,’ Overview.
The decisive contrast is between a possession and an income. An ‘unending income of halfpence’ makes the stars indefinitely replaceable units arriving in a stream; the child's two coins have to be kept and counted. Chesterton's ‘economy’ is therefore care for what one already has, and its romance lies in the possibility of loss. He does not calculate the sun's greater economic worth or offer a monetary proof of cosmic scarcity. The coin image gives ordinary experience to the otherwise surprising claim that a universe imagined as small can inspire greater reverence than one imagined as inexhaustible. The next paragraph develops this attitude through Crusoe's finite stock of rescued goods. Orthodoxy, chapter IV, 1909 printing, pp. 113–114.
Sources
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