For instance, Mr. Chesterton regards the soul of a story as "the ordeal of a free man"... "There is no such thing as a Hegelian story, or a monist story, or a determinist story ... Every short story does truly begin with the creation and end with the last judgment." The detective story won his praise from the start, because "it is the earliest and only form of popular literature in which is expressed some sense of the poetry of modern life." Such stories are "as rough and refreshing as the ballads of Robin Hood." They are based on the poetry of fact which Mr. Chesterton has expressed so well.