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though he was a common man) that he saw down the ride, but
somewhat to one side of it in the heart of the high wood, a great light
shining from a barn or shed that stood there in the undergrowth, and to
this light, though his way naturally led him to it, he felt also impelled

by an influence as strong as or stronger than the despair that had filled
his soul and all the woods around. He went on therefore quickly,
straining with his eyes, and when he came into the light that shone out
from this he saw a more brilliant light within, and men of his own kind
adoring; but the vision was confused, like light on light or like vapours
moving over bright metals in a cauldron, and as he gazed his mind
became still and the dread left him altogether. He said it was like
shutting a gentleman's great oaken door against a driving storm.
This is the story he told me weeks after as we rode together in the
battery, for he hid it in his heart till the spring. As I say, I believed him.
He was an unlearned man and a strong; he never worshipped. He was
of that plain stuff and clay on which has worked since all recorded time
the power of the Spirit.
He said that when he left (as he did rapidly leave) that light, peace also
left him, but that the haunting terror did not return. He found the
clearing and his father's hut; fatigue and the common world indeed
returned, but with them a permanent memory of things experienced.
Every word I have written of him is true.

On Cheeses
If antiquity be the test of nobility, as many affirm and none deny
(saving, indeed, that family which takes for its motto "Sola Virtus
Nobilitas," which may mean that virtue is the only nobility, but which
may also mean, mark you, that nobility is the only virtue--and anyhow
denies that nobility is tested by the lapse of time), if, I say, antiquity be
the only test of nobility, then cheese is a very noble thing.
But wait a moment: there was a digression in that first paragraph which
to the purist might seem of a complicated kind.
Were I writing algebra (I wish I were) I could have analysed my
thoughts by the use of square brackets, round brackets, twiddly
brackets, and the rest, all properly set out in order so that a Common
Fool could follow them.
But no such luck! I may not write of algebra here; for there is a rule
current in all newspapers that no man may write upon any matter save
upon those in which he is more learned than all his human fellows that
drag themselves so slowly daily forward to the grave.
So I had to put the thing in the very common form of a digression, and

very nearly to forget that great subject of cheese which I had put at the
very head and title of this.
Which reminds me: had I followed the rule set down by a London
journalist the other day (and of the proprietor of his paper I will say
nothing--though I might have put down the remark to his proprietor) I
would have hesitated to write that first paragraph. I would have
hesitated, did I say? Griffins' tails! Nay--Hippogriffs and other things
of the night! I would not have dared to write it at all! For this journalist
made a law and promulgated it, and the law was this: that no man
should write that English which could not be understood if all the
punctuation were left out. Punctuation, I take it, includes brackets,
which the Lord of Printers knows are a very modern part of punctuation
indeed.
Now let the horripilised reader look up again at the first paragraph (it
will do him no harm), and think how it would look all written out in
fair uncials like the beautiful Gospels of St. Chad, which anyone may
see for nothing in the cathedral of Lichfield, an English town famous
for eight or nine different things: as Garrick, Doctor Johnson, and its
two opposite inns. Come, read that first paragraph over now and see
what you could make of it if it were written out in uncials--that is, not
only without punctuation, but without any division between the words.
Wow! As the philosopher said when he was asked to give a plain
answer "Yes" or "No."
And now to cheese. I have had quite enough of digressions and of
follies. They are the happy youth of an article. They are the springtime
of it. They are its riot. I am approaching the middle age of this article.
Let us be solid