A Miscellany of Men

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Gilbert Keith Chesterton. A Miscellany of Men

THE SUFFRAGIST

THE POET AND THE CHEESE

THE THING

THE MAN WHO THINKS BACKWARDS

THE NAMELESS MAN

THE GARDENER AND THE GUINEA

THE VOTER AND THE TWO VOICES

THE MAD OFFICIAL

THE ENCHANTED MAN

THE SUN WORSHIPPER

THE WRONG INCENDIARY

THE FREE MAN

THE HYPOTHETICAL HOUSEHOLDER

THE PRIEST OF SPRING

THE REAL JOURNALIST

THE SENTIMENTAL SCOT

THE SECTARIAN OF SOCIETY

THE FOOL

THE CONSCRIPT AND THE CRISIS

THE MISER AND HIS FRIENDS

THE MYSTAGOGUE

THE RED REACTIONARY

THE SEPARATIST AND SACRED THINGS

THE MUMMER

THE ARISTOCRATIC ‘ARRY

THE NEW THEOLOGIAN

THE ROMANTIC IN THE RAIN

THE FALSE PHOTOGRAPHER

THE SULTAN

THE ARCHITECT OF SPEARS

THE MAN ON TOP

THE OTHER KIND OF MAN

THE MEDIAEVAL VILLAIN

THE DIVINE DETECTIVE

THE ELF OF JAPAN

THE CHARTERED LIBERTINE

THE CONTENTED MAN

THE ANGRY AUTHOR: HIS FAREWELL

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There is something creepy in the flat Eastern Counties; a brush of the white feather. There is a stillness, which is rather of the mind than of the bodily senses. Rapid changes and sudden revelations of scenery, even when they are soundless, have something in them analogous to a movement of music, to a crash or a cry. Mountain hamlets spring out on us with a shout like mountain brigands. Comfortable valleys accept us with open arms and warm words, like comfortable innkeepers. But travelling in the great level lands has a curiously still and lonely quality; lonely even when there are plenty of people on the road and in the market-place. One’s voice seems to break an almost elvish silence, and something unreasonably weird in the phrase of the nursery tales, “And he went a little farther and came to another place,” comes back into the mind.

In some such mood I came along a lean, pale road south of the fens, and found myself in a large, quiet, and seemingly forgotten village. It was one of those places that instantly produce a frame of mind which, it may be, one afterwards decks out with unreal details. I dare say that grass did not really grow in the streets, but I came away with a curious impression that it did. I dare say the marketplace was not literally lonely and without sign of life, but it left the vague impression of being so. The place was large and even loose in design, yet it had the air of something hidden away and always overlooked. It seemed shy, like a big yokel; the low roofs seemed to be ducking behind the hedges and railings; and the chimneys holding their breath. I came into it in that dead hour of the afternoon which is neither after lunch nor before tea, nor anything else even on a half-holiday; and I had a fantastic feeling that I had strayed into a lost and extra hour that is not numbered in the twenty-four.

.....

I put down my mug with a gravity far greater than her own. “But this place is a Shrine!” I said. “Pilgrims should be pouring into it from wherever the English legend has endured alive. There ought to be a colossal statue in the market-place of the man who invented Stilton cheese. There ought to be another colossal statue of the first cow who provided the foundations of it. There should be a burnished tablet let into the ground on the spot where some courageous man first ate Stilton cheese, and survived. On the top of a neighbouring hill (if there are any neighbouring hills) there should be a huge model of a Stilton cheese, made of some rich green marble and engraven with some haughty motto: I suggest something like ‘Ver non semper viret; sed Stiltonia semper virescit.’” The old lady said, “Yes, sir,” and continued her domestic occupations.

After a strained and emotional silence, I said, “If I take a meal here tonight can you give me any Stilton?”

.....