by G.K. Chesterton
Published in ‘Alarms and Discursions’ (1910)
My forthcoming work in five volumes, ‘The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature,’ is a work of such unprecedented and laborious detail that it is doubtful whether I shall live to finish it. Some overflowings from such a fountain of information may therefore be permitted to springle these pages. I cannot yet wholly explain the neglect to which I refer. Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. Virgil, if I remember right, refers to it several times, but with too much Roman restraint. He does not let himself go on cheese. The only other poet that I can think of just now who seems to have had some sensibility on the point was the nameless author of the nursery rhyme which says: ‘If all the trees were bread and cheese’—which is indeed a rich and gigantic vision of the higher gluttony. If all the trees were bread and cheese there would be considerable deforestation in any part of England where I was living. Wild and wide woodlands would reel and fade before me as rapidly as they ran after Orpheus. Except Virgil and this anonymous rhymer, I can recall no verse about cheese. Yet it has every quality which we require in an exalted poetry. It is a short, strong word; it rhymes to ‘breeze’ and ‘seas’ (an essential point); that it is emphatic in sound is admitted even by the civilization of the modern cities. For their citizens, with no apparent intention except emphasis, will often say ‘Cheese it!’ or even ‘Quite the cheese.’ The substance itself is imaginative. It is ancient—sometimes in the individual case, always in the type and custom. It is simple, being directly derived from milk, which is one of the ancestral drinks, not lightly to be corrupted with soda-water. You know, I hope (though I myself have only just thought of it), that the four rivers of Eden were milk, water, wine, and ale. Aerated waters only appeared after the Fall.
But cheese has another quality, which is also the very soul of song. Once in endeavouring to lecture in several places at once, I made an eccentric journey across England, a journey of so irregular and even illogical shape that it necessitated my having lunch on four successive days in four roadside inns in four different counties. In each inn they had nothing but bread and cheese; nor can I imagine why a man should want more than bread and cheese, if he can get enough of it. In each inn the cheese was good; and in each inn it was different. There was a noble Wensleydale cheese in Yorkshire, a Cheshire cheese in Cheshire, and so on. Now, it is just here that true poetic civilization differs from that paltry and mechanical civilization that holds us all in bondage. Bad customs are universal and rigid, like modern militarism. Good customs are universal and varied, like native chivalry and self-defence. Both the good and the bad civilization cover us as with a canopy, and protect us from all that is outside. But a good civilization spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilization stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella—artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform. So it is with the contrast between the substances that vary and the substances that are the same wherever they penetrate. By a wise doom of heaven men were commanded to eat cheese, but not the same cheese. Being really universal it varies from valley to valley. But if, let us say, we compare cheese to soap (that vastly inferior substance), we shall see that soap tends more and more to be merely Smith’s Soap or Brown’s Soap, sent automatically all over the world. If the Red Indians have soap it is Smith’s Soap. If the Grand Lama has soap it is Brown’s Soap. There is nothing subtly and strangely Buddhist, nothing tenderly Tibetan, about his soap. I fancy the Grand Lama does not eat cheese (he is not worthy), but if he does it is probably a local cheese, having some real relation to his life and outlook. Safety matches, tinned foods, patent medicines are sent all over the world; but they are not produced all over the world. Therefore there is in them a mere dead identity, never that soft play of variation which exists in things produced everywhere out of the soil, in the milk of the kine, or the fruits of the orchard. You can get a whisky and soda at every outpost of the Empire: that is why so many Empire builders go mad. But you are not tasting or touching any environment, as in the cider of Devonshire or the grapes of the Rhine. You are not approaching Nature in one of her myriad tints of mood, as in the holy act of eating cheese.
When I had done my pilgrimage in the four wayside public-houses I reached one of the great northern cities, and there I proceeded, with great rapidity and complete inconsistency, to a large and elaborate restaurant, where I knew I could get a great many things besides bread and cheese. I could get that also, however; or at least I expected to get it; but I was sharply reminded that I had entered Babylon, and left England behind. The waiter brought me cheese, indeed, but cheese cut up into contemptibly small pieces; and it is the awful fact that instead of Christian bread, he brought me biscuits. Biscuits—to one who had eaten the cheese of four great countrysides! Biscuits—to one who had proved anew for himself the sanctity of the ancient wedding between cheese and bread! I addressed the waiter in warm and moving terms. I asked him who he was that he should put asunder those whom Humanity had joined. I asked him if he did not feel, as an artist, that a solid but yielding substance like cheese went naturally with a solid, yielding substance like bread; to eat it off biscuits is like eating it off slates. I asked him if, when he said his prayers, he was so supercilious as to pray for his daily biscuits. He gave me generally to understand that he was only obeying a custom of Modern Society. I have therefore resolved to raise my voice, not against the waiter, but against Modern Society, for this huge and unparalleled modern wrong.
by G.K. Chesterton
Published in ‘Alarms and Discursions’ (1910)
My forthcoming work in five volumes, ‘The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature,’ is a work of such unprecedented and laborious detail that it is doubtful whether I shall live to finish it. Some overflowings from such a fountain of information may therefore be permitted to springle these pages. I cannot yet wholly explain the neglect to which I refer. Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. Virgil, if I remember right, refers to it several times, but with too much Roman restraint. He does not let himself go on cheese. The only other poet that I can think of just now who seems to have had some sensibility on the point was the nameless author of the nursery rhyme which says: ‘If all the trees were bread and cheese’—which is indeed a rich and gigantic vision of the higher gluttony. If all the trees were bread and cheese there would be considerable deforestation in any part of England where I was living. Wild and wide woodlands would reel and fade before me as rapidly as they ran after Orpheus. Except Virgil and this anonymous rhymer, I can recall no verse about cheese. Yet it has every quality which we require in an exalted poetry. It is a short, strong word; it rhymes to ‘breeze’ and ‘seas’ (an essential point); that it is emphatic in sound is admitted even by the civilization of the modern cities. For their citizens, with no apparent intention except emphasis, will often say ‘Cheese it!’ or even ‘Quite the cheese.’ The substance itself is imaginative. It is ancient—sometimes in the individual case, always in the type and custom. It is simple, being directly derived from milk, which is one of the ancestral drinks, not lightly to be corrupted with soda-water. You know, I hope (though I myself have only just thought of it), that the four rivers of Eden were milk, water, wine, and ale. Aerated waters only appeared after the Fall.
But cheese has another quality, which is also the very soul of song. Once in endeavouring to lecture in several places at once, I made an eccentric journey across England, a journey of so irregular and even illogical shape that it necessitated my having lunch on four successive days in four roadside inns in four different counties. In each inn they had nothing but bread and cheese; nor can I imagine why a man should want more than bread and cheese, if he can get enough of it. In each inn the cheese was good; and in each inn it was different. There was a noble Wensleydale cheese in Yorkshire, a Cheshire cheese in Cheshire, and so on. Now, it is just here that true poetic civilization differs from that paltry and mechanical civilization that holds us all in bondage. Bad customs are universal and rigid, like modern militarism. Good customs are universal and varied, like native chivalry and self-defence. Both the good and the bad civilization cover us as with a canopy, and protect us from all that is outside. But a good civilization spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilization stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella—artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform. So it is with the contrast between the substances that vary and the substances that are the same wherever they penetrate. By a wise doom of heaven men were commanded to eat cheese, but not the same cheese. Being really universal it varies from valley to valley. But if, let us say, we compare cheese to soap (that vastly inferior substance), we shall see that soap tends more and more to be merely Smith’s Soap or Brown’s Soap, sent automatically all over the world. If the Red Indians have soap it is Smith’s Soap. If the Grand Lama has soap it is Brown’s Soap. There is nothing subtly and strangely Buddhist, nothing tenderly Tibetan, about his soap. I fancy the Grand Lama does not eat cheese (he is not worthy), but if he does it is probably a local cheese, having some real relation to his life and outlook. Safety matches, tinned foods, patent medicines are sent all over the world; but they are not produced all over the world. Therefore there is in them a mere dead identity, never that soft play of variation which exists in things produced everywhere out of the soil, in the milk of the kine, or the fruits of the orchard. You can get a whisky and soda at every outpost of the Empire: that is why so many Empire builders go mad. But you are not tasting or touching any environment, as in the cider of Devonshire or the grapes of the Rhine. You are not approaching Nature in one of her myriad tints of mood, as in the holy act of eating cheese.
di G.K. Chesterton
Pubblicato in ‘Alarms and Discursions’ (1910)
La mia prossima opera in cinque volumi, ‘La trascuratezza del Formaggio nella letteratura europea’, è un lavoro di dettaglio tanto senza precedenti e laborioso che è dubbio se vivrò abbastanza per portarlo a termine. Qualche traboccamento da una simile fonte d’informazione può dunque essere concesso a irrorare queste pagine. Non so ancora spiegare del tutto la trascuratezza cui mi riferisco. I poeti sono stati misteriosamente silenziosi sul tema del formaggio. Virgilio, se ben ricordo, vi accenna parecchie volte, ma con troppa romana compostezza. Non si lascia andare sul formaggio. L’unico altro poeta che mi venga in mente ora e che paia aver avuto qualche sensibilità in proposito fu l’anonimo autore della filastrocca che dice: ‘Se tutti gli alberi fossero pane e formaggio’ — che è davvero una ricca e gigantesca visione della più alta ghiottoneria. Se tutti gli alberi fossero pane e formaggio, ci sarebbe un notevole disboscamento in qualunque parte dell’Inghilterra dove abitassi. Boschi selvaggi e sconfinati vacillerebbero e svanirebbero davanti a me con la stessa rapidità con cui corsero dietro a Orfeo. Eccetto Virgilio e questo anonimo rimatore, non ricordo alcun verso sul formaggio. Eppure esso possiede ogni qualità che richiediamo in una poesia sublime. È una parola breve e forte; rima con ‘brezza’ e ‘mari’ (punto essenziale); che sia enfatica nel suono è ammesso perfino dalla civiltà delle città moderne. Poiché i loro cittadini, senza altra apparente intenzione che l’enfasi, diranno spesso ‘Cheese it!’ o persino ‘Quite the cheese.’ La sostanza stessa è immaginifica. È antica — talvolta nel caso individuale, sempre nel tipo e nella consuetudine. È semplice, essendo direttamente derivata dal latte, che è una delle bevande ancestrali, da non corrompere alla leggera con l’acqua di soda. Sapete, lo spero (benché io stesso ci abbia pensato solo ora), che i quattro fiumi dell’Eden erano latte, acqua, vino e birra. Le acque gassate comparvero soltanto dopo la Caduta.
Ma il formaggio possiede un’altra qualità, che è anche l’anima stessa del canto. Un tempo, nel tentativo di tenere conferenze in più luoghi contemporaneamente, feci un eccentrico viaggio attraverso l’Inghilterra, un viaggio di forma tanto irregolare e persino illogica da rendere necessario che pranzassi per quattro giorni di seguito in quattro locande sul ciglio della strada, in quattro contee diverse. In ogni locanda non avevano che pane e formaggio; né riesco a immaginare perché un uomo dovrebbe volere più di pane e formaggio, se può averne a sufficienza. In ogni locanda il formaggio era buono; e in ogni locanda era diverso. C’era un nobile formaggio di Wensleydale nello Yorkshire, un formaggio Cheshire nel Cheshire, e così via. Ora, è proprio qui che la vera civiltà poetica differisce da quella civiltà meschina e meccanica che ci tiene tutti in schiavitù. Le cattive consuetudini sono universali e rigide, come il militarismo moderno. Le buone consuetudini sono universali e varie, come la cavalleria innata e l’autodifesa. Sia la buona sia la cattiva civiltà ci coprono come un baldacchino, e ci proteggono da tutto ciò che sta fuori. Ma una buona civiltà si distende su di noi liberamente come un albero, variando e cedevole perché è viva. Una cattiva civiltà si erge e sporge sopra di noi come un ombrello — artificiale, matematico nella forma; non soltanto universale, ma uniforme. Così è per il contrasto tra le sostanze che variano e le sostanze che sono uguali ovunque penetrino. Per saggia condanna del cielo agli uomini fu comandato di mangiare formaggio, ma non lo stesso formaggio. Essendo davvero universale, varia di valle in valle. Ma se, poniamo, paragoniamo il formaggio al sapone (sostanza assai inferiore), vedremo che il sapone tende sempre più a essere semplicemente il Sapone di Smith o il Sapone di Brown, spedito automaticamente in tutto il mondo. Se i Pellirosse hanno il sapone, è il Sapone di Smith. Se il Gran Lama ha il sapone, è il Sapone di Brown. Non c’è nulla di sottilmente e stranamente buddhista, nulla di teneramente tibetano, nel suo sapone. Immagino che il Gran Lama non mangi formaggio (non ne è degno), ma se lo fa è probabilmente un formaggio locale, che ha qualche reale relazione con la sua vita e la sua visione. Fiammiferi di sicurezza, cibi in scatola, medicine brevettate sono spediti in tutto il mondo; ma non sono prodotti in tutto il mondo. Perciò in essi vi è una mera morta identità, mai quel morbido gioco di variazione che esiste nelle cose prodotte ovunque dal suolo, nel latte delle vacche, o nei frutti del frutteto. Puoi ottenere un whisky e soda in ogni avamposto dell’Impero: ecco perché tanti costruttori d’Impero impazziscono. Ma non stai gustando né toccando alcun ambiente, come nel sidro del Devonshire o nell’uva del Reno. Non ti stai avvicinando alla Natura in una delle sue miriadi di sfumature d’umore, come nel sacro atto di mangiare il formaggio.
When I had done my pilgrimage in the four wayside public-houses I reached one of the great northern cities, and there I proceeded, with great rapidity and complete inconsistency, to a large and elaborate restaurant, where I knew I could get a great many things besides bread and cheese. I could get that also, however; or at least I expected to get it; but I was sharply reminded that I had entered Babylon, and left England behind. The waiter brought me cheese, indeed, but cheese cut up into contemptibly small pieces; and it is the awful fact that instead of Christian bread, he brought me biscuits. Biscuits—to one who had eaten the cheese of four great countrysides! Biscuits—to one who had proved anew for himself the sanctity of the ancient wedding between cheese and bread! I addressed the waiter in warm and moving terms. I asked him who he was that he should put asunder those whom Humanity had joined. I asked him if he did not feel, as an artist, that a solid but yielding substance like cheese went naturally with a solid, yielding substance like bread; to eat it off biscuits is like eating it off slates. I asked him if, when he said his prayers, he was so supercilious as to pray for his daily biscuits. He gave me generally to understand that he was only obeying a custom of Modern Society. I have therefore resolved to raise my voice, not against the waiter, but against Modern Society, for this huge and unparalleled modern wrong.
Compiuto il mio pellegrinaggio nelle quattro osterie lungo la strada, raggiunsi una delle grandi città del nord, e là mi diressi, con gran rapidità e completa incoerenza, verso un ampio ed elaborato ristorante, dove sapevo di poter avere molte cose oltre a pane e formaggio. Potevo avere anche quello, comunque; o almeno mi aspettavo di averlo; ma fui bruscamente ricordato che ero entrato a Babilonia, e mi ero lasciato l’Inghilterra alle spalle. Il cameriere mi portò formaggio, sì, ma formaggio tagliato in pezzetti spregevolmente piccoli; e questo è il fatto tremendo: invece del pane cristiano, mi portò dei biscotti. Biscotti—a uno che aveva mangiato il formaggio di quattro grandi campagne! Biscotti—a uno che aveva provato di nuovo per sé stesso la santità dell’antico connubio tra formaggio e pane! Mi rivolsi al cameriere in termini caldi e commossi. Gli chiesi chi fosse lui per separare coloro che l’Umanità aveva unito. Gli chiesi se non sentisse, da artista, che una sostanza solida ma cedevole come il formaggio andava naturalmente con una sostanza solida e cedevole come il pane; mangiarlo sui biscotti è come mangiarlo sull’ardesia. Gli chiesi se, quando diceva le sue preghiere, fosse tanto altezzoso da pregare per i suoi biscotti quotidiani. Mi diede a intendere in generale che si limitava a obbedire a un’usanza della Società Moderna. Ho perciò deciso di alzare la voce, non contro il cameriere, ma contro la Società Moderna, per questo enorme e ineguagliato torto moderno.