It was in this great and universal mood (granted to him as a seer, 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.