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.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25