An Allegory of England

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), "The Poet and the Cheese," A Shilling for My Thoughts, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1917), pp. 161-164 (at 162-164): After a few sentences exchanged at long intervals in the manner of rustic courtesy, I inquired casually what was the name of the town. The old lady answered that its name was Stilton, and composedly continued her needlework. But I had paused with my mug in air, and was gazing at her with a suddenly arrested concern. 'I suppose,' I said 'that it has nothing to do with the cheese of that name.' 'Oh, yes,' she answered, with a staggering indifference, 'they used to make it here.' 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…