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 slight 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 many other 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