Part 44

An American writer on dietetics is half afraid that people will smile if he, in connexion with the subject, introduces dainty children; and yet, as he justly remarks, “there is a mystery about this subject, on which we may well bestow a passing thought.” There are children in all the various classes of life who are “very difficult about their food.” “These little connoisseurs,” says Dr. Withington, “cannot eat with the rest of the family, and the mother and the son are often at issue in an interminable controversy. The mother often says it is all whim and caprice; and some severe matrons tell their children that they shall not eat a morsel until the given lump is devoured. But the son would say, if he could quote Shakspeare, ‘You cram these things into mine ear against the stomach of my sense. I know I don’t love it. I can’t eat it; it is not fit to be eaten.’” The doctor proceeds to inquire if this turn of the appetite be a matter of caprice or necessity. He examines whether the mother, or the boy be right. He acknowledges the antiquity of a controversy which has been carried on for ages, and he has no doubt “that Eve had it with Cain and Abel, the first supper she gave them after they were weaned. We offer it,” he adds, “as a profound conjecture, that Cain was a dainty boy, and probably doubled up his fist at his mother.” With regard to the controversy itself, he appears to think that it has much of the quality of that which marked the dispute about the colour of the chameleon, and that “both parties are partly wrong.” It is likely, as he remarks, that much depends on the training and volition, and also on original nature and temperament. “There are some things we were never made for, and they were never made for us. There are some kinds of food which, though they may suit the race, were never made for the _individual_. But this blinded appetite, partly natural, partly artificial, follows through life.” And this is leaving the controversy very much where the worthy doctor found it.

Finally, let them who fancy that man was made merely to enjoy, learn truth from contemplating the portrait of one whose sole philosophy was gastronomic enjoyment. If ever there was a man who had a gay celebrity, and who taught in the porch, that life was only life at the tables in the “salon,” it was the editor of the “Almanack des Gourmands.” He taught not that _bibere est vivere_, but that _bibere_ was only the half of _vivere_, and that to _live_ was emphatically to eat and drink. He was a practical philosopher, it should be observed, and here is the portrait of the man, at the end of his philosophical practice:--“The author of the Almanack is still in the land of the living. He eats, digests, and sleeps, in the charming valley of Longpons.... But how is he changed! At eight o’clock, he rings for his servants, scolds them, cries _Extravagantes!_ calls for his _soupe aux ficules_, and swallows it. Digestion now commences: the labour of the stomach reacts upon the brain, the gloomy ideas of the fasting man disappear, calmness resumes her sway, he no longer wishes to die. He speaks, converses tranquilly, asks for Paris news; and inquires for the old gourmands still living. When digestion is finished, he becomes silent, and sleeps for some hours. On awaking, complaints recommence; he weeps, he sighs, he becomes angry, he wishes to die, he calls eagerly for death. The hour for dinner comes; he sits himself down to table, dinner is served, he eats abundantly of every dish, although he says he has no want of anything, as his last hour is approaching. At dessert, his face becomes animated; his eyes, sunk in their orbits, sparkle brightly. ‘How is Marquis de Coussy, dear doctor?’ he exclaims: ‘how long will he last? They say he has a terrible disease. Doubtless they have not put him on regimen. You would never have suffered that, for one must eat to live,--ah!’ At length, he rises from table. Behold him in an immense arm-chair. He crosses his legs, supports his stumps upon his knees (for he has no hands, but something resembling the flap of a goose), and continues his conversation, which always runs on eating. ‘The rains have been abundant,’ he cries, ‘we shall have plenty of mushrooms this autumn. What a pity, dear doctor, that I cannot accompany you in your walks to St. Geneviève! How fine our vines are! what a delicious perfume!’ And then he falls asleep, and dreams of what he will eat on the following day!”

Fancy, if the theory of guardian angels be a beautiful truth, what the winged watcher of this animal, staggering over the supper of life, must feel at contemplating the ward committed to his care. For our own profit such examples may be employed, as the ancients showed their slaves drunk in presence of their sons, that the latter might be disgusted with inebriety. And this tail-piece should be engraved at the end of every work professing to teach that there is even in this world, a paradise for _gourmands_. The old heathen Socrates knew better, when he said, “Beware of such food as persuades a man, though he be not hungry, to eat; and those liquors that will prevail with a man to drink them when he is not thirsty.” In the same spirit, the pious Dodsley taught, that health sat on the brow of him only who had temperance for a companion--temperance, which Sir William Temple styled as “that virtue without pride and fortune without envy, which gives health of body and tranquillity of mind, the best guardian of youth, and support of old age.” So Jeremy Collier says, “Temperance keeps the senses clear and unembarrassed, and makes them seize the object with more keenness and satisfaction. It appears with life in the face, and decorum in the person; it gives you the command of your head, secures your health, and preserves you in a condition for business.” What comment can I add to texts of such philosophy, but to bid wise men welcome to the feast of reason, where

“May good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both!”

THE END.

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Henry Holden Frankum, Esq.

[2] “’Twixt the gloaming and the murk, When the kye comes hame.”--HOGG.

[3] Φιλομμειδὴς Ἀφροδίτη. Iliad, iii. 414.

[4] After “Cupiditate et Amore,” Livy ungallantly adds, “quæ maxime ad muliebre ingenium efficaces preces sunt.”

[5] Lady Morgan, I think, calls dancing, “the Poetry of Motion.”

[6] “Qu’est-ce que la danse? le sourire des jambes. Qu’est-ce que le sourire? la danse du visage.”--_Bibliophile Jacob._

[7] The theatre at Boulogne stands on the site of the old convent garden belonging to the Cordeliers, the sea formerly flowed close to the spot. When Henry VIII. took Boulogne, he converted the convent into a marine arsenal.

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.