FOOD AND FEEDING. 621 



this is, I do not think any other is worth consuming just as one may 

 occasionally enjoy a particularly choice dish ; neither the one nor the 

 other, perhaps, being sufficiently innocuous or digestible for frequent, 

 much less for habitual use. Then I frankly admit that there are some 

 persons in the aggregate not a few who may take small quantities 

 of genuine light wine or beer with very little if any appreciable injury. 

 For these persons such drinks may be put in the category of luxuries 

 permissible within certain limits or conditions ; and of such luxuries 

 let tobacco-smoking be another example. No one probably is any bet- 

 ter for tobacco ; and some people are undoubtedly injured by it ; 

 while others find it absolutely poisonous, and can not inhale even a 

 small quantity of the smoke without instantly feeling sick or ill. And 

 some few indulge the moderate use of tobacco all their lives without 

 any evil effects, at all events that are perceptible to themselves or to 

 others. 



Relative to these matters, every man ought to deal carefully and 

 faithfully with himself, watching rigorously the effects of the smallest 

 license on his mental and bodily states, and boldly denying himself 

 the use of a luxurious habit if he finds any signs of harm arising there- 

 from. And he must perform the difficult task with a profound con- 

 viction that his judgment is very prone to bias on the side of indul- 

 gence, since the luxurious habit is so agreeable, and to refrain there- 

 from in relation to himself and to the present opinion of society, so 

 difficult. Be it remarked, however, that the opinion of society is no- 

 tably and rapidly changing relative to the point in question. 



Having premised thus much, I have only now to say, first, that 

 wine, in relation to dinner, should be served during the repast ; it 

 should never be taken, in any form or under any circumstances, before, 

 that is, on an empty stomach, and rarely after the meal is finished. 

 Regarded from a gastronomic point of view alone, nothing should 

 appear after fruit but a small glass of cognac or liqueur, and coffee. 

 The postprandial habit of drinking glass after glass even of the finest 

 growths of the Gironde, or of the most mature or mellow shipments 

 from Oporto, is doubtless a pleasant, but, in the end, for many persons, 

 a costly indulgence. 



Secondly, whatever wine is given should be the most sound and 

 unsophisticated of its kind which can be procured. The host had far 

 better produce only a bottle or two of sound bourgeois wine from 

 Bordeaux and most excellent wine may be found under such a de- 

 nomination with no pretense of a meretricious title, or other worth- 

 less finery about it, than an array of fictitious mixtures with preten- 

 tious labels procured from an advertising cheap wine-house. I could 

 only speak in terms of contempt and disgust, did I not feel pity for 

 the deluded victims, of the unscrupulous use of the time-honored and 

 historical titles which advertisers shamelessly flaunt on bottles of 

 worthless compounds by means of showy labels, in lists and pamphlets 



