DEFENCE OF EATING. 43 



of reality ; the best description is but thin and meagre, 

 following beggar-like in the footsteps of Eeality. The 

 language of enthusiasm may serve to convey to others 

 an impression that the speaker is moved, but it neces- 

 sarily fails to paint the felicitous details which moved 

 him. 



In this approximative and confessedly incomplete 

 style, I will endeavour to describe something of the 

 delimits which attend the naturalist when his huntino; 

 is over, and his home is reached. For, understand 

 this : the naturalist, and especially the 23hysiologist, 

 has a Morrow to his pleasure, whereas all other hunt- 

 ers have but a fine To-day. Far be it from me to 

 underrate any man's pleasure ; nevertheless the most 

 catholic may discriminate; and I must here discriminate 

 between the sportsman's possible pleasure and my own. 

 Brown is excited when he brings down a buck, lands 

 a pike, or recovers a snipe which has fallen among the 

 reeds. He has his day's sport, has proved his skill — 

 to his own satisfaction entirely proved it ; and now 

 nothing remains but to eat the produce. A dish the 

 more upon his dinner-table — nothing but that ! Not 

 that I mean to speak disrespectfully of dishes ; assur- 

 edly not of venison, pike, or snipe, well dressed, well 

 served, well wined, and well companioned. I have no 

 patience with those who pretend not to care for their 

 dinner, on the ludicrous assumption that "spiritual" 

 negations imply superior souls. A man who is care- 

 less about his dinner is generally a man of flaccid body, 

 and of feeble mind ; as old Samuel Johnson authorita- 



