44 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



tively said, " Sir, a man seldom thinks with more ear- 

 nestness of anything than he does of his dinner ; and 

 if he cannot get that well dressed, he should he sus- 

 2^ected of inaccuracy in other things." Homo sum, et 

 nihil, (^c. (&c. I respect man, and all his appetites. 

 When the man is not basely insensible to the hunger 

 of soul, the keen intellectual voracities and emotional 

 desires, he is all the healthier, all the stronger, all the 

 better for a noble capacity for food — a capacity which 

 becomes noble when it ministers to a fine, and not 

 merely a gluttonous nature. Moreover, I observe this 

 constant fact, which is worth flinging at the heads of 

 all super-refined superfine spiritualists, who talk about 

 our God-given senses as "gross" — namely, that when- 

 ever we get authentic details about a great man, we 

 always find him to have been a generous eater. If I, 

 who write this, must confess to being a small eater, I 

 must also confess to not being a great man. Had 



nature willed it otherwise but she did not so 



will it ; and only gave me sufiicient sagacity to per- 

 ceive that dishes are in no sense despicable. 



When, therefore, I think of the hunter's finale as 

 merely an extra dish, and pronounce that to be an anti- 

 climax to his day's work, instead of being, as my finale 

 is, an ascending crescending culmination of delight ; 

 this reflection is not suggested by any scorn of eating 

 in itself, but is suggested by the obtrusive fact, that 

 eating is at the best a, fiiiite pleasure. It has no savour 

 of the infinite, which all true and great pleasures must 

 possess. It is vigorous in sensation, but it is circum- 



