28 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
his larger and more potent self. It unravels, and unweaves 
before him fine thoughts—strange, curious thoughts. It unlocks 
the mind’s marvellous, and mysterious recesses. It enriches, and 
enripens the personality. Under its genial spell a man becomes 
gay ; a man becomes wise with the profound wisdom of tolerance ; 
he laughs ; his wit sparkles ; a power new, and exalted is given 
unto him ; he feels the glow of fraternity ; he is brought within 
the circle of a benignant kindly magic; the cares of yesterday 
are gone; the cares of to-morrow have not yet come; the 
present is full of rare, and beautiful colour! Wine! Give me, 
I beseech you, an old bottle of choice red wine.” 
But, as some persons persist in supposing, far more durable 
and sentimentally refined is the bouquet of the purer liquor 
at a temperance banquet :— 
‘** We bid you to a wineless feast, 
And string our noble lyre. 
Our blood is warm enough at least, 
Without the vintage fire ; 
Affection’s subtle alchemy 
Repeats with touch divine 
The miracle of Galilee,— 
Turns water into wine!’’ 
Respecting which miracle, as runs an Eton tradition, the single 
line was found written on the paper of a schoolboy (Tierney) 
who had failed to accomplish further verse-composition :— 
*“‘Conscia lympha Deum vidit, et erubuit,” 
“The modest water saw its Lord, and blushed.” 
“ Sherry,” according to Sir Wm. Roberts, “ as used dietetically , 
frequently exercises an important retarding effect on the digestion 
of food in the stomach. Half-a-pint of such wine is no unusual 
allowance at dinner with many persons, this being in proportion 
to the whole meal (at an estimated total of two pounds in its 
quantity by weight) about 25 per cent—a very obstructive 
proportion! In the more common practice of taking two, or 
three wineglassfuls of sherry with dinner we may notice probably 
a double action,—both a stimulating effect on the secretion of 
gastric juice as well as on the muscular contractions of the 
stomach, and a slight retarding effect on the speed of the 
digestive chemical processes, especially at their early stages. 
_ In still smaller quantity (a wineglassful, or so) sherry acts as a 
pure stimulant to digestion ; though in connection with any such 
