281 COOKERY ^OR SPORTSMEN". 



higher impulses of the mind, and clean hands are 

 often the index of a clean heart, so purity of api^e- 

 tite usually accompanies purity of soul. Nothing 

 condemns the vulgar man more quickly than the 

 nature of his appetite, and his mode of gratifying it ; 

 driven on like the beasts by hunger, he thinks only 

 of the readiest and quickest mode of satisfying the 

 unpleasant craving, and never dreams there can be 

 anything intellectual in a dinner. The Americans, 

 as a nation, are ignorant of the first principles of 

 dining; in private, they ruin their digestions ; in pub- 

 lic, they disgust their fellows. With that practical 

 turn for Avhich they are famous as a body, they de- 

 vote themselv-es to what is profitable; and the arts 

 of sculpture, painting, and gastronomy are just begin- 

 ning to be appreciated. 



Those huge dishes that delight hungry, vulgar 

 John Bull, such as roast beef, boiled mutton, and 

 the like, still meet with the approbation of the active 

 American ; and while our women, with their natural 

 elegance, draw their fashions from France, our mat- 

 ter-of-fact men imitate the rude cookery of England. 

 It is a melancholy truth that there is no place in 

 America where a dinner can be obtained ; feed- 

 ing-places, miscalled restaurants after those priceless 

 legacies of the French revolution, are innumerable ; 

 but even the famous Delmonico fails to appreciate 

 that wonderful production, the pride of our land — 

 none of the miserable little coppery European 

 abominations, but the great American oyster — does 

 not understand it, and never rises to a proper com- 



