THE SUN BEHIND 23 



comparable with the splitting of the chrysalid's 

 case for the emergence of the perfect insect, with 

 the bursting of a blossom from its bud, or the 

 elaboration of wax from the body of the bee. It 

 takes me with a feeling of faintness and a weaken- 

 ing of the legs and a little moistness of the brow 

 as of fright at a new resolution of one's bodily 

 component. 



There is no question now of hors-d'oeuvre or 

 anchovy toast. Simple bread and cheese, of 

 which I have a small packet providentially in my 

 pocket, is ambrosia. Not merely do the salivary 

 glands clamour for them ; it seems as though the 

 teeth themselves dissolved in the biting. There was 

 never such a dish prepared in the cleverest foreign 

 restaurant as this bread and cheese. Call it not 

 coarse fare. The nectar that the fairies sip would 

 be far more gross if the fairy were less hungry than 

 I am. The question must be decided entirely by 

 appetite. If the appetite is such that it over- 

 whelms its provender as a whirlwind overwhelms 

 a feather, then the meal is a dainty one even if it 

 consists of bones or stones. A mouse eating of a 

 dead lion must feed grossly, while a hungry lion 

 picking up a mouse would feed daintily. I have 

 boggled at many a sardine worse than I now do 

 at a chunk of cheese and a slab of bread. 



What is the thing to live on in the open air ? 

 Some of us believe that there must be meat. They 

 will have ham sandwiches, beef sandwiches, or, at 

 least, hard-boiled eggs. A good portable form that 



