GALLANTRY AND HUNGER 197 



there is no flippancy, no circumlocution, no roundabout 

 method in it, and when it speaks it insists on being 

 listened to. The old poet, Homer, discovered all this 

 some three thousand years ago and gave his discovery 

 to the world in words of unmistakable sincerity: 

 " There is nothing more importunate than a hungry 

 stomach. It allows no man to forget it, whatever be 

 his cares and sorrows." If we are to believe his biog- 

 raphers, the old fellow was a sound authority on the 

 importunity of hungry stomachs. Like some others 

 of his trade, he was bothered with one himself, and its 

 clamors often kept him busy in scraping together 

 enough bread to quiet them. 



But let us leave Homer's predicament and return to 

 my own. Perhaps if I had been accustomed to taking 

 my hash in far-between instalments or none at all I 

 might have tolerated the situation with calmness. 

 Custom is a marvelous transmuter of the disagreeable 

 into the delectable. " Custom alters nature itself ; " 

 and we have all manner of authority for believing the 

 proverb to be true. That literary nomad, Robert 

 Burton, goes so far as to declare that " Custom makes 

 even bad meats wholesome " ; and Shakespeare, too, 

 attests its miraculous transmuting power. If then it 

 be potent enough to transform bad meats into whole- 

 some ones and grave-digging into a delightful occupa- 

 tion, why might it not make hunger in a man " a 

 property of easiness " ? Unfortunately, however, ray 



