LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 231 



LETTER IX. 



224 Slackfriars Road, 

 15th Dec. 183G. 

 MY DEAR. JOHN, 



As I have placed excessive eating amongst the 

 causes of depreciated health, so must I now men- 

 tion temperance in food as one of the prime reme- 

 dies for it, and preventives against it. Learn, 

 therefore, now, " Quce virtus et quanta sit vivere 

 parvo." 



When we consider that the manner in which life 

 is supported is by a perpetual wasting of the body, 

 and a perpetual reproduction of it out of the blood 

 and when we remember that the simple and sole 

 object in eating is to make up to the blood the 

 deficiency thus occasioned in it it must be mani- 

 fest to us, that the exact amount of food required 

 daily is precisely just so much as shall be sufficient 

 to restore to the blood just as much as the blood 



