248 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



before mentioned, modern habits have stepped in, 

 and amended should I not rather say, monyrel- 

 ized p the natural feeling. It is true, that when 



" The tocsin of the soul the dinner-bell" 



calls to dinner, we feel a something which we call 

 hunger : but it is not hunger : it is a sense of want, 

 of the same nature as that which the dram- 

 drinker feels when the hour for his dram comes 

 round. It is the customary excitement which we 

 miss and want : it is this, and not food, which the 

 stomach is then craving. There is not one in a 

 score, of those of whom I speak, who, when the 

 tocsin sounds, although he may complain that he 

 wants his dinner, could sit down with no other 

 drink than water, and dine on bread and cold 

 meat. Yet, surely ! surely ! bread and cold meat 

 are all that genuine and natural hunger should 

 require ? What would you say to the beggar at 

 your door, who should tell you that his stomach was 

 so delicate that he could not eat cold bread and 

 meat ? 



But if they could get it down, it would not allay 

 the feeling which they call hunger. Why ? Because 

 that feeling is, in truth, not hunger, but a feeling 

 which a pint of wine would allay more readily than 



