328 COOKERY FOR SPORTSMEN. 



plest articles, still manages to gratify the most deli- 

 cate and exacting of our organs ? Who has not felt 

 his heart expand as he surveyed a royal feast ; his 

 affections become purified, his feelings elevated, as 

 dish followed dish, and each proved itself worthy of 

 the other; and at last has not taken a gentler view 

 of human kind when contentment filled his soul ? 

 A good dinner encourages generosity, begets sympa- 

 thy, increases geniality, while it strengthens the 

 intellect and the nerves; a bad dinner produces ill- 

 nature, leads to discontent and quarrelling, dulls 

 the mind, and injures the body. The former aids 

 Christianity and promotes virtue ; the latter is the 

 bold accomplice of vice and crime ; evil humors can- 

 not exist in the body without spreading to the mind, 

 and vices in the former create vices in the latter. 

 Controlled by that complacency which is the sto- 

 mach's return for kind treatment, the evil passions 

 sleep, and fading gradually, lose half their strength; 

 whereas, if aggravated by perpetual dissatisfaction 

 and uneasiness, they become daily more violent, till 

 they disdain command and burst forth in unrestrain- 

 ed fury. So that the soul, even, may be endangered 

 by bad cookery. The civilization and power of na- 

 tions advance in proportion to their improvement 

 in their cuisine, and the reformation is said to be 

 due to the strong Teutonic impatience of fast days. 

 A coarse taste in eating is as sure an indication of 

 coarseness in mind and habits, as delicacy of taste is 

 of delicacy and refinement in other particulars. As 

 the more vulgar desires are controlled by the 



