'^ ARE PIGS EPICURES? 185 



them a pail of cream I am quite sure it would 

 vanish in considerably less than no time. 



A MALIGNED PHILOSOPHER 



Are pigs epicures? In Oregon, as a boy, I 

 used to gather the windfalls in the orchard in a 

 basket and throw them over the fence. Did 

 the pigs fall upon the apples and devour them, 

 one after the other? Not a bit of it! They 

 nosed them over, bit them in two, till they found 

 the ripest and sweetest, which they ate; where- 

 upon they gave their attention to the inferior 

 ones. 



That is not the way of the genuine epicure. 

 He keeps the best for the end; sweets and 

 dainties he reserves for the dessert. Nor does 

 he ever overeat, as pigs do every time they get 

 a chance. As I have said elsewhere, "A true 

 epicure would no more dull the edge of his appe- 

 tite for future pleasures of the table by over- 

 indulgence in food or drink than a barber would 

 think of whittling kindling wood with his 

 razor." As Horace Fletcher remarked: **An 

 epicurean cannot be a glutton. There may be 

 gluttons who are less gluttonous than other 

 gluttons, but epicurism is like politeness and 

 cleanliness and is the certain mark of gentility." 



Never was a philosopher more misrepresented 

 and maligned than Epicurus. It may not be 

 too late to come to his rescue, as he died only 

 two centuries more than two thousand years 



