the kitchen is the privileged and 

 most agreeable spot in that divine 

 dwelling, although you are hardly 

 allowed to abide in it because of 

 the cook, who is a considerable, 

 but jealous power ; to learn that 

 doors are important and capricious 

 volitions, which sometimes lead 

 to felicity, but which most often, 

 hermetically closed, mute and 

 stern, haughty and heartless, re- 

 main deaf to all entreaties; to 

 admit, once and for all, that the 

 essential good things of life, the 

 indisputable blessings, generally 



