IX 

 HAMMOCK NIGHTS 



Theee is a great gulf between pancakes and 

 truffles: an eternal, fixed, abysmal canon. It 

 is like the chasm between beds and hammocks. 

 It is not to be denied and not to be traversed; 

 for if pancakes with syrup are a necessary of 

 life, then truffles with anything must be, by the 

 very nature of things, a supreme and undisputed 

 luxury, a regal food for royalty and the chosen 

 of the earth. There cannot be a shadow of a 

 doubt that these two are divided; and it is not 

 alone a mere arbitrary division of poverty and 

 riches as it would appear on the surface. It is 

 an alienation brought about by profound and 

 fundamental differences; for the gulf between 

 them is that gulf which separates the prosaic, 

 the ordinary, the commonj)lace, from all that is 

 colored and enlivened bj^ romance. 



The romance of truffles endows the verv word 



« 



itself with a halo, an aristocratic halo full of 

 mystery and suggestion. One remembers the 



