VEGETABLE DIET. 95 



would disappear, as well as the fishmongers', which are hardly 

 any better. Then there are the sausage shops, which, especially 

 in southern countries, persecute one with their pungent odor. 

 How often have I been driven away while admiring the fagade 

 of an old palazzo or the portico of an ancient church by the ema- 

 nations of the terrible pizzicheria half-way down the street ! An- 

 other dread sight which meets our eyes abroad, especially in Ger- 

 many and Austria, where much veal is eaten, are the slaughtered 

 calves paraded about the streets, a dozen or two of them hang- 

 ing over the sides of the cart. There can be little doubt, too, that 

 our kitchens and dining-rooms would be far more sweet and at- 

 tractive if no animal food was ever brought into them. The eyes 

 certainly would be gainers, and our olfactory senses too. In pic- 

 tures and in poetry the tables are laid out with luscious fruit and 

 sparkling wines, whenever charming and pleasant scenes are to be 

 conjured up before our minds. When coarseness and discomfort 

 are portrayed, " men brought in whole hogs and quarter-beeves, 

 and all the hall was dim with steam of flesh." It is the difference 

 between one of Giulio Romano's garden banquets, such as he 

 painted in the vaulted chambers of the Palazzo del Te, and a 

 peasant orgy by Ostade or Teniers. 



It is not, however, this aspect of the Pythagorean regime 

 which will make many converts, nor did it ever influence me for 

 very long, as most doctiors lay, or rather laid, about twenty years 

 ago, so much stress upon the eating of sufficient meat and the 

 anaemic tendency of this generation, that one naturally felt it one's 

 first duty to prefer health to beauty. 



A more serious consideration, and one which grew upon me 

 every year, was the sad and distasteful necessity of killing a liv- 

 ing being in order to live one's self. The great mystery of pain 

 in this world, which if it once gets a hold upon the mind is so ter- 

 ribly difficult to shake off, often dimmed my greatest pleasures. 

 But this feeling too I tried, but less successfully, to subordinate 

 to what I then considered right and reasonable. 



The first serious shock I experienced in this theory was when, 

 a few years ago, one of the most eminent German professors from 

 a great university dined at our table, and would not touch any- 

 thing because he was a vegetarian. I looked over the bill of fare, 

 and realized with consternation that everything down to the 

 sweet was either meat or fish or fowl, that vegetables and fari- 

 naceous food played the very smallest part in it, and even they 

 were tainted with sauces not free from reproach. 



I had the evening before listened to an historical discourse 

 delivered by Prof. O to an audience of all that is most intelli- 

 gent and distinguished in this city. I had been struck by his ex- 

 traordinary vigor and clearness. The words dropped like pearls 



