122 THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE 



have heard him make a sort of stuttering pun (as he 

 thinks in the style of Charles Lamb ; he is something 

 like Lamb in the stutter), and declare with solemnity, 



" May I live to see the day when truffles shall be 

 true tr-triffles in price." 



If one remembers that all the most esteemed flavours, 

 even now, come from the vegetable kingdom that a 

 clever French cook can make any one meat represent 

 any other, and all this by the deft use of savours and 

 flavours drawn chiefly, if not altogether, from the 

 vegetable kingdom, we see there need not be such 

 a Revolution in a Biological Reformation, as one 

 would suppose. And assuming that this is a true inter- 

 pretation of Nature and her laws, we may confidently 

 affirm, supported by the analogy of every science and 

 every discovery, that true Biological cookery, when 

 once it is understood and practised, will give a luxury 

 as far exceeding the present reach of cookery as the 

 Pullman Railway car excels the pillion. 



The writer may claim a fair acquaintance with what 

 is considered good living. For many years before he 

 became either a teetotaller or a vegetarian, he was at 

 least an occasional guest at some of the most luxurious 

 tables. Even an u alderman's feast," in a luxurious 

 London company, at which he was a guest, had only 

 the interest of curious custom, and nothing of gastro- 

 nomic novelty to present to him, 



He believes that twelve years' total abstinence from 

 alcoholic drinks, and about five years' total abstinence 

 from all flesh and non-organized mineral, have in- 

 creased rather than diminished the sensitiveness of the 

 gustatory and olfactory nerves, and enable him to have 

 a keener and more discriminating enjoyment of flavours 

 and odours than ever. 



