throws any concentrated combination of arsenic, 

 belladonna, and Paris green far into tlie shade. 

 There is nothing morally wrong in the mushroom 

 habit, yet for downright fatality it is eclipsed 

 only by the opium habit and the suicidal taste 

 for ballooning. 



There are good people, nevertheless, who will 

 eat mushrooms— toadstools even, if you please. 

 The large cities have their mycological socie- 

 ties in spite of muscarine and phallin, as they 

 have kennel clubs in spite of hydrophobia. 

 Therefore, let us take the frontispiece of skull 

 and crossbones, which Mr. Gibson thoughtfully 

 placed in his poetic book on toadstools, for the 

 centerpiece of our table, bring on the broiled 

 brick-tops, and insist that, as for us, we know 

 these to be the very ambrosia of the gods. 



The development of a genuine enthusiasm for 

 mushrooms— for anything, in fact— is worth the 

 risk. Eating is not usually a stimulus to the 

 imagination ; but one cannot eat mushrooms in 

 any other than an ecstatic frame of mind. If it 

 chances to be your first meal of brick-tops (you 

 come to the task with the latest antidote at 

 hand), there is a stirring of the soul utterly im- 

 [237] 



