232 
WALDEN. 
whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy or 
imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them. 
It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a 
diet as will not offend the imagination ; but this, I think, 
is to be fed when we feed the body; they should both 
sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be 
done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us 
ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest 
pursuits. But put an extra condiment into your dish, 
and it will poison you. It is not worth the while to live 
by rich cookery. Most men would feel shame if caught 
preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, 
whether of animal or vegetable food, as is every day 
prepared for them by others. Yet till this is otherwise 
we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are 
not true men and women. This certainly suggests what 
change is to be made. It may be vain to ask why the 
imagination will not be reconciled to flesh and fat. I 
am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a reproach that man 
is a carniverous animal ? True, he can and does live, 
in a great measure, by preying on other animals; but this 
is a miserable way, — as any one who will go to snaring 
rabbits, or slaughtering lambs, may learn, — and he will 
be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teach 
man to confine himself to a more innocent and whole¬ 
some diet. Whatever my own practice may be, I have 
no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human 
race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating an¬ 
imals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating 
each other when they came in contact with the more civ¬ 
ilized. 
If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions 
