234 
WALDEN. 
evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when 
I am tempted by them ! Even music may be intoxicat¬ 
ing. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece 
and Rome, and will destroy England and America. Of 
all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by 
the air he breathes ? I have found it to be the most 
serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that 
they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also. But 
to tell the truth, I find myself at present somewhat less 
particular in these respects. I carry less religion to the 
table, ask no blessing; not because I am wiser than I 
was, but, I am obliged to confess, because, however 
much it is to be regretted, with years I have grown 
more coarse and indifferent. Perhaps these questions 
are entertained only in youth, as most believe of poetry. 
My practice is “ nowhere,” my opinion is here. Never¬ 
theless I am far from regarding myself as one of those 
privileged ones to whom the Yed refers when it says, 
that “ he who has true faith in the Omnipresent Su¬ 
preme Being may eat all that exists,” that is, is not 
bound to inquire what is his food, or who prepares it; 
and even in their case it is to be observed, as a Hindoo 
commentator has remarked, that the Yedant limits this 
privilege to “ the time of distress.” 
Who has not sometimes derived an inexpressible sat¬ 
isfaction from his food in which appetite had no share ? 
I have been thrilled to think that I owed a mental per¬ 
ception to the commonly gross sense of taste, that I have 
been inspired through the palate, that some berries which 
I had eaten on a hill-side had fed my genius. “ The 
soul not being mistress of herself,” says Thseng-tseu, 
“ one looks, and one does not see; one listens, and one 
does not hear; one eats, and one does not know the 
