Drawn by J. Smillie from a sketch by T. Addison Richards.        Engraved by Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie.

FALLS OF TOCCOA.
Graham’s Magazine 1844.

Painted by J. W. Wright.         Engraved by A. L. Dick.

THE HOME BIRD.

It was a lovely autumnal morning. The air was fresh, with just enough of frost about it to give ruddiness to the cheek and brilliancy to the eye. The rays of the sun streamed brightly up the street; knockers, door-plates and bell-handles, beamed with more than usual lustre; while they who had achieved their breakfasts and had no fear of duns, went, according to the bias of their musical fancy, either whistling or singing through the town, as if they had finally dissolved partnership with care, and had nothing else to do for the remainder of their natural lives but to be as merry as grigs and as frolicsome as kittens. Every one, even to the heavy-footed, displayed elasticity of step and buoyancy of motion. There were some who seemed to have a disposition to dance from place to place, and evidently found it difficult to refrain from a pirouette around the corner or a pigeon-wing across the way, in evidence of the light-heartedness that prevailed within. The atmosphere had a silent music in it, more delicious than orchestral strains, and none could resist its charm, who were not insensible in mind and body to the innocent delight which is thus afforded to the healthful spirit. There are mornings in this variable climate of ours, more exhilirating than the wines of the banquet. There are days which seem to be a fÊte opened to all the world. The festive hall with its blaze of chandeliers and its feverish jollity has no pleasure in its joys to equal Nature’s holyday, which demands no hollow cheek or haggard eye in recompense. Enjoyment here has no remorse.

No wonder, then, that young men slapped their comrades on the back with a merry laugh, and dealt in mirthful salutations. Nor could it cause surprise that old men poked their cronies with a stick, and thought that it was funny. Ay, there are moments when our frail humanity is forgotten—when years and sorrow roll away together—when time slackens its iron hold upon us—when pain, tears, disappointments and contrition cease to bear down the spirit, and, for a little moment, grant it leave to sport awhile in pristine gleefulness—when, indeed, we scarcely recognize our care-worn selves, and have, as it were, brief glimpses of a new existence.

Still, however, this is a world of violent contrasts, and of painful incongruities. Some of us may laugh; but while we laugh, let us be assured of it that there are others who are weeping. It is pleasant all about you here, within your brief horizon, but the distance may be short to scenes most sadly different. Smiles are on your brow, as you jostle through the street, yet your elbow touches him whose heart is torn with grief. Is there a merry-making in your family—are friends in congregation there with mirth, and dance and song? How strange to think that it is scarce a step to the couch of suffering or the chamber of despair! The air is tremulous perchance with sighs and groans; and though our joyous strains overwhelm all sorrow’s breathings, yet the sorrow still exists even when we hear it not.

And so it was on this autumnal morning. While the very air had delight in it, and while happiness pervaded the atmosphere, there was a little man who felt it not—poor little man—poor grim little man—poor queer little man—poor little man disconsolate. Sadness had engrossed the little man. For him, with no sunshine in his heart, all outward sunshine was in vain. It had no ray to dispel the thick fogs of gloom that clouded round his soul; and the gamesome breezes which fluttered his garments and played around his countenance, as if to provoke a smiling recognition, met with as little of response as if they had paid courtship to the floating iceberg, and they passed quickly by, chilled by the hyperborean contact. The mysterious little man—contradictory in all his aspects to the order of the day—appeared as he walked toward the corner of Fifth and Chestnut streets—justice’s peculiar stand, where “Black Marias” most do congregate, and where his Honor does the honors to that portion of society who are so unfortunate and so maladroit as to be caught in their transgressions and to be arrested in their sins—he appeared, we say, as he approached this awful corner, to be most assuredly under duresse, as well as an enlistment under general affliction—a guard of functionaries—a body-guard, though not of honor, seemed to wait upon him—the grim little man and the queer little man. There was a hand too—ponderous in weight—austere in knuckle—severe in fist—resting clutchingly upon the collar of the little man, as if to demonstrate the fact that he only was the person to be gazed at—the incident, the feature, the sensation of the time—though the little man resisted not. He had yielded to his fate, sulkily, it may be, but submissively. Pale was the little man’s face—most pale; while his hat was generally crumpled in its circumference, and particularly smashed in the details of its crown, having the look, abused hat, of being typical of its owner’s fortunes—an emblem, as it were, of the ups and the downs, the stumbling-places and the pitfalls wherewith its owner’s way through life is diversified. He had a coat, too—though this simple fact cannot be alluded to as distinctly characteristic—most men wear coats whose aspirations go beyond the roundings of a jacket. But our little man’s coat was peculiar—“itself alone,” speaking of it merely as a coat. There were two propositions—either the coat did not belong to him, or else he did not belong to the coat—one of these must have been true, if it were proper to form an opinion upon the usual evidences which go to settle our impression as to the matter of proprietorship in coats. The fitness of things is the great constituent of harmony in coats, as in all other matters; but here was a palpable violation of the fitness of things, a coat being a thing that ought always to fit, or to come as near to that condition as the skill of the tailor or the configuration of the man will allow. It may possibly be that mischance had shrunk the individual’s fair proportions, and had thus left his garments in the lurch—the whole arrangement being that of a very small kernel in an uncommonly extensive shell. It may be mentioned also in the way of illustration, that the buttons behind were far below their just and proper location—that its tails trailed on the ground; while in front, the coat was buttoned almost around its wearer’s knees—not so stringently, however, as to impede progression, for its ample circumference allowed sufficient play to his limbs. Thus the little man was not only grim, and queer, and sorrowful, but was also picturesque and original. There was at least nothing like him to be seen that day, or any other day; and, as he walked, marvelous people held up their hands and wondered—curious people rubbed their eyes and stared—sagacious people shook their wise heads in disapproval; and dubious people, when they heard of it, were inclined to the opinion that it must be a mistake altogether, and “a no such thing.” A boy admiringly observed that it was his impression that “there was a good deal of coat with a very small allowance of man,” like his grandmother’s pies, which, according to his report, were more abundantly endowed with crust than gifted with apples; as if the merit of a pie did not consist mainly in its enclosures. To confess the truth, it might as well be candidly granted at once, that but for the impediment of having his arms in the sleeves, the little man might have turned round in his coat, without putting his coat to the inconvenience of turning round with him.

The case—we do not mean the coat, but the case, in general and inclusive—offered another striking peculiarity. In addition to the somewhat dilapidated pair which already adorned his pedal extremities, the little man, or Mr. Peter Faber—for such was the appellation in which this little man rejoiced, when he did happen to rejoice,—for no one ever was lucky enough to catch him at it—Mr. Peter Faber carried another pair of boots along with him—one in each hand—as if he had used precaution against being sent on a bootless errand, and took the field like artillery, supplied with extra wheels. But it was not that Mr. Peter Faber had feloniously appropriated these boots, as ill-advised persons might be induced to suppose. But each man has his idiosyncrasy—his peculiarities—some trait which, by imperceptible advances, results at last in being the master-passion, consuming all the rest; and boots—an almost insane love of boots—stood in this important relation to Mr. Peter Faber. In happier days, when the sun of prosperity beamed brightly on him, full of warmth and cheeriness, Peter Faber had a whole closet full of boots, and a top-shelf full of blacking—in boxes and in bottles—solid blacking, and that which is diluted; and Peter Faber’s leisure hours were passed in polishing these boots, in admiring these boots, and in trying on these boots. Peter knew, sadly enough, that he could not be regarded as a handsome man—that neither his face nor his form were calculated to attract attention as he passed along; but his foot was undeniably neat—both his feet were—and his affection for himself came to a concentration at that point.

Some men there are who value themselves upon one quality—others may be discovered who flatter themselves on the possession of another quality—each of us is a sort of heathen temple, with its peculiar idol for our secret worship. There are those who pay adoration to their hair. Whiskers, too, have votaries. People are to be met with who attitudinize with their fingers, from a belief that these manual appendages are worthy to be admired, because they are white or chance to be of the diminutive order. Many eyes have double duty to perform, that we may be induced to mark their languishing softness or to note their sparkling brilliancy. To smile is often a laborious occupation to those who fancy they are displayed to advantage in that species of physiognomical exercise; and there are persons of the tragic style, who practice frowning severity in the mirrors, that they may “look awfully” at times. Softnesses of this kind are innumerable, rendering us the most ridiculous when most we wish to please. The strongest have such folly; and the weak point in Peter Faber’s character lay in his foot. Men there are who will make puns, and are yet permitted to live. Peter Faber cherished boots, and became the persecuted of society! Justice is blind.

On the previous night, in the very hours of quietness and repose, there came a strange noise of rattling and bumping at the front door of the respectable house of the respectable family of the Sniggses—people by no means disposed to turbulence themselves, or inclined to tolerate turbulence in others. It so happened, indeed, on this memorable occasion, that Sniggs himself was absent from the city; and the rest of the family were nervous after dark, because his valor had temporarily been withdrawn from their protection. Still, however, the fearful din continued, to the complete and terrified awakening of the innocent Sniggses from the refreshment of balmy slumber. And such a turmoil—such hurrying to and fro, under the appalling influence of nocturnal alarm. Betsy, the maid of all-work, crept in terror to the chamber of the maternal Mrs. Sniggs. Betsy first heard the noise and thought it “washing-day,” but discovering her mistake, Betsy aroused the matron with the somewhat indefinite news, though rather fearful announcement, that “they are breaking in!”—the intelligence, perhaps, being the more horrible because of its vagueness, it being left to the excited imagination to determine who “they” were. Then came little Tommy Sniggs, shivering with cold and fear, while he looked like a sheeted ghost in the whiteness of his nocturnal habiliments. Tommy and Betsy crawled under the bed that they might lie hid in safety. Nor were Mary and Sally, and Prudence and Patience slow in their approach; and they distributed themselves within the bed and beneath, as terror chanced to suggest. Never before had the Sniggs family been stowed away with such compactness—never before had there been such trembling and shaking within the precincts of that staid and sober mansion.

“There it goes again!” shivered Mrs. Sniggs, from beneath the blankets.

“They’re most through the door!” quivered Betsy, under the bed.

“They’ll take all our money!” whimpered Prudence.

“And all our lives, too!” groaned Patience.

“And the spoons besides!” shrieked Mary, who was acting in the capacity of housekeeper for that particular week.

“Pa!” screamed Tommy, under the usual impression of the juveniles, that as “pa” corrects them, he is fully competent to the correction of all the other evils that present themselves under the sun.

“Ma!” ejaculated the others, seeking rather for comfort and consolation, than for fiercer methods of relief. But neither “pa” nor “ma” seemed to have an exorcising effect upon the mysterious bumpings and bangings, and pantings, and ejaculations at the front door.

In process of time, however, becoming a little familiarized to the disturbance, Mrs. Sniggs slowly raised the window, and put forth her nightcapped head, it having been suggested that by possibility it might be a noise emanating from Mr. Sniggs, or “pa” himself, returning unexpectedly.

“Who’s there?” said Mrs. Sniggs.

“Boots!” was the sepulchral reply.

“Is it you, dear—you, Sniggs?”

“If you mean me by saying you, it is me—but I’m not ‘dear’—boots is ‘dear’—Sniggs, did you say? Who’s Sniggs? If he is an able-bodied man, send him down here to bear a hand, will you?” and another crash renewed the terrors of the second story, which sought vent in such loud and repeated shrieks, that even the watchman himself was awakened, and judiciously halting at the distance of half a square, he made his reconnoisance with true military caution, concluding with an inquiry as to what was the matter, that he might know exactly how to regulate his approaches to the seat of war. An idea had entered his mind that perhaps a ghost was at the bottom of all this uproar; and though perhaps as little afraid of mere flesh and blood as most people of his vocation, he had no fondness for taking spectres by the collar, or for springing his rattle at the heels of a goblin, holding it—the principle, and not the ghost—as a maxim that if such folks pay no taxes and are not allowed to vote, they are not entitled to the luxury of an arrest; for the ordinances of the city do not apply to them.

“Even if it is not a ghost nor a sperrit, and I’m not very fond of any sort of sperrits but them that comes in bottles,” said he, having now approached near enough to hear the knocking and to see a dark object in motion at the top of Mr. Sniggs’s steps; “perhaps it’s something out of the menagerie or the museum—something that bites or something that hooks; and I cannot afford to have my precious corporation used up for the benefit of the city’s corporation. The wages is too small for a man to have himself killed into the bargain.”

“But maybe it’s a bird,” continued he, as he caught a glimpse of Peter’s coat-tail fluttering in the wind. “Sho-o-o-o!”

But no regard being paid to the cry, which settled the point that there was no bird in the case—“sho-oo!” being a part of bird language, and only comprehensible by the feathered race—the watchman slowly advanced until he saw that the mysterious being was a man—a little man—apparently leveling a blunderbuss and pulling at the trigger.

“Who said shoe, when it’s boot?” inquired the unknown figure, still seemingly with a gun at its shoulder, and turning round so that the muzzle appeared to point dangerously at the intruder.

“Halloo! don’t shoot—maybe it will go off!” cried the watch, as he ducked and dived to confuse the aim and to avoid the anticipated bullet.

“Don’t shute! I know it, don’t shute—that’s what I want it to do—I’m trying to make it shute with all my ten fingers,” was the panting reply, as the apparently threatening muzzle was lowered for an instant and raised again—“and as for its going off, that’s easy done. What I want, is to make it go on.”

Luckily for Charley’s comfort, he now discovered that the supposed blunderbuss was Peter Faber’s leg, and that the little man had it leveled like a gun, in the vain attempt to pull a Wellington boot over that which already encased his foot. He sighed and tugged, and sighed and tugged again. The effort was bootless. He could not, to use his own words, make it “shute.” The first pair, which already occupied the premises, would not be prevailed upon to admit of interlopers, and Peter’s pulling and hauling were in vain.

It was the banging of Peter’s back against the front door of Mrs. Sniggs’s mansion that had so alarmed the family; and now as he talked, he hopped across the pavement, still tugging at the boot, and took his place upon the fire-plug.

“Pshaw!—baint it hot!” said Peter. “Drat these boots! they’ve been eating green presimmings. I guess their mouths are all drawed up, just as if they wanted to whistle ‘Hail Kerlumby.’ They did fit like nothing when I tried ’em on this morning; but now I might as well pull at the door-handle and try to poke my foot through the key-hole. My feet couldn’t have growed so much in a single night, or else my stockings would have been tore; and I’m sure these are my own legs and nobody else’s, because they are as short as ever and as bandy. Besides, I know it’s me by the patches on my knees. That’s the way I always tell.”

“Are you quite sure,” inquired the watch, “that you didn’t get swopped as you came up the street? You’ve got boot, somehow or other. But come, now,” added he authoritatively, and putting on the dignity that belongs to his station, “quit being redickalis, and tell us what’s the meaning of sich goin’s on in a white man, who ought to be a credit to his fetching up. If you’re a gentleman’s son, always be genteel, and never cut up shindies or indulge in didoes. What are you doing with them ’are boots? That’s the question, Mr. Speaker.”

“Doing with my boots? What could I do without my boots, watchy?” added Peter, in tones of the deepest solemnity, as he laid his boots upon his lap and smoothed them down with every token of affection. “Watchy, though you are a watchy, you’ve got a heart with the sensibilities in it—nothing of the brickbat about you, is there, watchy? If you are ugly to look at, it’s not your fault, and it’s not your fault that you’re a watchy. I can see with half an eye that you’re a man with feelings; and you know as well as I do that we must have something to love in this world—you love your rattle—I love my boots—better nor they love me, I’m afraid,” and Peter grew plaintive.

The watchman, however, shook his head with an expression of “duberousness,” which, like the celebrated nod of Lord Burleigh, seemed to signify a great deal relative to the thoughts existing within the head that was thus shaken. It vibrated, as it were, between opinions, oscillating to the right, under the idea that Peter Faber was insane from moral causes, and pendulating to the left with the impression that he was queer perchance from causes which come upon the table of liquid measure.

Peter’s thoughts, however, were too intent upon the work he had in hand and desired to get on foot, to pay attention to any other insinuation than that of trying to insinuate his toes into the calf-skin. Sarcastic glances and nods of distrust were thrown away upon him. He asked no other solace than that of bringing his sole in contact with the sole of his new boot. On this his soul was intent.

“It’s not a very genteel expression, I know,” said the nocturnal guardian, “and it may seem to be rather a personal insinivation, though I only ask it in a professional way, and not because I want to know as a private citizen—no, it’s in my public campacity, that I think you have been drinking—I think so as a watchman, not as David Dumps. Isn’t you a leetle corned?”

“Corned! No—look at my foot—nor bunioned either,” replied Peter, as he commenced another series of tugging at the straps; and with a look of suspicion, he added, “That tarnal bootman must have changed ’em. He’s guv me some baby’s boots. But never mind—boots was made to go on, and go on they must, if I break my back a driving into ’em. Hurra!” shrieked our hero, “bring on your wild cats!”

With this exclamation—which amounts with those who use it, to a determination to do or die—Peter screwed up his visage and his courage to what may be truly denominated “the terrible feet,” and put forth his whole strength. Every nerve was strained to its utmost tension; the tug was tremendous; but alas! CÆsar was punctured as full of holes as a cullender, by those whom he regarded as his best friends; many others have been stuck in a vital part by those who were their intimate cronies, and how could Peter Faber hope to escape the treachery by which all great men are begirt? When exerting the utmost of his physical strength, the traitorous straps gave way. Two simultaneous cracks were heard; a pair of heels, describing a short curve, flashed through the air, and Peter, with the rapidity of lightning, turned a series of backward somersets from the fire-plug, and went whizzing like a wheel across the street. Now the half-donned boot appeared uppermost, and again his head followed his heels, as if for very rage he was trying to bite the hinder part of his shins, or sought to hide his mortification at his failure, not only by swallowing his boots, but likewise by gobbling up his whole body.

“Why, bless us, Boots!” said the Charley, following him like a boy beating a hoop, “this is what I call rewarsing the order of natur. You travel backerds, and you stop on your noddle. I thought you was trying to go clean through the mud into the middle of next week. A’n’t you most knocked into a cocked hat?”

“Cocked fiddlesticks!” muttered Peter. “Turn us right side up, with care. That’s right—cocked hat, indeed! when you can see with half an eye—if you’ve got as much—it’s my boots vot vont go on. A steam engine—forty horse power—couldn’t pull ’em on, if your foot was a thimble and your legs a knitting-needle. Don’t you see it was the straps as broke? Not a good watchy!” continued Peter, as he dashed the boots on the pavement, and made a vain attempt to dance on them, and “tread on haughty Spain.”

“Well, now, I think I am a good watchy; for I’ve been watching you and your boots for some time.”

“What’s a man if he a’n’t got handsome boots; and what’s the use of handsome boots, if he a’n’t got ’em on? As the English Gineral said, what’s beauty without bootee, and what’s bootee without beauty? Look at them ’are articles—fust I bought ’em, and then I black’d ’em, and now they turn agin me, and bite their best friend, like a wiper. Don’t they look as if they ought to be ashamed?”

“Yes, I rather think they do look mean enough.”

“Who cares what you think? Have you got a boot-jack in your pocket?—no, not a boot-jack—I want a pair of them ’are hook-em-sniveys, vot they uses in the shops. I don’t want a pull-offer; I want a pair of pull-on-ers.”

“If you’ll walk with me, I’ll find you a pair of hook-em-sniveys in less than no time.”

“If you will, I’ll go, because I must get my boots on somehow, and hook-em-sniveys will do it if anything will. There’s no fun in boots what wont go on; you can’t make any thing of ’em except old clothes-bags and letter-boxes, and I a’n’t got much use for articles of the sort—seeing as how clothes and letters are scarce with me.”

“Can’t you use ’em for book-keeping by double-entry? That’s the way I do. I put all my cash into one old boot, and all my receipts into the other. That’s scientific double-entry simplified,—old slippers is the Italian method.”

“No, I can’t. I does business on the fork-out system. I don’t save up, only for boots; and as soon as I gets any money, I speculates right off in something to eat, and lives upon the principal.”

Peter gathered up his boots, and half reclining upon the watchman, wended his way to the common receptacle, where, after discovering the trick played upon him, and finding that the “hook-em-sniveys” were not forthcoming, he shared his wrath between the boots which had originally betrayed him, and the individual who had consequently betrayed him. At length,

restored Peter to himself and that just estimate of the fitness of things, which teaches that it is not easy—even for a man who is as sober as a powder-horn—to pull a pair of long boots over another pair; particularly if the latter happen to be wet and muddy. Convinced of this important truth, Peter put his boots under his arm, and departed to get the straps repaired, and try the efficacy of hook-em-sniveys where the law could not interfere.

And such was the close of this remarkable episode in the life of the grim little man and the queer little man, whose monomania had boots for its object.

Brillat Savarin, the immortal author of “The Physiology of Taste,” among his axioms has the following: “Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai qui tu es.” (Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.) If any one doubt the truth of this remark, or has the least objection to it, he must not read my essay; for I judge him utterly incapable of understanding what follows. It was an equally wise saying of Sir John Hunter, that man was what his stomach made him; but he did not carry his investigations far enough. He had reference to the capacity, and, in case of damage, to the recuperative faculty of the stomach, and did not take into consideration the gentle persuasions of the palate—the sense which is slowest of development, but the most faithful companion of old age. The worthy Englishman had drawn his inferences from the stomachs of the livery and aldermen of London; and his beau ideal, in this respect, was no doubt the stomach of the Lord Mayor. But turtle and venison, though excellent things in themselves, are not the only criterion of rank, fashion, and capacity, though they are the necessary concomitants of magisterial dignity. Brillat Savarin went much further; he classified men according to their dinners; judging thereby of their tastes, their accomplishments, their refinement, and their scientific pursuits. There is, indeed, no function that man performs in common with the beasts, in which he differs so widely from the brute creation, as in eating, which led Brillat Savarin to another not less important axiom: “L’animal se repait, l’homme mange, l’homme d’Ésprit seul sait manger,” (which, translated into elegant English, means, animals feed, man eats, but the man of education and refinement alone knows how to eat.)

The savage merely wants his meat coagulated—civilized man wants it cooked; but it requires taste to discriminate between gravies. Gravy is to meat what dress is to man, or rather woman; it not only hides deformities, but sets off and enhances beauty. It dissolves the dissonance which might otherwise exist between boiled and roasted into harmony; it establishes the balance of power between the joints and the petits pieds. Talk of man, in his savage state, appreciating gravy; or the man without refinement discriminating between a common sauce aux capres and one aux truffes, or au vin de champagne! Men, in civilized countries, have immortalized themselves by gravies; and Very—I mean the old man, not his son, who has done nothing in the world to entitle him to respect, except marrying a pretty woman, who never peeled a mushroom—has made gravies with which, as Puckler Muscau said, “a man could eat his grandfather!” The prince, being of half royal descent, meant by his grandfather the beau ideal of toughness.

But I must not shoot ahead of my argument. I am to show that we, in this country, lay too little stress on what we eat—do no justice whatever to cooks, and thereby deprive ourselves of a vast deal of enjoyment that would not interfere with our neighbors. A man who tells you he does not care what he eats, might just as well tell you he does not care with whom he associates. You may depend on it that man cannot appreciate beauty. To him one woman is just as good as another—prose just as good as poetry—the sound of a jews-harp equal to that of a harpsichord. Avoid that man, by all means, or your associations will become vulgar, your taste corrupted, and your appreciation of beauty and elegance as dull as a pair of cobbler’s spectacles.

But there are those who boast of caring naught for a good dinner. They are so etherial, scientific, or Spartan-like, as to be just as well satisfied with a piece of beef as with a pair of canvas-backs. Well, what does it mean? Might a man not, for as good a reason, boast of his blindness, and his stoic indifference as to the color of woman’s eyes, or the incarnation of her cheeks? Might he not as well boast of liking the smell of tobacco as much as that of a rose or a violet? The man who has no taste, has only four senses instead of five, and is therefore defective in organization. What notion has he of a sweet face, a sweet disposition, or a sweet voice?

Taste may be cultivated as much as every other sense. The man who has never exercised his eyes, cannot be a judge of painting, of statuary, or of architecture. The man who has not cultivated his ear, will not easily distinguish between the harmony of Mozart and the tuning of the instruments, which set a musician’s teeth on edge; and a man who has not practiced his sense of touch, will take no more pleasure in taking a lady’s hand, than in handling her glove. Would, can, ought, a lady to give her hand to such a man?

But there is yet another still more remarkable philosophical consideration, which ought to induce us to investigate this subject. What we eat assimilates with us, becomes our own flesh and blood, influences our disposition, our temper, and consequently our amiability. Every living thing in nature longs for incarnation, aspires to become human—to move from its apogee to its human perihelium. But the lord of creation makes his selection; he consults his taste, and admits but few of the aspirants to his intimacy.

Nothing but want is an excuse for bad living—for not restoring ourselves in the best manner possible. Only think that every seven years we are made entirely new! Our whole frame is consumed, and new particles of matter accrue in place of the old ones, during that period. Then to reflect that we are made up of half boiled potatoes, raw meat, and doughy pie-crust! The very thought of it is enough to lower our self-respect, and to diminish very sensibly the regard we owe to others.

It is intended by nature that we should have taste—that we should select our food and make it palatable. The infinite variety of plants and animals subject to the human stomach, testify to the superiority of man. Without the power of assimilation, what sympathy could there exist between him and the rest of Creation? To say we are fond of trout, of grouse, of venison, is but another way of expressing our affection for fish, bird, and deer. What would these animals be to us if we did not eat them? What we to them? And does not our love often partake of the same characteristics? Do we not frequently crush that which we tenderly press to our bosoms?

The Germans have a terrible idiom for expressing the highest paroxysm of affection. They say “they love a woman well enough to eat her.” The idea is monstrous; and yet can it be denied that the greatest intimacy imaginable is the identity produced by assimilation. The idea, in spite of its apparent coarseness, is purely transcendental. And is not the converse of this principle admitted by all civilized nations? What do the terms “distasteful,” “disgusting,” “nauseating,” “sickening,” signify? What else but that these things do not agree with our stomachs? there are no stronger similes in the English language. Mark the climax; “distasteful,” referring to the tongue; “disgusting,” having reference to the palate; “nauseating,” applying to the throat; and “sickening,” proceeding, ex profundis, from the stomach! Here you have the whole gamut of human pathos—in which the stomach is, after all, the key-note—the heart being nothing but the sounding-board.

Even knowledge borrows its terms from the stomach. Our scientific acquisitions are “crude” and “undigested,” when they have not been systematized; and a man is “raw,” when he has neither tact or experience in the common pursuits of life. One half of our vocabulary is taken from the palate and the stomach—the milky-way of that microcosm of which man is the universe. Nor have we as yet properly watched that wonderful economy of nature, by which we are constantly consumed and restored—those unceasing pulsations between life and death, which, when undisturbed, are the cause of so much enjoyment. We watch the heavenly bodies, we rejoice over the discovery of a new planet, or an asteroid; we espy comets, and endeavor to account for their movements and perturbations, while a much more wonderful process is going on every day before our eyes, without exciting our astonishment. How comes it that the stomach, out of the most heterogeneous matters treasured up in it, is daily preparing flesh, bones, brains, the enamel of the teeth, the horny substance of the hair and nails, &c.? Can any philosopher explain how the particles of inanimate matter are vivified and thrown from the womb of life—the stomach—into circulation, to perform with the blood those rapid revolutions which mark our existence, and bear such a close analogy to the revolution of our planet round the sun? We look for wonders to the stars, and are a living wonder ourselves—a microcosm much more astonishing and interesting than all above and beneath us. The stomach is the great laboratory of the world, and yet how indifferent are the greater part of mankind to the gentle affinities of that much abused organ! We cultivate a good appearance—a healthy complexion—a clear eye, handsome teeth, and all that, but entirely neglect the gentle admonitions of that organ which alone can impart these virtues. Men talk of hereditary blood; but of what possible use is it without an hereditary good stomach? Give me a good stomach, and the blood will follow as a matter of course.

We talk of improving the breed of cattle, of horses, sheep, &c. But how is it done? By what other principal means than by improved feeding, and taking care that nothing shall interfere with the proper digestion of the improved food. You may use every possible means of improving the breed, without improved feeding the race will degenerate. And so it is with man. Whole nations, as, for instance, the English, wear a better aspect than others, merely because they are better feeders. Meat-eaters have generally a more florid complexion, and, on an average, a greater development of brains. They are, usually, not easily wrought; but when excited, “perplexed in the extreme;” and as slow to back out of as they are to commence a fight. We imagine these qualities inherent in the race; but they are the offsprings of the stomach, and nothing else. Change the diet of that nation, and she will soon lose her distinguishing characteristics. And so it is with certain classes of society. Why is the mob of England cowardly? Because it is badly fed. Increase the wages of the laboring man so that he can obtain beef once a day, and no soldiery in the world will be able to cope with him. He would soon show symptoms of animation; he would, in very characteristic language begin “to feel his oats.” Nothing is equal to the contempt which well-fed people have for those who are badly fed. The former are called respectable, the latter are thought capable of any mischief that can be conceived of. Pauper ubique jacet.

Between the stomach and the highest faculty of our souls there is a very close connection, though men have vainly endeavored to disprove it. Heavy food, which calls for undue action of the stomach, paralyzes, for a time at least, all mental action, and destroys the highest power of the mind—imagination. By gentle stimulants, however, we may increase both—provided we are temperate. You see better with a spy-glass than with the naked eye, provided you do not draw it out beyond the proper focus. Again; good cheer promotes cordiality, friendship, benevolence, and charity. Only the highest paroxysm of love is capable of triumphing over the stomach. But how long does it last? And does it not, in the end, warm itself at the chemical fire of good cheer, or die for the want of it? Love does very well during the hey-days of the blood; while the stomach, with its even sway, governs until death, with a power which increases as it goes on. Every passion fades as we pass the meridian of life, or dwells only in that great faculty of the soul, reminiscence, until that even becomes palsied by the gnawing tooth of time; but the sensitiveness of the palate increases—a regular gourmandizer scarcely existing before the age of forty. Our taste becomes matured with our judgment; when reason waits upon the tender passions, they have already flown. Every other passion has a regular rise and fall, and a culmination point, the pleasures of the palate alone are fixed and immovable as the eternal stars in the firmament. The fiery youth may “sigh like furnace,” and make “ballads to his mistress’ eyebrow,” and man “may seek the bubble reputation even at the cannon’s mouth;” but the sober justice is “capon lined;” he is the only sensible person among them, and guards against the bowels of compassion, by that completeness about the region of the stomach which is generally received as prima faciÆ evidence of good nature. The Chinese—the oldest civilized people on earth—require that their justices should be fat; and the popular idiom of our own language corresponds to it; for we expect from a judge, gravity of deportment, and sedate manners. Lean men seldom inspire the confidence which fat men do. “I wish he were fatter,” says CÆsar, of Cassius; for a man who feeds well, and grows fat, has given “hostage to fortune.” Corpulency, like marriage, being “a great impediment either to enterprise or mischief.”^[1]

There is yet another reason for conceding the ascendancy of the palate over the other organs. The palate and the stomach have had more to do with the establishment of civil liberty than is even suspected by those who have neglected this important study. The custom for magistrates to feed their clients, is as old as the Roman empire, and has been preserved in all civilized countries. Our Saxon and Anglo-Saxon ancestors were accustomed to do every thing important over a dinner; and to that circumstance, as Alderman Walker, of the English metropolis, very justly remarked, must be ascribed the preservation of English liberty, as contradistinguished from that of France. A people, accustomed to civic festivals, will not easily be reduced to slavery. Good cheer enlivens our attachment to the country, enhances patriotism, and calls for those expressions of sentiment which I look upon as the main pillars of liberal institutions. And if public liberty is consolidated by public feastings and Lord Mayors’ dinners in England, where the people only partake of the good cheer, by a liberal construction of the constitutional charter, that is to say, through their legal representatives, how much more conducive to public liberty must be those public dinners in our country, where people enjoy the privilege of assisting in person at the banquet! Instead of hearing the herald proclaim, “Now the Lord Mayor is helping himself to turtle—now the Lord Mayor has commenced upon venison—now the Lord Mayor drinks to the queen!” they themselves eat the turtle, the venison, and drink success to popular governments;—with this difference only, that they have less patriotic cooks—cooks who, in most cases, have scarcely an interest in common with those to whose patriotism they minister. This is radically wrong, and ought to be looked to. If our Fourth of July dinners have somewhat fallen into disrepute with the fashionables, it is, I trust, not from a want of patriotism on their part, but on account of the atrocious manner in which some of them are prepared. Let venison and turtle, or if these be out of season, the best that the market affords abound, and the beau monde of our Atlantic cities will excuse the sentiments for the cook’s sake, and wash them down with Champagne and Madeira!

The custom to invite men whom we respect and honor to a public dinner, is as old as the hills, and ought to be carefully handed down to our children. No higher distinction ought ever to be claimed by our public men, and none granted. Political feasts are the highest stimulants to action I know of—but in order to ensure their success, an act of Congress ought to prohibit set speeches, and impromptus prepared for the occasion. The awkward manner of taking public men by surprise, was strikingly exhibited in the speech of Lord Brougham, at a dinner of the members of the National Institute, which began thus: “Non-accoutumÉ que je suis À parler en publique,” and extorted some smiles even from the furrowed countenances of the French savants. The reading of written addresses, concealed under the plate during dinner, for the purpose of being let loose after the cloth is removed, is a breach of hospitality, and ought to be voted a nuisance; but the greatest latitude might, without danger to public safety, be allowed in regard to toasts, especially when they refer to the Eagle, who from his royal toughness has nothing to fear from the barbarism of the cooks. By the by, English writers and reviewers need not feel so squeamish about “that Eagle,” as “the British Lion” is quite as tough, if not more so, and when he is finished, there still remains the Unicorn, as a corps de reserve. They have two beasts to our one; neither of which is fit to be exhibited in a drawing-room.

Dinners serve scientific and artistical purposes quite as well as they do political ones. Every learned society of England has its annual meetings, at which a public feast is prepared for its officers and members. Turtle and venison are the only means of bringing the members together, just as the suppers at our Philadelphia Wistar parties season the scientific conversation of our own men of learning, and render their entertainments more attractive and cheerful. Dinners and suppers act as the attraction of cohesion among members of the same family. Why should they not promote a feeling of fraternity among men of science and literature?

The practice of patronizing literary men and artists by dining them, has, it is to be regretted, not yet been generally adopted in this country. In England and France it is quite common; but since the remuneration of artists exceeds all bounds in the latter country, the artists, in turn, invite their patrons. There is no better means of spreading useful information than these interchanges of hospitality. Knowledge in general is dry,^[2] and would have few votaries if the stomach did not act as interpreter between the learned and the tyro. At table you may bring the most opposite characters together, and they will agree—as long as they are eating—on most subjects, provided they are but half bred. The elective affinity of viands and gravy, mushrooms and truffles, will establish harmony among them, which may last even for an hour after dinner; but at tea you must be careful. All beverages are deceptive, and are rather apt to exhibit differences than to equalize them. A true diplomat will press you to drink; but he will seldom taste any thing but ice water and lemonade.

What important part the stomach plays in diplomacy, is known to the whole world. Napoleon, when sending the AbbÉ de Pradt to Poland, gave him no other instruction than this: Tenez bonne table et soignez les femmes, (keep a good table and take care of the women.) I wonder whether the late administration gave similar instructions to Colonel Todd, when it sent him to St. Petersburg! Our ministers abroad may take care of the women, after a fashion, but I defy them, unless they are rich, to keep a good table.

It is a vulgar error to suppose that ladies are most attractive at a ball. I prefer to see a woman at dinner. The dinner is the touchstone of her attractions. If she be graceful and agreeable there, she will be so in every position in life, and you may say of her what Napoleon said of Josephine: elle a de la grÂce mÊme en se couchant. It was whimsical affectation in Lord Byron to pretend that ladies ought not to eat at all. A woman who has no appetite, or is indifferent as to the manner of gratifying it, is but a poor companion for life, whose good nature and agreeable temper will scarcely last through the honey-moon. Byron had in his mind’s eye an English woman, who breakfasts on chops and dines on raw joints, which is detestable. But fancy an artistically arranged salle À manger, a partie quarrÉe, (two ladies and as many gentlemen) at breakfast, and the servants handing round cÔtelettes À la Maintenon, (little lambs’ ribs that look as innocent as new-born babes, artistically set off and coupled with historical associations of the golden age of French literature!) and you have quite another picture. Then the abandon which follows the little cup of Mocca—the sallies of wit and humor—the little attractions of graceful hands and mouths, and fine teeth—the flow of conversation, and the embarrassing intervals and flaws filled up with wine! Then the dessert, which ought never to fail, even at breakfast,—flowers decorating the table, and the women as in the Hesperian garden, touching the forbidden fruit! There you see woman in all her grace, and in all the attractions of her sex,—calm, collected, dignified, observing, listening and perhaps—consenting. What is a ball in comparison? Ladies and gentlemen do not move as ballet-dancers, and make at best but an impression inferior to the latter. Their dilettantism in that respect is no better than that of music, compared with regular performers. At breakfast and dinner, a woman may study attitude, and remain longest in those which are attractive. At the ball-room, she is hurried along, and depends for success on her partner. A clumsy, ungraceful partner in a dance, is enough to ruin her—comparisons will wound her pride—she is agitated, angry, and it is only the queen of a ball who enjoys it and is capable of giving pleasure. At dinner, you possess a woman altogether to yourself,—the impressions which you receive and make are lasting, and you are, by the pleasant occupations of the table, prepared to relish them. You cannot become intimate with a woman unless you have taken a meal with her. And then how many thousand opportunities you have of showing your attention, your being captivated by her charms—how much resignation you can practice in entertaining her! The impressions made at dinner are indelible; those of a ball are evanescent, for you do not receive them in a proper state of mind, and forget them after a night’s rest. The dance deranges a woman’s toilet, makes her gasp and pant for breath, and is apt to exhibit those faults which a skillful toilet would have concealed, and which we would have been happier in not knowing. Ladies after a dance look like victims that have been tortured; and oh! gentle reader, may you never have the misfortune to be behind the scenes at a ballet! The first ballerina, after the greatest storm of applause, looks then but like a fallen angel scourged by furies. No, no! give balls and routes to boys and girls. A sensible man scorns at that, and takes it as no mark of respect for him to be invited to them. Let me lead the woman I fancy to dinner, and give me an hour’s conversation with her afterward, in the boudoir, and I will gladly resign meeting her in a crowd. Let the cook but half do his duty, and I will not be deficient in mine.

A word, before I part, to the Blue Stockings—(I would whisper it if I could do so in print)—It’s very well to quote Shakspeare, and Byron, and Milton, (whom nobody reads,) and Mrs. Hemans, who had much better written sermons. But if you want to acquire a lasting reputation, and choke off envy and detraction, have an eye to your cook. The most fastidious critic would sooner forgive a misquotation than the want of seasoning in a favorite dish. As much literary reputation may be acquired by dining literary men, as by imitating or plundering their writings.