XII
He helped himself absently to two water biscuits and a piece of cheese and sank to a profound reverie. The eating of this light refreshment was probably a manifestation of subconscious thought, for, when he had finished, he spoke to me as follows—
"There are a great many things which I dislike immensely but the necessity for which I must perforce acquiesce in: these are water, easterly winds and actresses: but there are other habits cultivated by humanity for which I can find no apology, and some of these have grown to so great an extent that they now bulk as evils of terrific magnitude."
"Foremost among these reprehensible customs I will mention that of eating. Of all the evils under which civilisation staggers helplessly the most ponderous and merciless is hunger, and it is the evil which will ultimately decimate all existing forms of life.
"All forms of organic life have now for millions of years been slaves to this filthy habit of eating, and have superimposed upon their original singleness of form a variety of weighty and unattractive organs to keep pace with the satisfaction of this oppressive appetite, until to-day the entire organic world stands upon the imminent brink of destruction if food should be withheld from it for one entire week.
"Every living being should be self-supporting and self-sufficient. It should be inherent in the economy of a man to produce for himself not alone food but also shelter and raiment from his own internal resources. A man should be able to build a house or evolve a loaf of bread out of his own body with ease and assurance.
"Look for a moment at spiders. Every spider carries within himself the materials for his own home. His stomach, instead of being, as is vulgarly supposed, a cemetery for smaller organisms, is in reality his brick-field and rope-walk, and out of this minute sack he will produce endless miles of cordage and web which he weaves into the most beautiful and mathematical harmonies. This is a self-contained utility which might be imitated by men with advantage, and that which is done with ease by a spider can scarcely offer insuperable difficulty to the chief of the vertebrates. Of course, each man's production will be more or less guided and limited by his capacity.—Thus, fat men will spin forth cathedrals, opera-houses and railway stations. Thin men will devote themselves to obelisks, church spires, factory chimneys, and artistic bric-a-brac. Short men will willingly produce artisans' dwellings, busts of famous men and, perhaps, now and then, pyramids or villa residences. Constant work of this description will not alone render us independent of landlords, but, by atrophy of the digestive organs, will inaugurate a brighter era for long-suffering, food-fed humanity.
"Suppose it is advanced that man cannot keep up his strength and usefulness without some kind of exterior nourishment—I will then proceed to demonstrate how this can be most easily accomplished. Our first cousins, the trees and bushes, do not sit down at stated hours to a heterogeneous mess of steak, tea and onions: they stand firm in the ground unhurried by the sound of the dinner-bell and careless of the state of the American market. As the spider is sufficient in itself in house-building, so are the trees, the grass and all inorganic life self-supporting so far as food is concerned. The reason is, that trees, grass and flowers are bedded in the earth, the source of all nourishment. Let this fact be but properly understood, and the last and greatest bar to human progress will be removed, and 'the millenniums which so furiously chase us' will have a chance of catching us up.
"If, once a week, men would bury themselves to the chin in good fertile clay, and allow the nurture of the earth to permeate their bodies there would be an end to this gross and unfortunate digestive activity. I have myself experimented in this direction with the most encouraging results. A rich, loamy soil is very good—it is rather cold at the bottom, but invigorating. Light, sandy clay would suit sedentary persons such as parsons, artists, judges. In poor ground some superphosphates, or a light compost could be strewn by each person around himself. Families would take turns in pruning each other, and so forth; but all these incidental matters would rapidly adjust themselves. After a time we might succeed in propagating ourselves by seeds or slips, and this would lead to a radical readjustment of our sex relations and put an end to many of the problems wherewith we are eternally badgered and perplexed.
"In some ways I will admit that food is valuable. As a means of killing a rich uncle by gout, or of attaining wealth by judicious adulteration it can be recommended, and looked at in the light of a gentle morning exercise to be taken immediately after rising it is useful, but as a method of obtaining nourishment it is obsolete and disgustingly vulgar."
At this point the gentleman-in-waiting snorted in a most unbecoming manner, and dived under the counter, from beneath which he alternately mewed like a cat and crowed like a cock. It was a clear attack of hysteria. While the poor man was recovering from his seizure the old gentleman absent-mindedly departed without paying his shot.