And he read: “Oysters, with a few Platonic olives, for the sake of Dr. Holmes and criticism; a bit of tenderloin, in memory of Mary Lamb’s beefsteak pudding; asparagus, which, according to Charles Lamb, inspires gentle thoughts; cauliflower, which Dr. Johnson preferred to all other flowers; Vergil’s salad; apple pie, according to Henry Ward Beecher’s recipe, with a bit of Dean Swift’s cheese; and, finally, a little coffee. I have considerably increased my usual ration in order that you may not miss what the French call ‘the sensation of satiety.’
“I find it difficult,” sighed Professor Maturin, as he passed the order to an attendant and leaned back in his chair, “to absolve men of letters from what has been called the crime of unintelligent eating. Of all men their need of and their opportunity for wisdom in such matters is the greatest. And yet you have Gray wondering at his ailments and his melancholia, when he was eating chiefly marmalade and pastry, taking no exercise, and dosing himself with tar water and sage tea.
“Shelley did scarcely better in a more enlightened age. Byron’s habitual flesh-reducing mixture, potatoes and vinegar, is chemically indigestible. And Thoreau literally consumed himself in following and advocating a diet which so prepared him for tuberculosis that living half his time in the open air could not prevent it.
“The opposite extreme, which is yet more common, is even less attractive in men of genius. Who likes to remember that Spenser and Milton had gout, or that Goethe drank in his time fifty thousand bottles of wine? As for Pepys, what do you think of having one’s ‘only mayde’ dress such a home dinner as this, copied from his ‘Diary:’ ‘A fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton, three carps, a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie, a dish of anchovies, and good wine of several sorts’? No wonder that his better qualities are obscured in our memories of him.
“Philosophers, men of action, and, interestingly enough, men of the world, have usually set a better example. ‘They that sup with Plato,’ said Aelianus, ‘are not sick or out of temper the next day.’ Socrates, Epicurus, and Kant, all preached and practiced judgment and restraint. Horace and Catullus insisted that their pampered guests should bring their luxuries with them. Montaigne highly disapproved of elaborate cooking, and Pope refused to dine with Lady Suffolk so late in the day as four.
“Then there is that admirable story of Cincinnatus, whom the venal senators knew they could not bribe after they found him preparing his own dinner of turnips. It is quite in keeping that King Alfred should have burned the cakes, and that Napoleon should have spilled the omelet; and it is to Lady Cromwell’s credit that she would not allow the Protector oranges that cost a groat apiece.
“Even aside from health and morals, a man’s relation to food is always significant. Who can think of Tasso without remembering that he loved sweetmeats? Is there not literary suggestion in the fact that Vergil loved garlic and Horace hated it; that Horace preferred his Falernian and his Sabine farm to the dinners and Persian apparatus of Maecenas, but that Cicero loved to dine with Lucullus and bought himself a seven-thousand-dollar dinner table?
“Is it not illuminating to know that the favorite food of Burns was oat-cake, that of Byron truffles? De Quincey’s reports that Wordsworth used the same knife for cutting butter and the pages of books; and that Scott, when Wordsworth’s guest, repaired secretly to an inn for chops and ale—these are not gossip, but literary criticism. It is as surely interpretative of Dickens to know that he disliked Italian cookery as that he was fond of playing an accordeon.
“Carlyle’s pessimism is usually attributed to indigestion. It ought, I think, to be as usual to explain Emerson’s optimism by a digestion that could cope successfully with his favorite pie. We habitually associate tea and coffee with Johnson and Balzac, and their work. Should we not as often remember that Milton produced ‘Paradise Lost’ on coffee, and ‘Paradise Regained’ on tea? Of course, such physical criticism of literature must be limited by other judgments. I can well agree with Dr. Gould that many writers show the effects of eye-strain, and it is difficult to upset the diagnosis of anaemia in Hawthorne; but I hesitate to think, with Dr. Conan Doyle, that Shakespeare had locomotor ataxia.”
“Why did you associate oysters with criticism?” I inquired, as Professor Maturin paused.