The more a spring is drawn from, the softer the water will become; hence old wells furnish a purer water than those which are more recent; but a well of soft water is sensibly hardened by a coating of bricks. To obviate this, the bricks should be coated with cement. Snow water deserves a better reputation than it has acquired. Lake water is fitted only for the commonest household detergent purposes. But the salubrity of water is converted into poison by the conveyances which bring it almost to our lips; and we have not yet adopted in full the recommendation of Vitruvius and Columella to use pipes of earthenware, as being not only cheaper, but more durable and more wholesome, than lead. We still convey away refuse water in earthenware, and bring fresh water into our houses in lead! The noted choleraic colic of Amsterdam, in the last century, was entirely caused by the action of vegetable matter in the water-pipes.
Filtration produces no good effect upon hard water. The sulphate of lime, and still more the super-carbonate of lime, are only to be destroyed by boiling. Boiled water, cooled, and agitated in contact with the atmosphere, before use, is a safe and not an unpleasant beverage. It is essential that the water be boiling when “toast and water” is the beverage to be taken.
Water, doubtless, is the natural drink of man—in a natural state. It is the only liquid which truly appeases thirst; and a small quantity is sufficient for that effect. The other liquids are, for the most part, palliatives merely. If man had kept to water, the saying would not be applicable to him, that “he is the only animal privileged to drink without being thirsty.” But, then, where would the medical profession have been?
But he does well who, at all events, commences the day with water and prayer. With such an one we go hand in hand, not only in that service, but, as now, to Breakfast.
BREAKFAST.
Swift lent dignity to this repast, and to laundresses partaking of it, when he said, in illustration of modern Epicureanism, that “the world must be encompassed before a washerwoman can sit down to breakfast.”
Franklin, who made a “morality” of every sentiment, and put opinions into dramatical action, has a passage in some one of his Essays, in which he says, that “Disorder breakfasts with Plenty, dines with Poverty, sups with Misery, and sleeps with Death.” It is an unpleasant division of the day, but it is truly described, as far as it goes. On the other hand, it is not to be concluded that Disorder is the favourite guest of Abundance; and I do not know any one who has described a plentiful breakfast, with regularity presiding, better than another essayist, though one of a less matter-of-fact quality than Franklin,—I mean Leigh Hunt. In the “Indicator” he invites us to a “Breakfast in Cold Weather.” “Here it is,” he says, “ready laid. Imprimis, tea and coffee; secondly, dry toast; thirdly, butter; fourthly, eggs; fifthly, ham; sixthly, something potted; seventhly, bread, salt, mustard, knives, forks, &c. One of the first things that belong to a breakfast, is a good fire. There is a delightful mixture of the lively and the snug, in coming down to one’s breakfast-room of a cold morning, and seeing every thing prepared for us,—a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and tea-things; the newly-washed faces and combed heads of a set of good-humoured urchins; and the sole empty chair, at its accustomed corner, ready for occupation. When we lived alone,” he adds, “we could not help reading at meals; and it is certainly a delicious thing to resume an entertaining book, at a particularly interesting passage, with a hot cup of tea at one’s elbow, and a piece of buttered toast in one’s hand. The first look at the page, accompanied by a co-existent bite of the toast, comes under the head of ‘intensities.’” Under the head of “&c.” in the above list, I should be disposed to include “sunshine;” for sunshine in a breakfast-room in winter, is almost as glorious a thing as the fire itself. It is a positive tonic; it cheers the spirits, strengthens the body, and promotes digestion. As for breakfast in hot weather, all well-disposed persons who have gardens take that meal, of course, in “the arbour,” and amid flowers. Breakfasts al-fresco are all the more intensely enjoyed, because so few may be discussed in the open air in a country whose summer consists of “three hot days and a thunder-storm;” and in a climate wherein, according to Boerhaave, people should not leave off their winter clothing till Midsummer-Day, resuming the same the next morning when they are dressing for breakfast! Walpole and Boerhaave are right; our summers do sometimes set in with extraordinary severity.
The breakfast of a Greek soldier, taken at dawn of day, required a strong head to bear it. It consisted of bread soaked in wine. If Princes were in the habit of so breaking their fast, we hardly need wonder at the denunciation in Ecclesiastes against those who eat in the morning. The Greek patricians sat daily down to but one solid meal. Soldiers and plebeians had less controllable appetites, and these could not be appeased with less than two meals a day. They were accounted peculiarly coarse people who consumed three. The Romans were, in this respect, similar to the Greeks. Fashionable people ate little or nothing before the hour when they compensated for a long fast by a daily meal, where they fed hugely. A simple breakfast, as soon as they awoke, of “bread and cheese,” has a very unclassical sound; but good authority assures us, that it was a custom duly honoured with much observance. Not of such light fare, however, was the breakfast of Galba. Suetonius says that the old Emperor used to cry for his morning repast long before day-break. This was in winter time. He took the meal in bed, and was probably induced to do so by indisposition; for he was a huge, ogre-like supper-eater,—eating much, leaving more, and ordering the remains to be divided among the attendants, who duly, rather than dignifiedly, scrambled for the same.
Modern epicures would hardly approve of some of the dishes half-consumed by the hungry Galba at breakfast; but potentates of our own days have made their first meal upon very questionable matter.
When Clapperton, the African traveller, breakfasted with the Sultan of Baussa, which is a collection of straggling villages on the banks of the Quorra, among the delicacies presented were a large grilled water-rat, and alligators’ eggs, fried or stewed. The company were much amazed at the singularity of taste which prompted the stranger to choose fish and rice in preference to those savoury viands. The Prince, who gave this public breakfast in honour of a foreign commoner, was disgusted at the fastidious super-delicacy of his guest. In the last century, our commoners used to give similar entertainments in honour of Princes.