Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère:
Je lui dirai d’quoi on compose
Vol-au-Vent à la Financière!”
The good things of this life are mostly plain and wholesome (with a few delightful exceptions), and we can all qualify to live in Bengodi, Boccaccio’s country of content, where they tie up the vines with sausages, where you may buy a fat goose for a penny, and have the giblets thrown in into the bargain. In this place there is a mountain of Parmesan cheese, and the people’s employment is making cheese-cakes and macaroons. There is also a river which runs Malmsey wine of the very best quality.
There are no cheap excursions to Bengodi. We have to tramp there on foot—and earn our bread on the road as we travel thither.
CHAPTER·VI·VEGETABLES·AND·SALADS·
“Will a man give a penny to fill his belly with hay? Or can you persuade the turtle-dove to live upon carrion like the crow?”
John Bunyan (“Pilgrim’s Progress”).
The first vegetarian was probably Nebuchadnezzar, and he has many followers. With the utmost love and respect for all vegetables, without exception, I refuse to accept them as the staff of life, or indeed as anything more than a delicious aid thereto. It is possible that the internal economy of certain very worthy folk may be more easily conducted on a vegetarian basis, and indeed every man is at liberty to feed as suits him best; but as a matter of preference, predilection and experience, I decline to follow his example. If they are content to let me go my way unmolested, I have no desire to interfere with their tastes. But no proselytising, please!