Vegetarian: About genuine tastes, I admit, disputation is idle. But the proverb is not true of the sham tastes to which I refer. There is a great deal to be discussed about them.
Æsthete: But I assure you my liking for a ham-sandwich is a genuine taste.
Vegetarian: With full knowledge of the pig-sty and the pig-sticker. Do not the antecedents of your ham-sandwich cause you a feeling of disgust?
Æsthete: Oh, well, if you persist in thinking about it, all feeding causes disgust. Don't you think there is something gross in the whole process of ingestion?
Vegetarian: Then why not gorge on carrion at once? The moment you adopt the "in for a penny, in for a pound" attitude, you sacrifice the whole art of living.
Æsthete: But what of the processes on which vegetarianism itself depends? You talk of the filth of the slaughter-house; but how about the filth of market gardening? To watch the soil being manured, if we let our thoughts dwell upon it, is enough to spoil all appetite for the produce of the garden. The more delicious the asparagus or the strawberries, the more we ought to loathe them.
Vegetarian: There I disagree with you entirely. There is nothing in the least disgusting, to me, at any rate (and I speak from personal experience), in the manuring of the soil or in any agricultural process—on the contrary, there is much that is wholesome and cheering in this chemistry of nature. The healthy mind takes a delight in gardening, just as it regards slaughtering with abhorrence. If you want to see the contrast between the effects of the two professions on those who practise them, compare the face of the typical slaughterman with that of the typical gardener. It is as remarkable as the contrast between a butcher's and a fruiterer's shop.
Æsthete: Well, it is no use talking about it; our views of life are different. You are a social reformer and agitator, and agitation is fatal to the tranquility of art. I am an artist, and do not care a straw for social reform. My creed is expressed in Keats's couplet:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.