Inque feras noster.”
But read further, and you will find the high moral to be a severe injunction against flesh-eating:
“Then let not piety be put to flight,
To please the taste of glutton appetite;
But suffer innate souls secure to dwell,
Lest from their seats your parents you expel:
With rabid hunger feed upon your kind,
Or from a beast dislodge a brother’s mind.”
Think you this injunction will be obeyed, in the face of the “Almanac des Gourmands?”
Ida. Evelyn is severe. May I tell him that, among the records of the East, he will find incidents blended with this idea which may almost consecrate the creed of a Pagan. As the honey is hung close to the poisoned sting of the bee, there may be a bright spot to illuminate the gloomy annals of superstition. The very belief in transmigration may impart an atom of mercy, even to an infidel; and where superstition, shorn of the light of Christianity, must prevail, it were better sure to foster that notion which may, even in one little sentiment, half humanize the heart.