Weekly commercial herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1884-18??, 1885-11-06
A e%AsTaoNoMIc aRoMLm
Thinks we Nosd . Kitchen fteflln-n..
American Eater and His Dyspepsia

Thinks we Noed q Kitchen f.efa4n-nr
American Eater and His D~yspspsla
boston Budgat1
Eating IS not particularly aesthetic but
1t is a tri.daily acknowledgment to cur.
selves and others Of our mortal feeblenese
Were not the practice Of eating general. ii
would be held q disgraceful yielding. and
we should feed shyly, with q shame al
being seen, like that Of munching a lunch
seated on a curbstone. What a piece Of
work is man! how noble In reas0nl how
infinite in facultiesi in form aud moving.
how express and admirablel in action.
how like an angel In apprehension, how
like a god the beauty Of the world the
paragon of auimals Yet thrice d day
this paragon and godlike animal INDUCES
in apprehension Of quite another sort.
for it is feeding time. and there is q.
snarling and swapping and o ieshy wag-
glng Of jaws till the machine which is
within us is resupplied with fuel. People
confess this weakness to each other and
rush in herds to satisfy it, as though
singly 1t were an abasement.
Is it because eating is ~ungracefult that Il
Is so little honoFed? A lady looks least
like an angel at the dinner table: IS that
the reason she loves the kitchen SO littley
Is it for such a reason, or by an Inherent
vice in national character, that the repre-
sentative American is a saIloW, lean, loose
jointed man, who began life with a good
constitution, which he treated as If be had
q grudge against It, who every day steps
over mountains in his path, and at 30
finds out. for the first time. that be has
an internal stomach, %thereupon going
into the doctors hands and afterwards
eating food from one hand and pills from
the other?
In the New World type nature ven
tured upon an experiment. and put in ono
more droplof nervous fluid; but the Amer.
lean treats the drop as if it were stamina
and not impulse, boiler and not pressure.
SO we are old AZ 80. We have not time
for dinner, and throw meat to our stom-
achs with the tame hasty jerk as to dogs;
making them snap it in the same ha8ty
way. We all carry weight in our own
bodies, and live and work in spite Of them,
they are the impediments Of the marches
Of our lives. And we are all dyspeptic=
a word that suggests the spectacles.
Dyspepsia is not nervousness, or we
might owe something to it in literature:
it is far unlike that depression under
which De Quincy pitifully says, 1Com.
position of any sort was inexpressibly
painful-a burden which became public
gain. Dyspepsia would have crushed
Cromwell and deferred the fall of Charles.
Minerva springing from Jove's head, that
p~reternatural antic, may have been but
an undigested morsel under the imperial
girdle. Dyspepsia is author of many .
doubt and gloomy doctrine in theology:
it may have been the devil that vexed
Luther and the saints 1t has lost
battles 1t has strangled ideas
We need a kitchen reform, and the es-
adjustment Of classes in which not only
young women can be taughthow to cook.
but young ladies qualified to superintend
the culinary departments Of their future
households. 1t is time we realized that
nothing useful is vulgar or undignified.
II cooking is vulgar, so Is eating; and let
us dispense with both or make both OBJ
jects of study. 1t is no materialism to
say that the food we eat is the thoughts
we think, the doctrines we hold to, the
experiences we treasure or try to forget
u successes or failures. What we con.
sumo becomes ourselves, and life is seen
by every man through the medium Of his
physical being and condition.