, 1885-09-30
A ~aAsTRoNoMIc wi


ihihks We Neou a Aitchen lteform hu
American Eater ana HIS Dyspepsia
boston Budget
Eating Is not particularly aesthetic, but
4. Is a tri.daily acknowledgment to our.
selves and others of our mortal feeblenes4
Were not the practice Of eating general. II
would be held n disgraceful yielding. and
we should feed shyly. with a shame at
being seen. like that OF munching a lunch
seated on a curbstone. What a piece Of
work is man, how noble in reasonl how
infinite in faculties In form and moving,
10Y express and admirablel In action.
how like an angel in apprehension. how
like a god the beauty of the world the
paragon Of animals" Yet thrice a day
this paragon and godlike animal INDUCES
10 apprehension of quite another sort.
for 1t is feeding time. aud there is u
s%narling and swapping aud a fieshy wag-
ging 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 II. as though
singly 1t were an abasement
is II because eating is ungraceful that 1t
is so little honoredy A lady looks least
like an angel ut the dinner table; Is that
the reason she loves the kitchen so littley
Is II for such a reason, or by an inherent
vice In national character. that The repre-
sentative American is a sallow, lean, loose
jointed man. who began life with a good
constitution. which he treated as II he had
Il grudge against it, who every day steps
over mountains in his path, and at 80
finds out, for the first time, that he has
an internal" stomach, thereupon going
into the doctors hands and afterwards
eating food from one hand and pills from
the other2
In the New World type nature ven
tured upon an experiment. and put in one
more dropiof nervous fluid, but the Amer
lean treats the drop as If 1t were stamina
and not impulse. boiler and not pressure.
50 we are old at 30. We have not time
for dinner, and throw meat to our stom-
achs with the same hasty jerk as TO dogs,
making them snap ii in the same hasty
way We all carry weight in our W
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 spcctacles.
Dyspe psia is not nervousness, or we
might owe something TO 1t in literature;
it IS far unlike that depression under
which De Quincy p~itifully says, Com
position Of any sort wa inexpressibly
painful-a burden which became public
gain. Dyspepsia would have crushed
Cromwell and deferred the full of Charles.
Minerva s%pringing from Jove's head, that
preternatural antic. may have been but
an undigested morsel under the imperial
girdlc. Dyspepsia is author of many a
doubt and gloomy doctrine in theology
it may have been the devil that vexcd
Luther and the saints. II has lost
battles 1t has strangled ideas
We need n kitchen reform. and the cs
adjustment of classes in which not only
young women can be ta%ughthow TO cook.
but young ladies qualified TO superintend
the culinary departments Of their future
households, Ii is time we realized that
nothing useful is vulgar or ~undignihed
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 cat is the thoughts
we think, the doctrines we hold to. the
experiences VT treasure or try TO forget,
our successes or failures. What WI con
sumo becomes ourselves, and life is seen
by every man through the medium of his
physical being and condition.