Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-02-03
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES &. TRACEWELL.

life?
How can we take the benefits and
reject the evils of the system which
Is now interviewer with all the fibers
of our beins?"
Having presented these two posers
as pertinent today as century ago
the young poet proceeds to give his
solution. as follows:
Il believe that abstinence from an.
imal food and spirituous liquors would
I'm q great measure capacitate us Tor
the solution Of this important Ques-
ton.
ut is true that mental and bodily
arrangement Is attributable In art
to other deviations from rectitude and
nature than those which concern
diet" Shelley admits. instancing the
putrid atmosphere of crowded cities,
the muffiing Of our bodies in super
fuous apparel" etc. But he goes on
to say:
Comparative anatomy teaches us
that man resembles frugivorous ami
mails in everything, and carniVorous
in nothing; he has neither claws
wherewith to seize his prey nor teeth
to tear the living fiber.
ut Is only by softening and dis
guising dead flesh by culinary prep
aration that 1t is rendered susceptible
Of mastication or digestion, and that
the sight of it's bloody juices and raw
horror does not excite tntolerable
loathing and disgust.
LET the advocate of animal food
force himself to a decisive experiment
on It's fitness, and, as Plutarch rec
ommends, tear a living lamb with his
teeth and plunge his head into Its
vitals, slake his thirst with the steam
ing blood; when fresh from the deed
OF horror. let him revert 10 the are
sistible instinct OF Nature that would
rise In judgment against II and say.
Nature formed me for such work as
this"
Shelley's appeal to the authority of
Plutarch was "A wise one, for If there
ever was a we'll balanced, sane man
in the history Of mankind, flutarch
was he. Whatever one may think OF
the race of poets, there can be no
two opinions about the sanity of old
Plutarch.
What ia the cause Of morbid action
In the animal SYSTEM" Shelley asked
Not the air we breathe, for our fel-
low denizens of nature breathe the
same unintured: not the water we
drink for the animals drink
Il, too: not the earth we tread upon;
not the unobscured sight of glorious
nature, in the wood, the field, or the
expanse OF sky and ocean nothing
that we are or do in common with
the undiseased inhabitants OF the for
est; but something then wherein we
differ from them: our habit of alter
ing our food by fire.
THE system of q simple diet prom
ises no Ctopian advantages. IL Is no
mere reform OF legislation, whilst the
furious passions and evil propensities
OF the human heart. in which il had
its origin, are still unassuaged. Mod
ern reformers, please take noteo
1T strikes at the root of all evil
and is AN experiment which may be
tried with success not alone by ma
tons, hut by small societies, families
and even individuals. on a natural
system of diet. old age would be our
last and our only malady.
by all that is sacred in our hopes
for the human race, l conjure those
who love happiness and truth to give
fair trial to the vegetable system
Experiments in organic chemistry
during the past 100 years would seem
to indicate that Shelley was more JUS
titled in his plea than otherwise that
perhaps the best diet for man Is not
an absolutely vegetable one. however
but a modified diet consisting of
plenty of green, succulent things,
milk, grains, fruit and some meat