"What is dyspepsia, pa?"My livid-complexioned friend regarded me with a look of mingledamazement and envy. Then in a tone of infinite pity he slowly said:
"You will know--some day."My poor, dear mother used to say she liked to see me eat, and it hasalways been a pleasant reflection to me since that I must have givenher much gratification in that direction. A growing, healthy lad,taking plenty of exercise and careful to restrain himself fromindulging in too much study, can generally satisfy the most exactingexpectations as regards his feeding powers.
It is amusing to see boys eat when you have not got to pay for it.
Their idea of a square meal is a pound and a half of roast beef withfive or six good-sized potatoes (soapy ones preferred as being moresubstantial), plenty of greens, and four thick slices of Yorkshirepudding, followed by a couple of currant dumplings, a few greenapples, a pen'orth of nuts, half a dozen jumbles2, and a bottle ofginger-beer. After that they play at horses.
How they must despise us men, who require to sit quiet for a couple ofhours after dining off a spoonful of clear soup and the wing of achicken!
But the boys have not all the advantages on their side. A boy neverenjoys the luxury of being satisfied. A boy never feels full. He cannever stretch out his legs, put his hands behind his head, and,closing his eyes, sink into the ethereal blissfulness that encompassesthe well-dined man. A dinner makes no difference whatever to a boy.
To a man it is as a good fairy's potion, and after it the worldappears a brighter and a better place. A man who has dinedsatisfactorily experiences a yearning3 love toward all hisfellow-creatures. He strokes the cat quite gently and calls it "poorpussy," in tones full of the tenderest emotion. He sympathizes withthe members of the German band outside and wonders if they are cold;and for the moment he does not even hate his wife's relations.
A good dinner brings out all the softer side of a man. Under itsgenial influence the gloomy and morose4 become jovial5 and chatty.
Sour, starchy individuals, who all the rest of the day go aboutlooking as if they lived on vinegar and Epsom salts, break out intowreathed smiles after dinner, and exhibit a tendency to pat smallchildren on the head and to talk to them--vaguely--about sixpences.
Serious men thaw6 and become mildly cheerful, and snobbish7 young men ofthe heavy-mustache type forget to make themselves objectionable.
I always feel sentimental8 myself after dinner. It is the only timewhen I can properly appreciate love-stories. Then, when the heroclasps "her" to his heart in one last wild embrace and stifles9 a sob,I feel as sad as though I had dealt at whist and turned up only adeuce; and when the heroine dies in the end I weep. If I read thesame tale early in the morning I should sneer10 at it. Digestion1, orrather indigestion, has a marvelous effect upon the heart. If I wantto write any thing very pathetic--I mean, if I want to try to writeanything very pathetic--I eat a large plateful of hot buttered muffinsabout an hour beforehand, and then by the time I sit down to my work afeeling of unutterable melancholy11 has come over me. I pictureheartbroken lovers parting forever at lonely wayside stiles, while thesad twilight12 deepens around them, and only the tinkling13 of a distantsheep-bell breaks the sorrow-laden silence. Old men sit and gaze atwithered flowers till their sight is dimmed by the mist of tears.
Little dainty maidens14 wait and watch at open casements16; but "he comethnot," and the heavy years roll by and the sunny gold tresses wearwhite and thin. The babies that they dandled have become grown menand women with podgy torments17 of their own, and the playmates thatthey laughed with are lying very silent under the waving grass. Butstill they wait and watch, till the dark shadows of the unknown nightsteal up and gather round them and the world with its childishtroubles fades from their aching eyes.
I see pale corpses18 tossed on white-foamed waves, and death-bedsstained with bitter tears, and graves in trackless deserts. I hearthe wild wailing19 of women, the low moaning of little children, the drysobbing of strong men. It's all the muffins. I could not conjure20 upone melancholy fancy upon a mutton chop and a glass of champagne21.
A full stomach is a great aid to poetry, and indeed no sentiment ofany kind can stand upon an empty one. We have not time or inclinationto indulge in fanciful troubles until we have got rid of our realmisfortunes. We do not sigh over dead dicky-birds with the bailiff inthe house, and when we do not know where on earth to get our nextshilling from, we do not worry as to whether our mistress' smiles arecold, or hot, or lukewarm, or anything else about them.
Foolish people--when I say "foolish people" in this contemptuous way Imean people who entertain different opinions to mine. If there is oneperson I do despise more than another, it is the man who does notthink exactly the same on all topics as I do--foolish people, I say,then, who have never experienced much of either, will tell you thatmental distress22 is far more agonizing23 than bodily. Romantic andtouching theory! so comforting to the love-sick young sprig who looksdown patronizingly at some poor devil with a white starved face andthinks to himself, "Ah, how happy you are compared with me!"--sosoothing to fat old gentlemen who cackle about the superiority ofpoverty over riches. But it is all nonsense--all cant24. An achinghead soon makes one forget an aching heart. A broken finger willdrive away all recollections of an empty chair. And when a man feelsreally hungry he does not feel anything else.
We sleek25, well-fed folk can hardly realize what feeling hungry islike. We know what it is to have no appetite and not to care for thedainty victuals26 placed before us, but we do not understand what itmeans to sicken for food--to die for bread while others waste it--togaze with famished27 eyes upon coarse fare steaming behind dingywindows, longing28 for a pen'orth of pea pudding and not having thepenny to buy it--to feel that a crust would be delicious and that abone would be a banquet.
Hunger is a luxury to us, a piquant29, flavor-giving sauce. It is wellworth while to get hungry and thirsty merely to discover how muchgratification can be obtained from eating and drinking. If you wishto thoroughly30 enjoy your dinner, take a thirty-mile country walk afterbreakfast and don't touch anything till you get back. How your eyeswill glisten31 at sight of the white table-cloth and steaming dishesthen! With what a sigh of content you will put down the empty beertankard and take up your knife and fork! And how comfortable you feelafterward as you push back your chair, light a cigar, and beam roundupon everybody.
Make sure, however, when adopting this plan, that the good dinner isreally to be had at the end, or the disappointment is trying. Iremember once a friend and I--dear old Joe, it was. Ah! how we loseone another in life's mist. It must be eight years since I last sawJoseph Taboys. How pleasant it would be to meet his jovial faceagain, to clasp his strong hand, and to hear his cheery laugh oncemore! He owes me 14 shillings, too. Well, we were on a holidaytogether, and one morning we had breakfast early and started for atremendous long walk. We had ordered a duck for dinner over night.
We said, "Get a big one, because we shall come home awfully33 hungry;"and as we were going out our landlady34 came up in great spirits. Shesaid, "I have got you gentlemen a duck, if you like. If you getthrough that you'll do well;" and she held up a bird about the size ofa door-mat. We chuckled35 at the sight and said we would try. We saidit with self-conscious pride, like men who know their own power. Thenwe started.
We lost our way, of course. I always do in the country, and it doesmake me so wild, because it is no use asking direction of any of thepeople you meet. One might as well inquire of a lodging-house slaveythe way to make beds as expect a country bumpkin to know the road tothe next village. You have to shout the question about three timesbefore the sound of your voice penetrates36 his skull37. At the thirdtime he slowly raises his head and stares blankly at you. You yell itat him then for a fourth time, and he repeats it after you. Heponders while you count a couple of hundred, after which, speaking atthe rate of three words a minute, he fancies you "couldn't do betterthan--" Here he catches sight of another idiot coming down the roadand bawls38 out to him the particulars, requesting his advice. The twothen argue the case for a quarter of an hour or so, and finally agreethat you had better go straight down the lane, round to the right andcross by the third stile, and keep to the left by old Jimmy Milcher'scow-shed, and across the seven-acre field, and through the gate bySquire Grubbin's hay-stack, keeping the bridle-path for awhile tillyou come opposite the hill where the windmill used to be--but it'sgone now--and round to the right, leaving Stiggin's plantation39 behindyou; and you say "Thank you" and go away with a splitting headache,but without the faintest notion of your way, the only clear idea youhave on the subject being that somewhere or other there is a stilewhich has to be got over; and at the next turn you come upon fourstiles, all leading in different directions!
We had undergone this ordeal40 two or three times. We had tramped overfields. We had waded41 through brooks42 and scrambled43 over hedges andwalls. We had had a row as to whose fault it was that we had firstlost our way. We had got thoroughly disagreeable, footsore, andweary. But throughout it all the hope of that duck kept us up. Afairy-like vision, it floated before our tired eyes and drew usonward. The thought of it was as a trumpet-call to the fainting. Wetalked of it and cheered each other with our recollections of it.
"Come along," we said; "the duck will be spoiled."We felt a strong temptation, at one point, to turn into a village innas we passed and have a cheese and a few loaves between us, but weheroically restrained ourselves: we should enjoy the duck all thebetter for being famished.
We fancied we smelled it when we go into the town and did the lastquarter of a mile in three minutes. We rushed upstairs, and washedourselves, and changed our clothes, and came down, and pulled ourchairs up to the table, and sat and rubbed our hands while thelandlady removed the covers, when I seized the knife and fork andstarted to carve.
It seemed to want a lot of carving44. I struggled with it for aboutfive minutes without making the slightest impression, and then Joe,who had been eating potatoes, wanted to know if it wouldn't be betterfor some one to do the job that understood carving. I took no noticeof his foolish remark, but attacked the bird again; and so vigorouslythis time that the animal left the dish and took refuge in the fender.
We soon had it out of that, though, and I was prepared to make anothereffort. But Joe was getting unpleasant. He said that if he hadthought we were to have a game of blind hockey with the dinner hewould have got a bit of bread and cheese outside.
I was too exhausted45 to argue. I laid down the knife and fork withdignity and took a side seat and Joe went for the wretched creature.
He worked away in silence for awhile, and then he muttered "Damn theduck" and took his coat off.
We did break the thing up at length with the aid of a chisel46, but itwas perfectly47 impossible to eat it, and we had to make a dinner offthe vegetables and an apple tart32. We tried a mouthful of the duck,but it was like eating India-rubber.
It was a wicked sin to kill that drake. But there! there's no respectfor old institutions in this country.
I started this paper with the idea of writing about eating anddrinking, but I seem to have confined my remarks entirely48 to eating asyet. Well, you see, drinking is one of those subjects with which itis inadvisable to appear too well acquainted. The days are gone bywhen it was considered manly49 to go to bed intoxicated50 every night, anda clear head and a firm hand no longer draw down upon their owner thereproach of effeminacy. On the contrary, in these sadly degeneratedays an evil-smelling breath, a blotchy51 face, a reeling gait, and ahusky voice are regarded as the hall marks of the cad rather than orthe gentleman.
Even nowadays, though, the thirstiness of mankind is somethingsupernatural. We are forever drinking on one excuse or another. Aman never feels comfortable unless he has a glass before him. Wedrink before meals, and with meals, and after meals. We drink when wemeet a friend, also when we part from a friend. We drink when we aretalking, when we are reading, and when we are thinking. We drink oneanother's healths and spoil our own. We drink the queen, and thearmy, and the ladies, and everybody else that is drinkable; and Ibelieve if the supply ran short we should drink our mothers-in-law.
By the way, we never eat anybody's health, always drink it. Whyshould we not stand up now and then and eat a tart to somebody'ssuccess?
To me, I confess the constant necessity of drinking under which themajority of men labor52 is quite unaccountable. I can understand peopledrinking to drown care or to drive away maddening thoughts wellenough. I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soakthemselves in drink--oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, ofcourse--very shocking to us who live in cozy53 homes, with all thegraces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers54 in dampcellars and windy attics55 should creep from their dens15 of misery56 intothe warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for abrief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin.
But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at theirill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means.
Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on fromyear to year in the narrow, noisome57 room where, huddled58 like vermin insewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed childrenscream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff59, and curse,and nag60; where the street outside teems61 with roaring filth62 and thehouse around is a bedlam63 of riot and stench.
Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them,devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents64 the sweet hayand munches65 the ripe corn contentedly66. The watch-dog in his kennelblinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewyfields, and wakes with a yelp67 of gladness to greet a caressing68 hand.
But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray oflight. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed tothe hour when they lounge back into it again they never live onemoment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they knownot the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship,longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when theirbaby eyes first look out upon their sordid69 world to the day when, withan oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled70 out ofsight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill toa single thought, never start to a single hope. In the name of theGod of mercy; let them pour the maddening liquor down their throatsand feel for one brief moment that they live!
Ah! we may talk sentiment as much as we like, but the stomach is thereal seat of happiness in this world. The kitchen is the chief templewherein we worship, its roaring fire is our vestal flame, and the cookis our great high-priest. He is a mighty71 magician and a kindly72 one.
He soothes73 away all sorrow and care. He drives forth74 all enmity,gladdens all love. Our God is great and the cook is his prophet. Letus eat, drink, and be merry.
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1
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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jumbles
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| 混杂( jumble的名词复数 )； （使）混乱； 使混乱； 使杂乱 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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thaw
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| v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和 | |
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snobbish
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| adj.势利的，谄上欺下的 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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stifles
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的第三人称单数 )； 镇压，遏制 | |
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sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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tinkling
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| n.丁当作响声 | |
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maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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casements
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| n.窗扉( casement的名词复数 ) | |
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torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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cant
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| n.斜穿，黑话，猛扔 | |
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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victuals
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| n.食物；食品 | |
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famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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piquant
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| adj.辛辣的，开胃的，令人兴奋的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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glisten
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| vi.（光洁或湿润表面等）闪闪发光，闪闪发亮 | |
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tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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penetrates
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| v.穿过( penetrate的第三人称单数 )；刺入；了解；渗透 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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bawls
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的第三人称单数 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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blotchy
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| adj.有斑点的，有污渍的；斑污 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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attics
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| n. 阁楼 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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noisome
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| adj.有害的，可厌的 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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cuff
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| n.袖口；手铐；护腕；vt.用手铐铐；上袖口 | |
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nag
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| v.(对…)不停地唠叨；n.爱唠叨的人 | |
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teems
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| v.充满( teem的第三人称单数 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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bedlam
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| n.混乱，骚乱；疯人院 | |
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scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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munches
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的第三人称单数 ) | |
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66
contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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67
yelp
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| vi.狗吠 | |
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68
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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69
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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70
shoveled
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| vt.铲，铲出（shovel的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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71
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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72
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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73
soothes
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| v.安慰( soothe的第三人称单数 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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74
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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