affect not to know what he was swallowing: "I suspect his taste in higher matters," said Elia. "Some people," said Dr. Johnson one night at supper, which he was enjoying with uncommon satisfaction, "have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat;" and he added that a man who has no regard for his stomach will have no regard for anything else. Declarations of indifference to the choice of one's food, except in cases of what Liebig might call inferior oxygenability of constitution, are generally the merest affectation, as much so as Byron's, when he dined at Rogers's on a potato and a little vinegar, and was discovered immediately afterward stuffing himself with a luxurious meal at a restaurant. What a contrast to the poet's affectation was Hazlitt's frankness, who did not hesitate to write to the woman of his "heart of heart" that he never loved her so well as when he thought of "sitting down with her to dinner on a boiled scrag-end of mutton and hot potatoes!" Apropos to this subject, why is it that Americans, who evidently have a keen appreciation of the pleasures of the table, generally rush through their meals in such hot haste? The celerity with which they bolt their food, though less offensive to the epicure than it was fifty years ago, still appalls a foreigner, and indicates a lack of discrimination among the dishes set before them. They appear to regard all edibles salmon and canvas-back duck alike with codfish and baked beans as means only of quieting a barking stomach (lenientem stomachum latrantem), and none of them as substances gifted with rich essences, subtle flavors, that require to be brought out and analyzed. Not so with our cousin John Bull. Whatever the quantity of edibles and potables he gorges at his meals, he never - ab ovo ad mala - in a hurry. despatches one of them He sits down to his roast beef or "Southdown" as a warrior would sit down before a fortress, and proceeds calmly and carefully to discuss each slice as if he were fully sensible of its delicious qualities, and profoundly thankful to the gracious Providence that thus ministers to his deepest sensuous cravings. Eating an THERE are few things by which character Index is more unmistakably betrayed than by a of Character. man's choice of food and the manner in which he devours it. In his preference for coarse or delicate edibles, or lack of preference for any,- in the deliberate slowness or voracious quickness with which he consumes them, traits of character otherwise hidden are revealed. The dinners of a people are an infallible index of the national life. It has been justly said that there is a whole geological cycle of progressive civilization between the clammy dough out of which a statuette might be moulded and the brittle films that melt upon the tongue like flakes of lukewarm snow. In England, one of the tests by which the various parties in the state church are unerringly distinguished is the test convivial. For example, it is said that some years ago a clergyman in that country went to a hotel to order a dinner for a number of clerical friends. May I ask, sir," said the waiter, gravely, "whether the party is High Church or Low Church?" 66 "Now, what on earth," cried the clergyman, "do my friends' opinions matter to you?" "A great deal, sir," rejoined the waiter. "If High Church, I must provide more wine; if Low Church, more wittles." We quite agree with a sensible writer that a fast eater may be a well-informed man, but he can never be a man of taste, simply because he lacks the gift of appreciation. He may swallow the contents of scores and hundreds or even thousands of books, and any given quantity of thoughts, facts, and statistics, as he gorges his food; but "he will not be a man that loves the beautiful, either in art or Nature. He will not care a whit about sunsets, or the choicest groupings of wood and water; and a panoramic exhibition, or the scenery of a playhouse, will suit him better than the delicate graces of a Leslie or a Newton. He may roar over the rich humor of a Smollett, because it is at the same time broad and obvious; but he will never detect the subdued quiet manifestation of the same quality in a Goldsmith, or relish the exquisite pleasantries or yet finer pathos of Charles Lamb." He may enjoy the labored and far-fetched jests of Mark Twain, but he will be blind to the shy and elusive pleasantries of Hawthorne; and as for noting the lights and shadows or feeling the more hidden beauties of poetry, how can it be expected of a person who can eat brook trout or English sole just as fast as he eats codfish, or partridge as hastily as he eats goose? A Caliph's TOUCHING this matter of eating, the stories Meals. told by the old chroniclers and historians of the abnormal appetites of certain Roman and Oriental men of note fairly stagger belief. Gibbon tells of Soliman, a caliph in the eighth century, who died of indigestion in his camp near Chalcis, in Syria, just as he was about to lead an army of Arabs against Constantinople; he had emptied two baskets of eggs and of figs, which he swallowed alternately, and the repast was finished with marrow and sugar. In a pilgrimage to Mecca, the same caliph had eaten with impunity, at a single meal, seventy pomegranates, a kid, six fowls, and a huge quantity of the grapes of Tayef. Such a statement would defy belief were not others of a similar character well avouched. Louis XIV. could hardly boast of an appetite as ravenous as Soliman's, but he would eat at a sitting four platefuls of different soups, a whole pheasant, a partridge, a plateful of salad, mutton hashed with garlic, two good-sized slices of ham, a dish of pastry, and finish with fruit and sweetmeats. Shade of Hippocrates! what were stomachs made of in those days? It will surprise many admirers of a great English poet of this century to learn that he was a great eater. In the latest edition of Lamb's works it is stated that the person with whom the Lambs boarded at Enfield charged usually one shilling extra when they had a friend to dinner; but when Wordsworth was the guest, they charged one and sixpence. When Lamb remonstrated, saying: "He's a great poet," the practical landlord replied: "Don't know about the great poet, but he's a great eater!" Barbers; their blood. BARBERS are proverbial for their wit, which is often as keen as their razors, and which, like their razors, rarely draws As iron by attrition with the magnet acquires some of its power of attraction, so does the barber, by associating continually with men of superior intellect, culture, and taste, catch a portion of their mental sharpness, polish, and urbanity. One may travel from pole to pole, and never encounter a stupid or ill-natured barber. Tailors, shoemakers, and other toilers who live a sedentary, lonely life are apt to be morose, melancholy, and atrabilious; but the knights of the razor are social and peripatetic in their habits, and sunny, buoyant, and merry in their temperaments. Care may clutch at them, but as one of their admirers has said, they always contrive to slip through the old fellow's fingers. Old Age may lay his frosty finger upon their beards and write wrinkles on their brows, but they only laugh in the graybeard's face. What a fund of piquant anecdote, witticism, and gossip the barber always has stored in the crannies of his brain! How like burrs do all the current jests, shrewd sayings of the day, and flying rumors of engagements, elopements, weddings, business failures, and deaths stick to him! What can be more felicitous than the devices by which he sometimes challenges public attention! Everybody has heard of the barber who headed his advertisement with a shrewd parody of Goldsmith, — "Man wants but little beard below, Nor wants that little long." Not less ingenious was the witticism of the Parisian artist, a hairdresser on one of the boulevards, who for his sign put up a picture of Absalom dangling by his hair from a tree, and Joab piercing his body with a spear. Under the painting was this terse epigram, — |