These are questions asked me. Nature has proved a wise teacher,
as I think, in my own case. The older I grow, the less use I make of
alcoholic stimulants. In fact, I hardly meddle with them at all, except
a glass or two of champagne occasionally. I find that by far the best
borne of all drinks containing alcohol. I do not suppose my experience
can be the foundation of a universal rule. Dr. Holyoke, who lived to be
a hundred, used habitually, in moderate quantities, a mixture of cider,
water, and rum. I think, as one grows older, less food, especially less
animal food, is required. But old people have a right to be epicures, if
they can afford it. The pleasures of the palate are among the last
gratifications of the senses allowed them. We begin life as little
cannibals,--feeding on the flesh and blood of our mothers. We range
through all the vegetable and animal products, of nature, and I suppose,
if the second childhood could return to the food of the first, it might
prove a wholesome diet.

What do I say to smoking? I cannot grudge an old man his pipe, but I
think tobacco often does a good deal of harm to the health,--to the eyes
especially, to the nervous system generally, producing headache,
palpitation, and trembling. I myself gave it up many years ago.
Philosophically speaking, I think self-narcotization and
self-alcoholization are rather ignoble substitutes for undisturbed
self-consciousness and unfettered self-control.

Here is another of those brain-tapping letters, of similar character,
which I have no objection to answering at my own time and in the place
which best suits me. As the questions must be supposed to be asked with
a purely scientific and philanthropic purpose, it can make little
difference when and where they are answered. For myself, I prefer our
own tea-table to the symposia to which I am often invited. I do not
quarrel with those who invite their friends to a banquet to which many
strangers are expected to contribute. It is a very easy and pleasant way
of giving an entertainment at little cost and with no responsibility.
Somebody has been writing to me about "Oatmeal and Literature," and
somebody else wants to know whether I have found character influenced by
diet; also whether, in my opinion, oatmeal is preferable to pie as an
American national food.

In answer to these questions, I should say that I have my beliefs and
prejudices; but if I were pressed hard for my proofs of their
correctnes