utlets, and coffee might be forthcoming at
a word.

There is a privileged class of persons who are summoned to the
enjoyments of taste by a physical and organic predisposition. I have
always believed in physiognomy and phrenology. Men have inborn
tendencies; and since there are some who come into the world seeing,
hearing, and walking badly, because they are short-sighted, deaf, or
crippled, why should there not be others who are specially predisposed
to experience a certain series of sensations? Moreover, even an
ordinary observer will constantly discover faces which bear the
unmistakable imprint of a ruling passion--such as superciliousness,
self-satisfaction, misanthropy, sensuality, and many others. Sometimes,
no doubt, we meet with a face that expresses nothing; but when the
physiognomy has a marked stamp it is almost always a true index. The
passions act upon the muscles, and frequently, although a man says
nothing, the various feelings by which he is moved can be read in his
face. By this tension, if in the slightest degree habitual, perceptible
traces are at last left, and the physiognomy thus assumes its permanent
and recognizable characteristics.

Those predisposed to epicurism are for the most part of middling height.
They are broad-faced, and have bright eyes, small forehead, short nose,
fleshy lips, and rounded chin. The women are plump, chubby, pretty
rather than beautiful, with a slight tendency to fullness of figure. It
is under such an exterior that we must look for agreeable guests. They
accept all that is offered them, eat without hurry, and taste with
discrimination. They never make any haste to get away from houses where
they have been well treated, but stay for the evening, because they know
all the games and other after-dinner amusements.

Those, on the contrary, to whom nature has denied an aptitude for the
enjoyments of taste, are long-faced, long-nosed, and long-eyed: whatever
their stature, they have something lanky about them. They have dark,
lanky hair, and are never in good condition. It was one of them who
invented trousers. The women whom nature has afflicted with the same
misfortune are angular, feel themselves bored at table, and live on
cards and scandal.

This theory of mine can be verified by each reader from his own personal
observation. I shall give an instance from my own personal experience:--

Sitting one day at a grand banquet, I had opposite me a very pretty
neighbor, wh