oths!--to-night is only the time
for spinning cobwebs. Hold your breath, philosopher, lest you sweep them
away too rudely! Alas for the airy cobwebs! In that cool anteroom is a
philosopher's broom, hard at work, brushing them remorselessly into a
perplexing dilemma,--the frightful increase of the human race.

"If," said the philosopher, emphatically, "if there were any prospect
of emigrating to the moon, there would be some hope; but in the present
state of affairs we shall soon be eating our own heads off, as the
proverb says. Europe is almost exhausted, the _ultima Thule_ of arable
territory in America has been reached, Asia barely supports her own
immense population; nothing is left but Africa, and she presents a
merely hopeful prospect for the future. In a hundred years, what will
society do for breadstuffs?"

"Live on rice and potatoes," suggested Anthrops.

"Rash boy, and check the advance of civilization! Have you not reflected
that the culture of wheat has been an inseparable adjunct to progress
and refinement? The difficulties required to be overcome in preparing
the ground and sowing the grain promote prudence, foresight, and care."

"It is certainly hard work enough to dig potatoes," quoth Anthrops.

The philosopher passed over the interruption with a dignified wave of
the hand, and continued:--

"The watching and waiting, during its progress to maturity, necessarily
produce that patience which is so essential to all scientific effort;
and the graceful loveliness of the plant in its various stages of growth
materially assists in developing that love for the beautiful which is a
necessary element in all harmonious individual or social character. Now
what aesthetic culture can you evolve from that stubbed, straggling weed
you call the potato?"

The discomfited pupil meekly suggested that he had been considering the
dietetic, not the aesthetic properties of the despised vegetable.

"Impossible to separate them, Sir!" cried the philosopher. "If, indeed,
you could fill the stomach without the intervention of any process of
brain or hand, they might be considered apart. But consider the position
of the stomach. Like a Persian monarch, it occupies the centre of the
system; despotic from its remote situation and the absolute power it
exercises, all parts of the external organism are its ministers: the
feet must run for its daily food, the hands must prepare that food with
cunning devices, the brain must direc