thout any further nourishment
till dinner at six in the evening. A friend of Sir Walter Scott's, who
had stayed with him at Abbotsford, told me that Sir Walter ate and drank
like everybody else as to times and seasons, but much more abundantly
than people of less vigorous organization. Goethe used to work till
eleven without taking anything, then he drank a cup of chocolate and
worked till one. "At two he dined. This meal was the important meal of
the day. His appetite was immense. Even on the days when he complained
of not being hungry he ate much more than most men. Puddings, sweets,
and cakes were always welcome. He sat a long while over his wine. He was
fond of wine, and drank daily his two or three bottles." An eminent
French publisher, one of the most clear-headed and hard-working men of
his generation, never touched food or drink till six in the evening,
when he ate an excellent dinner with his guests. He found this system
favorable to his work, but a man of less robust constitution would have
felt exhausted in the course of the day.

Turgot could not work well till after he had dined copiously, but many
men cannot think after a substantial meal; and here, in spite of the
example set by Scott and Goethe, let me observe that nothing interferes
so much with brainwork as over-eating. The intellectual workman requires
nourishment of the best possible quality, but the quantity ought always
to be well within the capacity of his digestive powers. The truth
appears to be, that whilst the intellectual life makes very large
demands upon nutrition--for cerebral activity cannot go forward without
constant supplies of force, which must come ultimately from what we have
eaten--this kind of life, being sedentary, is unfavorable to the work of
digestion. Brain-workers cannot eat like sportsmen and farmers without
losing many hours in torpor, and yet they need nutrition as much as if
they led active lives. The only way out of this difficulty is to take
care that the food is good enough for a moderate quantity of it to
maintain the physical and mental powers. The importance of scientific
cookery can hardly be exaggerated. Intellectual labor is, in its
origin, as dependent upon the art of cookery as the dissemination of its
results is dependent upon paper-making and printing. This is one of
those matters which people cannot be brought to consider seriously; but
cookery in its perfection--the great science of preparing food in the
w