aken for a man who delights in blood, or a hero. In
this happy state of innocence we have kept their minds, not allowing
them to go into the kitchen, or to hear of any preparations for the
dressing of animal food, or even to know that such things are
practised. But as a state of ignorance is incompatible with a certain
age, and as my eldest girl, who is ten years old next Midsummer, must
shortly be introduced into the world and sit at table with us, where
she will see some things which will shock all her received notions, I
have been endeavoring by little and little to break her mind, and
prepare it for the disagreeable impressions which must be forced upon
it. The first hint I gave her upon the subject, I could see her
recoil from it with the same horror with which we listen to a tale of
Anthropophagism; but she has gradually grown more reconciled to it,
in some measure, from my telling her that it was the custom of the
world,--to which, however senseless, we must submit, so far as we
could do it with innocence, not to give offence; and she has shown so
much strength of mind on other occasions, which I have no doubt is
owing to the calmness and serenity superinduced by her diet, that I
am in good hopes when the proper season for her _debut_ arrives, she
may be brought to endure the sight of a roasted chicken, or a dish of
sweet-breads for the first time without fainting. Such being the
nature of our little household, you may guess what inroads into the
economy of it,--what resolutions and turnings of things upside down,
the example of such a feeder as Mr. ---- is calculated to produce.

I wonder, at a time like the present, when the scarcity of every kind
of food is so painfully acknowledged, that _shame_ has no effect upon
him. Can he have read Mr. Malthus's Thoughts on the Ratio of Food to
Population? Can he think it reasonable that one man should consume
the sustenance of many?

The young gentleman has an agreeable air and person, such as are not
unlikely to recommend him on the score of matrimony. But his fortune
is not over-large; and what prudent young woman would think of
embarking hers with a man who would bring three or four mouths (or
what is equivalent to them) into a family? She might as reasonably
choose a widower in the same circumstances, with three or four
children.

I cannot think who he takes after. His father and mother, by all
accounts, were very moderate eaters; only I have heard that the
latte