on
his neighbour. What would they live on, if they did not live on one
another? or where forsooth would they find room to live? Is not the
world perpetually oscillating between the two great works of producing
and of devouring? The king of the creation, man, stands at the summit,
as the crown and the final object of all these multiform guests. Those
his subalterns, who have an assignment either one upon the other, or
upon the vegetable world, look up to him with reverential awe: for it
is not merely one thing or another, not merely beasts or vegetables,
not merely fishes or birds, no, almost everything without exception
he turns into food, making all classes of his subjects the sources of
his happiness. It is only from his own kind, and from a few which
serve him as his immediate vassals, or the flesh of which, whether
from prejudice or in reality, does not taste agreeably, that he
abstains. By means of fire, that performs his bidding, out of strong
essences, butter, oil, and spices, vegetables and flesh, all artfully
mingled and chemically prepared, he concocts the most extraordinary
combinations to please his palate. While the eye is weeping at top,
and the brain above it is brooding over touching thoughts, or kindling
itself and the heart with inspiring ones, while the nose inhaling
hyacinthine odours awakens visions of sweet desire in the imagination,
the mouth below is already lusting and licking its lips after the
venison or the liver pasty that is carried by. The sentimental young
lady feeds her pigeons with pathetical grace; and the very mouth which
lisps the prettiest verses and most moving idyls to them, will swallow
the same innocent creatures by and by with exquisite relish. Could
animals make observations as we do, and were a poet some day to rise
up amongst them, in what strange colours would he represent man!"

"Truly," said his friend, "such a jest, thus retorted upon mankind,
would be extremely amusing."

"We are fond of boasting of our universality," counsellor Helbach went
on, "and yet in the very art in which Nature herself has so manifestly
intended us to be universal, I mean in that of eating, many people
scorn to become so, and fancy it is more dignified to treat this whole
branch of knowledge with contempt. And yet the flocks of birds of
passage, the shoals of wandering fishes, come from distant regions,
flying and swimming into our nets, for the mere pleasure of our
palates; and the fruits of