第33章 ON EATING AND DRINKING.(2)

Foolish people--when I say "foolish people"in this contemptuous way Imean people who entertain different opinions to mine.If there is one person I do despise more than another,it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do--foolish people,I say,then,who have never experienced much of either,will tell you that mental distress is far more agonizing than bodily.Romantic and touching theory!so comforting to the love-sick young sprig who looks down patronizingly at some poor devil with a white starved face and thinks to himself,"Ah,how happy you are compared with me!"--so soothing to fat old gentlemen who cackle about the superiority of poverty over riches.But it is all nonsense--all cant.An aching head soon makes one forget an aching heart.A broken finger will drive away all recollections of an empty chair.And when a man feels really hungry he does not feel anything else.

We sleek,well-fed folk can hardly realize what feeling hungry is like.We know what it is to have no appetite and not to care for the dainty victuals placed before us,but we do not understand what it means to sicken for food--to die for bread while others waste it--to gaze with famished eyes upon coarse fare steaming behind dingy windows,longing for a pen'orth of pea pudding and not having the penny to buy it--to feel that a crust would be delicious and that a bone would be a banquet.

Hunger is a luxury to us,a piquant,flavor-giving sauce.It is well worth while to get hungry and thirsty merely to discover how much gratification can be obtained from eating and drinking.If you wish to thoroughly enjoy your dinner,take a thirty-mile country walk after breakfast and don't touch anything till you get back.How your eyes will glisten at sight of the white table-cloth and steaming dishes then!With what a sigh of content you will put down the empty beer tankard and take up your knife and fork!And how comfortable you feel afterward as you push back your chair,light a cigar,and beam round upon everybody.

Make sure,however,when adopting this plan,that the good dinner is really to be had at the end,or the disappointment is trying.Iremember once a friend and I--dear old Joe,it was.Ah!how we lose one another in life's mist.It must be eight years since I last saw Joseph Taboys.How pleasant it would be to meet his jovial face again,to clasp his strong hand,and to hear his cheery laugh once more!He owes me 14shillings,too.Well,we were on a holiday together,and one morning we had breakfast early and started for a tremendous long walk.We had ordered a duck for dinner over night.

We said,"Get a big one,because we shall come home awfully hungry;"and as we were going out our landlady came up in great spirits.She said,"I have got you gentlemen a duck,if you like.If you get through that you'll do well;"and she held up a bird about the size of a door-mat.We chuckled at the sight and said we would try.We said it with self-conscious pride,like men who know their own power.Then we started.

We lost our way,of course.I always do in the country,and it does make me so wild,because it is no use asking direction of any of the people you meet.One might as well inquire of a lodging-house slavey the way to make beds as expect a country bumpkin to know the road to the next village.You have to shout the question about three times before the sound of your voice penetrates his skull.At the third time he slowly raises his head and stares blankly at you.You yell it at him then for a fourth time,and he repeats it after you.He ponders while you count a couple of hundred,after which,speaking at the rate of three words a minute,he fancies you "couldn't do better than--"Here he catches sight of another idiot coming down the road and bawls out to him the particulars,requesting his advice.The two then argue the case for a quarter of an hour or so,and finally agree that you had better go straight down the lane,round to the right and cross by the third stile,and keep to the left by old Jimmy Milcher's cow-shed,and across the seven-acre field,and through the gate by Squire Grubbin's hay-stack,keeping the bridle-path for awhile till you come opposite the hill where the windmill used to be--but it's gone now--and round to the right,leaving Stiggin's plantation behind you;and you say "Thank you"and go away with a splitting headache,but without the faintest notion of your way,the only clear idea you have on the subject being that somewhere or other there is a stile which has to be got over;and at the next turn you come upon four stiles,all leading in different directions!

We had undergone this ordeal two or three times.We had tramped over fields.We had waded through brooks and scrambled over hedges and walls.We had had a row as to whose fault it was that we had first lost our way.We had got thoroughly disagreeable,footsore,and weary.But throughout it all the hope of that duck kept us up.Afairy-like vision,it floated before our tired eyes and drew us onward.The thought of it was as a trumpet-call to the fainting.We talked of it and cheered each other with our recollections of it.

"Come along,"we said;"the duck will be spoiled."We felt a strong temptation,at one point,to turn into a village inn as we passed and have a cheese and a few loaves between us,but we heroically restrained ourselves:we should enjoy the duck all the better for being famished.