ose face showed the predisposition I have described.
Leaning to the guest beside me, I said quietly that from her
physiognomy, the young lady on the other side of the table must be fond
of good eating. "You must be mad!" he answered; "she is but fifteen at
most, which is certainly not the age for such a thing. However, let
us watch."

At first, things were by no means in my favor, and I was somewhat afraid
of having compromised myself, for during the first two courses the young
lady quite astonished me by her discretion, and I suspected we had
stumbled upon an exception, remembering that there are some for every
rule. But at last the dessert came,--a dessert both magnificent and
abundant,--and my hopes were again revived. Nor did I hope in vain: not
only did she eat of all that was offered her, but she even got dishes
brought to her from the farthest parts of the table. In a word, she
tasted everything, and my neighbor at last expressed his astonishment
that the little stomach could hold so many things. Thus was my diagnosis
verified, and once again science triumphed.

Whilst I was writing the above, on a fine winter's evening, M. Cartier,
formerly the first violinist at the Opera, paid me a visit, and sat down
at the fireside. Being full of my subject, I said, after looking at him
attentively for some time, "How does it happen, my dear professor, that
you are no epicure, when you have all the features of one?" "I was one,"
he replied, "and among the foremost; but now I refrain." "On principle,
I suppose?" said I; but all the answer I had was a sigh, like one of Sir
Walter Scott's--that is to say, almost a groan.

As some are gourmands by predestination, so others become so by their
state in society or their calling. There are four classes which I should
signalize by way of eminence: the moneyed class, the doctors, men of
letters, and the devout.

Inequality of condition implies inequality of wealth, but inequality of
wealth does not imply inequality of wants; and he who can afford every
day a dinner sufficient for a hundred persons is often satisfied by
eating the thigh of a chicken. Hence the necessity for the many devices
of art to reanimate that ghost of an appetite by dishes which maintain
it without injury, and caress without stifling it.

The causes which act upon doctors are very different, though not less
powerful. They become epicures in spite of themselves, and must be made
of bronze to resist the seduct