ity of nutriment, which is but a thinly veiled travesty of
descent? When she eats peas with her knife, he does so too; there is not
a bit of bread and butter she puts into her mouth, nor a lump of sugar
she drops into her tea, but he knoweth it altogether, though he knows
nothing whatever about it. She is en-Croesused and he en-scullery-maided
so long as she remains linked to him by the golden chain which passes
from his pocket to hers, and which is greatest of all unifiers.

True, neither party is aware of the connection at all as long as things
go smoothly. Croesus no more knows the name of, or feels the existence
of, his kitchen-maid than a peasant in health knows about his liver;
nevertheless, he is awakened to a dim sense of an undefined something
when he pays his grocer or his baker. She is more definitely aware of
him than he of her, but it is by way of an overshadowing presence rather
than a clear and intelligent comprehension. And though Croesus does not
eat his kitchen-maid's meals otherwise than vicariously, still to eat
vicariously is to eat: the meals so eaten by his kitchen-maid nourish
the better ordering of the dinner which nourishes and engenders the
better ordering of Croesus himself. He is fed, therefore, by the feeding
of his kitchen-maid.

And so with sleep. When she goes to bed he, in part, does so too. When
she gets up and lays the fire in the back kitchen he, in part, does so.
He lays it through her and in her, though knowing no more what he is
doing than we know when we digest, but still doing it as by what we call
a reflex action. _Qui facit per alium facit per se_, and when the
back-kitchen fire is lighted on Croesus's behalf it is Croesus who
lights it, though he is all the time fast asleep in bed.

Sometimes things do not go smoothly. Suppose the kitchen-maid to be
taken with fits just before dinner-time; there will be a reverberating
echo of disturbance throughout the whole organisation of the palace. But
the oftener she has fits, the more easily will the household know what
it is all about when she is taken with them. On the first occasion Lady
Croesus will send some one rushing down into the kitchen; there will, in
fact, be a general flow of blood (i.e. household) to the part affected
(that is to say, to the scullery-maid); the doctor will be sent for and
all the rest of it. On each repetition of the fits the neighbouring
organs, reverting to a more primary undifferentiated condition, wi