ullock's blood,
sugar-baker's scum, and other _unnatural_ ingredients of that rich
composition of soil which had brought it to perfection[2.1], and
insist on being planted in common earth, it would have all the
advantage of natural theory on its side that the most strenuous
advocate of the vegetable system could desire; but it would soon
discover the practical error of its retrograde experiment by its
lamentable inferiority in strength and beauty to all the auriculas
around it. I am afraid, in some instances at least, this analogy holds
true with respect to mind. No one will make a comparison, in point of
mental power, between the Hindoos and the ancient Greeks."

"The anatomy of the human stomach," said Mr Escot, "and the formation
of the teeth, clearly place man in the class of frugivorous animals."

"Many anatomists," said Mr Foster, "are of a different opinion, and
agree in discerning the characteristics of the carnivorous classes."

"I am no anatomist," said Mr Jenkison, "and cannot decide where
doctors disagree; in the meantime, I conclude that man is omnivorous,
and on that conclusion I act."

"Your conclusion is truly orthodox," said the Reverend Doctor Gaster:
"indeed, the loaves and fishes are typical of a mixed diet; and the
practice of the Church in all ages shows----"

"That it never loses sight of the loaves and fishes," said Mr Escot.

"It never loses sight of any point of sound doctrine," said the
reverend doctor.

The coachman now informed them their time was elapsed; nor could all
the pathetic remonstrances of the reverend divine, who declared he had
not half breakfasted, succeed in gaining one minute from the
inexorable Jehu.

"You will allow," said Mr Foster, as soon as they were again in
motion, "that the wild man of the woods could not transport himself
over two hundred miles of forest, with as much facility as one of
these vehicles transports you and me through the heart of this
cultivated country."

"I am certain," said Mr Escot, "that a wild man can travel an immense
distance without fatigue; but what is the advantage of locomotion? The
wild man is happy in one spot, and there he remains: the civilised man
is wretched in every place he happens to be in, and then congratulates
himself on being accommodated with a machine, that will whirl him to
another, where he will be just as miserable as ever."

We shall now leave the mail-coach to find its way to Capel Cerig, the
nearest point of