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Europe. Never did he allow coarseness or intemperance to mar the
refinement of his palate.

"Man," he was accustomed to say, "is but a stomach, and the cook is
the pope of stomachs, in whose church are no respectable heretics. Our
happiness lies in his saucepan,--at the mercy of his spit. Eating is
the appropriation to our needs of the good and truth of life, as
existing in material manifestation: the cook is the high-priest of
that symbolic ceremony! I, and kings with me, bow before him! But his
is a responsibility beneath which Atlas might stagger; he, of all men,
must be honest, warm-hearted, quick of sympathy, full of compassion
towards his race. Let him rejoice, for the world extols him for its
well-being;--yet tremble! lest upon his head fall the curse of its
misery!"

This speech was always received with applause; the peroration being
delivered with a vast controlled emphasis of eye and voice; and it was
followed by the drinking of the cook's health. "The generous virtues,"
Mr. Helwyse would then go on to say, "arise from the cultivation of
the stomach. From man's very earthliness springs the flower of his
spiritual virtue. We affect to despise the flesh, as vile and
unworthy. What, then, is flesh made of? of nothing?--let who can,
prove that! No, it is made of spirit,--of the divine, everlasting
substance; it is the wall which holds Heaven in place! If there be
anything vile in it, it is of the Devil's infusion, and enters not
into the argument."

A man who had expressed such views as these at the most renowned
tables of France and England was not likely to forget his principles
in the United States. Accordingly, he arose early, as we have seen, on
the morning after his arrival, and forced an astonished waiter to
marshal him to the kitchen, and introduce him to the cook. The cook of
the Granite Hotel at that time was a round, red-lipped Italian, an
artist and enthusiast, but whose temper had been much tried by lack of
appreciation; and, although his salary was good, he contemplated
throwing it over, abandoning the Yankee nation to its fate, and
seeking some more congenial field. Balder, who, when the mood was on
him, could wield a tongue persuasive as Richard the Third's, talked
to this man, and in seven minutes had won his whole heart. The
immediate result was a delectable breakfast, but the sequel was a
triumph indeed. It seems that the aesthetic Italian had for several
days been watching over a brace o