ry--which from
this time on was kept with less regularity than before--is that Isaac
not only maintained his abstemious habits after his return, but
increased their rigor. For a robust man, working hard for many hours
out of every twenty-four, and deprived of all the pleasant
relaxations, literary, conversational and musical, to which he had
been accustoming himself for many months, the choice of such a diet
as is described in the following sentences was certainly
extraordinary:

"August 30.--If the past nine months or more are any evidence, I find
that I can live on very simple diet--grains, fruit, and nuts. I have
just commenced to eat the latter; I drink pure water. So far I have
had wheat ground and made into unleavened bread, but as soon as we
get in a new lot, I shall try it in the grain."

He had evidently at this time a practical conviction of the truth of
a principle which, in after years, he repeated to the present writer
in the form of a maxim of the transcendentalists: "A gross feeder
will never be a central thinker." It is a truth of the spiritual no
less than of the intellectual order. A little later we come upon the
following profession of a vegetarian faith, which will be apt to
amuse as well as to edify the reader:

"_Reasons for not eating animal food._

"It does not feed the spirit.

"It stimulates the propensities.

"It is taking animal life when the other kingdoms offer sufficient
and better increment.

"Slaughter strengthens the lower instincts.

"It is the chief cause of the slavery of the kitchen.

"It generates in the body the diseases animals are subject to, and
encourages in man their bestiality.

"Its odor is offensive and its appearance unaesthetic."

The apprehension under which he had labored, that city life would
present many temptations which he would find it difficult to
withstand, appears to have been unfounded. Some few social
relaxations he now and then permitted himself, but they were mostly
very sober-toned. "Last evening I attended a Methodist love-feast,"
is his record of one of these. "In returning I stopped at the ward
political meeting." Then he notes that although the business he
follows is especially full of temptations--as no doubt it was to a
man keeping so tight a rein over his most natural and legitimate
appetites--he feels deeply grateful that, so far, he has had no need
to fear his being led away. "What yet remains?" he adds. "My diet is
all purchased a