ow that it exists, and that she is but a
poor wife who ignores the fact.

The days when men stuck to their "roast and boiled" as firmly as to
their creed are, of necessity, disappearing. The fervid life we are
all leading demands food that can be assimilated with the least
possible detriment to, or expenditure of, the vital powers. "Thoughts
that burn" are no poetic fancy; the planning, the calculating that a
business man performs during the day literally burns up the material
of conscious life. It is the wife's duty to replenish the fires of
intellect and energy by fuel that the enfeebled vitality can convert
most easily into the elements necessary to repair the waste.

The idea that it is derogatory for cultivated brains and white hands
to investigate the stock-jar and the stew-pan is a very mistaken one.
The daintiest lady I ever knew, the wife of a merchant who is one of
our princes, sees personally every day to the preparation of her
husband's dinner and its artistic and appetizing arrangement on the
table. I have not the smallest doubt that the nourishing soups, the
delicately prepared meats, the delicious desserts, are the secret of
many a clear-headed business transaction, household investments that
make possible the far-famed commercial ones. This mysterious
relationship between what we _eat_ and what we _do_ was dimly
perceived by Dr. Johnson when he said that "a man who did not care for
his dinner would care for nothing else."

Artistic cooking derogatory! Why, it is a science, an art, as sure to
follow a high state of civilization as the fine arts do. No persons of
fine feelings can be indifferent to what they eat, any more than to
what they wear, or what their household surroundings are. A man may be
compelled by circumstances to swallow half-cooked bloody beef and
boiled paste dumplings, and yet it may be as repugnant to him as it
would be to wear a scarlet belcher neckerchief, a brass watch-chain,
and a cotton-velvet coat. Yet his wife may be ignorant or indifferent;
he is too much occupied with other matters to "make a fuss about it,"
and so he shuts his eyes, opens his mouth, and takes whatever his cook
pleases to send him. I do not like to be uncharitable, but somehow I
can't help thinking that a wife who permits this kind of thing is
unworthy of her wedding ring.

Let her take a volume of F. W. Johnston's "Domestic Chemistry" in her
hand, and go down into her kitchen. She will be in a far higher r