Meditation XXI.

Obesity.

Were I a physician with a diploma, I would have written a whole book on obesity; thus I would have acquired a domicil in the domain of science, and would have had the double satisfaction of having, as patients, persons who were perfectly well, and of being besieged by the fairer portion of humanity.  To have exactly fat enough, not a bit too much, or too little, is the great study of women of every rank and grade.

What I have not done, some other person will do, and if he be learned and prudent, (and at the same time a good-fellow,) I foretell that he will have wonderful success.

Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus hoeres!

In the intereim, I intend to prepare the way for him.  A chapter on obesity is a necessary concomitant of a book which relates so exclusively to eating.

Obesity is that state of greasy congestion in which without the sufferer being sick, the limbs gradually increase in volume, and lose their form and harmony.

One kind of obesity is restricted to the stomach, and I have never observed it in women.  Their fibres are generally softer, and when attacked with obesity nothing is spared.  I call this variety of obesity GASTROPHORIA.  Those attacked by it, I call GASTROPHOROUS.  I belong to this category, yet, though my stomach is rather prominent, I have a round and well turned leg.  My sinews are like those of an Arab horse.

I always, however, looked on my stomach as a formidable enemy:  I gradually subdued it, but after a long contest.  I am indebted for all this to a strife of thirty years.

I will begin my treatise by an extract from a collection of more than five hundred dialogues, which at various times I have had with persons menaced with obesity.

An obese.—­What delicious bread! where do you get it?

I.—­From Limet, in the Rue Richelieu, baker to their Royal Highness, the Due d’Orleans, and the Prince de Conde.  I took it from him because he was my neighbour, and have kept to him because he is the best bread maker in the world.

Obese.—­I will remember the address.  I eat a great deal of bread, and with such as this could do without any dinner.

Obese No. 2.—­What are you about?  You are eating your soup, but set aside the Carolina rice it contains!  I.—­Ah:  that it is a regimen I subject myself to.

Obese.—­It is a bad regimen.  I am fond of rice pates and all such things.  Nothing is more nourishing.

An immense obese.—­Do me the favor to pass me the potatoes before you.  They go so fast that I fear I shall not be in time.

I.—­There they are, sir.

Obese.—­But you will take some?  There are enough for two, and after us the deluge.

I.—­Not I. I look on the potatoe as a great preservative against famine; nothing, however, seems to me so pre-eminently fade.