Mixed with water, it gives us eau sucree, a refreshing drink, which is healthful, agreeable, and sometimes salutary.

Mingled in large quantities with water it constitutes sirops, which are perfumed, and from their variety are most refreshing.

Mingled with water, the caloric of which is artificially extracted, it furnishes two kinds, which are of Italian origin, and were introduced into France by Catharine de Medici.

With wine it furnishes such a restorative power that in some countries roasted meats taken to the bride and groom are covered with it, just as in Persia soused sheeps’ feet are given them.

Mingled with flour and eggs, it furnishes biscuits, maccaronies, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

With milk it unites in the composition of creams, blanc-mangers and other dishes of the second course, substituting for the substantial taste of meat, ethereal perfumes.

It causes the aroma of coffee to be exhaled.

Mingled with cafe au lait, a light, pleasant aliment is produced, precisely suited to those who have to go to their offices immediately after breakfast.

With fruits and flowers it contributes to furnish confitures, marmalades, preserves, pates and candies, and enables us to enjoy the perfume of those flowers long after they have withered.

It may be that sugar might be advantageously employed in embalming, an art of which we know little.

Sugar mingled with alcohol furnishes spirituous liquors, such as were used, it is said, to warm the old blood of Louis XIV., which, by their energy, seized the palate and the taste by the perfumed gas united to them, the two qualities forming the ne plus ultra of the pleasures of the taste.

Such is the substance which the French of the time of Louis XIII. scarcely knew the name of, and which to the people of the nineteenth century is become so important; no woman, in easy circumstances, spends as much money for bread as she does for sugar.

M. Delacroix, a man of letters, who is as industrious as he is profound, was one day complaining of the price of sugar, which then cost five francs a pound, “Ah!” said he, “if sugar should ever again be thirty sous a pound, I will drink nothing but eau sucree.”  His wishes were granted; he yet lives, and I trust he keeps his word.

Section IX.  Origin of coffee.

The first coffee tree was found in Arabia, and in spite of the various transplantations it has undergone, the best coffee is yet obtained there.  An old tradition states that coffee was discovered by a shepherd of old, who saw that his flock was always in the greatest state of excitement and hilarity when they browsed on the leaves of the coffee tree.

Though this may be but an old story, the honor of the discovery belongs only in part to the goat-herd.  The rest belongs to him who first made use of the bean, and boiled it.