“I do not tell you about oils and greases for the different treatises I have put in your library give you sufficient light.

“Do not forget, however, when you get one of those trout which do not weigh more than half a pound, and which come from murmuring streams, far from the capitol, to use the finest olive oil.  This delicate dish duly powdered and garnished with slices of lemon is fit for a cardinal. [Footnote:  Mr. Aulissin, a very well informed Neapolitan lawyer, and a good amateur performer on the violoncello, dining one day with me, and eating some thing that pleased him, said—­“Questo e un vero boccone di cardinale.”  “Why,” said I, in the same tongue, not say “boccone in Re.”  “Seignore,” said he, “we Italians do nothing; a king cannot be a gourmand, for royal dinners are too short and solemn.  With cardinals things are very different.”  He shrugged his shoulders as he spoke.]

“Eperlans (smelt or sprat) should be treated in the same manner.  This is the becfique of the water, and has the same perfume and excellence.

“These two prescriptions are founded in the very nature of things.  Experience tells us that olive oil should only be used with things which are soon cooked, and which do not demand too high a temperature, because prolonged ebullition developes an empyreumatic and disagreable taste produced by a few particles of pulp, which can, being impossible to be gotten rid of, carbonize.

“You tried my furnace, and were the first person who ever succeeded in producing an immense fried turbot.  On that day there was great rejoicing among the elect.

“Continue to be coeval in all you attempt, and never forget that from the moment guests enter the salon we are responsible for their happiness.”

Meditation VIII.

On thirst.

Thirst is the internal feeling of a wish to drink.

A heat of about 32 [degrees] Reaumur, constantly vaporizing the different fluids the circulation of which sustains life, the diminution they undergo would unfit them for their purposes, if they were not renewed and refreshed.  The necessity of this renewal is what we call thirst.

We think the seat of thirst is in the digestive system.  When athirst (we have often felt the sensation when hunting) we feel distinctly that all the inhaling portions of the nostrils, mouth and throat are benumbed and hardened, and that if thirst be sometimes appeased by the application of fluids to other parts of the body, as in the bath, the reason is that as soon as they are absorbed they hurry rapidly to the seat of the evil and become remedies.

Varieties of thirst.

Looking at the subject in all its bearings we may count three varieties of thirst:  latent, factitious and permanent.

Latent or habitual thirst, is the insensible equilibrium established between transpiratory vaporization and the necessity of supplying what is lost.  Thus, though we experience no pain, we are invited to drink while we eat, and are able to drink at almost every moment of the day.  This thirst accompanies us every where, and is almost a portion of our existence.