All vegetation would die, all sounds would cease.  The earth would revolve in silence until other circumstances had evolved other germs:  yet the cause of this disaster would have remained lost in the vast fields of air, and would never have approached us nearer than some millions of leagues.

This event, which in the main, has ever seemed to me a fit subject for reverie, and I never ceased for a moment to dwell on it.

This ascending heat is curious to be looked after, and it is not uninteresting to follow its effects, expansion, action, and to ask: 

How great it was during the first, second, and subsequent days.

What effect it had on the earth, and water, and on the formation and mingling, and detonation of gasses.

What influence it had on men, as far as age, sex, strength and weakness are concerned.

What influence it has on obedience to the laws, submission to authority, and respect to persons and property.

What one should do to escape from danger.

What influence it has on love, friendship, parental affection, self-love and devotion.

What is its influence on the religious sentiments, faith, resignation and hope.

History can furnish us a few facts on its moral influence, for the end of the world has more than once been predicted and determined.

I am very sorry that I cannot tell my readers how I settled all this, but I will not rob them of the pleasure of thinking of the matter themselves.  This may somewhat shorten some of their sleepless hours, and ensure them a few siestas during the day.

Great danger dissolves all bonds.  When the yellow fever was in Philadelphia, in 1792, husbands closed the doors on their wives, children deserted their fathers, and many similar phenomena occurred.

Quod a nobis Deus avertat!

Meditation XI.

On gourmandise.

I have looked through various dictionaries for the word gourmandise and have found no translation that suited me.  It is described as a sort of confusion of gluttony and voracity.  Whence I have concluded that lexicographers, though very pleasant people in other respects, are not the sort of men to swallow a partridge wing gracefully with one hand, with a glass of Laffitte or clos de Vougeot in the other.

They were completely oblivious of social gourmandise, which unites Athenian elegance, Roman luxury and French delicacy; which arranges wisely, flavors energetically, and judges profoundly.  This is a precious quality which might be a virtue and which is certainly the source of many pure enjoyments.

Definitions.

Let us understand each other.

Gourmandise is a passionate preference, well determined and satisfied, for objects which flatter our taste.

Gourmandise is hostile to all excesses:  any man who becomes drunk or suffers from indigestion is likely to be expunged from the lists.