A lady gourmand.

Gourmandise is not unbecoming to women:  it suits the delicacy of their organs and recompenses them for some pleasures they cannot enjoy, and for some evils to which they are doomed.

Nothing is more pleasant than to see a pretty woman, her napkin well placed under her arms, one of her hands on the table, while the other carries to her mouth, the choice piece so elegantly carved.  Her eyes become brilliant, her lips glow, her conversation is agreeable and all her motions become graceful.  With so many advantages she is irresistible, and even Cato, the censor, would feel himself moved.

Anecdote.

I will here record what to me is a bitter reflection.

I was one day most commodiously fixed at table, by the side of the pretty Madame M——­d, and was inwardly rejoicing at having obtained such an advantageous position, when she said “your health.”  I immediately began a complimentary phrase, which however, I did not finish, for turning to her neighbor on the right, she said “Trinquons,” they touched each others glasses.  This quick transition seemed a perfidy, and the passage of many years have not made me forget it.

Are women gourmands?

The penchant of the fair sex for gourmandise is not unlike instinct; for gourmandise is favorable to beauty.

A series of exact and rigorous examinations, has shown that a succulent and delicate person on careful diet, keeps the appearance of old age long absent.

It makes the eyes more brilliant, and the color more fresh.  It makes the muscles stronger, and as the depression of the muscles causes wrinkles, those terrible enemies of beauty, it is true that other things being equal, those who know how to eat, are ten years younger than those ignorant of that science.

Painters and sculptors are well aware of this, for they never represent those to whom abstinence is a matter of duty, such as anchorites and misers, except as pale, thin, and wrinkled.

The effects of gourmandise on sociability.

Gourmandise is one of the principle bonds of society.  It gradually extends that spirit of conviviality, which every day unites different professions, mingles them together, and diminishes the angles of conviviality.

This it is, which induces every amphitryon to receive his guests well, and also excites the gratitude of the latter when they see themselves well taken care of:  here is the place to reprobate those stupid masticators, who with the most guilty indifference to the greatest luxuries, and who with sacrilegious indifference inhale the odorous perfume of nectar.

General law.—­Every display of high intelligence, makes explicit praise necessary.  Delicate praise is necessary, wherever a wish to please is evident.

Influence of gourmandise on conjugal happiness.