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144 your frequent dinner parties, most of you suffer from indigestion, for you must, on those occasions, eat and drink more than is good for you. We, who are accustomed to swallow our food when alone, thinking that the art of eating can never be a graceful one, but so very much the reverse, that we would be ashamed to eat before our most intimate friends,—we cannot understand the pleasure of sitting for hours crowded round a table, and watching one another during all that time making those horrid contortions of features which accompany the act of chewing and swallowing. I can imagine nothing more calculated to disenchant a man or a maiden of that worship and adoration that belong to love, than the sight of the beloved object stuffing a superfluity of meat and pudding into his or her gaping mouth, and washing it down with a totally unnecessary quantity of intoxicating liquors."

"Ah," said I, with a half-suppressed sigh, elicited by the fond remembrance of some joyous feasts, "you can never know the delights of a good dinner, seasoned with the witty sallies or instructive discourse of a select company of intelligent men and lovely women."

"Are your dinner parties, then, always composed of witty men and lovely women?"

I was obliged to confess that the guests did not always answer to this description, but then we would generally find a solace for the lack of brilliant conversation in the well-cooked dishes and the exquisite wines supplied by the entertainer.

"I could understand that," she replied, "if the excellence of the cookery and the cellar were always in an inverse proportion to the agreeableness of the