Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/76

 me the man that thinks of his dinner; if he cannot get that well-dressed, he may be suspected of inaccuracy in other things." So he may. You don't think better of that man who boasts that, to him, the salmon is as the sole, the turnip as the truffle. On the contrary, you pity or despise his want of culture. You may put up with Lucullus and his lampreys, or Epicurus and his supreme de volatile; you will, perhaps, even smile indulgently on M. Gourmet's gastronomic reminiscences; but this is the poetry of food. You will, on the other hand, bitterly resent the process of it being forced upon you at all times and seasons. We may be sure that the honest, arrogant, tea-drinking old doctor would have been the first to put his conversational extinguisher on that man who should dare to dilate gluttonously on the food he loved.

Laughable, and yet characteristic, is the fact, that on returning from a dinner, ball, tea, supper, or Kaffee-Gesellschaft in Germany, the first question formulated by the non-revellers awaiting you at home will always have reference to the food. Former experiences in other climes will have prepared you for such frivolous queries as — "Well, were the A.'s overdressed, as usual? How did Mrs. B. look? Did the C. girls dance a great deal?" and so on. But strangely on your unaccustomed ear strikes the solemn question, unerring, ponderous, and punctual as a clerk's amen, ''Na! was hat's gegeben?'' — "What did you get?"

 

 From The Saturday Review.

spectacle of brethren dwelling together in unity is commonly supposed to exert a soothing influence on those who witness it. But the unity of the Republican majority in the French Assembly is a unity which takes away one's breath. It is so overpowering, so demonstrative, so absolutely proof against argument, or abuse, or ridicule, that it is impossible either to criticise, or admire, or approve, or do anything else which implies judgment. We can only sit still and wonder. A fortnight since the breach between the fractions which compose the majority that has just done such great things seemed more impassable than ever. Each party thought itself betrayed. The Right Centre were indignant because the Left had amended their scheme; the Left were indignant because the Right Centre had abandoned their scheme as soon as it had been amended. Rage at the failure of a coalition which has cost immense trouble, and mutual suspicion of treachery, are not elements out of which it is easy to build a new combination. The prospect seemed at least as unpromising as it had ever been, and how unpromising that was may be read in the history of the last two years. Yet in a week the project of a new union had been agreed on, and in a fortnight it has been carried through the Assembly without the sacrifice of a single detail. The leaders of the Left and the Right Centre came to terms upon the composition of a Senate, and a compact majority was ordered out to reject every alteration in the Bill. No one was put to the trouble of considering whether this or that suggestion was an improvement. The coalition was as pitiless in rejecting improvements as in rejecting alterations which were not improvements. It was the right policy to follow, because, if license had been given to a single straggler, in no matter how unimportant an amendment, the inch would certainly have become an ell, and it would have been taken by a great many stragglers without license. The leaders on both sides had thoroughly appreciated the situation; the marvel is how they contrived to make all their followers appreciate it with equal accuracy. The Right were driven nearly mad by this unexpected unanimity on the part of their adversaries. They had only lately convinced themselves that the Right Centre were capable of such iniquity as accepting the Republic, and even when this conclusion was at last forced upon them, it was accompanied by the consoling hope that the Left would never be induced to accept the same kind of Republic. When the new Senate Bill was produced it was so clearly the work of the Right Centre that this hope must for the moment have become certainty. The Right had only to drag a few Radical commonplaces into the debate, and the Left would inevitably be thrown off the scent. The Left had never yet been able to resist throwing up their hats whenever universal suffrage was mentioned; was it to be believed that they would show more self-control now? Accordingly it was on this line that such fighting as there was took place. Legitimist after Legitimist, Bonapartist after Bonapartist, taunted the Left with having deserted their principles, with having first voted 