Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/43

Rh on Friday and for a few weeks in early spring can hardly be expected to undo the mischief of two hundred and seventy-five carnivorous days.

Our instinct-guided Darwinian kinsmen are frugal in the original sense of the word; i.e., subsist chiefly on tree-fruit, but have no objection to eggs, and vegetarians of the Alcott school may have prejudiced their cause by prohibiting eggs, milk, and all kinds of fat, as well as meat.

But in midsummer it would certainly often be a good plan to stick to an Alcott menu for a few weeks. Faire maigre (literally, "make lean") the French call fasting, but adopt their Lenten fare at the wrong time of the year. The idea of insisting on three daily meals of greasy, apopleptic, heat-aggravating viands is preposterous at a season that makes the struggle for existence a fight against a fever-heat atmosphere; nor is there any real need for "something warm" three times a day. We might as well aggravate the grievance of a blizzard with artificial refrigerants, or swallow opiates while imploring heaven for strength to watch and pray. Perpetual Lents, modified by an occasional omelette, are not incompatible with perfect comfort, and total