Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/639

 this is, I do not think any other is worth consuming—just as one may occasionally enjoy a particularly choice dish; neither the one nor the other, perhaps, being sufficiently innocuous or digestible for frequent, much less for habitual use. Then I frankly admit that there are some persons—in the aggregate not a few—who may take small quantities of genuine light wine or beer with very little if any appreciable injury. For these persons such drinks may be put in the category of luxuries permissible within certain limits or conditions; and of such luxuries let tobacco-smoking be another example. No one probably is any better for tobacco; and some people are undoubtedly injured by it; while others find it absolutely poisonous, and can not inhale even a small quantity of the smoke without instantly feeling sick or ill. And some few indulge the moderate use of tobacco all their lives without any evil effects, at all events that are perceptible to themselves or to others.

Relative to these matters, every man ought to deal carefully and faithfully with himself, watching rigorously the effects of the smallest license on his mental and bodily states, and boldly denying himself the use of a luxurious habit if he finds any signs of harm arising therefrom. And he must perform the difficult task with a profound conviction that his judgment is very prone to bias on the side of indulgence, since the luxurious habit is so agreeable, and to refrain therefrom in relation to himself and to the present opinion of society, so difficult. Be it remarked, however, that the opinion of society is notably and rapidly changing relative to the point in question.

Having premised thus much, I have only now to say, first, that wine, in relation to dinner, should be served during the repast; it should never be taken, in any form or under any circumstances, before, that is, on an empty stomach, and rarely after the meal is finished. Regarded from a gastronomic point of view alone, nothing should appear after fruit but a small glass of cognac or liqueur, and coffee. The postprandial habit of drinking glass after glass even of the finest growths of the Gironde, or of the most mature or mellow shipments from Oporto, is doubtless a pleasant, but, in the end, for many persons, a costly indulgence.

Secondly, whatever wine is given should be the most sound and unsophisticated of its kind which can be procured. The host had far better produce only a bottle or two of sound bourgeois wine from Bordeaux—and most excellent wine may be found under such a denomination—with no pretense of a meretricious title, or other worthless finery about it, than an array of fictitious mixtures with pretentious labels procured from an advertising cheap wine-house. I could only speak in terms of contempt and disgust, did I not feel pity for the deluded victims, of the unscrupulous use of the time-honored and historical titles which advertisers shamelessly flaunt on bottles of worthless compounds by means of showy labels, in lists and pamphlets