He helped himself absently to two water biscuits and a piece of cheese
and sank to a profound reverie. The eating of this light refreshment
was probably a manifestation of subconscious thought, for, when he had
finished, he spoke to me as follows--
"There are a great many things which I dislike immensely but the
necessity for which I must perforce acquiesce in: these are water,
easterly winds and actresses: but there are other habits cultivated by
humanity for which I can find no apology, and some of these have grown
to so great an extent that they now bulk as evils of terrific
magnitude."
"Foremost among these reprehensible customs I will mention that of
eating. Of all the evils under which civilisation staggers helplessly
the most ponderous and merciless is hunger, and it is the evil which
will ultimately decimate all existing forms of life.
"All forms of organic life have now for millions of years been slaves
to this filthy habit of eating, and have superimposed upon their
original singleness of form a variety of weighty and unattractive
organs to keep pace with the satisfaction of this oppressive appetite,
until to-day the entire organic world stands upon the imminent brink of
destruction if food should be withheld from it for one entire week.
"Every living being should be self-supporting and self-sufficient. It
should be inherent in the economy of a man to produce for himself not
alone food but also shelter and raiment from his own internal
resources. A man should be able to build a house or evolve a loaf of
bread out of his own body with ease and assurance.
"Look for a moment at spiders. Every spider carries within himself the
materials for his own home. His stomach, instead of being, as is
vulgarly supposed, a cemetery for smaller organisms, is in reality his
brick-field and rope-walk, and out of this minute sack he will produce
endless miles of cordage and web which he weaves into the most
beautiful and mathematical harmonies. This is a self-contained utility
which might be imitated by men with advantage, and that which is done
with ease by a spider can scarcely offer insuperable difficulty to the
chief of the vertebrates. Of course, each man's production will be
more or less guided and limited by his capacity.--Thus, fat men will
spin forth cathedrals, opera-houses and railway stations. Thin men
will devote themselves to obelisks, church spires, factory chimneys,
and artistic bric-a-brac. Short men will willingly produce artisans'
dwellings, busts of famous men and, perhaps, now and then, pyramids or
villa residences. Constant work of this description will not alone
render us independent of landlords, but, by atrophy of the digestive
organs, will inaugurate a brighter era for long-suffering, food-fed
humanity.
"Suppose it is advanced that man cannot keep up his strength and
usefulness without some kind of exterior nourishment--I will then
proceed to demonstrate how this can be most easily accomplished. Our
first cousins, the trees and bushes, do not sit down at stated hours to
a heterogeneous mess of steak, tea and onions: they stand firm in the
ground unhurried by the sound of the dinner-bell and careless of the
state of the American market. As the spider is sufficient in itself in
house-building, so are the trees, the grass and all inorganic life
self-supporting so far as food is concerned. The reason is, that
trees, grass and flowers are bedded in the earth, the source of all
nourishment. Let this fact be but properly understood, and the last
and greatest bar to human progress will be removed, and 'the
millenniums which so furiously chase us' will have a chance of catching
us up.
"If, once a week, men would bury themselves to the chin in good fertile
clay, and allow the nurture of the earth to permeate their bodies there
would be an end to this gross and unfortunate digestive activity. I
have myself experimented in this direction with the most encouraging
results. A rich, loamy soil is very good--it is rather cold at the
bottom, but invigorating. Light, sandy clay would suit sedentary
persons such as parsons, artists, judges. In poor ground some
superphosphates, or a light compost could be strewn by each person
around himself. Families would take turns in pruning each other, and
so forth; but all these incidental matters would rapidly adjust
themselves. After a time we might succeed in propagating ourselves by
seeds or slips, and this would lead to a radical readjustment of our
sex relations and put an end to many of the problems wherewith we are
eternally badgered and perplexed.
"In some ways I will admit that food is valuable. As a means of
killing a rich uncle by gout, or of attaining wealth by judicious
adulteration it can be recommended, and looked at in the light of a
gentle morning exercise to be taken immediately after rising it is
useful, but as a method of obtaining nourishment it is obsolete and
disgustingly vulgar."
At this point the gentleman-in-waiting snorted in a most unbecoming
manner, and dived under the counter, from beneath which he alternately
mewed like a cat and crowed like a cock. It was a clear attack of
hysteria. While the poor man was recovering from his seizure the old
gentleman absent-mindedly departed without paying his shot.