8778. VEGETABLES, Jefferson's diet.
—I live so much like other people, that I
might refer to ordinary life as the history of
my own. I have lived temperately, eating little
animal food, and that not as an aliment, so
much as a condiment for the vegetables, which
constitute my principal diet. I double, however,
the Doctor's [Rush's] glass and a half of wine,
and even treble it with a friend; but halve its
effects by drinking the weak wines only. The
ardent wines I cannot drink, nor do I use ardent
spirits in any form. Malt liquors and cider
are my table drinks, and my breakfast is of
tea and coffee. I have been blest with organs
of digestion which accept and concoct, without
ever murmuring, whatever the palate chooses
to consign to them, and I have not yet lost a
tooth by age.—
To Dr. Vine Utley. Washington ed. vii, 116.
Ford ed., x, 125.
(M.
1819)
