University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
OF DRINKING THE WATERS.

There is no doubt in the opinions of those who have
observed the vast progress of the human mind, since the
discovery of the new planet Herschell, and the invention of
self-sharpening pencils, that the ancients laboured under
the disease of a constipated understanding. Else they
could never have differed as they did about the summum
bonum, or great good, holding at least three hundred
different opinions, some of which were inexpressibly
absurd; as for instance, that which pointed out the
practice of virtue as the only foundation of happiness.
But ever since the discovery of the new planet, and the
self-sharpening pencil, and above all, the invention of
the chess playing automaton, all rational animals, from
the philosopher to the learned pig, unite in pronouncing

a good appetite, with the wherewithal to satisfy it, to be
the real, and only summum bonum, the fountain of all
our knowledge, as well as the source of all substantial
happiness. How is it that the said pig is taught the
noble art of A, B, C, except through the medium of
his appetite? and what impels the animal man to the
exertion of his faculties, bodily and mental, but his appetite?
Necessity, says the old proverb, is the mother
of invention; and what is necessity, but hunger? The
vital importance of a good appetite, cannot be better
illustrated than by the following passage from the works
of M. Huet, bishop of Avranches, the most learned man
of his age, if not the most learned man of any age.
“Whenever,” says he, “I receive letters late in the
evening, or very near the time of dining, I lay them by
for another opportunity. Letters generally convey
more bad news than good; so that, on reading them
either at night or at noon, I am sure to spoil my appetite,
or my repose.”

It is doubtless in the pursuit of this summum bonum,
a good appetite, and the means of satisfying it, that
thousands of people flock to the springs, from all quarters.
It is for this they exchange the delight of making
money, for the honour of spending it; it is for this the
matron quits the comforts of her domestic circle, to
mingle in the crowd by day, and sleep at night, in a
room six feet by nine, opening on a passage where
the tread of human feet is never intermitted, from sunset
to sunrise—from sunrise to sunset. It is for this
the delicate and sensitive girl, musters her smiles, nurtures
her roses, and fills her bandboxes. It is for this the

snug citizen, who as he waxes rich, becomes poor in
appetite, and weak of digestion, opens his long accumulating
hoards, and exchanges the cherished maxims
of saving, for those of spending his money. It is for this
the beau reserves the last few hundreds that ought to go
to the paying of his tailor, determined to enjoy the delights
of eating, though the tailor starve, in spite of goose
and cabbage. In short, it is for this, and this alone, his
grace of York, of blessed memory, allowed to his cook,
the thrice renowned and immortal Monsieur Ude, twelve
hundred pounds sterling a year, of the money that ought
otherwise to have gone to the paying of his creditors,
to whom his grace bequeathed only the worst half of
the summum bonum, a good appetite, with nothing to eat.

Next to a good appetite for dinner, a keen relish for
breakfast, constitutes the happiness of our existence.
In order to attain to this the first requisite is to rise
early in the morning, and wait a couple of hours with
as much impatience as possible, drinking a glass of
Congress water about every ten minutes, and walking
briskly between each, till the walk is inevitably increased
to a trot, and the trot to a gallop, when the requisite
preliminaries of a good appetite for breakfast are consummated.
Philosophers and chymists have never yet
fairly accounted for this singular propensity to running,
produced by the waters, nor shall we attempt to solve
the difficulty. It is sufficient for us that the great good
is attained, in the acquisition of a good appetite for
breakfast. And here we will stop a moment to notice a
ridiculous calumny of certain people, who we suspect
prefer brandy and water to all the pure waters of the

springs: to wit, that it is the morning air and exercise
that produces this propensity to running, and the keen
appetite consequent upon it. The refutation of this
absurd notion is found, in the fact that the waters of
Ballston do not occasion people to run half as fast, and
that consequently they dont eat half as much as they do
at Saratoga. In truth, it is worth a man's while to go
there only to see people eat, particularly the amatory
philosophers, who maintain that some young ladies live
upon air; others upon the odour of roses; and others
upon the Waverley novels.