The lord and lady enter their dining-room by different doors, and salute each other coldly, though they have not met the whole day before.  Sitting down at a table which is magnificently covered, surrounded by lackeys in brilliant liveries, they help themselves in silence, and eat without pleasure.  As soon, however, as the servants have withdrawn, a sort of conversation is begun between the pair, which quickly shows a bitter tone, passing into a regular fight, and they rise from the table in a fury of anger, and go off to their separate apartments to reflect upon the pleasures of a single life.

The younger brother, on the contrary, is, on reaching his unpretentious home, received with a gentle, loving heartiness and the fondest caresses.  He sits down to a frugal meal, but everything he eats is excellent; and how could it be otherwise?  It is Pamela herself who has prepared it all.  They eat with enjoyment, talking of their affairs, their plans, their love for each other.  A half-bottle of Madeira serves to prolong their repast and conversation, and soon after they retire together, to forget in sleep their present hardships, and to dream of a better future.

All honor to the love of good living, such as it is the purpose of this book to describe, so long as it does not come between men and their occupations or duties!  For, as all the debaucheries of a Sardanapalus cannot bring disrespect upon womankind in general, so the excesses of a Vitellius need not make us turn our backs upon a well-appointed banquet.  Should the love of good living pass into gluttony, voracity, intemperance, it then loses its name and advantages, escapes from our jurisdiction, and falls within that of the moralist to ply it with good counsel, or of the physician who will cure it by his remedies.

ON PEOPLE FOND OF GOOD LIVING

There are individuals to whom nature has denied a refinement of organs, or a continuity of attention, without which the most succulent dishes pass unobserved.  Physiology has already recognized the first of these varieties, by showing us the tongue of these unhappy ones, badly furnished with nerves for inhaling and appreciating flavors.  These excite in them but an obtuse sentiment; such persons are, with regard to objects of taste, what the blind are with regard to light.  The second class are the absent-minded, chatterboxes, persons engrossed in business or ambition, and others who seek to occupy themselves with two things at once, and eat only to be filled.  Such, for example, was Napoleon; he was irregular in his meals, and ate fast and badly.  But there again was to be traced that absolute will which he carried into everything he did.  The moment appetite was felt, it was necessary that it should be satisfied; and his establishment was so arranged that, in any place and at any hour, chicken, cutlets, and coffee might be forthcoming at a word.