There is a privileged class of persons who are summoned to the enjoyments of taste by a physical and organic predisposition.  I have always believed in physiognomy and phrenology.  Men have inborn tendencies; and since there are some who come into the world seeing, hearing, and walking badly, because they are short-sighted, deaf, or crippled, why should there not be others who are specially predisposed to experience a certain series of sensations?  Moreover, even an ordinary observer will constantly discover faces which bear the unmistakable imprint of a ruling passion—­such as superciliousness, self-satisfaction, misanthropy, sensuality, and many others.  Sometimes, no doubt, we meet with a face that expresses nothing; but when the physiognomy has a marked stamp it is almost always a true index.  The passions act upon the muscles, and frequently, although a man says nothing, the various feelings by which he is moved can be read in his face.  By this tension, if in the slightest degree habitual, perceptible traces are at last left, and the physiognomy thus assumes its permanent and recognizable characteristics.

Those predisposed to epicurism are for the most part of middling height.  They are broad-faced, and have bright eyes, small forehead, short nose, fleshy lips, and rounded chin.  The women are plump, chubby, pretty rather than beautiful, with a slight tendency to fullness of figure.  It is under such an exterior that we must look for agreeable guests.  They accept all that is offered them, eat without hurry, and taste with discrimination.  They never make any haste to get away from houses where they have been well treated, but stay for the evening, because they know all the games and other after-dinner amusements.

Those, on the contrary, to whom nature has denied an aptitude for the enjoyments of taste, are long-faced, long-nosed, and long-eyed:  whatever their stature, they have something lanky about them.  They have dark, lanky hair, and are never in good condition.  It was one of them who invented trousers.  The women whom nature has afflicted with the same misfortune are angular, feel themselves bored at table, and live on cards and scandal.

This theory of mine can be verified by each reader from his own personal observation.  I shall give an instance from my own personal experience:—­

Sitting one day at a grand banquet, I had opposite me a very pretty neighbor, whose face showed the predisposition I have described.  Leaning to the guest beside me, I said quietly that from her physiognomy, the young lady on the other side of the table must be fond of good eating.  “You must be mad!” he answered; “she is but fifteen at most, which is certainly not the age for such a thing.  However, let us watch.”