“You like bread? well, eat barley-bread.  The admirable Cadet de Vaux long ago extolled its virtues.  It is not so nourishing and not so agreeable.  The precept will then be more easily complied with.  To be sure one should resist temptation.  Remember this, which is a principle of sound morality.

“You like soup?  Eat julienne then, with green vegetables, with cabbage and roots.  I prohibit soup au pain, pates and purees.

“Eat what you please at the first course except rice aux volailles and the crust of pates.  Eat well, but circumspectly.

“The second course will call for all your philosophy.  Avoid everything farinacious, under whatever form it appears.  You have yet the roasts, salads, and herbacious vegetables.

“Now for the dessert.  This is a new danger, but if you have acted prudently so far, you may survive it.  Avoid the head of the table, where things that are dangerous to you are most apt to appear.  Do not look at either biscuits or macaronies; you have fruits of all kinds, confitures and much else that you may safely indulge in, according to my principles.

“After dinner I prescribe coffee, permit you liqueurs, and advise you to take tea and punch.

“At breakfast barly-bread is a necessity, and take chocolate rather than coffee.  I, however, permit strong cafe au lait.  One cannot breakfast too soon.  When we breakfast late, dinner time comes before your digestion is complete.  You eat though, and eating without appetite is often a great cause of obesity, when we do so too often.”

Sequel of the regimen.

So far I have, like a tender father, marked out a regimen which will prevent obesity.  Let us add a few remarks about its cure.

Drink every summer thirty bottles of Seltzer water, a large glass in the morning, two before breakfast and another at bed-time.  Drink light white acid wines like those of Anjon.  Avoid beer as you would the plague.  Eat radishes, artichokes, asparagus, etc.  Eat lamb and chicken in preference to other animal food; eat only the crust of bread, and employ a doctor who follows my principles, and as soon as you begin you will find yourself fresher, prettier, and better in every respect.

Having thus placed you ashore, I must point out the shoals, lest in excess or zeal, you overleap the mark.

The shoal I wish to point out is the habitual use made by some stupid people of acids, the bad effects of which experience has demonstrated.

Dangers of acids.

There is a current opinion among women, which every year causes the death of many young women, that acids, especially vinegar, are preventives of obesity.  Beyond all doubts, acids have the effect of destroying obesity, but they also destroy health and freshness.  Lemonade is of all acids the most harmless, but few stomachs can resist it long.

The truth I wish to announce cannot be too public, and almost all of my readers can bring forward some fact to sustain it.