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“The science has, of course, progressed immensely since his day. You may fill your shelves with portentous tomes on food and dietetics, and with experimental pamphlets from the Department of Agriculture. Educators have introduced instruction concerning food into the curriculum of the modern school. And I understand that there are magazines of practical cookery for such ladies as look to the affairs of their households. But as for Brillat-Savarin’s hope that the science and the art of gastronomy, as he elaborated it, would soon become a part of the faith and practice, the delight as well as the duty, of all cultivated people,—that is yet far from fulfilment.

“But, my good friend,” and here Professor Maturin rose, shaking his long forefinger, “the truth will undoubtedly prevail, ‘though long deferred, though long deferred,’ as Lanier says. Take the book, and keep it—I make a practice of distributing copies—read it; you cannot help doing so at a single sitting; talk about it; become, like me, a propagandist, and the blessing of Gasterea will go with you. Good-night.” And he was gone.