Читать книгу The Observations of Professor Maturin онлайн

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“Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, although of course not the founder of gastronomy, is its most admirable modern champion. He lived from the first half of the eighteenth century through the first quarter of the nineteenth, first as mayor of his native town of Belley in France; then, during the Revolution, an exile in Switzerland and in America; and, finally, during the last third of his life, a judge in Paris of the highest national court. The fame of his professional wisdom and justice was great, but that of his personal benevolence and geniality was far greater. The choicest flavor and charm of many years of social life he preserved in the book he apparently intended to leave, at his death, as a legacy of good cheer to his friends. The record of his love of good living was to serve him, a bachelor, as a posterity.

“His fears that so genial a production might seem inconsistent with his judicial dignity were overcome by arguments which are given in a prefatory dialogue, and the volume was published anonymously in 1825, a year before his death. Even in so short a time the book was crowned with extraordinary popularity. Although one would hesitate, perhaps, to call it ‘adorable,’ as Balzac did, it is certainly one of those rarely spontaneous and charming outpourings of personality that belong apart with White’s ‘Selborne’ and Walton’s ‘Angler.’