United States or Vanuatu ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Or if their appetites must run riot, and they must pamper themselves with delicacies for which east and west are ransacked, I would have them postpone their benediction to a fitter season, when appetite is laid; when the still small voice can be heard, and the reason of the grace returns with temperate diet and restricted dishes. Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving.

The vividest impression which Clemens gave us two ravenous young Boston authors was of the satisfying, the surfeiting nature of subscription publication. An army of agents was overrunning the country with the prospectuses of his books, and delivering them by the scores of thousands in completed sale.

Old comedy is not fit for men that are making merry, by reason of the excuses that appear in it; for that vehemency which they use in the parabasis is loud and indecent, and the liberty they take to scoff and abuse is very surfeiting, too open, and full of filthy words and lewd expressions.

In the first place, never cut or scrape your finger-nails with a knife or scissors, except in paring them down to the end of the fingers. Secondly, use nothing but a good stiff nail-brush, fine soap, and water, and rub the nails and hands briskly with these every morning the year round. In the third place, I would have you know that surfeiting will invariably produce heavy, burning hands.

Do you not know that of the parable, "The deceitfulness of riches choke the word"? and again, "When the heart is over-charged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life," all mischief comes upon them at unawares?

Though widows and orphans together shall crowd, To gaze as at heaven's dread rod, And mutter their curses, and mingle their tears, Invoking the vengeance of God: Though, while bloated Revelry roars at his board, Where surfeiting hecatombs fume, Desolation and Famine shall howl, and old Earth Her skeleton hordes shall intomb: All ghastly and mangled, from fields where they fell, With horrible groanings and cries, What though, when he slumbers, the dead from their graves In dread visitation shall rise: Yet he among heroes exalted shall sit; And slaves to his splendor shall bend; And senates shall echo his virtues; and kings Shall own him their saviour, and friend!

Then suddenly, as if fleeing from her own fear, she looked up again, surfeiting her senses with the crowds, the lights, the smoke and scent and crashing music. "But what folly!" she cried. "Life goes on! The same round, is it not so? Life and love and jealousy! Come, little monsieur, what have you to say?"

And yet there are many points in which he is really like Dante, and comes very near to the original image, beyond those later and feebler followers of Petrarch. He learns from Dante rather than from Plato, that for lovers, the surfeiting of desire ove gran desir gran copia affrena, is a state less happy than misery full of hope una miseria di speranza piena.

To how many tempted souls, and souls that have yielded to temptation, and souls that, having yielded, are beginning to grope their way back again out of its vulgar delights and surfeiting sweetnesses, and find that there is a desert to be traversed before they can again reach the place where they stood before, has that story ministered hope, as it will minister to the very end!

For this, yellow rape seed baked in bread is very good; also young, fat flesh, not too much salted; also saffron, the tails of stincus, and long pepper prepared in wine. But let such persons eschew all sour, sharp, doughy and slimy meats, long sleep after meat, surfeiting and drunkenness, and so much as they can, keep themselves from sorrow, grief, vexation and anxious care.