Out of him under such anti-hygienic conditions?
Of course it takes ten men to do the work of one; and of course all ten
of them are sulky and irritable throughout the morning, thinking only of
their luncheon. Then indeed - then they make up for lost time; those few
favoured ones, at least, who can afford it.
I once watched a young fellow, a clerk of some kind, in a restaurant at
midday. He began by informing the waiter that he had no appetite that
morning - sangue di Dio! no appetite whatever; but at last allowed
himself to be persuaded into consuming a hors d' oeuvres of anchovies
and olives. Then he was induced to try the maccheroni, because they were
"particularly good that morning"; he ate, or rather drank, an immense
plateful. After that came some slices of meat and a dish of green stuff
sufficient to satisfy a starving bullock. A little fish? asked the
waiter. Well, perhaps yes, just for form's sake - two fried mullets and
some nondescript fragments. Next, he devoured a couple of raw eggs "on
account of his miserably weak stomach," a bowl of salad and a goodly
lump of fresh cheese. Not without a secret feeling of envy I left him at
work upon his dessert, of which he had already consumed some six
peaches. Add to this (quite an ordinary repast) half a bottle of heavy
wine, a cup of black coffee and three glasses of water - what work shall
be got out of a man after such a boa-constrictor collation? He is as
exasperated and prone to take offence as in the morning - this time from
another cause. . . .
That is why so many of them suffer from chronic troubles of the
digestive organs. The head of a hospital at Naples tells me that stomach
diseases are more prevalent there than in any other part of Europe, and
the stomach, whatever sentimentalists may say to the contrary, being the
true seat of the emotions, it follows that a judicious system of dieting
might work wonders upon their development. Nearly all Mediterranean
races have been misfed from early days; that is why they are so small. I
would undertake to raise the Italian standard of height by several
inches, if I had control of their nutrition for a few centuries. I would
undertake to alter their whole outlook upon life, to convert them from
utilitarians into romantics - were such a change desirable. For if
utilitarianism be the shadow of starvation, romance is nothing but the
vapour of repletion.
And yet men still talk of race-characteristics as of something fixed and
immutable! The Jews, so long as they starved in Palestine, were the most
acrimonious bigots on earth. Now that they live and feed sensibly, they
have learnt to see things in their true perspective - they have become
rationalists.
