Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/35

votaries seem to wish to restrict it. But in real truth it cannot be thus limited, at any rate in dietetic questions, for we cannot wholly exclude the consideration of the origin of our food. However gratifying our flesh-meat may be to our immediate taste (a very gross and uncultured taste, as I have attempted to show), we cannot altogether forget its extremely unpleasant antecedents. However artistic the arrangement of the dinner-table, however immaculate the table-cloth and faultless the dinner-service, the disagreeable thought must surely sometimes occur to the artistic mind that the beef was once an ox, the mutton was once a sheep, the veal was once a calf, and the pork was once a pig. We may scrupulously make clean the outside of the cup and platter, but the recollection of the state of their interior will nevertheless cause some disquietude to our aesthetic repose. In fact, though we may well be thankful for any reaction against the gross materialism and vulgarity of modern society, it may be doubted whether any class can be truly aesthetic which does not recognise in its creed the supreme importance of gentleness and humanity. The man who keenly sympathises with the suffering of C