Here are some points which ought always to be borne in mind, both by those who cook and by those who eat. I quote them in the form of aphorisms, proverbs, epigrams, or dicta, accompanying each with the name of the author.

I. A man can dine only once a day. - P. Z. Didsbury.

This profound sentence should be written in flame-colored letters on the walls of every kitchen, so that the cook may never forget the terrible responsibility of his functions. If the dinner is defective the misfortune is irreparable; when the long-expected dinner-hour arrives, one eats but does not dine; the dinner-hour passes, and the diner is sad, 1 for, as the philosopher has said, a man can dine only once a day.

II. Bad cooking diminishes happiness and shortens life. - Wisdom of ages.

III. The art of cooking, like the art of dining, is exempt from the caprices of fashion. The principles of both these arts are eternal and immutable. - P. Z. Didsbury.

In this pithy dictum the author prophetically and implicitly condemned such barbarous inventions as "progressive dinner-parties."

IV. The pleasures of the table may be enjoyed every day, in every climate, at all ages, and by all conditions of men. - Brillat-Savarin.

The author of the "Physiology of Taste" was a vigorous rather than a delicate eater, and a speculative rather than a practical gastronomer. We will not accept all he says as being gospel, but will listen gratefully to such liberal and broadly human maxims as the above. The arts of cooking and of dining interest all sorts and conditions of men; they are not merely the privilege of the rich; they are philanthropic and democratic arts.

V. Those who get indigestion, or who become intoxicated, know neither how to eat nor how to drink. - Brillat-Savarin.

The same author has said, "Animals feed; man eats; the intelligent man alone knows how to eat." Strange to say, the stomach is the basis of our whole existence; it is the source of strength and of weakness, of health and of disease, of gayety and of melancholy; we do everything for, by, or through the stomach; and yet the two series of operations which most closely concern the stomach - I mean the operations of cooking and eating food - are those to which most people devote the least reasoning.

VI. A well-cooked and a well-served dinner implies, on the part of the host, a sense of the respect he owes to his guests, whose happiness he controls while they are under his roof. On the part of the cook, it implies, not only a thorough knowledge of his art, but also a sense of dignity and self-respect and a certain emotion. Good cooking comes from the heart as well as from the brain, and, therefore, it is not a science, but an art. The cook who is a real artist, and whose dishes are works of art, will experience over his saucepans emotion as poignant as that which Benvenuto Cellini felt when he was casting one of his immortal bronze statues. - P. Z. Didsbury.

VII. If there is anything sadder than unrecognized genius, it is the misunderstood stomach. The heart whose love is rejected - this much-abused drama - rests upon a fictitious want. But the stomach ! Nothing can be compared to its sufferings, for we must have life before everything. - Honore de Balzac.

VIII. The gastronomer loves order and harmony of service, as the painter loves harmony of colors. Excellent food served in a coarse dish will seem less succulent than poorer food served on fine porcelain or gold-plate. Nevertheless the charm of glass-ware, lordly dishes, and delicate napery must not be exaggerated. No splendor of service can compensate for inferior and badly cooked viands. - P. Z. Didsbury.

IX. A good restaurant is like a more or less epic poem - it cannot be improvised in a day. Tradition, knowledge, experience, and even genius, are necessary. A good cellar alone can only be formed with the aid of length of time and prodigious faculties of taste. - Magny.

The author of this aphorism is the famous cook who founded the Restaurant Magny in the Rue Contrescarpe at Paris, and made a fortune by selling good food and real wine. George Sand, the great novelist, was one of Magny's most faithful admirers; and as, in her quality of poet, she had the privilege of omniscience, she knew, as I have been told by the sweet poet Theodore de Banville, that wines and food are the best, and perhaps the only, medicines. And so, during a long and cruel malady, which nearly carried off her son, she insisted that Maurice Sand should drink only wines chosen by Magny, and eat only food prepared by Magny's own hands. The excellent restaurateur yielded to the mother's desire, and made for Maurice those consommes, or quintessences of nutriment, which are infinitely rarer than a good poem or a faultless sonnet. Thus Magny, impeccable doctor and perfect cook, saved George Sand the terrible grief of losing her son, and preserved for our pleasure an ingenious writer, the author of "Masques et Bouffons."

X. In a restaurant when a waiter offers you turbot, ask for salmon, and when he offers you a sole, order a mackerel; as language to man, so fish has been given . to the waiter to disguise his thoughts. - P. Z. Didsbury.

The philosopher, I imagine, wrote this maxim after a varied and disastrous experience in European restaurants. The decadence of the restaurants in the Old World largely justifies the severity of the above warning. There are, however, exceptions, and in certain first-class restaurants in Paris - six, at the outside - it is well not to be too ready to choose for yourself, without listening to the voice of the head-waiter. As a rule, in a restaurant, maintain your free will, but do not try to impose it. In matters of cookery, as in love, much confidence is needed.

On the other hand, if you become a habitue of a first-class Paris restaurant, it is preferable not to be on speaking terms with the maitre d' hotel, but to transmit your orders directly through the intelligent waiter, whom your experienced eye will have detected the very first day that you set foot in the establishment. The maitre d' hotel - important, fat, fussy, and often disdainful in his manner-serves mainly to create confusion ; he receives your orders with deference, but rarely trans-mits them to the waiter with exactitude; and, as it is the waiter who communicates immediately with the cook, it is preferable to suppress, as far as possible, the useless intervention of the maitre d' hotel. For my own part, in the restaurants where I am in the habit of dining, I refuse to hold any communication with the maitres d'hotel until, perhaps, at the end of the dinner, when I graciously allow a favored one to descend into the cellar in person and select for me, with his own podgy fingers, a creamy camem-bert cheese, the ripest and the richest of the lot. This concession I make, not because I admit for a moment that the maitre d'hotel is an infallible judge of camembert, but merely because, after dinner, I am more charitably disposed than before dinner, and, consequently, I desire to show to the maitre d'hotel that I cherish no ill-feeling against him in my heart of hearts, although I maintain that his functions, as they are generally fulfilled, have no raison d'etre.