I declare, if I was a man, I'd be ashamed to confess
that I was all stomach; but that's what most of them are. Not that
it's easy work to be an Edenite: it's impossible to any but a highly
spiritual nature. I have been on the diet for six months, and
nothing but my position as vice-president of the society, and my
desire to crush the body and release the spirit, could have kept me
faithful. I don't pretend to like it, but that doesn't make me
disloyal. There's nothing I enjoy better than a good cut of
underdone beef, with plenty of dish gravy; I love nice tender porter-
house steaks with mushrooms; I love thick mutton-chops broiled over a
hot fire: but I can't believe in them, and my conscience won't allow
me to eat them. Do you believe in meat?'
'Certainly.'
'I don't see why you say "certainly." You would be a good deal
better off without it. You are filling yourself full of carnal,
brutal, murderous passions every time you eat it. The people who eat
meat are not half so elevated nor half so teachable as the Edenites.'
'The Edenites are possibly too weak and hungry to resist
instruction,' said Mary.
'They are neither weak nor hungry,' replied their vice-president,
with dignity. 'They eat milk, and stewed fruit, and all the edible
grains nicely boiled.
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