FRESH FRUIT

When Mr. Gilbert K. Chesterton and the redoubtable G. B. S. came to words over the relative merits of different types of breakfast foods, they indulged as is their wont, in the discussion of a very serious and vital subject. Mr. Shaw recommended fresh fruits and cereals, which had been demanded by Americans in London, and which contrasted sharply with the traditional British breakfast of bacon and eggs, or some other kind of meat, supported by Mr. Chesterton.

"Americans," said Mr. Chesterton, "sleep in hothouses. When they awake, they must have fruits, and ice-water and alcoholic liquors for their parched throats. Mr. Shaw would be a very intelligent man if he had always eaten bacon and eggs in the morning."

"Pardon me," returned that gentleman, "Mr. Shaw is a very intelligent man."

All of which proves that food is worth talking about, as everybody knows already. Mr. Charles E. Hecht, an English food expert, says that indigestion has finally been found to be the cause of nearly half of all human illness. But still more interesting, he believes that "eating has a specific social reaction." For example, the actor Charles Kean declared that when he was playing the part of a tyrant he ate pork; when he was playing a murderer, he ate beef, and when he was playing a martyr he ate mutton. The moral is clearly to avoid beef.

To return to Mr. Hecht, however; this gentleman has discovered that men of genius have commonly disregarded the anguished cries of their stomachs. Napoleon, who is an example for almost everything, ate at all hours, nibbled sweets constantly, and finally lost the battle of Waterloo because of a stomach ache. Herbert Spencer, the philosopher, was in the habit of eating a heavy dinner and going immediately to bed--where he regularly suffered from insomnia and indigestion. This, it is believed accounts for his cynical, gloomy philosophy. Similarly, "the bitter passages of Huxley's essays are attributed to dyspepsia, which resulted from overeating." It seems established that while the diet can neither produce nor defeat genius, it can nevertheless distort its application and profoundly affect disposition and character.

Consequently Messrs, Shaw and Chesterton in arguing about the best breakfast rations displayed the effects of the own very different diets. Mr. Chesterton, being a meat-eater of the first water (if that is possible) contented himself with a rather dogmatic defense, attacking the habits of the Americans of which he probably knows very little--and the undoubted intelligence of Mr. Shaw. The latter vindicated vegetarianism with his usual flashing wit and imagination--and best of all, Americans for once found a satisfactory champion.