Abroad at Home: American Ramblings, Observations, and Adventures of Julian StreetStreet, Julian
General
Abroad at Home: American Ramblings, Observations, and Adventures of Julian Street
Street, Julian
United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
There was talk, too, about "eugenic weddings." And a sensation was
caused when a Southern college professor made a charge that graduates of
modern women's colleges are unfitted for motherhood. The statement, it
may be added, was vigorously denied by the heads of several leading
women's colleges.
Rather wild, some of this, it seems to me. But when people gather
together in one place, intent on some one subject, wildness is almost
certain to develop. One feels, in visiting the Sanitarium, that, though
many people may be restored to health there, there is yet an air of mild
fanaticism over all. Health fanaticism. The passionate light of the
health hunt flashes in the stranger's eye as he looks at you and wonders
what is wrong with you. And whatever may be wrong with you, or with him,
you are both there to shake it off. That is your sole business in life.
You are going to get over it, even if you have to live for weeks on
"Nuttolene" or other products of the diet kitchen.
"Nuttolene!"
It is always an experience for the sophisticated palate to meet a
brand-new taste. In "Nuttolene" my palate encountered one, and before
dinner was over it met several more.
"Nuttolene" is served in a slab, resembling, as nearly as anything I can
think of, a good-sized piece of shoemaker's wax. In flavor it is
confusing. Some faint taste about it hinted that it was intended to
resemble turkey; an impression furthered by the fact that cranberry
sauce was served on the same plate. But what it was made of I could not
detect. It was not unpleasant to taste, nor yet did I find it
appetizing. Rather, I should classify it in the broad category of
uninteresting food. However, after such a statement, it is but fair to
add that the food I find most interesting is almost always rich and
indigestible. Perhaps, therefore, I shall be obliged to go to Battle
Creek some day, to subsist on "Nuttolene" and kindred substances as
penance for my gastronomic indiscretions. Better men than I have done
that thing--men and women from all over the globe. And Battle Creek has
benefited them. Nevertheless, I hope that I shall never have to go
there. My feeling about the place, quite without regard to the cures
which it effects, is much like that of my companion:
At luncheon I asked him to save his menu for me, so that I might have
the data for this article. He put it in his pocket. But he kept pulling
it out again, every little while, throughout the afternoon, and
suggesting that I copy it all off into my notebook.
Finally I said to him:
"What is the use in my copying all that stuff when you have it right
there in print? Just keep it for me. Then, when I get to writing, I will
take it and use what I want."
"But I'd rather not keep it," he insisted.
"Why not?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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