But it is late; and I do not consider, that you have not yet dined. 'Tis yourself, that you mean, sir (said I), for as for my part, I could listen to you till to-morrow, without inconvenience. For me! Alas! (replied he, laughing, and walking towards the gate), 'tis easily seen that you understand but little what philosophy is. The Sages eat but for their pleasure, and never for necessity. I had a quite contrary idea of Wisdom (answered I), I had thought that you wise men should never eat but to satisfy nature. You are abused (said the Count). How long think you, that our Sages can subsist without eating? How can I tell? (answered I), Moses and Elias, you know, fasted forty days: you Sages, I make no doubt, may do it, some days less. What a great piece of business would that be (replied he), the most wise men that ever was, the Divine, the almost adorable Paracelsus, affirms, that he has seen many of the Sages fast twenty years, without eating anything whatsoever. He himself, before he attained to the monarchy of wisdom, whereof we have justly presented him the sceptre, he, I say, would undertake to live many years without eating, by taking but half a scruple of his Solar Quintescence. And if you would have the pleasure to make any one live without victuals, you need do no more, but prepare the earth, as I told you it must be prepared, for the Society of the Gnomes: this earth applied to the navle, and renewed when it is dry, will cause any one to live without eating or drinking, and that without any trouble. And the use of this Catholic-Cabalistical Medicine, frees us much better from all the importunate necessities, to which nature makes the ignorant subject; we eat not, but when it pleases us; and all the superfluity of food passing away by an insensible Transpiration, we are never ashamed to be men. There he held his peace.