Well then! do you suppose that the examination of nature, irrelevant as it may appear, makes no contribution to the object you have at heart? When we inquire how snow is formed, telling that its character 2 resembles hoar-frost, containing more air than water, do you not think that it is a reproach upon the epicures? If it is a scandalous thing to buy water, they are still worse, for they do not get even water [but chiefly air] for their money. Let us, I say, inquire rather how snow is formed than how it is preserved. The means of preservation have already been discovered; not content with racking wines of vintage, arranging them by flavour and age, we have devised means of compressing snow to overcome the power of summer, and of protecting it by the coolness of the icehouses from the hotness of the season. And what have we accomplished by all our anxious efforts? The privilege of buying 3 water that we might have got for nothing! We are vexed that we cannot buy air and sunlight, and that the atmosphere all around streams in easily and unbought upon the fastidious and the rich. How badly nature treats us in leaving anything that is common property! Upon this other element, water, which nature has allowed to flow for the free use of mankind, and which she has given the whole world to drink, this that she has shed forth with lavish prodigality for the service alike of man and of beasts and birds and the very laziest of the animal creation--upon this, luxury, with ill-conceived ingenuity, has 4 managed to put a price. In fact, nothing can please luxury unless it is expensive. Water was the one thing that used to bring down the rich to the level of the common herd, in which the wealthy could not surpass the very poorest. Those who found their riches a burden have devised a plan whereby water should become a luxury. How it has come about that no running water should be thought cool enough, I will now explain. As long as the stomach is healthy and is able to relish wholesome food, with which it is satisfied and not overloaded, it is quite content with the natural stimulants. But when through daily indigestion it suffers from the heat not of the 5 season but of its own indulgence, when habitual drunkenness has taken firm hold on the organs of life, and turns into bile which parches the intestines, then it becomes necessary to seek out some means of quenching the internal heat. Water merely inflames it, the disease is aggravated by the remedies. Therefore, for this purpose they use snow for drink, not only in summer, but even in the depths of winter. The cause can be no other than the internal complaint. Digestion is spoiled through indulgence; respite is never given it in which to rest. Breakfast is heaped upon a supper prolonged till daylight. While the revellers are literally bursting with the lavishness and variety of the courses, heavy drinking plunges them still deeper in the mire.