(63.) “Stews, liqueurs, entrées, side dishes,” are words which should be foreign and unintelligible to us; such words should not be employed in times of peace, as they are only incentives to luxury and gluttony; but how come they to be continually mentioned in times of war, amidst public calamities, before an enemy, and on the very night before a battle, or during a siege? Where do we find any mention made of Scipioʼs or Mariusʼs table? Do we read anywhere that Miltiades, Epaminondas, and Agesilaus were fond of good living? I should like no general to be commended for the goodness, elegance, and sumptuousness of his table, till everything that could be said about him had been told, and people had expatiated on all the details of some victory or the taking of some town. I should even be glad to see a general desirous of avoiding such commendations.[798] (64.) Hermippus[799] makes himself a slave to what he calls “his little contrivances;” all habits, customs, fashions, decency itself, must be sacrificed to them; he looks for them everywhere, discards a lesser for a greater, and neglects none which is practicable; he studies them, and there is not a day but what he discovers a fresh one. Other men may take their dinners and suppers, but he objects to the very name of them, eats when he feels hungry, and then only of what he likes best. He must see his bed made, but no one is so skilful or fortunate to make it in such a way that he can sleep as he likes. He seldom leaves his house; he is partial to his own room, where he is neither idle nor busy, where he does no work, but muddles about in the garb of a man who has taken medicine. Other people are obliged to wait the leisure of a locksmith or a joiner, whenever they want them; but he has everything at hand: a file, if anything has to be filed: a saw, if anything has to be cut off, and a pair of pincers to pull out. You cannot mention any tools he has not got, and he fancies they are much better and more convenient than these workmen use; he has some new and unknown tools, without any name, of his own invention, and of which he has almost forgotten the use. There exists not a man who can be compared to him for performing in a short time and without much difficulty some labour which is perfectly useless. He was compelled to take ten steps to go from his bed to his lavatory; he has now so contrived his room as to reduce these ten to nine, so he saves a good many steps during the whole course of his life! Other people turn a key, and push and pull before a door opens, but this is very fatiguing and unnecessary, so he does without it. But he is not going to reveal by what means. In fact, he understands the use of springs and machinery, above all, of such machinery as the world can very well spare. Daylight is not admitted in Hermippusʼ apartment through the window, but in quite a different way; he has also discovered a secret for going up and down the house otherwise than by the stairs, and is