“Physically it was derived (_découlait_) in a large measure from Pythagoras and from the _Emile_. Thus it was based upon the greatest simplicity of dress and the most rigorous frugality with regard to food. My mother was convinced, as I myself am, that killing animals for the sake of nourishment from their flesh and blood, is one of the infirmities of our human condition; that it is one of those curses imposed upon man either by his fall, or by the obduracy of his own perversity. She believed, as I do still, that the habit of hardening the heart towards the most gentle animals, our companions, our helpmates, our brothers in toil, and even in affection, on this earth; that the slaughtering, the appetite for blood, the sight of quivering flesh are the very things to _have the effect_ (_sont faits pour_) to brutalise and harden the instincts of the heart. She believed, as I do still, that such nourishment, although, apparently, much more succulent and active (_énergique_) contains within itself irritating and putrid principles which embitter the food and shorten the days of man. “To support these ideas she would instance the numberless refined and pious people of India who abstain from everything that has had life, and the hardy, robust pastoral race, and even the labouring population of our fields, who work the hardest, live the longest and most simply, and who do not eat meat ten times in their lives. She never allowed me to eat it until I was thrown into the rough-and-tumble (_pêle-mêle_) life of the public schools. To wean me from the liking for it she used no arguments, but availed herself of that instinct in us which reasons better than logic. I had a lamb, which a peasant of Milly had given me, and which I had trained to follow me everywhere, like the most attached and faithful dog. We loved each other with that first love (_première passion_) which children and young animals naturally have for each other. One day the cook said to my mother in my presence “Madame, the lamb is fat, and the butcher has come for it; must I give it him?” I screamed and threw myself on the lamb, asking what the butcher would do with it, and what was a ‘butcher.’ The cook replied that he was a man who gained his living by killing lambs, sheep, calves and cows. I could not believe it. I besought my mother and readily obtained mercy for my favourite. A few days afterwards my mother took me with her to the town and led me, as by chance, through the shambles. There I saw men with bared and blood-stained arms felling a bullock. Others were killing calves and sheep, and cutting off their still palpitating limbs. Streams Of blood smoked here and there upon the pavement. I was seized with a profound pity, mingled with horror, and asked to be taken away.