and if vegetarianism has got to run the blockade of Noodledom, and a huge amount of foolish talk must perforce be fired off, the sooner the battle commences, and the sooner it is concluded, the better for all concerned. And ridicule, as the flesh-eater will learn, is a weapon which can be wielded by more parties than one. For, to be frank, the dietists of the old-fashioned kreophagist school have talked, and are talking, a great deal of downright nonsense in their tirades against vegetarianism, and the only reason why they have not been more widely brought to book is that they speak in orthodox quarters where no reply is permitted. The oracle, of course, must not be answered or criticised. So far as they have condescended to state a case against food reform, it is a case which would be laughed out of court, as a string of quibbles and absurdities, in any open discussion; for the specialist, that most humourless of persons, is apt to forget that the moment he quits the ground on which he has made himself a master (and such ground has very narrow limitations) he is no longer infallible, and that if he thinks to exorcise modern feeling by the repetition of ancient formulas, he will only make himself ridiculous. And as a matter of pure humour, apart from humanity, which is the more comical—the man who can live in simple affluence on a supply of food which is as little costly to himself as it is burdensome to others, or he who cannot be content unless he gluts an ogreish appetite on animals slaughtered for his larder, and then pharisaically pretends that he has done them a kindness by eating them? It is custom, and custom alone—the thraldom of that "ceaseless round of mutton and beef to which the dead level of civilisation reduces us"[59]—that prevents civilised men from seeing the essential silliness of maintaining the diet of savages. Footnote 59: Richard Jefferies, "Field and Hedgerows." That a percentage of those who make trial of vegetarianism should return to their former habit is in accordance with what always happens in the fight between the new and the old, and at the utmost—that is, in the rare cases where such trial has been a genuine one—proves only that a change of diet is much more difficult for some persons than it is for others, a fact which all rational food reformers have recognised. But from the force of _affirmative_ testimony there is no escape, when, as in the case of vegetarianism successfully practised, and yielding the best results, the instances are drawn from every rank and temperament, and are amply sufficient in number to prove the experience trustworthy. It is idle to go on asserting that a thing cannot be done, when you are face to face with some thousands of people who not only have done it, but are happier and healthier in consequence.