And yet I always make a point of helping him first, contrary to all good manners,--before any of my female friends are helped, that he may avoid this very error.

I wish he would eat before he comes out.
What makes his proceedings more particularly offensive at our house is, that my husband, though out of common politeness he is obliged to set dishes of animal food before his visitors, yet himself and his whole family (myself included) feed entirely on vegetables.

We have a theory, that animal food is neither wholesome nor natural to man; and even vegetables we refuse to eat until they have undergone the operation of fire, in consideration of those numberless little living creatures which the glass helps us to detect in every fibre of the plant or root before it be dressed.

On the same theory we boil our water, which is our only drink, before we suffer it to come to table.
Our children are perfect little Pythagoreans: it would do you good to see them in their nursery, stuffing their dried fruits, figs, raisins, and _milk_, which is the only approach to animal food which is allowed.

They have no notion how the substance of a creature that ever had life can become food for another creature.