One day I submitted to him the rough notes of
a new entrée hastily jotted down on the inspiration
of the moment. With the high power of the great
artiste he could realise the full flavour of a dish
from the receipt, just as the great musician,
by merely reading the score, can realise
the full significance and harmony of the music
with all its light and shade. Generally Jerichau
was demonstrative in his admiration, but
he perused my MS. in silence. As I watched
his countenance, I could perceive the inward
struggle which was taking place. Tears rolled
down his cheeks. The marmitons, moved by
unconscious sympathy with their master, had
left their occupations to gather round him. He
strove to address me, but was unable to utter a
word. He drew this very cotton cap off his
head and placed it on mine, and then, pressing
his lips to my forehead, he left the kitchen."

"Papa Jones," said I," I can realise the
situation; it was the general tearing the cross
off his own breast to place it on the breast of
the heroic soldier."

"No, my son," he replied, "it was far grander
than that. It was the formal act of abdication.
I have searched history in vain for a more
magnanimous deed. Charles the Fifth was gouty
and worn out when he gave the crown to Philip;
Jerichau was in the full vigour of his life and the
full tide of his reputation"

"It was a magnificent triumph!" I exclaimed.

"It was," he answered; "but I only regarded
it as a means to my great end — the power of
influencing mankind. I know my comrades were
perplexed by my showing so little elation; such
insensibility in an artiste was incomprehensible;
but I hid my aspirations in my own bosom."

He paused awhile in his narrative, and seemed
buried in thought.

"Ah, me!" he exclaimed, breaking from his
reverie, "that was the beautiful period of my
existence; life carpeted with rose-leaves; intuition
and faith which vanquished every difficulty
without a struggle, and achieved every object
without the curse of labour. And yet I know
my faculties were but half developed; I had
never reasoned, because I had never doubted.

"One day I grew dissatisfied with my efforts.
My work appeared to grow less and less original.
I was forced to reflect, and, to my dismay, I
found for a long period that I had been only
working in a circle. Do what I would, I could
never advance beyond a certain point. Could it
be possible that I had already arrived at the
boundaries of my art? I strove and strove, as
a bird beats against the bars of its cage, but it
was all in vain.

"Slowly and painfully, I reasoned out the
limitations of that organ of sense, the palate,
through which I sought to address the soul. In
my exultation at the unbounded possibilities
numerically of combining flavours, I had entirely
overlooked the rigid limits of the capacity of
taste. I shall never forget the utter bitterness
of heart with which I struggled to this conviction,
and beheld the fallacy of my hopes. In the
early days, there used to be such thrilling
brilliancy in the bright rows of copper stewpans,
and now the gleam was horrible to my eyes.
Day by day my powers left me; my hand, which
had been as light as the most delicate woman's,
but nerved with steel, grew as heavy as lead. I
became far less capable than the lowest marmiton,
against whose crass stupidity my master, in the
grief of his soul, used to protest by perpetual
oaths. They tried in vain to account for this
change. Was it my bodily health? The doctor
declared I was perfectly well. Was it love?
The doctor shrugged his shoulders and
smiled, in default of a better answer. They
could never comprehend my case. Neither my
father, nor my uncles, nor Jerichau, and they
held many anxious consultations on the subject.

"I said that I had exhausted cookery.

"'Think of the splendid engagements your
genius will command,' exclaimed my father,
overcome by sorrow no less than anger.

"'The mouth of Europe watering for
your efforts!' cried Jerichau, with poetic energy.

"'What is cookery?' I asked.

"'The science of feeding the world, they
answered.

"If that was their definition of cookery, it
was impossible that they could ever understand
the grandeur of my aspirations, so I held my
peace and wept."

"And then. Papa Jones?" said I to him, gently,
for he was quite overcome by his narrative.

"Through the greatness of the idea I rose;
through the greatness of the idea I fell. The
moral, my son, of singed moths and exhausted
skylarks." In the agitation of the moment, he
wiped his eyes with the cotton cap.

Up to the time of this confession, I had been
completely puzzled how it came to pass that
Mr. Jones was continually making use of that
aforesaid expression of the Emperor Napoleon,
but at the same time urging the fallacy
contained in it, and asserting the dominant
influence of intellect. I then perceived that he
acted on the principle of a zealous convert,
whose old dogmas might be perpetually in his
mouth for the purpose of denying their truth.

To describe the "system Jones" — Thousands
had felt the inadequacy of gastronomic science
to satisfy the soul of man, but Hyacinth Jones
had felt it with an intensity which led him
to seek and discover a remedy. Thousands
had sat, as guests, bored and gloomy over
the most artistic cookery, and had experienced
a dismal vengeance, as hosts, by beholding
their friends bored and gloomy in return, till
at length the thought of a dinner party was
associated with a dulness felt like the darkness
in Egypt, falling, like the catastrophe of the
Dunciad, with a pall on the spirits. Now many
people of superficial mind believed that this
miserable condition was induced by some latent
error in the science of cookery itself, and
consequently sought a remedy by extraordinary
culinary efforts, ignorant that the capabilities of
the art were stretched to their utmost verge.
Some persons gifted with clearer perceptions
managed to hit the true source of the evil, and