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15, Arundel Crescent Dear Mr. Allingham, It was very pleasant to me to get from you an unexpected letter. I have a large correspondence, not from friends personally near; but except for business or science, I write unwillingly, so very gloomy does our foreign policy and hectoring blood-recklessness make me. I think that improved material Science and Mechanical adaptations have corrupted our political, medical and academical classes into thorough immorality of various kinds. Perhaps only calamity can cure us. I expect a hurricane of Revolution to clear our infected atmosphere, but hate to say so, expecting to be thought myself to be in senile dotage. In June next I shall be eighty. But I am in high health, and in full hope for our remoter future, after Adversity has purged us. Do you know that Mr. Brotherton, M.P., from 1847 onward, tried the policy of alluring the aristocracy to Vegetarianism by splendid Vegetarian banquets? All in vain. We made no progress till Vegetarianism became a protest against luxurious feeding—which of course appeals to the poorer and the more moral. We are nearly all teetotal; I never hear of a wine-drinking Vegetarian; and we now go hard against smoking. Abstinence from Fleshmeat, from Narcotics and Intoxicants in drink, I call the Triple Cord? or Triple Abstinence. We win by commending niceness in food, but dissuading luxury, expense and needless trouble; and niceness comes with minimum of trouble from fruit and grain—though we cannot at present afford to sacrifice vegetables proper. Old vegetarians gravitate towards Stewed Apples and Bread. I could pleasantly live on fruit and grain. I think the Aristocracy will be humiliated politically more quickly than they will consent to forego Fleshmeat and killing beautiful birds. I am glad to hear that you are dwelling happily in a rural area. Believe me, yours sincerely,
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