"Reverse of fortune changes friends"--reverse of circumstances, alas! too
often changes feeds!--pecuniary disappointments brought on a reduction of
circumstances--reduction of circumstances occasioned a reduction of meals,
and the necessity for such reduction being very apparent to a philosophic
mind, engendered a reduction of craving for the same. Perhaps nothing
could have proved more generally beneficial than the individual
misfortunes of Mr. Bernard Cavanagh, which transferred him to one of those
Elysiums of brick and mortar, the "Poor Law Union." Here, as he himself
expresses it, the fearful fallacies of his past system were made
beautifully apparent; he felt as if existence could be maintained by the
infinitesimal process, so benevolently advocated and regularly prepared,
that one step more was all that was necessary to arrive at dietary
perfectibility. That step he took, it being simply, instead of next to
nothing, to live on nothing at all; and now, such was his opinion of the
condiments supplied, he declares it to be by far the pleasantest of the
two.
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