Publisher's Synopsis
Among the many fatalities attending the bloom of young desire, that of blindlytaking to the confectionery line has not, perhaps, been sufficiently considered. Howis the son of a British yeoman, who has been fed principally on salt pork and yeastdumplings, to know that there is satiety for the human stomach even in a paradise ofglass jars full of sugared almonds and pink lozenges, and that the tedium of life canreach a pitch where plum-buns at discretion cease to offer the slightest excitement? Orhow, at the tender age when a confectioner seems to him a very prince whom all theworld must envy-who breakfasts on macaroons, dines on meringues, sups on twelfthcake, and fills up the intermediate hours with sugar-candy or peppermint-how is he toforesee the day of sad wisdom, when he will discern that the confectioner's calling is notsocially influential, or favourable to a soaring ambition? I have known a man whoturned out to have a metaphysical genius, incautiously, in the period of youthfulbuoyancy, commence his career as a dancing-master; and you may imagine the use thatwas made of this initial mistake by opponents who felt themselves bound to warn thepublic against his doctrine of the Inconceivable.
