They're very fine--very fine indeed!" Now it is curious but true that there is no person in the world more particular as to what he eats than the half-starved English or Irish peasant, whose sufferings have so often been set forth for our condolence.

We may be equally foolish, you and I--in fact chemistry proves it--when we are disgusted at the idea of feeding on many things which mere association and superstition render revolting.

But the old fashioned gipsy has none of these qualms--he is haunted by no ghost of society--save the policeman, he knows none of its terrors.

Whatever is edible he eats, except horse-meat; wherever there is an empty spot he sleeps; and the man who can do this devoid of shame, without caring a pin for what the world says--nay, without even knowing that he does not care, or that he is peculiar--is independent to a degree which of itself confers a character which is not easy to understand.
I grew up as a young man with great contempt for Helvetius, D'Holbach, and all the French philosophers of the last century, whose ideal man was a perfect savage; but I must confess that since I have studied gipsy nature, my contempt has changed into wonder where they ever learned in their _salons_ and libraries enough of humanity to theorise so boldly, and with such likeness to truth, as they did.

It is not merely in the absolute out-of-doors independence of the old-fashioned Gipsy, freer than any wild beast from care for food, that his resemblance to a "philosopher" consists, or rather to the ideal man, free from imaginary cares.