The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

keep up their strength. Then there are the epicures,
who start hopefully, but find that nothing has been
quite so well cooked as it ought to have been. Then
there are the gormandisers, who fall upon their
food with eager rapacity, eat too much, and grow
plethoric and stertorous. Finally there are those
who begin with a sound appetite, are glad of their
food, eat until they have had enough, and then stop.
Those who are set down before the feast of life
have similar attitudes towards the good things
which it offers. The happy man corresponds to the
last of our eaters. What hunger is in relation to
food, zest is in relation to life. The man who is
bored with his meals corresponds to the victim of
Byronic unhappiness. The invalid who eats from a
sense of duty corresponds to the ascetic, the
gormandiser to the voluptuary. The epicure
corresponds to the fastidious person who
condemns half the pleasures of life as unaesthetic.
Oddly enough, all these types, with the possible
exception of the gormandiser, feel contempt for the
man of healthy appetite and consider themselves