THROUGH A GLASS LIGHTLY
the ail-too susceptible cork. Thrice happy he, in truth, who can keep two cellars (as who should say a twin orchid house), the cool one for his more delicate exotics, his clarets, and his dry champagnes, the other for his more luxuriant growths, his vins de liqueur, his madeiras, sherries, ports! In this second chamber he may clap on an extra ten degrees and no harm done. For it must ever be borne in mind that wine is no mere fluid, but is informed with sensitiveness and has a most incomparable soul. There should not be so much as a keyhole for the random gust of sewer gas; no squalid waft of cabbage water should ever whiff it to these secret shrines. In well-regulated houses, even the beer cellar is kept distinct from the palace of the grape; for it is a law of
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