WHAT WE MAY LIVE WITHOUT

We may live without poetry, music and art;

We may live without conscience and live without heart;

We may live without friends; we may live without books;

But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

He may live without books,-what is knowledge but grieving?

He may live without hope,-what is hope but deceiving?

He may live without love,-what is passion but pining?

But where is the man that can live without dining?

                                                                    -Owen Meredith, 1860