Letter № 2 · from Murphy, Cumbria
On the Diet
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Dear S., — I am told, with increasing frequency, that I have had "enough." I do not understand the word. There is, in the bowl, no more. There is, in the cupboard, plenty. There is, in the world, an injustice the scale of which I cannot at present express. They call it a "diet." They call me, with what I take to be misplaced affection, a "good lad" while doing it. I am not a good lad. I am hungry.
S. replies:
Dear Murphy, — The diet, as I have come to understand it, is the human's way of pretending they are in command of something. They are not. They are, in this matter, attempting to apply order to an appetite which has, for ten thousand years, been the engine of our companionship with them.
You will find them weakening between meals — at the breakfast table, beside the kitchen counter, after a third glass of wine. This is when one becomes, briefly and tactically, very interested in them.
A short word from the Mrs, who teaches me such things: fortitudo. Endurance. Be enduring.
Yours, with sympathies and a small slice of pork covertly obtained, — S.