MANY urban Americans are too delicate in their tastes and too generous in their appetites for their own good. Fine food, finely prepared, is desirable for every one; but it should be taken moderately. Gastronomy leads to gluttony, or its equivalent, and though it may not beget dyspepsia, it is apt to destroy the health. Gout, worse than dyspepsia, is the punishment of sensuality, and consciousness of deserving it abates not its torments. Our best dinners are barbarous in their profusion. It is a marvel they do not kill at once; their penalty is that they kill by degrees. The edibles and potables of an elaborate dinner should serve for half a dozen dinners. The Castilian proverb is correct: "He dines best who at the close is not surfeited."