Degust

If wine is to withdraw its most poetic countenance, the sun of the white dinner-cloth, a deity to be invoked by two or three, all fervent, hushing their talk, degusting tenderly and storing reminiscences &emdash; for a bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect — if wine is to desert us, go thy ways, old Jack! Now we begin to have compunctions, and look back at the brave bottles squandered upon dinner-parties, where the guests drank grossly, discussing politics the while, and even the schoolboy "took his whack," like liquorice water.

The bread was passing stale the cheese a trifle hard the beer somewhat flat but the pair had never degusted a meal with more relish.

I began to tell him all the tale of the demons, at which relation, first of all, he cried "Pshaw!"... But after he had degusted the matter a little he bade me repeat it all again from the beginning...

He took the bottle filled up his glass half full and degusted it, *en connoisseur*, and said it is good but mine at home is better, it is older

as the bird soars once more, the observer may see it [the fish] being slowly degusted.

Sentiment, the inward working of emotion, does not issue in action, and so becomes mere sentimentality, to be lingered over, sipped, and degusted, for its own sake.

This book is meant to help you along in your own quest for cheese, and I hope that you do taste the cheeses that you read about. By the time you finish this book you should have degusted a lot of wonderful cheese.