savourier

mollusque commented on the word savourier

Never in all our days sucked we a spicier, a savourier, a sappier back. The small cells set thick about the spine, now that we narrowly inspect them, seem dry as horn; but we persist pertinaciously in sip--sip--suck--sucking far away into them--as you might have seen bees, doup up and head down, standing at meals in the refectory of a flower--and sweet as honey, by the power of that suction, continues long after the ignorant spectator has ceased to wonder what we mean by that devotion to a bare bone, continues to be extracted, more and more delicious, diviner still, and far beyond the praise of vegetable, the rich, rare, animal marrow, that, merged into the palate, is felt as if it absolutely oozed up into our eyes, till our whole countenance breaks and breathes out into an oilier diffusion of universal philanthropy, than with the exception perhaps of the benevolent Howard, ever beautified a visage belonging to any of the children of men.

--John Wilson, 1832, "Christopher at the Lakes", Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine

February 4, 2008