If to these heights the ordinary man--or woman--may not soar, then will the good, substantial, everyday _bouillon_, or _pot-au-feu_--made of beef alone, but ever flavoured with vegetables--fulfil the same purpose, not so deliciously, but still fairly well. In households where soup is, as it should be, a daily necessity, stock may be made and kept for convenience. But if you would have your _pot-au-feu_ in perfection, let the saucepan, or _marmite_--the English word is commonplace, the French term charms--be not of iron, but of earthenware: rich tawny brown or golden green in colour, as you see it in many a French market-place, if the least feeling for artistic fitness dwells within your soul. Seven hours are needed _pour faire sourire le pot-au-feu_--the expression is not to be translated. Where soups are concerned the English language is poor, and cold, and halting; the speech of France alone can honour them aright.
With good _bouillon_ there is naught the genius may not do. Into it the French _chef_ puts a few small slices of bread, and, as you eat, you wonder if terrapin or turtle ever tasted better. With the addition of neatly-chopped carrots and onions, and turnips and celery, you have _Julienne_; or, with dainty asparagus tops, sweet fresh peas, tiny stinging radishes, delicate young onions, _printanier_, with its suggestions of spring and blossoms in every mouthful. This last, surely, is the lyric among soups. Decide upon cheese instead, and you will set a Daudet singing you a poem in prose: "_Oh! la bonne odeur de soupe au fromage!_" _Pâtes d'Italie_, _vermicelli_, _macaroni_, each will prove a separate ecstasy, if you but remember the grated Parmesan that must be sprinkled over it without stint--as in Italy. Days there be when nothing seems so in keeping as rice: others, when cabbage hath charm, that is, if first in your simmering _bouillon_ a piece of ham--whether of York, of Strasbourg, or of Virginia--be left for three hours or more; again, to thicken the golden liquid with tapioca may seem of all devices the most adorable. And so may you ring the changes day after day, week after week, month after month.
If of these lighter soups you tire, then turn with new hope and longing to the stimulating list of _purées_ and _crèmes_. Let tomatoes, or peas, or beans, or lentils, as you will, be the keynote, always you may count upon a harmony inspiriting and divine; a rapture tenfold greater if it be enjoyed in some favourite corner at Marguery's or Voisin's, where the masterpiece awaits the chosen few. Or if, when London fogs are heavy and life proves burdensome, comfort is in the very name of broth, then put it to the test in its mutton, Scotch, chicken, or dozen and more varieties, and may it give you new courage to face the worst!