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Reader,
I here put into your hands what has resulted from my deep thoughts during my idle and heavy hours. I honestly hope that scrutinizing this Essay will be to your great delight, as I found pleasure in producing it. This Essay I dare deem a masterpiece; but reader, do not mistake this last statement as a praising of my own work, nay, I still am trying to regard myself subject to mistakes (although, I feel obliged to tell you, it is not easy), and I, knowing you will judge fairly, will not be offended, should you condemn this work. This Essay will discuss the use of coffee cups, viz. for what they are used, by whom, when, where and how. I modestly propose that coffee cups should not be used, and I shall attempt to support this claim with reason. And, reader, if you ask why I took up writing the Essay, that is indeed just. What I am trying to achieve by propagating these thoughts is to contribute to abandoning the use of coffee cups in England for it is a filthy and unwholesome habit. I do not deny that my purpose with this work is to give logical reasons which will persuade readers to abandon the use of coffee cups from their lives because it is of detrimental effect on human intellect, or understanding, which is the most elevated faculty of the soul.

By our present year of grace 1689 a new and strange habit has become widespread in our country, namely the use of coffee cups. First let me define what is meant by `coffee' and `cup'. The hot, bitter, black watery liquid many Englishmen consume nowadays, which they produced by cooking the ground seeds of the coffee shrub is denominated as `coffee'. Most of the time it is drunk with sugar and sometimes even milk. It contains a substance called caffeine and the danger lies here, because if consumed frequently, it leads to different damages of the intellect, which I will later discuss. The object we refer to as `coffee cup' is what only coffee is drunk from *.

It is a rather small, bowl‑shaped utensil with a volume of approximately a third of a gill, and has one handle. It is generally made of china and is often sumptuously decorated. Its indispensable part is the saucer. It is also necessary to define `usage'. The ceremony of coffee drinking is so strongly connected with coffee cups that one cannot even imagine neither coffee without the use of coffee cups, nor coffee cups without coffee. It would be a great misconception to separate the two as you, reader, may do. If I censure the drinking of coffee, I censure the use of coffee cups.

All addictions, if indulged in excessively, are deleterious. This applies to the use of coffee cups, viz. coffe drinking as well. Maybe you, reader, too have used the coffee cup so frequently that your intelligence is already clouded, but you do not realize that your intelligence is clouded, because the use of coffee cups has clouded it **.

The cup I discuss herein is to be distinguished from any other kinds of vessels. Please note that the Essay discusses coffee cups only. **

A few hundred years later this curious and somewhat absurd syllogism will be referred to as `Catch - 22’, popularized by an honourable 20th century colleague of mine, Joseph Heller. See Note 1.

Now let me look at those fellow countrymen who indulge in this vicious passion immoderately. This silly fashion of using coffee cups has become so widespread that I am seriously anxious about the mental and physical condition of the venerable members of the middle class. I fear for their growing dull, their disease of the stomach and the weariness of their nerves. I think, these reasons are persuasive enough for those readers who are not aware of it or are, but still use coffee cups. I do not need to express my worries concerning the poor who cannot afford to use coffee cups because consequently they do not suffer from this cruel addiction. Just those who are affluent and intelligent at the same time and who should utilize their noble thoughts and ideas for the benefit of our country indulge the most extensively in the use of coffee cups. And they stoop so low as to teach even their children how to use the cups, fabricating these utensils taller and pouring milk into them, this way trying to conceal the bitter taste. Reader, I am putting the question to you: what men and women will those children become whose intelligence is poisoned by the use of coffee cups at such a tender age?

And when do they use coffee cups? More and more frequently, almost always. Some use it instead of having a proper breakfast, others after dinner, some others cultivate the ceremony in the afternoon, often instead of tea. Sometimes people use the cups when they desire the freshness of their intellect, the mitigation of their drowsiness. Again others use the coffee cups just as a habit, without any seemingly logical reason. And I am asking, is he, who uses the cup every day, able to realize its detrimental effect?

It is worth discussing where these perilous utensils are used. As I have mentioned above, the use of coffee cups is so widespread that we can see their presence almost in every well‑to‑do household. I am aware that in Venice several so called `cafés’ were opened half a century ago, which are institutionalized places for the use of coffee cups. There crowds of people use coffee cups in every hour.

And I feel obliged to consider in what fashion people apply the cups. It is generally accepted that they are to be used in a due manner. It has a complete set of rules concerning its proper usage, undermining and beginning to destroy our precious national traditions, due to the fact that many coffee drinkers consider this kind of behaviour the ideal above all other kinds of behaviour. All addicted drinkers of the poisonous liquid are bound to consider how to hold the cup either with, or without the saucer, where to put the spoon with which they promote the dissolution of the sugar in the coffee. For them it is of great importance to drink coffee in a highly elegant fashion, not to be exposed to ridiculing and humiliating insinuations from their fellow coffee addicts. And alas, this occupies their thoughts instead of minding the affairs of our country! England, England! Woe is me!

We have already considered what people use these utensils for: due to the assimilated custom people use them for nothing else but coffee drinking. Apart from this we can find other functions of a coffee cup also. It is sometimes used by artists, especially painters as an object of their artistic expression, eg. on still lifes. A very good example is provided by one of
our great painters ***. Others try to gain profit by utilizing the presence of coffee cups in the following disgracing way: they buy huge amounts of coffee cups at a cheap price and they trade with those cups in a rascally manner, viz. they sell them at much higher prices. This way they get hold of many coffee cups, sadly enough, which probably means a great temptation not only to use the cups even more frequently, but also to use more of them ****.

I cherish the hope that these clear and distinct ideas will help you, reader, comprehend the grave importance of this matter if you are still attached to using the cups. I trust you will not think your money ill-bestowed, having purchased this work, and I hope you do not reckon that for the same money you should have bought a coffee cup instead.