Check Mate.

Lord Byron, 1812. Byron himself was notoriously light eater and his anorexic obsessions were chronicled by the Countess of Blessington in her journals.

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Though this is a direct quote, there is more depth to it. It was not uncommon for Byron to express himself in this manner when he felt a terror, or a deep anxiety if you will, over certain matters. In this case, seeing a woman, well, eat. For reasons that I do not entirely comprehend, he seemed to feel ill at ease when made to sit at a dinner table and see others dine. Although in his diary he records many an evening spent with guests, quite a number of biographers have pointed out that he seldom seemed to eat or drink. This includes Thomas Moore, a friend of his at the time, and one of the men who burned Byron’s own account of his life, so it is safe to say that he knew a thing or two about him. It is also well documented that when he did eat he would ask for a light meal, a favorite of his being mashed potatoes with vinegar, which he mashed even further with his fork. Then he would go to an inn to have a more substantial meal, steak and things of the sort.

His anorexic obsessions stemmed from a fear of gaining weight, then loosing it, then gaining it back again. In his diary he talks much about the importance of exercise, and how swimming and engaging in other activities kept him fit. He went as far as to talk about his dental health, at a time when many a man or woman had, well, bad teeth to say the least. When he stopped and threw himself once more into numerous vices, he would certainly gain a considerable amount of weight, like he did in Venice, a place in which he was entirely dissolute. But he would quickly try to slim down again, and he was as much worried about his physical condition in general as he was about his clubbed foot, which he detested.

The quote, sadly, makes him sound like a pompous imbecile, so I thought it be best to show that he was not merely saying this because he actually desired for women to only nourish themselves with lobster salad and champagne. He said many outrageous things, but aristocratic poets of the 19th century tended to say such things when pressed by guests to be witty. A man as solicited as he was had to find a way to shock his audience when dinner would last a lifetime and could become quite a dreadful event. He’s a fool for suggesting that those two are the only truly feminine and becoming viands, but — at least he could prove he was not an absolute fool when it came to write a poem.