The History of a Mouthful of Bread | Page 5

to use a better expression, they have
not all had the same advantages bestowed on them. The dog, for

instance, that loving and intelligent companion, who almost reads your
thoughts in your eyes, and is as affectionate and obedient to his master
as it were to be wished all children were to their parents--this dog is, as
you must own, very superior, in all ways, to the frog, with its large
goggle eyes and clammy body, hiding itself in the water as soon as you
come near it. But again, the frog, which can come and go as it likes, is
decidedly superior to the oyster, which has neither head nor limbs, and
lives all alone, glued into a shell, in a sort of perpetual imprisonment.
Now the machine I have been telling you about is found in the oyster
and in the frog as well as in the dog, only it is less complicated, and
therefore less perfect in the oyster than in the frog; and less perfect
again in the frog than in the dog; for as we descend in the scale of
animals we find it becoming less and less elaborate--losing here one of
its parts, there another, but nevertheless remaining still the same
machine to all intents and purposes; though by the time it has reached
its lowest condition of structure we should hardly be able to recognize
it again, if we had not watched it through all its gradations of form, and
escorted it, as it were, from stage to stage.
Let me make this clear to you by a comparison.
You know the lamp which is lit every evening on the drawing-room
table, and around which you all assemble to work or read. Take off first
the shade, which throws the light on your book--then the glass which
prevents it smoking--then the little chimney which holds the wick and
drives the air into the flame to make it burn brightly. Then take away
the screw, which sends the wick up and down; undo the pieces one by
one, until none remain but those absolutely necessary to having a light
at all--namely, the receptacle for the oil and the floating wick which
consumes it.
Now if any one should come in and hear you say, "Look at my lamp,"
what would he reply? He would most likely ask at once, "What
lamp?"--for there would be very little resemblance to a lamp in that
mere ghost of one before him.
But to you, who have seen the different parts removed one after another,
that wick soaked in oil (let your friend shake his head about it as he
pleases) will still be the lamp to you, however divested of much that
made it once so perfect, and however dimly it may shine in
consequence.

And this is exactly what happens when the machine we are discussing
is examined in the different grades of animals. The ignoramus who has
not followed it through its changes and reductions cannot recognize it
when it is presented to him in its lowest condition; but any one who has
carefully observed it throughout, knows that it is, in point of fact, the
same machine still.
This, then, is what we are now going to look at together, my dear little
girl. We will study first, piece by piece, the exquisite machine within
ourselves, which is of such unceasing use to us as long as we do not
give it more than a proper share of work to perform. Do you understand?
We will see what becomes of the mouthful of bread which you place so
coolly between your teeth, as if when that was done nothing further
remained to be thought about. We will trace it in its passage through
every part of the machine, from beginning to end. It will therefore be
simply only the History of a Mouthful of Bread I am telling you, even
while I seem to be talking of other matters; for to make that
comprehensible I shall have to enter into a good many explanations.
And when you have thoroughly got to understand the history of what
you eat yourself, we will look a little into the history of what other
animals eat, beginning by those most like ourselves, and going on to
the rest in regular succession downwards. And while we are on the
subject, I will say a word or two on the way in which vegetables eat, for,
as you remember, I have stated that they do eat also.
Do you think this is likely to interest you, and be worth the trouble of
some thought and attention?
Perhaps you may tell me it sounds very tedious, and like making a great
fuss about a trifle; that you have all your life eaten mouthfuls