The History of a Mouthful of Bread | Page 6

of bread
without troubling yourself as to what became of them, and yet have not
been stopped growing by your ignorance, any more than the little cat,
who knows no more how it happens than you do.
True, my dear; but the cat is only a little cat, and you are a little girl. Up
to the present moment you and she have known, one as much as the
other on this subject, and on that point you have therefore had no
superiority over her. But she will never trouble herself about it, and will
always remain a little cat. You, on the contrary, are intended by God to
become something more in intelligence than you are now, and it is by
learning more than the cat that you will rise above her in this respect.

To learn, is the duty of all men, not only for the pleasure of curiosity
and the vanity of being called learned, but because in proportion to
what we learn we approach nearer to the destiny which God has
appointed to man, and when we walk obediently in the path which God
himself has marked out for us, we necessarily become better.
It is sometimes said to grown-up people, that it is never too late to learn.
To children one may say that it is never too early to learn. And among
the things which they may learn, those which I want now to teach you
have the double merit of being, in the first place amusing, and
afterwards, and above all, calculated to accustom you to think of God,
by causing you to observe the wonders which He has done. Sure am I
that when you know them you will not fail to admire them; moreover I
promise your mother that you will be all the better, as well as wiser, for
the study.

FIRST PART.--MAN.
LETTER II.
THE HAND.
At the foot of the mountains, from whence I write to you, my dear child,
when we want to show the country to a stranger, we commence by
making him climb one of the heights, whence he may take in at a
glance the whole landscape below, all the woods and villages scattered
over the plain, even up to the blue line of the Rhine, which stretches out
to the distant horizon. After this he will easily find his way about.
It is to the top of a mountain equally useful that I have just led you. It
has cost you some trouble to climb with me. You have had to keep your
eyes very wide open that you might see to the end of the road we had to
go together. Now then, let us come down and view the country in detail.
Then we shall go as if we were on wheels.
And now let us begin at the beginning:
Well, doubtless, as the subject is eating, you will expect me to begin
with the mouth.
Wait a moment; there is something else first. But you are so
accustomed to make use of it, that you have never given it a thought, I
dare say.
It is not enough merely that one should have a mouth; we must be able
to put what we want within it. What would you do at dinner, for

instance, if you had no hands?
The hand is then the first thing to be considered.
I shall not give you a description of it; you know what it is like. But
what, perhaps, you do not know, because you have never thought about
it, is, the reason why your hand is a more convenient, and consequently
more perfect, instrument than a cat's paw, for instance, which yet
answers a similar purpose, for it helps the cat to catch mice.
Among your five fingers there is one which is called the thumb, which
stands out on one side quite apart from the others. Look at it with
respect; it is to these two little bones, covered over with a little flesh,
that man owes part of his physical superiority to other animals. It is one
of his best servants, one of the noblest of God's gifts to him. Without
the thumb three-fourths (at least) of human arts would yet have to be
invented; and to begin with, the art not only of carrying the contents of
one's plate to one's mouth, but of filling the plate (a very important
question in another way) would, but for the thumb, have had
difficulties to surmount of which you can form no idea.
Have you noticed that when you want to take hold of anything (a piece
of bread, we will say, as we are on the subject of eating), have you
noticed that it is always the thumb who puts