The History of a Mouthful of Bread | Page 3

although I am aware you may be tempted to exclaim, that if I am going to talk only about that, I may save myself the trouble. You know all about it, you say, as well as I do, and need not surely be told how to chew a bit of bread-and-butter! Well, but you must let me begin at the very beginning with you, and you have no notion what an incredible number of facts will be found to be connected with this chewing of a piece of bread. A big book might be written about them, were all the details to be entered into.
First and foremost--Have you ever asked yourself why people eat?
You laugh at such a ridiculous question.
"Why do people eat? Why, because there are bonbons, and cakes, and gingerbread, and sweetmeats, and fruit, and all manner of things good to eat." Very well, that is a very good reason, no doubt, and you may think that no other is wanted. If there were nothing but soup in the world, indeed, the case would be different. There might be some excuse then for making the inquiry.
Now, then, let us suppose for once that there is nothing in the world to eat but soup; and it is true that there are plenty of poor little children for whom there is nothing else, but who go on eating nevertheless, and with a very good appetite, too, I assure you, as their parents know but too well very often. Why do people eat, then, even when they have nothing to eat but soup? This is what I am going to tell you, if you do not already know.
The other day, when your mamma said that your frock "had grown" too short, and that you could not go out visiting till we had given you another with longer sleeves and waist, what was the real cause of this necessity?
What a droll question, you say, and you answer--"Because I had grown, of course."
To which I say "of course," too; for undoubtedly it was you who had outgrown your frock. But then I must push the question further, and ask--How had you grown?
Now you are puzzled. Nobody had been to your bed and pulled out your arms or your legs as you lay asleep. Nobody had pieced a bit on at the elbow or the knee, as people slip in a new leaf to a table when there is going to be a larger party than usual at dinner. How was it, then, that the sleeves no longer came down to your wrists, or that the body only reached your knees? Nothing grows larger without being added to, any more than anything gets smaller without having lost something; you may lay that down as a rule, once for all. If, therefore, nothing was added to you from without, something must have been added to you from within. Some sly goblin, as it were, must have been cramming into your frame whatever increase it has made in arms, legs, or anything else. And who, do you think, this sly goblin is?
Why, my dear, it is _yourself!_
Ay! Bethink you, now, of all the bread-and-butter, and bonbons, and gingerbread, and cakes, and sweetmeats, and even soup and plain food (the soup and plain food being the most useful of all) which you have been sending, day by day, for some time past, down what we used to call "the red lane," into the little gulf below. What do you think became of them when they got there? Well, they set to work at once, without asking your leave, to transform themselves into something else; and gliding cunningly into all the holes and corners of your body, became there, each as best he might, bones, flesh, blood, etc., etc. Touch yourself where you will, it is upon these things you lay your hand, though, of course, without recognizing them, for the transformation is perfect and complete. And it is the same with everybody.
Look at your little pink nails, which push out further and further every morning; examine the tips of your beautiful fair hair, which gets longer and longer by degrees; coming out from your head as grass springs up from the earth; feel the firm corners of your second teeth, which are gradually succeeding those which came to you in infancy; you have eaten all these things, and that no long time ago.
Nor are you children the only creatures who are busy in this way. There is your kitten, for instance, who a few months ago was only a tiny bit of fur, but is now turning gradually into a grown-up cat. It is her daily food which is daily becoming a cat inside her--her saucers of milk now, and very soon her mice, all serve to