The History of a Mouthful of Bread | Page 8

if you were suddenly left all alone in a wood, like those pretty squirrels who nibble hazel-nuts so daintily, you would soon discover, from being thus thrown upon your own resources, that the mouth is not the only thing required for eating, and that whether it be a paw or a hand, there must always be a servant to go to market for Mr. Mouth, and to provide him with food.
Happily, we are not driven to this extremity. We take hold of our coffee-biscuit between the thumb and forefinger, and behold it is on its road--Open the mouth, and it is soon done!
But before we begin to chew, let us stop to consider a little.
The mouth is the door at which everything enters. Now, to every well-kept door there is a doorkeeper, or porter. And what is the office of a well-instructed porter? Well, he asks the people that present themselves, who they are, and what they have come for; and if he does not like their appearance, he refuses them admittance. We too, then, to be complete, need a porter of this sort in our mouths, and I am happy to say we have one accordingly. I wonder whether you know him? You look at me quite aghast! Oh, ungrateful child, not to know your dearest friend! As a punishment, I shall not tell you who he is to-day. I will give you till to-morrow to think about it.
Meanwhile, as I have a little time left, I will say one word more about what we are going to look at together. It would hardly be worth while to tell you this pretty story which we have begun, if from time to time we were not to extract a moral from it. And what is the moral of our history to-day?
It has more than one.
In the first place it teaches you, if you never knew it before, that you are under great obligations to other people, indeed to almost everybody, and most of all perhaps to people whom you may be tempted to look down upon. This laborer, with his coarse smock-frock and heavy shoes, whom you are so ready to ridicule, is the very person who, with his rough hand, has been the means of procuring for you half the good things you eat. That workman, with turned-up sleeves, whose dirty black fingers you are afraid of touching, has very likely blackened and dirtied them in your service. You owe great respect to all these people, I assure you, for they all work for you. Do not, then, go and fancy yourself of great consequence among them--you who are of no use in any way at present, who want everybody's help yourself, but as yet can help nobody.
Not that I mean to reproach you by saying this. Your turn has not come yet, and everybody began like you originally. But I do wish to impress upon you that you must prepare yourself to become some day useful to others, so that you may pay back the debts which you are now contracting.
Every time you look at your little hand, remember that you have its education to accomplish, its debts of honor to repay, and that you must make haste and teach it to be very clever, so that it may no longer be said of you, that you are of no use to anybody.
And then, my dear child, remember that a day will come, when the revered hands that now take care of your childhood--those hands which to-day are yours, as it were--will become weak and incapacitated by age. You will be strong, then, probably, and the assistance which you receive now, you must then render to her, render it to her as you have received it--that is to say, with your hands. It is the mother's hand which comes and goes without ceasing about her little girl now. It is the daughter's hand which should come and go around the old mother hereafter--her hand and not another's.
Here again, my child, the mouth is nothing without the hand. The mouth says, "I love," the hand proves it.

LETTER III.
THE TONGUE.
Now, about this doorkeeper, or porter, as we will call him, of the mouth. I do not suppose you have guessed who he is; so I am going to tell you.
The porter who keeps the door of the mouth is the sense of taste.
It is he who does the honors of the house so agreeably to proper visitors, and gives such an unscrupulous dismissal to unpleasant intruders. In other words, it is by his directions that we welcome so affectionately with tongue and lips whatever is good to eat, and spit out unhesitatingly whatever is unpleasant.
I could speak very ill of this porter if I chose; which would not be very