Even bread and milk must be filled with berries or fruits.  Where can you find many adults who would relish a meal which should consist entirely of plain bread, without any addition; of plain potatoes, without anything on them except a little salt; of a plain rice pudding, and nothing with it; or of plain baked or boiled apples or pears?  And could such persons be found, how many of them would bring up their children to live on such plain dishes?

It need not be wondered at, that a palate which has been so long tickled by variety, and by so many stimulating mixtures of food, should come to regard cold water for drink as insipid; and should feel dissatisfied with it, and desirous of boiling some narcotic or poisonous herb in it, or brewing it with something which will impart to it more or less of alcohol.  The wonder is, not that some of our epicures become drunkards, but that all of them do not.

Dr. Cadogan alludes to a sad mistake everywhere made about light food; and condemns, very justly, hard-boiled custards, pastry, &c.  It is very strange that these substances—­for these are among the injurious articles which I call mixtures—­should ever have obtained currency in the world, to the exclusion of bread, which, as the same writer justly says, is among the lightest articles of food which are known.

It is strange, in particular, what views people have about bread.  Judging from what I see, I am compelled to believe that there are few who regard it in any other light than as a kind of necessary evil.  They appear to eat it, not because they are fond of it, by itself, but because they must eat it; or rather, because it is a fashionable article; and not to make believe they eat it, at the least, would be unfashionable.  They will get rid of it, however, when they can.  And when they must eat it, they soak it, or cover it with butter or milk, or something else which will render it tolerable—­or toast it.  And use it as they may, it must be hot from the oven.  After it is once cold, very few will eat it.  The idea, above all, of making a full meal of simple cold bread, twenty-four hours old, would be rejected by ninety-nine persons in a hundred; and by some with abhorrence.

People not only dislike bread, but regard it as unnutritious.  I have heard many a fond parent say to the child who ate no meat, and seemed to depend almost wholly on bread—­“Why, my dear child, you will starve if you eat no meat.  Do at least put some butter on your bread or your potatoes.”  A thousand times have I been admonished, when eating my vegetable dinner during the hot and fatiguing days of summer—­for I was bred to the farm, and ate little or no meat till I was fourteen years of age—­to eat more butter, or cheese, or something that would give me strength; for I could not work, they said, without something more nourishing than bread and the other vegetables.  And yet few if any boys of my age did more work, or performed it better, or with more ease, than myself.  And I early observed the same thing in other vegetable eaters.