Water has no taste, therefore, Taste does not call it to a halt, but says, "Go right on and do your work, there is nothing in you that I can improve; thank you for giving me a freshening up in passing. If people only knew what you and I know they would be wiser, wouldn't they? They would learn a thing or two about keeping their Mind-Power Plant in fine order and get rid of all their physical ailments, and be strong and happy, and live to be a hundred and fifty years of age with their faculties unimpaired. I say! you are on the outside and can give people a hint; why don't you tell them what I am here for! They set me down for a 'capper,' like one of those fellows that stand outside of cheap restaurants and invite passers to come in and eat. They don't know I am an expert in nutriment and can protect them from any harm in eating. I offer them also a first-class bonbon taste, at the finish of my work to induce them to stay by and help me to do proper work, but they are all in such a blamed hurry that they never wait for the bonbon, and the result is that loads of dirt and indigestible stuff get by me and make endless mischief in the machine. I hear about it often enough you may be sure. All the sewer gas the indigestion produces comes back this way, spoils my comfort, and dulls my strength. You see, you can have a chance, perhaps, to learn for yourself and tell the people what I can do for them. I'm lodged in here in the dark where they can't see me and I have no means of informing them.
"I wonder why it is that Mother Nature makes such a mystery of her blessings. She never advertises and never exhibits her best things plainly. All her precious metals are hidden away in narrow seams in the ground; her pearls are guarded by close-mouthed oysters at the bottom of the ocean; electricity is as slippery as an eel and absolutely invisible; in fact, Nature is the most retiring, in her habits, of all the expressions of Deity; and, consistent with herself, she has put me in here, in the dark and speechless, provided with powers of selection and discrimination, which, if understood and made thorough use of, will do for man all that he can desire.
"The funny part of it is that the animals, other than man, use me instinctively and live their appointed time; while man, in his usual big-headed way, centuries and centuries ago, gave me the lowest place among the Senses, classed my chief agent and assistant, Saliva, as merely a 'pusher' of food into the stomach, and ever since he has been in too much of a hurry to live quick to take the time to live long; and that's what's the matter with the world."[17]
[IMPORTANT CONFIRMATION]
COMMANDANTE CESARE AGNELLI
Commandante Cesare Agnelli, of His Italian Majesty's battleship, "Garibaldi," has been an earnest colleague of the authors in the Nutrition Study since the summer of 1900. Like the authors, he received in the course of experimentation such personal benefits that the continued observations have been a source of great pleasure ever since. I take from a letter, dated Taranto, Italy, some excerpts that are good evidence of the caprice of appetite under different climatic conditions together with some irrelevant matter, quoted for its good reading:—
"What a good, long, friendly letter! If it was your intention to spoil me, it certainly proved a success; and I feel so much obliged and thank you so much for the interesting description of all you saw and did during your absence from Venice this summer.