And who is the sufferer? Not I who am giving you this information,
most certainly.

Now, when children hesitate about eating plain food, and fly from beef
to rush at dessert, they act as a man would do who should begin to
build by giving his workmen reeds instead of beams, and squares of
gingerbread instead of bricks. A pretty house he would have of it;
--just think!

On the contrary, what your mother asks you to eat, my dear little
epicure, is sure to be something which contains the indispensable
supplies for which your blood is craving; for people knew all about
this by experience long before they could explain the why and the
wherefore. But now that you are so much better informed than even the
most learned men were a century ago, pouting and wry faces at table
are no longer excusable, and I should be sadly ashamed of you if I
should hear you continued to make them.

And this is what I was more particularly thinking of just now, when
I took up my pen again. No doubt it is very amusing to be able to look
clearly into one's frame, and see what goes on inside, but the amusement
anything affords is the least important part of it; you have begun to
find this out already, and you will find it out more and more every
day. What seems to me one of the great advantages of the study we have
begun together is, that at every step you take you will meet with the
most practical and useful instruction, as well as the most unanswerable
reasons for doing what your parents ask you to do every day.

To obey without knowing why is certainly possible, and may be done
happily enough. But we obey more readily and easily when we understand