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]
[Footnote 17: Thus ended the first edition; but in the revision its
position has been changed.]