PRE BVCE. 
—$o+——— 
THERE is an old anecdote told of a clergyman who 
used, after writing his Sunday sermon, to read it through 
to his cook, feeling sure that if she could understand it 
his congregation would. 
Having considerable doubts as to whether the parts of 
this book which refer to the amounts of Carbon, Hydrogen 
and Nitrogen in foods would be understood, I have read 
them to many whom I have taken to be fair types of the 
intelligence of the kind of readers I have had mostly, 
though not solely in view—the well-informed artizans 
who use public libraries, and their wives to whom they 
retail what they have read. The result of these various 
interviews has been that I have received many sugges- 
tions to put in fuller explanations in one place, to leave 
them out in another, because “everybody knows it,” to 
mention where Carbon and Hydrogen and Nitrogen can 
be seen as it is, “no use talking to people about things 
they cannot see,” or not to trouble about chemistry at 
all, but to tell people how to get cheap fish and explain 
how to get over little domestic difficulties about fire- 
places and hobs and frying-pans I had never dreamt of. 
I have realized the beauty of the old Greek fable of 
the man and his sons and his donkey, far more vividly 
than I ever did as a schoolboy. Though I find there 
are still parts which to some are not clear, I fear I must 
let the book go as it is. 
