120 THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 



Here we have a first disciplining of the mind for 

 the still greater exactness which is needful in the 

 sphere of vital phenomena. 



For Chemistry is the preparatory school to Biology, 

 and we must never forget these lessons in exactness, 

 which even dead matter teaches. We have seen how 

 tolerant the human body seems to be. How glibly we 

 may talk of amounts " too small to be injurious." But 

 has any one ever shown that Nature accepts the 

 maxim, that small quantities, just because they are small, 

 can be safely neglected ? " Too large to be injurious" 

 would be, at least, a safer, if not a truer, maxim. 



Alma has few restrictions, and none in the way of 

 either the cultured palate or the natural taste, to place 

 upon her guests. She is a liberal provider. Her 

 " touch nots," " taste nots," are few, but they are 

 extremely imperative and exact. When she says 

 taste not, she means it, not a drop, not a grain, not a 

 soupqon. 



For certain acquired tastes, in every sense ex- 

 pensive, she has only scant tolerance. The " fragrant 

 weed," as the writer can testify, loses its attractiveness 

 under her regime. She plants a dislike for smoking, 

 not in the stomach, but in the general fastidiousness of 

 the smoker. He is insensibly weaned by finding that 

 he cannot get tobacco or cigar good enough, at any 

 price. Even a cigarette taken " in memoriam" of 

 past pleasure, is somehow not finished. He drops it. 

 It is not the same to him. He knows not why. 



The smallest pinch of mineral salt in soup or 

 vegetable, becomes suggestive of a handful thrown 

 in by a jealous kitchen-maid to spite the cook. 

 " Tantaene animis" &c. ? As for soda, and all its 



