Breadth

“ THE RICE
It is our very teeth that we sink in the earth, in this plow that we plant there; and even now our bread eats there as we shall eat. At home, in the cold north, it is the sun who kneads our bread; he ripens the field as the open fire cooks our pancakes and roasts our meat. ”

“ Wheat, or bread, is, in the outer world of nature, what good is in the inner world of spirit. And as well in the winter night of trial and adversity is bread grown, as in the winter of external nature. The bright wine of truth we crush from purple clusters in genial autumn; but bread grows even while the vine slumbers. ”

“ I have made daily bread for myself and my daughter with pick, shovel, and barrow, in a dark coal-mine, in the same county where I was once the head of the ancient gentry, and where I saw the noblest in the land proud to break my bread and drink my wine. ”

“ When you see this head of wheat, say to yourself 'One grain going into the ground shall in fifteen summers ripen into bread enough to feed sixteen hundred millions of the family of men.' When you look at this pressed poppy, say, 'His blood like red rain went to the root to make the flowers crimson and beautiful for all the world; soon the fields of France shall wave like a Garden of God, and peace and plenty shall dwell forever there. ”

“ For if the flour be fresh and sound, And if the bread be light and sweet, Who careth in what mill 't was ground, Or of what oven felt the heat, Unless, as old Cervantes said, You are looking after better bread Than any that is made of wheat? You know that people nowadays To what is old give little praise ”

“ You've heard people compare old age to a harvest field, and talk about the autumn of life with its ripened corn waiting for the reaper Death, and all that, and speak about the 'harvest home,' as if it were the glorious end of everything. But it never did strike me that way, boys. The best comes after the harvesting, when the wheat is turned into flour and the flour into bread, and the full, wholesome loaves go to make up blood and muscle and brain. ”

“ Remember the counsel that is given, "STORE UP ALL YOUR GRAIN," and take care of it! Prize it above gold and silver, above rich clothing and fine apparel, and above everything else except the bread of life! And I tell you it is almost as necessary to have bread to sustain the body as it is to have food for the spirit; for the one is as necessary as the other to enable us to carry on the work of God upon the earth. ”

“ We bless thee for the harvests of bread which are growing out of the ground under the incessant heat of summer, and we thank thee for the exceeding beauty wherewith thou givest thy benediction on the daily bread not less of cattle than of men. We thank thee for the transient flowers which line the way-side, and clothe the hedges and adorn the fields with heavenly magnificence, and we thank thee for all that perennial beauty which thou enthronest in the stars on high. ”

“ Whimpering because a girl had snatched his crust of bread:
Then he dropped; when some one raised him, it turned out he was dead."
"After us the deluge," was retorted with a laugh:
"If bread's the staff of life they must walk without a staff." ”

“ But has it ever struck you that, after all, the amount of material bread—even if we extend the word to everything which is consumed for bodily necessity and comfort—which any individual can consume is really very small; and that the bad distribution, the shocking waste of this material bread arises from being, so to speak, used symbolically, used as spiritual bread, as representing those ideas for which men hunger: superiority over other folk, power of having dependants, social position, ownership, and privilege of all kinds? ”

“ The heavens overhead are one arch of clouds, Snowing in multitudinous flakes; There is super-added the drizzling rain. When (the land) has received the moistening, Soaking influence abundantly, It produces all our kinds of grain.
The boundaries and smaller divisions are nicely adjusted, And the millets yield abundant crops, The harvest of the distant descendant. We proceed to make therewith spirits and food, To supply our representatives of the departed, and our guests;--To obtain long life, extending over myriads of years. ”

“ Happening to have some wheat in my pocket, I pitched the grains up to the projecting ledge; they can take their breakfast in bed when they wake in the morning. Little philosophers of the frost, who even in their overcoats combine the dark side and the white side of life into a wise and weathering gray—the no less fit external for a man. ”

“ Consider this matter in the following similitude. A grain of wheat has the air and light of this world enclosed or incorporated in it. This is the mystery of its life, this is its power of growing, by this it has a strong continual tendency of uniting again with that ocean of light and air from whence it came forth. On the other hand that great ocean of light and air, having its own offspring hidden in the heart of the grain has a perpetual strong tendency to unite and communicate with it again. ”

“ Fields of yellow grain waved in the breeze; hop-vines grew from tree to tree; and many windmills whirled their white sails as they ground the different grains into fresh, sweet meal, for the loaves of bread that built the houses like bricks and paved the streets, or in many shapes formed the people, furniture, and animals. ”

“ Every great house is proportionably full of saucy menials.
See, too, with what grumbling another of these rascals hands you bread that can scarce be broken; the mouldy fragments of impenetrable crust, which would make your jaws ache, and give you no chance of a bite. But delicate bread, as white as snow, made of the finest flower, is reserved for the great man. ”

“ Of all the artificially prepared articles of food which come upon our table, therefore, bread should be that one which, as a general fact, is uniformly preferred by our children and our household,—that one, the absence of which they would notice soonest, and feel the most,—that one which—however they may enjoy for a time the little varieties set before them—they would be most unwilling to dispense with—and which, if they were driven to the necessity, they would prefer to any other dish, as a single article of subsistence. ”

“ This is the feeding-ground of thousands of waders of all sizes, plumage, and language, and they make a lively picture and noise when they gather at the great family board to eat their daily bread, so bountifully provided for them. ”

“ I shall never forget the fields of wheat so blasted by heat that they cannot be harvested. I Shall never forget field after field of corn stunted, earless and stripped of leaves, for what the sun left the grasshoppers took. ”

“ Here the grain is being brought and paid for; mills driven by horse and ass (or mule) power are busy; men are sieving out the bran from the flour by hand (bolters) ; bakers are moulding loaves on a board; an oven of domelike shape is being charged by means of a shovel (peel) ; and baskets of bread are being weighed on the one hand and carried off on men’s backs on the other. ”

“ We have the promise—our bread shall be given, and our water sure—not only the natural food that sustains outward life, but the true bread of heavenly affections, and the waters of pure truth, which nourish and sustain the spirit. ”

“ All things with which we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun,—it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields. ”

“ I have long been lame in my feet, and I have got just one grain, and am carrying it to my children. The King's sons are sitting in the cellar eating their food; you go and fetch a grain from there; why should you take mine from me? ”

“ Wives and children, who before in vain demanded a morsel of bread, now fat and frolicsome, gladly help their father to clear those fields, whence exuberant crops are to arise to feed them all; without any part being claimed either by a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord.... ”

“ Refresh the fields with fruitful showers, water their furrows, moisten the plowed ground, and do Thou prosper the grain to be sown therein, that the land may continue to yield forth its increase, the valleys be covered with corn, so that we may shout for joy and sing Thy praise forevermore. ”

“ But the original grain does not rise again; it rots like the dead man and is ended; so I die, and am ended; but my children grow up like the fruit of the grain. Some have no children; some grains perish ”

“ In quest of bread am I; as offering, water bring.
The hope of bread sets wide heaven’s portals at one swing.
’Twas bread that drove out Adam from his paradise;
’Tis bread will gain me entrance where my hopes take rise.
From bread, from water, both, as angels, far I stroll;
And, following the spheres, around this centre roll!
Without an object none will toil on earth, you see,
Save true and godly lovers. They’re from motives free!”560
Th’ Infinite’s lovers finite’s worshippers are not. ”

“ There are plenty in nature quite as great, and greater. What can be more different in look, for instance, than a green field of wheat and a basket of loaves at the baker’s? And yet there is, I trust, no doubt whatsoever that the bread has been once green wheat, and that the green wheat has been transformed into bread—making due allowance, of course, for the bone-dust, or gypsum, or alum with which the worthy baker may have found it profitable to adulterate his bread, in order to improve the digestion of Her Majesty’s subjects. ”

“ Or, if nothing better were to be had, I might supply my wants with mere bread, and I should find the protoplasm of the wheat-plant to be convertible into man, with no more trouble than that of the sheep, and with far less, I fancy, than that of the lobster. ”

“ Suppose it spreads from heart to heart, from neighborhood to neighborhood, from city to city, and from nation to nation, how long would it be before the earth would become revolutionized, and the wheat gathered from among the tares. The wheat and tares, however, must grow together until harvest. ”

“ OUR DAILY BREAD.
“GIVE us our daily bread,” we pray,
And know but half of what we say.
The bread on which our bodies feed
Is but the moiety of our need.
The soul, the heart, must nourished be,
And share the daily urgency.
And though it may be bitter bread
On which these nobler parts are fed,
No less we crave the daily dole,
O Lord, of body and of soul! ”

“ Let the earth mourn, because corn hath become miserable, and wine been dried up, oil diminished, and husbandmen withered away. Lament ye possessions, in regard of wheat and barley, because the vintage hath perished out of the field, the vine withered up, the figs diminished; the pomegranates, and palm, and apple, and all trees of the field are withered away, in respect that the children of men have confounded their joy. ”

“ All hail! fruitful earth, alone proper and only prepared to bring forth the bread corn by which we are all sustained and nourished; happy leaven, which hath given relish to Adam's whole race, and seasoned the paste whereof the true life-giving and soul-saving bread was composed ”

“ The idle land is calling to the idle man, and the world is calling for food; and yet these great tracts of wheat lands lie just outside our cities, untouched by plow or harrow, and hungry men walk our streets. ”

“ Add to this the want of bread, which is extreme. For several days past, a considerable proportion of the people have been without bread altogether; for though the new harvest is begun, there is neither water nor wind to grind the grain. ”

“ Well pleased the audience heard the tale.: The Theologian said: "Indeed,
To praise you there is little need;
One almost hears the farmers flail
Thresh out your wheat, nor does there fail
A certain freshness, as you said,
And sweetness as of home-made bread. ”

“ That river,—who shall say exactly whence it came, and whither it goes? Does aught that flows come from a higher source? Many things drift downward on its surface which would enrich a man. If you could only be on the alert all day, and every day! And the nights are as long as the days.
Do you not think you could contrive thus to get woody fibre enough to bake your wheaten bread with? 269 Would you not perchance have tasted the sweet crust of another kind of bread in the meanwhile, which ever hangs ready baked on the bread-fruit trees of the world? ”

“ The bread is all but uneatable. If you put it in water, straw and bits of hay float about. A man, who ought to know, solemnly assured me this morning that we had only food for six days; but then men who ought to know are precisely those who know nothing. ”

“ He is teaching us to lay up our breadstuffs. How many of our sisters are there here who have gone into the field and gleaned wheat, and after getting it cleaned, instead of laying it up, have taken it to the stores and sold it for a trifle to buy a tassel, artificial for their bonnets, a waist ribbon, or some frivolous thing that was of no earthly use to them? ”

“ As well might the cultivator of the soil allow his grain to remain in the fields, until hunger reminded him that bread was wanted on his board; as the woman who expects to fill a respectable station in life, go forth into society unprovided with that supply of knowledge and information which she will there find perpetually required. ”

“ Rendered timid by the repeated failure of crops, the poor people would set aside a part of their land to sow together oats, barley, and wheat, in the hope that whatever were the season something would come up which might serve for the rough black bread which was their main food. ”

“ The most alluring pictures I recall of farm life have been advertisements depicting vast fields of wheat through which the delighted husbandman drives a reaper with all the jauntiness of a king practising for a chariot-race. ”

“ A land of wheat, and barley, and vineyards, wherein fig trees and pomegranates, and oliveyards grow: a land of oil and honey.
8:9. Where without any want thou shalt eat thy bread, and enjoy abundance of all things: where the stones are iron, and out of its hills are dug mines of brass:
8:10. That when thou hast eaten, and art full, thou mayst bless the Lord thy God for the excellent land which he hath given thee. ”