It may be true that such things will sometimes happen, even with the best of care;—but I believe that there is almost infinitely more poor bread than there is any good excuse for. The truth is, the quality of bread is a matter of too little consideration; and therefore too little care is given to the making of it. Moreover, the sense of taste is so easily vitiated, that we can very easily become reconciled to the most offensive gustatory qualities, and even learn to love them; and it is a very common thing to find families so accustomed to sour bread, that they have no perception of its acid quality. “It is very strange,” said a lady to me one day at her dinner table, “that some folks always have sour bread, and never know it.” She then went on to name a number of families in the circle of her acquaintance, who, she said, invariably had sour bread upon their tables when she visited them—“and they never,” continued she, “seem to have the least consciousness that their bread is not perfectly sweet and good.” Yet this very lady, at the very moment she was thus addressing me, had sour bread upon her own table; and although I had for many months been very frequently at her table, I had never found any but sour bread upon it. Still she was wholly unconscious of the fact. Difficult however as most women think it is, to have good bread always, yet there are some women who invariably have excellent bread. I have known such women. The wife of Thomans Van Winkle, Esq. of the beautiful valley of Booneton, New Jersey—peace to her ashes!—was deservedly celebrated throughout the whole circle of her acquaintance for her excellent bread. Few ever ate at her hospitable board once that did not desire to enjoy the privilege again. I know not how often it has been my good fortune to sit at her table; but the times have not been few; and though long past, and she who presided there has slept for years in her grave, yet the remembrance of those times and of those hospitalities, awakens in my bosom a deep and fervent sentiment of gratitude while I write. Never at the table of Mrs. Van Winkle did I eat poor bread;—and of my numerous acquaintances who had sat at her table, I never heard one say he had eaten poor bread there. Her bread was invariably good. Nay, it was of such a quality that it was impossible for any one to eat of it, and not be conscious that he was partaking of bread of extraordinary excellence. Mrs. Van Winkle, said I to her one day, while I was feasting on her delicious bread, tell me truly, is there either a miracle or mystery in this matter of bread-making, by which you are enabled to have such excellent bread upon your table at all times, while I rarely ever find bread equally good at any other table, and at ninety-nine tables in a hundred, I almost invariably find poor bread? Is it necessarily so? Is it not possible for people by any means to have good bread uniformly?