human
Th' ould shepherd fetched me these swede greens; I axed un three days ago; I know'd we was going to have this yer mutton. You got to settle these yer things aforehand.
gpt
Axed,
human
Th' pigeons have been at um, they be 'mazing fond of um, so be the larks. These be the best as thur was. They be the best things in the world for the blood. Swede greens be the top of all physic. If you can get fresh swede tops you don't want a doctor within twenty miles. Their's nothing in all the chemists' shops in England equal to swede greens
gpt
What a lot of salt you _do_ eat!
human
Onely you must have the real swedes--not thuck stuff they sells in towns; greens they was once p'rhaps, but they be tough as leather, and haven't got a drop of sap in um. Swedes is onely to be got about March.
gpt
Pooh! you can get them at Christmas in London,
human
Aw, can 'ee? Call they swede tops? They bean't no good; you might as well eat dried leaves. I tell you these are the young fresh green shoots of spring --suddenly changing his pronunciation as he became interested in his subject and forgot the shafts of irritation shot at him by his wife.
gpt
They are full of sap--fresh sap--the juice which the plant extracts from the earth as the active power of the sun's rays increases. It is this sap which is so good for the blood. Without it the vegetable is no more than a woody fibre. Why the sap should be so powerful I cannot tell you; no one knows, any more than they know _how_ the plant prepares it. This is one of those things which defy analysis--the laboratory is at fault, and can do nothing with it. (
human
More salt! muttered Mrs. Iden.
gpt
How can you eat such a quantity of salt? )
human
There is something beyond what the laboratory can lay hands on; something that cannot be weighed, or seen, or estimated, neither by quantity, quality, or by any means. They analyse champagne, for instance; they find so many parts water, so much sugar, so much this, and so much that; but out of the hundred parts there remain ten--I think it is ten--at all events so many parts still to be accounted for. They escape, they are set down as volatile--the laboratory has not even a distinct name for this component; the laboratory knows nothing at all about it, cannot even name it. But this unknown constituent is the real champagne. So it is with the sap. In spring the sap possesses a certain virtue; at other times of the year the leaf is still green, but useless to us.
gpt
I shall have some vinegar,