The axiom in the title says that cattle will produce better and more ribbons, more and better meat, more and richer milk, with good breeding, than provided by the nature of the pasture. George Eliot steals this saying from the farm friends in her novel Silas Marner. The axiom, inferred as an allegory by one of her characters, who therefore of course speaks for Eliot, tells that human selection is stronger than money and may be a reflection, more of the thought of the 1800's than now, but I am not so sure. She turns definition of both "breeding" and money upside down at an appropriate time when the received wisdom at that time needed to be revisited. It is a morality story of the highest order and her novels as well as her life speak to a more contemporaneous thought and attitude. Her character for which the novel is named, a simple linen weaver and a miser, would learn that axiom portrayed a lesson dredged up from hardship as it usually is. That kind of breeding is not inherited but acquired. What a lesson in love, strength and weakness to tell of the struggle for, and failure to, seek morality. What a lesson to look at those that choose the pasture alone and that drop by the wayside without knowing they are there!
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