Of the fruits of the year I give my vote to the orange. In the
first place it is a perennial--if not in actual fact, at least in
the greengrocer's shop. On the days when dessert is a name given
to a handful of chocolates and a little preserved ginger, when
macêdoine de fruits is the title bestowed on two prunes and a
piece of rhubarb, then the orange, however sour, comes nobly to
the rescue; and on those other days of plenty when cherries and
strawberries and raspberries and gooseberries riot together upon
the table, the orange, sweeter than ever, is still there to hold
its own. Bread and butter, beef and mutton, eggs and bacon, are
not more necessary to an ordered existence than the orange.
It is well that the commonest fruit should be also the best. Of
the virtues of the orange I have not room fully to speak. It has
properties of health-giving, as that it cures influenza and
establishes the complexion. It is clean, for whoever handles it
on its way to your table but handles its outer covering, its top
coat, which is left in the hall. It is round, and forms an
excellent substitute with the young for a cricket ball. The pips
can be flicked at your enemies, and quite a small piece of peel
makes a slide for an old gentleman.
But all this would count nothing had not the orange such
delightful qualities of taste. I dare not let myself go upon this
subject. I am a slave to its sweetness. I grudge every marriage
in that it means a fresh supply of orange blossom, the promise of
so much golden fruit cut short. However, the world must go on.
Next to the orange I place the cherry. The cherry is a
companionable fruit. You can eat it while you are reading or
talking, and you can go on and on, absent-mindedly as it were,
though you must mind not to swallow the stone. The trouble of
disengaging this from the fruit is just sufficient to make the
fruit taste sweeter for the labour. The stalk keeps you from
soiling your fingers; it enables you also to play bob cherry.
Lastly, it is by means of cherries that one penetrates the great
mysteries of life--when and whom you will marry, and whether she
really loves you or is taking you for your worldly prospects. (I
may add here that I know a girl who can tie a knot in the stalk
of a cherry with her tongue. It is a tricky business, and I am
doubtful whether to add it to the virtues of the cherry or not.)
There are only two ways of eating strawberries. One is neat in
the strawberry bed, and the other is mashed on the plate. The
first method generally requires us to take up a bent position
under a net--in a hot sun very uncomfortable, and at any time
fatal to the hair. The second method takes us into the privacy of
the home, for it demands a dressing-gown and no spectators. For
these reasons I think the strawberry an overrated fruit. Yet I
must say that I like to see one floating in cider cup. It gives a
note of richness to the affair, and excuses any shortcomings in
the lunch itself.
Raspberries are a good fruit gone wrong. A raspberry by itself
might indeed be the best fruit of all; but it is almost
impossible to find it alone. I do not refer to its attachment to
the red currant; rather to the attachment to it of so many of our
dumb little friends. The instinct of the lower creatures for the
best is well shown in the case of the raspberry. If it is to be
eaten it must be picked by the hand, well shaken, and then taken.
When you engage a gardener the first thing to do is to come to a
clear understanding with him about the peaches. The best way of
settling the matter is to give him the carrots and the black
currants and the rhubarb for himself, to allow him a free hand
with the groundsel and the walnut trees, and to insist in return
for this that you should pick the peaches when and how you like.
If he is a gentleman he will consent. Supposing that some
satisfactory arrangement were come to, and supposing also that
you had a silver-bladed pocket-knife with which you could peel
them in the open air, then peaches would come very high in the
list of fruits. But the conditions are difficult.
Gooseberries burst at the wrong end and smother you; melons--as
the nigger boy discovered--make your ears sticky; currants, when
you have removed the skin and extracted the seeds, are
unsatisfying; blackberries have the faults of raspberries without
their virtues; plums are never ripe. Yet all these fruits are
excellent in their season. Their faults are faults which we can
forgive during a slight acquaintance, which indeed seem but
pleasant little idiosyncrasies in the stranger. But we could not
live with them.
Yet with the orange we do live year in and year out. That speaks
well for the orange. The fact is that there is an honesty about
the orange which appeals to all of us. If it is going to be bad--
for even the best of us are bad sometimes --it begins to be bad
from the outside, not from the inside. How many a pear which
presents a blooming face to the world is rotten at the core. How
many an innocent-looking apple is harbouring a worm in the bud.
But the orange has no secret faults. Its outside is a mirror of
its inside, and if you are quick you can tell the shopman so
before he slips it into the bag.