The Fruit-Shop. 



approach "Come and eat." The things that are less 

 good for us, though still salutary, have to make their 

 claims heard in some indirect and merely suggestive 

 way. Fruit speaks a language that needs no teaching, 

 and no effort to learn and understand. The eye and the 

 heart interpret simultaneously, and every portion of our 

 fabric reaps the benefit. 



"What beauty," says Leigh Hunt, "as well as other 

 agreeablenesses, in a well-disposed fruiterer's window ! 

 Here are the round, piled-up oranges, deepening almost 

 into red, and heavy with juice ; the apple, with its brown 

 red cheek, as if it had slept in the sun ; the pear, swelling 

 downwards, and provocative of a huge bite in the side ; 

 thronging grapes, like so many tight little bags of wine ; 

 the peach, whose handsome leathern coat strips off so 

 finely ; the pearly or ruby-like currants, heaped in light, 

 long baskets; the red little mouthfuls of strawberries, 

 ditto ; the larger purple ones of plums ; cherries, whose 

 old comparison with lips is better than anything new; 

 mulberries, dark and rich with juice, fit to grow over 

 what Homer calls the deep black-watered fountains ; the 

 swelling pomp of melons ; the rough, inexorable-looking 

 coco-nut, milky at heart; the elaborate elegance of 

 walnuts ; the quaint cashew-nut ; almonds, figs, raisins 

 in short, 



' Whatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields, 

 Rough, or smooth rind, or bearded husk, or shell. ' " 



How much more refined a service, he might have con- 

 tinued, the waiting upon a lady in a fruit-shop than in a 



