OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 

 and, in all its own undisguised vigour, it will invest the 

 coarsest or most tasteless food with never-failing allure- 

 ment for robust appetites, whatever changes be rung upon 

 the raw or pickled, the white-boiled, the golden-fried, or the 

 brown-stewed. 



It must have been that russet background of onion which 

 justified my youthful preconceived notion of the priceless* 

 ness of " Red Pottage " as an article of food. It no doubt 

 fixed the taste for life. Of course, in all matters of 

 earthly enjoyment, the "psychological" moment <which, 

 by the way, is so often purely physio- 

 logical) plays an important part. Certain 

 tastes reveal themselves only as pleasur- 

 able in certain surroundings. A draught 

 of coarse, dark wine of la Mancha, sucked 

 out of the goat-skin sack, with its ob- 

 trusive, pitchy twang, will be a pure 

 delight on the side of some dusty, stony 

 Castillian road. And no one who has 

 not had, in some wild out-of-the-way 

 mountain village, to break his fast at 

 peep-o'-day upon a chunk of grey bread, 

 stone-ground and tasting of the wheat- 

 fields, a handful of salt and a couple of 

 Spanish onions, will ever know all the 

 excellences of that juicy bulb. 

 It is reported that, like his furiously 

 assertive relation, garlic, the onion has 

 very definite medical virtues. Some claim 

 for it a power to cure sleeplessness 

 dreaded distemper and also various anti- 

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