136 THE APPLE. 



and honest, so sturdy and appetizing. You are stocky 

 and homely like the northern races. Your quality is 

 Saxon. Surely the fiery and impetuous south is not 

 akin to thee. Not spices or olives or the sumptuous 

 liquid fruits, but the grass, the snow, the grains, the 

 coolness is akin to thee. I think if I could subsist on 

 you or the like of you, I should never have an intem- 

 perate or ignoble thought, never be feverish or de- 

 spondent. So far as I could absorb or transmute 

 your quality I should be cheerful, continent, equitable, 

 sweet-blooded, long-lived, and should shed warmth 

 and contentment around. 



Is there any other fruit that has so much facial ex- 

 pression as the apple ? What boy does not more than 

 half believe they can see with that single eye of theirs ? 

 Do they not look and nod to him from the bough ? 

 The swaar has one look, the rambo another, the spy 

 another. The youth recognizes the seek-no-further 

 buried beneath a dozen other varieties, the moment 

 he catches a glance of its eye, or the bonny-cheeked 

 Newtown pipin, or the gentle but sharp-nosed gilli- 

 flower. He goes to the great bin in the cellar and 

 sinks his shafts here and there in the garnered wealth 

 of the orchards, mining for his favorites, sometimes 

 'coming plump upon them, sometimes catching a 

 glimpse of them to the right or left, or uncovering 

 them as keystones in an arch made up of many varie- 

 ties. 



In the dark he can usually tell them by the sense 

 of touch. There is *iot only the size and shape, but 



