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 macédoine de fruits is the title bestowed on some raisins and two prunes, then the orange, however sour, comes nobly to the rescue; and on those other days of plenty when cherries and strawberries and kiwi-fruits riot together upon the table, the orange, sweeter than ever, is still there to hold its own. Bread and rice, beef and mutton, eggs and milk, 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 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 tiny football. 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.
Yet with the orange we go 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 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 harboring 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
