Orange

Golden Fruit- A.A. Milne (from Not That It Matters Essays)

"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.

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."