"Nor is it every apple I desire,
Nor that which pleases every palate best;
'T is not the lasting Deuxan I require,
Nor yet the red-cheeked Greening I request,
Nor that which first beshrewed the name of
wife,
Nor that whose beauty caused the golden
strife:
No, no! bring me an apple from the tree of
life!"

So there is one thought for the field, another for the house. I would
have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not
warrant them to be palatable, if tasted in the house.


THEIR BEAUTY.


Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and
crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming
traits even to the eye. You will discover some evening redness dashed or
sprinkled on some protuberance or in some cavity. It is rare that the
summer lets an apple go without streaking or spotting it on some part of
its sphere. It will have some red stains, commemorating the mornings and
evenings it has witnessed; some dark and rusty blotches, in memory of
the clouds and foggy, mildewy days that have passed over it; and a
spacious field of green reflecting the general face of Nature,--green
even as the fields; or a yellow ground, which implies a milder
flavor,--yellow as the harvest, or russet as the hills.