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.

Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair,--apples not of Discord, but
Concord! Yet not so rare but that the homeliest may have a share.