Letters to The Hobbledehoy
From a new subscriber, Bob Phillips:
“Such observations, however, as I have been enabled to make in this matter have led me to believe that the hobbledehoy is by no means the least valuable species of the human race. When I compare the hobbledehoy of one or two and twenty to some finished Apollo of the same age, I regard the former as unripe fruit, and the latter as fruit that is ripe. Then comes the question as to the two fruits.
Which is the better fruit, that which ripens early,–which is, perhaps, favoured with some little forcing apparatus, or which, at least, is backed by the warmth of a southern wall; or that fruit of slower growth, as to which nature works without assistance, on which the sun operates in its own time,–or perhaps never operates if some ungenial shade has been allowed to interpose itself?
The world, no doubt, is in favour of the forcing apparatus or of the southern wall. The fruit comes certainly, and at an assured period. It is spotless, speckless, and of a certain quality by no means despicable. The owner has it when he wants it, and it serves its turn.
But, nevertheless, according to my thinking, the fullest flavour of the sun is given to that other fruit,–is given in the sun’s own good time, if so be that no ungenial shade has interposed itself. I like the smack of the natural growth, and like it, perhaps, the better because that which has been obtained has been obtained without favour.”
- Anthony Trollope, THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON, CHAPTER IV, Mrs Roper’s Boarding-House