e
more preposterous? Who ever heard a panegyric in praise of onions? At
what concert was the song of the onion sung? Roses and violets,
daisies and daffodils, are the theme of every warbler; but when does
the onion come in for adulation? Run through your great poets and show
me the epic, or even the sonnet, addressed to the onion! Are we,
therefore, to assume that onions have no value in a world like this?
What a wealth of appetizing piquancy would vanish from our tables if
the onion were to come no more! As a relish, as a food, and as a
medicine, the onion is simply invaluable; yet no orator ever loses
himself in rhetorical transports in honour of onions! It is clearly
not safe to assume that because we are not much praised, we are
therefore of not much profit. And so I repeat my suggestion that if
any man is known to be depressed over his apparent uselessness, it
would be a service to humanity in general, and to that member of the
race in particular, to post him an onion.

'I always bless God for making anything so strong as an onion!'
exclaimed William Morris, in a fine and characteristic burst of
fervour. That is the point: an onion is so strong. The very strength
of a thing often militates against applause. If a strong man lifted a
bag of potatoes we should think no more about it; but if a schoolboy
picked it up and ran off with it we should be speechless with
amazement. We take the strength of the strong for granted; it is the
strength of the weak that we applaud. If a man is known to be good or
useful or great, we treat his goodness or usefulness or greatness as
one of the given factors of life's intricate problem, and straightway
dismiss it from our minds. It is when goodness or usefulness or
greatness breaks out in unexpected places or in unexpected people that
we vociferously shout our praise. We applaud the singers at a concert
because it appeals to us as such an amazing and delightful incongruity
that so practical and prosaic a creature as Man should suddenly burst
into melody; but when the angels sang at Bethlehem the shepherds never
thought of clapping. The onion is therefore in company with the
angels. I am not surprised that the Egyptians accorded the onion
divine honours and carved its image on their monuments. I am prepared
to admit that onions do not move in the atmosphere of sentiment and of
poetry. Tears have been shed over onions, as every housewife knows.
Shakespeare speaks of