The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-18
DORIAN FRUIT.
The Eating of Which Now Absorbs the Time
of the King of Burmah.
London Telegraph,

of the King of Bmmah
London Telegraph,
just now no work at all is being transacted in
the capital of Burmah. Idleness is de rigeur;
for it happens that the dorian fruit is now in
season, and until that is over the King may not
be disturbed.
What kind of a fruit is it, this wondrous thing
that lays its relaxing fascination upon the whole
machinery of governments; that stops, by the
mere spell of its Righteousness, the routine Of an
administration? 1t is not easily described but
roughly speaking, the following recipe may be
ventured upon for initiating a dorian: Take
equal quantities, say a quart, of almond paste
and onion sauce, and mix them thoroughly with
a pound of cream cheese. Flavor it with as
many essences as can be procured, and serve up
in a dish with an outrageously-dead cat. The
cat, of course, is not intended to be eaten. Its
merely used as a garnish to impart the necessary
perfume to the fruit. We do not think we do
the dorian any injustice in this description, and,
lest it may seem We do, we would hasten to add
that, in spite of all drawbacks, it is emphatic
ally delicious.
That any should have ventured to eat the
evil-smelling thing is strange enough. Still
more astonishing, however, is the fact that,
when once eaten. the taste for 1t becomes with
many persons absolute passion. 1t seems to
possess something of the fascination of opium.
Once the liking for it is acquired, the craving
for it grows irresistible. The man who to-day
would turn and run for his life if dorians were
brought near him, will by and by be looking for
ward impatiently to the time when they shall be
again in season. Nor, when they are once in
the market, does the dorian-eater even seem to
know when he has had enough. Still less will
he acknowledge that he has had a feast. On the
contrary, having swallowed quarts OF the mixture
which the large fruit contains, he still longs for
more. Perpetually devouring, he will never con
fess to a surfeit. He becomes voracious as "a
whirlpool, bottomless as the pit. His appetite is
u~nfathomable and Gargantuan. He will eat
more, at one sitting, than the human form could
no fhnrOh aanah1a Of containing and aVp1 fhnD
will look hungrily at the spoon and plate as if
he would like to lick them as clean as SQueerss
pupils used to do. Though he ought to feel
gorged to repletion, he leaves the table as if IN
satisfied, and the smallest provocation in the
way of suggesting another dorian will bring
him to his seat"
Yet the amazing passion for the fruit has
never found any adequate explanation. That is
to say, no one, when challenged to show cause
for his furious enthusiasm about it, can do so
intelligibly. Each one VOWS that the thing de-
lights him for some different reason. Is it acidl
Yes. And very sweet! Yes, too. 1t has no
juice, and yet it has no solid part, and is there
fore all juice. 1t has so many 1avors that 1t has
none at all, and yet every one is simultaneously
recognizable. Half the time the gourmand eats
it he is absorbed in doubt as to what he is eat
ing. The tastes fit over his bewildered palate
in such swift succession that he can
no more identify them than a pas
senger in an express train can iden-
tify faces on the platform he dashes past.
1t is a procession of the ghosts of favors, of the
phantoms of perfumes, and they crowd along on
each others heels so fast that the eater can
never stop precisely at any one of them and ex-
claim: There, now, this is so and So" 1t is
already gone past, and the next one is passing.
1t was almonds when the eater opened his
mouth, but before he had time to say so it was
onion-sauce, which turns into vanilla-cream
and then to cream-cheese, with a dash oflemon and
so to a meringue, sherry, Swiss milk, raspberry
anything. The ultimate result, however, the out
come of the conflict, is confusion pure and
simple; an utter collapse of the intellectual eff
fort to distinguish one from the other, and a
hopeless abandonment of reason. One idea
alone possesses the really infatuated dorian
eater, and that is to eat as much as he possibly
fascination this fruit possesses is not forthcom-
ing, a~nalogies exist which 90 to prove that the
dorian is not the only one Of the gifts of Pomona
that, like the tabled apples, has the power of be-
witching those who taste the delicacy.