What is more mortifying than to feel you’ve missed the Plum for want of courage to shake the Tree?

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946), an American-born essayist and aphorist who spent much of his life in England, is best known for polished, epigrammatic observations on character and conduct. This line belongs to the kind of moral-psychological reflection that runs through his collections of aphorisms, where everyday images are used to crystallize a social or personal truth. The metaphor of fruit and a tree evokes a familiar fable-like situation—opportunity visible and near, yet unrealized because the person will not risk the effort or embarrassment of reaching for it. The tone is rueful and self-reproaching, typical of Smith’s interest in the small failures of nerve that shape a life.

The “Plum” stands for a desirable prize—success, love, recognition, or any hoped-for gain—while “shaking the Tree” represents the bold, potentially awkward action required to obtain it. Smith’s point is that regret can be sharper when the loss is clearly traceable to timidity rather than to external impossibility. The mortification is not merely missing out, but recognizing that the opportunity was within reach and that one’s own lack of courage was the decisive obstacle. The aphorism compresses a common moral lesson: risk and initiative are often the price of reward, and self-knowledge after the fact can sting more than failure itself.