Great Possessions

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nd the sense of taste; have been shabbily treated in the amiable rivalry of the senses. Sight and hearing have been the swift and nimble brothers, and sight especially, the tricky Jacob of the family,

smell a wilder fragrance than I do, and taste sweeter things, and I have thought, therefore, of beginning a k

ness of all things, the swiftness of life, the sadness of a beauty that vanishes so soon, and I long to lay hold upon it as it passes by all the handl

out of the smell of my supper tha

kitchen door. In a few minutes I'll see you straighten up, li

" I said, "after a day in the fields

ove with him in the wild North Country, often through miles of unbroken forest, how he

smell op

log barn, or a clearing. Among the free odours of the forest

hat country, I have seen him stop sudde

or, "A stre

ve been based, as so many of our talents are, upon a defect. My father gave all the sweet sounds of the

ong he enjoyed with more than ordinary keenness the odour of flowers, and would often pick a sprig of wild rose and carry it along with him in his hand, sniffing at it from time to time, and he loved the lilac, as I do after him. To ill odours he was not less sensitive, and was impatient of rats i

en we were working along the shore in a b

"-for I, a boy, was ears for

her. Wha

dia

ber, they were drying deer meat upon a frame of poplar poles over an open fire. He told me that the smoky smell of t

, to look with a curious interest upon people's noses, since I know what a vehicle of delight they often are. My own nose is nothing to speak of, good enough as noses

g, and once through the crystal air came the voice of a neighbour calling his cows. But the sounds and the silences, the fair sights of meadow and hill I soon put aside, for the lilacs were in bloom and the bush-honeysuckles and the strawberries. Though no movement of the air was perceptible, the lilacs well

eem less fragrant-and I have tested them now many times-than the old-fashioned single varieties which are nearer the native stock. Here I fancy our smooth Jacob has been at work, and in the lucrative process of selection for the eye alone the cunning horticulturist

inviting, which I should enjoy inventing. Though I think surely I could make my fortune out of this interesting idea, I present it freely to a scen

angled fence rows, in the lee of meadow boulders, or by some unfrequented roadside. No other odour I know awakens quite such a feeling-light like a cloud, suggesting free hills, open country, sunny air; and none surely has, for me, such an after-call. A whiff of the wild rose

e dumbly glad, a cool evening, after the heat of the day, and the work of it, touched my spirit restfully; but I could have explained neither the one nor the other. Gradually as I looked about me I began to ask myself, "Why i

thought intently what it was that so perfectly and wonderfully surrounded me; and thus I came to have some knowledge of the Great Secret. It was, after all, a simple matter, as such matters usually are wh

it or to walk, and so acquire new grace for the whole body. Should we do less in acquiring grace for the spirit? It will astonish one who has not tried it how f

t time of its beginning, a habit of repeating under my breath, or even aloud, and in a kind of singsong voic

hickets of the wild cherry.... The scent of peach leaves, the odour of new-turned soil in the black fields.... The re

remembered, or even written down in the little book I sometimes carried in my pocket, seemed to awaken echoes, however faint, of

ll about. A little later, for I was a slow learner, I began to practise the same method with the sense of smell, and still later with the sense of taste. I said to

y of my spirit upon the flavours of the earth. I tested each odour narrowly, compared it well wit

k on strange new meanings for me. I cannot explain it rightly, but it was as though I had found a new earth here within the old one, but more spacious and beautiful than any I had known before. I have thought, often and often, that thi

antechamber of the treasure-house; but as I learned better the modest technic of these arts I found that the practice of them went well with the

ing command of our surroundings are possible, after a little practice, without taking much of that time we call so valuable and waste so sinfully. "I haven't time," says the farmer, the banker, the professor, with a kind of disdain for the spirit of life, when, as a matter o

world full of boundless riches they remain obstinately poor. They are unwilling to invest even a few of their dollars unearned in the real wealth of the earth. For it is only the sense of the spirit of life, whether in nature or in other human beings, that lifts men above the beasts and curiously leads them to God, who is the spirit both of beauty and of friendliness. I say truly, having now reached the point in my life where

the year round it is a treasure-house of odours, even when the leaves first come out; but it reaches crescendo in blossom time when, indeed, I like it least, for being too strong. It has a curious fragrance, once well called by a poet "the hot scent of the brier," and aromatically hot it is and sharp like the briers themselv

e in my own orchard, only this spring, and made a fine new acquaintance in a quarter least of all expected. I had started down the lane through the gard

thought to myself that nature

beautiful new coloured leaves of the grape, nor anything I could see along the grassy margin of the pasture. There wer

issed it scornfully as one of my ancient enemies. But it is this way with enemies,

Invader of the garden, cossack of the orchard! I discovered, however, th

d I, "are you th

days afterward I would not dig out the patch, for I said to myself, "What a cheerful claim it m

new and valuable pleasure, to divert my path down the lane for several days that I might enjoy more full