Great Possessions

quality of it. I suppose the instinct descends to me from the herbivorous side of my distant ancestry. I love a spray of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet inside bark,

g the red-top, or chewing a bit of sassafras bark. I have in mind a clump of shrubbery in the town road, where an old house once stood, of the kind called here by some the "sw

pattern of the childish way we take hold of the earth; but when I began to come newly aliv

self, for I thought this might be a

the eye, especially in the early morning when the shadows of it lie long and cool upon the meadow. Many times I have walked that way to admire it, or to listen fo

h. "This is cherry," I said; "this is elm, this is dogwood." And it was a fine adventure to know old friends in new ways, for I had never thought before to test the trees and shrubs by their taste and smell. After that,

escribe, for old and familiar places were thus made new and wonderful to me. And when I think of those places, now, say in winter, I grasp them more vividly and strongly than ever I did before, for I think not only how they look, but how they

und about by the taste or smell or touch of them. I think seriously that this method of widening the world of the blind, and increasing their narrower joys, might well be developed, thoug

. A lilac leaf, for example, and to a scarcely lesser degree the willow and the poplar are, when bitten through, of a penetrating and intense bitterness

t down, sawed, split, burned-anything to be rid of them. The ideal in making a home place was to push the forest as far away from it as possible. But now, when I go to the woods, it is like going among old and treasured friends, and with

lms I care for afar off, like great aloof men, whom I can admire; but

ven feel that I have become a fully accepted member of the Fraternity of the Living Earth, for I have already received many of the benefits which go with that

n that I can find no comparison for, and the poplar is one of the bitterest trees that ever I have tasted. The trees-pines, spruces, hemlocks, balsams, cedars-are to me about the pleasantest of all, both in taste and odour, and though the spruces and pines taste and smell much alike at first, one soon learns to distinguish them. The elm has a rather agreeable, nondescript, bitterish tast

from various trees and shrubs and tried to identify them by taste or by smell, and while it was a pleasing experiment I found I could not certainly place above half of them; partly, no doubt, because many growing things keep their flavours well wrapped up in winter

rt of either. For sight, we have painting, sculpturing, photography, architecture, and the like; and for hearing, music; and for both, poetry and the drama. But the other sen

rdure, for there are here both lyrical and symphonic odours-but how inadequate it is! I can tell you what I feel and smell and taste, and give you, perhaps, a desire another spring to spend the months of May and June in the country, but I can scarcely make you live again the very moment of life I have lived, which is the magic quality of the best art.

me tunes, so a people deficient in the true art of tasting

here they are served by well-established arts, but this I do know-that there are three gre

the swift and greedy eye. We accept flashing pictures of life for life itself; we rush here and rus

t, but life more deeply thought about, more intensely realized

of taste and even, in growing such plants as the lamb's tongue, to gratify, curiously, the sense of touch. They loved the scented herbs, and appropriately called them simples. Some of these old simples I am grea

selves fall pleasantly upon the ear, as, for example, sweet marjoram and dill, anise and summer savoury, lavender and sweet basil. Coriander! Caraway! Cumin! And "there's rosemary, that's

go among those I do have, I like to call them by their familiar names a

all for action, not at all for reflection; we think there are easy ways to

st not tell his name-whose greatest word is "proportion." At this moment, as I write, I can hear the roll of

fine thing to see him square himself to meet it. A light comes in his eye

out their tongues, and pokes them once or twice in the ribs, to make sure that they are lively and robust facts capable of making a good fight for their lives. He never likes to see any one thing too large, as a church, a party, a reform, a new book, or a new fashi

, but it will let you know what kind of a man my old friend is, and when all is said, it would be a fine thing to know about any man. Not long ago he was afflicted with a serious loss, a loss that would have crushed some men, but when I met h

ing is evil until we reach th

y of his friends drop in to see him. Some of us go out of habit, drawn by our affection for the old gentleman; others, I think, he invites, for he kno

nature. He is, as I have said, a temperate man, and dislikes as much as any one I know the whole alcohol business; but living in a community where the struggle for temperance ha

l silent, knowing well what is coming, he unlocks the door and takes from the shelf a bottle of old peach brandy which, having uncorked, he gravely smells of and possibly lets his nearest neighbour smell of too. Then he brings from the sideboard a server set with diminutive

oderation-in

ip or two, a

rance-the queen

cks his lips, corks the tall bottle, and returns it to his

e says, heartily, "let

ngs of the garden and fields; and recalling the advice of Cobbett to his nephew on the art of writing, "never to alter a thought, for that which has come of itself into your mind is likely to pass into that of another more re