just balances, deprives us of the full enjoyment of
the others, "I am stuffed, cousin," cries Beatrice in the play, "I
cannot smell." "I have drunk," remarks the Clown in Arcady, "what are
roses to me?" We forget that there are five chords in the great scale of
life--sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and--few of us ever master
the chords well enough to get the full symphony of life, but are
something like little pig-tailed girls playing Peter Piper with one
finger while all the music of the universe is in the Great Instrument,
and all to be had for the taking.

Of most evil odours, it can be said that they are temporary or
unnecessary: and any unpleasant odour, such as that of fruit sprays in
spring, or fertilizer newly spread on the land, can be borne and even
welcomed if it is appropriate to the time and place. Some smells, evil
at first, become through usage not unpleasant. I once stopped with a
wolf-trapper in the north country, who set his bottle of bait outside
when I came in. He said it was "good and strong" and sniffed it with
appreciation. I agreed with him that it was strong. To him it was not
unpleasant, though made of the rancid fat of the muscallonge. All nature
seems to strive against evil odours, for when she warns us of decay she
is speeding decay: and a manured field produces later the best of all
odours. Almost all shut-in places sooner or later acquire an evil odour:
and it seems a requisite for good smells that there be plenty of
sunshine and air; and so it is with the hearts and souls of men. If they
are long shut in upon themselves they grow rancid.

CHAPTER III

FOLLOW YOUR NOSE!

"Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn--
Look to this day! For it is Life,
The very Life of Life!"

On a spring morning one has only to step out into the open country, lift
his head to the sky--and follow his nose....

It was a big and golden morning, and Sunday to boot, and I walked down
the lane to the lower edge of the field, where the wood and the marsh
begin. The sun was just coming up over the hills and all the air was
fresh and clear and cool. High in the heavens a few fleecy clouds were
drifting, and the air was just enough astir to waken the hemlocks into
faint and sleepy exchanges of confidence.

It seemed to me that morning that the world was never before so high, so
airy, so golden, All filled to the brim with the essence of sunshine
and spring morning--so that one's spirit dissolved in it,