me, as I
first thought of its cause, a mere mechanical result, but I incline to
suspect now that it was in a measure due to a true increase in capacity
to feel, because I found also that the sister sense of pain was
heightened. Slight things hurt me, and a rather gentle pinch gave undue
discomfort. No doubt a part of this was owing to my having taken a good
deal of opium, and then abruptly laid it aside. As I have elsewhere
stated, this is apt to leave the nerves oversensitive for a season. The
sense of hearing seemed to me to be less wide awake. I did not hear
better, but high notes were for a while most unpleasant. The sense of
taste grew singularly appreciative for a time, and made every meal a
joyful occasion. The simplest food had distinct flavors. As for a glass
of old Madeira,--a demijohned veteran of many ripening summers,--I
recall to this day with astonishment the wonderful thing it was, and how
it went over the tongue in a sort of procession of tastes, and what
changeful bouquets it left in my mouth,--a strange variety of varying
impressions, like the play of colors. In these days of more unspiritual
health and coarser sense I am almost ashamed to say what pleasure I
found in a dish of terrapin.

The function of smell became for me a source both of annoyance and,
later on, of pleasure. I smelt things no one else could, and more things
than I now can. The spring came early, and once out of doors the
swiftly-flitting hours of sensory acuteness brought to me on every
breeze nameless odors which have no being to the common sense,--a sweet,
faint confusion of scents, some slight, some too intense,--a gamut of
odors. Usually I have an imperfect capacity to apprehend smells, unless
they are very positive, and it was a curious lesson to learn how intense
for the time a not perfect function may become. Recent researches have
shown that a drug like mercaptan may be used to test the limit of
olfactory appreciation. We have thus come to know that the capacity to
perceive an odor is more delicate than our ability to recognize light.
Probably it is an inconceivable delicacy of the sense of smell more than
anything else which enables animals to find their way in the manner
which seems to us so utterly mysterious. Yet, even in human beings, and
not alone in a fortunate convalescence, do we see startling
illustrations of the possibilities of this form of sensorial acuteness.
I know of a woman who can by the smell at once tel