TIME AND CHANGE 



It is not easy for one to say just what he owes to 

 all these things. Natural influences work indirectly 

 as well as directly; they work upon the subconscious, 

 as well as upon the conscious, self. That I am a 

 saner, healthier, more contented man, with truer 

 standards of life, for all my loiterings in the fields 

 and woods, I am fully convinced. 



That I am less social, less interested in my neigh 

 bors and in the body politic, more inclined to shirk 

 civic and social responsibilities and to stop my ears 

 against the brawling of the reformers, is perhaps 

 equally true. 



One thing is certain, in a hygienic way I owe 

 much to my excursions to Nature. They have helped 

 to clothe me with health, if not with humility; they 

 have helped sharpen and attune all my senses ; they 

 have kept my eyes in such good trim that they have 

 not failed me for one moment during all the seventy- 

 five years I have had them; they have made my 

 sense of smell so keen that I have much pleasure in 

 the wild, open-air perfumes, especially in the spring 

 the delicate breath of the blooming elms and 

 maples and willows, the breath of the woods, of the 

 pastures, of the shore. This keen, healthy sense of 

 smell has made me abhor tobacco and flee from close 

 rooms, and put the stench of cities behind me. I 

 fancy that this whole world of wild, natural per 

 fumes is lost to the tobacco-user and to the city- 

 dweller. Senses trained in the open air are in tune 

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