FRESH FIELDS 



i 



NATURE IN ENGLAND 



rpHE first whiff we got of transatlantic nature 

 * was the peaty breath of the peasant chimneys 

 of Ireland while we were yet many miles at sea. 

 What a homelike, fireside smell it was ! it seemed 

 to make something long forgotten stir within one. 

 One recognizes it as a characteristic Old World 

 odor, it savors so of the soil and of a ripe and mel- 

 low antiquity. I know no other fuel that yields so 

 agreeable a perfume as peat. Unless the Irishman 

 in one has dwindled to a very small fraction, he 

 will be pretty sure to dilate his nostrils and feel 

 some dim awakening of memory on catching the 

 scdnt of this ancestral fuel. The fat, unctuous 

 peat, the pith and marrow of ages of vegetable 

 growth, how typical it is of much that lies there 

 before us in the elder world; of the slow ripenings 

 and accumulations, of extinct life and forms, decayed 

 civilizations, of ten thousand growths and achieve- 



