A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 51 



from the thousand natural perfumes of the country, 

 quite comparable to that given by a fine colour or 

 a perfect musical interval. Sometimes (my own 

 case) the sensorium retains and associates scents to 

 a strange degree, and fixes unfailing and dispropor- 

 tionate pleasure upon many that are in themselves 

 indifferent. One of my earliest remembrances, the 

 smell of pears stored in a cupboard as they were 

 stored somewhere in pinafore days touches a strong, 

 irrational pleasure ; other recollections running back 

 to childhood, as the scent of tulips open in the sun, 

 of gummy buds of poplar trees, of the damp mortar- 

 and-matting atmosphere in an old church, have each 

 their singular effect of delight. One or two others 

 I trace to later dates ; damp garden quarters under 

 the early Spring sun closely imitate the mouldy reek 

 of Oxford meadows which the floods have left for a 

 couple of days, and recall, as nothing else can, the 

 time when one rowed in the Torpids. Hay half 

 made and a garden weed-smother have associations 

 of amazing force, accidental but indelible. These 

 go back to the twenties; after that it is too late 

 to gather associations, if indeed there are any yet 

 unattached. 



To-night every bank and hedge breathed, as I 

 passed, its proper atmosphere ; every lightest breeze 



