THE REDOLENT WORLD 



memorable passages of our experience, the 

 word "nose" is like a copper setting for an 

 opal. This verbal lack is not felt with re- 

 gard to the other senses, which serve so many 

 hours of the day as statisticians and book- 

 keepers of the hum-drum, odorless events of 

 life. But the nose will none of these, 

 making its entries instead from those fertile 

 zones of human experience which are irri- 

 gated by poetic emotions. 



To the million characteristic transactions 

 of Wall Street, as to its hard, dusty pave- 

 ments, the nose gives no heed. But the 

 nosegay of arbutus, which Hester wore the 

 last time she saw Gregory ah, yes, of that 

 it makes, perchance, a ten-page entry, in its 

 own indelible symbols. Not only does it 

 make a record from its own findings, but it 

 subpoenas all the other senses, by its wonder- 

 ful tabulating system of association. From 

 these, it gathers the last detail of the 

 mise-en-scene in such a case: what Hester 

 said, how she looked, how cold her hands 

 were, how the curtain fluttered in the window 

 behind her, and the ominous thud of the f all- 



49 



