NIGHT WITCHERY. 



49 



wood, or the brown smell of mouldy loam. A misty messenger 

 from the swamp without the woods now finds its way thither, 

 borne on the pink breath of sweet azalea or visioned in the 

 fragrant hint of clethra. And now it is the sweet-fern again. 

 Yes, sweet-fern tinctured with a faint gamy scent that plays Tan- 

 talus to our taunted vision as we search the gloom for two beads 

 of animated fox-fire, for Reynard has recently passed this way, 

 or is even now threading through the fragrant underwood. And 

 what is this for let us be true to the integrity of these nocturnal 

 zephyrs this faint piquant suspicion which now sophisticates the 

 wild bouquet, this pronounced acrimony how the impetuous eyes 

 now begin to roll! this overwhelming, painful effluvium which 

 now sweeps the wilds in annihilating conquest ? How graphic ! 

 more real than life caustic, saturating, mordant! Mephitis, I 

 could trace thy shaggy portrait to a hair from that pictorial smell ! 



It is part of the poet's creed that all the sights and sounds of 

 nature are, or ought to be, beautiful in their environment. Even 

 the perfume of many a favorite blossom of the woods becomes 

 unpleasantly oppressive in - doors. " The saunterer's apple not 

 even the saunterer can eat in the house." The distant midnight 

 baying of a hound is to many a night rambler a pleasant sound, 

 though few perhaps have yet learned to " bathe their being " 

 therein as Thoreau did a feat which would seem more logical 

 in relation to the skunk's accompaniment, many a midnight trav- 

 eller having waded through the acrid, saturated mist in its evil 

 premonition or trail. 



It is true, however, that when only faintly perceived, the odor 

 of Hosea Bigelow's " essence peddler " is not unpleasant. Nay, 

 nay, my dainty damosel ! turn not aside thy fastidious nostril, nor 

 raise the spurning palm. How many times on a blustering win- 

 ter's day hast thou nursed the rosy tip of that same delicate nose 

 in the warm "Alaska sable" muff and found a pleasant pungency 

 therein! Thus, in highly diluted doses, the odor of the "Alaska 

 sable " is a not unpleasant occasional ingredient in the nocturnal 

 nosegay. It is a sort of spice which brings alert variety in our 

 midnight stroll. 



