PERFUME OF AN EVENING PEIMROSE 235 



feet perhaps ; and just where I have ceased from 

 climbing, in the cleft of a branch and against the 

 white bark, I see the dainty little cup-shaped nest 

 I have been seeking ; and round my head, as I gaze 

 down in it, delighted at the sight of the small 

 pearly eggs it contains, flutter the black-headed, 

 golden-winged siskins, uttering their long canary- 

 like notes of solicitude. It all comes and goes like 

 a flash of lightning, but the scene revealed, and the 

 accompanying feeling, the complete recovery of a 

 lost sensation, are wonderfully real. Nothing that 

 we see or hear can thus restore the past. The 

 sight of the poplar tree, the sound made by the 

 wind in its summer foliage, the song of the golden- 

 winged siskins when I meet with them in captivity, 

 bring up many past scenes to my mind, and among 

 others the picture I have described; but it is a 

 picture only, until the fragrance of the poplar 

 touches the nerve of smell, and then it is some- 

 thing more. 



I have no doubt that my experience is similar to 

 that of others, especially of those who have lived 

 a rural life, and whose senses have been trained 

 by an early-acquired habit of attention. When 

 we read of Cuvier (and the same thing has been 

 recorded of others), that the scent of some humble 

 flower or weed, familiar to him in boyhood, would 

 always affect him to tears, I presume that the 

 poignant feeling of grief grief, that is, for the 

 loss of a vanished happiness which ended in 

 tears, succeeded to some such vivid representation 



