THE HERBS OF THE FIELD. 2 ig 



If, then, one would indulge in retrospection 

 and therein lies one of life's most solid comforts 

 it will be found that suggestive objects are 

 ever about us, .and the herbs of the field, in Au- 

 gust, would scarcely be missed, if unhappily 

 they ceased to grow. But why, it may be 

 asked, are these same herbs so suggestive of 

 the past, so certain to give rise to retrospective 

 thought ? It is not a personal matter, for I have 

 questioned many people, and in this they all 

 agree. One reply is a fair representative of all. 

 Offering a little bunch of garden herbs to an old 

 man no longer able to wander out of doors, he 

 immediately buried his nose in it, drew a long 

 breath, and remarked, "How that carries me 

 back to the old homestead ! " 



As by the touch of a magician's wand, in 

 my walk to-day, the present vanished when I 

 crushed the pennyroyal, and the ringing songs of 

 the still tuneful summer birds were not exultant 

 strains glorifying the present, but echoes of a 

 dim past over which, perhaps, I am too prone to 

 brood. 



It is absurdly contradictory, of course, to say 

 that I love retrospection, and that in August one 

 is more prone to think of the past than the pres- 

 ent, and yet not to love that month, but such is 

 the case. In other words, I am vacillating and 

 contradictory, and fail to command the words 



