NEWS OF SPRING 



the dog, which lives as much by the nose as by the eyes? 



We have here an unexplored world. This mysterious 

 sense, which, at first sight, appears almost foreign to our 

 organism, becomes, perhaps, when more carefully considered, 

 that which enters into it most intimately. Are we not, above 

 all things, creatures of the air? Is the air not for us the most 

 absolutely and urgently indispensable element; and is not our 

 sense of smell just the one sense that perceives some parts of 

 it? Perfumes, which are the jewels of that life-giving air, 

 do not adorn it without good cause. It were not surprising 

 if this luxury which we do not understand corresponded with 

 something very profound and very essential and, as we have 

 seen, with something that is not yet rather than something that 

 has ceased to be. It is very possible that this sense, the only 

 one directed towards the future, is already grasping the most 

 striking manifestations of a form or of a happy and salutary 

 state of matter that is reserving many a surprise for us. 



Meanwhile, it has not yet reached beyond the stage of 

 the more violent, the less subtle perceptions. Hardly does it 

 so much as suspect, with the aid of the imagination, the pro- 

 found and harmonious effluvia that evidently envelop the great 

 spectacles of the atmosphere and the light. As we are on the 



[ii8] 



I 



