TIME AND CHANGE 
It is not easy for one to say just what he owes to 
all these things. Natural influences work indirectly 
as well as directly; they work upon the subconscious, 
as well as upon the conscious, self. That I am a 
saner, healthier, more contented man, with truer 
standards of life, for all my loiterings in the fields 
and woods, I am fully convinced. 
That I am less social, less interested in my neigh- 
bors and in the body politic, more inclined to shirk 
civic and social responsibilities and to stop my ears 
against the brawling of the reformers, is perhaps 
equally true. 
One thing is certain, in a hygienic way I owe 
much to my excursions to Nature. They have helped 
to clothe me with health, if not with humility; they 
have helped sharpen and attune all my senses; they 
have kept my eyes in such good trim that they have 
not failed me for one moment during all the seventy- 
five years I have had them; they have made my 
sense of smell so keen that I have much pleasure in 
the wild, open-air perfumes, especially in the spring 
— the delicate breath of the blooming elms and 
maples and willows, the breath of the woods, of the 
pastures, of the shore. This keen, healthy sense of 
smell has made me abhor tobacco and flee from close 
rooms, and put the stench of cities behind me. I 
fancy that this whole world of wild, natural per- 
fumes is lost to the tobacco-user and to the city- 
dweller. Senses trained in the open air are in tune 
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