The PerfiDiic of an Ex'ciiiiig Primrose. 243 



loss of a vanished happiness — which ended in teai's, 

 succeeded to some such vivid representation of the 

 past as I have described, and to the purely delight- 

 ful recovery of a vanished sensation. Not only 

 flowery and aromatic odours can produce this 

 powerful effect ; it is caused by any smell, not 

 positively disagreeable, which may be in any way 

 associated Avith a happy period in early or jjast 

 life : the smell, for instance, of peat smoke, of a 

 brewery, a tan yard, of cattle and sheep, and 

 sheep-folds, of burning weeds, brushwood, and 

 charcoal ; the dank smell of marshes, and the smell, 

 " ancient and fish-like," that clings about many 

 seaside towns and villages ; also the smell of the 

 sea itself, and of decaying seaweed, and the dusty 

 smell of rain in summer, and the smell of new 

 mown hay, and of stables and of freshly-ploughed 

 ground, with so many others that every reader can 

 add to the list from his own experience. Being so 

 common a thing, it may be thought that I have 

 dwelt too louCT on it. My excuse must be that 

 some things are common without being familiar ; 

 also that some common things have not jet been 

 explained. 



Locke somewhere says that unless we refresh 

 our mental pictures of what we have seen by look- 

 ing again at their originals, they fade, and in the 

 end are lost. Bain appears to have the same 

 opinion, at all events he says : " The simplest im- 

 pression that can be made, of taste, smell, touch, 

 hearing, sight, needs repetition in order to endure 



R 2 



