The Perfume of an Evening Primrose. 251 
affect us to be met face to face by some dear friend, 
long absent and supposed to bedead. The suddenly 
recovered sensation is more to us for a moment than 
a mere sensation ; it is like a recovery of the irre- 
coverable past. We are not moved in this way, or 
atall events not nearly in the same degree, by seeing 
objects or hearing sounds that are associated with 
and recall past scenes, simply because the old 
familiar sights and sounds have never been for- 
gotten; their phantasms have always existed in the 
brain. If, for instance, I heara bird’s note that I 
have not heard for the last twenty years, it is not 
as if I had not really heard it, since I have listened 
to it mentally a thousand times during the interval, 
and it does not surprise or come to me like some- 
thing that was lost and is recovered, and con- 
sequently does not move me. And so with the 
sensation of sight; I cannot think of any fragrant 
flower that grows in my distant home without seeing 
it, so that its beauty may always be enjoyed ;—but 
its fragrance, alas, has vanished and returns not ! 
