In My Vicarage Garden 



curious way. He had a deep love for the ipsissima 

 verba of the Bible, and in most cases keeps as 

 close as possible to them. But in his description 

 of the Fall, he goes beyond the text, which tells 

 how " the tree was good for food, and that it was 

 pleasant to the eyes," and he makes the chief 

 temptation to lie in the scent. Satan first says 

 that — 



" From the boughes a savorie odour blown. 

 Grateful to appetite, more pleas'd my sense 

 Than smell of sweetest fennel." 



Then in Eve there " waked an eager appetite, 

 raised by the smell so savorie of that fruit " ; and 

 then she brought to Adam — 



" A bough of fairest fruit that downie smil'd. 

 New gathered and ambrosial smell diffused." 



And, I believe, Milton is the first writer that called 

 the fruit an apple — " that crude apple that diverted 

 Eve " — though he may have used the word in its 

 old generic sense, by which almost any fruit was 

 called an apple. 



Another curious thing in scents is that while 

 some flowers give out their scents voluntarily, in 

 others it has to be searched for. Of course, this 

 is so with plants whose scent is in the root or 

 seeds only ; but it is also the case with number- 

 less other sweet-scented flowers ; they have the 

 scent, but they keep it to themselves. Among 

 flowers which are " fast flowers of their smells " 

 Bacon reckons roses, bays, rosemary, and mar- 

 ii6 



