GREAT POSSESSIONS

By David Grayson



CHAPTER I


THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH

"Sweet as Eden is the air
And Eden-sweet the ray.
No Paradise is lost for them
Who foot by branching root and stem,
And lightly with the woodland share
The change of night and day."

For these many years, since I have lived here in the country, I have had
it in my mind to write something about the odour and taste of this
well-flavoured earth. The fact is, both the sense of smell and the sense
of taste; have been shabbily treated in the amiable rivalry of the
senses. Sight and hearing have been the swift and nimble brothers, and
sight especially, the tricky Jacob of the family, is keen upon the
business of seizing the entire inheritance, while smell, like hairy
Esau, comes late to the blessing, hungry from the hills, and willing to
trade its inheritance for a mess of pottage.

I have always had a kind of errant love for the improvident and
adventurous Esaus of the Earth. I think they smell a wilder fragrance