are rich, often of cloying sweetness, or even, as in certain white
roses, having a languor as of death, they never for me equal the
fragrance of the wild sweet rose that grows all about these hills, in
old tangled fence rows, in the lee of meadow boulders, or by some
unfrequented roadside. No other odour I know awakens quite such a
feeling--light like a cloud, suggesting free hills, open country, sunny
air; and none surely has, for me, such an after-call. A whiff of the
wild rose will bring back in all the poignancy of sad happiness a train
of ancient memories old faces, old scenes, old loves--and the wild
thoughts I had when a boy. The first week of the wild-rose blooming,
beginning here about the twenty-fifth of June, is always to me a
memorable time.

I was a long time learning how to take hold of nature, and think now
with some sadness of all the life I lost in former years. The impression
the earth gave me was confused: I was as one only half awake. A fine
morning made me dumbly glad, a cool evening, after the heat of the day,
and the work of it, touched my spirit restfully; but I could have
explained neither the one nor the other. Gradually as I looked about me
I began to ask myself, "Why is it that the sight of these common hills
and fields gives me such exquisite delight? And if it is beauty, why is
it beautiful? And if I am so richly rewarded by mere glimpses, can I not
increase my pleasure with longer looks?"

I tried longer looks both at nature and at the friendly human creatures
all about me. I stopped often in the garden where I was working, or
loitered a moment in the fields, or sat down by the roadside, and
thought intently what it was that so perfectly and wonderfully
surrounded me; and thus I came to have some knowledge of the Great
Secret. It was, after all, a simple matter, as such matters usually are