hand at that time on the Substances and Essences of Plants--which never got
finished;--and in trying to put it into small space, it has become obscure:
the terms "logically inexplicable" meaning that no words or process of
comparison will define scents, nor do any traceable modes of sequence or
relation connect them; each is an independent power, and gives a separate
impression to the senses. Above all, there is no logic of pleasure, nor any
assignable reason for the difference, between loathsome and delightful
scent, which makes the fungus foul and the vervain sacred: but one
practical conclusion I (who am in all final ways the most prosaic and
practical of human creatures) do very solemnly beg my readers to meditate;
namely, that although not recognized by actual offensiveness of scent,
there is no space of neglected land which is not in some way modifying the
atmosphere of _all the world_,--it may be, beneficently, as heath and
pine,--it may be, malignantly, as Pontine marsh or Brazilian jungle; but,
in one way or another, for good and evil constantly, by day and night, the
various powers of life and death in the plants of the desert are poured
into the air, as vials of continual angels: and that no words, no thoughts
can measure, nor imagination follow, the possible change for good which
energetic and tender care of the wild herbs of the field and trees of the
wood might bring, in time, to the bodily pleasure and mental power of Man.

32. II. VIOLA PSYCHE. Ophelia's Pansy.

The wild heart's-ease of Europe; its proper colour an exquisitely clear
purple in the upper petals, gradated into deep blue in the lower ones; the
centre, gold. Not larger than a violet, but perfectly formed, and firmly
set in all its petals. Able to live in the driest ground; beautiful in the
coast sand-hills of Cumberland, following the wild geranium and burnet
rose: and distinguished thus by its power of life, in waste and dry places,
from the violet, which needs kindly earth and shelter.