And what a joy I had also of the lilacs blooming in many a
dooryard, the odour often trailing after me for a long distance
in the road, and of the pungent scent at evening in the cool
hollows of burning brush heaps and the smell of barnyards as I
went by--not unpleasant, not offensive--and above all, the deep,
earthy, moist odour of new-ploughed fields.

And then, at evening, to hear the sound of voices from the
dooryards as I pass quite unseen; no words, but just pleasant,
quiet intonations of human voices, borne through the still air,
or the low sounds of cattle in the barnyards, quieting down for
the night, and often, if near a village, the distant, slumbrous
sound of a church bell, or even the rumble of a train--how good
all these sounds are! They have all come to me again this week
with renewed freshness and impressiveness. I am living deep
again!

It was not, indeed, until last Wednesday that I began to get my
fill, temporarily, of the outward satisfaction of the Road--the
primeval takings of the senses--the mere joys of seeing, hearing,
smelling, touching. But on that day I began to wake up; I began
to have a desire to know something of all the strange and
interesting people who are working in their fields, or standing
invitingly in their doorways, or so busily afoot in the country
roads. Let me add, also, for this is one of the most important
parts of my present experience, that this new desire was far from
being wholly esoteric. I had also begun to have cravings which
would not in the least be satisfied by landscapes or dulled by
the sights and sounds of the road. A whiff here and there from a