Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/165

Rh their charm lay in their evocation of childish memories. But that is not the whole of the story. They attract us by their own inherent beauty. I have known town-bred lads linger about a stable because the smell, I was told, was “so sweet.” And most of us are, to be sure, sufficiently horsey to enjoy that smell of straw and ammonia. We linger near it as bees haunt clover or cats valerian. And we are all horse-lovers sitting behind a smart cob on a hot day when the smell of the harness is mingling with the horse-odour. But these now old-world odours are being every day more and more ousted by the less pleasant smells of the motor-car, petrol, lubricating oil, and acetylene—a pure stink this last.

But the farm is an olfactory museum, a library, a symphony ! How warm and comforting is the smell of a byre full of cows ! Plunge into it from the cool of the evening and listen again to the sudden swish of the warm milk into the pail, the uncompleted low of the sober cattle and the rattle of the chain as they turn to look at the new-comer. A gentle relaxation of the spirit attends the visit like the relief of the limbs from a cramped position, and we readily fall into that mood, so rare these latter days, when attention disperses and the reins drop on the neck of the mind so that it wanders on at its will up and down the lanes and by-ways of