Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/42

 they grew. The caress of the rain brings from each leaf and petal but the aromatic essence of such lives, welling within and flowing forth again through the unnumbered years.

Out of homely love of the hearth, out of wild Indian legends that flowed down the Merrimac and English folk lore that flowered over seas and blew westward with a sniff of the brine in it, Whittier made his poems. But not out of these was born their greatness. That was distilled from his own fiber where it grew out of the rugged, honest, fearless life of generations whose home shrine had been that glowing hearth, whose love and tenderness welled within and overflowed like the scent of the old-time garden. To such a house and such a hearth sweetness climbs and nestles. To stand on the old door stone was to be greeted with dreams of meadows and lush fields, for wild mint has left the brookside and come shyly to the very door sill to toss its aroma to all comers. A spirit of the meadows that the bare-foot boy loved thus dwells ever by his door and none may enter without its benediction. There is something Quakerlike in the wild mint, that