ant land of old times.

If you could paint a picture of Memory, in the symbolical manner of
Quarles's Emblems, it should represent a man travelling the highway with
a dusty pack upon his shoulders, and stooping to draw in a long,
sweet breath from the small, deep-red, golden-hearted flowers of an
old-fashioned rose-tree straggling through the fence of a neglected
garden. Or perhaps, for a choice of emblems, you would better take a yet
more homely and familiar scent: the cool fragrance of lilacs drifting
through the June morning from the old bush that stands between the
kitchen door and the well; the warm layer of pungent, aromatic air that
floats over the tansy-bed in a still July noon; the drowsy dew of odour
that falls from the big balm-of-Gilead tree by the roadside as you are
driving homeward through the twilight of August; or, best of all, the
clean, spicy, unexpected, unmistakable smell of a bed of spearmint--that
is the bed whereon Memory loves to lie and dream!

Why not choose mint as the symbol of remembrance? It is the true
spice-tree of our Northern clime, the myrrh and frankincense of the land
of lingering snow. When its perfume rises, the shrines of the past are
unveiled, and the magical rites of reminiscence begin.

I.

You are fishing down the Swiftwater in the early Spring. In a shallow
pool, which the drought of summer will soon change into dry land, you
see the pale-green shoots of a little plant thrusting themselves up
between the pebbles, and just beginning to overtop the falling
water. You pluck a leaf of it as you turn out of the stream to find a
comfortable place for lunch, and, rolling it between your fingers to
see whether it smells like a good salad for your bread and cheese, you
discover suddenly that it is new mint. For the rest of that day you are
bewitched; you follow a stream that runs through the country of Auld
Lang Syne, and fill your creel with the recollections of a boy and a
rod.

And yet, strangely enough, you cannot recall the boy himself at all
distinctly. There is only the faintest image of him on the endless roll
of films that has been wound through your mental camera: and in the very
spots where his small figure should appear, it seems as if the pictures
were always light-struck. Just a blur, and the dim outline of a new cap,
or a well-beloved jacket with extra pockets, or a much-hated pair of
copper-toed shoes--that is all you can see.

But the people that the boy s