Of all the faculties of the human mind, memory is the one that is most
easily “led by the nose.” There is a secret power in the sense of smell
which draws the mind backward into the pleasant 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.