The first intimations of the feeling are beyond recall; I only know
that my memory takes me back to a time when I was unconscious of any
such element in nature, when the delight I experienced in all natural
things was purely physical. I rejoiced in colours, scents, sounds, in
taste and touch: the blue of the sky, the verdure of earth, the
sparkle of sunlight on water, the taste of milk, of fruit, of honey,
the smell of dry or moist soil, of wind and rain, of herbs and
flowers; the mere feel of a blade of grass made me happy; and there
were certain sounds and perfumes, and above all certain colours in
flowers, and in the plumage and eggs of birds, such as the purple
polished shell of the tinamou's egg, which intoxicated me with
delight. When, riding on the plain, I discovered a patch of scarlet
verbenas in full bloom, the creeping plants covering an area of
several yards, with a moist, green sward sprinkled abundantly with the
shining flower-bosses, I would throw myself from my pony with a cry of
joy to lie on the turf among them and feast my sight on their
brilliant colour.
It was not, I think, till my eighth year that I began to be distinctly
conscious of something more than this mere childish delight in nature.
It may have been there all the time from infancy--I don't know; but
when I began to know it consciously it was as if some hand had
surreptitiously dropped something into the honeyed cup which gave it
at certain times a new flavour.
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