“ ‘My name is Clover Perfume, and I am one of a very numerous family. To tell you the truth, I have brothers and sisters and all manner of other relatives all over the world. Everybody knows me,’ he continued, ‘except those who cannot smell, and they would nearly give their noses to make my acquaintance!’ [[109]]
“Here he laughed so merrily that for the life of me I couldn’t help laughing too, though what it was all about I really couldn’t say.
“ ‘But,’ said he, ‘although I am so widely known and, I think, very well liked, I have never before been asked to tell my story. I have just been accepted as a matter of course, and nobody has been the least little bit interested to know anything about my origin or history.’
“Here he heaved a very great sigh, and the breath that he expelled from his lungs was so divinely sweet that it filled my senses with delight.
“Instantly recovering himself, however, he brightly added: ‘Still, I am very, very glad that you have asked me to tell you my story, and if you will listen, it will be a pleasure to let you hear it from beginning to end.’
“ ‘Go on!’ said I, encouragingly; ‘you will find in me a very patient listener.’
“ ‘Well,’ he commenced, ‘as you are probably very well aware, when God first made man he was nothing more than a lifeless image; he could neither move nor speak! But having fashioned him so much like Himself, and being pleased with His work, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul! This was the greatest of all gifts. On no other created Thing was anything like so remarkable and wonderful a gift bestowed.
“ ‘But, what you do not know is that, whilst the making of man was in progress, the trees and flowers were looking on—silent, still, and breathless with amazement and surprise. Indeed, so astonished were they, so overpowered at the miracle they were privileged to see, that they temporarily ceased to grow, and might easily have died.
“ ‘But this was not to be; for, seeing what had happened, God caused them to revive, and knowing that He had already fixed for them their stations and their modes of life, out of His great compassion, and because of the awe and reverence with which they had looked upon His work, said to them: “Behold I give unto you a further gift. Beauty and symmetry thou hast! In addition, take from Me all those who will, the gift of sweetness, that ye may forever bear witness to the airs of Heaven and the glory of your Creator!” [[110]]
“ ‘So saying, into the soft and balmy air He breathed one glorious breath, which, spreading and falling, was, in the process, disintegrated or broken up into a myriad marvellous atoms. These ineffably sweet and fertilising atoms the trees and flowers immediately and eagerly in-breathed—some more, some less, each according to its mode and manner, but all with rapturous delight.