in Thoreau’s Journal:

 A fresh scent blows up from the meadows, the river rapidly going down….I am most impressed by the rapidity of the changes within a week…Methinks the scent is a more primitive inquisition than the eye.— more oracular and trust-worthy.  When I criticize my own writing I go by the scent, as it were. The scent reveals of course what is concealed from the other senses— By it I detect earthiness.