Sudorific

“ The smell of new-mown hay, coffee, flowers, whiffs of the salt sea breeze, the odors of animals, foods, spices, and 183herbs move us to strong emotions. The stroking of fur, the cool of evening, the delicious languor of a sun bath—all these have high and immediate affective value that can hardly be exceeded by any emotions provoked by colors, forms, noises, and tones. In general, those senses that are closely connected with our personal and bodily welfare, as is the case with taste, provoke strong affective reactions and convey to us a strong sense of reality. ”

“ An odour as of decaying foliage, which she had never noted before, came from the book. It was such an odour as comes from dark, ill-ventilated rooms, and early autumn and everyday clothes.
At last she found what she was seeking. "Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison! Dear God, Father in heaven, have mercy upon us!"
Her lips babbled what her eyes saw, but her heart and her senses prayed another prayer: "Father in Heaven, who art love and mercy, do not count for sin to those two that which they are committing against themselves. Bless their love, even if they do not desire Thy blessing. ”

“ But the fairy colors were less strongly suggestive than something impalpable, invisible, indescribable, yet voluptuously enchanting which clung to the fan spirit-wise—a tender little scent—a mischievous perfume—a titillating, tantalizing aroma—an odor inspirational as of the sacred gums whose incense intoxicates the priests of oracles. Did you ever lay your hand upon a pillow covered with the living supple silk of a woman's hair? ”

“ For a second the perfume of the woman in front, mingling with other less definable odours, almost sickened her, evoking suggestions of tawdry, trivial, vulgar lives, fed on sensation and excitement; but the feeling was almost immediately swept away by a renewed sense of the bigness of the thing which she beheld,—of which, indeed, she was a part. And her thoughts turned more definitely to the man who had brought it all about. ”

“ Drinking this champagne water is pure pleasure, so is breathing the living air, and every movement of limbs is pleasure, while the whole body seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as it feels the camp-fire or sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but equally through all one’s flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate ecstatic pleasure-glow not explainable. One’s body then seems homogeneous throughout, sound as a crystal. ”

“ Now the odor of the fan was not a blond odor:—it was sharply sweet as new-mown hay in autumn, keenly pleasant as a clear breeze blowing over sea foam:—what were frankincense and spikenard and cinnamon and all the odors of the merchant compared with it?—What could have been compared with it, indeed, save the smell of the garments of the young Shulamitess or the whispering robes of the Queen of Sheba? And these were brunettes.
The strength of living perfumes evidences the comparative intensity of the life exhaling them. Strong sweet odors bespeak the vigor of youth in blossom. ”

“ They loiter through the world’s flower-gardens, and I—sometimes there comes swiftly past a whiff of perfume. They drain deep the different wines of pleasure, while into my tiny cup, bar-fastened, is poured a few drops of water. They move abroad under the broad sunlight, and I—moveless in this wee shadow. They hear ever that great symphony, the world’s laugh, and I—no one ever laughs alone. ”

“ Aroma is in fact, the essence of the soul, and every flavor emitted by the body represents a corresponding emotion of the soul. Happiness finds expression in a mirthful perfume, sorrow in a doleful one. Does not a hungry man on smelling a joint of meat at once rejoice? I myself have been so overcome by the scent of a favorite fruit that, under an uncontrollable impulse, I have fallen upon and devoured the whole plateful! so powerful is the sense of smell. ”

“ That has, in the highest degree, the qualities, the value, of the whole Pleiad school of poetry, of the whole phase of taste from which that school derives—a certain silvery grace of fancy, nearly all the pleasure of which is in the surprise at the happy and dexterous way in which a thing slight in itself is handled. The sweetness of it is by no means to be got at by crushing, as you crush wild herbs to get at their perfume. ”

“ To break a bottle of perfume, foretells that your most cherished wishes and desires will end disastrously, even while they promise a happy culmination.
To dream that you are distilling perfume, denotes that your employments and associations will be of the pleasantest character.
For a young woman to dream of perfuming her bath, foretells ecstatic happenings. If she receives it as a gift from a man, she will experience fascinating, but dangerous pleasures. ”

“ The chilly air has departed, and in its place is a sense of freshness, of dewiness, of fragrance and delight. A sense of these only, an instinctive feeling, that anticipates the odor of the rose before the rose is blown. ”

“ For a while he lies a-dreaming quietly to himself, but his breathing becomes more and more labored, his senses grow dim,--at every pulsation a poignant pain darts through his temples,--he feels as though he must succumb beneath this overpowering fragrance. ”

“ Like the feeling awakened by beauty, the pleasure of odor is a pleasure of remembrance,—is the magical appeal of a sensation to countless memories of countless lives. And even as the scent of a blossom evokes the ghosts of feelings [224] experienced in millions of millions of unrecorded springs,—so the fragrance of youth bestirs within us the spectral survival of sensations associated with every vernal cycle of all the human existence that has vanished behind us. ”

“ But attention to sweet scents is a bait which draws us in to sensual lust. For the licentious man is led on every hand, both by his food, his bed, his conversation, by his eyes, his ears, his jaws, and by his nostrils too. As oxen are pulled by rings and ropes, so is the voluptuary by fumigations and unguents, and the sweet scents of crowns. But since we assign no place to pleasure which is linked to no use serviceable to life, come let us also distinguish here too, selecting what is useful. ”

“ I close my eyes, I see the waves, I see the rocks, I feel the breeze of 'foggy ocean,' as Homer calls it!... No! tell me frankly 123 what verse of the Odyssey can wake in me as clearly the sense of sea poetry as the smell of a fresh oyster? Or when I divide a peach and inhale the odour of its juice, why, tell me, are the perfume of the violet and the rose more essentially poetical? Poets describe form, colour, sound. Why can taste be not perfect as these? All is stupid prejudice, my dear fellows! Taste is an immense and hitherto unexplored boon from the gods. ”

“ Presently, she signed to one of the damsels to spread us a bed in such a place, which being done, she took me by the hand and led me thither. So I lay with her till the morning, and as often as I pressed her in my arms, I smelt the delicious fragrance of musk and other perfumes that exhaled from her and could think no otherwise but that I was in Paradise or in the mazes of a dream. ”

“ And the aroma of all this comes to him together with the salt smell of the ocean, the coolness of mountains, the great perfumes of the woods. He dilates his nostrils to their fullest extent; his mouth waters; he thinks to himself that he has enough before him for a year, for ten years, for his whole life! ”

“ Like the pleasure yielded by the fragrance of flowers, the pleasure given by the healthy fragrance of a young body may be, partly at least, a survival from some era in which odorous impressions made direct appeal to the simplest of life-serving impulses. Long dissociated from such possible primitive relation, odor of blossom and odor of youth alike have now become for us excitants of the higher emotional life,—of vague but voluminous and supremely delicate æsthetic feeling. ”

“ It gets into our blood like some rare, subtly-compounded wine, and thrills us with unutterable sweetnesses, as of recollections from some other fairer life, lived in some happier star. Compared to it, all other scents seem heavy and earth-born, luring to the valleys instead of the heights. ”

“ All is joy, all is charm. The luscious and balmy air, loaded with the perfumes of herbs, with the perfumes of grass-wrack, with the odor of the wild flowers, caresses the soul with a penetrating sweetness. ”

“ And then, lifting it to my lips, I added: [Pg 47]
"I drink to the ladies: they add fragrance and beauty to our lives, like the red berries; comfort and strength, like this good ratafia; sweetness, like the sugar; and if sometimes they also add bitterness and acid, like the limes, it is doubtless for our good."
The gentlemen both touched glasses with me as they drank to my toast, the little doctor preternaturally solemn, and my captain almost as grave, but for a wicked twinkle in his eye. ”

“ Similarly, without the sense of taste, sweet or sour has no meaning, and in like manner only those who can hear know what music is, and only those who have a sense of smell are able to enjoy the perfume of a flower. ”

“ You see the rose a very beautiful flower; and you have been accustomed, whenever you saw and felt its beauty, to perceive, at the same time, a certain odour. The beauty and the odour thus become associated in your mind, and the smell brings along with it the pleasure you feel in looking at it. But the chief part of the gratification you receive from smelling a rose, arises from some past scene of delight of which it reminds you ”

“ In considering the advantages which we derive from our organs of smell and taste, the mere pleasures which they directly afford, as a part of the general happiness of life, are to be regarded, from their frequent occurrence, as of no considerable amount. The fragrance of the fields enters largely into that obscure but delightful group of images, which rise in our minds on the mere names of spring, summer, the country, and seems to represent the very form of ethereal purity, as if it were the breath of heaven itself. ”

“ They all have faces which express something, and most of them have perfumes which penetrate to our very souls. We can the more easily understand what is called the spirit within us, by smelling the perfume of a flower. ”

“ If my evening’s pleasure was neutralised by the concentrated aroma which arose from the great unwashed, it is only fair to observe that there is no soap in the country, and most people have, for two years or so, only had the one suit of clothes in which they stand up. ”

“ A disagreeably sweetish odour which arises impudently to my nose makes me start.
There stands the pitcher of herb tea which my landlady brought in at bedtime.
The dear woman.
"Man must sweat," she had declared. "If the whole man gets into a sweat then the evil humours are exuded, and the healthy sap gets a chance to circulate until one is full of it." ”

“ When your senses are gratified by some sweet odour, do not rest in the enjoyment itself, but let your thoughts pass on to your Lord, from Whom the delight comes; and, filled with inward joy at this contemplation, say—"Grant, O Lord, that as I rejoice because all sweetness comes from Thee, so may my soul, cleansed and delivered from all earthly gratifications, mount up to Thee, and be acceptable as a sweet savour poured forth in Thy Presence." ”

“ They are in general all those that are agreeable to the Oedema, which are variously us'd, as Liniments, Fomentations, Cataplasms, and Plaisters: Internal Medicines ought also to be much consider'd, as Diaphoreticks, Sudorificks, and Purgatives, when they are assisted by a regular Diet. ”

“ It's the odor of your soul. It is different at different times—sometimes inspiringly sweet as the incense of heaven, as my metaphoric friend Gourdain would say—sometimes as deadly sweet as the odors of the drugs men take to drag them to hell—sometimes repulsively sweet, making one heart sick for pure, clean smell-less air yet without the courage to seek it. Your perfume is many things, but always—always strong and tenacious and individual. ”

“ And, when it deprives itself of the pleasure of all the sweetness of perfumes which can give it pleasure through the sense of smell, it remains equally unoccupied and in darkness according to this faculty. And, if it also denies itself the pleasure of all food that can satisfy the palate, the soul likewise remains unoccupied and in darkness. ”

“ The air that one inhales with delight is a quintessence of perfumes. The strong yet sweet odor, delicious as some dainty, seems to blend with our being, to saturate us, to intoxicate us, to enervate us, to plunge us into a sleepy, dreamy torpor. As though it were an opium prepared by the hands of fairies and not by those of druggists. ”

“ Perfume was over all, the earth and all that lived sang, the sun drew forth the flowers in the field and they lifted themselves up toward the sky and made their obeisance to the sun. The young trees whispered and swayed, the birds twittered and love burned everywhere on the fruitful earth which was drunk with its own strength. ”

“ It lay in the heavy fragrance of the trees, in the soft swinging of the palm leaves, in the multitudinous burgeoning and bloom about her. It lay in the long-drawn music of the men's voices, in the caressing laughter of the women. It lay in the flaming blushes that, even at table, mantled her face; in the delicious languor that pervaded her limbs and seemed to creep into the innermost marrow of her bones. ”