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ignoring all our polite little attempts at escape, treat us to an extempore lecture on his hobby.

"The sense of smell," he begins, "is beyond all comparison the most delicate, ethereal, and noble of all the senses. You can put a grain of pure musk in a room for years, have your windows open, occupy it daily, but every person who enters will at once detect the perfume, and leave the apartment carrying with him some slight particle of musk. At the end of ten years, weigh your musk, and you will find the full grain, not diminished by the hundredth fraction of a milligramme. Can you see, feel, hear, taste these infinitely little molecules? No! you can only smell them. Mark the lower animals. Does the dog trust to eye or ear to recognize his master? No! to his scent alone.

"You doctors give your medicines by the stomach or the skin. If I were a doctor and had a diploma, I should found a new school. I would give my medicines by the nose. You smile. But I can prove to you that organic matter has ten-thousand-fold more influence when thus administered, than in any other way. I have a brother, a sturdy, sun-browned farmer, to whom the odor of his new-mown hay, to you so delicious, is a poison. It throws him into fits of stentorian sneezings, he chokes and gasps as if he would strangle. The doctors call it 'hay-asthma,' or 'rose cold,' and pour annually down his throat quarts of

drugs, without a shadow of benefit. Of course not. Why don't they apply the remedies to the part affected? If he had a sore toe they would not bandage his finger. They should cure him by odors.

"I have a cousin, no nervous invalid but a hardy sailor, who hasn't seen thirty summers, but has ploughed every ocean and trodden every continent on this globe. Bring him into a room where there is a watermelon, and he is at once seized with such paroxysms of sneezing and coughing that he can hardly speak a word. You don't approve of infinitesimals.

Do those who believe in them ever divide medicines more minutely, think you, than these odors?"

"Hold!" exclaimed we, goaded by this last thrust from our design to let him talk himself out as quickly as possible, "hold, you don't understand the subject. We will explain it in two words. The Schneiderian membrane when in a condition of hyperæsthesia-"

"Enough," replies our incorrigible friend, "I grant it. At any rate I would rather die in ignorance, than hear an explanation which begins in that manner. Pardon the hit. I thought you looked bored, and I wanted to stir you up to listen to my theory of perfumery as a fine art. The ear has music; the eye its complementary and contrasted colors; so there is a music to the sense of smell, a sweet accord of odors, as fixed, as much under law, as the sonatas of Beethoven. In some riper civilization we shall have operas of

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fragrant scents, and the enamored lover shall no longer bring on his head the maledictions of the neighbors for making night hideous with his guitar and hoarse voice, but shall waft to his lady-love a voiceless serenade of distilled essences from the bowers of love."

"My dear sir," we broke in, "this is really too absurd. Besides, pardon us for looking at our watch, but we have a case of leg at the hospital

"Absurd," said he in some heat, entirely disregarding our last clause “Look here! do you see this work by a learned German professor of Leipzig? What can you say to that?"

And drawing a small volume from his pocket, he showed us what at first we supposed was a series of musical notes, but in fact was the harmonic scale of perfumes, arranged in different keys and accords, with a series of comments by the author, explaining the necessity of mingling essential oils according to these laws in order to form new perfumes, and to affect pleasantly the olfactory sense. We looked at the title-page and saw: "Toilletten-chemie, bon Dr. Heinrich Hirzel, Professor a. d. Universität zu Leipzig, 1866."

In truth our friend has some foundation for his speculations. The proper use of perfumes, quite as much as their manufacture, demands an acquaintance with their accords.

In the first place, his hint of the unpleasant effects of certain odors on some people should be borne in

mind. The animal perfumes, musk, civet, and ambergris, as well as camphor, new-mown hay, and patchoulis, are extremely disagreeable to many. We know a lady who cannot smell musk without it giving her a headache. Moreover, bergamot, patchoulis, and musk are in our large American cities especially popular among the lower and the immoral classes of women, which is reason enough why they should be avoided by a lady. No powerful or pungent scents should be used, as they lead to a suspicion that they are employed to conceal some bad smell natural to the person. Rare old Ben Jonson, in his drama of "The Silent Woman," has one of his characters say:"Still to be powd'red, still perfumed,

Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound."

It is well at times to appear without any artificial odor whatever, with only the subtle, fresh, and rich aroma of perfect health and cleanliness, that indescribable odeur de jolie femme, as Alexandre Dumas, fils, calls it in one of his novels. There is another reason for the same occasional deprivation. The nerves of smell soon lose their fine sensibility, or else acquire an unhealthy irritability, if long subjected to the same stimulus. The wine-bibber is never a connoisseur in vintages, the gourmand is never a gourmet, and the

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person forever smelling strong perfumes rarely can use them judiciously.

Therefore, one should avoid wearing constantly a favorite perfume. Change it rather for one of the same accord. For example, sandal-wood, which in an impalpable powder is now sold at our Japanese stores, accords well with rose-geranium, acacia blossoms, orange flowers, or camphor; musk suits with rose, tuberose, tonka bean, or jonquille; and so forth. a discrimination will be as readily made by a naturally keen or well-educated nose, as a tune will be caught by a cultivated ear; and a discord will be as promptly detected by the one sense as by the other.

Such

But the subject is so extensive, and furthermore as it does not actually lie within our present subject, we must leave it. Should our friends wish for a full discussion of the topic, we must some time start our enthusiastic acquaintance on his favorite branch, and retail for their benefit what he tells us. Or we shall urge him to address himself directly to them, and thus make a double escape for ourselves.

So far as relates to the correction of unpleasant odors about the person, we shall not omit to give full directions about those when we come to speak of the skin, breath, etc.

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