Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/109

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Smell and the Personality
97

mysteries of crowd-psychology, of those unreasonable waves of passion that sometimes sweep through masses of people and lead to all manner of strange happenings, like crusades and holy wars ; autos-da-fé; witch-burnings ; lynch-murders ; state-prohibition ; spiritualistic manifestations ; and other miracles.

(The somewhat uncanny “sense” we have when some one else is present in what we suppose to be an empty room may be olfactory in origin, but it has generally seemed to me that it is due rather to an alteration in the echo of the room, a change in its normal sound-picture. If the room is a strange one to us, I do not think we so readily become suspicious of the presence of an unseen and unexpected visitor.)

A.S.
H