during spectacular dramas depicting the (theatrical) East.
Why not go further ? Think how the appeal of a love-scene would be strengthened by an invisible cloud of roses blown into the house through the ventilating shafts The villain would be heralded by an olfactory motif of a brimstony flavour mingled, if he was of the usual swarthy countenance, with a soupçon of garlic. The hero, well groomed and clean-limbed, would waft a delicate suggestion of Brown Windsor to the love-sick maidens in the dress-circle. The heavy father would radiate snuff with his red pocket-handkerchief. The large-eyed foreign adventuress would permeate the auditorium on wings of patchouli. The dear broken-hearted old mother would disseminate that most respectable of perfumes (for there is a caste-system among smells) eau de Cologne—a scent that always evokes in my mind a darkened room, tiptoes, hushed voices, raised forefingers, and Somebody in bed with a—headache.
And so on. Here is a new way of “putting it over.”
Critics will object that, as the influence of eau de Cologne on my own mind shows, the particular odours so supplied would defeat their purpose by calling up a thousand different and incongruous images in the thousand minds of the audience.
