II.
EASTERN SMELLS AND WESTERN NOSES.
IN his essay showing that a certain nation — contrary to the generally applauded notion — “do not stink,” Sir Thomas Browne uses with effect the argument that a mixed race cannot have a national smell. Among a mongrel people he contends no odor could he gentilitious; yet he nowhere denies the possibility, or even impugns the probability, of a pure people having a popular smell, a scent in which the public should share alike, an aroma as much common property as the National Anthem, a joint-stock fragrance, a commonwealth of odor, — a perfume with which no single individual could selfishly withdraw, saving, “This is my own, my proper and peculiar flavor, and no man may cry me halves in it,” as Alexander or Mahomet might have done, who, unless history lies, were divinely scented. Not that individual odors, as distinct from those of the species, have been uncommon in any times. Many instances may be found, if examples were required, to support “a postulate which has ever found unqualified assent.”
“For well I know,” cries Don Quixote, “the scent of that lovely rose! and tell me, Sancho, when near her, thou must have perceived a Sabean odor, an aromatic fragrance, a something sweet for which I cannot find a name, — a scent, a perfume, as if thou wert in the shop of some curious glover.”
