Читать книгу Aromatics and the Soul: A Study of Smells онлайн

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I can myself remember in my younger days in Scotland an old doctor having his first bath in the palatial surroundings of a modern bathroom. Not in his own house, needless to say! After a patient and particular inspection of all the glittering taps of “shower,” “spray,” “plunge,” and what not, he commended his spirit to the Higher Powers—or rather, I fear, according to his wont, for he was not of the Holy Willie persuasion, to the keeping of those of the Nether Regions. Then he proceeded gingerly to insert into the steaming water first of all his toes, then his feet, next his ankles, and so bit by bit, until, greatly daring, he had committed his entire body to the deep—to emerge as soon as possible! He was no coward, let me tell you, in the ordinary run of life. But this was his first bath in the altogether since his primal post-natal plunge. His first bath! And his last! It nearly killed him, he said; never in all his life had he felt so bad, and not for a thousand pounds would he repeat the experiment!