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D. M.

AROMATICS AND THE SOUL

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I sing of smells, of scents, perfumes, odours, whiffs and niffs; of aromas, bouquets and fragrances; and also, though temperately and restrainedly I promise you, of effluvia, reeks, fœtors, stenches, and stinks.

A few years ago I stood before the public singing another song. By no means a service of praise it was, but something of the order of a denunciatory psalm, wherein I invoked the wrath of the high gods upon such miscreants as make life hideous with din.

You must not think that imprecations cannot be sung. All emotional utterance is song, said Carlyle; only he said it not quite so briefly. And, leaving on one side the vituperations of his enemies by King David (if he it was who wrote the Psalms) which we still chant upon certain days of the Christian year, it may be remembered that in bygone times when the medical practitioner was a wizard (or a witch) and uttered his (or her) spell to stay the arrows of Apollo, it not infrequently contained a denunciation of some brother (or sister) practitioner of the art (how times are changed!), and it was known, in Rome at all events, as a carmen, a song. Hence, say the etymologists, the English word “charm,” which still, of course, characterises the modern witch, if not the modern wizard—neither of whom, we may add, is nowadays a medical practitioner.