Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/153

Rh events, after a time the amateur in smell may find himself able, like Rousseau, to perceive perfumes when other people do not notice any, and as a mark at which he can aim let it be said that when he finds himself able to distinguish streets from each other by their smell alone he has made some little progress in the art.

The innate acuteness of the sense varies widely in different people. Some go through life blunt to all but the coarser smells, while others are gifted with a sensitiveness as delicate almost as that of a macrosmatic animal. 'This is scarcely an exaggeration, I am acquainted with people—English people—who are able to recognise by olfaction not only different races and the two sexes, but even different persons, One of those sensitives informs me that to her the personal olfactory atmosphere is every whit as characteristic and unmistakable as the play of features or the carriage of the figure.

Another remarkable feat within the capacity of human macrosmatics, and one that seems almost incredible to the ordinary individual, is that of being able to distinguish the clothing of different persons by its aroma. Some can even recognise their own, a remarkable circumstance in view of the almost universal rule that each is anosmic to his own particular atmosphere.