Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/89

Rh privileged to enter it were delighted, and wishing to enjoy her perfume to the full, were wont to approach their faces close to the bosom of the Saint, “who seemed to have become a casket in which the Lord had deposited His most precious perfumes.” After the death of St. Theresa a salt-cellar which had been placed in her bed preserved for a long time a most delicious odour. And so on indefinitely, some of the stories being, as might be expected, a little too plain-spoken and artless for modern readers.

It is difficult to account for the pleasant odour of Saints whose pride it was to live without change of raiment, to harbour parasites, and to abstain from washing, Nevertheless that certain persons exhale a naturally pleasant aroma from their bodies is true. Alexander the Great is noted by Plutarch as having so sweet an odour that his tunics were soaked with aromatic perfume, and taking a flying leap through the pages of history, we come to Walt Whitman, who had the same characteristic. Indeed, a piny aromatic odour, of considerable strength, is occasionally noticeable in certain people, and I can myself testify that it becomes stronger on the approach of their death.

We are not often told when historical heroes were unpleasant in this respect, but in the case of Louis XIV. we have the authoritative evidence of