Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/93

Rh as vile to her Pekinese as his then does to her ! If so, he is the more tolerant animal of the two.

Anyhow, he certainly has the knack of thrusting the Unmentionable upon the attention of the most fastidious, and smell is no longer speechless.

Now, if we are to treat fully of things olfactory, we must at least take cognisance of the Unmentionable. But to extend our notice would take us across the garden to the muckrake and the dunghill. And such nearer investigation and description I must decline, even although in these days of outspokenness I may have to apologise for Victorian squeamishness, To attain merit as a writer the advice now given you is : Be frank ! And if you disgust, why, so much the better !

That may be so. I do not question the value of the advice, not for a moment. All 1 say is that I prefer not to take it. And if somebody else desires this particular laurel-crown, this crown of tainted laurel, he shall wear it without arousing any envy upon my part, albeit, as I know full well, this is a branch of the subject which illuminates many obscurities and seeming eccentricities in human conduct. I know all about that, but, as Herodotus so often says, I am not going to tell all I know, although, I fear, an allusion or two may be necessary. Rh