Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/121

 fragrant scents, and the enamored lover shall no longer bring on his head the maledictions of the neighbors for making night hideous with his guitar and hoarse voice, but shall waft to his lady-love a voiceless serenade of distilled essences from the bowers of love."

"My dear sir," we broke in, "this is really too absurd. Besides, pardon us for looking at our watch, but we have a case of leg at the hospital"

"Absurd," said he in some heat, entirely disregarding our last clause—"Look here! do you see this work by a learned German professor of Leipzig? What can you say to that?"

And drawing a small volume from his pocket, he showed us what at first we supposed was a series of musical notes, but in fact was the harmonic scale of perfumes, arranged in different keys and accords, with a series of comments by the author, explaining the necessity of mingling essential oils according to these laws in order to form new perfumes, and to affect pleasantly the olfactory sense. We looked at the title-page and saw: "Toilletten-chemie, von Dr. Heinrich Hirzel, Professor a. d. Universität zu Leipzig, 1866."

In truth our friend has some foundation for his speculations. The proper use of perfumes, quite as much as their manufacture, demands an acquaintance with their accords.

In the first place, his hint of the unpleasant effects of certain odors on some people should be borne in