Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/122

 mind. The animal perfumes, musk, civet, and ambergris, as well as camphor, new-mown hay, and patchoulis, are extremely disagreeable to many. We know a lady who cannot smell musk without it giving her a headache. Moreover, bergamot, patchoulis, and musk are in our large American cities especially popular among the lower and the immoral classes of women, which is reason enough why they should be avoided by a lady. No powerful or pungent scents should be used, as they lead to a suspicion that they are employed to conceal some bad smell natural to the person. Rare old Ben Jonson, in his drama of "The Silent Woman," has one of his characters say:—

"Still to be powd'red, still perfumed, Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound."

It is well at times to appear without any artificial odor whatever, with only the subtle, fresh, and rich aroma of perfect health and cleanliness, that indescribable odeur de jolie femme, as Alexandra Dumas, fils, calls it in one of his novels. There is another reason for the same occasional deprivation. The nerves of smell soon lose their fine sensibility, or else acquire an unhealthy irritability, if long subjected to the same stimulus. The wine-bibber is never a connoisseur in vintages, the gourmand is never a gourmet, and the