COSMETIC VALUE OF ODOURS
We come now to the fourth important function of the nose—the sense of smell. What has this to do with Personal Beauty? A great deal. In the first place, is not the flower-like fragrance of a lovely maiden a personal charm that has been sung of by a thousand poets, of all times? “The fragrant bosom of Andromache and of Aphrodite finds a place in Homer’s poetry,” as Professor Bain remarks; and an eccentric German professor, Dr. Jäger of Stuttgart, even wrote a book a few years ago on the Discovery of the Soul, in which he endeavoured to prove that the whole mystery of Love lies in the intoxicating personal perfumes.
It is not with such fancies, however, that we are concerned here. It can be shown on purely scientific grounds that the cause of Personal Beauty would gain an immense advantage if people would train and refine their olfactory nerves systematically, as they do their eyes and ears. Unfortunately, Kant’s absurd notion, expressed a century ago, that it is not worth while to cultivate the sense of smell, has been countenanced to the present day by the erroneous views held by the leading men of science, including Darwin, who wrote that “the sense of smell is of extremely slight service” to man.
In an article on the “Gastronomic Value of Odours,” which appeared in the Contemporary Review for November 1886, I pointed out that this under-valuation of the sense of smell is explained by the fact that the sense of taste has hitherto been credited with all the countless flavours inherent in food, whereas, in fact, taste includes only four sensations of gastronomic value—sweet, sour, bitter, and saline, all other “flavours” being in reality odours; as is proved by the fact that by clasping the nose we cannot distinguish between a lime and a lemon, different kinds of confectionery, of cheese, of nuts, of meat, etc.
Now it is well known that most people show a most amazing tolerance to insipid, badly-cooked food, gulping it down as rapidly as possible; and why? Simply because they do not know that in order to enjoy our meals we must eat slowly, and, while masticating, continually exhale the aroma-laden air through the nose (mind, not inhale but exhale). This is what epicures do unconsciously; and look at the results! No dyspepsia, no anæmia and sickly pallor, no walking skeletons;—and surely a slight embonpoint is preferable to leanness from the point of view of Personal Beauty.
If this gastronomic secret were generally known, people would insist on having better cooked food; dyspepsia, and leanness, and a thousand infirmities hostile to Beauty would disappear, and in course of time everybody would be as sleek and handsome and rosy-cheeked as a professional epicure.
Nor is this the only way in which refinement of the sense of smell would benefit Personal Beauty. In consequence of the criminally superstitious dread of night air, the atmosphere in most bedrooms is as foul, compared to fresh air, as a street puddle after a shower compared to a mountain brook. I have seen well-dressed persons in America and Italy take into their mouths the shamefully filthy and disease-soaked banknotes current in those countries; and I have seen others shudder at this sight who, if their smell were as refined as their sight, would have shuddered equally at the foul air in their bedrooms, which diminishes their vital energy and working power by one-half. Architects, of course, will make no provision for proper ventilation as long as they are not compelled to do so. Why should they? They don’t even care, in building a theatre, how many hundreds of people will some day be burnt in it, in consequence of their neglect of the simplest precautions for exit.
One more important consideration. When you leave the city for a few weeks everybody will exclaim on your return, “Why, how well you look! where have you been?” But wherein lies this cosmetic magic of country air? Not in its oxygen, for it has been proved, by accurate chemical tests, that in regard to the quantity of oxygen there is not the slightest difference between city and country air. What, then, is the secret?
I am convinced, from numerous experiments, that the value of country air lies partly in its tonic fragrance, partly in the absence of depressing, foul odours. The great cosmetic and hygienic value of deep-breathing has been proved in the chapter on the Chest. Now the tonic value of fragrant meadow or forest air lies in this—that it causes us involuntarily to breathe deeply, in order to drink in as many mouthfuls of this luscious aerial Tokay as possible: whereas in the city the air is—well, say unfragrant and uninviting; and the constant fear of gulping down a pint of deadly sewer gas discourages deep breathing. The general pallor and nervousness of New York people have often been noted. The cause is obvious. New York has the dirtiest streets of any city in the world, except Constantinople and Canton; and, moreover, it is surrounded by oil-refineries, which sometimes for days poison the whole city with the stifling fumes of petroleum, so that one hardly dares to breathe at all. No wonder that, by universal consent, there is more Fashion than Beauty in New York. And no wonder that it is becoming more and more customary, for all who can afford it, to spend six to eight months of the year in the country.