This animal has a regrettable fondness for wallowing, diligently and with forethought, in the Abominable, until his coat is thoroughly well impregnated. For no other reason, I do verily believe, than, as he thinks, to give his human friends for once some of the olfactory pleasure he himself enjoys. A treat he thinks it, without any doubt. Just look at the smirk of pride and satisfaction on his face as he trots in and resumes his place on the drawing-room hearthrug and the amazement with which he receives the sudden toe of your boot!
And yet he rolls himself over on the odoriferous for the same reason that a fashionable lady has orris-root put in her bath; namely, for the pleasure and gratification of society at large. There are who say that my lady’s perfume seems 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 I 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.
We may take it as on the whole true that a repulsive odour is a dangerous odour. Not invariably, however. Otherwise grouse in their season would not be esteemed a dainty and Gorgonzola would everywhere be buried. Nevertheless in these high realms palatability is limited to quite a narrow streak. There is a level beyond which the boldest gastronomic adventurer dare not climb.
It is remarkable that the liking for half-decomposed food, although an acquired taste, is found everywhere in the world, among savage and civilised, rich and poor, high and low—but not among young and old. For young people do not usually approve of such recherché flavours. It would be a mistake, however, to argue from that fact that these savoury meats act as fillips to a sense jaded with age, because it is generally agreed that neither smell nor taste declines in acuteness as we grow old. On the contrary, they become more instructed, more particular, more delicate. Appetite declines if you like, but taste and smell abide increasingly unto the end.
Nevertheless we can only look upon this particular liking as acquired, since the high relish of one country but fills its neighbours with disgust.
It is worthy of remark, perhaps, that the last whiff, the final sublimated breath of ripe Gorgonzola as it passes over, is a faint suggestion of ammonia. Curiously enough, this always fills my imagination with the sack of cities and the end of all things in smoke and thunder. It may be because the penultimate phase of life itself is ammonia. Fire, slaughter, and much more besides come quite promptly to this gas for the City of Destruction, what there is left of the remainder in dust and ashes being but a handful for the wind.
To the keen-sensed medical man certain morbid states can be recognised by their exhalations. I have even heard of an enthusiast on the subject who alluded to them as “both visible and tangible”; but that, I think, must be exceptional.