SCENT AND MEMORY.
LTO THIS EDITOR OF THE “sesawros:1 SIR,—In an article in the Spectator of July 11th headed "Scent and Memory" the writer suggests the question : "Do any scents bring you unhappy recollections ? and if so, what are they P" To this question I can without hesitation answer "Yes." Being one of a large family with indulgent parents, I was sent at an early age to an uncle's country vicarage to have the benefit, I suppose, of a stricter discipline than that of my own home. After the lapse of over sixty years, I cannot now smell the scent of lime-trees in blossom without recalling my childish home-sickness as I.stood at the open window of the vicarage and the summer breeze laden with the smell of lime-flowers blew in my tear-stained face. There is another smell which carries with it to my consciousness a sad sense of loneliness. The morning after my arrival at my first school I came across a maid scouring a floor, and the smell of yellow soap still conveys to me the envious wish I then felt to be a happy maidservant rather than a miserable schoolboy. It is quite trim that all our senses may excite memory of past events, but the sense of smell does so in a different way from that of the others. Eye and ear may recall to our recollection scenes and sounds of the long past. But a smell has the power of reinstating a past experience in a manner very dissimilar to the mental effort of memory which the other four senses can alone excite.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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