But what it is that makes one dog smell to another of enmity or of friendship is as mysterious as—the mutual attraction or repulsion felt for each other by two human beings, shall we say? For, of course, this suspense of judgment on encountering a new-comer is a human no less than a canine trait. There were physiognomists before Lavater, since we are naturally influenced by what our senses, and especially our eyes and our ears, tell us about a person we are meeting for the first time. We like the look of the man, his expression, his smile, the character of his movements, bodily as well as facial; we find the intonation of his voice, his accent, his laugh, agreeable. Or we don’t. And our decision is curiously independent of his moral character, even after we have got to know that side of him. Now, this act of judgment seems to us to be quite independent of any olfactory evidence. We rely upon our predominant senses just as the dog relies upon his. Yet I sometimes catch myself wondering whether olfaction, olfaction rarefied and refined beyond imagining, does not without our knowledge play some part in our estimate of the pros and cons in character. What is conveyed to us by the “personality” of a man? Here we have apparently a complex of sense-impressions, for the most part vague, which we are seldom able to analyse, even to ourselves. Still less can we put it into words capable of conveying our impression to other people. “There is _something_ about him that I like” is about the sum-total of our attempts at description. And if this be true as between man and man, it is even more often remarked as between man and woman. Meredith it is, I think, who says that the surest way to a woman’s heart is through her eye. Fortunately for most of us, his dictum is open to question. Otherwise the human race would soon come to an end. Now, although, unlike Meredith, I cannot claim the rank of a high-priest in the temple of Venus, yet so far as I may dare to express an opinion upon a matter so recondite, not to say mysterious, I should rather be inclined to say that the surest route is by way of her ear, and I am fortified in my belief by an authority as erudite in these matters as Meredith himself, Shakespeare to wit: “That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.” John Wilkes, they say, to all appearance a “most uninteresting-looking man,” asked for only half an hour of a start to beat the handsomest gentleman in England at the game of games. Women forgot what he was like as soon as he began to talk.