But there is another sea-smell, equally powerful and much less romantic. Can you endure the breath of hot oil and metal from the engines of a steamer without a qualm? If ever a boy has watched and helped the fishermen clean and tan their nets, he will always after, as often as chance brings the smell to his nostrils, revive again the pit in the ground and the gruff voices of the heavy-booted men pulling the twisted net up and down, in and out. Or the bean-flowers’ boon? This, as it happens, concerns also somebody else, but as she has long since been lost in the crowd, I am not breaking any confidences in recalling the scene. We are standing together beside the gate of a hill plantation, and I see a tall lady’s delicately cut profile against the sombre green and brown of the fir-trees. Although the flush of the sunset has almost entirely faded from the sky, it seems to be lingering yet a while on her cheek as if reluctant to leave her. As for me, I am as keen to every breath of emotion as the little loch below is to the slightest stir of air. The time is past for talk, and I am watching her in silence. So I see the thin curved nostril dilate a little, at once to be quietly restrained, as if even this little display of feeling on her part were out of place,—and then I also turn to look at the butterfly bean-flowers in the field at our feet. Now as often as the bean blooms, so does her memory. How powerfully associations affect our olfactory likes and dislikes we hinted on a former page, and in this matter of smell-memories we can observe the same effect. Smells which to others seem offensive may, if they arouse a pleasant memory, borrow from it a tinge that turns their offence into a joy for ever. In my own case iodine and the rather irritating odour of bleaching powder are always welcome and always sweet. Yet they recall nothing more interesting than the days of childhood to me! On the other hand, perfumes generally considered to be pleasant will be objectionable to us if they arouse unhappy memories. The most beautiful, however, are those which have been young with us, and yet have never forsaken us, by continual refreshment keeping an eternal youth. And of all the odours in life none surely is so rich both in retrospect and in prospect as the smell of books to him who loves them. The cosy invitation of a library! Not a public library, needless to say, where the intimate appeal is lost in a jumble of smells—dust, paste, ink and clammy overcoats. Such public mixtures the bookworm, that solitary self-centred individual, must, by reason of his shyness, ever consistently shun. But usher him into the private room of a private house where books, many books, have reposed for many years. Then go away and leave him to it.