248 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
of two or three ladies, who, having no male relations 
to make up their minds for them, profess to be still 
in doubt, all sadly acknowledged that they find 
themselves poorer by one faculty than they had sup- 
posed themselves to be; that they began trying to 
recall smells in the belief that they had the power ; 
that they found that they could almost do it, then 
began to doubt, and finally with a feeling of impo- 
tence, of being baffled, gave it up. 
A simple mental experiment may serve to convince 
any person who tries it that the sensations of smell 
do not reproduce themselves in the mind. We 
think of a rose, or a lily, or a violet, and a 
feeling of pleasure attends the thought; but that 
this feeling is caused solely by the image of some- 
thing beautiful to the eye becomes evident when we 
proceed to think of some artificial perfume, or 
extract, or essence of a flower. The extract, we 
know, gave us far more pleasure than the slight 
perfume of the flower, but there is no feeling 
of pleasure in thinking of it: it is nothing more 
than an idea in the mind. On the other hand, when 
we remember some extremely painful scene that we 
have witnessed, or some sound, expressing distress 
or anguish, that we have heard, something of the 
distressed feeling experienced at the time is repro- 
duced in us; and it is common to hear people say, 
It makes me sad, or makes me dizzy, or makes my 
blood run cold, when I think of it; which is 
literally true, because in thinking of it they again 
(in a sense) see and hear it. But to think of evil 
