Joan Silver-pin 
3 T 7 
The question of the agreeableness of a flower 
scent is a matter of public opinion as well as personal 
choice. Environment and education influence us. 
In olden times every one liked certain scents deemed 
odious to-day. Parkinson’s praise of Sweet Sultans 
was, “ They are of so exceeding sweet a scent as it 
surpasses the best civet that is.” Have you ever 
smelt civet? You will need no words to tell vou 
that the civet is a little cousin of the skunk. Cow- 
per could not talk with civet in the room ; most of 
us could not even breathe. The old herbalists call 
Privet sweet-scented. I don’t know that it is strange 
to find a generation who loved civet and musk think- 
ing Privet pleasant-scented. Nearly all our modern 
botanists have copied the words of their predecessors; 
but I scarcely know what to say or to think when I 
find so exact an observer as John Burroughs calling 
Privet cc faintly sweet-scented.” I find it rankly ill- 
scented. 
The men of Elizabethan days were much more 
learned in perfumes and fonder of them than are 
most folk to-day. Authors and poets dwelt frankly 
upon them without seeming at all vulgar. Of 
course herbalists, from their choice of subject, were 
free to write of them at length, and they did so with 
evident delight. Nowadays the French realists are 
the only writers who boldly reckon with the sense 
of smell. It isn’t deemed exactly respectable to 
dwell too much on smells, even pleasant ones ; so 
this chapter certainly must be brief. 
I suppose nine-tenths of all who love flower 
scents would give Violets as their favorite fragrance ; 
