You see the rose a very beautiful flower; and you have
been accustomed, whenever you saw and felt its beauty, to perceive, at
the same time, a certain odour. The beauty and the odour thus become
associated in your mind, and the smell brings along with it the pleasure
you feel in looking at it. But the chief part of the gratification you
receive from smelling a rose, arises from some past scene of delight of
which it reminds you; as, of the days of your innocence and childhood,
when you ran about the garden--or when you were decorated with
nosegays--or danced round a may-pole, (this is rather a free
translation)--or presented a bunch of flowers to some little favourite."
He said a great deal more on the subject, and spoke so prettily and
ingeniously, as almost to make a convert of me; when, on bringing my
nose once more to the flower, I found in it the same exquisite
fragrance as ever.
"Why do we like," he continued, "the smell of a beef-steak, or of a cup
of tea, except for the pleasure we receive from their taste?"
I mentioned, as an exception to his theory, the codfish, which is
esteemed a very savoury dish by my countrymen, but which no one ever
regarded as very fragrant. But he repelled my objection by an ingenious
hypothesis, grounded on certain physiological facts, to show that this
supposed disagreeable smell was also the effect of some early
associations.
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