The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-02-19
PARFUM DE JEUNEsSE.

Il remember" said an old friend,
telling me the romance of his youth,
that I could always find her cloak
in the cloakreom without a light, when
it was time to take her home. l used
to know it in the dark, because it had
the smell of sweet new milk"
Which set me somehow to thinking
of English dawns, the scent of hay
fields, the fragraneea Of hawthorn days;
and cluster after cluster of memories
lighted up in succession through a great
are of remembrance that flashed over
half a life time. even before my friend 8
last words had ceased to sound in my
ears. And then recollections smould-
cred into reVery-a revery about the
riddle of the odor of youth.
That quality of the parfum de jeun-
esse which my friend described is not
uncommon, though | fancy that it be-
longs to northern rather than to south
ern races. 1t signifies perfect health
and splendid vigor But there are other
and more delicate varieties of the at
traction Sometimes it may cause you
to think of precious gems or spices from
the uttermOst tropics; sometimes it is
q thin thin sweetness like a ghost Of
musk. 1t is not personal Though ply
steal personality certainly has an
odor)E it is the fragrance Of a season,
of the springtime Of life. But even as
the fragrance Of spring. though every
where a passing delight, varies with
country and climate, so varies the fra
GRANGE Of youth.
Whether it be Of one sex more than
of another, We're difficult to say We
notice it chiefly in girls, and in children
with long hair probably because it
dwells especially in the hair But it is
always Independent of artifice as the
sweetness Of the wild violet is. 1t be-
longs to the youth Of the savage not
less than to the youth of the civilized,
to the adolescence of the peasant
not less than to that of the
prince. 1t is not found in the
sclSly and the feeble, but only in per-
feet joyous health. Perhaps, like beau
ty, it may have some vague general re-
lations to conditions ethical. Individu-
al odors assuredly haVe-as the dis
elimination of the dog gives witness.
EVolutionists have suggested that the
pleasure we find in the perfume of a
flower may be an emotional reflection
from areas enormously remote, when
such odor announced, to forms of an
cestral life far lower than human. the
presence of savory food. To what or
ganic memory Of association might be
due, upon the same hypothesis our
pleasure in the perfume Of youth?
Perhaps there were ages in which
that perfume had significances more de-
finite and special than any which we
can now attach to it. Like the plea
sure giided by the fragrance Of flowers,
the pleasure given by the healthy frag-
rance OF young body may be, partly
at least. a survival from some era in
which odorous Impressions made direct
appeal to the simplest of ife-saving
impulses. Long associated from such
possible primitive relation, Odor of blos-'
som and odor of youth alike have now
become for us excitants of the higher
emotional life,-of vague but volumin-
Gus and supremely delicate aesthetic
feeling.
Like the feeling awakened by beauty,
the pleasure OF odor is a pleasure Of
remembrance--is the magic appeal Of
3. sensation to countless memories of
countless lives. And even as the scent
of a blossom evolses the ghosts Of feel
ing experienced in millions of millions
Of unrecorded springs. the fra
GRANGE of youth bestirs within us tbs
spectral survival Of sensations assoc
cated with every vefnal cycle Of all
the human existence that has vanished
behind us.
And this Fragrance OF fresh being
likewise makes Invocation to ideal SEN
timent-to parental scarcity less than
to amorous tenderness.-beca con-
Joined through Unreasonable time with
charm and the beauty of childhood.
Out Of sight and death is summoned by
its necromancy more than a shadowy
thrill from the rapture Of parished pas
sion. more than a phantom reflex from
the delight of countless bridals; even
something also Of the ecstacy of press
ing lips Of caress to the silky head of
the first born.-faint influence from the
forgotten joy Of myriads of millions of
buried mothers,
"THE STORY OF FRANCE"