friend by hearty counsel." Maeterlinck has said respecting flowers, " They yield up their soul in perfume."
Similarly
in certain other respects, with regard to flowers, whether worn about
the person, or carried in the hand, an interchange of positive
sympathies, or antipathies, is a recognized fact. Thus a bouquet, or a
button-hole, of rare blossoms, when worn by some persons will retain
its freshness even for two or three days ; whilst when appropriated by
others in precisely the same way they will wither, and fade in the same
number of hours. And these remarkable phenomena manifestly are not
dependent on such mere physical conditions as stoutness, or leanness,
activity of perspiration, use of baths, or other such common causes.
Individual immaterial emanations underlie these indisputable results,
or effects.
Now-a-days
the scents favoured by fashionable society are much more varied,
elaborate, and costly, than of old. Several leading ladies of fashion
adopt a perfume, and make it their own, jealously guarding the secret
of both its name, and its maker, from their friends. This recent custom
took its origin from the marvellous secret toilet-water used by Queen "
Carmen Sylva," of Roumania, who for years past has employed a scent
prepared, and distilled, for her by women who are sworn to silence
concerning their work, and who, according to local report, gather the
flowers, and express the perfume intended for the Queen's use, in the
recesses of a lonely wood, under the protection of a guard of soldiers.
A
very favourite scent in Society circles is " violet pot pourri," made
by sprinkling layers of fresh violets with salt, and essence of
violets; the combination being delightfully fragrant: though, indeed,
Shakes-
