essential part of all favourite perfumes: it is a principal ingredient in the renowned old Windsor soap, all sachets, or dry perfumery-bags contain it, few essences or bouquets are without it, and yet this is a perfume that no one likes!
The scents of the ancients were, as far as we know, entirely dry perfumes, such as myrrh, spikenard, frainkincense, all gum resins which are still in use by perfumers, and they were used rather to perfume the air than the person, although it was a very old custom to scent the beard. It is a question purely of taste as to whether scent is allowable to the male sex, but among Englishmen, at least, the feeling is against it; the fashion is certainly feminine, and long may it be confined to the ladies, for although it would be a superfluity to paint the lily, we may yet be permitted to perfume the living violet.
“HIS HAND UPON THE LATCH.”
A YOUNG WIFE’S SONG.
My cottage home is fill’d with light
The long, long summer day,
But, ah! I dearer love the night.
And hail the sinking ray.
For eve restores me one whose smile
Doth more than morning’s match,—
And life afresh seems dawning while
His hand is on the latch!
When autumn fields are thick with sheaves
And shadows earlier fall,
And grapes grow purple ’neath the eaves
Along our trellis’d wall,—
I dreaming sit,—the sleepy bird
Faint twittering in the thatch,—
To wake to joy when soft is heard
His hand upon the latch!
In the short winter afternoon
I throw my work aside,
And through the lattice, whilst the moon
Shines mistily and wide,
On the dim upland paths I peer
In vain his form to catch,—
I startle with delight, and hear
His hand upon the latch!
Yes; I am his in storm and shine;
For me he toils all day;
And his true heart I know is mine,
Both near me and away.
And when he leaves our garden gate
At morn, his steps I watch,—
Then patiently till eve await
His hand upon the latch!
