The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field

Have you ever come out of the thick, smoky atmosphere of the town into the fragrant, gracious atmosphere of a library? If you have, you know how grateful the change is, and you will agree with me when I say that nothing else is so quieting to the nerves, so conducive to physical health, and so quick to restore a lively flow of the spirits.

Lafcadio Hearn once wrote a treatise upon perfumes, an ingenious and scholarly performance; he limited the edition to fifty copies and published it privately -- so the book is rarely met with. Curiously enough, however, this author had nothing to say in the book about the smells of books, which I regard as a most unpardonable error, unless, properly estimating the subject to be worthy of a separate treatise, he has postponed its consideration and treatment to a time when he can devote the requisite study and care to it.