February 24, 2010
"Who that has reason and his smell
Would not among roses and jasmine dwell,
Rather than all his spirits choke,
With exhalations of dirt and smoke,
And all the uncleanness which does drown
In pestilential clouds a populous town?
The earth itself breathes better perfumes here,
Than all the female men or women there,
Not without cause, about them bear."

— Abraham Cowley. From “The Garden”. In Cowley’s Essays [Project Gutenberg]