PHANTOM VIOLETS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—The letter with the above beading in your issue of June 7th says, "And in any case this would not account for the scent (of the violets), which was quite as unmistakable as the appearance." One sense may deceive another, as in the following instance. One evening in the dusk I was standing in the verandah of a house in Lower Bengal. I suddenly remarked, " What has the gardener been lighting a fire there for? " I went to the flower-bed from which the blue smoke of the bonfire appeared to be ascending. I found no fire, only a large and splendid lavender-coloured petraea, the existence of which in my friend's garden I had for the moment forgotten. The curious thing is that I had not only thought I saw the smoke ascending; I had, or believed I had, smelt the smoke !—I am, Sir, Ste., C. W. M. Bath.
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