insect-nostril

Updated: May 28, 2025

I have been told that the books stood there in perfect order, with the rose-spray flapping at the window, and great Japanese vases exhaling such odours as most annoy an insect-nostril. The very bees would come to the window, and sniff, and boom indignantly away again. The silence there was perfect.

Edmund Gosse - Gossip in a Library