Odors have an altogether peculiar force, in affecting us through association; a force differing essentially from that of objects addressing the touch, the taste, the sight or the hearing.
Interpretation
Odors have a unique ability to influence our emotions and memories, distinct from other senses.
In this quote, Edgar Allan Poe highlights the significant impact that smells can have on our psychological and emotional experiences. Unlike other senses, odors can evoke vivid memories and feelings due to their strong associations, demonstrating the profound connection between scent and our personal histories.
In practice
A speaker might use this quote to illustrate the power of memory during a psychology lecture.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
I no longer gave a sick dog's drop for the wisdom, the reliability and the authority of the public's literary mind, those creeps and old ladies of vested reviewing.
One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
I act because I can't seem to live with myself if I do not. I don't know any other way to be. It isn't something you can explain; it is just something that you do; it is something that you are.
It is not we who seek the Way, but the Way which seeks us. That is why you are faithful to it, even while you stand waiting, so long as you are prepared, and act the moment you are confronted by its demands.
I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.
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