I understand by the writing of a journal the absolute truthfulness and freedom of a soul communing with itself, the exclamations of pain, of joy, the dreaming, and the criticism of life. It must be a free running of the tired or compressed faculties, a restful abandonment, a strengthening reiteration, a satisfying outflow of emotions, self-confession, self-criticism, self-blame, a retention of beautiful things, of inspiring things and of knowledge, a following and unveiling of ideas, a development of philosophies, an exhortation to the fulfillment of individual perfection, a reminder of the clearer and higher moments in the intellectual life and of the kinder, nobler moments of the human life.

“You are night, my darling: night at the peak of its lunar, feminine power. You are midnight: culminating shadow where dreams culminate, where love culminates.”

“PERFUME—the heady and elusive marriage of the essences of herbs and spices, wild grasses and flowers, bark and animal and tree—is an engine of the universe. From earliest times, people have taken pleasure in rubbing fragrant substances into their skin. Timeless and universal, scent has been a powerful force in ritual, medicine, myth, and conquest. Perfume has helped people to pray, to heal, to make love and war, to prepare for death, to create. To inspire, after all, is literally “to breathe in.””