The Sense of Smell

"Smell is of all senses by far the most evocative: perhaps because we have no vocabulary for it — nothing but a few poverty-stricken approximations to describe the whole vast complexity of odor — and therefore the scent, unnamed and unnameable, remains pure of association; it cannot be called upon again and again, and blunted, by the use of a words; and so it strikes afresh every time, bringing with it all the circumstances of its first perception. This is particularly true when a considerable period of time has elapsed."

-Maturin, in Patrick O'Brian's Post Captain