The New York Times, April 4, 2004
To imagine a time and place – say, the city of Oxford on a summer day in 1662 – you have to engage not only the mind’s eye and ear but also the mind’s nose. The warm odor of malt and corn flour rises from the boats landing at the wharves along the Thames. The stink of cured fish hanging in fishmongers’ stalls mixes with the soft smell of bread in the bakeries. The smell of manure is everywhere, in the open sewers, on the town common where cows graze, in the streets where horses haul wagons and coaches.