DOCTOR CLARKE ON TOBACCO. 205 



known, then, that the Creator has not created it in vain. 

 Dr. Clarke must have been a very good-natured man. He 

 tortured his brains to find a hope of pardon for Judas Iscariot, 

 and held that the creature (Nachash) who tempted Eve was 

 not a serpent but a monkey cursed by the forfeiture of 

 patella and podex therefore doomed to crawl ! But I fear, 

 if the present form of using tobacco be not the true one, we 

 must despair of ever finding it, and people will go on smok- 

 ing and ' hearing reason ' as long as the world goes round. 

 Robert Hall received a pamphlet denouncing the pipe. He 

 read it, and returned it. ' I cannot, sir, confute your argu- 

 ments, and I cannot give up smoking,' was his comment. 

 It is loosely asserted that smoking is more prevalent among 

 scholars, intellectualists, and men who live by their brains, 

 than among artisans and subduers of the soil. This is an 

 error. Tobacco is less a fosterer of thought than a solace of 

 mental vacuity. The thinker smokes in the intervals of 

 work, impatient of ennui as well as of lassitude, and the 

 ploughman, the digger, the blacksmith or the teamster, lights 

 his cutty for the same reason. No true worker, be he digger, 

 or divine, blends real work with either smoking or drinking. 

 Whenever you see a fellow drink or smoke during work, 

 spot him for a gone coon ; he will come to grief, and that 

 right soon. Sleep stimulates thought, and sometimes a pipe 

 will bring sleep, but trust it not of itself for either thought 

 or strength. It combats ennui, lassitude, and intolerable 

 vacuity, soothing the nerves and diverting attention from 

 self. Sam Johnson came very near the mark : * I wonder 

 why a thing that costs so little trouble, yet has just sufficient 

 semblance of doing something to break utter idleness, should 

 go out of fashion. To be sure, it is a horrible thing blow- 

 ing smoke out ; but every man needs something to quiet 

 him as, beating with his feet.' 



"Life is really too short for moralists and medici who 

 have read Don Quixote, to attack a verdict arrived at and 

 acted upon by the combined nations of the entire world, 

 during the experience, of three centuries, and apparently 

 deepened by their advancing civilization. Give us rules and 

 modifications, give us guides and correctives, give us warnings 

 against excess, precipitancy, and neglect of other enjoyments, 

 or of important duties, if you will. The urbane aestheticism 

 that regulates pleasure also limits it ; and true refinement ever 

 modifies the indulgence it pervades. But it is emulating 

 Mrs. Partington and her mop to attempt to preach down a 



