76 SMOKERS' STORIES. 



TENNYSON AS A SMOKER. 



THE Poet Laureate was a great smoker. 

 He never, with Charles Lamb, praised 

 "Bacchus' black servant, negro fine," 

 nor with Byron hymned the delights of 

 " sublime Tobacco " ; but he dearly loved 

 the weed for all that. Poet and dweller 

 in the empyrean though he was, he knew 

 nothing of Mr. Ruskin's scorn for those 

 who " pollute the pure air of the morning 

 with cigar smoke." But he did not affect 

 the Havana in any of its varied forms. 

 His joy was in a pipe of genuine Virginia 

 tobacco. A brother poet, who spent a 

 week with him at his country-seat, says 

 that Partagas, Regalias, and Cabanas had 

 no charm for him. 



He preferred a pipe, and of all the pipes 

 in the world the common clay pipe was 

 his choice. His den was at the top of 

 the house. Thither he repaired after 

 breakfast, and in the midst of a sea of 



