92 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY. 



epochs, can certainly not do justice to his subject if he be 

 not an adept in blowing a cloud. The romancist, who 

 differs only from the historian in that he embodies brief 

 spaces and not centuries, families and not races, he, too, 

 must love his meerschaum or his cheroot. Leaning back 

 leisurely upon his sofa, if he have one, and pufSng his amber 

 mouthpiece, ideas, thoughts, feelings, rush in rapid succession 

 upon the mind prepared for kindly and soothing emotions. 

 In the curling wreaths of vapour which ambiantly play 

 around him he discovers lovely and exquisite images j 

 amid the shadowy pulsations which throb in the atmosphere 

 he sees the fair and exquisite countenance of woman, faint* 

 perhaps, as the shade cast by the Aphrodisian star, but 

 yet visible to his eye. The aromatic leaf is the maUriel 

 of his incantations. Yes, there is magic in the cigar. 

 Then, to the sailor, on the wide and tossing ocean, what 

 consolation is there, save in his old pipe ? "While smoking 

 his inch-and-a-half of clay, black and polished, his Susan 

 or his Mary becomes manifest before him ; he sees her, 

 holds converse with her spirit. In the red glare from the 

 ebony bowl, as he walks the deck at night, or squats on 

 tlie windlass, are reflected the bright sparkling eyes of hi&- 

 sweetheart. ****** The Irish fruit-woman, the 

 Jarvie without a fare [and with one], the policeman 

 on a quiet beat, the soldier at his ease, all bow to the 

 mystic power of tobacco, and none more so than our own- 

 self." * 



And now for a doctor : — 



"In habitual smokers," says Dr. Pereira, a high au- 

 thority in such matters, " the practice, when moderately- 

 indulged, provokes thirst, increases the secretion of saliva^ 



* Bentley's Miscellany, March, 1844. 



