SOCIAL AND .ESTHETIC VIEW. 137 



presence of ladies. Their cigars, too, seemed to 

 drop instinctively from their lips. But the senses 

 of sight and of smell were abundantly filled, I will 

 not say satisfied. 



A card-table, evidently not a mere ornamental 

 appendage, stood conveniently between every two 

 seats, — an expensive indulgence not granted to 

 any other class of passengers, — a seeming pre- 

 mium offered to smokers. After twenty minutes 

 of forced endurance I withdrew, saddened and 

 indignant, with profound pity for the women whose 

 dear ones such places could attract. Most of all 

 I wondered how any man of religious principle, 

 or even ordinary sensibility, could bring himself 

 to tolerate such a social and moral atmosphere ; 

 still more, how he could seek it. My one expe- 

 rience was enough for a lifetime. 



M I was glad," said Thoreau when at Cape Cod, 

 " to have got out of the towns w T here I am wont 

 to feel unspeakably mean and disgraced, — to 

 have left behind me for a season the bars of 

 Massachusetts, where the full-grown are not 

 weaned from savage habits, — still sucking a cigar. 

 My spirits rose in proportion to the outward 

 dreariness. The towns need to be ventilated. 

 The gods would be pleased to see some pure 

 flames from their altars. They are not to be 

 appeased with cigar-smoke." 



