SOCIAL AND ESTHETIC VIEW. 157 



Think of a delicate woman who is unpleasantly 

 affected by the least breath of the vile weed yoked 

 to one who makes use of it perpetually. The 

 health of many a wife has been sacrificed by such 

 a union. But has not the husband sufficient love, 

 or even common gallantry, to abandon the habit 

 he formed before marriage ? JVbt he! In the scales 

 are placed on the one hand his wife, and on the 

 other his ugly idol ; and the latter outweighs the 

 former ! 



I should fail in justice, however, if I did not 

 affirm that I know of two or three men who, lovinor 

 the wife more than the cigar, did actually, once 

 and forever, trample it under their feet. 



I have heard of a few others who from a similar 

 motive broke their fetters. The wife of a certain 

 smoker was affected with palpitation of the heart, 

 deathly faintness, and hysterical symptoms. Her 

 physician was at first puzzled, but concluded that 

 she was a victim of tobacco-poisoning. The uncon- 

 scious husband, on learning the views of the doctor, 

 instantly abandoned smoking, and was rewarded 

 by the speedy recovery of his wife. 



I know a gentleman in Philadelphia, who did 

 more than that. In his young days, cherishing a 

 high respect for womanhood, though he had not then 

 found his ideal, he fell into reflections, as young 

 men sometimes will, on the subject of matrimony. 

 Believing that the habit of smoking rendered him 

 less worthy the love of any true woman, with a high 

 chivalric feeling, he abandoned it. This was genuine 



