MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VIEW. 237 



upon others the discomfort of his habit. How can 

 it be otherwise? He is driven by an exacting 

 demand, whose disagreeable effects are very much 

 hidden from him. The smoker loses the power to 

 see himself as others see him. If those wno use 

 tobacco were decidedly in the minority, the habit 

 would be thought to be a strange, outlandish, out- 

 rageous perversion of the decorum of life, and, in 

 its open indulgence, a surprising trespass on good 

 taste and delicate consideration. I thinK we shall 

 see this to be so if we consider the effect the habit 

 of chewing, or smoking even, would have on our 

 estimate of a refined woman. The union is almost 

 an impossibility. Yet there is nothing but the 

 nature of the habit that renders the use of tobacco 

 unfit in a woman. It is superior purity and refine- 

 ment only that banish it from such a presence. 



" We have something of this feeling, though un- 

 fortunately in a much less degree, in connection 

 with the most noble-minded and venerable men. 

 Veneration is weakened by this indulgence. The 

 very mildest word we can apply to it is that of in- 

 dulgence , and the earthly appetite carries an earth- 

 ly odor with it wherever it extends. Old age casts 

 no glamour over habits, but leaves them to stand 

 on their own merits. The infirm old man who 

 must n^eds have his snuff-box, or tobacco-box, or 

 pipe, is a less agreeable inmate of any home than 

 he otherwise would be. His better nature does 

 not ascend heavenward in and by this smoke of 



