250 The Soverane Herbe 



nagian name for man). After breakfast and dinner 

 he smoked by himself, and ' these,' says his son, 

 'were his best times for thought.' He entertained 

 the liveliest hatred of Florence, because he could not 

 get any decent tobacco there, and on this account 

 promptly returned home. 



Carlyle, describing Tennyson, said : ' Smokes 

 infinite tobacco.' His devotion to the herb became 

 so intense that literally he could not exist without 

 it. On one occasion, at a soiree of the Royal Society, 

 he declared he must have a pipe. A friend said he 

 should smoke up the chimney of the back library or 

 on the roof. Tennyson chose the latter, and, with 

 his body thrust half-way through the skylight, puffed 

 away in peace, descending, in a quarter of an hour, 

 greatly refreshed. Wherever he went he must be 

 allowed to smoke. Accepting an invitation to visit 

 Mr. Gladstone in 1876, he wrote : 'As you are good 

 enough to say that you will manage anything rather 

 than lose my visit, will you manage that I can have 

 my pipe in my own room whenever I like ?' 



His friends occasionally teased Tennyson about 

 his devotion to tobacco, declaring he could never 

 renounce smoking. ' Anybody,' once replied the 

 poet, 'can do that if he likes.' The assertion was 

 received with gay scepticism, whereupon Tennyson 

 declared he would prove it by giving up smoking 

 from that night. The same evening the poet threw 

 his pipes and tobacco out of the window. The 

 following day, says Professor Max Muller, who tells 

 the story, Tennyson was in a most amiable, though 

 rather self-righteous, mood. The next day he was 



