Tobacco and Genius 251 



very moody and irritable ; the third day he was 

 unbearable. He passed a restless night, and directly 

 dawn broke he got up, went into the garden, picked 

 up one of his broken pipes, and, filling it with the 

 scattered tobacco, began to smoke. After a few 

 whiffs he regained his right mind and spirit, and 

 went in to breakfast his usual self. After that experi- 

 ence nothing was ever said to Tennyson about his 

 giving up tobacco. 



His brother poet, Robert Browning, did not smoke. 

 Swinburne absolutely abhors tobacco. On one 

 occasion, at the Arts Club, he could not find a room 

 free from smoke. With poetic fury he burst forth : 

 ' James the First was a knave, a tyrant, a fool, a 

 liar, a coward ; but I love him, I worship him, 

 because he slit the throat of that filthy blackguard 

 Raleigh, who invented this filthy smoking \' 



Carlyle's grim philosophy was tempered with 

 tobacco, which he held to be ' one of the divinest 

 benefits that has ever come to the human race.' He 

 smoked incessantly, ' York River ' being his favourite 

 tobacco. David Masson relates how Carlyle used to 

 buy his tobacco by the stone, and his pipes — 'long 

 clays of the nobler sort ' — by the gross. 



Emerson visited Carlyle at Craigenputtock, and 

 they passed the whole evening in silent smoking, 

 broken only by occasional requests to ' pass the 

 tobacco.' When Emerson rose to go, Carlyle pressed 

 him to stay longer, and not to curtail the most 

 pleasant evening he had ever spent. 



A friend once asked Carlyle if he did not smoke 

 too much, suggesting that his dyspepsia might arise 



