Tobacco and Genius 257 



his guidance France is likely to experience greater 

 peace and prosperity. The pipe is the emblem of 

 stability and strength, the cigarette of insecurity and 

 weakness. 



The loud cries of dissent with which Sir Michael 

 Hicks-Beach's condemnation of tobacco in his Budget 

 speech a year or two ago was received from all parts 

 of the House proved that our legislators, whatever 

 their party differences, are united in their devotion to 

 tobacco. Lord Salisbury detests tobacco, but most 

 members of his Cabinet are smokers. Mr. Chamber- 

 lain smokes cigars, while Mr. Balfour is partial to the 

 cigarette. Lord Rosebery is one of the few who still 

 indulge in the most statesman-like practice of taking 

 snuff. 



It would have been easier undoubtedly to have 

 chronicled famous men who have not smoked than, as 

 we have attempted, to enumerate the celebrities who 

 practised the use of tobacco. The rank and file of 

 mankind love to discover some point of resemblance 

 between themselves and those whom the world 

 acknowledges to be great. Hero-worship is inbred 

 in man, but the worshipper loves to discover that he 

 and his hero are, after all, of the same clay, passions 

 and intellect, otherwise his admiration would be the 

 servility of the slave, not the ungrudging acknowledg- 

 ment of superiority of a fellow-man. It is consoling 

 to the average man to know that Carlyle used to 

 smash the dinner crockery in his rage ; that Tenny- 

 son could not give up smoking makes the similarly 

 situated smoker of prosaic life feel less culpable. 

 The law of compensations, of the imperfection of 



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