To Smoke or Not to Smoke? 319 



Slick said, a man no sooner gets a pipe in his mouth 

 than he becomes a philosopher. Tobacco calms his 

 body, sweeps away the memory of petty, irritating 

 incidents, stimulates his mind and soul, reveals him- 

 self to himself, consoles him for past blunders, inspires 

 him to better things in the future. What non-smoker 

 ever meditates and contemplates himself? He abhors 

 being alone, which is hell to him. The smoker with- 

 draws from the rush and stir of life to examine life, 

 to view it dispassionately, and to shape it by higher 

 things than mere terrestrial considerations. The 

 reverie is as helpful as humiliating. The silence of 

 smoking, the opposition of tobacco to gabbling and 

 irresponsible chatter, was a great virtue in Carlyle's 

 eyes. ' Tobacco- smoke,' he wrote, 'is the one 

 element in which by our European manners men can 

 be silent together without embarrassment, and where 

 no man is bound to speak one word more than he 

 has actually and veritably got to say. ... At all 

 events, to hold his peace and take to his pipe again 

 the instant he has spoken his meaning, if he chance 

 to have any.' 



Tobacco is the true volapuk ; she speaks the same 

 message of joy, sympathy and aspiration to all the 

 peoples of the earth. Steadily and constantly it is 

 promoting civilization, amity and sobriety among the 

 nations ; when all mankind smoke, then will all 

 mankind be brothers. 



To smoke is to obtain a truce with the irritating 

 miseries, the petty annoyances and pin-pricks of life. 

 It stimulates the mind, clears the ideas, and captures 

 in its caresses thoughts that otherwise escape. In 



