DOCTOR CLARKE ON TOBACCO. 9205 
known, then, that the Creator has not created it in vain. 
Dr. Clarke must have been a very good-natured man. He 
tortured his brains to find a hope of pardon for Judas Iscariot, 
and held that the creature (Nachaah) who tempted Eve was 
not a serpent but a monkey cursed by the forfeiture of 
atella and podex ; therefore doomed to crawl! But I fear, 
if the present form of using tobacco be not the true one, we 
must despair of ever finding it, and people will go on smok- 
ing and ‘hearing reason’ as long as the world goes round. 
Robert Hall received a pamphlet denouncing the pipe. He 
read it, and returned it. ‘I cannot, sir, conftite your argu- 
ments, and I cannot give up smoking, was his comment. 
It is loosely asserted that smoking is more prevalent among 
scholars, intellectualists, and men who live by their brains, 
than among artisans and subduers of the soil. This is an 
error. Tobacco is less a fosterer of thought than a solace of 
mental vacuity. The thinker smokes in the intervals of 
work, impatient of ennui as well as of lassitude, and the 
ie Sue the digger, the blacksmith or the teamster, lights 
is cutty for the same reason. No true worker, be he digger, 
or divine, blends real work with either smoking or drinking. 
Whenever you see a fellow drink or smoke during work, 
spot him for a gone coon; he will come to grief, and that 
right soon. Sleep stimulates thought, and sometimes a pipe 
will bring sleep, but trust it not of itself for either thought 
or strength. It combats ennwi, lassitude, and intolerable 
vacuity, soothing the nerves and diverting attention from 
self. Sam Johnson came very near the mark: ‘I wonder 
why a thing that costs so little trouble, yet has just sufficient 
semblance of doing something to break utter idleness, should 
go out of fashion. To be sure, it is a horrible thing blow- 
ing smoke out; but every man needs something to quiet 
him—as, beating with his feet.’ 
“Life is really too short for moralists and medici who 
have read Don Quixote, to attack a verdict arrived at and 
acted upon by the combined nations of the entire world, 
during the experience of three centuries, and apparently 
deepened by their advancing civilization. Give us rules and 
modifications, give us guides and correctives, give us warnings 
against excess, precipitancy, and neglect of other enjoyments, 
or of important duties, if you will. The urbane estheticism 
that regulates pleasure also limits it; and true refinement ever 
modifies the indulgence it pervades. But it is emulating 
Mrs. Partington and her mop to attempt to preach down a 
