Tobacco and Genius 253 



the Navy I again tried to smoke, and again met with 

 defeat. I hated tobacco. I could have almost lent 

 my support to any institution that had for its object 

 the execution of smokers. (Vociferous applause from 

 anti-smokers.) A few years ago I was in Brittany 

 with some friends. It was a miserable, drenching 

 day, and they looked so happy and comfortable with 

 their pipes that I thought I would try a cigar. (Great 

 expectations and anxiety.) I did so. I smoked that 

 cigar; it was delicious. (Groans.) From that moment 

 I was a changed man, and now I feel that smoking in 

 moderation is a comforting and laudable practice, and 

 productive of good. There is no more harm in a 

 pipe than there is in a cup of tea,' (Dismay and 

 anger of anti-tobacconists ; laughter from smokers.) 



Robert Louis Stevenson dictated his woiks between 

 the puffs of a cigarette. He declared that if his 

 doctor told him that smoking would kill him he 

 should continue to smoke, since he would have to die 

 some time, and he was certain that nothing could 

 bring death more pleasantly than tobacco. 



Alphonse Daudet, the Dickens of France, used to 

 expatiate on the fund of working power there is in 

 tobacco. ' In writing,' he said, ' I have always found 

 my capacity for work diminish as the tobacco in 

 my pipe burns lower and lower.' Tolstoi ascribes 

 smoking as well as wine-drinking 'simply and solely 

 to the desire to drown the warning voice of conscience.' 

 Zola, though a smoker, strips tobacco-worship of all 

 its poetry by realistically declaring that men begin to 

 smoke from affectation and continue from habit. 

 M. Taine, his witty compatriot, says he finds smoking 



