2 54 The Soverane Herbe 



useful between two ideas — when he has the first but 

 has not arrived at the second. 



Mark Twain declares tobacco has helped him more 

 than anything else in his life. It is a moot point 

 whether he smokes 300 or 3,000 cigars a month. 

 But cigars merely represent his nicotian dessert ; 

 his solid meal of tobacco is taken from a corn-cob 

 pipe. As corn-cobs smoke very rawly at first, Mark 

 Twain hires a man to break in his pipes for him. 

 After a couple of weeks' smoking Mark takes the pipe, 

 puts in a new stem, and smokes until it will no longer 

 hold together. 



Rudyard Kipling is another devotee of the corn- 

 cob. Thomas Hardy prefers a clay ; many of his 

 best chapters have been written in the sanded tap- 

 rooms of Wessex rural inns and inspired by whiffs 

 from long churchwardens. George Meredith declares 

 tobacco to be ' man's friend, his company, his con- 

 solation, his comfort, his refuge at night, his first 

 thought in the morning.' 



Mr. Barrie holds the briar to be the king of pipes, 

 though he acknowledges that he has smoked a meer- 

 schaum — only when his briar has become too hot to 

 smoke again. Like all true smokers, he detests new 

 pipes, and uses his old one until string and sealing- 

 wax will no longer hold it together. 



Spurgeon once brought a shower of rabid abuse 

 upon his head by saying : ' When I have found intense 

 pain relieved, a weary brain soothed, and calm, 

 refreshing sleep obtained by a cigar, I have felt 

 grateful to God, and blessed His name for it.' In 

 reply to a correspondent who would not believe this 



