The last smoker I recollect among those of the old school was a
clergyman. He had seen the best society, and was a man of the most
polished behaviour. This did not hinder him from taking his pipe
every evening before he went to bed. He sat in his armchair, his
back gently bending, his knees a little apart, his eyes placidly
inclined toward the fire. The end of his recreation was announced by
the tapping of the bowl of his pipe upon the hob, for the purpose of
emptying it of its ashes. Ashes to ashes; head to bed.
--LEIGH HUNT.
The sensible man smokes (say) sixteen pipefuls a day, and all differ in
value and satisfaction. In smoking there is, thank heaven, no law of
diminishing returns. I may puff all day long until I nigresce with the
fumes and soot, but the joy loses no savour by repetition. It is true
that there is a peculiar blithe rich taste in the first morning puffs,
inhaled after breakfast. (Let me posit here the ideal conditions for a
morning pipe as I know them.) After your bath, breakfast must be spread
in a chamber of eastern exposure; let there be hominy and cream, and if
possible, brown sugar. There follow scrambled eggs, shirred to a
lemon-yellow, with toast sliced in triangles, fresh, unsalted butter,
and Scotch bitter marmalade. Let there be without fail a platter of hot
bacon, curly, juicy, fried to the debatable point where softness is
overlaid with the faintest crepitation of crackle, of crispyness. If hot
Virginia corn pone is handy, so much the better. And coffee, two-thirds
hot milk, also with brown sugar. It must be permissible to call for a
second serving of the scrambled eggs; or, if this is beyond the budget,
let there be a round of judiciously grilled kidneys, with mayhap a
sprinkle of mushrooms, grown in chalky soil. That is the kind of
breakfast they used to serve in Eden before the fall of man and the
invention of innkeepers with their crass formulae.
After such a breakfast, if one may descend into a garden of plain turf,
mured about by an occluding wall, with an alley of lime trees for sober
pacing: then and there is the fit time and place for the first pipe of
the day. Pack your mixture in the bowl; press it lovingly down with the
cushion of the thumb; see that the draught is free--and then for your
_säckerhets tändstickor!_ A day so begun is well begun, and sin will
flee your precinct. Shog, vile care! The smoke is cool and blue and
tasty on the tongue; the arch of the palate is receptive to the fume;
the curling vapour ascends the chimneys of the nose. Fill your cheeks
with the excellent cloudy reek, blow it forth in twists and twirls. The
first pipe!
But, as I was saying, joy ends not here. Granted that the
after-breakfast smoke excels in savour, succeeding fumations grow in
mental reaction. The first pipe is animal, physical, a matter of pure
sensation. With later kindlings of the weed the brain quickens, begins
to throw out tendrils of speculation, leaps to welcome problems for
thought, burrows tingling into the unknowable. As the smoke drifts and
shreds about your neb, your mind is surcharged with that imponderable
energy of thought, which cannot be seen or measured, yet is the most
potent force in existence. All the hot sunlight of Virginia that stirred
the growing leaf in its odorous plantation now crackles in that glowing
dottel in your briar bowl. The venomous juices of the stalk seep down
the stem. The most precious things in the world are also vivid with
poison.
Was Kant a smoker? I think he must have been. How else could he have
written "The Critique of Pure Reason"? Tobacco is the handmaid of
science, philosophy, and literature. Carlyle eased his indigestion and
snappish temper by perpetual pipes. The generous use of the weed makes
the enforced retirement of Sing Sing less irksome to forgers,
second-story men, and fire bugs. Samuel Butler, who had little enough
truck with churchmen, was once invited to stay a week-end by the Bishop
of London. Distrusting the entertaining qualities of bishops, and
rightly, his first impulse was to decline. But before answering the
Bishop's letter he passed it to his manservant for advice. The latter
(the immortal Alfred Emery Cathie) said: "There is a crumb of tobacco in
the fold of the paper, sir: I think you may safely go." He went, and
hugely enjoyed himself.
There is a Bible for smokers, a book of delightful information for all
acolytes of this genial ritual, crammed with wit and wisdom upon the art
and mystery we cherish. It is called "The Social History of Smoking," by
G.L. Apperson. Alas, a friend of mine, John Marshall (he lives somewhere
in Montreal or Quebec), borrowed it from me, and obstinately declines to
return it. If he should ever see this, may his heart be loosened and
relent. Dear John, I wish you would return that book. (_Canadian
journals please copy!_)
* * * * *
I was contending that the joy of smoking increases harmonically with the
weight of tobacco consumed, within reasonable limits. Of course the
incessant smoker who is puffing all day long sears his tongue and grows
callous to the true delicacy of the flavour. For that reason it is best
not to smoke during office hours. This may be a hard saying to some, but
a proper respect for the art impels it. Not even the highest ecclesiast
can be at his devotions always. It is not those who are horny with
genuflection who are nearest the Throne of Grace. Even the Pope (I speak
in all reverence) must play billiards or trip a coranto now and then!
This is the schedule I vouch for: