(Written about 1893; not before published)
As concerns tobacco, there are many superstitions. And the chiefest is
this—that there is a _standard _governing the matter, whereas there is
nothing of the kind. Each man’s own preference is the only standard for
him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command
him. A congress of all the tobacco-lovers in the world could not elect
a standard which would be binding upon you or me, or would even much
influence us.
The next superstition is that a man has a standard of his own. He
hasn’t. He thinks he has, but he hasn’t. He thinks he can tell what he
regards as a good cigar from what he regards as a bad one—but he can’t.
He goes by the brand, yet imagines he goes by the flavor. One may palm
off the worst counterfeit upon him; if it bears his brand he will smoke
it contentedly and never suspect.
Children of twenty-five, who have seven years of experience, try to
tell me what is a good cigar and what isn’t. Me, who never learned to
smoke, but always smoked; me, who came into the world asking for a
light.
No one can tell me what is a good cigar—for me. I am the only judge.
People who claim to know say that I smoke the worst cigars in the
world. They bring their own cigars when they come to my house. They
betray an unmanly terror when I offer them a cigar; they tell lies and
hurry away to meet engagements which they have not made when they are
threatened with the hospitalities of my box. Now then, observe what
superstition, assisted by a man’s reputation, can do. I was to have
twelve personal friends to supper one night. One of them was as
notorious for costly and elegant cigars as I was for cheap and devilish
ones. I called at his house and when no one was looking borrowed a
double handful of his very choicest; cigars which cost him forty cents
apiece and bore red-and-gold labels in sign of their nobility. I
removed the labels and put the cigars into a box with my favorite brand
on it—a brand which those people all knew, and which cowed them as men
are cowed by an epidemic. They took these cigars when offered at the
end of the supper, and lit them and sternly struggled with them—in
dreary silence, for hilarity died when the fell brand came into view
and started around—but their fortitude held for a short time only; then
they made excuses and filed out, treading on one another’s heels with
indecent eagerness; and in the morning when I went out to observe
results the cigars lay all between the front door and the gate. All
except one—that one lay in the plate of the man from whom I had
cabbaged the lot. One or two whiffs was all he could stand. He told me
afterward that some day I would get shot for giving people that kind of
cigars to smoke.
Am I certain of my own standard? Perfectly; yes, absolutely—unless
somebody fools me by putting my brand on some other kind of cigar; for
no doubt I am like the rest, and know my cigar by the brand instead of
by the flavor. However, my standard is a pretty wide one and covers a
good deal of territory. To me, almost any cigar is good that nobody
else will smoke, and to me almost all cigars are bad that other people
consider good. Nearly any cigar will do me, except a Havana. People
think they hurt my feelings when they come to my house with their life
preservers on—I mean, with their own cigars in their pockets. It is an
error; I take care of myself in a similar way. When I go into
danger—that is, into rich people’s houses, where, in the nature of
things, they will have high-tariff cigars, red-and-gilt girded and
nested in a rosewood box along with a damp sponge, cigars which develop
a dismal black ash and burn down the side and smell, and will grow hot
to the fingers, and will go on growing hotter and hotter, and go on
smelling more and more infamously and unendurably the deeper the fire
tunnels down inside below the thimbleful of honest tobacco that is in
the front end, the furnisher of it praising it all the time and telling
you how much the deadly thing cost—yes, when I go into that sort of
peril I carry my own defense along; I carry my own brand—twenty-seven
cents a barrel—and I live to see my family again. I may seem to light
his red-gartered cigar, but that is only for courtesy’s sake; I smuggle
it into my pocket for the poor, of whom I know many, and light one of
my own; and while he praises it I join in, but when he says it cost
forty-five cents I say nothing, for I know better.
However, to say true, my tastes are so catholic that I have never seen
any cigars that I really could not smoke, except those that cost a
dollar apiece. I have examined those and know that they are made of
dog-hair, and not good dog-hair at that.
I have a thoroughly satisfactory time in Europe, for all over the
Continent one finds cigars which not even the most hardened newsboys in
New York would smoke. I brought cigars with me, the last time; I will
not do that any more. In Italy, as in France, the Government is the
only cigar-peddler. Italy has three or four domestic brands: the
Minghetti, the Trabuco, the Virginia, and a very coarse one which is a
modification of the Virginia. The Minghettis are large and comely, and
cost three dollars and sixty cents a hundred; I can smoke a hundred in
seven days and enjoy every one of them. The Trabucos suit me, too; I
don’t remember the price. But one has to learn to like the Virginia,
nobody is born friendly to it. It looks like a rat-tail file, but
smokes better, some think. It has a straw through it; you pull this
out, and it leaves a flue, otherwise there would be no draught, not
even as much as there is to a nail. Some prefer a nail at first.
However, I like all the French, Swiss, German, and Italian domestic
cigars, and have never cared to inquire what they are made of; and
nobody would know, anyhow, perhaps. There is even a brand of European
smoking-tobacco that I like. It is a brand used by the Italian
peasants. It is loose and dry and black, and looks like tea-grounds.
When the fire is applied it expands, and climbs up and towers above the
pipe, and presently tumbles off inside of one’s vest. The tobacco
itself is cheap, but it raises the insurance. It is as I remarked in
the beginning—the taste for tobacco is a matter of superstition. There
are no standards—no real standards. Each man’s preference is the only
standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which
can command him.