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Transcriber’s Note: The title of this book is given both as ‘St
Nicotine _of_ the peace pipe’ and ‘St Nicotine _or_ the peace pipe’.
Readers may decide for themselves which is most fitting.
ST NICOTINE
OR
THE PEACE PIPE
[Illustration: Drawn & Engraved by F. W. Fairholt
TOBACCO PLANTS.
_1. Nicotiana Tabacum; 2. N. Rustica; 3. N. Persica._
[_By permission of Messrs. Chapman & Hall, Ld._]
ST NICOTINE
OF
THE PEACE PIPE
BY
EDWARD VINCENT HEWARD
_WITH 4 FULL PAGE PLATES AND 5 TEXT CUTS_
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1909
INTRODUCTORY
The history and associations of tobacco carry the thoughts back to the
jubilant days when Good Queen Bess was the idol of her people, to the
stirring times when bounding gaiety and lusty banter found expression
in unrestrained mirth as readily in the open street as within doors.
The writer’s aim in the following chapters has been to bring together
(in a somewhat desultory way, it may be) the chief features of interest
which the story of the ‘Indian’s herb’ presents to us to-day. The
social element undoubtedly dominates all others; this, coupled with the
primitive belief in its medicinal properties, at once secured for it the
good-will of men longing for knowledge of the New World and ever ready
to adopt an indulgence so alluring. That this feeling was universal is
shewn by the rapidity with which the smoking habit spread over the Earth
wherever there was a human habitation. No less remarkable is the sturdy
tenacity with which men everywhere stuck to it despite the determined
opposition of potentates and pontiffs.
In the eyes of her votaries St Nicotine’s virtues are rare and manifold.
Indeed all sorts of pretty things have been said and sung in her praise,
and as becomes a faithful devotee at her shrine the writer believes
them all as implicitly—well, as a child believes fairy tales. Many
a non-smoker when questioned about his indifference to her gracious
influence has heaved a pensive sigh and lamented Dame Nature’s ill-usage
in denying him the taste for the nicotian incense. Consolation comes not
to him when told that the good genius has knit together a brotherhood
who, regaled with her balmy breath, realize the touch of nature which
makes the whole world kin; that on her approach petty vexations vanish
into space, and fancy, untrammelled, roves in Parnassian bowers, or sees
in the vapour rising from the bowl nebulous forms resembling those in the
far-off starry sky.
The demon of insomnia flies from her presence, and upon the sleepless she
breathes ‘tired nature’s sweet restorer.’ Faith born of experience bears
willing testimony to this priceless virtue. Once upon a time, too remote
to recall the year, it befell the writer of these lines to suffer from
the effects of insomnia. Wakeful nights followed by comatose days passed
into months, and the relief the poet Young had wooed in vain still held
aloof. At last fortune smiled. Walking with a friend one evening a cigar
was proffered him. Not being a smoker he declined the weed. Again urged
to try it (without any suggestion of its narcotic properties) he did so
and smoked it to the end. That night he fell into a sleep so profound
that on waking the next morning the hours that had fled seemed but as a
moment. Years have rolled by since then, but not an evening has passed
unsolaced by the gentle anodyne.
Opponents of tobacco-smoking generally base their objection on the rather
shaky ground of what they with emphasis term, ‘principle.’ A case of the
kind cropped up a few years ago when Professor Huxley related the story
of how he had become a convert to the creed of the tobacconist. It runs
as follows:—
‘When I was a young man I went with a party of my friends to Holland. It
happened that they were smokers and I was not. I did my best to fortify
myself in determined resistance to the pernicious habit, which from
my standpoint I looked upon as wholly indefensible. The tobacco plant
belongs to a family of poisoners—certainly a poisonous family, what then
could be said in its favour? Science and reason being opposed to it how
could intelligent beings submit to its sway, and with so much assumed
pleasure? Thus I mused with my back propped against the hotel wall where
in a cosy room inside my friends were quietly enjoying themselves with
their weeds and social gossip. I fought with myself. I fought against the
seductive influence of the goddess, and failed. The flesh was too strong
for philosophy: I crept in and joined them with my first cigar.’
A lady once confessed to the writer that she had all unwittingly followed
in the wake of a smoker whose cigar shed on the air a fragrance so
delicate that for a time it was quite irresistible. Doubtless many
another could, if so minded tell of a similar experience. A good
cigar indeed—Havana or Cuban leaf for preference—is an inspiration.
A meerschaum pipe when ‘mellow, rich and ripe’ is a treasure; but
cigarettes are becoming, if they have not already become, a nuisance.
Grateful memories of the weed are enshrined in the literature of every
language; and many an old and odd volume have yielded to the gleaner
the materials of which the following pages are made up. Some parts
have already seen the light in the form of magazine articles, and for
permission to republish these the writer tenders his thanks to Sir James
Knowles, of the Nineteenth Century Review, to the Editor of Macmillan’s
Magazine, and to Sylvanus Urban of the Gentleman’s Magazine.
And this may be the fitting place to acknowledge the courtesy and
kindness of the principal (Mr. A. C. Wood) of the Statistical Office of
H.M. Customs, who has furnished the tabular statement, which appears
below, shewing the latest facts and figures on importations of tobacco,
on the rate of consumption per head of population in the United Kingdom,
and the revenue derived therefrom.
STATISTICAL OFFICE,
H.M. CUSTOMS.
Since the date of your article there have been some considerable changes
in the fiscal position of Tobacco and the following are the chief changes
in rates of duty per lb. since 1898:—
Unmanufactured Cigars. Foreign Other
Tobacco. Cavendish. Sorts.
S D S D S D S D
1898 2 8 5 0 3 10 3 5
1900 3 0 5 6 4 4 3 10
{ 3 3 } { 4 10 Cigarettes.
{ } Strips 6 0 4 4 {
1904 { 3 1½ } { 3 10 Other Sorts.
{
{ 3 0 Whole Leaf.
The maximum limit of moisture allowed in manufacture of Tobacco was fixed
in 1887 at 35 per cent., and was changed in 1898 to 30 per cent., and
again raised in 1904 to 32 per cent.
The moisture naturally present in the kinds of Tobacco now imported
averages about 14 per cent. I mention these facts because they are as you
know of considerable importance in making calculations of the quantities
sold over the counters of retailers to consumers.
Perhaps I may add that in 1904 differential rates were levied on Stripped
or Stemmed Tobacco, that is upon Leaf from which the ‘midrib’ had been
removed. The duty on ‘strips’ imported before the Budget was fixed at 3s.
1½d. the lb., and at 3s. 3d. on Strips brought here afterwards, while the
duty on whole leaf Tobacco was settled at 3s. 0d. the lb.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
A. C. WOOD,
_Principal_.
E. V. HEWARD, ESQ.
UNITED KINGDOM
TOBACCO. FINANCIAL YEAR 1904-5
Quantity Consumption
Imports Value Retained for per head of Revenue
all Home use Population
kinds (All kinds) 1904-5
Lbs. £ Lbs. Lbs. £
** 107,862,489 4,356,779 * 83,374,670 1.95 13,184,767
** 103,847,897 * Raw 80,896,242
4,014,592 2,478,428
----------- ----------
107,862,489 83,374,670
=========== ==========
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY v
An Indulgence which promotes sociality, mirth, and
day-dreams—Men hold to the weed regardless of opposition—St
Nicotine’s manifold virtues—The non-smoker’s incapacity for
enjoyment of smoking—Brings sleep to the sleepless—Opponents
base their objection on principle—Prof. Huxley’s
experience—Havana cigar the ideal smoke—Acknowledgments to
Editors and H.M. Customs.
_A SYMPOSIUM_
CHAPTER I 1
PART I
Tobacco smoking thought much of in Elizabeth’s reign—Drawing
the smoke into the lungs and ejecting it through the nostrils
provokes hilarity in the city—Sir John Beaumont’s Metamorphosis
of Tobacco—Conceives the idea of a Parliament of the immortals
to determine upon the composition of tobacco—Drayton on
Beaumont’s early death—Jupiter calls a council to consider the
odic essence which has calmed his anger—England’s great smokers
from Raleigh to Dr. Parr give an account of their experiences.
CHAPTER II 15
PART II
Carlyle as a persistent preacher of the gospel of silence with
his pipe—Frederick the Great’s Tobacco Parliament—Carlyle’s
early experience in smoking and his first pinch of
snuff—Charles Lamb and his associates over the pipe—Bismarck’s
Bund story—Divergent French views on the use of tobacco—Robert
Hall, Spurgeon, Capt. Marryat, Fairholt, Inglis, Thackeray,
and Bulwer Lytton, all express opinions favourable to tobacco
smoking.
CHAPTER III 29
THE HOME OF THE INDIAN WEED
Columbus secures Queen Isabel’s good-will and help—Overcomes
all difficulties and sets sail in three small vessels from
Palos on his great enterprise westward—Mutiny suppressed—San
Salvador reached after three months’ toil—The officers
land—Natives friendly—Two captured and brought on board
the Santa Maria—A gladsome sight meets their eyes—Cuba
reached; the most beautiful island ever beheld—Clothed with
perennial verdure—Two of the crew sent to explore—Natives
discovered smoking fire-brands—They conceive a passion for
smoking—Columbus collects rarities to take with him to
Spain—Reports to the king and his consort the achievement of
his project—Is received with honour and made high admiral
of a new and powerful fleet with which he returns to the
West Indies—Gonzalo Oviedo, Inspector-general of the newly
discovered country—Fra Ramono Pane sends Peter Martyr the
first written account of tobacco and native method of using
it—Snuff-taking in France—The origin of the name tobacco—Red
Indian’s use of the weed—Oviedo dislikes tobacco—The discovery
of South America—The Aztecs of Mexico—The Italian traveller
Benzoni describes the plant and its uses among the natives—His
strong aversion to it—The origin of the plant related by the
chief of the Susquehanna tribe.
CHAPTER IV 47
TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH AND CHARACTER
The Chancellor of the Exchequer on the consumption of
tobacco—His condemnation of the smoking habit by those who
have enough to eat—Board of Trade returns—Statistics on the
past and present rate of consumption per head of population in
England and other countries—The quantity of tobacco consumed
compared with the average consumption of wheat and the money
value of each—The use made of cast-away cigar-ends—The
opinions of Michael Drayton and Robert Burton—Case against
youths smoking—The Cuban leaf—The effects of smoking on
the character of the Turks—Mr. E. W. Lane on the Oriental
method of smoking—Clarendon’s views on tobacco’s influence in
diplomacy—The three kinds of tobacco used in commerce—Botanical
description—The chemist’s account of the composition of the
weed—Shakespeare’s ‘hebenon’—Sir B. W. Richardson’s experiments
with the smoke of tobacco—Tobacco innoxious compared with
alcohol—Prof. Johnston’s experiments and observations—Observed
effects on German thinkers—Pre-eminent among great smokers
stand Hobbes, Newton, Parr, Aldrich, Hall, Carlyle and
Tennyson—Experience the true guide.
CHAPTER V 73
THE USE AND ABUSE OF TOBACCO
Differences of temperament interfere with general enjoyment of
the weed—Ground upon which all can agree—Its germicidal action
demonstrated in laboratory experiments—Faith of our forefathers
in tobacco’s all-healing properties—Particularly as a destroyer
of insect life on plants and animals—Liebault’s account of
Nicot’s introduction of tobacco into France and experiments
on old sores and wounds—Fame of throughout Portugal,
France—Catherine de Medici plants seeds of in her garden—George
Buchanan’s distrust of anything which bears her name—Italy’s
first instalment of the weed received from Spain—Spenser in
the Faërie Queene speaks of ‘divine tobacco’—William Lyly
calls it the ‘holy herb nicotian’—Henry Buttes on tobacco as a
dietetic—Dr. Gardiner describes its use in medicine—Harleian
Miscellany on tobacco—Dr. Thorius’s Hymnus Tabac—Pepys’
experience with tobacco—Dr. Willis on its prophylactic effects
in the plague of 1666—Dr. Diemerbroeck finds it kills contagion
during plague in Holland 1635-6—Coleridge in Cologne—Medical
profession’s changed attitude towards tobacco—Mr. Solly, of
St. Thomas’s Hospital, proclaims a crusade against smoking—Dr.
Murray at a later date speaks highly in its favour from army
experience—Private McCarthy’s quiet pipe in the hospital
yard—Soldiers’ experiences in South Africa—Government’s
changing practices in regard to contraband tobacco—Soldiers
sent out in troop-ships have first claim.
CHAPTER VI 95
ON THE ANTIQUITY OF TOBACCO-SMOKING
The beginnings of history—Ancestor worship—Man’s instinctive
craving for narcotics and stimulants—Ancient historic
allusions to smoking or burning of vegetable substances—Lieut.
Walpole’s account of an Arabic MS. which came into his hands
at Mosul—Nimrod a tobacco-smoker—Assyrian cylinders in the
British Museum—Noah a smoker, a Greek Church tradition—The
Moslem sage and the origin of the tobacco plant—Eulia Effendi’s
story of a tobacco pipe found in an old wall—Tobacco unknown
in Turkey before 1610—Dr. Yates mistakes an Egyptian painting
representing glass-blowers for a smoking party—Both Greeks and
Romans inhaled fumes of tussilago through a reed or pipe for
the cure of coughs and difficult breathing—Abbé Cocket and Dr.
Bruce on old clay pipes found in Normandy and among ruins in
Britain—Clay pipes found in Scotland and Ireland—Legendary lore
respecting their origin and use—The weed and the Portuguese
in India and Java—Palias and Meyen on the plant in India and
China—The Lazarists, Gabet and Huc, in Tartary and Thibet—The
cultivation and use of tobacco in China—The supposed antiquity
of the habit among the Chinese, who in their prehistoric
migrations may have carried seeds of the plant to America.
CHAPTER VII 117
A GLIMPSE OF SOCIAL LIFE IN JAPAN, AS DISCLOSED BY THE WEED
The Japanese—Marco Polo’s mention of Japan and its
people—Pinto, Portugal’s pioneer in eastern seas—Lands at
Nagasaki in 1545—Friendly reception—News of the event reaches
Manila and Goa—Spanish merchant vessels with Francis Xavier
speedily arrived at Bungo—Warm welcome—Tobacco and smoking,
a new revelation to these primitive people—Good work done
by Xavier and his coadjutors among the sick and needy—The
Shogun, Iyeyasu, permits free intercourse and unrestricted
trade—Spaniards and Portuguese accused of overreaching
practices, and of draining the country of its gold—Jesuits and
Friars swarm in Japan and bring upon themselves disgrace and
ultimate expulsion—William Adams the first Englishman to set
foot in Japan—His rapid rise in favour and fortune—The arrival
of Dutch merchantmen—Helped by Adams to secure a trade basis
at Firando—Adams desires to return home, but is put off from
time to time—He writes letters to England telling of himself,
and inviting London merchants to trade with Japan—They do so,
and vessels laden with merchandise are despatched under the
command of Captain Saris, who bears a letter from King James to
the Emperor of Japan, resulting in England’s first commercial
treaty with that country—Adams dies in Japan after twenty
years’ residence, loved and honoured by all.
An Edict against smoking falls into abeyance—Family records
of smoking in 1605-7—Excellent properties of tobacco-smoking
enumerated by an old writer—Objections to its use—The theft
of the golden pipe—Smoking now universal in Japan—An ‘At
Home’—Men’s revolt against women’s authority as to when and
where to smoke—Primitive habits among the peasantry—Cultivation
and revenue—Sir Earnest Satow statistics—Reflections.
CHAPTER VIII 142
STRAY LEAVES FROM THE INDIAN WEED
The late Poet Laureate’s (Tennyson) love of
tobacco-smoking—Science detects poisonous elements in the
exotic—The philosophy of smoking—The only thing in life that
fumes without fretting and assuages the fretful—The bachelor’s
love of seclusion with his pipe—Napoleon’s first and last
attempt at smoking—A distraught youth and an Oriental sage,
an eastern view of the virtue of the weed—Raleigh and the New
World—His expedition to explore the coast of the El Dorado and
win renown for England and his idolized Queen Bess—England’s
first smokers—Hawkins, not Raleigh, the first to bring tobacco
to this country—Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth—The wager as to
the weight of the smoke exhaled from a pipeful of tobacco—King
James’s ‘Counterblaste to Tobacco’—Its home cultivation
and manufacture—Ben Jonson’s ‘Alchemist’—‘Bartholomew
Faire’—Dr. Barclay on sophistication of tobacco—Old Rome
smoked coltsfoot and leaves of the lettuce—Paper warfare over
the virtues or vices of the Indian weed—Joshua Sylvester
sends a ‘volley of holy shot’ against the ‘idolatrous
weed’—Samuel Rowland’s ‘Knave of Clubbs,’ a humorous satire on
tobacco-smoking—Eastern potentates’ treatment of smokers of
the Frankish novelty—Russian atrocities inflicted on users of
the weed—Foreign Governments begin to see in it an easy means
of augmenting revenue—Peter the Great invites English tobacco
merchants to Moscow in order to establish a factory there for
the manufacture of tobacco—Queen Anne in Council disapproves
of the scheme, and orders our Envoy to destroy the works and
return the workmen to their homes.
CHAPTER IX 169
SOCIAL GOSSIP ABOUT THE WEED
George Wither’s song on tobacco-smoking—Undergoes numerous
alterations by later writers—Mr. Chappell, through Mr. Payne
Collier, traces the original song to Wither—Bishop Fletcher
succumbs to over-indulgence in the pipe—Rev. W. Bredon resorts
to the hemp cut off the ends of the church bell-ropes as a
substitute for tobacco—Raleigh carries the novelty to Court
and makes smoking popular—Merriment in the city over the
‘tobacconists’—Ben Jonson’s mention of smoking—‘Every Man
out of his Humour’—‘The Gipsies Metamorphosed’—‘Bartholomew
Faire’—Dekker’s ‘Gull’s Horn Book’—His ‘Satiromastix’—Women
smokers—The daughters of Louis XIV. smoke in their private
apartments—England’s paper warfare over the merits or
demerits of the weed—Joshua Sylvester supports the King’s
‘Counterblaste’—Heavy duty on tobacco and its ruinous cost
to the consumer—Peter Campbell’s will—Sir Edwin Sandys on
the sum paid for tobacco received from Spain—Dr. Everard
on the ‘Wonderful Vertues of Tobacco taken in a Pipe’—Dr.
Barclay’s Nepenthes—De Rochefort tells of smoking in rural
England—Mentions the case of a Spaniard using a bit of the
cable end in lieu of tobacco—Of smoking in bed—Mission’s
remarks about the effects of tobacco on Englishmen—His verses
in praise of smoking—Dr. Aldrich, Dean of Christchurch,
Oxford—His song on tobacco, to be smoked while singing—His
higher claims to admiration.
CHAPTER X 184
THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY AND SMOKING PIPES
Various kinds and sources of supply—Qualities due to
climate, soil or other causes—Natural qualities determine
destination—Strong kinds find favour in North America,
mild in Europe—Cuba’s leaf richest in excellences desired
by smokers—Cuba’s make-up the model for the rest of the
tobacco producing world—The effect of the McKinley tariff
on Cuban cigar manufacture—The highly prized and priced
Havana legitimas—Small area over which the Havana plant is
grown—Harvesting and curing operations in Florida—Packing
of bales for exportation—Bonded warehousing accommodation
and its regulations—Different kinds of cigars suited to
different seasons and climates—Manila cheroots, their kinds
and manufacture—Government monopoly and its removal—Illicit
growth of the plant by mountaineers—Number of employés,
their work and wages—Cheroots used in lieu of coin—Various
kinds of tobacco offered to the consumer—Invisible life
infests tobacco leaves—Tobacco culture prohibited in England
except in Physic Gardens—Removed in 1886—Failure of English
cultivation—Manufacture of cigars—Inequality of Customs
duty—Historical view of tobacco pipes—Clay pipes—Meerschaum,
its origin and manufacture—Briar-root and other materials used
for pipes.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TOBACCO PLANT _frontispiece_
_face p._
SIR WALTER RALEIGH ” 6
DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS (_from a rare old painter_) ” 22
QUEEN ELIZABETH ” 132
A CHINESE PIPE 112
INDIAN PIPE—Heads found in Mound City, Ohio 113
A JAPANESE PIPE 129
DUC DE SULLY 153
EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SMOKERS 173
ST NICOTINE
SYMPOSIUM
CHAPTER I
PART I
Let me adore with my thrice happy pen
The sweet and sole delight of mortal men;
The cornucopia of all earthly pleasure,
Where bankrupt nature hath consumed her treasure;
A worthy plant springing from Flora’s hand,
The blessed offspring of an uncouth land.
BEAUMONT.
In the early days of her advent in these isles St Nicotine stood high in
the land. For she had come bearing credentials from France and Portugal
testifying to her many virtues as a healer of the sick as well as a
social comfort. And sober-minded folk would sit outside their doors,
pipe in hand, placidly inhaling the grateful vapour of the precious herb
a kind Providence had sent them to assuage the ills flesh is heir to.
But the quick eye and ready wit of the city wags saw the matter in a
different light. The Spanish fashion of smoking, namely, of drawing the
smoke into the lungs and ejecting it through ‘the organs of the nose,’
afforded them endless amusement, and sportive jests were heard on all
sides about the men who made chimneys of their noses. The important
part the exotic played in life’s comedy led the youthful aspirant to
literary fame, Sir John Beaumont, to think that he could not do better
than soar on the wings of the weed to the Parnassus he had already in
view. Barely twenty, full of exuberance and lofty ideals, he poured forth
his musings in a grand imitation of heroic verse. His work is entitled,
‘The Metamorphosis of Tobacco,’[1] (1602) and is dedicated to his friend
‘Maister Michael Drayton,’ whom he asks to take up the lines,
Tobacco like, unto thy brain
And that divinely touched, puff out the smoke again.
Ambitious to excel and full of noble endeavour he exclaims,
Let me the sound of great Tobacco praise
A pitch above those love-sick poets raise.
He conceives the idea of a parliament of the elements assembled to hear
the complaint of Prometheus that his work is imperfect. He calls for
help, and the Earth is invoked. But ‘Grandame Ops her grieved head did
shake.’ She declares however that,
A plant shall from my wrinkled forehead spring
Which once enflamed with the stolne heavenly fire
Shall breath into this lifeless corse inspire.
Despite of Fate the elements combine to form the plant. Their work
accomplished, it is found that Tellus had tempered too much terrene
corruption in its composition. But for this
The man that tasted it should never die
But stand in record of eternitie.
Jupiter is enraged at the daring attempt to usurp his divine prerogative
and banishes the plant to an unknown region. After long searching the
graces discover it in the palace of the great Montezuma. They are royally
entertained and wish for no greater happiness than to remain eternally
regaling themselves with the vapour of the divine herb. Another flight
of fancy reveals the ‘sweet and sole delight of mortal men’ as a nymph
of Virginia receiving the visits of Jupiter clad in the garb of a
shepherd. Juno, ever watchful over the movements of her lord, discovers
the intrigue, and with threatening gesture storms at the poor thing and
transforms her into the Indian weed.
It may be that the divine afflatus which Drayton, speaking of Marlowe,
says, ‘rightly should possess a poet’s brain,’ imaging ‘those brave
translunary things that the first poets had,’ had not yet descended
upon the young poet of Grace Dieu. But it cannot be denied him that his
diction is stately, and that at times he displays flashes of grandeur.
Chalmers remarks of him that he brought to his task ‘a genius uncommonly
fertile and commanding.’ All through his brief career he had yearned
after a true poet’s renown. ‘No earthly gift,’ he wrote, ‘lasts after
death but fame.’ And he sighed over the thought that all his labour
should be left incomplete—‘That’s my vexation, that’s my only grief.’ His
longing for posthumous fame Drayton tenderly notices in the following
lines:
Thy care for that which was not worth thy breath.
Brought on too soon thy much lamented death.
But heaven was kind and would not let thee see
The plagues that must upon this nation be.
It is hard to say what plagues Drayton refers to, but it does seem
unkind of Elizabethan scholars to have so neglected Sir John Beaumont,
the purity and simplicity of whose life and elevated tone of work place
him in marked contrast to his more versatile and distinguished brother,
Francis.
Leaving the domain of the poet let us turn our gaze for a moment towards
the heavens. Night’s sable mantle shrouds a sleeping world, and all
is repose save the spirit of our dreams. Freed from control the ever
active one flits at will in the realms of fairy-land, overleaping all
difficulties, revelling in phantasms new and wonderful till day dawns,
when she returns to her abode in man’s heavy brain to lighten the labour
of his daily toil, and to store up memories of a world closed to mortal
eyes.
A distant murmur as of an approaching storm disturbs the stillness of
the night, from gathering clouds serpent-tongued lightning flashes
across the sky; the furies rage, the curtains of the heavens open and
lo! Jupiter appears glowing with unwonted fire. He vows he will suffer
no longer the flouting scorn of imperious Juno, and with anger-distended
nostrils he sniffs the ethereal air. But what is this that steals over
his heated senses? Subduing, soothing, consoling more sweetly than
incense from Aphrodite’s favoured altars. It ascends in cloudy wavelets
from the abodes of mortals. He determines to hold a council of the gods
and summons thereto the heroes of Earth famed throughout Elysium for
their knowledge of the odic essence whose spirit has entered his own and
quelled the rising of a conjugal storm.
Silently there glides into view a host of genial witnesses to St
Nicotine’s balmy influence over the troubled spirits of mortals. Leading
the spectral throng are Ben Jonson and Drummond, Beaumont and Fletcher,
Dekker and Overbury, swathed in clouds of vapour as if comforting
themselves with the old delectable pastime. A little to the rear, pale in
the majesty of thought, are Shakespeare and Bacon, Spenser and Newton.
Leaning to his friend Shakespeare, Bacon whispers, ‘No doubt the weed
hath power to lighten the body of mortals and enable them to shake off
uneasiness. But where is Raleigh? He paid devotion to his divinity most
constantly, and ought to be able to speak of what return he got for all
his worship.’
‘You know, Drummond, as well as I do, that I always did love the weed, in
spite of all that King James said against it. Did I not make my prince
of swaggerers, Captain Bobadil (who was to me what Falstaff was to Will
Shakespeare) descant on the fragrant theme, thus:—
‘“I have been in the Indies where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen
more of my knowledge have received the taste of any other nutriment in
the world for over a space of one-and-twenty weeks, but the juice of
this simple only. Therefore it cannot be but ’tis divine—especially your
Trinadado; your Nicotian is good also. By Hercules! I do hold it before
any prince in Europe to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever
the earth tendered for the use of man.”’
‘But, O worthy Ben, did not the master over-charge his ‘prentice when he
allowed the braggart to lay on the tinsel with so heavy a hand?’
‘Listen to me, my masters, let Ben Jonson read the _Untrussing of the
Humorous Poet_ without blenching if he can, for that might advance him in
merit; he would acknowledge that Thomas Dekker can kick.’
‘Hist! feather-brained gossip; proclaim not so loudly thy kinship with
the asinine family.’
Advancing with measured step the noble Raleigh appears and is greeted
with the cry:—
Hail, mighty Raleigh! to whose name we owe
The use and knowledge of this sovereign plant.
To which the illustrious knight made answer, ‘Not so, gentle spirits of
the past; to me it was not given to be the discoverer, or the first to
bring to my countrymen a knowledge of the blessed herb whose sobering
and soothing virtues lend man strength to bear with tranquility the
injustice of the powerful. The honour you would do unto me belongs of
right to others who were before me in the fray of battle and adventure.
Humble service have I rendered at her shrine, receiving thereby sweet
refreshment unstinted, even when on the threshold of thy domain, O mighty
Jupiter.
‘Yet, by your leave, I will relate something of the wonderful tales
told of this weed by the adventurers who first brought tidings of it to
Europe, and of the New World and its people they had discovered in the
far-off western seas.
[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]
‘The chiefs and headmen of the Indians avow that the herb is a most
precious gift of the Great Spirit who created them, and who rules over
the affairs of their daily lives. He it was in ages long past, when
all the different tribes were warring one against another, had taught
them the peace-inspiring virtues of the plant. He it was who, out of a
fragment broken from the red rock, had fashioned for their guidance the
first peace-pipe. And it came to pass in this wise: The Master of Life,
the Great Spirit that broods over creation, descended to the summit of
the mountain; he called his children together, and they obedient to the
divine command assembled in infinite numbers to hearken to his will.
Then there came forth from the mountain a voice, crying, “Listen, O
children of the redskin, to the words of your Great Father. Let your
deliberations, domestic as well as public, be conducted under the
soothing influence of the herb of life, the divine uppówoc. Let the pipe
be to you a symbol of peace between you yourselves and all the tribes of
men. In loving brotherhood let it be passed from the lips of those famous
in the war of words as in the strife of battle; from those seated on the
front bench in the possession of treasure to those of the hungry of the
assembled senators who have nought but who fain would have all. Let the
smoke-cloud that ascends from the calumet be to you a pledge of peace, of
personal amity and good-will. Then shall your compacts one with another
be held sacred before me, and the war-club be buried deep in the earth.
Henceforward shall friendship and fraternity be yours for evermore—till,
alas, they of the pale face have grabbed from you your lands, and the red
man hath become a stranger and an outcast in the country of his birth.”
‘Thus spoke the Master of Life to his children of the redskin. Having
fashioned with wondrous curves the emblem of happiness out of stone of
the red rock, he filled the bowl with the leaves of the sacred herb, and
commanded the lightning to kindle it into flame. High up on the mountain
over their heads he smoked the first great symbol of peace among the
nations. He told the assembled multitude that the rock, out of which the
pipe was made, was formed of the flesh of their grandfathers, long ages
ago, when the world was deluged and the people of the earth destroyed.
Seeing the gathering of the waters, the children of the forest and of
the prairie fled to the high lands, thinking thus to save themselves.
The waters pursued them; they were overwhelmed in one mighty mass and
their bodies were converted into the red sandstone rock of the mountain,
therefore is it good medicine.
‘Yet one escaped the flood. A maiden, Kwaptahw, finding herself bereft
of kindred, lay disconsolate on the mountain ridge. Then it came to pass
that espying her from afar, the great war-eagle came to her side. She
clung to the lord of the air, and he carried her to a place of safety
high up on an adjacent cliff.
‘Then like the murmur of distant waters, the voice of the great spirit
gradually melted away.
“—The Master of Life ascending
Through the opening of cloud curtains,
Through the doorways of the heaven,
Vanished from before their faces,
In the smoke that rolled around him
The pukwana of the peace-pipe.”’
The shadowy form of great Elizabeth’s gallant courtier gives place to
the Shepherd of the Muse, who, as he passes, beams upon his friend a
countenance of supernal sweetness. Then in a voice of dreamy reverie the
genius of the _Faërie Queene_ addresses the Olympian deity after this
manner:—
‘While musing on the loves and adventures of chivalrous knights and
ladies fair, away from the busy haunts of men in the wilds of Kilcolman,
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar,
Keeping my sheep among the cooly shade
Of the green alders, by the Mulla’s shore;
There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out;
Whether allurèd with my pipe’s delight
Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about,
Or thither led by chance, I know not right;
Whom, when I askèd from what place he came,
And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe
_The shepherd of the ocean_ by name,
And said he came from main-sea deep.
He, sitting me beside in that same shade,
Provokèd me to play some pleasant fit,
And when he heard the music that I made,
He found himself full greatly pleased at it;
Yet, æmuling my pipe, he took it in hond
My pipe—before that æmulèd of many—
And played thereon (for well that skill he conned):
Himself as skilful in that art as any.
He piped, I sung; and when he sung, I piped;
By change of turns each making other merry;
Neither envying other nor envied,
So piped we, until we both were weary.
‘Thus, O Jupiter, and you my fellow-denizens of Elysium, would we hold
sweet communion of soul. And then it was I learnt of the right noble and
valorous knight, the exceeding comfort of the “soverane weed,” which the
elements in aforetime had formed for the solace of men and gods; for
nothing loth am I to say that I drew from the pipe a foretaste of the
peaceful joys of the blessed, and therefore did I recognise in the divine
herb a gift from heaven, treasured up for mortals in Nature’s bounteous
store. It seemeth, however, that the immortal powers swayed by imperious
Juno had disowned the Virginian nymph and had lost the healing balm she
breathes upon the chafed and fretful; yet, methinks, even Juno might find
a piquant pleasure in a few whiffs of the weed.
‘But if Raleigh denies himself the renown of being the first to bring
the Indian’s herb to his native country, he can fairly lay claim to
the pleasure of having first planted it in Ireland. When he was Mayor
of Youghall, and his abode the manor-house, he smoked his first pipe
of tobacco in his garden, sheltered by the spreading branches of four
yew trees that still may be seen forming a thatch-like covering for a
summer-house. And in this Youghall garden he planted Ireland’s first
instalment of the Indian weed. Ever foremost among the high-souled and
adventurous, he neglected not other like humble things that he thought
would be of service to his fellow-creatures, for here, too, he planted
and cultivated Ireland’s greatest blessing, the potato, which fostered
by prudence, rapidly gave to that wild and lawless land an abundance of
food for the impoverished peasantry. He planted likewise, the affane
cherry, and the sweetly perfumed wall-flower, which he had brought from
the Azores, and which may still be seen growing on the banks of the
Blackwater.
‘Much doubting me if aught I have said can profit this goodly company,
I will call upon one who has seen the plant in its native soil and can
describe its uses among the Indians. For the herb, which is commonly
called tobacco, hath many names and divers virtues.’ Then rose before
the recumbent throng, the historian of England’s first colony in the New
World, Thomas Harriot, mathematician and astronomer. He began:—
‘A brief and true report I will render you of what I learned of the herb,
the truth of which can be attested by Ralf Lane, the worthy governor
of the new found land of Virginia. It befel me that I went out with a
number of my countrymen to that far-off land in the Western Seas the
great Columbus had discovered, that I might make record of all that
happened concerning us on that perilous venture. It was undertaken by the
orders of Sir Walter Raleigh, and was under the command of Sir Richard
Grenville. Soon after we had made our peace with the natives, and they
were of a peaceful race, not caring for bloody strife or for plunder,
we found them making a fume of a dried leaf, which they rolled up in a
leaf of maize, of the bigness of a man’s finger. By rubbing a stone with
a stick, in a cunning way they had learned from some divine power, they
contrived to kindle fire and putting a light to the leaf they smoked it,
as is done by mortals in these days. It was the leaf of an herb which is
sowed apart by itself and is called by the inhabitants uppówoc. They use
it also in powder. The leaves thereof being dried and crushed small, they
take the fumes or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of clay
into their stomach and head, from whence it purgeth superfluous humours,
and it openeth all the pores and passages of the body, by which means
the use thereof preserveth the body in health, and they know not many
grievous diseases, wherewithal people in England were oftentimes affected.
‘This herb is of so precious estimation amongst them that they think
their gods are marvellously delighted therewith. Whereupon they sometimes
make hallowed fires and cast some of the powder therein for a sacrifice;
being in a storm upon the waters, to pacify their gods they cast some
into the air and into the water: so a wear for fish being newly set
up they cast some therein and into the air; also after an escape from
danger they cast some into the air likewise; but all is done with strange
gestures, stamping, sometimes dancing, clapping of hands, holding
up hands, and staring up into the heavens, uttering therewithal and
chattering strange words and noises.
‘We ourselves, during the time we were there, used to smoke it after
their manner, as also we did when we returned home and found many rare
and wonderful experiments of the virtues thereof, of which the relation
would require a volume by itself. The use of it by men and women of
great calling as else, and many learned physicians bore testimony to
its exceeding good qualities as a healer of the sick and a comforter in
adversity.’
Then rose England’s unexampled smoker, Dr. Parr, renowned throughout
Europe for his profound learning, theology and Greek. Smiling benignantly
under the voluminous wig which furnished Sydney Smith with a droll figure
of speech, he recounts the story of how his smoking had caused royalty
to sneeze. This had happened on the occasion of a dinner given in honour
of the Duke of Gloucester at Trinity College, Cambridge. Immediately the
cloth had been removed the doctor began his usual practice of smoking his
pipe. In the warmth of conversation he blew clouds so vigorously that a
general rising in revolt took place led by his Royal Highness sneezing
and holding his nose.
As to its effect upon the learned doctor, his physician, Dr. John
Johnstone, explains that tobacco-smoking acted upon his patient like a
charm, allaying his abnormally irritable nervous system. ‘It soothed him
and assisted his private ruminations; it was his consoler in anxiety,
and helpmate in composition. All who knew him had seen the air darkened
with the fumes from his pipe when his mind was labouring with thought.
Yet he lived the span of years allotted to mortals, falling ripe at the
age of seventy eight.’ Thereupon a voice was heard protesting against the
practice of smoking, in all hours and all occasions, even in the presence
of ladies. ‘Were you then the divine who refused to dine out or spend
an evening with a friend unless privileged to smoke when and where you
pleased, even in the drawing-room of ladies, nay, would oftentimes single
out the handsomest one to light your pipe?’
‘Truly your apprehension in this is in no wise at fault, nor would I
mislead you as to pressing the ladies into the service of my pipe. I
recognised that it was nature’s behest to woman to impart to duller
mortals light and leading, and by watchful eye and ready wit to keep the
flame aglow. You did not profit by observation or experience, else you
would have learned this lesson.’
‘Your pardon, Dr. Parr, but I cannot conceive that you properly
maintained the dignity of your calling by such discourtesy to the ladies.
Of this am I conceived that had you so behaved in the presence of my wife
she would have called you to better manners, unless, indeed, you had been
entreated by the ladies to smoke as you did and blow fumes into their
faces.’
‘Gently, gently, my sapient critic, mistake not the significance of the
argument, which is this: Woman by divine command is man’s companion
and helpmate through their earthly career. Shut her out from all
participation in man’s social enjoyments, particularly one which like the
Indian weed brings to the ruffled mind solace and an abiding peace, and
there will spring up in her heart a feeling of resentment, as of a rival,
which may find vent in lost tobacco or broken pipes. Therefore is it not
well to teach the ladies to take pleasure in your smoking habit rather
than leave them to find pleasure in putting your pipe out? And to thee, O
troubled one, whose throne is the mighty Olympus, would I say that in St
Nicotine’s soothing charm dwells an antidote to Juno’s censorious tongue,
and in her clouds a shield against Aphrodite’s gracious influence.’
A smile plays across the countenance of Jupiter, but scorn flashes from
Juno’s lustrous eyes. And Aphrodite flutters her wings in dissent, for
already she feels her sway over mortals yielding to the rising power of
St Nicotine of the peace-pipe. Casting her longing gaze towards the place
of her birth.
To the Cyprian shores the goddess moves
To visit Paphos and her blooming groves,
Where to the Power an hundred altars rise,
And fragrant odours scent the balmy skies.
SYMPOSIUM
CHAPTER II
Part II
A few more whiffs from my cigar
And then in Fancy’s airy car
Have with thee to the skies.
How oft the fragrant smoke upcurl’d
Hath borne me from this little world
And all that in it lies.
THOMAS HOOD.
Like a sun-gleam seen through a Scotch mist the hoary head and set visage
of the veteran thinker, Thomas Carlyle, appears. As a persistent preacher
of the gospel of silence he will himself talk and talk on, seemingly
oblivious to its application to himself. Turning to his friend, Dr.
Calvert, he asks, ‘Why are we here? Really, I think it shocking that we
should run to Rome, to Greece, and leave all at home lying buried in
nonentity. Were I supreme chief there should be a resurrection of the old
English ages. I will pit Odin against Jupiter, and find sea-kings that
will put Jason to shame. Ah, tobacco! It is one of the greatest benefits
that ever came to the human race. Nobody ever came near me whose talk
was half so good as silence with my pipe. I would fly out of the way of
everybody, and would much rather smoke a pipe of wholesome tobacco than
talk to anybody just now. I saw in the weed the one element in which by
European manners men could sit silent together without embarrassment,
and no man was bound to speak one word more than he had actually and
veritably got to say. Nay, every man was admonished and enjoined by the
laws of honour, and even of personal ease, to stop short at that point;
at all events, to hold his peace and take to his pipe the instant he
had spoken his meaning—if he chanced to have any. The results of which
salutary practice, if introduced into constitutional parliaments, might
evidently be incalculable. Take for example, the Tobacco Parliament
of Friedrich Wilhelm. It had not the least shadow of a constitutional
parliament, nor even a privy council, as we understand it, his ministers
being mere clerks to register and execute what he had otherwise resolved
upon. But he had his _Tabako-Collegium_; his _Tabagie_, or Smoking
Congress, and which made so much noise in the world and which in a
rough, natural way afforded him the uses of a Parliament on most cheap
terms and without the formidable inconveniences attached to that kind
of institution. In short, he had a parliament reduced to its simplest
expression; instead of parliamentary eloquence he had Dutch clay pipes
and tobacco provided in abundance. And this was the essence of what
little intellect and insight there was in a parliament; all that can be
got out of any parliament. Sedatives gently soothing, gently clarifying
tobacco-smoke, with obligation to a minimum of speech, surely give human
intellect and insight the best chance they can have.’
It was noticeable that the stern denouncer of talk did not say how he,
personally, would have liked a seat in a ‘parliament reduced to its
simplest expression.’ Electrical glances passed from one to another of
the immortals, which clearly indicated that the inflexible one would
have kicked the seat from under him, and, taking his stand on the eternal
verities, would have lashed with the scorn of his tongue the drowsy dogs
into a full recognition of their own worthlessness; would have compelled
them to realise that a deliverer was at hand, and that Carlyle was
synonymous with Cromwell.
Yet he would not overlook tobacco’s failings. Tobacco he averred had
done to the German populations important multifarious functions. ‘For
truly in politics, morality and all departments of their practical
and speculative affairs its influence, good and bad, could be traced;
influences generally bad; pacificatory but bad, engaging them in idle
cloudy dreams—still worse, promoting composure among the palpably chaotic
and discomposed—soothing all things into lazy peace that all things
might be left to themselves very much and to the laws of gravity and
discomposition, whereby German affairs came to be greatly overgrown
with funguses and symptoms of dry and wet rot.’ Here Germany’s great
chancellor broke in with hilarity, and said how he was reminded—
‘Hold your tongue, Furst, till I have done.’ Relaxing into a more social
vein, Carlyle described how he became a smoker from the age of eleven,
and how his mother would fill his long clay pipe, light it, take a whiff
or two, and then hand it to him. ‘And as to snuffing, I will tell you
what happened to me when I was a very little boy, perhaps not more than
four years old, and before I was admitted to the dignity of trousers.
I went to the house of two old ladies who were fond of snuff. Their
box to me was something wonderful. Either as a cruel jest, or in utter
foolishness, they asked me to take a pinch, I, really, not knowing what
snuff was. Urged and instructed by the ladies, I took a very big pinch
indeed. An explosion, or rather a succession of explosions followed, and
I thought my head was blown off. My first experience of snuff was my
first tragedy.’ Whereupon there fell upon the ear strange sounds as of
distant revelry re-echoed through ancient halls untenanted, and Olympus
rocked under a burst of Jovian laughter.
Charles Lamb, beaming with smiles, is ready to Lamb-pun (lampoon) anybody
or everybody, if he will but wa-wa-wait a bit. And Leigh Hunt, aside to
Wordsworth, whispers, ‘Lamb will crack a jest in the teeth of a ghost,
and then melt into thin air at the awful thought.’ While Coleridge, of
moody brow, brightens under the genial influence of old comrades, and
casting reflective glances around him, lives again in the memory of those
delightful evenings spent with them, their pipes aglow, in the old hostel
where genial Elia and a host of genius loved to foregather.
Sincere, affectionate, loving Charles Lamb, whose child-like heart, so
easily touched with the sufferings of others, was full of chivalrous
devotion to the sufferer. He turns to Wordsworth and explains his
attitude towards the weed. ‘Tobacco was for years my evening comfort and
my morning curse. For two years I had it in my head to write a poem on
the charmer, but she stood in her own light by giving me headaches that
prevented me singing her praises.’
‘But, my worthy Lamb, you know that headaches come not so much of smoking
as of imbibing too freely of that cheery October you like so well? And
what strong coarse stuff you would smoke to be sure! Do you remember that
even Dr. Parr was amazed at your prodigious powers, and asked how you had
acquired the habit?’
‘Ah, yes, I remember, I told him I had acquired it,’ (and here a sparkle
of humour plays across his face) ‘by toiling after it, as some men toil
after virtue.’
‘And when your physician wisely admonished you, and would have stopped
further indulgence in the weed, at least for a time, confess, naughty
man, what was your reply?’
‘May my last breath be drawn through a pipe and exhaled in a pun! And yet
I would readily admit that,
For thy sake, tobacco, I
Would do anything but die!’
The eloquent Robert Hall, England’s greatest pulpit orator, takes up
the social theme and recounts his first experience of the pipe. ‘My
association with the fraternity of smokers happened when I was a young
man at Cambridge under the guidance and somewhat severe admonition of the
learned Dr. Parr, whose pre-eminence among smokers we all acknowledged.
Thus early in life brought under the soothing influence of the weed
by so profound a scholar, whose knowledge of Greek was the terror and
admiration of young men, and feeling the natural desire of youth to
imitate the great, I thought I could not in any better way fit myself for
his society than by adopting his habit of smoking, and out of a long clay
pipe like his. It was then I developed a taste for tobacco which from
that time onward never left me. Being pressed on one occasion to explain
why I began the practice, I made answer that I was qualifying myself for
the society of a Doctor of Divinity, and that my pipe was the test of my
admission. Indeed, I began to experience an ill-at-ease feeling whenever
the weed and its instrument were not within my reach. I did not care to
argue with those people who thought evil things of smoking. If they did
not like it I would merely advise them to keep from it. For myself, I was
perfectly contented if they would let me alone, and allow me the mild
indulgence during my sojourn among mortals.’
The shade of Charles Spurgeon, the hero of the Tabernacle, glides into
view, holding to his lips a churchwarden of ample proportions, as if
inhaling the herb’s perfumed breath with serene enjoyment. A veteran
devotee at the shrine of St Nicotine he claimed a foremost place among
Victorian smokers. Morning, noon and night, in season, and, as many
thought, out of season, he might be found ensconced in some quiet nook,
or perched on a wall, diligently like a devout Parsee keeping the sacred
fire aglow, and drawing inspiration from the spiral wreaths as they
ascended heavenwards. It was to his nostrils as frankincense, leading
his thoughts to cerulean quarries in the sky where gems of sparkling wit
(or broad humour) were to be gathered for the delectation of multitudes
hungering for even his smallest joke, or it might be, an oracular
utterance on the ‘Scarlet Lady.’ The Tabernacle towered high in the land
in those days, and the churchwarden put forth a lengthening stem. And yet
there were limits, outside which even the High Priest of the Tabernacle
could not be permitted to roam, or to smoke the idolatrous Indian weed
unchallenged. Here he relates how a worthy dame of his fold brought him
to book on the subject—his everlasting breathing of ’bacco—and demanded
of him whether the practice was orthodox: could he put his finger on any
part of the Bible and say, here is my authority? Whereupon the pastor
meekly answered, ‘no, madam. But we do read in the Bible of the people
passing through the valley of Baca.’ ‘The valley of Baca! yes, here it
is!’ From the clouds leisurely blown around her a new light dawned on her
troubled conscience; the gage of battle was withdrawn, and she believed
with the implicit faith of a convert in her prophet, priest and king.
Others might stray from the beaten track to gain a greener mouthful, ‘but
for myself,’ she exclaimed, ‘henceforward I shall rejoice in the path
that leads to the Tabernacle through the valley of Baca!’
‘I love thee!’ exclaimed Captain Marryat, in the impassioned strain
of a Troubadour for the lady of his heart, ‘I love thee! whether thou
appearest in the form of a cigar, or diest away in sweet perfumes
enshrined in a meerschaum bowl. I love thee with more than a woman’s
love; thou art a companion to me in solitude; I can talk and reason with
thee, avoiding loud, obstreperous argument. Thou art a friend to me when
in trouble, for thou advisest in silence, and consolest with thy calm
influence over the perturbed spirit. I know not how thy power has been
bestowed upon thee; yet, if to harmonize the feelings, to allow the
thoughts to spring without control, rising, like the white vapour from
the cottage hearth on a morning that is sunny and serene; if to impart
that sober sadness over the spirit which inclines us to forgive our
enemies; that calm philosophy which reconciles us to the ingratitude and
knavery of the world; that heavenly contemplation whispering to us, as we
look around, that all is good—if these be merits, they are thine, most
potent weed.’
‘A truce to superfine sentiment. Tobacco is all very well as a check
to over-vehemence in men, just as a snaffle-bit is to a rampant
horse; applied to the wrong person, it will turn a sluggard into a
seventh sleeper. But it has a higher significance, such as you in your
speculative dreaming may never have thought of. Herr Carlyle, the friend
of the Fatherland, has told you his story of the use and abuse of tobacco
in Germany, now I will tell you mine, just as the incident occurred in
the old Bund of the times that are past.
‘I went to see Rechberg, who was at work and smoking at the same time.
He begged me to excuse him for a moment. I waited a little while.
By-and-by I got rather tired of waiting, and, as he did not offer me a
cigar, I took one out of my case and asked him for a light, which he gave
me with a somewhat astonished expression of countenance. But that is not
all. At the meetings of the Military Committee, when Rochow represented
Prussia at the Federal Diet, Austria was the only member who smoked.
Rochow, who was a desperate smoker, would have dearly liked to smoke too,
but did not venture to do so. When I came in I also felt that I wanted
to smoke, and, as I did not see in the least why I should not, I asked
the Presiding Power for a light, which appeared to be regarded both by it
and the other powers with equal wonder and displeasure. Obviously it was
an event for them all. Upon that occasion, therefore, only Austria and
Prussia smoked. But the other gentlemen considered it such a momentous
matter that they reported upon it home to their respective governments.
The affair demanded the gravest consideration, and fully six months
elapsed during which only the two great powers smoked. Then Schrenkh,
the Bavarian Envoy, began to vindicate the dignity of his position by
smoking. Nostitz, the Saxon, yearned to do so too, but he had not as
yet received permission from his minister; but as, at the next meeting,
he saw that Bothmer, the Hanoverian, lit a cigar, he (who had strong
Austrian proclivities, and some of his sons in the Austrian army) came
to an understanding with the Rechberg, for he also drew a weed from its
leathern scabbard, and blew a cloud. The only ones now remaining were the
Würtemberger and the Darmstädter, neither of them smokers. But the honour
and importance of their respective States imperatively exacted that they
should smoke; and so, at the very next meeting, the Würtemberger brought
out a cigar. I can see it now—a long, thin, light-yellow thing! and
smoked at least half of it, as a burnt offering for his fatherland!
[Illustration: DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS.
(_From a rare old painting._)]
The important part tobacco has played in state affairs would be amazing
were it not so laughable; the weed seems to break down barriers with a
puff, and to clear the way to mutual understandings where jealousy and
_infra dig._ blocked up the path. It once reached my ears that England’s
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lord Clarendon, made his office reek like
a cabman’s shelter with the fumes of the strongest tobacco. He would
never listen to a word against his favourite indulgence without rising
in assumed wrath in its defence, and would stoutly maintain that tobacco
possessed a potent spell over men’s minds, disposing them towards the
good side in all the important affairs of life. And Lord Canning, too,
could seldom be seen without a cigar in his mouth.
‘But as to smoking in colleges and among youths generally, I am firmly
convinced that the practice is bad in every way. No youth under the age
of sixteen should be permitted to take tobacco in any form, under pain of
physical chastisement or public prosecution.’
Prince Bismarck having thus delivered himself, the honour of France
demanded that the Grand Nation should not remain silent in the halls of
the immortals. An animated chatter among the spectral throng ensues, and
mutterings which mark dissension are audible above the general hum.
‘Indulgence in tobacco and alcohol are leading directly to the total
annihilation of conscience … the moral sense is blunted, and degeneracy
is spreading throughout Christendom. Count Tolstoy is perfectly certain
of it, according to communications which have reached me through a
medium of highly purified spiritual affinities.’
‘After dinner nothing ever was so good as a pipe, taken with a glass or
two of brandy—not that I cared for alcohol, O dear no! but this I do say,
that the more I smoked the better I worked.’
‘The depopulation of France is directly involved in the use of the
pernicious plant called tobacco, as was proved by my experiments on
cocks and rabbits (Dr. Depierris). The manufacture and sale of tobacco
are, very properly, entirely in the hands of the government; it can,
therefore, regulate the output, increase or diminish the quantity, or cut
off the supply altogether, if either one or the other course be deemed
advisable in the public interest. My argument was, in the first place,
based upon experiments on animal organisms conducted under my own eyes,
and in the second place, on reports furnished by Prefects of Departments.
Those reports demonstrated the alarming fact that in ten departments
where each inhabitant smoked on an average 1490 grammes of tobacco in
the year, the families having seven children and upwards were in the
proportion of sixty-eight in every 100,000 of the population; while in
ten other departments where the average consumption of tobacco was only
451 grammes per head, the proportion of families of seven children for
every 100,000 inhabitants rose to eighty-one; the still-born children
numbered only 156, against 1124 in the former case. Hence the significant
inference that the use of tobacco led directly to degeneracy of the human
race.’
‘But tobacco may be used in moderation without injury, if men would but
keep away from the little glasses of brandy, absinthe, and other similar
liqueurs.’
‘Tobacco produces sluggishness and loss of will power.’
‘On dit, et c’est passé en proverbe; Le tabac c’est l’ami de l’homme, il
le console de la femme.’
‘Fumer, c’est obtenir une trêve à la tristesse, aux préoccupations
irritantes, aux petites misères de la vie, aux chagrins domestiques,
aux tracasseries d’un ménage mal assorti; c’est aussi, en matiere de
travaux intellectuels et artistiques, se procurer, au moyen d’une
surexcitation légere, un développement, une clairvoyance d’idées qui
souvent vous fuient, c’est un refuge contre ce qui blesse ou choque,
contre le mécontentement de soi-meme ou d’autres; c’est dans les
professions manuelles, une diminution des sensations de fatigue, d’ennui,
de découragement; c’est aussi, une annihilation du mal qui cause une
atmosphere froide, humide, malsaine, c’est enfin une jouissance émanant
d’une faible congestion au cerveau, un étourdissement passager, une sorte
d’ivresse légere qui caresse les idées et les empeche de vagabonder.
‘En résumé, après tout ce qui s’est dit et écrit pour ou contre le tabac,
l’usage de cette plante est aujourd’hui général; il constitue de nos
jours une branche très importante de culture, d’industrie et de commerce,
et une source de revenus considérable pour les Etats.’
The voice of Fairholt, of rare tobacco fame, claims attention. ‘Let us
get out of the region of captious criticism and come to the solid ground
of fact. For is it not surpassing strange that man still exists on earth
if there be death in the pipe? Is his life shorter, his morals worse, his
intellect weaker, than in the days of, say, Henry VIII. before tobacco
was known in Europe? For three hundred years the poisonous drug, if such
it be, circulated in the veins of Europeans, and where is the degeneracy?
They are at this day, the most active, energetic and intellectual beings
that have ever peopled the planet. The learned doctor’s awful array of
afflictions attested by experiments on small forms of animal life have
no terrors for them; experiment and demonstrate as he may, experience is
a better teacher. Is there any reason why men should apply to themselves
the results of operations made upon creatures that perish of old age
while human beings are still in their infancy?’
‘No, surely not,’ responds Inglis of Indian frontier fame. ‘Often did
I regale my weary body and brain with a pipe after a hard day’s sport
with rifle and hound on the track of the beasts of the jungle, or after
a fierce bout with the courageous wild boar, whose splendid fighting
qualities are little known out of India. It happens occasionally that the
huntsman finds himself far out on a desolate track when
The night-cloud has lowered
And the sentinel star sets her watch in the sky.
At such times he turns with joy to his ready comforter, the peace-pipe.
Breathing in the fragrant breath his thoughts are set free to wander at
will; old places are revisited, and lost memories revived, always tinged
with pleasing thoughts of the things most cherished and the faces most
loved. At peace with himself and the world, he gazes into the starlit
heavens and exclaims, “Hail! thou invigorator of the weary, consoler of
the sorrowful, uncomplaining, faithful friend.’”
‘I too, would add my experience of the weed’s healthful influence on
weary humanity battling with plague and pestilence in tropical lands.’
Here Sir Samuel Baker relates how African savages had taught him the
virtues of the plant.
‘On that continent of dreadful night, yet so fascinating to the European
explorer, where death in one form or another confronts the traveller at
every step, it fell to my lot to be detained at the native village of
Obbo during the rainy season, in the midst of an indescribable steam of
poisonous vapours arising from a rank luxuriance of vegetation to be seen
in no other part of the world. Fever and dysentery were carrying off the
natives in large numbers. My wife and myself were both down with fever,
when the old chief persuaded me to smoke tobacco, which in the countries
bordering on the Nile is cultivated and manufactured in large quantities.
I had never smoked in my life, but I then commenced with Obbo tobacco
and pipes, and lived to bless the day I was wise enough to make the
experiment.
‘During our pleasant sojourn in the valley of Albara it was my misfortune
not to be a smoker. In the cool of the evening we used to sit by the
bamboo table outside the door of our house and drink our coffee amidst
the beautiful scenery of a tropical sunset, with deep shadows falling
into the valley. But a pipe, the long chibouk of the Turk, would have
made our home a paradise. On our return to Gondokora I found that the
plague had visited the town during our absence, and that the vessel
we were to go in to Khartoum was plague-stricken, many of the crew
having died of disease. I was so thoroughly convinced of the purifying
properties of tobacco that upon the circumstance coming to my knowledge I
at once ordered several pounds of tobacco to be burnt on board, chiefly
in the cabin, and with the satisfactory result that we all escaped the
plague.’
William Makepeace Thackeray grows pugnacious in defence of his favourite
indulgence, and asks, ‘What is this smoking, that it should be considered
a crime! I believe in my heart that women are jealous of it, as of a
rival. The fact is that the cigar is a rival to the ladies and their
conqueror too. Do they suppose they will conquer? Let them look over the
wide world and see for themselves that their adversary has overcome it.
Germany has been puffing for over three-score years and more, France
smokes to a man. Do they think they can keep the enemy out of England?
Pshaw! Look at Nicotiana’s progress. Ask the club-houses. I, for my part,
think it not at all unlikely that a bishop may be seen now and then
lolling out of the Athenæum with a cheroot in his mouth, or at any rate,
a pipe stuck in his shovel hat.’
Bulwer Lytton waxes warm over the inestimable blessings of the pipe. He
declares that it is a great comforter, and a pleasant soother! ‘Blue
devils fly before its honest breath! It ripens the brain, it opens
the heart; and the man who smokes thinks like a sage, and acts like a
Samaritan. He who doth not smoke hath either known no great grief, or
refuseth himself the softest consolation, next to that which comes from
heaven. What, softer than woman? Yes, for the woman teases as well as
consoles. Woman makes half the sorrows which she boasts the privilege to
soothe. Woman consoles us it is true, while we are young and handsome,
when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and scolds us. On the whole, then,
woman in this scale and the weed in that; Jupiter, hang out thy balance
and weigh them both; and if thou give preference to woman, all I can say
is, the next time Juno ruffles thee—O Jupiter! try the weed.’