he sight
of passers-by?_ Why do ladies leave the dinner-table before the men
begin to smoke? To avoid the smell of tobacco--which is well known to
be aromatic, healthy, and delightful--or _because the natural modesty
of women shrinks from witnessing the striking of a match?_ Why, in a
railway-carriage, do you hold your fusee out of window when you light
it? Is it because you do not care about being half-choked--a paltry
plea--or is it to conceal from young persons who may be in the
carriage the sparkle which must inevitably remind them of wicked and
alluring eyes?

"_To get a light, or because others do it._" Is that true? Do not
trifle with the question. Read all my works. Do not get them from a
contemptible circulating library, but buy them.

II.

Some may not yet be convinced that the striking of matches is
suggestive and immoral. To me nearly everything is suggestive, but
there are some stupid persons in England. I will be patient with them,
and give them more evidence.

A wax match is called a vesta. Who was Vesta? But this is too
horrible. I cannot pursue this point in a periodical which is read in
families. I can only refer you to the classical dictionary, and remind
you that everything must infallibly suggest its opposite. Again,
there are matches which strike _only_ on the box. It distresses me to
write these words. The idea of "onlyness," of restriction, must bring
matrimony to the mind of everyone. If you do not know what I think
about marriage, buy _The Kreutzer Sonata_. It is not customary to have
more than one wife. Consequently, anything which has _one_ in it--as,
for instance, the date of WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR--reminds me of
marriage, and is, therefore, degrading. Why, the very word "match"
suggests marriage: and yet we allow young children to sell whole boxes
of them in the streets. Horrible! Do you think our lower orders would
become discontented, and strike, if they had not seen matches doing it
first? Still more horrible!

Finally, you strike a match that never struck you, that never offended
you in any way. Is that just, or even manly? Yet, in nine cases out of
ten, the law takes no notice of the offence.

"_To get a light, or because others do it._" Are you not convinced now
that, when you use these words, you are not speaking the truth?

III.

I do not think I ever met anybody who was quite as moral, or quite as
original, as I am. You should give a complete set of my works to each
of y