rkable event in his life. His
whole amusement was his pipe; and, as there is a certain indefinable
link between smoking and philosophy, my father, by dint of smoking, had
become a perfect philosopher. It is no less strange than true, that we
can puff away our cares with tobacco, when, without it, they remain a
burden to existence. There is no composing draught like the draught
through the tube of a pipe. The savage warriors of North America
enjoyed the blessing before we did; and to the pipe is to be ascribed
the wisdom of their councils and the laconic delivery of their
sentiments. It would be well introduced into our own legislative
assembly. Ladies, indeed, would no longer peep down through the
ventilator; but we should have more sense and fewer words. It is also
to tobacco that is to be ascribed the stoical firmness of those American
warriors, who, satisfied with the pipes in their mouths, submitted with
perfect indifference to the torture of their enemies. From the
well-known virtues of this weed arose that peculiar expression when you
irritate another, that you "put his pipe out."

My father's pipe, literally and metaphorically, was never put out. He
had a few apophthegms which brought every disaster to a happy
conclusion; and as he seldom or never indulged in words, these sayings
were deeply impressed upon my infant memory. One was, "_It's no use
crying; what's done can't be helped_." When once these words escaped
his lips, the subject was never renewed. Nothing appeared to move him:
the abjurations of those employed in the other lighters, barges,
vessels, and boats of every description, who were contending with us for
the extra foot of water, as we drifted up or down with the tide,
affected him not, further than an extra column or two of smoke rising
from the bowl of his pipe. To my mother he used but one expression,
"_Take it coolly_;" but it always had the contrary effect with my
mother, as it put her more in a passion. It was like pouring oil upon
flame; nevertheless, the advice was good, had it ever been followed.
Another favourite expression of my father's when anything went wrong,
and which was of the same pattern as the rest of his philosophy, was,
"_Better luck next time_." These aphorisms were deeply impressed upon
my memory; I continually recalled them to mind, and thus I became a
philosopher long before my wise teeth were in embryo, or I had even shed
the first set with which kind Natur