diligently and generously to correct the world, and to
vindicate its Author. 'In some rare cases of internal injury
tobacco may be used but not in the customary way.' Be it
known, then, that the Creator has not created it in vain.
Dr. Clarke must have been a very good-natured man. He
tortured his brains to find a hope of pardon for Judas
Iscariot, and held that the creature (Nachash) who tempted
Eve was not a serpent but a monkey cursed by the forfeiture
of _patella_ and _podex_; therefore doomed to crawl! But I
fear, if the present form of using tobacco be not the true
one, we must despair of ever finding it, and people will go
on smoking and 'hearing reason' as long as the world goes
round. Robert Hall received a pamphlet denouncing the pipe.
He read it, and returned it. 'I cannot, sir, confute your
arguments, and I cannot give up smoking,' was his comment.
It is loosely asserted that smoking is more prevalent among
scholars, intellectualists, and men who live by their
brains, than among artisans and subduers of the soil. This
is an error. Tobacco is less a fosterer of thought than a
solace of mental vacuity. The thinker smokes in the
intervals of work, impatient of _ennui_ as well as of
lassitude, and the ploughman, the digger, the blacksmith or
the teamster, lights his cutty for the same reason. No true
worker, be he digger, or divine, blends real work with
either smoking or drinking. Whenever you see a fellow drink
or smoke during work, spot him for a gone coon; he will come
to grief, and that right soon. Sleep stimulates thought, and
sometimes a pipe will bring sleep, but trust it not of
itself for either thought or strength. It combats _ennui_,
lassitude, and intolerable vacuity, soothing the nerves and
diverting attention from self. Sam Johnson came very near
the mark: 'I wonder why a thing that costs so little
trouble, yet has just sufficient semblance of doing
something to break utter idleness, should go out of fashion.
To be sure, it is a horrible thing blowing smoke out; but
every man needs something to quiet him--as, beating with his
feet.'

"Life is really too short for moralists and medici who have
read Don Quixote, to attack a verdict arrived at and acted
upon by the combined nations of the entire world, d