Edward Vincent Heward

“ 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. ”

“ Tenderly he handles his favourite calumet, bestows the pabulum of peace, and awaits the sweet solace which will soon dispel the worries and passions born of strife in life’s warfare.
Many an over-wrought brain has thus received the balm that stays the rash hand or the fevered spirit from hurrying to a reckless end. Surely no one need wonder at the smoker’s devotion to his pipe, nor be so uncharitable as to class his troubles and trials and their happy deliverance with the mere fancies of a lazy man in search of excuse for an idle habit. Let us not be hard on the smoker. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Already some of the states of North America have instituted penal enactments for the protection of children against the indulgence, which to them is pernicious.
But what shall be said of the young man whose downy lip bears testimony to his approaching majority—the age when life is a romance and the future aglow with roseate dreams? He knows himself to be the hope and pride of his parents, that in him is centred all sorts of brilliant possibilities. Nothing could be more fitting, he thinks, than that he should proclaim to the world that he is now a man by airing the park with his first cigar. ”

“ How dearly the late Poet Laureate, Tennyson, treasured his briar-root; how with his ‘silent friend’ he would seek seclusion, drawing unfailing solace from an inexhaustible tobacco jar, belongs to the social history of our times. In the fulness of their hearts, lovers of the weed have declared that in it they have found ‘the only thing in life that fumes without fretting.’ If to this excellence be added the further one of assuaging the fretful, we shall have the whole philosophy of smoking in a nutshell. ”

“ Regardless of these things, the Nicotian epicure of to-day enjoys the inestimable advantage of luxuriating in the delicate aroma of the Cuban leaf, while fancying himself wafted on his upward way to Nirvana. The charming simplicity that leads to this ideal conception of existence is most refreshing; the being so lost to the outer world can hardly be blamed if he says rude things when compelled to touch Mother Earth.
But King James had not yet done with tobacco. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are people of so gloomy a temperament that they would not let a man cultivate a flower-garden or listen to the songs of birds on the Sabbath; who look upon music as a sensuous indulgence, and reading as idleness. To these we have nothing to say; it is their misfortune to think and feel so. Stripping the argument of the puerilities and exaggerations of prejudice, let us recognise the broad fact that men of every nation and in every climate do smoke; a fact that is universal needs no apology. ”

“ ON THE ANTIQUITY OF TOBACCO-SMOKING
Like Horace’s greybeard, we are all more or less prone to look lovingly towards the past, to regard the days of our forefathers as the good old times in which they played their part in life’s drama on a larger and nobler scale than we do, or are capable of doing. In this spirit of admiration for antiquity we see the beginnings of that hero-worship which with the Greeks gradually developed into their beautiful mythology. They, above all other people, delighted to extol the powers and achievements of their ancestors ”

“ Here was a race of beings living in happy ignorance of the strifes and ambitions, the anxieties and vexations of civilised man, reclining in every posture of ease while breathing the fragrant odours of their treasured weed: civilised man, indeed, gazed with amazement and longing. Sweeter far than incense from Arabi was this new delight to the Spaniards, it became a necessity; it was their morning comforter that fortified them for the combat of the day, and their evening solace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It can never satisfy reasonable inquiry to be told that deadly results follow the administration, not of the smoke, but of a single drop of the essential oil of tobacco to a dog, that dies of old age at fifteen years; or to a rabbit, that breeds seven times a year and dies at the age of five. Far above theorising there is the teaching of experience, and if each would-be smoker will in this, as in other things, be guided by this unfailing monitor, and act upon the dictates of common sense, no harm will come to him. ”

“ Surely a wise choice, for in the pipe he had found a soother of the ruffled frame, calming the unruly member which the tea-cup sets free to dilate with eloquence on the virtues—or their opposite—of the dear absent ones; helping the fair devotee to unbosom herself of old confidences too heavy to be longer borne, and to form new and undying friendships—till the next tea meeting. Assuredly, wherever Eve’s daughters congregate there will the tea-pot—the genius of quickened sensibilities—be the favourite fetish.
Queen Elizabeth. ”

“ There is no poetry in the chemist’s crucible; imagination fails to lend a transient charm to the grim constituents of the bewitching leaf. Here, in his silent retreat, the analyst weighs and measures, tests and resolves into their original elements whatever things, foul or fair, come into his hands. He weighs a pound of the prepared leaves, steeps them in water, and subjects them to distilation; presently there rises to the surface a volatile, fatty oil which congeals and floats. It has the odour of tobacco and is bitter to the tongue ”

“ Our gossip about the Indian weed may now be brought to a close with a few words about its co-partner, the pipe. For even tobacco-pipes, like all other products of men’s ingenuity, awaken interest all the more engrossing when little else remains to tell the story of those who made them and used them. They carry the imagination back to those shadowy palaces of the Incas and Aztecs, where equally shadowy potentates smoked out of pipes made of precious metals, or of highly polished and richly-gilt wood. ”

“ And yet still more strange, these very simple-minded children of nature looked up to the white men as visitors from the spirit-land of their dreams, and with awe and wonder made offerings to them of whatever things they esteemed most precious. The ships in the offing with flapping wings had come from the blue beyond their ken, and the white men were denizens of the skies. This curious idea—so soon to be dispelled by the rapacity and cruelty of the Spaniards—which the natives had conceived of the strangers is alluded to by many early writers who afterwards visited the new world. ”

“ Looking back towards the source whence the old world derived the Indian weed and the habit of smoking it, the career of Columbus presents itself crowded with marvellous exploits and instances of indomitable courage that have left their imprint on men’s minds for all succeeding generations. Though an old and oft-repeated story it has an abiding interest for adventurous explorers whose highest glory is to link themselves with the free and fearless Vikings. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Though differences of temperament may not allow everyone the mild indulgence of the pipe, all are interested in learning that in the leaves of the Indian’s weed dwells a friendly genius ready to protect us from the virulent attacks of the myriad host of invisible life which floats around us, in some cases infecting the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. This assurance comes to us from the bacteriologist, whose experiments conducted under the microscope, demonstrate that contact with the smoke of tobacco destroys the vitality of microbes. ”

“ 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? ”

“ In the opinion of experienced smokers a new cigar is never good; like wine, the weed requires age to bring it to perfection—the highly prized excellences, a mild, cool aromatic smoke. Curiously enough, the marks of a mite on the outer leaf are the true signs of matured years, when the cigar is fitted to regale the jaded senses and dispose the most obdurate of men to relax into sociality. ”

“ 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 [16] 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. ”