George Gissing

“ Barbara would renounce neither beef nor ale. So matters stood, and, as the girl's suitors were numerous, poor Simon lived in dread of learning some dark day that his hopes had vanished.
Samuel Figg, even on his bed of sickness, held fiercely to the ideal.
"Now, mind what I tell you, Simon You're in danger—I can see it. The devil's tempting you to sell your soul. Break it off! Have done with her! If you fall, I'll never speak to you again." ”

“ Oppressed by a new anxiety, Simon kept the appointment. He found his friend comfortably seated by the fireside, reading an anti-tobacco tractate. This supplied Figg with matter for half-an-hour's discourse; he wrought himself to a pitch of ferocity in railing against smokers.
"No one has ever yet pretended that smoking is a necessity of health," he said, at length. "In that, it differs from flesh-eating and the taking of stimulants. Now, there are cases"—he glowered—"where vegetarianism and total abstinence are practically impossible. Yes!" ”

“ I take meat and beer at a little place where no one knows me; and mind, I can still, with a good conscience, support the great principles. My case goes for nothing; it is exceptional; it doesn't apply to one man in fifty thousand. When I am thoroughly established in health, I shall go back to the right way."
Simon went home and lay awake all night, oppressed with strange, new thoughts. If his friend Figg had been plucked from fatal illness by a change of diet, why, were not Barbara and her father and all the rest of the world plainly right in their refusal of asceticism? ”