Cigarette

“ He awakens in the night and lights his cigarette, and what peace and joy after each long draught of the sweet redeeming bewilderment. That’s quite different from that brown, ill-smelling butt, chewed from one corner of the mouth to the other, lighted again and again, until it has happily dissolved itself into ashes. A bedroom filled with smoke: a long story of enlightenment to the one who knows. The cigarette fits in our nervous times. A nervous pleasure for a nervous people. We smoke cigarettes because we are nervous. We are nervous because we smoke cigarettes. ”

“ Cigarettes in short order make the face sallow, spoil the shape of the mouth, make the eyes heavy, fill the hair with permanently unpleasant nicotine suggestions, develop a mustache—and women are cured of cigarette smoking by a look in the glass, when they could not be cured by tearful appeals of the wisest philosophers. ”

“ For a cigarette, I have observed, that hangs loosely from the teeth shows an artistic temperament, just as in business circles a cigar that is tilted up until it warms the nose marks a sharp commercial nature. ”

“ Cigars break and peel in the kneading motion of walking and crouching. But the cigarette is protected in its little box. And yet, rather than lose a smoke, a soldier will carry one lonesome cigarette, rained on and limp and fraying at the end, drag it from the depths of a kit, dry it out, and have a go. For, after all, [Pg 102] it isn't for theoretical advantages over larger, longer smokes he likes it, but because it is fitted to his temperament. It is a French and Belgian smoke, short-lived and of a light touch, as dear to memory and liking as the wines of La Champagne. ”

“ A cigarette kind of makes him seem pleasantly undependable. A pipe makes you feel he's full of just everyday notions. But a cigar! My! It sort of dazzles me when I see a man with a big cigar. I feel like a lowgrade earthworm, don't you know. Say," she cried, with an indescribable gesture of her gloved hands, "he handles that cigar, he sort of fondles it. ”

“ The first thing the fourth nouveau did was pay attention to anybody; lighting a cigarette in an unhurried manner as he did so, and puffing silently and slowly as if in all the universe nothing whatever save the taste of tobacco existed. ”

“ I am a firm believer in tobacco as a preventive, more particularly in the shape of cigarettes, and in this I have every one against me. A pipe, I think, is half poisonous in itself on account of the nicotine, and, after experimenting with pipe, cigar, and cigarette, I truly believe the cigarette to be the least harmful, and, as a preventive of malarial fevers, the best remedy. I felt particularly well amidst all these fever-stricken people. ”

“ He paced about for a little, sat down and lit a cigarette, dozed over it, started up and walked again. Once more he sat down, ruminated, nodded--and presently awoke, sniffing. What was that smell of burning? He looked on the ground, where the half-smoked cigarette lay. ”

“ He saw he should live for months in a thick cloud of irony, not the finest air of the season, and he adopted the weapon to which a person whose use of tobacco is only occasional resorts when every one else produces a cigar—he puffed the spasmodic, defensive cigarette. ”

“ As soon as they were undressed, they were given a refreshing bath, in which they revelled after their weeks of dirty work and mud. After the bath came clean, warm pyjamas, a cup of hot cocoa or soup, a slice of bread and butter, and last, but to the soldier never least, a cigarette.
To him the cigarette is the panacea for all ills. I have seen men die with a cigarette between their lips—the last favour they had requested on earth. If the soldier is in pain, he smokes for comfort; if he is restless he smokes for solace; when he receives good news, he smokes for joy ”

“ When, as is often the case, the wrapper is very narrow and the tobacco is inclined to escape, the man smokes his cigarette in a peculiar manner; he holds the unlighted end in his fingers and with his mouth draws out the smoke from between the edges of the wrapper in the middle of the cigarette, this he continues to do until the cigarette is about half consumed when he puts the end in his mouth in the ordinary way. ”

“ I was wakened by the pungent acrid smell of smoke, and I sat up and blinked my eyes open. The side of the bed was sending up a steady column of gray smoke, and there was a smart crackle of fire under me somewhere. I jumped out of bed and saw the trouble instantly. My cigarette had dropped from my hand, still lighted, and as is the way with cigarettes, determined to burn to the end. ”

“ He put them into his mouth, chewed them, and swallowed them.
'Well then, smoke a cigarette.' So saying, he took two cigarettes and a box of matches out of his pocket and, giving me one cigarette, lit the other himself. Then, holding it in a curious manner between both his palms, as one would smoke a chillim, [2] he began to draw in the smoke. And oh, what vigorous pulls! At one pull the flame reached from one end of the cigarette nearly to the other. ”

“ I took the cigarettes and crumpled them between my hands. I walked to the window and spread my palms wide. The light breeze caught up the golden threads and bore them writhing and dancing far out among the maple leaves. ”

“ Smoking is commenced at a very early age, and every little boy has his own tobacco supply and packet of cigarette-papers. As he trots to school in the morning he puffs away vigorously, occasionally passing his cigarette to a friend that he also may take a few whiffs. If the cigarette is not finished when he arrives at school, he pinches off the hot end and puts the rest behind one of his ears, as we might put a pencil or a pen. ”

“ Of all the soldiers' wants the most imperative appears to be the harmless necessary cigarette. All their letters clamor for tobacco in that form. "We can't get a decent smoke here," says one writer. An army airman "simply craves for cigarettes and matches." From a cavalryman comes the appeal that a few boxes of cigarettes and some thick chocolate would be luxuries. ”

“ Most of the men are smoking cigarettes as they wait. One man was pointed out to me as having both legs off and one arm and part of the remaining hand also, but he was smiling cheerfully and chaffing with the sisters, and although overwhelmed by the awfulness of his condition I did not grasp the full meaning of it until as I passed him he said, “Sister, will you put out my cigarette for me.” ”

“ Bill, my lad, you should pay more attention to details; one little oversight—such as a cigarette stub—has hanged a man before now. A good inch and a half of tobacco wasted here. You'll be wanting a cigarette very badly, Bill, before you get another supply, remember. ”

“ The burly man puffs away, demonstrating his satisfaction with the quality of the cigarette by facial contortions. In the meantime the baby has descended, and the large figure having lowered the hand holding the cigarette leisurely, the baby seizes it, and, placing it in his mouth, sends forth a big puff of smoke. ”

“ Each boy carries his own tobacco-pouch, matches, and tobacco, and is an adept at rolling cigarettes. They are thoroughly unselfish as regards the disposal of their smoking material, and a cigarette will be circulated amongst a group of friends, each one taking a whiff or two and then handing it on to his neighbour. ”

“ And what is worse, the cigarette is the favorite form of the “weed.” All seem to smoke it except the babies. Small boys scarcely in their teens puff lustily at cigarettes; and I have seen several respectable-looking women smoking in the open-air cafés. ”

“ It was not considered good form for a débutante to do anything of that sort. I had so far refused all cocktails and wines at dinners. However, I knew how to manage a cigarette. As a lark at boarding-school I had consumed a quarter of an inch of as many as a half-dozen cigarettes. ”

“ Us boys were smoking cigarettes one day made of paper and dried dandelion leaves, and the boy at the butcher shop said if we would dry some wiener skin and cut it up and put it in the cigarette and smoke it, it would make the finest flavor, and make us strong. ”

“ The cigarette smoker never looks for a stronger brand, as the consumer of cigars, who methodically tans his tongue with his weed. The cigarette smoker increases his daily ration, and finally smokes between the courses of his meal, between his kisses.... ”

“ Upon occasion, the cigarette, and more often the cigar, will deaden one’s sensibilities. The effect is the rising of somber impressions, rather than bright thinking. Tobacco has had considerable influence on modern literature, though it would be difficult to show just where the difference is. ”

“ To this I reply that primus tubulus doth by no means respond to their definition, but only denotes the first smoking of tobacco, were it but a single whiff, or even if a pipe be not used, but a cigar or cigarette. Secondly, it is by no means the fact that all beginners are sickened in the middle, for, if I remember rightly, I myself smoked my first pipe through without flinching, and dare say that many others have done likewise. But I admit that in most cases there cometh a horrid presentiment, with quaking of the flesh and a fearful pallor. ”

“ SMOKING TOBACCO
“Experientia docet.” The man of exquisite senses—the Epicurean judge of flavor, aroma and fragrance—knows that no other tobacco can give the relish and gusto of “Bull” Durham in a hand-rolled cigarette. ”

“ Your senses are exceptional, you see. Your ears register pain at false sounds. Therefore, you discarded the thoughts of your cigarette during the moment you suffered with the singer. Following this reasoning, your cigarette went into abandonment. And I salvaged it. No trick at all, really."
I thought, to hell with the shot glasses. I put the rum bottle to my lips and tilted it up and held it there until it wasn't good for anything anymore. ”

“ Cigarettes appear to give less trouble than pipes. Any one, drunk or sober, can light them and keep them alight. They can be put out at any moment and returned to the cigarette case or tucked behind the ear. Also, it is held by snobs as well as by haters of foul pipes that cigarettes are more genteel, or whatever the name is of our equivalent vice. But if a pipe is to be smoked, the briar is believed to cast some sort of faint credit on the smoker which the clay does not. ”

“ Stores sell cigarettes in kiddie packs of a handful of cigarettes, or even sometimes just one cigarette, so teenagers with very little money can buy smokes out of their pocket change. My plan bans that, too. Billboards andads in teen magazines show rugged men and glamorous women lighting up and blissful couples sharing their cigarettes. The message is: Smoking is sexy; it'll make you more attractive ”

“ The Cigarette had a mackintosh which put him more or less above these contrarieties. But I had to bear the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that nature was a woman. My companion, in a rosier temper, listened with great satisfaction to my Jeremiads, and ironically concurred. ”

“ Cigarette smoking! Why, Bob, some of the most refined women in the world smoke cigar [128] ettes—clever, intelligent women, too. And I never could see any justice at all in the idea some people have that it's any worse, or more vulgar, as you say, for women to smoke cigarettes than for men. ”

“ We all lighted our cigarettes, and lapsed into dreamy silence, broken only by the plash of ripples under our bow and the frequent sputter of matches quite necessary to the complete consumption of our tobacco. ”

“ A man would as soon have thought of making a call in his dressing-gown as of strolling about the West End with a cigar in his mouth. The first whom I ever saw smoke a cigarette at a dining-table after dinner was the King ”

“ Avoid the smell of liquor or tobacco on the breath, and eschew as fatal the odor of strong perfumery on the clothes or handkerchief. The yellow stains of the cigarette showing on the fingers, and the disgusting odor attaching to the cigarette habit, have lost [Pg 69] many a man a favorable bearing. ”

“ In the manufacture of tobacco for smoking, we have to do with the numerous forms of tobacco used for smoking in pipes, embracing cut smoking mixtures, cake or plug, and roll or spun tobacco. Under this heading come also the cigar and cigarette manufacture.
The raw material in the warehouses is of various qualities: some is strong, rough and harsh, and so is unfit for ordinary smoking; other samples are mild and fine, with aromatic and pleasant flavour, but devoid of strength. ”

“ The young fellow who inhales whole fog-banks of cigarette smoke until his lungs are weak and his heart action defective, who tampers with his nerves by the use of stimulants or narcotics, need not be surprised that in the hard contests of life sounder men walk on ahead, leaving him in the rear. ”

“ Many Oriental smokers consume no more than a third. (b) If a cigarette with a card mouthpiece is employed, the noxious matter may be intercepted by always introducing a light plug of cotton wool into the tube. If now the cigarette is nearly consumed, a considerable quantity of brown and very offensive matter will be found in the cotton wool, from the evil of which the smoker is thus preserved. ”

“ Dissolve in the first love embrace,
Their life to their love freely giving,—
And so with my love 'tis the case;
For when her life's last spark is flying,
Still sweet to the end is my pet,
Who helps me, although she is dying,
To light up a fresh cigarette!
'Twere better, etc.
[pg 54]
THE BALLADE OF TOBACCO.
When verdant youth sees life afar,
And first sets out wild oats to sow,
He puffs a stiff and stark cigar,
And quaffs champagne of Mumm & Co.
He likes not smoking yet; but though
Tobacco makes him sick indeed,
Cigars and wine he can't forego,—
A slave is each man to the weed. ”