she was a very gentle, kind, and good-humoured young woman, sensible and earnest, loved by everybody in the house, and a counsel and friend to everybody. By and by I became strongly impressed with the conviction that just she was fit to be the true companion of my life. And as I was not at all under the slightest fascination of love, I did not fear to be much mistaken about it. And for the third time, I determined to make a proposal of my heart and hand. I said so to my friend, who rather discouraged my precipitation, saying that I had better wait a time, and observe, and continue my attentions, and so win the confidence of his sister-in-law, whom he, indeed, prized very high, and wished me to be able to obtain; "but she was rather prejudiced against me," said he, "as she had heard reports about my inconstancy in love, and that I was not a person to be trusted in such things," etc. I was very indignant that blame should fall on me for what was the fault solely of my lady-loves. My friend said it was so, but that there was some fault of mine also, and advised me to try some time the virtue of perseverance. I did so, and was in due time rewarded by the attainment of my wishes. I was very glad, but, shall I say it, as I was not in love, I found the time of courtship rather fatiguing, and the first time of my marriage rather indifferent. And I felt sorry to feel so. Then, thought I, if it is so at the outset of marriage, how shall it be at the end? I have always heard it said that love in marriage goes on decreasing, and that the feelings become cooler with the setting day of life, and . . . . . . Well! after all, friendship and potatoes might do for this sublunary life, and man has no right to ask for higher happiness. And friendship, respect, trust, every good feeling, I certainly can have for my wife! But I sighed; then I remembered my former love-days, and their rich feeling and glorious anticipations; and it seemed hard to be brought down to friendship and potatoes. Time went on with its flood and ebb of events. After a while I found myself surprised in a very agreeable manner. I found that my feelings for my wife did not cool or decrease, but rather went the other way. But then it was her fault. My wife is but I hate to praise my wife. I had as well praise myself; then we are one, you know. But you do not know how we have become so, nor to what degree! Nor do I well know it myself. What I know is, that by little and little, I found something growing up in me for her, that I never before had experienced. It was not love,-not at least, that love which I had formerly felt,-I could feel that, even now, and for other women than my wife; what I felt for her was a feeling sweet and calm, yet intense, that warmed my heart in a delightful way; it was not passion, though it made me to feel uncomfortable and incomplete when I was separated from her,-it was a feeling that we call tenderness, affection. At times I have thought that that feeling was even more powerful than love, or, maybe, just the highest love itself. Certainly it had, with me, power over all the smaller kind of loves. Then, of these I must say, that they have never left me entirely at peace. And though a married man, and certainly a happy one, I have all my days continued to be subject to certain of its intoxications, of shorter or longer duration. Yes, I have during my happy marriage, of now nearly twenty years, been at least a dozen times in love with some charming objects. But then I have taken to a certain trick by which I make the pink-coloured devils which would take hold of me, incapable to create any serious disturbance in my heart, or in my house. Whenever I am in love, out of the family, I tell it to my wife! And she, bless her heart, never is disturbed by it, but takes up the part of my confidant in a most charming way. Yes, for that I must praise her. I am sure I should not make so wise a partner as she, if she took up my part in the play, and happened to fall in love with any other than me. But that is out of the question. As to my wife's management of my love affairs, I cannot but admire it. Sometimes she will be very much charmed herself by my new charmer-almost in love with her. But then, somehow or other, she finds out, by the superior tact of woman I suppose, some fault or defect in the charmer, which she confides to me, and which never fails to have its effect. Twice or thrice she (and I) have made a true friend of my momentary flame, and in these makings she glories a little; and well she may! Certain it is, that in all these things she is the chief gainer. And I sometimes tell her that I suspect she is deep in politics, or has some magical contrivances to make all things come about as she wants them. She laughs, and says that is all natural magic, and that it is the great god who helps her to keep in order the little one. You perceive that our companionship has grown pretty close by this time. And if that will keep on growing, as it has done hitherto, I think it probable that we will be desperately in love with one another before long, and that by that time the great god will have gained a final victory over the little one, and - the devils too! "Our passions never wholly die; but in the last cantos of life's romantic epos, they rise up again and do battle, like some of Ariosto's heroes, who have already been quietly interred, and ought to be turned to dust."-LONGFellow. WORDS ABOUT TOBACCO WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INCURABLES. BY JOHN NEAL. SYLVESTER GRAHAM tells you-and, notwithstanding the monstrous tom-foolery of the man, after he gets well a-going upon any subject, there is really a great deal to be thankful for, in some of his most outrageous manifestations; and it may well be questioned whether, on the whole, he may not have done about half as much good, as mischief, in his warfare upon the diseased appetites of our race; and that, let me tell you, is saying a good deal for him-he says that the narcotic principle which constitutes the vital charm of tea, coffee, strong beer, wine, alcohol, obacco, laudanum, and opium, is never otherwise than hurtful to life and health and happiness; and that, although like other poisons, it may be employed allopathically or homoeopathically-here by the handful, and there by the pinch-as a medicine, still, even as a medicine, it must, in the very nature of things, be hurtful in some degree, and ought never to be employed, but as the less of two evils; or, if Sylvester Graham does not say all this-and I am not quite sure he does-why, so much the worse for Sylvester Graham, that's all! He ought to have said it, years and years ago, as a becoming and suitable finish to his theory of dietetics. "Your theory is beautiful," said some one to a French philosopher, academician, or something of the sort, perhaps to St. Pierre himself, when, forgetting his Paul and Virginia, and the qualities that made that little story an imperishable wonder, he took it into his head to overreach himself, and grapple with Newton, blindfold, to supply his deficiencies; and to explain the mysteries of the Great Deep, the everlasting pulses of the Ocean, by the help of charts and maps, diagrams, log-books and voyages, and the daily melting of the polar ices,-"Your theory is beautiful, my dear sir, but the facts are against you." "Tant pis pour les faits!" said the philosopher, and went on with his theory. And so say I. My theory is, that tobacco in every shape, opium in every shape, alcohol in every shape, all three but different names for one and the same thing, are always hurtful, always, even as a medicine; always a poison, however qualified or disguised, like arsenic, or ipecac, or hyosciamus, or belladonna, or prussic acid; and never to be used, except for the purpose of expelling a greater poison. And if the facts do not bear me out, all over the world, everywhere, and throughout all history, why then so much the worse for the facts, that's all. But the facts do bear me out; and if I had a folio to write, like Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World, instead of a magazine-paper, hang me if I wouldn't undertake to prove it, against the whole College of Medicine, past, present, and to come. But, speaking of Sir Walter Raleigh, what a pity it was for him, and for the world, that when, after his return from Virginia, his bodyservant found him al afire, as he thought, and smoking at the mouth and nostrils, and dashed the pot of beer into his face; and Sir Walter kept his temper, and the servant stood staring at him-what a pity it was, the poor fellow didn't put him out, for ever. Only to think of the consequences! If Sir Walter Raleigh had been extinguished upon the spot, and never been mentioned again upon the face of the earth, all we should have lost would have been that History of the World, instead of the World itself; the memory of a few daring, though, rather foolish and most unprofitable achievements, a paragraph. or so about the treachery and baseness of James; and that charming story of the plush cloak, flung into the mire at the feet of Elizabeth. But living on, he lived only to perish miserably upon the scaffold, to poison the whole earth as with a smoke from the bottomless pit, and to levy a perpetual tax upon the nations, greater at this hour, and continually increasing, greater by far than all that has been wasted upon battles and sieges, and fleets and armies, by land and by sea, for the last three hundred years.— There! Less than three hundred years ago, potatoes and tobacco were introduced by this renowned warrior, adventurer, historian, philosopher, and side by side, into Europe. From that day to this, while but one of the two has become naturalized there, both have grown to be the food of nations, or something still more necessary than food; for the famishing, who have got familiar with tobacco, would seem to have a more abiding relish for it, in the midst of their suffering, than for the potato itself. Like opium-eaters, they loathe everything but that fearful drug, and turn away from their natural and wholesome food, after their stomachs get enfeebled, or pinched by famine. And now that able and honest men are beginning to seriously question the wisdom of cultivating the potato as the principal food of a nation, what on earth will the most ingenious find to say in favour of its companion, that loathsome and wasting offal- the tobaccoplant? If, looking to the terrible consequences a yearly famine-which appears to have settled upon that befooled, afflicted, and most wretched country, where the potato has been most encouraged, and most welcome, it may well be doubted whether, on the whole, it was a blessing or a curse that Raleigh introduced in that form-what should the statesman, the lawgiver, the political-economist, the lover of his kind say, looking at the tremendous consequences, about the introduction of tobacco? If it be doubtful whether the potato is a blessing, can it be doubtful to any human being in the possession of his faculties, that tobacco is a curse? Just consider the question. A filthy weed, so nauseous and so hateful, even in its prepared shape, as to produce unqualified loathing, and sometimes death, in those who tamper with it unwittingly, or for the first time; a deadly poison, for which there is no help, if the besotted fool who indulges in it, passes but ever so little over a most uncertain boundary, always fluctuating with his health, strength, appetite, and resisting power; so treacherous withal, that the cigar-smoker, and the snuff-taker, and the tobacco-chewer, like the opium-eater, go on, year after year, from bad to worse, notwithstanding all their self-plighted faith and most solemn resolutions, till they have no relish for natural and healthy food, but must live on highly-seasoned garbage, and highly-flavoured liquors-or die ! Think of the simple fact, that our own dear country exports, upon the average, more than five millions of dollars' worth a year, of this abomination, this vegetab!. guano, this nastiness which, instead of fertilising, impoverishes the very soil it breeds and festers in; that she is only one of many tobacco-growing regions, and that this is the value of the raw material, before it has undergone the ten thousand cheating transmutations, qualifications, and adulterations, which help to conceal its filthiness, and make it endurable; think, too, of another fact, that of our twenty millions of people, eight millions are spendthrift smokers and chewers and snuffers, at a cost, upon the average, perhaps, of two or three dollars a year to each person; making the national waste, the direct national waste, and overlooking the consequential waste, in time, health, and productive power, not less than from twenty, to twenty-four millions of dollars a year. Just call to mind, that all the Powers of Europe derive large revenues from the consumption of this detestable weed-that almost everywhere it is a government monopoly-and that prodigious sums are lavished, and the severest penalties imposed, for the protection of this monopoly-that smugglers are to be found everywhere, willing to risk all they have on earth, even to their lives, in the businessand that the taxes actually paid upon it into the treasury of Great Britain, not long ago, amounted in one single year to three million five hundred thousand pounds, sterling — equal to about seventeen millions of dollars! And these were the taxes only! What then must have been the market value, that year, of the tobacco consumed by the people of Great Britain! In the south of Europe, it is just about as bad-and at the north, still worse. The world pays now for the tobacco it uses, more than for all its wars-terrible and wasting as they are -added to all it pays for all its charities, and for all the education of all the people upon earth-perhaps. And yet why any "perhaps"? The thing is clear, self-evident. We have only to enter into the treasury statistics of the world, passing by the hospitals, the Potter's fields, the alms-houses, and the lunatic asylums, to find the proof. was ready for harvesting. Of course he found no difficulty, after that, in getting rid of his potatoes; they were worth watching, therefore they were worth stealing, and therefore they have become literally, within a period of two hundred and seventy years, the food of Nations. But how with tobacco? Can it be because the Empress Elizabeth forbade the use of it; or because King James wrote his "Counterblast;" or because the Popes excommunicated all who smoked in churches; or because, in Transylvania, the penalty for using it was a confiscation of the offender's estate; or because the Grand Duke of Moscow, and the King of Persia, and the Sultan of Turkey, slit the noses of their offending subjects, or marched them through the market-place with a spear in that these were not the reasons, what were they? Nothing can be found in history-nothing can be guessed at, in all we know of the past, or hope of the future, to explain the mystery, if, in point of fact, these very prohibitions did not originally beget, and afterwards propagate, the intolerable mischief. Let the sober and thoughtful friends of temperance beware. People are mighty anxious to judge for themselves in this world; to touch, and taste, and handle for themselves whatever they see others unreasonably afraid of; to take sides against all kinds of persecution; to grow exceeding tolerant and magnanimous toward any act, And how came this about? One may be willing to believe that a prodigious nation, like the Chinese, might persuade themselves, and after a while, others, to the use of tea; having been accustomed to flavour the un-member, and at last put them to death? If palatable waters of their crowded country with it, and being known all over the world for their wealth, and luxury, and exclusiveness. Imitation, beginning with travellers and shipmasters, and gradually spreading through consignees, and visiters, and neighbourhoods, would be natural; but how the plague a nation of dirty, starving savages, like the Virginia aborigines the first families I mean, of course -with no commerce, no pomp, no luxury, no wealth, no reputation, should be able to set the world afire by simply blowing the white smoke of their little, nasty, twopenny clay pipes through their nostrils-whiff, whiff, whiff-is wholly unaccountable, as we say down east. And so with coffee-introduced, not with the "barbarian gong," after the style of Powhattan, but with "barbaric pearl and gold," perfumes, and sherbet, and scented waters. We can see how such things make their way, like a visible pestilence-gorgeous and winning, deadly and treacherous, over the whole earth. They say that potatoes had to make a place for themselves over sea, after this fashion. The adventurer who landed the first little cargo on his own hook, tried to interest his neighbours by talking earnestly and continually about the productiveness of potatoes, and upon the advantages of their culture, and by giving them away, here a little and there a little, just for seed. But all in vain. His neighbours were shrewd enough, and watchful enough, and cautious enough, to stand stock still and wait the issue; and allow the philanthropist to burn his own fingers, instead of theirs, for a twelvemonth. And so the dear, good man had to plant them all for himself. But when they began to push up out of the ground-having learned the character of his neighbours, pretty much as most men do, after their potatoes are all gone-he set people to watch his field, night and day, till the crop | age, or faith, which smacks of independence or heresy. Like the poor girl, rebuked by her mother for wanting to have a peep at the theatre, they desire to see the folly of it for themselves. Call a man dangerous, and you make him so. When people see heavy and crushing penalties inflicted, or awful disqualifications threatened, they will know the reason why. But enough of preaching. Let us try to embody the manifestations we are complaining of. Suppose we get up a picture, showing how this great lunatic hospital-the World befouled and besotted with tobacco-smoke. Half a dozen figures at most are all we need. We might begin with the beginner, and follow him up inch by inch to the top of a pyramid, and see him topple down headlong into the unfathomable gulf below, just when he is beginning to comfort and steady himself, with what he calls abstemiousness, and great selfdenial, sixteen cigars, or eight hours smoking a day-half a dozen clay pipes-or a meerschaum in full blast from morning till night. But stop! this would be little better than downright plagiarism, there having been published years and years ago, a pyramid of Napoleon's Life, showing his upward march, step by step, till his brain was turned-not with tobacco-smoke to be sure, but with the smoke of battle and the scent of sacrifice, though he took snuff by the handful, and swallowed strong coffee, (the same thing in another shape,) till it was no wonder his brain turned; nor that, when he came to his senses, he found himself stretched upon a rock, helpless, and naked, and chained, with the vulture he had cherished there from his youth, eating his heart away. sides, and his laughable face, turned toward every bonnet and shawl he passed on the sidewalk with an expression altogether Irish, Michael was never the boy to demane himself with one o' yer dirty cigar-r-r-s. No, by the powers! as he used to say of himself, he was too much of a jintleman for that. And barrin' your worship's presence-that's the truth. And then-but there goes another!-look at the fellow or run after him if you will, and try to keep him in play here, while we hit him off, and serve him up, all hot and smoking,"two a penny, three a penny, hot cross-buns!" Capital! You have got his outline to a T. now. And now for another specimen :-observe the position of his head-the pointing of that toe as he comes down the step-the angle at which he contemplates the sky-stay!-one moment, if you please. There, there-you may let him go Our friend with the pencil has got the outline, and with our hints and recollections, enough to finish off his large, high-crowned, slouched hat, his abundant hair and bushy whiskers, and light cravat, and cigarro, evidently pointed at 54° 40'-and everything else, even to that expression of entire selfcomplacency in what was undoubtedly meant for a countenance, with a pug nose to it-to the position of both hands in the pockets of his drab outsider-and to the knobbed and tasselled stick under his right arm. Of course that poor thing is in the middle of his fourth or fifth, "sense dinner." Well, well, there's one comfort for him, and for his mamma—he'll be the sooner through. We might begin with a North American savage, rolled up in his mat, and smoking all day long, and all night long, with wife, dog, and papoose, to wish the vile weed at the bottom of the Red Sea; but that would be a picture of itself, and would take up all the room we have to spare. And so too we might begin at the other end, with the little, dirty, ragged newsboy, facing a snow storm or a nor'wester, with a long nine in his mouth, and a live coal or carbuncle, half buried in white ashes, burning at the further tip, which, with his head poked forward and back and knees bent, he seems for ever trying to overtake, on his way round the corners. Ten to one the burning coal itself is only a tinsel imitation, and the white ashes all make-believe-but then, where should we leave off? We can't go through all ranks, from the unbreeched baby up to the ruffian boy, and pale, haggard youth, and blighted, shrivelled man, staggering blindfold over the precipices of middle age; and back again, step by step, to the unwholesome, dirty, trembling dotard, the "lean and slippered pantaloon," who having lived upon, will at last die of, tobacco. Let us content ourselves therefore with half a dozen brief, hasty sketches from life, by my friend here at my elbow, mere outlines if you will,-and beginning with any one out of a dozen among our acquaint-"lant off te prafe, oont home off te vree," conances, at home or abroad, the fashionables, the soap-locks, or the hod-carriers-the soldier, the student, or the lounger-Greek, Turk, or Christian. Ay, ay, sir! Well then, to begin. There's that strange, good-natured, lubberly fellow, Michael O'Dohovan, that used to be seen almost every day of the year, with a pipe in his mouth and a hod on his shoulder, loitering about the portico of the Astor House, and watching the other and better-dressed loiterers, as they flung down their half-lighted, or half-burned cigars, upon the steps, and gathering them up carefully, and wiping off the dust, and crushing them to powder for his pipe. D'ye think he was baste enough to put the raw tobacchy into his naked mouth, as the goats and the quality do, without shame or grace? Not he! The happiest man living, with that miserable fragment of a pipe, always in full blast, under his nose; with a ragged hat falling in at the top and on both And then, surely we have none of us forgotten that incorrigible German student, Herr Fon Kopfveh, a regular bursch, whose whole property, after he had reached this sisted of a tabackspfeife, which he called a meerschaum, in four pieces-"ter mouf-peesh, ter powl, ter dupe (meaning the tube), oont ter etvash, vat hintersh de jewsh vrom ket in ter dupe, unt shpile den tabac"-a small quantity of the weed in a dirty bag, a pair of ironbound spectacles without glasses, a bushy beard, and a suggestion that he and others often mistook for a cap. The rest of his clothes, even to the white pantaloons and snuffy handkerchief, were borrowed. And yet, if all's true they say of that young man, he was at one time not a little of a scholar, and came of a good family, and might have lived and died, without a chance of being mentioned in the newspapers and magazines, hadn't his poor fool of a father sent him abroad, about five years ago, to finish his education-and himself-at a German university; for, sooth to say, he is no German after all-nothing but a native American gone |