The use of tobacco must, therefore, be held to mark a rather coarse and
childish epoch in our civilization, if nothing worse. Its most ardent
admirer hardly paints it into his picture of the Golden Age. It is
difficult to associate it with one's fancies of the noblest manhood,
and Miss Muloch reasonably defies the human imagination to portray
Shakspeare or Dante with pipe in mouth. Goethe detested it; so did
Napoleon, save in the form of snuff, which he apparently used on
Talleyrand's principle, that diplomacy was impossible without it. Bacon
said, "Tobacco-smoking is a secret delight serving only to steal away
men's brains." Newton abstained from it: the contrary is often claimed,
but thus says his biographer, Brewster,--saying that "he would make no
necessities to himself." Franklin says he never used it, and never met
with one of its votaries who advised him to follow the example.
John Quincy Adams used it in early youth, and after thirty years of
abstinence said, that, if every one would try abstinence for three
months, it would annihilate the practice, and add five years to the
average length of human life.
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