"I have seen stone pipes from Gambia, shaped like the letter U consisting each of one solid flint, hollowed through, also hookahs made by sailors with cocoanut shells. All, however, now agree that it is impossible to have either comfortable, cool, or safe smoking, unless through a substance like clay, porous and absorbent, especially as portable pipes are the mode. Those of black charcoal are not handsome; indeed, I always feel like a mute at a funeral while smoking one, but they are delightfully cool, absorbing more essential oil of nicotine, and more quickly than any meerschaum. I caution the smoker to have an old glove on; as these pipes 'sweat,' the oil comes through, and nothing is more pertinacious than oil of tobacco when it sinks into your pores, or floats about hair or clothes. My own taste inclines to the German receiver, long cherry tube and amber, and to my own garden, for all street smoking is unæsthetic, and the traveller by coach, boat, or rail has the tastes of others to consult. Surely it is not urbane to throw on another the burden of saying that he likes not the smell or the inhaling of burning tobacco. Better postpone your solace to more fitting time and place—the close of day and your own veranda. Indoor smoking is detestable. Life has few direr disenchanters than the morning smells of obsolete tobacco, relics though they be of hesternal beatitude. Give me, in robe or jacket, a hookah, or German arrangement, Chinese recumbency in matted and moistened veranda, and the odors of fresh growing beds of flowers wafted by the southern breeze. Nor be wanting the fragrant perfume of coffee. 'Meat without salt,' says Hafiz, 'is even as tobacco without coffee.' The tannin of the coffee corrects the nicotine. And it may not be amiss to learn that a plate of watercress, salt, and a large glass of cold water should be at hand to the smoker by day; the watercress corrects any excess, and is at hand in a garden. Smoke not before breakfast, nor till an hour has elapsed after a good meal. Smoke not with or before wine, you destroy the wine-palate. If you love tea, postpone pipe till after it; no man can enjoy fine tea who has smoked. In short, smoke not till the day is done, with all its tasks and duties.
"I have seen men of pretension and position treat carpets most contumeliously, trampling on the pride of Plato with a recklessness that would bring a blush to the cheek of Diogenes himself. Can they forget the absorbent powers of carpet tissues, and the horrors of next morning to non-smokers, perhaps to ladies? Surely this is unæsthetic and illiberal: it is in an old man most pitiable, in a young one intolerable, in a scholar inexcusable, from an uncleanness that seems willful. Let the young philosopher avoid such practice, and give a wide berth to those who follow them. Take the following rules, tyro, meo periculo:—
1. Never smoke when the pores are open: they absorb, and you are unfit for decent society. Be it your study ever to escape the noses of strangers. First impressions are sometimes permanent, and you may lose a useful acquaintance.
2. Learn to smoke slowly. Cultivate 'calm and intermittent puffs.'—Walter Scott.
3. On the first symptom of expectoration lay down the pipe, or throw away the cigar; long-continued expectoration is destructive to yourself and revolting to every spectator.
4. Let an interval elapse between the filling of succeeding pipes.
5. Clean your tube regularly, and your amber mouthpiece with a feather dipped in spirits of lavender. Never suffer the conduit to remain discolored or stuffed.
6. A German receiver can be washed out like a teacup, and the oil collected is of value, but a meerschaum should never be wetted. A small sponge at the end of a wire dipped in sweet oil should be used carefully and persistently round and round, coaxing out any hard concretions, till the inside be smooth in its dark polished grain, of a rich mahogany tint. The outside, also, well polished with sweet oil and stale milk, then enveloped in chamois leather. The rich dark coloring is the pledge of your safety—better there than darkening your own brains.
"The pale gold c'noster and Turkey have now given way to the splendid varieties of America, and my knowledge halts behind the age. The black sticks resembling lollipops are said to be compounds of rum, bullocks' blood and tobacco lees. A taste for them, when once contracted, is abiding. Fine volatile tobacco, with aromatic delicacy, requires a long tube; used in a short pipe of modern fashion, they parch and shrivel the tongue. In short, what is true of all other pleasures is also true of tobacco-smoking. Fruition is sometimes too rapid for enjoyment, as the dram-drinker is less wise than the calm imbiber of the fragrant vintage of the Garonne. With Burke's common sense I began, and with it I end. Depurate vice of all her offensiveness, and you prune her of half her evil. Let not your love of indulgence be so inordinate as to purchase short pleasure by impairing health, neglecting duty, or, while promoting your own self-complacency, allow yourself to become permanently revolting to society, by offending more senses as well as more principles than one.'"