“No, I can’t smoke,” said the youth in reply to the observation of the other. “I have often tried, but could never succeed to my satisfaction.”
“Is it possible to become a good German without smoking?” said the senior, half speaking to himself.
“I daresay not,” said the youth; “but I shan’t break my heart on that account.”
“As for breaking your heart, of course you would never think of such a thing; he is a fool who breaks his heart on any account; but it is good to be a German, the Germans are the most philosophic people in the world, and the greatest smokers: now I trace their philosophy to their smoking.”
“I have heard say their philosophy is all smoke—is that your opinion?”
“Why, no; but smoking has a sedative effect upon the nerves, and enables a man to bear the sorrows of this life (of which every one has his share) not only decently, but dignifiedly. Suicide is not a national habit in Germany, as it is in England.”
“But that poor creature, Werther, who committed suicide, was a German.”
“Werther is a fictitious character, and by no means a felicitous one; I am no admirer either of Werther or his author. But I should say that, if there ever was a Werther in Germany, he did not smoke. Werther, as you very justly observe, was a poor creature.”
“And a very sinful one; I have heard my parents say that suicide is a great crime.”
“Broadly, and without qualification, to say that suicide is a crime, is speaking somewhat unphilosophically. No doubt suicide, under many circumstances, is a crime, a very heinous one. When the father of a family, for example, to escape from certain difficulties, commits suicide, he commits a crime; there are those around him who look to him for support, by the law of nature, and he has no right to withdraw himself from those who have a claim upon his exertions; he is a person who decamps with other people’s goods as well as his own. Indeed, there can be no crime which is not founded upon the depriving others of something which belongs to them. A man is hanged for setting fire to