MR. W. D. HOWELLS.
If you will allow me to count myself out of the list of "great thinkers "and very "popular authors," I will gladly contribute my experience in the points you publish. I never use tobacco, except in a very rare, self-defensive cigarette, where a great many other people are smoking; and I commonly drink water at dinner. When I take wine, I think it weakens my work, and my working force the next morning.
W. D. HOWELLS.
March 2, 1882.
DR. J. P. JOULE.
I am afraid that my experience can be of little use to you, because I have lived a very uniform life; and am therefore unable to compare the consequences from following various regimes.. I use alcoholic beverages moderately. I do not think they ever assisted or retarded my mental work. As for tobacco, it is the object of my aversion, as it must be to all non-smokers to whom the habits of the consumers of the weed must always appear more or less as an impertinence. Besides, it is difficult to imagine how the use of narcotics can be indulged in with impunity to the health.
J. P. JOULE.
February 11, 1882.
THE REV. HENRY LANSDELL.
In reply to your note, I beg to say—1st, that I have never been a smoker. 2nd, that I became a total abstainer from alcoholic liquors before I had attained the age of twenty. 3rd, that I have never kept my bed, I am thankful to say, for a day, in my life. 4th, that up to the age of twenty-four I rose at seven; and up to the age of twenty-seven, at six; since twenty-seven, at five a.m. 5th, that it is a common occurrence for me to have been (for some years past) at mental employment from six a.m., to seven p.m. 6th, that I do not find the least necessity for stimulants in the form either of tobacco or of alcohol.
HENRY LANSDELL.
March 13, 1882.