Reader, are you given to cigar-smoking? The reason we put the question is, that we should not like to offend you by any thing you might find in our pages indicating a contempt on our part for this silly, and, as we think, vulgar practice. If you be, then, pass over this short article, or as our old Irish schoolmaster used to tell us when we came to a passage which we could not construe, nor he neither, “skip and go on.” But we feel tolerably certain you are not a smoker, or at least a cigar-smoker or exhibiting-street-performer, for we are satisfied that among the lovers of this now fashionable amusement we can count but few as supporters of our little work, or of any other of a mental or literary character—that renowned periodical called Paddy Kelly’s Budget, if it be still in existence, excepted. It is the practice of unidea’d men with unidea’d faces, who puff, not whistle—as the latter is no longer a fashionable amusement—as they go, for want of thought, and as they think to make them look manly and genteel! Well, heaven help their little wit! You think, reader, perhaps, as we ourselves were till lately foolish enough to suppose, that there must be a pleasure in this practice on its own account, like that which madmen feel in being insane. But no such thing. We have discovered that it is anything but an agreeable pastime, and that it is indulged in solely from the love of distinction, which is one of the peculiar characteristics of the human race, and which is so strong in these cigar-smokers, that they actually, in the spirit of martyrs, surrender both their minds, such as they are, and their bodies also, to its influence. Such a desire is not only natural to us, but praiseworthy: it is only the choice of means of gratifying it that is unworthy and even contemptible. It will bear no comparison in point of intellectuality with that of the fashionable dandies of our youthful days, who used to promenade the streets and public places, playing quizzes, that is, flat circular pieces of boxwood suspended on a string by a kind of pulley, and which they kept in a sort of perpetual motion with one or both hands, and sometimes even (great performers) with their mouths; their arms see-sawing up and down, and their heads shaking like those of the Chinese mandarins in the tea shops. This, though perhaps a little grotesque, was a comical mode of attracting notice and obtaining distinction. It was a healthy folly too, and required some human intellect to practise it adroitly. A monkey or a dog, both of whom we have seen expert smokers, could not, we are persuaded, be taught this; it would be beyond their intelligence; and it had a touch of the odd, the gay, and the ridiculous about it, that seemed to harmonize naturally with our national character—and we are not ashamed to confess it, we were ourselves great quizzers in our youth. But the cigar-smoking folly—it is a dull, lifeless, stupid, silent, moping mania, wholly unbecoming an Irishman, and inconsistent with the spirit, life, and animation that should be characteristic of youth. Old as we are, we think of taking to quizzing again, but we shall never fall into such a solemn absurdity as smoking for applause. It would not suit our temperament.
But we have said that we had made the discovery that the practice of cigar-smoking is any thing but a pleasant one in itself, and that it is indulged in solely from ambitious motives, and an amiable love of applause. Yes, reader, and we shall induct you into our knowledge of the matter, by a true and faithful narrative of the incident which enabled us to ascertain the fact.
We were lately coming along that favourite lounge of the cigar-smokers, Sackville Street, when, arriving near Mitchell’s, two young well-dressed, moustached, and imperialled dandies, stept out from that intellectual emporium, each with a Havannah in his mouth, his hands in his “Dorsay” pockets, and looking as grave as possible, evidently impressed with the pleasing idea that they were the admiration and envy of all passers. They proceeded before us in solemn slinge in the direction of the Rotunda, we following in their wake, observant yet not observed; and before they reached Earl Street, they were met by a mutual friend, with whom they linked, putting him between them, to allow them the greater facility to spit out, when the following colloquy ensued:—
Friend. Well, Tom, how goes the world with you? and, Dick, my boy, how is every bit of you?
Tom and Dick. Puff—— Puff—— Well.
Friend. Are you long in town—eh?
Tom and Dick. Puff—— Puff—— No.
Friend. How did you leave them all in the country?—how is the old fellow?
Tom and Dick. Puff—— Puff—— Puff—— Well.
Friend. Oh, damn ye! there’s no getting a word out of you but a monosyllable.