"The finest tobacco the country could produce, and the cleanest pipes (for she had a new one almost as often as a fop puts on new gloves), could hardly satisfy her fastidiousness; and I have known her footman get as many scoldings as there were days in the week on that score. From curiosity, I once counted a bundle of pipes, thrown by after a day or two's use, any one of which would have fetched five or ten shillings in London, and there were 102. The woods she most preferred were jessamine, rose, and cork. She never smoked cherry-wood pipes, from their weight, and because she liked cheaper ones, which she could renew oftener. She never arrived at that perfectibility, which is seen in many smokers, of swallowing the fumes, or of making them pass out at her nostrils. The pipe was to her what a fan was, or is, in a lady's hand—a means of having something to do. She forgot it when she had a letter to write, or any serious occupation. It is not so with the studious and literary man, who fancies it helps reflection or promotes inspiration."[27]
FOOTNOTES:
[20] "Eöthen," pp. 87, 88.
[21] Alphonse de Lamartine: "Voyage en Orient." Lamartine's version of Lady Hester's conversation is sometimes of dubious accuracy.
[22] "Eöthen," pp. 81, 82. In the following narrative we very frequently adopt, with slight alteration and condensation, Mr. Kinglake's language.
[23] The branch which obtains Æneas admission to the shades (Æneid, Book vi.)—
"This branch at least"—and here she showed
The branch within her raiment stowed—
"You needs must own"...
He answers not, but eyes the sheen
Of the blest bough.
[24] "Eöthen," pp. 97, 98.
[25] "Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope," i. 135, 136.