The communication of the evil
results of these stimulants to offspring appears to me to constitute a
further serious objection to them, I approve fully of your object, but
as I do not go to the length of total abstinence advocates, I am
desirous not to be misunderstood. Several years of my life were spent
in the East, and my experience there only confirms me the more. I have
known many drunkards among literary men, and the stimulants they took
never helped their work; and it was only because they were men of
exceptionally strong brain that their excesses did not incapacitate
them. There are many excesses of this kind that are equally
misunderstood by those who indulge in them, and by temperance writers.
There are, in fact, many men of enormous power, who can smoke and
drink all day long. They constitute no standard: so far as I have
seen, the consequences show themselves only in the offspring, though
in this case it must be taken into account, that the children are
sometimes born before a man's health has been seriously injured. A man
of exceptional strength misleads and encourages others to indulge.
HYDE CLARKE.
October 14, 1882.
MR. WILKIE COLLINS.
When I am ill (I am suffering from gout at this very moment) tobacco
is the best friend that my irritable nerves possess. When I am well,
but exhausted for the time by a hard day's work, tobacco nerves and
composes me.
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