Any good effects of tobacco become with me uncertain in
proportion to the frequency of smoking. The good effects are those
commonly ascribed to it: it seems to soothe away small worries, and to
restore little irritating incidents to their true proportions. On a
few occasions I have thought it gave me a mental fillip, and enabled
me to start with work I had been pausing over; and it nearly always
has the power to produce a pleasant, and perhaps wholesome,
retardation of thought--a half unthinking reverie, if one adapts
surrounding circumstances to encourage this mood. The only sure brain
stimulants with me are plenty of fresh air and tea; but each of these
in large quantity produces a kind of intoxication: the intoxication of
a great amount of air causing wakefulness, with a delightful confusion
of spirits, without the capacity of steady thought; tea intoxication
unsettles and enfeebles my will; but then a great dose of tea often
does get good work out of me (though I may pay for it afterwards),
while alcohol renders all mental work impossible. I have been
accustomed to make the effects of tea and wine a mode of separating
two types of constitution. I have an artist friend whose brain is
livelier after a bottle of Carlowitz, which would stifle my mind, and
to him my strong cup of tea would be poison. We are both, I think, of
nervous organization, but how differentiated I cannot tell.
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