The civilised man, overburdened with mental labour,
or with engrossing care, seeks the same shade; but it is shade, after
all, in which in exact proportion as he seeks it, the seeker retires
from perfect natural life. To search for force in alcohol is, to my
mind, equivalent to the act of seeking for the sun in subterranean
gloom until all is night.... In respect to the influence of smoking
on the mental faculties, there need, I believe, be no obscurity. When
mental labour is being commenced, indulgence in a pipe produces in
most persons a heavy, dull condition, which impairs the processes of
digestion and assimilation, and suspends more or less that motion of
the tissues which constitutes vital activity. But if mental labour be
continued for a long time, until exhaustion be felt, then the resort
to a pipe gives to some _habitues_ a feeling of relief; it
soothes, it is said, and gives new impetus to thought. This is the
practical experience of almost all smokers, but few men become so
habituated to the pipe as to commence well a day of physical or mental
work on tobacco. Many try, but it almost invariably obtains that they
go through their labours with much less alacrity than other men who
are not so addicted. The majority of smokers feel that after a hard
day's labour, a pipe, supposing always that the indulgence of it is
moderately carried out, produces temporary relief from exhaustion.
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