By Anonymous
I smoke a pipe. Worse yet, I enjoy it.
There is, of course, no greater sin that can be admitted in modern-day America. Were I an alcoholic, I would be sent off to a spa for treatment. Were I a bigamist, I would be - perhaps - defended by the American Civil Liberties Union for exercising my right to hold an unpopular view of marriage. Were I, in short, anything other than a smoker of tobacco, the chance would exist of finding some small amount of sympathy and kindness from my fellow companions on this earth. But, alas, I neither drink nor marry to excess. I puff.
Let me say here that I would not dare have the audacity to encourage you, dear reader, to smoke. Firstly, were I to do so, I am sure that I should be sued by every rabid mongrel - I mean, every well-intentioned lawyer - within these fifty states. Secondly, I have no desire to suggest a vice to you, when half the fun in having one lies in selecting it for oneself. So please, don't take up smoking on my account. Choose something more acceptable to the American conscience, like book-burning.
The current anti-tobacco fervency we live in has, as near as I can tell, something to do with health concerns. Many studies presumably exist on the hygienic evils of tobacco usage, though personally I've never read any. There's been no need - relatives, friends, even strangers now live their lives in patient anticipation of catching me in the act of placing a burning match to a tobacco leaf, so that they can exhort me to give up my attempt at pleasure in a manner that would have put the fire-and-brimstone preachers of yesteryear to shame.
None of these verbal attempts at rescuing me from the path to perdition have been successful, but many have been memorable. I once was lectured on the health benefits of not smoking by a woman in New York City who was at least two hundred pounds overweight. I've often wondered what her reaction would have been had I, in a reciprocal spirit of generosity, suggested that she lay off the Twinkies and Devil Dogs.
In past times, when men were unenlightened and, consequently, acted in accordance with their own wishes, smoking was not universally regarded as the unpardonable crime it has now become. Indeed, some brave souls actually had the brazenness to speak of tobacco in positive (one is tempted to say "glowing") terms. There is, in my book collection, a small but handsome brown volume entitled, Pipe and Pouch: The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry. The following, entitled "Acrostic," gives a flavor for the book's contents:
To thee, blest weed, whose sovereign wiles,
O'er cankered care bring radiant smiles,
Best gift of Love to mortals given!
At once the bud and bliss of Heaven!
Crownless are kings uncrowned by thee;
Content the serf in thy sweet liberty,
O charm of life! O foe to misery!
J. H.
There is a bookplate in this book, indicating that it once resided in the library of E. Y. Harburg. Of Mr. Harburg himself I know nothing else, but I know enough of his tastes and mine to venture a guess that we would have found each other companionable. Of course, the book is an old one, and it is more than probable that its previous possessor now lights his briar in the company of cherubs and harp-players.
That is my problem - I am an anachronism. I live as others did in an age that no longer exists, a time when men in tweeds or smoking jackets sat in comfortable chairs contentedly puffing on pipes and cigars while reflecting upon life's vagaries. It was a time, gone now, when fictional heroes like Sherlock Holmes and his faithful Watson (and he a physician!) could sit together in a parlor, pipes lit, perusing the newspapers, and still be considered gentlemen by the general populace.
Such a smoke-filled vision must seem like a picture of Hades itself to the confirmed tobacco-hater of today, and I will not attempt to persuade him otherwise. Instead, I will return once more to my small book, published in 1894, and quote again, this time from a German folk song:
Then let non-smokers rail forever;
Shall their hard words true friends dissever?
Pleasure's too rare to cast away
My pipe, for what the railers say!
To which I can only add, "Amen."
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