Chapter C: Reade

Feb. 2, 1882.

MR. THOMAS ALLEN REED.

You ask me whether I have found tobacco or wine a help to me in my work. No! As to the first, for the sufficient reason that I have never tried it. I never smoked a pipe or a cigar in my life, and have no intention of commencing the practice. When, more than thirty years ago, I entered upon my profession, I was told by my _confreres_ that I should soon follow their example, and they smiled at my innocence when I declared that I thought they were mistaken. As to alcohol, I am not a teetotaler, but I think I can truly say that I never found the least benefit from wine or beer in my daily or nightly work. Indeed, I consider them rather a hindrance, having a tendency to make one heavy and sleepy. I have been, and am still, a tolerably hard worker, without the use of artificial stimulants, and judging from my own experience, and that of many others with whom I have been connected in my professional labours, I don't believe in their efficacy. If I take a glass of wine occasionally (not a frequent indulgence with me) it is because I like it, not because I think it helps me in my work.

T. A. REED. Feb. 18, 1882.

DR. JULIUS RODENBERG.

I have smoked from my seventeenth year, and could not do without it now. On the whole, I am but a moderate smoker, and seldom smoke whilst walking, but at work I must have my cigar, and find it agrees very well with my health. Most of my learned and literary friends smoke; but two or three of them have given it up in their later years without visible effect upon their health or mental strength. As to alcohol, I could not stand to drink brandy. Sometimes I drink a glass, but only as an exception. I find it much more convenient for me, and a good help to work, to take now and then a bottle of hock or champagne; but, as a rule, I drink half a bottle of claret at dinner, and a pint of beer at supper. I generally write in the morning from nine to half-past one, when I dine; and from five o'clock in the afternoon to nine, when I take supper, but I could not bear to drink either wine or beer while at work.

JULIUS RODENBERG. March 12, 1882.

DR. W. H. RUSSELL.

I am not able to give you any very positive expression of opinion on the matter respecting which you write, but I can say that I have smoked tobacco and taken wine for years, and though I cannot aver that I should not have done as well without them, I have felt comforted and sustained in my work by both at times, especially by the weed. However, I was very well in the last campaign in South Africa, where for some time we had neither wine nor spirits. Climate has a good deal to say to the craving for a stimulant, and men in India, who never drink in England, there consume "pegs" and cheroots enormously. Of course, tobacco is to be put out of account in relation to great workers and thinkers up to the close of the middle ages, but the experience of antiquity would lead one to infer that the moderate use of wine, at all events, was not unfavourable to the highest brain development and physical force. Bismarck and Moltke are very great smokers; neither is a temperance man. In effect, I am inclined to think that tobacco and stimulants are hurtful mostly in the case of inferior organizations of brain physique, where their use is only a concomitant of baser indulgences, and uncontrolled by intelligence and will. I am quite in favour, therefore, of legislative interference, and almost inclined to supporting the Permissive Bill.

W. H. RUSSELL. Feb. 23, 1882.

(For) MR. JOHN RUSKIN.

You are evidently unaware that Mr. Ruskin entirely abhors the practice of smoking, in which he has never indulged. His dislike of it is mainly based upon his belief (no doubt a true one) that a cigar or pipe will very often make a man content to be idle for any length of time, who would not otherwise be so. The excessive use of tobacco amongst all classes abroad, both in France and Italy, and the consequent spitting everywhere and upon everything, has not tended to lessen his antipathy. I have heard him allow, however, that there is reason in the soldiers and the sailors' pipe, as being some protection against the ill effects of exposure, etc. As to the effect of tobacco on the brain, I know that he considers it anything but beneficial.

Feb. 12, 1882.

KESHUB CHUNDER SEN.

The problem you have undertaken to solve is, indeed, one of intense importance and interest, and all who can ought to help its solution in the interests both of science and morality. I feel thankful for the honour you have done me in inviting my opinion on the subject. As a teetotaler I abstain wholly from intoxicating drinks and stimulants, and discourage the use of the same in others. From boyhood up to the present time--I am now 44--I have never been in the habit of drinking or of smoking, nor did it ever occur to me that such habits were essential to health or helpful to brain work. It is my firm conviction that neither the head nor the hand derives any fresh power from the use of stimulants. It is only habits already contracted which give to alcohol and tobacco their so-called stimulating properties, and engender a strong craving for them, which those who are not enslaved by such habits never experience. I must not, however, place alcohol and tobacco on the same level. The latter is comparatively harmless; the former is a prolific source of evil in society, and often acts like deadly poison.

KESHUB CHUNDER SEN. July 29, 1882.