In reply to your favour of the 28th ult., I have the honour to inform you that I do not smoke, because nicotine acts upon my system as a most powerful poison. At the age of ten I had a Havana cigar given me to smoke; after smoking it I fainted and did not come to myself till after adeep sleep, which lasted twenty-four hours.When I was twenty, the third part of a cigar was given me to smoke as a remedy for the toothache. I could not finish it. A cold perspiration attended with vomiting and fainting ensued. I therefore judge from the effects of tobacco upon myself that it cannot be such a benefactor of mankind as people have tried to make it out. I am convinced that in any case, smoking lulls the mind to sleep, and when carried to excess tends to produce stupefaction or idiotcy.
Perhaps you are aware that in Little Russia, the people call tobacco theDevil's herb; and it is related that the devil planted it under the form of an idolater. For my part I am quite prepared to adopt the opinion of the Russian people. Before the time of Peter the Great, smoking was strictly prohibited in Russia.
The Poet Prati sang one day:
Fuma, passagia e meditaE diverrai poeta.
(Smoke, ramble alone and think, and thou will soon become a poet.)
That is what he himself does, but my belief is that owing to the abuse of cigars, he so frequently raves (dotes) and his poetry is often cloudy.
As for alcohol, I take it to be proved beyond all doubt, that when taken in very small quantities it may, in certain cases, do good, but that taken in large quantities it kills. After having burnt the stomach, it deprives it of its power of digestion. I have seen a great many persons begin to use alcoholic beverages in the hope of acquiring tone, and afterwards get so accustomed to their use, that the best Chianti wine passed into their stomach like water. In this case, as in so many other cases, it is a question of measure. Alcohol has a like injurious effect upon the brain as upon the stomach.
I am by no means an authority on the question which you have been good enough to address to me, and can therefore only give you briefly a statement of my own personal experience. Speaking of stimulants, I would mention, for instance, the strange effect produced upon my rather sensitive organism by a single cup of coffee. If I take a cup of coffee at six o'clock in the evening I cannot get to sleep before six in the morning. If I take it at noon I can get to sleep at midnight I know that many people take coffee to keep awake when working through the night. My own opinion is that you cannot work any better with these stimulants. There is a sort of irritation produced by drinking coffee which I do not consider helpful to serious and sustained work. It is possible, however, that works of genius may be produced sometimes in a state of nervous excitement, I suppose when the shattered nerves begin to relax. Manzoni wrote his master pieces when in a state of painful nervous distraction, but alcohol had nothing to do with it; perhaps he had recourse to other stimulants.
(1) When we read that literary producers of any power have gone on working up to the last, even in the near approach of death, we usually find the work done has been of a not unwelcome kind, and often that it has formed part of a long-cherished design. But when the disease of which the sufferer is dying is consumption, or some disease which between paroxysms of pain leaves spaces of ease and rest, it is nothing wonderful that work should be done. Some of the best of Paley's works were produced under such conditions, and some of the best of Shelley's. Nor, indeed, is there anything in mere pain which necessarily prevents literary work. The late Mr. T. T. Lynch produced some of his most beautiful writings amid spasms ofangina pectoris. This required high moral courage in the writer…. It is a curious, though well-known fact, however, that times of illness, when the eyes swim and the hand shakes, are oftentimes rich in suggestion. If the mind is naturally fertile—if there is stuff in it—the hours of illness are by no means wasted. It is then that the "dreamingpower" which counts for so much in literary work often asserts itself most usefully.—The Contemporary Review, vol. 29, p. 946.
(2) When the poet Wordsworth was engaged in composing the "White Doe of Rylstone," he received a wound in his foot, and he observed that the continuation of his literary labours increased the irritation of the wound; whereas by suspending his work he could diminish it, and absolute mental rest produced perfect cure. In connection with this incident he remarked that poetic excitement, accompanied by protracted labour in composition, always brought on more or less of bodily derangement He preserved himself from permanently injurious consequences by his excellent habit of life.—Hamerton.The Intellectual Life.
I know that certain authors think they can write better when taking artificial stimulants. I do not, however, believe that an artificial irritation of the nerves can have any good effect upon our faculty of apprehension. I am even inclined to think that when we write best,it is not owingto nervousexcitement, but rather because our nerves, after a period of extreme irritation,leave us a few moments respite, and it is during these moments the divine spark shines brightly. When creative genius has accomplished its task, the nerves once more relapse into their former irritability and cause us to suffer; but at the time of creation there is a truce of suffering.
I never use any stimulant to help me in my labours; yet when I have been writing works of fiction, for instance my Indian and Roman Plays, I have nearly always been subject to great nervous agitation. When I suffered most from spasms, I had short intervals of freedom from pain, during which I could write, and those around me asked in astonishment how I could, in the midst of such suffering, write scenes that were cheerful, glowing and impassioned.
I have occasionally in my time enjoyed these luminous intervals. I do not know whether those who use alcohol as a stimulant have experienced the same. No doubt they have succeeded in exciting their nervous sensibilities; but I assert that the real work of creative genius is accomplished in the intervals of this purturbation of the nerves which by some is deemed so essential to intellectual labour. When the nerves are excited to the highest pitch, they occasionally suffer, the transitory cessation from which is the divine moment of human creation. It seems to me, however, that this ought to be left to nature, and that every attempt to produce artificial excitement, for the purpose of producing creations of a higher class, is futile and beset with danger.
ANGELO DE GUBERNATIS.March 4, 1882.
I thank you for having asked my opinion upon the effects of tobacco and alcohol on the mind and the health of men who give themselves up to intellectual work; and hasten to comply with your request. I am not a very resolute adversary of tobacco, because I must admit that I smoke, and at home use wine also: but if their use appears useful or agreeable, I ought to add that whenever I have to undertake any long arduous work, and above all, the reproduction of stenographic law or parliamentary reports, of which the copy is required without delay, I then make use of nothing but pure water. I limit myself as to stimulant to the use of coffee, which enables me to pass whole days and nights without feeling any want of sleep and, so to say, without fatigue, notwithstanding the labour of the stenographic translations. As you see, I consider that tobacco and alcohol do not act as stimulants, but rather as narcotics. With me they induce after the first moment of excitement a sort of calm and somnolence altogether incompatible with severe work; and I prefer coffee, always on the condition that as soon as the effort to be accomplished is finished the use of it must cease. I will not invoke the precedents of the celebrated men who have been led to make great use of coffee without impairing their health. It is after many years' experience that I have acted as I have indicated.
L. P. GUENIN.March 11, 1582.
In answer to your enquiry, I may state the result of my personal experience and observation thus :-1. Alcoholic liquors, when taken in such quantity as to excite the circulation, are unfavourable to all inquiries requiring care and accuracy, but not unfavourable to efforts of the imagination. 2. Tobacco taken in small quantities is not unwholesome in its action on mind or body. When taken in excess it is not easy to define or describe its action, the chief fact relating to it being that it increases the number of the pulse, but lessens the force of the heart. 3. My personal experience of such quantities of wine as two or more glasses of port a day at my age (72) is that it produces no perceptible or measurable effect when taken for, say, three weeks or a month at a time, when compared with the like period of total abstinence. 4. It may be said in favour of temperance or even of extreme abstinence, that some of those men who have done most work in their day—John Howard, Wesley, and Cobbett, for example—have been either very moderate, or decidedly abstemious. But on the other hand, such men as Samuel Johnson, who was a free liver and glutton, and Thackeray, who drank to excess, have also got through a great amount of work.
WILLIAM A. GUY.Feb. 25, 1882.
I find strong coffee very useful in mental work. Of alcohol, I take very little, because I find it of no value as a stimulant. I have never smoked.
E. HAECKEL.November 4, 1882.
I am quite willing to answer your question about tobacco. I used to smoke in moderation, but six years ago, some young friends were staying at my house, and they led me into smoking more in the evenings than I was accustomed to. This brought on disturbed nights and dull mornings; so I gave up smoking altogether—as an experiment—for six months. At the end of that time, I found my general health so much improved, that I determined to make abstinence a permanent rule, and have stuck to my determination ever since, with decided benefit. I shall certainly never resume smoking. I never use any stimulants whatever when writing, and believe the use of them to be most pernicious; indeed, I have seen terrible results from them. When a writer feels dull, the best stimulant is fresh air. Victor Hugo makes a good fire before writing, and then opens the window. I have often found temporary dulness removed by taking a turn out of doors, or simply by adopting Victor Hugo's plan. I am not a teetotaler, though at various times I have abstained altogether from alcoholic stimulants for considerable periods, feeling better without them. I drink ale to lunch, and wine (Burgundy) to dinner; but never use either between meals, when at home and at work. At one time I did myself harm by drinking tea, but have quite given up both tea and coffee. My breakfast in the morning is a basin of soup, invariably, and nothing else. This is very unusual in England, but not uncommon in France. I find it excellent, as it supports me well through the morning, without any excitement. My notion of the perfect physical condition for intellectual work is that in which the body is well supported without any kind of stimulus to the nervous system. Thanks to the observance of a few simple rules, I enjoy very regular health, with great equality and regularity of working power, so that I get through a great deal without feeling it to be any burden upon me, which is the right state. I never do any brain work after dinner; I dine at seven, and read after, but only in languages that I can read without any trouble, and about subjects that I can read without any trouble, and about subjects that are familiar to me.
P.G. HAMERTON.February 13, 1882.
I fear that the information I can give on the effect of tobacco will be less than little: for I have never smoked a pipeful in my life, nor a cigar. My impression is that its use would be very injurious in my case; and so far as I have observed, it is far from-beneficial to any literary man. There are, unquestionably, writers who smoke with impunity, but this seems to be owing to the counterbalancing effect of some accident in their lives or constitutions, on which few others could calculate. I have never found alcohol helpful to novel-writing in any degree. My experience goes to prove that the effect of wine, taken as a preliminary to imaginative work, is to blind the writer to the quality of what he produces rather than to raise its quality. When walking much out of doors, and particularly when on Continental rambles, I occasionally drink a glass or two of claret or mild ale. The German beers seem really beneficial at these times of exertion, which (as wine seems otherwise) may be owing to some alimentary qualities they possess, apart from their stimulating property. With these rare exceptions, I have taken no alcoholic liquor for the last two years.
T. HARDY.Dec. 5, 1882.
Frederick Harrison never has touched tobacco in any form, though much in the society of habitual smokers, but finds many hours in a close smoking room rather depressing. Has always taken a moderate amount of alcohol (pint of claret)oncein the day, and finds himself rather stronger with than without it. Age fifty, health perfect; accustomed to much open-air exercise, long sleep, and little food. Reads and writes from eight to ten hours per diem, and never remembers to have been a day unfit for work.
March, 1882.
In answer to your question, certainly in my own case I should find stimulants destructive to good work. I get through an immense deal of literary work in the course of the day. I rise at eight, and seldom put out my light until three in the morning. With lunch and dinner I drink claret and water, and never touch stimulants of any kind except at meals. On the other hand, I smoke from the time I have finished breakfast until I go to bed, and should find it very difficult to write unless smoking. I have a great circle of literary friends, and scarce but one smokes while he works. Some take stimulants—such as brandy and soda water-while at work; some do not, but certainly nineteen out of twenty smoke. I believe that smoking, if not begun until after the age of twenty-one, to be in the vast majority of cases advantageous alike to health, temper, and intellect; for I do not think that it is in any way deleterious to the health, while it certainly aids in keeping away infectious diseases, malaria, fever, &c.
While I consider a moderate use of wine and beer advantageous-except, of course, where beer, as is often the case, affects the liver, I regard the use of spirits as wholly deleterious, except when medically required, and should like to see the tax upon spirits raised tenfold. A glass of spirits and water may do no harm, but there is such a tendency upon the part of those who use them to increase the dose, and the end is, in that case, destruction to mind and body.
G. A. HENTY.February 22, 1882.
Prefers an entirely undisturbed and unclouded brain for mental work, unstimulated by anything stronger than tea or coffee, unaffected by tobacco or other drags. His faculties are best under his control in the forenoon, between breakfast and lunch. The only intellectual use he could find in stimulants is the quickened mental action they induce when taken in company. He thinks ideas may reach the brain when slightly stimulated, which remain after the stimulus has ceased to disturb its rhythms. He does not habitually use any drink stronger than water. He has no peremptory rule, having no temptation to indulgence, but approaching near to abstinence as he grows older. He does not believe that any stimulus is of advantage to a healthy student, unless now and then socially, in the intervals of mental labour.
I never took enough of stimulants to tell whether it is good or ill for "thinking and working." Tobacco is only good when you have a habit of working too much, as it makes you lazy-minded.
G. J. HOLYOAKE.April 3, 1882.
I have had no experience on the subject of the use of tobacco and alcohol that is of any value, or you should be welcome to it.
Jos. D. HOOKER.Feb. 13, 1882.
If you will allow me to count myself out of the list of "great thinkers "andvery"popular authors," I will gladly contribute my experience in the points you publish. I never use tobacco, except in a very rare, self-defensive cigarette, where a great many other people are smoking; and I commonly drink water at dinner. When I take wine, I think it weakens my work, and my working force the next morning.
W. D. HOWELLS.March 2, 1882.
I am afraid that my experience can be of little use to you, because I have lived a very uniform life; and am therefore unable to compare the consequences from following variousregimes.. I use alcoholic beverages moderately. I do not think they ever assisted or retarded my mental work. As for tobacco, it is the object of my aversion, as it must be to all non-smokers to whom the habits of the consumers of the weed must always appear more or less as an impertinence. Besides, it is difficult to imagine how the use of narcotics can be indulged in with impunity to the health.
J. P. JOULE.February 11, 1882.
In reply to your note, I beg to say—1st, that I have never been a smoker. 2nd, that I became a total abstainer from alcoholic liquors before I had attained the age of twenty. 3rd, that I have never kept my bed, I am thankful to say, for a day, in my life. 4th, that up to the age of twenty-four I rose at seven; and up to the age of twenty-seven, at six; since twenty-seven, at five a.m. 5th, that it is a common occurrence for me to have been (for some years past) at mental employment from six a.m., to seven p.m. 6th, that I do not find the least necessity for stimulants in the form either of tobacco or of alcohol.
HENRY LANSDELL.March 13, 1882.
I am not an habitual smoker, and therefore cannot speak about its effects; I find it an irritant rather than a sedative. But I am quite sensible of the virtue of an occasional glass of good wine, and am certain I can work better with than without it.
STANLEY LEATHES.April 15, 1882.
I am not a smoker, and am therefore unable to give you any evidence on the subject.
W. E. H. LECKY.February 7, 1882.
I have travelled in various parts of the world, from Greece to the Pacific, and from the Coasts of Labrador to the Southern States of North America, perhaps as much as any man living, and have never, in heat or cold, felt any inconvenience from my forty-eight years of abstinence. I have lectured for many nights consecutively on various topics during the intervals of that time, and have written thousands of articles on philosophy, temperance, physiology, politics and criticisms in papers and magazines, and published pamphlets and volumes equal to 25 octavos of small print; but have never required anything stronger than tea or coffee as a stimulant. The AlliancePrize Essay(100 guineas) of 320 pages was composed and written in 21 days. I never smoke, snuff, or chew. I have knownmanyliterary men ruined by smoking, and in all cases the continued use of tobacco is most injurious to the mind, as well as to the body. Itslaysthe nervous recuperative energy.
F. R. LEES.November 17, 1882.
MR. LEONE LEVI, F. S. A., BARRISTER-AT-LAW, Professor of the Principles and Practice of Commerce and Commercial Law, King's College, London.
I have no hesitation in saying that I have never found the need of either tobacco or alcohol, or any other stimulants, for my intellectual efforts. I have never used tobacco in any form, and though occasionally, when my physical forces are much exhausted, I have derived benefit from a single glass of wine or ale, as a rule, and in my ordinary diet, I use nothing whatever but fresh water. This is my personal experience, and though I have worked very hard-often sixteen hours a day of continuous labour—I have always enjoyed, thanks to Providence, the best of health.
I beg to say that in my opinion the use of tobacco is, in the great majority of cases, prejudicial. As to alcohol, I would rather not express any opinion.
JOHN LUBBOCK.February 17, 1882.
In reply to your enquiry respecting the use of tobacco and alcohol, I shall be glad to give you all the information I possess on this subject; though, of course, I am not in a position to judge whether my few remarks will be of any service to you.
In the first place, as regards the influence of tobacco and alcohol upon the health in general, it is clearly ascertained that under certain circumstances, it may become highly injurious.
Apart from the disturbance produced in the whole nervous system, there are serious diseases affecting certain organs of the body, which arise solely from the abuse of both these stimulants. We note a serious affection of the visual organs, which we plainly designate by the name of: "Emblyopia ex abusu nicotiano et alcoholico." The symptoms of this complaint consist chiefly in a gradual and steady decline of the power of sight, coupled with partial colour blindness. I cannot here enter into details as to the manner in which the range of sight is affected as regards each of the different colours, and can only refer to the characteristic weakening of the power to distinguish red from other hues.
It will not be necessary, I presume, to extend my remarks to the evil effects of tobacco and alcohol upon the human body, as you are sufficiently acquainted with them, especially as far as alcohol is concerned.
Now as to the relation in which both stand to mental work. If I may be allowed to state first of all the result of observations in my own case, I must tell you that I have not found these drugs to be in any degree helpful in the performance of mental labour. I find it absolutely impossible to put any sensible thoughts on paper when I am smoking. In former years I frequently tried to smoke a pipe or a cigar over my work, but had always to give it up; I only got into proper working condition after putting tobacco aside. Indeed, of late years I have felt a growing antipathy to tobacco, so that, whilst I was formerly passionately fond of smoking, I new, very rarely, indeed, indulge in the practice.
My experience with regard to alcohol is precisely similar. I am very fond of a little beer, but not when at work. The current of my thoughts flows much more clearly and rapidly when I have had no drink. I have a special aversion for wine, which, indeed, I do not drink at all. Generally speaking, I can therefore say, that, in my own case, tobacco and alcohol have a disturbing effect, when doing mental work. This you will, of course, take as applying to myself alone. I know some very respectable scholars in this town and neighbourhood who are only capable of thinking and working properly when under the influence of tobacco.
MAGNUS.Breslau, February 28, 1882.
In reply to your enquiries, I have to say that my experience of the effects of alcohol and tobacco upon intellectual work is a very limited one, owing to the very moderate use I have made of either. So far, however, as my experience goes, my conclusions are as follows: tobacco, though it may, indeed, give a momentary fillip to the faculties, lessens their power of endurance; for by lowering the action of the heart, it diminishes the blood supply to the brain, leaving it imperfectly nourished, and flaccid, and unable, there-fore, to make due response to the demands of its owner, the man within, who seeks to manifest himself through the organism. Of an organism thus affected, as of an underpitched musical instrument, the tones will be flat. Of stimulants, the effect is the contrary. Owing to the over-tension of the strings, the music will be sharp. It is apt also to be irregular and discordant, owing to the action set up in the organism itself—an action which is not that of the performer or man. That which alone ought to find expression, is the central, informing spirit of the individual; and for both idea and expression to be perfect, the first essential is purity, mental as well as physical. Hence, however great a man and his work may be, under the influence of alcohol or tobacco, or on a diet of flesh, they would be still greater on pure natural regimen. Of course, there are cases in abundance in which persons have become so depraved by evil habits, as to be utterly incapacitated through the disuse of that to which they have been accustomed. But no sound argument in favour of the abuse can be founded on this.
EDWARD MAITLAND.March 20, 1882.
To myself tobacco is simply poison, and I believe it is so to very many who use it. I have seen proofs that it is so among the friends of my youth, who certainly hurt their health and shortened their lives by smoking. But, on the other hand, I have known others who smoked with impunity, and even with benefit to their nervous system. These, however, are, in my experience, exceptional cases. Wine in moderation is, I am sure, beneficial to brain workers; and I feel confident that it is far better, as a rule, to assist the system by this, than by food without wine or alcohol, which, in my experience, seems always to lead to eating to an extent that is very apt to cause derangement of the functions of the body. But, really, I have not made my observations either with such care or on so wide a scale as to give them any value.
THEODORE MARTIN.February 18, 1882.
Having kept no record of my dietary and health, I can give you no more exact report than my memory supplies. Of tobacco, I have nothing to say, except that my intense dislike of it has restricted my travelling to a minimum, and kept me from all public places where I am liable to encounter its sickening effects. My first prolonged experience of abstinence from wine and malt liquor ran through about seven years, dating, I think, from 1842. The change was not great in itself, and I always thought it favourable in its effects. At no time of my life did I sustain a heavier pressure of work and of anxiety. But in the spring of 1849, when I was living with my family in Germany, I fell into a low state of health, indicated by fluttering circulation in going upstairs, or up-hill; and, under medical advice, I adopted the habit of taking, daily, I suppose about half-a-pint bottle ofVin ordinam.I recovered completely, and adhered for several years to the allowance (or its equivalent) which had been prescribed to me. Under this regimen, however, I became, after a time, subject to occasional slight attacks of gout, and to some disturbance of digestion and of sleep. In spite of medical advice, I determined to revert to the abstinence in which I had never lost faith. For a time of, I suppose, from twelve to fifteen years, I have persisted in this rule; not, indeed, being under any vow, but practically not taking more than half-a-dozen glasses of wine per annum. During this time, I have escaped, apparently, all tendency to gouty affections; have returned to untroubled sleep and digestion; and, notwithstanding the advance of old age (I am now 77), have retained the power of mental application, with only this abatement perceptible to myself, that a given task requires a somewhat longer time than in fresher days. Though the sedentary life of a student is not very favourable to the maintenance of muscular vigour, it has not yet forbidden me the annual delight of reaching the chief summits of the Cairn Gorm mountains during my summer residence in Inverness. I will only add that I have never found the slightest difficulty, physical or moral, in an instantaneous change of habit to complete abstinence. Instead of feeling any depressing want of what I had relinquished, I have found a direct refreshment and satisfaction in the simpler modes of life. Few things, I believe, do more, at a minimum of cost, to lighten the spirits and sweeten the temper of families and of society, than the repudiation of artificial indulgences.
JAMES MARTINEAU.December 1, 1882.
I don't consider alcohol or tobacco to be in the least necessary or beneficial to a person who is in good health; and I am of opinion that any supposed necessity of one or the other to the hardest and best mental or bodily work, by such a person, is purely fanciful. He will certainly do harder and sounder work without them. I am speaking, of course, of a person in health; by a person not in health they may be used properly, from time to time, as any other drug would be used.
HENRY MAUDSLEY.February 13, 1882.
In reply to your inquiries, I can give you my experience in a few words. I can offer no opinion as to the effects of tobacco, as I have never been a smoker. My experience of many years favours the view that moderation in food and drink is the great secret of physical health, mental activity and endurance. On several occasions while working twelve and fourteen hours a day, I tried total abstinence, but I found myself dyspeptic and stupid, and was obliged to resume my accustomed potations. I have found that any unusual amount of alcohol, while stimulating mental activity for a time, soon produced lassitude and sleepiness.
T. ERSKINE MAY.February 23, 1882.
When I was a school-boy of eight or nine, I was persuaded to buy some cigars and put one to my mouth for a moment. I threw it away, and have never touched tobacco since. I compute that I must have saved some 1500 pounds by abstaining from this narcotic. My two brothers—one 3rd wrangler, the other 2nd classic—have also abstained for life. I know no indulgence which leads people to disregard the feelings of others so utterly as smoking does; nor can I believe a deadly poison can be habitually taken without great injury to the nerves. Alcohol I have not touched for more than two years, nor flesh meat, nor tea, nor coffee. All my life long I have had no difficulty in adopting any diet whatever; but I am sure that since I confined myself to fruits and farinacea, life has gone easier with me. No one ever heard me complain of the want of a dinner, or of the quality of what was set before me; but I now know that a day or two's fasting will do me no sort of harm, [Footnote: Twice in my life I have tried the experiment of astrictlyvegetarian diet (without milk, batter, eggs, fish or flesh)-once when I was about twelve years old, and again, for forty-eight days, beginning On the 25th June, 1878. I had been for some months taking regular exercise (a rare thing with me), walking on four miles every morning from six to seven, so that I was in rude health. I was just beginning a stiff piece of literary work on Juvenal, which involved the daily examination of several hundred passages of authors, chiefly Greek and Latin; and I wished to try how far vegetarian diet would enable me to resist the depressing influence of fasting. I mapped out my forty-eight days into four divisions of twelve each, intending (if all went well) to fast every other day for the first twelve; every third for the second; every fourth for the third; and every sixth for the last twelve. I thought it prudent to consult a doctor (a thing which I have scarcely ever had occasion to do), who bid me go to the prison to be weighed every two or three days and to show myself to him twice a week. I did not quite carry out my scheme, but I did complete more than half—and the severer half—with no ill effects, fasting June 25, 27, 29, July 2, 5, 7. 10, 13, completing that is, two-thirds of my design for the first twelve days, and the whole of that for the second. I drank water freely on the fasting days, but ate nothing for a period varying from twenty-eight to about thirty-five hours. On the eating days, and for the remainder of the forty-eight, I lived on fruits, vegetables, or wholemeal biscuits or wheatmeal or oatmeal porridge. I never was more fiercely eager for work in my life, nor did my pulse give way, but I lost flesh rapidly, and had never much to spare. On the whole I lost 13 lbs., and was advised by the doctor to stay there, as it is much easier to let yourself down than to pick up again. For years I have been striking off one luxury after another in my diet when alone, till at last I have come to dry bread (or biscuit or porridge) and water.—Herald of Health, September, 1881.] and that whether I dine in hall with my brother fellows, or take two or three biscuits in my own room, makes no odds. I am more independent, and certainly more able to influence the habits of the poor than I was.
JOHN E. B. MAYOR.March 2, 1882.
I am grateful to you for thinking of me in your generous enquiry about the best conditions of literary and scientific composition. I can hardly offer myself as an example, because my constitution is rather too exceptional, but my experience may have some degree of usefulness. I have already published a hundred and fifty volumes, small and great. I scarcely ever leave my writing table. I never take a walk, nor recreation, even after meals; and yet have not felt any head-ache, constipation, or any derangement in the urinary organs. I have never had occasion to have recourse to stimulants, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, &c., in order to work, or to obtain clearness of mind. On the contrary, stimulants give rise in my case to abnormal vibrations in the brain, which are adverse to its quick and regular working.
Several times in my life I fell into the habit of taking snuff. It is a fatal habit, dirty to begin with, since it puts a cautery to the nose, filth in the pocket, is extremely unwholesome; for he who takes snuff finds his nose stopped up every morning, his breathing difficult, his voice harsh and snuffling, because the action of tobacco consists in drawing the humours to the brain; fatal, at last, because the use of snuff weakens and destroys, by degrees, the memory. This last effect is fully proved by my own professional experiences, and that of many others.
I learned twelve foreign languages by the method I published in my "Latin for all;" that is to say, I draw up the catalogue of 1,500, or 1,800 radical or primitive simple words, and engraved them upon my mind by means of mnemonic formulas. In that way I had learned about 41,500 words, whose meaning is generally, or most frequently, without connection with the word itself, and from 10,000 to 12,000 historical facts, with their precise date. All this existed simultaneously in my mind, always at my disposal when I wanted the meaning of a word or the date of an event. If anyone asked me who was the twenty-fifth king of England, for instance, I saw in my brain that it was Edward, surnamed Plantagenet, who ascended the throne in 1154. With respect to philology or chronology, I was the most extraordinary man of my time, and Francis Arago jokingly threatened to have me burnt like a wizard. But I had again fallen into the practice of snuff-taking during a stay of some weeks in Munich, where I spent my evenings in a smoking room with the learned Bavarians, each of whom ate four or five meals a day, and drank two or three jugs of beer. The most illustrious of these learned men, Steinhein, boasted of smoking 6,000 cigars a year. I attained to smoking three or four cigars a day. While drawing up my treatise on the Calculus of Variations, the most difficult of my mathematical treatises, I unconsciously emptied my snuff-box, which contained twenty-five grammes (nearly an ounce) of snuff; and one day I was painfully surprised to find that I was obliged to have recourse to my dictionary for the meaning of foreign words. I found that the dates of the numerous facts I had learnt by heart had fallen from my mind. Such a thing has rarely or seldom happened before. Distressed at this sorrowful decay of my memory, I made an heroic resolution, which nothing has disturbed since. On the 1st of August, 1863, I smoked three cigars and used twenty-five centimes (2-1/2d.) worth of snuff; from the following day to June, 1882, I have neither taken a pinch of snuff nor smoked a single cigarette.
It was for me a complete resurrection, not only of memory, but of general health and well-being. It was only necessary for me to do, what I did eighteen years later, to lessen nearly one-half the quantity of food which I took every day, to eat less meat and more vegetables, to obtain such incomparable health, of which it is hardly possible to form any idea, unlimited capacity of labour, perfect digestion, absence of wrinkles, pimples; and I beg leave to affirm that those who tread in my footsteps will be as sound as I am. Add to this the habit, irrevocably established, of never saying, Ishalldo, nor I am doing, but Ihave done, and you have the secret of the enormous amount of work I have been able to accomplish, and am accomplishing every day, in spite of my eighty years. Nobody will dispute me the honour of being the greatest hard-working man of my century.
I ought, finally, to add that I find it well for me to take at breakfast a small half-cup of coffee without milk, to which, when only two or three teaspoonful remain at the bottom of the cup, I add a small spoonful of brandy, or other alcoholic liquor. That is my whole allowance of stimulants. How happy would those be who should adopt myregime. They would be able, without harm, to sit at their desk immediately after breakfast, and to stay there till dinner-time. No sooner would they be in bed, at about nine o'clock, but they would be softly asleep a few minutes later, and could rise at five in the morning, full of strength, after a nourishing sleep of eight hours.
ABBE F. MOIGNO.July 20, 1882.
For my kind of work, I have found it absolutely necessary to abstain altogether from the use of both alcohol and tobacco.
J. MORRISON.May 11, 1882.
I am 75 years of age. I have smoked moderately all my life; and for the last fifty years have never, except in rare and short instances of illness, retired to bed without one tumbler of whiskey toddy. You will therefore see that I am utterly incompetent to pronounce on the respective effects, on the mind and body, of moderate indulgence, and of total abstinence, for I have never tried the latter.
A. MONGREDIEN. March 10, 1882.
I use no stimulants of any kind, and should be very sorry to do so. I thought it was now generally admitted that the more work a man has to do, the less he can afford to muddle himself in any way. But as I have never tried the experiment in using either alcohol or tobacco, and cannot afford to do it, I have no comparative experience to offer. It might be beneficial; I do not believe it would, and prefer not to risk the chance.Fiat experimentum in corpore viliore.
J. A. H. MURRAY.March 2, 1882.
I should have thought that the universal experience of mankind had already been set on record without much ambiguity. It has been my practice to smoke at work, and I do not think I could get along without tobacco now, unless I made an effort, the profit of which could scarcely justify the pains. As a matter of nature, I do not believe that a man works either better or worse for the use of tobacco, unless he smokes so much as to injure his general health. Alcoholic drinks are, of course, mentally as well as physically stimulative, and I have found them useful at a pinch. But everybody knows that stimulants are reactionary, and it is pretty certain that in the end they take more out of a man than they put into him. Under extraordinary pressure they have their uses, but their habitual employment muddles the faculties, and the last state of the man who constantly works on them is worse than the first. Continually taken alone, and as a stimulant to mental exertion, their influences on a man of average formation are fatal. But I should have thought all these things settled long ago, unless it were in junior debating societies.
D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.April 11, 1882.
In boyhood, I perceived that to my younger sisters mere drops of wine caused coughing and spitting, and the heat of wine to my own palate and throat was offensive. Beer, ale, and porter disgusted me by their bitterness. Porter was peculiarly nauseous to me. I early saw the ill-effects of wine on youths, and was frightened by accounts of college drunkenness. For this reason, as well as from economy, I never became a wine-drinker, further than to drink healths by just colouring water in a glass. I have never dreamed of needing wine, though often in old time ordered by physicians to drink it. Not having then the same power to look over their heads-which experience of their changes and their follies has brought to me-I used to obey a little while, but quickly reverted to my glass of water, and never had reason to believe, from my own case, that there was any advantage from the wine. In 1860-1, the Parisian experiments proved that all alcohol arrests digestion. Since then I have called myself a teetotaler. To me it seems clear that love of the drink, or fear of losing patients by forbidding it, are the true cause of the fuss made in its favour. I grieve that so noble a fruit as grapes should be wasted on wine. The same remark will hold of barley, of honey, of raisins, of dates: from which men make intoxicating drinks. As to tobacco-while I was in Turkey more than fifty years ago, I learned to smoke Turkish tobacco in a long Turkish pipe, partly to relieve evil smells, partly because it is uncivil there to refuse the proffered pipe. I never was aware of good or evil from it, and with perfect ease laid it aside when I quitted the soil of Asia. After this, a cigar was recommended to me in England, as a remedy for loss of sleep, but the essential oil of tobacco so near to my nose disgusted me, and the heat or smoke distressed my eyes. I have never felt any pleasure, rather annoyance, from English smoking; and since the late Sir Benjamin Brodie published his pamphlet against it (perhaps in 1855), I have learned that the practice is simply baneful. They say "it soothes"—which I interpret to mean—"it makes me inattentive and dreamy."
FRANCIS W. NEWMAN.March 2, 1882.
The story of my personal experiences of alcohol is one which would require more time than I can now command to write properly. I can now only say that I did not begin wine, as a habit, till I was thirty-seven; that, at first, an occasional effect was favourable to the brain power, but always followed by corresponding reaction towards feebleness. About fifty-seven, I was obliged to give up wine altogether; I found great general advantage from doing so, and no disadvantage whatever as regards mental activity. I am now sixty-eight, and take a glass of claret every third day, or oftener. This medicine does not produce any perceptible effect on the brain directly, but I have a fancy that I sleep better after wine; and sleep I have always looked to as the best brain restorative. [Footnote: SLEEP IS THE BEST STIMULANT.—The best possible thing for a man to do when he feels too weak to carry anything through is to go to bed and sleep for a week, if he can. This is the only recuperation of brain-power, the only recuperation of brain-force; because during sleep the brain is in a state of rest, in a condition to receive and appropriate particles of nutriment from the blood, which take the place of those that have been consumed in previous labour, since the very act of thinking consumes or burns up solid particles, as every turn of the wheel or screw of the steamer is the result of the consumption by fire of the fuel in the furnace. The supply of consumed brain-substance can only be had from the nutritive particles in the blood, which were obtained from the food eaten previously; and the brain is so constituted that it can best receive and appropriate to itself those nutritive particles during a state of rest, of quiet, and stillness of sleep. Mere stimulants supply nothing in themselves; they goad the brain, and force it to a greater consumption of its substance, until the substance has been so exhausted that there is not power enough left to receive a supply, just as men are so near death by thirst and starvation that there is not power enough left to swallow anything, and is over.—Scientific American.] Spirits I have never drunk; Though I have been a smoker for many years, I cannot say anything as to its effects.
MARK PATTISON.March 16, 1882.
In common with nine-tenths of my literary brethren, I am a constant smoker. I smoke the whole time I am engaged in composition (three hoursper diem), and after meals; but very light tobacco—latakia. [Footnote: Latakia, or Turkish, are called mild tobaccos, and although they produce dryness of the tongue, from the ammonia evolved in their smoke, they do not upset the digestion so materially, nor nauseate so much as the stronger tobaccos, unless they are indiscriminately used.—DR. B. W. RICHARDSON. ("Diseases of Modern Life")] That it stimulates the imagination, I have little doubt; and as I have worked longer and more continuously for thirty years than any other author (save one); I cannot believe that tobacco has done me any harm. Those who object to it have never tried it, or find it disagrees with them. How can they, therefore, be in a position to judge? I find cigars disagree with me but I do not on that account pronounce them unwholesome for everybody. I drink very little alcohol—only light claret, and occasionally dry champagne—but I do not know what effect drinking alcohol has upon composition.
If a breef skech ov mei leif, and the deietetik maner ov it, wil be ov servis tu you, ei gladly giv it. Your rekwest abzolvz me from the impiutashon ov boasting. If you make it publik, pray let it be printed in the parshiali reformd speling in hwich it iz riten.
Ei hav been an abstainer from the stimiulant alkohol nearli all mei leif, and ei hav alwayz refraind from the seduktiv influens ov the sedativ tobako. Ei hav therefor no eksperiens tu ofer ov their use, eksept that about 1838 ei woz rekomended tu take a glas ov wein per day az a tonik, and az a remedi for dispepsia, hwich then began tu trubel me. After obeying this medikal preskripshon for a year or two, and feinding no releef from it, ei gave up both the wein and the use ov flesh, "the brandi ov deiet;" the dispepsia disapeard, and haz never vizited me sins.
Ei am nou verjing on seventi. Ei intensli enjoi leif and labor, and rekweir nuthing beyond the laborz ov the day, and the walk tu and from mei ofis, hwich iz a meil, tu indius refreshing sleep. Ei keep up mei leif-long praktis ov reteiring at ten o'klok, and being at mei desk at siks. About three yearz ago ei adopted the kustom ov taking a siesta for half an our after diner. It iz wel, az Milton obzervz, tu giv the bodi rest diuring the ferst konkokshon ov the prinsipal meal.
The uzhual sumer vizit tu the sea-seid woz unnon tu me til ei woz fifti yearz ov aje. From 1837 (the date ov the publikashon ov "Fonografi") tu 1861 (the date ov mei sekond maraje), nearli a kworter ov a sentiuri, ei wurkt on from siks in the morning til bed-teim, ten o'klok, without an intervening thought ov a holiday. Ei felt no wont ov a temporeri respit from labor bekauz ei tuk no ekseiting food or drink; and ei shud az soon hav meditated a breach in the Dekalog az a breach in mei daili round ov diutiz bei eidling at the sea-seid. In 1861 ei relakst, and komenst the praktis ov leaving mei ofis at siks in the evening. At the same teim ei komenst viziting the variiis watering plasez, or going tu the Kontinent in the sumer for four or feiv weeks. This rekriashon ei have taken more for the sake ov mei weif and two sunz than from eni feeling ov nesesiti for it on mei own part.
From mei own eksperiens ov the benefits ov abstinens from the sedativ alkohol, and the stimulants tobako and snuf; and mei obzervashon ov the efekts ov theze thingz on personz who indulj in them, ei hav a ferm konvikshon that they ekserseiz a dedli influens on the hiuman rase.
EIZAK PITMAN.March 25, 1882.
I am much flattered by the interest that you attach to my opinion on the subject of the influence that certain substances can have upon thought and upon intellectual work. I must tell you frankly that I have not found that tobacco or alcohol have an advantageous influence. It is true that I have not made much use of them—I have never taken pure spirits, such as brandy, but only of wine containing a little. I have been obliged sometimes, in trying to fortify my health, to take some Bordeaux wine, and I have not observed that any appreciable effect resulted from it upon the facility of intellectual work. From the point of view of health, I counted particularly upon the iron contained in good Bordeaux wine, but I have found that the alcohol in the wine over-excited the nervous system, provoked sleeplessness and cramps; and I have finally adopted as a drink wine mixed with water, and even this in very small quantities. As to tobacco, I have also tried it; and far from thinking that it favours intellectual work, I believe, with one of our learned writers (the Abbe Moigno, Editor of the "Journal du Mondes"), that its use tends to weaken the memory. Neither do I make use of coffee, which equally excites the nervous system, although, like all the world, I have observed that this substance gives a certain intellectual activity. What I have found out most clearly is what everyone has observed from time immemorial—that the clearest ideas, the happiest and most fruitful expressions, come in the morning, after the repose of the night, and after sleep—when one has it, but of which I have not a very large share. I attach so much importance to the ideas which come during the night or in the morning, that I have always at the head of my bed paper and pencil suspended by string, by the help of which I write every morning the ideas I have been able to conceive, particularly upon subjects of scientific research. [Footnote: Curtis, I think, says that whenever Emerson has a "happy thought," he writes it down, be it dawn or midnight, and when Mrs. Emerson, startled in the night by some unusual sound, cries, "What is the matter? Are you ill?" the philosopher's soft voice answers, "No, my dear, only an idea."— _Appleton's New York Journal, Nov., 1873.] I write these notes in obscurity, and decipher and develop them in the morning, pen in hand. This is the reply I can make to your interesting enquiry. I shall be happy to know the conclusion to which you will be conducted by the information which you will have been able to collect.
THE REV. A. PLUMMER,HEAD MASTER OF THE DURHAM COLLEGE. University Tutor and Lecturer, andUniversity Proctor.
I am a firm believer in the value of a moderate use of tobacco and alcohol for the brain worker. I generally smoke one pipe in the morning,beforework, and one at night,afterwork (or the equivalents of a pipe). I seldom smokewhileI work, and do not find it helpful. I drink two glasses of sherry (or their equivalents), as a rule daily, and take them at late dinner—not at lunch. If troubled with sleeplessness, I find a glass of sherry, and a few biscuits, followed by smoking, a tolerably safe cure, but not always to be relied upon. I should be very sorry to attempt to do without these two helps. Of the two I believe the smoking to be the more valuable, especially when (what is far worse than heavy work)worryis pressing upon one. I am wholly sceptical as to the value of work before breakfast. Let a man get up as early as he likes: but don't let him try to work on an empty stomach. The Irishman was wise who said that when he worked before breakfast, he always had something to eat first.
A. PLUMMERApril 6, 1882.
In reply to your letter, I should say that tobacco has some action on the brain; but I think its action different in different people, and at different times in the same person. I think the action soothing after food, but exciting on an empty stomach. In the former case I think it promotes thinking in this way:—that the mind concentrates its attention better during the mechanical operation of "puffing", than when it is liable to be disturbed when not so occupied. For this reason I should say that smoking does help to get through work late at night. I find frequently that having commenced to write with a fresh pipe in my mouth, I go on a long time after it goes out; but as it remains in my mouth, it seems to have almost the same effect till the discovery, at some pause, that my pipe is out; and then it is a relaxation to spare a moment to refill it. I do not look upon smoking as a necessity to mental labour; but it seems to me, as a smoker, an agreeable and useful method for concentrating thought upon any subject. But I think it would be difficult to lay down any general rule for persons of different constitutions.
E. POCKNELL.March 10, 1882.
Although it does not appear to me that the method of your enquiry can lead to any important results, you are quite welcome to any information that I can give you on the subject. I was brought up to take daily a moderate amount of beer or wine, and have continued to do so all my lifetime, with the exception that my beer has been cut off, and I have been recommended to take a little brandy and soda-water, or whiskey and soda-water instead. I smoked an occasional cigar when I was young, but never much liked tobacco, and gave up the practice entirely when I was about five and twenty. I have never tried leaving off alcoholic liquors, being advised medically that it would probably be injurious to me to do so. I am, therefore, quite unable to say what effect my doing so would have on my powers of thought and work.
GEORGE RAWLINSON.March 28, 1882.
Your subject is important, and your method of enquiry sound. I wish I could throw any light, but I cannot more than this. I tried to smoke five or six times, but it always made me heavy and rather sick; therefore, as it is not a necessary of life, and costs money, and makes me sick, I spurned it from me. I have never felt the want of it. I have seen many people the worse for it. I have seen many people apparently none the worse for it. I never saw anybody perceptibly the better for it.
C. READE.Feb. 2, 1882.
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 myconfreresthat 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.
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.
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.