Harriet Martineau strongly condemned the use of alcohol by brain-workers, and said that her stimulants were fresh air and cold water; but this remarkable old maid dearly loved a cup of tea. Maclise sketched her sitting by the fireside, her feet on the fender, steadying with one hand a pan on the fire, teapot, cup and saucer and milk-jug on the table by her side, and her cat nestling on her shoulder. Miss Ellen Terry also finds tea the best stimulant. In reply to the question, "What do you drink?" put to her by a Chicago reporter, she stated that her favourite beverage was tea. She takes tea after every meal, and also the first thing in the morning. Professor Everett, of Belfast, on the other hand, says that he has frequently suffered more from nervous excitability due to tea or coffee, than from any other kind of stimulant. Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, the artist, confesses that at one time he did himself harm by drinking tea, but has given up coffee as well as tea. The Rev. Henry Solly, who has laboured for many years among workingmen, has abstained from tea and coffee during the last fifteen years, as they caused nervous excitement, prostration, sleeplessness, and great inequality of spirits. He hardly likes, however, denouncing the use of tea, as it seems to him the only refuge (except coffee, which to some constitutions is more injurious) for those persons who, though of a nervous and excitable temperament, cannot persuade themselves to give up all stimulants, and yet desire to discountenance the use of alcohol. But he is quite sure that it causes or promotes many nervous diseases, particularly neuralgia, and not seldom leads to that "sinking" and depression which is so frequent a cause of resort being had to "nips" in the shape of glasses of wine or spirits. Mr. Solly is not alone in his unwillingness to denounce the use of tea, because, whatever maybe said against tea-drinking, its objectors cannot but admit that it is the least harmful of stimulants.[3] What is there to take its place? "Once," remarks Dr. Inman, of Liverpool, "I was an unbeliever in tea, and during the many days of solitary misery which I had to endure in consequence of the delicacy of children and their absence with mamma at the seaside, I tried to do without it. Hot water and cold, milk and cream, soda water and brandy, water and nothing at all, were tried in succession to sweep those cobwebs from the brain, which a dinner and a consequent snooze left behind them. It was all in vain--I was good for nothing, and the evenings intended to be devoted to work were passed in smoking, gossip, or novel-reading. I took to tea, and all was changed; and now I fully believe that a good dinner, 'forty winks,' and a cup of strong tea afterwards will enable a man to 'get through' no end of work, especially of a mental kind."