The Fitz-Boodle PapersThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Fitz-Boodle Papers
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Imaginary letters; Satire, English
The fact is, that the cigar IS a rival to the ladies, and their
conqueror too. In the chief pipe-smoking nations they are kept in
subjection. While the chief, Little White Belt, smokes, the women are
silent in his wigwam; while Mahomet Ben Jawbrahim causes volumes of
odorous incense of Latakia to play round his beard, the women of the
harem do not disturb his meditations, but only add to the delight of
them by tinkling on a dulcimer and dancing before him. When Professor
Strumpff of Gottingen takes down No. 13 from the wall, with a picture
of Beatrice Cenci upon it, and which holds a pound of canaster, the Frau
Professorin knows that for two hours Hermann is engaged, and takes up
her stockings and knits in quiet. The constitution of French society
has been quite changed within the last twelve years: an ancient and
respectable dynasty has been overthrown; an aristocracy which Napoleon
could never master has disappeared: and from what cause? I do not
hesitate to say,--FROM THE HABIT OF SMOKING. Ask any man whether, five
years before the revolution of July, if you wanted a cigar at Paris,
they did not bring you a roll of tobacco with a straw in it! Now, the
whole city smokes; society is changed; and be sure of this, ladies,
a similar combat is going on in this country at present between
cigar-smoking and you. Do you suppose you will conquer? Look over the
wide world, and see that your adversary has overcome it. Germany has
been puffing for threescore years; France smokes to a man. Do you think
you can keep the enemy out of England? Psha! look at his progress. Ask
the clubhouses, Have they smoking-rooms or not? Are they not obliged to
yield to the general want of the age, in spite of the resistance of the
old women on the committees? I, for my part, do not despair to see a
bishop lolling out of the “Athenaeum” with a cheroot in his mouth, or,
at any rate, a pipe stuck in his shovel-hat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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