For, your meerschaum is a fragile thing, and eminently frangible. This present writer once did see four beauties break within a single moon. And when they break, what previous joy of coloring can over-top the sorrow of their dire destruction? It is a singular difficulty in the way of those who most desire to beautify utility or utilize the beautiful, or show that beauty is most lovely when made practical, that these artistic colorers of pipes are always those who make least use of Tobacco, save for the immediate purpose of obtaining the clay in which it is smoked. Ask such an artist why he smokes, and he will scarcely tell you. His best reason certainly will be, that others smoke, and, as a custom, it becomes him. And when you find an ardent smoker--one who smokes because he likes Tobacco for itself, or finds it useful--who spends his time in tinting pipes, you will have found a _rara avis_, or a monstrosity. Apart from taste, there are some practical objections to this custom of coloring pipes. Smoking, to be worthy, should be free and unrestrained; while he who colors his pipe is tied by system and confined to rule. "A pipe to be enjoyable, should be its master's slave; but he who keeps a 'well-colored' pipe is slave thereto. He cannot smoke it as, or when, or where he will. He must not smoke it in a draught, or near a fire; he must not lay it down, or finger it; he must not puff too fast, nor yet too slow. In short, he is the creature of this 'Joss'--this home-made deity--to which he bows down and worships. The pipe-colorers are the Sabbatarians of smoking. Whereas, the pipe was made for man, they treat man as made for the pipe. And thus, as in all cases where the cart is expected to draw the horse, the economy of nature is reversed, and mischief is evolved." [Illustration: German porcelain pipes.] Dibdin, in his "Tour in France and Germany," says of Vienna, that it is a city of smokers,--"a good Austrian thinks he can never pay too much for a good pipe." Many of the Germans use a kind of pipe carved from the root of the dwarf oak; wooden pipes of a similar kind are made of brier root, and are very common, as are also those made from maple and sweet-brier. One of the favorite pipes used by Germans is the porcelain pipe, which consists of a double bowl--the upper one containing the tobacco, which fits into another portion of the pipe, allowing the oil to drain into the lower bowl, which may be removed and the pipe cleaned. The bowls are sometimes painted beautifully, representing a variety of subjects, and in no way inferior to the painted porcelain for the table.