Читать книгу The Seven Sisters of Sleep. Popular History of the Seven Prevailing Narcotics of the World онлайн

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Cloudland costs something to keep up its dignity after all, but beauty is seductive, and so is tobacco.

Yes! St. John (Percy, we mean—not “the Divine”), there must be “magic in the cigar.” Then, to the sailor, on the wide and tossing ocean, what consolation is there, save in his old pipe? While smoking his inch and a half of clay, black and polished, his Susan or his Mary becomes manifest before him, he sees her, holds converse with her spirit—in the red glare from the ebony bowl, as he walks the deck at night, or squats on the windlass, are reflected the bright sparkling eyes of his sweetheart. The Irish fruit-woman, the Jarvie without a fare, the policeman on a quiet beat, the soldier at his ease, all bow to the mystic power of tobacco9—all acknowledge the infatuations of Cloudland.

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“It was his constant companion and solace. Was he gay, he smoked—was he sad, he smoked—his pipe was never out of his mouth—it was a part of his physiognomy; without it his best friends would not know him. Take away his pipe—you might as well take away his nose.”——Knickerbocker’s New York.