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019 - XIX Tobacco · Gentle Art of Tramping

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen of the Gentle Art of Tramping by Stephen Graham.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. The Gentle Art of Tramping, Chapter nineteen. Tobacco.
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  Speaker 1: It has been said that whereas a pipe is a
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  Speaker 1: man's wife, a cigarette is his lady friend. In these terms,
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  Speaker 1: it is difficult to define a cigar, but it will
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  Speaker 1: be agreed that the cigar is unnecessary on tramp. We
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  Speaker 1: have no after dinner moved a pipe will go a
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  Speaker 1: long way. The cigarette has to be cast off and renewed.
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  Speaker 1: The cigar does not enter in. Nevertheless, I shall hear
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  Speaker 1: of excellent walkers who carried boxes of cigars in their
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  Speaker 1: rucksacks and lifted the smoke of havana to the noon sky.
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  Speaker 1: Some fellows even chew an unlighted cigoer as they walk.
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  Speaker 1: It has frequently been said to me, I should think,
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  Speaker 1: when you got to some point on your tramps, with
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  Speaker 1: great views opening before you, it was a rare place
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  Speaker 1: for a smoke. This moved me, in my intolerant years,
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  Speaker 1: too much mirth. How could I share the beauties of
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  Speaker 1: nature with a pipe, I asked. It seemed to me
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  Speaker 1: strange that one should wish to smoke when the fire
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  Speaker 1: of one's own thoughts was burning brightly and streaming upward
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  Speaker 1: in poetic exultation. Even now I cannot go back on
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  Speaker 1: my personal experience of years past. One of the most
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  Speaker 1: romantic occasions in tramping that I remember was during a
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  Speaker 1: vagabondage in the Crimea, when I reached the gate of
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  Speaker 1: Badari and watched for an hour a marvelous changing sunset
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  Speaker 1: far over the Black Sea and its mountainous shore. It
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  Speaker 1: was my busiest hour of the day. I was soaking
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  Speaker 1: in that sunset to the core of my intelligence. What rapture,
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  Speaker 1: what prayerful vigilance was mine then, as in the late twilight,
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  Speaker 1: knapsack on back, I stood on grand platforms over the sea,
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  Speaker 1: and was, as it were, alone, the one pilgrim in
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  Speaker 1: the universe. In those days I was a non smoker.
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  Speaker 1: But even later, when through offering friends cigarettes, I at
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  Speaker 1: last began offering them to myself. I do not associate
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  Speaker 1: tobacco with great moments. It is very delightful when riding
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  Speaker 1: a horse to light a cigarette and smoke as you
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  Speaker 1: amble along, and it makes a difference on a long
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  Speaker 1: train journey to have the narcotic of tobacco. But to me,
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  Speaker 1: smokeing is not naturally associated with tramping. One very memorable
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  Speaker 1: moment after I had begun to smoke, was when I
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  Speaker 1: climbed out of the jungles of Darien on the ridge
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  Speaker 1: where Balboa saw the Pacific for the first time. It
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  Speaker 1: was pure poetry to see the blue triangle of the
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  Speaker 1: southern sea far o'er, the forests and the hills. But
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  Speaker 1: where Balboa and his men sang Ottai deum I did
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  Speaker 1: not sit on a stone and light up a pipe. However,
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  Speaker 1: there is no doubt that smoking in company is a
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  Speaker 1: social grace. It gives a sense of unity, and at
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  Speaker 1: the same time it is a source of some pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: We are always warned that our cigarette ends have set
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  Speaker 1: forests a fire, but the rest of the cigarette has
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  Speaker 1: lighted our faces and lightened our packs. As the soldier
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  Speaker 1: finds the root march more support wortable if he has
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  Speaker 1: permission to smoke. So also the tramp on a long
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  Speaker 1: and arduous hill can get much help from cigarette or pipe.
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  Speaker 1: It gives patience on the way and then patience again
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  Speaker 1: in camp while waiting for the pot to boil and
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  Speaker 1: the final piece pipe at the end of the day
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  Speaker 1: settles all experiences into a harmonious unity and prepares the
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  Speaker 1: mind for the night. Smoking seems to fill up the
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  Speaker 1: empty cells in time when there is nothing else to do.
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  Speaker 1: A man takes out a cigarette. On the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: after stress or strain, it soothes and it prepares the
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  Speaker 1: mind for artistic work. At the same time, in writing,
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  Speaker 1: it seems to me that as good literary work can
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  Speaker 1: be done without tobacco as with it, upon occasion the cigarette,
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  Speaker 1: and more often the cigar, will deaden one sensibilities. The
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  Speaker 1: effect is the rising of somber impressions rather than bright thinking.
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  Speaker 1: Tobacco has had considerable influence on modern literature, though it
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  Speaker 1: would be difficult to show just where the difference is.
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  Speaker 1: It has made some writers tolerant, but others merely laconic,
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  Speaker 1: helped some to be witty, helped others to be merely cynical.
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  Speaker 1: Thousands of cigarettes have gone to the making of a novel,
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  Speaker 1: and it would be amusing and perhaps also interesting, if
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  Speaker 1: one could compute the numbers that went to the various
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  Speaker 1: chapters that is not entirely irrelevant here, for it is
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  Speaker 1: the custom of many writers to think out their work
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  Speaker 1: while walking. They walk and they smoke, and they think
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  Speaker 1: and the ideas form. Curiously enough, I smoked my first
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  Speaker 1: cigar on the way to Havana and could not finish it.
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  Speaker 1: It almost finished me. I used to say that cigars
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  Speaker 1: belonged to a certain later period in a man's life,
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  Speaker 1: when he had succeeded and could lean back in his
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  Speaker 1: chair and view the world at ease. It is perhaps
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  Speaker 1: an English idea. Cigars in England are a luxury, but
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  Speaker 1: it is not so in other parts of the world.
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  Speaker 1: In England, when we smoke a cigar, we smoke largely
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  Speaker 1: tax but in other parts of the world the choice
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  Speaker 1: of weed enjoys more freedom from impost. In Germany, in Austria,
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  Speaker 1: in Holland, in the Indies and Mexico, and in many
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  Speaker 1: other places, a cigar is no more a luxury than
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  Speaker 1: a cigarette, as cheap, as popular, and better to smoke.
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  Speaker 1: Hood could write, honors have passed to men my junior
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  Speaker 1: at the bar, No matter I can wait, So I
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  Speaker 1: have my cigar. But he could hardly have written, so
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  Speaker 1: I have my cigarette. The cigar for us means nirvana,
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  Speaker 1: released from cares, relaxation of the whole being. I do
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  Speaker 1: not think it either the meat reward or the need
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  Speaker 1: of the tramp after his day's march, when he has
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  Speaker 1: had wordy warfare with the police concerning the validity of
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  Speaker 1: his passport, when he finds that he has lost all
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  Speaker 1: his money and half his kit, when he has proposed
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  Speaker 1: to his sweetheart and been rejected or refused. He may
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  Speaker 1: light up a havana if he has won. But I
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  Speaker 1: take comfort in the thought that unless he has lately
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  Speaker 1: parted from a rich uncle, he is unlikely to have
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  Speaker 1: a stock of the commodity, and will draw rather upon
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  Speaker 1: the resources of philosophy, which he has somehow stored within
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  Speaker 1: end of chapter nineteen Tobacco Read by John Brandon, September twelfth,
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four.