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Show AUTHORS ON SMOKING. What Prominent French Writers Say About it. EFFECT OF TOBACCO ON MIND AND BODY. Toe Eiiemy of Intelligence According to Alexander Dumaa. The secretary of the French Anti-Tobacco league, which is trying very hard just now to induce the smokers of France to cease smoking, recently asked the most famous French authors to send him by letter their opinions concerning the elFects of Biuoking upon the mind and the body. Mont of the replies to the secretary's letters harmonized with the views of the league. Emile Zola, how-; how-; ever, wrote: ! "Ten years ago I gave up tobacco at the instance of my doctor. 1 do not believe, be-lieve, however, that the intelligence and the creative strength of man are injured by smoking. Perfection is so stupid that 1 am often sorry 1 ceased smoking." Francois Coppee replied: "You have the wrong man this time. I have been a heavy smoker since my eighteenth year. I am now 47. I smoke cigarettes all day, but tlirow each one away after a few pulls. Till proof to the contrary is adduced, I shall regard tobacco as an Incentive to working and dreaming, which, for a poet, are one and the same thing." Alexander Dumas, the younger, sent a reply after the secretary's own heart. He said: "Tobacco, which I gave up years ago, is, next to alcohol, the most dangerous enemy of intelligence. Nothing can abolish its use, however, for the fools are in the great majority, and they have nothing to lose by using it. Since your society is not after the fools, may it strive to convert tho wise." H. Taine confesses thus: "The fact is, I smoke cigarette. It is a pastime in moments of thoughtlessness and intellectul waiting. Nevertheless, the habit is a slavery and a danger, as many examples show. Since you know all about the evils of smoking, you ought to prepare a valuable monograph on the abuses of tobacco, especially if you can collect data from Germany, America, England, Austria and Holland, where the people Binoke much more than in France." Andre Thenlret wrote: "I was never a member of the league, for the Bimple reason that I am passion ately fond of smoking. Two years ago your president asked me to write a story about the acute sufferings of the young smoker. I did it. After publishing the story I received asilver medal from your league. That is all I ever had to do with the enemies of tobacco." Emile Augier replied curtly: "1 am no doctor. All I can say Is, that after smoking forty years I gave up the soft opiate because it was hurrying me to the brink of the grave before my time." Octave Feuillet indicates the general drift of opinion among many other authors, au-thors, who answered the secretary's letters, let-ters, in these strong words, concerning his own experience: "I was once a great smoker and cured myself of the use of tobacco with difficulty. diffi-culty. I was driven to the sacrifice, however, how-ever, by vertigo and dyspepsia, which afflicted me as long as I smoked. I was long unwilling to believe that nicotine caused my illness, but I was compelled , finally to acknowledge it. According to my experience, tobacco is very injurious to nervous persons. It causes at first an agreeable excitement, but eventually produces pro-duces a general relaxation. It weakens the capabilities of the mind. The effort necessary to rally from it wearies and , consumes the will power." New York Sun. |
