Is it I, am indolent? Is it you, are clamorous? Why should it be either? Let us say, I am the lover of quiet things, and you are enamoured of mighty events. Each, without undue absorption in his taste, relishes the savour of a different experience.
But I think, I am no egoist: no melancholy spectator of things, cultivating his intellect with old poetry, nourishing his senses upon rural nature. There are times, when the swarms of men press hard upon a solitary; he hears the noise of the streets, the heavy vans of merchandise, the cry of the railway whistle: and in a moment, his thoughts travel away, to London, to Liverpool; to great docks and to great ships; and away, till he is watching the dissimilar bustle of Eastern harbours, and hearing the discordant sounds of Chinese workmen. The blue smoke curls and glides away, with blue pagodas, and snowy almond bloom, and cherry flowers, circling and gleaming in it, like a narcotic vision. O magic of tobacco! Dreams are there, and superb images, and a somnolent paradise. Sometimes, the swarms of humanity press wearily and hardly; with a cruel insistence, crushing out my right to happiness. I think, rather I brood, upon the fingers that deftly rolled the cigarette, upon the people in tobacco plantations, upon all the various commerce involved in its history: how do they all fare, those many workers? Strolling up and down, devouring my books through their lettered backs; remembering the workers with leather, paper, ink, who toiled at them, they frighten me from the peace. What a full world it is! What endless activities there are! And, oh, Nicomachean Ethics! how much conscious pleasure is in them all! Things, mere tangible things, have a terrible power of education: of calling out from the mind innumerable thoughts and sympathies. Like childish catechisms and categories—Whence have we sago?—plainsubstances
