The Anatomy of Tobacco
properly there is, in fact, no such thing as a first pipe, inasmuch as the beginner's courage and stomach both fail him before half or a quarter of the tobacco in the pipe hath been smoked. Therefore, they maintaining that the term "primus tubulus," or first pipe, connotes the smoking of all the tobacco that may be in the aforesaid pipe, deny that such first pipe properly exists. To this I reply that primus tubulus doth by no means respond to their definition, but only denotes the first smoking of tobacco, were it but a single whiff, or even if a pipe be not used, but a cigar or cigarette. Secondly, it is by no means the fact that all beginners are sickened in the middle, for, if I remember rightly, I myself smoked my first pipe through without flinching, and dare say that many others have done likewise. But I admit that in most cases there cometh a horrid presentiment, with quaking of the flesh and a fearful pallor. Then all things, as it were, whirl round, the whole universe appears a-wrack, and night descends upon the soul. Such
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