Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/125

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Illustrated Interviews.
125

east winds, and partly, perhaps, to the use of milder tobacco.

"To conclude with a little practical advice," says Sir Morell, "I would say to anyone who finds total abstinence too heroic a stretch of virtue, let him smoke only after a substantial meal, and, if he be a singer or a speaker, let him do so after, and never before using his voice. Let him smoke a mild Havannah, or a long-stemmed pipe charged with some cool smoking tobacco. If the charms of the cigarette are irresistible, let it be smoked through a mouthpiece which is kept clean with ultra-Mohammedan strictness. Let him refrain from smoking pipe, cigar, or cigarette to the bitter, and, it may be added, rank and oily end. Your Turk, who is very choice in his smoking, and thoroughly understands the art, always throws away the near half of his cigarette. Let the singer who wishes to keep in the 'perfect way' refrain from inhaling the smoke, and let him take it as an axiom that the man in whom tobacco increases the flow of saliva to any marked degree is not intended by nature to smoke. Let him be strictly moderate in indulgence—the precise limits each man must settle for himself—and he will get all the good effect of the soothing plant without the bane which lurks in it when used to excess.

Harry How.


The operating chair.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.