Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/45

to enlarge here on the injurious effects of tobacco-smoking ; nay, we may even afford to admit for the time that the habit is as innocuous as its rotaries assert. Yet when we hear smokers declare that tobacco is a “blessing” to men, because it soothes their mental troubles and enables them to work more contentedly, we cannot but retort that a person who lives a happy and active life, without the use of any narcotic, must be in a far sounder and healthier state than one who needs it. In other words, the use of tobacco is in no case a positive good to men; but at the utmost the lesser of two evils. If we cannot enjoy life and do our duty without inhaling smoke, then by all means let us go at once to the tobacconist's; but at least let us not be silly enough to imagine that other people are less happy because they do not smoke. "A wholesome taste for cleanliness and fresh air,” says Ruskin, “is one of the final attainments of humanity. There are not many European gentlemen, even in the highest classes: who have a pure and right love of fresh air. They would put the filth of tobacco even into the first breeze of a May morning.” Vegetarianism may or may not be the foolish theory