y I had once
thought of. I set to, snuffing away till I made my nose sore, and
lost my appetite. I then threw my snuffbox into the fire, and took to
cigars. This change appeared to revive me. For a short time I thought
myself in Elysium, and wondered I had never tried them before. Thou
fragrant weed! O, that I were a Dutch poet, I exclaimed, that I might
render due honor to thy unspeakable virtues! Ineffable tobacco! Every
puff seemed like oil poured upon troubled waters, and I felt an
inexpressible calmness stealing over my frame; in truth, it seemed
like a benevolent spirit reconciling my soul to my body. But
moderation, as I have before said, was never one of my virtues. I
walked my room, pouring out volumes like a moving glass-house. My
apartment was soon filled with smoke; I looked in the glass and hardly
knew myself, my eyes peering at me, through the curling atmosphere,
like those of a poodle. I then retired to the opposite end, and
surveyed the furniture; nothing retained its original form or
position;--the tables and chairs seemed to loom from the floor, and my
grandfather's picture to thrust forward its nose like a French-horn,
while that of my grandmother, who was reckoned a beauty in her day,
looked, in her hoop, like her husband's wig-block stuck on a tub.
Whether this was a signal for the fiends within me to begin their
operations, I know not; but from that day I began to be what is called
nervous. The uninterrupted health I had hitherto enjoyed now seemed
the greatest curse that could have befallen me. I had never had the
usual itinerant distempers; it was very unlikely that I should always
escape them; and the dread of their coming upon me in my advanced age
made me perfectly miserable. I scarcely dared to stir abroad;
had sandbags put to my doors to keep out the measles; forbade my
neighbours' children playing in my yard to avoid the whooping-cough;
and, to prevent infection from the small-pox, I ordered all my male
servants' heads to be shaved, made the coachman and footman wear tow
wigs, and had them both regularly smoked whenever they returned from
the neighbouring town, before they were allowed to enter my presence.
Nor were these all my miseries; in fact, they were but a sort of
running base to a thousand other strange and frightful fancies; the
mere skeleton to a whole body-corporate of horrors. I became dreamy,
was haunted by what I had read, frequently finding a Hottentot, or a
boa-constrictor,