ed in that year, Ouida--who is hardly an unimpeachable
authority on the ways and customs of fashionable folk, though she
loved to paint fancy pictures of their sayings and doings--pictures
the Row: "the most fashionable lounge you have, but it is a Republic
for all that." There, she says, "could Bill Jacobs lean against a
rail, with a clay-pipe in his mouth, and a terrier under his arm,
close beside the Earl of Guilliadene, with his cigarette and his
eye-glass, and his Poole-cut habiliments."

Thirty years or more ago the late Andrew Lang wrote an article
entitled "Enchanted Cigarettes," which began--"To dream our literary
projects, Balzac says, is like 'smoking enchanted cigarettes,' but
when we try to tackle our projects, to make them real, the enchantment
disappears--we have to till the soil, to sow the weed, to gather the
leaves, and then the cigarettes must be manufactured, while there may
be no market for them after all. Probably most people have enjoyed
the fragrance of these cigarettes and have brooded over much which
they will never put on paper. Here are some of 'the ashes of the weeds
of my delight'--memories of romances whereof no single line is
written, or is likely to be written." What Balzac said in his "La
Cousine Bette" was--"Penser, rever, concevoir de belles oeuvres est
une occupation delicieuse. C'est fumer des cigares enchantes, c'est
mener la vie de la courtisane occupee a sa fantaisie." Balzac's cigars
became cigarettes in Lang's fantasy. The French novelist seems to have
been one of those who praised tobacco without using it much himself.
In his "Illusions Perdues" Carlos Herrera, who was Vautrin, says to
Lucien, whom he meets on the point of suicide: "Dieu nous a donne le
tabac pour endormir nos passions et nos douleurs." M.A. Le Breton,
however, in his book on Balzac--"L'Homme et L'OEuvre"--says: "Il ne
se soutient qu'a force de cafe," though he would sit working at his
desk for twenty-five hours running.

About the time that Lang's article was written, Sir F.C. Burnand's
burlesque, "Bluebeard" was produced at the Gaiety Theatre. In those
days a certain type of young man, since known by many names, including
the present day "nut," was called a "masher"; and Burnand's burlesque
included a duet with the refrain:

_We are mashers, we are,
As we smoke our cigar
And crawl along, never too quick;
We are mashers, you bet,
With the light cigarette
And the quite irrepro