of St. Nicotine, which fill up the pauses and conduce to reflection.
The Indians were wise in their generation when they made the
circulation of the pipe an essential part of their pow-wows. A
conference founded on the mutual consumption of tobacco was likely,
not, as the frivolous would say, to end in smoke, but to lead to solid
and lasting results. "The fact is, squire," said Sam Slick, "the
moment a man takes a pipe he becomes a philosopher." The pipe, says
Thackeray, "draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts
up the mouth of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation,
contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent and unaffected.... May I die if
I abuse that kindly weed which has given me so much pleasure."

And what more fitting emblem of peace could be chosen than the
calumet, the proffered pipe? Tobacco, whatever its enemies may have
said, or may yet say, is the friend of peace, the foe of strife, and
the promoter of geniality and good fellowship. Mrs. Battle, whose
serious energies were all given to the great game of whist, unbent her
mind, we are told, over a book. Most men unbend over a pipe, even if
the book is an accompaniment.

To the solitary man the well-seasoned tube is an invaluable companion.
If he happen, once in a way, to have nothing special to do and plenty
of time in which to do it, he naturally fills his pipe as he draws the
easy-chair on to the hearthrug, and knows not that he is lonely. If he
have a difficult problem to solve, he just as naturally attacks it
over a pipe. It is true that as the smoke-wreaths ring themselves
above his head, his mind may wander off into devious paths of reverie,
and the problem be utterly forgotten. Well, that is, at least,
something for which to be grateful, for the paths of reverie are the
paths of pleasantness and peace, and problems can usually afford to
wait.

"Over a pipe!" Why the words bring up innumerable pleasant
associations. The angler, having caught the coveted prize, refills his
pipe, and with the satisfied sense of duty done, as the rings curl
upward he reviews the struggle and glows again with victory. At the
end of any day's occupation, especially one of pleasurable
toil--whether it be shooting or hunting, or walking or what not--what
can be pleasanter than to let the mind meander through the course of
the day's proceedings over a pipe?

There is much wisdom in Robert Louis Stevenson's remarks in
"Virginibus Puerisque"--"Lastly (