dubiously, and in turn took out a long nine hesitatingly, and lit it. Then an uncanny silence fell upon the company; conversation died. Then, after five minutes, a man excused himself and left—had an engagement, he said. In a couple of minutes, another man lied himself out. Within ten minutes the whole twelve were gone and I was alone; and it was not yet eleven o’clock.
In the morning at breakfast the colored man asked me how far it was from the front door to the upper gate. I said it was a hundred and twenty-five feet. Then he said, impressively, “Well, sir, you can walk the whole way, and step on a long nine every time.”
What an exposure of human nature it is. Those were the same cigars that had lifted those people into heaven a year before. They had smoked all their lives, yet they knew nothing about cigars. The only way that they could tell a fine cigar from a poor one was by the label and the box; and the great majority of men are just like them. The wine merchant and the cigar dealer have an easy chance to get rich, for it is merely a matter of knowing how to select the right labels.
In the continental States, tobacco is a government monopoly, and the tobacco used is native—almost altogether. In Vienna there is but one shop where importations can be had. But it keeps no endurable brands of English or American smoking tobacco. When I speak of English tobacco I mean American tobacco manufactured in England. America has many brands of good smoking tobacco; and could have good and cheap native cigars, I suppose. In fact we had good native cigars fifteen years ago, but none now, so far as I know. I am not hard to please, but to my mind the American native cigar is easily the worst in the world—and it costs from seven to ten cents, too. The trabuco cigar, furnished by the Austrian government, suits my taste exactly, comes up to my strictest standard, and even a little above it; and it costs just 40 cents a hundred. The best native American cigar cannot compare with it. Perhaps it is our high protection that has degraded our tobacco. There being no foreign competition, we can compel ninety-nine Americans in the hundred to smoke any rubbish we please, since he cannot afford the imported article; and as a result we are the only considerable nation in the world which smokes supremely villainous cigars.
Possibly my approval of the Austrian cigar pays it but a doubtful compliment, but I do not think so. For I am one of the sixteen men now alive in the world who estimate a cigar by its personal qualities, not by its name and its price.
JANE AUSTEN
W henever I take up “Pride and Prejudice” or “Sense and Sensibility,” I feel like a barkeeper entering the Kingdom of Heaven. I mean, I feel as he would probably feel, would almost certainly feel. I am quite sure I know what his sensations would be—and his private comments. He would be certain to curl his lip, as those ultra-good Presbyterians went filing self-complacently along. Because he considered himself better than they? Not at all. They would not be to his taste —that is all.
He would not want to associate with them; he would not like their gait, their style, their ways; their talk would enrage him. Yet he would be secretly ashamed of himself, secretly angry with himself that this was so. Why? Because barkeepers are like everybody else—it humiliates them to find that there are fine things, great things, admirable things, which others can perceive and they can’t.
What would the barkeeper do next? Give it up and go down below, where his own kind are? No, not yet. He would wander out into the solitudes and take a long rest; then he would brace up and attack the proposition again, saying to himself, “others have found the secret charm that is in those Presbyterians, therefore it must be a fact, and not an illusion; I will try again; what those others have found, I can find.”
So he tries again. Does he succeed? No. Because he has not educated
In the morning at breakfast the colored man asked me how far it was from the front door to the upper gate. I said it was a hundred and twenty-five feet. Then he said, impressively, “Well, sir, you can walk the whole way, and step on a long nine every time.”
What an exposure of human nature it is. Those were the same cigars that had lifted those people into heaven a year before. They had smoked all their lives, yet they knew nothing about cigars. The only way that they could tell a fine cigar from a poor one was by the label and the box; and the great majority of men are just like them. The wine merchant and the cigar dealer have an easy chance to get rich, for it is merely a matter of knowing how to select the right labels.
In the continental States, tobacco is a government monopoly, and the tobacco used is native—almost altogether. In Vienna there is but one shop where importations can be had. But it keeps no endurable brands of English or American smoking tobacco. When I speak of English tobacco I mean American tobacco manufactured in England. America has many brands of good smoking tobacco; and could have good and cheap native cigars, I suppose. In fact we had good native cigars fifteen years ago, but none now, so far as I know. I am not hard to please, but to my mind the American native cigar is easily the worst in the world—and it costs from seven to ten cents, too. The trabuco cigar, furnished by the Austrian government, suits my taste exactly, comes up to my strictest standard, and even a little above it; and it costs just 40 cents a hundred. The best native American cigar cannot compare with it. Perhaps it is our high protection that has degraded our tobacco. There being no foreign competition, we can compel ninety-nine Americans in the hundred to smoke any rubbish we please, since he cannot afford the imported article; and as a result we are the only considerable nation in the world which smokes supremely villainous cigars.
Possibly my approval of the Austrian cigar pays it but a doubtful compliment, but I do not think so. For I am one of the sixteen men now alive in the world who estimate a cigar by its personal qualities, not by its name and its price.
JANE AUSTEN
W henever I take up “Pride and Prejudice” or “Sense and Sensibility,” I feel like a barkeeper entering the Kingdom of Heaven. I mean, I feel as he would probably feel, would almost certainly feel. I am quite sure I know what his sensations would be—and his private comments. He would be certain to curl his lip, as those ultra-good Presbyterians went filing self-complacently along. Because he considered himself better than they? Not at all. They would not be to his taste —that is all.
He would not want to associate with them; he would not like their gait, their style, their ways; their talk would enrage him. Yet he would be secretly ashamed of himself, secretly angry with himself that this was so. Why? Because barkeepers are like everybody else—it humiliates them to find that there are fine things, great things, admirable things, which others can perceive and they can’t.
What would the barkeeper do next? Give it up and go down below, where his own kind are? No, not yet. He would wander out into the solitudes and take a long rest; then he would brace up and attack the proposition again, saying to himself, “others have found the secret charm that is in those Presbyterians, therefore it must be a fact, and not an illusion; I will try again; what those others have found, I can find.”
So he tries again. Does he succeed? No. Because he has not educated
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