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I was a mere bachelor, drifting toward what I now see to be a tragic middle age. I had become soaccustomed to smoke issuing from my mouth that I felt incomplete without it; indeed, the time camewhen I could refrain from smoking if doing nothing else, but hardly during the hours of toil. To lay asidemy pipe was to find myself soon afterward wandering restlessly round my table. No blind beggar wasever more abjectly led by his dog, or more loath to cut the string.I am much better without tobacco, and already have a difficulty in sympathizing with the man I usedto be. Even to call him up, as it were, and regard him without prejudice is a difficult task, for we forgetthe old selves on whom we have turned our backs, as we forget a street that has been reconstructed.Does the freed slave always shiver at the crack of a whip? I fancy not, for I recall but dimly, and withoutacute suffering, the horrors of my smoking days. There were nights when I awoke with a pain at myheart that made me hold my breath. I did not dare move. After perhaps ten minutes of dread, I wouldshift my position an inch at a time. Less frequently I felt this sting in the daytime, and believed I wasdying while my friends were talking to me. I never mentioned these experiences to a human being;indeed, though a medical man was among my companions, I cunningly deceived him on the rareoccasions when he questioned me about the amount of tobacco I was consuming weekly. Often in thedark I not only vowed to give up smoking, but wondered why I cared for it. Next morning I wentstraight from breakfast to my pipe, without the smallest struggle with myself. Latterly I knew, whileresolving to break myself of the habit, that I would be better employed trying to sleep. I had elaborateways of cheating myself, but it became disagreeable to me to know how many ounces of tobacco I wassmoking weekly. Often I smoked cigarettes to reduce the number of my cigars.

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