LITERARY WORK AND TOBACCO.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2642, 26 September 1882, Page 3

LITERARY WORK AND TOBACCO.

In response to a circular recently sent out by Mr Arthur Eeade, who has been collecting information as to the habits of literary men in regard to stimulants, the Abbo Moigno gives an interesting and characteristic record of his experiences, The letter appearing in hie paper, “Lea Moades,” states that ho has published 150 volumes, small and great; that he scarcely ever leaves hie work table, and never takes walking exercise ; yet ha never has a trace of headache or h/ain-weariness, or constipation, or any form of uiioary trouble, &c. He never has recourse for his work to stimulants, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, &c., a statement which the sequel shows to need qualification. Snuff-taking he has sometimes practised, but he vigorously condemns it. He has learnt twelve foreign languages by a method of his own, and with regard to his acquirements in philology and chronology, he says : “ I was one of the most extraordinary personalities of my time, and Frangcis Arogo sometimes laughingly threatened to have me burnt as a sorcerar.” On one occasion, when in Munich for a few weeks and spending his evenings with Bavarian savants, who each smoked four or five cigars and drank two or three pots of beer daily (Steinbeil, tho most illustrious, boasted of smoking 6000 cigars a year), the Abbo came to smoke three or four oigars a day. Ho had also anew taken to snuff, so that when preparing his calculus of variations, a very difficult mathematical work, he would empty his snuffbox (which hold 25 grammes) in one day. But one day ho was surprised to find himself painfully unable to recall the meaning of foreign words, and remember dates with which ho had bran familiar. Thereupon ho formed a heroic resolution, and since August Slit, 1863, when he smoked three cig«r» and took twenty-five centimes worth of snuff, he has, up to the 25th of June, 1882, touched neither. This was, for him, a complete resurrection, not only of memory, but of general health and well-being ; he has hud indefinite capacity of work, unconscious diga tian, perfect assimilation of food (of which he can take more), & s. For the rest, be mentions that ho takes a small cup of black coffee in the morning, and when all but two or three spoonfuls bus been drunk, he adds a small spoonful of brandy or other alcoholic liquor. This is his ration of stimulants. He goes to bod about nine, and rises at five, 11 full of vigor.” The Abbs is vor eighty.