A VANISHING ART.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2552, 17 November 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

A VANISHING ART.

Tiik smoking of cigarettes is, according to tlio Paris Figaro, ab«ut to disappear. Without giving a reason for this statetnont, our lively contemporary makes it the subject of a very amusing article, in which the delights of the cigarette and the duties of the smoker towards it are set for'.h in glowing terms. The cigar etto, wo are told, is the most imperiou the most exacting, the most engaging the most loving of mistresses, tolerating nobody and nothing: beside her, and inspiring an absolute and exclusive passion. The smoltor of cigarettes must, therefore, always have both his hands and his lips free : he. must be neither ambitious nor indu-trious; must not, except in very rare cases, aspire to be either a poet or an. artist; and must, briefly, have no other wants besides that of smoking his cigarette. Considering that this is the case, it is not astonishing to read that the true cigarette smoker is bom, and not made. The most generous fairies have tenderly bent over his cradle. He must have elegant, dainty hands, for you can no more roll a cigarette with clumsy fingers than yon can play a harp; his face should be young and handsome, or, at le;ist, if no longer so, it should have been so, and have preserved the charm of what was beautiful. Cleanliness, the opposite of which is horrible, ought not to be subject of praise, being the natural state of every gentleman j but the cleanliness of the smoker of. cigarettes merits admiration, like all other ideal and supernatural things. The end of the cigarette touching his lips is never wet or moist ; he neither coughs nor spits, and can move in a saloon carpeted with white velvet without ever littinu a particle of ashes fall on the floor. He answers immediately when spoken to, and does not keep the questioner waiting for a reply while he takes another puff; and his rosy nails are never soiled or discoloured by smoke. Among the examples of real cigarette smokers the writer mentions a Russian lady, with hair as white as snow, whom he met at dinner in the house of M. Alphonse Karr, at Nice, and who after eating a few spoonfuls of soup, began to •. smoke her cigarette. George S.md was one of the most terrible smokers of cigarettes that have ever existed. At the rehearsal of her play she was not allowed to smoke in the theatre, but the result was that after fivo minutes the authoress of LeMia could not understand a word of what was said—heard only a vain and distant noise the words which she herself had written, and saw the actors indistinctly floating before her eyes, enveloped in dark clouds and vague shadows. The question as to what the' cigarette really is, is answered thus. It is a pinch of tobacco rolled in a liny sheet of rice paper. After the tobacco is put on the paper, and equaily distributed' over it. the sheet must be carefully and rapidly, with a rythmic harmony, rolled up. This done, is the cigarette finished! Not so, for it must be cont Dually rolled according to the particular genius of the smoker, and it remains impressionable, changeable, sensible and lively, and • must never be left alone till it is consumed.