Study and Stimulants Part 10

I am much flattered by the interest that you attach to my opinion on the subject of the influence that certain substances can have upon thought and upon intellectual work. I must tell you frankly that I have not found that tobacco or alcohol have an advantageous influence.

It is true that I have not made much use of them--I have never taken pure spirits, such as brandy, but only of wine containing a little. I have been obliged sometimes, in trying to fortify my health, to take some Bordeaux wine, and I have not observed that any appreciable effect resulted from it upon the facility of intellectual work. From the point of view of health, I counted particularly upon the iron contained in good Bordeaux wine, but I have found that the alcohol in the wine over-excited the nervous system, provoked sleeplessness and cramps; and I have finally adopted as a drink wine mixed with water, and even this in very small quant.i.ties. As to tobacco, I have also tried it; and far from thinking that it favours intellectual work, I believe, with one of our learned writers (the Abbe Moigno, Editor of the "_Journal du Mondes_"), that its use tends to weaken the memory. Neither do I make use of coffee, which equally excites the nervous system, although, like all the world, I have observed that this substance gives a certain intellectual activity. What I have found out most clearly is what everyone has observed from time immemorial--that the clearest ideas, the happiest and most fruitful expressions, come in the morning, after the repose of the night, and after sleep--when one has it, but of which I have not a very large share. I attach so much importance to the ideas which come during the night or in the morning, that I have always at the head of my bed paper and pencil suspended by string, by the help of which I write every morning the ideas I have been able to conceive, particularly upon subjects of scientific research. [Footnote: Curtis, I think, says that whenever Emerson has a "happy thought," he writes it down, be it dawn or midnight, and when Mrs. Emerson, startled in the night by some unusual sound, cries, "What is the matter? Are you ill?" the philosopher's soft voice answers, "No, my dear, only an idea."-- _Appleton's New York Journal, Nov., 1873.] I write these notes in obscurity, and decipher and develop them in the morning, pen in hand. This is the reply I can make to your interesting enquiry. I shall be happy to know the conclusion to which you will be conducted by the information which you will have been able to collect.

GASTON PLANTE.

THE REV. A. PLUMMER, HEAD MASTER OF THE DURHAM COLLEGE. University Tutor and Lecturer, and University Proctor.

I am a firm believer in the value of a moderate use of tobacco and alcohol for the brain worker. I generally smoke one pipe in the morning, _before_ work, and one at night, _after_ work (or the equivalents of a pipe). I seldom smoke _while_ I work, and do not find it helpful. I drink two gla.s.ses of sherry (or their equivalents), as a rule daily, and take them at late dinner--not at lunch. If troubled with sleeplessness, I find a gla.s.s of sherry, and a few biscuits, followed by smoking, a tolerably safe cure, but not always to be relied upon. I should be very sorry to attempt to do without these two helps. Of the two I believe the smoking to be the more valuable, especially when (what is far worse than heavy work) _worry_ is pressing upon one. I am wholly sceptical as to the value of work before breakfast. Let a man get up as early as he likes: but don't let him try to work on an empty stomach. The Irishman was wise who said that when he worked before breakfast, he always had something to eat first.

A. PLUMMER April 6, 1882.

MR. EDWARD POCKNELL, (POCKNELL'S PRESS AGENCY AND LONDON a.s.sOCIATED REPORTERS.)

In reply to your letter, I should say that tobacco has some action on the brain; but I think its action different in different people, and at different times in the same person. I think the action soothing after food, but exciting on an empty stomach. In the former case I think it promotes thinking in this way:--that the mind concentrates its attention better during the mechanical operation of "puffing", than when it is liable to be disturbed when not so occupied. For this reason I should say that smoking does help to get through work late at night. I find frequently that having commenced to write with a fresh pipe in my mouth, I go on a long time after it goes out; but as it remains in my mouth, it seems to have almost the same effect till the discovery, at some pause, that my pipe is out; and then it is a relaxation to spare a moment to refill it. I do not look upon smoking as a necessity to mental labour; but it seems to me, as a smoker, an agreeable and useful method for concentrating thought upon any subject. But I think it would be difficult to lay down any general rule for persons of different const.i.tutions.

E. POCKNELL.

March 10, 1882.

PROFESSOR GEORGE RAWLINSON.

Although it does not appear to me that the method of your enquiry can lead to any important results, you are quite welcome to any information that I can give you on the subject. I was brought up to take daily a moderate amount of beer or wine, and have continued to do so all my lifetime, with the exception that my beer has been cut off, and I have been recommended to take a little brandy and soda-water, or whiskey and soda-water instead. I smoked an occasional cigar when I was young, but never much liked tobacco, and gave up the practice entirely when I was about five and twenty. I have never tried leaving off alcoholic liquors, being advised medically that it would probably be injurious to me to do so. I am, therefore, quite unable to say what effect my doing so would have on my powers of thought and work.

GEORGE RAWLINSON.

March 28, 1882.

MR. CHARLES READE.

Your subject is important, and your method of enquiry sound. I wish I could throw any light, but I cannot more than this. I tried to smoke five or six times, but it always made me heavy and rather sick; therefore, as it is not a necessary of life, and costs money, and makes me sick, I spurned it from me. I have never felt the want of it.

I have seen many people the worse for it. I have seen many people apparently none the worse for it. I never saw anybody perceptibly the better for it.

C. READE.

Feb. 2, 1882.

MR. THOMAS ALLEN REED.

You ask me whether I have found tobacco or wine a help to me in my work. No! As to the first, for the sufficient reason that I have never tried it. I never smoked a pipe or a cigar in my life, and have no intention of commencing the practice. When, more than thirty years ago, I entered upon my profession, I was told by my _confreres_ that I should soon follow their example, and they smiled at my innocence when I declared that I thought they were mistaken. As to alcohol, I am not a teetotaler, but I think I can truly say that I never found the least benefit from wine or beer in my daily or nightly work. Indeed, I consider them rather a hindrance, having a tendency to make one heavy and sleepy. I have been, and am still, a tolerably hard worker, without the use of artificial stimulants, and judging from my own experience, and that of many others with whom I have been connected in my professional labours, I don't believe in their efficacy. If I take a gla.s.s of wine occasionally (not a frequent indulgence with me) it is because I like it, not because I think it helps me in my work.

T. A. REED.

Feb. 18, 1882.

DR. JULIUS RODENBERG.

I have smoked from my seventeenth year, and could not do without it now. On the whole, I am but a moderate smoker, and seldom smoke whilst walking, but at work I must have my cigar, and find it agrees very well with my health. Most of my learned and literary friends smoke; but two or three of them have given it up in their later years without visible effect upon their health or mental strength. As to alcohol, I could not stand to drink brandy. Sometimes I drink a gla.s.s, but only as an exception. I find it much more convenient for me, and a good help to work, to take now and then a bottle of hock or champagne; but, as a rule, I drink half a bottle of claret at dinner, and a pint of beer at supper. I generally write in the morning from nine to half-past one, when I dine; and from five o'clock in the afternoon to nine, when I take supper, but I could not bear to drink either wine or beer while at work.

JULIUS RODENBERG.

March 12, 1882.

DR. W. H. RUSSELL.

I am not able to give you any very positive expression of opinion on the matter respecting which you write, but I can say that I have smoked tobacco and taken wine for years, and though I cannot aver that I should not have done as well without them, I have felt comforted and sustained in my work by both at times, especially by the weed.

However, I was very well in the last campaign in South Africa, where for some time we had neither wine nor spirits. Climate has a good deal to say to the craving for a stimulant, and men in India, who never drink in England, there consume "pegs" and cheroots enormously. Of course, tobacco is to be put out of account in relation to great workers and thinkers up to the close of the middle ages, but the experience of antiquity would lead one to infer that the moderate use of wine, at all events, was not unfavourable to the highest brain development and physical force. Bismarck and Moltke are very great smokers; neither is a temperance man. In effect, I am inclined to think that tobacco and stimulants are hurtful mostly in the case of inferior organizations of brain physique, where their use is only a concomitant of baser indulgences, and uncontrolled by intelligence and will. I am quite in favour, therefore, of legislative interference, and almost inclined to supporting the Permissive Bill.

W. H. RUSSELL.

Feb. 23, 1882.

(For) MR. JOHN RUSKIN.

You are evidently unaware that Mr. Ruskin entirely abhors the practice of smoking, in which he has never indulged. His dislike of it is mainly based upon his belief (no doubt a true one) that a cigar or pipe will very often make a man content to be idle for any length of time, who would not otherwise be so. The excessive use of tobacco amongst all cla.s.ses abroad, both in France and Italy, and the consequent spitting everywhere and upon everything, has not tended to lessen his antipathy. I have heard him allow, however, that there is reason in the soldiers and the sailors' pipe, as being some protection against the ill effects of exposure, etc. As to the effect of tobacco on the brain, I know that he considers it anything but beneficial.

Feb. 12, 1882.

KESHUB CHUNDER SEN.