I wish I smoked, for then I could stop smoking,
and be able in consequence to buy various things—chiefly books— which I don't feel justified in affording now. That very pregnant observation is the result of chancing on this passage in one of Birkbeck Hill's letters: " My old friend — lamented that the two new volumes (of my Johnson Miscellanies) are so dear as to be above his reach. The net price is a guinea. On Sunday he had eight glasses of hollands and seltzer—a shilling each—a pint of stout and some cider, besides half a dozen cigars or so. Two days' abstinence from cigars or liquor would have paid for my book."
But these alternatives are often nerve-racking, as was indicated by the lecturer in economics who observed, as an illustration: " I have five shillings in my pocket. With it I can buy either' a book or a bottle of champagne. Which shall I choose? " There would seem to be more than literary reasons in favour of the former.
Previous page
