Dr Talmage's First Cigar.

Evening Star, Issue 7337, 8 October 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Dr Talmage's First Cigar.

The time had come in my boyhood which I thought demanded of me a capacity to smoke. The old people of the household could abide neither the sight nor the smell of the Virginia weed. When ministers came there, not by positive injunction, but by a sort of instinct as to what would be safest, they whiffed their pipes on the back steps. If the house could not stand sanctified smoke, it might be imagined how little chance there was for adolescent cigarpuffing. By some rare good fortune which put in my hands three cents, I found access to a tobacco store. As the lid of the long, narrow, fragrant box opened, and for the first time I owned a cigar, my feelings of elation, manliness, superiority, and anticicipation can scarcely be imagined, save by those who have had the same sensation. When I put the cigar to my lips, and stuck the lucifer match to the end of the weed, and commenced to pull with an energy that brought every facial muscle to its utmost tension, my satisfaction with this world was so great my temptation was never to want to leave it.

The cigar did not burn well. It required an amount of suction that tasked my determination to the utmost. You see that my worldly means had limited me to a quality that cost only three cents. But I had been taught that nothing great was accomplished without effort, and so I pulled away. Indeed, I had heard my older brothers in their latin lessons say " Omnia vincit labor," which translated means "If you want to make anything go you must scratch for it." With these sentiments I passed down the village street and out towards my country home. My head did not feel exactly right, and the street began to rock from side to side, so that it became uncertain to me which side of the street I was on. So I crossed over, but found myself on the same side ot the street that I was on before I crossed over. Indeed, I imagined that I was on both sides at the same time and several fast teams were driving between. I met another boy, who asked me why I looked so pale, and I told him that I did not look pale, but that he was pale himself. After some further walking I sat down under the bridge near my house, and began to reflect on the prospect of early decease and on the uncertainty of all earthly expectations. I had determined to smoke the cigar all up, and thus get the full worth of my money, but was finally obliged to throw three-fourths of it away. I knew, however, exactly where I threw it, in case I should feel better next day. Getting home, the old people were frightened, and demanded of me an explanation as to my absence and the rather whitish color of uiy complexion. Not feeling that I was called to go into particulars, and not wishing to increase my parents' apprehension that I was going to turn out badly, I summed up the case with the statement that I felt miserable at the pit of my stomach. Mustard plasters were immediately administered, and I received careful watching for some hours. Finally I fell asleep, and forgot my disappointment and humiliation in being obliged to throw away three-fourths of my first cigar.—T. De Witt Talmage, in ' Brooklyn Magazine.'