The Anatomy of Tobacco
ours to inquire in what a pipe's excellence or goodness consists, and what kind of pipe is most likely to possess this excellence. Now a pipe that is excellent in all respects is a rare and precious thing, not to be acquired every day, and deserving of much attention when possessed. And as in the former part the principal division was into simple and complex (quoad materiam), so here the principal division will be into long and short (quoad formam). Of this I esteem the long pipe as on the whole the best, and, in a word, the most adapted for the philosopher; my reason for so doing being that there is a certain pleasure in viewing the clouds of smoke rising from the bowl at a distance from the smoker, which pleasure the short pipe cannot afford. And it having been proved that this viewing of the smoke is one of the most important, and at the same time mysterious, pleasures which it is in the power of tobacco to afford, it is evident that a pipe which increaseth the force of this pleasure is most to be commended.
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