DOI article:
Johnson, Lionel Pigot: Tobacco clouds
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27812#0155
By Lionel Johnson 1^1
meaning very little ? Nay ! let the moralist by profession give, to
whom he will, M 772anz'<yM<?, /%777Z77Mto any practical person, who
is a wise shareholder and zealous vestryman. For myself!, my
limited and dreamy self, I eschew these upright businesses ; upright
memories and meditations please me more, and to live with as
little action as may be. Action : whv do they talk of action ?
Match me, for pure activity, one evening of my dreams, when life
and death fill my mind with their messengers, and the days of old
come back to me. And now, homewards, for a little sleep ; that
profound and rich slumber at early dawn which is my choice
delight. A sleep, bathed in musical impressions, and filled with
fresh dreams, all impossible and happy ; four hours, and five, and
six perhaps : then the cathedral matin bell will chime in with my
fancies, and I shall wake harmoniously. I shall feel inhnitely
cheerful, after the spirit of the ; I shall remember
that I was once at Ware, and at Amwell, those placid haunts of
Walton. A conviction of beauty, and contentment in life will lay
hold on me, more than commonly ; it is probable that I shall read
71^ and Addison, rather than Steele, at breakfast. And
I know which paper it will be : it will be about /Fz77z7/<?
coming up to the house, with two or three hazel twigs in his hand,
fresh cut in <S7r woods. Or, if I prove faithful to my great
Lucretius : the man, not the book, for I read him in the Giuntine :
I will read that marvellous wr z?? ; that dancing masque
of beauty. For I do not read that ; it is read aloud to
me by the morning, with exquisite, bright cadences. After my
honey from the flowers of a very rustic farm, and my coffee, from
some wonderful Eastern place ; and my eggs, marked by the careful
housewife as she took them from her henhouse, covered with
stonecrop over its old tiles ; after all these delicates, now comes the
first cigarette, pungent and exhilarating. As the grey blue
clouds
meaning very little ? Nay ! let the moralist by profession give, to
whom he will, M 772anz'<yM<?, /%777Z77Mto any practical person, who
is a wise shareholder and zealous vestryman. For myself!, my
limited and dreamy self, I eschew these upright businesses ; upright
memories and meditations please me more, and to live with as
little action as may be. Action : whv do they talk of action ?
Match me, for pure activity, one evening of my dreams, when life
and death fill my mind with their messengers, and the days of old
come back to me. And now, homewards, for a little sleep ; that
profound and rich slumber at early dawn which is my choice
delight. A sleep, bathed in musical impressions, and filled with
fresh dreams, all impossible and happy ; four hours, and five, and
six perhaps : then the cathedral matin bell will chime in with my
fancies, and I shall wake harmoniously. I shall feel inhnitely
cheerful, after the spirit of the ; I shall remember
that I was once at Ware, and at Amwell, those placid haunts of
Walton. A conviction of beauty, and contentment in life will lay
hold on me, more than commonly ; it is probable that I shall read
71^ and Addison, rather than Steele, at breakfast. And
I know which paper it will be : it will be about /Fz77z7/<?
coming up to the house, with two or three hazel twigs in his hand,
fresh cut in <S7r woods. Or, if I prove faithful to my great
Lucretius : the man, not the book, for I read him in the Giuntine :
I will read that marvellous wr z?? ; that dancing masque
of beauty. For I do not read that ; it is read aloud to
me by the morning, with exquisite, bright cadences. After my
honey from the flowers of a very rustic farm, and my coffee, from
some wonderful Eastern place ; and my eggs, marked by the careful
housewife as she took them from her henhouse, covered with
stonecrop over its old tiles ; after all these delicates, now comes the
first cigarette, pungent and exhilarating. As the grey blue
clouds