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Had the same great reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his systems of noses, and observed my uncle Toby's deportment—what great attention he gave to every word—and as oft as he took his pipe from his mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of it—surveying it transversely as he held it betwixt his finger and his thumb—then fore-right—then this way, and then that, in all its possible directions and foreshortenings—he would have concluded my uncle Toby had got hold of the medius terminus, and was syllogizing and measuring with it the truth of each hypothesis of long noses, in order, as my father laid them before him.
Sterne: Tristram Shandy, Book III, chap. xi.
Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all their panaceas, potable gold, and philosophers stones, a soveraign remedy to all diseases … but, as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, divelish and damned tobacco, the ruine and overthrow of body and soul.
Burton: The Anatomy of Melancholy, Part. 2, Sec. 4, Mem. 2, Sub. I.
I have thought it worth while, in connection with Dr. Brill's interesting article on 'Tobacco and the Individual' which I read in proof, 1 to summarise shortly some points in the symbolism of smoking. I am aware that this subject can be convincingly treated only by means of a detailed comparative study; I nevertheless imagine that such a summary as I have made may help the non-analyst to a fuller understanding of Dr. Brill's paper.
Tobacco can symbolise faeces. Like faeces it is brown, has an