This Week In Cigar History November 26–December 2

Born on November 30, 1835, celebrated American satirical novelist Samuel Langhorne Clemens (aka Mark Twain) was a devoted cigar smoker. He claimed to immoderately smoke 100 cigars per month by the age of eight.

In his 1883 essay, Smoking As Inspiration, Twain’s intake reached a self-reported 40 cigars a day. His long life, no doubt, was partially due to his declaration that “if I cannot smoke in heaven, then I shall not go” and that “I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.” His tobacco consumption, including the ever present long black El Cabbageos, were positive stimulates for his writings. An attempt to quit smoking led to a severe case of writer’s block. Aptly recounted in his book, Roughing It, Twain’s resumption of his stogy habit allowed him to finish the book in three months after two weeks of barely scribing a single chapter during a misguided attempt to quit.

Twain’s tobacco obsession found its way into a host of other opinionated essays. In one musing, titled Concerning Tobacco, Twain eschews the fancy labels and branding of cigars by sagely observing:

As concerns tobacco, there are many superstitions. And the chiefest is this—that there is a standard governing the matter, whereas there is nothing of the kind. Each man’s own preference is the only standard for him, the only one he can accept, the only one which can command him. A congress of all the tobacco-lovers in the world could not elect a standard which would be binding upon you or me, or would even much influence us.

Other wise words from Twain include his opinion:

Eating and sleeping are the only activities that should be allowed to interrupt a man’s enjoyment of his cigar.

He died on April 21, 1910.

news@doubledownmedia.com

11/26/07

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