Waterbury Democrat., 1901-06-07
HOW TO GIVE UP SMOKING.

We'll truce to this sco1dingi Here in my mail I find note about man
 the mention of whose name banishes at
 once the specter of the bad penman. One of the pleasantest five-minute visits 1 have lately enjoyed was with
 the man whom Roosevelt, with his con-
 tempt for the via media even in works
 calls the most useful citizen in New
 York Jacob .Riis His coming was
 like q westerly breeze, and in minute
 We had left our desks and were laugh
 ing with him. He has the most infec-
 tlous of laughs-the laugh of the hope ful man. He was off in n moment on
 one of his jolly little stories. Burn
 your bridges, that's my motto Did
 ever tell you how quit tobacco? We'll, just gave 1t up at one blow 4Heroic,' someone remarked, doubtless having memory of successive defeats i'll q simi- lar undertaking. Yes, my wife says it was the most heroic thing ever did. I
 went up into the woods 100 miles, where there wasn't any tobacco, sent
 my guide off on an errand with the one means of travelling we had-a steam launch-and then I settled down to finish up my tobacco habit Tn week 1 was cured
 Now there are other ways of curing oneself of this habit, but the most orig inal way was pointed out to me by a portly. goOd-natured and healthy man of sixty, who looked to be not over if, ty Twenty years ago. he said, sT found that I was using too much tobac- co, for I was not without some form of nicotine every hour of the day. So one New Years eve I sat down and with q box of cigars before me decid- ed to smoke the old year out and quit At five minutes before midnight I threw the stub of my cigar into the fire and arose to retire, remarking to my wife, ! am not going to want to smoke any more She laughed at me. but I meant 1t. The next morning, before starting for the office I placed three or four cigars in my pocket as usual, and my wife, seeing the act, said trium- phantly I thought you were not go ing to smoke any more' I replied, I didn't say that; 1 said was not going to want to smoke any more If want to smoke I shall smoke But I have never smoked since that time.
 That was certainly an odd sort of mind-cure and 1t leads mo to an anec- dote of personal experience which shall not ask to be explained. One even- ing last week I turned from a news paper to a book shelf, thinking to read something soothing and substantial be- fore retiring. Glancing over the vol umes, I at length. picked up ''Plutarch's Liyes'' and began to read of our some what dissipated Socratfc friend, Alci- blades. Before I had read page feeling came upon me that an anniver- sary was connected somehow with that book. I read on but the anniversary thought haunted me and spoiled my un- derstanding of the text until I turned at last ill desperation to the fy-leaf and saw that the book was bought March 25, 1881, just twenty years be- fore! Now one can understand in q vague sort of way how he can come suddenly upon friend of whom he had just been thinking, but how a bit of writing posted on the fy-leaf of q book can reach down through twenty years ofs time and tantalize oness brain is something beyond my thought and, | am I nqt seeking ap axplanationl. Il | Boston Transcript.