Note 42 — PART III.—1822–1828

Carlyle’s habit of smoking had begun in his boyhood, probably at Ecclefechan before he came to Edinburgh University. His father, he told me, was a moderate smoker, confining himself to about an ounce of tobacco a week, and so thoughtfully as always to have a pipe ready for a friend out of that allowance. Carlyle’s allowance, in his mature life, though he was very regular in his times and seasons, must have been at least six times as much. Once, when the canister of “free-smoking York River” on his mantelpiece was nearly empty, he told me not to mind that, as he had “about half-a-stone more of the same upstairs.”—“Another tobacco anecdote of Carlyle, which I had from the late G. H. Lewes, may be worth a place here. One afternoon, when his own stock of “free-smoking York River” had come to an end, and when he had set out to walk with a friend (Lewes himself, if I recollect rightly), he stopped at a small tobacco-shop in Chelsea, facing the Thames, and went in to procure some temporary supply. The friend went in with him, and heard his dialogue with the shopkeeper. York River, having been asked for, was duly produced; but, as it was not of the right sort, Carlyle, while making a small purchase, informed the shopkeeper most particularly what the right sort was, what was its name, and at what wholesale place in the city it might be ordered. “O, we find that this suits our customers very well,” said the man. “That may be, Sir,” said Carlyle; “but you will find it best in the long run always to deal in the veracities.” The man’s impression must have been that the veracities were some peculiar curly species of tobacco, hitherto unknown to him.