In answer to your question, certainly in my own case I should find
stimulants destructive to good work. I get through an immense deal of
literary work in the course of the day. I rise at eight, and seldom
put out my light until three in the morning. With lunch and dinner I
drink claret and water, and never touch stimulants of any kind except
at meals. On the other hand, I smoke from the time I have finished
breakfast until I go to bed, and should find it very difficult to
write unless smoking. I have a great circle of literary friends, and
scarce but one smokes while he works. Some take stimulants--such as
brandy and soda water-while at work; some do not, but certainly
nineteen out of twenty smoke. I believe that smoking, if not begun
until after the age of twenty-one, to be in the vast majority of cases
advantageous alike to health, temper, and intellect; for I do not
think that it is in any way deleterious to the health, while it
certainly aids in keeping away infectious diseases, malaria, fever,
&c.

While I consider a moderate use of wine and beer advantageous-except,
of course, where beer, as is often the case, affects the liver, I
regard the use of spirits as wholly deleterious, except when medically
required, and should like to see the tax upon spirits raised tenfold.
A glass of spirits and water may do no harm, but there is such a
tendency upon the part of those who use them to increase the dose, and
the end is, in that case, destruction to mind and body.

G. A. HENTY.
February 22, 1882.