The Blind Smoker's Cigar

1901

We are often told that a man who is smoking in the dark would be unable to tell whether his cigar were alight or no unless he could see the red glow at the end of it. So, too, a man with his eyes shut would have great difficulty in telling whether he were drinking port or sherry. Now, as I have been blind for upward of 30 years I am unluckily somewhat fairly qualified to contest the validity of this statement. I was a smoker for 20 years before my infirmity crept upon me, and I am smoking even now as I dictate this letter. In fact, I have smoked all my life.

To say that I do not know whether my cigar is alight or no because I cannot see either the smoke or the red glow at the end of the weed is simply absurd. The taste alone is sufficient to tell me accurately. The one is infinitely pleasurable and flavorable and the other exceedingly disagreeable and objectionable. Tongue, palate and odor are incontrovertible testifiers. I grant that the pleasure of smoking is lessened by the absence of the sight of the smoke, but only slightly, and to assert that I do not know whether I am smoking or not is as much as to say I do not know whether I am standing on my head or my heels. — Saturday Review.