The Art of Money Getting by P. T. Barnum
Many persons knowingly violate the laws of nature against their better impulses, for the sake of fashion. For instance, there is one thing that
nothing living except a vile worm ever naturally loved, and that is tobacco; yet how many persons there are who deliberately train an
unnatural appetite, and overcome this implanted aversion for tobacco, to such a degree that they get to love it. They have got hold of a
poisonous, filthy weed, or rather that takes a firm hold of them. Here are married men who run about spitting tobacco juice on the carpet and
floors, and sometimes even upon their wives besides. They do not kick their wives out of doors like drunken men, but their wives, I have no
doubt, often wish they were outside of the house. Another perilous feature is that this artificial appetite, like jealousy, "grows by what
it feeds on;" when you love that which is unnatural, a stronger appetite
is created for the hurtful thing than the natural desire for what is harmless. There is an old proverb which says that "habit is second
nature," but an artificial habit is stronger than nature. Take for instance, an old tobacco-chewer; his love for the "quid" is stronger
than his love for any particular kind of food. He can give up roast beef easier than give up the weed.
Young lads regret that they are not men; they would like to go to bed boys and wake up men; and to accomplish this they copy the bad habits of
their seniors. Little Tommy and Johnny see their fathers or uncles smoke a pipe, and they say, "If I could only do that, I would be a man too;
uncle John has gone out and left his pipe of tobacco, let us try it." They take a match and light it, and then puff away. "We will learn to
smoke; do you like it Johnny?" That lad dolefully replies: "Not very much; it tastes bitter;" by and by he grows pale, but he persists arid
he soon offers up a sacrifice on the altar of fashion; but the boys stick to it and persevere until at last they conquer their natural
appetites and become the victims of acquired tastes.
I speak "by the book," for I have noticed its effects on myself, having gone so far as to smoke ten or fifteen cigars a day; although I have not
used the weed during the last fourteen years, and never shall again. The more a man smokes, the more he craves smoking; the last cigar smoked
simply excites the desire for another, and so on incessantly.
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