I am a big fan of English literature, especially that of the 19th century. Although I only recently began taking snuff, I have been aware of it as long as I can remember, probably due to so many references to it in literature. References which come to mind off the top of my head are Sherlock Holmes(not Holmes himself, but I recall characters taking out their snuffboxes), Rudyard Kipling’s Kim in which the Lama takes snuff, and Travels in Arabia Deserta in which the fortress guard sits down by the fire every night with his snuffbox to talk and drink coffee with his friends. I think it would be enjoyable to start a collection of snuff quotes from literature…
Lord Dorwin is mentioned to be a snuffer in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation
A couple of the Characters in Dickens Pickwick Papers use Snuff
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Good topic, thanks for starting it. From the Dubliners by James Joyce:
The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little house in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered under the vague name of Drapery. The drapery consisted mainly of children’s bootees and umbrellas; and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window, saying: Umbrellas Re-covered. No notice was visible now for the shutters were up. A crape bouquet was tied to the doorknocker with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned on the crape. I also approached and read:_July 1st, 1895 The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of S. Catherine’s Church, Meath Street), aged sixty-five years. R. I. P._The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead and I was disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would have gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great-coat. Perhaps my aunt would have given me a packet of High Toast for him and this present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose little clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the front of his coat. It may have been these constant showers of snuff which gave his ancient priestly garments their green faded look for the red handkerchief, blackened, as it always was, with the snuff-stains of a week, with which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quite inefficacious.
From The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting:
“Ask the boy if he has anything in his pockets that belonged to his uncle, will you, please?” So the Doctor asked him. And the boy showed them a gold ring which he wore on a piece of string around his neck because it was too big for his finger. He said his uncle gave it to him when they saw the pirates coming. Jip smelt the ring and said, “That’s no good. Ask him if he has anything else that belonged to his uncle.” Then the boy took from his pocket a great, big red handkerchief and said, “This was my uncle’s too.” As soon as the boy pulled it out, Jip shouted, “SNUFF, by Jingo!–Black Rappee snuff. Don’t you smell it? His uncle took snuff-- Ask him, Doctor.” The Doctor questioned the boy again; and he said, “Yes. My uncle took a lot of snuff.” “Fine!” said Jip. “The man’s as good as found. 'Twill be as easy as stealing milk from a kitten. Tell the boy I’ll find his uncle for him in less than a week. Let us go upstairs and see which way the wind is blowing.” “But it is dark now,” said the Doctor. “You can’t find him in the dark!” “I don’t need any light to look for a man who smells of Black Rappee snuff,” said Jip as he climbed the stairs. “If the man had a hard smell, like string, now–or hot water, it would be different. But SNUFF!–Tut, tut!”
There are some fascinating mentions of snuff on the Charles Darwin site, not strictly literature but very interesting. Search on snuff taking and you get loads of biographical stuff from his son as well as some little time capsules like lists of things not to forget on his journeys. Seems he liked Princes type and Irish, and tried as hard as we have done with cigs to get off the habit, which he thought was bad for him. At one point he kept the snuff box locked in his cellar with the key in the attic to deter him, and at one time actually kept his box with the local vicar.
Great Britain Street in Joyce’s short story was naturally renamed after Independence. Little Britain Street is still there.
And the lovely converstaion between Sam Weller and and a footman in Pickwick Papers: ‘Oh, very much so, indeed, sir,’ said the powdered-headed footman, taking Sam’s remarks as a high compliment. ‘Very much so indeed. Do you do anything in this way, Sir?’ inquired the tall footman, producing a small snuff-box with a fox’s head on the top of it. ‘Not without sneezing,’ replied Sam. ‘Why, it IS difficult, sir, I confess,’ said the tall footman. ‘It may be done by degrees, Sir. Coffee is the best practice. I carried coffee, Sir, for a long time. It looks very like rappee, sir.’ (Dickens introduces snuff fairly frequently in his works. I don’t have any proof but it seems likely the old gent was a snuffer himself?)
Not a quote, and not really literature, but I read a fascinating bio of the real Sir Richard Burton a few years ago, and it said that this truly great man was never without his silver snuff box.
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The actor Richard Burton?
Sir Richard Bruton? From The Life of Sir Richard Burton by Thomas Wright:
- Slaving at the Athenaeum, May 1885. “In May 1885, Burton obtained leave of absence, and on arriving in England he made various arrangements about the printing of The Arabian Nights and continued the work of translation. When in London he occupied rooms at the St. James’s Hotel (now the Berkeley) in Piccadilly. He used to say that the St. James’s Hotel was the best place in the world in which to do literary work, and that the finest place in the whole world was the corner of Piccadilly. Still, he spent most of his time, as usual, at the Athenaeum. Mr. H. R. Tedder, the Secretary, and an intimate friend of Burton’s, tells me that “He would work at the round table in the library for hours and hours—with nothing for refreshment except a cup of coffee and a box of snuff, which always stood at his side;” and that he was rarely without a heavy stick with a whistle at one end and a spike at the other—the spike being to keep away dogs when he was travelling in hot countries.”
An early reference to Fribourg’s, from John Pinkerton’s ‘Walpoliana’ about Horace Walpole, published in 1799: ‘Ater his coffee he tasted nothing; but his snuff box of tabac d’etrennes, from Fribourg’s, was not forgotten and was replenished from a cannister lodged in an ancient marble urn of great thickness, which stood in the window seat, and served to secure its moisture and rich flavour’ d’etrennes is carnation snuff I believe.
I will give a prize of a snuff box if anyone can get the following author and book: ‘Father Anton opened his desk drawer and took out a small rosewood and silver snuff box. He asked ‘You take snuff?’ ‘No thanks, but I wouldn’t mind a cigarette’ He passed me the cigarette box, and then snorted two generous pinches of snuff up his cavernous nostrils. I always thought people sneezed after they took snuff, but all Father Anton did was snort like a mule, and relax further into his creaky revolving chair’
@snuffster: Good form! That quote sounds somewhat familiar, but I can’t really place it. Could be my brain playing tricks… I’ll follow this with great interest.
Ummm… Maybe “The Cardinal’s Snuff Box”?
Is it Sisters, by Ada Cambridge?
Sorry guys, keep going!
dunno where the quote is from, but the work of Gogol is pretty replete with snuff references. I remember one judge having an upper lip that curled up to form a sort of ledge, and the judge kept a mound of snuff on it at all times. periodically he would send his nose down to his lip to seek out more snuff.
I think your snuff box is safe, Nigel.
The Fall from Grace of an Initiate and a Country