Mark Twain's cigar smoking was a constant source of irritation to his wife, and to many of his friends.

The novelist William Dean Howells once recalled that "whenever he had been a few days with us, the whole house had to be aired, for he smoked all over it from breakfast to bedtime. He always HIT THE SACK with a cigar in his mouth, and sometimes, mindful of my fire insurance, I went up and took it away, still burning, after he had fallen asleep."

On one occasion, Twain answered these complaints by claiming only to "smoke in moderation." How so? "Only one cigar at a time!"

---
After trying chewing tobacco (and reacting badly), Twain, who once wrote an essay called "Smoking as Inspiration," began to smoke 100 cigars per month when he was eight years old. The Mark Twain House once estimated that Twain later averaged twenty-two cigars per day. Other sources have placed the number as high as 40!

Twain, Mark (1835-1910) American humorist, writer, and lecturer noted for his autobiography and for such works as Life on the Mississippi, Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)