Questions on astronomy and cigar consumption:

As I said, he maintained an interest in things astronomical, but it was
the interest of any literate man in the second half of the nineteenth
century.  One could say that he was passionately interested in dinosaurs,
for example, because he wangled a private tour of the brontosaurus at the
museum of Natural History in NYC before it opened to the public; in fact,
he was excited about it, like most people.  He wanted to attend the big
party celebrating the opening, but Livy's recent death prohibitted his
appearance.  He marvelled at astronomical distances and so on because
they were the most startling scientific discoveries of his time.  I
suspect most of the Forum subscribers are very interested in neuroscience
-- though none of us are neuroscientists -- for the same reason and in
the same way.  For the best understanding of how SLC regarded the science
of his day, read Sherman Cummings' excellent _MT and Science: Adventures
of a Mind_.

On cigar consumption:  Why yes, he did eat them!  How did you know!

No, no, no.  I mean he smoked them, and cheap ones too, which I gather
burned faster than the finer sort smoked today.  I believe Paine says
somewhere that he smoked 30 to 40 a day, but SLC himself declared after
he fell ill, in a summer 1909 letter to his Bermuda friend Elizabeth
Wallace, that "I was warned to stop smoking, which I did, for two or
three days, but it was too lonesome, and I have resumed -- in a modified
way -- 4 smokes a day instead of 40.  This will have a good effect.  On
the bank balance." (_Inventing MT_, p. 493)

Hope this clears up any misunderstanding generated by my first post, and
my humble apologies.

Andy Hoffman