A New Yorker sets out for San Francisco, as Parisians set out for Versailles or Chartres. He takes the Liverpool steamer, just as we take the little boat for Auteuil, without any more fuss, without any more preparation. Do not ask him whether he will return by the same line. Perhaps he will take it into his head to come home by China and Australia. His own country is larger than Europe itself; and France, England, Germany, Italy, Spain, even Russia,—all these names sound to his ear no more than Ohio, Pennsylvania, or any other American State.
One of my fellow-passengers, on my homeward trip in the Germanic, was a New Yorker, who, on the morning of the day the boat was to sail, left home without the least intention of crossing the Atlantic. Having made up his mind at noon, he telegraphed to his wife, "Don't wait dinner, am off to Europe," bought a bag and a few necessaries for the voyage, and calmly embarked at 3.30 for Europe.
American wives are used to this sort of telegrams, and think nothing of it.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The "XIXth Century Club."—Intellectual Activity.—Literary Evenings.—Light Everywhere.
o show the point to which intellectual activity goes in America, I cannot do better than speak of the "XIXth Century Club."
Two or three years ago, Mr. Courtlandt Palmer,[14] one of the principal inhabitants of New York—a gentleman as rich in intellectual attainments as in dollars—conceived the happy idea of inviting his friends to meet twice a month in his drawing-room, for the purpose of discussing the important questions of the day. His invitation was accepted with alacrity; and thus the club, which consists of lady members as well as gentlemen, was formed.
Nothing is more interesting than these meetings; nothing, at all events, left a deeper or more pleasurable impression upon me than these intellectual treats. Papers upon some question—political, scientific, literary, or artistic—are read, and followed by debates.