CHAPTER VII.
A Tempting Offer—The Thursday Club—Bill Nye—Visit to Young Ladies’ Schools—The Players’ Club.
New York, January 9.
On returning here, I found a most curious letter awaiting me. I must tell you that in Boston, last Monday, I made the following remarks in my lecture:
“The American is, I believe, on the road to the possession of all that can contribute to the well-being and success of a nation, but he seems to me to have missed the path that leads to real happiness. To live in a whirl is not to live well. The little French shopkeeper who locks his shop-door from half-past one, so as not to be disturbed while he is having his dinner with his wife and family, has come nearer to solving the great problem of life, ‘How to be happy,’ than the American who sticks on his door: ‘Gone to dinner, shall be back in five minutes.’ You eat too fast, and I understand why your antidyspeptic pill-makers cover your walls, your forests even, with their advertisements.”
And I named the firm of pill-makers.
The letter is from them. They offer me $1000 if I will repeat the phrase at every lecture I give during my tour in the United States.