But after all—I say this as a kind of afterthought in conclusion—why bother with success at all? I have observed that the successful people get very little real enjoyment out of life. In fact the contrary is true. If I had to choose—with an eye to having a really pleasant life—between success and ruin, I should prefer ruin every time. I have several friends who are completely ruined—some two or three times—in a large way of course; and I find that if I want to get a really good dinner, where the champagne is just as it ought to be, and where hospitality is unhindered by mean thoughts of expense, I can get it best at the house of a ruined man.
XVII. In Dry Toronto
A LOCAL STUDY OF A UNIVERSAL TOPIC
Note.—Our readers—our numerous readers—who live in Equatorial Africa, may read this under the title “In Dry Timbucto”; those who live in Central America will kindly call it “In Dry Tehauntepec.”
It may have been, for aught I know, the change from a wet to a dry atmosphere. I am told that, biologically, such things profoundly affect the human system.
At any rate I found it impossible that night—I was on the train from Montreal to Toronto—to fall asleep.
A peculiar wakefulness seemed to have seized upon me, which appeared, moreover, to afflict the other passengers as well. In the darkness of the car I could distinctly hear them groaning at intervals.
“Are they ill?” I asked, through the curtains, of the porter as he passed.
“No, sir,” he said, “they’re not ill. Those is the Toronto passengers.”