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indifference to sights and things once brisk with interest;
tasteless stale stuff which used to be champagne; the boredom
of travel: the secret sigh behind the public smile, the private
What-in-hell-did-I-come-for!
But maybe that is your art. Maybe that is what you intend the reader to
detect and think he has made a Columbus-discovery. Then it is well
done, perfectly done. I wrote my last travel book--[Following the
Equator.]--in hell; but I let on, the best I could, that it was an
excursion through heaven. Some day I will read it, and if its lying
cheerfulness fools me, then I shall believe it fooled the reader. How
I did loathe that journey around the world!--except the sea-part and
India.
Evening. My tail hangs low. I thought I was a financier--and I bragged
to you. I am not bragging, now. The stock which I sold at such a fine
profit early in January, has never ceased to advance, and is now worth
$
60,000 more than I sold it for. I feel just as if I had been spending
20,000 a month, and I feel reproached for this showy and unbecoming
$
extravagance.
Last week I was going down with the family to Budapest to lecture,
and to make a speech at a banquet. Just as I was leaving here I got a
telegram from London asking for the speech for a New York paper. I (this
is strictly private) sent it. And then I didn't make that speech, but
another of a quite different character--a speech born of something which
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