* * * * * _Baltimore, April 4._ I have spent the day here with some friends. Baltimore strikes one as a quiet, solid, somewhat provincial town. It is an eminently middle-class looking city. There is no great wealth in it, no great activity; but, on the other hand, there is little poverty; it is a well-to-do city _par excellence_. The famous Johns Hopkins University is here, and I am not surprised to learn that Baltimore is a city of culture and refinement. A beautiful forest, a mixture of cultivated park and wilderness, about a mile from the town, must be a source of delight to the inhabitants in summer and during the beautiful months of September and October. I was told several times that Baltimore was famous all over the States for its pretty women. They were not out to-day. And as I have not been invited to lecture in Baltimore, I must be content with hoping to be more lucky next time. * * * * * _Philadelphia, April 5._ After my lecture in Association Hall to-night, I will return to New York to spend Easter Sunday with my friends. Next Monday off again to the West, to Cincinnati again, to Chicago again, and as far as Madison, the State city of Wisconsin. [Illustration: A BALTIMORE WOMAN.] By the time this tour is finished--in about three weeks--I shall have traveled something like thirty thousand miles. The more I think of it, the more I feel the truth of this statement, which I made in "Jonathan and His Continent": To form an exact idea of what a lecture tour is in America, just imagine that you lecture to-night in London, to-morrow in Paris, then in Berlin, then in Vienna, then in Constantinople, then in Teheran, then in Bombay, and so forth. With this difference, that if you had to undertake the work in Europe, at the end of a week you would be more dead than alive. [Illustration: "THE GOOD, ATTENTIVE, POLITE CONDUCTOR OF ENGLAND."] But here you are not caged on the railroad lines, you can circulate. There is no fear of cold, no fear of hunger, and if the good, attentive, polite railway conductors of England could be induced to do duty on board the American cars, I would anytime go to America for the mere pleasure of traveling. CHAPTER XL. EASTER SUNDAY IN NEW YORK. _New York, April 6 (Easter Sunday.)_ [Illustration: A BELLOWING SOPRANO.]