At Glasgow a room had been taken for me at a Temperance Hotel, and it
seemed to me a new and lonely sort of thing to be "on my own account" in
a strange city in a strange hotel. By the way, why are Temperance Hotels
so often lacking in cleanliness? Surely abstinence from wine and
superfluity of "matter in the wrong place" need not necessarily be
correlated in hotel-life, and yet my experience leads me to look for the
twain together. Here and there I have been to Temperance Hotels in which
water is used for other purposes than that of drinking, but these are, I
regret to say, the exceptions to a melancholy rule.

From Glasgow I went north to Aberdeen, and from Aberdeen home again to
London. A long weary journey that was, in a third-class carriage in the
cold month of February, but the labor had in it a joy that outpaid all
physical discomfort, and the feeling that I had found my work in the
world gave a new happiness to my life.

I reported my doings to the chief of our party in America, and found them
only half approved. "You should have waited till I returned, and at least
I could have saved you some discomforts," he wrote; but the discomforts
troubled me little, and I think I rather preferred the independent launch
out into lecturing work, trusting only to my own courage and ability to
win my way. So far as health was concerned, the lecturing acted as a
tonic. My chest had always been a little delicate, and when I consulted a
doctor on the possibility of my lecturing he answered: "It will either
kill you or cure you". It has entirely cured the lung weakness, and I
have grown strong and vigorous instead of being frail and delicate as of
old.

On February 28th I delivered my first lecture at the Hall of Science,
London, and was received with that warmth of greeting which Freethinkers