Among the men whom I first met at this time, and who made an impression of lasting respect upon me, was Henry Cabot Lodge.  He was the guest of General Stewart L. Woodford, at a breakfast given in his honour in the spring of 1888 at the Hamilton Club.  General Woodford invited me, among others, to meet him.  We all came—­Mr. Benjamin A. Stillman, Mr. J.S.T.  Stranahan, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, Judge C.R.  Pratt, ex-Mayor Schroeder, Mr. John Winslow, president of the New England Society, Mr. George M. Olcott, Mr. William Copeland Wallace, Colonel Albert P. Lamb, Mr. Charles A. Moore, Mr. William B. Williams, Mr. Ethan Allen Doty, Mr. James S. Case, Mr. T.L.  Woodruff.  It was a social innovation then to arrange a gathering of this sort at 11 a.m. and call it a breakfast.  It came from England.  Mr. Lodge was only in town on a visit for a few days, chiefly, I think, to attend the annual dinner of the “Sunrise Sons,” as the members of the New England society were called.  As I read these names again, how big some of them look now, in the world’s note-book of celebrities.  Some of them were just beginning to learn the pleasant taste of ambitious careers.  Most of them had discovered that ambition was the gift of hard work.  There is more health in work than in any medicine I ever heard of.

Work is the only thing that keeps people alive.  Whatever posterity may proclaim for me, I always had the reputation of being a worker.  Perhaps for this reason I became the object of a microscopic investigation before the people in 1888.  It was the first time in my life that any notable attention had been taken of me in my own country, that was not a personal notoriety over some conflict of the hour.  Whenever the American newspaper begins to describe your home life with an air of analysis that is not libellous you are among the famous.  It took me a little while to understand this.  A man’s private life is of such indifferent character to himself, unless he be an official representative of the people, that I never quite appreciated the importance given to mine, at this time, in Brooklyn.  Chiefly because I had made money as a writer, my fellow-citizens were curious to know how, in the clerical profession, it could be made.  Articles appeared constantly in the newspapers with headlines like these—­“Dr. Talmage at Home,” “In a Clergyman’s Study,” “Dr. Talmage’s Wealth,” “Talmage Interviewed.”  Nearly all of them began with the American view point uppermost, in this fashion: 

“The American preacher lives in a luxurious home.”

“His income, from all sources, exceeds that of the President of the United States.”

“The impression is everywhere that Dr. Talmage is very rich.”