I Saw One Stern-Visaged Gentleman Tormented In This Way Till He
Looked Ready To Give The Child Its "Final Quietus." [Footnote:
American
juveniles are, generally speaking, completely destitute of that agreeable
shyness which prevents English and Scotch children from annoying
Strangers.] There were angry people who had lost their portmanteaus, and
were ransacking the state-rooms in quest of them, and indolent people who
lay on the sofas reading novels and chewing tobacco. Some gentleman,
taking no heed of a printed notice, goes to the ladies' cabin to see if
his wife is safe on board, and meets with a rebuff from the stewardess,
who tells him that "gentlemen are not admitted," and, knowing that the
sense, or, as he would say, the nonsense of the community is against
him, he beats a reluctant retreat. Everybody seems to have lost somebody
or something, but in an hour or two the ladies are deep in novels, the
gentlemen in the morning papers, the children have quarrelled themselves
to sleep, and the captain has gone to smoke by the funnel.
I sat on the slip of deck with a lady from Lake Superior, niece of the
accomplished poetess Mrs. Hemans, and she tried to arouse me into
admiration of the shore of Lake Ontario; but I confess that I was too much
occupied with a race which we were running with the American steamer
Maple-leaf, to look at the flat, gloomy, forest-fringed coast. There is
an inherent love of the excitement of a race in all human beings - even old
ladies are not exempt from it, if we may believe a story which I heard on
the Mississippi.
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