No steam
carousel shrieked, no ballyhoo blared, no steam pianos shrieked,
no barker barked. Upon the piers, stretching out into the surf,
bands played soothingly softened airs and along the water front,
sand-artists and so-called minstrel singers plied their arts. Some
of the visitors fished - without catching anything - and some
listened to the music and some strolled aimlessly or sat stolidly
upon benches enjoying the sea air. To an American, accustomed at
such places to din and tumult and rushing crowds and dangerous
devices for taking one's breath and sometimes one's life, it was
a strange experience, but a mighty restful one.
On the other hand there are some things wherein we notably
excel - entirely too many for me to undertake to enumerate them
here; still, I think I might be pardoned for enumerating a conspicuous
few. We could teach Europe a lot about creature comforts and open
plumbing and personal cleanliness and good food and courtesy to
women - not the flashy, cheap courtesy which impels a Continental
to rise and click his heels and bend his person forward from the
abdomen and bow profoundly when a strange woman enters the railway
compartment where he is seated, while at the same time he leaves
his wife or sister to wrestle with the heavy luggage; but the
deeper, less showy instinct which makes the average American believe
that every woman is entitled to his protection and consideration
when she really needs it. In the crowded street-car he may keep
his seat; in the crowded lifeboat he gives it up.
I almost forgot to mention one other detail in which, so far as I
could judge, we lead the whole of the Old World - dentistry.
Probably you have seen frequent mention in English publications
about decayed gentlewomen. Well, England is full of them. It
starts with the teeth.
The leisurely, long, slantwise course across the Atlantic gives
one time, also, for making the acquaintance of one's fellow
passengers and for wondering why some of them ever went to Europe
anyway. A source of constant speculation along these lines was
the retired hay-and-feed merchant from Michigan who traveled with
us. One gathered that he had done little else in these latter
years of his life except to traipse back and forth between the two
continents. What particularly endeared him to the rest of us was
his lovely habit of pronouncing all words of all languages according
to a fonetic system of his own. "Yes, sir," you would hear him
say, addressing a smoking-room audience of less experienced
travelers, "my idee is that a fellow ought to go over on an English
ship, if he likes the exclusability, and come back on a German
ship if he likes the sociableness. Take my case. The last trip
I made I come over on the Lucy Tanner and went back agin on the
Grocer K. First and enjoyed it both ways immense!"
Nor would this chronicle be complete without a passing reference
to the lady from Cincinnati, a widow of independent means, who was
traveling with her two daughters and was so often mistaken for
their sister that she could not refrain from mentioning the
remarkable circumstance to you, providing you did not win her
everlasting regard by mentioning it first.
