Now Was The
Time For Me To Go And Study The Brass Plate.
To such of the officers as knew about me - the doctor, the purser,
and the stewards - I appeared in the light of a broad joke.
The
fact that I spent the better part of my day in writing had gone
abroad over the ship and tickled them all prodigiously. Whenever
they met me they referred to my absurd occupation with familiarity
and breadth of humorous intention. Their manner was well
calculated to remind me of my fallen fortunes. You may be
sincerely amused by the amateur literary efforts of a gentleman,
but you scarce publish the feeling to his face. 'Well!' they would
say: 'still writing?' And the smile would widen into a laugh.
The purser came one day into the cabin, and, touched to the heart
by my misguided industry, offered me some other kind of writing,
'for which,' he added pointedly, 'you will be paid.' This was
nothing else than to copy out the list of passengers.
Another trick of mine which told against my reputation was my
choice of roosting-place in an active draught upon the cabin floor.
I was openly jeered and flouted for this eccentricity; and a
considerable knot would sometimes gather at the door to see my last
dispositions for the night. This was embarrassing, but I learned
to support the trial with equanimity.
Indeed I may say that, upon the whole, my new position sat lightly
and naturally upon my spirits. I accepted the consequences with
readiness, and found them far from difficult to bear. The steerage
conquered me; I conformed more and more to the type of the place,
not only in manner but at heart, growing hostile to the officers
and cabin passengers who looked down upon me, and day by day
greedier for small delicacies. Such was the result, as I fancy, of
a diet of bread and butter, soup and porridge. We think we have no
sweet tooth as long as we are full to the brim of molasses; but a
man must have sojourned in the workhouse before he boasts himself
indifferent to dainties. Every evening, for instance, I was more
and more preoccupied about our doubtful fare at tea. If it was
delicate my heart was much lightened; if it was but broken fish I
was proportionally downcast. The offer of a little jelly from a
fellow-passenger more provident than myself caused a marked
elevation in my spirits. And I would have gone to the ship's end
and back again for an oyster or a chipped fruit.
In other ways I was content with my position. It seemed no
disgrace to be confounded with my company; for I may as well
declare at once I found their manners as gentle and becoming as
those of any other class. I do not mean that my friends could have
sat down without embarrassment and laughable disaster at the table
of a duke. That does not imply an inferiority of breeding, but a
difference of usage. Thus I flatter myself that I conducted myself
well among my fellow-passengers; yet my most ambitious hope is not
to have avoided faults, but to have committed as few as possible.
I know too well that my tact is not the same as their tact, and
that my habit of a different society constituted, not only no
qualification, but a positive disability to move easily and
becomingly in this. When Jones complimented me - because I 'managed
to behave very pleasantly' to my fellow-passengers, was how he put
it - I could follow the thought in his mind, and knew his compliment
to be such as we pay foreigners on their proficiency in English. I
dare say this praise was given me immediately on the back of some
unpardonable solecism, which had led him to review my conduct as a
whole. We are all ready to laugh at the ploughman among lords; we
should consider also the case of a lord among the ploughmen. I
have seen a lawyer in the house of a Hebridean fisherman; and I
know, but nothing will induce me to disclose, which of these two
was the better gentleman. Some of our finest behaviour, though it
looks well enough from the boxes, may seem even brutal to the
gallery. We boast too often manners that are parochial rather than
universal; that, like a country wine, will not bear transportation
for a hundred miles, nor from the parlour to the kitchen. To be a
gentleman is to be one all the world over, and in every relation
and grade of society. It is a high calling, to which a man must
first be born, and then devote himself for life. And, unhappily,
the manners of a certain so-called upper grade have a kind of
currency, and meet with a certain external acceptation throughout
all the others, and this tends to keep us well satisfied with
slight acquirements and the amateurish accomplishments of a clique.
But manners, like art, should be human and central.
Some of my fellow-passengers, as I now moved among them in a
relation of equality, seemed to me excellent gentlemen. They were
not rough, nor hasty, nor disputatious; debated pleasantly,
differed kindly; were helpful, gentle, patient, and placid. The
type of manners was plain, and even heavy; there was little to
please the eye, but nothing to shock; and I thought gentleness lay
more nearly at the spring of behaviour than in many more ornate and
delicate societies. I say delicate, where I cannot say refined; a
thing may be fine, like ironwork, without being delicate, like
lace. There was here less delicacy; the skin supported more
callously the natural surface of events, the mind received more
bravely the crude facts of human existence; but I do not think that
there was less effective refinement, less consideration for others,
less polite suppression of self. I speak of the best among my
fellow-passengers; for in the steerage, as well as in the saloon,
there is a mixture.
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