Adventures and Letters [38]
When I first came on board I thought I would not find in any new old country I was about to visit anything more foreign than the people, and I was right, but they are most amusing and I have learned a great deal. They are different from any people I know, and are the Americans we were talking about. The ones of whom I used to read in The Atlantic and Blackwood's, as traveling always and sinking out of sight whenever they reached home. They, with the exception of a Boston couple, know none of my friends or my haunts, and I have learned a great deal in meeting them. It has been most BROADENING and the change has been SUCH a rest. I had no idea of how tired I was of talking about the theater of Arts and Letters and Miss Whitney's debut and my Soul. These people are simple and unimaginative and bourgeois to a degree and as kind-hearted and apparent as animal alphabets. I do not think I have had such a complete change or rest in years, and I am sure I have not laughed so much for as long. Of course, the idea of a six months' holiday is enough to make anyone laugh at anything, but I find that besides that I was a good deal harassed and run down, and I am glad to cut off from everything and start fresh. I feel miserably selfish about it all the time.
These Germans run everything as though you were the owner of the line. The discipline is like that of the German Army or of a man-of-war, everything moves by the stroke of a bell, and they have had dances and speeches and concerts and religious services and lectures every other minute. Into all of these I have gone with much enthusiasm. We have at the captain's table Dr. Field, the editor of The Evangelist, John Russell, a Boston Democrat, who was in Congress and who has been in public life for over forty years. A Tammany sachem, who looks like and worships Tweed, and who says what I never heard an American off the stage say: "That's me. That's what I do," he says. "When I have insomnia, I don't believe in your sleeping draughts. I get up and go round to Jake Stewart's on Fourteenth Street and eat a fry or a porterhouse steak and then I sleep good---that's me." There is also a lively lady from Albany next to me and her husband, who tells anecdotes of the war just as though it had happened yesterday. Indeed, they are all so much older than I that all their talk is about things I never understood the truth about, and it is most interesting. I really do not know when I have enjoyed my meal time so much. The food is very good, although queer and German, and we generally take two hours to each sitting. Dr. Field is my especial prey and he makes me laugh until I cry. He is just like James Lewis in "A Night Off," and is always rubbing his hands and smacking his lips over his own daring exploits. I twist everything he says into meaning something dreadful, and he is instantly explaining he did not really see a bullfight, but that he walked around the outside of the building. I have promised to show him life with a capital L, and he is afraid as death of me. But he got back at me grandly last night when he presented a testimonial to the captain, and referred to the captain's wife and boy whom he is going to see after a two years' absence, at which the captain wept and everybody else wept. And Field, seeing he had made a point, waved his arms and cried, "I have never known a man who amounted to anything who had not a good wife to care for--except YOU--" he shouted, pointing at me, "and no woman will ever save YOU." At which the passengers, who fully appreciated how I had been worrying him, applauded loudly, and the Doctor in his delight at having scored on me forgot to give the captain his testimonial.
There are two nice girls on board from Chicago and a queer Southern girl who paints pictures and sings and writes poetry, and who is traveling with an odd married woman who is an invalid and who like everyone else on board has apparently spent all her life away from home. I have spent my odd time in writing the story I told Dad the night before I sailed and
These Germans run everything as though you were the owner of the line. The discipline is like that of the German Army or of a man-of-war, everything moves by the stroke of a bell, and they have had dances and speeches and concerts and religious services and lectures every other minute. Into all of these I have gone with much enthusiasm. We have at the captain's table Dr. Field, the editor of The Evangelist, John Russell, a Boston Democrat, who was in Congress and who has been in public life for over forty years. A Tammany sachem, who looks like and worships Tweed, and who says what I never heard an American off the stage say: "That's me. That's what I do," he says. "When I have insomnia, I don't believe in your sleeping draughts. I get up and go round to Jake Stewart's on Fourteenth Street and eat a fry or a porterhouse steak and then I sleep good---that's me." There is also a lively lady from Albany next to me and her husband, who tells anecdotes of the war just as though it had happened yesterday. Indeed, they are all so much older than I that all their talk is about things I never understood the truth about, and it is most interesting. I really do not know when I have enjoyed my meal time so much. The food is very good, although queer and German, and we generally take two hours to each sitting. Dr. Field is my especial prey and he makes me laugh until I cry. He is just like James Lewis in "A Night Off," and is always rubbing his hands and smacking his lips over his own daring exploits. I twist everything he says into meaning something dreadful, and he is instantly explaining he did not really see a bullfight, but that he walked around the outside of the building. I have promised to show him life with a capital L, and he is afraid as death of me. But he got back at me grandly last night when he presented a testimonial to the captain, and referred to the captain's wife and boy whom he is going to see after a two years' absence, at which the captain wept and everybody else wept. And Field, seeing he had made a point, waved his arms and cried, "I have never known a man who amounted to anything who had not a good wife to care for--except YOU--" he shouted, pointing at me, "and no woman will ever save YOU." At which the passengers, who fully appreciated how I had been worrying him, applauded loudly, and the Doctor in his delight at having scored on me forgot to give the captain his testimonial.
There are two nice girls on board from Chicago and a queer Southern girl who paints pictures and sings and writes poetry, and who is traveling with an odd married woman who is an invalid and who like everyone else on board has apparently spent all her life away from home. I have spent my odd time in writing the story I told Dad the night before I sailed and