Men and women forgot their griefs and leave-takings in anxiety,
and in that pleasure which usually attends agitation of the mind that does
not proceed from actual misery of our own.
Chapter IV.
Whither away so fast?
O God save you!
Even to the hall to hear what shall become
Of the great Duke of Buckingham.
HENRY VIII.
The assembling of the passengers of the large packet-ship is necessarily
an affair of coldness and distrust, especially with those who know the
world, and more particularly still when the passage is from Europe to
America. The greater sophistication of the old than of the new hemisphere,
with its consequent shifts and vices, the knowledge that the tide of
emigration sets westward, and that few abandon the home of their youth
unless impelled by misfortune at least, with other obvious causes, unite
to produce this distinction. Then come the fastidiousness of habits, the
sentiments of social castes, the refinements of breeding, and the reserves
of dignity of character, to be put in close collision with bustling
egotism, ignorance of usages, an absence of training, and downright
vulgarity of thought and practices. Although necessity soon brings these
chaotic elements into something like order, the first week commonly passes
in reconnoitring, cool civilities, and cautious concessions, to yield at
length to the never-dying charities; unless, indeed, the latter may happen
to be kept in abeyance by a downright quarrel, about midnight carousals, a
squeaking fiddle, or some incorrigible snorer.
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