LAKE GEORGE REVISITED.
Lake George has haunted me since I saw it. I thought to abide at peace in mine easy-chair this summer, but Lake George was not visible from my windows; and how could I let the summer days shine on its beauty and I not by to see? and then that glorious Hudson! for a sight of which I am always longing. There was no help for it; I went through the packing purgatory, and set sail. Commend me to steamboat travel over and above all the cars that ever screeched under and above ground; but, alas! steamboats have a drawback which cars have not. You get a comfortable seat on deck, on the shady side; in a chair with a back to it. You say this is pleasant, as you fold your hands—Ugh! So does a man, or a group of them near you, who have just lighted their cigars, or worse, their pipes. Puff—puff—puff; straight into your face; right and left; fore and aft. Is this the "fresh air" for which you were travelling? You reluctantly change your place. You even take a seat in the sun, to rid yourself of the smoke. Puff—puff; another smoker sits, or stands, near you; you turn disgusted away, only to encounter another group, who evidently regard the beautiful Hudson only in the light of an enormous spittoon.
Now I protest against this lack of decency and chivalry. If no other woman dare brave these gentlemen, (?) I will, though I know well what anathemas I shall incur. I call, moreover, upon all decent steamboat-captains to provide a den for these tobacco-absorbing, tobacco-emitting gentry, in some part of the boat where women are not. If they must smoke, which point I neither deny nor admit, do not suffer them to expel ladies, to whom they are so profuse in——fine speeches—to the stifling air of the ladies' cabin, to avoid it. This at least seems but reasonable and fair. The only place where one is really in no danger of this nuisance at present is in church; though I am expecting every Sunday to see boots on the tops of pews, and lighted cigars behind them. Oh, I know very well that some ladies pretend to "like it," because they had rather endure it than resign the attentions of a gentleman who don't know any better than to ask them "if it is disagreeable." Of course, it is disagreeable, for women are clean creatures; and if they tell you it is not, know that they tell you a good-natured but most unmitigated fib; and you should be ashamed of availing yourself of it to make yourselves such nuisances.
That lovely midnight glide up the Hudson! Lying dreamily on one's pillow; just asleep enough to know nothing disagreeable, and awake enough to see with half-closed eyes through your little window the white sails, and green shores, and listen to the plashing water. Daylight and Albany, with its noisy pier, seem an impertinence. "Breakfast?" ah, yes—we are human, and love coffee; but the melancholy figures and faces, as we emerge from our state-room! Rosy mouths agape; bright eyes half-veiled with heavy lids; cloaks and mantles tossed on with more haste than taste; hair tumbled, bonnets awry. Pull down your veils, ladies, and prepare yourselves for a general dislocation of every bone in your body, as you thunder up to the hotel in that omnibus, which is bound back again in exactly three seconds, for another hapless cargo.
Your "unprotected female" is to be met everywhere. Is my countenance so benevolent that she should have singled me out, as I waited at the hotel for my breakfast? There she was—with spectacles on nose, carpet-bag in hand; alert—nervous—distracted.
"Was I travelling North or South?"
Was it for want of coffee, or geography, that I curtly replied: "I haven't the least idea, Ma'am."