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Came home: found a whole regiment of men. His honour the Recorder, who is my especial delight, Mr. ——, ——, whom I greatly affection; to these presently entered Mr. —— and Mr. ——. They one by one bade me good-by; how disagreeable that is, that good-by! Mr. —— read me a passage out of one of Jeffrey's letters, describing an English fine lady. The picture is admirable, and most faithful; they are, indeed, polished, brilliant, smooth as ice, as slippery, as treacherous, as cold. When they were all gone, Colonel —— gave me to read the descriptive sketch of the French opera, La Tentation, that has been setting all Paris wild. What an atrocious piece of blasphemy, indecency, and folly—what a thoroughly French invention. Mad people! mad people! mad people! Looked over bills, settled accounts, righted desk, tore up papers; among others, sundry anonymous love-letters that I had treasured up as specimens of the purely funny in composition, but which began to take up too much room. Dressed for dinner. After dinner, sat writing journal, and reading Contarini Fleming.
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Monday, 3d.
Rose at half-past four. The sky was black as death, but in the night winter had chopped his mantle on the earth, and there it lay, cold, and purely white, against the inky sky. Dressed: crammed away all the gleanings of the packing, and in thaw, and sleet, and rain, drove down to the steam-boat. Went directly to the cabin. On my way thither, managed to fall down half-a-dozen steep steps, and give myself as many bruises. I was picked up and led to a bed, where I slept profoundly till breakfast time. Our kinsman, Mr. ——, was our fellow-passenger: I like him mainly. After breakfast, returned to my crib. As I was removing Contarini Fleming, in order to lie down, a lady said to me, "Let me look at one of those books;" and, without further word of question of or acknowledgment, took it from my hand, and began reading. I was a little surprised, but said nothing, and went to sleep. Presently I was roused by a pull on the shoulder, and another lady, rather more civil, and particularly considerate, asked me to do her the favour of lending her the other. I said, by all manner of means, wished her at the devil, and turned round to sleep once more. Arrived at Amboy, we disembarked and bundled ourselves into our coach, ourselves, our namesake, and a pretty quiet lady, who was going, in much heaviness of heart, to see a sick child. The roads were unspeakable; the day most delightfully disagreeable. My bruises made the saltatory movements of our crazy conveyance doubly torturing; in short, all things were the perfection of misery. I attempted to read, but found it utterly impossible to do so. Arrived at the Delaware, we took boat again; and, as I was sitting very quietly reading Contarini Fleming, with the second volume lying on the stool at my feet, the same unceremonious lady who had borrowed it before snatched it up without addressing a single syllable to me, read as long as she pleased, and threw it down again in the same style when she went to dinner. Now I know that half the people here, if they were to read that in Mrs. Trollope, would say, "Oh, but you know she could not have been a lady, 'tis not fair to judge of our manners by the vulgar specimens of American society which a steam-boat may afford." Very true: but granting that she was not a lady (which she certainly was not), supposing her to have been a housemaid, or any thing else of equal pretensions to good breeding, the way to judge is by comparing her, not with ladies in other countries, but with housemaids, persons in her own condition of life; and 'tis most certain that no person whatsoever, however ignorant, low, or vulgar, in England, would have done such a thing as that. But the mixture of the republican feeling of equality peculiar to this country, and the usual want of refinement common to the lower classes of most countries, forms a singularly felicitous union of impudence and vulgarity, to be met with no where but in America.[74] Arrived at the Mansion House, which I was quite glad to see again. Installed myself in a room, and, while they brought in the packages, finished Contarini Fleming. It reminded me of Combes' book: I wonder whether he is turning phrenologist at all? those physiological principles were the bosom friends of the Combes' phrenological ones. Stowed away my things, made a delicious huge wood fire, dressed myself, and went down to dinner. Our kinsman dined with us. Mr. —— came in while we were at dinner. After dinner, came up to my room, continued unpacking and putting away my things till near nine o'clock. When we went down to tea, my father was lying on the sofa asleep, and a man was sitting with his back to the door, reading the newspaper. He looked up as we came in: it was ——, whom I greatly rejoiced to see again. During tea, he told us all the Philadelphia gossip. So the ladies are all getting up upon horses, and wearing the "Kemble cap," as they call Lady ——'s device. How she would laugh if she could hear it; how I did laugh when I did hear it. The Kemble cap, forsooth! thus it is that great originators too often lose the fame of their inventions, and that the glory of a new idea passes by the head that conceived it, to encircle, as with a halo, that of some mere imitator; thus it is that this very big world comes to be called America, and not Columbia, as it ought to; thus it is—etc., etc., etc. He sat for some time. Saw poor Mrs. ——.
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She is better, poor thing; I like her amazingly.