Many of the women were handsome daughters and sleek, well-fed mamas whose husbands could not leave the struggle—often the desperate struggle—for fame and fortune.
There were elderly women—well upholstered grandmamas—generally traveling in pairs.
One of them, a slim, garrulous, and affectionate lady well past her prime, was immensely proud of her feet. She was Mrs. Fraley, from Terre Haute—“a daughter of dear old Missouri,” she explained. It seemed that her feet had retained their pristine beauty through all vicissitudes, and been complimented by sundry distinguished observers. One evening she said to Betsey:
“Come down to my state-room, dearest dear, and I will show you my feet.”
She always seemed to be seeking astonishment, and was often exclaiming “Indeed!” or “How wonderful!” and I hadn't told any lies either.
We met also Mrs. Mullet, of Sioux City, a gay and copious widow of middle age, who appeared in the ship's concert with dark eyes well underscored to give them proper emphasis. She was a well-favored, sentimental lady with thick, wavy, brown hair. Her thoughts were also a bit wavy, but Betsey formed a high opinion of her. Mrs. Mullet was a neat dresser and resembled a fashion-plate. Her talk was well dressed in English accents. She often looked thoughtfully at my chin when we talked together, as if she were estimating its value as a site for a stand of whiskers. It was her apparent knowledge of art which interested Betsey. She talked art beautiful, as Sam Henshaw used to say, and was going to Italy to study it.
There were schoolma'ams going over to improve their minds, and romping, sweetfaced girls setting out to be instructed in art or music, beyond moral boundaries, and knowing not that they would take less harm among the lions and hyenas of eastern Africa. When will our women learn that the centers of art and music in Europe are generally the exact centers of moral leprosy?
There were stately, dignified, and inhuman people of the seaboard aristocracy of the East—the Europeans of America, who see only the crudeness of their own land. They have been dehorned—muleyed into freaks by degenerate habits of mind and body. A certain passenger called them the “Eunuchs of democracy,” but I wouldn't be so intemperate with the truth. One of them was the Lady Dorris, daughter of a New York millionaire, who came out of her own apartments one evening to peer laughingly into the dining-saloon, and say:
“I love to look at them; they're so very, very curious!”
Yes, we have a few Europeans in America, but I suspect that Europe is more than half American.