After that, my voyage was pleasant, as every voyage or journey is when one goes in the Lord's hand and with Him for a companion. I had no news, as the doctor had said, and I laid down all the matter of the war; though I was obliged to hear it talked of very much and in a way that was often extremely hard to bear. The English people on board seemed to think that Americans had no feeling on the subject of their country, or no country to feel about. Certainly they showed no respect for mine; and though Dr. Sandford and one or two other gentlemen could and did answer their words well and cogently, and there was satisfaction in that; yet it was a warfare I did not choose to enter into unless good breeding could be a defence on both sides. They abused Mr. Lincoln; how they abused him! they have learned better since. They abused republics in general, rejoicing openly in the ruin they affected to see before ours. Yes, the United States of America and their boasted Constitution were a vast bubble - no solidity - rather a collection of bubbles, which would go to pieces by their own contact. Specially the weight of dislike and maligning fell on the Northern portion of the country; sympathy was with the South. These natives of the free British Isles were unmistakably disposed to cheer and help on a nation of oppressors, and wished them success. It was some time before I could understand such an anomaly; at last I saw that the instinct of self-preservation was at work, and I forgave as natural, what I could not admire as noble.
This element in our little society troubled somewhat my enjoyment of the voyage. I had some patriotic nerves, if I was an American; and every one of them was often tingling with disagreeable irritation. Besides, ill-breeding is of itself always disagreeable enough; and here was ill-breeding in well- bred people, - worst of all. And I had my own private reasons for annoyance. A favourite theme with the company was the want of soldiers or generals at the North, and the impossibility that a set of mechanics and tradesmen, who knew only how to make money and keep it, should be able in chivalrous and gentlemanly exercises to cope with the Southern cavaliers, who were accustomed to sword and pistol and the use of them from their youth up. Bull Run, they said, showed what the consequence must always be, of a conflict between soldiers with the martial spirit and soldiers without it. It would be much better and cheaper for the North to succumb at once. I had Southern prejudice enough to believe there might be a good deal of truth in this, but I could not bear to hear it or to think it; for besides the question of country and right, the ruin of the North would be disaster to Mr. Thorold and me. I shunned at last all conversation with our English companions, as far as I could, and bent my thoughts forward to the joyful meeting which lay before me with father and mother and brother. Brighter and brighter the prospect grew, as each day brought it nearer; and I sat sometimes by the hour looking over the waters and resting my heart in the hope of that meeting.
"Almost in, Miss Randolph," said the doctor, coming to my side one of those times.
I brought my eyes from the dancing sea, and answered "You are glad."
"Very glad."
"What route will you take, when we get to land?"
"The shortest."
"You do not wish to see anything by the way?"
"I can see enough, after I get to them," I answered.
"You are at a happy time of life!" the doctor said after a pause.