We were a melancholy set, the ladies appearing to be afflicted in
this way worse than the gentlemen, on account of their enforced
abstinence from tobacco. What can twelve ladies do scattered about
a drawing-room, so called, intended for the accommodation of two
hundred? The drawing-room at the Ocean Hotel, Newport, is not as
big as Westminster Hall, but would, I should think, make a very
good House of Commons for the British nation. Fancy the feelings
of a lady when she walks into such a room, intending to spend her
evening there, and finds six or seven other ladies located on
various sofas at terrible distances, all strangers to her. She has
come to Newport probably to enjoy herself; and as, in accordance
with the customs of the place, she has dined at two, she has
nothing before her for the evening but the society of that huge,
furnished cavern. Her husband, if she have one, or her father, or
her lover, has probably entered the room with her. But a man has
never the courage to endure such a position long. He sidles out
with some muttered excuse, and seeks solace with a cigar. The
lady, after half an hour of contemplation, creeps silently near
some companion in the desert, and suggests in a whisper that
Newport does not seem to be very full at present.

We stayed there for a week, and were very melancholy; but in our
melancholy we still talked of the war. Americans are said to be
given to bragging, and it is a sin of which I cannot altogether
acquit them. But I have constantly been surprised at hearing the
Northern men speak of their own military achievements with anything
but self-praise. "We've been whipped, sir; and we shall be whipped
again before we've done; uncommon well whipped we shall be." "We
began cowardly, and were afraid to send our own regiments through
one of our own cities." This alluded to a demand that had been
made on the Government that troops going to Washington should not
be sent through Baltimore, because of the strong feeling for
rebellion which was known to exist in that city. President Lincoln
complied with this request, thinking it well to avoid a collision
between the mob and the soldiers. "We began cowardly, and now
we're going on cowardly, and darn't attack them. Well; when we've
been whipped often enough, then we shall learn the trade." Now all
this--and I heard much of such a nature--could not be called
boasting. But yet with it all there was a substratum of
confidence. I have heard Northern gentlemen complaining of the
President, complaining of all his ministers, one after another,
complaining of the contractors who were robbing the army, of the
commanders who did not know how to command the army, and of the
army itself, which did not know how to obey; but I do not remember
that I have discussed the matter with any Northerner who would
admit a doubt as to ultimate success.

We were certainly rather melancholy at Newport, and the empty house
may perhaps have given its tone to the discussions on the war. I
confess that I could not stand the drawing-room--the ladies'
drawing-room, as such like rooms are always called at the hotels--
and that I basely deserted my wife. I could not stand it either
here or elsewhere, and it seemed to me that other husbands--ay, and
even lovers--were as hard pressed as myself. I protest that there
is no spot on the earth's surface so dear to me as my own drawing-
room, or rather my wife's drawing-room, at home; that I am not a
man given hugely to clubs, but one rather rejoicing in the rustle
of petticoats. I like to have women in the same room with me. But
at these hotels I found myself driven away--propelled as it were by
some unknown force--to absent myself from the feminine haunts.
Anything was more palatable than them, even "liquoring up" at a
nasty bar, or smoking in a comfortless reading-room among a deluge
of American newspapers. And I protest also--hoping as I do so that
I may say much in this book to prove the truth of such
protestation--that this comes from no fault of the American women.
They are as lovely as our own women. Taken generally, they are
better instructed, though perhaps not better educated. They are
seldom troubled with mauvaise honte; I do not say it in irony, but
begging that the words may be taken at their proper meaning. They
can always talk, and very often can talk well. But when assembled
together in these vast, cavernous, would-be luxurious, but in truth
horribly comfortless hotel drawing-rooms, they are unapproachable.
I have seen lovers, whom I have known to be lovers, unable to
remain five minutes in the same cavern with their beloved ones.

And then the music! There is always a piano in a hotel drawing-
room, on which, of course, some one of the forlorn ladies is
generally employed. I do not suppose that these pianos are in
fact, as a rule, louder and harsher, more violent and less musical,
than other instruments of the kind. They seem to be so, but that,
I take it, arises from the exceptional mental depression of those
who have to listen to them. Then the ladies, or probably some one
lady, will sing, and as she hears her own voice ring and echo
through the lofty corners and round the empty walls, she is
surprised at her own force, and with increased efforts sings louder
and still louder. She is tempted to fancy that she is suddenly
gifted with some power of vocal melody unknown to her before, and,
filled with the glory of her own performance, shouts till the whole
house rings. At such moments she at least is happy, if no one else
is so. Looking at the general sadness of her position, who can
grudge her such happiness?

And then the children--babies, I should say if I were speaking of
English bairns of their age; but seeing that they are Americans, I
hardly dare to call them children. The actual age of these
perfectly-civilized and highly-educated beings may be from three to
four. One will often see five or six such seated at the long
dinner-table of the hotel, breakfasting and dining with their
elders, and going through the ceremony with all the gravity, and
more than all the decorum, of their grandfathers. When I was three


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