that
confine her heaving bosom.

As for politeness, even the _ancien regime_ of the noblesse of France
put it in their pockets as if there were a general chaos--self is the
only feeling; not but that I have seen occasional traits of good-will
towards others. I once witnessed a young lady smelling to a bottle of
Eau de Cologne, as if her existence depended upon it, who handed it over
to another, whose state was even more pitiable, and I was reminded of
Sir Philip Sidney and the cup of water, as he lay wounded on the field
of battle, "Thy necessity is greater than mine." And if I might have
judged from her trembling lips and pallid countenance, it was almost an
equal act of heroism. Paddle, paddle, splash, splash, bump, thump,
bump--one would really imagine that the passengers were so many pumps,
all worked at once with the vessel by the same hundred horse power, for
there were an hundred of them about me, each as sick as a horse. "_Sic
omnes_," thought I.

I have long passed the ordeal, and even steam, and smoke, and washing
basins, and all the various discordant and revolting noises _from those_
who suffer, have no effect upon my nervous system--still was I doomed to
torment, and was very sick indeed. For some time I had been watched by
the evil eyes of one, whom the Yankees would designate, as _almighty
ugly_. He was a thin, spare man, whose accost I could well have spared,
for he had the look of a demon, and, as I soon found, was possessed with
the demon of politics. Imagine what I must have suffered when I found
out that he was a button-holder to boot. Observing that I was the only
one who was in a state to listen, he seized upon me as his victim. I,
who had fled from politics with as much horror as others have done from
the cholera--I, who had encountered all the miseries of steam
navigation, and all the steam and effluvia of close cabins, to find
myself condemned with others "alike to groan--" what with King Leopold,
and William of Nassau, and the Belgian share of the debt, and the French
and Antwerp, and his pertinacious holding of my button. "Shall I knock
him down," thought I; "he insists upon laying his hands upon me, why
should I not lay my hands upon him?" But on second consideration, that
would not have been polite; so I made other attempts to get rid of him,
but in vain; I turned the subject to far countries--the rascal had been
everywhere; at one moment he would be at Vienna, and discuss the Ge