called up to the Creator that so many thousands of arms and legs
and bodies and heads were wanted to make this new nation, and so the
requisite amount were pitched down and then joined up without anyone's
worrying to get them en suite. Thus A seems to have received B's head with
C's arms, his own body and D's legs--and so on; not the least thought shown
in their construction. They seem rough-hewn--with foreheads too prominent
or noses too big, or too square shoulders or too deep set eyes, nearly
always too something--and the women the same; whereas the children (there
are only a few of them fortunately) are really impossible. There is one
family of the fattest boys you ever saw--simply like the pictures of the
fat boy of Peckham, and a little girl of six called Matilda. Matilda is
certainly over thirty in her conversation--she told me she was sick of
ocean travelling--her eighth voyage; and she was sick of the Continent,
too--you get no good candy there and her Momma did nothing but shop. She
has the voice of a young peacock and the repartee of a Dublin car
driver--absolutely "all there." They are fairly rich "store keepers" from
Buffalo. The mother has nerves, the father dyspepsia and the nurse is
seasick, so Matilda is quite her own mistress, and rushes over the entire
ship conversing with everyone. She is most amusing for a short time, if it
were not pathetic. She plays off one fat boy (cousins they are of hers)
against the other, and one steward against another for biscuits and
figs--with the most consummate skill. It is no wonder if this quality can
be perfected so young by Americans that they can snatch all our best young
men from us when they grow up.

I don't know how it is the most unattractive creatures of every nation seem
to be the ones who travel. There is a family of English who have the next
table to us, for instance; they make us blush for our country. The two
young men are the most impossible bounders one could meet, and I am sure
their names must be Percy and Ernest! When there was a dance last night
they smoked pipes in the faces of their partners between the valses, and
altogether were unspeakably aggressive. No American in the world would
behave like that to women. I really think the English middle classes are
the most odious--except, perhaps, the Germans--of any people on earth. And
as these are the ones other nations see most of, no wonder they hate us.

Octavia is so entertained at everything. We