occasional society of the other guests in this apartment disagreeable, in consequence of their incessant smoking, and their habit of frequent spitting upon the floor. It is seldom that I find associates in inns who come up to my ideas of what is right and proper in personal habits. The most of them indulge, more or less, in devil's tattooing, in slapping of fingers, in puffing and blowing, and other noises anomalous and indescribable, often apparently merely to let the other people in the room know that they are there, and not thinking of anything in particular. Few seem to be under any sense of the propriety of subduing as much as possible all sounds connected with the animal functions, though even breathing might and ought to be managed in perfect silence. In Norway the case is particularly bad, as the gentlemen, in addition to everything else, assume the privilege of smoking and spitting in every room of every house, and even in the presence of ladies.[2] To a sensible and wellbred person all such things are as odious as they are unnecessary. It is remarkable throughout the continent how noisily men conduct themselves. They have not our sense of quietness being the perfection of refined life. At Minde a gentleman over my head made an amount of noise with his luggage and his personal movements which astonished me, for it created the idea of a vast exertion being undergone in order to produce it, as if it had been thought that there was some important object to be served by noise, and the more noise the better.