American essays -- 19th century; Short stories, American
Take a journey at this elevation of the thermometer! Not I. Think of
the breakfastless start before daybreak--think of a twelve hours’ ride
on the sunny side of the cars, in the neighborhood of some persistent
talker, rattling untranslatable jargon into your aching ears; think of a
hurried repast, in some barbarous half-way house; amid a heterogeneous
assortment of men, women, and children, beef, pork, and mutton; minus
forks, minus spoons, minus castor, minus come-atable waiters, and four
shillings and indigestion to pay. Think of a “collision”--disemboweled
trunks, and a wooden leg; think of an arrival at a crowded hotel;
jammed, jaded, dusty, and dolorous; think of your closetless sentry-box
of a room, infested by mosquitoes and Red Rovers; bed too narrow,
window too small, candle too short, all the world and his wife a-bed,
and the geography of the house an unexplained riddle. Think of your
unrefreshing, vapor-bath sleep; think of the next morning, as seated on
a dusty trunk, with your hair drooping about your ears, through which
the whistle of the cars, and the jiggle-joggle of the brakeman, are
still resounding; you try to remember, with your hand on your bewildered
forehead, whether your breakfast robe is in the yellow trunk, or the
black trunk, and if in either, whether it is at the top, bottom, or in
the middle of the same, where your muslins and laces were deposited,
what on earth you did with your dressing comb, and where amid your
luggage, your toilet slippers may be possibly located. Think of a
summons to breakfast at this interesting moment, the sun meanwhile
streaming in through the blind chinks, with volcanic power. Think of all
that, I say.
Now if I could travel _incog._ in masculine attire, no dresses to look
after, no muslins to rumple, no bonnet to soil, no tresses to keep
smooth, with only a hat and things, a neck-tie or two, a change of--of
shirts--nothing but a moustache to twist into a horn when the dinner
bell rings; just a dip into a wash-basin, a clean dicky, a jump into a
pair of--trowsers, and above all, liberty to go where I liked, without
being stared at or questioned; a seat in a chair on its hind-legs, on a
breezy door-step, a seat on the stairs in a wide hall, “taking notes;” a
peep everywhere I chose, by lordly right of my pantaloons; nobody
nudging somebody, to inquire why Miss Spinks the authoress wore her hair
in curls instead of plaits; or making the astounding discovery that it
was hips, not hoops, that made her dress stand out--that now, would be
worth talking about: I’ll do it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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