The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02Stevenson, Robert Louis
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The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02
Stevenson, Robert Louis
English literature -- 19th century
This Tuesday morning we were all delighted with the change of weather,
and in the highest possible spirits. We got in a cluster like bees,
sitting between each other's feet under lee of the deck-houses. Stories
and laughter went around. The children climbed about the shrouds. White
faces appeared for the first time, and began to take on colour from the
wind. I was kept hard at work making cigarettes for one amateur after
another, and my less than moderate skill was heartily admired. Lastly,
down sat the fiddler in our midst and began to discourse his reels, and
jigs, and ballads, with now and then a voice or two to take up the air
and throw in the interest of human speech.
Through this merry and good-hearted scene there came three cabin
passengers, a gentleman and two young ladies, picking their way with
little gracious titters of indulgence, and a Lady-Bountiful air about
nothing, which galled me to the quick. I have little of the radical in
social questions, and have always nourished an idea that one person was
as good as another. But I began to be troubled by this episode. It was
astonishing what insults these people managed to convey by their
presence. They seemed to throw their clothes in our faces. Their eyes
searched us all over for tatters and incongruities. A laugh was ready at
their lips; but they were too well-mannered to indulge it in our
hearing. Wait a bit, till they were all back in the saloon, and then
hear how wittily they would depict the manners of the steerage. We were
in truth very innocently, cheerfully, and sensibly engaged, and there
was no shadow of excuse for the swaying elegant superiority with which
these damsels passed among us, or for the stiff and waggish glances of
their squire. Not a word was said; only when they were gone Mackay
sullenly damned their impudence under his breath; but we were all
conscious of an icy influence and a dead break in the course of our
enjoyment.
STEERAGE TYPES
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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