James Fenimore Cooper

Homeward Bound James Fenimore Cooper

The assembling of the passengers of a packet-ship is at all times a matter of interest to the partiesconcerned. During the western passage in particular, which can never safely be set down at less thana month, there is the prospect of being shut up for the whole of that period, within the narrowcompass of a ship, with those whom chance has brought together, influenced by all the accidentsand caprices of personal character, and a difference of nations, conditions in life, and education. Thequarter-deck, it is true, forms a sort of local distinction, and the poor creatures in the steerage seemthe rejected of Providence for the time being; but all who know life will readily comprehend that thepêle-mêle of the cabins can seldom offer anything very enticing to people of refinement and taste. Against this evil, however, there is one particular source of relief; most persons feeling a dispositionto yield to the circumstances in which they are placed, with the laudable and convenient desire torender others comfortable, in order that they may be made comfortable themselves. A man of the world and a gentleman, Mr. Effingham had looked forward to this passage with agood deal of concern, on account of his daughter, while he shrank with the sensitiveness of hishabits from the necessity of exposing one of her delicacy and plastic simplicity to the intercourse ofa ship. Accompanied by Mademoiselle Viefville, watched over by Nanny, and guarded by himselfand his kinsman, he had lost some of his apprehensions on the subject during the three probationarydays, and now took his stand in the centre of his own party to observe the new arrivals, withsomething of the security of a man who is entrenched in his own door-way.