It is very different
from an American lady's mode of talking: there is the difference between
color and no color; the tone variegates it. One of these young ladies
spoke to me, making some remark about the weather,--the first instance I
have met with of a gentlewoman's speaking to an unintroduced gentleman.
Besides these, a middle-aged man of the lower class, and also a
gentleman's out-door servant, clad in a drab great-coat, corduroy
breeches, and drab cloth gaiters buttoned from the knee to the ankle. He
complained to the other man of the cold weather; said that a glass of
whiskey, every half-hour, would keep a man comfortable; and, accidentally
hitting his coarse foot against one of the young lady's feet, said, "Beg
pardon, ma'am,"--which she acknowledged with a slight movement of the
head. Somehow or other, different classes seem to encounter one another
in an easier manner than with us; the shock is less palpable. I suppose
the reason is that the distinctions are real, and therefore need not be
continually asserted.
Nervous and excitable persons need to talk a great deal, by way of
letting off their steam.
On board the Rock Ferry steamer, a gentleman coming into the cabin, a
voice addresses him from a dark corner, "How do you do, sir?"--"Speak
again!" says the gentleman. No answer from the dark corner; and the
gentleman repeats, "Speak again!" The speaker now comes out of the dark
corner, and sits down in a place where he can be seen.
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