enough, then we shall learn the trade.”  Now all this—­and I heard much of such a nature—­could not be called boasting.  But yet with it all there was a substratum of confidence.  I have heard Northern gentlemen complaining of the President, complaining of all his ministers, one after another, complaining of the contractors who were robbing the army, of the commanders who did not know how to command the army, and of the army itself, which did not know how to obey; but I do not remember that I have discussed the matter with any Northerner who would admit a doubt as to ultimate success.

We were certainly rather melancholy at Newport, and the empty house may perhaps have given its tone to the discussions on the war.  I confess that I could not stand the drawing-room—­the ladies’ drawing-room, as such like rooms are always called at the hotels—­ and that I basely deserted my wife.  I could not stand it either here or elsewhere, and it seemed to me that other husbands—­ay, and even lovers—­were as hard pressed as myself.  I protest that there is no spot on the earth’s surface so dear to me as my own drawing-room, or rather my wife’s drawing-room, at home; that I am not a man given hugely to clubs, but one rather rejoicing in the rustle of petticoats.  I like to have women in the same room with me.  But at these hotels I found myself driven away—­propelled as it were by some unknown force—­to absent myself from the feminine haunts.  Anything was more palatable than them, even “liquoring up” at a nasty bar, or smoking in a comfortless reading-room among a deluge of American newspapers.  And I protest also—­hoping as I do so that I may say much in this book to prove the truth of such protestation—­that this comes from no fault of the American women.  They are as lovely as our own women.  Taken generally, they are better instructed, though perhaps not better educated.  They are seldom troubled with mauvaise honte; I do not say it in irony, but begging that the words may be taken at their proper meaning.  They can always talk, and very often can talk well.  But when assembled together in these vast, cavernous, would-be luxurious, but in truth horribly comfortless hotel drawing-rooms, they are unapproachable.  I have seen lovers, whom I have known to be lovers, unable to remain five minutes in the same cavern with their beloved ones.

And then the music!  There is always a piano in a hotel drawing-room, on which, of course, some one of the forlorn ladies is generally employed.  I do not suppose that these pianos are in fact, as a rule, louder and harsher, more violent and less musical, than other instruments of the kind.  They seem to be so, but that, I take it, arises from the exceptional mental depression of those who have to listen to them.  Then the ladies, or probably some one lady, will sing, and as she hears her own voice ring and echo through the lofty corners and round the empty walls, she is surprised at her own force, and with increased efforts sings louder and still louder.  She is tempted to fancy that she is suddenly gifted with some power of vocal melody unknown to her before, and, filled with the glory of her own performance, shouts till the whole house rings.  At such moments she at least is happy, if no one else is so.  Looking at the general sadness of her position, who can grudge her such happiness?