I have spoken of our concerts. We were indeed a musical
ship's company, and cheered our way into exile with the fiddle, the
accordion, and the songs of all nations. Good, bad, or
indifferent--Scottish, English, Irish, Russian, German or Norse,--
the songs were received with generous applause. Once or twice, a
recitation, very spiritedly rendered in a powerful Scottish accent,
varied the proceedings; and once we sought in vain to dance a
quadrille, eight men of us together, to the music of the violin.
The performers were all humorous, frisky fellows, who loved to cut
capers in private life; but as soon as they were arranged for the
dance, they conducted themselves like so many mutes at a funeral.
I have never seen decorum pushed so far; and as this was not
expected, the quadrille was soon whistled down, and the dancers
departed under a cloud. Eight Frenchmen, even eight Englishmen
from another rank of society, would have dared to make some fun for
themselves and the spectators; but the working man, when sober,
takes an extreme and even melancholy view of personal deportment.
A fifth-form schoolboy is not more careful of dignity. He dares
not be comical; his fun must escape from him unprepared, and above
all, it must be unaccompanied by any physical demonstration. I
like his society under most circumstances, but let me never again
join with him in public gambols.
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