Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/343

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MRS. TROLLOPE. 335 Sedition to the Tower, I would send her to make a tour of the United States. I had a little leaning towards sedition myself when I set out, but before I had half completed my tour I was quite cured." She admits that everybody at Cincinnati had as much pork, beef, hominy, and clothes as the animal man .required. Every one reveled in abundance. But — "The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is so remarkable, that I was constantly endeavoring to account for it." She was sure it did not proceed from want of intellect. On the contrary, the people of Cincinnati appeared to her to have clear heads and active minds. But — " There is no charm, no grace in their conversation. I very seldom, during my whole stay in the country, heard a sentence elegantly turned and correctly pronounced from the lips of an American." She gives her recollections of the evening parties in Cincinnati sixty years ago: " The women invariably herd together at one part of the room, and the men at the other ; but in justice to Cincinnati, I must acknowledge that this arrangement is by no means peculiar to that city, or to the western side of the Alleghanies. Sometimes a small attempt at music produces a partial reunion ; a few of the most daring youths, animated by the consciousness of curled hair and smart waistcoats, approached the piano-forte, and began to mutter a little to the half-grown pretty things, who are comparing with one another ' how many quarters' music they have had.' Where the mansion is of sufficient dignity to have two drawing-rooms, the piano, the little ladies, and the slender gentlemen are left to themselves, and on such occasions the sound of laughter is often heard to issue from among them. But the fate of the more dignified personages, who are left in the other room, is