IN THE UNITED STATES- 1838-1875 389 



watering-places appeared every day terribly bitten by 

 mosquitos, so that, finally, some of the guests said to 

 his negro body-servant, &quot;Bob, why don t you take pains 

 to protect your master with mosquito curtains 1&quot; To 

 which the negro answered, &quot;No use in it, sah; de fact 

 is, sah, dat in de night-time Mars Tom is too drunk to 

 care for de skeeters, and in de daytime de skeeters is 

 too drunk to care for Mars Torn/ There was also a 

 revelation of negro religious feeling in a story told me 

 regarding &quot;Thad&quot; Stevens. Mr. Stevens was in his 

 day, on many accounts, the most powerful member of 

 the House of Representatives at times a very stern 

 mentor to Mr. Lincoln, and to President Johnson a ter 

 ror. I remember him as rough and of acrid humor, but 

 with a sort of rugged power. The story was that one 

 day, while at dinner, he heard at the sideboard the crash 

 of a platter, and immediately, in a fury, called out, with 

 a bitter oath, &quot;Well, you - - idiot, what have you 



broken now?&quot; To which the negro woman answered, 

 &quot;Bress de good Lord, it ain t de third commandmunt. &quot; 

 There were various other journeys on American soil, 

 and among them a very delightful summer stay, in 1884, 

 at Nantucket; but of all the impressions upon me at 

 that period perhaps the strongest was made by a piece 

 of crass absurdity not unusual in a certain stratum of 

 American society. Making an excursion with my friend 

 President Oilman from Nantucket to the United States 

 Fisheries Station at Woods Holl, we stopped over 

 night at Martha s Vineyard, a beautiful little island 

 which has now become a sort of saints rest where, dur 

 ing the summer, a certain class of pious New Englanders 

 of the less intellectual type crowd themselves into little 

 cottages and enjoy a permanent camp-meeting. Never, 

 except, perhaps, among the dervishes of Cairo, have I 

 seen any religion more repulsive. On the evening of our 

 arrival, Gilman and I went into the large skating-rink, 

 where a German band was blowing its best, and a large 

 concourse of young men and women from the various 



