Our run off the coast was favourable, and the sixth day out, we were
in the longitude of the tail of the Grand Bank. I was delighted with
my ship, which turned out to be even more than I had dared to hope
for. She behaved well under all circumstances, sailing even better
than she worked. The first ten days of our passage were prosperous,
and we were mid-ocean by the 10th of the month. During this time I had
nothing to annoy me but the ceaseless _cancans_ of my passengers.
I had heard the name of every individual of note in Salem; with
certain passages in his or her life, and began to fancy I had lived a
twelvemonth in the place. At length, I began to speculate on the
reason why this morbid propensity should exist so much stronger in
that part of the world than in any other I had visited. There was
nothing new in the disposition of the people of small places to
gossip, and it was often done in large towns; more especially those
that did not possess the tone of a capital. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
and Horace Walpole wrote gossip, but it was spiced with wit, as is
usual with the scandal of such places as London and Paris; whereas
this, to which I was doomed to listen, was nothing more than downright
impertinent, vulgar, meddling with the private affairs of all those
whom the gossips thought of sufficient importance to talk about.
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