[1843.]
Under the one word, house, are included the school-house, the
alms-house, the jail, the tavern, the dwelling-house; and the meanest
shed or cave in which men live contains the elements of all these. But
nowhere on the earth stands the entire and perfect house. The
Parthenon, St. Peter’s, the Gothic minster, the palace, the hovel, are
but imperfect executions of an imperfect idea. Who would dwell in them?
Perhaps to the eye of the gods, the cottage is more holy than the
Parthenon, for they look down with no especial favor upon the shrines
formally dedicated to them, and that should be the most sacred roof
which shelters most of humanity. Surely, then, the gods who are most
interested in the human race preside over the Tavern, where especially
men congregate. Methinks I see the thousand shrines erected to
Hospitality shining afar in all countries, as well Mahometan and
Jewish, as Christian, khans, and caravansaries, and inns, whither all
pilgrims without distinction resort.
Likewise we look in vain, east or west over the earth, to find the
perfect man; but each represents only some particular excellence. The
Landlord is a man of more open and general sympathies, who possesses a
spirit of hospitality which is its own reward, and feeds and shelters
men from pure love of the creatures. To be sure, this profession is as
often filled by imperfect characters, and such as have sought it from
unworthy motives, as any other, but so much the more should we prize
the true and honest Landlord when we meet with him.
Who has not imagined to himself a country inn, where the traveller
shall really feel _in_, and at home, and at his public-house, who was
before at his private house; whose host is indeed a _host_, and a
_lord_ of the _land_, a self-appointed brother of his race; called to
his place, beside, by all the winds of heaven and his good genius, as
truly as the preacher is called to preach; a man of such universal
sympathies, and so broad and genial a human nature, that he would fain
sacrifice the tender but narrow ties of private friendship, to a broad,
sunshiny, fair-weather-and-foul friendship for his race; who loves men,
not as a philosopher, with philanthropy, nor as an overseer of the
poor, with charity, but by a necessity of his nature, as he loves dogs
and horses; and standing at his open door from morning till night,
would fain see more and more of them come along the highway, and is
never satiated. To him the sun and moon are but travellers, the one by
day and the other by night; and they too patronize his house. To his
imagination all things travel save his sign-post and himself; and
though you may be his neighbor for years, he will show you only the
civilities of the road. But on the other hand, while nations and
individuals are alike selfish and exclusive, he loves all men equally;
and if he treats his nearest neighbor as a stranger, since he has
invited all nations to share his hospitality, the farthest travelled is
in some measure kindred to him who takes him into the bosom of his
family.
He keeps a house of entertainment at the sign of the Black Horse or the
Spread Eagle, and is known far and wide, and his fame travels with
increasing radius every year. All the neighborhood is in his interest,
and if the traveller ask how far to a tavern, he receives some such
answer as this: “Well, sir, there’s a house about three miles from
here, where they haven’t taken down their sign yet; but it’s only ten
miles to Slocum’s, and that’s a capital house, both for man and beast.”
At three miles he passes a cheerless barrack, standing desolate behind
its sign-post, neither public nor private, and has glimpses of a
discontented couple who have mistaken their calling. At ten miles see
where the Tavern stands,—really an _entertaining_ prospect,—so public
and inviting that only the rain and snow do not enter. It is no gay
pavilion, made of bright stuffs, and furnished with nuts and
gingerbread, but as plain and sincere as a caravansary; located in no
Tarrytown, where you receive only the civilities of commerce, but far
in the fields it exercises a primitive hospitality, amid the fresh
scent of new hay and raspberries, if it be summer time, and the
tinkling of cow-bells from invisible pastures; for it is a land flowing
with milk and honey, and the newest milk courses in a broad, deep
stream across the premises.
In these retired places the tavern is first of all a house—elsewhere,
last of all, or never,—and warms and shelters its inhabitants. It is as
simple and sincere in its essentials as the caves in which the first
men dwelt, but it is also as open and public. The traveller steps
across the threshold, and lo! he too is master, for he only can be
called proprietor of the house here who behaves with most propriety in
it. The Landlord stands clear back in nature, to my imagination, with
his axe and spade felling trees and raising potatoes with the vigor of
a pioneer; with Promethean energy making nature yield her increase to
supply the wants of so many; and he is not so exhausted, nor of so
short a stride, but that he comes forward even to the highway to this
wide hospitality and publicity. Surely, he has solved some of the
problems of life. He comes in at his backdoor, holding a log fresh cut
for the hearth upon his shoulder with one hand, while he greets the
newly arrived traveller with the other.
Here at length we have free range, as not in palaces, nor cottages, nor
temples, and intrude nowhere. All the secrets of housekeeping are
exhibited to the eyes of men, above and below, before and behind. This
is the necessary way to live, men have confessed, in these days, and
shall he skulk and hide? And why should we have any serious disgust at
kitchens? Perhaps they are the holiest recess of the house. There is
the hearth, after all,—and the settle, and the fagots, and the kettle,
and the crickets. We have pleasant reminiscences of these. They are the
heart, the left ventricle, the very vital part of the house. Here the
real and sincere life which we meet in the streets was actually fed and
sheltered. Here burns the taper that cheers the lonely traveller by
night, and from this hearth ascend the smokes that populate the valley
to his eyes by day. On the whole, a man may not be so little ashamed of
any other part of his house, for here is his sincerity and earnest, at
least. It may not be here that the besoms are plied most,—it is not
here that they need to be, for dust will not settle on the kitchen
floor more than in nature.
Hence it will not do for the Landlord to possess too fine a nature. He
must have health above the common accidents of life, subject to no
modern fashionable diseases; but no taste, rather a vast relish or
appetite. His sentiments on all subjects will be delivered as freely as
the wind blows; there is nothing private or individual in them, though
still original, but they are public, and of the hue of the heavens over
his house,—a certain out-of-door obviousness and transparency not to be
disputed. What he does, his manners are not to be complained of, though
abstractly offensive, for it is what man does, and in him the race is
exhibited. When he eats, he is liver and bowels, and the whole
digestive apparatus to the company, and so all admit the thing is done.
He must have no idiosyncrasies, no particular bents or tendencies to
this or that, but a general, uniform, and healthy development, such as
his portly person indicates, offering himself equally on all sides to
men. He is not one of your peaked and inhospitable men of genius, with
particular tastes, but, as we said before, has one uniform relish, and
taste which never aspires higher than a tavern-sign, or the cut of a
weather-cock. The man of genius, like a dog with a bone, or the slave
who has swallowed a diamond, or a patient with the gravel, sits afar
and retired, off the road, hangs out no sign of refreshment for man and
beast, but says, by all possible hints and signs, I wish to be
alone—good-by—farewell. But the landlord can afford to live without
privacy. He entertains no private thought, he cherishes no solitary
hour, no Sabbath day, but thinks,—enough to assert the dignity of
reason,—and talks, and reads the newspaper. What he does not tell to
one traveller, he tells to another. He never wants to be alone, but
sleeps, wakes, eats, drinks, sociably, still remembering his race. He
walks abroad through the thoughts of men, and the Iliad and Shakspeare
are tame to him, who hears the rude but homely incidents of the road
from every traveller. The mail might drive through his brain in the
midst of his most lonely soliloquy, without disturbing his equanimity,
provided it brought plenty of news and passengers. There can be no
_pro_-fanity where there is no fane behind, and the whole world may see
quite round him. Perchance his lines have fallen to him in dustier
places, and he has heroically sat down where two roads meet, or at the
Four Corners, or the Five Points, and his life is sublimely trivial for
the good of men. The dust of travel blows ever in his eyes, and they
preserve their clear, complacent look. The hourlies and half-hourlies,
the dailies and weeklies, whirl on well-worn tracks, round and round
his house, as if it were the goal in the stadium, and still he sits
within in unruffled serenity, with no show of retreat. His neighbor
dwells timidly behind a screen of poplars and willows, and a fence with
sheaves of spears at regular intervals, or defended against the tender
palms of visitors by sharp spikes,—but the traveller’s wheels rattle
over the door-step of the tavern, and he cracks his whip in the entry.
He is truly glad to see you, and sincere as the bull’s-eye over his
door. The traveller seeks to find, wherever he goes, some one who will
stand in this broad and catholic relation to him, who will be an
inhabitant of the land to him a stranger, and represent its human
nature, as the rock stands for its inanimate nature; and this is he. As
his crib furnishes provender for the traveller’s horse, and his larder
provisions for his appetite, so his conversation furnishes the
necessary aliment to his spirits. He knows very well what a man wants,
for he is a man himself, and as it were the farthest travelled, though
he has never stirred from his door. He understands his needs and
destiny. He would be well fed and lodged, there can be no doubt, and
have the transient sympathy of a cheerful companion, and of a heart
which always prophesies fair weather. And after all the greatest men,
even, want much more the sympathy which every honest fellow can give,
than that which the great only can impart. If he is not the most
upright, let us allow him this praise, that he is the most downright of
men. He has a hand to shake and to be shaken, and takes a sturdy and
unquestionable interest in you, as if he had assumed the care of you,
but if you will break your neck, he will even give you the best advice
as to the method.
The great poets have not been ungrateful to their landlords. Mine host
of the Tabard Inn, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, was an
honor to his profession:—
“A semely man our Hoste was, with alle,
For to han been an marshal in an halle.
A large man he was, with eyen stepe;
A fairer burgeis is ther nou in Chepe:
Bold of his speche, and wise, and well ytaught,
And of manhood him lacked righte naught.
Eke thereto, was he right a mery man,
And after souper plaien he began,
And spake of mirthe amonges other thinges,
Whan that we hadden made our reckoninges.”
He is the true house-band, and centre of the company—of greater
fellowship and practical social talent than any. He it is that proposes
that each shall tell a tale to while away the time to Canterbury, and
leads them himself, and concludes with his own tale:—
“Now, by my fader’s soule that is ded,
But ye be mery, smiteth of my hed:
Hold up your hondes withouten more speche.”
If we do not look up to the Landlord, we look round for him on all
emergencies, for he is a man of infinite experience, who unites hands
with wit. He is a more public character than a statesman,—a publican,
and not consequently a sinner; and surely, he, if any, should be
exempted from taxation and military duty.
Talking with our host is next best and instructive to talking with
one’s self. It is a more conscious soliloquy; as it were, to speak
generally, and try what we would say provided we had an audience. He
has indulgent and open ears, and does not require petty and particular
statements. “Heigho!” exclaims the traveller. Them’s my sentiments,
thinks mine host, and stands ready for what may come next, expressing
the purest sympathy by his demeanor. “Hot as blazes!” says the
other,—“Hard weather, sir,—not much stirring nowadays,” says he. He is
wiser than to contradict his guest in any case; he lets him go on, he
lets him travel.
The latest sitter leaves him standing far in the night, prepared to
live right on, while suns rise and set, and his “good night” has as
brisk a sound as his “good morning;” and the earliest riser finds him
tasting his liquors in the bar ere flies begin to buzz, with a
countenance fresh as the morning star over the sanded floor,—and not as
one who had watched all night for travellers. And yet, if beds be the
subject of conversation, it will appear that no man has been a sounder
sleeper in his time.
Finally, as for his moral character, we do not hesitate to say, that he
has no grain of vice or meanness in him, but represents just that
degree of virtue which all men relish without being obliged to respect.
He is a good man, as his bitters are good,—an unquestionable goodness.
Not what is called a good man,—good to be considered, as a work of art
in galleries and museums,—but a good fellow, that is, good to be
associated with. Who ever thought of the religion of an
innkeeper—whether he was joined to the Church, partook of the
sacrament, said his prayers, feared God, or the like? No doubt he has
had his experiences, has felt a change, and is a firm believer in the
perseverance of the saints. In this last, we suspect, does the
peculiarity of his religion consist. But he keeps an inn, and not a
conscience. How many fragrant charities and sincere social virtues are
implied in this, daily offering of himself to the public. He cherishes
good will to all, and gives the wayfarer as good and honest advice to
direct him on his road as the priest.
To conclude, the tavern will compare favorably with the church. The
church is the place where prayers and sermons are delivered, but the
tavern is where they are to take effect, and if the former are good,
the latter cannot be bad.