the thoroughness that only the owner of a new house has the cruelty to
inflict on his victims, not allowing them to pass a closet or an electric
bell without having its particular use and convenience explained, forcing
them to look up coal-slides, and down air-shafts and to visit every
secret place, from the cellar to the fire-escape, I noticed that a
peculiar arrangement of the rooms repeated itself on each floor, and
several times on a floor. I remarked it to my host.
"You observe it," he said, with a blush of pride, "it is my wife's idea!
The truth is, my daughters are of a marrying age, and my sons starting
out for themselves; this house will soon be much too big for two old
people to live in alone. We have planned it so that at any time it can
be changed into an apartment house at a nominal expense. It is even
wired and plumbed with that end in view!"
This answer positively took my breath away. I looked at my host in
amazement. It was hard to believe that a man past middle age, who after
years of hardest toil could afford to put half a million into a house for
himself and his children, and store it with beautiful things, would have
the courage to look so far into the future as to see all his work undone,
his home turned to another use and himself and his wife afloat in the
world without a roof over their wealthy old heads.
Surely this was the Spirit of the Age in its purest expression, the more
strikingly so that he seemed to feel pride rather than anything else in
his ingenious combination.
He liked the city he had built in well enough now, but nothing proved to
him that he would like it later. He and his wife had lived in twenty
cities since they began their brave fight with Fortune, far away in a
little Eastern town. They had since changed their abode with each
ascending rung of the ladder of success, and beyond a faded daguerreotype
or two of their children and a few modest pieces of jewelry, stored away
in cotton, it is doubtful if they owned a single object belonging to
their early life.
Another case occurs to me. Near the village where I pass my summers,
there lived an elderly, childless couple on a splendid estate combining
everything a fastidious taste could demand. One fine morning this place
was sold, the important library divided between the village and their
native city, the furniture sold or given away,--everything went; at the
end the things no one wanted were made into a bon-fire and burned.
A neighbor asking why all this was being done was told by the lady, "We
were tired of it all and have decided to be 'Bohemians' for the rest of
our lives." This couple are now wandering about Europe and half a dozen
trunks contain their belongings.
These are, of course, extreme cases and must be taken for what they are
worth; nevertheless they are straws showing which way the wind blows,
signs of the times that he who runs may read. I do not run, but I often
saunter up our principal avenue, and always find myself wondering what
will be the future of the splendid residences that grace that
thoroughfare as it nears the Park; the ascending tide of trade is already
circling round them and each year sees one or more crumble away and
disappear.
The finer buildings may remain, turned into clubs or restaurants, but the
greater part of the newer ones are so ill-adapted to any other use than
that for which they are built that their future seems obscure.
That fashion will flit away from its present haunts there can be little
doubt; the city below the Park is sure to be given up to business, and
even the fine frontage on that green space will sooner or later be
occupied by hotels, if not stores; and he who builds with any belief in
the permanency of his surroundings must indeed be of a hopeful
disposition.
A good lady occupying a delightful corner on this same avenue, opposite a
one-story florist's shop, said:
"I shall remain here until they build across the way; then I suppose I
shall have to move."
So after all the man who is contented to live in a future apartment
house, may not be so very far wrong.
A case of the opposite kind is that of a great millionaire, who, dying,
left his house and its collections to his eldest son and his grandson
after him, on the condition that they should continue to live in it.
Here was an attempt to keep together a home with its memories and
associations. What has been the result? The street that was a charming
centre for residences twenty years ago has become a "slum;" the
unfortunate heirs find themselves with a house on their hands that they
cannot live in and are forbidden to rent or sell. As a final result the
will must in all probability be broken and the matter ended.
Of course the reason for a great deal of this is the phenomenal growth of
our larger cities. Hundreds of families who would gladly remain in their
old homes are fairly pushed out of them by the growth of business.
Everything has its limits and a time must come when our cities will cease
to expand or when centres will be formed as in London or Paris, where
generations may succeed each other in the same homes. So far, I see no
indications of any such crystallization in this our big city; we seem to
be condemned like the "Wandering Jew" or poor little "Joe" to be
perpetually "moving on."
At a dinner of young people not long ago a Frenchman visiting our
country, expressed his surprise on hearing a girl speak of "not
remembering the house she was born in." Piqued by his manner the young
lady answered:
"We are twenty-four at this table. I do not believe there is one person
here living in the house in which he or she was born." This assertion
raised a murmur of dissent around the table; on a census being taken it
proved, however, to be true.
How can one expect, under circumstances like these, to find any great
respect among young people for home life or the conservative side of
existence? They are born as it were on the wing, and on the wing will
they live.
The conditions of life in this country, although contributing largely to
such a state of affairs, must not be held, however, entirely responsible.
Underlying our civilization and culture, there is still strong in us a
wild nomadic strain inherited from a thousand generations of wandering
ancestors, which breaks out so soon as man is freed from the restraint
incumbent on bread-winning for his family. The moment there is wealth or
even a modest income insured, comes the inclination to cut loose from the
dull routine of business and duty, returning instinctively to the
migratory habits of primitive man.
We are not the only nation that has given itself up to globe-trotting; it
is strong in the English, in spite of their conservative education, and
it is surprising to see the number of formerly stay-at-home French and
Germans one meets wandering in foreign lands.
In 1855, a Londoner advertised the plan he had conceived of taking some
people over to visit the International Exhibition in Paris. For a fixed
sum paid in advance he offered to provide everything and act as courier
to the party, and succeeded with the greatest difficulty in getting
together ten people. From this modest beginning has grown the vast
undertaking that to-day covers the globe with tourists, from the frozen
seas where they "do" the midnight sun, to the deserts three thousand
miles up the Nile.
As I was returning a couple of years ago _via_ Vienna from
Constantinople, the train was filled with a party of our compatriots
conducted by an agency of this kind--simple people of small means who,
twenty years ago, would as soon have thought of leaving their homes for a
trip in the East as they would of starting off in balloons en route for
the inter-stellar spaces.
I doubted at the time as to the amount of information and appreciation
they brought to bear on their travels, so I took occasion to draw one of
the thin, unsmiling women into conversation, asking her where they
intended stopping next.
"At Buda-Pesth," she answered. I said in some amusement:
"But that was Buda-Pesth we visited so carefully yesterday."
"Oh, was it," she replied, without any visible change on her face, "I
thought we had not got there yet." Apparently it was enough for her to
be travelling; the rest was of little importance. Later in the day, when
asked if she had visited a certain old city in Germany, she told me she
had but would never go there again: "They gave us such poor coffee at the
hotel." Again later in speaking to her husband, who seemed a trifle
vague as to whether he had seen Nuremberg or not, she said:
"Why, you remember it very well; it was there you bought those nice
overshoes!"
All of which left me with some doubts in my mind as to the cultivating
influences of foreign travel on their minds.
You cannot change a leopard's spots, neither can you alter the nature of
a race, and one of the strongest characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon, is
the nomadic instinct. How often one hears people say:
"I am not going to sit at home and take care of my furniture. I want to
see something of the world before I am too old." Lately, a sprightly
maiden of uncertain years, just returned from a long trip abroad, was
asked if she intended now to settle down.
"Settle down, indeed! I'm a butterfly and I never expect to settle
down."
There is certainly food here for reflection. Why should we be more
inclined to wander than our neighbors? Perhaps it is in a measure due to
our nervous, restless temperament, which is itself the result of our
climate; but whatever the cause is, inability to remain long in one place
is having a most unfortunate influence on our social life. When everyone
is on the move or longing to be, it becomes difficult to form any but the
most superficial ties; strong friendships become impossible, the most
intimate family relations are loosened.
If one were of a speculative frame of mind and chose to take as the basis
for a calculation the increase in tourists between 1855, when the ten
pioneers started for Paris, and the number "personally conducted" over
land and sea to-day, and then glance forward at what the future will be
if this ratio of increase is maintained the result would be something too
awful for words. For if ten have become a million in forty years, what
will be the total in 1955? Nothing less than entire nations given over
to sight-seeing, passing their lives and incomes in rushing aimlessly
about.
If the facilities of communication increase as they undoubtedly will with
the demand, the prospect becomes nearer the idea of a "Walpurgis Night"
than anything else. For the earth and the sea will be covered and the
air filled with every form of whirling, flying, plunging device to get
men quickly from one place to another.
Every human being on the globe will be flying South for the cold months
and North for the hot season.
As personally conducted tours have been so satisfactory, agencies will be
started to lead us through all the stages of existence. Parents will
subscribe on the birth of their children to have them personally
conducted through life and everything explained as it is done at present
in the galleries abroad; food, lodging and reading matter, husbands and
wives will be provided by contract, to be taken back and changed if
unsatisfactory, as the big stores do with their goods. Delightful
prospect! Homes will become superfluous, parents and children will only
meet when their "tours" happen to cross each other. Our
great-grandchildren will float through life freed from every
responsibility and more perfectly independent than even that delightful
dreamer, Bellamy, ventured to predict.
No. 29--Husks
Among the Protestants driven from France by that astute and
liberal-minded sovereign Louis XIV., were a colony of weavers, who as all
the world knows, settled at Spitalfields in England, where their
descendants weave silk to this day.
On their arrival in Great Britain, before the looms could be set up and a
market found for their industry, the exiles were reduced to the last
extremity of destitution and hunger. Looking about them for anything
that could be utilized for food, they discovered that the owners of
English slaughter-houses threw away as worthless, the tails of the cattle
they killed. Like all the poor in France, these wanderers were excellent
cooks, and knew that at home such caudal appendages were highly valued
for the tenderness and flavor of the meat. To the amazement and disgust
of the English villagers the new arrivals proceeded to collect this
"refuse" and carry it home for food. As the first principle of French
culinary art is the _pot-au-feu_, the tails were mostly converted into
soup, on which the exiles thrived and feasted.
Their neighbors, envious at seeing the despised French indulging daily in
savory dishes, unknown to English palates, and tempted like "Jack's"
giant by the smell of "fresh meat," began to inquire into the matter, and
slowly realized how, in their ignorance, they had been throwing away
succulent and delicate food. The news of this discovery gradually
spreading through all classes, "ox-tail" became and has remained the
national English soup.
If this veracious tale could be twisted into a metaphor, it would serve
marvellously to illustrate the position of the entire Anglo-Saxon race,
and especially that of their American descendants as regards the Latin
peoples. For foolish prodigality and reckless, ignorant extravagance,
however, we leave our English cousins far behind.
Two American hotels come to my mind, as different in their appearance and
management as they are geographically asunder. Both are types and
illustrations of the wilful waste that has recently excited Mr. Ian
Maclaren's comment, and the woeful want (of good food) that is the
result. At one, a dreary shingle construction on a treeless island, off
our New England coast, where the ideas of the landlord and his guests
have remained as unchanged and primitive as the island itself, I found on
inquiry that all articles of food coming from the first table were thrown
into the sea; and I have myself seen chickens hardly touched, rounds of
beef, trays of vegetables, and every variety of cake and dessert tossed
to the fish.
While we were having soups so thin and tasteless that they would have
made a French house-wife blush, the ingredients essential to an excellent
"stock" were cast aside. The boarders were paying five dollars a day and
appeared contented, the place was packed, the landlord coining money, so
it was foolish to expect any improvement.
The other hotel, a vast caravansary in the South, where a fortune had
been lavished in providing every modern convenience and luxury, was the
"fad" of its wealthy owner. I had many talks with the manager during my
stay, and came to realize that most of the wastefulness I saw around me
was not his fault, but that of the public, to whose taste he was obliged
to cater. At dinner, after receiving your order, the waiter would
disappear for half an hour, and then bring your entire meal on one tray,
the over-cooked meats stranded in lakes of coagulated gravy, the entrees
cold and the ices warm. He had generally forgotten two or three
essentials, but to send back for them meant to wait another half-hour, as
his other clients were clamoring to be served. So you ate what was
before you in sulky disgust, and got out of the room as quickly as
possible.
After one of these gastronomic races, being hungry, flustered, and
suffering from indigestion, I asked mine host if it had never occurred to
him to serve a _table d'hote_ dinner (in courses) as is done abroad,
where hundreds of people dine at the same moment, each dish being offered
them in turn accompanied by its accessories.
"Of course, I have thought of it," he answered. "It would be the
greatest improvement that could be introduced into American
hotel-keeping. No one knows better than I do how disastrous the present
system is to all parties. Take as an example of the present way, the
dinner I am going to give you to-morrow, in honor of Christmas. Glance
over this _menu_. You will see that it enumerates every costly and
delicate article of food possible to procure and a long list of other
dishes, the greater part of which will not even be called for. As no
number of _chefs_ could possibly oversee the proper preparation of such a
variety of meats and sauces, all will be carelessly cooked, and as you
know by experience, poorly served.
"People who exact useless variety," he added, "are sure in some way to be
the sufferers; in their anxiety to try everything, they will get nothing
worth eating. Yet that meal will cost me considerably more than my
guests pay for their twenty-four hours' board and lodging."
"Why do it, you ask? Because it is the custom, and because it will be an
advertisement. These bills of fare will be sown broadcast over the
country in letters to friends and kept as souvenirs. If, instead of all
this senseless superfluity, I were allowed to give a _table d'hote_ meal
to-morrow, with the _chef_ I have, I could provide an exquisite dinner,
perfect in every detail, served at little tables as deftly and silently
as in a private house. I could also discharge half of my waiters, and
charge two dollars a day instead of five dollars, and the hotel would
become (what it has never been yet) a paying investment, so great would
he the saving."
"Only this morning," he continued, warming to his subject, "while
standing in the dining room, I saw a young man order and then send away
half the dishes on the _menu_. A chicken was broiled for him and
rejected; a steak and an omelette fared no better. How much do you
suppose a hotel gains from a guest like that?"
"The reason Americans put up with such poor viands in hotels is, that
home cooking in this country is so rudimentary, consisting principally of
fried dishes, and hot breads. So little is known about the proper
preparation of food that to-morrow's dinner will appear to many as the
_ne plus ultra_ of delicate living. One of the charms of a hotel for
people who live poorly at home, lies in this power to order expensive
dishes they rarely or never see on their own tables."
"To be served with a quantity of food that he has but little desire to
eat is one of an American citizen's dearest privileges, and a right he
will most unwillingly relinquish. He may know as well as you and I do,
that what he calls for will not be worth eating; that is of secondary
importance, he has it before him, and is contented."
"The hotel that attempted limiting the liberty of its guests to the
extent of serving them a _table d'hote_ dinner, would be emptied in a
week."
"A crowning incongruity, as most people are delighted to dine with
friends, or at public functions, where the meal is invariably served _a
la russe_ (another name for a _table d'hote_), and on these occasions are
only too glad to have their _menu_ chosen for them. The present way,
however, is a remnant of 'old times' and the average American, with all
his love of change and novelty, is very conservative when it comes to his
table."
What this manager did not confide to me, but what I discovered later for
myself, was that to facilitate the service, and avoid confusion in the
kitchens, it had become the custom at all the large and most of the small
hotels in this country, to carve the joints, cut up the game, and portion
out vegetables, an hour or two before meal time. The food, thus
arranged, is placed in vast steam closets, where it simmers gayly for
hours, in its own, and fifty other vapors.
Any one who knows the rudiments of cookery, will recognize that with this
system no viand can have any particular flavor, the partridges having a
taste of their neighbor the roast beef, which in turn suggests the plum
pudding it has been "chumming" with.
It is not alone in a hotel that we miss the good in grasping after the
better. Small housekeeping is apparently run on the same lines.
A young Frenchman, who was working in my rooms, told me in reply to a
question regarding prices, that every kind of food was cheaper here than
abroad, but the prejudice against certain dishes was so strong in this
country that many of the best things in the markets were never called
for. Our nation is no longer in its "teens" and should cease to act like
a foolish boy who has inherited (what appears to him) a limitless
fortune; not for fear of his coming, like his prototype in the parable,
to live on "husks" for he is doing that already, but lest like the dog of
the fable, in grasping after the shadow of a banquet he miss the simple
meal that is within his reach.
One of the reasons for this deplorable state of affairs lies in the
foolish education our girls receive. They learn so little housekeeping
at home, that when married they are obliged to begin all over again,
unless they prefer, like a majority of their friends, to let things as go
at the will and discretion of the "lady" below stairs.
At both hotels I have referred to, the families of the men interested
considered it beneath them to know what was taking place. The "daughter"
of the New England house went semi-weekly to Boston to take violin
lessons at ten dollars each, although she had no intention of becoming a
professional, while the wife wrote poetry and ignored the hotel side of
her life entirely.
The "better half" of the Florida establishment hired a palace in Rome and
entertained ambassadors. Hotels divided against themselves are apt to be
establishments where you pay for riotous living and are served only with
husks.
We have many hard lessons ahead of us, and one of the hardest will be for
our nation to learn humbly from the thrifty emigrants on our shores, the
great art of utilizing the "tails" that are at this moment being so
recklessly thrown away.
As it is, in spite of markets overflowing with every fish, vegetable, and
tempting viand, we continue to be the worst fed, most meagrely nourished
of all the wealthy nations on the face of the earth. We have a saying
(for an excellent reason unknown on the Continent) that Providence
provides us with food and the devil sends the cooks! It would be truer
to say that the poorer the food resources of a nation, the more
restricted the choice of material, the better the cooks; a small latitude
when providing for the table forcing them to a hundred clever
combinations and mysterious devices to vary the monotony of their cuisine
and tempt a palate, by custom staled.
Our heedless people, with great variety at their disposition, are unequal
to the situation, wasting and discarding the best, and making absolutely
nothing of their advantages.
If we were enjoying our prodigality by living on the fat of the land,
there would be less reason to reproach ourselves, for every one has a
right to live as he pleases. But as it is, our foolish prodigals are
spending their substance, while eating the husks!
No. 30--The Faubourg of St. Germain
There has been too much said and written in the last dozen years about
breaking down the "great wall" behind which the aristocrats of the famous
Faubourg, like the Celestials, their prototypes, have ensconced
themselves. The Chinese speak of outsiders as "barbarians." The French
ladies refer to such unfortunates as being "beyond the pale." Almost all
that has been written is arrant nonsense; that imaginary barrier exists
to-day on as firm a foundation, and is guarded by sentinels as vigilant
as when, forty years ago, Napoleon (third of the name) and his Spanish
spouse mounted to its assault.