reading-lamp left nothing to desire, the ventilation was a continuous
vaudeville entertainment, the watch-pocket was adorable, the mattress
was good. Even the road-bed was quite respectable--not equal to the best
I knew, probably, but it had the great advantage of well-tied rails, so
that as the train passed from one rail-length to the next you felt no
jar, a bliss utterly unknown in Europe. The secret of a satisfactory
"sleeper," however, does not lie in the state-room, nor in the
glittering lavatory, nor in the lamp, nor in the fan, nor in the
watch-pocket, nor in the bed, nor even in the road-bed. It lies in the
mannerisms of that brave fellow out there in front of you on the engine,
in the wind and the rain. But no one in all America seemed to appreciate
this deep truth. For myself, I was inclined to go out to the
engine-driver and say to him: "Brother, are you aware--you cannot
be--that the best European trains start with the imperceptible
stealthiness of a bad habit, so that it is impossible to distinguish
motion from immobility, and come to rest with the softness of doves
settling on the shoulders of a young girl?" ... If the fault is not the
engine-driver's, then are the brakes to blame? Inconceivable!... All
American engine-drivers are alike; and I never slept a full hour in any
American "sleeper," what with stops, starts, hootings, tollings,
whizzings round sharp corners, listening to the passage of
freight-trains, and listening to haughty conductor-admirals who
quarreled at length with newly arrived voyagers at 2 or 3 A.M.! I do not
criticize; I state. I also blame myself. There are those who could
sleep. But not everybody could sleep. Well and heartily do I remember
the moment when another friend of mine, in the midst of an interminable
scolding that was being given by a nasal-voiced conductor to a passenger
just before the dawn, exposed his head and remarked: "Has it occurred to
you that this is a sleeping-car?" In the swift silence the whirring of
my private fan could be heard.
I arrived in New York from Washington, as I arrived at all my
destinations after a night journey, in a state of enfeebled
submissiveness, and I retired to bed in a hotel. And for several hours
the hotel itself would stop and start with a jerk and whiz round
corners.
* * * * *
For many years I had dreamed of traveling by the great, the unique, the
world-renowned New York-Chicago train; indeed, it would not be a gross
exaggeration to say that I came to America in order to take that train;
and at length time brought my dream true. I boarded the thing in New
York, this especial product of the twentieth century, and yet another
thrilling moment in my life came and went! I boarded it with pride;
everybody boarded it with pride; and in every eye was the gleam: "This
is the train of trains, and I have my state-room on it." Perhaps I was
ever so slightly disappointed with the dimensions and appointments of
the state-room--I may have been expecting a whole car to myself--but the
general self-conscious smartness of the train reassured me. I wandered
into the observation-car, and saw my particular friend proudly employ
the train-telephone to inform his office that he had caught the train. I
saw also the free supply of newspapers, the library of books, the
typewriting-machine, and the stenographer by its side--all as promised.
And I knew that at the other end of the train was a dining-car, a
smoking-car, and a barber-shop. I picked up the advertising literature
scattered about by a thoughtful Company, and learned therefrom that this
train was not a mere experiment; it was the finished fruit of many
experiments, and that while offering the conveniences of a hotel or a
club, it did with regularity what it undertook to do in the way of
speed and promptness. The pamphlet made good reading!...
I noted that it pleased the Company to run two other very important
trains out of the terminus simultaneously with the unique train.
Bravado, possibly; but bravado which invited the respect of all those
who admire enterprise! I anticipated with pleasure the noble spectacle
of these three trains sailing forth together on three parallel tracks;
which pleasure was denied me. We for Chicago started last; we started
indeed, according to my poor European watch, from fifteen to thirty
seconds late!... No matter! I would not stickle for seconds:
particularly as at Chicago, by the terms of a contract which no company
in Europe would have had the grace to sign, I was to receive, for any
unthinkable lateness, compensation at the rate of one cent for every
thirty-six seconds!
Within a quarter of an hour it became evident that that train had at
least one great quality--it moved. As, in the deepening dusk, we swung
along the banks of the glorious Hudson, veiled now in the vaporous
mysteries following a red sunset, I was obliged to admit with increasing
enthusiasm that that train did move. Even the persecutors of Galileo
would never have had the audacity to deny that that train moved. And one
felt, comfortably, that the whole Company, with all the Company's
resources, was watching over its flying pet, giving it the supreme right
of way and urging it forward by hearty good-will. One felt also that the
moment had come for testing the amenities of the hotel and the club.
"Tea, please," I said, jauntily, confidently, as we entered the
spotless and appetizing restaurant-car.
The extremely polite and kind captain of the car was obviously taken
aback. But he instinctively grasped that the reputation of the train
hung in the balance, and he regained his self-possession.
"Tea?" His questioning inflection delicately hinted: "Try not to be too
eccentric."
"Tea."
"Here?"
"Here."
"I can serve it here, of course," said the captain, persuasively. "But
if you don't mind I should prefer to serve it in your state-room."
We reluctantly consented. The tea was well made and well served.
[Illustration: BREAKFAST EN ROUTE]
In an instant, as it seemed, we were crossing a dark river, on which
reposed several immense, many-storied river-steamers, brilliantly lit. I
had often seen illustrations of these craft, but never before the
reality. A fine sight-and it made me think of Mark Twain's incomparable
masterpiece, _Life on the Mississippi_, for which I would sacrifice the
entire works of Thackeray and George Eliot. We ran into a big town, full
of electric signs, and stopped. Albany! One minute late! I descended to
watch the romantic business of changing engines. I felt sure that
changing the horses of a fashionable mail-coach would be as nothing to
this. The first engine had already disappeared. The new one rolled
tremendous and overpowering toward me; its wheels rose above my head,
and the driver glanced down at me as from a bedroom window. I was
sensible of all the mystery and force of the somber monster; I felt the
mystery of the unknown railway station, and of the strange illuminated
city beyond. And I had a corner in my mind for the thought: "Somewhere
near me Broadway actually ends." Then, while dark men under the ray of a
lantern fumbled with the gigantic couplings, I said to myself that if I
did not get back to my car I should probably be left behind. I regained
my state-room and waited, watch in hand, for the jerk of restarting. I
waited half an hour. Some mishap with the couplings! We left Albany
thirty-three minutes late. Habitués of the train affected nonchalance.
One of them offered to bet me that "she would make it up." The admirals
and captains avoided our gaze.
We dined, _à la carte_; the first time I had ever dined _à la carte_ on
any train. An excellent dinner, well and sympathetically served. The
mutton was impeccable. And in another instant, as it seemed, we were
running, with no visible flags, through an important and showy street of
a large town, and surface-cars were crossing one another behind us. I
had never before seen an express train let loose in the middle of an
unprotected town, and I was _naïf_ enough to be startled. But a huge
electric sign--"Syracuse bids you welcome"--tranquilized me. We briefly
halted, and drew away from the allurement of those bright streets into
the deep, perilous shade of the open country.
I went to bed. The night differed little from other nights spent in
American sleeping-cars, and I therefore will not describe it in detail.
To do so might amount to a solecism. Enough to say that the jerkings
were possibly less violent and certainly less frequent than usual,
while, on the other hand, the halts were strangely long; one, indeed,
seemed to last for hours; I had to admit to myself that I had been to
sleep and dreamed this stoppage.
From a final cat-nap I at last drew up my blind to greet the oncoming
day, and was rewarded by one of the finest and most poetical views I
have ever seen: a misty, brown river flanked by a jungle of dark reddish
and yellowish chimneys and furnaces that covered it with shifting
canopies of white steam and of smoke, varying from the delicatest grays
to intense black; a beautiful dim gray sky lightening, and on the ground
and low, flat roofs a thin crust of snow: Toledo! A wonderful and
inspiring panorama, just as romantic in its own way as any Spanish
Toledo. Yet I regretted its name, and I regretted the grotesque names of
other towns on the route--Canaan, Syracuse, Utica, Geneva, Ceylon,
Waterloo, and odd combinations ending in "burg." The names of most of
the States are superb. What could be more beautiful than Ohio, Idaho,
Kentucky, Iowa, Missouri, Wyoming, Illinois--above all, Illinois?
Certain cities, too, have grand names. In its vocal quality "Chicago" is
a perfect prince among names. But the majority of town names in America
suffer, no doubt inevitably, from a lack of imagination and of
reflection. They have the air of being bought in haste at a big
advertising "ready-for-service" establishment.
Remembering in my extreme prostration that I was in a hotel and club,
and not in an experiment, I rang the bell, and a smiling negro
presented himself. It was only a quarter to seven in Toledo, but I was
sustained in my demeanor by the fact that it was a quarter to eight in
New York.
"Will you bring me some tea, please?"
He was sympathetic, but he said flatly I couldn't have tea, nor
anything, and that nobody could have anything at all for an hour and a
half, as there would be no restaurant-car till Elkhart, and Elkhart was
quite ninety miles off. He added that an engine had broken down at
Cleveland.
I lay in collapse for over an hour, and then, summoning my manhood,
arose. On the previous evening the hot-water tap of my toilette had
yielded only cold water. Not wishing to appear hypercritical, I had said
nothing, but I had thought. I now casually turned on the cold-water tap
and was scalded by nearly boiling water. The hot-water tap still yielded
cold water. Lest I should be accused of inventing this caprice of
plumbing in a hotel and club, I give the name of the car. It was
appropriately styled "Watertown" (compartment E).
In the corridor an admiral, audaciously interrogated, admitted that the
train was at that moment two hours and ten minutes late. As for Elkhart,
it seemed to be still about ninety miles away. I went into the
observation-saloon to cheer myself up by observing, and was struck by a
chill, and by the chilly, pinched demeanor of sundry other passengers,
and by the apologetic faces of certain captains. Already in my
state-room my senses had suspected a chill; but I had refused to believe
my senses. I knew and had known all my life that American trains were
too hot, and I had put down the supposed chill to a psychological
delusion. It was, however, no delusion. As we swept through a snowy
landscape the apologetic captains announced sadly that the engine was
not sparing enough steam to heat the whole of the train. We put on
overcoats and stamped our feet.
The train was now full of ravening passengers. And as Elkhart with
infinite shyness approached, the ravening passengers formed in files in
the corridors, and their dignity was jerked about by the speed of the
icy train, and they waited and waited, like mendicants at the kitchen
entrance of a big restaurant. And at long last, when we had ceased to
credit that any such place as Elkhart existed, Elkhart arrived. Two
restaurant-cars were coupled on, and, as it were, instantly put to the
sack by an infuriated soldiery. The food was excellent, and newspapers
were distributed with much generosity, but some passengers, including
ladies, had to stand for another twenty minutes famished at the door of
the first car, because the breakfasting accommodation of this particular
hotel and club was not designed on the same scale as its bedroom
accommodation. We reached Chicago one hundred and ten minutes late. And
to compensate me for the lateness, and for the refrigeration, and for
the starvation, and for being forced to eat my breakfast hurriedly under
the appealing, reproachful gaze of famishing men and women, an official
at the Lasalle station was good enough to offer me a couple of dollars.
I accepted them....
[Illustration: IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING
STREAM]
An unfortunate accident, you say. It would be more proper to say a
series of accidents. I think "the greatest train in the world" is
entitled to one accident, but not to several. And when, in addition to
being a train, it happens to be a hotel and club, and not an experiment,
I think that a system under which a serious breakdown anywhere between
Syracuse and Elkhart (about three-quarters of the entire journey) is
necessarily followed by starvation--I think that such a system ought to
be altered--by Americans. In Europe it would be allowed to continue
indefinitely.
Beyond question my experience of American trains led me to the general
conclusion that the best of them were excellent. Nevertheless, I saw
nothing in the organization of either comfort, luxury, or safety to
justify the strange belief of Americans that railroad traveling in the
United States is superior to railroad traveling in Europe. Merely from
habit, I prefer European trains on the whole. It is perhaps also merely
from habit that Americans prefer American trains.
* * * * *
As regards methods of transit other than ordinary railroad trains, I
have to admit a certain general disappointment in the United States. The
Elevated systems in the large cities are the terrible result of an
original notion which can only be called unfortunate. They must either
depopulate the streets through which they run or utterly destroy the
sensibility of the inhabitants; and they enormously increase and
complicate the dangers of the traffic beneath them. Indeed, in the view
of the unaccustomed stranger, every Elevated is an affliction so
appallingly hideous that no degree of convenience could atone for its
horror. The New York Subway is a masterpiece of celerity, and in other
ways less evil than an Elevated, but in the minimum decencies of travel
it appeared to me to be inferior to several similar systems in Europe.
The surface-cars in all the large cities that I saw were less smart and
less effective than those in sundry European capitals. In Boston
particularly I cannot forget the excessive discomfort of a journey to
Cambridge, made in the company of a host who had a most beautiful house,
and who gave dinners of the last refinement, but who seemed
unaccountably to look on the car journey as a sort of pleasant
robustious outing. Nor can I forget--also in Boston--the spectacle of
the citizens of Brookline--reputed to be the wealthiest suburb in the
world--strap-hanging and buffeted and flung about on the way home from
church, in surface-cars which really did carry inadequacy and brutality
to excess.
The horse-cabs of Chicago had apparently been imported second-hand
immediately after the great fire from minor towns in Italy.
[Illustration: THE STRAP-HANGERS]
There remains the supreme mystery of the vices of the American taxicab.
I sought an explanation of this from various persons, and never got one
that was convincing. The most frequent explanation, at any rate in New
York, was that the great hotels were responsible for the vices of the
American taxicab, by reason of their alleged outrageous charges to the
companies for the privilege of waiting for hire at their august
porticos. I listened with respect, but with incredulity. If the
taxicabs were merely very dear, I could understand; if they were
merely very bad, I could understand; if they were merely numerically
insufficient for the number of people willing to pay for taxicabs, I
could understand. But that they should be at once very dear, very bad,
and most inconveniently scarce, baffled and still baffles me. The sum of
real annoyance daily inflicted on a rich and busy but craven-hearted
city like New York by the eccentricity of its taxicab organization must
be colossal.
As to the condition of the roadways, the vocabulary of blame had been
exhausted long before I arrived. Two things, however, struck me in New
York which I had not heard of by report: the greasiness of the streets,
transforming every automobile into a skidding death-trap at the least
sign of moisture, and the leisureliness of the road-works. The busiest
part of Thirty-fourth Street, for example--no mean artery, either--was
torn up when I came into New York, and it was still torn up when I left.
And, lastly, why are there no island refuges on Fifth Avenue? Even at
the intersection of Fifth and Broadway there is no oasis for the pursued
wayfarer. Every European city has long ago decided that the provision of
island refuges in main thoroughfares is an act of elementary justice to
the wayfarer in his unequal and exhausting struggle with wheeled
traffic.
All these criticisms, which are severe but honest, would lose much of
their point if the general efficiency of the United States and its
delightful genius for organization were not so obvious and so impressive
to the European. In fact, it is precisely the brilliant practical
qualities of the country which place its idiosyncrasies in the matter
of transit in so startling a light.... I would not care to close this
section without a grateful reference to the very natty electric coupés,
usually driven by ladies, which are so refreshing a feature of the
streets of Chicago, and to the virtues of American private automobiles
in general.
* * * * *
It is remarkable that a citizen who cheerfully and negligently submits
to so many various inconveniences outside his home should insist on
having the most comfortable home in the world, as the American citizen
unquestionably has! Once, when in response to an interviewer I had
become rather lyrical in praise of I forget what phenomenon in the
United States, a Philadelphia evening newspaper published an editorial
article in criticism of my views. This article was entitled "Offensive
Flattery." Were I to say freely all that I thought of the American
private house, large or small, I might expose myself again to the same
accusation.
[Illustration: THE PASSENGERS ON THE ELEVATED AT NIGHT ARE ODDLY
ASSORTED.]
When I began to make the acquaintance of the American private house, I
felt like one who, son of an exiled mother, had been born abroad and had
at length entered his real country. That is to say, I felt at home. I
felt that all this practical comfort and myself had been specially
destined for each other since the beginning of time, and that fate was
at last being fulfilled. Freely I admit that until I reached America I
had not understood what real domestic comfort, generously conceived,
could be. Certainly I had always in this particular quarreled with my
own country, whose average notion of comfort still is to leave the
drawing-room (temperature 70°--near the fire) at midnight, pass by a
windswept hall and staircase (temperature 55°) to a bedroom full of fine
fresh air (temperature 50° to 40°), and in that chamber, having removed
piece by piece every bit of warm clothing, to slip, imperfectly
protected, between icy sheets and wait for sleep. Certainly I had always
contested the joyfulness of that particular process; but my imagination
had fallen short of the delicious innumerable realities of comfort in an
American home.
Now, having regained the "barbaric seats" whence I came, I read with a
peculiar expression the advertisements of fashionable country and town
residences to rent or for sale in England. Such as: "Choice residence.
Five reception-rooms. Sixteen bedrooms. Bathroom--" Or: "Thoroughly
up-to-date mansion. Six reception-rooms. Splendid hall. Billiard-room.
Twenty-four bedrooms. Two bath-rooms--" I read this literature (to be
discovered textually every week in the best illustrated weeklies), and I
smile. Also I wonder, faintly blushing, what Americans truly _do_ think
of the residential aspects of European house-property when they first
see it. And I wonder, without blushing, to what miraculous degree of
perfected comfort Americans would raise all their urban traffic if only
they cared enough to keep the professional politician out of their
streets as strictly as they keep him out of their houses.
* * * * *
The great American hotel, too, is a wondrous haven for the European who
in Europe has only tasted comfort in his dreams. The calm orderliness of
the bedroom floors, the adequacy of wardrobes and lamps, the reckless
profusion of clean linen, that charming notice which one finds under
one's door in the morning, "You were called at seven-thirty, and
answered," the fundamental principle that a bedroom without a bath-room
is not a bedroom, the magic laundry which returns your effects duly
starched in eight hours, the bells which are answered immediately, the
thickness of the walls, the radiator in the elevator-shaft, the
celestial invention of the floor-clerk--I could catalogue the civilizing
features of the American hotel for pages. But the great American hotel
is a classic, and to praise it may seem inept. My one excuse for doing
so is that I have ever been a devotee of hotels, and once indeed wrote a
whole book about one. When I told the best interviewer in the United
States that my secret ambition had always been to be the manager of a
grand hotel, I was quite sincere. And whenever I saw the manager of a
great American hotel traversing with preoccupied and yet aquiline glance
his corridors and public rooms, I envied him acutely.
[Illustration: THE RESTAURANT OF A GREAT HOTEL IS BUT ONE FEATURE OF ITS
SPLENDOR]
The hospitality of those corridors and public rooms is so wide and
comprehensive that the ground floor and mezzanine of a really big hotel
in the United States offer a spectacle of humanity such as cannot be
seen in Europe; they offer also a remarkable contrast to the
tranquillity of their own upper stories, where any eccentricity is
vigorously discouraged. I think that it must be the vast tumult and
promiscuity of the ground floor which is responsible for the relative
inferiority of the restaurant in a great American hotel. A restaurant
should be a paramount unit, but as a fact in these hotels it is no
more than an item in a series of resorts, several of which equal if they
do not surpass it in popular interest. The Americans, I found, would
show more interest in the barber-shop than in the restaurant. (And to
see the American man of business, theoretically in a hurry, having his
head bumped about by a hair-cutter, his right hand tended by one
manicurist, his left hand tended by another manicurist, his boots
polished by a lightning shiner, and his wits polished by the two
manicurists together--the whole simultaneously--this spectacle in itself
was possibly a reflection on the American's sense of proportion.)
Further, a restaurant should be a sacred retreat, screened away from the
world; which ideal is foreign to the very spirit of the great American
hotel.