BOSTON.

Much has been said of American hospitality; too much cannot possibly be

said. Here am I in Boston, the guest of one of the foremost clubs of the

city. I sit, as I write, at my bedroom window, with a view over the

whole of Boston Common, and the beautiful spires of the Back-Bay region

beyond. I step out on my balcony, and the gilded dome of the State

House--"the Hub of the Universe"--is but a stone's-throw off. Through

the leafless branches of the trees I can see the back of St. Gaudens'

beautiful Shaw Monument, and beyond it the graceful dip of upper

Beacon-street. My room is as spacious and luxurious as heart can desire,

lighted by half a dozen electric lamps, and with a private bath-room

attached, which is itself nearly as large as the bedroom assigned me in

the "swagger" hotel of New York--an establishment, by the way, of which

it has been wittily said that its purpose is "to provide exclusiveness

for the masses." All the comforts of the club are at my command; the

rooms are delightful, the food and service excellent. In short, I could

not be more conveniently or agreeably situated. Of course I pay the club

charges for my room and meals, but it is mere hospitality to allow me to

do so. And how do I come to be established in these quarters? The little

story is absolutely commonplace, but all the more typical.

In Washington I made the acquaintance of a gentleman who invited me to

lunch at the leading diplomatic and social club. I had no claim upon him

of any sort, beyond the most casual introduction. He regaled me with

little-neck clams, terrapin, and all the delicacies of the season, and

invited to meet me half a dozen of the most interesting men in the city,

all of them strangers to me until that moment. I found myself seated

next an exceedingly amiable man, whose name I had not caught when we

were introduced. One of the first things he asked me was--not "What did

I think of America?" no one ever asked me that--but "Where was I going

next?" To Boston.

"Where was I going to put up?" I thought of going to the T---- Hotel.

"Much better go to the U---- Club," he replied; "I've no doubt they will

be able to give you a room. As soon as lunch is over, I shall telegraph

to the club and make sure that everything is ready for you." I, of

course, thanked him warmly. "But what credentials shall I present?" "You

don't require any--just present your card. I shall make it all right for

you." This was a man whom I had met ten minutes before, whose name I did

not know, and to whom I had been introduced by a man whom I barely knew!

It did not appear that he, on his side, knew or cared about anything I

had said or done in the world. He simply obeyed the national instinct of

courtesy and helpfulness. And he was as good as his word. Arriving in

Boston at a somewhat unearthly hour in the morning, I found my room

allotted me and the club servants ready to receive me with every

attention. I felt like the Prince in the fairy tale, only that I had

done nothing whatever to oblige the good fairy.

Another example. I had a letter of introduction to the Governor of one

of the States of the Union, probably (what does not always happen) the

most universally respected man in the State, and a member of one of its

oldest and most distinguished families. I left the letter, with my card,

at this gentleman's house, and in the course of a few hours received a

note from his wife, telling me that, owing to a death in the family,

they were not then entertaining at all, but saying that the Governor

would call upon me to offer me any courtesy or assistance in his power.

And so he did. He called, not once, but twice. He presented me with a

card for one of the leading clubs of the city, and if my time had

allowed me to avail myself of his courtesy, he would have put me in the

way of seeing any or all of the State institutions to the best

advantage. The governorship of an American State, let me add, is no

ornamental sinecure. This was not only a man in high position, but a

very busy man. Is there any other country where a mere letter of

introduction is so generously honoured? If so, it is to me an

undiscovered country.

These are but two cases out of a hundred. The Americans are said to be

the busiest people in the world (I have my doubts on that point), but

they have always leisure to give a stranger "a good time." Even, be it

noted, during the working hours of the day. My evenings being occupied

with theatre-going, I could not accept invitations to dinner; wherefore

those who were hospitably inclined towards me had to invite me to lunch;

and a luncheon party in America invariably absorbs the best part of an

afternoon. A score of these delightful gatherings will always remain in

my memory. The "bright" American is, to my thinking, the best talker in

the world--certainly the best talker in the English language. A light

and facile humour, a power of giving a pleasant little sparkle even to

sufficiently commonplace sayings, is in this country the rule and not

the exception. I must have met at these luncheon parties, and actually

conversed with, at least a hundred different men of all ages and

occupations, and I do not remember among them a single dull, pompous,

morose, or pedantic person. The parties did not usually exceed six or

eight in number, so that there was no necessity for breaking up into

groups. The shuttlecock of conversation was lightly bandied to and fro

across the round table. Each took his share and none took more. All

topics--even the, burning question of "expansion"--were touched upon

gaily, humorously, and in perfect good temper.

It is said that American conversation among men tends to degenerate into

a mere exchange of anecdotes. I can remember only one party which was

in the least degree open to this reproach; and there the anecdotes were

without exception so good, and so admirably told, that I, for one,

should have been sorry to exchange them for even the loftiest discourse

on Shakespeare and the musical glasses. Here, for instance, is an

example of the American gift of picturesque exaggeration. On board one

of the Florida steamboats, which have to be built with exceedingly light

draught to get over the frequent shallows of the rivers, an Englishman

accosted the captain with the remark, "I understand, captain, that you

think nothing of steaming across a meadow where there's been a heavy

fall of dew." "Well, I don't know about that," replied the captain, "but

it's true we have sometimes to send a man ahead with a watering-pot!" Or

take, again, the story of the Southern colonel who was conducted to the

theatre to see Salvini's Othello. He witnessed the performance gravely,

and remarked at the close, "That was a mighty good show, and I don't see

but the coon did as well as any of 'em." A third anecdote that charmed

me on this occasion was that of the man who, being invited to take a

drink, replied, "No, no, I solemnly promised my dear dead mother never

to touch a drop; besides, boys, it's too early in the morning; besides,

I've just had one!"

Furthermore, as I recall the party in question, I feel that I am wrong

in implying that the conversation was mainly composed of anecdotes. It

was mainly composed of narratives; but that is a different matter. There

is a clear distinction between the mere story-teller and the narrator.

Two or three of the party were brilliant narrators, and delighted us

with accounts of personal experiences, quaint character-sketches, novels

in a nutshell. One of the guests was, without exception, the most

ready-witted man I ever met. His inexhaustible gift of lightning

repartee I saw illustrated on another occasion, when he presided at the

midnight "gambol" of a Bohemian club, at which it needed the utmost tact

and presence of mind to "ride the whirlwind and direct the storm." At

the luncheon party, he related several episodes from his chequered

journalistic career in a style so easy and yet so graphic that one felt,

if they could have been taken down in shorthand, they would have been

literature ready-made. It is a clear injustice to confound such talk as

this with a mere bandying of Joe-Millers.

The one drawback to American hospitality is that it is apt to be too

profuse. I have more than once had to offer a mild protest against being

entertained by a hard-working brother journalist on a scale that would

have befitted a millionaire. The possibility of returning the compliment

in kind affords the canny Scot but poor consolation. A dinner three

times more lavish and expensive than you want is not sweetened by the

thought that you may, in turn, give your host a dinner three times more

expensive and lavish than _he_ wants. Both parties, on this system,

suffer in digestion and in pocket, while only Delmonico is the gainer.

It seems to me, on the whole, that in this country the millionaire is

too commonly allowed to fix the standard of expenditure. Society would

not be less, but more, agreeable if, instead of always emulating the

splendours of Lucullus, people now and then studied the art of Horatian

frugality. And I note that in club life, if the plutocrat sets the

standard of expenditure, the aristocrat looks to the training of the

servants. Their obsequiousness is almost painful. There is not the

slightest trace of democratic equality in their dress, their manners, or

their speech.

Take it all and all, America is a trying place of sojourn for the

aforesaid canny Scot--the man who without being stingy (oh, dear, no!)

has "all his generous impulses under perfect control." The sixpences do

not "bang" in this country: they crepitate, they crackle, as though shot

from a Maxim quick-firer. For instance, the lowest electric-trolley fare

is twopence-halfpenny. It is true that for five cents you can, if you

wish it, ride fifteen or twenty miles; but that advantage becomes

inappreciable when you don't want to ride more than half a mile. Take,

again, the harmless, necessary operation of shaving. In a good English

barber's shop it is a brief and not unpleasant process; in an American

"tonsorial parlour" it is a lingering and costly torture. One of the

many reasons which lead me to regard the Americans as a leisurely people

rather than a nation of "hustlers" is the patience with which they

submit to the long-drawn tyranny of the barber. In England, one grudges

five minutes for a shave, and one pays from fourpence to sixpence; in

America one can hardly escape in twenty-five minutes, and one pays (with

the executioner's tip)[G] from a shilling to eighteenpence. The charge

would be by no means excessive if one wanted or enjoyed all the endless

processes to which one is subjected; but for my part I would willingly

pay double to escape them. The essential part of the business, the

actual shaving, is, as a rule, badly performed, with a heavy hand, and a

good deal of needless pawing-about of the patient's head. But when the

shave is over the horrors are only beginning. First, your whole face is

cooked for several minutes in relays of towels steeped in boiling water.

Then a long series of essences is rubbed into it, generally with the

torturer's naked hand. The sequence of these essences varies in

different "parlours," but one especially loathsome hell-brew, known as

"witchhazel" is everywhere inevitable. Then your wounds have to be

elaborately doctored with stinging chemicals; your hair, which has been

hopelessly touzled in the pawing process, has to be drenched in some

sickly-smelling oil and brushed; your moustache has to be lubricated

and combed; and at last you escape from the tormentor's clutches,

irritated, enervated, hopelessly late for an important appointment, and

so reeking with unholy odours that you feel as though all great

Neptune's ocean would scarcely wash you clean again. Only once or twice

have I submitted, out of curiosity, to the whole interminable process. I

now cut it short, not without difficulty, before the "witchhazel" stage

is reached, and am regarded with blank astonishment and disapproval by

the tonsorial professor, who feels his art and mystery insulted in his

person, and is scarcely mollified by a ten-cent tip. Americans, on the

other hand, go through all these processes, and more, with stolid and

long-suffering patience. Yet this nation is credited with having

invented the maxim "Time is money," and is supposed to act up to it with

feverish consistency!

POSTSCRIPT.--As I have said a good deal about clubs in this letter, let

me add to it a word as to the influence of club life in keeping America

in touch with England. At all the leading clubs one or two English daily

papers and all the more important weekly papers are taken as a matter of

course; so that the American club-man has not the slightest difficulty

in keeping abreast of the social, political, and literary life of

England. As a matter of fact, the educated American's knowledge of

England every day puts to shame the Englishman's ignorance of America.

Reciprocity in this matter would be greatly to the advantage of both

countries. I am much mistaken if there is a single club in London where

American periodicals are so well represented on the reading-room table

as are English periodicals in every club in New York. Yet there is

assuredly no dearth of interesting weekly papers in America, some

connected with daily papers, others independent. It may be said that

they are not taken at English clubs because they would not be read. If

so, the more's the pity; but I do not think it is so; for this is a case

in which supply would beget demand. At any rate, there must be numbers

of people in London who would be glad to keep fairly in touch with

American life, if they could do so without too much trouble. Why should

there not be an Anglo-American social club, organised with the special

purpose of bringing America home (in a literal sense) to London and

England? Why should not (say) the Century Club of New York be reproduced

in London, with American periodicals as fully represented in its

news-room and reading-room as are English periodicals in an American

club of the first rank? Interest in and sympathy with America would be

the implied condition of membership; and by a judiciously-devised system

of non-resident membership, American visitors to London would be enabled

to read their home newspapers in greater comfort than at the existing

American reading-rooms, and would, moreover, come into easy contact with

sympathetically-minded Englishmen, to their mutual pleasure and profit.

Such a club might, in process of time, become a potent factor in

international relations, and form a new bond of union, of quite

appreciable strength, between the two countries.