The leaf that is lodged in some sunny dell, after drifting on the
whirlwind—the Indian’s canoe, after it has shot the rapids—the drop of
water that has struggled out from the phlegethon of Niagara, and sleeps
on the tranquil bosom of Ontario—are faint images of contrast and
repose, compared with a Washingtonian after the session. I have read
somewhere, in an oriental tale, that a lover, having agreed to share his
life with his dying mistress, took her place in the grave six months in
the year. In Bagdad it might have been a sacrifice. In Washington I
could conceive such an arrangement to make very little difference.
Nothing is done leisurely in our country; and, by the haste with which
everybody rushes to the rail-road the morning after the rising of
Congress, you would fancy that the cars, like Cinderella’s coach would
be changed into pumpkins at the stroke of twelve. The town was evacuated
_in a day_. On the fifth of March a placard was sent back by the
inn-keepers at Baltimore, declaring that there was not so much as a
garret to be had in that city, and imploring gentlemen and ladies to
remain quietly at Washington for twenty-four hours. The railroad engine
twice a day, tugged and puffed away through the hills, drawing after it,
on its sinuous course, a train of brick colored cars, that resembled the
fabulous red dragon trailing its slimy length through the valley of
Crete. The gentlemen who sit by the fire in the bar-room at Gadsby’s,
like Theodore Hook’s secretary, who could hear his master write “Yours
faithfully” in the next room, learned to distinguish “Received payment,”
from “Sundries,” by listening to the ceaseless scratch of the
book-keeper. The ticket-office at the depot was a scene of struggle and
confusion between those who wanted places; while, looking their last on
these vanishing paymasters, stood hundreds of tatterdemalions, white,
yellow, and black, with their hands in their pockets, and (if sincere
regret at their departure could have wrung it forth) a tear in their
eye. The bell rang, and the six hundred departures flocked to their
places—young ladies, with long faces, leaving the delights of
Washington for the dull repose of the country—their lovers, with longer
faces, trying, in vain, to solve the X quantity expressed by the
aforesaid “Sundries” in their bill—and members of congress with long
faces, too—for not one in twenty has “made the impression” he expected;
and he is moralizing on the decline of the taste for eloquence, and on
the want of “golden opportunity” for the display of indignant virtue!
Nothing but an army, or such a concourse of people as collects to
witness an inauguration, could ever make Washington look populous. But
when Congress, and its train of ten thousand casual visiters are gone,
and only the official and indigenous inhabitants remain, Balbec, or
Palmyra, with a dozen Arabs scattered among its ruins, has less a look
of desolation. The few stragglers in the streets add to its
loneliness—producing exactly the effect sometimes given to a woodland
solitude by the presence of a single bird. The vast streets seem grown
vaster and more disproportionate—the houses seem straggling to greater
distances—the walk from the President’s house to the capitol seems
twice as long—and new faces are seen here and there, at the doors and
windows—for cooks and inn-keepers that had never time to lounge, lounge
now, and their families take quiet possession of the unrented front
parlor. He who would be reminded of his departed friends should walk
down on the avenue. The carpet, associated with so many pleasant
recollections—which has been pressed by the dainty feet of wits and
beauties—to tread on which was a privilege and a delight—is displayed
on a heap of old furniture, and while its sacred defects are rudely
scanned by the curious, is knocked down, with all its memories, under
the hammer of the auctioneer. Tables, chairs, ottomans—all linked with
the same glowing recollections—go—for most unworthy prices; and while,
humiliated with the sight, you wonder at the artificial value given to
things by their possessors, you begin to wonder whether your friends
themselves, subjected to the same searching valuation, would not be
depreciated too! Ten to one, if their characters were displayed like
their carpets, there would come to light defects as unsuspected!
The person to whom this desolation is the “unkindest cut” is the
hackney-coachman. “His vocation” is emphatically _gone_! _Gone_ is the
dollar made every successive half hour! _Gone_ is the pleasant sum in
compound addition, done “in the head,” while waiting at the doors of the
public offices! _Gone_ are the short, but profitable trips to the
theatre! _Gone_ the four or five families, all taken the same evening to
parties, and each paying the item of “carriage from nine till twelve!”
_Gone_ the absorbed politician, who would rather give the five-dollar
bill than wait for his change! the lady who sends the driver to be paid
at “the bar;” the uplifted fingers, hither and thither, which embarrass
his choice of a fare—_gone_, all! The chop-fallen coachy drives to the
stand in the morning and drives home at noon; he creeps up to Fuller’s
at a snail-pace, and, in very mockery of hope, asks the homeward-bound
clerk from the department if he wants a coach! Night comes on, and his
horses begin to believe in the millennium—and the cobwebs are wove over
his whip-socket.
These changes, however, affect not unpleasantly the diplomatic and
official colony extending westward from the president’s. The inhabitants
of this thin sprinkled settlement are away from the great thoroughfare,
and do not miss its crowds. The cessation of parties is to them a relief
from night journeys, colds, card-leavings, and much wear and tear of
carriage-horses. They live now in dressing-gowns and slippers, read the
reviews and the French papers, get their dinners comfortably from the
_restaurateurs_, and thank Heaven that the capitol is locked up. The
_attachés_ grow fat, and the despatches grow thin.
There are several reasons why Washington, till the month of May, spite
of all the drawbacks in the picture delineated above, is a more
agreeable residence than the northern cities. In the first place, its
climate is at least a month earlier than that of New York, and, in the
spring, is delightful. The trees are at this moment (the last week in
March) bursting into buds; open carriages are everywhere in use; walking
in the sun is oppressive; and for the last fortnight, this has been a
fair chronicle of the weather. Boston and New York have been corroded
with east winds, meantime, and even so near as Baltimore, they are still
wrapped in cloaks and shawls. To those who, in reckoning the comforts of
life, agree with me in making climate stand for nine-tenths, this is
powerful attraction.
Then the country about Washington, the drives and rides, are among the
most lovely in the world. The banks of Rock creek are a little
wilderness of beauty. More bright waters, more secluded bridle-paths,
more sunny and sheltered hill-sides, or finer mingling of rock, hill,
and valley, I never rode among. Within a half-hour’s gallop, you have a
sylvan retreat of every variety of beauty, and in almost any direction;
and from this you come home (and this is not the case with most sylvan
rides) to an excellent French dinner and agreeable society, if you like
it. You have all the seclusion of a rural town, and none of its petty
politics and scandal—all the means and appliances of a large
metropolis, and none of its exactions and limitations. That which makes
the charm of a city, and that for which we seek the country, are equally
here, and the penalties of both are removed.
Until the reflux of population from the Rocky mountains, I suppose
Washington will never be a metropolis of residence. But if it were an
object with the inhabitants to make it more so, the advantages I have
just enumerated, and a little outlay of capital and enterprise would
certainly, in some degree, effect it. People especially who come from
Europe, or have been accustomed to foreign modes of living, would be
glad to live near a society composed of such attractive materials as the
official and diplomatic persons at the seat of government. That which
keeps them away is, principally, want of accommodation, and, in a less
degree, it is want of comfortable accommodation in the other cities
which drives them back to Europe. In Washington you must either live at
an hotel or a boarding-house. In either case, the mode of life is only
endurable for the shortest possible period, and the moment Congress
rises, every sufferer in these detestable places is off for relief. The
hotels are crowded to suffocation; there is an utter want of privacy in
the arrangement of the suites of apartments; the service is ill ordered,
and the prices out of all sense or reason. You pay for that which you
have not, and you can not get by paying for it that which you want.
The boarding-house system is worse yet. To possess but one room in
privacy, and that opening on a common passage; to be obliged to come to
meals at certain hours, with chance table companions, and no place for a
friend, and to live entirely in your bedroom or in a public parlor, may
truly be called as abominable a routine as a gentleman could well
suffer. Yet the great majority of those who come to Washington are in
one or the other of these two categories.
The use of _lodgings_ for strangers or transient residents in the city
does not, after all the descriptions in books, seem at all understood in
our country. This is what Washington wants, but it is what every city in
the country wants generally. Let us describe it as if it was never
before heard of, and perhaps some enlightened speculator may advance us
half a century in some of the cities, by creating this luxury.
Lodgings of the ordinary kind in Europe generally consist of the
apartments on one floor. The house, we will suppose, consists of three
stories above the basement, and each floor contains a parlor, bedroom,
and dressing-room, with a small antechamber. (This arrangement of rooms
varies, of course, and a larger family occupies two floors.) These three
suites of apartments are neatly furnished; bed-clothes, table-linen, and
plate, if required, are found by the proprietor, and in the basement
story usually lives a man and his wife, who attend to the service of the
lodgers; _i. e._, bring water, answer the doorbell, take in letters,
keep the rooms in order, make the fires, and, if it is wished, do any
little cookery in case of sickness. These people are paid by the
proprietor, but receive a fee for extra service, and a small gratuity,
at departure, from the lodger. It should be added to this, that it is
not _infra. dig._ to live in the second or third story.
In connexion with lodgings, there must be of course a cook or
_restaurateur_ within a quarter of a mile. The stranger agrees with him
for his dinner, to consist of so many dishes, and to be sent to him at a
certain hour. He gives notice in the morning if he dines out, buys his
own wine of the wine-merchant, and thus saves two heavy items of
overcharge in the hotel or boarding-house. His own servant makes his tea
or coffee (and for this purpose has access to the fire in the basement,)
and does all personal service, such as brushing clothes, waiting at
table, going on errands, &c., &c. The stranger comes in, in short, at a
moment’s warning, brings nothing but his servant and baggage, and finds
himself in five minutes at home, his apartments private, and every
comfort and convenience as completely about him as if he had lived there
for years.
At from ten to fourteen dollars a week, such apartments would pay the
proprietor handsomely, and afford a reasonable luxury to the lodger. A
cook would make a good thing of sending in a plain dinner for a dollar a
head (or more if the dinner were more expensive,) and at this rate, a
family of two or more persons might have a hundred times the comfort now
enjoyed at hotels, at certainly half the cost.
We have been seduced into a very unsentimental chapter of “ways and
means,” but we trust the suggestions, though containing nothing new, may
not be altogether without use. The want of some such thing as we have
recommended is daily and hourly felt and complained of.