In early days of steam navigation on the Mississippi, the river captains,
it is said, had the playful habit, when pressed for time or enjoying a
“spurt” with a rival, of running their engines with a darky seated on the
safety-valve.
One’s first home impression after a season of lazy Continental travelling
and visiting in somnolent English country houses, is that an emblematical
Ethiopian should be quartered on our national arms.
Zola tells us in _Nouvelle Campagne_ that his vivid impressions are all
received during the first twenty-four hours in a new surrounding,—the
mind, like a photographic film, quickly losing its sensibility.
This fleeting receptiveness makes returning Americans painfully conscious
of nerves in the home atmosphere, and the headlong pace at which our
compatriots are living.
The habit of laying such faults to the climate is but a poor excuse. Our
grandparents and their parents lived peaceful lives beneath these same
skies, undisturbed by the morbid influences that are supposed to key us
to such a painful concert pitch.
There was an Indian summer languor in the air as we steamed up the bay
last October, that apparently invited repose; yet no sooner had we set
foot on our native dock, and taken one good whiff of home air, than all
our acquired calm disappeared. People who ten days before would have sat
(at a journey’s end) contentedly in a waiting-room, while their luggage
was being sorted by leisurely officials, now hustle nervously about,
nagging the custom-house officers and egging on the porters, as though
the saving of the next half hour were the prime object of existence.
Considering how extravagant we Americans are in other ways it seems
curious that we should be so economical of time! It was useless to
struggle against the current, however, or to attempt to hold one’s self
back. Before ten minutes on shore had passed, the old, familiar,
unpleasant sensation of being in a hurry took possession of me! It was
irresistible and all-pervading; from the movements of the crowds in the
streets to the whistle of the harbor tugs, everything breathed of haste.
The very dogs had apparently no time to loiter, but scurried about as
though late for their engagements.
The transit from dock to hotel was like a visit to a new circle in the
_Inferno_, where trains rumble eternally overhead, and cable cars glide
and block around a pale-faced throng of the damned, who are forced, in
expiation of their sins, to hasten forever toward an unreachable goal.
A curious curse has fallen upon our people; an “influence” is at work
which forces us to attempt in an hour just twice as much as can be
accomplished in sixty minutes. “Do as well as you can,” whispers the
“influence,” “but do it quickly!” That motto might be engraved upon the
fronts of our homes and business buildings.
It is on account of this new standard that rapidity in a transaction on
the Street is appreciated more than correctness of detail. A broker
to-day will take more credit for having received and executed an order
for Chicago and returned an answer within six minutes, than for any
amount of careful work. The order may have been ill executed and the
details mixed, but there will have been celerity of execution to boast of
The young man who expects to succeed in business to-day must be a
“hustler,” have a snap-shot style in conversation, patronize rapid
transit vehicles, understand shorthand, and eat at “breathless
breakfasts.”
Being taken recently to one of these establishments for “quick lunch,” as
I believe the correct phrase is, to eat buckwheat cakes (and very good
they were), I had an opportunity of studying the ways of the modern
time-saving young man.
It is his habit upon entering to dash for the bill-of-fare, and give an
order (if he is adroit enough to catch one of the maids on the fly)
before removing either coat or hat. At least fifteen seconds may be
economized in this way. Once seated, the luncher falls to on anything at
hand; bread, cold slaw, crackers, or catsup. When the dish ordered
arrives, he gets his fork into it as it appears over his shoulder, and
has cleaned the plate before the sauce makes its appearance, so that is
eaten by itself or with bread.
Cups of coffee or tea go down in two swallows. Little piles of cakes are
cut in quarters and disappear in four mouthfuls, much after the fashion
of children down the ogre’s throat in the mechanical toy, mastication
being either a lost art or considered a foolish waste of energy.
A really accomplished luncher can assimilate his last quarter of cakes,
wiggle into his coat, and pay his check at the desk at the same moment.
The next, he is down the block in pursuit of a receding trolley.
To any one fresh from the Continent, where the entire machinery of trade
comes to a standstill from eleven to one o’clock, that _déjeuner_ may be
taken in somnolent tranquillity, the nervous tension pervading a
restaurant here is prodigious, and what is worse—catching! During recent
visits to the business centres of our city, I find that the idea of
eating is repugnant. It seems to be wrong to waste time on anything so
unproductive. Last week a friend offered me a “luncheon tablet” from a
box on his desk. “It’s as good as a meal,” he said, “and so much more
expeditious!”
The proprietor of one down-town restaurant has the stock quotations
exhibited on a black-board at the end of his room; in this way his
patrons can keep in touch with the “Street” as they hurriedly stoke up.
A parlor car, toward a journey’s end, is another excellent place to
observe our native ways. Coming from Washington the other day my
fellow-passengers began to show signs of restlessness near Newark. Books
and papers were thrown aside; a general “uprising, unveiling” followed,
accompanied by our objectionable custom of having our clothes brushed in
each other’s faces. By the time Jersey City appeared on the horizon,
every man, woman, and child in that car was jammed, baggage in hand, into
the stuffy little passage which precedes the entrance, swaying and
staggering about while the train backed and delayed.
The explanation of this is quite simple. The “influence” was at work,
preventing those people from acting like other civilized mortals, and
remaining seated until their train had come to a standstill.
Being fresh from the “other side,” and retaining some of my acquired
calm, I sat in my chair! The surprise on the faces of the other
passengers warned me, however, that it would not be safe to carry this
pose too far. The porter, puzzled by the unaccustomed sight, touched me
kindly on the shoulder, and asked if I “felt sick”! So now, to avoid all
affectation of superiority, I struggled into my great-coat, regardless of
eighty degrees temperature in the car, and meekly joined the standing
army of martyrs, to hurry, scampering with them from the still-moving car
to the boat, and on to the trolley before the craft had been moored to
its landing pier.
In Paris, on taking an omnibus, you are given a number and the right to
the first vacant seat. When the places in a “bus” are all occupied it
receives no further occupants. Imagine a traction line attempting such a
reform here! There would be a riot, and the conductors hanged to the
nearest trolley-poles in an hour!
To prevent a citizen from crowding into an over-full vehicle, and
stamping on its occupants in the process, would be to infringe one of his
dearest privileges, not to mention his chance of riding free.
A small boy of my acquaintance tells me he rarely finds it necessary to
pay in a New York car. The conductors are too hurried and too
preoccupied pocketing their share of the receipts to keep count. “When
he passes, I just look blank!” remarked the ingenious youth.
Of all the individuals, however, in the community, our idle class suffer
the most acutely from lack of time, though, like Charles Lamb’s
gentleman, they have all there is.
From the moment a man of leisure, or his wife, wakens in the morning
until they drop into a fitful slumber at night, their day is an agitated
chase. No matter where or when you meet them, they are always on the
wing.
“Am I late again?” gasped a thin little woman to me the other evening, as
she hurried into the drawing-room, where she had kept her guests and
dinner waiting. “I’ve been so driven all day, I’m a wreck!” A glance at
her hatchet-faced husband revealed the fact that he, too, was chasing
after a stray half-hour lost somewhere in his youth. His color and most
of his hair had gone in its pursuit, while his hands had acquired a
twitch, as though urging on a tired steed.
Go and ask that lady for a cup of tea at twilight; ten to one she will
receive you with her hat on, explaining that she has not had time to take
it off since breakfast. If she writes to you, her notes are signed, “In
great haste,” or “In a tearing hurry.” She is out of her house by
half-past eight on most mornings, yet when calling she sits on the edge
of her chair, and assures you that she has not a moment to stay, “has
only run in,” etc.
Just what drives her so hard is a mystery, for beyond a vague charity
meeting or two and some calls, she accomplishes little. Although wealthy
and childless, with no cares and few worries, she succumbs to nervous
prostration every two or three years, “from overwork.”
Listen to a compatriot’s account of his European trip! He will certainly
tell you how short the ocean crossing was, giving hours and minutes with
zest, as though he had got ahead of Father Time in a transaction. Then
follows a list of the many countries seen during his tour.
I know a lady lying ill to-day because she would hurry herself and her
children, in six weeks last summer, through a Continental tour that
should have occupied three months. She had no particular reason for
hurrying; indeed, she got ahead of her schedule, and had to wait in Paris
for the steamer; a detail, however, that in no way diminished madame’s
pleasure in having done so much during her holiday. This same lady
deplores lack of leisure hours, yet if she finds by her engagement book
that there is a free week ahead, she will run to Washington or Lakewood,
“for a change,” or organize a party to Florida.
To realize how our upper ten scramble through existence, one must also
contrast their fidgety way of feeding with the bovine calm in which a
German absorbs his nourishment and the hours Italians can pass over their
meals; an American dinner party affords us the opportunity.
There is an impression that the fashion for quickly served dinners came
to us from England. If this is true (which I doubt; it fits too nicely
with our temperament to have been imported), we owe H.R.H. a debt of
gratitude, for nothing is so tiresome as too many courses needlessly
prolonged.
Like all converts, however, we are too zealous. From oysters to fruit,
dinners now are a breathless steeplechase, during which we take our viand
hedges and champagne ditches at a dead run, with conversation pushed at
much the same speed. To be silent would be to imply that one was not
having a good time, so we rattle and gobble on toward the finger-bowl
winning-post, only to find that rest is not there!
As the hostess pilots the ladies away to the drawing-room, she whispers
to her spouse, “You won’t smoke long, will you?” So we are mulcted in
the enjoyment of even that last resource of weary humanity, the cigar,
and are hustled away from that and our coffee, only to find that our
appearance is a signal for a general move.
One of the older ladies rises; the next moment the whole circle, like a
flock of frightened birds, are up and off, crowding each other in the
hallway, calling for their carriages, and confusing the unfortunate
servants, who are trying to help them into their cloaks and overshoes.
Bearing in mind that the guests come as late as they dare, without being
absolutely uncivil, that dinners are served as rapidly as is physically
possible, and that the circle breaks up as soon as the meal ends, one
asks one’s self in wonder why, if a dinner party is such a bore that it
has to be scrambled through, _coûte que coûte_, we continue to dine out?
It is within the bounds of possibility that people may have reasons for
hurrying through their days, and that dining out _à la longue_ becomes a
weariness.
The one place, however, where you might expect to find people reposeful
and calm is at the theatre. The labor of the day is then over; they have
assembled for an hour or two of relaxation and amusement. Yet it is at
the play that our restlessness is most apparent. Watch an audience
(which, be it remarked in passing, has arrived late) during the last ten
minutes of a performance. No sooner do they discover that the end is
drawing near than people begin to struggle into their wraps. By the time
the players have lined up before the footlights the house is full of
disappearing backs.
Past, indeed, are the unruffled days when a heroine was expected (after
the action of a play had ended) to deliver the closing _envoi_ dear to
the writers of Queen Anne’s day. Thackeray writes:—
_The play is done_! _The curtain drops_,
_Slow falling to the prompter’s bell_!
_A moment yet the actor stops_,
_And looks around_, _to say farewell_!
A comedian who attempted any such abuse of the situation to-day would
find himself addressing empty benches. Before he had finished the first
line of his epilogue, most of his public would be housed in the rapid
transit cars. No talent, no novelty holds our audiences to the end of a
performance.
On the opening night of the opera season this winter, one third of the
“boxes” and orchestra stalls were vacant before Romeo (who, being a
foreigner, was taking his time) had expired.
One overworked matron of my acquaintance has perfected an ingenious and
time-saving combination. By signalling from a window near her opera box
to a footman below, she is able to get her carriage at least two minutes
sooner than her neighbors.
During the last act of an opera like _Tann-häuser_ or _Faust_, in which
the inconsiderate composer has placed a musical gem at the end, this lady
is worth watching. After getting into her wraps and overshoes she
stands, hand on the door, at the back of her box, listening to the
singers; at a certain moment she hurries to the window, makes her signal,
scurries back, hears Calvé pour her soul out in _Anges purs_, _anges
radieux_, yet manages to get down the stairs and into her carriage before
the curtain has fallen.
We deplore the prevailing habit of “slouch”; yet if you think of it, this
universal hurry is the cause of it. Our cities are left unsightly,
because we cannot spare time to beautify them. Nervous diseases are
distressingly prevalent; still we hurry! hurry!! hurry!!! until, as a
diplomatist recently remarked to me, the whole nation seemed to him to be
but five minutes ahead of an apoplectic fit.
The curious part of the matter is that after several weeks at home, much
that was strange at first becomes quite natural to the traveller, who
finds himself thinking with pity of benighted foreigners and their
humdrum ways, and would resent any attempts at reform.
What, for instance, would replace for enterprising souls the joy of
taking their matutinal car at a flying leap, or the rapture of being
first out of a theatre? What does part of a last act or the “star song”
matter in comparison with five minutes of valuable time to the good?
Like the river captains, we propose to run under full head of steam and
get there, or b--- explode!