of Mr. Peter Kochely, a Dalmatian. His cook, or cooks, are Frenchmen,
and I| think a part of the success which his restaurant enjoys and the
greater part of the excellence which it reaches are due to his eagle
eye, which detects from a distance the likes and dislikes of every
customer.
The trouble about small restaurants, when they are excellent, is, that
they become well known, and are then so largely patronized that they
become large and ultimately bad.
Once I was walking in Normandy with a friend, and we stopped in a very
small town to have luncheon at a hotel. We asked if there was any
wine. Yes, there was some wine, some Burgundy, some Beaune. We tried
a bottle, and it surprised us. Surprise is, in fact, a mild word to
describe the sharpness of our ecstasy.
“Is not this wine very good?” we asked of the host.
“Yes, sirs,” he answered, “it is very good. It is very old, but there
is not much of it left.”
Now, my friend was a journalist, who writes about French towns and
French wines in the English press.
“Whatever happens,” I said to him, “if you write about this town and
about this wine, which I know you will do, you must not divulge the
name of the town.”
He agreed. He wrote an article about the town, he grew lyric over the
wine, and looted all the poets of the world from Homer downwards for
epithets and comparisons fit for it. And he did not mention the name of
the place.
The year after, he returned to the same place and ordered a bottle of
the Burgundy. There was no more left. Some English gentlemen, the host
told him, had come on purpose from England to finish it.
Now, I am sure some very intelligent man, and a man who was desperately
fond of good wine, read the article, and guessed from the description
the whereabouts of the little French town and the precious liquid.
The moral of this is: “Don’t tell secrets in the newspapers; don’t even
tell half a secret.”
The evening I left San Francisco, I had a small adventure. I asked a
man the way to some street. He told me the way, and then, catching hold
of my arm, he said, “You will stand me a drink.”
I said I would, and we went into a drinking-saloon. Then he said, “I’m
a bum. I was [and he stated his profession], and I’ve been fixed. I’m a
booze-fighter.” He added with engaging frankness that he was half drunk.
In the course of conversation, it turned out that we had a common
friend, and had I not been going off on the train, I would have taken
him off to supper.
A singular proof of the smallness of the world.
Before taking leave of San Francisco, however, I want to say a word or
two more. First of all about the clubs.
To a man who is used to the staid silence of London clubs, American
clubs are exhilarating. I was present, for instance, at a dinner at
the Bohemian Club, the “High Jinks Dinner,” which takes place once
a year. Every year the members of the club camp out in the redwood
region, where the enormous trees grow which you see in pictures, and
there, in an amphitheatre formed by these vast topless trunks, they
give an open-air opera, written, composed, and played by themselves.
Later on, when they come back to the city, they give a dinner in the
club, followed by a theatrical entertainment, which is a burlesque
on the opera given in the camp: also written, composed, and played
by themselves. It was at this dinner I was present, and spontaneous
gaiety bubbled from that entertainment like champagne out of a bottle.
There was champagne in the concrete also, as well as in the abstract.
But the gaiety was more spontaneous and more infectious than I
have seen at any, even Bohemian, club in London. I fancy that San
Francisco some day will be the great pleasure city of the world:
the meeting-place of East and West, owing to its situation, its
incomparable climate, its beautiful surroundings, and the microbe of
gaiety which is in the air of the place. And then San Francisco is the
golden gate which opens on to the enchanted realms of the Pacific.
I travelled to New York on the Santa Fé Line, meaning to stop and see
the Grand Cañon, but, as it turned out, I had to go right on to Chicago.
Writers of American impressions generally deliver themselves of a
solemn verdict on the trains, the sleeping-car accommodations, and
their merits and demerits.
“You won’t like the sleeping-berths,” said an American to me, before I
started; “no Englishman ever does.”
When I got on to the Pullman car, I found it was quite different
from what I had imagined. I thought the berths would be stretched
horizontally three quarters of the way across the car. The fact of
their being placed sideways gives the sleeper a much broader berth than
he has on European trains.
But I will discuss this presently.
There is one feature on American trains which is very different from
anything in England and Europe--the attitude of the conductors. In
England, and in most European countries, the conductor hovers round you
for a tip. In America the conductor is an independent citizen; but I
found him a singularly kind-hearted one.
I wanted to send a telegram to Chicago. He did it for me. He
“dead-headed” it. He found out everything I wanted to know. He was my
guide, philosopher, and friend on my way to Chicago.
There is something very attractive about this warm-hearted human
kindness which one meets with in America, and something very refreshing
in the absence of servility.
It makes one breathe deep from his lungs to be among people who treat
you as an equal, and expect to be treated as an equal by you.
There are some countries which profess democracy, where, under the
pretence of treating you as an equal, the inhabitants take pains to
treat you as an inferior, but this is not so in America.
Somebody--a historian, I believe--said that in the far future America
and Russia would carry everything before them, owing to their driving
power, which came from a fundamental kindness of heart. I believe this
to be true. Russia and America are the two most hospitable countries
I have ever visited. I think the Russians and the Americans are the
_kindest_ people in the world, and their countries the most really
democratic (whatever their respective governments may be).
I spent only a few hours at Chicago, where I wandered like an ant among
the gigantic buildings; then I went right on to New York, along the
beautiful Hudson River, all glorious in the October tints of its woods
and foliage, and then I reached New York.
After my first two days in New York, I felt as the Queen of Sheba felt
after she had been shown over King Solomon’s private residence: there
was no spirit in me. The place took my breath away, and I haven’t yet
got it back, but of that later.
_New York: October_
“The difference between New York and London,” a man once said to me,
“is this: in New York, if you have a new idea, you can get it carried
out at once; in London, if you have a new idea, you are up against a
brick wall.”
I believe this to be true. People in New York, and in America in
general, are not afraid of new ideas, nor, indeed, of anything new.
They are not afraid of the future. In England, if a man finds, for
instance, that his profession is uncongenial to him, however certain he
may be of the impossibility of his making a success of it, he will none
the less very rarely give it up and try his hand at something else.
The future alarms him. In America a man will think nothing of throwing
up his profession twenty times running, until he finds something which
does suit him.
I think the cause of this particular difference lies in the climate
of America, and especially in the climate of New York. Just as the
climate of some places fills the whole system with an invincible desire
to do nothing, with an insuperable languor and sloth, in the same way
the climate of New York fills the body and mind with the desire to be
up and about. It is the nimble air which produces the nimble wits: the
stimulating atmosphere which creates, in the denizen of New York, the
love of bustle, hurry, competition, and work. I am not saying this is
either a good thing or a bad thing--I am merely noting and recording
what struck me as being the main differences between New York and
London. London, compared with certain cities, say Constantinople or
Seville, seems a whirlpool of energy; compared with New York, it is
slack. Compared with New Yorkers, Londoners are slackers. They go to
bed earlier, they get up later, they do infinitely less during the
day, and they do it more slowly. They waste more time. On the other
hand, they suffer less from “nerve trouble.” They do not live on their
nerves. In New York the people do. Very often, when you talk to some
one who is employed, say in a store, in New York, you feel as if he was
so highly strung as to be on the verge of breaking down; another turn
of the screw and you feel he would break down. You never feel this in
talking to a Londoner. In talking to a Londoner, you often want to give
him a dose of H. G. Wells’s “accelerator,” the medicine which makes
you live more quickly. In talking to a New Yorker, you often think he
would be the better for a dose of some patent procrastinator, which
would have the effect of making the wheels of his physical and mental
machinery work slower.
A street boy, a child, in New York, is more nimble-minded, more agile
in thought and expression, than the quickest-witted Englishman. He
will have got there and be walking round him in thought before the
Englishman has begun to express himself. I was much struck by the
patience and tolerance shown to me by lift-boys and other children in
dealing with some one so much heavier-witted and sluggish-minded than
themselves, especially when one began cumbrously to explain something
they had already understood some minutes before.
Does all this lead to a waste of energy, like a lot of soda-water
bottles bursting their stoppers and fizzing into space? I don’t know.
It certainly leads to nervous breakdowns and nervous strain in general.
The air in New York acts like a constant pick-me-up and enables you to
do tiring things all day without making you feel tired. But some day or
other you have, I suppose, to pay for this.
So much for the air and the atmosphere of New York--a delicious air
to the newcomer; in any case, a tingling, stimulating, intoxicating
atmosphere to the stranger; and air, as people say, like champagne.
That depends, however, on what kind of champagne. It is not true to say
that all champagne is good. All port may be good, but all champagne
is not.
[Illustration: ANOTHER TURN OF THE SCREW AND HE WOULD BREAK DOWN]
I have already said something about New York architecture; but I forget
what. I have not got the back part of my manuscript here. In any case,
whatever I said, I know that I expressed admiration. When one sees a
fine piece of modern architecture anywhere, one says, as a rule, it
is very fine for a modern thing. Now one does not in the least feel
tempted to say any such thing about the Pennsylvania Railroad Station
or Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan’s library. One feels--at least I feel--that
whenever and wherever these two masterpieces had been made, they would
legitimately have been ranked with the world’s best. Had Pheidias
designed the Pennsylvania Railway Station, he might have been proud.
By the way, Pheidias wasn’t an architect, but only a decorator; well,
let us say the best great architect of the best period, whoever he was.
The striking thing about these buildings is, to my mind, the fact that
they are modern, but untainted with the influence of that horrible
thing called “art nouveau,” “modern style,” and various other names. A
style which, by the way, is German. It was born in Munich. Its parent
on the male side was Japanese, on the female side a bastard descendant
of William Morris via Maple. It was brought up in Germany, fostered
by what are called decadent artists. These are artists whose work is
a mixture of beer and sausage and Aubrey Beardsley. This style spread
with incredible rapidity all over Germany and reached and flooded
Russia, from Moscow to Harbin, and from St. Petersburg to Odessa. In
Moscow it has produced huge shops, in St. Petersburg likewise. The
result is not pleasing. It is full of useless details: ornaments which
have no sense, curves and twiddles which have no meaning. This brings
me to what I believe is the secret of the beauty of modern American
architecture. It is, I believe, the absence of twiddles. By twiddles
I mean any kind of unnecessary line, curve, moulding, arabesque, or
ornament. If you ever have had any dealings with an English architect,
you will know that when he brings you his plan, whether for the
outside or the inside of a house, it will be full of twiddles. If
you protest--if, for instance, you say you consider seven mouldings
underneath the cornice on the ceiling to be too much--he will say it
is necessary in order to break the line. This isn’t true. Because the
architects of ancient times did not find it necessary to “break the
line” in this manner, nor do the architects of modern America. But that
they do not is a very remarkable fact indeed. It is probably unique in
the modern world, and the result of it is magnificent architecture.
American architecture is good because it is based on common sense.
The worst kind of architecture is that which is based on nonsense.
By nonsense I mean non-sense, the contrary of sense. The kind of
architecture which puts in a room a staircase which goes nowhere is
non-sense. All the finest architecture in the world was made for a
definite purpose and use, and made to suit that purpose and use.
The pyramids of Egypt had a use; the only thing is, nobody knows
now what it was, but it was something very definite; of that we can
be certain from the enormous care which was taken to build them in
accordance with certain mathematical calculations and according to a
certain disposition and conjunction of the stars, the latitude, and
the longitude. The idea that they were simply tombs is, I believe,
difficult to support. But whatever the purpose was, we can be certain
they had a purpose. They were not simply staircases leading nowhere.
Now the Pennsylvania Railway Station _is_ a railway station, and the
architecture is subordinate to its use. The result is magnificent.
Nothing would have been added to its use had it been filled with absurd
lines and curves, twisted flowers, impossible fruits and silly claws;
and nothing would have been added to its beauty.
Then there are the skyscrapers. These are obviously useful, since the
narrowness of the area in which New York is built makes it, if not
necessary, at least highly desirable to economize as much space as
possible, and since it is impossible to build broadly, the only way
to acquire houseroom is to build skyward. And this has been done,
again without the addition on the face of the buildings of a lot of
unnecessary excrescences and ornaments. Mr. Pennell, who is an artist
of fame, says that the sight of the skyscraper, from the seas, beats
Venice. I don’t care two pins for comparisons, for what seems to me
amusing and appreciable is that we live in a world so rich in invention
and so various that it produces and contains things so striking and
so different as Venice and the skyscrapers of New York. That’s what
we ought to be thankful for. Another useful thing which seems to
me to result in a spectacle of amazing beauty is the illuminated
advertisements on Broadway at night. There, by their quantity and their
quality, they compose a fairy city which is constantly changing--a city
of stars, glow-worms, fireflies, and Roman candles. Just the right
thing to light up a street which is almost exclusively devoted, at
night, to theatres, restaurants, and places of amusement.
Is America comfortable? I have already said something about the
trains; but since writing that I have been for two long journeys
in the Orient Express. I suppose the Orient Express professes to
represent and embody the acme of human luxury in the way of European
travelling. It certainly represents, to my mind, the acme of human
discomfort. The train is narrow. It shakes. The restaurant car is too
small, and the food has a peculiar nauseating quality which is the
special and exclusive invention and property of the International
Sleeping-Car Company. The curious thing is that the food is the same
on whatever line you travel, so long as the restaurant car belongs to
the International Sleeping-Car Company. It does not matter if you are
travelling on the Nord Express, the Sud Express, or the Orient Express,
you will get exactly the same dinner, and that same dinner will have
the same taste--that unique taste you find nowhere else in the world.
And, what is more, if you ever feed at one of the hotels belonging to
the International Sleeping-Car Company, you will even there find the
same meal and the same taste to it, the same taste pervading all the
dishes--a peculiar kind of staleness, something slightly rancid and
altogether unappetizing. One wonders who invented it and by what manner
and means it was made universal. On the Trans-Siberian Railway, which
goes from Moscow to Vladivostok, on certain days of the week there
is a dining-car belonging to the International Sleeping-Car Company,
and on other days there is a dining-car belonging to the State. In
the car belonging to the State you get good, ordinary food; the same
kind of food as you can get at a hotel or a station buffet; but in
the International Sleeping-Car Company’s dining-car you get the same
old meal and the same old taste. When I last travelled on the Orient
Express, I was thinking the whole time, which is the most comfortable
or the most uncomfortable, that or an American train. And I made the
following schedule of advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages of the Orient Express over an American express train:--
(1) You have a compartment to yourself or, at the worst, shared with
one other.
(2) You can smoke where you like.
(3) You have a washing-place opening off of your compartment.
Advantages of the American express over the Orient Express:--
(1) Your bed, when you are once in it, is much broader and more
comfortable.
(2) The food is incomparably better.
(3) There is a constant supply of iced water within reach.
Disadvantages of the Orient Express:--
(1) The bed is narrow. A hard pillow is put under the mattress so that
it catches you in the small of the back. If you take it away, your
head sinks into a draughty hole between the wall and the mattress. The
blanket is folded double, so that it is impossible to cover yourself
or the bed with it entirely. If you unfold it and use it single it is
too thin to protect you from the cold.
(2) You can smoke in your compartment, it is true, but if you want
for a change to smoke in the smoking compartment, you will find the
accommodations insufficient and unsatisfactory.
(3) There is no supply of newspapers.
Disadvantages of an American express:--
(1) You have to wash in public. Passengers often use the washing-room
as smoking-room in the morning and sit in it smoking cigars, while
you have to shave. Some people find it quite impossible to shave in
public. Shaving even in private makes them nervous, but shaving in
public is for them a positive impossibility.
(2) Undressing in the berth of an American car is an acrobatic feat.
(3) You are at the mercy of the coloured man who looks after you.
Either he bullies you or he doesn’t; but if he doesn’t he is generally
slack and doesn’t look after you and your things. He makes up for
inefficiency by an exaggerated familiarity.
[Illustration: UNDRESSING IN THE BERTH OF AN AMERICAN CAR IS AN
ACROBATIC FEAT]
There--that seems to me to be a very impartial schedule--the conclusion
being that travelling on the Orient Express or on an American express
is equally uncomfortable. The truth is that all railway travelling
is very uncomfortable anyhow. As Mr. H. G. Wells printed somewhere,
railway travelling hasn’t really improved since the first trains were
invented. The same essentials of discomfort remain: the narrowness,
the dirt, the stuffiness, the vibration of the car. The car has not
improved. The Pullman car is a more ingenious arrangement than the
European car for the train, but it is not more comfortable for the
passenger. What surprises me now is the things I remember Americans
telling me about American trains before I went to America. I remember
being told by them that American trains were full of hot and cold
baths, which you could jump into at any minute; that there was no
difference in being on a train or in a club; that they were more
comfortable than the best hotel and more luxurious than the fastest
liners; that the best European cars would be considered to belong to
the fourth class in America. How different this is from what I have
heard Americans say about American trains when they were themselves on
the train in America!
With regard to baggage, I throw a large bouquet at the check system.
It is infinitely more convenient than the European system, which I do
not think has a single advantage, except the doubtful one of its being
easier for you to lose your boxes. In England, for instance, there is
a special profession to which certain people belong who are called
“Peter-claimers,” and whose whole business in life is to steal other
people’s baggage from railway stations. They drive to the station with
an empty bag or with a bag full of stones. They put down their bag next
to that of a banker, which they know to be full of gold, or next to
that of a duchess, which they know to be full of pearls, rubies, and
pink topazes. Then in their hurry they make a mistake, and, leaving
their bag, they take away that of the banker or the duchess and
drive home with it and never give it back, unless the reward offered be
larger than the value of the contents of the bag and no questions be
asked. This is called “Peter-claiming.”
[Illustration: THEIR WHOLE BUSINESS IS TO STEAL OTHER PEOPLES’ BAGGAGE]
Another and more complicated way of doing it is this: You--the
crook--that is to say, the “Peter-claimer”--have a particular kind of
bag made which when placed on the top of any other kind of bag opens
and swallows it up. I don’t see how “Peter-claimers” could possibly do
their work in a country where the check system prevails. However, human
ingenuity is boundless, and doubtless a way would be found.
An American said to me, when I was travelling not long ago, that in
America matters such as travelling, living in hotels, etc., had been
reduced to perfection. I don’t believe this to be true. What I do think
is very often true is that the means has been perfected without any
regard having been paid to the end. The Pullman car is an example
in point. If you regard the Pullman car as a device for travelling,
a machine for holding as many people as possible and economizing the
maximum of space in so doing, it is perfect. But as a vehicle for human
beings to travel in in comfort it is imperfect. It contains great
possibilities for discomfort quite apart from the coloured gentleman,
who may or may not make life a hell to you during the journey. What
is often left out in the calculations of ingenious devices of means
of luxury is the human element, the human being. It is no good having
an elevator that goes at a speed of five hundred miles an hour, if it
makes you sick. It is no good having a train that goes so fast that you
can neither read by day nor sleep by night in it. It is no good having
a theatre so large that you cannot hear the actors speak. It is no
good having a meal so rich that your appetite has gone after the first
course.