Americans had attained to luxury by jumping over comfort. I think there
is a certain amount of truth in this, and yet it would be foolish
to call American hotels uncomfortable. They are not uncomfortable.
Only there is this to be said: That to some people all hotel life
is uncomfortable. They hate living in a crowd. They hate bustle,
confusion, noise, the arrival and departure of people, etc. And there
is certainly more hotel life in America than in other countries. And
yet what a saving to the nerves, and to the temper, are so many of the
devices and the arrangments in American hotels. The telephone, for
instance: if you want a nice test of temper, try to get a number at
the Hotel Cecil in London; or, better still, spend a happy morning in
ringing up people on the telephone in Paris. In America it is either
done for you at once or you know it cannot be done, and the matter is
settled. Hotel life in America seems to me infinitely better organized
than in any other country in the world, with the possible exception of
China. Because when you order a room at a Chinese hotel, in a small
Chinese town, the room is built for you while you wait; you choose the
style of room, and the paper, the carpeting, and all the furniture are
put in during the day.
Another thing which is an immense saving of time and temper in an
American hotel is the way in which it is possible to find out whether
or not some friend of yours is staying there, without having to
wait the best part of an hour, and without people being sent off in
different directions, who come back much later on with contradictory
reports.
[Illustration: TRYING TO GET A NUMBER AT THE HOTEL CECIL]
If, though, on the one hand, in anything that concerns machinery
contrivance, organization is better in America than elsewhere, anything
that concerns the personal service of human beings is probably less
good, owing to the simple fact that there is no servant class
in America; that servants in America are either coloured men or
foreigners. This is a factor which makes for discomfort, because the
existence of a great mass of human beings who have nothing else to do
but attend to the wants of other human beings, obviously conduces to
the comfort of those people whose wants are being attended to. For
instance, it is more comfortable to arrive at a railway station in
Russia, where there are about twenty willing railway porters to every
traveller, than it is to arrive at 4 A.M., in Paris, where there is
only one unwilling and extremely rude porter to attend to all the
travellers. It is obviously more comfortable to be certain of finding
some one to carry a heavy bag for you, if you are going into the
suburbs by rail, than to be certain that you will have to carry it
yourself. On the other hand, the absence of a servant class speaks well
for the spirit of independence and initiative in the country. At least
I suppose it does. Equality is a good thing, but it can be abused just
as much as its brother, liberty.
We all know the acts of tyranny which have been committed, and are
committed daily, in the name of liberty. In the same way crime and
misdemeanors are committed in the name of equality. In order to show
you that he is as good as his master, Jack often treats his master as
his inferior.
If I had to compare the comforts of life in England and America, and
to sum up the matter briefly, I should say as far as life in public is
concerned--that is to say, life in hotels, restaurants, clubs, and,
perhaps, trains (in England the distances being short, the proposition
is hardly the same), and certainly railway stations and buffets and
all kinds of bars--everything you get in America is superior, but as
far as life in private is concerned--country houses, cottages, farms,
town houses, flats, and rooms--the comfort in England is incomparably
greater. Of course some people say that life in private--home
life--does not exist in America at all. But that is the kind of
generalization I distrust. Personally I think a small private house in
England is a much more comfortable affair than a small private house
in America. On the other hand, I think an American bar is much more
comfortable and cheerful than our English public house. Again, I think
there is a great difference between the English country house, owned by
the English rich, and that owned in England by the American rich. In
the homes of the American rich you will rarely find a room in which it
is possible to sit down with comfort.
American clubs, again, are far more human and cheerful than English
clubs. Anything more depressing than the average English club can
scarcely be imagined: a series of rooms in which old men in different
corners grunt, frown, and snore--the rest is silence. In American
clubs you feel that everybody is alive and that people go to clubs not
to avoid the society of their fellow creatures, but, on the contrary,
to enjoy it. And that, after all, was the origin and the initial
purpose of all clubs, because if a man wants solitude he can stop at
home. But I forgot--some men are married. That, of course, certainly
changes the question.
In the category of human comforts belongs the food question. I don’t
suppose it is necessary at this time of the day to sing the praises of
the food you get in America. America has a national food, containing
a quantity of delicious dishes you can get only in America, and
Americans are, thank heavens, not unconscious of the fact. England
has a national food also; but, alas! how rarely you get English food,
good English food, in England, and how often you get a shockingly bad
imitation of French food--a succession of entrées which a wit once
said were like tepid lawn-tennis balls. How excellent a thing, on the
other hand, is a fried sole, toasted cheese (like that you get at the
“Cheshire Cheese”), English cold beef, English bacon, roast grouse, and
currant-and-raspberry tart. These are all things which I believe you
can get nowhere out of England; nowhere meat at such a peculiar pitch
of perfection.
There was once upon a time an English statesman (it was either
Lord Melbourne or Lord Palmerston) who asked a schoolboy what
his ideal luncheon would be. The boy thought for a long time and
said, “Roast duck, with peas and new potatoes, and then some
raspberry-and-black-currant tart.” And the statesman, struck by the
extraordinary wisdom of the reply, prophesied a great future for the
boy, who was none other than--well, I quite forget. But it was not
Winston Churchill.
It is on record, I believe, that Macaulay gave a house-warming dinner
to two friends in Albany, and after expending much thought and all
the resources of his immense erudition on the subject, came to the
conclusion that the following would be the ideal menu for the occasion.
The season was autumn.
Mulligatawny Soup
Broiled Turbot
Roast Partridge
Toasted Cheese
I once asked a Frenchman who, at the time, was supposed to have, and
rightly, the best cook in Paris, where and what was the best dinner he
had ever had. He said the best dinner he had ever had was in a small
country house in England and had consisted of a fried sole and roast
grouse.
If I were Emperor of Rome, and had at my disposal the manual labor of
ancient Rome, the skilled cooks of all nations, and the railway service
of the world, and if I liked to give a perfect dinner, I should arrange
it thus.
The season is, let us say, autumn or winter.
A cocktail made by an American
Hors d’œuvre, consisting of
fresh caviare from Russia, prawns from Seville
Oysters: Blue Points
Soup: Bortsch, made by a peasant of Little Russia
Cold lobster
Whitebait
Veau à la bourgeoise, cooked by a
Frenchwoman from a farm
Roast grouse--Corn on the cob
Salad, made by a Frenchman
Marrow bones
Toasted cheese
A German apple tart
Mince pies--Indigestion.
That is, perhaps, enough about food and the comforts of life. However
the comforts of life in America may stand with regard to those in other
countries, they are in America very remarkable, very characteristic,
and worthy of study and still more of experience.
THE END
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.