Domestic
Architects Would Be Frightened At The Dimensions Which Are Needed,
And At The Number Of Apartments Which Are Required To Be Clustered
Under One Roof.
We went to the Ocean Hotel at Newport, and
fancied, as we first entered the hall under a veranda as high as
the house, and made our way into the passage, that we had been
taken to a well-arranged barrack.
"Have you rooms?" I asked, as a
man always does ask on first reaching his inn. "Rooms enough," the
clerk said; "we have only fifty here." But that fifty dwindled
down to twenty-five during the next day or two.
We were a melancholy set, the ladies appearing to be afflicted in
this way worse than the gentlemen, on account of their enforced
abstinence from tobacco. What can twelve ladies do scattered about
a drawing-room, so called, intended for the accommodation of two
hundred? The drawing-room at the Ocean Hotel, Newport, is not as
big as Westminster Hall, but would, I should think, make a very
good House of Commons for the British nation. Fancy the feelings
of a lady when she walks into such a room, intending to spend her
evening there, and finds six or seven other ladies located on
various sofas at terrible distances, all strangers to her. She has
come to Newport probably to enjoy herself; and as, in accordance
with the customs of the place, she has dined at two, she has
nothing before her for the evening but the society of that huge,
furnished cavern. Her husband, if she have one, or her father, or
her lover, has probably entered the room with her. But a man has
never the courage to endure such a position long. He sidles out
with some muttered excuse, and seeks solace with a cigar. The
lady, after half an hour of contemplation, creeps silently near
some companion in the desert, and suggests in a whisper that
Newport does not seem to be very full at present.
We stayed there for a week, and were very melancholy; but in our
melancholy we still talked of the war. Americans are said to be
given to bragging, and it is a sin of which I cannot altogether
acquit them. But I have constantly been surprised at hearing the
Northern men speak of their own military achievements with anything
but self-praise. "We've been whipped, sir; and we shall be whipped
again before we've done; uncommon well whipped we shall be." "We
began cowardly, and were afraid to send our own regiments through
one of our own cities." This alluded to a demand that had been
made on the Government that troops going to Washington should not
be sent through Baltimore, because of the strong feeling for
rebellion which was known to exist in that city. President Lincoln
complied with this request, thinking it well to avoid a collision
between the mob and the soldiers. "We began cowardly, and now
we're going on cowardly, and darn't attack them.
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