But A House Which Is Prepared To Make Up Six Hundred
Beds, And Which Is Called On To Make Up Only Twenty-Five, Becomes,
After Awhile, Somewhat Melancholy.
The natural depression of the
landlord communicates itself to his servants, and from the servants
it descends to the twenty-five guests, who wander about the long
passages and deserted balconies like the ghosts of those of the
summer visitors, who cannot rest quietly in their graves at home.
In England we know nothing of hotels prepared for six hundred
visitors, all of whom are expected to live in common. 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?
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