A stranger does not wish to be viewed askance by all
around him; and the rule which holds that men at Rome should do as
Romans do, if true anywhere, is true in America. Therefore I say
that in an American inn one can never do as one pleases.
In what I have here said I do not intend to speak of hotels in the
largest cities, such as Boston or New York. At them meals are
served in the public room separately, and pretty nearly at any or
at all hours of the day; but at them also the attendant stands over
the unfortunate eater and drives him. The guest feels that he is
controlled by laws adapted to the usages of the Medes and Persians.
He is not the master on the occasion, but the slave - a slave well
treated, and fattened up to the full endurance of humanity, but yet
a slave.
From Gorham we went on to Island Pond, a station on the same Canada
Trunk Railway, on a Saturday evening, and were forced by the
circumstances of the line to pass a melancholy Sunday at the place.
The cars do not run on Sundays, and run but once a day on other
days over the whole line, so that, in fact, the impediment to
traveling spreads over two days.
