A big hotel is a matter of course, and therefore men
travel.
Everybody travels in the States. The railways and the
hotels between them have so churned up the people that an untraveled
man or woman is a rare animal. We are apt to suppose that travelers
make roads, and that guests create hotels; but the cause and effect
run exactly in the other way. I am almost disposed to think that we
should become cannibals if gentlemen's legs and ladies arms were
hung up for sale in purveyors' shops.
After this fashion and with these intentions hotels are built. Size
and an imposing exterior are the first requisitions. Everything
about them must be on a large scale. A commanding exterior, and a
certain interior dignity of demeanor, is more essential than comfort
or civility. Whatever a hotel may be it must not be "mean." In the
American vernacular the word mean is very significant. A mean white
in the South is a man who owns no slaves. Men are often mean, but
actions are seldom so called. A man feels mean when the bluster is
taken out of him. A mean hotel, conducted in a quiet unostentatious
manner, in which the only endeavor made had reference to the comfort
of a few guests, would find no favor in the States. These hotels
are not called by the name of any sign, as with us in our provinces.
There are no "Presidents' Heads" or "General Scotts." Nor by the
name of the landlord, or of some former landlord, as with us in
London, and in many cities of the Continent.
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