I Have Been Honored On One Or Two Occasions By The
Subsequent Intimacy Of These Great Men At The Hotel Offices, And
Have Then Found Them Ready Enough At Conversation.
That necessity of making your request for room before a public
audience is not in itself agreeable, and sometimes entails a
conversation which might be more comfortably made in private.
"What
do you mean by a dressing-room, and why do you want one?" Now that
is a question which an Englishman feels awkward at answering before
five and twenty Americans, with open mouths and eager eyes; but it
has to be answered. When I left England, I was assured that I
should not find any need for a separate sitting-room, seeing that
drawing-rooms more or less sumptuous were prepared for the
accommodation of "ladies." At first we attempted to follow the
advice given to us, but we broke down. A man and his wife traveling
from town to town, and making no sojourn on his way, may eat and
sleep at a hotel without a private parlor. But an English woman
cannot live in comfort for a week, or even in comfort for a day, at
any of these houses, without a sitting-room for herself. The
ladies' drawing-room is a desolate wilderness. The American women
themselves do not use it. It is generally empty, or occupied by
some forlorn spinster, eliciting harsh sounds from the wretched
piano which it contains.
The price at these hotels throughout the union is nearly always the
same, viz., two and a half dollars a day, for which a bed-room is
given and as many meals as the guest can contrive to eat.
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