I am not at all sure, now that blessed chloroform is discovered by which my faith in the predicted millennium has had a most vigorous quickening (why don't they build a statue to the discoverer?) that I could not look on admiringly while the surgeon's knife wound amid veins and arteries with almost omnipotent skill, his patient lying calm as a sleeping infant the while.
And now the thought comes over me with overwhelming force, how strange that we, who so adore strength, power, beauty, and perfection, should be content with its circumscribed human progress; never look for it, never worship it, where it is limitless, unchangeable, unfettered by selfishness, caprice, or injustice. Alas! till we learn this, we shall, vine-like, throw out our tendrils to the mercy of every passing breeze, with nothing sure to twine around or cling to.
CAN'T KEEP A HOTEL.
A man who has no call to keep a hotel had better not try it, unless he can be certain that the horizon of his guests has always been bounded by the village hay-scales. Noble scenery is a fine thing; but mountain, nor lake, nor river, was ever enjoyable in company with an empty stomach, or one which is in the talons of the fiend, indigestion. To come to one's meal with loathing, and eat because we must, or starve, and then hurry from grease and saleratus as soon as possible, is not the best receipt a landlord can use to insure a good class of customers for another season. He may think it of no consequence that his garden, if he have one, be as full of nettles as of flowers; that the walks have more pig-weed than gravel in them; that his out-buildings are more conspicuous than any other object both to the eye and nose; and that the grass-plats about the house are strewn with perpetual rags, paper, and old boots, which a fervid August sun is not generally inclined to mitigate.
He may "take things easy" when his guests, having engaged the hotel-carriage and horses for a ride are still standing on the piazza waiting half an hour past the time; and when, on its dilatory appearance, the harness is found giving out at the last minute, having been patched and repatched in a slovenly manner on uncounted previous rides; while the golden sunset, on which his guests had reckoned, is spent in a fruitless search for that hammer and those nails, which elude all pursuit. He may think it good policy to keep his regular boarders waiting for their meals an hour past the appointed time, while hungry children fret for sustenance, because new-comers will then appear, and this stratagem will save the trouble of preparing two meals. He may do all that if he will; but he must remember that every disgusted guest who leaves his establishment will prevent many from coming to it; and that with such a short-sighted policy he will soon find "his occupation gone."
Keeping a hotel is a gift, as much as poetry, or sculpture, or painting. I might name men whose hotels have attained perfection under their wise, cleanly, and systematic ordering; but perfect as they are, I, for one, am not employed to advertise them over the length and breadth of the land in the New York Ledger. Suffice it to say, that I have slept on their lovely beds, and had four towels a day to wash my hands on. That I had a roomy wardrobe for such of my clothes as I desired to set free from my trunk. That the looking glass was not located in the darkest corner of the room, or placed so high that I had to stand on tip-toe, or so low that I had to get on my knees to myself. That the coffee was not made of split peas. That the fried potatoes even an angel like me might eat. That the meats were cooked in a Christian manner, and the bread guiltless of any abominable "Sal"—anything. That the pastry, which I never touch, looked good for those who like it; and that the ale—oh! the ale was "divine." That in the spots where cleanliness might not be looked for, there it reigned. That no chambermaid came with scraping broom against my door, at daylight, to rouse me from my slumbers, and shuffle and flirt with the boot-and-shoe collectors at the different doors. That no "pictures" of ambitious artists upon the walls gave me the nightmare. And, oh! more—far more than this, that the well-mannered landlord never made a menagerie—show—of any "lion," or lioness, in his house, by labelling the same, on the instant of their appearance, in dining-hall or parlor, for the unwinking stare of the curious.
Of course, such a house needs money as well as an artist-master to carry it on. Of course, guests who register their names there, must foot the cost of all this outlay on their bills.