But here we were, rolling up the tree shaded streets of a handsome and obviously prosperous town of about twentyfive hundred which is now one of the residential suburbs of Buffalo. Our eyes were alert for any evidence of the whereabouts of the Roycroft Inn. Finally in the extreme western end of the city we found a Roycroft “sign” in front of a campus like yard containing a building which looked like a small college “addition” of some kind—one of those small halls specially devoted to chemistry or physics or literature. The whole place had the semi-academic socio-religious atmosphere which is associated by many with aspiration and intellectual supremacy and sweetness and light. Here on the sidewalk we encountered a youth who seemed to typify the happy acolyte or fanner of the sacred flame. His hair was a little long, his face and skin pale, quite waxen, and he wore a loose shirt with a blowy tie, his sleeves being rolled up and his negligee trousers belted at the waist. He had an open and amiable countenance and looked as though life had fortunately, but with rare discrimination, revealed much to him.
“What is this?” I inquired, waving my hand at the nearest building.
“Oh, one of the shops,” he replied pleasantly.
“Is it open?”
“Not on Sunday—not to the general public, no.”
He looked as though he thought we might gain special permission possibly, if we sought it. But instead we inquired the location of the Inn and he accompanied us thither on the running board of our machine. It turned out to be a low, almost rectangular affair done in pea green, with a fine line of veranda displaying swings, rockers, wicker chairs and deep benches where a number of passing visitors were already seated. It was a brisk, summery and rather conventional hotel scene.
Within, just off the large lobby was a great music or reception hall, finished as I had anticipated in the Albertian vein of taste—a cross between a farm home and the Petit Trianon. The furniture was of a solid, log-cabin foundation but hopelessly bastardized with oil, glaze, varnish and little metal gimcracks in imitation of wooden pegs. A parqueted floor as slippery as glass, great timbers to support the ceiling which was as meticulously finished as a lorgnette, and a six-panel frieze of Athens, Rome, Paris, London and New York—done in a semi-impressionistic vein, and without real distinction, somehow—completed the effect. There were a choice array of those peculiar bindings for which the Roycroft shop is noted—limp leather, silk linings and wrought-bronze corners and clasps, and a number of odd lamps, bookracks, candelabra and the like, which were far from suggesting that rude durability which is the fine art of poverty. One cannot take a leaf out of St. Francis of Assisi, another out of the Grand Louis and a third out of Davy Crockett and combine them into a new art. The thing was bizarre, overloaded, soufflé, a kind of tawdry botch. Through it all were tramping various American citizens of that hybrid, commercial-intellectual variety which always irritates me to the swearing stage. In the lobby, the library, and various halls was more of the same gimcrackery—Andrew Jackson attempting to masquerade as Lord Chesterfield, and not succeeding, of course. Franklin, a very tolerant and considerate person when it comes to human idiosyncrasies, was at first inclined to bestow a few mild words of praise. “After all, it did help some people, you know. It was an advance in its way.”
After a time, though, I noticed that his interest began to flag. We were scheduled to stay for dinner, which was still three quarters of an hour away, and had registered ourselves to that effect at the desk. In the meantime the place was filling up with new arrivals who suggested that last word of social investiture which the ownership of a factory may somehow imply. They would not qualify exactly as “high brow,” but they did make an ordinary working artist seem a little de trop. As I watched them I kept thinking that here at last I had a very clear illustration in the flesh of a type that has always been excessively offensive to me. It is the type which everywhere having attained money by processes which at times are too contemptible or too dull to mention, are, by reason of the same astonishing dullness of mind or impulse, attempting to do the thing which they think they ought to do. Think of how many you personally know. They have some hazy idea of a social standard to which they are trying to attain or “up to” which they are trying to live. Visit for example those ghastly gaucheries, the Hotels Astor or Knickerbocker in New York or those profitable Bohemian places in Greenwich village (how speedily any decent rendezvous is spoiled once the rumor of it gets abroad!) or any other presumably smart or different place and you will see for yourself. A hotel like the Astor or the Knickerbocker may be trying to be conventionally smart as the mob understands that sort of thing, the Bohemian places just the reverse. In either place or case these visitors will be found trying to live up to something which they do not understand and do not really approve of but which, nevertheless, they feel that they must do.
In this East Aurora restaurant the dinner hour was one o’clock. That is the worst of these places outside the very large cities. They have a fixed time and a fixed way for nearly everything. I never could understand here or anywhere else why a crowd should be made to wait and eat all at once. Where does that silly old mass rule come from anyhow? Why not let them enter and serve them as they come? The material is there as a rule to serve and waiting. But, no. They have a fixed dinner hour and neither love nor money will induce them to change it or open the doors one moment before the hour strikes. Then there is a rush, a pell-mell struggle! Think of the dullness, the reducing shame of it, really. The mere thought of it sickened me. I tried to talk to Franklin about it. He, too, was irritated by it. He said something about the average person loving a little authority and rejoicing in rules and following a custom and being unable to get an old idea or old ideas out their heads. It was abominable.
There was the female here with the golden-rimmed eye-glasses and the stern, accusing eye behind it. “Are you or are you not of the best, artistically and socially? Answer yes or avaunt.” There were tall, uncomfortable-looking gentlemen in cutaway coats, and the stiffest of stiff collars, led at chains' ends by stout, executive wives who glared and stared and pawed things over. The chains were not visible to the naked eye, but they were there. Then there were nervous, fussy, somewhat undersized gentlemen with white side whiskers and an air of delicate and uncertain inquiry, going timidly to and fro. There were old and young maids of a severe literary and artistic turn. I never saw better materials nor poorer taste than in their clothes. I remarked to Franklin that there was not one easy, natural, beautiful woman in the whole group, and after scrutinizing them all he agreed with me.