V
Detached Thoughts on Boarding
BOARDING is a puzzling and provocative subject for any student of human nature. Some clue to its psychology is revealed by the fact that even Adam and Eve got tired of it. Eden itself could not keep them from wanting their own ménage. One can conjecture the course of their growing ennui and irritation as the suspicion dawned upon them that in Paradise they were not getting all the comforts of home. Having nothing to do but board, they probably conversed a great deal about their food, when the celestial ministrants were out of earshot, and eventually decided that they could have run the table a great deal better themselves. Then, too, they had no privacy, they were absolutely at the mercy of any archangel who might choose to drop in on them. Possibly, also, Eve felt that Eden was no sort of place for bringing up children. They might be spoiled by the attentions of other boarders, elephant or ape, fish or fowl, any one of a perfectly indiscriminate menagerie, while she herself, as a mother, might be subjected to constant advice from angels who did not know one thing more about human babies than she did herself. After Eve had thought over these matters for some time, and whispered them all to Adam, she did what many another boarder has done since; she up and precipitated a crisis.
The case of Adam and Eve is sufficiently typical to afford some light upon the puzzling effects of boarding, but not quite enough illumination to satisfy the psychologist. He is teased by the conviction that there is more in this matter than he can get at. Without an ultimate analysis of causes it may still be of interest to examine some results to the human spirit of both the selling and the buying of house-room, and to offer some tentative explanation of the curious phenomena that for many of us are too familiar for attention.
We all recognize as a distinct human type the woman who keeps boarders. One writes woman rather than man, not that in strict accuracy one could say that men never keep boarders; when men do engage in the business, however, they do so by wholesale, never by retail, while it is precisely the increased personal intimacy of the retail relation that occasions the peculiar blight incurred by the proprietor of a boarding-house, but escaped by the proprietor of a hotel. There is an expression familiar to our tongues, distressing in its figurative suggestion, which is frequently descriptive of the class under discussion, “decayed gentlewoman.” No one knows whether a gentlewoman takes boarders because she has decayed or whether she decays because she takes them. Of course, not all women who take boarders are decrepit either in soul or body,—some of them are very buxom indeed; and, equally, not all are refined,—some of them are refreshingly vulgar; still, as a whole, the attributes inherent in the term “decayed gentlewoman” so generally characterize the profession that in whatever country one travels one is received by ladies so consciously redolent of better days as to shame a boarder for not having had better days himself. However adroitly they conceal their emotions, women who entertain paying guests generally have toward their occupation a feeling of perpetual apology or of perpetual resentment. Sometimes the apology element predominates, and then a blundering boarder had better be mindful of the sensitive toes of his hostess; sometimes the resentment is uppermost, and then the boarder had better be mindful for his own toes. There is no reason why these facts should characterize so worthy a business, and there are conspicuous exceptions in which both the woman and the domicile remain invincibly warm-hearted and welcoming, but the rule still holds that only the rarest of women can invite the public into her home and not herself suffer from the exposure, only the rarest of women can as the mistress of a boarding-house still be perfectly herself.
Having boarders, however, is not so demoralizing as being a boarder. The chronic boarder is an easily recognizable type, fat, fussy, futile, and usually feminine. This caustic characterization does not apply to women who go out by the day to any form of scrubbing, as doctors, lawyers, or whatnot, professional women too busy for carping; it is the woman who has no profession except boarding that suffers its utmost injury. To give primary attention to the manner in which one is fed and lodged has the same effect as any other reversion to an animal attitude. The faces of women who do nothing but keep house are always harassed; the faces of women who do nothing but board are always vacuous. Men-boarders in a house are generally preferred to women; a he-boarder is more to be desired than a she-boarder because there is less of him underfoot. On the other hand, since a man can always beat a woman on her own ground whenever he thinks it worth while, a man who gives his undivided attention to his boarding can in fume and fuss out-boarder any woman.
The insidious influence of boarding upon the spirit is most evident when we watch it operate upon a child. We all know the type of youngster that even the very best of boarding-houses is prone to produce. He is noisy, aggressive, self-conscious, and yet to sympathetic penetration profoundly pathetic. He knows that all his little life is overheard, that every room knows when he is scolded or spanked or entreated. A grown-up learns how to conceal his soul from even boarding-house scrutiny, but a child has no refuge except in slamming doors and thundering on the stairs and jumping into the secrets of those who have trespassed upon his own.
The effect of boarding upon our own soul may best be seen by contrasting our reactions to our geography, according as we wake in the morning to find ourselves at home, in a friend’s home, or in a boarding-house. At home our attitude toward the ensuing day is one of absolute sincerity,—we expect to be our best self or our worst, for frankness is the chief comfort of kinship; if, on the other hand, we open our eyes in somebody’s guest chamber, we marshal our forces to insure our good behavior, we owe it to our host to put out best foot foremost; but if we wake in a boarding-house? There our morning resolve reduces itself to the single sordid intention to get our money’s worth. This latent hostility is ignominious and unworthy, but it is true. Yet we all know that any hostelry is richer in Samaritan opportunities than the road to Jericho.
The detriment due to boarding does not confine itself to animate beings, but extends to the inanimate. In a boarding-house even the chairs look protesting and sat upon. The curtains seem exhausted by enforced welcome. The overworked kitchen has not enough pride left to keep its savors to itself. The piano has clattered until it has forgotten it was ever meant for music. The doom of dejection falls upon a boarding-house both without and within, so that one always regrets its entrance into a street cozy with homes. Its windows stare forth so blankly that the homes grow uncomfortable and move away. There is a blur over the face-walls of a boarding-place obliterating the individuality to which every house has a right.
This very absence of personality gives the boarding-house a certain personality of its own. The effort to analyze this character has made the boarding-house a favorite background with story-writers. Balzac, in “Père Goriot,” caught and reproduced its very soul as well as the soul of the homeless home-lover that it harbored. The frequency of the hall bedroom and the long table in magazine stories to-day suggests the wistful familiarity with both of writer and reader. The juxtaposition of types in a group bound together by no more congenial tie than the brute need of food and shelter has always opened a fascinating field to the romancer from Chaucer’s day to ours.
The mere mention of Chaucer’s name is eloquent with contrast, for surely the Tabard was no bleak spot, but warm and tingling with hospitality. Yet even Chaucer’s blithe company had a sharp eye and a gossipy tongue ready for each other’s foibles, and if they had remained together too long, it would have taken more than mine host to keep them in order, but fortunately they had their picnic and parted. Another week or two and even the Canterbury pilgrims might have degenerated into boarders, and dear knows what metamorphosis mine host the merry, might have undergone.