Part 8
I think the cause of this particular difference lies in the climate of America, and especially in the climate of New York. Just as the climate of some places fills the whole system with an invincible desire to do nothing, with an insuperable languor and sloth, in the same way the climate of New York fills the body and mind with the desire to be up and about. It is the nimble air which produces the nimble wits: the stimulating atmosphere which creates, in the denizen of New York, the love of bustle, hurry, competition, and work. I am not saying this is either a good thing or a bad thing--I am merely noting and recording what struck me as being the main differences between New York and London. London, compared with certain cities, say Constantinople or Seville, seems a whirlpool of energy; compared with New York, it is slack. Compared with New Yorkers, Londoners are slackers. They go to bed earlier, they get up later, they do infinitely less during the day, and they do it more slowly. They waste more time. On the other hand, they suffer less from “nerve trouble.” They do not live on their nerves. In New York the people do. Very often, when you talk to some one who is employed, say in a store, in New York, you feel as if he was so highly strung as to be on the verge of breaking down; another turn of the screw and you feel he would break down. You never feel this in talking to a Londoner. In talking to a Londoner, you often want to give him a dose of H. G. Wells’s “accelerator,” the medicine which makes you live more quickly. In talking to a New Yorker, you often think he would be the better for a dose of some patent procrastinator, which would have the effect of making the wheels of his physical and mental machinery work slower.
A street boy, a child, in New York, is more nimble-minded, more agile in thought and expression, than the quickest-witted Englishman. He will have got there and be walking round him in thought before the Englishman has begun to express himself. I was much struck by the patience and tolerance shown to me by lift-boys and other children in dealing with some one so much heavier-witted and sluggish-minded than themselves, especially when one began cumbrously to explain something they had already understood some minutes before.
Does all this lead to a waste of energy, like a lot of soda-water bottles bursting their stoppers and fizzing into space? I don’t know. It certainly leads to nervous breakdowns and nervous strain in general. The air in New York acts like a constant pick-me-up and enables you to do tiring things all day without making you feel tired. But some day or other you have, I suppose, to pay for this.
So much for the air and the atmosphere of New York--a delicious air to the newcomer; in any case, a tingling, stimulating, intoxicating atmosphere to the stranger; and air, as people say, like champagne. That depends, however, on what kind of champagne. It is not true to say that all champagne is good. All port may be good, but all champagne is not.
[Illustration: ANOTHER TURN OF THE SCREW AND HE WOULD BREAK DOWN]
I have already said something about New York architecture; but I forget what. I have not got the back part of my manuscript here. In any case, whatever I said, I know that I expressed admiration. When one sees a fine piece of modern architecture anywhere, one says, as a rule, it is very fine for a modern thing. Now one does not in the least feel tempted to say any such thing about the Pennsylvania Railroad Station or Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan’s library. One feels--at least I feel--that whenever and wherever these two masterpieces had been made, they would legitimately have been ranked with the world’s best. Had Pheidias designed the Pennsylvania Railway Station, he might have been proud. By the way, Pheidias wasn’t an architect, but only a decorator; well, let us say the best great architect of the best period, whoever he was. The striking thing about these buildings is, to my mind, the fact that they are modern, but untainted with the influence of that horrible thing called “art nouveau,” “modern style,” and various other names. A style which, by the way, is German. It was born in Munich. Its parent on the male side was Japanese, on the female side a bastard descendant of William Morris via Maple. It was brought up in Germany, fostered by what are called decadent artists. These are artists whose work is a mixture of beer and sausage and Aubrey Beardsley. This style spread with incredible rapidity all over Germany and reached and flooded Russia, from Moscow to Harbin, and from St. Petersburg to Odessa. In Moscow it has produced huge shops, in St. Petersburg likewise. The result is not pleasing. It is full of useless details: ornaments which have no sense, curves and twiddles which have no meaning. This brings me to what I believe is the secret of the beauty of modern American architecture. It is, I believe, the absence of twiddles. By twiddles I mean any kind of unnecessary line, curve, moulding, arabesque, or ornament. If you ever have had any dealings with an English architect, you will know that when he brings you his plan, whether for the outside or the inside of a house, it will be full of twiddles. If you protest--if, for instance, you say you consider seven mouldings underneath the cornice on the ceiling to be too much--he will say it is necessary in order to break the line. This isn’t true. Because the architects of ancient times did not find it necessary to “break the line” in this manner, nor do the architects of modern America. But that they do not is a very remarkable fact indeed. It is probably unique in the modern world, and the result of it is magnificent architecture.
American architecture is good because it is based on common sense. The worst kind of architecture is that which is based on nonsense. By nonsense I mean non-sense, the contrary of sense. The kind of architecture which puts in a room a staircase which goes nowhere is non-sense. All the finest architecture in the world was made for a definite purpose and use, and made to suit that purpose and use. The pyramids of Egypt had a use; the only thing is, nobody knows now what it was, but it was something very definite; of that we can be certain from the enormous care which was taken to build them in accordance with certain mathematical calculations and according to a certain disposition and conjunction of the stars, the latitude, and the longitude. The idea that they were simply tombs is, I believe, difficult to support. But whatever the purpose was, we can be certain they had a purpose. They were not simply staircases leading nowhere. Now the Pennsylvania Railway Station _is_ a railway station, and the architecture is subordinate to its use. The result is magnificent. Nothing would have been added to its use had it been filled with absurd lines and curves, twisted flowers, impossible fruits and silly claws; and nothing would have been added to its beauty.
Then there are the skyscrapers. These are obviously useful, since the narrowness of the area in which New York is built makes it, if not necessary, at least highly desirable to economize as much space as possible, and since it is impossible to build broadly, the only way to acquire houseroom is to build skyward. And this has been done, again without the addition on the face of the buildings of a lot of unnecessary excrescences and ornaments. Mr. Pennell, who is an artist of fame, says that the sight of the skyscraper, from the seas, beats Venice. I don’t care two pins for comparisons, for what seems to me amusing and appreciable is that we live in a world so rich in invention and so various that it produces and contains things so striking and so different as Venice and the skyscrapers of New York. That’s what we ought to be thankful for. Another useful thing which seems to me to result in a spectacle of amazing beauty is the illuminated advertisements on Broadway at night. There, by their quantity and their quality, they compose a fairy city which is constantly changing--a city of stars, glow-worms, fireflies, and Roman candles. Just the right thing to light up a street which is almost exclusively devoted, at night, to theatres, restaurants, and places of amusement.
Is America comfortable? I have already said something about the trains; but since writing that I have been for two long journeys in the Orient Express. I suppose the Orient Express professes to represent and embody the acme of human luxury in the way of European travelling. It certainly represents, to my mind, the acme of human discomfort. The train is narrow. It shakes. The restaurant car is too small, and the food has a peculiar nauseating quality which is the special and exclusive invention and property of the International Sleeping-Car Company. The curious thing is that the food is the same on whatever line you travel, so long as the restaurant car belongs to the International Sleeping-Car Company. It does not matter if you are travelling on the Nord Express, the Sud Express, or the Orient Express, you will get exactly the same dinner, and that same dinner will have the same taste--that unique taste you find nowhere else in the world. And, what is more, if you ever feed at one of the hotels belonging to the International Sleeping-Car Company, you will even there find the same meal and the same taste to it, the same taste pervading all the dishes--a peculiar kind of staleness, something slightly rancid and altogether unappetizing. One wonders who invented it and by what manner and means it was made universal. On the Trans-Siberian Railway, which goes from Moscow to Vladivostok, on certain days of the week there is a dining-car belonging to the International Sleeping-Car Company, and on other days there is a dining-car belonging to the State. In the car belonging to the State you get good, ordinary food; the same kind of food as you can get at a hotel or a station buffet; but in the International Sleeping-Car Company’s dining-car you get the same old meal and the same old taste. When I last travelled on the Orient Express, I was thinking the whole time, which is the most comfortable or the most uncomfortable, that or an American train. And I made the following schedule of advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages of the Orient Express over an American express train:--
(1) You have a compartment to yourself or, at the worst, shared with one other.
(2) You can smoke where you like.
(3) You have a washing-place opening off of your compartment.
Advantages of the American express over the Orient Express:--
(1) Your bed, when you are once in it, is much broader and more comfortable.
(2) The food is incomparably better.
(3) There is a constant supply of iced water within reach.
Disadvantages of the Orient Express:--
(1) The bed is narrow. A hard pillow is put under the mattress so that it catches you in the small of the back. If you take it away, your head sinks into a draughty hole between the wall and the mattress. The blanket is folded double, so that it is impossible to cover yourself or the bed with it entirely. If you unfold it and use it single it is too thin to protect you from the cold.
(2) You can smoke in your compartment, it is true, but if you want for a change to smoke in the smoking compartment, you will find the accommodations insufficient and unsatisfactory.
(3) There is no supply of newspapers.
Disadvantages of an American express:--
(1) You have to wash in public. Passengers often use the washing-room as smoking-room in the morning and sit in it smoking cigars, while you have to shave. Some people find it quite impossible to shave in public. Shaving even in private makes them nervous, but shaving in public is for them a positive impossibility.
(2) Undressing in the berth of an American car is an acrobatic feat.
(3) You are at the mercy of the coloured man who looks after you. Either he bullies you or he doesn’t; but if he doesn’t he is generally slack and doesn’t look after you and your things. He makes up for inefficiency by an exaggerated familiarity.
[Illustration: UNDRESSING IN THE BERTH OF AN AMERICAN CAR IS AN ACROBATIC FEAT]
There--that seems to me to be a very impartial schedule--the conclusion being that travelling on the Orient Express or on an American express is equally uncomfortable. The truth is that all railway travelling is very uncomfortable anyhow. As Mr. H. G. Wells printed somewhere, railway travelling hasn’t really improved since the first trains were invented. The same essentials of discomfort remain: the narrowness, the dirt, the stuffiness, the vibration of the car. The car has not improved. The Pullman car is a more ingenious arrangement than the European car for the train, but it is not more comfortable for the passenger. What surprises me now is the things I remember Americans telling me about American trains before I went to America. I remember being told by them that American trains were full of hot and cold baths, which you could jump into at any minute; that there was no difference in being on a train or in a club; that they were more comfortable than the best hotel and more luxurious than the fastest liners; that the best European cars would be considered to belong to the fourth class in America. How different this is from what I have heard Americans say about American trains when they were themselves on the train in America!
With regard to baggage, I throw a large bouquet at the check system. It is infinitely more convenient than the European system, which I do not think has a single advantage, except the doubtful one of its being easier for you to lose your boxes. In England, for instance, there is a special profession to which certain people belong who are called “Peter-claimers,” and whose whole business in life is to steal other people’s baggage from railway stations. They drive to the station with an empty bag or with a bag full of stones. They put down their bag next to that of a banker, which they know to be full of gold, or next to that of a duchess, which they know to be full of pearls, rubies, and pink topazes. Then in their hurry they make a mistake, and, leaving their bag, they take away that of the banker or the duchess and drive home with it and never give it back, unless the reward offered be larger than the value of the contents of the bag and no questions be asked. This is called “Peter-claiming.”
[Illustration: THEIR WHOLE BUSINESS IS TO STEAL OTHER PEOPLES’ BAGGAGE]
Another and more complicated way of doing it is this: You--the crook--that is to say, the “Peter-claimer”--have a particular kind of bag made which when placed on the top of any other kind of bag opens and swallows it up. I don’t see how “Peter-claimers” could possibly do their work in a country where the check system prevails. However, human ingenuity is boundless, and doubtless a way would be found.
An American said to me, when I was travelling not long ago, that in America matters such as travelling, living in hotels, etc., had been reduced to perfection. I don’t believe this to be true. What I do think is very often true is that the means has been perfected without any regard having been paid to the end. The Pullman car is an example in point. If you regard the Pullman car as a device for travelling, a machine for holding as many people as possible and economizing the maximum of space in so doing, it is perfect. But as a vehicle for human beings to travel in in comfort it is imperfect. It contains great possibilities for discomfort quite apart from the coloured gentleman, who may or may not make life a hell to you during the journey. What is often left out in the calculations of ingenious devices of means of luxury is the human element, the human being. It is no good having an elevator that goes at a speed of five hundred miles an hour, if it makes you sick. It is no good having a train that goes so fast that you can neither read by day nor sleep by night in it. It is no good having a theatre so large that you cannot hear the actors speak. It is no good having a meal so rich that your appetite has gone after the first course.
I remember somebody once saying to me a long time ago that the Americans had attained to luxury by jumping over comfort. I think there is a certain amount of truth in this, and yet it would be foolish to call American hotels uncomfortable. They are not uncomfortable. Only there is this to be said: That to some people all hotel life is uncomfortable. They hate living in a crowd. They hate bustle, confusion, noise, the arrival and departure of people, etc. And there is certainly more hotel life in America than in other countries. And yet what a saving to the nerves, and to the temper, are so many of the devices and the arrangments in American hotels. The telephone, for instance: if you want a nice test of temper, try to get a number at the Hotel Cecil in London; or, better still, spend a happy morning in ringing up people on the telephone in Paris. In America it is either done for you at once or you know it cannot be done, and the matter is settled. Hotel life in America seems to me infinitely better organized than in any other country in the world, with the possible exception of China. Because when you order a room at a Chinese hotel, in a small Chinese town, the room is built for you while you wait; you choose the style of room, and the paper, the carpeting, and all the furniture are put in during the day.
Another thing which is an immense saving of time and temper in an American hotel is the way in which it is possible to find out whether or not some friend of yours is staying there, without having to wait the best part of an hour, and without people being sent off in different directions, who come back much later on with contradictory reports.
[Illustration: TRYING TO GET A NUMBER AT THE HOTEL CECIL]
If, though, on the one hand, in anything that concerns machinery contrivance, organization is better in America than elsewhere, anything that concerns the personal service of human beings is probably less good, owing to the simple fact that there is no servant class in America; that servants in America are either coloured men or foreigners. This is a factor which makes for discomfort, because the existence of a great mass of human beings who have nothing else to do but attend to the wants of other human beings, obviously conduces to the comfort of those people whose wants are being attended to. For instance, it is more comfortable to arrive at a railway station in Russia, where there are about twenty willing railway porters to every traveller, than it is to arrive at 4 A.M., in Paris, where there is only one unwilling and extremely rude porter to attend to all the travellers. It is obviously more comfortable to be certain of finding some one to carry a heavy bag for you, if you are going into the suburbs by rail, than to be certain that you will have to carry it yourself. On the other hand, the absence of a servant class speaks well for the spirit of independence and initiative in the country. At least I suppose it does. Equality is a good thing, but it can be abused just as much as its brother, liberty.
We all know the acts of tyranny which have been committed, and are committed daily, in the name of liberty. In the same way crime and misdemeanors are committed in the name of equality. In order to show you that he is as good as his master, Jack often treats his master as his inferior.
If I had to compare the comforts of life in England and America, and to sum up the matter briefly, I should say as far as life in public is concerned--that is to say, life in hotels, restaurants, clubs, and, perhaps, trains (in England the distances being short, the proposition is hardly the same), and certainly railway stations and buffets and all kinds of bars--everything you get in America is superior, but as far as life in private is concerned--country houses, cottages, farms, town houses, flats, and rooms--the comfort in England is incomparably greater. Of course some people say that life in private--home life--does not exist in America at all. But that is the kind of generalization I distrust. Personally I think a small private house in England is a much more comfortable affair than a small private house in America. On the other hand, I think an American bar is much more comfortable and cheerful than our English public house. Again, I think there is a great difference between the English country house, owned by the English rich, and that owned in England by the American rich. In the homes of the American rich you will rarely find a room in which it is possible to sit down with comfort.
American clubs, again, are far more human and cheerful than English clubs. Anything more depressing than the average English club can scarcely be imagined: a series of rooms in which old men in different corners grunt, frown, and snore--the rest is silence. In American clubs you feel that everybody is alive and that people go to clubs not to avoid the society of their fellow creatures, but, on the contrary, to enjoy it. And that, after all, was the origin and the initial purpose of all clubs, because if a man wants solitude he can stop at home. But I forgot--some men are married. That, of course, certainly changes the question.
In the category of human comforts belongs the food question. I don’t suppose it is necessary at this time of the day to sing the praises of the food you get in America. America has a national food, containing a quantity of delicious dishes you can get only in America, and Americans are, thank heavens, not unconscious of the fact. England has a national food also; but, alas! how rarely you get English food, good English food, in England, and how often you get a shockingly bad imitation of French food--a succession of entrées which a wit once said were like tepid lawn-tennis balls. How excellent a thing, on the other hand, is a fried sole, toasted cheese (like that you get at the “Cheshire Cheese”), English cold beef, English bacon, roast grouse, and currant-and-raspberry tart. These are all things which I believe you can get nowhere out of England; nowhere meat at such a peculiar pitch of perfection.