18. CHAPTER XVIII.
WASHINGTON AFTER THE SESSION.
The leaf that is lodged in some sunny dell, after
drifting on the whirlwind—the Indian's canoe, after it
has shot the rapids—the drop of water that has struggled
out from the Phlegethon of Niagara, and sleeps
on the tranquil bosom of Ontario—are faint images
of contrast and repose, compared with a Washingtonian
after the session. I have read somewhere, in an
oriental tale, that a lover, having agreed to share his
life with his dying mistress, took her place in the
grave six months in the year. In Bagdad it might
have been a sacrifice. In Washington I could conceive
such an arrangement to make very little difference.
Nothing is done leisurely in our country; and, by
the haste with which everybody rushes to the railroad
the morning after the rising of congress, you
would fancy that the cars, like Cinderella's coach,
would be changed into pumpkins at the stroke of
twelve. The town was evacuated in a day. On the
fifth of March a placard was sent back by the innkeepers
at Baltimore, declaring that there was not so
much as a garret to be had in that city, and imploring
gentlemen and ladies to remain quietly at Washington
for twenty-four hours. The railroad engine, twice a
day, tugged and puffed away through the hills, drawing
after it, on its sinuous course, a train of brick-colored
cars, that resembled the fabulous red dragon trailing
its slimy length through the valley of Crete. The
gentlemen who sit by the fire in the bar-room at
Gadsby's, like Theodore Hook's secretary, who could
hear his master write “Yours faithfully” in the next
room, learned to distinguish “Received payment”
from “Sundries,” by listening to the ceaseless scratch
of the bookkeeper. The ticket-office at the depot
was a scene of struggle and confusion between those
who wanted places; while, looking their last on these
vanishing paymasters, stood hundreds of tatterdemalions,
white, yellow, and black, with their hands in
their pockets, and (if sincere regret at their departure
could have wrung it forth) a tear in their eye. The
bell rang, and the six hundred departures flocked to
their places—young ladies, with long faces, leaving
the delights of Washington for the dull repose of the
country—their lovers, with longer faces, trying, in vain,
to solve the X quantity expressed by the aforesaid
“Sundries” in their bill—and members of congress
with long faces, too—for not one in twenty has “made
the impression” he expected; and he is moralizing
on the decline of the taste for eloquence, and on the
want of “golden opportunity” for the display of indignant
virtue!
Nothing but an army, or such a concourse of people
as collects to witness an inauguration, could ever make
Washington look populous. But when congress, and
its train of ten thousand casual visiters are gone, and
only the official and indigenous inhabitants remain,
Balbec, or Palmyra, with a dozen Arabs scattered
among its ruins, has less a look of desolation. The
few stragglers in the streets add to its loneliness—pro
ducing exactly the effect sometimes given to a woodland
solitude by the presence of a single bird. The
vast streets seem grown vaster and more disproportionate—the
houses seem straggling to greater distances—the
walk from the president's house to the capitol
seems twice as long—and new faces are seen here and
there, at the doors and windows—for cooks and innkeepers
that had never time to lounge, lounge now,
and their families take quiet possession of the unrented
front parlor. He who would be reminded of his departed
friends should walk down on the avenue. The
carpet, associated with so many pleasant recollections
—which has been pressed by the dainty feet of wits
and beauties—to tread on which was a privilege and
a delight—is displayed on a heap of old furniture, and
while its sacred defects are rudely scanned by the curious,
is knocked down, with all its memories, under the
hammer of the auctioneer. Tables, chairs, ottomans
—all linked with the same glowing recollections—go
for most unworthy prices; and while, humiliated with
the sight, you wonder at the artificial value given to
things by their possessors, you begin to wonder whether
your friends themselves, subjected to the same
searching valuation, would not be depreciated too!
Ten to one, if their characters were displayed like
their carpets, there would come to light defects as unsuspected!
The person to whom this desolation is the “unkindest
cut” is the hackney-coachman. “His vocation”
is emphatically gone! Gone is the dollar made
every successive half hour! Gone is the pleasant sum
in compound addition, done “in the head,” while waiting
at the doors of the public offices! Gone are the
short, but profitable, trips to the theatre! Gone the
four or five families, all taken the same evening to parties,
and each paying the item of “carriage from nine
till twelve!” Gone the absorbed politician, who would
rather give the five-dollar bill than wait for his change!
the lady who sends the driver to be paid at “the bar;”
the uplifted fingers, hither and thither, which embarrass
his choice of a fare—gone, all! The chop-fallen
coachy drives to the stand in the morning and drives
home at noon; he creeps up to Fuller's at a snail-pace,
and, in very mockery of hope, asks the homeward-bound
clerk from the department if he wants a
coach! Night comes on, and his horses begin to believe
in the millenium—and the cobwebs are wove
over his whip-socket.
These changes, however, affect not unpleasantly the
diplomatic and official colony extending westward from
the president's. The inhabitants of this thin-sprinkled
settlement are away from the great thoroughfare, and
do not miss its crowds. The cessation of parties is to
them a relief from night-journeys, colds, card-leavings,
and much wear and tear of carriage-horses. They
live now in dressing-gowns and slippers, read the reviews
and the French papers, get their dinners comfortably
from the restaurateurs, and thank Heaven that
the capitol is locked up. The attachés grow fat, and
the despatches grow thin.
There are several reasons why Washington, till the
month of May, spite of all the drawbacks in the picture
delineated above, is a more agreeable residence
than the northern cities. In the first place, its climate
is at least a month earlier than that of New York, and,
in the spring, is delightful. The trees are at this moment
(the last week in March) bursting into buds;
open carriages are everywhere in use; walking in the
sun is oppressive: and for the last fortnight, this has
been a fair chronicle of the weather. Boston and
New York have been corroded with east winds, meantime,
and even so near as Baltimore, they are still
wrapped in cloaks and shawls. To those who, in
reckoning the comforts of life, agree with me in making
climate stand for nine tenths, this is powerful attraction.
Then the country about Washington, the drives
and rides, are among the most lovely in the world,
the banks of Rock creek are a little wilderness of
beauty. More bright waters, more secluded bridle-paths,
more sunny and sheltered hill-sides, or finer
mingling of rock, hill, and valley, I never rode among.
Within a half hour's gallop, you have a sylvan retreat
of every variety of beauty, and in almost any direction;
and from this you come home (and this is not the
case with most sylvan rides) to an excellent French
dinner and agreeable society, if you like it. You have
all the seclusion of a rural town, and none of its petty
politics and scandal—all the means and appliances of
a large metropolis, and none of its exactions and limitations.
That which makes the charm of a city, and
that for which we seek the country, are equally here,
and the penalties of both are removed.
Until the reflux of population from the Rocky
mountains, I suppose Washington will never be a metropolis
of residence. But if it were an object with
the inhabitants to make it more so, the advantages I
have just enumerated, and a little outlay of capital and
enterprise, would certainly, in some degree, effect it.
People especially who come from Europe, or have
been accustomed to foreign modes of living, would be
glad to live near a society composed of such attractive
materials as the official and diplomatic persons at the
seat of government. That which keeps them away is,
principally, want of accommodation, and, in a less degree,
it is want of comfortable accommodation in the
other cities which drives them back to Europe. In
Washington you must either live at an hotel or a
boarding-house. In either case, the mode of life is
only endurable for the shortest possible period, and
the moment congress rises, every sufferer in these detestable
places is off for relief. The hotels are crowded
to suffocation; there is an utter want of privacy in
the arrangement of the suites of apartments; the service
is ill-ordered, and the prices out of all sense or
reason. You pay for that which you have not, and
you can not get by paying for it that which you want.
The boarding-house system is worse yet. To possess
but one room in privacy, and that opening on a
common passage; to be obliged to come to meals at
certain hours, with chance table companions, and no
place for a friend, and to live entirely in your bedroom
or in a public parlor, may truly be called as abominable
a routine as a gentleman could well suffer. Yet the
great majority of those who come to Washington are
in one or the other of these two categories.
The use of lodgings for strangers or transient residents
in the city does not, after all the descriptions in
books, seem at all understood in our country. This
is what Washington wants, but it is what every city in
the country wants generally. Let us describe it as if
it was never before heard of, and perhaps some enlightened
speculator may advance us half a century in
some of the cities, by creating this luxury.
Lodgings of the ordinary kind in Europe generally
consist of the apartments on one floor. The house,
we will suppose, consists of three stories above the
basement, and each floor contains a parlor, bedroom,
and dressing-room, with a small antechamber. (This
arrangement of rooms varies, of course, and a larger
family occupies two floors.) These three suites of
apartments are neatly furnished; bed-clothes, table-linen,
and plate, if required, are found by the proprietor,
and in the basement story usually lives a man and
his wife, who attend to the service of the lodgers;
i. e., bring water, answer the door-bell, take in letters,
keep the rooms in order, make the fires, and, if it is
wished, do any little cookery in case of sickness.
These people are paid by the proprietor, but receive a
fee for extra service, and a small gratuity, at departure,
from the lodger. It should be added to this, that it is
not infra. dig. to live in the second or third story.
In connexion with lodgings, there must be of course
a cook or restaurateur within a quarter of a mile.
The stranger agrees with him for his dinner, to consist
of so many dishes, and to be sent to him at a certain
hour. He gives notice in the morning if he dines out,
buys his own wine of the wine-merchant, and thus
saves two heavy items of overcharge in the hotel or
boarding-house. His own servant makes his tea or
coffee (and for this purpose has access to the fire in
the basement), and does all personal service, such as
brushing clothes, waiting at table, going on errands,
&c., &c. The stranger comes in, in short, at a moment's
warning, brings nothing but his servant and
baggage, and finds himself in five minutes at home,
his apartments private, and every comfort and convenience
as completely about him as if he had lived
there for years.
At from ten to fourteen dollars a week, such apartments
would pay the proprietor handsomely, and afford
a reasonable luxury to the lodger. A cook would
make a good thing of sending in a plain dinner for a
dollar a head (or more if the dinner were more expensive),
and at this rate, a family of two or more persons
might have a hundred times the comfort now enjoyed
at hotels, at certainly half the cost.
We have been seduced into a very unsentimental
chapter of “ways and means,” but we trust the suggestions,
though containing nothing new, may not be
altogether without use. The want of some such thing
as we have recommended is daily and hourly felt and
complained of.
