University of Virginia Library

LODGINGS IN TOWN.

You shall now see what matter I have made of
it, in searching out my winter's lodgings. In Europe,
you know, it is of but little account where a
stranger bachelor may live in a city. He is comparatively
so little known or inquired for, chez lui,

that he may inhabit garret or palace, as he fancies
best. You will remember too, without doubt, our
pretentious acquaintance of London, who, with a
dusky chamber in Fleet street, received all his
friends at a fashionable house of the new Palace
Yard. His letters and cards being all addressed to
the Hotel, and a small periodical fee to the head-waiter,
secured not only their acceptance at his
hands, but the post services of a little boy who ran,
on the occasion of a call upon our acquaintance,
from the hotel into Fleet street.

In Paris, even this sham appearance is unnecessary.
Both you and myself have thought it no
discredit to leave our address at the hotel of Madame
C—, of the Place Vendome, dating from
the eastern end of the dirty Rue Jacob. And you
will recall with a smile, after so long a lapse of
time, our raillery of a certain transatlantic friend,
who thought it necessary to take brilliant apartments
in the Rue de Hauteville, and to order his
dinners from the Café de Paris, and who was so astonished
to find his salon accueil so wofully disproportionate
to the tale of his weekly expenses!

In New-York, as I am told, the case is very different;
and a man is not a little estimated by the
street he lives in, or the house from which he hails.
An officious, but good-natured friend, who was possibly

not aware that I possessed some previous acquaintance
with the purlieus of the city, hinted
to me that if I wished to take rank among what
he called genteel people, I must take lodgings far
up town. And another suggested, when I spoke of
remaining at what seemed to me a very fair sort of
hotel, that it would never do; that the hotel was
not at all the thing, and that a miserable attic in a
fashionable up-town house, which he took the liberty
of recommending, would be much more to my
credit and standing. He even hinted, that if I persisted
in remaining in such quarters, for their size
and comforts, I should take frequent evening
walks in the direction he had named, and so make
a mock of living, where fashionable men made their
head-quarters. He further told me, by way of inducement,
of one or two individuals, who with a
bare pittance to keep soul and body together, had
nevertheless, by dint of scrupulous economy and
nice exactitude in such matters, succeeded in passing
a couple of seasons for men of wealth and ton,
and had eventually carried off splendid fortunes in
the doweries of retired mercers' daughters.

Now, as you know, my dear fellow, that I am
not wintering in town to make a name, either with
fashionable people, or fashion hunters, and that
my age would exculpate me from all intentions

upon retired mercers' daughters, I paid very little
regard to any such suggestions.

I have lived long enough to consult the ease and
comforts of life far more than appearances; and as
I wished a quiet neighborhood, and one which should
not be far removed from what would, in all probability,
be my usual haunts, to wit, the Exchange,
the Society Library, and the Club in which I have
become enrolled, I determined to set at naught all
opinions of place, and to take such lodgings as
suited my fancy.

Among the advertisements which met my eye in
the papers, not a few contained provisos to the
intent, that references would be expected; I therefore
supplied myself with a few of the cards of the
mercantile houses to which I had been accredited,
and which, at least, could substantiate my ability
to pay for a year's lodging.

It was a wet, gloomy day on which I made my
first trial, and I had put on an old pea-jacket which
had seen much ocean service, and a very shabby hat.
The landlady I first addressed—a stout buxom old
lady in black and crimson calico, looked rather
suspiciously at my coat, but prayed me to be seated,—remarked
upon the weather, and from the
weather ran on with a very glib tongue to the gaieties
of the town. She begged to know if I had the

acquaintance of Messrs. So and So, who had some
time been lodgers in her house; hinted that perhaps
I might know another gentleman who was in
excellent society, a man of large fortune, and who
visited Messrs. So and So; but finding me incorrigible
on these points, and only anxious to secure a quiet,
comfortable room, she restrained somewhat the
glibness of her speech. Her rooms proved not at
all to my taste.

Having bade her good morning, which she met
with a very condescending sweep of her black and
crimson calico, I found myself next in a dingy
parlor, hung with faded damask curtains. A
slattern girl, in very showy merino, who was
thrumming at a piano sadly out of tune, met my
entrance with a very low and supercilious bow, and
continued her employment, which, so far as I could
judge, was a succession of efforts to catch some of
the worst, thought most striking passages of Don
Pasquale.

The landlady presently came in, trimmed off
with a tremendous flounce, and curtseying and
bowing together, in a way that might have taken a
man of livelier temperament off his legs. I presented
one of the cards of the commercial house, and
begged to know if, under such recommendation,
she would allow me the favor of looking at her rooms.

She assured me that she would be most happy;
at the same time eyeing my coat and hat with that
look of thorough curiosity, which I find belongs to
lodging-house keepers in all parts of the world.

She informed me that the neighborhood was
highly respectable, and that her lodgers were,
many of them, connected with some of the first
families of the town; and thereupon she commenced
enumerating to me a galaxy of names, which she
did with an air that she seemed to think would
utterly confound and embarrass a man in such
damaged pea-jacket as I happened to be wearing.
I maintained, however, sufficient composure to bow
very graciously at the announcement of each name,
and to tell her plainly at the end, that I knew
nothing of them.

She was evidently thwarted, but determined to
try me next by her scale of prices. She ushered
me into a dim, shabbily furnished upper parlor,
which she assured me was a charming apartment,
and had been occupied by a gentleman of high distinction
in the town circles. She directed my especial
attention to the fine heavy old furniture,
which, to be sure, was heavy and old enough; but
not finding me to join in her ecstasies, she asked if
I had been long in the city?

On hearing that I had but recently returned from

a long residence in the country, she launched out
into praises of town life:—had no doubt that I
would find it delightful; and, glancing at the card,
thought it would be easy to secure an introduction
—indeed, she said she had frequent sawraze at her
own house, at which a Mrs. Somebody was a frequent
attendant; and she would, if I took her
rooms, interest herself as much as possible in my
behalf. She hoped I loved music; her daughter
Fanny, she said, was “a ammature,”—possibly I
might have remarked her execution in the parlor.

The truth was, Fanny's execution was even now
painfully distinct, and utterly dissipated any
thought I might have entertained of engaging
rooms in so close proximity with the parlor instrument.

My next negotiation was with a little, thin,
weazen-faced French lady, of a certain age, who
was most earnest, notwithstanding my pea-jacket,
with the praise of her fort jolies chambers. She
smiled at my card of reference; plumed herself on
being able to detect at a glance a lodger “comme
il faut;”—complimented my French, and showed
me such dirty apartments that I was fain to pay
her back in her own coin, and ended with regretting
that her charming rooms should be all so
high, or so low, as to prevent my becoming a

lodger with so gracious and interesting a young
lady. We parted, of course, capital friends.

My next adventure was with a very prim and
demure-faced little lady in black, occupying a
small house, which she told me had been the property
of her poor husband, who was now dead (and
she sighed), and who had been well known on
'Change, where, if I chose, I could make inquiries
which would satisfy me as to respectability. She
showed me a quiet, neat-looking room, upon the
second floor, looking out upon a small court, garnished
with low roofs and brick walls, and a single
sickly-looking espalier peach-tree. The furniture
was simple, but substantial; a pleasant, “tasteful”
gentleman, with his wife, she told me, occupied
the front-room,—a very respectable old man was
above, and her nieces, from the country, occupied
the remaining attic.

I thought it would be a quiet place for my work,
where I should be out of the reach and knowledge
of prying eyes; and where, my dear Fritz, I could
quietly entertain you, on your visits to the city;—so
I closed with her terms, and am now writing from
a little white table which stands before the grate.

The “tasteful” gentleman proves to be a dashing
buck, who wears very broad plaid to his pantaloons;
he has over-reached himself in marriage,

and is now paying the forfeit in these quiet chambers,
and only gratifying the old exuberance of his
nature by an occasional Sunday dash, in buggy and
pair, upon the Third Avenue. His wife, of whom
I only occasionally catch sight, sports now and
then a superb satin cloak at the Opera or Grace
Church, after which she lies by for a week's recruit.
A thick partition is between our rooms, so that only
a confused murmur of their altercations reaches
my ear. Once, when the hall doors were open, I
caught a few words very sharply uttered, such as,
“satin cloaks,” “avenue rides,” “livery bills,”
“Stewart's,” “my money,” “breaking heart,”
“such a wife,” ending, so far as I could judge, in
the conquest and humiliation of my “tasteful”
neighbor.

The old gentleman above stairs goes to bed regularly
at nine, before which he reads in a loud,
nasal tone, a passage from the Psalms. He is a
quiet, good-hearted old gentleman, who has seen
the city growth, he tells me, for fifty years past.
He never went out of town further than Newark,
where he has a brother residing; yet he sometimes
gives me very wholesome advice, and often much
valuable information about old families and localities
of the town. He takes maccoboy snuff out of
a box ornamented with the head of Washington,

and turns up his nose at what he calls the “fippy-foppery”
of the day. I find that, on many points,
we are capitally agreed; and though he shakes his
head at the French poets which are in my librarycase,
he approves highly my good sense in cherishing
an old family copy of Scott's Bible.

The nieces are tidy, prim girls, who are completing
their education, by reading French phrase
books, Paradise Lost, a pamphlet on Etiquette, and
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, which they declare
to be “sweet.” They express, as sensible girls
should, who know little or nothing of the matter, a
great contempt for the Opera, and most of the fashionable
amusements. Yet I observe, that they
are always very earnest in their inquiries as to
how the house was made up, and about the dresses
of the ladies; and if they can draw me into a little
town gossip about the somewhat notorious occupants
of particular boxes, they seem delighted with
their success. And I once knew them to walk
the whole length of the street, in the hope of seeing
the Opera troupe, as it came out from rehearsal.
They are devoted readers of the Lady's Book, and
Mother's Magazine, though very anxious to get an
occasional look at the Home Journal, which the
tasteful gentleman sometimes purchases; though

the aunt and the old gray-haired lodger persist in
condemning it as silly, gossiping trash.

They occasionally walk Broadway in their best
hats, to admire the cloaks and mantillas, and yet
will talk very earnestly in condemnation of the
foolish extravagance of town-ladies. Though they
make bold to decry the rules of fashion, and to
inveigh against the pursuit of particular, foolish
fancies, I find them very ready to suggest to me
my short-comings in matters of town etiquette, and
they have latterly hinted at some changes of dress,
which they are kind enough to say would quite set
me up on Broadway, and give me a creditable
position at the concerts. My age enables me to
bear this very composedly; and further, to crack
occasional jokes with them about matrimony,
and affairs of gallantry, at which they blush, and
affect to be very angry—but are very sure to pardon
me, after an incredibly short probation.

Upon the whole, they are quiet, well-disposed
girls, who would not make it a material objection
to a lover, that he was an Opera-goer, or a little
of a Roué: withal, they are small talkers, and do
not play the piano.

As you will readily believe, my life passes in
such lodgings in the most quiet way imaginable;

and between the old-fashioned talk of the gray-haired
lodger, and the dashing conversation of the
tasteful gentleman, added to the every-day observations
of the demure nieces, I am forming very
rapidly a pretty set of conclusions about the classes
to which they respectively belong.

But these are by no means all the acquaintances
of whose observations I can avail myself; and I
shall introduce you, from time to time, to others of
wholly different mettle. I shall only excite your
curiosity now, by saying that one is a play-actor,
—another, a sexton of a fashionable church,—a
third is an officer high in the annals of the police,
—a fourth is a keen lawyer, one of whose eyes is
worth most men's two, — a fifth is a kind and
gossiping old lady, who knows half the scandal of
the town, with whom I am frequently treated to
a drive along the Bloomingdale road, much to the
astonishment of the girl lodgers, and of the tasteful
gentleman. Still another is a prim clergyman,
who, though he is not an Opera-goer, has yet
a good ear for a fiddle, and a very delicate eye for
mantillas or shoe-ties.

If the mails are true, you will smoke your Tuesday's
cigar over this paper; and if you are the
friend I take you for, you will look each successive

week, with no little curiosity, for the continuance
of my observations upon Life in Town.

Though the Lorgnette is set at the head of my
page, you need not suppose that I shall forbear
taking an occasional squint, with my naked eye,
either above or below; and though I shall sign this
Timon, you must not think, my dear Fritz, that I
have entered any Trophonian Cave, or that I cannot,
when the humor takes me, play the Merry
Andrew, with the gayest of the Town wits.