ENGLISH CHARACTERISTICS. 203 



sold, you perceive you are in something like a larger 

 hall of a private house, with perhaps a parlor and 

 coffee-room on one side, and the office, and smoking- 

 room, and stairway, on the other. You may leave 

 your coat and hat on the rack in the hall, and stand 

 your umbrella there also, with full assurance that you 

 will find them there when you want them, if it be the 

 next morning or the next week. Instead of that 

 petty tyrant the hotel-clerk, a young woman sits in 

 the office with her sewing or other needlework, and 

 quietly receives you. She gives you your number 

 on a card, rings for a chambermaid to show you to 

 your room, and directs your luggage to be sent up ; 

 and there is something in the look of things, and the 

 way they are done, that goes to the right spot at 

 once. 



At the hotel in London where I stopped, the 

 daughters of the landlord, three fresh, comely young 

 women, did the duties of the office ; and their pres- 

 ence, so quiet and domestic, gave the prevailing hue 

 and tone to the whole house. I wonder how long a 

 young woman could preserve her self-respect and 

 sensibility in such a position in New York or Wash- 

 ington ? 



The English regard us as a wonderfully patient 

 people, and there can be no doubt but we put up with 

 abuses unknown elsewhere. If we have no big 

 tyrant, we have ten thousand little ones, who tread 

 upon our toes at every turn. The tyranny of cor- 

 porations and of public servants of one kind and an- 



