Imperial Hotel

“ What is apparent from the whole affair is that the old ideal of one's inn, as a place where one shall take one's ease, has perished in the evolution of the magnificent American hotel which we have been maliciously seeking to minify in the image of its Old World germ. One may take one's ease in one's hotel only if one is dressed to the mind of the hotel-keeper, or perhaps finally the head waiter. ”

“ The outlook from our hotel was nearly the same as before—over a low building with a colonnade, at the masts of the abundant shipping. But there was a striking change in the interior of the hotel. It was like the other, a palace adapted to the purposes of an inn; but be-carpeted and be-furnished with an exaggeration of English fashion.
We lost no time in turning out, after breakfast, into the morning sunshine. George was enchanted with the aspect of the place, as we drove or walked along the streets. ”

“ It will not be seriously argued, I suppose, that the first twenty years of grand hotels have added as much ugliness to the world’s stock of ugliness as the first twenty years of railway stations. If there exists a grand hotel as direfully squalid as King’s Cross Station (palace of an undertaking with a capital of over sixty millions sterling) I should like to see it. Hotel architecture is the outcome of a new feature in the activity of society, and this fact must be taken into account. ”

“ After so many weeks of wandering, I have settled down to a job again. The last six “huts” in which I have been were in a barracks, a casino, a private house, a convent, a college and a hospital. This “hut” is in a hotel. The hotel is situated directly back of the Conflans-Jamy railroad station. Before the war the hotel was a prosperous and pleasant place, judging from the photograph which Madame showed us; its windows filled with real lace curtains all matching! as she pointed out; the broad terrace in front on sunny days filled with little tables and crowded with well-dressed people. ”

“ With what I hope may be deemed a pardonable curiosity, we peeped and sometimes stepped into these interiors, and were gratified by the neatness and even elegance which they exhibited. We found the people remarkably civil, and apparently too much accustomed to English travellers to trouble themselves about us. The hotel was not of the best class, and we only saw some very inferior cafés, consisting of one small room, with a curtain before the open door, and on the outside a rude representation, on a board, of a coffee-pot, and a cup and saucer. ”

“ It was panelled from floor to ceiling in richly carved oak, set off with gilding, and embellished with the figures of Peace and Concord and the initials C R, while the ceiling was painted with nymphs and cherubim by Antonio Verrio.
Nothing has more changed from its former condition than the old inn which has become the modern hotel. ”

“ Nothing, however, is to exert a vaster influence on our style than the hotel. This 'institution,' as we have it, is comparatively unknown in Europe; beyond all nations are we a travelling and hotel-building people. Our hotels have not grown up with the scant traffic of the post chaise or diligence; they overleaped that feeble infancy, and started at once with the railroad and steamboat. Large, luxurious, and well appointed, they are usually the prominent buildings in all our large cities.
But as yet it is only their size and social importance that distinguishes them, not their architecture. ”

“ The hotels in Europe have been transformed from simple boarding houses to marble palaces, equipped with every luxury and comfort. A room and bath in any first-class hotel brought seven dollars a day and a suite of rooms at thirty was not considered extreme. Many of the restaurants were so fine and fashionable that they didn't even print prices on their bills of fare. ”

“ The modern traveller in the modern hotel is alas! less sociable, and takes himself over seriously, and seldom even smiles. But happily there seems to be something about the old English inn that thaws the formality and taciturnity out of strangers. I think this must be due to the sense of homeliness and comfort that pervades it, with the delightful absence of all pretence and show.
From our inn we looked across the wide market square right on to the splendid and spacious church with its tall and graceful tower, a veritable triumph of the builder’s craft. ”

“ All of the apartments of the hotel, from the magnificent "Royal Suite" to the single bedrooms of the transients, were furnished in the most luxurious manner possible. Costly draperies, priceless paintings, and exquisite furnishings of every description, adorned the drawing-rooms, ball-rooms, foyers and restaurants. Statues of ancient personages ornamented the different hallways, while the carved marble and woodwork seen everywhere showed splendid workmanship. Sweet strains of music from the orchestras stationed in different balconies could be heard in most any part of the building. ”

“ In general, all the rooms on each floor must resemble each other, possessing the same advantages. If one has a balcony, all must have balconies. There must be no sacrificing of the amenities of a room here and there to demands of variety or balance in the elevation. Again, the hotel must be relatively lofty—not because of lack of space, but to facilitate a complex service. The kitchens of Buckingham Palace may be a quarter of a mile from the dining-room, and people will say, “How wonderful!” ”

“ To complain is to draw forth the ill-disguised contempt of bibulous head-waiters and the stiff apologies of haughty proprietors. But beyond that mortal man will never get, because the English hotel is an immemorial and conservative institution, and as wise in its own conceit as the ancient sphinx. Of late and in London attempts have been made to organise hotels adapted to the best kind of requirement. ”

“ This hotel, "magnifique construction ornee de statues," as the Guide-Joanne, usually so reticent, takes the trouble to announce, has an omnibus, and, I suppose, has statues, though I didn't perceive them; but it has very little else save immemorial accumulations of dirt. It is magnificent, if you will, but it is not even relatively proper; and a dirty inn has always seemed to me the dirtiest of human things, - it has so many opportunities to betray itself. ”

“ The Royal Hotel, which is contiguous to the Station, has undergone thorough alteration, and every care has been taken to adopt all modern improvements, with a view of securing to travellers and families every accommodation which a first-class hotel can afford. It is fitted up in a style of elegance which renders it one of the most complete establishments of the kind in the kingdom, and in every way suited for visitors of the highest grade of society; it is fit to accommodate Royalty itself, and we opine the day is not far distant when it will be honoured with such illustrious guests. ”

“ The Hotel Majestic Palace looked rich; very, very rich. It had heaps of splendid mirrors and curtains, and imitation Louis XVI. sofas, and everything that a hotel needs to make it happy and successful, while I had nothing in the world except what I stood up in, one fitted bag, one small box, and thirty-two francs. I did n't quite see, at first sight, what I was to do; but neither did the assistant manager see what that had to do with him. ”

“ Most of the old inns are gone too, and in their place, only too frequently, the traveller finds the modern, company-owned hotel, with a foreign manager who naturally takes no interest in the guests he, as a matter of fact, rarely sees, and with whom no guest could possibly foregather. In the modern barrack hotel the guest must necessarily be impersonal—one of a number going to swell the returns. No one quite willingly resigns himself [Pg 59] to being a mere number ”

“ Nature’s Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table-d’hote shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the next year’s full re-opening, cannot help being somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship. ”

“ When I approached the window to look out, I fancied that every accidental glance of a passer-by was the prying gaze of insolent curiosity. It was in a state of fever that I dressed myself; and even then my costume of full dinner dress made me feel ashamed to venture abroad. At last I took courage to order breakfast. The respectful demeanor of the waiter gave me further confidence, and I ventured to ask him a few questions on passing events. I learned that the hotel was one usually frequented by foreigners, for whose accommodation two or three Continental newspapers were taken. ”

“ The interior, while being on a broad, liberal, yes, a luxurious scale, has no striking novelties. It is modelled after the style of the large modern American hotels of the first-class. There is a large and splendid “office” with reading-room, smoking-room, writing-room, and small parlors branching off; there are open fires and all the etceteras of convenience and luxury; the whole ground floor is marble-tiled, the corridors are ten feet wide and richly carpeted ”

“ He said in an injured tone: “Mister, naturally the staff won’t bother your stuff. What kind of a hotel do you think this is?”
“Of course, of course,” I said. But I knew he was lying, because I knew what kind of hotel it was. The staff was there only because being there gave them a chance to knock down more money than they could make any other way. What other kind of hotel was there? ”

“ Essentially, a ‘smart’ hotel is a place where a hundred people toil like devils in order that two hundred may pay through the nose for things they do not really want. ”

“ I have always said that the great advantage of a hotel is that it's a refuge from home life, sir. ”

“ The incidents which may develop in one inn quite naturally have a wide variation from the happenings which may arise in another, but the general machinery of hospitality differs but little. There is, in fact, far less contrast in the essentials of comfort between the ordinary provincial inn and the native hotels of the first order in Tokyo or Kyoto than there is to be found in a like comparison of hotels in our civilization ”

“ It was pleasant to drive back to the hotel in the late afternoon, above a sea as mysteriously colored as the agates and cornelians of childhood, green as green milk, blue as laundry water, wine dark. ”

“ Many of the large American hotels have defects similar to those with which we are familiar in their European prototypes. They have the same, if not an exaggerated, gorgeousness of bad taste, the same plethora of ostentatious "luxuries" that add nothing to the real comfort of the man of refinement, the same pier glasses in heavy gilt frames, the same marble consoles, the same heavy hangings and absurdly soft carpets. ”

“ Her mind was an hotel where facts came and went like transient lodgers, without leaving their address behind, and frequently without paying for their board. ”

“ On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. ”

“ After two hours and a half of this odd travelling (including a stoppage at a small town, where we were saluted by a gun considerably bigger than our own chimney) , we reached Hartford, and straightway repaired to an extremely comfortable hotel: except, as usual, in the article of bedrooms, which, in almost every place we visited, were very conducive to early rising. ”

“ At the hotels all the attendants seem to get notice of the intended departure of a guest and they line up to receive a remembrance—porter, chambermaid, valet, bell-boy, elevator man, and some whose faces are entirely new to the guest. ”

“ As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, "Where are you bound for, General?" and when I replied, "West Point," he remarked, "Beautiful place, have you ever been there before?" ”

“ The streets about the doors of the hotels resound with the cracking of whips and the stamping of horses, and are encumbered with carriages, heaps of baggage, porters, postillions, couriers, and travelers. Night at length arrives—the time of spectacles and funerals. ”

“ He turned away, still crumpling and uncrumpling a handful of leaves which he had torn from the wall. An exquisite sense of pleasure and relief possessed him; it was all so solid and peaceful after the ball at the hotel, whether he was in love with them or not, and he was not in love with them; no, but it was good that they should be alive. ”

“ It is always a surprise to the stranger, who has bowled along the broad drive of five miles through a pleasing but not striking landscape, to come suddenly, when he alights at the hotel, upon what seems to be a "fault," a sunken valley, and to look down a precipitous, grassy, tree-planted slope upon a lake sparkling at the bottom and reflecting the enclosing steep shores. It is like an aqua-marine gem countersunk in the green landscape. Many an hour had Irene and Stanhope passed in dreamy contemplation of it. ”