One would think these houses were built by a winged
race, who only used stairs when they were moulting!" But these same
lofty houses are the very thing we must have to-day, all but the running
up and down. Build us houses up, and up, as high as they will stand;
give us plenty of sky-parlors, but also plenty of steam-elevators to go
to and from "my lady's chamber." It is not a wise economy to devote
one's precious power to this enormous amount of stair-work. It is not a
kind of exercise that is sanitive. The Evans House and Hotel Pelham, for
instance, are very pretty Bostonianisms, but all their rooms within
range of ordinary means are beyond the range of ordinary strength. The
achievement of twenty flights a day, back and forth, would leave but
small surplus of vigor. While the steam power is there for heating
purposes, why not use some of it to propel the passengers up and down
that wilderness of rosy boudoirs? Is there any reason why this
labor-saving machine, the steam-elevator, which we now associate with
Fifth Avenue luxury, should not be the common possession of all our
large tenanted buildings? And is there any reason, indeed, in our houses
being no better appointed than the English houses of thirty years ago?
Ruskin has been honorably named for renting a few cottages with an eye
to his tenants as well as himself; but the men who in our crowded cities
shall erect these mammoth rental establishments, with steam access to
every story, will build their own best monuments for posterity. We
commend it to capitalists as a chance to invest in a generous fame.
Until this is done, we shall even disapprove of bestowing any more
mansions upon our beloved General Grant. It is not gallant. Until then,
too, how shall one ever pass that venerable Park Street Church of
Boston, without the irreverent sigh of "What capital lodgings it would
make!" Those three little windows in the curve, looking up and down the
street, and into the ever-fascinating Atlantic establishment; the lucky
tower, into which one might retreat, pen in hand, if not wishing to be
at home to callers nor abroad to himself,--Carlyle-like, making the
library at the top of the house; and all within glance of the dominating
State-House, whither one might steal up for an occasional lunch of
oratory or a digest of laws. We also hear of a new hotel being builded
on Tremont Street, and wonder if there will be any rooms fit for ladies,
and whether one of those in the loft