The Hotel

At one moment, the
very circumstances now surrounding me--my coal fire and the dingy room
in the bustling hotel--appeared far off and intangible; the next
instant Blithedale looked vague, as if it were at a distance both in
time and space, and so shadowy that a question might be raised whether
the whole affair had been anything more than the thoughts of a
speculative man. I had never before experienced a mood that so robbed
the actual world of its solidity. It nevertheless involved a charm, on
which--a devoted epicure of my own emotions--I resolved to pause, and
enjoy the moral sillabub until quite dissolved away.

Whatever had been my taste for solitude and natural scenery, yet the
thick, foggy, stifled element of cities, the entangled life of many men
together, sordid as it was, and empty of the beautiful, took quite as
strenuous a hold upon my mind. I felt as if there could never be
enough of it. Each characteristic sound was too suggestive to be
passed over unnoticed. Beneath and around me, I heard the stir of the
hotel; the loud voices of guests, landlord, or bar-keeper; steps
echoing on the staircase; the ringing of a bell, announcing arrivals or
departures; the porter lumbering past my door with baggage, which he
thumped down upon the floors of neighboring chambers; the lighter feet
of chambermaids scudding along the passages;--it is ridiculous to think
what an interest they had for me! From the street came the tumult of
the pavements, pervading the whole house with a continual uproar, so
broad and deep that only an unaccustomed ear would dwell upon it. A
company of the city soldiery, with a full military band, marched in
front of the hotel, invisible to me, but stirringly audible both by its
foot-tramp and the clangor of its instruments. Once or twice all the
city bells jangled together, announcing a fire, which brought out the
engine-men and their machines, like an army with its artillery rushing
to battle. Hour by hour the clocks in many steeples responded one to
another.