I recall an incident during my visit to London on this occasion which aptly illustrates the want of suggestiveness on the part of Englishmen. They are content to go along in old ruts, provided only they be old enough. Frank Fuller was the contractor for the Crystal Palace, and a problem arose, in the construction, as to what to do with a certain beautiful and aged elm that had been an object of reverence and stood in the way of the proposed building. It had finally been decided to cut it down, in order to get it out of the way.
"What!" said I, "cut it down--this exquisite tree?" Some one remarked that the authorities did not wish to cut it down, but it stood directly in the way of the great palace, and would have to be sacrificed. "The palace is here for time," I said, "and this tree may be here for eternity. Spare the tree." "But how?" they asked. They were bewildered--did not have a thought of what to do, except to hew down the venerable tree. "Build your palace around it," I said. This simple device had not occurred to them, but it saved the elm.
Mr. Fuller was so pleased by the suggestion, that he began asking me about hotels in America, and proposed that I undertake the building of an American hotel in London. I said that some time I should, perhaps, try the experiment, but that for the present my shipping business would keep me fully occupied.
I might as well mention here, although it is not in its chronological order, my later experience in trying to establish an American hotel in London. It was seven years after the exhibition when the question of an American hotel came up again. I had worked up the plan very thoroughly, and had some of the most prominent and influential men in England as directors of the proposed company. We had, also, obtained options on several acres of desirable land in the Strand as a site. In the board of directors was Lord Bury, private secretary of the Queen, son of the Earl of Albemarle; Mark Lemon, of Punch; and others. The only obstacle to our success was the passage of a bill through Parliament authorizing us to occupy the land. The hotel caused a great sensation in London, and there was much talk of it as a daring and not altogether agreeable invasion of England by Americans. On the other hand, there was much commendation, and George Augustus Sala, the leading editorial writer of the Telegraph, wrote a letter in which he mentioned my name as a guaranty that the hotel would be built and would succeed, as, he said, I had succeeded in everything.