"By wisdom is a house built; by understanding it is established; and by knowledge the chambers are filled with all pleasant and precious treasures."—Solomon's Practical Wisdom.
"We cannot arrest sunsets nor carve mountains, but we may turn every English home, if we choose, into a picture which shall be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed."—Ruskin.
A condition of pleasantness in a house has a real power in refining and raising the characters of its inmates; so home should not only be a haven of rest, peace, and sympathy, but should have an element of beauty in all its details. Ugliness and discomfort blunt the sensibilities and lower the spirits. D'Israeli said, "Happiness is atmosphere," and from this point of view a few words about furnishing may not be out of place in our inquiry as to how to be happy though married. Certainly the fitting up and arranging of a home will not appear unimportant to those who think with Dr. Johnson that it is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. "Pound St. Paul's church into atoms and consider any single atom; it is, to be sure, good for nothing; but put these atoms together, and you have St. Paul's church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be very insignificant."
The expense of furnishing is often a source of considerable anxiety to young people about to marry. We think, however, that this matrimonial care is, or should be, much more lightly felt than in past years. Competition has made furniture cheaper, and it is now considered "bad form" to crowd rooms or to have in them the large heavy things that were so expensive. Elegance displayed in little things is the order of the day. A few light chairs of different sizes and shapes, a small lounge, one or two little tables, the floor polished round the edges and covered in the centre with a square of carpet, or, if the whole room be stained, with Oriental rugs where required; the windows hung with some kind of light drapery—what more do newly-married people require in their drawing-room? Oh! we have forgotten the piano, and we suppose it is inevitable, but it can easily be hired.
It is a great gain for a young couple to be compelled to economize, for, rich as they may become afterwards, habits of thrift never quite leave them. Their furniture may be scanty and some of it not very new, but common things can be prettily covered, and the dullest of rooms is set off by the knick-knacks that came in so plentifully among the bridal spoils. Besides, if they start with everything they want, there is nothing to wish for, and no pleasure in adding to their possessions. George Eliot has a subtle remark about the "best society, where no one makes an invidious display of anything in particular, and the advantages of the world are taken with that high-bred depreciation which follows from being accustomed to them."
No doubt there will be pictures and photographs, the hanging of which occasions considerable discussion, and perhaps involves the first serious divergence of opinion. We must remember, however, that it is much better to have no pictures than bad ones, and that photographs of scenery are rarely decorative. As regards one's relations when they are really decorative, even Mr. Oscar Wilde can see no reason why their photographs should not be hung on the walls, though he hopes that, if called on to make a stand between the principles of domestic affection and decorative art, the latter may have the first place.
It is a safe rule to have nothing in our houses that we do not know to be useful or think to be beautiful. We should show our love of art and beauty in our surroundings, and bring it to bear in the selection of the smallest household trifle. To have things tasteful and pretty costs no more than to have them ugly; but it costs a great deal more trouble. Simplicity, appropriateness, harmony of colour—these produce the best results. When we enter a room, the first feeling ought to be, "How comfortable!" and the second, as we glance quickly round to discover why, ought to be, "How beautiful!" Not a touch too much nor too little. The art is to conceal art. Directly affectation enters, beauty goes out. But while there should be nothing bizarre in our method of furnishing, rooms should reflect the individuality of their owners. They should never look as if they were furnished by contract. People should allow their own taste to have its way. Whatever we have, let it not be flimsy, but good of its kind. Good things are cheapest in the end, and it is economy to employ good dependable tradespeople.
When he heard of the occurrence of some piece of mischief, George the Fourth used to ask, "Who is she?" This question may be asked with much more reason when we enter a pretty room. Who is she whose judgment and fingers have so arranged these unconsidered trifles as to make out of very little an effect so charming? Compare a bachelor's house with the same house after its master has taken to himself a helpmate. "Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated!" the friends of his former state may well exclaim. Of course we are supposing the lady's head to be furnished, for if that do not contain a certain amount of common sense, good taste, and power of observation, the result will soon be observed in her house. A drawing-room should be for use and not for show merely, and should be furnished accordingly. It should be tidy, but not painfully tidy. Self-respect should lead us to have things nice in our homes, whether the eyes of company are to see them or not. It was surely right of Robinson Crusoe to make his solitary cave look as smart as possible. Who does not respect the wife whose dinner-table is prettily adorned with flowers even on days when no one but her husband has the honour of dining with her?
To furnish the kitchen is a troublesome and unsatisfactory business. It is unsatisfactory because one expends on kitchen utensils, which are rather dear, a considerable amount of money without having much to show. And it is troublesome to have to distinguish between the many implements a cook really does require and those which she only imagines to be necessary. Still, cook must be supplied with every appliance that is really necessary. Without these there may be an expenditure of time out of all proportion to her task. On the equipoise of that lady's temper depends to a not inconsiderable extent the comfort of the house. Have in the kitchen a good clock, and teach your servants to take a pleasure in making sweet and bright their own special chambers.
Our present sanitary ideas will tolerate no longer curtains on beds, or heavy carpets on the floors of sleeping apartments. Both foster dust, and dust conceals the germs of disease. That carpets are sometimes made a too convenient receptacle for dust is evident from the answer that was once given by a housemaid. Professing to have become converted to religion, she was asked for a proof of the happy change, and thus replied: "Now," she said, "I sweep under the mats." For bedrooms there should be narrow, separate, tight-woven strips of carpet around the bed and in front of furniture only. These are easy to shake, and in every sense in harmony with the simplicity and cleanliness which, if health is to be preserved, must pervade the bedroom. The more air it contains the better, and hence everything superfluous should be banished from it. But we shall not specify the different things which, in our opinion, should, or should not, be found in the several rooms of a house, for after all it is the arrangement of furniture rather than the furniture itself that makes the difference.
If the question be asked, Is it better to pick up furniture at auctions or to buy it in shops? we reply, Avoid auctions. Things are varnished up to the eye, and it is seldom possible to examine them. So you generally find on returning home from a sale that your purchases are by no means what they seemed.
As regards the expense of furnishing a small house such as young housekeepers of the middle class usually hire when first they settle down in life, this of course varies with circumstances, but even one hundred pounds ought nearly to suffice. To estimate the cost rightly, one should know the tastes of the people concerned, their social position, the size of their house, and the style of the locality in which they propose to live. Very good furniture can sometimes be obtained secondhand, but one must be on their guard against "bargains" that are worthless. There are certain articles, such as lamps, beds, and bedding, that should as a general rule be purchased new.
People are generally in too great haste when furnishing. They should be prudent, deliberate, and wait with their eyes open until they see the sort of things that will suit them. They should buy the most instantly necessary articles first with ready money, and add to these as they can afford it to carry out ideas formed by observation. They should buy what can be easily replaced after legitimate wear and tear, what their servants can properly attend to, and what will save labour and time.
"Never treat money affairs with levity—money is character."—Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.
A Scotch minister, preaching against the love of money, had frequently repeated that it was "the root of all evil." Walking home from the church one old person said to another, "An wasna the minister strang upon the money?" "Nae doubt," said the other, and added, "Ay, but it's grand to hae the wee bit siller in your hand when ye gang an errand." So too, in spite of all that love-in-a-cottage theorists may say, "it's grand to hae the wee bit siller" when marrying; unless, indeed, we believe that mortality is one of the effects of matrimony as did the girl, who, on meeting a lady whose service she had lately left, and being asked, "Well, Mary, where do you live now?" answered, "Please, ma'am, I don't live now—I'm married." To marry for love and work for silver is quite right, but there should be a reasonable chance of getting work to do and some provision for a rainy day. It is only the stupidity which is without anxiety, that complacently marries on "nothing a week; and that uncertain—very!" And yet such flying in the face of Providence is often spoken of as being disinterested and heroic, and the quiverfuls of children resulting from it are supposed to be blessed. As if it were a blessing to give children appetites of hunger and thirst, and nothing to satisfy them.
On the other hand, there is some truth in the saying that "what will keep one will keep two." There are bachelors who are so ultra-prudent, and who hold such absurd opinions as to the expense of matrimony that, although they have enough money they have not enough courage to enter the state. Pitt used to say that he could not afford to marry, yet his butcher's bill was so enormous that some one has calculated it as affording his servants about fourteen pounds of meat a day, each man and woman! For the more economical regulation of his household, if for no other reason, he should have taken to himself a wife.
Newly-married people should be careful not to pitch their rate of expenditure higher than they can hope to continue it; and they should remember that, as Lord Bacon said, "it is less dishonourable to abridge petty charges (expenses) than to stoop to petty gettings." That was excellent advice which Dr. Johnson gave to Boswell when the latter inherited his paternal estate: "You, dear sir, have now a new station, and have, therefore, new cares and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a well-ordered poem; of which one rule generally received is, that the exordium should be simple, and should promise little. Begin your new course of life with the least show, and the least expense possible; you may at pleasure increase both, but you cannot easily diminish them. Do not think your estate your own, while any man can call upon you for money which you cannot pay; therefore begin with timorous parsimony. Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt."
The thrifty wife of Benjamin Franklin felt it a gala day indeed when, by long accumulated small savings, she was able to surprise her husband one morning with a china cup and a silver spoon, from which to take his breakfast. Franklin was shocked: "You see how luxury creeps into families in spite of principles," he said. When his meal was over he went to the store, and rolled home a wheelbarrow full of papers through the streets with his own hands, lest folks should get wind of the china cup, and say he was above his business.
Although the creeping in of luxury is to be guarded against at the commencement of married life, people should learn to grow rich gracefully. It is no part of wisdom to depreciate the little elegances and social enjoyments of our homes. Those who can afford it act wisely when they furnish their houses with handsome furniture, cover the walls with suggestive paintings, and collect expensive books, for these things afford refined enjoyment. One day a gentleman told Dr. Johnson that he had bought a suit of lace for his wife. Johnson: "Well, sir, you have done a good thing, and a wise thing." "I have done a good thing," said the gentleman, "but I do not know that I have done a wise thing." Johnson: "Yes, sir, no money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people; and a wife is pleased that she is dressed."
We should be particular about money matters, but not penurious. The penny soul never, it is said, came to twopence. There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. People are often saving at the wrong place, and spoil the ship for a halfpenny worth of tar. They spare at the spigot, and let all run away at the bunghole.
She is the wise wife who can steer between penuriousness and such recklessness as is described in the following cutting from an American periodical. "My dear fellow," said Lavender, "it's all very nice to talk about economizing and keeping a rigid account of expenses, and that sort of thing, but I've tried it. Two weeks ago I stepped in on my way home Saturday night, and I bought just the gayest little Russian leather, cream-laid account-book you ever saw, and a silver pencil to match it. I said to my wife after supper: 'My dear, it seems to me it costs a lot of money to keep house.' She sighed and said: 'I know it does, Lavvy; but I'm sure I can't help it. I'm just as economical as I can be. I don't spend half as much for candy as you do for cigars.' I never take any notice of personalities, so I sailed right ahead. 'I believe, my dear, that if we were to keep a strict account of everything we spend we could tell just where to cut down. I've bought you a little account-book, and every Monday morning I'll give you some money, and you can set it down on one side; and then, during the week, you can set down on the other side everything you spend. And then on Saturday night we can go over it and see just where the money goes, and how we can boil things down a little.' Well, sir, she was just delighted—thought it was a first-rate plan, and the pocket account-book was lovely—regular David Copperfield and Dora business. Well, sir, the next Saturday night we got through supper, and she brought out that account-book as proud as possible, and handed it over for inspection. On one side was, 'Received from Lavvy, 50 dols.' That's all right! Then I looked on the other page, and what do you think was there? 'Spent it all!' Then I laughed, and of course she cried; and we gave up the account-book racket on the spot by mutual consent. Yes, sir, I've been there, and I know what domestic economy means, I tell you. Let's have a cigar."
It is the fear of this sort of thing, and especially of extravagance in reference to dress, that confirms many men in bachelorship. A society paper tells us that at a recent dance given at the West-end, a married lady of extravagant habits impertinently asked a wealthy old bachelor if he remained single because he could not afford to keep a wife. "My innocent young friend," was the reply, "I could afford to keep three; but I'm not rich enough to pay the milliner's bills of one."
A wife who puts conscience into the management of her husband's money should not be obliged to account to him for the exact manner in which she lays out each penny in the pound. An undue interference on his part will cause much domestic irritation, and may have a bad influence on social morals.
In "Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson," his wife says, "So liberal was he to her, and of so generous a temper, that he hated the mention of severed purses; his estate being so much at her disposal that he never would receive an account of anything she expended."
No one can feel dignified, free, and happy without the control of a certain amount of money for the graces, the elegant adornments, and, above all, for the charities of life. The hard-drawn line of simply paying the bills closes a thousand avenues to gentle joys and pleasures in a woman's daily life.
We would advise all wives to strike the iron when hot, so to speak, by getting their husbands, before the ardour of the honeymoon cools, to give them an annual allowance. The little unavoidable demands on a husband's purse, to which a wife is so frequently compelled to have recourse, are very apt to create bickering and discord; and when once good-humour is put out of the way, it is not such an easy matter to bring it back again.
A Chicago young lady, on being asked the usual question in which the words "love, honour, and obey" occur, made the straightforward reply: "Yes, I will, if he does what he promises me financially." The conduct of some husbands almost justified this answer.
As regards the important subject of Life Insurance there are few husbands and fathers who can afford to be indifferent to the possibility of making adequate and immediate provision for those dependent upon them, in case of their sudden removal.
This matter of Life Insurance should be settled before marriage, as well as all other monetary and legal arrangements that have to be made either with the wife that is to be, or with her relations, because post-matrimonial business details may introduce notes of discord into what might have been a harmonious home. "When I courted her, I took lawyer's advice, and signed every letter to my love—'Yours, without prejudice!'" It may not be necessary to be quite so cautious as the lover who tells us this; but he was certainly right in transacting his legal business before marriage rather than afterwards.
"Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity." Douglas Jerrold says that "the shirt of Nessus was a shirt not paid for." Those who would be happy though married must pitch their scale of living a degree below their means, rather than up to them; but this can only be done by keeping a careful account of income and expenditure. John Locke strongly advised this course: "Nothing," he said, "is likelier to keep a man within compass than having constantly before his eyes, the state of his affairs in a regular course of account." The Duke of Wellington kept an accurate detailed account of all the moneys received and expended by him. "I make a point," he said, "of paying my own bills, and I advise every one to do the same. Formerly I used to trust a confidential servant to pay them, but I was cured of that folly by receiving one morning, to my great surprise, dues of a year or two's standing. The fellow had speculated with my money, and left my bills unpaid." Talking of debt, his remark was, "It makes a slave of a man." Washington was as particular as Wellington was in matters of business detail. He did not disdain to scrutinize the smallest outgoings of his household, even when holding the office of President of the American Union.
When Maginn, always drowned in debt, was asked what he paid for his wine, he replied that he did not know; but he believed they "put something down in a book." This "putting down in a book" has proved the ruin of a great many people. The regular weekly payment of tradesmen is not only more honest, but far more economical. I know a wife who says that she cannot afford to get into the books of tradesmen, and who prides herself upon the fact that she will never haunt her husband after her death in the shape of an unpaid bill. These principles will induce married people to always try to have a fund reserved for sickness, the necessity of a change of abode, and other contingencies.
Perfect confidence as regards money matters should exist between married people. In a letter to a young lady upon her marriage, Swift says, "I think you ought to be well informed how much your husband's revenue amounts to, and be so good a computer as to keep within it that part of the management which falls to your share, and not to put yourself in the number of those polite ladies who think they gain a great point when they have teased their husbands to buy them a new equipage, a laced head, or a fine petticoat, without once considering what long score remained unpaid to the butcher."
With regard to keeping up appearances it must be remembered that few people can afford to disregard them entirely. A shabby hat that in a rich man would pass for perhaps an amiable eccentricity, might conceivably cause the tailor to send in his bill to a poorer customer. In this matter, as in so many others, we may act from a right or from a wrong motive. Nowhere is the attempt to keep up appearances more praiseworthy than in the case of those who have to housekeep upon very small incomes. The cotter's wife in Burns's poem who—
"Wi' her needle and her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new"—
deserves the title of heroine for her efforts to keep up appearances.
But the senseless competition that consists in giving large entertainments, the huge "meat-shows" which got under the name of dinner-parties, have no tendency to promote true happiness. Homes are made sweet by simplicity and freedom from affectation, and these are also the qualities that put guests at their ease, and make them feel at home. A Dublin lady took a world of trouble to provide a variety of dishes, and have all cooked with great skill, for an entertainment she was to give in honour of Dean Swift. But from the first bit that was tasted she did not cease to undervalue the courses, and to beg indulgence for the shortcomings of the cook. "Hang it," said Swift, after the annoyance had gone on a little, "if everything is as bad as you say, I'll go home and get a herring dressed for myself."
I once heard of a lady, who, not being prepared for the unexpected visitors, sent to the confectioner's for some tarts to help out the dinner. All would have gone off well, but that the lady, wishing to keep up appearances, said to the servant: "Ah! what are those tarts?" "Fourpence apiece, ma'am," was the reply.
There are thousands of women in these islands who cannot marry. But why can they not marry? Because they have false notions about respectability. And so long as this is the case, young men will do well to decline the famous advice, "Marry early—yes, marry early, and marry often."
"Why," asked a Sussex labourer, "should I give a woman half my victuals for cooking the other half?" Imagine the horror of this anti-matrimonial reasoner if it were proposed that he should give half his victuals for not cooking at all, or doing anything except keeping up appearances. "He was reputed," says Bacon, "one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marry? A young man not yet, an elder man not at all." This answer would not appear so wise, if we had less erroneous notions on the subject of keeping up appearances.
"A good mistress makes a good servant."—Proverb.
In England materfamilias is always complaining of servant difficulties. Those, however, who have lived in some of our colonies know that the very thought of an English servant conveys a certain soothing sensation to feelings that have been harassed by the servants—if we may so name such tyrants—in these places. A friend of mine in Bermuda wished to hire a nurse. One day, as she was sitting in her verandah, a coloured person appeared before her and suggested, laying great emphasis on the words in italics, "Are you the woman that wants a lady to nurse your baby?"
The servants in this and some other parts of the world consider themselves not merely equal but much superior to their employers, and there is a consequent difficulty in managing them. If you show any disinclination to their giving to friends much of the food with which you had hoped to sustain your family, they will disappear from your establishment without giving the slightest warning. A servant wishes to keep one or two members of her family in your house. If you dare to object, your widely-spread reputation for meanness will prevent any other servant applying for your situation for months. In a word, the employers of these helpful beings are every day reminded of the servant who said to his master: "I don't wish to be unreasonable, but I want three things, sir: more wages, less work, and I should like to have the keys of the wine-cellar."
Though matters are not quite so bad at home, there are nevertheless many much-tried masters and mistresses. Certainly some of them deserve to suffer. They have not given the very least attention to the art of managing servants. As parents spoil their children and wonder at the results, so do these masters and mistresses their servants. At one time they provoke them to anger about trifles, at other times they allow them to do as they like. Now they treat them with extreme coldness, on other occasions undue familiarity is permitted. In a word, they forget the fact that there is a common human nature between the kitchen and the parlour which must be admitted and well studied.
The ancient Romans, though they were heathen, and though with them servants meant slaves, included in the idea of familia their servants as well as their children. So, too, it was once amongst ourselves. Servants used to "enter the family," and share to some degree its joys and cares, while they received from it a corresponding amount of interest and sympathy. All this is changed. Servants are now rolling-stones that gather no moss either for themselves or their employers. They never dream of considering themselves members of the family, to stick to it as it to them through all difficulties not absolutely overwhelming. To them "master" is merely the man who pays, and "missis" the woman who "worrits." They think that they should change their employers as readily as their dresses, and never imagine that there could be between themselves and them any common interest. Only the other day I heard of a lady who had in one year as many as fourteen cooks! How could this mistress be expected to take any interest in or to consider herself responsible for the well-being of such birds of passage?
And yet surely the heads of a household are nearly as responsible for their servants as they are for their own children. We are the keepers of these our brothers and sisters, and are in a great measure guilty of the vices we tempt them to commit. A lady was engaged in domestic affairs, when some one rang the street-door bell, and the Roman Catholic servant-girl was bidden to say that her mistress was not at home. She answered, "Yes, ma'am, and when I confess to the priest, shall I confess it as your sin or mine?"
It is an unquestioned fact that many of the faults of servants are due to a want of due care on the part of their mistresses, who put up with badly-done work and make dishonesty easy by leaving things about.
If we want really good servants we must make them ourselves; so even from selfish motives we should do all we can to influence them for good. But it is much easier to mar than to make, and with servants the easiest way of doing this is to let them see that we are afraid of them. People spoil their servants from fear oftener than from regard. Some are afraid of the manner of their servants. They pass over many faults because they do not like the sulky looks and impertinent reply with which a rebuke is received.
Fifty years ago servants might be allowed to consider the warning of masters as a poor attempt at wit, as the Scotch coachman evidently did who, on being dismissed, replied, "Na, na; I drove ye to your christening, and I'll drive ye yet to your burial;" and the cook who answered in similar circumstances, "It's nae use ava gieing me warning; gif ye dinna ken when ye hae gotten a gude servant, I ken when I hae a gude master." As, however, servants are now seldom attached to a family by old associations they look upon the withdrawal of notice as a sign of weakness, and give themselves airs accordingly.
We should give our orders in a polite but firm manner, like one accustomed to be obeyed. It sometimes simplifies matters considerably to make a servant understand that she must either give in or go out. When fault has to be found, let it be done sharply and once for all, but nagging is dispiriting and intolerable. "Why do you desire to leave me?" said a gentleman to his footman. "Because, to speak the truth, I cannot bear your temper." "To be sure, I am passionate, but my passion is no sooner on than it's off." "Yes," replied the servant, "but it's no sooner off than it's on." Still we must never forget that the greatest firmness is the greatest mercy. Here is an illustration. The Rev. H. Lansdell tells us in his book "Through Siberia," that a Siberian friend of his had a convict servant, whom he had sent away for drunkenness. The man came back entreating that he might be reinstated, but his master said, "No; I have warned you continually, and done everything I could to keep you sober, but in vain." "Yes, sir," said the man; "but then, sir, you should have given me a good thrashing." Many a servant girl has gone to the bad because at some critical moment her mistress did not give her a good tongue-thrashing.
It cannot spoil tried servants to ask their opinion and advice on certain occasions, but we should not expect them to think for us altogether. To do this makes them as conceited as the Irish servant who replied to his master when that inferior being suggested his views as to the way some work should be done, "Well, sir, you may know best, but I know better!" Still, it is well to let servants know as often as we conveniently can the reason of our commands. This gives them an interest in their work, and proves to them that they are not considered mere machines. Never let a mistress be afraid of insisting upon that respect which her position demands. In turn she can point out that every rank in life has its own peculiar dignity, and that no one is more worthy of respect than a good servant. We should feel just as thankful to our servants for serving us, as we expect them to be for the shelter and care of the home which we offer them. There is a perfectly reciprocal obligation, and the manner of the employer must recognize it. "Whereas thy servant worketh truly, entreat him not evil, nor the hireling that bestoweth himself wholly for thee. Let thy soul love a good servant, and defraud him not of liberty." We have no right to every moment of a servant's time, and he or she will work all the better for an occasional holiday.
Those who feel that they are responsible for the character of their servants will endeavour to provide them with innocent amusements. When papers and books are read above stairs they might be sent down to the kitchen. If this were done, literature of the "penny dreadful" description would to a great extent be excluded.
Many employers behave as if the laws of good manners did not apply to their dealings with servants. Apparently they consider that servants should not be allowed any feelings. This was not the opinion of Chesterfield, who observes: "I am more upon my guard as to my behaviour to my servants, and to others who are called my inferiors, than I am towards my equals, for fear of being suspected of that mean and ungenerous sentiment of desiring to make others feel that difference which fortune has, perhaps too undeservedly, made between us." It is difficult, perhaps, to strike the exact mean between superciliousness and excessive familiarity, but we must make every effort to arrive at it. There is nothing more keenly appreciated by servants than that evenness of temper which respects itself at the same time that it respects others. A lady visited a dying servant who had lived with her for thirty years. "How do you find yourself to-day, Mary?" said her mistress, taking hold of the withered hand which was held out. "Is that you, my darling mistress?" and a beam of joy overspread the old woman's face. "O yes!" she added, looking up, "it is you, my kind, my mannerly mistress!"
Part of Miss Harriet Martineau's ideal of happiness was to have young servants whom she might train and attach to herself. In later life, when settled in a house of her own, she was in the habit of calling her maids in the evening and pointing out to them on the map the operations of the Crimean war, for she thought that young English women should take an intelligent interest in the doings of their country. Mrs. Carlyle was another tender mother-mistress to her servants, though her letters have made the world acquainted with the incessant contests which she was obliged to wage with "mutinous maids of all work" as Carlyle used to call them. "One of these maids was untidy, useless in all ways, but 'abounding in grace,' and in consequent censure of every one above or below her, and of everything she couldn't understand. After a long apostrophe one day, as she was bringing in dinner, Carlyle ended with, 'And this I can tell you, that if you don't carry the dishes straight, so as not to spill the gravy, so far from being tolerated in heaven, you won't be even tolerated on earth.'" It was better to teach the poor creature even in this rough way than not at all, that she ought to put her religion into the daily round and common tasks of her business; that
"A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and the action fine."
So much of the comfort of home depends upon servants that a wise mistress studies them and values their co-operation.
"She heedeth well their ways,
Upon her tongue the law of kindness dwells,
With wisdom she dispenses blame or praise,
And ready sympathy her bosom swells."
She sees that their meals are regularly served, and that they are undisturbed during the time set apart for them. She does not think that any hole will do for a servant's bedroom. When caring for the children that they may have their little entertainments and enjoyments to brighten their lives, she includes the servants in the circle of her sympathies; and is always on the watch to make them feel that they are an integral part of the home, and that, if they have to work for it and to bear its burden, they are not excluded from a real share in its interests and joys. In a word, she feels for them and with them, and as a rule they do their best for her. That servants are not always ungrateful every good mistress is well aware. Among the inscriptions to the early Christian martyrs found in the catacombs at Rome there is one which proves that there were in those days, as no doubt there are now, grateful servants. "Here lies Gordianus, deputy of Gaul, who was murdered, with all his family, for the faith. They rest in peace. His handmaid, Theophila, set up this." Gentle, loving Theophila! There was no one left but thee to remember poor Gordianus, and perhaps his little children, whom thou didst tend.
In managing servants a little judicious praise is a wonderful incentive. The Duke of Wellington once requested the connoisseur whom the author of "Tancred" terms "the finest judge in Europe," to provide him a chef. Felix, whom the late Lord Seaford was reluctantly about to part with on economical grounds, was recommended and received. Some months afterwards his patron was dining with Lord Seaford, and before the first course was half over he observed, "So I find you have got the duke's cook to dress your dinner." "I have got Felix," replied Lord S., "but he is no longer the duke's cook. The poor fellow came to me with tears in his eyes, and begged me to take him back again, at reduced wages or no wages at all, for he was determined not to remain at Apsley House. 'Has the duke been finding fault?' said I. 'Oh no, my lord, I would stay if he had; he is the kindest and most liberal of masters; but I serve him a dinner that would make Ude or Francatelli burst with envy, and he says nothing; I go out and leave him to dine on a dinner badly dressed by the cookmaid, and he says nothing. Dat hurt my feelings, my lord.'"
On the vexed question of "visitors," mistresses might say to their servants, "When we stay in a lady's house, we cannot ask visitors without an invitation from our hostess, and we wish you to observe the same courtesy towards us. When we think it advisable, we will tell you to invite your friends, but we reserve to ourselves the right to issue the invitation; and if your friends come to see you, we expect that you shall ask our permission if you may receive them." A mistress who does not forget the time when she used to meet her affianced thus writes. "I always invite their confidence, and if I find any servants of my household are respectably engaged to be married, I allow the young men to come occasionally to the house, and perhaps on Christmas Day, or some festival of the kind, invite them to dine in the kitchen, and I have never yet found my trust misplaced. I should not like my own daughters only to see their affianced husbands out of doors, and, though the circumstances in the two cases differ materially, as a woman I consider we ought to enter into the feelings of those other women who are serving under us."
Half the domestic difficulties arise from a want of honesty among mistresses in the characters which they give each other of the servants they discharge. Many a servant receives flattering recommendations who does not deserve any better than the following: "The bearer has been in my house a year—minus eleven months. During this time she has shown herself diligent—at the house door; frugal—in work; mindful—of herself; prompt—in excuses; friendly—towards men; faithful—to her lovers; and honest—when everything had vanished."
It is often advocated that training-schools should be established for domestic servants, as a remedy to meet the domestic-servant difficulty. But improvement must begin at the head. If we are to have training-schools for domestic servants, the servants may very well say that there ought to be a training-school for mistresses. To rule well is even more difficult than to serve well.
The mistress then should learn how and when everything ought to be done, so that in the first place she can instruct, and, in the second, correct, if her orders be not carried out. If she does any of the household work herself, let it be to save keeping a servant, not to help those she has. The more you do in the way of help, the worse very often you are served. Let your servants understand that you also have your duties, and that your object in employing them is to enable you to carry on your work in comfort. So much have young women been spoiled by this system of auxiliary labour, that one cook who came to be engaged asked who was to fill her kitchen scuttle, as she would not do it herself. Mistresses must unite in the interest of the servants themselves, as much as in their own, to put down this sort of thing, for the demands have become so insolent, that, as a smart little maid once expressed it, "They're all wanting places where the work is put out."
"If a merchant commenced business without any knowledge of arithmetic and book-keeping, we should exclaim at his folly and look for disastrous consequences. Or if, before studying anatomy, a man set up as a surgical operator, we should wonder at his audacity and pity his patients. But that parents should begin the difficult task of rearing children without ever having given a thought to the principles—physical, moral, or intellectual—which ought to guide them, excites neither surprise at the actors nor pity for their victims."—Herbert Spencer.
Whether as bearing on the happiness of parents themselves, or as affecting the characters and lives of their children, a knowledge of the right methods of juvenile culture—physical, intellectual, and moral—is a knowledge of extreme importance. This topic should be the final one in the course of instruction passed through by each man and woman, but it is entirely neglected.
"If by some strange chance," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "not a vestige of us descended to the remote future save a pile of our school-books or some college examination papers, we may imagine how puzzled an antiquary of the period would be on finding in them no sign that the learners were ever likely to be parents. "This must have been the curriculum for their celibates," we may fancy him concluding: "I perceive here an elaborate preparation for many things, but I find no reference whatever to the bringing up of children." They could not have been so absurd as to omit all training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently, then, this was the school-course of one of their monastic orders."
Parents go into their office with zeal and good intentions, but without any better knowledge than that which is supplied by the chances of unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy, joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers. "Against stupidity the gods themselves are powerless!" We all understand that some kind of preparation is necessary for the merchant, the soldier, the surgeon, or even for making coats and boots; but for the great responsibility of parenthood all preparation is ignored, and people begin the difficult task of rearing children without ever having given a thought to the principles that ought to guide them.
How fatal are the results! Who shall say how many early deaths of children and enfeebled constitutions, implying moral and intellectual weakness, are caused by ignorance on the part of parents of the commonest laws of life? Every one can think of illustrations. Our clothing is, in reference to the temperature of the body, merely an equivalent for a certain amount of food, for by diminishing the loss of heat, it diminishes the amount of fuel needful for maintaining heat. Those parents cannot be aware of this who give their children scanty clothing in order to harden them, or who only allow a dawdling walk beside a grown-up person instead of the boisterous play which all young animals require and which would produce warmth.
Fathers who pride themselves on taking prizes at cattle-shows for their sheep and pigs are not at all ashamed never to ascertain the best kind of food for feeding children. They do not care if their children are fed with monotonous food, though change of diet is required for the preservation of health.
And then as to the intellects of children. Ignorance puts books into their hands full of abstract matter in those early years when the only lessons they are capable of learning are those taught by concrete objects. Not knowing that a child's restless observation and sense of wonder are for a few years its best instructors, parents endeavour to occupy its attention with dull abstractions. It is no wonder that few grown-up people know anything about the beauties and wonders of nature. During those years when the child should have been spelling out nature's primer and pleasurably exercising his powers of observation, grammar, languages, and other abstract studies have occupied most of his attention. Having been "presented with a universal blank of nature's works" he learns to see everything through books, that is, through other men's eyes, and the greater part of his knowledge in after life consists of mere words.
We are aware that it will provoke laughter to hint that for the proper bringing up of children a knowledge of the elementary principles of physiology, psychology, and ethics are indispensable. May we not, however, hold up this ideal of Mr. Herbert Spencer to ourselves and to others? "Here are," he says, "the indisputable facts: that the development of children in mind and body follows certain laws; that unless these laws are in some degree conformed to by parents, death is inevitable; that unless they are in a great degree conformed to, there must result serious physical and mental defects, and that only when they are completely conformed to can a perfect maturity be reached. Judge, then, whether all who may one day be parents should not strive with some anxiety to learn what these laws are." "I was not brought up, but dragged up," said the poor girl in the tale; and she touched unconsciously the root of nine-tenths of the vice and misery of the world.
Great as is the importance of some information, if children are to be properly reared, still knowledge is by no means all that preparation for parenthood should include. While Doctor Johnson was musing over the fire one evening in Thrale's drawing-room, a young gentleman suddenly, and, as Johnson seems to have fancied, somewhat disrespectfully, called to him: "Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry?" Johnson (angrily): "Sir, I would advise no man to marry who is not likely to propagate understanding."
Would the doctor have extended this restriction to all men and women who are not likely to propagate good bodies and souls? We know that there are people whose misfortunes and vices will spoil and ruin, not merely the lives of those they marry, but the lives of their children too. The miserable inheritance of their imperfections will be transmitted to coming generations. If it were only possible to keep all these people single, those who will be living thirty years hence would be living in a very different world from this.
The only restriction public opinion now puts to any marriage is that it should not be forbidden by the "Table of Kindred and Affinity" contained in the Prayer Book. When will all improvident marriages be equally illegal? When will scrofula, madness, drunkenness, or even bad temper and excessive selfishness be considered as just causes and impediments why parties should not be joined together in holy matrimony. Only the best men and women of this generation—could these be discovered—should become the parents of the next.
It has been flippantly asked why we should consult the interests of the next generation since the next generation has done nothing for us. The answer is plain. We have no right to bequeath to it an heritage of woe. Every man and woman can do much to make themselves worthy of the honour and responsibility of being a parent. Let them preserve their health, cultivate their social affections, and, above all, abstain from those sins which science and bitter experience assure us are visited on children. It is only when they do this that a new edition of themselves is called for.
"Who is the happy husband? He
Who, scanning his unwedded life,
Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free,
'Twas faithful to his future wife."
And who are the happy parents? Those who, scanning their unwedded lives, thank Heaven they were faithful to future children.
It is to be hoped that few men now are as careless or as ignorant of consequences to children as was Mr. Tulliver in George Eliot's "Mill on the Floss," when he picked his wife from her sisters "o' purpose, 'cause she was a bit weak, like." We have come to see that, in order to be good mothers, women must be very unlike Mrs. Pullet in the same story, who was bent on proving her gentility and wealth by the delicacy of her health, and the quantity of doctor's stuff she could afford to imbibe.
But parents have not altogether given up sacrificing their own health and the health of their children to the Moloch of fashion. They have not quite ceased to burn incense to vanity. We have still to complain, as did Frances Kemble, that the race is ruined for the sake of fashion. "I cannot believe that women were intended to suffer as much as they do, and be as helpless as they are, in child-bearing; but rather that both are the consequences of our many and various abuses of our constitutions and infractions of God's natural laws. Tight stays, tight garters, tight shoes, and similar concessions to the vagaries of feminine fashion, are accountable for many of the ills that afflict both mother and child."
When King David was forbidden to build a temple for God's service because he had shed blood abundantly, with noble self-forgetfulness he laid up before his death materials with which Solomon his son might have the honour of building it. If parents would imitate his example and lay up the materials of good character and health, what glorious temples they might erect to God in the bodies, minds, and souls of their children!