To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."
Sir: I thank you much for your kind insertion of my letter, and your courteous and graceful answer to it. Others will thank you also; for your suggestions are indeed much more ad rem than my mere assertions of principle; but both are necessary. Statements of practical difficulty, and the immediate means of conquering it, are precisely what the editor of a powerful daily journal is able to give; but he cannot give them justly if he ever allow himself to lose sight of the eternal laws which in their imperative bearings manifest themselves more clearly to the retired student of human life in the phases of its history. My own personal experience—if worth anything—has been simply that wherever I myself knew how a thing should be done, and was resolved to have it done, I could always get subordinates, if made of average good human material, to do it, and that, on the whole, cheerfully, thoroughly, and even affectionately; and my wonder is usually rather at the quantity of service they are willing to do for me, than at their occasional indolences, or fallings below the standard of seraphic wisdom and conscientiousness. That they shall be of average human material, it is, as you wisely point out, every householder's business to make sure. We cannot choose our relations, but we can our servants; and what sagacity we have and knowledge of human nature cannot be better employed. If your house is to be comfortable, your servants' hearts must be sound, as the timber and stones of its walls; and there must be discretion in the choice, and time allowed for the "settling" of both. The luxury of having pretty servants must be paid for, like all luxuries, in the penalty of their occasional loss; but I fancy the best sort of female servant is generally in aspect and general qualities like Sydney Smith's "Bunch,"[88] and a very retainable creature. And for the rest, the dearth of good service, if such there be, may perhaps wholesomely teach us that, if we were all a little more in the habit of serving ourselves in many matters, we should be none the worse or the less happy.
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. Ruskin.
Denmark Hill, Sept. 6.
[88] "A man-servant was too expensive; so I caught up a little garden-girl, made like a milestone, put a napkin in her hand, christened her Bunch, and made her my butler. The girls taught her to read, Mrs. Sydney to wait, and I undertook her morals; Bunch became the best butler in the county."—Sydney Smith's Memoirs (vol. i. p. 207), where several other anecdotes of Bunch are given.