It will have been observed from these reminiscences that the mistress
of a Virginia plantation was more conspicuous, although not more
important, than the master. In the house she was the mainspring, and
to her came all the hundred or three hundred negroes with their
various wants and constant applications for medicine and every
conceivable requirement.
Attending to these, with directing her household affairs and
entertaining company, occupied busily every moment of her life. While
all these devolved upon her, it sometimes seemed to me that the master
had nothing to do but ride around his estate on the most delightful
horse, receive reports from overseers, see that his pack of hounds was
fed, and order "repairs about the mill"--the mill seemed always
needing repairs!
This view of the subject, however, being entirely from a feminine
standpoint, may have been wholly erroneous; for doubtless his mind
was burdened with financial matters too weighty to be grasped and
comprehended by our sex.
Nevertheless, the mistress held complete sway in her own domain; and
that this fact was recognized will be shown by the following incident:
A gentleman, a clever and successful lawyer, one day discovering a
negro boy in some mischief about his house, and determining forthwith
to chastise him, took him into the yard for that purpose. Breaking a
small switch, and in the act of coming down with it upon the boy, he
asked: "Do you know, sir, who is master on my place?"
"Yas, sah!" quickly replied the boy. "Miss Charlotte, sah!"
Throwing aside the switch, the gentleman ran into the house, laughed a
half hour, and thus ended his only experiment at interfering in his
wife's domain.
His wife, "Miss Charlotte," as the negroes called her, was gentle and
indulgent to a fault, which made the incident more amusing.
It may appear singular, yet it is true, that our women, although
having sufficient self-possession at home, and accustomed there to
command on a large scale, became painfully timid if ever they found
themselves in a promiscuous or public assemblage, shrinking from
everything like publicity.
Still, these women, to whom a whole plantation looked up for guidance
and instruction, could not fail to feel a certain consciousness of
superiority, which, although never displayed or asserted in manner,
became a part of themselves. They were distinguishable everywhere--for
what reason, exactly, I have never been able to find out, for their
manners were too quiet to attract attention. Yet a captain on a
Mississippi steamboat said to me: "I always know a Virginia lady as
soon as she steps on my boat."
"How do you know?" I asked, supposing he would say: "By their plain
style of dress and antiquated breastpins."
Said he: "I've been running a boat from Cincinnati to New Orleans for
twenty-five years, and often have three hundred passengers from
various parts of the world. But if there is a Virginia lady among
them, I find it out in half an hour. They take things quietly, and
don't complain. Do you see that English lady over there? Well, she has
been complaining all the way up the Mississippi River. Nobody can
please her. The cabin-maid and steward are worn out with trying to
please her. She says it is because the mosquitoes bit her so badly
coming through Louisiana. But we are almost at Cincinnati now, haven't
seen a mosquito for a week, and she is still complaining!
"Then," he continued, "the Virginia ladies look as if they could not
push about for themselves, and for this reason I always feel like
giving them more attention than the other passengers."
"We are inexperienced travelers," I replied.
And these remarks of the captain convinced me--I had thought it
before--that Virginia women should never undertake to travel, but
content themselves with staying at home. However, such restriction
would have been unfair unless they had felt like the Parisian who,
when asked why the Parisians never traveled, replied: "Because all the
world comes to Paris!"
Indeed, a Virginian had an opportunity for seeing much choice society
at home; for our watering-places attracted the best people from other
States, who often visited us at our houses.
On the Mississippi boat to which I have alluded it was remarked that
the negro servants paid the Southerners more constant and deferential
attention than the passengers from the non-slaveholding States,
although some of the latter were very agreeable and intelligent, and
conversed with the negroes on terms of easy familiarity,--showing,
what I had often observed, that the negro respects and admires those
who make a "social distinction" more than those who make none.