Impossibility of getting good servants--Over-civilization--Labour has
been made hideous--Sleeping partnership--Wealth exempt from this
difficulty--Refinement of the professional class--Credit--Phase of
insecurity and scarcity--Sweet are the uses of adversity--English
people do not fear work--Servants too readily changed--Wilfulness of
servants--Upper servants are easily obtained--Servants feel the
pressure of the times--Ornamental servants costly luxuries--Two
questions--Work must be efficiently done--Woman's work--Misuse of
time--We keep servants to wait upon each other--Idleness--Pleasure
made a toil.
For a long time past we, the middle-classes of England, have felt a
great household perplexity, one which has been a daily burden to us
all. This is the difficulty, almost impossibility, of getting good
servants.
Machinery, though it has lightened other branches of labour and
cheapened production, has not helped us much here. Social science has
been deeply studied, but nothing practical has yet been brought to bear
upon this vexed question. The theories are good, the projected reforms
better; but so far there is nothing that people of average intellect,
and moderate income, can take hold of and apply to their own case.
During the late plethora of wealth throughout the nation, we have so
multiplied our wants, and so refined upon the ruder social ideas of the
early part of the century, that our servants have not been able to keep
pace with our requirements; and notwithstanding that the lower orders
have much more careful education than they had formerly, it seems to be
of a sort which makes them discontented with their work, rather than
instructing them how to do it better.
In fact, we have degraded labour by making it hideous, by pushing it
into holes and corners, by shrinking from it ourselves, and casting it
entirely into the hands of the lower orders; until we English are
virtually divided into a contemplative and a working class. This would
be all very well if it were true that our class could afford to pay
liberally for work done well; but, in effect, the majority of those who
wish to be relieved from work cannot pay liberally for hired labour,
neither can the bulk of the labouring class perform their part of the
bargain in a manner deserving liberal payment.
We have tried to keep ourselves as sleeping partners in the domestic
concern; we have derived profit from our money invested in service, and
we find that this is no longer a profitable investment. There is a
large wealthy order exempt from these difficulties. By having ample
means of recompense, it has the flower of service at its command, and
the domestic economy of the mansions of England is perfect. Under
steward and housekeeper, this may be compared to the beautiful system
seen on board a large ship of war, for discipline, routine, and
celerity of service. In both instances the reverse of the shield shows
the injurious effects on the lower ranks of a large proportion of
unoccupied time, spent in merely waiting for their hours of duty.
The suggestions I have to offer are not required by this wealthy
class--the upper ten thousand, as they are popularly called, whose
incomes range among the four and five figures; but help seems to be
much needed by the upper twice ten hundred thousand who have incomes
described by three figures, and who yet, by good birth, breeding, and
education, form the backbone of England; whose boys, though only
home-boarders at Eton, Harrow, and Rugby, fill all the other large
schools of Great Britain, and whose daughters are the flowers of our
land.
Of late years England has been passing through a period of unexampled
prosperity, so much so as to make the customs of wealth a familiar
habit with even those who only possess a competence. To them the
domestic difficulty is very great, since they exact from inferior
servants the quality of service that can only be obtained from the best
trained of their order. This occasions disappointment and irritation.
The people whose means are inadequate to the gratification of their
tastes belong mainly to the professional classes, whose brain-work most
demands repose at home; yet these are, beyond all others, perplexed by
the increasing toils and troubles of home life. They find that a
struggle which should be peace, and so the whole machinery of their
lives is thrown out of gear.
This upper working-class is so occupied by endeavours to make the
fortune, or, if not fortune, at any rate to make both ends meet--which
has been denied them by birth or accident--that they have no time nor
energy left to think these things out for themselves. So they go on
bearing the yearly increasing load piled upon them by the tyranny of
fashion, of custom, or by their wish to keep up their credit in the
eyes of the world; for their credit is in many cases their fortune, and
it must be upheld at any sacrifice. A question occurs to many: Is this
credit best maintained by outward appearances, or is it more firmly
secured by seeming strong enough to dispense with artificial support?
And, again, Is our money credit the best we can have?
A man of known wealth may go about in a shabby coat, a countess may
wear a cheap bonnet, a Sidonia may dine off bread and cheese. If
Gladstone fells trees, he is still Gladstone; if Ruskin grubs up a
wood, he is still a great poet.
Without becoming mere _dilettanti_, may we not enjoy a reputation
for taste, and so allow ourselves to be heedless of a few of the
conventional proprieties of life; as a tree rises above the level of
the grass? May we not strive, by the culture of our manners and
discourse, to make our simpler social entertainments as highly prized
as the feasts of our richer neighbours? The years of prosperity have
passed away, and we seem to have entered upon a phase of society when
scarcity and insecurity overwhelm or threaten us all; when the wealth
of yesterday has crumbled into dust, the paper money shrivelled as if
it had been burnt. We still have the same high culture, the tastes and
feelings of yesterday; and unfortunately, the same habits of Idleness,
Helplessness, Waste, and Luxury.
These are hard charges to bring against the cream of a nation which for
centuries has held its own by its energy, abundance of resource,
strength of character, and scorn of effeminacy; but it is impossible to
deny that these characteristics of the British race have been much less
strongly marked of late years. Still, these things are in our nature,
and we must not weakly let ourselves decline from our former high
standard.
Let us, at the outset of our adversity, meet our altered circumstances
with the strength of mind and wisdom befitting English people. Although
wealth may be taken from us, we have our education and energy left,
which, if properly used, will not allow us to sink into a lower
condition than we have hitherto enjoyed; and while we hold our ground
we shall strengthen our health, develop our ability, and increase our
happiness.
Let us, the women of England, encourage and support the men in an
endeavour to return to simplicity of life, to a more manly condition;
call it Spartan, Roman, republican, what you will, it is, in fact, the
training of soul and body. We have had a long holiday; let us return to
school with renewed vigour. We women have been much to blame for the
degeneracy which has been felt of late. If men trifle away their time
and health upon tobacco, women are foolishly helpless, and they permit
their dependents to be wantonly wasteful. Both men and women pass the
best hours of daylight in their beds, and make their meals the
important event of their days.
Englishmen abroad do not mind work--indeed, they may be said to love
it--and never since the days of Drake have they felt it to be a
degradation. He said "he would like to see the gentleman that would not
set his hand to a rope and hale and draw with the mariners;" and herein
the English differ from continental nations. But in England they let
their love of bodily exertion have its scope almost exclusively in
their games. Nor do Englishwomen in the Colonies shrink from work, and
they are never in the least ashamed of it. You hear them talk quite
freely of how Colonel So-and-so called in the morning while they were
"stuffing the veal," to ask for the two first dances at the ball at
Government House in the evening.
It seems to be only in England that we dread to be seen doing anything
useful. And unless we soon cast off this fear we shall be condemned to
the deadly-liveliness of Hotel Companies (Limited), with their
uninteresting routine; for the supply of servants not being forthcoming
at our price, we must of necessity be reduced to this levelling
American system, which will flatten all individuality out of us.
One cause of the ever-increasing difficulty of holding a staff of
servants well in hand is that our connection with them is too easily
changed or dissolved at pleasure. We should bear ourselves very
differently towards each other if we knew we were compelled to live
together during even one year certain. As the case now is, we do not
get to know each other, and a small trial of temper on either side is
the prelude to a change. The old patriarchal feeling of considering the
servants as members of the family has quite died out, and so their
relation to us has become confused. At times we rate them with the
tradespeople who come periodically to polish our bright stoves, clean
our chandeliers, and wind our clocks, and so we only care whether they
do their specified work well or ill, taking no further trouble about
them; sometimes we treat them as the horses which draw our carriage,
and see that they are well fed accordingly; and sometimes we look upon
them as machines merely.
We hear it said, servants do not take the interest in their places that
they used to do; they are ready to leave you on the smallest
provocation; they will not be told how to do any particular thing; they
have their way, and if you do not like it, well, they think your place
will not suit them. Indeed, one of the most docile and obliging among
the servants I have known, on differing with his employer about some
work in which he was engaged, said, "Well, I'll do it a little bit your
way, and a little bit my way; and that will be fair, won't it, mum?"
It is easy enough to get servants of the superior
grades--ladies'-maids, parlour-maids, and even house-maids, where two
footmen are kept; but is there such a being as a really good plain
cook, or has a servant-of-all-work been heard of lately? Although it is
truly said that servants themselves are beginning to feel the pressure
of the times, this is not from their actual losses by money-market
panics, but from the fact that many domestics are out of place on
account of those families who have met with losses dispensing with
unnecessary assistance. But that does not ease our case, for we are
none the less helpless and dependent. Although many upper servants are
out of place, this does not make them seek our situations; and if they
did so, they would do us a positive injury by bringing into our houses
the habits of wealthier families. The reduction of wages, and lack of
suitable situations in England, will cause these unemployed servants to
seek in emigration the high wages they are still secure of in the
Colonies, or in America. There they will be a godsend, and they may
reasonably look forward to establishing themselves permanently and
happily.
Independently of the collapse of foreign securities and the general
depression of trade, the increased cost of all necessaries makes it
impossible to many of us to allow ourselves luxuries, of which the most
costly are ornamental servants; and the difficulty of obtaining any
others makes it incumbent on us to put our own shoulders to the wheel,
and try by diligent self-help to solve some of the problems which so
miserably defy us to find a practical answer.
In this consideration of the subject of domestic work in middle-class
households, I hope to show in what way the mistress may be rendered
more self-reliant, and how the master's purse may be spared the
perpetual drain the present system entails upon it at both ends, and
from every mesh.
This is but a fraction of a vast subject, yet it is in itself so large,
and stretches out into such a variety of kindred topics, that it is
difficult to compress it into a form small enough to be easily handled,
and still more difficult to make suggestions of reform generally
palatable, since many vanities must be hurt by a proposal to reduce
establishments, and sensitive feelings wounded by the bluntness of two
direct practical questions--
1st. Must the great majority of our young ladies be elegant
superfluities?
2nd. Must we keep many servants to wait upon each other?
These questions I hope to answer usefully in the following pages.
We must begin with the understanding that in every house there is work
to be done, and that somebody must do it. Our aim will be to reduce its
compass, and to do what remains in the cheapest and pleasantest way.
But it must be efficiently done, which is seldom the case when young
ladies play at housekeeping, which too often means giving out the
pepper, and such like. We have long shrunk from allowing our women to
work at all. Husbands and fathers have taken a pride in keeping the
ladies of their households in that state of ease that no call need be
made on them to lift a finger in the way of useful work; so that if
reverses befal them, their condition is deplorable indeed.
Now we are turning round and insisting upon every woman being able to
support herself by her own exertions. Though a great part of woman's
natural work has been taken out of her hands by machinery, this, which
is mainly the preparation of clothing, was the occupation of her
uncultivated leisure, and did no more than fill up the time which we
now devote to culture. By retreating from our active household duties
we now divide our time between culture and idleness, or the union of
both in novel-reading.
For many years conscientious teachers tried to drive us to household
work by calling it our duty: a dull name, sternly forbidding us to find
pleasure or interest therein. It was a moral dose of physic, salutary
but disagreeable. In the same way we were taught to make shirts and
mend stockings, but an evening dress was held to be frivolity. Taste
was discouraged, and beauty driven out of our work; no wonder, then,
that the young and careless shunned it altogether, and threw as much of
it as they could into the hands of hirelings. Is there no way of
teaching duty without making it repulsive by its dreariness and
ugliness?
Now that we pride ourselves upon being no longer weak-minded and silly,
let us exert ourselves to act upon Lord Bacon's maxim, "Choose the life
that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable." We
need not fear that the routine of daily handiwork--which will become
interesting to us as we try to make it agreeable--will interfere with
our further intellectual culture. And even should it do so, are not our
leaders of thought beginning to perceive that manual labour is more
commercially valuable than mental labour; that the demand for the
former is greater as the supply becomes perceptibly less? The deadness
of machine work causes us to prize the spirited and varied touch that
can only be imparted by the hand. Every woman, among her acquaintance,
knows some one who is a skilful, energetic manager of her house, and
yet whose reading and accomplishments are above the average. Indeed, as
I heard one of my friends of this stamp say, when asked how she found
time for so much sketching from nature, "One always finds time for what
one likes to do."
We see what priceless possessions we lose by our misuse of time, or
waste of it in inanities, when we look at the embroideries and other
work of our ancestresses, and compare these with the poor results of
our months and years. We see splendid embroideries of the time of
Titian, with the needlework still strong enough to outlast all our
nonsense in "leviathan stitch" and "railroad stitch;" and old lace, by
the side of which our work of mingling woven braids and crochet in such
a manner as to get most show for the least cost of taste, labour, and
invention, is worth nothing at all.
With regard to my second question--Must we keep many servants to wait
upon each other?--I will here make one observation.
The heaviest part of the work of a cook and kitchen-maid consists in
preparing the kitchen meals. Six servants require as many potatoes
peeled, and as many plates, knives, forks, etc., cleaned, as six ladies
and gentlemen. Multiply their five meals a day by six, and you will
find that there are thirty plates, knives, forks spoons, cups or
glasses, and many other things, to be laid on the table, used, washed,
and put away again, at a computation of only one plate to each meal.
Think of the time alone consumed in this, and the breakage; and this
merely in the meals.
I am not considering the houses which require a complement of ten
servants to keep their machinery in motion, as these do not form part
of my subject; but this slight calculation will enable us to form some
estimate of the cost of maintaining a large retinue.
We may well ask why we have drifted into this enormous expenditure, and
for what purpose we have gradually let our houses be filled up by a
greedy and destructive class, who, notwithstanding many bright
exceptions, seem to combine the vices of dirt, disorder, extravagance,
disobedience, and insolence. Why, indeed? For this simple reason, that
we are idle. Gloss it over as we may, by calling it a desire to secure
time for higher ends, the truth remains the same; we have neglected our
duty in order that we may live in idleness and devote ourselves to
pleasure. But if our lives are to be spent in pleasure, we shall
ourselves degenerate; for pleasure wears out the body more than work,
and excitement more than both. Let us take our appointed burden of
steady work, and bear it onwards cheerfully and patiently. By so doing
we shall feel it grow gradually lighter. It is not such slavery as the
oar to which we chain ourselves. The artificial strain on our lives
must be kept up by stimulants, and idleness must be roused by
excitement. But our routine of gaiety is no idleness; and as for its
name--gaiety--there never was a term more false. The gaiety is a hollow
mockery, masking fatigue, untruth, and disappointment.
Sidney Smith says, "One of the greatest pleasures of our lives is
conversation." If we will simply allow ourselves to talk upon subjects
of common interest, we shall find social gatherings less wearisome than
when we have to manufacture small-talk for civility's sake alone. If we
meet together for enjoyment instead of for display, we shall replace
dissipation--mere dissipation of time (what an endeavour for mortals,
whose time is their life!)--by gaiety of heart, which is the best
restorative to wearied spirits.
Let us Englishwomen make a strong effort to rescue ourselves from this
bondage, this constant drain on our resources; and, leaving to men the
duty to the state, let us seek our work in what is our duty--the rule
and guidance of the house, securing, as Ruskin says, "its order,
comfort, and loveliness."
But especially must we insist upon its loveliness, which is the point
most neglected in all that portion of our lives which does not lie
immediately upon the surface.