Of course all this sounds fearfully prosaic, and is, no doubt, middle-aged philosophy; but it would not be worth writing down if it were not middle-aged, because it would be imagination only and not the fruits of experience. I have lived a certain number of years, and I have had large opportunities of observation, and I am certain of what I am saying, that the truest marriages are those which are framed on respect as well as love, and that those women are the happiest who can implicitly trust and believe in the men to whom they have given themselves in some measure body and soul; and that, furthermore, they get the most out of life who take care every moment they live has something to occupy it, and that that occupation benefits someone beside their immediate selves.
I have often heard people say that the first year of their married life, and indeed that the honeymoon itself, was the very dullest and most difficult period of their whole lives; but I have always listened to these statements with astonishment, for I have come to the conclusion that if what they say is true it must be that, like the despised family parties, it is because they did not manage their affairs properly. Why, the honeymoon should be the most amusing journey one ever makes—I know mine was—for one sets out together with an entertaining feeling that the absence of the chaperon for the first time gives just asoupçonof delightful impropriety to the journey; that for absolutely the first time in one’s life one can go where one likes and do as one likes; that if one liked to put on one’s Sunday frock on a week-day one would only be admired and not scolded, and that one’s shopping becomes actually important and not frivolous, because it is for the house and not for oneself merely. Besides, there is the amusement of seeing new places with a congenial spirit, and with one who does not consider it his duty to insist on learning all he can about a place; in fact, the honeymooners are no longer children to be educated, but people bent on amusing themselves together, with noarrière-pensées; these come afterwards. Then business has become dreadfully imperative in its demands on the husband, while the wife leaves home for a holiday, her mind distracted between pleasure and a melancholy foreboding of what may happen during her absence to children and household, neither of which can naturally trouble her during that first delightful jaunt, which should always be to some amusing, bright place where theatres can be fallen back on should it be wet, or where picture galleries could be visited under similar adverse circumstances. One can visit the dullest of places safely together after one has been married years; there are then mutual interests which will always occupy husband and wife: but at first this is actual suicide; there are then not very many things to discuss, and the unfortunate young people fall back on endearments and use up in a month that which should last them comfortably for all their lives.
But we are arriving at the honeymoon before we have allowed the engagement, and must therefore retrace our steps, or else we shall omit the most important item of all—viz. how to act when we see an engagement is imminent and we are not sure if we like it or not. We should soon make up our minds on the subject though, for if we do not approve we can easily manage that the young people shall not meet any more. It only requires tact and common sense, two qualities which seem to me often strangely lacking in the ordinary British household.
And, indeed, all that appertains to matrimony is made very difficult by the extraordinary manner in which English society looks upon the relations between young men and girls; in some measure allowing great familiarity, and in another way turning on anyone and calling her ‘match-maker,’ should the unfortunate individual attempt to bring together those she thinks would like to see a little more of each other. Match-maker, indeed! Why, I consider it the duty of every happily married woman to try and make others happy in a similar way; and I have known more than one happy woman rendered a miserably disappointed spinster, just because the right person was not at hand to manage a last meeting, or give the one opportunity that was all that was required to make liking into love, or to ensure the speaking of the question that had trembled on the lips for some time.
Of course marriages are made in heaven, but I also know that Heaven helps those who help themselves; and as no girl can do that, it is the duty of her married friends to help her, especially if they have any common sense, and can actDeus ex machinâ, without letting anyone know what they have done.
If our young people are ‘desperately in love’ with the wrong man, or the wrong girl, all the better that the love is desperate; it will burn itself out all the quicker; but not if we oppose the match tooth and nail, though at the same time we need not countenance it. We should, under these adverse circumstances, state calmly but boldly the reasons we have for our dislikes; we should simply put all the ‘cons’ we know in plain words, and we should listen to the ‘pros’ equally calmly, and we should never allow apersonaldislike to make any difference in the matter; but our reasons should be valid and not of the ‘Doctor Fell’ kind. Then, if the daughter or son is not convinced, say no more, do not oppose it; let the young people see as muchas they can of each other; if there are disagreeable relations, make them very welcome to your house; be civil but not affectionate to the man or girl; and finally be, or rather appear to be, absolutely indifferent. Make a fuss, rage and stamp and oppose, and you may at the same time order the trousseau. Act as I advise, and ten chances to one the match will be broken off; but if it is not, and should it turn out well, be the first to thankfully acknowledge it. Should it turn out badly, refrain from the delightful habit of saying, ‘I told you so,’ but instead recall to the offended party all the reasons he or she had for marrying; do not condole, but rather remind him or her of the early days and of the love that once existed, and remind them that marriage, once entered into, must be made the best of. You will do far more good and have far more satisfaction in healing the breach than in proving yourself a true prophet; for if people were more sure than they are now, that being bound they cannot get loose, they would cease to strain against the cords, use would accustom them to them, and finally what was once irksome would be pleasurable. People who have once loved each other can always remember the happy days of their youth; and, remembering them, naturally will long to return to them, or to secure at least in some measure a reflex of them in their middle age.
But, having contemplated this side of the picture, let us look at the far pleasanter one where all goes merry as a marriage bell, and the engagement is all that it should be. Yet before we do this I must just add one other word, and that is that, come what may, no marriage should ever be entered on, on any pretext whatever, unless the consent, if not the approbation, of the parents has been obtained. I have seen several marriages begin like this; I have never seen one that turned out well, or that was absolutely a success, and I do wish my readers to remember that this is a fact, and to therefore refrain from conduct that can have but one result; besides which, how can the children of such marriages turn out, if one has no control over them, should they desire to do likewise? for they have the one unanswerable argument in their possession: ‘You did it; why should not I?’ Then also a man never really respects a woman who throws over every one of her relations for him: he knows he is not worth the sacrifice, and though he may beflattered at first, ultimately he despises the girl who gave up all for him, and never really regards her with the reverence he must give to her who comes to him from her home, from her mother’s hand, knowing that that home is the emptier for her absence, and that a place should always be kept there for her, should she require to return there for any reason whatever. Home should be always home to the married children of the household, just as much as it is to those who remain spinsters and bachelors; and on no account should the doors be closed on them, or should they be allowed to feel that they have become in a measure strangers there, and that their place being filled knows and requires them no more. The trousseau of a girl should be as ample as can be afforded, and should have more under-garments than anything else; dresses alter in fashion so rapidly that it is folly to burden her with too many garments; neither are unmade costumes any use in these days, when no good dressmaker will make up one’s own materials. I should, therefore, give a girl not less than two dozen of every feminine garment, and as many more of each as I could afford. A good trousseau would cost about 200l., and of course as much more as the parents are prepared to spend; it should include a sealskin coat and a long fur cloak; the other outside garments should of course depend upon fashion and time of year, but it is a good plan to have some extra yards of material to all the dresses, particularly if the bride is going away from London to a distant part of the world.
When the engagement is really formed, and the wedding is beginning to be the subject of conversation, one cannot say all the difficulties are over; there are the bridegroom’s family to welcome and be introduced to, and though, of course, if the bridegroom is well known to us this initial difficulty will not have to be encountered in all its worst forms, still very often the engagement alters one’s relationships suddenly, and it requires careful steering then to avoid friction; as a rule the parents on both sides think their children might have done better, and it is generally difficult to prevent this feeling being unduly apparent. Then I do beg for all my girl friends that they may have a pretty wedding; I do not want enormous sums spent on the wedding dress, but I do want the church to be nicelydecked, all her friends to be asked who care to come, not because they may possibly give wedding presents—a species of blackmail which has become seriously unpleasant lately to anyone who is not sufficiently strong-minded to refuse to give because they are afraid of being out of the fashion—but because they are really friends, and will bring good luck by their loving prayers and real affection. And I do deprecate for all the hurried ‘quiet weddings’ in a tailor-made frock; a woman should be in white on her festal day, and it should be indeed a festal day if her marriage is entered on in the spirit I have been writing about.
I love a pretty wedding: the bride in her lovely white dress, and her group of bridesmaids; the flower-decked church, the hymns, and the bright faces of the choir boys (I must own I have a great weakness for choir boys, and generally make friends with them all) are all such a bright beginning to a new life; and if the solemn words are spoken by the ‘family priest,’ the man who, may be, married the parents and christened and prepared the bride for confirmation, there remains nothing to be desired, and we can wish the new home God-speed, knowing our wishes will have every chance of being fulfilled.
Afternoon weddings, with the flower-decked tables and the inexpensive refreshments, bring pretty weddings within the reach of everyone nearly; even the erstwhile elaborately decorated cake now bears a wreath of simple and real flowers, instead of the pinchbeck temple that used to be reared on the centre; and all that is required besides is a certain amount of cake, ices, tea and coffee, and a little wine. Here again the expenditure can be regulated by the income; but it need not be an expensive affair unless one specially desires that it may be.
Now, most people are married by banns, and licences are rarely required; this simplifies matters very much. But before the wedding is definitely decided on I should advise the clergyman of the church one is always in the habit of attending being consulted about all the legal forms; he is sure to know all that is necessary, will tell you exactly what you ought to do, what the choir and organist will expect (of course, if the organist be a gentleman, as he often is, and a personal friend, you must give him a present, not money), and what steps you must take about thedecorations. But do not hand these over to a shop; be sentimental for once, and let personal friends undertake this duty. I would rather have hideous decorations put up by hands that loved one, on such an occasion, than the most exquisite trophies ever designed by Mrs. Green and put up by those who do not even know the bride and bridegroom by sight.
I do hope every bride may soon have herdot, just like all French and German maidens have; but in any case she must not go penniless upon her wedding tour. Coventry Patmore’s idea in the ‘Angel of the House,’ that his three-days’ bride asked him to pay for the sand-shoes—‘Felix, will you pay?’—as a matter of course, is a mere man’s notion. I am certain she must have hated to do it, and would have given anything for some money of her own: so do not let Paterfamilias forget this, even if he have the conscience to allow his daughter to go penniless into her husband’s house; and let him give his daughter a nice little sum of money, in order that she may not have to ask her husband for a farthing until their return home, when the allowance question should be gone into and settled, thus doing away with the constant jar about money, which is at the bottom of more matrimonial unhappiness than is anything else.
I think I have said all that is to be said on the subject of weddings, and have stated boldly how best to secure the happiness of our children; it is a subject on which I feel very deeply, and when I see girls marry men who cannot by any possibility make good husbands or good fathers, I long to tell them this, but of course no one but their mothers can; and I shall hope that I may influence one or two to do so, and moreover to insist that their children do not marry to perpetuate the disease or the evil tendencies that must wreck innocent lives that have no business ever to exist; for while, if marriage is entered into properly, there can be no failure about it, marriage being the perfection of life, the uniting and joining of the two lives, which, separate, are indeed incomplete, but which, brought together, form an absolute and wonderful whole, a marriage which perpetuates the vices of a drunkard, of an evil temper, of an habitual liar, or the constitution of a consumptive or of a lunatic, is absolutely wicked, and can never be anything but a curse to the wife and mother, whatever it may be tothe man himself. Arouéhas discounted his chances of a happy married life. No woman can reform aroué, and even if she could she should not try, because in her children she will perpetuate the father’s vices, and will make the world worse a thousandfold by those she brings into it, while at the best she may save a soul, though I personally do not believe she could even do this; at all events, it is not right to sacrifice her future and her children’s future in the endeavour, and therefore I hope she may never try.
As I said before, we cannot explain away the mysterious influence of heredity; but as it exists and is inexorable in its consequences, we must acknowledge it, and we must all do our best so to live that we can give our children the noblest inheritance on earth—an unimpaired constitution, and a name unstained by any mean or low vice, a name that may be our proudest possession: aye, even if we saw it first above the window of some suburban shop! Then shall the world become better because we have lived in it and given it hostages also: and so shall we prove what I should like to be always preaching—that marriage is the most blessed state on earth, if it is begun and carried on mutually with esteem, affection, and real consideration, for each other’s welfare.
Thepoor boys! When I begin to write about their home I could almost weep when I think how small a space of their young lives they are permitted to spend under the home roof.
I have said so much in my former book about home education that I suppose I must not say very much more now, but I long to repeat my protest against the present manner in which boys are sent away from home, almost before they are able to stand alone, quite before they are able to withstand all the thousand and one temptations that assail them the moment they are turned into the herd of boys which represents a school, and where the poor thingshave to spend most of what ought to be the very happiest part of anyone’s life. However, as public opinion is against me, I am going to set down here the best way of mitigating the evils, and I also intend to give the relative expenses at some of the best of our public schools and colleges, so that those who read this book may see at a glance whether they can afford to send their boys to Harrow, Eton, Rugby, or Clifton—Harrow being put first by me, as I am devoted to the bright, healthy, happy place, as I suppose all are devoted to the public school of which they know most; for, much as I deprecate the life at school which is so far away from home influence, and much as I should prefer to live at Harrow and have my boys home at night, there is something about a public school education which nothing else gives, and which can be entered fearlessly at fourteen if the boy have been well trained and if he have a certain amount of moral courage and good principles of his own. It is madness to send a weak-minded lad who inherits evil propensities to a public school; he is sure sooner or later to disgrace himself and his wretched parents at the same time.
But before going into the question of schools and expenses there, let us dwell for a few minutes on the arrangement of the boys’ rooms in the house, which should ever be the happiest place in the world to them, and from which should flow that never-failing stream of sympathy in their progress, their pursuits, and their general welfare which has borne many a lad on to success and to a brilliant place in the world in after life. An authority told me once that the boys who did best were undoubtedly those who had most letters from home; who knew everything that was happening at home just as well as if they were there; to whom the movements of the family and of the animals were as familiar as if they still were among them, and who were not afraid to tell their parents anything. Sympathy is a priceless gift; sympathy between home and the boys at school is an anchor indeed, and will keep them safely in the harbour when every other means might otherwise have failed. And this sympathy can but be expressed in constant communication between home and school, and by a loving care, while the boys are absent, of their rooms, their belongings, and the especial niche which should be kept sacredly for them, and not cleared out hastily for them to inhabit, as it were, on sufferanceduring the all too brief holiday time they spend at home.
I do not mean to say that during their absence the rooms should never be used, that would be simply too ridiculous; but they should not be taken into household wear; if they are they cease to be the boys’ rooms, and in consequence the boys feel they are a nuisance and putting some one else out; they do not naturally take their places in the circle, feeling they are filling a gap which has never been filled since the day they returned to school.
I should certainly try to have a place set apart for the boys for wet days and for their own special occupations; if this cannot be managed, their bedrooms should be so arranged that at one end they can carry on their several hobbies without doing any damage to the finer portions of the house; but, if in any way possible, secure a sitting-room for them where they can do as they like; and if you want really perfect holidays find some enthusiastic skater, cricketer, or walker as holiday tutor, and make him responsible for the welfare of the boys. As they do not live at home, naturally there is no one told off to keep special care of them or to go about with them; if this is done, the holidays pass without a hitch, and without unduly threatening the mother’s life, who, try as she will, cannot be sure that, if the boys are out alone for half an hour longer than usual, they are not drowned, or lost, or lying in ditches with broken legs, and who can never school herself to be their companion, even should she be strong enough to be so, because she is always expecting something dreadful to happen to them. At least I know what I feel on the subject, and I suppose I only feel what everyone else does in the matter. In the boys’ rooms, whether bed or sitting rooms, I advise always the invaluable dado; this ensures the lower parts of the wall being kept tidy, and minimises the expense of doing the rooms up when they become shabby. A rail along the floor, or rather a piece of wood about three inches wide laid along the floor close to the wainscoting, will keep the chairs, &c., off the paint, and then, if we have a pretty paper above the serviceable matting, or cretonne, or arras cloth which forms the dado, we shall be quite safe to preserve the room for some time, looking fresh and nice and bright.
If baths have to be taken in the boys’ rooms, or if they clean their rifles, skates, or other matters there, or if they have pet animals which share their abode, I strongly advise that the floor should be covered with a plain good linoleum without any pattern on, and then on the top of that a strong square of carpet should be laid. Wallace’s ‘Victor’ is a capital carpet, and so is Pearke’s Anglo-Indian square carpet. This should not be fastened down in any way, and should be most rigorously folded back by the housemaid during those hours when bathing or dirty work is being carried on. The linoleum can always be cleaned with soft warm water, and kept in order with boiled oil and turpentine, and the carpet can be put back in a moment, thus making the room tidy at once.
Rubbishy cheap furniture should never be bought for a boy’s room. Naturally by this I do not mean we should be unduly reckless over what we buy for the boys, but that we should go to some good man like Wallace, and tell him that we want good seasoned wood and handles which will not pull off, and drawers and doors which will not stick, and which will not tempt the lads by such conduct to undue violence in the matter. Boys are always in a hurry, always impatient. They can’t help it; it is a failing of the sex, and half the damage boys do is caused by the fact that we do not realise this and often give them rickety or common furniture, because ‘anything is good enough for the boys to knock about.’ There cannot be a greater mistake. Give strong ash furniture, made properly, a good plain brass and iron bedstead, and a good chain mattress, and we shall find it pay; yes, even if the boys play ship on the mattress, the necessary waves being well represented by the manner in which the mattress goes up and down when jumped upon by the intrepid sailors. Our mattresses have served as ships and as oceans too, but they are as good now as the day they were bought, simply because they were very expensive; but if they had not been dear I don’t think there would, have been anything left of them by now; therefore cheapness is no economy, as regards mattresses at any rate; of that I am quite convinced. A good suite of ash furniture containing wardrobe, washing stand, and toilet table can be had for about 10l., and I do not advise less being given. This should be supplemented by a chest of drawers to hold shirts,socks, &c., and the boots should be kept either downstairs in the cloak-room or else in a proper boot cupboard; and I strongly advise the toilet covers to be in art serge, simply trimmed by a species of edging in crewels composed of about nine stitches, one long, one shorter each side of the long stitch, and one each side shorter still, like this:
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This should be carried round the edges of the cover in a lighter shade than the serge itself, and would cost about 2s.a cover, or indeed less, as serge is double width. There would be no ball fringe to pull off by shutting it heedlessly in a drawer, and there would be nothing we could not easily replace, should blacking, paint, oil, or any of the thousand and one messes in which boys seem to revel be spilled upon it. White toilet covers are absolutely useless, and of course it would be really ridiculous to give them more elaborate covers, which could only be spoiled.
It would not be of much use here to give any special schemes of decoration for boys’ rooms, but I may say that the cheaper the wall paper is above the dado the better. Boys are continually adding to their stores of pictures and ornaments, and are as continually shooting at a mark on the wall with anything that comes handy, and are not above giving the flowers on the paper a nose, or a mouth from which a pipe proceeds, or ears which resemble those of a donkey; and though these decorations may be left a certain time it is best to have such a paper which, while being pretty, is one that we can replace without an undue struggle on our part; and I may mention Haines’s capital 7½d.blue and terra-cotta papers. The blue could have blue paint, and a blue matting dado, and a yellow and white ceiling paper; the terra-cotta might have ivory paint, a terra-cotta and green cretonne dado, and curtains of the same cretonne. Helbronner has a beauty, 604, at 1s.8d.a yard, and the ceiling paper could be Land’s pale green and white ‘Watteau’ at 3s.the piece. Wallace’s dull green ‘lily carpet’ would make a capital square there, as would his red lily in the blue room, where the cretonne could be Oetzmann’s red and blue Westminstercretonne, which should be lined, as should all cretonnes which do duty for blinds as well as curtains; this all curtains should do, had I my way entirely in the matter. The walls and books and pictures should be the boys’ own choice, and so should be the ornaments on the mantel-piece, though a clock should be invariably provided, and this should be one the veracity of which should be unimpeachable—punctuality must be enforced and hours kept, and no excuses should be allowed on this score. If the youth declares he wishes to make up for his perforce straitened hours of repose at school, let him go to bed as early as he likes—never interfere with that, but do not weakly allow him to be late in the morning; it puts out the whole household, and for no reason at all, and should never be countenanced for a moment. Late hours in the morning mean more than I have space to dilate on here; but you may be quite sure that a household which is late in the morning is never a well-managed or prosperous one. Late hours then denote lazy, self-indulgent habits, and therefore should never be allowed.
If the boys begin them in the holidays be sure they will be continued after school is left, and therefore be firm on this point, although I know all too well how difficult it is to be stern and inflexible towards the boys who are only at home for the holidays, and naturally are in consequence just a wee bit spoiled by their indulgent parents. Now if a sitting-room can be given to the boys and the tutor, I advise it being furnished as prettily as may be as regards the walls, but the floor must not have a carpet, and room must be found there for the lathe, carpenter’s tools, and odds and ends so dear to the heart of the boy; and here let me beg and implore parents to aid and abet their children in any hobby they have, if they can do so reasonably and comfortably, and without undue expense; and let me also beg of them to keep and treat with scrupulous reverence any drawings, efforts of literary genius, or of mechanical genius, which their children produce and present to them; at the same time I do not advise their being exhibited to the world at large, while I should carefully explain to children, that the thing was kept, not because of its present intrinsic merits, nor because it was a distinct effort of genius, but because it was their doing, and because we should like to compareit with future efforts, in order that we may see how they have improved.
Without going the lengths that ‘Misunderstood’ does (a book, by the way, which has made more prigs than any other under the sun, in my belief), I think parents often make their children miserable without in the least meaning to do so, by reason of the manner in which they refuse to interest themselves in their pursuits. It is not pleasant to partake of sticky black cakes baked in the dolls’-house pans, to sit on the cold stairs in the dark looking on at a spirited representation of a magic-lantern, the slides of which we know by heart, and we may endure agonies over the hundredth representation of the usual charade, neither may we feel profound interest in the School Magazine; but at the same time we are bound to think we do, and we ought to be more than thankful that our children care for these things and go in for them, rather than for the usual hanging about, reading those dreadful Rider Haggard books, which have done more harm than anything else, I verily believe, to the youth of the present day, and have vitiated their tastes, until nothing pleases them which is not written in gore and bound up in a mixture of pistols and swords, which is as odious as it is unnecessary.
The boys’ books ought to form a very distinct feature in their sitting-room, and, if possible, we should endeavour to keep out all Haggardish stories. But this is almost impossible in these days of independence and fourpence-halfpenny literature. I know I can’t, and glorious detective stories and other works of art are to be found all over the house; but we must do our best to improve the standard, by placing other better books in the authorised bookcases, and by ridiculing and, if necessary, confiscating whenever we can all we so highly disapprove of. At the same time I honestly confess this is mere advice: I cannot stem the torrent myself, but hope there are other more strong-minded parents than I am, who may be able to do so, though I have done my best in the matter, and have tried everything I can think of to eliminate these books, for which I have the most hearty contempt and dislike.
It would be no use, I think, to say more about the arrangement of the room which should be set apart for the boys; but I cannot say too much about the necessity of thedear things having a place where they can do absolutely what they like, for half the friction which seems to me inevitable in other people’s households, when the boys are at home, is undoubtedly caused by the fact that the boys are in the way, and have no place that they can call their own. Under these circumstances they worry their sisters, spoil the furniture, and upset the servants; and more especially does this happen in London, where there is nowhere for them to disport themselves, and nothing that they can do except promenade the streets and go to theatres and such-like places of amusement.
Of course, little boys can be managed well. They have their nurseries first, and then their governess and schoolrooms. It is when they begin to go to school that the trouble begins. The governess does not care about them preparing their lessons in her room; and if they are day boarders, which they certainly ought to be until they are twelve or thirteen, and, indeed, until they go into the big school, where they should be when they are fourteen and not a day before, the lessons must be prepared at home, and this work should doubtless go on under the superintendence of someone in authority. Parents often can and do help immensely, but there are very few men who do not find their classics decidedly rusty by the time they are required to superintend their children’s preparation; besides which they are, as a rule, tired with their own day’s work, and are not in the least inclined for extra labour, and often do not possess the necessary stock of patience required for this kind of employment.
My ideal education would consist of sending the boys to a good school in the daytime, and in taking care that they prepare their work in the evening, under a good tutor, who would be trusted to simply superintend them, and to give the necessary help, but who would not do the work for them; he would not live in the house, but would simply come for the couple of hours during which the boys would work. This would do away with the great objection to home education, which is undoubtedly the work which has to be done at home, and which cannot be properly superintended unless someone is told off for the purpose, unless the parents are well up in the work of the day, and are furthermore prepared to give up almost all society for thesake of looking after the boys—a thing which should never be done, for it is most important that we should make and keep friends; if we don’t care for them for ourselves, we must care for them for the sake of the children, who would find themselves shut out of everything when they grew up did their parents withdraw themselves entirely from society when they were yet small.
Of course a great many people cannot manage to live where there are really good schools, but equally of course a great many can, and when this can be managed it undoubtedly ought to be; and places like Bedford, where the schools are excellent, and Wimborne, where the Grammar School has improved mightily of late years, and where house rent is moderately cheap and living very inexpensive, offer especial advantages to a widow left with two or three sons to educate, and to military men and others who can live where they like, and have only their boys’ education to think about, Bedford being especially good for this purpose.
I believe there is a book published which gives all necessary particulars about all these schools, and indeed about all the schools all over England, but I shall only mention those of which I have personal knowledge, as I am no believer in second-hand information: this can always be procured for special cases, and would be out of place in a book like mine, but I do strongly advise all who can—all who have no settled occupation that binds them down to a special locality—to live where they can have their children educated from the home roof. I am quite certain that this is the ideal and proper education, and results in a better class of man all round. They may not be as polished, their manners may not be as perfect, and they may be shy and gruff, but their morals will be ever so much better, and they will be better men in the highest sense of the word. For though they may ‘marry the lady’s maid,’ like the youth in ‘Punch,’ at all events they will marry her; they will not degrade and then desert her, as alas! so many men do nowadays. But I myself don’t believe they would do anything of the kind; by far and away the best men I know are those who have been least away from home, and they are not among the unsuccessful ones of this life either.
However, it is sometimes impossible for parents to manage home education, though in London there are so many opportunities, that it must be more a case of must than can’t, for there are Westminster, St. Paul’s, and the University College Schools, all of which can be managed after the boys are old enough to be trusted in the streets alone, and at the latter of which for the absurdly low fee of 8l.8s.a quarter can be had the best education in the world, but where the boys need learn very little if they can scrape through the day’s routine without finding themselves in either the ‘black’ or the ‘appearing’ books; but even then they do not learn as little as they can if they try at either Eton or Harrow, where it seems to me the education given is especially useless for practical service, and can never by any chance fit the recipient for any real work that he may have to undertake.
The perfect education should be that which most fits a man for his work, and no one can watch the manner in which we are being ousted by Germans from every place without allowing that their education has something which ours lacks, and that unless our boys can be taught to emulate their patience, perseverance, and eager quest after knowledge, to say nothing of their capabilities of existing on a pittance, we shall wake up some day to find our lads quite out of the running, because they do not understand life properly, and because they are unable to fight for themselves against the present overwhelming German invasion. There is a limpness, a passiveness about the boys of the present day that is something dreadful, and that I think springs in some measure from these fatal examinations, and the fearsome higher education. They see the prizes can only fall to the exceptionally gifted and hard-working members of the fraternity, and therefore they are dispirited before they start, knowing that, try as they may, they can never succeed. Far from stimulating most youths to work, the sense that unless they are geniuses they cannot pass the exams cripples them, and they cease to care to try for what they know they cannot possibly obtain, read how they may; and therefore I cannot but think the excessively high standard that must be reached nowadays in everything is a mistake, and that serious consideration should be given both to this and to the fact that our boys arenot able to compete with the Germans because something in our scheme of education and learning does not permit them to do so successfully.
Let us then give home education a chance and see what can come of that, and let our nurses be French and German, so that the children may learn these languages with their earliest breath; and, moreover, let us in some measure educate our children for what they are going to be. It is no manner of use to give those who are to be in trade the same teaching as that required for the learned professions; and I venture to state that if a man has to take to trade the sooner he does it the better. Eighteen ought to see him in harness of a light kind, but harness all the same; and I furthermore state boldly that it is absolutely waste of time and money and everything else to send boys abroad to school. They never do any good there, and they may get into most frightful mischief. If boys must be sent to France or Germany, take them yourselves, otherwise you may be quite sure that both time and money are wasted. I am not speaking without book, and I have never heard of one school, either in France or Germany, where the education was of the least use, neither will it be until more schools follow the example of Clifton, and form settlements abroad on the lines of our public schools; though even then I am inclined to adhere to my own opinion and urge on parents, whose sons require to know French and German thoroughly, to go to both places themselves, and stay a couple of years in each in some good town. If they do they will achieve their object, and their boys will command far higher prices in the labour market than those can who do not know any languages except their own, and a certain amount of Latin and Greek, which, it seems to me, they learn only to forget as soon as ever they can manage to do so.
But if parents will not hear of home education they must most carefully select the preparatory school, and they must manage to afford in addition a first-rate public school, for nothing can possibly be worse than a cheap or inferior place of education; and it is an astonishing fact to me that in such an important matter as is education one requires as a rule so little guarantee that we actually receive what we are paying for.
No one can be a lawyer or doctor without credentials;anyone who likes can open a school, and command scholars too. Why should not the State interfere here?—it is very fond of interfering dreadfully on far less important matters—and say boldly that no one shall have a school at all until he has qualified himself in the eye of the State, and is diplomaed or hall-marked in such a manner that one can tell at once whether he is fitted for the work or not? Until this is done I much fear that preparatory schools will not improve to any great extent, and that the middle classes will continue to send their children to people who are utterly unfit for the work they have undertaken. A personal reference from some parent, often enough from one who knows little indeed about his children, and possibly a few letters after the name, are considered quite sufficient guarantee by most people that they are obtaining all that they are paying for.
A good preparatory school costs from 85l.to about 125l.a year; of course less can be paid, and I dare say more can be paid also, but I consider an excellent school can be had for 100l.a year. Of course there are always extras beside, and these depend entirely on the means of the parents, and in some measure on the schoolmaster himself, who should undoubtedly be a man in whom we can trust, and to whom we can give our confidence, telling him exactly what we can afford to spend, and also what manner of child our special boy is, and also, most important of all, what he is to be, and what particular talents, weaknesses, or goodnesses he may be likely to inherit. We should also give our child our confidence. We should tell him emphatically what we can afford for him, what we wish him to do, and finally encourage him in every way to get on by writing to or seeing him constantly, and by never letting him imagine for one moment that ‘out of sight means out of mind;’ he is more in our minds, just because he is absent from us, than he would be were he constantly in our presence.
As regards public schools, Harrow costs roughly about 200l.a year, and the first term’s bills are as follows:
Of course the 16l.entrance fees do not come in again, but this is more than spent on extras. There are subscriptions to endless things and payments for extra tuition, for which a long list of printed names on the first account in some measure prepares the unhappy parent, who somehow never is prepared, for the extraordinary amount of new clothes, mending, hair-cutting, and other trifles, which go to sum up the accounts in the ensuing terms.
Eton seems to me to cost about 20l.a year more, and the bills of one term are as follows:
This is without entrance fee, and the extras seem to me to be rather more frequent, while Rugby is considerably less than either, the bills there being as under:
Both at Eton and Rugby the allowance given by the house master is 1s.a week, at Harrow 2s., but besides this of course the boys take money to school. The smaller boys at Harrow should not have more than 3l.during the term, and out of this they must pay sundry subscriptions. At Eton I think the pocket-money can be almost anything, while at Rugby 3l.does until the boy gets into the Sixth, when he should have more money, and when the books, a heavy item in most school bills, are far more expensive than they were in the lower forms.
Individually I know most of Harrow, as I said before; but, as these bills have been copied from actual accounts rendered to friends of my own, I think I am justified in printing them, and they will also serve as a guide to those parents who are hesitating where to put down their boys’ names, a ceremony which should take place when the boys are about six or seven; and if the parents have no ‘traditions,’ and are not wedded to any special school by reason of the father having been there before, or relations on either side having been in the special school, the school should be chosen in some measure to suit the boy’s health, and also in some measure his future occupation. I should not send a lad who was going to work in any shape or form to Eton. That school should be reserved for those useless individuals, who toil not neither do they spin, nor should I send a boy to Harrow who intended to go in for trade or anything save one of the learned professions. Those who have a big business to go into might be sent to Rugby or Clifton, but I should prefer to let them attend St. Paul’s or the London University School, or else send them to Bedford or a similar establishment.
When the boys are at school, the holidays should be in some measure legislated for and all arrangements made for the boys’ welfare; and of course no parent who cared for his or her children would possibly be away from home or out of reach of the boys during that time: the parents’ holidays, which are as important in some measure as the children’s, should come off when school has begun again, but on no account should they occur when the boys are at home; and if possible the summer holidays should be spent by the sea, the beloved sea, which, as fashion changes, is, I am sorry to say, becoming unpopular, and is left alone by those who are fashion led, and in consequence impelled towards the country or ‘foreign parts.’
But of the holidays more anon; I have not yet quite done with the boys, and the holidays can have a chapter to themselves later on.
I think the most important hint of all which I have to give is that on no account should a boy leave school or college until we have something to put him into, and which shall occupy his time. There is nothing more fatal than idleness, and it should never be countenanced in any shape or form, and I do hope some day to find that all boys who have to earn their living may be given some sort of a trade—something they can do with their fingers, outside and above any profession they may be going in for. Given a trade they can never starve, and would be far more fit for the colonies, where so many lads flit, looking forward to more freedom and more outdoor life than they can possibly havehere in England, though I cannot imagine a more foolish thing than to allow a youth to go out ‘on spec;’ unless he has something to go out to, he had far better remain where he is; if not he will soon degenerate into something far less like a gentleman than he would have been had he remained at home and taken to some good and honest trade. I cannot help thinking that these ‘decorative’ days of ours will open up the furniture business to gentlemen, and that soon our houses will be provided for entirely by men who are artists, and that those who cannot originate, yet have artistic tastes and an eye for colour, will not despise work which is far more interesting than desk-work for example, and far more remunerative than the position of clerk, with which so many lads of the present day have to satisfy themselves. The gentlemen of England can bring back trade to England if they choose, they can replace the slovenly workman and the shoddy work, and it remains to be proved if they will do so; at present people’s eyes are open, and trade is no longer a badge of disgrace, so I hope some day to see industrial villages turning out good work, where at present are empty labourers’ cottages and impecunious landlords with untilled farms; and in the meantime I beg our boys not to remain idle but to work somehow, it does not matter much at what, but at some work that will be good and must and will find a market.
If a lad is going into one of the learned professions it is necessary that he go to college, where the expenses all told cannot be less than 300l.a year, but before he does so his father should seriously tell him that whatever allowance he has is the extent of what he can give him, and that under no circumstances whatever will he be responsible for any debts of any sort or kind, and that doing what he is for him he is doing his utmost, and that he would rather see him go through the Bankruptcy Court than impoverish his sisters or his other brothers to pay his extravagant liabilities. Let this be well talked over at home in private, and I do not think the lad will place himself in the miserable and anxious position of many a young man who ladens himself with debt during his college life, which cripples all the best of his existence and embitters his days in more ways than one; but the boy must have parents on whom he can rely, and he must know that they meanabsolutely what they say. There can be nothing more unfair than for the girls to be starved mentally and morally, and the younger lads badly educated, because a parent has to pay debts which ought never to have been contracted.
Gambling debts should be utterly ignored by the parents, and gambling in every shape and form should be absolutely forbidden, the reasons thereof being plainly stated; and I think all parents should be more open about their circumstances than they are to their children, who often get a most erroneous impression about their people’s income, because of the manner in which they live. Why! because they have a carriage and a big house is the very reason why they can do no more, and why should the parents give up all they have justly earned because their children are extravagant? I see no reason myself, and I myself would certainly never do so to pay extravagant liabilities, or liabilities incurred on the gaming-table or on the racecourse.
Give the boys a good education and a start in life, and provide the girls with 150l.a year, either when they marry or at your own death, and you have done your duty by your children. The girls cannot starve on that income, and neither would they be the prey of any fortune-hunter; but no one has a right to bring children into the world in the ranks of the upper middle-class and do less; misery will come of it if he does, be quite sure of that.
Of course misfortunes may happen, and the parents’ early death may prevent an actually safe future being secured for the children; but, as a rule, an early death should be provided for by insurance, and misfortunes, if undeserved, generally bring sympathy in their train, and there are many mitigations, even for these, if parents are judicious and have not flooded the world with an enormous family that they can have no prospect whatever of providing for. As soon as the boys have finished their education let them begin to work; a lawyer can begin; a doctor can commence at once to wait for patients even if he cannot buy a practice, which would be the best thing to do; a curacy can be procured for a cleric, and if trades are chosen the sooner those trades are entered into the better; but whatever is selected never allow idleness of any shape or form. Idleness is the parent of all mischief. A man well and healthilyemployed has neither time nor inclination to go very far wrong.
Let the boys be encouraged to have tastes, and above all let every lad in England join some Volunteer Corps. I consider it a duty for every man to be able, and to show himself willing, to protect his home, and if he is encouraged at home he will volunteer, and will take an interest in his work, which will be invaluable to him. The expeditions are pleasant; all lads love a gun, and adore being able to shoot, and if the taste is acquired in the school cadet corps it will continue afterwards; and remember that all out-door sports and occupations are so many safeguards—tennis, bicycling, volunteering, shooting, hunting, riding, are all so many protections against temptations, to which all lads are exposed, and on which of course it is impossible for me to speak here.
To sum up the advice I would give about our boys, I would say that love of home, love of sport (not racing, not battue, nor pigeon-shooting, nor similar inanities, butbonâ fidesport), and love of an out-door life, are the great protection for the lads. Do not encourage theatre-going and endless balls and society affectations, but do encourage in every way you can those things of which I have been writing. I am sure then we shall have a healthier and a better race than the ‘masher’ Gaiety bar-lounger, for whom I have such a profound contempt, or than the race-frequenting, betting, ‘lemon-squash’ consuming, nerveless, brainless idiot that is so extremely prevalent in the present day.
As soon as a lad is eighteen he ought to have some definite allowance for all his small expenses and to enable him to clothe himself, and this must depend entirely on his parents’ circumstances, and where he is and what he is doing. Of course, if he should be placed in his father’s business he must be paid for his services, and this pay must cover all he spends; but as a rule 50l.is ample. A man can dress well and decently on 30l., the other 20l.he can do what he likes with; and he should be encouraged to save for a holiday in ‘foreign parts.’ He had far better travel about than smoke his senses away, or waste his money in going to theatres and in-door amusements of any kind.
Boys are an endless anxiety, there is no doubt aboutthat, and it is greatly, no doubt, owing to that fact that the system of sending the boys away to school has arisen; but although they are at school we cannot get rid of our responsibilities, neither should we try to do so. We are responsible for their existence, and we are bound to do the best we can for them. We shall, I am sure, be rewarded for all they have cost us, if we never relax our care until they are really grown up and are capable of managing their own lives; then, if we have trained them to love their home and to habits of work and occupation, we can do no more but trust in Providence; we shall have our reward sooner or later, of that I have not the smallest doubt.
As soon as a man can keep a wife he should marry and begin to make a home for himself. I am a great believer in early marriage, and I should like all my boys to marry as soon as ever they can. There is nothing teaches a man as the responsibility of marriage does, and nothing on earth is happier than a happy marriage. It is the complement of life, the perfect whole that all should strive to attain; about that subject I am quite sure, and none of the stock arguments against marriage, nor the stock jeers, will ever alter my opinion. Of course there are troubles, if so they are borne better together; pleasures come, they are brightened by having someone to share them; and above all, marriage makes the home; the home gives an object in life and steadies at once, therefore marriage should be encouraged in every way it can, and those who are married should help on the marriage of others, and should show by their own conduct and bearing that it is the best state on earth, if undertaken out of pure love, not silly passion, and maintained in the mutual respect, affection, and toleration for each other’s faults, which are the very bonds of the home, and which last when every slighter bond has given and fallen away. Once our boys are married we can breathe again, at all events our active work for them is over; and the less we interfere with them after that happy event the better chance will they have of making a success of their lives. All we have to do is to win the love and confidence of their wives, and that is not difficult if we never offer advice on any subject, and give them as much affection as we can. Above all must we resist the dear delight of talking over theirménagewith other people. ‘A stilltongue means a wise head,’ says the proverb, and a tongue cannot possibly be too still, when once there are sons and daughters-in-law in the family.
I thinkthat I am more often consulted about how to manage servants, and how to apportion an income, than on any other detail of domestic management, and therefore I am of opinion that a few more words on these subjects may not be out of place here, although, as I have repeatedly stated elsewhere, no real help can be given by a stranger on either matter, and that only a species of general rule can be laid down, either about the management of the maids or how to set apart and divide the income we may have to spend. To begin with the income: I have had two scales drawn up by an accountant, and now present them here for what they are worth. The first is the very smallest income that any two people should marry upon, in my opinion; although I know many folks, especially among the ranks of the clerics, who ought to know much better, who continually do so, and as continually have numerous families, for which they cannot provide in the least, and for which they beg in the most shameless manner, and for whom I have neither sympathy nor patience. As a rule these unfortunates live in the country and have big gardens and houses found them rent free, but I have nothing to say to them here, and, as I cannot conceive how ladies and gentlemen can bring up, clothe, and feed their children, and manage their household respectably on less than 800l.a year, I have no ideas on the subject, and therefore cannot write on what I know nothing about.
Let us therefore take the ordinary young lawyer or young man who is ‘something in the City,’ that unknown City, the occupations of which are so mysterious in my eyes, and let us suppose he has 500l.to spend every year, increasing, let us hope, should he indulge in the luxury of afamily; a luxury he has no more right to go in for on a tiny income than he would have to set up a carriage and pair, without being able to pay all the concomitant expenses; and this is how he should parcel out his expenditure:
Leaving: the magnificent sum of 24l.10s.to cover doctors’ bills and the thousand and one incidental expenses which are always cropping up, to say nothing of amusement. One could hardly rise to the upper boxes on 500l.a year if one must live in town and have appearances to keep up as well.
It is better at first, if the income is very small, to live in the suburbs. There are not so many temptations to spend money, and there would not be much going out. In London of course, the going out is endless; there must be cabs, new gloves, flowers, and the hundred and one extras that carry off one’s money, and two servants are asine quâ non. If the suburbs are selected, cabs and evening gloves, &c., need not be legislated for; one servant could do the work; and the house-rent and taxes would come to 50l.instead of 100l.; but there would be the husband’s season-ticket to consider, and furthermore the intense dulness that is the wife’s portion, for suburban residents are not hospitable; they are, most of them, not very well off, for of course all rich people fly to London; they are mutually suspicious of each other’sbona fides, and are, moreover, engrossed as a rule in their domestic duties, and when the husband returns from town he is not only tired with his work, but with the added railway journey; he usually hankers after his garden in the summer and his arm-chair by the fire in the winter, and does not care togo out, more especially as he judges from his own feelings in the matter, and is quite sure his host wishes him at home in bed quite as much as he wishes himself there.
But, again, here I must show how impossible it is for another person to really advise a friend on this subject of division of income satisfactorily. There are plenty of suburban residents who are absolutely satisfied with their fate, and are equal to the misfortune of a small income. In that case I have told them precisely how they can manage best on the sum of 500l.a year. I can assure them they will have to be most economical and excellent managers to do that; and they can furthermore understand that it costs about 50l.a year to add a child to the establishment, and that 45l.a year is supposed to keep and pay a servant. These two details will be of assistance, maybe, when the income increases and the owners thereof contemplate a little launching out.
An income of 1,000l.a year should be apportioned as follows:
And this larger balance would be drawn, upon for the extra expenses, such as entertaining and amusements, charities, and the thousand and one pleasant ways of spending money that are open to the possessor of the larger income, and are rigorously out of the reach of the owner of 500l.a year.
Then, too, there are all sorts and conditions of things to consider before laying down a law on the subject of apportioning the income; such for example as the considerationif the income dies with the husband, or if it may come from capital safely invested. In the former case the insurance ought to be very largely increased, as that is the only absolutely safe manner of saving one’s money. As a rule it costs about 27l.a year to insure the receipt of 1,000l.at death if the insurer is a young man, and I ask all intending bridegrooms to consider what this would mean if this be all the provision they can make for their brides, supposing they were to die and leave them with two or three little children and no other means. They could not live on 40l.a year, which is about all they would receive, and I therefore do trust all young men will seriously consider the matter before rushing into matrimony. At present a great many folk are like the ostrich, they bury their heads in the sands of present content and never consider the evil days that are before them. If they remain two, no one can blame them, but I do blame unendingly the selfish creatures who burden this overcrowded world with more genteel paupers. If people on small incomes insist on doing this, let them have the courage to bring up their daughters as upper servants and their boys to good honest trades; it is the genteel pauper, the girl who can paint a little, teach a little, and embroider a little, and the boy who, come what may, must wear a black coat or its equivalent in light tweeds, who have no right to be made to exist, and for whom the world has absolutely nothing to offer save a certain amount of snubs and a very large quantity of the unappetising dish known as the cold shoulder.
Therefore, if the income dies with the husband and there are children, a certain amount of money must be put aside annually for insurance; it ought to be enough to bring in 100l.a year to insure the wife from starvation when she is too old, too worn with all she has had to do to attempt to keep herself; and there should also be no false pride about the manner in which the children are educated; they should go to Board schools, where the teaching is excellent and far better than one can procure at ordinary small schools, which may be much more ‘genteel’ but will not be half as useful; for the Board schools are far and away better than anything that could be obtained from the wretchedly underpaid teachers who would be the girls’ portion. The necessary companionship with wretchedly poor and dirtychildren, which is the great drawback to a Board school education, could be mitigated if all those who are really worthy of the Board school education were to share it; and surely a good mother could tell her boys exactly what to avoid, and the lads could come straight home and simply be taught in the school. The girls would not need so much looking after, for they are far more conservative naturally than boys: boys will play with and talk to anyone; a girl very soon discriminates for herself, and will not play with another if she suspects her to be in the very smallest degree below her in the social scale.
It will be observed that I do not in the least take a sentimental view of life, for I feel that when one contemplates the terrible army of martyrs, the girls who have been ‘genteelly’ brought up and are ‘genteelly’ starving or living on their most unwilling and hard-working relations, one cannot say too much or write too much on this subject, and I cannot also but think that when there is the cry in the land that there undoubtedly is for more servants, more good and trustworthy lassies to help us with our domestic duties, and that when ladies in Australia are so pressed by their troubles and by the fact that they cannot get ‘help’ for love or money that they are actually driven to write to their papers to suggest that men may marry more wives than one, because no one but a wife is found to do house work, and that one wife is not sufficient for the purpose, it is quite time that the surplus maidens should consider whether it is quite as impossible to become a servant as it appears to be now. As decorators, governesses, and spoilers of canvas, they are undoubtedly not wanted, but they are required badly for simple domestic work, which is, none of it, half as hard as unlimited tennis, dancing all night, or rowing: not any of it half as unpleasant as is living on the begrudged charity of some relation, who wants all his hard-earned savings for his own children, or as degrading as is marrying the first man who asks them, and who can give them some sort of a home, for whom they have not the smallest respect—the very smallest amount of affection.
Now, of course there are disagreeable details about house work, and scrubbing cannot be pleasant, but surely the ‘scrubber’ could come in daily and do up the worst of the ‘chores,’ as the Yankees say; and what is the rest? Waitingat table, not half as unpleasant as selling at fancy fairs; opening and answering the door, not half as hateful as bringing one’s wretched little painted match-boxes and tambourines to an overstocked guild, or a most unsympathising and equally overstocked shopman, who is often far more impertinent than any caller ever could be to the lowest maid in the establishment; and I personally should prefer to make beds, wash china, dust rooms, and clean silver to hanging about listlessly in a shabby frock, knowing quite well that I could never have another unless some reluctant relation gave me one she would much rather have given to her own children; and I cannot recollect any duties which would be expected from the girls which I have not enumerated above, or that they could not honestly undertake in a sheltered home and under proper matronly care.
And if all servants were ladies—and I see no reason why every servant should not be a lady if she tries—think how much more our houses would be our own than they are at present! Even with the best of maids there are always places in it and corners where we feel we cannot go exactly when and where we like, and where, try as we will, we cannot be absolutely sure that thorough cleanliness prevails and where, moreover, we cannot be ‘decorative’ because all our efforts are frustrated by those who cannot shake off their early training and can no more refrain from smashing china and scraping paper off the walls than they can learn to trust us implicitly and in their turn allow us to trust them.
Remember, I personally never can nor will join in the fearful outcry against the maids which I hear on all sides of me. I have related my own experiences in Vol. I. of this book, ‘From Kitchen to Garret’ and I have not one word to add or take from what I have said there. I still maintain, if you take your servants young and train them yourself, and if you don’t expect perfection and show that you mean to be obeyed, you will have no trouble; but you will never have perfect service until you can have ladies in your house, whose ladyhood will ensure the perfect trustworthiness, the honesty, the cleanliness that no cottage-bred girl can ever give, because she can never be taught to really comprehend the necessity of all these particulars.
Mrs. Crawshay’s scheme of lady helps has, I believe, quite collapsed; at all events, one hears nothing about itnow; but I see no reason why an earnest effort should not be made to try sending our superfluous girls to Australia as lady helps, and then, if that succeeds, trying them in England, where there seems to me to be a real and crying want of good domestic servants. I am only judging from other people’s woes; for, although I dare say I have mine before me, I have not experienced them yet, and have always been able to find what I wanted without any undue exertion on my part. Of course the house would have to be reorganised to some extent. The bedrooms would have to be as fresh and pretty as one could make them; and, above all, we must reform our kitchens, which are at present the most unhealthy, disagreeable, and odious rooms in the whole house, as they are undoubtedly the ugliest, and where, in ordinary households, the unfortunate maids have winter and summer to sit while the cooking is done, and in heat that I wonder allows them to live at all, and that must exasperate their tempers as much as it must try their constitutions.