"No, I'm not. Never will I give a cent in charity to any begging woman. It is the men who have a hard time in this city. They can have any help that I am able to give them. But to the women I say merely: Learn how to do housework. Take a lesson or two in cooking. Study the home, and you can get good, comfortable positions as long as you want them! Any woman, begging in the New York streets, while thousands of unfortunate people clamor to give them good wages, should be arrested as a useless encumbrance. Those are my sentiments."
"I dare say you are right, Archie," said Letitia, evidently impressed by my fiery eloquence, which bubbled forth, almost unpunctuated. "It seems to me that most of these women would sooner roam the streets in rags, and herd together in tenement houses like cattle, than do the work for which they should be fitted. It is wonderful."
"Not wonderful," I said, "but deplorable. It is the spirit of independence gone wrong—turned against itself—pushed in a painful direction, like an ingrowing toe-nail. A system of education that educates in the letter and not in the spirit, is responsible. The mistaken idea of universal equality is the root of the evil. Shakespeare was no better than the man who blacked his boots; Goethe no bit superior to the women who cooked his hash. Delicate truths like this are instilled into the minds of the people. Silly socialistic men and women who have no use for either the comforts or refinements of life, are the criminals. Idle people who want to turn epigrams find this a fertile theme. Why, Letitia, do you remember when we went to see Candida the other night, we noticed that even a man like Bernard Shaw was not averse from making one of his characters inveigh against the crime of keeping servants? It was Morell, I think, who was indignant that the young poet's father kept so many servants. 'Anyhow, when there's anything coarse-grained to be done,' he said, 'you ring the bell, and throw it on to somebody else. That's one of the great facts in your existence.' A man like Shaw, who lives in refinement, with a delightful home, neat-handed servants, a charming wife, and all the rest of it, can not resist the opportunity to hammer at a scheme that he must know is absolutely necessary."
"You will talk yourself hoarse, dear," said Letitia. "Of course, Archie, it is a showy theme. People who use it can always be sure of making a hit with the gallery. Teaching equality is delightful entertainment for those who could never possibly be equal—who are literally born unequal. Why, Archie, some people, through no fault of their own, are born idiots. How could they possibly be equal to those who were not so born?"
"In the meantime," I continued, "those who are born idiots avenge themselves on society by going out as cooks. It is their little scheme for getting even with the world. This has given cooks a bad name. Nobody cares to be in the same class as the idiot."
"I'm only sorry," murmured poor Letitia, "that I learned Latin instead of cooking."
"But my girl," I said soothingly, "I did not intend to marry a cook, and I would not have you changed in one single particular."
She kissed me. "Just the same," she went on, "I'm sorry. It is an art. There are the arts of Cooking, and Higher Cooking, and Scientific Cooking, that are gastronomies worthy of study. I realize that, now it is too late. Willingly would I substitute Brillat-Savarin for Ovid, if I only could! It is unfortunate."
"My dear," I said, and I drew her to my knee to break the news as easily as possible, "we have come to the end of our tether. As the children say when they have finished playing, we must 'bosh up.' We must make the best of a bad job, and, living in New York, do as New Yorkers do. In fact, our housekeeping must end."
"Oh, Archie!" she cried, her eyes filling with tears; "do you—do you really mean it?"