Those who feel that they are responsible for the character of their servants will endeavour to provide them with innocent amusements. When papers and books are read above stairs they might be sent down to the kitchen. If this were done, literature of the "penny dreadful" description would to a great extent be excluded.
Many employers behave as if the laws of good manners did not apply to their dealings with servants. Apparently they consider that servants should not be allowed any feelings. This was not the opinion of Chesterfield, who observes: "I am more upon my guard as to my behaviour to my servants, and to others who are called my inferiors, than I am towards my equals, for fear of being suspected of that mean and ungenerous sentiment of desiring to make others feel that difference which fortune has, perhaps too undeservedly, made between us." It is difficult, perhaps, to strike the exact mean between superciliousness and excessive familiarity, but we must make every effort to arrive at it. There is nothing more keenly appreciated by servants than that evenness of temper which respects itself at the same time that it respects others. A lady visited a dying servant who had lived with her for thirty years. "How do you find yourself to-day, Mary?" said her mistress, taking hold of the withered hand which was held out. "Is that you, my darling mistress?" and a beam of joy overspread the old woman's face. "O yes!" she added, looking up, "it is you, my kind, my mannerly mistress!"
Part of Miss Harriet Martineau's ideal of happiness was to have young servants whom she might train and attach to herself. In later life, when settled in a house of her own, she was in the habit of calling her maids in the evening and pointing out to them on the map the operations of the Crimean war, for she thought that young English women should take an intelligent interest in the doings of their country. Mrs. Carlyle was another tender mother-mistress to her servants, though her letters have made the world acquainted with the incessant contests which she was obliged to wage with "mutinous maids of all work" as Carlyle used to call them. "One of these maids was untidy, useless in all ways, but 'abounding in grace,' and in consequent censure of every one above or below her, and of everything she couldn't understand. After a long apostrophe one day, as she was bringing in dinner, Carlyle ended with, 'And this I can tell you, that if you don't carry the dishes straight, so as not to spill the gravy, so far from being tolerated in heaven, you won't be even tolerated on earth.'" It was better to teach the poor creature even in this rough way than not at all, that she ought to put her religion into the daily round and common tasks of her business; that
"A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and the action fine."
So much of the comfort of home depends upon servants that a wise mistress studies them and values their co-operation.
"She heedeth well their ways,
Upon her tongue the law of kindness dwells,
With wisdom she dispenses blame or praise,
And ready sympathy her bosom swells."
She sees that their meals are regularly served, and that they are undisturbed during the time set apart for them. She does not think that any hole will do for a servant's bedroom. When caring for the children that they may have their little entertainments and enjoyments to brighten their lives, she includes the servants in the circle of her sympathies; and is always on the watch to make them feel that they are an integral part of the home, and that, if they have to work for it and to bear its burden, they are not excluded from a real share in its interests and joys. In a word, she feels for them and with them, and as a rule they do their best for her. That servants are not always ungrateful every good mistress is well aware. Among the inscriptions to the early Christian martyrs found in the catacombs at Rome there is one which proves that there were in those days, as no doubt there are now, grateful servants. "Here lies Gordianus, deputy of Gaul, who was murdered, with all his family, for the faith. They rest in peace. His handmaid, Theophila, set up this." Gentle, loving Theophila! There was no one left but thee to remember poor Gordianus, and perhaps his little children, whom thou didst tend.
In managing servants a little judicious praise is a wonderful incentive. The Duke of Wellington once requested the connoisseur whom the author of "Tancred" terms "the finest judge in Europe," to provide him a chef. Felix, whom the late Lord Seaford was reluctantly about to part with on economical grounds, was recommended and received. Some months afterwards his patron was dining with Lord Seaford, and before the first course was half over he observed, "So I find you have got the duke's cook to dress your dinner." "I have got Felix," replied Lord S., "but he is no longer the duke's cook. The poor fellow came to me with tears in his eyes, and begged me to take him back again, at reduced wages or no wages at all, for he was determined not to remain at Apsley House. 'Has the duke been finding fault?' said I. 'Oh no, my lord, I would stay if he had; he is the kindest and most liberal of masters; but I serve him a dinner that would make Ude or Francatelli burst with envy, and he says nothing; I go out and leave him to dine on a dinner badly dressed by the cookmaid, and he says nothing. Dat hurt my feelings, my lord.'"
On the vexed question of "visitors," mistresses might say to their servants, "When we stay in a lady's house, we cannot ask visitors without an invitation from our hostess, and we wish you to observe the same courtesy towards us. When we think it advisable, we will tell you to invite your friends, but we reserve to ourselves the right to issue the invitation; and if your friends come to see you, we expect that you shall ask our permission if you may receive them." A mistress who does not forget the time when she used to meet her affianced thus writes. "I always invite their confidence, and if I find any servants of my household are respectably engaged to be married, I allow the young men to come occasionally to the house, and perhaps on Christmas Day, or some festival of the kind, invite them to dine in the kitchen, and I have never yet found my trust misplaced. I should not like my own daughters only to see their affianced husbands out of doors, and, though the circumstances in the two cases differ materially, as a woman I consider we ought to enter into the feelings of those other women who are serving under us."
Half the domestic difficulties arise from a want of honesty among mistresses in the characters which they give each other of the servants they discharge. Many a servant receives flattering recommendations who does not deserve any better than the following: "The bearer has been in my house a year—minus eleven months. During this time she has shown herself diligent—at the house door; frugal—in work; mindful—of herself; prompt—in excuses; friendly—towards men; faithful—to her lovers; and honest—when everything had vanished."