Progress in the household

by Lucy Maynard Salmon

AN ILLUSTRATED EDITION

It is the day of the illustrated edition, and even more the day of the illustrator. Happy is the author to whom is accorded the honor of an illustrated edition of his latest book. Still happier is he whose facile, practiced pen is called into requisition to illustrate the works of the great artists found in our monthly magazines. Unhappy is the one whose book no artist, even if gifted with imagination, can illustrate, and whose name no publishing house has ever entered on its card catalogue of pen illustrators of artistic sketches. But more fortunate times may await the unillustratable and non-illustrating author. A changing phraseology reflects a new rapprochement between author and artist and a breaking-down of the barriers that once confined each within definite limits. There are even indications that the present positions of author and artist may be reversed and that the non-illustrating author may become quite independent of the previously necessary artist. “Pen pictures,” “sketches in black and white,” “pastels in prose,” all indicate the possibilities open to the author of combining with his own vocation that of the artist whose existence thus becomes unnecessary to his own. Nay more, the unillustratable author may take heart, for as the skillful acrobat learns the feat of walking on his hands, so the literary trickster may achieve the paradox of illustrating works that cannot be illustrated.

This theory has been the result of contemplating on the one hand the impossibility of illustrating a modest book dealing with statistics and equally prosaic facts and of noting on the other hand the popular demand that every book shall be illustrated. How shall man attain unto the unattainable?

A reminiscent mood led the author to blow the dust from the top of her last book, written ten years ago and not yet, unhappily, out of its second edition, and to turn over its half-forgotten pages. She found a passing interest in recalling her conclusions as they were laid bare on the pages of the book, but undreamed-of pleasures took form and shape as she remembered the circumstances under which each page had been written. Nay more, there opened out the vision of the unattainable illustrated edition. A series of pictures passed before her, far more interesting than the book they illustrated, and thus a prosaic work attained a place in that desirable class in which are found all books whose text seems only as a pretext for the artist’s brush.

The first picture was that of the receipt of a letter written in reply to a humble request for information in regard to the number of maids employed in the household, the length of time they had been employed, and similar facts obvious to one’s friends and neighbors. The letter was written on Tiffany’s finest stationery, it bore a crest and a coat of arms so undecipherable as to be a guarantee of its high aristocratic lineage, and its perfume was that of Araby the Blest. But the letter was written in the third person and the information it conveyed was not that which had been sought but the unexpected statement that the inquiry was impertinent and under no consideration whatever could be answered. Alas, the questioner had known that her questions would demand time and thought, but what artist, save the author, could depict the abyss into which the questioner was hurled by the epithet “impertinent?”

The second picture also had a letter in the foreground. The quest for information had led to an appeal to the only authority known to the questioner, but it was to an authority of world-wide reputation, and the unknown questioner hesitated long. Would the great man heed the appeal, even if the questioner could justify herself in making it? But the die was cast and the result was a long, kindly, painstaking letter not only giving in detail all the information sought but also suggesting similar by-paths to be explored. “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The third picture was that of a woman’s club. The writer had never belonged to a woman’s club, save for a brief period of nominal connection with one, and it had been with much trepidation that she had accepted an invitation to read a paper before one of these organizations. But she wrote an article in which she attempted to show by means of all the facts and arguments at her command that the establishment of training-schools for domestic employees would not and could not remedy household ills. She valiantly read the paper and at the close of the hour one of the company thanked her heartily “for advocating the establishment of training-schools for servants.” Was it the woman, or the club?

The fourth picture is of a large corner room, with low ceiling, facing south and west. Its long table is covered with papers, reports, schedules, and census publications, and here, from early morning until late at night, during the hottest weeks of the early summer, the occupant of the room attempted to work out some of the economic laws governing domestic service. Her fellow occupants of the large building were the numerous maids engaged in cleaning it. Their work also was difficult, but morning tea tided over the time between breakfast and dinner, and work for the day closed at four o’clock. How would an artist portray the question that came each night—what would be the effect of an eight-hour day on economic investigation?

The fifth picture is one of a small room opening on an air-shaft, in a New York hotel. The occupant had arrived late, the hotel was crowded, and no other room was available. But it was not the smallness of the room, or the single window opening on the air-shaft that gave the occupant a chill on a July night,—it was the folding-bed. Her traveling-bag contained a new work on economic history, having a chapter on domestic service, and turning on all the electric lights, she read until daylight, never since quite sure whether it was devotion to history or craven fear of the deadly folding-bed.

The sixth picture is one of a railway carriage in provincial France. The American traveler, in search of information, had attempted to learn from her chance companion in the carriage somewhat of domestic service in France. Much valuable information was politely given, and then the tables were turned. But the interest of the French lady was centred, not in the status of domestic service in America, but in the personal status of her new acquaintance. That she was traveling alone might be accepted, though certainly to be deprecated. But what artist shall show forth the amazement on the face of the French lady when she heard the affirmative answer to her question, “But surely it is not possible that Madame will find no one at the station to meet her?”