But is it altogether a prejudice? Is it not a sound view of that condition of life?
I confess that it has long been a matter of surprise to me that men should be found willing to hire themselves out for domestic service in a country where bread and meat may so easily be obtained in other ways, and where even independent manual labor is so often considered derogatory to the dignity of the native born. To do our dirty work that it disgusts us to do for ourselves, to stand behind our chairs at table, to obey our whims and caprices, to have never a moment they can call their own, to keep down their temper when we lose ours, to be compelled to ask for permission to go out for a walk, seems to me a sad existence even with good food and wages.
The fact is, my dear Continental, that the relation between master and servant has to be readjusted to suit the times. Indeed it is readjusting itself. We see the signs, although we may not perceive their significance. Our life is a dream. I use this venerable saying in another sense than the one generally intended by it: I mean that we live half our lives, if not more, in the imagination; and that the imagination of every-day people is a dream made up of feelings brought together from the habits, theories, and prejudices of the past of all lands and all nations of men. The reality that was once in them has long since been out of them; yet these vague and shadowy fancies are all-powerful and govern our actions. So that morally we go about like maskers in the carnival, dressed in the old clothes of our ancestors. With this difference, that most of us do not see how shabby and threadbare they are, and how unsuited to our present wants. And the few who do see this have an inbred fondness for the old romantic rags, and wear some of them in spite of their better judgment. Our moneyed class cling in particular to the dream of an aristocracy, and love to look down upon somebody. The man who made his fortune yesterday calls to-day's lucky fellow a nouveau riche and a parvenu. The counter jumper who has snatched his thousands from a sudden rise in stocks, is sure to invest some of his winnings in the tatters of feudalism, sports a coat of arms on his carriage, has liveries, talks of his honor as a gentleman, and expects from his servants the same respect that a baron of the Middle Ages received from his hinds. It is a dream of most baseless fabric. John and Thomas, with their dislike of the word servant, their surliness and their impudence, swing too far, perhaps, in the other direction, but they are more in unison with the spirit of the age than their masters. I have seen an ardent democrat, who had roared equal rights from many a stump, furious with the impertinence of a waiter, whose answer, if it had come from an equal, he would scarcely have noticed. And was not the waiter a man and a fellow voter? What distinction of class have we in this country? It is true that the property qualification we have discarded in our political system we have retained as our test of social position. Indeed, no abstract rights of man can make up the difference between rich and poor. But Fortune is nowhere so blind nor so busy in twirling her wheel; and our two classes are so apt to change places, that frequently the only difference between the master and the footman who stands behind him, is the difference of capital. And Europe is treading the same democratic path as ourselves, limping along after us as fast as her old legs will carry her. The time will come when the class from which we have so long enlisted recruits for our batteries de cuisine will find some other career better suited to their expanded views.
What then? Do you suggest that we may lay a hand upon the colored element, after the example of our honored President? But
'While flares the epaulette like flambeau
On Corporal Cuff and Ensign Sambo,'
can you expect either of these distinguished officers to leave the service of the United States for ours? What with intelligent contrabandism, emancipation, the right of suffrage, and the right to ride in omnibuses, we fear that their domestic usefulness will be sadly impaired.
Oh for machinery! automaton flunkies, requiring only to be wound up and kept oiled! What a housekeeping Utopia! Thomson foreshadowed a home paradise of this kind when he wrote the 'Castle of Indolence:'
'You need but wish, and, instantly obeyed,
Fair ranged the dishes rose and thick the glasses played.'
But as yet invention has furnished no reapers and mowers for within doors. We have only dumb waiters; poor, creaking things, that break and split, like their flesh-and-blood namesakes, and distribute the smell of the kitchen throughout the house. Heine once proposed a society to ameliorate the condition of the rich. He must have meant a model intelligence office. I wish it had been established, for we may all need its aid.
What are we to do when we come to the last of the servants? Darwin says that the Formica rufescens would perish without its slaves; we are almost as dependent as these confederate ants. Our social civilization is based upon servants. Certainly, the refinements of life, as we understand it, could not exist Without them, and it is difficult to see how any business of magnitude could be carried on. Briareus himself could not take care of a large country place, with its stables, barns, horses, cattle, and crops, even if Mrs. B. had the same physical advantages, and was willing to help him. Must we tempt them back by still larger salaries, or increase their social consideration, telling them, as a certain clergyman once said of his order, that 'they are supported, and not hired'?—changing the word help, as we have servant, into household officer or assistant manager, or adopt a Chinese euphemism, such as steward of the table or governor of the kitchen? Fourier does something of this kind; in his system the class names of young scullions are cherubs and seraphs! Or shall we adopt the coöperative plan of Mill and others, and offer John an interest in the family—say, possibly, the position of resident son-in-law after ten years of honesty, sobriety, and industry—with a seat at table in the mean while? Or must all the work be done by women, and a proprietor have to seal his Biddies more sanctorum in Utah? Or might not poor relations, now confessedly nuisances, be made useful in this way? Some marquis asked Sophie Arnould why she did not discharge her stupid porter? 'I have often thought of it,' she answered, 'mais que voulez vous, c'est mon père.'