I am well aware that the
survival of domestic service, in its old form, depends more and more
on our agreement not to mention it.
Assuredly, a most uncomfortable state of things. Is it, after all,
worth saving?--a form so depleted of right human substance, an anomaly
so ticklish. Consider, in your friend's house, the cheerful smile of
yonder parlourmaid; hark to the housemaid's light brisk tread in the
corridor; note well the slight droop of the footman's shoulders as he
noiselessly draws near. Such things, as being traditional, may pander
to your sense of the great past. Histrionically, too, they are good.
But do you really like them? Do they not make your blood run a trifle
cold? In the thick of the great past, you would have liked them well
enough, no doubt. I myself am old enough to have known two or three
servants of the old school--later editions of Ruskin's Anne. With them
there was no discomfort, for they had no misgiving. They had never
wished (heaven help them!) for more, and in the process of the long
years had acquired, for inspiration of others, much--a fine
mellowness, the peculiar sort of dignity, even of wisdom, that comes
only of staying always in the same place, among the same people, doing
the same things perpetually. Theirs was the sap that rises only from
deep roots, and where they were you had always the sense of standing
under great wide branches.
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