Various

“ The advantage of the present system of mere professional and skilled technicality is to be found in the greater comfort and regularity of the household; in the more finished precision and perfection of the service; in the more complete systemisation of the whole art and practice of attendance. But these gains have been bought with a price—not only in the increased cost of housekeeping, but in the deterioration of the moral character of servants, and in the annihilation of the friendly and quasi-family feeling which once existed between the mistress and her domestics. ”

“ Mr Slimm was no longer a rough miner; and his accent, if not of refinement, was that of cultivation. Carefully choosing another cigar, and lighting it with deliberate slowness, each moment served to raise his companion’s impatience, a consummation which the astute American doubtless desired.
‘When I first knew your uncle,’ he said at length, ‘we were both much younger men, and, as I have before told you, I saved his life. ”

“ The circle became every moment more gay and lively.
‘Take care, Günther,’ cried Mosig von Ahrenberg, holding up his finger in mock-threat; ‘I see plainly that Bismarck has completely bewitched you. I shall feel bound to make your apostasy known to a certain paper in Leipzig.’
Whilst this merry chaff was going on, Bismarck’s wife and her daughters had come in and had seated themselves at the table. The conversation now became more general; and soon after, as it was getting late, the party broke up. ”

“ We should like to see the mistresses go back to the old friendly feeling and friendly intercourse with those who live under their roof, and make their happiness, by the conscientious discharge of duty—that old friendly feeling which made of the household one family, and brought the servants in line with the masters by the golden cord of human sympathy. People say that this is impossible; that the spirit of the age prevents it; that servants themselves refuse to recognise anything like personal interest from their employers ”

“ Nine times out of ten, the mistress is as incapable of teaching as the maid is slow of learning; for we must remember that untrained girls of this sort are generally taken from the most humble class, and that they come into service with but little natural brightness of wit and less educational sharpening. The mistress expects too much from them. For the most part aching under her own burden, disliking her duties, and envying her richer sisters, she does the least she can in the house, and gives the heavy end of the stick to the hired help. ”

“ But next door, the rich merchant is a fraudulent bankrupt; the respectable family lawyer over the way absconds after having dealt with his clients’ securities; master’s friend, the banker, puts up the shutters to the ruin of thousands on thousands, while his wife has a secured jointure which enables them to live in princely style; and the stockjobber, who dines with us on Sundays, makes use of private information to sell to his best friend shares which, up to their highest point to-day, he knows will collapse like a burst balloon to-morrow. ”

“ The heir, whether the eldest or the youngest son, is subjected to the same obligations as in respect of freehold; and if the gavelkind custom applies, each share on a further intestacy descends to the heirs of the co-heir. In this way has been illustrated the disadvantage of any rule of law which makes real estate divisible. We knew a small copyhold estate consisting of a cottage and garden, which became by successive intestacies subdivided into shares, some of which were worth no more than two shillings per year each. ”

“ A cynical writer somewhere observes, that no man is too rich not to be glad to get a thousand pounds; and we may therefore assume the joy of an individual who possesses about as many pence, in prospect of obtaining possession of that sum. It was with this kind of joy—not, however, quite free from incredulity—that Edgar, when he met Mr Slimm by appointment at his hotel next day, listened to that gentleman’s renewed asseverations that there were thousands of pounds somewhere in that bit of paper which had been such a mystery to Edgar and his friends. ”

“ Edgar composed himself to listen, excited more than he cared to show by the impressive air of his companion, and the absence of that quaint smile which usually distinguished him; nor could the younger man fail to notice not only the change of manner but the change of voice. ”

“ I do not think it would be fair. Considering the time and trouble Mr Carver has given to the matter, it would only be right for him to know at the same time. The dear old gentleman has been so enthusiastic throughout, and so kind, that I should feel disappointed if he did not hear the secret disclosed when we are all together.’
‘How thoughtful you are, Mrs Seaton!’ remarked Felix with great admiration. ‘Of course you are right. The old fellow will be delighted beyond measure, and will fancy he has a hand in the matter himself.’
‘I do not see why we should wait for that,’ Edgar grumbled. ”

“ I’m glad to hear that we’re to be fellow-passengers together, and that your husband has really decided to return at last to his native island.’
‘Thank you,’ Marian answered simply. ‘We are all looking forward much to our life in Trinidad.’ Then, with a little mischievous twinkle in her eye, she turned to Nora. ‘This is another of our fellow-passengers, Dr Whitaker,’ she said demurely—‘my friend, Miss Dupuy, whom I’m taking out under my charge—another Trinidadian: you ought to know one another. ”

“ After speaking of the ‘stormy breakers’ on the lake, caused by ‘a bottom wind,’ he goes on to say: ‘It is said Keswick Lake often wears this appearance a day or two previous to a storm; and when violently agitated at the bottom, an island arises, and remains upon the surface some time.... The grass and the moss are as green as a meadow, which soon unite and become consistent. There are very few people in the neighbourhood who have not been upon it.’ It is probably to Jonathan Ottley, a native of Keswick, and a very careful observer, that we owe the first really authentic account of the island. ”

“ The cry is everywhere the same—the badness of our modern servants. But who is really to blame—the mistresses or the maids? the masters or the employed? The one class are educated, the other are comparatively ignorant; and influence filters downwards—it does not permeate the social mass from below. We cast longing looks backward to the bygone times when servants were the humble friends of the family, ready to serve for love and bare maintenance if bad times came, and identifying themselves with the fortunes of their masters. ”

“ I don’t like flattery as a rule, especially American flattery. It is rare, in a general way. I feel as if they always want something, you know.’
‘Well, I do calculate my countrymen don’t give much away for nothing. They like a quid pro quo; and if they can get the quid without the quo, so much the better are they pleased. But I didn’t come here to discuss the idiosyncrasies of my countrymen.’
Mr Slimm seemed to possess the happy knack of making his conversation suit his company. Edgar could not help contrasting him now with the typical Yankee of the gambling-house ”

“ There is an equal diversity in respect of free-bench, the copyhold equivalent for dower. In a few manors, the widow is entitled to the whole of the rents so long as she remains a widow; in others, she has half; and in others, two-thirds; while in the remainder, the proportion is the same as the dower payable out of freeholds, one-third; although the duration of the allowance frequently differs, not being usually for life, as dower, but during widowhood—in some manors the additional obligation of chastity being imposed. ”

“ It is the mistresses who have let the reins slip from their hands, not the maids who have taken the bit between their teeth; or, rather, the latter has been in consequence of the former; and when we blame our servants for the ‘heartlessness’ of their service—for the ease with which they throw up their situations, on the sole plea of want of change, or of bettering themselves, to the infinite disturbance of things and trouble to the household—we must remember that we ourselves first broke the golden links, and that to expect devotion without giving affection is to expect simply slavishness. ”

“ Many persons believe that the eldest son of a man who has died without leaving a will, or who in other words dies intestate, is entitled to the whole of the property, both real and personal, left by his deceased parent; but this is an error so far as relates to the personal estate, and in some cases also in respect of the real estate. ”

“ Go from the rich to the poor among our gentry—from the gilded upper stratum to the lower base and barren subsoil—and here again we find that mistresses are as much to blame as the maids, whose shortcomings they bewail and resent. In a household of this kind, the res angusta domi prevents the hiring, because rendering impossible the payment, of good and well-trained servants; and the mistress has to be content with young girls whom she must teach, and whose untutored services she buys at small cost. ”

“ If Jacky is rude and Jenny is rebellious, if Tommy is unmanageable and Katie is defiant, she, the mother, whose temper would be in a blaze on the moment, demands that the nursemaid shall bear all with a calm and equable mind, and, without the power of punishing, be able to reduce to obedience these little rebels, whom she herself cannot always control with the help of the rod and the dark-closet to boot. ”

“ In large cities and in the houses of the rich, the upper men-servants are practically their own masters. They make their own stipulations as to hours, food, allowances, liberties; and compound for the nervous exhaustion of perpetual worry which does not include hard work, by a scale of feeding which is more savage than civilised, in the quantity of flesh-meat included. They can make the house pleasant or intolerable to a guest; and in a thousand sly mysterious ways they cause the mistress annoyances which cannot be brought home to them, and of which they enjoy the effect produced. ”

“ The bed of the lake where the island appears consists of what, were there no lake over it, would be called a peat-moss, which extends over several acres. When the water is calm, dark-brown patches may be seen over the whole of this area, indicating rents or fissures. The depth of water is very uniform here, varying from six to eight feet when the lake is at an average height. The appearance of the island is caused by a portion of this peat-moss rising, not bodily, as in a detached mass, but like a huge blister. ”

“ Leaving these customs aside, we propose to consider the effect of the intestacy of an owner of freehold and other property who leaves a family of children surviving him.
In such a case, the widow (if any) would be entitled to receive one-third of the rents of the freeholds for her life, that being a provision made for her by the law under the name of dower. Dower attaches to all the freehold lands and hereditaments of which her deceased husband was the actual owner at the time of his decease, either in fee-simple or fee-tail ”

“ Been settled at Orange Grove, the Dupuys have, ever since the old Spanish occupation.—And so you’re taking out Mr Theodore Dupuy’s daughter, are you, Mrs Hawthorn? Well, well! Taking out Mr—Theodore Dupuy’s daughter. That’s a capital joke, that is.—O yes, you must all sit at the head of my table, ladies; and I’ll do everything that lies in my power to make you comfortable.’
Meanwhile, Edward and Harry Noel had strolled off for a minute towards the opposite end of the deck, where the mulatto gentleman was standing quite alone, looking down steadily into the deep-blue motionless water. ”

“ What on earth can they wish us not to come out for?’
Edward held the telegram open before his eyes, gazing at it blankly in inexpressible astonishment. ‘My darling,’ he said, ‘my own darling, I haven’t the very remotest notion. I can’t imagine why on earth they should ever wish to keep us away from them.’
At the same moment, Nora held her own telegram out to Marian with a little laugh of surprise and amusement. Marian glanced at it and read it hastily. It ran as follows:
‘From Dupuy, Trinidad, to Miss Dupuy, R.M.S. Severn, Southampton.—Don’t come out till next steamer. ”

“ But I don’t believe, for my part, there’s anybody on earth who doesn’t feel hurt at being ridiculed.’
‘Ah, that’s so nice of you to think and talk like that, Mr Hawthorn,’ Nora answered frankly; ‘but you won’t think so, you know, I’m quite certain, after you’ve been a month or two on shore over in Trinidad.’
‘Good-morning, ladies and gentlemen,’ the captain of the Severn put in briskly, walking up to them as they lounged in a group on the clean-scrubbed quarter-deck—‘good-morning, ladies and gentlemen. Fine weather to start on a voyage. ”

“ But we forget that we ourselves have changed even more than they, since the days when mistresses overlooked the maids in closer companionship than is warranted now by the conditions of society—when daily details were ordered by the lady, and the execution of her orders was personally supervised—when housekeeping was at once an art and a pleasure, a science and a source of pride. Then young servants were trained immediately under the eye of the mistress and by her direct influence ”

“ The dear little one, with her blue eyes and fair curls, sitting on that stern old man’s knee, playing with his beads, and not the least afraid; while the old fellow used to grunt and laugh and get as near a smile as it is possible for an Indian to do. ”

“ The proportion of the current rent down to the actual date of the decease of the former owner forms part of his personal estate, as well as all arrears of rent then remaining unpaid. When the heir first receives any rent, he pays to his father’s executors so much as belongs to them, and retains the remainder for his own use, although he must satisfy prior charges thereout. ”

“ I’ll keep ’em a place nice and snug at my own table.’
‘Thank you,’ the general said, rather more graciously than before.—‘This is my daughter, captain, Mrs Hawthorn. And this is my son-in-law, Mr Edward Hawthorn, who’s going out to accept a district judgeship over yonder in Trinidad.’
‘Ha!’ the jovial captain answered in his bluff voice, doffing his hat sailor-fashion to Marian and Edward. ‘Going to hang up the niggers out in Trinidad, are you, sir? Going to hang up the niggers! Well, well, they deserve it all, every man-Jack of ’em, the lazy beggars; they all deserve hanging. ”

“ In matters of this kind, the ‘molly-man,’ who{83} stays at home, peeps from behind the blind and puts his fingers into all the pies aboard, is a harsher and less sympathetic person to deal with than is the average mistress, to whom a girl’s love affairs carry an echo that awakens old dreams in her own soul and gain a little compassion for the sufferer. For, after all, Betty’s love for the baker’s young man is very much the same kind of thing as Ada’s for the captain and Mabel’s for the curate ”