Licensor

“ Perhaps you do not know the French language, and you wish to have a window raised while you are traveling on a French railroad. Is it forgivable to bend across a man or woman and raise the window without a word of excuse, or a cordial smile of understanding? And yet how often do we see this thing done! Many a seemingly well-bred man or woman will raise the window next to another man or woman without so much as asking permission to do so! ”

“ When you are ushered into the reception-room, should the lady of the house be absent, the head servants will not only serve you with tea and refreshments and offer you hospitalities in their mistress's name, but may, if no one else be there, sit with you in the parlor, entertaining you with conversation until the return of the hostess. ”

“ A nickel-plated establishment, an elegant retinue, and handsome wages. A hundred francs a month, with washing, and wine, and everything, included. The morning that I arrived at the house, in a highly satisfied state of mind, Madame had me shown into her dressing-room. An astonishing room, hung with cream silk, and Madame, a tall woman, extremely made up, her skin too white, her lips too red, her hair too blonde, but nevertheless pretty, rustling,—with an imposing presence, and style! ”

“ To be merely notorious--even though you were amusing--was not passport enough. The hostess--a beautiful tall woman, with the brow of a child, a quick intellect, and an amazing experience of life--created round her an atmosphere that was really the expression of her own personality; fastidious, and yet eager; cold, and yet steeped in intellectual curiosities and passions. Under the mingled stimulus and restraint of it, men and women brought out the best that was in them. ”

“ If any lady is without an escort, and has no acquaintances at hand to take her under their wing, she should send for the master of the house to meet her near the door, and give her his arm into the drawing-room. He will then lead her to the hostess, and to a seat. Let her then bow, as a sign that she releases him from farther attendance, and leaves him at liberty to divide his civilities among his other guests. ”

“ When they had eaten, they all sat down again to carouse, the portress serving the new comers, and the cup passed round awhile, till the porter said to the Calenders, ‘O brothers, have ye no story or rare trait to divert us withal?’ The Calenders, being warm with wine, called for musical instruments; so the portress brought them a tambourine and a lute and a Persian harp; and each Calender took one and tuned it and played and sang; and the girls joined in lustily and made a great noise. Whilst they were thus engaged, some one knocked at the gate and the portress rose and went to see who it was. ”

“ The thick hot room seemed swarming with women, alive and teeming with women, women tumbling all over each other wherever the eye turned. Tall clacking machines ran closely around the walls of the room, down the middle stood a double row of tables; and at each machine, and at every possible place at the tables, sat a woman crowded upon a woman, and another and another.
Dirt, noise, heat, and smell: women, women, women. Conglomeration of human and inhuman such as the eyes of the refined seldom look upon.... ”

“ In her drawing-room—historically the first salon that the world beheld—this lady, in conjunction with her collaborators, exacted from men that deference, not of bearing merely, but of speech, to which every woman is entitled and which, everywhere, save only in Italy, women had gone without. ”

“ The most powerful of all arguments against entirely declining to appear at the public table of the inn, is, that in this country it is customary for the ladies themselves, when on a journey, to eat there; and my partiality for the table d’Hôte may possibly be owing in some degree to my having met, at one of them, with two of the handsomest women that I have seen since I have been in this country, which abounds in female beauty. ”

“ I pursued my way preoccupied with the idea of the window, or, rather, the curtain, or, to put it still more clearly, the woman who had raised it, for beyond all doubt only a woman could be peeping out from that window so poetic, so white, so green, so full of flowers, and when I say a woman, be it understood that she is imaged as young and beautiful. ”

“ In Paris, at the theatre, you fee the woman who shows you to your seat, you fee the woman who opens the door and the woman who takes your wraps. One night in midsummer we stepped across from the Grand Hôtel to the opera without even a scarf for a wrap, and the woman was so disappointed that we were handed from one attendant to another some half dozen times as “three ladies without wraps.” ”

“ The lady of the house, gazing absently at the Assistant Commissioner, left alone with her on the private side of the screen, seemed to be rearranging her mental impressions behind her thoughtful immobility of a handsome old face. Men with grey moustaches and full, healthy, vaguely smiling countenances approached, circling round the screen; two mature women with a matronly air of gracious resolution; a clean-shaved individual with sunken cheeks, and dangling a gold-mounted eyeglass on a broad black ribbon with an old-world, dandified effect. ”

“ If one woman is visiting another at her house, and the latter goes up stairs for anything, her female guest trots right after her, like a little haunting dog. If she goes to the closet to get her gaiters, the shadow follows; she must be present when they are laced on; and discusses rights and lefts, and hosiery, etc. When her hostess goes to the glass, to arrange her hair, or put on her bonnet, the shadow follows, leaning both arms on the toilet-table to witness the operation. ”

“ Just as I began to indulge a hope that the faint smile my endeavors at cheerful conversation had caused to flicker about her lips—as a rose-tint illumines for a moment the white summit of an Alpine height—there entered the drawing-room of our hostess a bevy of noisy women, young and old, who gathered about the sofa, where my friend and I were seated near our hostess, and rattled away like so many pieces of small (very small!) ”

“ The lady of the house, where there is but one servant kept, frequently takes charge of the drawing-room herself, that is to say, dusting it; the servant sweeping, cleaning windows, looking-glasses, grates, and rough work of that sort. If there are many ornaments and knick-knacks about the room, it is certainly better for the mistress to dust these herself, as a maid-of-all-work's hands are not always in a condition to handle delicate ornaments. ”

“ The signal for all to rise is given by the hostess, who bows to the woman on the host's right. The men escort the women to the door or drawing-room, after which they return, and cigars and liquors are offered. ”

“ Inside, there is a bright fire in the drawing-room, casting a pleasant but uncertain light on the delicate silk dress of a lady who is reclining behind a screen in the corner of the sofa, and allowing you to discern that the hair of the gentleman who is seated in the arm-chair opposite, with a newspaper over his knees, is becoming decidedly grey. ”

“ Women in some of the old countries are occupied as doorkeepers at museums and galleries of paintings. In Great Britain, many of the door attendants are females, where the houses are occupied by several families, as is often the case. In England, some women are employed as pew openers. To come nearer home. Those who have visited the Academy of Fine Arts, in Philadelphia, will remember the pleasant face of the janitress who receives the tickets of the visitors, and that an obliging young woman checked the canes and parasols. In New York, most of the picture galleries have female doorkeepers. ”

“ THE MANAGER. The rooms are quite as good up here. There is less noise; and there is the lift. If Your Highness desires anything, there is the telephone—
THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you, I don't want anything. The telephone is so difficult: I am not accustomed to it.
THE MANAGER. Can I take any order? Some tea?
THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you. Yes: I should like some tea, if I might—if it would not be too much trouble.
He goes out. The telephone rings. The Princess starts out of her chair, terrified, and recoils as far as possible from the instrument. THE PRINCESS. Oh dear! ”

“ Sometimes, in the midst of all this wild confusion, a kind of French courtier would come mincing along, in old-fashioned costume, leading a lady, also in antique attire, and, gazing on the right hand and the left through an immense opera-glass, making, in the meantime, the most polite bows. ”

“ And in one direction the introduction of women into printing offices may prove beneficial to others as well as to themselves. This has been tested to a great extent in America. Not only did we find women at work in Harper’s splendid office in New York, but during a visit to Harvard, Mr. Houghton, the proprietor of the Riverside Press, kindly [Page 46] took us over his immense establishment, where we found men and women at work, side by side, setting up type. ”

“ These various preliminary offices performed, the lady's-maid should prepare for dressing her mistress, arranging her dressing-room, toilet-table, and linen, according to her mistress's wishes and habits. The details of dressing we need not touch upon,—every lady has her own mode of doing so; but the maid should move about quietly, perform any offices about her mistress's person, as lacing stays, gently, and adjust her linen smoothly. ”

“ A new girl had been installed in a telephone office without proper instructions—a most unprecedented case. A bookkeeper, grown gray in the service of a large mercantile house, picked up his receiver wearily. It rang the new girl's bell, and like a flash, she said, 'Hello.' The bookkeeper gasped. ”

“ In the dressing-room, do not push forward to the mirror if you see that others are before you there. Wait for your turn, then perform the needful arrangements of your toilette quickly, and re-join your escort as soon as possible. If you meet friends in the lady's-room, do not stop there to chat; you keep your escort waiting, and your friends will join you in the parlor a few moments later.
Avoid all confidential communications or private remarks in the dressing-room. You may be overheard, and give pain or cause annoyance by your untimely conversation. ”

“ This immaculate young man's practical function at art exhibitions, as perhaps elsewhere, is that of escort.
He is escort to groups of very handsome and very expensive-looking young ladies; and these fragrant, rustling groups, with the waxen, patrician young man in tow, stroll slowly about, catalogues unnoticed in hand, without pause skirting the picture-hung walls. They are very still, and they gaze upon the art that they pass with the look of a doe contemplating the meaning of the appearance of a man. ”

“ In some resorts there is a regular office, as in a legitimate hotel, where couples register at the desk; in others, a small window is all that can be seen. The clerk pushes the book through the opening and the man registers, often without seeing the clerk’s face. ”

“ Now, in all establishments whatever, of course some disparity exists between the comforts of the drawing-room and best bed-rooms, and the servant's hall and attics, but here it is no longer a matter of degree. The young woman who performs the office of lady's-maid, and the lads who wait upon us at table, have neither table to feed at nor chair to sit down upon themselves. ”

“ But most of these are general servants ‘where another is kept.’ They would not go as a single hand,” explained the clerk.
“I must have one who will consent to do so,” said Lucy. Something in her low clear voice and simple decision of manner made the registry office clerk turn and look at her. This was not the style of mistress with whom she was best acquainted.
“I will try to please you, madam,” said the clerk. “I fear there is nobody suitable in the house at present. But one may come in at any moment. A great many girls do not appear till about noon. ”

“ I can bring a hundred of them into this office one at a time, open that window there, lay a knife on the desk, my clerk being, of course, for the moment absent, turn around, say, to glance toward the safe, and, desperate as their chances would be, there's not one of the hundred but would take them—and leave the knife in the small of my back! ”

“ Seated in a row, in front of several elaborately decorated screens, eight or more tastily dressed women of each establishment spend their time smoking or painting their faces, while the curious crowds flock by and look them over. ”

“ The lessening of my shyness is very fortunate, since many of the conversations and monologues that take place in a motel office are not the sort that would be accepted by the most lenient censor. I still find it hard to keep from withering with embarrassment, though, at the things some of our customers say when they register. The men, for instance, who casually describe other places they have stayed in--places where more of their desires have been taken into consideration than simply the desire for a shower and a place to sleep. ”

“ It will be well to get, to the full, the effect of the height above the crowd of the straggling group of speakers on the pedestal platform. These are, as the Curtain rises, a working-class woman who is waving her arms and talking very earnestly, her voice for the moment blurred in the uproar. ”