Master of the house

“ Returning to my hotel I wrote a letter to the master of the house, telling him of my long-continued quest and of my hopes regarding our possible kinship. Day after day I anxiously awaited his reply, until a week had passed, but no word came from him. In passing the house at different times, however, I observed some signs of life within it—a blind open that had been closed the day before—a faint glimmer of light on the trees in the rear of the grounds at night, which might have come from the back windows. ”

“ But in other ways the master of the house is really master, and is a worker of miracles. He does things which we do not at all understand, and cannot yet even foresee, but which often completely make the house over. ”

“ The master of the house had in his younger days been a very handsome man, lazy, not clever, and of an exceedingly passionate temper. He was the son of a man rich, worthy and able, but of a very weak character, and of a kept woman who had been the mistress of a royal personage. ”

“ The master of the house receives no thanks, nor does he, indeed, expect them; for it is regarded as an understood thing, that every one must be satisfied who happens to be present at the time of the meals. ”

“ You would not expect a housekeeper to keep everything tidy and clean in a house, and not give her what she needed to make her strong and able to work; and so the master of the house gives the blood plenty to eat; and it makes no complaint as long as it can do its work well. It is a very busy person, we might say, and, as there is no end of things to do in the house in which you live, the blood works night and day. ”

“ At the same moment the master of the house, a surly looking old fellow, hearing the uproar, came out from the house, and instead of inviting us in like a gentleman, as he was in duty bound, only directed us by signs to another house, where we thought he intended to intimate, we should meet with a more hospitable reception. ”

“ The master of the house, poor creature! will confine his energies in most cases to paying for the move, or, if he be very exemplary, after arranging the wine-cellar he will see to the books and help with the pictures. I have even heard rumours of men who are most useful and helpful at similar crises ”

“ The master of the house soon came forth, and the moon, having now begun to shine, presented an elderly man, tall, straight, and muscular, who, in a style of language somewhat better than his habitation denoted, declared his willingness to assist a fellow creature in distress. ”

“ If the master of the house wishes to accompany you himself, you must excuse yourself politely from giving him so much trouble, but finish however by accepting. On arriving at your house, you should offer him your thanks. ”

“ The master of the house, at the appointed hour, takes his seat on the floor near the pulpit, surrounded by the males of his family and intimate friends, and the crowd of strangers arrange themselves—wherever there is sitting room—without impeding the view of the Tazia. ”

“ Some of the customs of the household, in regard to servants, are quite striking to a foreigner. When the master of the house starts out each morning, besides the wife and children who see him off, all the servants who are not especially occupied—a goodly number, sometimes—come to the front door and bow down to bid him good-by. ”

“ Now if, on entering any house, you should behold everything refined, well arranged, and adorned, assuredly you would believe that a master presided over it, and that he himself was much better than all those excellent things. ”

“ Any body presented by any other body at all known to the master of the house, is sure to be politely received, and, unless in some very peculiar case, offered the house—the usual compliment paid to a stranger or new acquaintance. ”

“ If it be round, the master of the house sits naturally where his place is put for him, but if not he as naturally gravitates towards the head, regardless of the fact that his back is scorched and he feels ill and uncomfortable, the while his feet and hands are in Siberia, and an icy blast plays about his head because the door opens straight on him, and in consequence he cannot get out of the range of the bitter wind from the passage or hall, try how he may to exclude it from the room. ”

“ the user, or, in other words, the master, of the house will be even a better judge than the builder, just as the pilot will judge better of a rudder than the carpenter, and the guest will judge better of a feast than the cook. ”

“ Having further accustomed themselves to the breaking of furniture and the staining of walls—to thumping, tumbling, hammering, and screaming; to doors always banging, and to footsteps perpetually running up and down stairs—the nominal master and mistress of the house fondly believed that their chief troubles were over. ”

“ The master of the house quite naturally was much sought, being, by repute, the greatest necromancer in England and shrewd enough to work upon the fancies of the common people, dealing out philters and horoscopes with a liberal hand ”

“ Not even on finding himself in a well-ordered house does a man step forward and say to himself, I must be master here! Else the lord of that house takes notice of it, and, seeing him insolently giving orders, drags him forth and chastises him. So it is also in this great City, the World. Here also is there a Lord of the House, who orders all thing:—
“Thou are the Sun! ”

“ We must know and always remember that in our common home we are all masters of the house. It is not our right, but our duty toward our home, of which we must take care just as every good master takes care of his house. ”

“ If we see the servants crushed and overwrought, we consider the master hard-hearted and grinding. In short, as a rule, you can form a tolerably fair estimate of the head of a house by the tone, spirit, style and manner of the members of his household. ”

“ The master having, according to his daily custom, gone the round of his estate—that is to say, having seen his servants all at work under their drivers; some planting with the hoe, some weeding, some cutting the maize, some gathering yams, potatoes, cassavy, or bonavist for provisions, some attending the ingenio or the still-house—did unluckily take into his head to visit the sick-house. ”

“ The master of this
house, then, was a man of a very considerable fortune; a bachelor, as we
have said, and about forty years of age: he had been educated (if we may
use the expression) in the country, and at his own home, under the care
of his mother, and a tutor who had orders never to correct him, nor to
compel him to learn more than he liked, which it seems was very little,
and that only in his childhood; for from the age of fifteen he addicted
himself entirely to hunting and other rural amusements, for which his
mother took care to equip him with horses, hounds, and all other
necessaries ”

“ The number of men-servants in a family varies according to the wealth and position of the master, from the owner of the ducal mansion, with a retinue of attendants, at the head of which is the chamberlain and house-steward, to the occupier of the house, where a single footman is the only male retainer. ”

“ The master of a private dwelling will not allow any untidiness or unseemliness to be seen in the house, such as a couch upset, or the table littered with rubbish, or vessels of price thrown away into dirty corners, while those which serve ignobler uses are thrust forward for entering guests to see. ”

“ Every man's proper mansion house and home, being the theatre of his hospitality, the seate of his selfe fruition, the comfortable part of his own life, the noblest of his son's inheritance, a kind of private princedom, nay the possession thereof an epitome of the whole world, may well deserve by these attributes, according to the degree of the master, to be delightfully adorned. ”

“ The greater the luxury and extravagance of the house, the more the master would need these trained and experienced men to relieve him of cares which he detested, and by their fidelity and skill to make possible the gratification of his tastes and passions. ”

“ We were an ill-matched pair, my husband and I, from the very outset; he, with very high ideas of a husband's authority and a wife's submission, holding strongly to the "master-in-my-own-house theory," thinking much of the details of home arrangements, precise, methodical, easily angered and with difficulty appeased. ”

“ First Servant Such a house broke!
So noble a master fall'n! All gone! and not
One friend to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him! ”

“ My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it; but it seemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors. All the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room; it was kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping-room; and whatever satisfaction parent or child, master or servant, derive from living in a house, I enjoyed it all. Cato says, the master of a family (patremfamilias) must have in his rustic villa “cellam oleariam, vinariam, dolia multa, uti lubeat caritatem expectare, et rei, et virtuti, et gloriæ erit,” that is, ”

“ The owner, a whimsical man, a lonely and eccentric bachelor of the type that always brightens English novels, would invite them in, make Father his steward and Mother his lady housekeeper. There would be a mystery in the house—a walled-off room, a sound of voices at night in dark corridors where no voices could possibly be, a hidden tragedy, and at last Father and Mother would lift the burden from the place, and end their days in the rose-covered dower-house.... ”

“ You have seen some slim, slip-shod housekeeper, at midnight ferreting over a rambling old house in the country, startling at fancied witches and ghosts, yet intent on seeing every door bolted, every smouldering ember in the fireplaces smothered, every loitering domestic abed, and every light made dark. ”

“ Of course six men servants, or more, do add to the impressiveness of a house that is a palace and are a fitting part of the picture. And yet a neat maid servant at the door can divest a guest of his hat and coat, and lead the way to the sitting-room, with equal facility. ”

“ CHAPTER I.—THE HALL.
In studying how to make home beautiful, we must not forget that, first of all, there must be a home; and that in a true home, the household, and not the house, is of primary importance. We have all seen careful housekeepers whose first and last thought was to keep their domains with absolute neatness, and whose domestic law was of Median and Persian inflexibility. ”

“ If the management of a house be urged as more important than the management of an immortal mind, the situation of a housekeeper would have been more suitable than that of a wife or mother to the woman who offers this excuse. ”

“ Domestic life to the young and untried housekeeper is something of an ordeal. She may have had her own place in her father's home, her own special duties to attend to, even her own share of responsibility. Still, it is an altogether different matter to have the entire care of a household, to guide all its concerns, and be responsible for the domestic comfort of all within the four walls of the house. ”

“ Today, if you call at such a country house, how strangely different is the reception! None of the family come to the door to meet you. A servant shows you into a parlour—drawing-room is the proper word now—well carpeted and furnished in the modern style. ”

“ The artisans and labourers on her land lived by her patronage. All along the muddy highroads the beggars coming to town passed word to each other that there stood a nunnery in the meadows, where they might have scraps left over from the convent meals and perhaps beer and a pair of shoes. The head of a house, indeed, was an important person from many points of view, as a neighbour, as a landlord and as a philanthropist. ”

“ He will not only plan a house that will meet the needs of your family, but he will give you inspiration for its interior. He will concern himself with the moldings, the light-openings, the door-handles and hinges, the unconsidered things that make or mar your house. ”

“ Your thoroughbred, full-blooded innovator always reminds us of our first housekeeper—a very good woman in her way, too, but who had a perfect craze for shifting and reshifting, adjusting and readjusting, as well as dusting and redusting every article of furniture throughout the house, at all sorts of unseasonable hours, and when to ordinary mortals such labour seemed utterly uncalled for. ”

“ Indeed, the old housekeeper has the reputation, among the servants and the villagers, of being passing rich; and there is a japanned chest of drawers, and a large iron-bound coffer in her room, which are supposed, by the house-maids, to hold treasures of wealth. ”

“ The housekeeper, on finding by some words which drop from Mrs. Gardiner that Elizabeth is acquainted with her master, begins to speak of him with honest pride and warmth. How good a master and landlord he is! ”

“ The comfort and respectability of a house depend, in a great degree, upon the servants. Clean, neatly-dressed, and well-behaved servants, always impress a visitor with a favourable idea of the mistress of a house ”

“ You know how I appreciate and luxuriate and grow stronger and feel better with the kind of housekeeping that my mother would do for me had she not been forced to make her crossing before my return. I think my house is the most wonderful house in all the world to-day. ”