Parlourmaid

“ One day there was a great row in the kitchen, and the parlour-maid left the same day. The [Pg 263] new parlour-maid was a very pale and ill-looking girl, but she worked very hard. She was never rude to me. I liked her for that and felt sorry for her because she looked so weak. One evening, when the cook had her outing, and we lay alone in our room, the parlour-maid began to sob most piteously. ”

“ For instance, when a lady of any prominence comes to one of our cities and takes up her residence, all the ladies of her grade favor her in turn with an initial call, giving their cards to the servant at the door by way of introduction. They come singly, sometimes; sometimes in couples; and always in elaborate full dress. They talk two minutes and a quarter and then go. If the lady receiving the call desires a further acquaintance, she must return the visit within two weeks ”

“ In this art of conversation, Woman, if not the queen and victor, is the lawgiver. If every one recalled his experiences, he might find the best in the speech of superior women,—which was better than song, and carried ingenuity, character, wise counsel, and affection, as easily as the wit with which it was adorned. They are not only wise themselves, they make us wise. No one can be a master in conversation who has not learned much from women; their presence and inspiration are essential to its success. ”

“ I began to have the idea that it was not my mistress’s voice alone. There seemed to be another in argument with her. There seemed to be a strange voice speaking in an undertone—a voice I thought I never had heard before. I crept up along the hall and listened. Everything was still. But in spite of all, I began to feel that there was more than one person on the other side of those thick white panels. I knew it was folly to suppose such a thing, but I began to have the idea that another—a woman or a talkative child—was with her behind the locked door. ”

“ I must remind you once more that I am only speaking to you as one woman may speak to another, on a subject about which a woman can speak to women better than a man could do, and that I know well that except for the mercy of God in surrounding me with loving care and good example in my own girlhood, I might have been no better than those of whom I have been speaking. ”

“ It is not an age for conversation; our small-talk is soon exhausted, and for a woman to talk at length, labels her as a rock to be avoided. How can we have salons, we who cannot converse? We are the products of the daily papers, and our conversation is like their familiar small-talk column. ”

“ You see that in common conversation they cannot escape doing this; politics, social questions, points of natural history, scientific discoveries form the staple of their talk, so that the mind of a man is necessarily kept replenished. But with women this is not the case. Young girls read nothing whatever but novels—they might as well feed on soap-bubbles. In their conversation with one another they twaddle, they do not talk. ”

“ Do we not all say of our chance acquaintances after half an hour's conversation,—nay, after half an hour spent in the same room without conversation,—that this woman is a lady, and that that other woman is not? ”

“ As no conversation of a confidential character is ever allowed at an English table until all the servants have left the room, so it is not considered good-breeding to allow a servant to talk to the mistress or the young ladies of what she hears in the servants' hall. ”

“ Now, where persons cannot, or dare not, converse—or where that which alone deserves the name of conversation is not suited to the habits or the ways of thinking of those who have been at the trouble of inviting guests—I am a great advocate for cheerful, easy, social chat; provided only, it gives place the instant that something better worth listening to is commenced. That all ingenuous, warm-hearted, unaffected young women, can chat, and some of them very pleasantly too, witness their moments of unrestrained confidence in the company of their friends. ”

“ Well, there they were, there they are, child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed dishcloths on currant bushes; and for diversion each other’s silly conversation, and listening to men talking together in the way that men talk and women listen. Quite different to the way women talk, and men listen, if they listen at all. ”

“ How do I know all that I do know? It is odd to notice with what perfect lack of reserve the ladies who visit us talk. They chatter away just as if they thought we were human working-machines, without ears, or brains, or memories. ”

“ At one of my mass meetings of working women in the North I was told at its close that a woman wished to speak with me in private. As soon as I could disengage myself from the crowd of mothers who were always eager to shake hands with me, and to bless me with tears in their eyes for taking up their cause, I went down the room, and there, in a dimly-lighted corner of the great hall, I found a respectable-looking woman waiting for me. ”

“ One after another, women rose and gave their views on the question. Then, near the center of the house a girl arose whose youthful face, black curls, and bright eyes, as well as her musical voice and subdued but impressive manner, commanded the attention of the audience. She spoke twice as long as each speaker was allowed, and right to the point, sending a thrill of interest through her listeners, who remembered that speech for many a long day. ”

“ Ladies keep themselves in training in their ordinary calls. If three or four meet in a drawing-room they all begin to scream, not that they may be heard—for the higher they go the less they understand each other—but simply to acquire the art of screaming at receptions. If half a dozen ladies meeting by chance in a parlor should converse quietly in their sweet, ordinary home tones, it might be in a certain sense agreeable, but it would not be fashionable, and it would not strike the prevailing note of our civilization. ”

“ This is the Motive that carries them to the public Walks, Concerts, and Theatres; in all which Places they are mightily reserved, have but little Talk, and their chief Conversation is the Flutter of their Fans. I was one Day paying a Visit at a House where there was an Assembly of twenty Women, and not one Man besides myself: They look’d upon one another, but did not speak a Word. I may defy you to shew me any other Place where there’s a Score of Women in Company, and not one Tongue stirring. As for the rest, the Women here enjoy great Liberty. ”

“ But what she shall not have, and what she never will have is a quarter of an hour's conversation at the chimney corner, in a tone neither too polite nor too familiar, on a footing of equality with a great lady and an honest woman. ”

“ I made a slight but unmistakable gesture towards the hall.
“Who is that girl?” I asked.
“Philippa? My maid,” she answered, without the slightest token of understanding, much less of sharing, the suspicion which I feared I had, perhaps, too strongly suggested by my rather pointed inquiry. “Or, rather,” she corrected, with some slight show of sarcasm, “she is what is commonly called a companion; being sufficiently well educated to read to me if I happen to be in the mood for listening, or even to play on the piano, if music is required in the house.” ”

“ The women carry this peculiarity of speaking to a much greater extreme than the men, who have more evenness and stateliness of utterance. A common bullock-driver, on horseback, delivering a message, seemed to speak like an ambassador at a royal audience. ”

“ We read of times and salons in which real conversation existed, held by men and women. Are they altogether in the past? We believe that men do sometimes converse. Do women ever? Perhaps so. In those hours sacred to the relaxation of undress and the back hair, in the upper penetralia of the household, where two or three or six are gathered together on and about the cushioned frame intended for repose, do they converse, or indulge in that sort of chat from which not one idea is carried away? ”

“ Until this is done, mistress and maid should keep silence as to the faults of the other, trying to see rather the virtues than the failings of a sister-woman.
I wish that some word of mine with regard to this matter could sink into the mind of the mistress. I fear that it will never be possible to train the maid not to talk of her mistress to her friends. But the [369] employer should be above discussing her servants with outsiders. This is one of the most glaring faults of conversation,—one of the most flagrant breaches of conversational etiquette among women of refinement. ”

“ The earnestness of her tone more than the words she uttered, and the strangeness of her appeal in that place, had impressed every one within reach of her voice, and quite a throng of men and women had left the tables and pressed forward listening to the conversation, and for the most part listening in silence, the expression on their faces being divided between wonder, sympathy, and expectancy, and a low murmur began to be audible among the women, hardened as they were. ”

“ There is no way in which those women who are able to give the tone and set the fashion in society, can do so much good as by endeavoring to reinstate conversation, and to teach in every company the nobleness of leisure and attention, that each one who speaks shall be inspired to the fullest training of his best powers by the listening expectation of the rest. ”

“ There was something astounding in the bare idea of a female voice, so commonly requiring a high pressure to induce it to sing in private circles, volunteering in public assembly to spout! A maiden speech even in a man is apt to excite a maidenly fever of nervousness; and many a rough and tough old sea-commander, who would have returned a broadside without flinching, has been converted physiognomically into an admiral of the blue, white, and red, and has found a bung in his speaking-trumpet, on having to reply to a volley of thanks. ”

“ In naming a lady with whom she was acquainted, and one who could scarcely be expected to be deficient in affection towards herself, she said, "Her manners were perfectly ladylike, but she seemed to talk merely because conversation was a conventional requirement of society, and I cannot believe that she had any heart." ”

“ From her the English woman has learned, first, that which it seems every transatlantic sister is aware by intuition, that one supreme duty of the sex, as it is represented in society, is to know how to talk a little to everybody, to talk always in sprightly fashion, and never to adopt the English woman’s depressing method of answering all conversational efforts and overtures with chilling monosyllables. ”

“ The proper course to pursue in order to obtain a personal interview with the lady is this:—The servant in search of the situation must be desired to see her former mistress, and ask her to be kind enough to appoint a time, convenient to herself, when you may call on her ”

“ This young lady, who honors me with her friendship, is willing to be present at this interview, which you have asked for—I say she has consented to be present, for it needs, I confess, the kindest condescension in her to resign herself, from affection for me, to hear all the graceful, obliging, and charming things which you have no doubt come hither to communicate. ”

“ Why do we not give you more severe talkings to than we do? They would do you no end of good, and we know it, and yet refrain. You scarcely ever get a severe talking to, any of you. Yesterday, after leaving Charing Cross Station, I walked up Bond Street. I was really going somewhere, oh sceptical child; you must not think your father was merely loafing. I was not in a hurry, and I looked at the shops. There were lots of pretty women driving up and down in their carriages, but I did not look at them; I was at odds with the whole sex. ”

“ She is like a canary bird; when others begin to speak, she hurries in her remarks, in an accompaniment. Her voice must be uppermost; conversation becomes a contest who can speak the most rapidly. The timid and modest retire from the encounter—she has the field to herself. ”

“ How easily and effectually may a well-bred woman promote the most useful and elegant conversation, almost without speaking a word! for the modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence. ”

“ If she does not expect to return, however, she should make her adieus, and invite him to call again, before leaving the parlor.
“Is it admissible for a lady to keep on with her sewing or mending while she is entertaining a caller? Can she take some kind of fancy work with her while she is visiting a friend or neighbor?” ”

“ I'm not much more successful in conversation than I am in bridge. I seem to be always on the outside of women's intimacies somehow. Edith's set know one another so confidentially—keep tabs on the gowns, the hats, the jewellery, the number of servants each one has, and guess at one another's incomes. ”

“ Evidently women divide orators into two groups; the artisans of speech, who manufacture their laborious discourses by the aid of the midnight lamp, and the inspired souls, who simply give themselves the trouble to be born. ”

“ The gentleman says the voice of woman can not be heard. I am not aware that the audience finds any difficulty in hearing us from this platform. All Europe and America have listened to the voice of Madam Rachel and Jenny Lind. The capacity to speak indicates the right to do so, and the noblest, highest, and best thing that any one can accomplish, is what that person ought to do, and what God holds him or her accountable for doing, nor should we be deterred by the senseless cry, "It is not our proper sphere." ”