No More Learning

Oh, I am the most melancholy princess that ever was known!
They give fêtes for me, balls, tournaments, cavalcades, water par-
ties, illuminations — all to no purpose; they might as well have
paraded the funerals of the town before me. Then they have
plays to amuse me, jugglers, clowns, dancing-dogs, acrobats, the
whole Folies Bergères: worse and worse — I weep all day long,
and I swear that nothing can cure me. So my father, the king,
more
re-


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THOMAS WHARTON
15829
>>
C
who is excellently played by Monsieur Mueller, Monsieur le Juge,
- my father is in agonies; for not only am I his favorite child,
but if I do not marry, the kingdom must go to his brother, whom
he despises. And when they talk to me of marriage, I weep so
bitterly that even Madame Gaudrion, my governess, you under-
stand, my most aristocratic governess,- gives me up. So the
king has an idea. He offers my hand to any one who will make
me laugh. Is not that an idea worthy of a father ? But, never-
theless, so stupid are men that numbers of poor young princes
and counts and barons come and try to win a smile from me,
and they all fail, and their heads are taken off by the headsman
- Monsieur Gervais. Such things happen, you know, in opera-
bouffe - in the Middle Ages. And of course, as these repeated
executions happen, I go into convulsions of grief, and grow more
and more melancholy. ”
“Because none of the young men succeeds ? " asked Monsieur
Doblay with a smile.
"Possibly,” said Mademoiselle Adèle. “But of course," she
added, with a sudden and dazzling smile of her own,-
of course
I do not confess that to myself, so there my poor father is at
the end of his resources; and even my sister, the Princess
Beatrice (played by Mademoiselle Jolifroy), confesses she does not
know what is to be done.
And as a last resource my
father
thinks once
more of Bobbo. Bobbo, Monsieur le Juge, is the
most celebrated jester in the world, - irresistible, enchanting, the
very soul of drollery and humor. It is not only that his wit is
so quick and keen, but his features are the perfect epitome of
comedy. You die of laughing just to look at him; it is impos-
sible to remain grave in his presence. My father would have
brought him before me long ago but for one unfortunate circum-
stance,- Bobbo is attached to the court of our young and hot-
headed neighbor the Prince Eugenius. Now some time ago,
before all these experiments that ended so sadly on the heads-
man's block, the prince personally asked for my hand; and as I
declined to hear of marriage, it was refused him. So he vowed
that if my melancholy was not removed by the announcement
of his suit, I might remain in my present state of depression till
the end of my days before he would lift a finger to prevent it.
Accordingly my father goes to war with him, captures both
him and Bobbo, and brings the captives back to court. For he


## p. 15830 (#162) ##########################################

15830
THOMAS WHARTON
is a terrible man, my father, as the prince -- who is Monsieur
Brébant — finds out. ”
"I begin to see the plot,” said Monsieur Doblay, deeply inter-
ested. Court officers and spectators too all hung upon her
words.
"Is it not too natural ? » cried Adèle, her eyes sparkling.
"What stupid beings fathers are, Monsieur le Juge! Why should
the king suppose that I, who have succeeded in my obstinacy —
yes, I admit that it is obstinacy: the idea of weeping one's eyes
out like that for any other reason! - that I, who have persisted
in torturing my lachrymal glands while any number of nice
young men were trying to entertain me, should all of a sudden
face about, dry my eyes, and laugh like a cook at the antics of a
professional clown ? Much he knows about a woman! Actually,
when he brings Bobbo before me, he is smiling for the first
time in years.
Poor man, he is doomed to disappointment. Per-
haps Bobbo is not over-confident, for he knows what will happen
to him if he fails; but no matter how he exerts himself, — and in
two minutes he has the rest of the court rolling on their sides
on the floor,- Monsieur le Juge, I pay absolutely no attention to
him. He says the wittiest, most excruciating things: I am deaf.
He gambols and capers so as to make you ill with laughing: I
scarcely lift my eyebrows. He even makes sport of his master,
the prince, for suffering himself to be captured: I turn away in-
different. And then what happens is that he loses his courage,
he falters, he stammers, he wrings his hands, and finally falls on
his knees and begs pathetically to be spared. Consequently my
father orders him to be beheaded at once. ”
"He was wrong," said Monsieur Doblay judicially.
"Very wrong, Monsieur le Juge; but after all, see how for-
tunately it turned out! For on hearing his sentence, Bobbo, in
despair, turns to me and sings a song begging me to intercede
for him; he joins his wrinkled old hands together, and the tears
run from his poor old face, and his nose is red, and his eyes are
bleared, and his voice cracks and creaks, and altogether he looks
so absurd and ridiculous, and he is such a refreshing, delightful,
irresistible contrast to the terrified and unnatural gayety which
every one about me has been forced to exhibit, that I burst out
into a good hearty fit of laughter, the first in years. Bobbo has
saved me! ”


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THOMAS WHARTON
15831
(
>
Brava! There followed general applause, which was at once
suppressed, but which did not seem to annoy Monsieur Doblay
very greatly. He smiled with satisfaction at the escape of
Bobbo, and by the nodding of his head appeared to congratulate
the princess on the breaking of the spell that afflicted her. As
for Paul, his heart sank. “There! ” he said to himself:
« do you
wonder that it falls to the lot of others to write libretti, and not
to mine? Effectively! They have ideas, while I – »
"And so you marry the prince,” said Monsieur Doblay ap-
provingly.
“Oh, not yet! » cried Adèle, radiant with her success. « Of
course finally I do; but if it ended now it would be flat indeed. ”
Paul's heart sank again: he had supposed this was the finale,
and behold he did not know the elements of construction !
“What happens next is that I become serious once more,
and swear that as my father offered to marry me to whosoever
should make me laugh, and as Bobbo has been the one to suc-
ceed, I will marry Bobbo. This, of course, is meant to punish
the prince for his pride; yet, after all, I have a-a little feeling
for Bobbo. But you may guess, cried Adèle, with a heightened
color, “how this resolve affects my father and the court; and it is
only a very little while before they are all in tears at my feet,
begging me to reconsider my decision. And as they are now the
melancholy ones, I am well amused, I promise you. If you all
sniveled till Doomsday,' I say to them, you couldn't make me
break faith with my dear Bobbo. Poor Bobbo, you know! ready
'
to put his head in a meal-bag and pull the strings. Well, at last
the situation is resolved — but you must ask Madame Gaudrion
how. ”
How, Madame Gaudrion ? »
"Oh, very simply,” replied that lady in her measured tones.
"I am the governess, – very aristocratic, as Mademoiselle Adèle
says,- and I have been talking a great deal of my family pre-
tensions, and setting my cap at the king; and it turns out that
Bobbo is
my husband. "
Whereat there was a laugh.
“And everybody is made happy, except probably Bobbo,"
commented Monsieur Doblay. “Let me compliment you, Monsieur
Tavernier, on the grace and charm of your little theme. The
springs of sorrow and happiness lie very close together in our
hearts, and you have perceived this and made excellent use of
(
>
(
»
(


## p. 15832 (#164) ##########################################

THOMAS WHARTON
15832
>
»
your penetration of human nature. ” And he made a polite yet
magisterial bow.
“I beg you to believe, Monsieur le Juge, that I know how to
value such compliments," said Tavernier, a little flush of pleasure
breaking out on his anxious face. « But the story has gained
greatly from Mademoiselle Adèle's manner of recital. ”
« Doubtless she will answer that she has gained her inspira-
tion from the story,” said the courteous magistrate.
< But come
now, Monsieur Tavernier, here we are on the threshold of the
mystery; let us examine it to the bottom. You are charged
by this young lady with singing your ballad in such a manner as
to prevent her from listening properly in the character of the
Princess Lisa. Now here I am about to throw out a suggestion
which may assist us. Perhaps the difficulty lies in the ballad
itself; and I should be very glad if you will repeat it, Monsieur
Tavernier. Or better still, if any one here has a libretto — »
Obus stepped forward, solemn-faced leader of the claque. He
drew a marked libretto from the pocket of his paletot.
"You will pardon my critical remarks on the margin, Mon-
sieur le Juge,” he observed.
The magistrate found the place, and adjusted his glasses.
>
LA CHANSON DE BOBBO
OH, is it you, all youth and grace,
Who turn an unrelenting face,
And cruel send
Me to my death, so bent and worn,
So pitiable and forlorn,
So old a friend?
Think! in the nursery, long ago,
A form like mine you used to know,
With curving back,
With painted cheeks, and staring eyes.
Look at me! don't you recognize
Your jumping Jack ?
You only had to pull a string,
And he his arms and legs would fling
A dozen ways;
And then you'd laugh-ah, yes, indeed!
'Twas easy for me to succeed
In those old days.


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THOMAS WHARTON
15833
You clasped me to your baby breast,
And cried, “Dear Jack! ) and soothed to rest
My clumsy head;
And when they asked you which of all
Your toys the prettiest you'd call, -
"My Jack! ” you said.
Yes, let my poor absurd grimace,
My crooked back and wizened face,
My pardon make.
O child, your childhood bring to mind,
And be to Punchinello kind,
For pity's sake!
« Mon
While Monsieur Doblay read this aloud, slowly, and with the
reserve of a man who does not commit himself to the support of
his author, there was a deep silence in the court-room. Then
Monsieur Doblay raised his head, and it was not difficult to see
that he was disappointed. “I confess,” he said, “I do not find
these verses in themselves so affecting as to justify Mademoiselle
Adèle's representations. ”
There was a little nervous professional stir among the actors;
but before any one else could speak in behalf of Tavernier's
song, Adèle was boldly making her own special defense.
Dieu, Monsieur le Juge,” she cried, “they are not meant to be
read like verses in a book, you know — they are written for
music and the stage effect. Ah, monsieur, if you will ask Mon-
sieur Tavernier to recite them to you, you will see! Yes, Mon-
sieur Tavernier, if you really desire to clear yourself, repeat
them to the magistrate — and let him judge. ”
“You see, Monsieur le Juge, what she exacts," was all Taver-
nier could say.
"After all,” said Monsieur Doblay, she is correct. I am mis-
construing your verses, Monsieur Tavernier, and I see that my
doubt disposes of itself. If the lines are written solely for the
actor, there is nothing intrinsically pathetic in them — there can
be nothing. ” And Monsieur Doblay smiled reassuringly. "And
now let me hear you repeat them. Permit me to say that I
anticipate a great artistic gratification. ”
Tavernier looked over at Adèle, and murmured something no
one could hear. She, her face flushed, seemed ready to spring
upon him, take him by the shoulders, and shake him into action,
so eager was she to be proved in the right.


## p. 15834 (#166) ##########################################

15834
THOMAS WHARTON
As if fascinated, he kept his troubled eyes fixed upon her
and began in a low voice:-
«Oh, is it you, all youth and grace –
>>>
It was
And as he spoke he betrayed all.
There was no mistaking the import of his tone.
The man
had a voice that should have made his fortune. Resonant,
strong, full of feeling, and yet dominated by a strange and over-
powering timbre, a curious vibration, which though hard and
masculine was inexplicably attractive, and even affecting, - a per-
fect stage voice, intended by nature for comedy and bouffe,- it
aroused not only instant carnal delight, but also the obscure
yearning that accompanies the highest artistic sympathy. But
now it was quivering with the deepest pathos. To hear him
struck to the heart. Tears sprang unbidden to the eyes.
an appeal, all concealment thrown aside, to the beautiful young
girl who stood before him. It told the whole story of their re-
lations,- of his dumb despairing love and her girlish obtuseness,
perversity, and self-love. The words fell slowly and like sobs.
They conveyed the yearning of a life.
The surprise of his emotion deeply disturbed his hearers.
Brébant, in particular, was visibly startled out of his languor,
and launched uneasy glances at Adèle. She alone appeared to
see in this sudden confession merely the confirmation of her
charge. Her eyes sparkled with triumph; her foot patted the
ground; she could hardly wait until Tavernier had finished. She
did not give Monsieur Doblay time to speak.
“You see,” she cried — "you see, all of you, that I have told
you nothing but the truth — and yet you would not believe me!
He sings it himself — and not to the Princess Lisa, but to me,
He does not know how to sing it. Hold! I will show you how. ”
And before any one could stop her, she suddenly pushed away
Mueller and Obus, clearing a little space for a stage, as it were,
and dropped her tall supple form into a hunchback's crouching
pose and began to sing.
It was a most amazing feat of mimicry. Her head sank and
rolled on her shoulders, her arms hung long and loose by her
sides, her back was crooked - yet all these things were shown by
the lightest, swiftest indications, like the heart-breaking falsetto
in her rich, splendid voice, which, with her frightened eye and
trembling lip, showed the poor Punchinello at his wits' end for


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THOMAS WHARTON
15835
refuge. Sing it well? Not the greatest comedian that ever
lived, it seemed, could have sung it better, - with all its whim-
pering, its ridiculous terrified grimaces, its shaking fingers weakly
clawing the air, its tottering knees and cracked comic voice, its
absurd senile smiles broken by swift spasms of terror as the
singer alternated between hope and despair. Adèle subdued it
all to her purpose, with the true bouffe touch so perfectly be-
stowed that the very pathos of it seemed a thing to laugh at,
because it so surely promised that happiness was on the other
side of the picture. And indeed, as verse succeeded verse,
smiles were running over all their lips, as they stood breathlessly
listening, ready when she ended to break out into laughter and
applause. When all at once, just as she was nearing the end,
perhaps overcome by some sudden emotion, perhaps tired by the
night of confinement and the strain of the police examination,
perhaps at the end of her artist's tether, since extreme were the
demands the song made upon her thus to counterfeit a buffo at
the height of his art, — for whatever reason, she faltered, gasped,
and tottering against Mueller, who caught her round the waist
and supported her, burst into tears.
Then, heartlessly enough, but with full professional enjoy.
ment of her break-down, the actors raised a peal of laughter, in
which all joined - except Tavernier. He stood apart, forgotten,
watching her with his burning eyes. But the little Jolifroy
was especially merry, and clapped her hands in an ecstasy of
mirth.
Adèle leaped up; furious, angry gleams darting from her eyes.
“What do you mean by laughing at me ? ” she cried.
all beggars, wretches, vile travesties of actors, whom the public
will cover with shame! ” That her tumult of wrath must have
physical relief was obvious.
It was
the little Jolifroy who
suffered. Adèle's glance fell instinctively on her understudy's
sniggering face, and she smacked it.
A cry of horror rose - gendarmes sprang at the offender.
Contempt of court, lèse-majesté - what had not Adèle com-
mitted ? She herself, at the realization of her offense, paled and
stood trembling in the grasp of the military police before the
magistrate.
The only reason why Tavernier was not scuffling with those
same gendarmes was that Brébant and Rébus, by a common
impulse, threw their arms about him and restrained him.
(You are


## p. 15836 (#168) ##########################################

15836
THOMAS WHARTON
Monsieur Doblay seemed for a moment lost in consternation
at the iniquity of the deed which his own lenity had encouraged;
then he roused himself, and addressed the prisoner at the bar.
“Mademoiselle,” he said sternly, “insensible of the kindness
with which you have been treated here, you have permitted your-
self to commit an outrage upon the dignity of this court which
merits the severest retribution. And what is more, you have
shown yourself intolerant, unreasonable, unjust to a brother
artist, who after all can only do his best, as his talent permits,
and to whom it would appear you are bound in very gratitude
to defer. Art is not life, mademoiselle; it is but a representa-
tion of life, and all the more, therefore, perfection in it cannot
be demanded or hoped for. It rests with all artists to give the
public their best; but having done so, they must be satisfied.
And since this seems impossible to you, since your ungovernable
temper makes you a firebrand among your colleagues, the pun-
ishment that I must now impose upon you should be responsive
to this fault, that justice may prove remedial. I condemn you
to prison, Mademoiselle Adèle, for forty days,- and suspend the
sentence on condition that you pass the whole of the ensuing
Lent in retirement, in good works and meditation, without ap-
pearing once at the theatre. And that will teach you, perhaps,
to control yourself. ”
“What, Monsieur le Juge — leave the stage? ”
Then might you have seen Adèle, breaking from the gen-
darmes, kneel, actually kneel like a guilty sinner before the trib-
une, imploring mercy. To be condemned for forty days to leave
the theatre — to leave a successful play, to see which the house
was crowded every evening - she would be forgotten by the pub-
lic, by her friends - her understudy would supplant her- and the
theatre was her life, her very being! She would die without it;
to do penance would kill her!
Would not Monsieur le Juge fine her — she could afford to
pay a fine, oh, a heavy fine — and let her go?
And it did occur to Monsieur Doblay that his scheme of po-
etic justice did not consider the management of the Folles-Farces;
and he said, “After all, I ought not to visit the penalty of your
misbehavior on the theatre, and therefore a fine — ”
To every one's surprise, here Tavernier interrupted. "No,
Monsieur le Juge,” he cried, quite beside himself with suffering:
“I would rather let her go! ”
(C
(


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THOMAS WHARTON
15837
“Let me go? ” exclaimed Adèle, her face suddenly growing
white.
“Yes,” he answered, turning on her, his breast heaving: “we
cannot go on like this, - one of us must leave the Folles-Farces.
There is a limit to what a man's heart can bear; and since you
mean to break mine, since there is no limit to your contempt,
your disdain, and your ill-usage, I must protect myself, - I must
snap the chain in two. God knows I would give you all, - the
theatre, my heart, my life, if you would but accept them,—God
knows I have offered you both my heart and my life, again and
again, and you would not take them — »
« You have offered me your heart ? ” said Adèle, with a strange
sound in her voice.
« Yes,” he cried in exaltation: "every night, in the song I
sing to you, the song I wrote to you, the song I cannot sing
because every word, every note, breaks my heart when you will
not look at me or care for me. But why should you ? - you, so
beautiful, so young —
He could not go on.
Adèle drew a long, shuddering breath; her face was white.
She choked as she tried to speak. Finally she said, “I did not
know-I did not know I was so much to you. ” And after a
pause she added, "I have promised to marry Brébant. ”
Tavernier gave a cry, and then covered his ghastly face with
his hands. Brébant looked at them both from under the dark,
delicate lines of his eyebrows, pulled at his mustache, and said,
Fichtre! "
Nobody seemed able to speak, and there was a long silence.
All at once Adèle started, and turned and looked at Brébant.
He met her look steadily, but without budging a hair's-breadth
from his attitude of profound, concentrated attention. Then the
blood surged back to her face again, and she cried, in excited but
clear and resolute tones, “But as Brébant does not love me - I
release him. ”
»
When we wake from a dream, the eye still sees distinct
before it the mental image which was the last impressed on the
retina of our imagination, and which somehow seems the one
which woke us out of sleep. And as Paul Patureau returned
to his senses and found the real court-room again before him,
and heard the tread of the real Monsieur Doblay echoing behind


## p. 15838 (#170) ##########################################

15838
THOMAS WHARTON
him on the tribune, there hung for an instant clearly outlined in
his vision the miniature actors of the supposititious theatre cre-
ated by his drowsy fancy as they disposed themselves before their
flight, — Tavernier catching Adèle to his breast; Mueller and
Gervais and Rébus and Jolifroy and all the rest grouped about
in various attitudes of astonishment and delight, or perhaps envy;
Brébant slowly vouchsafing the magistrate a glance whose faint
suggestion of relief was to Paul Patureau the subtlest touch of it
all.
How willing Paul would have been to delay them just a
moment longer, to hear what Tavernier was saying to Adèle, or
himself to have saluted the bride! But he saw them go without
a pang, for this once he recollected the plot of his operetta. He
had at last dreamed successfully.
And now he had nothing left to do but write his libretto, get it
accepted by some popular composer, and produced. Lucky Paul
Patureau!


## p. 15839 (#171) ##########################################

15839
EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
(1819-1886)
OHN G. WHITTIER, in his introduction to Whipple's American
Literature,' says of him that with the possible exception
of Lowell and Matthew Arnold, he was the ablest critical
essayist of his time. ” A later generation may not wholly accept this
estimate of Mr. Whipple's work; but putting comparisons aside, he
can never fail of recognition as an able man of letters, whose taste
was sound and whose scholarship was thorough and extensive. He
was not a writer of great originality; but his work is valuable, by
reason of a quality of faithfulness in it to
certain high ideals of literature and of life.
He was born in Gloucester, Massachu-
setts, March 8th, 1819; was educated at the
English High School at Salem; and began
at the age of fourteen to write for the
newspapers. For several years he was en-
gaged in a broker's office in Boston. In
1837 he was made superintendent of the
reading-room of the Merchants' Exchange;
a position which he held until 1860, when
he resigned it to devote himself entirely
to literary work. During the period of his
superintendency he was gradually gaining E. P. WHIPPLE
a reputation as a man of letters. In 1843
he wrote a critical essay on Macaulay, which at once brought him
into prominence, and gained for him the gratitude of Macaulay him-
self. In the same year he delivered a series of lectures on the lives
of certain authors; these lectures being published afterwards in book
form. He was literary editor of the Boston Globe from 1872 to 1873.
In 1878 he edited, with James T. Fields, the Family Library of
British Poetry. His writings include — Essays and Reviews) in two
volumes (1848–49); Literature and Life) (1849); Character and
Characteristic Men) (1866); Literature of the Age of Elizabeth
(1869); Success and its Conditions) (1871); American Literature'
(1887); “Recollections of Eminent Men) (1887); and Outlooks on
Society, Literature, and Politics (1888). The three last-named works
were posthumous, Mr. Whipple having died in 1886.



## p. 15840 (#172) ##########################################

15840
EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
Essays on literature and on men of letters form the body of his
writings; although he sometimes wanders into other fields, treating
financial, political, and social topics with skill and discrimination.
He is at his best, however, in his critical essays on literature, espe-
cially of the literature of the Elizabethan period. His insight into
the dramatists of that time is especially keen, witnessing to a gen-
uine sympathy with their spirit. His estimates of modern writers, –
of Dickens, of Thackeray, of Bryant, of Wordsworth, of Hawthorne,
and others,— while not always unerring, are on the whole just and
catholic. Sometimes he throws vivid light upon the personality of
an author in a single sentence; as when he writes of Hawthorne,
“He had spiritual insight, but it did not penetrate to the sources of
spiritual joy. " His characterizations are never lacking in that chief
of all merits, suggestiveness; the faculty of reproducing the mystery
which is the background to all great men, and which must be taken
account of in the criticism of their work. It is in this quality of sug-
gestiveness that the value of Mr. Whipple's writings largely lies.
DOMESTIC SERVICE
From Outlooks on Society, Literature, and Politics. Copyright 1888, by Tick-
nor & Co.
W*
E LIVE under a republican form of government, where the
rights of the citizen are supposed to be jealously guarded
by law. Leaving out some limitations on the right of
voting, which will readily occur to every reader, the statement is
correct. The political rights of the individual are on the whole
well secured and maintained; but these are not sufficient to
confer social happiness. Political rights enable a man to have
a voice in deciding what persons shall rule over him, and make
and execute the laws of the country. But his political well-being
may be relatively perfect while his social well-being is constantly
vexed and tormented by certain peculiarities in the organization,
or rather disorganization, of his household. He votes at certain
times and at certain places once, twice, or thrice a year, and the
annual expenditure of time in exercising this august privilege
of the freeman is hardly an hour; but — taking man and wife
as he proudly leaves the polls and enters his
own house, he is no longer an independent citizen of a great
and glorious country," but an abject serf, utterly dependent on the
as
one-
as soon
>


## p. 15841 (#173) ##########################################

EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
15841
>>
caprices of his domestics, or as they are ironically named, his
«help. ” He finds his wife the victim of an intolerable tyranny,
which presses on her every day and almost every hour; exerting
her energies in often vain attempts to put down an insurrection
in the kitchen, or to conciliate the insurgents. He may have
been during the day threatened by a strike of the laborers in his
workshop, and have used all the resources of his patience, intelli-
gence, and character in so adjusting matters that his men, being
reasonable beings, agree to a compromise between labor and cap-
ital which does injustice to both. When he arrives at his house
he encounters a conflict in which sullen stupidity, or vociferous
stupidity, each insensible to reason, is engaged in battle with
the lady of the house. This last conflict is too much for him;
he commonly succumbs with the meekness of a galley-slave, and
with a rueful countenance tries to eat his half-done potatoes and
overdone beefsteak with the solemn composure of a martyr at
the stake.
It is important here to note that this is not a question of
equality. The nominal master and mistress of the house may
be just and humane, considerate of the rights of others, and
sensitive not to wound their feelings: but they have to submit
to the mortifying fact that the object of their help is to render
them helpless; that a despotism is established in their house;
and that their tyrants are their hired servants. There is more
or less resistance going on for a time, but the autocracy of the
kitchen is firmly established in the end. Frequent changes of
help do little good. One spirit seems to animate the whole class.
The new-comers announce, in true monarchical fashion, “The
Queen is dead.
Long live the Queen! ) Those who are dis-
missed find comfort, as they depart, in hearing this triumphant
strain from the lips of their successors. They glow with the
thought that the household from which they are expelled will
still be taught to know that domestic life is indeed a “fitful
fever”; that the art of “slaughtering a giant with pins” is not
yet extinct in the world; and that the process of converting
homes into hells is as well understood by the incoming as by
the outgoing denizens of the house.
There is a story going the round of the newspapers to this
effect: that a wife, after reading the report of Queen Victoria's
speech, told her husband she was now a convert to woman suf-
frage, as the Queen had made as good a speech as a king. Her
XXVII-991


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15842
EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
1
»
husband objected on the ground that Victoria, like the rest of
her sex, when she says anything always makes a mess of it.
“Look,” he continued, "at the Irish -- » «Yes,” she retorted,
"look at the Irish. If she had half the trouble with her Bridg-
ets that I have, who blames her » « But that is a matter of
statesmanship, and not of domestic affairs,” was his response.
Her reply was crushing: My dear, it requires statesmanship to
run domestic affairs. You just try it. ” Probably this excellent
stateswoman, with her power of managing refractory tempers
and enforcing necessary rules, must often have been beaten in
her efforts to maintain her persuasive or belligerent supremacy;
must have sometimes sighed as she heard what Hood calls that
« wooden damn” with which Bridget, after a reproof, slams the
door as she descends to the realms she rules, and heard with
a sinking of the heart the crash of crockery (sworn to be acci-
dental) which occurred soon afterward. In fact, no statesman or
stateswoman has yet solved the problem - and it may be that it
is a problem impossible to be solved by human skill and intelli-
gence — how to harmonize the relations between those who hire
and those who are hired, so that persons of limited incomes can
have a comfortable home. Take the majority of modest house-
holders, who set up housekeeping on fifteen hundred or twenty-
five hundred a year, and ask them, after twenty years' experience
of the petty miseries attendant on their employment of one or
two domestics, the terrible pessimistic question, "Is life worth
living ? ” and it is to be feared that their answer would be a sor-
rowful or splenetic or passionate “No! ”
More than half a century ago, Colonel Hamilton, one of the
officers who won their laurels in Wellington's campaigns in Spain
and Portugal, published a book which he called Men and Man-
ners in America. ' He criticized both our men and manners with
a caustic severity such as might have been predicted when a big-
oted Scotch Tory assailed the people and institutions of a republic.
His work exasperated almost every American who read it; and
Edward Everett never wrote a more popular paper than his
scorching criticism of it in the North American Review. The
book is now forgotten. Still, one sentence in it survives in the
memories of antiquarians, and it is this: "In an American dinner
party, the first dish served up is the roasted mistress of the
house. It is to be supposed that the author only condescended
to dine with persons distinguished by their opulence or official
(


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EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
15843
position; and it seems to prove that domestic service fifty or
sixty years ago, in the mansions of the rich, was as much in a
state of anarchy, owing to the incompetence or ill temper of the
cook and her assistants, as it is now in humbler dwellings. In-
deed, who has not occasionally seen, at ordinary dinner parties
where no aristocratic Colonel Hamilton is present, the flaming
countenance of the mistress of the house, as she takes her seat
at the head of the table, indicating how hard has been her con-
test with her help?
But at the time a Mrs. Schuyler, or a Mrs. Adams, or a Mrs.
Quincy may have appeared to the British guest as a victim to
the incompetency of her cook, a representative of the great house
of Devonshire was subject to a tyranny of another kind. The
duke happened to be prejudiced against port wine, which those
who were admitted to his great dinner parties preferred to other
wines. The duke's butler, knowing his master's taste, provided
the best champagne and claret that could be purchased in
Europe; but bought the worst port he could find at a low
price, and charged the duke at the price which was notoriously
demanded by wine-dealers for the best. The imposition was
successful for years. Nobody who was invited to the dinners
of a duke could dare to remonstrate against the liquid logwood
they swallowed as port.
At last one friend had the courage to
tell the duke that his butler was a rascal. The result was an
investigation of the facts: the offending servant was ignomini-
ously dismissed; but not until he had amassed a comfortable
amount of some two or three thousand pounds as a compensation
for his disgrace.
This is a pertinent illustration of the difference between our
domestics and those of England. People are never tired of be-
.
rating ours as barbarians, and contrasting them with those of
England, who are thoroughly tamed and trained, and do their
work with exemplary skill and propriety. In the great houses
of England most of the servants are sycophantic and crafty, -
bending their knees in prostrate adoration before the "gentry”
they serve, but at the same time taking every secure opportunity
to pick their pockets. An English servant of an English noble
is apt to be the most ignoble of men.
But the female English domestic is the ideal of many Ameri-
can women who can afford to hire one. The history and liter-
ature of England show the incorrectness of this assumption. Take


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EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
the literature of England from the time of Charles the Second,
and you will find that a majority of the clear-sighted dramatists
and novelists represent the servant-maids as the obedient accom-
plices of their mistresses in every questionable act they do, but
plundering those whom they serve. Even to the present day,
one can hardly enter a theatre without finding the pert and un-
scrupulous chambermaid of the comedy to be a lively combi-
nation of liar and trickster, an expert in effrontery, malice, and
mischief, and destitute equally of the sense of honor and the
sense of shame.
In the last century Fielding condensed the whole class in his
Mrs. Slipslop. “My betters! ” she indignantly exclaims: “who
is my betters, pray ? » As to the large question of domestic
service, Dickens and Thackeray, in our own generation, have
shown what people have to endure in the continual hostility
between the kitchen and the drawing-room. David Copperfield,
when he had won the adorable Dora, his child-wife,” is daily
tormented by the doings and misdoings of the wretches she
employs as servants, and whom the adorable Dora is utterly
incapable of converting into "help"; and in the household of
Mr. Dombey, what a picture is presented of the kitchen aris-
tocracy of the mansion in which the great merchant dwells, and
in which he has the pretension to believe that he is the lord
and master! How is he looked down upon, when he fails, by the
meanest menial whose business it is to scrub the floors of his
house! Indeed, the description of the assembly of Mr. Dombey's
domestics, when it is known that the firm of Dombey and Son
has fallen into cureless ruin, is one of Dickens's masterpieces.
Thackeray, in all his novels, seems to be haunted with the idea
of the utter falsity of English domestics, from the august butler
of the palatial mansion down to the wench who does the lowest
work of the cheap boarding house. He is never more cynical
than when he records the scandalous and unfavorable judgments
delivered by the tenants of the kitchen on their masters and mis-
tresses. One would hesitate, indeed, to undertake the forming
of a household in England, if he were dolorously impressed by
Thackeray's monitions as to the essential antagonism between
those who dwelt below the drawing-room and those who dwelt
in the room itself. The two, being separated by distinction of
caste, can rarely have with each other cordial human relations.
There may be formal subordination and obedience on the part of


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EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
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(
the servants; but hate, envy, uncharitableness, rankle beneath the
mask of sycophancy they wear.
Much has been written about realistic fiction as distinguished
from fiction which is eminently unrealistic; and English novelists
who belong to the latter class are still prone to push upon the
attention of their readers a revival of the old feudal relation
between mistress and maid. It seems from these novels that
they are bound together by the ties of mutual affection. The
mistress condescends to make her maid her confidante, confides
to her all her griefs and joys, and is rewarded for her protecting
kindness by awakening in the bosom of her maid a sentiment of
love which is entirely independent of self-interest. The husband
of the lady is ruined by a trusted friend, who proves to be a
villain, or he is made a bankrupt by some unfortunate specula-
tion, or he is suspected of a crime which compels him to fly from
his home and country: at any rate, he dies forever or disappears
for a time. The disconsolate wife or widow calls the roll of
her “pampered minions,” pays them their wages up to the day
of their separation, and they depart from the house with an ill-
concealed scorn of their ruined employer. But one aged domestic
remains: she protests that she will never leave her mistress; she
will serve her without wages,-nay, all the money she has saved
up for a series of years shall be forthcoming at this moment of
financial distress in the household; and ends by Alinging herself
into the arms of her dejected mistress, and in a flood of tears
declares that she will never desert her beloved mistress - never!
never! ! never! ! ! Three points of admiration hardly do justice to
the pathos of the scene. Scores of novels might be named in
which it is rehearsed to the immense satisfaction of sentimental
readers, who would never do anything of the kind themselves.
Practical people are now apt to consider this disinterested, this
sublime self-devotion of the feminine servant to the feminine
employer as something bordering on the unreal, so far as their
experience goes. Perhaps some of them are malicious enough to
remember Mrs. Micawber's repeated statement to David Cop-
perfield, when the hot punch was passed around the table, that
despite the injurious opinions which her distinguished relations
had formed of her husband's capacity to get an honest living
for himself and family, she would never desert Mr. Micawber-
never, never, never!
Indeed, persons of limited incomes, whether poets, scientists,
mechanics, clerks, or philanthropists, are commonly subjected, and


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EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
always have been subjected, to the tyranny of domestics, with-
out regard to their place of residence in one country or another.
Neither genius, nor integrity, nor virtue, nor fame, nor saintliness
of character, can check a virago's tongue when she condescends
to enter a comparatively poor man's home, after she has served
an apprenticeship, even as scullion, in the mansion of a million-
aire. Perhaps nothing could better illustrate this fact than to
cite an instance from the biography of one of the most promi-
nent poets of the century. Thomas Campbell, after publishing
The Pleasures of Hope,' and many immortal lyrics, such as
Hohenlinden,' 'Ye Mariners of England,' and 'The Battle of
the Baltic,' which had thrilled the whole nation, settled down in
Sydenham with his wife and child, — poor, but with a great and
wide poetical fame. In a letter to another immortal, Walter
Scott, he humorously narrates a comic epic which had occurred
in his own home. It seems that he hired a cook, recommended
to him as faithful and sober, who had been with her husband
for many years on board of a man-of-war. In the course of
seven weeks, however, she developed her real character, and went
from bad to worse. « One fatal day,” Campbell says, she fell
upon us in a state of intoxication, venting cries of rage like an
insane bacchanalian, and tagged to our names all the opprobrious
epithets the English language supplies. An energetic mind, in
this state of inflammation, and a face naturally Gorgonian, kindled
to the white heat of fury, and venting the dialect of the damned,
were objects sufficiently formidable to silence our whole house-
hold. The oratrix continued imprecations till I locked up my
wife, child, and nurse, to be out of her reach; and descending to
the kitchen, paid her wages, and thrust her forthwith out of my
doors, she howling with absolute rage. During the dispute she
cursed us for hell-fire children of brimstone, whose religion was
the religion of cats and dogs. I asked the virago what was her
religion, since her practice was so devout. Mine,' says she, is
“
the religion of the Royal Navy,' at the same time showing a
prayer-book. After vainly trying to set the house on fire, this
curious devotee set off for London on the top of a stage-coach,
cursing as she went. ”
It seems that this is a typical scene. It has been witnessed
since by so many small householders, that it is needless to
,
remind them that a certain element of ceremonial religion mixes
with the ribaldry and blasphemy of such domestics. "Mine,” the
drunken brute exclaims, “is the religion of the Royal Navy. "


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All persons who have borne an active part in turning such
creatures out of their houses must have noticed that a vague
sense of formal piety finds utterance in their wild maledictions;
still it is a piety which comforts itself in predicting sure future
damnation to the masters or mistresses who call it forth. But
perhaps the worst of the matter is that such domestic hornets
develop the habit of swearing in employers who previously had
shown no tendency to the vice. Indeed, to many heads of fami-
lies a course of housekeeping is a school of profanity.
The domestic service of the United States is mostly composed
of immigrants who differ from their employers in race and reli-
gion. In one of the most splendid orations of Edward Everett,
he happily contrasted the peaceful emigrants who came from
Ireland, Germany, and other European countries, to settle here,
with the descent of the barbarians on the Roman Empire. The
former came to increase enormously the wealth and productive
power of the nation they peacefully invaded; the warlike mission
of the latter was to destroy and devastate what the genius and
industry of former centuries had accumulated. The former came
to create new capital; the latter to annihilate the capital which
had previously been added to the stores of civilization. Indeed,
the immense debt which we owe to what is called foreign labor
- though laborers from abroad are so swiftly assimilated into
–
the mass of our citizens, that the word “foreign” hardly applies
to them - is practically incalculable. It has been for some time
considered that the yearly additions to our population from this
source is, in a great degree, an index of our advancing prosperity.
There are evils resulting from this rush of new powers and
influences into the rapid stream of our American life, but the
evils are overcome in time by counterbalancing good. It cer-
tainly is provoking to have a few foreign socialists, escaping per-
haps from the prisons of their native countries, or from the fear
of being imprisoned in them, coming to this land of liberty and
labor, and in corner groceries and lager-beer saloons announcing
the doctrine that laborers cannot get their rights unless they
begin their crusade against capital by robbery, arson, and murder;
but it is hard to convince a workman who really works, that he
is to become better off by destroying the palpable and permanent
monuments of previous generations of laborers, such as houses,
mills, railroads, and other evidences of labor capitalized. Indeed,
the belligerent socialist is merely a reproduction of Attila and
Alboin, acting a part which is foreign to our present civilization.


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EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
This is one side of foreign immigration,- its beneficent side.
The other side relates to the mothers, daughters, and sisters of
the inflowing host, who "go out to service, and who control
most of the business. The gradual disappearance of American
girls from service in families is a calamity both to themselves
and the public; and it is based on an absurd prejudice that they
lower their position and forfeit their independence in doing what
they call menial work. They accordingly rather prefer to labor
in factories, or swell the crowd of half-starved sewing-women,
than to gain board, lodging, and good wages, in a private family.
The result is that the Irish, German, and Swedish women who
have had no education qualifying them for the business of cooks
and general household work, learn their duties by experiment-
ing on the meats given them to prepare for the table, and on
the floors and carpets they are to scrub or sweep. This Kinder-
garten system results in educating them at last into domestics;
but it is at the expense of a great breaking of crockery, a series
of burnt steaks and chops which are uneatable, and a trial of the
employer's patience which gradually results in nervous prostra-
tion. The servants undoubtedly follow the Baconian theory that
knowledge is obtained by observation and experiment; but their
experiments resemble those of the Irish pilot, who, after remark-
ing to the captain of the ship that the coast was full of sunken
rocks, casually added as the vessel struck, “And that is one of
'em! ”
It would be a lesson in the study of human nature to note
all the varieties of experience which the mistress of a house
passes through when one servant, who has been educated in this
way, departs, and another, who has also obtained an approximate
idea of what good housekeeping means, applies for the vacant
There is no form of “interviewing” more prolific than
this, of incidents illustrating the conflicts and collisions of ad-
verse specimens of human character. There for instance is the
interesting invalid, who is bullied and browbeaten by the ener-
getic virago who storms into the house, demands the wages which
she thinks her services are worth, obtains them, and then dom-
inates the household; reigning supreme until the master of the
establishment is compelled to interfere, and dismisses her with
words that savor more of strength than of righteousness. The
list might go on to include the fretful, the economical, the bad-
tempered, the shrewd, the equitable, the humane female heads of
households that require help, but find it difficult to procure from
»
»
place.


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EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
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»
(
»
those who offer it. Perhaps it would be well to condense and
generalize the whole matter in dispute, by citing an example in
which the applicant for a situation was confronted by a woman
who had a touch of humor in her composition. In all the dig-
nity of second-hand finery, resplendent with Attleboro' diamonds
and rubies, which must have cost at the least a quarter of a dollar
a gem, the towering lady sweeps into the parlor, and demands
a sight of the lady of the house. The meek lady of the house
appears.
“I understand you want a second-girl to do the house-
work. ” “Yes,” is the gentle response. The high contracting
parties forth with proceed to discuss the terms of the treaty by
which the claimant for the office of second-girlship will con-
descend to accept the place, stating her terms, her perquisites,
and her right to have two or three evenings of every week at
her own disposal, when her engagements will compel her to be
absent from the house. The reply is, “It seems to me, if we
comply with your terms, it would be better for my husband and
myself to go out to service ourselves; for we never have had
such privileges as you claim. " — «That is nothing to me. I have
lived in the most genteel families of the city, and have always
insisted on my rights in this matter. By the way, have you any
children ? ” — “Yes, I have two. ” — “Well, I object to children. ”
- "If your objections, madam, are insuperable, the children can
easily be killed. ” – “Oh! you are joking, I see. But I think I
will try you for a week to see how I can get along with you. "
The curt response is: “You shall not try me but the one minute
which elapses between your speedy descent from those stairs
and your equally speedy exit from the door. ” The high contract-
ing parties being unable, under the circumstances, to formulate a
treaty agreeable to both, the applicant for the vacant place dis-
appears in a fury of rage.
It may be said that this is a caricature of what actually
occurs in such interviews and encounters; but it has an essen-
tial truth underneath its seeming exaggeration. In almost all the
professions and occupations in which men are engaged, the sup-
ply is commonly more than equal to the demand. In domestic
.
service the supply of intelligently trained servants is notoriously
far short of the demand. One must notice the readiness with
which clubs, of late, are formed, for advancing all imaginable
causes which can arrest the attention of intelligent, patriotic,
philanthropic men. They meet weekly, fortnightly, or monthly,
,


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EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE
at some hotels noted for their excellent method of cooking the
fish and flesh which are daily on the dinner-tables of the mem-
bers, but cooked on a different method. The Sunday newspapers
report the effusions of eloquence which the Saturday meetings
call forth. The clubs multiply also with a rapidity which puzzles
ordinary observers to account for their popularity. Perhaps a
simple reason may be timidly ventured as an explanation of this
phenomenon. Men who are classed as prosperous citizens like
a good dinner, which they cannot get at home; and at stated
periods they throng to a hotel, where the Lord sends the meats,
and at the same time prevents the Devil from sending the cooks.