Household Papers and StoriesStowe, Harriet Beecher
General
Household Papers and Stories
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Didactic fiction; Home economics -- Fiction; Short stories
Finally, the bitter baptism through which we are passing, the life
blood dearer than our own which is drenching distant fields, should
remind us of the preciousness of distinctive American ideas. They who
would seek in their foolish pride to establish the pomp of liveried
servants in America are doing that which is simply absurd. A servant
can never in our country be the mere appendage to another man, to be
marked like a sheep with the color of his owner; he must be a
fellow-citizen, with an established position of his own, free to make
contracts, free to come and go, and having in his sphere titles to
consideration and respect just as definite as those of any trade or
profession whatever.
Moreover, we cannot in this country maintain to any great extent large
retinues of servants. Even with ample fortunes they are forbidden by
the general character of society here, which makes them cumbrous and
difficult to manage. Every mistress of a family knows that her cares
increase with every additional servant. Two keep the peace with each
other and their employer; three begin a possible discord, which
possibility increases with four, and becomes certain with five or six.
Trained housekeepers, such as regulate the complicated establishments
of the Old World, form a class that are not, and from the nature of
the case never will be, found in any great numbers in this country.
All such women, as a general thing, are keeping, and prefer to keep,
houses of their own.
A moderate style of housekeeping, small, compact, and simple domestic
establishments, must necessarily be the general order of life in
America. So many openings of profit are to be found in this country
that domestic service necessarily wants the permanence which forms so
agreeable a feature of it in the Old World. This being the case, it
should be an object in America to exclude from the labors of the
family all that can, with greater advantage, be executed out of it by
combined labor.
Formerly, in New England, soap and candles were to be made in each
separate family; now, comparatively few take this toil upon them. We
buy soap of the soap-maker, and candles of the candle-factor. This
principle might be extended much further. In France no family makes
its own bread, and better bread cannot be eaten than what can be
bought at the appropriate shops. No family does its own washing; the
family's linen is all sent to women who, making this their sole
profession, get it up with a care and nicety which can seldom be
equaled in any family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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