The Greatest Plague of Life: or, the Adventures of a Lady in Search of a Good Servant.Mayhew, Henry
General
The Greatest Plague of Life: or, the Adventures of a Lady in Search of a Good Servant.
Mayhew, Henry
English wit and humor; Household employees
Over the chimney-piece is a picture--the creation of his highly-talented
fingers--of Sir Robert Bruce, in a dreadful pass in Scotland, being
attacked by three men, and killing them, while mounted on his rearing
charger. It is painted in oil colours, and is a work full of spirit and
fire; though, for my own part, I must say that I do not think Mr.
Cruikshank shines so much in Oil as he does in Water.
Having in a most polite way begged that I would take a chair, which I
did with a graceful curtsey, he stated he had read Mr. B----e’s letter,
and added, that he needn’t ask if my interesting little work was to be
“moral;” on which I replied, with an agreeable smile, “Eminently so, Mr.
Cruikshank,” and told him that it purposed merely to set forth all the
plague, and worry, and trouble, which I had been put to by servants,
which seemed to please him very much; and I briefly laid before him all
I had undergone, adding, that it was a wonder to every one who knew me
how I had ever managed to battle through with it, and that our medical
adviser had declared that it was merely the very fine constitution I had
of my own that had enabled me to do so; and that it was my proud
ambition to become the pilot of future young wives in the stormy sea of
domestic life. On which he was pleased to compliment me highly, and was
kind enough to volunteer to do a sketch of me in that character, for a
frontispiece to my interesting little work.
However, I told him that I should prefer appearing in a more becoming
garb, and that I had merely used the pilot as an expressive figure of
speech; but that as doubtlessly he would like to introduce me into the
frontispiece of the book, I told him I thought the best subject would be
an engraving of myself, wishing that I was out of the world on the day
after our man-servant had run away with the plate; and I asked him if he
would like to take a portrait of me then and there, as I could easily
step into the next room, and arrange my hair in the glass. But in a most
gentlemanly way he stated that he could not think of putting me to that
trouble, especially as he had already got my whole form engraved in his
mind’s eye, for there were some people, he said, whose figure, when once
seen, was always remembered. And he was pleased to say a number of other
things equally flattering to me, but which my natural modesty, and the
inward dread I have of being thought egotistical, prevent my inserting
here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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