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WEiO'S TO KLAME. 219
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
This Question Is Invariably Asked, Whene...
In the traditions handed down to us of our maternal ancestresses , we are told that in those rude benighted timesladies , actual ladies ,
, not only could bake , brew , cook , and in the country make cheese and butter , but that they really did such things , and moreover were
not ashamed of so doing . AIL unlike their descendants , who resent as an insult the idea of such common vulgar employment in these
our ease-loving and pleasure-seeking days . Housekeeping used to be a serious laborious affair , now it is simplified by much
being ready done to hand , as we may say . Look at our modern liances for cookery aloneat the immense improvement in every
article app for kitchen serviceas , well as the number and variety of condiments and confection , s made wholesale and imported from
every quarter of the globe , besides the improvement in the convenience of modern private dwellings , contrasted with those of old ;
the simplest of us are now lodged in and surrounded by luxuries such as were then only attainable by persons of the highest rank . And
yet the complaint is made , that no good servants like those of old are to be had for love or money . But it is not remembered , that
neither are there mistresses to be had like those of old . Increase of wealth brought increase of ease and luxury ; women of the higher
classes by degrees left off useful work and took to the useless , and servantswho rapidliab _? up tie ideas of those above them ,
began to think , likewise y th p at the less work they did the better , and the finer their employers became in their habits , so did they .
There is perhaps no country in the world where , so much as in ours , each class seeks unremittingly to squeeze itself into the class next
it in rank . The invisible power of influence by example is not taken sufficientlinto accountwhen we discuss the relation of
servant to mistress y . We have , advanced so far from the simplicity and home habits of the pastand the change has been so gradual ,
, that now when a climax seems to be reached , we stand still and wonder how it all has come to pass .
Within the last ten years , in this as in other advances , the speed has been greatly accelerated ; what took twenty years or
more to accomplish in past ages , is now easily performed in ten , and our luxury has kept pace with the galloping haste visible
everywhere and in everything . Mind is likewise expected to work at railway swiftness , and its delicate mechanism is too often
perilously taxed in order to supply the demand made on it as well as on matter ; so we are lighting the candle at both ends , and thus
with unstrung nerves , and excess of luxury , it would appear we cannot exhibit the hardier and sterner virtues .
We trace , then , the reasons which have left us without the strong working women of old , to the progress of refinement ; to great
wealth leading to indulgence in idleness and the contracting habits of leasure rather than of industry ; to love of outward adorning in
p every class of women ,. and lastly , to a false idea of gentility .
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Weio's To Klame. 219
WEiO ' S TO KLAME . 219
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), June 1, 1863, page 219, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01061863/page/3/
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