the subject as keenly as two gardeners
will approach a question of bulbs or Alpines. There are different ways
of washing a white curtain, you know, and different methods of
rinsing and drying it, and various soaps. Starch is used too at some
stage of the process; at least, I think so. But the afternoon was hot
and the argument involved. The starch I will not swear to, but I will
swear to ten waters--ten successive cleansings in fresh water before
the soul of the housewife was at rest.

"And how do you wash yours?" said one of them, turning to me.

"Oh--I!" I stammered, taken aback, for I had been nearly asleep; "I
send a post-card to Whiteley's, and they fetch them one week and bring
them back the next. They cost 1s. a pair."

The two German ladies looked at each other and smiled. Then they
politely changed the subject.

This trivial story is not told for its intrinsic merits, but because
it illustrates the difference of method between English and German
women. The German with much wear and tear of body and spirit washes
her own lace curtains. She saves a little money, and spends a great
deal of time over them. The Englishwoman, when she possibly can, likes
to spend her time in a different way. In both countries there are
admirable housekeepers, and middling housekeepers, and extremely bad
ones. The German who goes the wrong way about it sends her husband to
the _Kneipe_ by her eternal fussing and fidgeting. She is not his
companion mentally, but the cook's, for her mind has sunk to the
cook's level, while her temper through constant fault-finding is on a
lower one. The Englishwoman sends her husband to the club or the
public house, according to his social station, because she is
incapable of giving him eatable food. But the English belief that
German housewives are invariably dull and stodgy is not a whit more
ignorant and untrue than the German belief that all Englishwomen are
neglectful, extravagant housekeepers. The Englishwoman keeps house in
her own way, and it is different from the German way, but it is often
admirable. The comfort, the organisation, and the unbroken peace of a
well-managed English household are not surpassed, in some details not
equalled, anywhere in the world.

The German ideal (for women) is one of service and self-sacrifice. Let
her learn betimes to serve, says Goethe, for by service only shall she
attain to command and to the authority in the house that is her due.

"Dienen lerne