dies who live thus
find quite as much time for reading, letter-writing, drawing,
embroidery, and fancy work as the women of families otherwise
arranged. I am quite certain that they would be found on an average to
be in the enjoyment of better health, and more of that sense of
capability and vitality which gives one confidence in one's ability to
look into life and meet it with cheerful courage, than three quarters
of the women who keep servants; and that, on the whole, their domestic
establishment is regulated more exactly to their mind, their food
prepared and served more to their taste. And yet, with all this, I
will _not_ venture to assert that they are satisfied with this way of
living, and that they would not change it forthwith if they could.
They have a secret feeling all the while that they are being abused,
that they are working harder than they ought to, and that women who
live in their houses like boarders, who have only to speak and it is
done, are the truly enviable ones. One after another of their
associates, as opportunity offers and means increase, deserts the
ranks, and commits her domestic affairs to the hands of hired
servants. Self-respect takes the alarm. Is it altogether genteel to
live as we do? To be sure, we are accustomed to it; we have it all
systematized and arranged; the work of our own hands suits us better
than any we can hire; in fact, when we do hire, we are discontented
and uncomfortable, for who will do for us what we will do for
ourselves? But when we have company! there's the rub, to get out all
our best things and put them back,--to cook the meals and wash the
dishes ingloriously,--and to make all appear as if we didn't do it,
and had servants like other people.

There, after all, is the rub. A want of hardy self-respect, an
unwillingness to face with dignity the actual facts and necessities
of our situation in life,--this, after all, is the worst and most
dangerous feature of the case. It is the same sort of pride which
makes Smilax think he must hire a waiter in white gloves, and get
up a circuitous dinner party on English principles, to entertain a
friend from England. Because the friend in England lives in such
and such a style, he must make believe for a day that he lives so,
too, when in fact it is a whirlwind in his domestic establishment
equal to a removal or a fire, and threatens the total extinction of
Mrs. Smilax. Now there are two principles of hospitality that people