for the fact
that the really great ones of earth are satisfied and happy with
enough, and abhor too much.

They tell me that the Dienstmaedchen is no longer what she used to be,
but to my untutored eye her duties still seem to be as comprehensive
as those of a Sioux squaw, and her performances unrivalled. As is to
be expected, Germany is not blessed with trained servants. They are
helpers rather than professional servants. In the scores of houses,
public and private, where I have been a guest, only in one or two had
the servants more than an alphabetical knowledge of what was due to
one's clothes and shoes. The servants are rigidly protected by the
state: they must have so much time off, they cannot be dismissed
without weeks of warning, and they themselves carry books with their
moral and professional biographies therein, which are always open to
the inspection of the police; and they must all be insured.

In many towns, and cities too, there are hospitals and bands of nurses
who for a small annual payment undertake to take over and care for a
sick servant. If the doctor prescribes a "cure" for your servant, away
she goes at the expense of the state to be taken care of. Wages are
very small as compared with ours. Ten dollars a month for a cook, five
for a house-maid, ten for a man-servant, forty to fifty for a
chauffeur, and of course more in the larger and more luxurious
establishments; though a chef who serves dinners for forty and fifty
in an official household I know is content with twenty dollars a
month. A nursery governess can be had for twelve, and a well-educated
English governess for twenty dollars a month. Even these wages are
higher than ten years ago. To be more explicit, in a small household
where three servants are kept the cook receives 30 marks, the maid-servant
25 marks, and the nursery governess 35 marks a month. In the
household of an official of some means the man-servant receives 45
marks, the cook 30 marks, and the maid-servant 30 marks a month. When
dinners or other entertainments are given, outside help is called in.
In the household of a rich industrial, whose family consists of
himself, wife, and four children, the man-servant receives 80 marks,
the chauffeur 200, the cook 45, the lady's maid 35, the house-maid 25,
kitchen-maid 12, and the governess 30 marks a month.

I carry away with me delightful pictures of German households, big,
little, and medium; and though it does not fit in nicel