a gentleman, is taught by her mother to make her own bed
before leaving her chamber. It was not so much that they had not
servants to do all these things for them, as that they took an interest
in such occupations. And it must be borne in mind how many sources of
interest enjoyed by this generation were then closed, or very scantily
opened to ladies. A very small minority of them cared much for
literature or science. Music was not a very common, and drawing was a
still rarer, accomplishment; needlework, in some form or other, was their
chief sedentary employment.

But I doubt whether the rising generation are equally aware how much
gentlemen also did for themselves in those times, and whether some things
that I can mention will not be a surprise to them. Two homely proverbs
were held in higher estimation in my early days than they are now--'The
master's eye makes the horse fat;' and, 'If you would be well served,
serve yourself.' Some gentlemen took pleasure in being their own
gardeners, performing all the scientific, and some of the manual, work
themselves. Well-dressed young men of my acquaintance, who had their
coat from a London tailor, would always brush their evening suit
themselves, rather than entrust it to the carelessness of a rough
servant, and to the risks of dirt and grease in the kitchen; for in those
days servants' halls were not common in the houses of the clergy and the
smaller country gentry. It was quite natural that Catherine Morland
should have contrasted the magnificence of the offices at Northanger
Abbey with the few shapeless pantries in her father's parsonage. A young
man who expected to have his things packed or unpacked for him by a
servant, when he travelled, would have been thought exceptionally fine,
or exceptionally lazy. When my uncle undertook to teach me to shoot, his
first lesson was how to clean my own gun. It was thought meritorious on
the evening of a hunting day, to turn out after dinner, lanthorn in hand,
and visit the stable, to ascertain that the horse had been well cared
for. This was of the more importance, because, previous to the
introduction of clipping, about the year 1820, it was a difficult and
tedious work to make a long-coated hunter dry and comfortable, and was
often very imperfectly done. Of course, such things were not practised
by those who had gamekeepers, and stud-grooms, and plenty of well-trained
servants; but they were practised by many who were u