PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR:I
SER,—Once again the Spectator steps in to comfort the souls of the humble and unprejudiced, as evidenced both by the article on this subject and by the short review on Cobbetes book in the issue of August 5th. There is undoubtedly an almost universal and innate dislike for anything like manual, dirty, or what some people aro pleased to call " rough " work—work that makes us hot and somewhat ells, hevelled, because it necessitates continuous and brisk movements of the whole body. Also, it may be unpopular on aceount of the number of inelegant attitudes into which we are unavoidably drawn in doing certain kinds of housework. Inelegant, I say, yet surely not more so than Swedish drill for girls or boxing or football for men. Then there is the deeply ingrained but totally false idea which we hope the war is helping to uproot, that the hall-mark of a lady is that she should never soil her hands—as expressed to me in a moat convincing tone by a servant once "Oh, but real ladies never do any work." Another woman was "so glad that her daughter had married so well (meaning wealthily), as now she need never soil her hands." We wonder how the young wife lived, or whether she died of ennui. Such notions are fostered by, if they may not have originated in, old fables and rhymes where freedom from toil or labour is the goal and the prize of life.
"Curly-locks, curly-locks, wilt thou be mine ? Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine, But sit on a cushion, and sew a fine seam, And feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream."
Here we have the whole thing in a nutshell, although, to my mind, the sitting all day "sewing a fine seam" would be as tiring as washing the dishes or feeding the swine.
It is largely a matter of early training, and we must look to the education of the future to eradicate these erroneous ideas. We have first to find out what it is that changes the child of eight or nine, who loves to help mother by handling the broom, into the slut of sixteen, who flouts her mother, despises the broom, and thinks it beneath her to handle anything but a typewriter or a switch-board. The love of dress is partly responsible ; but for many years we have compelled children to form the habit of going out directly after breakfast, and habits, we know, are hard to break. It would be interesting to try compelling the little girls of the land to stop at home all the forenoon to help their tired mothers. Enough book-learning could be had in the afternoons. Then when they married or had to go to service, their work would have become second nature to them. They might even find that there was poetry in the rising dough, in the dainty loaves, with their golden-brown crust, in the glowing fire, and polished stkeL And both poetry and perfume found in the pure white linen on the line.
For nearly forty years now such work and I have kept close company, and yet I hope I am not degraded thereby, nor yet, I hope, have I lost caste in the eyes of my true friends. And although it is time to think of retiring, and I am not so nimble as of yore, I find it easier to do the work for which I have had the longest training, and the most experience, and can do it far better than if, in a mistaken patriotism, I sought a new sphere in the making of munitions, or doing any other kind of war work. Your correspondent is quite right. It is war work, for the war has increased it, and in any case someone must keep the house-place ready for that happy day ef victory when both Johnny and Tommy "come marching home" for good.—I am, Sir, &c., S. H. E. L.
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