"A PERFECT LADY "
VERY few ladies, perfect or the reverse, have gone through life without constantly encountering the phrase "a perfect lady." There are plenty of people among the lower- middle
class who have the words continually on their lips. Again, among women-servants it is the commonest form of -encomium. It is their highest expression of approval to say of a mistress that she is a " perfect lady." The two words when thus used become one, and take on a different mean- ing from that conveyed by the mere substantive " lady " and the adjective "perfect " in agreement. To speak of a female person thus, is not to use a vague superlative description, but 'to place her to whom the words apply in a category apart—a category clearly defined and well understood by those who use the term. " Perfect lady " evidently means something as distinct as "thorough indoor " or professed cook," —whatever may be the true and inner meaning of that strange term. But though it is quite certain, from the manner in which the expression " a perfect lady " is habitually em- ployed, that it is a designation, not a mere complimentary phrase, it is by no means easy to say what exactly is meant thereby. The classes which use the words most are, un- fortunately, at their weakest in the matter of definition. Try to get the cook, professed or otherwise, to give you a definition of any household expression with which she is familiar, and you will fail miserably. Socrates himself would have failed to elicit from her an intelligible description of the working of the " dampers" in the kitchener. It would be useless to stay the exit of the household after morning prayers, and inquire from each member what she meant by "a perfect lady." You would certainly stop the house-work for twenty-four hours, and in all probability would get no more than the declaration, -' I'm sure you wouldn't deny, Mum, that a perfect lady is a lady what always acts, and always will, as a perfect lady to all.' A little pressure, and in all likelihood you would be told:' It's what I've never been accustomed to before, wherever I've lived, to be spoke to like this.' No experienced housekeeper, we will engage, would permit such a question. It could serve no good end, and if the questioner were a lady, would soon settle the question of perfection irrevocably against her. The only way to find out what is meant by "a perfect lady," is to observe how the phrase is applied, and then to proceed by a process of inductive reasoning. There is no lack of instances, and therefore the quest on these lines should not prove abortive.
Those who embark upon the curious speculation we suggest, will no doubt at once call to mind one of the late Mr. Keene's most admirable designs. A number of country neighbours are :asking the wife of the village butcher what sort of a person is the squire's newly married wife. To these inquiries they receive the oracular but none the less convincing reply : "A puffect lady—she don't know one joint of meat from another." Unquestionably this want of knowledge of the crude details of every-day life is "a constant" in all expressions of "a perfect lady." The cynical must not, however, jump to the conclusion that because of this, "a perfect lady" means simply any one who can be taken in at sight. That is a conclusion both hasty and unworthy. Rather it means that this final praise -cannot be accorded to those who mix themselves up with the unlovely and harassing trivialities of life. Another applica- tion of the words which will be familiar to most of our readers, shows this : "A perfect lady she was ; didn't never put her hand to a thing." Here we see the phrase applied to a lady who was not always descending from her proper Olympian attitude, and fussing about the house doing other people's work,—arranging disarranged furniture, tidying up to save the housemaids work, and " doing it herself " rather than ring the bell and give trouble. This element of a com- plex problem might, indeed, be reduced to mathematical terms by saying that a lady's perfection varies directly with the amount of trouble she gives. It may at first sight seem strange that this should be the case, but a little reflection will show the reason. If you get to the rock- bottom of the domestic-servant mind, you find that what sways cook, housemaid, lady's-maid, butler, footman, and buttons alike, is the sense that, in Milton's words, "man bath his appointed task." The universal touchstone by which all matters, high or low, are decided, is the question of " place." " Is it my, or hie, or her place to do that P" is the first thing which a servant thinks of. Let a servant feel of any other person that he or she is doing " what isn't his or her place," or refraining from doing what is, and that person cannot but be in the wrong. To break line in the domestic march, however good the motive, is to do something which must be condemned. But the place of a lady is to lie on the sofa and read a novel, or to entertain company, or at any rate to have
nothing to do with the sordid work which others are hired to attend to. A servant would no doubt admit that there was nothing morally wrong in a lady's " dusting," or going to the tap to get a jug of hot water in a hurry, to save ringing the bell. She might, indeed, feel actually grateful for the latter act. Her gratitude could not, however, alter the fact that a lady who habitually did little things for herself, though they were some- body else's place, was not " a perfect lady." The housemaid would say of her that she was "a very nice lady," "a very pleasant lady," or "a kind lady ;" but in view of such conduct as we have described, she could not truthfully describe her as "a perfect lady,"—a lady who knows her place and keeps to it. It must not be supposed, however, that merely lying on the sofa, and never offering " to put her hand to a thing," would win the praise of perfection. That is one essential, but not the only one. No lady who is rude to her servants, who gets into rages and abuses them, will ever win the mysterious and difficult title. Again, no lady who is hail-fellow-well-met with her servants, who chaffs them, or who makes friends with them too obviously, can obtain it. That sort of lady may be liked, may be loved indeed, but she will not be called perfect. " A very pleasant-spoken lady," " as good-tempered a lady as ever lived," or possibly " a very familiar lady "—a somewhat Malapropian expression in occasional use—bat not " a perfect lady." A perfect lady means, then, a lady who keeps to her own place,—or what is considered to be her place by those who use the words. She is a lady who lets it clearly be seen that she is incapable of doing anything for herself that a servant can possibly do for her, whether it be putting on coals or tidying a room, who is always somewhat expensively dressed, who keeps perfectly calm and self-possessed whatever accidents happen, who is coldly polite to her inferiors, and yet never rude, and who, in fact, treats her household as if they were made of a different clay. This is the perfect lady. Truly a not very interesting or amiable figure.
But granted that we have got the true definition of "a perfect lady," how comes it that this monster is the ideal of the British servant ? The question is a difficult one ; but the answer, though hard, is not, we think, beyond all conjecture. It is certainly not because British servants are of a slavish disposition ; for though they show a tendency to snobbishness, they are as a class extremely inclined to assert their independence. We believe that the worship of the perfect lady is due rather to a sense of self-preservation. Servants, like all other people who respect themselves and are in a subordinate position, dread above all things personal humiliation. But personal humiliations arise most easily when there is intimate contact between employer and employed. Hence the servant feels safest and most pro- tected when the master and mistress keep themselves aloof. The perfect lady is the lady with whom there is least chance of a collision, in which the mistress always starts at an advan- tage. Hence, though in a particular case a servant may prefer "a nice lady" in the abstract, what she yearns for is "a perfect lady,"—a lady with whom the chances of words, patronage, or sarcasms are reduced to a minimum. " A perfect
lady" such as we have described is, in fact, the servant's ideal, because it is the type which she feels safest with. Heaven forbid that we should say anything directly in favour of such an unpleasant person ! We can, however, easily understand the attractive force to servants of "a perfect lady."
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