Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1883-12-28
ioOr4 Eliot on servants.
From the Pill Mali Gazette.

it. Nor did many people know at the
time that the foremost Of female novel
lists was among the contributors to this
Journal. The article, although, perhaps,
not in George Eliot's beststyle, is never
theless sufficiently characteristic to in
.duce us to reproduce it in our columns
to day. After describing the dismav
with which hostess discovers that the
scalloped oysters with which she would
fain load a friends plate have been
served with their boards on and the
troubles Of q dyspeptic physiologist with
weakness for spinach who has Vainly
endeavored to impress on the cook the
importance of thoroughly squeezing
green vegetables, the writer proceeds:
Again, you desire soup, but desire it
without fat. You are perhaps q genius;
the world is in need of your new poem;
or you are evolving a momentous the
DRY, and the evolution OF fatty acids
within you is serious impeachment.
your mental activity IS reduced to the
consciousness that interesting facts in
animal chemistry are going on within
you; you begin to think you can serve
mankind only by leaving your body for
dissection. AT length you ask your wife,
with hardly suppressed peevishness,
and unusual emphasis on "my DEAR" to
inquire into the making of the soup.
Your wife, who is rather frightened at
the cook, tells her that Mr.. Queasy, in
spite Of his orders, discerned fatty par
ticles in his soup yesterday. 'It's
thing impossible there can be fat, mum
for skimming and everything-there's
nothing neglected in my power" "Show
me your cold stock" Exit Sally, re-
turning with Il vessel in one hand aud a
spoon ii the other. There is a white
film Of fat over the surface of the stock.
'''See, now, Sally, there is fat" LA,
num-" says Sally, plunging her spoon in
and turning up the jellied soup from be.
meath SIS a gardner turns the soil when
he is digging for the roots, the cold fatty
getting underneath in the process
"that's nothing; besides take nv soup
from under and I take the fat off with
spoon" {The spoon itself is
ments of cold fat) "But unless you
wash your spoon each time you dip it
there will be fat, and however little MIR.
Queasy suffers from it. Besides"-tM Mrs.
q. here exerts all her courage)-it be.
longs to good cook to send up her soup
free from fat" Sally smiles bitterly.
Lid luuIj, w tlliNh WuSu / WdS Ill
Nuneham gate, and there was people of
all sorts coming to the house. as could
have give that satis!ection-and Scotch
no Christian 'ud touch--and Mr.. Tooley,
the gentleman with the wooden leg,
praising my soup, and saying he never
tasted better? But there's stomachs will
not stand soup, and that's where it u.s."
Here Sally shakes her head and signs,
as is her wont when she is seeing deep
ly into the cause Of things) "And as
I've said to Jane many and many's the
time, if gentle folks constitutions are of
that sort, it's no wonder what comes. I
said so only yesterday, when l was
draining the rice, and the cat eating the
white sauce all the while, and me not
knowing. It's true what l speak-every
word" Here Sally sets down the vessel
of stock emphatically, and tapping the
outside of it with her tinger-end looks
hard out of the window. Mrs. Queasy is
non-plussed. If she says more Sally will
give warning; she draws her dress round
her crinoline, and rustles up stairs
again. II
Servants are rich in intuitions. They
have vast numbers Of certainties which
are deep by reason of their groundless-
ness. The postman brings letter for
Maria; she was sure he would, she didn't
know from whom it would come, and if
you were to knock her down she couldn't
tell you why, but this morning when
she got out of bed, and drew up the
Dlind and saw the wind blowing the
leaves about, she seemed to see the post
ulan coming with the letter in his hand,
You make great mistake if you suggest
certain conditions which. might have
given rise to the expectation. She re-
jects such low.minded analysis Of her
certainty, No; there was no reason why
more than any other; but 40 it was----.
and it was the same once before, when
the disf1lcover fell and got bruised: she
had said at breakfast something would
. happen that day, she knew. But as to
your certainties, for which you ailege
arguments, the same Maria considers
them offensive unless they are to be
overcome by her assertion. If you will
not believe that q looking-glass is cloudy
and spotty in spite o. daily, diiligent
rubbing, or that IL steel of all your w.
riously procured stoves happens to be OF
so peculiar quality that it will not
''take" polish, she thinks she has
right to feel offended. IF, however, she
happens to be in a good humor, she
will perhaps observe apropes of the steel,
that at one place where she lived there
Z was bright fender with a sharp edge,
and the nurse let the child fall on it and
cut herself; and when she has given you
all the circumstances attendant on this
event, the name of the doctor who was
called in and what he said, she will feel
that she has readiuste / her position as a
polisher of stoves. .'.> .E5,', F.,
On the whole, servants are little dis
posed to think that the opinions Of gen
tleiolks can have any practical value. for
them. Our remedies, our methods, our
explanations, are like the drapery and
respond to the supposed scale Of our in
come but servants, for their part, get
their stuf5 and their views from other
quarters. The cure for gentleman's'
toothache is not likely to suitISally's mo.
lar so well as the cure, recommended by
the grocers boy on the authority of his
first cousin, who went about With}a blue
handkerchief round his head for. weeks
and weeks. And for the probabilities
concerning the dryness of the coming
summer, or the guilt Of the man last
taken for murder, the person to be con.
suited with the most Difference is the.
tlaundress who serves very good fami-
lies, and whose husband is IN the car
rying line. h. Isl + III, $ 4, g.=.
The moral Of all this is that wise mas
tiers and mistresses Will NOT argue with
their servants, will not give them rea-
sons, Will not consult them. ~ A mild yet
firm authority which rig rously demands
that certain things be done without urg-
ing motives or entering into explana-
themselves and Is the best means Of Cd.
.ucating them into any Improvement of
their methods and habits. Authority
ana tradition are the chief, almost the /