The Mineral argus., 1884-01-03
George Eliot on servants.

1ehN1 1NEAN0 $3.50 = ~ E1RA+1N1
in this journal an article by the late
George Eliot on servants logic, which,
if it had appeared under her name,
would have received much more notice
than that which was actually accorded
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 a 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 a dyspeptic physiologist with
a weakness for spinach h has vainly
e~ndeavored 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
ory, and the evolution of fatty acids
within you is a serious impeachment.
vour mental activity Is reduced to the
consciousness that interesting facts in
animal chemistry are going on within
yoa; 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
inouire 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 pr
ticles in his soup yesterday. "Its a
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 a vessel in one hand aud n
spoon in 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
ne is digging for the roots. the cold fatty
getting underneath in the process
"that's nothing; besides take nv soup
from under and l take the fat off with a
SPOON" (The spoon itself is
studded plenteously with frag-
ments of cold fat but unless you
wash your spoon each time you dip it
there will be fat, and however little Mr..
Oueasv suffers from IT. Besides'-tMrs.
q. here exerts all her c~ourage)-it be-
longs to a good cook to send up her SOU
, free from fat" Sally smiles bitterly.
, ala mum, do you think when l was at
Nuneham gate, and there was people OF
all sorts coming to the house, as | could
have give that satistactlon-and Scotch
/. people wanting things you might think
no Christian 'ud touch-and Mr.. Tooley,
: the gentleman with the wooden leg,
4 r~oirfnop I'M gOV-n ar1H Cuuinu hn nnVQI
= lasted better? Butthere's stonachs will
: not stand soup, and that's where it is
: Here Sally shakes her head and signs
Z as is her wont when she Is seeing deep
, ~ into the cause of things.) "And as
> I've said to Jane many and many's the
! time, if gentle folks constitutions are o
: that sort, it's no wonder what comes.
, said so only yesterday, when | wa
= draining the rice, and the cat eating thu
!, white sauce all the while, and me no
| knowing. It's true what speak-eVer.
4 word" Here Sally sets down the vesse
I of stock emphatically, and tapping tn
> outside of it with her hnger-eDds, o
. hard out of the window. Mrs. Queasy
= non-plussed. Ii she says more Sally WI
u give warning; she draws her dress roun
, her crinoline, and rustles up stail
= again.
u Servants are rich in intuitions. The
! have vast numbers of certainties whlc
! are deep by reason of their groundles'
. ness. The postman brings q letter fC
Maria; she was sure he would, she didn
> know from whom it would come, and
you were to knock her down she couldn
l. tell you why, but this morning whe
. she got out of bed, and drew up I'll
blind and saw tine wind blowing til
u leaves about, she seemed to see the pos
ID man coming with the letter IN his hanC
You make a great mistake If you sugge
IL certain conditions which might hay
-, given rise to the expectation. She r
!. iects such low-minded analysis of h'
70 certainty. No; there was no reason VII
she should expect a letter this mornll
more than any other; but so it was
'e and it was the same once before, whe
the dish-cover fell and got bruised; st
: had said at breakfast something wouI
= happen that day, she knew. But as
y your certainties, Tor which you allel
arguments, the same Maria conside
Ie them offensive unless they are to
80 overcome by her assertion. If you W
10 not believe that q looking-glass is clouC
a. and spotty in spite o daily, dillige
" rubbing, or that IL e steel of all your v
e riously procured stoves happens to be
u so peculiar a quality that it will n
7. take a polish, she thinks she has
re right TO feel offended. If, however, 81
VI happens to be in a good humOr, 81
ID will perhaps observe apropos ofthe stet
that at one place where she lived the
was a bright fender with q sharp edg
and the nurse let the child fall on it al
a cut herself; and when she has given y
ut all the circumstance attendant on Il
,ir event, the name of the doctor who "
= - -Iak h. cad oIn mill n