From the primitive household, where a poor neighbor comes in as "help," to the "great" establishment where the butler and housekeeper eat apart, and a group of plush-clad flunkies imported from England adorn the entrance-hall, nothing could be better contrived to set one class against another than domestic service.
Proverbs have grown out of it in every language."No man is a hero to his valet," and "familiarity breeds contempt," are clear enough.
Our comic papers are full of the misunderstandings and absurdities of the situation, while one rarely sees a joke made about the other ways that the poor earn their living.Think of it for a moment!
To be obliged to attend people at the times of day when they are least attractive, when from fatigue or temper they drop the mask that society glues to their faces so many hours in the twenty-four;to see always the seamy side of life, the small expedients, the aids to nature; to stand behind a chair and hear an acquaintance of your master's ridiculed, who has just been warmly praised to his face; to see a hostess who has been graciously urging her guests "not to go so soon," blurt out all her boredom and thankfulness "that those tiresome So-and-So's" are "paid off at last," as soon as the door is closed behind them, must needs give a curious bent to a servant's mind.They see their employers insincere, and copy them.Many a mistress who has been smilingly assured by her maid how much her dress becomes her, and how young she is looking, would be thunderstruck to hear herself laughed at and criticised (none too delicately) five minutes later in that servant's talk.