117.  I shall, when I come to address myself to the husband, have much more to say upon this subject of keeping servants; but, what the lover, if he be not quite blind, has to look to, is, that his intended wife know how to do the work of a house, unless he have fortune sufficient to keep her like a lady.  ‘Eating and drinking,’ as I observe in COTTAGE ECONOMY, came three times every day; they must come; and, however little we may, in the days of our health and vigour, care about choice food and about cookery, we very soon get tired of heavy or burnt bread and of spoiled joints of meat:  we bear them for a time, or for two, perhaps; but, about the third time, we lament inwardly; about the fifth time, it must be an extraordinary honey-moon that will keep us from complaining:  if the like continue for a month or two, we begin to repent, and then adieu to all our anticipated delights.  We discover, when it is too late, that we have not got a help-mate, but a burden; and, the fire of love being damped, the unfortunately educated creature, whose parents are more to blame than she is, is, unless she resolve to learn her duty, doomed to lead a life very nearly approaching to that of misery; for, however considerate the husband, he never can esteem her as he would have done, had she been skilled and able in domestic affairs.

118.  The mere manual performance of domestic labours is not, indeed, absolutely necessary in the female head of the family of professional men, such as lawyers, doctors, and parsons; but, even here, and also in the case of great merchants and of gentlemen living on their fortunes, surely the head of the household ought to be able to give directions as to the purchasing of meat, salting meat, making bread, making preserves of all sorts, and ought to see the things done, or that they be done.  She ought to take care that food be well cooked, drink properly prepared and kept; that there be always a sufficient supply; that there be good living without waste; and that, in her department, nothing shall be seen inconsistent with the rank, station, and character of her husband, who, if he have a skilful and industrious wife, will, unless he be of a singularly foolish turn, gladly leave all these things to her absolute dominion, controlled only by the extent of the whole expenditure, of which he must be the best, and, indeed, the sole, judge.

119.  But, in a farmer’s or a tradesman’s family, the manual performance is absolutely necessary, whether there be servants or not.  No one knows how to teach another so well as one who has done, and can do, the thing himself.  It was said of a famous French commander, that, in attacking an enemy, he did not say to his men ‘go on,’ but ’come on;’ and, whoever have well observed the movements of servants, must know what a prodigious difference there is in the effect of the words, go and come.  A very good rule would be, to have nothing to eat,