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THE COURIER.
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Of course maids, being women, en
joy a bargain. I know a laundress
wlio reads the Sunduy papers week
after week to find out just what she
can buy at a bargain on Monday. In
order to get her "wash" out in time
she rises lung before the specified
hour of half past five. She buys with
discrimination, too; a discrimination
which i constantly growing. She
brings her purchases home and ex
hibits them witli a wholly feminine
and pardor.able pride in her grow
ing capacity to adjust her purchases
to her needs. She no longer buys
tilings that she does not need because
they are cheap. She buys them be
cause they arc within her means and
she recognizes the correspondence be
tween them and her own reasonable
wants. It is not fair that the hired
girl should not buy her things in as
cheap a market as her mistress buys
them, and rule IV is not unreasona
ble, considering that Monday has been
adopted by the dry goods stores as
"bargain day."
The hired girl can make the house
hold ::u happy and ailing, or she can
make the household happy and heal
thy. In order to prepare healthy
food she must either be a natural
cook or she must have learned the
art. The latter method is very much
more reliable and satisfactory. The
time may arrive when to protect it
self the union will demand proof of
ability before granting a card of as
sociation to new members. In such
a period the union will hare the dig
nity and prestige of a first-class or
ganization. In the hope of such a
development, as well as on account
of a desire for the improvement of
every woman's lot, the thoughtful
mistresses of Chicago encourage their
housemaids. in the timid attempt they
are making to enhance the dignity of
their trade. Mrs. Henrotin, whom
all club women love, is inclined to
believe the movement a happy one.
Nevertheless the efficient and faith
ful hired girl who knows how to cook,
launder, sweep, dust and perform
skillfully the hundred and one house
hold labors, does not need the pro
tection of a union. She can almost
make her own terms, because she is a
rara avis, and sought for as the Ar
gonauts sought the golden fleece.
The few such honorable and honored
servants whom I have known occupy
a unique position in the regard of the
families whom they serve and love.
When the final rewards are made
these faithful, competent ones will
receive a larger meed than they ever
fancied theirs. In the ruck of sloven
ly girls who do not realize their mis
sion, the few who have dignified their
trade are likely to be forgotten by the
fretful women whose dishes have been
broken and whose tempers have been
ruined by the incompetent and un
faithful. A tribute to the few is
hereby offered by an editor whose
pages they are not likely to see.
The Independence.
Mr. Thomas W. Lawson was snub
bed by the New York Yacht club,
and since his boat has been so badly
beaten, the country people who never
saw a body of water larger than Man
awa, but who are nevertheless much
elated when a boat of "ours" beats a
British bo.it, believe that he made
all that fuss to get his name before
the world. Mr. Lawson paid $30,000
to a Boston florist to name a new pink
"The Mrs. Thomas W. Lawson" pink.
It is apparent, therefore, that he is
not averse to being talked about.
Members of the N. Y. Y. C. got it into
their minds that Mr. Lawson thought
the international boat race was an
opportunity to still further advertise
Mr. Thomas W. Lawson, and they re-
sjnted being used for such a purpose.
When the owner of the tail-end boat
came to Newport, not a pennant dip
ped, not a gun was tired and the
atmosphere in his neighborhood was
very chilly.
Mr. Lawson lives in Boston, but he
is not of it, and to a man of his push
and ambition for a prominent place
in society, the closed doors of the
aristocracy are very annoying. The
great-grand-son of a man like Mr.
Lawson, if the money remains in
the family, might be received by des
cendents of the men who sailed in
the May-Flower, but a faster rate
than that is unknown to Boston.
We cannot quite analyze the con
tempt we feel, or justify it either, for
the man or woman who tries by ad
ventitious means to obtain a place in
society, society is not willing to grant.
To attain an honorable place in the
world and the esteem and society of
the best people is a laudable ambi
tion; yet no one is laughed at so much
as the man who shows that he is will
ing to pay a large sum of money for
position and countenance. Mr. Law
son dllowes himself to talk to report
ers about his love of art, about how
he spends his evenings at home, etc.
He said recently: "As a rule we all
work behind a mask and the two
thirds of us we conceal is generally
the best in us. It is that two-thirds
that 1 will not show the public. It is
my home life, my tastes, my diver
sions." All this is so much a matter
of course that it would not occur to
one to the manor born to say any
thing about it. Paragraphs taken
from an interview granted to an in
genuous writer who was preparing a
special article on Mr. Thomas W.
Lawton for the July Ainslee's, illus
trate what I mean, and it is an ex
ample of the ridiculous sort of stuff
that is being written about rich men
by those who know better but who do
not use their knowledge. However
the article in question may be a paid
advertisement in which case I with
draw my strictures on its author:
"The door opened softly, and Mr.
Lawson's secretary placed a vase of
long-stemmed pink flowers on his
desk. His face lighted. 'Those are
the Mrs. Lawson pink,' he said. 'Are
n't they beautiful?' As he spoke I
noticed a new note in his voice.
"Just then Mr. Lawson adjusted his
curious gold chain. On the end was
a locket, on one side was carved a
gypsy's head, the other contained a
miniature of a sweet-faced girl.
"It is the picture of my wife,' lie
said, extending it, 'at the time we
were married. Her name is Gypsy.
Yon will notice that each of the beads
in this chain there are three hun
dred and thirty-three is carved with
a gypsy's race just a little fancy of
mine, that's all.'
"At that moment Mr. Lawson's
carriage was announced."
The Making o! a Marchioness.
Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett,
whose last name is something else
now, a name by which she will never
be identified by any body not in her
immediate circle, has written a story
which appeared in the Century maga
zine of J une, July and August.
I think Mrs. Burnett is at her best
in the long short story. "The Mak
ing of a Marchioness" is a story of a
woman who, first of all, was exquisite
ly kind. She had an income to lire
upon of about a hundred and fifty
dollars a year, which was left her by
an unpleasant old woman who em
ployed Miss Fox-Seton as a compan
ion. Miss Fox-Seton had been a
governess. She had cousins in the
peerage but no income whaterer be
fore the death of the old lady. A
gentlewoman's struggle with poverty
is always pathetic; and when, as in
the case of Miss Fox-Seton, the com
batant is so brave and sweet, so capa
ble and helpful, an author has no
trouble in making her heroine and
heradrentures very interesting in
deed. Mrs. Burnett has the faculty,
so vainly striven for by so many of
her contemporaries, of writing an in
teresting story. At the very begin
ning it is no effort to identify her
characters and remember their names.
Acquaintanceship with them pro
gresses more rapidly than with new
people in real life; but she does not
skip any of the stages. By which
recognition of the laws of the mind
she avoids confusion. An aspiring
author with concepts of the iniridu
als of his story, but who fails to dif
ferentiate them, forces the reader to
do his work. For instance, in this
week's edition of The Courier there is
a story written by a young girl who
has neither studied the art of com
position nor has she any intuitive
knowledge of it. The intluence of
cheap and untrue literature is ap
parent both in the style and thought.
The Mrs. Holmes novels are ricious,
not because of the presence of the
element for which nore's are locked
away from the jeune femme, but be
cause of the entire absence of refine
ment of view, and for the falseness
with which all aspects of life are pre
sented. Youthful readers look in
real life for what they read about in
these books. Not finding it, they
imagine false resemblances or make
up love stories long before the time
for that sort of thing has arrived.
The commonness of mind which the
Mrs. Holmes and Mrs. Soulhworth
novels develop and encourage is ap
parent in the first creative effort of a
constant reader of their unfortunate
tales. But all this is another story.
Miss Fox-Seton is an elderly, un
romantic English woman. Her lover,
who does not prove to be her lover
until the last page of the story, is also
elderly, without the flavor of romance
unless romance may be said to cling
to every member of the English peer
age. He possesses a magnificent tiara
and a ruby "as large as a trousers
button," which the Walderhursts for
generations have given to their fian
cees at the moment of acceptance.
Like an occasional big trout in a
much-fished brook, Lord Walderhurst
has been chased and frightened from
one cool retreat to another by inde
fatigable mothers and daughters,
until he has made up his mind to
snap, with his eyes wide open to the
hook, the very next alluring bait that
is dangled before his sophisticated
old nose. Only he is positive that he
does not want to bring up a beautiful
girl, used to conquests and to audible
admiration. Such being his state of
mind, of course there are only old
maids and widows left.
At the house party in the country,
where most of the action takes
place, there are two beautiful girls,
one spinster, Miss Fox-Seton, thirty
four years old, and a widow. The
widow writes stories and talks in epi
grams, and naturally she has no
chance. Miss Fox Seton is an ador
able example of Christianity actively
exerting itself for the happiness of
neighbors. She is rewarded for her
unselfishness and for the unconscious
practice of all the virtues by an offer
of matrimony from one of the richest
and noblest gentlemen in England.
Her modesty and humility are so deep
and so unassumed that she cannot be
lieve that he really means it, and he
has to tell her that he "likes her bet
ter than any woman he ever saw,"
before she can believe him in earnest
This phrase will conquer any woman,
no matter what evidence to the con
trary she possesses, and Miss Fox
Seton accepts her middle aged suitor.
Mrs. Burnett's heroine has excellent
taste: the best biood of England flows
in her veins, and she takes such gf.,d
care of her clothes and selects them
with such unusual (for an English
woman) discrimination for color and
style, that in spite of her poverty, Mie
is distinguished looking. And it de
not affect her dignity that she run
on errands and serves as a purchasing
agent for the rich people who employ
her. Breeding has sifted the coarse
ness outi of her ancestry for ten gen
erations, and the fine product which
coursed through the veins of Miv
Fox-Seton, flowered into acts of kind
ness to all the world.
Not until the book is finished and
meditation sets in does it occur to the
reader that Mrs. Burnett has written
the story with a moral purpose the
reward of virtue. It is old-fashioned
now-a-days to reward a hero and
especially a middle-aged heroine In
allowing either one to make a good
match. It used to be the style, year?
ago, when Sunday school books were
more popular than they are now, to
reward virtue and punish vice. The
method satisfied our consciences and
our notions of what should be and
what should not be. The modern
writer to a certain extent ignores
these crude, primary instincts in the
people whom he expects to buy and
read his books. And we do not like
it. Henry James satisfies his sense
of what he owes the people who pay a
dollar and a half for his works by
arguing that art demands that the
good die in unrewarded discourage
ment or lead colorless lives in conse
quence of the early commission of
magnanimous and painfully self
sacrificing acts. But he does not take
his audience with him, not if we
know ourselves he does not, and lie
has lost his prestige with the common
people the only kind of people that
there are enough of to make the pro
fession of writing profitable. The
good must live happily ever after
ward, and the wicked must be rolled
down hill in the modern equivalent
for a Grimms' barrel tilled with sharp
spikes. Otherwise the author's sales
fall off.
Upon Mrs. Burnett the modern
rules in regard to leaving a single'
lady in unremitted spinsterhood. to
contemplate for the rest of her life
the very meagre rewards of being
good to fussy old women, have had no
effect whaterer. Very subtly and
without directing attention to what
she is doing, this author rewards rir
tue and lets the disagreeable receive
the meed of vulgarity. For in Mrs.
Burnett's mind it is not only wicked
to be untruthful, selfish, dishonest
and overbearing, but it is also vulgar
and underbred. This is a sound view.
Politeness is Christianity and the
meek will inherit the earth.
"The Making of a Marchioness" also
teaches girls that the most glittering
and truly valuable matrimonial prizes
are not to be caught by conscious ef
fort, but only by the practice of wo
manly virtues at all times and not
alone in the sight of the man whom
they are calculated to impress. Miss
Fox-Seton was the only woman in the
house-party who had no designs upon
Lord Walderhurst; but after living in
the same house with her for a week
he sent his man to London for the
trousers-button ruby. This action,
which got about somehow, created
the most intense excitement in the
breast of every marriagable woman in
the house except in the one pertain
ing to Miss Fox-Seton. But the old
woman whom she was visiting, like
the old women in Grimms' fairy-tale-who
send lovely girls out in the snow
to pick strawberries, sent Miss Fox
Seton eight miles of a hot afternoon,
when she was tired out, to fetch a
basket of fish for the dinner party
which the vain old lady was going to
