Finally, the bitter baptism through which we are passing, the life-blood dearer than our own which is drenching distant fields, should remind us of the preciousness of distinctive American ideas.  They who would seek in their foolish pride to establish the pomp of liveried servants in America are doing that which is simply absurd.  A servant can never in our country be the mere appendage to another man, to be marked like a sheep with the color of his owner; he must be a fellow-citizen, with an established position of his own, free to make contracts, free to come and go, and having in his sphere titles to consideration and respect just as definite as those of any trade or profession whatever.

Moreover, we cannot in this country maintain to any great extent large retinues of servants.  Even with ample fortunes they are forbidden by the general character of society here, which makes them cumbrous and difficult to manage.  Every mistress of a family knows that her cares increase with every additional servant.  Two keep the peace with each other and their employer; three begin a possible discord, which possibility increases with four, and becomes certain with five or six.  Trained housekeepers, such as regulate the complicated establishments of the Old World, form a class that are not, and from the nature of the case never will be, found in any great numbers in this country.  All such women, as a general thing, are keeping, and prefer to keep, houses of their own.

A moderate style of housekeeping, small, compact, and simple domestic establishments, must necessarily be the general order of life in America.  So many openings of profit are to be found in this country, that domestic service necessarily wants the permanence which forms so agreeable a feature of it in the Old World.

American women must not try with three servants to carry on life in the style which in the Old World requires sixteen,—­they must thoroughly understand, and be prepared to teach, every branch of housekeeping,—­they must study to make domestic service desirable, by treating their servants in a way to lead them to respect themselves and to feel themselves respected,—­and there will gradually be evolved from the present confusion a solution of the domestic problem which shall be adapted to the life of a new and growing world.

* * * * *

SERVICE.

    When I beheld a lover woo
      A maid unwilling,
    And saw what lavish deeds men do,
      Hope’s flagon filling,—­
    What vines are tilled, what wines are spilled,
      And madly wasted,
    To fill the flask that’s never filled,
      And rarely tasted: 

    Devouring all life’s heritage,
      And inly starving;
    Dulling the spirit’s mystic edge,
      The banquet carving;
    Feasting with Pride, that Barmecide
      Of unreal dishes;
    And wandering ever in a wide,
      Wide world of wishes: