With regard to the mistresses, it is, I believe,
generally understood, that at the time to which I refer, a hundred years
ago, they took a personal part in the higher branches of cookery, as well
as in the concoction of home-made wines, and distilling of herbs for
domestic medicines, which are nearly allied to the same art. Ladies did
not disdain to spin the thread of which the household linen was woven.
Some ladies liked to wash with their own hands their choice china after
breakfast or tea. In one of my earliest child's books, a little girl,
the daughter of a gentleman, is taught by her mother to make her own bed
before leaving her chamber. It was not so much that they had not
servants to do all these things for them, as that they took an interest
in such occupations. And it must be borne in mind how many sources of
interest enjoyed by this generation were then closed, or very scantily
opened to ladies. A very small minority of them cared much for
literature or science. Music was not a very common, and drawing was a
still rarer, accomplishment; needlework, in some form or other, was their
chief sedentary employment.
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