Chapter CXXIX: Letter CXXIX: To Lord B (2)

It is a capital error in domestic as well as in civil economy, to oppose one vice to another, or to attempt an equilibrium between them, as if that which undermines the foundations of all order, could ever tend to establish regularity. This mistaken policy only serves to unite every inconvenience. When particular vices are tolerated in a family, they do not reign alone. Let one take root, a thousand will soon spring up. They presently ruin the servants who harbour them, undo the master who tolerates them, and corrupt or injure the children who remark them with attention. What father can be so unworthy as to put any advantage whatever in competition with this last inconvenience? What honest man would chuse to be master of a family, if it was impossible for him to maintain peace and fidelity in his house at the same time, and if he must be obliged to purchase the attachment of his servants; at the expense of their mutual good understanding?

Who does not see, that in this family, they have not even an idea of any such difficulty? So much does the union among the several members proceed from their attachment to the head. It is here we may perceive a striking instance, how impossible it is to have a sincere affection for a master without loving every thing that belongs to him; a truth which is the real foundation of Christian charity. Is it not very natural, that the children of the same father should live together like brethren? This is what they tell us every day at church, without making us feel the sentiment; and this is what the domestics in this family feel, without being told it.

This disposition to good fellowship is owing to a choice of proper subjects. Mr. Wolmar, when he hires his servants, does not examine whether they suit his wife and himself, but whether they suit each other, and if they were to discover a settled antipathy between two of the best servants, it would be sufficient for them to discharge one: for, says Eloisa, in so small a family, a family where they never go abroad, but are constantly before each other, they ought to agree perfectly among themselves. They ought to consider it as their father’s house, where all are of the same family. One, who happens to be disagreeable to the rest, is enough to make them hate the place; and that disagreeable object being constantly before their eyes, they would neither be easy themselves, nor suffer us to be quiet.

After having made the best assortment in their power, they unite them as it were by the services which they oblige each to render the other, and they contrive that it shall be the real interest of every one to be beloved by his fellow servants. No one is so well received who solicits a favour for himself, as when he asks it for another; so that whoever has any thing to request, endeavours to engage another to intercede for him; and this they do with greater readiness, since, whether their master grants or refuses the favour requested, he never fails to acknowledge the merit of the person interceding. On the contrary, both he and Mrs. Wolmar always reject the solicitations of those who only regard themselves. Why, say they, should I grant, what is desired in your favour, who have never made me any request in favour of another? Is it reasonable, that you should be more favoured than your companions, because they are more obliging than you? They do more; they engage them to serve each other in private, without any ostentation, and without assuming any merit. This is the more easily accomplished, as they know that their master, who is witness of their discretion, will esteem them the more, thus self-interest is a gainer, and self-love no loser. They are so convinced of this general disposition to oblige, and they have such confidence in each other, that when they have any favour to ask, they frequently mention it at table by way of conversation; very often, without farther trouble, they find that the thing has been requested and granted, and as they do not know whom to thank, their obligation is to all.

It is by this, and such like methods, that they beget an attachment among them, resulting from, and subordinate to, the zeal they have for their master. Thus, far from leaguing together to his prejudice, they are only united for his service. However it may be their interest to love each other, they have still stronger motives for pleasing him; their zeal for his service gets the better of their mutual good will, and each considering himself as injured by losses which may make their master less able to recompense a faithful servant, they are all equally incapable of suffering any individual to do him wrong unnoticed. This principle of policy which is established in this family, seems to have somewhat sublime in it; and I cannot sufficiently admire how Mr. and Mrs. Wolmar have been able to transform the vile function of an informer into an office of zeal, integrity, and courage, as noble, or at least as praise-worthy, as it was among the Romans.

They began by subverting, or rather by preventing, in a plain and perspicuous manner, and by affecting instances, that servile and criminal practice, that mutual toleration at the master’s cost, which a worthless servant never fails to inculcate to a good one, under the mask of a charitable maxim. They made them understand, that the precept which enjoins us to hide our neighbour’s faults, relates to those only which do injury to no one; that if they are witness to any injustice which injures a third person, and do not discover it, they are guilty of it themselves; and that as nothing can oblige us to conceal such faults in others, but a consciousness of our own defects, therefore no one would chuse to countenance knaves, if he was not a knave himself. Upon these principles, which are just in general, as between man and man, but more strictly so with respect to the close connection between master and servant, they hold it here as an incontestable truth, that whoever sees their master wronged, without making a discovery, is more guilty than he who did the wrong; for he suffers himself to be misled by the prospect of advantage, but the other in cool blood and without any view of interest, can be induced to secrecy by no other motive than a thorough disregard of justice, an indifference towards the welfare of the family he serves, and a hidden desire of copying the example he conceals. Therefore even where the fault is considerable, the guilty party may nevertheless sometimes hope for pardon, but the witness who conceals the fact, is infallibly dismissed as a man of a bad disposition.

In return, they receive no accusation which may be suspected to proceed from injustice and calumny; that is to say, they admit of none in the absence of the accused. If any one comes to make a report against his fellow servant, or to prefer a personal complaint against him, they ask him whether he is sufficiently informed, that is to say, whether he has entered into any previous inquiry with the person whom he is going to accuse. If he answers in the negative, they ask him how he can judge of an action, when he is not acquainted with the motives to it? The fact, say they, may depend on some circumstance to which you are a stranger; there may be some particulars which may serve to justify or excuse it, and which you know nothing of. How can you presume to condemn any one’s conduct, before you know by what motives it is directed? One word of explanation would probably have rendered it justifiable in your eyes. Why then do you run the risk of condemning an action wrongfully, and of exposing me to participate of your injustice? If he assures them, that he has entered into a previous explanation with the accused; why then, say they, do you come without him, as if you was afraid that he would falsify what you are going to relate? By what right do you neglect taking the same precaution with respect to me, which you think proper to use with regard to yourself? Is it reasonable to desire me to judge of a fact from your report, of which you refuse to judge yourself by the testimony of your own eyes; and would not you be answerable for the partial judgment I might form, if I was to remain satisfied with your bare deposition? In the end, they direct them to summon the party accused; if they consent, the matter is soon decided; if they refuse, they dismiss them with a severe reprimand, but they keep the secret, and watch them both so narrowly, that they are not long at a loss to know which is in fault.

This rule is so well known and so well established, that you never hear a servant in this family speak ill of his absent comrade, for they are all sensible that it is the way to pass for a liar and a coward. When any one of them accuses another, it is openly, frankly, and not only to his face, but in the presence of all his fellow servants, that they who are witnesses to their accusation, may be vouchers of their integrity. In case of any personal disputes among them, the difference is generally made up by mediators without troubling Mr. and Mrs. Wolmar; but when the interest of the master is at stake, the matter cannot remain a secret; the guilty party must either accuse himself or be accused. These little pleadings happen very seldom, and never but at table, in the rounds which Eloisa makes every day while her people are at dinner or supper, which Mr. Wolmar pleasantly calls her general sessions. After having patiently attended to the accusation and the defence, if the affair regards her interest, she thanks the accuser for his zeal. I am sensible, says she, that you have a regard for your fellow servant, you have always spoken well of him, and I commend you because the love of your duty and of justice has prevailed over your private affections; it is thus that a faithful servant and an honest man ought to behave. If the party accused is not in fault, she always subjoins some compliment to her justification of his innocence. But if he is really guilty, she in some measure spares his shame before the rest. She supposes that he has something to communicate in his defence, which he does not chuse to declare in public; she appoints an hour to hear him in private, and it is then that she or her husband talk to him as they think proper. What is very remarkable is, that the most severe of the two is not most dreaded, and that they are less afraid of Mr. Wolmar’s solemn reprimand, than of Eloisa’s affecting reproaches. The former, speaking the language of truth and justice, humbles and confounds the guilty; the latter strikes them with the most cruel remorse, by convincing them with what regret she is forced to withdraw her kindness from them. She sometimes extorts tears of grief and shame from them, and it is not uncommon for her to be moved herself when she sees them repent, in hopes that she may not be obliged to abide by her word.

They who judge of these concerns by what passes in their own families, or among their neighbours, would probably deem them frivolous or tiresome. But you, my Lord, who have such high notions of the duties and enjoyments of a master of a family, and who are sensible what an ascendency natural disposition and virtue have over the human heart, you perceive the importance of these minutiae, and know on what circumstances their success depends. Riches do not make a man rich, as is well observed in some romance. The wealth of a man is not in his coffers, but in the use he makes of what he draws out of them; for our possessions do not become our own, but by the uses to which we allot them, and abuses are always more inexhaustible than riches; whence it happens that our enjoyments are not in proportion to our expenses, but depend on the just regulation of them. An idiot may toss ingots of gold into the sea, and say he has enjoyed them: but what comparison is there between such an extravagant enjoyment, and that which a wise man would have derived from the least part of their value? Order and regularity, which multiply and perpetuate the use of riches, are alone capable of converting the enjoyment of them into felicity. But if real property arises from the relation which our possessions bear to us, if it is rather the use than the acquisition of riches which confers it, what can be more proper subjects of attention for a master of a family than domestic economy, and the prudent regulation of his houshold, in which the most perfect correspondences more immediately concern him, and where the happiness of every individual is an addition to the felicity of the head?

Are the most wealthy the most happy? No: how then does wealth contribute to felicity? But every well regulated family is emblematic of the master’s mind. Gilded ceilings, luxury and magnificence, only serve to shew the vanity of those who display such parade; whereas, whenever you see order without melancholy, peace without slavery, plenty without profusion, you may say with confidence, the master of this house is a happy being.

For my own part, I think the most certain sign of true content is a domestic and retired life, and that they who are continually resorting to others in quest of happiness, do not enjoy it at home. A father of a family who amuses himself at home, is rewarded for his continual attention to domestic concerns, by the constant enjoyment of the most agreeable sensations of nature. He is the only one who can be properly said to be master of his own happiness, because, like heaven itself, he is happy in desiring nothing more than he enjoys. Like the Supreme Being, he does not wish to enlarge his possessions, but to make them really his own, under proper directions, and by using them conformably to the just relations of things: if he does not enrich himself by new acquisitions, he enriches himself by the true enjoyment of what he possesses. He once only enjoyed the income of his lands, he now enjoys the lands themselves, by over-looking their culture, and surveying them from time to time. His servant was a stranger to him: he is now part of his enjoyment; his child; he makes him his own. Formerly, he had only power over his servant’s actions, now he has authority over his inclinations. He was his master only by paying him wages, now he rules by the sacred dominion of benevolence and esteem. Though fortune spoils him of his wealth, she can never rob him of those affections which are attached to him; she cannot deprive a father of his children; all the difference is, that he maintained them yesterday, and that they will support him tomorrow. It is thus that we may learn the true enjoyment of our riches, of our family, and of ourselves; it is thus that the minutiae of a family become agreeable to a worthy man who knows the value of them; it is thus that, far from considering these little duties as troublesome, he makes them a part of his happiness, and derives the glory and pleasure of human nature from these noble and affecting offices.

If these precious advantages are despised or little known, and if the few who endeavour to acquire them seldom obtain them, the reason, in both cases, is the same. There are many simple and sublime duties, which few people can relish and fulfil. Such are those of the master of a family, for which the air and bustle of the world gives him a disgust, and which he never discharges properly when he is only inflamed by motives of avarice and interest. Some think themselves excellent masters, and are only careful economists; their income may thrive, and their family nevertheless be in a bad condition. They ought to have more enlarged views to direct an administration of such importance, so as to give it a happy issue. The first thing to be attended to in the due regulation of a family, is to admit none but honest people, who will not have any secret intention to disturb that regularity. But are honesty and servitude so compatible, that we may hope to find servants who are honest men? No, my Lord, if we would have them, we must not inquire for them, but we must make them; and none who are not men of integrity themselves are capable of making others honest. It is to no purpose for a hypocrite to affect an air of virtue, he will never inspire any one with an affection for it; and if he knew how to make virtue amiable, he would be in love with it himself. What do formal lessons avail, when daily example contradicts them, unless to make us suspect that the moralist means to sport with our credulity? What an absurdity are they guilty of who exhort us to do as they say, and not as they act themselves! He who does not act up to what he says, never speaks to any effect; for the language of the heart is wanting, which alone is persuasive and affecting. I have sometimes heard conversations of this kind held, in a gross manner, before servants, in order to read them lectures, as they do to children sometimes, in an indirect way. Far from having any reason to imagine that they were the dupes of such artifice, I have always observed them smile in secret at their master’s folly, who must have taken them for blockheads, by making an awkward display of sentiments before them, which they knew were none of his own.

All these idle subtleties are unknown in this family, and the grand art by which the master and mistress make their servants what they would desire them to be, is to appear themselves before them what they really are. Their behaviour is always frank and open, because they are not in any fear lest their actions should bely their processions. As they themselves do not entertain principles of morality different from those which they inculcate to others, they have no occasion for any extraordinary circumspection in their discourse; a word blundered out unseasonably does not overthrow the principles they have laboured to establish. They do not indiscreetly tell all their affairs, but they openly proclaim all their maxims. Whether at table, or abroad, _tete a tete_, or in public, their sentiments are still the same; they ingenuously deliver their opinions on every subject, and without their having any individual in view, every one is instructed by their conversation. As their servants never see them do any thing but what is just, reasonable and equitable, they do not consider justice as a tax on the poor, as a yoke on the unhappy, and as one of the evils of their condition. The care they take never to let the labourers come in vain, and lose their day’s work in seeking after their wages, teaches their servants to set a just value on time. When they see their master so careful of other men’s time, each concludes that his own time must be of consequence, and therefore deems idleness the greatest crime he can be guilty of. The confidence which their servants have in their integrity, gives that force to their regulations which makes them observed, and prevents abuses. They are not afraid, when they come to receive their weekly gratuities, that their mistress should partially determine the youngest and most active to have been the most diligent. An old servant is not apprehensive lest they should start some quibble, to save the promised augmentation to their wages. They can never hope to take advantage of any division between their master and mistress, in order to make themselves of consequence, and to obtain from one what the other has refused. They who are unmarried, are not afraid lest they should oppose their settlement, in order to detain them longer; and by that means make their service a prejudice to them. If a strange servant was to tell the domestics of this family, that master and servants are in a state of war with each other, that when the latter do the former all the injury they can, they only make lawful reprisals, that masters being usurpers, liars and knaves, there can consequently be no harm in using them as they use their prince, the people, or individuals, and in returning those injuries with dexterity, which they offer openly----one who should talk in this manner would not be attended to; they would not give themselves the trouble to controvert or obviate such sentiments; they who give rise to them, are the only persons whose business it is to refute them.

You never perceive any sullenness or mutiny in the discharge of their duty, because there is never any haughtiness or capriciousness in the orders they receive; nothing is required of them but what is reasonable and expedient, and their master and mistress have too much respect for the dignity of human nature, even in a state of servitude, to put them upon any employment which may debase them. Moreover, nothing here is reckoned mean but vice, and whatever is reasonable and necessary, is deemed honourable and becoming.

They do not allow of any intrigues abroad, neither has any one any inclinations of that kind. They are sensible that their fortune is most firmly attached to their masters, and that they shall never want any thing while his family prospers. Therefore in serving him, they take care of their own patrimony, and increase it by making their service agreeable; this above all things is their interest. But this word is somewhat misapplied here, for I never knew any system of policy by which self-interest was so skilfully directed, and where at the same time it had less influence than in this family. They all act from a principle of attachment, and one would think that venal souls were purified as soon as they entered into this dwelling of wisdom and union. He would imagine that part of the master’s intelligence, and of the mistress’s sensibility, was conveyed to each of their servants; they seem so judicious, benevolent, honest, and so much above their station. Their greatest ambition is to do well, to be valued and esteemed; and they consider an obliging expression from their master or mistress, in the light of a present.

These, my Lord, are the most material observations I have made on that part of the economy of this family, which regards the servants and labourers. As to Mr. and Mrs. Wolmar’s manner of living, and the education of their children, each of these articles very well deserves a separate letter. You know with what view I began these remarks; but in truth the whole forms such an agreeable representation, that we need only meditate upon it to advance it, and we require no other inducement, than the pleasure it affords us.