And yet both are rendering her a service which she
pays for in money, and one is no more made her inferior thereby than
the other. Both have an equal right to be treated with courtesy. The
master and mistress of a house have a right to require courteous
treatment from all whom their roof shelters; but they have no more
right to exact it of servants than of every guest and every child, and
they themselves owe it as much to servants as to guests.
In order that servants may be treated with respect and courtesy, it
is not necessary, as in simpler patriarchal days, that they sit at the
family-table. Your carpenter or plumber does not feel hurt that you
do not ask him to dine with you, nor your milliner and mantua-maker
that you do not exchange ceremonious calls and invite them to your
parties. It is well understood that your relations with them are of
a mere business character. They never take it as an assumption of
superiority on your part that you do not admit them to relations of
private intimacy. There may be the most perfect respect and esteem and
even friendship between then and you, notwithstanding. So it may be
in the case of servants.
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