LONDON SOCIETY. JULY, 1862. I NOTES FROM THE LIFE OF A TRAGEDIENNE.' 6 They best can paint them who can feel them most.' AM a lady-born and bred, but I have nevertheless occupied the position of housekeeper in a family neither rich nor great, for the space of one year. Suggestive as the name is of portly dignity and matronly importance, I feel bound to add, that at the time I applied for the place (situation of course I mean) I was but twenty-three years old, and not deficient in the attribute which women prize so much-personal beauty. I cannot deny, that it was consciousness of the effect,' as we artists call it, afforded by the contrast between position and breeding, that influenced me in deciding upon the humble calling, which appeared to me calculated to give bold relief to my personal advantages and refined education. I could not make up my mind to become either a governess or a companion, when a large family of us, reared in affluence, were compelled by untoward circumstance, to go forth separately into the world to earn our daily bread. I had a few hundreds of my own: I was of age, and of a fiery, selfreliant nature, that scorned dependence and delighted in rule. I apprenticed myself for a year, under a chef, who initiated me in the mysteries of his art. At the expiration of that term, I assumed a matronly dress and air, and applied for the situation of housekeeper, in the family of Squire Arden, of Arden Hall. VOL. II.-NO. VI. Mrs. Arden had been dead six months, and the only daughter of the house, a young and beautiful girl of eighteen, was not likely, I thought, to interfere with a determined housekeeper, who fully intended, as soon as she set foot in the house, to take the reins of government, at once and for ever, into her own hands. I had not wasted my time or abilities during my year of apprenticeship; and as I was a first-rate artiste, the Squire, I knew, would be my humble slave. I despised no wheel, however apparently insignificant, in the works of the machinery of power. I ruled my master by the agency of such finished dinners, as had never before appeared upon his hospitable, but hitherto simple board. The establishment of which I was thus placed at the head, was by no means a large one. Mrs. Arden had been her own housekeeper, aided and abetted by a hard-working but very mediocre cook. The good Squire was a sincere mourner for a gentle and affectionate wife; but I am sure, notwithstanding, that the recherché dinners which I caused to be served up to him, solaced his honest heart not a little. This is not said in malice. Is it not a material world? Has not man's nature been truthfully described as ‘half brutal, half divine?' A late well-known author, burst into tears, over the cold cutlets served up to him on his return from his wife's funeral. If she had been B |