A Memoir of Jane Austen

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34 Changes of Customs
opposite rows, so that the facilities for flirtation, or interesting
intercourse, were not so great as might have been desired by both
parties. Much heart-burning and discontent sometimes arose as
to who should stand above whom, and especially as to who was
entitled to the high privilege of calling and leading off the first
dance: and no little indignation was felt at the lower end of the
room when any of the leading couples retired prematurely from
their duties, and did not condescend to dance up and down the
whole set. We may rejoice that these causes of irritation no longer
exist; and that if such feelings as jealousy, rivalry, and discontent
ever touch celestial bosoms in the modern ball-room they must
arise from different and more recondite sources.
I am tempted to add a little about the difference of personal
habits. It may be asserted as a general truth, that less was left to
the charge and discretion of servants, and more was done, or
superintended, by the masters and mistresses. 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; needle-work, in some form or other, was
their chief sedentary employment.
But I doubt whether the rising generation are equally aware
how much gentlemen also did for themselves in those times, and
whether some things that I can mention will not be a surprise to