A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Changes of Customs
them. Two homely proverbs were held in higher estimation in my
early days than they are now–– ‘The master’s eye makes the horse
fat;’ and, ‘If you would be well served, serve yourself.’° Some
gentlemen took pleasure in being their own gardeners, performing
all the scientific, and some of the manual, work themselves.
Well-dressed young men of my acquaintance, who had their coat
from a London tailor, would always brush their evening suit
themselves, rather than entrust it to the carelessness of a rough
servant, and to the risks of dirt and grease in the kitchen; for in
those days servants’ halls were not common in the houses of the
clergy and the smaller country gentry. It was quite natural that
Catherine Morland should have contrasted the magnificence of
the offices at Northanger Abbey with the few shapeless pantries
in her father’s parsonage.° A young man who expected to have his
things packed or unpacked for him by a servant, when he travelled,
would have been thought exceptionally fine, or exceptionally
lazy. When my uncle undertook to teach me to shoot, his first
lesson was how to clean my own gun. It was thought meritorious
on the evening of a hunting day, to turn out after dinner, lanthorn
in hand, and visit the stable, to ascertain that the horse had been
well cared for. This was of the more importance, because, previous
to the introduction of clipping, about the year 1820, it was a
difficult and tedious work to make a long-coated hunter dry and
comfortable, and was often very imperfectly done. Of course,
such things were not practised by those who had gamekeepers,
and stud-grooms, and plenty of well-trained servants; but they
were practised by many who were unequivocally gentlemen, and
whose grandsons, occupying the same position in life, may perhaps
be astonished at being told that ‘such things were.’
I have drawn pictures for which my own experience, or what I
heard from others in my youth, have supplied the materials. Of
course, they cannot be universally applicable. Such details varied
in various circles, and were changed very gradually; nor can I
pretend to tell how much of what I have said is descriptive of the
family life at Steventon in Jane Austen’s youth. I am sure that the
ladies there had nothing to do with the mysteries of the stew-pot
or the preserving-pan; but it is probable that their way of life
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