Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



is a degree of good breeding towards those 

 who are greatly your inferiors which is in 

 truth common humanity and good nature ; 

 and yet I have known some persons, who in 

 other respects were well bred, brutal to their 

 servants and dependants. This is mean, and 

 implies a hardness of heart, of which I am 

 sure you never will be guilty." 



Most Portuguese titles and modes of address 

 are somewhat exaggerated. In writing to an 

 equal, you put on the envelope, " Illustrissimo 

 Excellentissimo Senhor," which may be taken 

 as the equivalent of our " Esq." Servants, 

 even labourers, invariably use " Senhor " and 

 " Senhora " in speaking to each other. A 

 small and perky boy, whom we have made 

 porter at our gate, always hazards a remark 

 to me on the weather as I pass in or out ; and 

 if I do not immediately understand it, shouts 

 at me as if I were deaf. He is growing very 

 fat on his congenial occupation, but it is to 

 be feared that he will find the summer, when 

 our kitchen is closed, a saison maigre. 



If our servants are to us a strange and in- 

 teresting study, what must we be to them ? 

 We come heaven knows whence, not at the 



74 



