200 MORE POT-POURRI 



experienced servants forget that no crockery can or will 

 stand boiling water being poured into it suddenly, espe- 

 cially in cold weather; the quick expansion makes all 

 glass and china fly. But the same thing goes on over 

 and over again in every household, from expensive dishes 

 or dairy-pans to servants' jugs and tumblers, and partly 

 one is oneself to blame for not having explained the 

 simple fact to each new girl who comes. 



In the chapter on Furnishing in my first book I re- 

 commended that young people should go to sales instead 

 of buying rubbish at wholesale furniture warehouses. 

 Commenting on this, the excellent and amusing writer 

 of * Pages from a Private Diary ' reproves me and says : 

 ' Why drive good taste into a mere fashion, and so quad- 

 ruple the price of pretty things for those who can appre- 

 ciate them ? ' This was not my intention, though I admit 

 it may be a result of my advice. But I only wish some- 

 one had given me the hint when I was young. However, 

 if it does improve taste, and if it does raise the price of 

 pretty things, surely one's sympathies in such matters are 

 rather with those who have to sell the things they value 

 than with those who can afford to buy them. My one 

 object, both in this book and the last, is to give everyone 

 so far as I can anything I know or have learnt in 

 a long life. And in writing the first book, under the 

 impression that it would be an absolute failure, I used to 

 console myself by saying : ' Well, if it helps ten people 

 just a little, that makes it worth while.' 



Old Sir Thomas Browne, in his quaint and self- 

 opinionative way, puts pretty strongly what I feel : ' It 

 is an honorable object to see the reasons of other men 

 wear our Liveries, and their borrowed understandings do 

 homage to the bounty of ours ; it is the cheapest way of 

 beneficence, and, like the natural charity of the Sun, 

 illuminates another without obscuring itself. To be 



