CHAPTER IX.
FLEXIBLE INFLEXIBILITY.
THE first knowledge which we acquire of the Chinese is derived from our servants. Unconsciously to themselves, and not always to our satisfaction, they are our earliest teachers in the native character, and the lessons thus learned we often find it hard to forget. But in proportion as our experience of the Chinese becomes broad, we discover that the conclusions to which we had been insensibly impelled by our dealings with a very narrow circle of servants are strikingly confirmed by our wider knowledge, for there is a sense in which every Chinese may be said to be an epitome of the whole race. The particular characteristic with which we have now to deal, although not satisfactorily described by the paradoxical title which seems to come nearest to an adequate expression, can easily be made intelligible by a very slight description.
Of all the servants employed in a foreign establishment in China, there is no one who so entirely holds the peace of the household in the hollow of his hands, as the cook. His aspect is the personification of deference as he is told by his new mistress what are the methods which she wishes him to employ, and what methods she most emphatically does not wish employed. To all that is laid down as the rule of the establishment he assents with a cordiality which is prepossessing, not to say winning. He is, for example, expressly warned that the late cook had a disagreeable habit of putting the
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