5 Feet of Fury

John Derbyshire: Downton Abbey fan

My mother was one of these rebels. That spell of domestic service convinced her that any other kind of employment would be preferable, so she became a professional nurse.

I’m not sure I would have been of the same temper. In an unguarded moment once, I told an interviewer that I might give up writing to work as a butler. Domestic service is in fact making a comeback. I can’t see that assisting Lord Moneybags with his toilet or supervising his kitchen is less honorable than cutting code for Mark Zuckerberg or writing copy for Rupert Murdoch (though a butler’s employer nowadays is more likely to be a Russian oligarch or Chinese princeling).