In my experience, an American's recommendation of a servant is not usually valuable.

We are too good-natured a race; we hate to say the unpleasant thing; we shrink from speaking the unkind truth about a poor fellow whose bread depends upon our verdict; so we speak of his good points only, thus not scrupling to tell a lie--a silent lie--for in not mentioning his bad ones we as good as say he hasn't any.

The only difference that I know of between a silent lie and a spoken one is, that the silent lie is a less respectable one than the other.

And it can deceive, whereas the other can't--as a rule.

We not only tell the silent lie as to a servant's faults, but we sin in another way: we overpraise his merits; for when it comes to writing recommendations of servants we are a nation of gushers.