he
"betwixt and between" who are always fighting a battle between taste and
talent. They have a compensation,--they are less one-sidedly developed
than if all their talents were concentrated in one; but they hardly
realize this.

Now, how is the line to be drawn among the musical? Who are to earn
their living by music and who are to be amateurs? Especially as fifty of
our second hundred can with proper education easily excel fifty of the
first hundred who have less education. Who is to decide whether it is
prudent for a girl to spend all she has on a musical education with the
hope of making herself independent in the end? No one can decide
positively, but at least do not let any girl fancy that she is the one
of ten thousand or even one of the ten. And let her ask for the judgment
of more than one good musician before she is sure she belongs to the
first hundred. If she loves music supremely, it may be worth while for
her to spend everything on her education, even if she finally has to
support herself with her needle, for it will be its own reward, and
having tried to do what she believed to be her best, even her failure
will not be a failure of character.

If there is any occupation delightful in itself, there will always be
many people who will hope that they have talent enough to make it a
source of livelihood. We all wish to be musicians and artists and poets.
The most bitter disappointments come to those who try these paths and
fail. It has always seemed to me that where bread-winning is a
necessity, we ought first to secure the means of living in some humbler
way, and then there may be a chance to pursue these higher occupations
for their own sake, and not to degrade them by false methods which we
think will bring us money.

I have heard of a poor girl who had a genius for acting. She went out to
service while she was studying, she learned how to do housework well,
and she had that resource always left to her in case she should fail on
the stage. She succeeded, but she could not have succeeded if she had
insisted on acting at the outset.

I knew a girl who had ability as a story writer. Two positions were open
to her at the same time, one as a book-keeper, the other as writer for a
certain department in a third-rate magazine. She chose to be a
book-keeper, for she knew that if she took the magazine work she must
write whether in the spirit or not, and that the rank of the magazine
was such that she would hav