ader to some elderly or infirm person. There is a demand for
private readers, but few can fill such a place, though we fancy
everybody can read. Even where there is intelligence so that one is a
pleasant reader, there are few who can manage the voice well enough to
read several hours in succession as is often desired.

A woman with artistic tastes will probably do better service in studying
ways of making beautiful homes or in lines of decorative work than by
striving to paint great pictures. Let her paint the pictures if she is
moved to do it and has time, and if they turn out to be great pictures
that will be well; but until her greatness has been proved, would it not
be better for her to depend for her support on the less ambitious
departments of her art, especially as a beautifully planned home gives a
higher artistic pleasure than second-rate painting?

It is strange that so few women are architects. Architecture is the
sublimest of arts, and yet it has room to employ humble talents. A
practical woman with a love of beauty, a mathematical mind, and a
knowledge of mechanical drawing would undoubtedly be a great help to an
architect in planning dwelling-houses. At any rate, as the matter stands
at present, very few interiors are either convenient or beautiful in
proportion to the money spent on them. A woman might not plan a public
building well, but her help is needed in all our homes, and especially
in tenement houses.

I once knew a woman who was a poet. Her songs were full of beauty and
helpfulness, but poetry is not lucrative. She took a position as teacher
of literature in a girls' school. There never had been such teaching as
hers in the school before. She showed the girls the poetic meaning of
the great writers, and gave them a moral and intellectual impulse which
lasted through life. Sometimes in an hour of inspiration she still wrote
poems. Her teaching was so excellent that she was sought after in other
schools. But she found that when she undertook too much her spirit
flagged. She could still teach, but she could not write. So she went
back to her first plan. Of course it was hard work. The girls were often
dull and unsympathetic. Yet her study of literature helped her in her
own great purpose of life, and the contact with youth was sometimes an
inspiration in itself. Usually, however, teaching is an injury to a
writer, because of the need of constantly adapting one's self to
inferior minds.

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