Show WOMANS alio ambitions of literary aspirants discouraged A HOME i it Is a for a woman to quit tho arena of domestic love and duty the editor of the courier allaan received personally addressed he following appeal which is a sample of hundreds of similar letters coming to him during the year KY aug 25 enclosed you will land two of luy essays please take a few moments out of your busy time to read them what I 1 want to do is tn writ for your write poetry essays letters I 1 think I 1 can do it and do it well I 1 could for our paper buti dont want to as it is only a daily now you can help me so much wont you please do so I 1 need some treat men to bring me out you can do it if you will I 1 will strife my very best to bo a credit to you spur paper AMELIA would have lain in obscurity always if it had apt been for the help of D and wont you please help me luurs truly the matter alluded to and accompanying compa nying thas note consists of two prose essays upon trite subjects cf about tho average standard of the average schoolgirls composition and so reut and irrelevant as that if they possessed ten times the intrinsic merit they do possess they would still be able eor newspaper uses of alie writer we know nothing she may be old and ugly or she may be young and pretty it ia one comfort eliat she does not present herself as is so often the case as an invalid whose sole hope of obtain ing a livelihood is her pen or as a widow with helpless children who seeks to eke out a too scanty income by verse making we judge her to be a young person of spirit who seeks to attain some figure in alie world and if she be such we could put her aspirations to the blush and cause her heart to sink within her by showing her women of genius culture and experience and plenty of them who havo long ago abandoned ambition and who ask only work which will bring bread to the hungry and medicine to the sick we turn away from her vanity and pride to the presence and pressure of the ghast lest forma of affliction and claims of misfortune as one turns away from all that is arrogant and giddy to all that is weighty sorrowful and pitiable in life to be sure a newspaper is not an eleemosynary institution but each of us owes can afford to charity and the world has too many cases of real distress to attend to among those who have fallen upon the literary and journalistic wayside to stop to look after girls who pant for glory and im abino that the sure high road to fame is the interest of some fancied great man who if he put himself to the trouble of extending it would probably seize the opportunity to establish a vicious and baleful influence demanding in the end some dishonoring tribute for his services let us consider tho subject how ever in a larger way we will assume that our correspondent is young and fair that she has pure emotions tender sensibilities and noble purposes and that with training and practice she might reach bome measure of literary proficiency fici ency grant these bilings and if she possesses a wise friend who could tell her tho truth ho would say for goda bake and for your own fly from this illusion but if you cannot ay aside your pen lay aside hope and peace of mind and all the better aims open to the heart and hands of a good woman it is tad enough when a woman must detach herself from her household her kingdom and take the field of battle to earn her living by independent exertion it is a crime for a woman voluntarily to quit the arena of domestic love and duty where god and nature placed her at once the of morality and faith the source and resource of childhood and manhood the ahnne the altar and the citadel of human life but of all the ways of getting a living which the roan forced to get her living can adopt writing ia the most precarious and exposed and the least re the roost honest the most honorable the and the kindest answer which can ho made to puch letter as that which suggests this article is the bluntest and most uncouth to wits if you are not obliged to undertake a career dont try it are educate yourself for a nurse fur an accountant for a saleswoman go fora milliner goon the stage adopt anything rather than the dia ease called literature for ink h poison and the pen like the jacc lin of the assyrian prince finds tho heart of it holder and rankles there the chores of time are strewn with literary wreck who can be numbered by the myriad which and un heeded have gono down in mid ocean leading not a ripple on its calmest surface nor a memory be hind genius which 1 3 eaid to be a madness will force its way in wig doin and the worlds despite and mores alie pity 1 it is as irrepressible in women as in men but woe to him or her who mistakes emotion for genius allowing for the sake of argument that as wordsworth puts it the paramount duty which heaven lays for ita own honor camana cumana buffering heart is the development of his intellect in its highest forms and the application of its forces to original production and admitting for the mo menttie truth that mans perdition to be safe when for the truth he ought to die the lesson still remains that the conventions vent ions of modern life which a recent english writer not declared to bethe prosody of art mark within very distinct lines the paths of duty and common sense which lead not less to the success of a career than ho happiness of a home no great work ever sprang from the morbid visions of a disordered fancy vanity may be part of beuls of genius take their start in the commonplaces common places of real life and young people particularly young women of cultivated taste should shun as they would a pitfall the notion that they are called to some mission not clearly defined by the circumstances which belong to their everyday every day existence women like charlotte bronte are thrust out of the and simplicity the serenity and happiness of home in spite of themselves women like george sand and george eliot caine into the world of action and strife to euner and disturb going hence in sorrow and after licea wasted upon the impossible what wise pure thoughtful woman would wish to follow in their foot slept but they arc the immortals in their sum total of wretchedness no account is taken of the silent singers in whom to the burning of the unquenchable lire of aho unattained in conception must bo added the tortures of personal defeat and material failure As to our present correspondent of whose personality we know nothing let her bethink herself seriously of these rough words which arc not ill intended in their purpose nor at heart ungracious let her cease to wish to be famous and acaru to wish only to do good let her if she must write find in her local paper a anoro than sufficient vehicle of communication with the public and utilizing this let her deliver such preachments preach ments as she has to deliver to those with whose character and needs she is best acquainted thu may she try her wings about the parent neat and if tho eacret gift bo hers if hc bo of gods holy martyrdom the world to labor and to bufter she will chiae to her kingdom and its crown of thorns shall be placed upon her brow and all the insignia of sorrow shall bo bla zoned upon her bosom but if in mercy she ia reserved for n happier fate and instead of such a career as even poor amelia welby had she is destined to grace a home whose is its obscurity she may find ip these lines not the rebuke with which she will now dis miss them perhaps in wounded pride or worse in angered vanity but some hints for making a husband happier and some suggestions toward the better training of a bouso full of children |