_Who Faces the Necessity to Earn a Living_
It is indeed a problem, my dear Gladys, to face stern-visaged Necessity
after walking with laughing-lipped Pleasure for twenty-two years.
What an unforeseen event that your father should sink his fortune in a
rash venture and die of remorse and discouragement scarcely six months
after you were travelling through Europe with me, and laughing at my
vain attempts to make you economize.
You have acted the noble and womanly part, in using the last dollar of
your father's property to pay his debts, and I could imagine you doing
no other way.
But now comes the need of earning a livelihood for yourself, and your
delicate mother.
I know you have gone over the list of your accomplishments and taken
stock of all your inherited and acquired qualities. You play the piano
well, but in these days of Paderewskies and pianolas, no one wants to
employ a young girl music-teacher. You do not sing, and if you did, that
would not afford you a means of support. The best of natural voices need
a fortune spent before half a fortune can be earned.
You dance like a fairy, and swim like a mermaid, and ride like an Indian
princess, but these accomplishments are not lucrative, save in a Midway
Plaisance or a Wild West show. You are well educated and your memory is
remarkable. You have a facility in mathematics, and your knowledge of
grammar and rhetoric will, as you say, enable you to pass the
examination for a teacher in the public schools after a little brushing
up and study. Then, with the political influence of your father's old
friends, you will no doubt be able to obtain a position.
I recollect you as surpassingly skilful with the needle. I know you
once saw a charming morning gown in Paris which I persuaded you not to
buy at the absurd price asked for it, after the merchant understood we
were Americans. And I remember how you passed to another department,
purchased materials, went home to our hotel, and cut and made a
surprising imitation of the gown at one-tenth the cost.
Why have you not considered turning this talent to account? Though the
world goes to war and ruin, yet women will dress, and the need of good
seamstresses ever exists.
Go to some enterprising half-grown Western or interior Eastern town,
announce yourself in possession of all the Paris styles (as you are),
and launch out. Increase your prices gradually, and go abroad on your
savings at the end of a year, then come back with new ideas, a larger
stock, and higher prices.
You will be on the road to fortune, and can retire with a competence
before you are middle-aged. A little skill with the scissors and
needle, lots of courage and audacity, and original methods will make a
woman succeed in this line of endeavour.
But why do I not approve of the profession upon which you have almost
decided--that of teaching--you ask.