Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife | Page 7

her character. After creating his characters, and placing
them in situations where their individuality has proper scope for action,
the author must let them work out their own salvation. A thoroughly
artistic work is marked throughout by the quality of "the inevitable,"
and for this the reader should always be seeking. There is no surer
indication of shallowness than the desire to read only about pleasant
subjects and characters and events. It is akin to the habit of ignoring the
existence of everything disagreeable in life, which Dickens has
satirized in his character, Mr. Podsnap. And "Podsnappery" exists
among women even more than among men, because of their more
sensitive emotional nature. If women are to join with men in making
the world better, they must not blink at the misery and vice about them,
and the evil elements in human nature and society which produce these.
To be good and brave is better for a grown woman than to be "sweet"
and "innocent," in the limited sense of these terms. A woman, like a
man, should, "see life steadily, and see it whole."
The foundation of a critical habit in reading has a practical bearing,

inasmuch as it is a direct training for the positions of book-reviewer
and manuscript reader for magazine and book publishers. Since women
read more than men, the woman's view of a manuscript is often
preferred by publishers. Therefore there are more women than men in
the position of literary adviser. These are paid salaries ranging from
$25 to $50 a week. Manuscripts are read by the piece for from $3 to $5
each. Book reviews are paid for at all prices, from the possession of the
book alone to the payment of a cent a word. It is best for the aspiring
critic to practice herself on book reviews first. In these she can with
profit display her power to analyze the artistic construction of books,
and so develop her abilities as a manuscript reader.
The knowledge of books and the ability to digest their contents are
necessary to the making of a library worker, an employment which the
great increase in libraries, through the benefaction of Andrew Carnegie
and others, is offering to thousands of American women. The salaries
are low, but in considering entering upon the work, weight should be
given to the opportunities for literary knowledge and culture it affords
and its refined surroundings. The making of a descriptive catalogue of
the home library, using the card index system, forms an ideal test for
the young woman who is uncertain whether she has the taste and ability
required in this sort of work. To the student in the home, even though
she intends to follow some other vocation, such as teaching or writing,
such an inventory of her intellectual store-house will be invaluable. It
matters not how small the library is, for "intensive cultivation" is as
profitable in mental culture as in agriculture.
Even such accomplishments as music and painting are most cultural
when pursued as if the intention of the student were to teach them.
Knowledge of technique and of the methods by which its difficulties
are overcome is the foundation of all appreciation of art. The only true
connoisseur is the one who can enter into the delight felt by the artist in
creating his work. Exercise leads to invention. The ancients well said
that the contortions of the sibyl generated her inspiration. Critics have
been sneeringly defined as "those who have failed in literature and art,"
but this is not true of the greatest critics, who never carried their
creative work to the point of success simply because they had found a

better vocation in criticism before reaching such a point. What a loss to
the world it would have been had Ruskin developed into a painter, even
a great one, instead of the master interpreter and teacher of painting that
he did become!
Household employments, such as cooking, needlework, etc., as
vocations for the unmarried woman, no less than the married, need only
be mentioned here, as their appropriateness for the girl at home is
obvious, and they are fully discussed elsewhere in this series. It should
be suggested, however, that the greater leisure of the unmarried woman
enables her to try experiments in these subjects while the married
housewife is too fully occupied by the routine of her duties to
undertake them. Indeed, if a woman become a notable cook after
marriage, it is often a sign that she is not a notable wife or mother.
It is an old saying that,
"My son's my son till he gets him a wife, But my daughter's my
daughter all her life."
By the common bond of sex, a daughter is her mother's natural
companion in sympathy, however separated from