Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/82

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Side Talks with Girls

is done is all that can make it so. The position you occupy is gauged entirely by the worth of your work. A thorough mender is a thousand times better than a careless dressmaker. You would be horrified if I called you dishonest, and yet when you force your friends to buy one of your badly painted pictures, when you annoy editors with worthless stories, and when mediocrity stamps whatever you do, it would be wiser and more honest for you to choose one of the quieter paths in life. It is a misfortune for a woman to have to earn her living. But it is a misfortune which, thank God, she has met, oh, so many times, bravely and honestly. When she goes out into that world where she has to give a dollar's worth of work for a dollar, then I do not think she wants to be a beggar; but she is this if she tries to foist upon a circle of acquaintances and friends miserable specimens of work. She is self-respecting and honorable when she does well the work which she finds will pay her the best, for, after all, we are all working, as the clever little Western woman wrote about her newspaper, "Not for favor, not for fun, but for cash." I do not want you always to think of the dollar as the sole aim of your work, but I do want you to remember that if you do good work you will get good money.