Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/277

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the writer must transfer to his sheet of paper the soul swaying under emotions.

Two home-going stenographers from a newspaper office passed a forlorn little figure sitting on the edge of the curbing of a city fountain. The girl's thin shoulders were shaken by silent sobs Her mouse-like teeth were set hard in her thin, colorless lips. The first stenographer who passed did not notice that the child was crying. In fact, she was thinking what a hot day it had been, and how hard it was to work in a great office amid the clickety-click of typewriters. The second girl, her eyes open to all that went on around her, despite the heat, spied the heaving shoulders, unlocked the hard-set lips and heard a story which led to the exposure of a great wrong, which placed the girl on the staff of a big paper, and which lifted her protége above want and misery.

Which one of those two girls hurrying away from the same office was the born writer? Fine phrases alone will not make a writer. You must cultivate the knowledge of human nature, the power of observation and the ability to put this combination of knowledge and observation into a word form which will reach the hearts of your readers.

Write every day. Write of everything you see. Cultivate the letter habit. If your friends enjoy your letters and beg for more, you are