“I was fond of study, was quick to learn, and when only seventeen was so far advanced that I felt ready to begin life on my own account. Like the others, I was restless to leave a home which had never been more than a shelter to me. I had no dreams of marrying, and walking in the same treadmill in which so many millions of women have worn out their souls as well as their bodies. I could never see why all women should spend their lives in cooking and nursing children any more than why all men should till the soil, which was civilized man’s primal occupation. I saw, too, very clearly, that women could never be more than half-fledged mentally, or have any real influence in the world of affairs so long as they were dependents financially. They must achieve pecuniary independence before they could hope for wider orbits, as it were. To get an opportunity to carve my own way in life was my unceasing wish. So unceasing and earnest was it that it created its own fulfilment. You may put it down as a great truth, that a desire held with earnestness, faith and persistence, will bring to the one who holds it its object. ‘Ask and ye shall receive’ is a law that is operative everywhere. “I held myself ready to do whatever I could find that needed doing, but always in the day-dreams of my future I saw myself a successful painter and author, because hundreds of beautiful pictures danced before my mind and begged to be put on canvas, and thousands of thoughts and fancies flitted through my brain that I longed to share with all who would hear me. “I had a gift for drawing, but had advanced as far as I could go without better instructors than were attainable where I lived. One thing, however, I had, which was a blessing to my artistic sense and a solace to my spirit. That was a beautiful landscape to look upon. As the mental atmosphere of home was always inharmonious I lived outdoors as much as possible, and from the fine view the location commanded I extracted much profound pleasure. “One day I saw an advertisement in a newspaper to the effect that a lithographer in a little city fifty miles away wanted an assistant whom he could train to suit his needs. The next day found me face to face with the advertiser, talking myself up unblushingly. He was surprised, of course, that a girl whose frocks as yet came no lower than her ankles, should want to learn an art presumably sacred to men; but after some hesitation he engaged me, and I found myself launched in life as an independent, self-supporting factor. It was a proud day for me, I assure you. To the hardships of the situation I never gave a thought. The chance to work was the wedge that was to split up the tree of my future, so I set myself to hammering upon it with might and main. My pecuniary recompense was microscopical, but even that gave me no distress. Such as it was I managed to live within it, and look forward to something better.