unless you are assured of a genuine predisposition towards it, to find
another and less exhausting, less disappointing occupation than
journalism. For it will surely prove both exhausting and disappointing to
those whose hearts are not set fast upon it.

But how are you, the woman who desires to be a journalist, to ascertain
whether you have that genuine predisposition, those natural gifts which
will renew your strength and take away the bitterness of disappointments?
You may come some way towards deciding the point by answering these three
questions:--

1. Are you seriously addicted to reading newspapers and periodicals?

2. Does the thought regularly occur to you, apropos of fact or
incident personally observed: "Here is 'copy' for a paper"?

3. Have you the reputation among your friends of being a good
letter-writer?

If you cannot reply in the affirmative to two of these queries, then take
up pokerwork, or oratory, or fiction, or nursing, but leave journalism
alone. If by good fortune you are able to say "Yes" to all three of them,
you may go forward rejoicing, for only perseverance will be necessary to
your success; you are indeed "called."

* * * * *

There are several ways of entering upon journalism. One is at once to
found or purchase a paper, and thus achieve the editorial chair at a
single step. This course is often adopted in novels, sometimes with the