GIRLS’ CHANCES AS ILLUSTRATORS.
“Don’t you believe it is easier, to-day, for a young girl to succeed in illustrating than it is for a young man?”
“Well, possibly,” she answered. “Neither girl nor boy can succeed without aptitude and the hardest kind of work, but girls are rather novel in the field, and their work may receive slightly more gentle consideration to begin with. It would not be accepted, however, without merit.”
“Hasn’t the smaller remuneration which women accept something to do with the popularity of the woman illustrator?”
“Very little, if any,” she answered. “I find that women are about as quick, perhaps more so, than men, to demand good prices for clever work, although they have less of the egotism of men artists.”
“You judge from your own case,” I suggested.
“Not at all. I never possessed cleverness. It was need and determination with me, and I can honestly say that all I have gained has been by the most earnest application. I never could do anything with a dash. It was always slow, painstaking effort; and it is yet.”
“Do you ever exhibit?” I asked.
“No,” said Mrs. Stephens, “not any more. There was a time when I had an ambition to shine as a painter, and as long as I had that ambition I neither shone as a painter nor made more than a living as an illustrator. I made up my mind, however, that I was not to be a great woman painter, and I decided to apply myself closely to the stronger, illustrative tendency which fascinated me. From that time on my success dates, and I am rather proud now that I was able to recognize my limitations.”
“Did you find that in marrying you made your work more difficult to pursue?” I ventured, for her interesting home life is a notable feature of her career.
“I cannot say that I did. There is more to do, but there is also a greater desire to do it. I love my boy, and I take time to make his home life interesting and satisfying. When he was ill, I removed my easel from the studio to a room adjoining the sick-chamber at the house, and worked there.”