ne coming, and once blistered it badly trying to dry it before the
fire, so that it was a very rough work; but it was a portrait, a daub, a
likeness, and the hand was his hand and no other. The figure was
correct, and the position in the chair, and, from the moment I began it,
I felt I had found my vocation.

What did I care for preachers and theological arguments? What matter who
sent me my bread, or whether I had any? What matter for anything, so
long as I had a canvas and some paints, with that long perspective of
faces and figures crowding up and begging to be painted. The face of
every one I knew was there, with every line and varying expression, and
in each I seemed to read the inner life in the outer form. Oh, how they
plead with me! What graceful lines and gorgeous colors floated around
me! I forgot God, and did not know it; forgot philosophy, and did not
care to remember it; but alas! I forgot to get Bard's dinner, and,
although I forgot to be hungry, I had no reason to suppose he did. He
would willingly have gone hungry, rather than give any one trouble; but
I had neglected a duty. Not only once did I do this, but again and
again, the fire went out or the bread ran over in the pans, while I
painted and dreamed.

My conscience began to trouble me. Housekeeping was "woman's sphere,"
although I had never then heard the words, for no woman had gotten out
of it, to be hounded back; but I knew my place, and scorned to leave it.
I tried to think I could paint without neglect of duty. It did not occur
to me that painting was a duty for a married woman! Had the passion
seized me before marriage, no other love could have come between me and
art; but I felt that it was too late, as my life was already devoted to
another object--housekeeping.

It was a hard struggle. I tried to compromise, but experience soon
deprived me of that hope, for to paint was to be oblivious of all other
things. In my doubt, I met one of those newspaper paragraphs with which
men are wont to pelt women into subjection: "A man does not marry an
artist, but a housekeeper." This fitted my case, and my doom was sealed.

I put away my brushes; resolutely crucified my divine gift, and while it
hung writhing on the cross, spent my best years and powers cooking
cabbage. "A servant of servants shall she be," must have been spoken of
women, not negroes.

Friends have tried to comfort me by the assurance that my life-work has
been better done by the pen