" Every
day devoted to such work was "commercially" lost, as publishers
did not fail to tell her. But that was the work she could do, and
do with exceeding joy. She could do it better pictorially, on
account of her lifelong knowledge of living things afield, than
any other woman had as yet had the strength and nerve to do it.
It was work in which she gloried, and she persisted. "Had I been
working for money," comments the author, "not one of these nature
books ever would have been written, or an illustration made."
When the public had discovered her and given generous approval to
"A Girl of the Limberlost," when "The Harvester" had established
a new record, that would have been the time for the author to
prove her commercialism by dropping nature work, and plunging
headlong into books it would pay to write, and for which many
publishers were offering alluring sums. Mrs. Porter's answer was
the issuing of such books as "Music of the Wild" and "Moths of
the Limberlost." No argument is necessary. Mr. Edward Shuman,
formerly critic of the Chicago Record-Herald, was impressed by
this method of work and pointed it out in a review. It appealed
to Mr. Shuman, when "Moths of the Limberlost" came in for review,
following the tremendous success of "The Harvester," that had the
author been working for money, she could have written half a
dozen more "Harvesters" while putting seven years of field work,
on a scientific subject, into a personally illustrated work.
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