aspiration and the inspiration of our mothers (for some they must have had) there has come down to us practically nothing. Art, as we know it, is a masculine product, wrought by the hands and conceived by the brains of men; the works of art that have forced themselves into the enduring life of the world have been shaped, written, builded, painted by men. They have achieved and we have imitated—on the whole, pitifully. Let that be admitted; and then let it also be admitted that it could hardly have been otherwise, and that the wonder is that woman has wrought in art not so little, but so much.
For when one comes to consider the conditions under which succcessive generations of women have lived such narrow life as was permitted to them, have realized such narrow ambitions as they were permitted to entertain, one begins to understand that it would have been something of a miracle if there had arisen amongst them thinkers and artists worthy to walk with the giants who have left their impress on the race. One begins to understand that it would be difficult to devise a better means of crushing out
