conservatism, of male egotism, of male jealousy, of
poverty, of ignorance, and of prejudice. These chains are weaker to-day,
and the goodwill that shall not die will break them yet; but many
women, a few of whose names follow, gave while enslaved an idea of
woman's quality. Examine indeed this short list:[5]

[5] I associate the arts with intellectual quality. (See "Woman and the
Paintpot.") Broadly, I believe that all achievements, artistic or
otherwise, proceed from intellect.

_Painting:_ Angelica Kauffmann, Madame Vigee le Brun, Rosa Bonheur.

_Music and drama:_ Rachel, Siddons, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, Teresa
Carreno, Sadayacco.

_Literature:_ George Eliot, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Madame de Stael,
Madame de Sevigne, Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Browning. More recent,
Mrs. Alice Meynell, Miss May Sinclair, "Lucas Malet," Mrs. Edith
Wharton, "Vernon Lee."

_Social service and politics:_ Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Miss Jane
Addams, Madame Montessori, Mrs. Fawcett, Mrs. Ennis Richmond, Mrs.
Beecher Stowe, Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Havelock Ellis, Mrs. Sidney
Webb, Miss Clementina Black, Josephine Butler, Mrs. Pankhurst, Elizabeth
Fry. Observe the curious case of Mrs. Hetty Green, financier.

This list could be enormously increased, and, as it is, it is a random
list, omitting women of distinction and including women of lesser
distinction. But still it contains no unknown names, and, though I do
not pretend that it compares with a similar list of men, it is an
indication. I am anxious that the reader should not think that I want to
compare Angelica Kauffmann with Leonardo, or Jane Austen with
Shakespeare. In every walk of life since history began there have been a
score of men of talent for every woman of talent, and there has never
been a female genius. That should not impress us: genius is an accident;
it may be a disease. It may be that mankind has produced only two or
three geniuses, and that one or two women in days to come may redress
the balance, and it may be that several women have been mute inglorious
Miltons. We do not know. But in the matter of talent, notably in the
arts, I submit that woman can be hopeful, particularly because most of
the names I give are those of women of the nineteenth century. The
nineteenth century was better for woman than the eighteenth, the
eighteenth better than the seventeenth: what could be more significant?
In the arts I feel that woman has never had her oppor