for
piano and viola, and piano and 'cello, two trios, a quintette, and
three string quartettes, as well as a symphony, a suite, and overtures
based on "Endymion," "Thanatopsis," "Sardanapalus" (produced by Anton
Seidl, in New York), "Hiawatha," and "Atala."

CHAPTER V.

THE WOMEN COMPOSERS.

This is not the place to take up cudgels for a contest on the problem
of woman's right to respect in the creative arts. There are some, it
is true, who deny fervently that the feminine half of mankind ever has
or can or ever will do original and important work there. If you press
them too hard they will take refuge up this tree, that all women who
ever have had success have been actually mannish of mind,--a dodge in
question-begging that is one of the most ingenious ever devised; a
piece of masculine logic that puts to shame all historic examples of
womanly fallacy and sophistry. It seems to me that the question is
easily settled on this wise: it is impossible for a rational mind to
deny that the best work done in the arts by women is of better
quality than the average work done by men. This lets the cat's head
out of the bag, and her whole body follows pell-mell.

In a few instances it seems to me that the best things done by women
equal the best things done by men in those lines. The best verses of
Sappho, the best sonnets of Mrs. Browning, the best chapters of George
Eliot, the best animal paintings of Rosa Bonheur, do not seem to me
surpassed by their rivals in masculine work. If anything in verse of
its sort is nobler than Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," it
is still in manuscript. If there is any poet of more complete
individuality than Emily Dickinson, I have not run across his books.
In music I place two or three of Miss Lang's small songs among the
chief of their manner.

All over the world the woman-mind is taking up music. The ban that led
Fanny Mendelssohn to publish her music under her brother's name, has
gone where the puritanic theory of the disgracefulness of the musical
profession now twineth its choking coils. A publisher informs me that
where compositions by women were only one-tenth of his manuscripts a
few years ago, they now form more than two-thirds. From such activity,
much that is worth while is bound to spring. Art knows no sex, and
even what the women write in man-tone is often surprisingly strong,
though it is wrongly aimed. But this effort is like the bombast of a
young people or