natural causes, and are, therefore, susceptible of explana- tion. Let us examine these causes. The insufficiency of female education, though counting for something, can- not be the only nor even the principal reason. In the study of music, for example, nothing has hindered woman from attaining the highest development of which she is capable. The theatrical profession is as free to actresses as to actors, yet neither the most assiduous study of the grand musical compositions, nor perpetual contact with the popular taste in the dramatic art, which did much to create the immortal composers, have endowed woman with either dramatic or musical genius. "We wish to be understood. She imitates and learns admirably; she is great in execu- tion, but she does not originate. But what is it to orig- inate? It is to possess genius. For example, dramatic genius is founded not merely on the knowledge of men, but of man; that is, it depends neither upon talent, nor finesse, nor knowledge of individuals, nor the sagacious observation of the follies of a day, but rather upon that powerful and generative faculty which rests upon a knowl- edge of human nature in the aggregate. But we have al- ready shown that the faculties of which genius is composed are precisely those in which women are deficient by nature. They may, therefore, prove themselves ingenious, touch- ing, and even eloquent in the most elevated regions of art — rarely superior. By compensation, or, rather, in conse- quence of the same law, they ought to excel in elegiac poetry, in romance^ in epistolary effort, and in conversa- tion. In the last two, indeed, they are, and should be, beyond the reach of masculine emulation. Here their very defects become qualities of success. Their excitability be- ing more keen, and their individuality less pronounced, they receive impressions more readily, and betray them
