children the rich legends of their land, carrying
on the old traditions that have come down from generation to
generation, and thus creating among themselves a communion of heroes.
Then, again, these Spanish women seem never to cease from singing as
they carry on their many and heavy labours. The women sing far more
frequently than the men. Music is to them an instinctive means of
expression; they do not learn it, it belongs to them, like dancing
belongs to the natural child. And these folk songs, where the words
are often improvised by the singer, seem to give utterance to natural
out-door things--a symbol of the people's life, of its action, its
work, very strong in its appeal, which blends so strangely joy with
sadness. A special quality that often surprised me in these songs was
the way in which the people translate and use the music of other
countries. I have heard popular English tunes sung by the women as
they work, which have ceased to be common in their sentiment and
become full of a tenderness into which passion has fallen; even slangy
music-hall tunes take a new character, a lively brilliance that no
longer is vulgar. This music is the true singing of the people, and if
you would feel all the beauty of its appeal you must be in touch with
the spirit that cries in it, with work, and passion, and life.

It may seem that all this has taken us rather far away from our
inquiry into the strength of the artistic impulse in women. The way,
however, is largely cleared. We have proved that there is, at least, a
possible mistake in the opinion that those experiments in creative
expression, which we call variations, are necessarily inherent in the
male, rather than in the female. Speaking biologically, we may regard
woman, in common with man, as a potentially creative agent with a
striving will, and thus able to change under the stimulus of
appropriate opportunity.

Now, to look at the question for a moment in a different light--in
relation to the special qualities that are facts of actual experience
in woman's character as it is to-day. It is proved--if scientific
determination of such qualities were necessary--that women are more
sensitive to suggestion and receptive of outward influences; that they
have keener affectability, and thus tend to be more emotional and,
within certain limits, more imaginative than men. They react to both
physical and psychical stimuli more readily, and it would seem that
their brain acti