d expressions that characterise most male countenances. No
one mood leaves a permanent imprint on the features, for through the
amplitude of feeling a new side of the mind is continuously revealed.
Faces with an unchanging expression belong really to people low in
artistic endowment.

Of some significance, again, is the variability in the mental power of
genius, leading to what may be called "a periodicity in production."
Goethe has spoken somewhere of "the recurrence of puberty" in the
artist. This idea may perhaps, without too much straining, be compared
with the functional periodicity of woman. The periods in the life of a
creative artist often assume the character of a crisis--a kind of
climax of vital energy. Sterile years precede productive periods, to
be followed by more barren years. The circle of activity is not
broken, it is but interrupted; the years of apparent sterility really
leading up to, and preparing for, the creative periods. I may point
out here a thought in passing in connection with the child-bearing
functions of women. This is brought forward by many as the most
serious objection to women being able to attain success in any of the
arts. The objection is not really sound. No creative work can be
carried on without interruptions. The important part in all such work
is not to be uninterrupted, but to be able to begin again. The new
experiences gained give new power; a fresh and wider view. And woman
has in her supreme function of motherhood--an experience denied to
men; this should give her greater, and not less, creative capacity.
What is really needed is the freedom, the training and the desire that
shall direct expression, so that woman may enrich the arts with her
own special experience.

It is useless to argue that woman's past record in the arts holds out
no such promise. We know really very little about woman's genius. One
thing is, however, certain: the only possible test of it is trial, for
without this there is no basis of judgment, no means of deciding
whether there be genius or no. If, as I believe, woman's creative
capacity arises out of, and is essentially connected with, her sexual
functions, how can it have been possible to employ such power in the
arts in a society where the natural use of her sex has been restricted
and not allowed a free expression?--a society, moreover, in which the
pregnant woman has been regarded as an object of shame or ridicule.

To look at this question of