woman's achievement in the arts in the old
way is no longer possible. We have proved that the natural emotional
endowment of woman is rich and varied. But there are two things
necessary for achievement: inherent aptitude and opportunity--that is,
a favourable environment for expression, in which power may be
directed into useful channels and saved from wastefully expending
itself. To deny genius to women when the opportunity for its
development has been absent is obviously unjust. The influence of
education, and the stronger driving of habit and social opinion, must
be taken into the account. Women have up till now been without two
essential qualities necessary for creating--subjectivity and
initiative. In practice they have not been able, or only very rarely,
to get beyond imitation. Through the circumstances of their lives they
have lacked the courage and conviction, even if opportunity had
arisen, necessary for creative work. For the highest achievement in
the arts they have missed the concentration, the severe devotion to
work, the control of thought and complete self-restraint, which can
come only from discipline, from long training, and freedom. Yet I make
the claim that woman, from her constitutional femininity, is a
compound of all those qualities that genius demands. The channels of
woman's energy have been everywhere choked. No great creative art has
ever been produced by a subjugated class. Art comes with freedom, with
the strong incentive of the communal spirit, and with the sense of
power. For centuries woman has been artificially individualised. Her
special function of motherhood has remained unacknowledged as a
communal work. Her emotional and mental capacities have been turned
back upon herself and her immediate belongings, with the result that
her social usefulness has been suppressed or thwarted. The emotional
feelings of woman are ever pressing, and only need to be brought into
stricter command in order to achieve. What women will accomplish no
man can say.

One word more. Let us look in this new direction, the direction of the
future, because it is there that this possible future entrance of
women into the arts becomes important. We stand in the first rush of a
new movement. It is the day of experiments. The extraordinary
enthusiasm now sweeping through womanhood reveals behind its immediate
fevered expression a great power of emotional and spiritual
initiative. Wide and radically sweeping are the