ast
should not overwork their bodies and brains and wear themselves out
trying to be men, than why it is quite right and fitting they should
walk up to the polls and cast a vote for men who more or less control
their destinies.

To digress a moment: When it comes to the arts, that is quite another
matter. If a woman finds herself with a talent (I refrain from such a
big word as genius, as only posterity should presume to apply that
term to any one's differentiation from his fellows), by all means let
her work like a man, take a man's chances, make every necessary
sacrifice to develop this blessed gift; not only because it is a duty
but because the rewards are adequate. The artistic career, where the
impulse is genuine, furnishes both in its rewards and in the exercise
of the gift itself far more happiness, or even satisfaction, than
husband, children, or home. The chief reason is that it is the supreme
form of self-expression, the ego's apotheosis, the power to indulge in
the highest order of spiritual pride, differentiation from the mass.
These are brutal truths, and another truth is that happiness is the
universal goal, whatever form it may take, and whatever form human
hypocrisy may compel it to take, or even to deny. Scientific
education has taught us not to sacrifice others too much in its
pursuit. That branch of ancestral memory known as conscience has
morbid reactions.

To create, to feel something spinning out of your brain, which you
hardly realize is there until formulated on paper, for instance; the
adventurous life involved in the exercise of any art, with its
uncertainties, its varieties, its disappointments, its mistakes; the
fight, the exaltations, the supreme satisfactions--all this is the
very best life has to offer. And as art is as impartial as a microbic
disease, women do achieve, individually, as much as men; sometimes
more. If their bulk has not in the past been as great, the original
handicaps, which women in general, aided by science and a more
enlightened public, are fast shedding, alone were to blame. Certainly
as many women as men in the United States are engaged in artistic
careers; more, if one judged by the proportion in the magazines.

Although I always feel that a man, owing to the greater freedom of his
life and mental inheritances, has more to tell me than most women
have, and I therefore prefer men as writers, still I see very little
difference in the quality of their work. Often,