Stop, oh Man! You have had a very long, long innings, remember! From the time of Abraham, and ages before that worthy patriarch ever turned Hagar out into the wilderness, you have been setting Woman alongside your cattle, and curling your whip with a magnificent carelessness round both at your pleasure, yea! even offering both with indifferent readiness for sale and barter. You have enjoyed centuries of liberty; it is now woman’s turn to taste the sweets of freedom. She does very little in the Arts, you say? I grant you that in the first of them, Poetry, she does little indeed. I do not think we shall ever have a female Shakespeare, for instance. But, at the same time, I equally do not think we shall ever again have a male one! Yet it is to be admitted that none of the leading women poets can compare for an instant with the leading men in that most divine and primæval of Arts. But I should not like to assert that the great woman-Dante or woman-Shelley may not yet arise, for it is to be borne in mind that woman’s education and woman’s chances have only just begun. In Music, again, she is deemed deficient. Yet we are confronted at the present day by the fact that many of the most successful and charming of song writers are women. And the following appears in the Dresden _Neueste Nachricten_ (October 18, 1902):-- “Up to the present date we have always entertained the opinion that the composition of music was a gift denied to the female sex, elegant trifles (as exceptions) only confirming our doubts. And now an English lady appears on the scene, amazing the musical world of Dresden. She was as a young girl already a distinguished artist, a virtuoso on the piano, and played--as ‘Miss Bright,’--under the direction of Dr. Wullner, a piano concerto of her own composition, with extraordinary success. Then marriage separated her from her art for several years. Now (after the death of her husband), the young widow, Mrs. Knatchbull, has composed an opera--text, music, and instrumentation all being her own work--and has brought it with her to Dresden. The music is so captivating, and above all, holds one so strongly that one exclaims in astonishment, ‘Can this be the work of a woman?’ It is more than probable that the opera will be produced at the Dresden Opera House.”