example, with which they keep on chattering during the finest passages
in the greatest masterpieces. If it is true that the Greeks excluded
women from their theatres they were quite right in what they did;
at any rate you would have been able to hear what was said upon the
stage. In our day, besides, or in lieu of saying, _Let a woman keep
silence in the church_, it would be much to the point to say _Let a
woman keep silence in the theatre_. This might, perhaps, be put up in
big letters on the curtain.

And you cannot expect anything else of women if you consider that the
most distinguished intellects among the whole sex have never managed
to produce a single achievement in the fine arts that is really great,
genuine, and original; or given to the world any work of permanent
value in any sphere. This is most strikingly shown in regard to
painting, where mastery of technique is at least as much within their
power as within ours--and hence they are diligent in cultivating it;
but still, they have not a single great painting to boast of, just
because they are deficient in that objectivity of mind which is so
directly indispensable in painting. They never get beyond a subjective
point of view. It is quite in keeping with this that ordinary women
have no real susceptibility for art at all; for Nature proceeds in
strict sequence--_non facit saltum_. And Huarte[1] in his _Examen de
ingenios para las scienzias_--a book which has been famous for
three hundred years--denies women the possession of all the higher
faculties. The case is not altered by particular and partial
exceptions; taken as a whole, women are, and remain, thorough-going
Philistines, and quite incurable. Hence, with that absurd arrangement
which allows them to share the rank and title of their husbands they
are a constant stimulus to his ignoble ambitions. And, further, it is
just because they are Philistines that modern society, where they