This is not the place to take up cudgels for a contest on the problem of woman's right to respect in the creative arts. There are some, it is true, who deny fervently that the feminine half of mankind ever has or can or ever will do original and important work there. If you press them too hard they will take refuge up this tree, that all women who ever have had success have been actually mannish of mind,—a dodge in question-begging that is one of the most ingenious ever devised; a piece of masculine logic that puts to shame all historic examples of womanly fallacy and sophistry. It seems to me that the question is easily settled on this wise: it is impossible for a rational mind to deny that the best work done in the arts by women is of better quality than the average work done by men. This lets the cat's head out of the bag, and her whole body follows pell-mell.

In a few instances it seems to me that the best things done by women equal the best things done by men in those lines. The best verses of Sappho, the best sonnets of Mrs. Browning, the best chapters of George Eliot, the best animal paintings of Rosa Bonheur, do not seem to me surpassed by their rivals in masculine work. If anything in verse of its sort is nobler than Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," it is still in manuscript. If there is any poet of more complete individuality than Emily Dickinson, I have not run across his books. In music I place two or three of Miss Lang's small songs among the chief of their manner.

All over the world the woman-mind is taking up music. The ban that led Fanny Mendelssohn to publish her music under her brother's name, has gone where the puritanic theory of the disgracefulness of the musical profession now twineth its choking coils. A publisher informs me that where compositions by women were only one-tenth of his manuscripts a few years ago, they now form more than two-thirds. From such activity, much that is worth while is bound to spring. Art knows no sex, and even what the women write in man-tone is often surprisingly strong, though it is wrongly aimed. But this effort is like the bombast of a young people or a juvenile literature; the directness and repose of fidelity to nature come later. The American woman is in the habit of getting what she sets her heart on. She has determined to write music.

With an ardor that was ominous of success, Miss Amy Marcy Cheney, after a short preliminary course in harmony, resolved to finish her tuition independently. As an example of the thoroughness that has given her such unimpeachable knowledge of her subject, may be mentioned the fact that she made her own translation of Berlioz and GavaËrt. She was born in New Hampshire, of descent American back to colonial times. At the age of four she wrote her opus 1. She is a concert pianist as well as a frequent composer in the largest forms. She is now Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.

MRS. H.H.A. BEACH.

Not many living men can point to a composition of more maturity and more dignity than Mrs. Beach' "Jubilate," for the dedication of the Woman's Building at the Columbian Exposition. The work is as big as its name; it is the best possible answer to skeptics of woman's musical ability. It may be too sustainedly loud, and the infrequent and short passages piano are rather breathing-spells than contrasting awe, but frequently this work shows a very magnificence of power and exaltation. And the ending is simply superb, though I could wish that some of the terrific dissonances in the accompaniment had been put into the unisonal voices to widen the effect and strengthen the final grandeur. But as it is, it rings like a clarion of triumph,—the cry of a Balboa discovering a new sea of opportunity and emotion.

Another work of force and daring is the mass in E flat (op. 5), for organ and small orchestra. It is conventionally ecclesiastic as a rule, and suffers from Mrs. Beach' besetting sin of over-elaboration, but it proclaims a great ripeness of technic. The "Qui Tollis" is especially perfect in its sombre depth and richness. The "Credo" works up the cry of "crucifixus" with a thrilling rage of grief and a dramatic feeling rare in Mrs. Beach' work. This work was begun at the age of nineteen and finished three years later. It was given with notable effect in 1892 by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston.

Mrs. Beach' "Valse Caprice" has just one motive,—to reach the maximum of technical trickiness and difficulty. There is such a thing as hiding one's light under a bushel, and there is such a thing as emptying a bushel of chaff upon it.

"Fireflies" is a shimmering and flitting caprice of much ingenuity, but it keeps in the field of dissonance almost interminably, and clear harmony is not so much the homing-place of its dissonance, as an infrequent glint through an inadvertent chink. This neat composition is one of four "Sketches for the Piano," of which "Phantoms" is delightful with ghostliness. "In Autumn" is a most excellent tone-poem, and "Dreaming" is a well-varied lyric. As a colorist Mrs. Beach is most original and studious. Her tireless hunt for new tints often diverts her indeed from the direct forthright of her meaning, but the "Danse des Fleurs" is rich in its gorgeousness. The flowing grace of the "Menuet Italien" makes it an uncharacteristic but charming work.