THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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musical powers weaken. Man controls his emotions and can give an outward expression of them. In woman they are the dominating element. There is another phase of the feminine character which may bear upon the solution of this problem, and that is the inability of woman to endure the discouragements of the composer and to battle with the prejudice and indifference, and sometimes with the malicious opposition of the world that obstructs his progress. If her triumph could be instant; if work after work were not to be assailed, scoffed at and rejected; if she were not liable to personal abuse, to the indifference of her own sex on the one hand and masculine injustice on the other, there would be more hope of her success in composition.”
One quality heretofore accorded to the feminine nature is that of endurance. If we go back to the history of the early Christian Church we surely find no indication of the want of endurance on the part of woman. One has but to look out over the world to-day to realize that it is the woman rather than the man who is distinguished in the exercise of this qualification. Indeed, the progressive spirit of woman often meets with the rebuff that it is man’s province to achieve, woman’s to endure.
If we wish an instance of one who through scoffs, discouragements, indifference of her own sex on the one hand and masculine injustice on the other, where can we find a more shining example of the steadfast and courageous pursuit of the object to be attained than in the life and labors of Susan B. Anthony? It can hardly be said of her that she lives in emotion and acts from emotion.
At what age the emotions are supposed to lose their force is not stated; but he is a manly man, indeed, who, of the years of Miss Anthony, evinces as great interest and activity in the vital questions of the day; in the future of the young people of our land; in the present good of the humblest of her sisters. It may be urged that Miss Anthony is an exception. So are the great composers exceptions who are said to require, pre-eminently, these elements of character. But in so far as these characteristics are necessary to the ability of musical composition in its highest form, woman is more richly endowed than her brother, man.
Still another reason why woman can never succeed as a composer is that woman reaches results mainly by intuition. “ Her susceptibility to impressions and her finely tempered organization enable her to feel and perceive where man has to reach results by the slow process of reason.” You who have heard Rev. Anna Shaw illustrate in her inimitable way the difference of reaching a result by reason or by intuition will enjoy this illusion.
Acknowledging the list of female composers found in the appendix of his work, this writer asserts: “But of all the works written by these numerous composers, hardly one is known to the lyric stage today,” and that the indisputable reason therefor is, that having had equal advantages with men, they have failed as composers. Inasmuch as this is found in a revised edition of the work published last year, the entire statement is open to question. The defense of our sisters may safely be left to their own achievements. An argument against their ability is as interesting reading at this date as was the elaborate proof published years ago that an ocean steamship was an impossibility; which publication was brought from England to these shores in the impossible steamship.
No; it is to the assertion relative to the equal conditions that your attention is called. It is that, having had equal advantages with men, they have failed. Let us find, if we can by our female intuition, the masculine reasoning through which he establishes such a conclusion. He says: “ It is a curious fact that nearly all the great music of the world has been produced in humble life and has been developed amid the environments of poverty and in the stern struggle for existence.” “The enduring music has been the child of poverty, the outcome of sorrow, the apotheosis of suffering.” “ In this sphere of life, where music seems to have had its origin, the lot of woman is bounded by homely but unremitting cares. Her existence is mainly devoted to the same tedious routine of labor from the rising to the setting sun” (he might well have added several more hours; the birth and rearing of children, sickness,