374  '  MAN   AND   WOMAN.
last  two  hundred  years,  against  every  famous  actor
whose  name  survives  it  seems  usually  possible  to
place  a  still  more  famous  actress.  With  women's
success  as  actresses  may  be  associated  their  perhaps
equally  undoubted  success  as  singers,  singing  being
in  part  vocalised  dramatic  art.  It  is  not  difficult  to
find  the  organic  basis  of  woman's  success  in  acting.
In  women  mental  processes  are  usually  more  rapid
than  in  men;  they  have  also  an  emotional  explosive-
ness  much  more  marked  than  men  possess,  and  more
easily  within  call.  At  the  same  time  the  circum-
stances of  women's  social  life  have  usually  favoured
a  high  degree  of  flexibility  and  adaptibility  as  regards
behaviour;  and  they  are,  again,  more  trained  in  the
vocal  expression  both  of  those  emotions  which  they
feel  and  those  emotions  which  it  is  considered  their
duty  to  feel.  Women  are,  therefore,  both  by  nature
and  social  compulsion,  more  often  than  men  in  the
position  of  actors.  It  is  probable  also  that  women
are  more  susceptible  than  men  to  the  immediate
stimulus  of  admiration  and  applause  supplied  by
contact  with  an  audience.  In  the  allied  art  of
dancing  women  are  also  supreme.
