// ppgen source jexblake-src.txt
// 20151115152136todd
// KD Weeks, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
// first edit: 2/7/2017
.dt The Life of Sophia Jex-Blake, by Margaret Todd, M.D.—A Project Gutenberg eBook
.de a:link { text-decoration: none; }
.de div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA;border:1px solid silver; margin:1em 5% 0 5%; text-align: justify;}
.de .blackletter { font-family: "Old English Text MT", Gothic, serif;}
.de .epubonly {visibility: hidden; display: none; }
.de @media handheld { .epubonly { visibility: visible; display: inline; } }
.de .htmlonly {visibility: visible; display: inline;}
.de @media handheld { .htmlonly { visibility: hidden; display: none; } }
// Project specific------------
.de div.box { border: 1px solid black; width:50%; clear: both; max-width: 100%; margin: 1em auto; text-align: center; }
.de div.title { width:50%; clear: both; max-width: 100%; margin: 1em auto; text-align: center; }
.de div.icrj p { text-align:right; }
//----
.de .column-container { margin: auto; clear: both; }
.de .left { display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: bottom; width:49%; }
.de .right { display: inline-block; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; width:49%; }
.de ins.correction { text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray; }
.de .quote { font-size: 90%; margin-top: 1.0em; margin-bottom: 1.0em; }
.de .linegroup .group { margin: 0em auto; }
.sr t |\[oe\]|œ|
// modify hang to do full justify
.sr h |text-align: left; text-indent: -1em;|text-align: justify; font-size: 90%; text-indent: -1em;|
.sr h |||
.sr h |
|
|
.sr t || |
.sr t |||
// create errata table page references
.dm cref $1
.if t
$1
.if-
.if h
#$1:corr$1#
.if-
.dm-
// create markup
.dm corr_noid $1 $2
.if h
$2
.if-
.dm-
.dm corr $1 $2 $3
.if t
$3
.if-
.if h
$3$3
.if-
.dm-
.dm start_summary
.fs 90%
.in 4
.ti -4
.dm-
.dm end_summary
.fs 100%
.in
.dm-
.dm start_title
.dv class='title'
.dm-
.dm end_title
.dv-
.dm-
//Begin quote
.dm start_quote
.dv class='quote'
.if t
.in 2
.if-
.dm-
//End Quote
.dm end_quote
.dv-
.if t
.in
.if-
.dm-
// Begin Poetry
.dm start_poem
.sp 1
.fs 95%
.nf b
.dm-
// End Poetry
.dm end_poem
.nf-
.fs 100%
.sp 1
.dm-
.nr break-wrap-at "- —"
.pb
.dv class='tnotes'
.ce
Transcriber’s Note:
.if t
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical
effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs or quotations
in which they are referenced.
.if-
.if h
Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text and are
linked for ease of reference.
.if-
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Only
the most egregious of these have been corrected if they occur
within quoted text, particularly juvenile matter. Please see the
transcriber’s #note:endnote# at the end of this text for details
regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during
its preparation.
.if h
The cover image has been created, based on title page information, and
is added to the public domain.
.if-
.if h
.dv class='htmlonly'
.il fn=cover.jpg w=60%
.dv-
.if-
.dv-
.bn 001.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h1
THE LIFE OF SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE
.sp 4
.bn 002.png
.dv class='box'
.ce
By the same Author
.hr 50%
.nf c
MONA MACLEAN
FELLOW TRAVELLERS
WINDYHAUGH
THE WAY OF ESCAPE
GROWTH
.nf-
.dv-
.bn 003.png
.bn 004.png
.pb
.il id=frontis fn=i_004.jpg w=60% ew=60%
.ca
Samuel Laurence pinx. \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ Emery Walker ph. sc.
Sophia Jex-Blake
at the age of 25
.ca-
.bn 005.png
.pb
.sp 4
.nf c
THE LIFE OF
SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE
BY
MARGARET TODD, M.D.
(GRAHAM TRAVERS)
.sp 8
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1918
.nf-
.bn 006.png
.pn +1
.sp 8
.ce
COPYRIGHT
.sp 8
.nf c
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
.nf-
.bn 007.png
.sp 8
.nf c
TO ALL THOSE
MENTIONED IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES
OR PASSED OVER
FROM IGNORANCE OR WANT OF SPACE,
WHO LENT A HELPING HAND
TO A BRAVE AND UNSELFISH FIGHTER,
THIS BOOK IS
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
.nf-
.sp 8
.bn 008.png
.bn 009.png
.pn vii
.pi
.sp 4
.h2
PREFACE
.sp 2
There are several reasons why it has seemed worth while
to write the life of Sophia Jex-Blake at some length.
1. She was one of the people who really do live. In the
present day a woman is fitted into her profession almost as
a man is. Sixty years ago a highly dowered girl was faced
by a great venture, a great quest. The life before her was
an uncharted sea. She had to find her self, to find her way,
to find her work. In many respects youth was incomparably
the most interesting period of a life history.
2. S. J.-B. has left behind her (as probably no woman of
equal power has done) the record of this quest. She was a
born chronicler: almost in her babyhood she struggled
laboriously to get on to paper her doings and dreams; and
she was truthful to a fault. We have here the kind of thing
that is constantly “idealised” in present day fiction,—have it
in actual contemporary record,—with the added interest that
here the story begins in an old-world conservative medium,
and passes through the life of the modern educated working
girl into the history of a great movement, of which the
chronicler was indeed magna pars. The reader will see
how more and more as the years went on S. J.-B.’s motto
became “Not me, but us,” till one is tempted to say that
she was the movement, that she stood, as it were, for women.
3. That, so to speak, was her “job”; but she never
grew one-sided; never forgot the man’s point of view.
.bn 010.png
.pn +1
No woman ever took a saner and wider view of human
affairs.
4. In spite of the heavy strain thrown by conflicting outlook
and ideals on the relation between parents and child,
the reader will see in the following pages how that relationship
was preserved. This is perhaps the most remarkable
thing in the whole history, and it is full of significance and
helpful suggestion for us all in these critical days.
5. And lastly, it proved impossible to write the life in any
other way. When S. J.-B. was a young woman, Samuel
Laurence was asked by her parents to make a crayon drawing
of her. After some hours’ work, he threw down his
pencil. “I must get you in oils or not at all,” he said.
Those words have often been in the mind of the author
of this book.
.bn 011.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CONTENTS
.ta l:2 h:50 r:6 bl=n
#PART I:part1#
CHAPTER I
| | PAGE
Childhood | | #1:chap1.1#
| Birth, parentage and descent—Early influences—“Sweet\
Sackermena.” |
CHAPTER II
School Life | | #11:chap1.2#
|A “terrible pickle”—Home letters—Holidays—“Poems”—A\
confession. |
CHAPTER III
School Life—Continued | | #24:chap1.3#
| Indifferent health—Various educational experiments—S. J.-B.’s\
character as seen by her schoolfellows. |
CHAPTER IV
School Life—Concluded| | #35:chap1.4#
| Leaves school abruptly—Fresh start—Illness of her mother\
and sister—Letter from her father—Confirmation. |
CHAPTER V
Life at Home| | #50:chap1.5#
| Friendship with her mother—Dreams of authorship—Self-centred\
life—Makes acquaintance of Norfolk cousins. |
.bn 012.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER VI
Life at Queen’s College| | #62:chap1.6#
| Comes into touch with Feminist movement—Goes to Queen’s\
College—Friction—Hunt for lodgings—Is appointed mathematical\
tutor—Correspondence with her father as to accepting\
payment for her work—Certificate won “with great\
credit.” |
CHAPTER VII
Friendship| | #78:chap1.7#
| All-round development—Capacity for friendship and service—Friendship\
with Miss Octavia Hill. |
CHAPTER VIII
A Step Beyond | | #95:chap1.8#
| Confidence in her mother—Fresh dedication of her life.|
CHAPTER IX
First Experience of Edinburgh| | #103:chap1.9#
| The problem of realizing the vision—Goes to study educational\
methods in Edinburgh—Chequered experiences—Church-going\
and religious difficulties—Consults Rev. Dr. Pulsford—Letters\
from her mother—An “increasing purpose.” |
CHAPTER X
Germany| | #117:chap1.10#
| Miss Garrett’s efforts to obtain medical education—Comes to\
prospect in Edinburgh—She and S. J.-B. go canvassing\
together—Disappointment—S. J.-B.’s desire to study educational\
methods farther afield—Germany—Göttingen—Mannheim—Appointed\
English teacher at Grand-ducal Institute. |
CHAPTER XI
Life as a Teacher at Mannheim| | #129:chap1.11#
| Letters to her mother—Success of her work—Transient wave\
of unpopularity—Letter to her mother on Biblical criticism. |
.bn 013.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER XII
Various Projects and Ventures| | #147:chap1.12#
| Return home delayed by scarlet fever—Death of a college\
friend—Mr. Plumptre recommends S. J.-B. as founder and\
Lady Principal of modern Girls’ School at Manchester. |
CHAPTER XIII
A Visit to some American Schools and Colleges| | #159:chap1.13#
| Opposition of parents—Goes to Boston—Makes acquaintance\
of Dr. Lucy Sewall—R. W. Emerson—Dinner at the Emersons—Visits\
Niagara—Inspects various colleges (Oberlin,\
Hillsdale, St. Louis, Antioch) and schools—Correspondence\
with her brother—Views on American education. |
CHAPTER XIV
Questionings| | #172:chap1.14#
| Gets to know women doctors in Boston—Assists with dispensing\
in New England Hospital for Women—Gradual\
initiation into hospital work—Heart-searchings as to her\
own future—Law?—The Ministry?—Religious difficulties—Medicine? |
CHAPTER XV
Pioneer Work in America| | #188:chap1.15#
| Writes “A Visit”—Published by Macmillan—Good reviews—Begins\
study of medicine—Application to Harvard—Letters\
from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Dr. Brown-Séquard—Obtains\
clinical teaching in Massachusetts General Hospital—Goes\
to New York—Obtains private teaching in anatomy—Summing\
up of three years in America. |
CHAPTER XVI
Going Home| | #202:chap1.16#
| Visit of Dr. Sewall to England—Rapprochement between\
S. J.-B. and her father—Dr. Elizabeth and Dr. Emily Blackwell\
found Medical College for Women in New York—S. J.-B.\
starts house-keeping and medical study there—Illness of her\
father—Return to England. |
.bn 014.png
.pn +1
#PART II:part2#
CHAPTER I
Drifting| | #213:chap2.1#
| Life at Brighton—Perplexities as to future education.|
CHAPTER II
At the Gates of the Citadel| | #218:chap2.2#
| Correspondence with Mrs. Butler, Professor Sidgwick and others\
as to possibility of University training—Goes to Edinburgh—Canvasses\
professors.|
CHAPTER III
Success?| | #232:chap2.3#
| Support of Scotsman—Formal application to Dean of Medical\
Faculty—Consent (a) of Medical Faculty, (b) of Senatus, to\
receive S. J.-B. as a student.|
CHAPTER IV
A Check| | #242:chap2.4#
| S. J.-B.’s run of popularity—Difficulties of situation—Decision\
of Senatus vetoed by University Court.|
CHAPTER V
Opening of Edinburgh University to Women | | #253:chap2.5#
| S. J.-B. reinforced by Mrs. Thorne and Miss Pechey—Dr. King\
Chambers tries—and fails—to get women admitted to St.\
Mary’s Hospital—Edinburgh University Court agrees to\
admit women to separate classes.|
CHAPTER VI
The Hope Scholarship| | #262:chap2.6#
| More lady students—Cives Academiae Edinensis—Difficulty of\
getting teachers—Miss Pechey deprived of Hope Scholarship—Newspaper\
support and opposition—Differences among\
professors.|
.bn 015.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER VII
Practical Difficulties| | #276:chap2.7#
| Science classes—Efforts to get anatomical teaching—Correspondence\
in the Lancet.|
CHAPTER VIII
The Riot at Surgeons’ Hall| | #285:chap2.8#
| Women begin study of anatomy—Apply for admission to\
Royal Infirmary—Opposition and support—The riot—Defence\
of women students by “Irish Brigade” and other\
friendly students—Great newspaper controversy—Annual\
Meeting of Royal Infirmary—Crowded audience—Removal to\
St. Giles’ Church—S. J.-B. speaks—The first woman since\
Jenny Geddes to speak in that place—Professor Christison’s\
protest and S. J.-B.’s retort—Hubbub—“Fighting with\
beasts at Ephesus”—Formation of “National Association.”|
CHAPTER IX
The Action for Libel| | #306:chap2.9#
| Dr. Christison’s assistant brings action for libel against S. J.-B.—Her\
brother’s support—She speaks at suffrage meeting in\
London—Makes acquaintance of Rt. Hon. James Stansfeld—The\
action for libel—Damages one farthing, but heavy costs—Criticisms\
of the verdict.|
CHAPTER X
Some Friendships and Holidays| | #320:chap2.10#
| £1000 raised by public subscription to defray costs of action—S.\
J.-B. takes holiday in Paris—Commune—Visit of Dr. Lucy\
Sewall to England.|
CHAPTER XI
The Question of Professional Examination | | #330:chap2.11#
| Continued practical difficulty in getting teaching and as to\
professional examination—Counsel’s opinion taken by both\
sides—Friendly professors and others—Women refused\
entrance to first professional examination, but in response to\
lawyer’s letter are admitted and pass—Move and countermove.|
.bn 016.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER XII
The Royal Infirmary| | #340:chap2.12#
| Marriage of several of the lady students—Continuance of\
struggle in Edinburgh together with enquiries as to chances\
elsewhere—Sympathy of Professor Sidgwick and Mr. James\
Stuart—Rev. Dr. Guthrie—Infirmary Annual Meeting again—Success\
of the Women’s party—“Ring out the old!”—Question\
of legality of votes of firms—Litigation—Success—S.\
J.-B. a public character.|
CHAPTER XIII
The Action against the Senatus| | #352:chap2.13#
| Impasse—Friends and well-wishers advise appeal to Court of\
Law—University Court suggests that lady matriculated\
students should give up right to graduation and be content\
with certificates of proficiency—S. J.-B. and others bring\
Action of Declarator against Senatus to define position—Much\
searching of archives for evidence—Senatus decides to\
defend action, but six professors dissent.|
CHAPTER XIV
The Lord Ordinary’s Judgment| | #362:chap2.14#
| S. J.-B. lectures in London on the whole situation—Lord\
Shaftesbury in chair—Difference with Mrs. Butler—S.\
J.-B. publishes Medical Women—Lord Ordinary decides substantially\
in favour of women students—Widespread congratulations.|
CHAPTER XV
Paying the Price| | #377:chap2.15#
| Many claims, medical, legal, journalistic, etc., on S. J.-B.—Gift\
of £1000 from Mr. Walter Thomson—S. J.-B. is rejected\
in first professional examination—Newspaper interest and\
enquiries—Sympathy.|
CHAPTER XVI
End of the Battle in Edinburgh| | #388:chap2.16#
| Interest of Rt. Hon. James Stansfeld—Introduces S. J.-B. to\
some of his colleagues in the Cabinet—S. J.-B. works hard\
and successfully for first election of women on Edinburgh\
School Board—University appeals against Lord Ordinary’s\
.bn 017.png
.pn +1
decision—Persevering efforts of all the women students to get\
on with their education somehow and somewhere—St.\
Andrews—Durham—Ireland—Edinburgh Court of Session\
(thirteen judges) decides by narrow majority in favour of\
University—The judgment of the Lord Justice Clerk.|
CHAPTER XVII
The Question in Parliament| | #398:chap2.17#
| Increasing public and newspaper interest and criticism—Mrs.\
Anderson writes to Times, strongly advising women to study\
abroad and practise without registration—S. J.-B. replies—University\
censured in press—Apologia of Principal and\
S. J.-B.’s reply—Sir David Wedderburn’s notice of Bill to\
reduce vote to Scottish Universities by amount of salaries of\
Edinburgh professors withdrawn on hearing of Lord Ordinary’s\
judgment—S. J.-B. again interviews Home Secretary\
and members of Cabinet—Things looking well when Gladstone\
dissolves Parliament and appeals to country!—S. J.-B.\
interviews Mr. Russell Gurney and others—At Mr. Cowper\
Temple’s request she and her solicitor draft “A Bill to remove\
doubts as to the power of Scottish Universities”—She is\
summoned to London to discuss matter—Bill introduced and\
sixty-five petitions at once presented in its favour—Fails to\
get through—In debate on motion the two members for\
Edinburgh (Town and Gown) join issue.|
CHAPTER XVIII
The London School of Medicine for Women| | #415:chap2.18#
| Discussion in Parliament calls all latent opposition into play—S.\
J.-B.’s failure to pass examination used as weapon against\
the women—She questions justice of rejection—A great\
mistake—Reproaches—By advice of Dr. Anstie and Mr.\
Norton she founds the London School of Medicine for Women—Miss\
Irby’s visit to it.|
CHAPTER XIX
The Russell Gurney Enabling Act| | #423:chap2.19#
| Difference between S. J.-B. and Mrs. Anderson, who nevertheless\
joins Council of School—Mr. Cowper Temple brings forward\
his Bill again, and, after defeat, brings forward a “Foreign\
Degrees Bill,” which is also defeated—Lord Sandon on\
behalf of Government admits importance of question—Mr.\
Simon suggests that women should qualify by means of\
examination in Midwifery only, as was then possible—This\
agreed to after legal enquiries, and the women students send\
.bn 018.png
.pn +1
in their names, but examiners resign—S. J.-B.’s longing to\
break away and do rough hospital work in Bosnia—Deputation\
to President of Privy Council—“Foreign Degrees Bill”\
again defeated, but Government intimate to Mr. Russell\
Gurney that he should bring in an “Enabling Bill”—Though\
late in session this passes and becomes law—Miss\
Pechey and Miss Shove induce Irish College to avail itself of\
ability conferred by new Act—The Woman Hater.|
CHAPTER XX
At Last | | #436:chap2.20#
| S. J.-B. and Miss Pechey study and graduate at Berne, and\
obtain Licence of Irish College.|
CHAPTER XXI
The Royal Free Hospital| | #441:chap2.21#
| Hospital training still refused to the women coming on—Mr.\
Stansfeld introduces S. J.-B. to Chairman of Royal Free\
Hospital, whom he has already interested in the matter—R.F.H.\
opened to women—Opening of London University\
to women—In organisation of London School for Women,\
S. J.-B. is set aside—Mrs. Thorne becomes Hon. Secretary—persona\
grata—Retrospect. |
#PART III:part3#
CHAPTER I
Early Days in Practice| | #455:chap3.1#
| Special difficulties of women doctors in general and of S. J.-B.\
in particular—Opens Dispensary—Assistance of distinguished\
Edinburgh doctors—Early success—Letters to colleagues\
and friends—Views on Suffrage and on life in general.|
CHAPTER II
Last Illness of Mrs. Jex-Blake| | #470:chap3.2#
| S. J.-B. called south for last time—Unavailing efforts—Death\
of Mrs. Jex-Blake.|
.bn 019.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER III
Patients and Friends | | #476:chap3.3#
| S. J.-B. removes to Bruntsfield Lodge—Letters to old friends—Interest\
in education of girls—Views on problems and\
mysteries of life—Paying and non-paying guests—Beginnings\
of Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children—Her\
love of poetry—Her books.|
CHAPTER IV
Public Life| | #490:chap3.4#
| Interest in all public questions relating to women—Too\
masterful and uncompromising in working with others—Publishes\
The Care of Infants—Her coöperation much in\
demand in parliamentary business—Assists Edinburgh\
lecturers in their efforts to obtain charter—Efforts fail, but\
examinations of Conjoint Colleges thrown open to women—Re-publication\
of Medical Women—The Englishwoman’s\
Year Book—Health Lecture to Women—Founding of\
Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women—Its difficulties—Opposition.|
CHAPTER V
Re-opening of Edinburgh University to Women| | #502:chap3.5#
| S. J.-B. writes article for Nineteenth Century—Views on\
marriage, etc.—Her Hindu students—Appointed a lecturer on\
Midwifery in the Extra-Mural School—Death of Dr. Lucy\
Sewall—S. J.-B.’s renewed efforts to gain admission for\
women to St. Andrews—Final appeal to her own Alma\
Mater “to decide a question which has been under consideration\
for twenty-five years”—Success—Congratulations\
from members of “National Association”—S. J.-B.’s\
characteristics as doctor and as citizen. |
CHAPTER VI
Driving Tours. Animal Friends | | #513:chap3.6#
CHAPTER VII
The Sabbatical Year | | #523:chap3.7#
| Search for a suitable house—Send-off from friends in Edinburgh—Windydene—Life\
in retirement—Fruit-growing—Dairy—Friends—Books—Winters\
abroad—Interest in\
public affairs—Distrust of Germany—Suffrage—Death of\
Professor Masson—S. J.-B.’s religious attitude—Health—Last\
illness. |
.bn 020.png
.pn +1
APPENDICES
A.| Pedigree of the Jex-Blake family. Origin of compound\
surname | #543:appA#
B.| “Words for the Way.”—No. 2. Rest| #544:appB#
C.| Conclusions from “A Visit to American Schools and\
Colleges” | #548:appC#
D.| The Edinburgh Extra-Mural School| #551:appD#
E.| Letter to the Times in reply to Mrs. Garrett Anderson| #552:appE#
F.| Letter to the Times in reply to the Principal of Edinburgh\
University | #555:appF#
G.| Permanent Memorials of S. J.-B.| #563:appG#
| Index| #565:INDEX#
.ta-
.sp 4
.h2
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
.ta l:2 h:42 c:3 r:14 bl=n
Sophia Jex-Blake | | #Frontispiece:frontis# |
| From a painting by Samuel Laurence| |
Thomas Jex-Blake ||To face p. #70:i093# |
| From a drawing in chalks by Henry T. Wells, R.A.||
Maria Emily Jex-Blake|| ” | #384:i409#
| From a drawing in chalks by Henry T. Wells, R.A.||
Sophia Jex-Blake| | ” | #484:i511#
.ta-
.bn 021.png
.sp 4
.h2 id=part1
PART I
.bn 022.png
.sp 4
.pm start_quote
Our great interest in biography is due to the desire to see that
the “child is father to the man”; in other words, to see how,
from boyhood to manhood and from manhood to old age,
through all change of circumstances and all widening of intellectual
and practical interests, we can detect the same unique,
individual nature, and link each new expression of it in speech
and action with that which preceded it.
.rj
Edward Caird.
.sp 4
.pm end_quote
.bn 023.png
.pn 1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.1
CHAPTER I | CHILDHOOD
.sp 2
Sophia Jex-Blake was born on the 21st January, 1840.
“How happy I was with my Baby this time two and twenty
years ago!” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake on the 21st January, 1862,
and, if she had greater cause than some mothers for the
plaintive note that one seems to hear through the words,
she was the first to rejoice in her great compensations.
Certainly no baby ever had a warmer welcome into the
world. At the time of her birth, her father, Mr. Thomas
Jex-Blake, a proctor of Doctors’ Commons, was living the
life of a retired gentleman with his wife at 3 Croft Place,
Hastings. Both parents, though no longer young, and in
some ways older than their years, were devotedly fond of
children, and a number of disappointments had shadowed
their married life. In January, 1840, their son, Thomas
William, was eight years of age, and their daughter,
Caroline, a staid little maiden of six. The home was
crying out for a real baby, and all were prepared to treat
the newcomer as a little queen.
And most royally did the little queen step into the position
lying at her feet. There was no doubt at all that she
meant to live. She was vital to the finger-tips, a thoroughly
wholesome little animal, with a pair of great luminous eyes,
too mature for a baby, though they retained the child look
for three score years and ten.
The Baby came of an excellent stock.[1] On both sides she
was descended from well-known Norfolk families, whose
.bn 024.png
.pn +1
lineage will be found in Burke’s Landed Gentry. Her father
was the son of William Jex-Blake of Swanton Abbots, and
her mother the daughter of Thomas Cubitt of Honing Hall.
It sounds old-world and picturesque, like Trollope’s novels
or a landscape by Constable.
.fn 1
Appendix #A:appA#.
.fn-
On the other hand, the Baby—as in later years she never
tired of saying—“came in with the penny post.” New
ideas were surging up on every side. When one thinks of
her parentage, her heredity, and the tendencies of the world
outside, one can scarcely imagine a more varied lot of elements
from which to build up a life. Of the fairies who came to
her christening, some brought great gifts, and some great
opportunities, and, when the cradle was full, one can almost
hear them say,—“What now, little girl, will you make of
that?”
Of all the gifts we know well which she considered the
greatest. “No child ever had better parents than I!”
“How I wish you had known my Mother!” Such words
were constantly on her lips. Throughout life, when she was
making holiday, she loved to go back to old Hastings, to point
out to some intimate friend the house where she was born,
the church—St. Clement’s—where she was baptised; to
wander about the old castle, and note the very rocks which
had afforded the most delightful scrambling-ground when
she was a child. There was a special point in some country
walk associated with the picture of her Father bending his
tall figure to hold her hand, while he talked to her of “the
terrible things people were doing in France.”
“No one ever had a happier childhood than I.”
In many ways she was extraordinarily fortunate in her
parents. One cannot go through the long series of carefully
preserved letters written to their youngest child without
feeling tempted to say that better people never lived. Absolutely
upright in all their dealings, devoted and unselfish in
their affection, single-heartedly religious, regarding themselves
strictly as stewards of the wealth Providence had bestowed
on them, they really were the fine flower of old Evangelical
Anglicanism. One seldom sees a husband and wife so entirely
of one mind as to what are the things that matter.
.bn 025.png
.pn +1
And if the Mother—Maria Emily Cubitt—was the one to
bring to the union the keen wit, the happy humour, which
her children inherited and loved to recall, her husband was
the first to acknowledge and rejoice in her gifts. He was her
proud lover to the day of his death. Family tradition made
it a matter of course that they should have a luxurious home,
and that all the appointments of their life should be good,
but the note of self-denial was always telling resolutely and
unobtrusively. It was her younger daughter’s boast in later
years that Mrs. Jex-Blake “would have made a splendid
poor man’s wife;” and the vulgar criticism was significant
of their whole attitude towards life, that “the Jex-Blake’s
carriage was as fine as any in the place, but there was always
a poor person in it”.
What made this attitude all the finer was the fact that
neither husband nor wife was ever tempted to undervalue
social distinctions. It was noblesse oblige always,—the
noblesse of family as much as the noblesse of Christ.
Surely better people never lived, and yet, as human standards
go, the world which they built around them was scarcely a
spacious world. “I have learnt far more from my children
than they ever learned from me,” Mrs. Jex-Blake used to
say with characteristic generosity in her old age, and hers
was one of the minds that grow and develop up to the last:
but in some ways the Evangelicalism of her middle life—even
with the advantage of her most gracious representation
of its tenets—was a cramping thing. While Caroline and
Sophia were still in the nursery, their parents had resolved,
from the best of motives, to deny them the social advantages
which their mother had enjoyed before them. Dancing and
theatre-going were wrong; novels were mainly trash; Punch
was “vulgar”. “Christ’s kingdom” was the one thing
worth considering—Christ’s kingdom as represented by the
popular preachers of the day. “The mission field” was the
great object of enthusiasm. After reading much contemporary
correspondence one is tempted to say that the making
of pen-wipers and book-markers for missionary bazaars was
the work fitly to be expected of a Christian gentleman’s
daughter.
.bn 026.png
.pn +1
From her cradle the elder sister seems to have accepted
this view of life. Her fine and massive intellect bowed to the
limitations imposed upon it. Her strong character asserted
itself in many ways, but never so as to give her parents the
proverbial “hour’s anxiety”.
And, for better or worse, into this atmosphere Sophia
Jex-Blake was born. One can scarcely wonder that she
came as a little queen. “Brother” was already at school,
his foot on the first step of a brilliant career; “Sweet Carrie”
was all that loving parents expected her to be; the new
thing came as a complete surprise. The freshness, the wilfulness,
the naughtiness of her were as the wine of life to these
staid, law-abiding people. It took their breath away sometimes,
but it was all on so small a scale, and were not all the
forces of religion in reserve to check any undue waywardness
as soon as she was old enough to understand?
The earliest samples of her handwriting are two letters
addressed to her brother,—undated, but written laboriously
in “half-text” between double lines. The quotation and
punctuation marks are added by another hand.
.pm start_poem
“dear Brother,
Your note was much ‘amiss,’
But as you sent sixpence,
I pardon the offence,
And kindly send you this.
S. L. J. B.”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
and again:
.pm start_quote
“dear Brother,
.ti 6
I must say I think you very impertinent, however I condescend
to write to you. If you write a word more nonsense your head
shall be off. I am your humble servant grand mogul.”
.pm end_quote
“Entirely her own composition” is the postscript added in
her father’s handwriting.
No doubt they spoilt her, and she must still have been
very young when her audacity and wilfulness began to cause
her parents real anxiety. In January, 1847, her Mother writes:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Sophy,
.ti 6
I am very pleased with your marker, I think it nicely done
for you. I wish you many happy returns of your birthday—now
.bn 027.png
.pn +1
you are seven years old I hope you will pray for the Holy Spirit
to keep you from sin, from disobedience, and from violence of temper.
I send you as a text for your birthday 16 Proverbs 32, and I trust
you will try hard to act upon it.... I hope you take all the care
you can of dear Papa—he says you are very good. Brother sends
love.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am your affectionate Mother,
Maria Emily Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
A day or two later she writes again:
.pm start_quote
“I am very glad to hear you had such a happy birthday—how
kind in Mary to give you that nice tea-pot. I hope you remember
to thank God for giving you so many kind friends. Be sure to take
all the care you can of dear Papa, and if he takes you for a walk do
not let him talk.
I miss Papa’s nice explaining God’s word every morning at prayers,
you must tell me what it has been about.
We like Brighton and I think I am stronger, but we shall be very
glad to be home again. I hope Mary takes care about the poor
people’s broth and the puddings for the sick children. I long to see
all my poor friends again, but I trust some one visits them and that
they do not miss me. Papa must go and read with Mrs. P. when he
is able and with Mrs. C.... Ask Mr. Macleane to bring you back
with him in his pocket, when he returns on Monday. Show him
how quiet you can be.”
.pm end_quote
It is clear the teaching of religion had already begun, if
indeed there was ever a time when it had not,—the teaching
of such genuine heartfelt religion!—under symbols that never
were suited to the mind of a sensitive child. So it is not
surprising that she was not always the Grand Mogul, poor
little soul! The next papers that survive are in a totally
different vein. They are written when she was seven or
eight years old, and the handwriting, though far from
beautiful, is much better formed.
.pm start_quote
“Dear Mrs. Blake,
.ti 6
I wish you would be so kind as to come and see me every
night in Bed-ford-shire at least tonight on Sunday Monday Tuesday
Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday and next Sunday after
tomorrow. I require an answer to this note (letter) even if you do
come tonight. There are now so many railroads that you can get
to Bedfordshire in one minute. Please send ‘Madam Mary’ with
this and then come up.
.ll 68
.rj
Grandaflorer.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 028.png
.pn +1
The true inwardness of this request appears in a private
paper probably of an earlier date, folded up and labelled
on the outside, “A Prayer to be Said After an unhappy
Night.”
.pm start_quote
“Oh Lord I beseech Thee take away my fears of a night, for
Thou alone knowest what miseries I this night have suffered. O
Lord, I beseech Thee this day enable me to behave as I ought.
O Lord, I beseech Thee to make me a Christain child ... take away
my doubts and fears....”
.pm end_quote
In the next letter—endorsed by her Mother, “7th May,
1848”—she says,
.pm start_quote
“I whant to tell you that I feel so much less fear of a night....
“I will never say again (as I fear I often have) that God does not
hear my prayer or that I do not derive comfort from it.... Please
(for you say please wins everything) do not show this to anybody
not even to dear Papa.
.ll 68
.rj
S. L. B.”[2]
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 2
The paragraphs and brackets are the writer’s own.
.fn-
Clearly the child at this time was learning to read and
write. Of any formal teaching no record has been kept, but,
if anything of the kind existed, it can have made no great
demand on her brain power, which began at this time to find
expression in a somewhat unusual way.
In common with most children, she dreamed dreams, but
her dreams were not the random visions of an hour. They
were singularly coherent and consecutive, aiming at nothing
less than the construction of an ideal state ruled by a “despotic
emperor” in some wonderful islands lying in an unknown
sea. She was unable to throw the creations of her
brain into anything like literary form, but numberless papers
have been preserved, varying from large official-looking blue
foolscap sheets giving the “constitution” of the state, down
to tiny scraps about the minutest detail connected with it.
There are many maps of the islands, of which the largest,
Sackermena, gave its name to the group; and these are
supplemented by numberless poems in which she strove to
give expression to the feelings her Utopia aroused in her
mind. Poetry never came easy to her, dearly as she
loved it.
.bn 029.png
.pn +1
She begins gallantly many times: (We all know the experience.)
.pm start_poem
“See how pretily the sunbeams dance
Upon the fair waves of Speed-the-lance
See the Waters of Gold!”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
and again,
.pm start_poem
“See Lord Grandaflora brave
Fighting his country and life to save....”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
and again,
.pm start_poem
“See how gently Mordisca rules
O’er Sackermena and her pooles....”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
or is it “fooles”?—The writing is very bad.
On the whole the most delightful stanza is the one that
was probably the first,
.pm start_poem
“Sweet Sackermena and her isles
See how many yards and miles
It takes to go round Sackermena!”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
No, poetry never came easy to her.
When she tackles the constitution of the state, however,
her work is on a totally different level. She gives us the
officers, “Military, Civil, and Judicial,” the standing army,
standing navy, Men of War and frigates, and vessels “in
rest, ready to be raised.” From this we go on to Prisons,
Castles, Laws, Parliament, Guards, etc. The population
varies greatly in different schemes. In one, by a stroke of
genius, all innocent of that terrible Woman Question in
which she was to play so prominent a part, she says:—Men,
7,000,000; Women, 5,000,000. Truly an ideal state!
There are many codes of laws, drawn up to meet one
contingency after another. The following are picked out
almost at random:
.pm start_quote
“The Despotic Emperor has authority that none may dispute
and none may appear in his presence without his gracious permission
save his sons and Lord Field Marshall, also the chief general the
high Admiral the high Treasurer, high Chancellor, Secretary of
state and the Chief Justice.”
“Succession to the Crown. It is at the option of the Reigning
Despotic Emperor to name his successor but if he dies without
.bn 030.png
.pn +1
making any choice it descends to the eldest son but if he has no
son the crown is placed on the head of the eldest daughter unless
12 strong reasons can be urged to the contrary and accepted by
Parliament. If he has no offspring it does not descend to the next
relation but it is in the power of the parliament to give it to whoever
it pleases.”
“Robery shall always be punished by the culprits restoring fourfold
or if utterly unable to pay this as many days imprisonment
as there are shillings in the forfeit.”
“Intentional murder and personal injury shall be punished by
injuries precisely similar.”
“If any man conceals the persons mentioned in the preceding
laws he is punished half as much as the offender.”
“That every English or Scotchman that is travelling with a passport
shall be supplied with provisions cost free. And every Frenchman
shall have things for half and every Dutchman quarter price.
Any one infringing this law is liable to be forced into the army
with the possibility of advancement or to be imprisoned for two
years.”
“No judge shall ever condemn a man to death without the knowledge
of Lord Trican. An infringement of this law shall be visited
by confiscation of all his estates except (if he have it) 250 to
his wife and 300 to each of his children; besides his being degraded
from office and receiving 30 stripes in the public square
of St. Anhola.”
“All disobedience to officers shall be punished by flogging. 1st
offence 20 strokes, 2nd. 34, 3rd. 40, 4th. imprisonment 4 months,
5th. 14 months, 6th. Death.”
“If any sentinel be found asleep in the camp he shall be shot
with blank cartridges and imprised 15 months. The second offence
he shall be shot really.”
“Spirits or strong drink not being allowed in either army or navy
any person having any shall be shot with blank cartridges and the
second offence he shall receive 20 strokes and 1 months imprisonment,
3rd. 32 strokes and 4 months imprisonment. 4th. Death.”
“In time of war when the standing army is not sufficient to
resist the enemy’s forces 350 soldiers and 4 captains and 10 lieutenants
shall be sent to raise the ready militia to the amount required;
if this is not enough every man above 20 and under 80 compose
the Possiblees which is raised in great danger, but 2,500,000 must
be left (all able bodied men) to take care of the kingdom.”
.pm end_quote
In many respects this state was a primitive one. When
certain announcements were to be made, “a large bell is rung
which is heard to the distance of 23 miles,” or “an enormous
.bn 031.png
.pn +1
bonfire is made in the palace gardens of Mt. Gilbow [!] which
is perhaps seen to a greater distance.”
This is fine:
.pm start_quote
“The Despotic Emperor is the grand Law-giver General Judge
Sage Physician and in short the Father of his vast dominions.”
.pm end_quote
In spite of the mass of prosaic detail as to dress, provisions,
etc., there is sometimes a hint of the supernatural about the
whole thing. The dotted lines between the islands in one
of the maps indicate “invisible bridges”, and in a request to
“Victoria and Prince Albert” that a governor may be sent
from England to “controll the foreigners who wilfully destroy
the peace and comfort of this happy and well-governed realm,”
we are told that “if this wish is complied with, the Most
Gracious Despotic Emperor, Phrampton Omail Grandiflora,[3]
will stand the friend of your kingdoms on earth and admit
20 of your subjects to his unearthly Kingdom.”
.fn 3
Note the similarity of the name to her signature on p. #5#. Many
a little girl has loved to imagine herself a fairy princess. It would be
interesting to know whether any other ever dreamed of being a “Despotic
Emperor.”
.fn-
A great impetus to the whole conception may possibly
have been given by a tour which the child was fortunate
enough to make with her parents and sister to Warwickshire
and thence to Scotland in June, 1850, a tour of which further
particulars will be found in the next chapter. In the course
of her very conscientiously kept diary, she says, “We read
the Lady of the Lake aloud,” and she herself is reading
“Ivanhoe, one of the Waverley novels.”
There is no proof, however, that any part of her Utopia
was sketched after this tour, and a great part of it was certainly
written before.
On the whole, perhaps, the most remarkable thing in
connection with “Sackermena and her Isles” is the staying
power shown by the writer in developing her idea, and her
determination to get everything down on paper. In this
more than in anything else the child was father of the man.
S. J.-B. was a born chronicler.
As regards Sackermena, the idea certainly afforded no lack
of scope and variety. What with drawing maps, writing
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
poetry, framing laws, adding up the totals of her army and
reserves, devising for the soldiery “A dark red long coat
with silver falcons, and thick leather buskins studden with
iron,” and many another guise equally picturesque,—she
certainly did not suffer from monotony in her self-chosen
occupation. And the above examples by no means exhaust
its possibilities. On a stray slip of paper we come upon a
formal complaint from a “justice,” who, “passing in disguise
through Pe,” was supplied with a loaf deficient in weight;
and a tiny booklet (laboriously stitched together by the
writer’s hot little hands) has the following title page:
.pm start_title
.nf c
THE SACKERMENEE’S
POCKET BOOK
.nf-
.hr 15%
.nf c
Containing many Little Accounts
of their Customs
.nf-
.hr 15%
.nf c
Published by S. L. Blake & Co.
Hastings 1848
.nf-
.rj
Jan. 1850
.pm end_title
The two dates seem to indicate that Sackermena flourished
for perhaps two years; but the Pocket Book itself was not
a hardy plant. The big foolscap sheets were clearly more
stimulating to the imagination.
The thing is child’s work throughout. From first to last
it bears no trace of grown-up criticism; nor is there then or
afterwards any note by her parents, teachers or friends,
referring in even the most distant way to the faerie region in
which the little girl must have spent so much of her time.
Another thing strikes one incidentally—considering the
atmosphere in which the child was brought up—as rather
curious. There is no mention of clergy at Sackermena, nor
of any form of church. We are not even told that nothing
of the kind existed.
Note again that the Despotic Emperor was the grand Lawgiver,
General, Judge, Sage, Physician, and, in short, the
Father, of his vast dominions.
.bn 033.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.2
CHAPTER II | SCHOOL LIFE
.sp 2
“You often say how happy you were as a child,” an intimate
friend remarked once to Dr. Jex-Blake, “but you never talk
of your school life. I expect you were a terrible pickle?”
“Specs so,” was the laconic response, and the subject
dropped.
There is no getting round the fact that she was a terrible
pickle. If we bear in mind what the state of girls’ education
was in those days we shall see that it could scarcely have been
otherwise. If she could have gone to a boys’ school and
enjoyed its boisterous give and take, the little “despotic
emperor” would soon have found her level. One loves to
think how happy she would have been in the modern Girls’
High School: if she had but found the education of women
in the condition in which she left it, the difference in her whole
future would have been very great, but women of the present
day would not owe her the debt they owe her now. “The
breaker is gone up before them.”
As things were, she had, in a sense, got the upper hand of
her parents before she went to school at all. She was simply
overflowing with energy and vitality, and they found themselves,
while she was little more than a child, confronted with
a personality which ran right athwart their preconceived
notions and theories of life. They had not the right weapons
with which to meet the outbursts of her volcanic temperament,
and it must always be borne in mind that “when she was
good, she was very very good,” immeasurably more attractive
than the average child.
.bn 034.png
.pn +1
The one effort of her teachers, of course, was to repress
her, to induce her to be “ladylike,” and, most unfortunately
of all, to make every childish act of disobedience, every outburst
of passion, the text for a homily on the necessity of
“coming to Jesus.” One cannot read the long series of
letters referred to above without wondering how it came
about that the germ of religion in the child’s heart was not
worn away altogether; and indeed its survival only becomes
comprehensible when one bears in mind the genuine goodness
of many of those who watched over her, and also the “unknown
quantity,”—that elusive unsearchable factor that is
present in every human equation.
The earliest references to her education are two letters from
her first governess, Miss B., to Mrs. Jex-Blake, of which the
first is dated November 24th, 1848:
.pm start_quote
“Sophy is a dear child, shewing daily advancement in her studies,
and often delighting me by a rectitude of principle emanating, I
trust ‘from the Father of lights’. A little native wildness (and that
gradually softening down) together with the want of promptitude in
setting about her duties, are the chief obstacles that could be picked
out from a much longer list of things most prized by an earnest
teacher. I have often thought of your wish that she should learn
the Latin grammar, and quite agree with your view of its probable
advantage; but I am afraid of breaking down in the long and short
syllables.... For the next few months it appears to me nothing
will be lost by our present system, in which I find parsing to be
generally a subject of interest.
I trust the time is not very distant when your little girl will successfully
strive to be both a help and comfort to her parents.”
.pm end_quote
The second letter is nearly two months later:
.pm start_quote
“Your kind letter with its agreeable suggestion reached me too
late for a reply by return of post. It would have given me a feeling
deeper than pleasure to continue the instruction of your very promising
child, but I have already engaged with one daily pupil and
have a half prospect of another, in addition to which God’s high
dispensation seems to allot to my keeping, as soon as He graciously
gives me the means, the eldest of four children belonging to
my Brother.... With our best love to Sophy, I am, dear Mrs.
Blake,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours in the Lord,
Mary B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 035.png
.pn +1
The first arrangement having fallen through, Sophy was
sent with her sister to Belmont, a school kept by Mrs. and
Miss Teed. The following letter seems to have been written
on the day they set out:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“29th January \[1849].
.ll
Dear little So,
.ti 6
I hope you had a comfortable journey; I fear the cold wind
must have increased your cold. Now, dearest child, you must be
always going to Jesus for grace to overcome self-will and the desire
to be conspicuous. Strive to be a gentle child, in reality esteeming
others better than yourself. You cannot learn anything to any
purpose till you are obedient and have some self-command. Try to
be a comfort to dearest Carry, she has her trials, depend upon it,—do
you be obedient to her and thoughtful of her comfort, without
making a fuss about it. Carry likes kindness quietly done. Do
not give needless trouble to Miss Towers or anyone. Try to deserve
Dearest Mrs. Teed’s good opinion. Jesus will be sure to help you
whenever you ask Him. I forward a note that arrived from Aunt
Taylor. Papa sends best love.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am your affectionate Mother,
Maria Emily Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Mrs. Jex-Blake’s health never was robust, and at this time
it was causing her husband and intimate friends some
uneasiness.
.pm start_quote
“Do you know, darling Sophy,” she writes on March 27th, “it
is sometimes quite a trial to me to write one letter to each of you,
and I should hardly do it, did I not know how ‘nice it is’ (as you
say) to hear from home at school. I so much like you to send me
the heads of Mr. Parker’s and of Mr. Taylor’s sermons. The one
on 23 Jer. 29 must have been very beautiful.... Papa has just
come in and says thank dear little So for her letter and tell her I
am particularly pleased with the clear way in which she sent me
the heads of the sermon.... I send you a few of our violets.”
.pm end_quote
And again,
.pm start_quote
“Be much in prayer, my sweet one, for grace to be obedient and
gentle. Hope whispers great things for our next meeting if God
grants us one.
I am comforting myself with the hope that you are waging constant
war against self-will and disobedience. You can hardly believe how
happy you will be when through God’s help upon your earnest
endeavours, you can obey at once and give up your own way. I
send my darling child a text which I wish her to learn and pray
.bn 036.png
.pn +1
for grace to live up to. It is 1 Peter v. 5. I wish you to learn it
perfectly and make it part of your daily prayers. Tell me when
you write that you have done so. Bear it in mind all day long,
and try hard, very hard, to live up to it. I often fancy you all at
morning prayers and wish I could be there.[4] God gives you great
privileges, dear child, that you may live to Him.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 4
She would probably not have elected to be there on the morning when
some imp induced Sophy to tip over a bench on to the row of girls kneeling
in front of her.
.fn-
All the letters are in this vein, and all were read by the
recipient many times and carefully preserved.
In June, 1849, she went with her parents, brother and
sister to spend a long holiday in the Lake District, and one
is glad to think of her as being much in the open air, collecting
plants and stones, “shooting a good deal with bow and
arrows,” riding on the coach, and being allowed to drive for
a few minutes herself.[5]
.fn 5
She used to say that her intimate familiarity with the details of harnessing
and all stable matters was due to the fact that when they were spending
a holiday in the country her father allowed them to have a pony and
trap on condition that, with the exception of actual grooming, the children
managed it entirely themselves.
.fn-
Her holiday diary is as well written and as dull as that of
the average adult, and one is almost startled when one
comes upon such entries as “Played at horses and pretended
I was driving the mail”; and again, “A very wet day. I
had a very nice game with Papa and Carry, and another
with Carry in the afternoon and afterwards another alone
with Papa very nice indeed and I enjoyed it very much.”
On the other hand there was no lack of church-going, and
the texts are always carefully noted down:
.pm start_quote
“July 29th Sunday. Went to Keswick church in the morning
and the text was James 4. 8. Brother went to church at Thornthwaite.
Papa, Brother and Carry walked off to the Vale of St. John’s,
but there was no sermon—only prayers. Went to Keswick church
in the afternoon and the clergyman took his text from Ps. 119, 96.”
“Aug. 5th. Mama was very ill and I stopped at home both in the
morning and afternoon with her. Papa, Brother and Carry went
to Brougham-hall to church but there was no service. They went
again in the afternoon to Brougham-hall—no sermon. I went in
the evening to Penrith church and the text was Luke 16. 8.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
She never seems to have drawn a blank, poor little soul!
A previous entry is even more characteristic of the world
she lived in:
.pm start_quote
“July 23rd.... Had a walk with Papa and Carry in the afternoon,
and afterwards bought tracts (for 6d.) with Carry.”
“24th. A rather wet morning. Went out with Papa and gave
away some tracts.”
.pm end_quote
Yet her Father was an excellent playfellow and at this
time her most indulgent critic. In the spring of 1850 he
writes—“It is a real pleasure to me to hear from you, and
I hear such pleasing accounts of you from others that I am
very glad”; but it must be admitted that this note of congratulation
is rare.
There is an amusing little joint note from her parents,
probably of an earlier date:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Sophy,
.ti 6
I send you the 1s. and I hope the yellow paper. I do not
know what you want of paste-board, therefore I fear I cannot send
it. I send the gingerbreads, and hope to do so on the 11th again.
Your affectionate Mother.”
.pm end_quote
Then follows in pencil:
.pm start_quote
“Dear child, I have got all the things for you and leave them
with 2 pounds of gingerbread. I think you want more than one
shilling for your purpose so I enclose 2s. for you.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affect. Papa,
T. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
But it must not be supposed that her parents were ever
otherwise than of one mind concerning her. Like all well-constituted
husbands, Mr. Jex-Blake was quite prepared on
occasion to demolish the child who made his wife uncomfortable.
And it must be confessed that little Sophy had
rather a knack of making people “uncomfortable.” She
was so keen about everything: she staked her equanimity
so often on things which it might have been wiser to regard
as trifles, that those about her learned to live in a state of
some anxiety, never knowing when the eruption might
come.
The remedy for it all is painfully obvious as we read. More
.bn 038.png
.pn +1
scope, more physical exercise, more fresh air; but, as already
pointed out, the girls’ schools of those days provided none
of these things; and, when the child came to her dearly
loved home, the Mother’s excessive fragility made it necessary
that her daughter should live the life of a grown up person.[6]
The most devoted mutual love could not devise a régime
suited to both. The lovely ailing Mother could not stand
noise and excitement. Sophy was often riotous, excitable,
“rough” yet always very loving with it all. On one occasion
when walking demurely along the pavement in a queue of
well-behaved girls, she caught sight of her father, and, without
a moment’s hesitation, deserted the ranks, and took a
flying leap on to his back!
.fn 6
“I must tell you my experience,” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake to Dr. Lucy
Sewall a quarter of a century later, “not my own practice, it was not the
fashion of my day (and having lost my three eldest I was very anxious and
fidgetty):—Where children are trusted and have a good deal of independence,
and their tempers not fretted about little things, they grow up
more open, confiding and trustworthy.”
.fn-
No wonder that a contemporary friend of the family describes
him as saying very often, “My dear Sophy! My dear
child!” in tones of absolute bewilderment.
In the summer of 1850 Sophy made the tour referred to
in the preceding chapter, and a liberal education it must
have been. In April Mrs. Jex-Blake had written,
.pm start_quote
“I hardly allow myself to look forward to the treat of going to
Scotland; it seems almost too much pleasure,—and we shall be
sure to find people who love Jesus and love the Bible there and that
will add so very greatly to our pleasure.... Papa thanks you
for your letter, he is surprised and pleased to learn that you are in
Reduction.... Use daily as a prayer the substance of 1 Peter v. 5.”
.pm end_quote
“18th June. Left Belmont at 20 minutes to 10 with Miss
Teed, and met Papa and Mama at the Euston, and went to
Rugby to pick up Brother.” So Sophy’s own diary begins,
and an excellent conscientious piece of work it is. They
visited Leamington, Warwick, Kenilworth: thence to Edinburgh,
Stirling, Glasgow and the Lochs, Callander and the
Trossachs, stopping at York on the way south.
A pretty piece of doggerel shows the happy relations between
Father and daughter at this period. It is scribbled in pencil
.bn 039.png
.pn +1
on the back of a hotel-keeper’s note. The Father begins in
his scholarly handwriting:
.pm start_poem
“My little child, You’re very wild,
Could you be still, And yet not ill,
Then, little So, This I do know,
You’d be a blessing, Worth possessing.”
.pm end_poem
Whereupon Sophy comes hobbling on:
.pm start_poem
“My dear Father, I had rather
You’d believe me, And relieve me,
When I say, As I may,
That I’ll be good, As I should.”
.pm end_poem
Of course it is she who recommences the game:
.pm start_poem
“My dear Papa, Aha, Aha,
Send me a letter, Then you can better
Tell when we go, Off to Tarbet Oh!
And all your wishes, With many kisses.”
.pm end_poem
And the scholarly handwriting closes the page:
.pm start_poem
“I kiss you! Why if I do
I kiss a wild, And teasing child.
But this short note, Papa has wrote
To say at ten, We start again.
Henceforth you should Be very good.”
.pm end_poem
In autumn the two sisters returned to Mrs. Teed’s school,
and things resumed their chequered course. I am told by
a schoolfellow of Sophy’s, who had an excellent influence
over her at that time, that Mrs. Teed managed the little girl
extremely well: and in any case she remained at Belmont
for two years, when Mrs. Jex-Blake removed her—evidently
to the child’s regret—on the curious ground that she was
being “extinguished.” The truth is that the younger pupils
were rationed according to age, and, as Sophy was physically
as well as mentally in advance of her contemporaries, she
was reduced to eating raw acorns to appease her hunger.
But Mrs. Jex-Blake was not aware of that detail till long
after.
In the meantime, the former teacher, Miss B., had settled
at Ramsgate with the pupils already referred to, and Sophy
was sent back to her. A more devoted and conscientious
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
teacher one can scarcely imagine, but the arrangement was
in some ways a very unfortunate one. At home—and probably
also to some extent at Mrs. Teed’s—the religious atmosphere
was tempered by a sense of humour as regards the ordinary
affairs of life; but of this quality worthy Miss B. seems to
have possessed no trace. Henceforth the child lived in a
religious forcing house. One hopes that at times she escaped
to Sweet Sackermena and her Isles, but the moral atmosphere
at Ramsgate was not conducive to such pagan wanderings.
Her brain was pronounced excitable, and she was to have
but little head employment, but she was taken to church
several times a week, and encouraged—or instructed—to
write out the sermons to send home to her parents. Here
is an example of her work: (Miss B.’s trifling corrections
are omitted.)
.pm start_quote
.ce
“Mr. Dunbrain. John iii. 3.*\ \ April 2. 1851.
We live in days of deep interest,—the common topics of men
are thrown aside and everyone seems to be utterly absorbed in
religious controversies. The torpor which had overspread the
church has entirely dissolved, and now all around we hear nothing
but the perpetual strife jar and clamour of religious disputes. It
is a storm and a strong one too, but many think it precedes the
blessed peace and quiet of the Millennium. Like every storm it
did not come all at once, but it has been long in gathering; it began
with what men call trifles and rose gradually, gathering strength
as it rose, etc., etc.
.ce
Those marked * are Wednesday evening lectures.”
.pm end_quote
We are left to guess whether she wrote out the lecture
after supper the night it was delivered, or lay awake “remembering
it” till next morning.
Memory altogether was a faculty assiduously cultivated.
It was the custom for the family to gather round the fire on
Sunday evenings, and for one after the other to repeat a
sacred poem. When they had been separated for a time,
special interest attached to the items each had added in the
interval to his, or her, repertory. No doubt the custom
began with the learning of hymns, but they seem for the
most part to have been good hymns, and round this nucleus
there gathered an extraordinarily varied collection,—fine
passages from Isaiah and the Psalms, poems by Trench,
.bn 041.png
.pn +1
Dean Alford, Longfellow, Wordsworth and many more. It
was said of the younger daughter in her later life that, if she
had been shipwrecked on a desert island with nothing but
pens and paper in addition to the actual means of livelihood,
she could gradually have provided a priceless library from
memory alone.
A few of her letters at this time have been preserved.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
\[1851].
.ll
“Dear Daddy,
.ti 6
A most extraordinary thing happened this morning; the
crew of a Portuguese ship put up in the masthead figures representing
Pontius Pilate and Judas and exactly as 10 struck on the pier clock
they thumped them down into the sea! Now was not this Popish
trash? A respectable English jolly tar told Miss B. all about it
and added how happy we were to be taught better; now I think
that’s a right good English spirit. The first grand steamer has
just come in. I have a very bad cold and have not been out. Miss
B. brought me some licorice for my cough and I am to have treacle
posset tonight so I could not possibly be taken more care of and
no doubt it will be quite well before 30th. You musn’t think Miss
B. had anything to do with my talking about tractarianism, indeed
afterwards she forbade it,—it was all my fault. I’m writing a history
of our family entitled ‘History of the illustrious family of Blakes
from 70 B.C. to 1080 A.D.’ Dear Daddy how I do love you, if I could
‘climb those knees and kiss that face’ I’d be happy enough, indeed
I’m very happy here but home sweet home is better than anything
else. S. B.
Do send me a large seal of your crest.”
.pm end_quote
Her Mother, however, is always her main confidant.
.pm start_quote
“I’m in a scrape just now Mama,” she writes on April 5th, 1851,
“I long to be at Home, home sweet home there’s no place like home,
no person like Mummy and no kiss like Mummy’s cuddle and no
knees like Papa’s and no player at Prisoner and Judge Selling or
any other game in the world like Papa, no one that can put me in a
good humour like Daddy and Mummy! Oh! nothing like what
everything is at home anywhere else, in all Europe Asia Africa and
America no place is like home, sweet sweet home.... Love to
dear Papa and yourself 3000000 kisses. I always kiss the envelope.
Please write very soon. I am your affectionate and I hope dutiful
Sophy.”
.pm end_quote
We know how fervently the Mother “hoped” the same!
.bn 042.png
.pn +1
The child seems to have spent the first weeks of May in
her beloved home, and the following letter from Miss B.
gives us a graphic sketch of her return to school:
.pm start_quote
“My dear Mrs. Blake,
.ti 6
Dearest Sophy has laid her letter before me, and such a
burden of grief I can scarcely bear to send—but you will look at
my view of the picture likewise. The tears shed in writing that
were very nearly all we have had; for soon after parting from her
Papa the heavy clouds passed away, and, when established in the
fly I was glad to hear, ‘Well, I am not quite so sorry as I expected
to be,’ and then ‘Mummy says the air of Ramsgate will almost
make amends for the parting.’ We got home and found dinner
ready, but dear Sophy could only take a little rhubarb.... At
tea she seemed surprised at being able to express herself as ‘hungry,’
though the appetite was soon satisfied, and she is now sitting reading
in the garden, which she says is ‘delicious’. Dear Mrs. Blake do
not think I will tax her head with anything beyond beneficial employment.
It will be my study to get rid of that thin look which I
could scarcely have attributed to so short a change (!). I ought to tell
you that Sophy meant to say that she felt better when she got into
Ramsgate than for some time, but grief swallowed up all other
news.”
.pm end_quote
A week or two later her Father asks her in a rash moment
if she can tell him “Why it is wrong to oppose Papal Aggression?”
adding, “If you can’t, I will tell you.” The question
was a mere conundrum, but she takes it very seriously:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Father,
I am very very sorry to hear that dearest Mother is so unwell
(or I should say ill). I send her a marker as I have not many flowers
that will press well.[7] Please tell her that she must not give it away
to anyone. I am quite enchanted at Boy’s getting two poetry prizes;
it is charming.
Well, about the question, ‘Why it is wrong to oppose the Papal
Aggression?’ I really don’t see how it can be wrong and must
think it quite right. I can’t see how it can be wrong for any zealous
servant of God to oppose with all his might that which dishonours
God and his word, which (when the Bible says ‘none can come
unto the Father but by Me’) says that we must come by the Virgin
and the saints etc. People might say ‘We must not oppose it for
it is God’s will’ they might also say that ‘temptation was put before
the Jews and that was God’s will’ but they were told to put the
.bn 043.png
.pn +1
accursed thing far from them and destroy it utterly and I think
the Papal Aggression is put in our way to try us and see if we will
oppose it unto death. But of course you know more about it than
I, so please tell me why it is wrong to oppose it.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 7
She had her own little garden at Ramsgate.
.fn-
One can imagine that her Father was almost ashamed to
confess that the question was only a joke.
.pm start_quote
“Now for a word about the he says in another letter.
of no importance in itself, and therefore I never tell my
children or servants either to bow or not to bow; but particular
circumstances may render it important, and if good and kind Miss
B. thinks that at Christ Church, you may honour God rather by
doing as she and others who are with her do, than by being singular
on this point, I not only wish you to obey her, but to do it with a
willing and ready mind, cheerfully, as a plain matter of duty. Which
it is. It is for her to judge, and for you to do, gladly, what she
tells you.”
.pm end_quote
Miss B. had the greatest admiration for her pupil’s gifts,
and in particular she considered her a budding poetess. These
are some of the effusions of the period:
.pm start_poem
“Oh Mother! thou that broughtest me forth
My sins gainst thee none, none can tell
For these alone I ought in sooth
To be e’en now in lowest hell.
But oh! my God still spares me on
To be a comfort to thy years
God grant I may e’er the sun goes down
Seal thee this promise with my tears.
Ne’er ne’er again what [e’er] betide,
(In Jesu’s strength alone I trust)
I’ll vex my mother, who did guide
My years of infancy now past.”
.pm end_poem
Another time after expatiating on her Mother’s virtues
and unmerited affection, she goes on to inform her that there
is One—
.pm start_poem
“Whose love surpasseth thine as far
As Sol excels the falling star.
My Mother ONE request I make
That thou wouldst pray for Jesu’s sake
That he would break this heart of stone
And mould it like my Saviour’s own.”
.pm end_poem
.bn 044.png
.pn +1
Was it all mere humbug and “patter”? The question
can best be answered by quoting the following letter to her
Father. It is written impulsively in pencil on scraps of
paper,—the questions and answers being on different slips.
The wording of the questions has sometimes been altered and
corrected, so presumably she drafted them herself. The
little sheaf has been thrust “anyhow” into an envelope
(addressed to Mrs. T. Jex-Blake) which bears postmark
“Ramsgate, Ap. 21. 1851,” and Mrs. Jex-Blake has quaintly
endorsed it “very nice.”
.pm start_quote
“My dearest Father,
.ti 6
I fear you are very uneasy about me for I have indeed
manifested no visible proof of a new and clean heart, but I think
much of my soul too much for me to speak even to you of it. But
I cannot talk so whenever anyone tries to talk to me of it I always
turn it into jest but I must write (I cannot speak) to you about it
so I have written some questions down and endeavoured to answer
them as before God. So do believe each word.
.ll 68
.rj
S. B.
.ll
1. If you died this instant what would become of you? And
could you face death unflinchingly?
.in 4
I know not what would become of me but I fear I should go
to eternal torments. And do not think I could face death
unflinchingly for this reason.
.in
2. What would be your first emotion when you found yourself
in the presence of the Judge of quick and dead?
.in 4
Fear I think but yet I think that I should claim Jesus’
promises to lost sinners.
.in
3. If Christ came this night and asked you ‘Lovest thou me’
what would be your answer?
.in 4
Yes Lord although I am very wicked and cold and dull yet
I could say without hesitation I do love thee very much I often
feel my heart warm towards thee and something tells me that
one day I shall love thee far better than I do now.
.in
4. Could you before God say truly ‘I strive to live as I hope to
die’?
.in 4
No I fear I could not although sometimes I do try to do
things to please Jesus.
.in
5. Do you really in your heart know your religion to be a mere
form or do you really feel its life-giving influence on your heart?
.in 4
I know I often say far more than I really believe, I even
have been tempted so far as to doubt in my heart the existence
.bn 045.png
.pn +1
of a Diety but yet I have had a few bright moments in which
I could sincerely say Yes I know it I know that Christ is mine
and I am his but a deep gloom is generally over my spirit.
.in
6. Do you in your heart believe yourself to be a new creature?
.in 4
I know not but I fear not although at times I have been
fully convinced that I am God’s child.
.in
7. Do you earnestly desire to be such?
.in 4
Most earnestly whenever anything touches that chord in my
heart and sometimes I could weep bitterly but generally I feel
awfully indifferent as to my soul.
.in
8. Do you think you have ever known what true prayer is?
.in 4
Most certainly and have sometimes obtained very gracious
answers.
.in
9. Where will you be 200 years hence?
.in 4
In heaven I humbly hope and trust for I think the Lord has
begun a good work in me.”
.in
.pm end_quote
Gallant honest heart!
Is there a single word in the whole confession that the
most devoted parent would have wished different?
.bn 046.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.3
CHAPTER III | SCHOOL LIFE—Continued
.sp 2
“I think the Lord has begun a good work in me.” Is there
in the words a—very human and pardonable—suggestion of
St. Augustine’s “Timebam enim ne me cito exaudires”? In
any case, though doubtless the good work went on, it cannot
be denied that the tares flourished abundantly with the wheat.
It happened most unfortunately at this time that the
child’s physical health fell into a very unsatisfactory state:
we hear of great digestive trouble and functional weakness
of the joints. Modern hygiene would probably have made
short work of both complaints. As things were, the weakness
was “tinkered at,” and the child was encouraged to live
the life of an invalid. We are startled to learn incidentally
that she is going out in a bath chair!
Good Miss B. took her up to town to see a consultant, and
sent the parents long detailed reports on the child’s health.
We are not surprised to come upon the following under
date July, 1851:
.pm start_quote
“You must not suppose, dear Mrs. Blake, that I overlook the
self that you have rightly so much at heart. I see it too well, and
it is commented on to Sophy so frequently that I sometimes check
myself, ... but the punishment that I might inflict on another I
hold back in Sophy’s case, not only from my own knowledge of her
character, but because Mr. S. cautioned me if possible never to
disturb the even tenor of her brain.... Her case is peculiar and
such must be the ends to meet it: they will require patience and may
be long showing fruit, but we will not despair.”
.pm end_quote
The next vacation seems to have been disastrous. The
child had grown more indolent and self-centred, and no
.bn 047.png
.pn +1
doubt the parents were unable to deny her the sweetmeats
which she loved and which the supposed weakness of her
joints made it impossible for her to “work off” as healthy
children should. Moreover, few houses are large enough to
contain two chronic invalids.
.pm start_quote
“I received your letter,” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake when the child
is gone, “and very glad we were to hear of your safe arrival,—but,
my own child, I could have cried over your words. They were nice
and affectionate, but the very opposite of your acts.... Either my
child means what she writes or she does not. Your conduct completely
contradicts your assertions. More sad and foolish behaviour
than yours it is difficult to imagine. You behaved so ill that I doubt
if I could have borne it another day without being laid on a bed of
sickness, and I might never have recovered. Your ever being with
us again for three weeks at a time is quite out of the question till you
have the good sense to understand (as other children of your age do)
that to be happy and comfortable and to enable me in my weak state
to have you at all, you must be good. When you seem really to feel
how ill you have behaved, we will some time hence have you home
for a week, and if I find you keep your word (which you do not now)
we will have you home very often; and Papa says that he shall
then think that he can never do enough to make you very very happy;
but you now destroy your happiness and my health, and the medical
men will not allow us to be together. Think of your great folly and
sin, my dear child. Pray to God for grace, and He will give it to
you for His dear Son’s sake....
When you have read this letter, I wish you to tear it up.”
.pm end_quote
As ill luck would have it, this most unusually severe indictment
found the poor little culprit seriously ill in bed. Her
penitent reply is not forthcoming, but five days later, her
Mother writes again:
.pm start_quote
“My own darling Child,
.ti 6
I trust this will find you much better; if you want me to be
happy you must make all possible haste to get well, and write to tell
me you are well.... I quite believe, my darling, that you are
sorry, and will, in God’s strength, take pains that the same shall
never happen again. I do particularly wish you to tear up my
last letter at once.”
.pm end_quote
She didn’t tear it up: she never could tear up “Mummy’s
letters.” She tied the two together with a piece of red
wool, and slipped in with them a Sunday School “ticket”
.bn 048.png
.pn +1
bearing the words, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord;
for this is right.”
By the same post as the second of these letters her Father
writes:
.pm start_quote
“My darling Child,
.ti 0
We have been so grieved to hear of your illness, and do hope
that before you receive this, you will be much better. It will please
you to know that dear Mummy is much better for the quiet and
Norfolk air. Everybody is so kind and trying to get her quite
strong, and they all enquire so kindly after little Sophy, whom they
call ‘little Sophy’ still, everybody saying what a very sweet and
darling child you were six years ago; and I do trust that, when
you see them next, they will find you a more darling child, and more
loveable than ever. God grant it be so, dearest, for I want you to
be very happy.”
.pm end_quote
The next letter from Miss B. that has been preserved is
dated September, 1851, and is addressed to Mr. Jex-Blake.
“I ought not to express sorrow at the sudden removal of
your child, hoping and believing that it is ‘ordered by the
Lord.’ She bears away with her my affectionate love and
prayerful interest.”
No record has been kept of the precise steps that led to the
“sudden removal.”
For the next two years the child went to a boarding-school
in Brighton, where her parents had now gone to reside, and
there are, therefore, practically no letters of the period. Two
of her schoolfellows, however, have been good enough to
contribute their impressions of her. For better and for
worse, they call up a very vivid picture. Miss Lucy Portal
writes:
.pm start_quote
“Being the junior of Sophy, as we always called her, she and I
were not much in touch, though I never forgot her, for she had a
strong personality, and was so clever—in fact, far above our school-mistress
in natural intelligence, and she made a lasting impression
on those with whom she associated. Whenever I heard her name
in after life the vision of a young capable girl who asked questions
that bewildered her governess rose before me.
One day when we were walking on the ‘Downs’ with [an assistant
governess] in the rear, Sophy saw a large stone by the wayside and
seated herself on it. ‘What do you mean by this?’ said the governess.
‘I am tired and must rest,’ replied Sophy. ‘Get up at
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
once,’ said Miss ——; ‘Do you suppose we are all going to wait
your pleasure in this way?’ ‘Impossible to do what is beyond
one’s capacity,’ was the rejoinder, and threats had no effect. At
last Miss —— lost her temper and said ‘Sophy, distinctly understand
that if you do not get up, I shall leave you here, and send a
policeman to fetch you.’ ‘Ah,’ said Sophy, ‘that is a kind thought.
I am sure he would prove of great assistance to me. But could
you manage to procure two policemen, for I don’t believe one would
be able to carry me, and two might do so.’ I need not say that
the battle of words was soon over after that.”
.pm end_quote
Knowing as one does how anomalous was the position of
an assistant teacher in those days, one can but admit that
the child must often have inflicted far greater suffering and
anxiety than she had the least idea of.
On the other hand, Mrs. Gover, widow of the late Canon
Gover of Worcester, writes:
.pm start_quote
“Sophie set us a good example at school, and I shall always think
of her as one of the most truthful girls I have ever known, the only
girl I ever knew who would not allow her drawings to be touched
up by her master. I had a very great respect for her high character.”
.pm end_quote
But nothing can show more clearly the futility of the
educational methods of that day than the following letter
from the headmistress herself:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“June, 1852.
.ll
Dearest Sophy,
I cannot tell you with what a feeling of anguish I heard the
door close after you on Saturday when you departed, and I had
not kissed or blessed you.... I saw you afterwards in the street,
tho’ I was unseen by you, and I could not stop you, my dear child,
lest the past should be renewed. On my return I saw your present
of fruit, it was not as gratifying to me as the scrap of paper, which
contained my Sophy’s acknowledgement of her fault.[8] Yet I thank
you for the kind thought, as I hope you know me too well to suppose
that any little gift can bribe me to forgive;—without that scrap,
my Sophy, I should have turned away from receiving your fruit.
The same afternoon at a friend’s house I read a portion of your
favourite Scott, and could not but think of you while I read the
account of the ‘evil and good’ trying for Mastery in Harold the
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
Dauntless’ heart, remember his first act of forbearance was noted as
a step towards heaven. Beloved child! do I beseech you remember
the duty of a child, be gentle and tender to your dear Parents, then
the Lord will love you, and some day the Lion will give place to the
Lamb in your bosom. Dear Mary Bayly’s has turned to whooping-cough.
I hope yours is better. Until I find where to send her, I
cannot leave home. God’s will be done.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 8
Her brother had called at the school, immaculately dressed, and had
behaved to the schoolmistress so charmingly that poor Sophy felt herself
quite left out in the cold, and had doubtless responded with positive rudeness.
What sort of visit was this from a beloved brother?
.fn-
For a year and a half Sophy remained under this lady’s
care, and then one or two equally unsuccessful experiments
were made. Meanwhile Mrs. Jex-Blake remained so ailing
that it was not possible for her to have the child at home
for the long vacation, and a “dear kind” lady invites the
refractory young person to visit her for part of the time.
Mr. Jex-Blake writes to inform Sophy of the fact, and adds,
“Now have we not in this great cause of thankfulness to our
kind God and Father who never forgets us?” This was
perhaps asking a little too much of the homesick child.
The truth is that the parents at this time were not growing
younger (as many parents do), and certainly they were
growing more staid and set in their ways. It was becoming
increasingly difficult to them to adapt themselves to this
riotous child. “Avoid excitement which is your great
enemy,” writes her Father, unaware perhaps that his own
weakness was a tendency to be rather too fussy and precise.
With hearts full of love they were demanding of her a standard
of excellence which for her was wholly artificial, and in the
half-hearted, or at least intermittent, effort to attain it, she
fell in the breach. And parents and child were not the only
factors in the difficult problem of home life. So long as
Sophy could by any stretch of charity be reckoned a child,
it was comparatively easy for her brother and sister to put
up with her volcanic ways. But from a schoolgirl one expects
some conformity to recognized standards, and Sophy’s elder
sister had been such a pattern in this respect that the contrast
was necessarily acute.
“I really don’t think you would enjoy [a visit from] Carry
much at school even if we could spare her,” Mrs. Jex-Blake
writes in reply to an eager request for this privilege. “You
would be tempted to be odd and excitable, and then Carry
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
would be vexed and all would be uncomfortable” and no one
who knew the elder sister can doubt that such demonstrations
of affection would probably have “vexed” her more than
most. On the other hand “Brother” was now a young
man, and if his main desire for the child was that she should
grow up like the sisters of other men, he only shared the
attitude common at that time to the overwhelming majority
of his sex. One can see that his younger sister must have
tried him a good deal. The idea that she was plain and
even ugly had been firmly impressed upon her: the exhibition
of vanity in matters of dress had been discouraged
on every ground: and it was natural to her boyish temperament
to be careless of such things. When, in addition to
these shortcomings, she added a propensity for making people
“uncomfortable,” one can quite understand that her brother
did not feel specially proud of her, and the strength of her
character probably made it difficult for him to influence her
through the passionate affection and admiration she had
cherished for him all through her childhood. In any case
the relation between them became somewhat strained, and
it is not surprising if she sometimes attributed the strictures
of her parents to his influence and representations.
It is delightful to record that, in spite of countless differences
of opinion and much plain speaking on both sides, a fine
loyal camaraderie existed between the sisters throughout life.
I don’t know whether it ever occurred to the child to compare
her brother’s education with her own. If she had done so,
the reflection might well have made her bitter. In athletics
as in the schools he was bearing off laurels at every turn,
while she was being curbed and thwarted to meet the requirements
of pious and half-educated schoolmistresses. From
the best of motives her parents refused for her the outlet for
the “excitability” they constantly deprecated; in other
words they simply sat on the safety valve. In the summer
of 1854 she begged—probably not for the first time—to be
allowed to have riding lessons. The father replied
.pm start_quote
“I like to do anything in reason to please my own child, but you
are so very excitable and have at present so lamentably little self-command
that I should fear riding for you very much. It would
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
do you no good and might be injurious to you in many ways. When
will you prove to me that my hopes and expectations of you are
not in vain?... You don’t know how the hearing you censured
goes to my heart, and the not being able to place the most unbounded
confidence in you is very trying to me and the dear Mother,—doubly
so to her in her weak state.”
.pm end_quote
Of course it is easy now to see that he was wrong as regards
the riding. Apart altogether from the physical exercise
involved, the discipline of it would have been excellent.
Big emergencies always braced her. She never lost her
temper with a horse, nor her presence of mind in an
accident.
Meanwhile the series of loving reproachful letters goes
steadily on.
.pm start_quote
“Do you think, darling,” her Father writes, “that by divine
grace you are less self-willed day by day? How earnestly do I
desire to see you a loving happy child. Everybody seems to deprecate
your presence as that which will spread discomfort all around....
God bless you and help you and give you His Holy Spirit to
guide you continually.”
.pm end_quote
“Everybody” was an overstatement. At no time was the
child without her own little circle of admiring friends. A
schoolfellow with whom she remained on terms of intimate
friendship throughout life says,—“At our house she was
always good and happy, and a very welcome guest. My
father thought very highly of her.”
A fortnight later Mrs. Jex-Blake writes:
.pm start_quote
“I rejoice at the nice accounts I have of you from school, and I
hope (against experience) that you will when we see you again, be
a pleasant child, the comfort you might so easily be to me.”
.pm end_quote
“Day and night,” her Father writes, “you are on my
heart. You know how I love you. Why will you thus be
your own enemy?”
The faith and perseverance of the parents is astounding:
not less so the fact that at bottom the affection and filial
piety of the child never flagged.
One has to remind oneself constantly—what the daughter
never forgot, though small trace of it appears in the letters of
this period—that Mrs. Jex-Blake had a keen sense of humour.
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
When she and Sophy were together, they had many a good
joke in common. It was when the mesmerism of the child’s
presence was removed that the sense of responsibility asserted
itself in full force. It is impossible to read the long series
of letters without being profoundly convinced,—1. That the
parents were devotedly attached to their youngest child
(“Sophy was the favourite,” was the elder sister’s deliberate
comment some sixty years later). 2. That their affection
was returned with an intensity of which few children are
capable. 3. That the warning that she was injuring her
Mother’s health and must therefore be kept away from her
dearly-loved home did not provide a motive strong enough
to make the child run in harness like other people. The
inference is that no motive would have been strong enough.
Did she ever really make an honest effort? One comes
upon many impassioned scraps of prayer for grace to resist
temptation. “Oh, that when a word irritates me I may
remember how often I have said more unkind things and been
forgiven.” “Oh, Lord, punish me, reduce me to submission
in any way Thou seest fit, but oh, let me not alone, abandon
me not despite my wickedness.” And, although these
prayers are apt to run into conventional exaggerated language,
it is impossible to doubt their sincerity. Her tiny
booklets and papers were always kept with the strictest
secrecy, and it is all but certain that no eye but her own
ever saw them before her death.
Here is an isolated scrap of diary, recording probably a
time of special effort.
.pm start_quote
“Feb. 26th, 1854. Oh, keep Thou my foot when I go up into
Thy house of prayer. O how difficult it is to fix the mind for even
that short time! Miss X. will treat me unlike any other human
being, but that is no reason for transgressing the commandment of
my God. She says she does not like to hear me name the name of
Christ for I do not depart from iniquity, she thinks I had better not
hold conversations on sacred subjects.
A complaint having been made of rudeness from one of the girls,
Miss X. said it was just like one of Sophy’s tricks, heaven knows
with what ground. All these things have aggravated me, and I
fear I have sadly given way to temper and pride, not remembering
Him who bare the contradiction of sinners against Himself though
.bn 054.png
.pn +1
He never offended in word or deed. If sometimes unjustly spoken
to, how often have I escaped my desert and how few are the
faults the strictest find compared with an all-seeing God. Oh, for
the charity that beareth all things....
27th Monday. I must expect trials this day, humiliating to my
pride and trying to my temper....
Nothing special, though I gave way sadly at different times and
again sinned in sending a letter to Mama [? Maria].
28th. Again, more and more against light, got sweets. Miss X.
in her prayer speaks at poor Agnes who is just come. She prays
that all may be kind to her, remembering the Fatherless and Widow
are His special care, etc. How could she harrow up poor Agnes’
feelings so! The poor child was weeping under the infliction....
And in the prayer she announced her intention of expelling anyone
who would make the others unhappy. O I could have knocked her
down, and after prayers she really spoke kindly to me about beginning
March afresh and any other time I could almost have promised
to try. As it was I could not kiss her even. Oh how much I think
of that which might and probably did proceed from a pure motive,
and do not consider my unkindness often which I know does not
do so.
March 1. Whole holiday. Gave way to passion to A. and B.
tho’ perhaps they were provoking I should better have striven to
retain my temper. Alas from my feelings since it seems as if it were
the letting in of water. O preserve me from being so awfully
passionate as I was. Overbearing and ordering in the afternoon. Oh
for the Charity which ‘is kind’ which ‘is not puffed up’ ‘seeketh
not her own’ and above all which ‘is not easily provoked’.”
.pm end_quote
She had no lack of self-control in other ways: why should
she have failed so conspicuously in this? When all due
weight is given to the reasons already assigned one is still
forced to the conclusion that there was something elemental
in her nature over which she not only had little control, but
of which she was to a great extent unconscious. As a mere
child she expresses her thankfulness in a letter to her Mother
that she is less “irritable,” and at rare intervals all through
life she would speak to intimate friends of the intolerable
way in which the blood rushed to her head at times, making
it all but impossible for her to weigh her words. But from
first to last she was far less conscious of the moral aspect of
the defect than one would have expected anyone of her sane
judgment and essential humility to be. The severe self-analysis
.bn 055.png
.pn +1
of the above extracts are on the whole exceptional.
From childhood on, the thought that she had failed those
she loved or had caused them anxiety and suffering, in a way
that she understood, was a source of almost intolerable pain
and compunction; but she seems to have rarely and inadequately
realized the extent of the suffering she inflicted
by her wilful ways and passionate temper.
“And yet there was always something loveable with it
all,” a childhood’s friend reiterates. “She came bounding
into a room, bringing with her an atmosphere of gaiety and
glee that is indescribable.”
Nor are we as regards the judgments of contemporaries
confined to the possibly idealized picture of later years.
Fortunately for the accuracy of the picture, Sophy seems
about this time to have originated in the school a practice
of character-writing, in which the critics were encouraged
to be absolutely frank. This is what she brought upon
herself:
.pm start_quote
“Sophy is very affectionate and has more good in her than people
think, she is truthful and can be trusted. She has an immense
amount of self-conceit, self-sufficiency and pride. She will not be
led by anything but affection, or a desire to make much of herself,
and make herself well thought of. She has great talents and is
very clever. She wishes to be thought an out-of-the-way character
and is so. She lacks gentleness of feeling and manner.”
.sp 1
“Sophy is certainly excessively clever but unfortunately knows it,
and makes a point of showing it off upon every possible occasion.
She is truthfulness itself and can really be trusted. Very passionate
but very penitent afterwards. Affectionate.”
.sp 1
“Clever, passionate, affectionate. Many bad habits but tries
(lately at least) to get the better of them. Might be made a great
deal of. Rather too fond of her own opinion. I think true.”
.pm end_quote
It is rather staggering to find how much wiser the young
folks were in those days than were their elders!
Again Sophy propounds the question whether A. or E. is
“the greater pet.” The discussion goes on in writing, and
finally the originator ends it by saying:
.pm start_quote
“At any rate A. is the only friend I have got, and I don’t want
to lose her.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 056.png
.pn +1
To which D. responds:
.pm start_quote
“You are wise, but she is not the only friend you might have.”
.pm end_quote
And Sophy all too proud:
.pm start_quote
“There are only one or two others I could have as a friend.”
.pm end_quote
And finally M.:
.pm start_quote
“As to your friends, I quite agree with D. I think you might have
had many. I know you might have had me long ere this, had
you tried.”
.pm end_quote
Of another schoolfellow under discussion Sophy explains
that she finds the young lady personally “aggravating,”
and adds:
.pm start_quote
“But I think she is very ingenuous, and would own to a thing,
even to a little one, which is a great thing considering her pride.
That is what I do admire so ardently.
.ll 68
.rj
Sophy.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 057.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.4
CHAPTER IV | SCHOOL LIFE—Concluded
.sp 2
It will surprise no one who has read the extracts from Sophy’s
diary on page #32# to learn that, at the end of the summer
term, Miss X. announced her inability to keep her any longer
in the school. The culprit evidently declined to manifest
any proper sense of sin or even of humiliation; and the distress
of her parents may be imagined. They recognized no other
standard by which to judge her than the standard by which
poor Sophy had so egregiously failed.
In any case their kindness never faltered: they could not
face having the child at home, and for some months they did
not even see her; but some “kind ladies” were found to take
charge of her until she could be put temporarily in the care
of her old schoolmistress, Mrs. Teed.
Very soon a reassuring report came to relieve the anxious
parents. On July 10th, 1854, Mrs. Jex-Blake writes:
.pm start_quote
“I delight to think that my dear child is availing herself of this
great opportunity of redeeming her character. The past is so sad,
so disappointing, and the thinking of it is so sure to make me ill,
that I endeavour with my utmost power to forget it. I will not
dwell upon it, but look forward to a bright future when my own
dear child ... will see that determination and self-willedness can
only cause misery and discomfort to herself, and wellnigh shorten,
certainly embitter my old age.
I do feel greatly comforted by Mrs. Teed’s giving a favourable
account of you. She would like you to be less idle. Why do not
you write out some papers about your natural philosophy subjects
and zoology?”
“Well, darling,” her Father writes (July 17th), “I was very glad
to get your letter, though I should like you to write more wisely.
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
I don’t at all mind your writing about ‘unkind lectures’ for I know
I never am and cannot be unkind to my own child; but I do earnestly
wish that you saw (as others do) how exceedingly foolish your
conduct has been, and that by nothing but a complete change can
you ever be comfortable.”
.pm end_quote
Meanwhile arrangements were being made for the child to
go to another school, and one is thankful to record that it was
at least a great improvement on its predecessors. On July
21st, 1854, Mr. Jex-Blake writes:
.pm start_quote
“We have had a letter from Mrs. H. this morning, and it is now
settled that G.W. you go to her the beginning of next month and
Mrs. T. will take you and kindly give you the benefit of her introduction.
You will go under the most advantageous circumstances
possible, and it will be solely and entirely your own fault, my darling
child, if everybody about you does not love you.”
.pm end_quote
A month later he writes again:
.pm start_quote
“My sweet Child,
.ti 6
I have just read your letter to the dear Mother.... Your
letter gives me great pleasure, it is so sensible, and the tone throughout
so like that of a dear dear child, who will never knowingly
again give a minute’s pain to the very best of Mothers, that I felt
I could not be happy without writing to my darling at once to tell
her how I look forward to her being a real comfort to dearest Mummy,
and a constant ‘sunbeam’ to me.... I believe the happy feeling
of confidence she has about you now is doing more for her than all
the doctors in the world.”
.pm end_quote
A fortnight later he paid the child a visit, to which she
refers in the following letter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“11th Sept. 1854.
.ll
Darling Father,
.ti 6
You know what immense pleasure I had on Friday. I often
think of it even now it is past, I feel so glad to have seen you; but
Daddy I am so sorry about the boat. I cannot forget it and I am
very sorry,—will you forgive me?
Do come down tomorrow just to say goodbye. You know you
can come down by the omnibus you took on Friday and just sit for
an hour or so and then go back. You can be back by luncheon time
or nearly and it would be such a pleasure. I cannot get an answer
to this by letter but hope to secure one by ocular demonstration.
I saw Miss B. and gave your message, but I fear unless you do as
I hope you will that its fulfilment will be rather distant. We could
just go in the Crescent Gardens or even sit still together in the
.bn 059.png
.pn +1
drawing-room for one hour (just one) and it would be so enjoyable.
I have so many things yet to say. You know we had so much
walking and eating and shopping to get through on Friday that I
was not able to tell you half the things I had to say.
If you have arranged for me to come home in 3 weeks time I will
try to reconcile myself to not seeing you if it is really impossible or
very inconvenient in joyful hope, but in that case I shall hope for
a nice long letter (but even then I should not be sorry to see your
darling face for an hour or so) on Wednesday. If not (but I hope
no ‘not’ will be in the question) I think you will yourself think
that considering that I have not seen you since about Jan. 26th,
except for 3½ hours and should not see you till Christmas that really
one hour would not be lost on your youngest little one. I am hourly
experiencing the comfort of your last visit (I am now writing with
some of the paper and a pen of your gift) and your face was like a
sunbeam in the way. I want to feel your rough cheek once more,
though I hope your Missis won’t let you come so unshaven and
unshorn as you did last time. I did delight in your beautiful flowers
which are even now on the chimney-piece—one flower I prized
above all the rest—I could almost fancy Mother picked it—a little
tiny bit of jasmine (I don’t know if that’s spelt right). It is so nice.
Will you remember to bring some stamps tomorrow.
Darling Father I am so anxious to see you again. About 11½ I
shall be on the tiptoe of hope. You won’t disappoint Sody?
You didn’t say it was impossible to come, and if it is possible you
will. Do bring a few more flowers please. Those stones of Cousin
Jane’s were lovely. Oh, I was so delighted with them.
Hoping very very soon to see you, I need not write a very long
letter but please give my best love to my darling darling Mother.
I am just taxing my small brain to make up a story of a martyrdom
in Pagan Rome,—a sort of martyrdom at least; it is meant to be
very affecting, but I don’t know if it is. I will show it you tomorrow
I hope.
.ll 68
.nf r
Best best love,
Sophy.
.nf-
.ll
If you have got leave for me to come home it will be so much
more if you come by yourself to tell me, and if not, if not it will
certainly need all your presence to comfort me.”
.pm end_quote
Among other little gifts, on the occasion of this visit, her
Father had given her a tiny note book, which she utilises at
once as a diary:
.pm start_quote
“Went to sleep with a sore throat ... and a bit of mignonette
on my bosom. Darling Mother, how I treasure her flowers.
.bn 060.png
.pn +1
15th. Knew all my lessons better to-day, and kept my place as
2nd.... Had a note from Carry. Hurrah, people don’t know
how nice it is to get a note at school. Done all my algebra for
Mr. R. It strikes me we can do those problems in Kavanagh by
equations.”
.pm end_quote
The joy of this discovery! “Problems” became her
passion: she begged friends to send her some to solve, and
took a mischievous pleasure in sending them herself occasionally
to those who had not been so fortunate as to find the
master-key of the “unknown quantity.” Sister Carry
writes:
.pm start_quote
“Many thanks for your letters and numerous sums; I think the
latter are rather overwhelming to me. I think I ought to have a
little more instruction when you come, so please don’t send me
any more at present.”
.pm end_quote
The diary continues:
.pm start_quote
“Did Cousin Jane’s equation and am very glad I have got such
a sensible cousin. Made one to send her, and then couldn’t
answer it myself.”
.pm end_quote
As cricket, tennis and hockey were unheard of in the girls’
school of those days, and as the child was not allowed to ride
or to dance, it is scarcely surprising to learn that she was
again troubled with weakness of the joints. Mrs. H. took her
to one “Professor Georgii” and the school doctor met them at
his house. The patient’s account of the interview is interesting
in view of later developments:
.pm start_quote
“Then he went into another room which was rather dark. Dr.
L. said, ‘I suppose I may come too. I am the physician,’ and G.
said, ‘I suppose so’!”
.pm end_quote
The two men examined her spine—the headmistress, of
course, being present—
.pm start_quote
“and after about ten minutes I was allowed to dress with the 2 men
staring at me. I think they might have let us retire....
The room for exercises is hung all round with prints of skeletons
and flayed human beings, tho’ for a mercy they were covered with
sort of curtains and only partially visible.”
.pm end_quote
She was condemned to an hour’s remedial exercises every
day for six weeks, and as it took double that time to make
.bn 061.png
.pn +1
the pilgrimage to and from the “Professor’s” house, three
fatiguing hours were taken out of her working day.
And all for want of a few games in due season.
The “sheer stuff of life” was proving educative enough
at this time, for Mrs. Jex-Blake and Sister Carry were both
alarmingly ill, the latter with some contagious fever, the
nature of which is not specified. It is touching to see the
Father’s letters to his schoolgirl daughter: the handwriting
has all at once become shaky and feeble, like that of an
old man.
.pm start_quote
“I write in the dear Mother’s room,” he says in November, 1854,
“in which and in sweet Carry’s I pass the greater part of the day.
They have both been very ill, but I think I may say that now both
are beginning to mend.... From the beginning of their illnesses
they have never been able to see each other.... Oh, my darling
child, I must not conceal from you the danger the best of Mothers
has been in. God give you to value her more than ever, and keep
you from ever, by disobedience of any kind, hurting her feelings
and giving her pain.”
.pm end_quote
Two days later he writes again in answer to her eager
enquiries,
.pm start_quote
“If, darling, I can buy anything with your money that I think
Mummy or Carry will be pleased with, be sure I will.”
.pm end_quote
And again, three weeks later,
.pm start_quote
“My dear child,—Your letters give me great pleasure, but, great
though it be, I will most willingly give it up to dearest Mother and
Sister when they are well enough to read and write letters.”
.pm end_quote
On Dec. 5th, 1854, his mind is sufficiently at ease to write
a truly delightful letter, though the handwriting is still
shaky:
.pm start_quote
“First and most substantially (if not principally) the “plum
pudding” plan. It is really a capital one—‘The Crimea Army
Fund’ or some such title it bears, and subscriptions are pouring in
to it from high and low—donations of hundreds of pounds down to
sixpences. It does not in any way interfere with the sending out
of what you rightly enough consider are things of still greater importance;
and which (much later than it ought to have been) the
government and the public are now despatching to the poor sufferers.
The intention is to send out vessel after vessel as quickly as possible,
.bn 062.png
.pn +1
not only with materials for plum puddings and brown stout, but to
help our poor soldiers, officers and privates, to get through the great
hardships and privations of their severe winter campaign, as far
as that can be managed. Warm extra clothing, flannel shirts and
waistcoats, stockings, gloves, leather of various kinds, needles and
thread, tea, tobacco, sugar, preserved and potted meats, raisins,
sugar, wine, porter and a hundred other things in large quantities—enormous
quantities—for at least 40 or 50,000 men.
Noblemen are sending deer from their parks, and game to be
potted and preserved and sent over, and some have offered their
yachts to convey the good things; and tradespeople have come
forward to give liberally from the stocks in their shops and warehouses.
So I shall enclose 1s. and think you cannot do better than
give it as your mite in the good cause. There are as you say ‘such
hosts of things to subscribe to,’ and I am very thankful for the
privilege God gives me of being able to help. It is one of the greatest
luxuries we can enjoy, depend upon it, my own darling.... There
is no literally ‘war news,’ this week, but there have been terrible
disasters among the combined fleets in the Black Sea. A most
furious storm there the middle of last month has sadly damaged
many of the ships, and destroyed several—one went down laden
with the intended winter store (in many articles) for our whole army,—forty
thousand specially warm great coats, and numerous other
things in proportion, which cannot be replaced instanter, and it is
feared that very great suffering by thousands for some weeks must
be the consequence. The loss of that one vessel and cargo is estimated
at £1,000,000. But, worse than all the money loss, many
hundred people perished in that and other vessels. Your cousin
Robert, whom I don’t know that you ever saw even, embarks to-morrow
for the Crimea. He is a young lieutenant in the 18th foot.
I think if we keep of the same mind, we can manage a backgammon
board when you come home, cups and all; only, as I am
an old hand at it—having played, I should think almost half-a-century
ago—you will expect, please, to be soundly beaten if we
engage together. I have read ‘Patronage’—about the same period,
perhaps, as when we played that game of backgammon, but I do think
novels in general are very so-so things, and some so wondrous foolish
that it is worse than waste of time to read them....
There was a good deal at Worthing[9] that was very pleasant, my
sweet Sophy, and I can recollect it with satisfaction. If there was
anything otherwise, it never even crosses my mind, I assure you;
and do you get rid of all thoughts of it too. I have not the smallest
doubt that, by God’s blessing, you will be a great ‘comfort’ to me.
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
I have said so a thousand times, and you won’t prove Daddy a false
prophet I know. I have nothing to ‘forgive’ my own child—nothing
whatever, darling. You have had childish faults enough, I
daresay, but they were ‘the faults of a child’ certainly, and I could
not remember a single one of them.
I won’t get a sore throat if I can help it, even for the sake of Sody’s
black-currant jam; but, if I do catch one, I know I may have a
whole jar if I want it, and I shall not perhaps like it the less that
you made it. Love from all. I will not forget to come for you
on the 23rd., my precious child. God keep you and bless you very
much.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affect. Father,
T. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 9
There is no other reference to the visit to Worthing.
.fn-
At last, on December 13th, comes a letter from her Mother:
.pm start_quote
“Darling So,
.ti 6
I feel very thankful to be once more able to enjoy a letter
from, and to write to you. I look forward with great pleasure to
Saturday week, but pray try to be quiet in your joy when I meet
you, because I am still weak and soon upset, and people will be very
vexed with you if I am the worse. Above all I could wish that you
did not get into trouble, and say and do what you should not, because
it agitates me to hear of it. If you, my own darling child, could but
once realise how trying you are by your impetuosity and restlessness,
and (must I still say?) roughness, even when you are not put out,
you would try very hard to conquer any outbreaking into extra
roughness.
And, indeed, dear So, God has bestowed upon you much wherewith
you might be agreeable, and help others, if you would but
avail yourself of it.”
.pm end_quote
Meanwhile the scrap of a diary goes on:
.pm start_quote
“Dec. 16th.... Got a letter from my precious sister. She says
she is nearly well, but she is so careless of self I half mistrust her
account, especially as I am told by Mummy and Tom she is very
thin and pale. She speaks of a chance of her being shaved. I
hope to goodness she won’t, the darling....
Thinking of darling Dad’s birthday tomorrow. I hope I shall
wake early and be first to wish him joy.... His last day to be
64! In his 66th year tomorrow. The darling. Sody hopes she’ll
make him so happy yet. This day week, heigh ho! I must try
and persuade Daddy to let me stay over Sunday. It will be but
one lesson lost and two days gained and one a Sunday....
17th. Dear Dad’s birthday. Woke up once I think, in the dark,
and again before it was light to wish him many happy returns.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 064.png
.pn +1
The wishing must have been volcanic in its intensity to
judge by what follows:
.pm start_quote
“While dressing, Kate, who had not got up, woke up to ask if it
was not his birthday, she had been dreaming it was, and that he in
consequence was playing a duet on the piano with her, but would
play the bass first, not together with her.... Mrs. H. ill, not up
all day. No Mangnall.... I must have walked 6 miles at least.
Wonderful for me. Had a dispute about extempore sermons, I
saying it meant without written help, Mlle and Sarah saying people
might have notes and yet be extempore. Mlle as politely and
sapiently as usual called me nobody. She has neither sense nor
temper to dispute. It is foolish to entangle myself with her. My
dear Dad’s birthday nearly over.
18th.... [Mrs. H.] promised I should nurse her when I came
back, and I did, and after dinner played chess and backgammon
with Mrs. H. and Conny. Mrs. H. lent me Woodstock to read.
Nice, but not equal to some of Scott’s.
Turned out some of my letters from my pocket. Hope I have not
turned out any I want of Carry’s, but they are safe in my glazed box.
21st. At Georgii’s had a fuss with Conny in the dressing-room
because I was complaining of having only a week and asked her if
she would think a week enough with her Mother. She said no,
but her Mother was better than mine. I was silly enough to be
offended, and gave her two good slaps on her shoulders which were
convenient, as I was doing her frock, and then we had a regular
squabble.... I said it was very ungenerous. I should not have
said it if she had been my guest far away from her friends, and
I don’t believe I should, though my conscience smote me about
Mary Bayley.”
.pm end_quote
This reference to Mary Bayley is interesting, as Sophy had
been at no less than three schools since the days of their
companionship. The persistent recollection of some trifling
unkindness is a typical instance of the compunction she
suffered when she hurt anyone in a way she understood.
.pm start_quote
“Got such a jolly letter from Mummy as if she had half got back
her mischief. Two bits of French, too, we are getting on. She
certainly deserves a ‘satisfaisant’.”
.pm end_quote
When the Christmas holidays came on, Sophy’s course of
exercises from the “Professor” was not nearly over, and a
week’s interruption was the utmost that could be allowed.
The holidays were long enough, however, to allow of another
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
week at home towards the end of January. Her birthday
fell in this second week, and suggestion was made that the
two sisters should have a party and a “Christmas” tree.
The correspondence about this little event is interesting as
showing something of the conditions in which Sophy would
be expected to settle down when her schooldays finally came
to an end. The preparations contrast curiously with what
young folk now-a-days, even in a much humbler walk of life,
consider necessary on these occasions.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Sussex Square,
10th Jan.
.nf-
.ll
Darling So,
I am so much better for the quiet I have had the last week
that I think I may authorize you to ask Mrs. H. to advance you 4,
or, if needful, 5 shillings to spend in little things for a Christmas
tree. I am very anxious to have it if possible, and I think it entirely
depends on the self-command you can exert over yourself; if you
and Carry will go about it quietly, and you yield at once if I say
I do not wish to add to our numbers, or if I object on any other
point....
One thing I must tell you that I cannot have a great many, neither
do I wish unnecessary expense,[10] when the daily calls from societies
where funds are failing and souls perishing for want are so numerous.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 10
From their earliest years the children were drilled in the virtue of
economy. The references to the altering and letting-down of frocks, the
calculation of pence for ribbon or frill, the careful computation of the
length of time a pair of boots might be expected to last,—all these form
instructive reading when one bears in mind the social position of the
family and the large sums of money which the parents habitually gave
away.
.fn-
Sister Carry writes with characteristic calm and reasonableness:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Sussex Square,
January 11th.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Sophy,
I suppose probabilities are now in favour of the Christmas
tree. I don’t think it need do Mummy much harm, supposing
affairs are conducted with very unusual prudence and quietness. We
shall defer buying any ready-made-sweetmeat-ornaments (this is
an 8-syllabled compound word) until you come home, and then I
think Mummy will quite like that we should get them without her
presence. I also think it will be very desirable (if possible) that we
should dress up the tree without troubling her much; but I don’t
know exactly how far we should be up to it. However, I think the
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
most important points of all are that a certain friend of ours should
endeavour to live in, and diffuse around her, a certain atmosphere
of peace and calmness; and that the tree should be quite ready
in very good time, so that there should be no bustle or worry about
it towards the last.... I mean to try to provide (with pecuniary
assistance from Mummy) some supply of purses, penwipers and markers
for the tree; I think a couple of cut markers such as you gave
Daddy the other day, on broad ribbon, would be very good; of
course I mean them to be made by you. I suppose I shall probably
have a letter from you tomorrow or Saturday; I consider I ought
to have had one. With best love, I am, dear Sophy,
.ll 68
.nf r
Your very affectionate sister,
C. A. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Presumably the little festival took place in due course, but
there is no further reference to it among the papers. The
strain of loving parental homilies continues.
.pm start_quote
“Bear in mind that all our powers and faculties are perverted by
the fall, but my child cannot be rid of her responsibility; if you
say you cannot pray,—that is at once a subject for prayer. Down
on your knees and tell God so.”
“I exceedingly like a letter from you, and bustle down a little
earlier on Tuesday morning that I may have time to enjoy it before
breakfast.... Cousins Kate and Elinor Jex-Blake say they do
not at all delight in Mathematics, they are sorry to say.”
“We are very sorry to disappoint you, but indeed we cannot
sanction your going to see the ‘Wizard of the North.’ I do hope
and believe you will submit cheerfully to give up what it would
make me very sleepless and unhappy to have you go to. Now get
a victory and believe the disappointment all for the best.”
“Though I am most decidedly better, it arises, I think, from perfect
quiet, the least change or bustle brings on spasm or headache, or
both. Carry had Punch, and thought you sent it. I don’t like
it, I think it a vulgar paper, and don’t wish it sent. I don’t at all
object to the ‘Illustrated News’ occasionally.”
.pm end_quote
Apparently Sophy declined to sit down under this condemnation
of her beloved Punch, for a fortnight later Mrs.
Jex-Blake writes: “I will return both the Punches in the
hamper. The last was capital.”
.tb
In May, 1855, a family holiday in Wales was proposed,
and, as usual, the question was raised whether Sophy could
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
be allowed to be of the party. There is no suggestion in all
the correspondence that her Father ever wished to be rid of
her company except on the ground of his wife’s health. On
May 23rd Mrs. Jex-Blake writes:
.pm start_quote
“Daddy and I have a strong wish that you should see Wales,
and it is truly painful to deny you such a pleasure and advantage
but you see, dear, I can’t help my health, and the being so easily
upset and made ill by worry. Indeed I am grieved to find you can
fully understand this, for you say your head aches if you get excited;
but, darling, strive to go on with your different duties and don’t get
excited.... Now, sweetest, assure me that you will try to be
controlled by me, and try to fall into our habits, not always restless
and having some grand scheme of your own that must be carried
out.... I do not ask you to promise, but if next week you feel
you can, looking to God, assure me you will to the utmost try to be
a comfort and not break out in these violent excitements, which
not only upset me at the time but haunt and disturb me at night,...
we are wonderfully anxious to give you the pleasure, but meanwhile
don’t be excited at school about it.
Shall we not be happy at Bettws-y-Coed if darling So is with us
and we all consider each other’s comfort?”
.pm end_quote
The microscopic school diary had for five months been
non-existent; the imperious demand of this glorious anticipation
called a fresh volume into being.
.pm start_quote
“Thursday, May 24th \[1855.] My answer was to come about
Wales. When I got my letter I prayed God to help me to bear it,
for I was nearly sure it would be a refusal, and I was quite prepared
for it and determined to keep my promise not to worry about it.
I put my letter in my pocket and ran away from them all. Then
I burst it open and read, ‘Daddy and I have such a strong wish
you should see Wales, and it is truly painful to deny you such a
pleasure.’ There, thought I, but I had expected it and didn’t feel
so dreadfully disappointed. Then I read on and oh, I found it was
not so, that I should go. Oh, I got so excited and half began to cry.
Then came Mummy’s caution not to be excited, but it was impossible.
Dropped down there and thanked God. Oh, then I trust
He has granted my prayer. Glory to God in the highest. Oh, I
was so thankful.
25th.... Got a letter from Tom. How kind of him to write,
it really was, and he has got a first bachelor’s degree. G. told me
he saw his name in the paper.
Had a great shortness and pain in taking long breaths. G. said
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
there was some irregularity in the heart, I believe. Laurie came in
afternoon and said my heart was wrong again. Left me some
medicine.
28th. Mrs. H. told me to lie down and sleep if I felt tired, but I
am much better.... K. seized on ‘Prince and Peasant’ and M.
on ‘Anecdotes of Animals’ the 2 books Miss Smith had left me. I
was very cross, I had nothing to do. I seized on Anecdotes after
Prayers to take up. M. was in high dudgeon, as if it was her right.
But I carried it off. But upstairs I thought it was not right. ‘In
honour preferring one another.’ So I took it her. But it was a
hard struggle.... I am glad I got that little victory.
Miss C. came to G.‘s for the last time. I was so sorry and so were
most folks. She gave me a little parcel, or at least put it in my
pocket on condition I should not open it till I got home. I thought
it was some mischief but took it. It was such a lovely gold pencil
case, ‘from a schoolgirl.’ Dear girl, it was very kind of her.
30th. Very difficult geometry problem. I doubt if I can do it.
Mortimer was home, and told us some very good stories of —— the
nurse of his ward. Mrs. H. said in the evening she would like to
be nurse there (!) She said how should I get on who so hate injustice,
and I said I thought such open acknowledged injustice was
not the hardest to bear. This brought down an awful storm of
wonder, reasoning, etc., till at length I got off to bed so tired.
June 1st. A little fracas with Mlle at G.’s. Little Henriquez is
here. It is strange to be with a Jew and a R. Catholic so closely.
Con rather worrying, and I not rather cross. Oh, dear, ‘Charity
never faileth.’ ‘The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is
in the sight of God of great price.’
Laurie came and left me some more medicine.
4th. Miss Teed’s birthday. Many happy returns to her. Wonder
if Carry remembers.... I want so to know Minnie’s exact birthday.
know it is near....
Went in the gardens. K. and S. persecuted me with grass and I
can’t run after them. When I caught S. and when we were indoors
I gave it her rather roughly. She was very cross and would not
have any of [my] jam at tea, she never will when she is cross with me.
Got a sore throat.
5th. Throat very fairly bad, and very ‘cheval’ as M. would
say. Apropos it’s her birthday....
Just before prayers I was in the cupboard and someone shut the
door nearly on me. I threw it open again and half upset the great
slate. We had been rather uproarious all afternoon as M’s sisters
had been here and said holidays did begin on 18th. When I came
out of the cupboard I managed to tread on M’s toes, and Mlle
packed me off to bed. I said ‘All right,’ shook hands with her,
.bn 069.png
.pn +1
kissed S. and went off. Mlle wasn’t very angry nor I very sorry and
so we were all very comfable. Seized on K. for a kiss as she came
up and she seemed forbidden to speak to me. However we had a
nice hug and she wasn’t very horrified.
6th. Found a handbill on my dressing-table from Mrs. H. ‘for
Sophy’ called Telling Jesus.”
.pm end_quote
This entry closes the school diary.
.tb
She seems to have remained at the Notting Hill school
till Easter, 1856, and to have carried away with her the
warm good will and genuine—if sorely tried—respect of her
headmistress, Mrs. H., with whom she kept up a correspondence
for some time. For another year and a half she seems
to have attended some school at Brighton within reach of
her home, but study here was discouraged, and she became
the patient of another doctor—or quack?—who prescribed a
course of rubbing.
.pm start_quote
“Under the new regulation of no study,” writes Mrs. H., “I
suppose you have plenty and to spare of the dolce far niente. I
smiled at the ‘few lessons,’ and wondered in what occupation you
might possibly spend your 24 hours.... Be assured, dear Sophy,
that so much trifling and frivolity is culpable in the sight of Heaven.
It is an unworthy waste of God’s gifts, and you are capable of something
so much better!”
.pm end_quote
That life, even now, was not all “trifling and frivolity” is
obvious from the following letter, which was written a few
weeks later:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Monday, Sept. 8th. 1856.
.ll
My own darling Mother,
.ti 6
This subject of confirmation has come up again, and I really
must say I am positively shocked at the way it is settled and talked
about. It is ‘How old are you?’ ‘Does your Papa wish you to
be confirmed?’ and never, ‘Are you fit to be?’ or ‘Do you really
wish it?’ It is just as if it were a history lecture to be attended.
I really think it is wicked. Miss H. took it for granted that I should
be and stuck down my name. I said, ‘No thank you, Miss H.,’ to
her great indignation. I assured her you wished me to do exactly as
I liked on such a subject, which she did not choose to believe at all.
But I really do wish it, Mother. I think it would help me, and
I long to take the Lord’s Supper with you. Will you let me be
confirmed from home?—that is, spend the actual day of confirmation
at home, so that I may think of something besides how I
.bn 070.png
.pn +1
am dressed and how good or bad an examination I passed, on the
day I take those solemn promises on myself. Mother, dear, I seem
less able to speak to you than anyone, but I do feel very much
about it. It is just,—‘I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek
Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments,’ I do hope.
No, I can’t write what I mean or anything else. Just write me one
line by return of post. Mr. E. is certainly not the minister I should
have chosen, nor Miss H.’s the place I should have preferred, but
I don’t think that ought to stand in the way, for it is not in respect
to them I stand.
I think I should have preferred waiting another year, but I don’t
think I can quite expect God’s blessing on His child while I defer
owning myself such.
Oh, Mother, Mother, how I wish you were here, but it seems as
if He had expressly left me to myself each time confirmation has
been spoken of. I do not think you will refuse either the permission
I ask, or your blessing on the step I take,—unless it would be too
great an excitement for you,—though it need not be, for you need
not go with me....
Well, darling, just tell me what you mean and think. But pray,
pray, don’t show any of this to anyone....
God bless and keep my darling Mother.
Farewell, precious.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your own child,
Sophy.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
“I like the idea of your being confirmed very much,” her
Father had written some months before. “God’s blessing
be with you. Look to Him and be happy.”
Sophy’s first schoolmistress, Mrs. Teed, took a different
view of the matter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“10th Oct. 1856.
.ll
Dearest Sophy,
.ti 6
Your dear Mother tells me you are soon to be confirmed.
When I read her letter I thought to myself,—Confirmed!—in what?—in
following your own foolish ways? There needs no confirmation
in that....
You told me in a letter written to me on my last birthday that
you hoped you were one of Christ’s little ones. O dear Sophy, you
know better.... I do not say do not deceive yourself, but I say
never seek to deceive others,” and so on.
.pm end_quote
Those who have read with some sympathy the preceding
pages may well be inclined to doubt whether Sophy was
“seeking to deceive others,” or rather, perhaps, whether
.bn 071.png
.pn +1
deception with her did not more readily take the form of
concealing the depth and reality of her religious life. Christ’s
lambs have not all been precisely of the type good Mrs. Teed
had in mind. The real difficulty, however, is to fit the child
into the categories of the pious people among whom she lived,
or indeed, into any category at all. For better or for worse,
she belonged to another plane of being.
If one were compelled to adopt the system of classification
current in those days, one could but fall back with thankfulness
on the remembrance of that “hasty image” of the Good
Shepherd in the Catacombs,
.pm start_poem
“And, on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.”
.pm end_poem
In any case the stormy chequered school career had now
come to a close. “I can’t fancy you, Sophy, with long
frocks,” an old school-friend writes, “taller than Hetty, a
regular grown-up young lady. Are you transformed yet?
Do let me see you first like your own old dear self!”
“Your own old dear self!” One almost weeps to think
of all the unnecessary friction and waste of energy in those
school days. Those of us who have been teachers know how
often the troublesome pupil proves to be the pick of the
basket,—the keen student and the loyal co-worker: and
perhaps more than one headmistress who reads these pages
will wish that she had been privileged to have the training of
Sophia Jex-Blake. Many admirable women prayed and wept
over her in those days, struggled to make her all they thought
she ought to be; and, if their perseverance and devotion
seemed to be inadequately rewarded, this was due to no fault
of theirs. They were what the Society of that day demanded,
what Society made them. They were wanting only in what
just chanced to be almost the one thing needful,—the modern
spirit. Rather behind their own day, their lot was to be the
trainers of a girl, who—unconsciously to herself—was far in
advance of her own day,—a girl who would have appreciated
to the utmost the free boyish education of our High Schools
for girls, and who—had it been her good fortune to have
lived under such auspices—might have written a somewhat
different page in the book of life.
.bn 072.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.5
CHAPTER V | LIFE AT HOME
.sp 2
It is with a definite sense of relief that one takes up the
thread of S. J.-B.’s life after she leaves school. She is still,
it is true, a problem and a perplexity to many, and sometimes
to those who loved her best: but at least she appeals
now to a wider tribunal: her qualities get a chance to tell,
even if they do not precisely conform to the pattern laboriously
cut out by an early Victorian schoolmistress.
Her health, unhappily, still left a good deal to be desired.
The doctors had much to say of the irritability of her brain.
The stethoscope was supposed, too, to reveal something
wrong with her heart, but this must have been functional, as
no trace of it was discoverable in after life. Riding, fortunately
was now allowed, and she entered into the enjoyment
of it with characteristic intensity; but beyond this, in
the early days of her—comparative—freedom, she certainly
took no pains to improve her physique. The enterprising
young women of those days had still so much to learn! It
seldom occurred to them to balance their physical expenditure
with their receipts.
Meanwhile it is not to be supposed that her parents had
gained greater control over her than when she was a child:
they remained quite uncompromising in the matter of dancing,
theatre-going, and other “worldly” amusements, but they
were unsuccessful in making her conform to the ordinary,
wholesome, old-fashioned routine of English family life.
Naturally her self-will in this respect annoyed both parents
very much, and Mrs. Jex-Blake must often have been sorely
.bn 073.png
.pn +1
put to it to restrain her own impatience and to preserve any
semblance of peace.
To her credit be it said that she rose to a difficult situation
in a manner that makes praise an impertinence. One is glad
to gather from the records that her physical health was now
on a firmer basis than formerly, but that was only one element
in the case. Always a deeply religious woman, she seems to
have stepped now into the full freedom of her faith,—faith,
not only in God, but in the essential goodness and uprightness
of her wayward child. She seems to have realized fully for
the first time that the stormy ways which tried her so sorely
were not a mere matter of whim and wilfulness, but that they
arose from a definite strain in her daughter,—a strain that
caused no small suffering to the owner of that nature,—a
strain possibly fundamental in character, certainly far too
deeply imbedded to be easily eradicated. And, having realized
this, the Mother set herself, not as before to criticise the evil,
but to foster and rejoice in the good, to make life as easy as
might be, to reduce friction to a minimum, and, above all,
to surround her daughter with a real glow and radiance of
sympathy.
How sorely tried that sympathy must often have been, we
can partly understand when we compare the old-world
fragrance of the Mother’s personality with all that is suggested
to us now by the name of Sophia Jex-Blake. “When
I was young,” the Mother used to say, “it was not a question
of whether we should marry, but simply of whom we should
marry.” And to her lot fell a daughter who rarely thought
of marriage at all, whose brain was teeming with all sorts
of unfettered boyish ambitions, who made it clear to everyone
whom it might concern that she meant to live her own life,—to
“make good the faculties of herself” in the way that
pleased her best.
And yet there was something in all this audacious, spontaneous
life that found an answering chord in the Mother’s
heart. She was not a phlegmatic conventional person by
nature herself. She too, perhaps, long before, had beaten
eager wings against the bars. In any case from this time
on the friendship between the two was a sacred thing, never
.bn 074.png
.pn +1
flagging, comparable with the most beautiful friendships in
history.
Fortunately we have S. J.-B.’s own account of those first
days at home:
.pm start_quote
“1857. Dec. 17th. Thursday. Came home for good. For
good? Who can tell? Oh, what would I give to look forward
ten, aye five, short years, and see what I shall be. Just 18; half my
life at school. Then 28. Dr. Moore says,—and there seems a
strange prophecy in his words,—that I shall be something, something
good if not great, but not in the way I hope;[11] that ‘on a ruin of
broken columns and shattered Grecian capitols, shall be laid the
foundation of a temple of God.’ There’s something comes home
to my heart in those shattered columns,—
.pm start_poem
‘The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from Thy throne,
And worship only Thee.’
.pm end_poem
Oh, that I had the strength, the faith, to pray so honestly,—but
God help me! I have prayed little enough lately. I seem in such
a torpor, such a prostration of mind, body, and, I fear, soul. I
hope there is much physical in this.
That beautiful hymn,—‘What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!’
Once. So it is, and now. Never mind; I think God must have
some mercy, some hope, to me when He has given and preserved
to me my darling, my angel Mother. She seems a pledge of hope.
Well, shall I be a great authoress as my day and night dreams
prompt me to hope?... Shall I ever be a happy wife and mother?
Shall I ere ten years, or half ten years have passed, be dust?... I
sometimes think so. (June 1st. 1869. At any rate never thought of
being a sawbones.)
Dec. 25th. How awfully sentimental my first entries do look!...
Daddy says he is sorry I have anything that ‘wants a lock.’
Hm, how very well he understands me and my wants! Never
mind; dear old man, he is very loving and kind if not brilliant.
Oh, Mother, Mother, what should I do without you?... Just
said how earnestly I hoped never to see one dear to me die, that
I may die first. ‘Oh, don’t think of self at all, Sophy,’ she said,
‘Just see what good you can do.’ Right.
31st. Writing now in my own dear room, darling Mother, how
every article in it speaks of her love! They have gone to a New
.bn 075.png
.pn +1
Year’s Eve prayer meeting at St. Mark’s School,—uncommonly
slow, I should think. I do think however ‘good’ I became,—or
rather I wonder whether I ever could like such very slow spiritualities.
Still there’s Bishop Wilberforce and his ‘scaffolding.’
Don’t cry ‘spirit’ and take away ‘means,’—remove the scaffolding
because its work is not accomplished.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 11
“Dec. 20th, 1859. Strange truth this: How already that hope has
changed!”
.fn-
For some time she had been writing a story based on her
own school life at Mrs. Teed’s,—a story that was never
finished. It is very well written of course, but diffuse, and
interesting chiefly for its autobiographical touches. She is
intensely loyal to both school and schoolmistress, and one
feels on reading her descriptions a fresh sense of regret that
it should have been necessary to take her away from an
atmosphere that seems in many ways to have suited her
so well.
One episode is definitely autobiographical, and it is of
more than passing interest. The small schoolchildren in the
story, playing at “shop,” have helped themselves to a quantity
of “jewels” in the shape of scraps of coloured quartz, etc.,
from a grotto in the garden. The theft being discovered,
the heroine is called up first, and, in great fear and trembling,
owns to having taken one of the fragments. Questioned as
to a second, and fearing to add to her condemnation, she
falters, “I don’t know.” Due punishment follows (banishment
to bed and enforced reading of the chapter about Eli’s
sons), then a public scene in hall and forgiveness. Now comes
the point of the episode:
.pm start_quote
“But still there was one leaden weight on me,—the story I had
told [Mrs. Teed] the day before. It seemed as though the forgiveness
was not thorough, nor of full value while part of the offence
was concealed. How easy it would have been I now saw to confess
the whole offence at once, how difficult now! Remembrance, however,
of the sorrow of the day before, and some innate love of truth,
as I hope, urged me on, and when, after prayers [Mrs. Teed] passed
away through the door at the extreme end of the schoolroom, I
ran to meet her at the foot of the great staircase which she must
ascend to her private rooms, and said hurriedly, ‘Mothy, I think
I did not tell you quite the truth yesterday. I said I did not know
who picked out the bit of yellow quartz. I think I did know
I did.’
‘Thank God, my child,’ she said gently but solemnly, ‘that you
.bn 076.png
.pn +1
have told me the truth now. It is better than a thousand pieces
of quartz.’...
Reward enough I certainly had at the time in my lightened heart
from that moment, but the effort I had made seemed hardly to merit
such rich recompense as it received some time after when I heard
that Mothy had said that she would believe everything told her
by [S. J.-B.] as if she had seen it herself.
Oh, how proud and happy was I at that moment, and the desire
fully to merit testimony so inexpressibly sweet to me had, I verily
believe, far more effect on the truthfulness of all my after life than
any suffering or punishment could have had; and it in great measure
saved me from sinking utterly in after time into that slough of deceit
into which almost all schoolgirls do fall at one time or another in
more difficult circumstances and in the midst of a lower tone than
that of Hertford House. And,—though many will deem, and
perhaps rightly, the distinction of little worth,—though often in
those after days, under less noble rule, guilty of equivocation, I do
not think I ever from that day told a lie.”
.pm end_quote
We return to the diary:
.pm start_quote
“1858. Jan. 7th.... I must begin to write again if I don’t mean
to lose the knack ... and so ought to go on with Hertford House
or write something.... I want partly to write for the money,—now
why, I wonder? Honestly, why? I have plenty of everything.
In a handsome if not luxurious home, 6 servants all much
at my orders, lots of rides, a most loving Mother, tender father,
almost every wish gratified, £30 a year clear, and lots of presents,
almost at will,—why I should write for money unless I am avaricious
or spendthrift I don’t exactly know. Partly for the pride of earning
it,—of knowing myself as well able to earn my bread as my inferiors.
Surely, though, I ought least of all in my list of comforts—blessing,
should I say?—to omit my most happy, most snug nutshell of a
room, with its handsome furniture, cosy fire, and thoroughly comfortable
arrangements. How truly loving my most precious pearl of
a Mother has been to me in this especially....
I have conceived a rather wild idea of writing to Miss M. for
counsel and sympathy.... But how get a letter to her? And,
if I did, would she think it a bore? I think not. Send the letter
to her publishers? Sure not to be opened? Then what to say
if I do write? What do I want? Don’t exactly know.
Well, leave it.
Now for the more important at least more solemn part of todays
journal. And I must make this some use. Just heard a sermon
from Mr. Vaughan on ‘Truth,’—Gehazi being the scape-goat of
warning. He spoke strongly of allowing ourselves to say more on
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
religious subjects than we feel, calling it a dangerous deception and
leading to worse. But does that include speaking a word—earnest
and sincere at least—about the souls of others, tho’ our own may
not be safe? Often at school I have felt driven to speak very
solemnly to girls about their souls when I feel I am not worthy to
say a word, for mine is perhaps as lost as theirs,—and often and often
have risen in my throat,—‘Lest when I have preached to others I
myself become a castaway.’ Yet if I am,—oh, fearful word, I can
hardly write it,—if lost (oh, God, save me!) can it, would it not
console, if consolation were possible,—to know I had warned others
from the pit into which I fell. And I hope I may have done some
little good.... And how happy I have felt—and better in myself
too,—if I have even for a moment led some to think of Jesus else
forgotten....
Dearest Mrs. Teed is dead. ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the
Lord.’ ‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last
end be like his!’...
Dear Carry! At a moment like this I can’t help thinking ‘The
righteous is more excellent than his neighbour.’ Oh, how far, far
more excellent than I am and yet I have sometimes almost despised
her because perhaps she has less intellectual power, for I do believe
God has given me some genius,—surely there is no pride in saying
so, remembering His grace, who gave thee all.
Jan. 8th. Feel very much as if I had been sentimentalizing last
night. I wish I could keep in one frame of mind.
Jan. 10th. Sunday. Just been reading the ch. on ‘Happy and
Unhappy Women’ in ‘Woman’s Thoughts.’ The Authoress speaks
strongly about a sort of repining and melancholy, and about
neglected health and almost voluntary sickness,—i.e. voluntary in
not taking proper remedies and safe-guards,—and I cannot but feel
much she says is not more than truth.
She urges action, usefulness.
Now I cannot but consider whether it does not become me to
attend to her hints, or rather to her arguments. Well I am not.
Over mental exertion may have had, and I believe has had, very
bad effects, still whether by my own fault directly or indirectly I
don’t make matters worse, is another question. And certainly my
Father and Mother are getting wretchedly anxious about me ...
perhaps, unless I make an effort, I may find life ebbing ere half its
purposes are accomplished....
At all events efforts are mine, though results are God’s. Yet
tho’ I try to draw brilliant pictures of the future, and to persuade
myself life is sweet, I can’t but feel that, if I were once assured of
peace with God, I could be well content, nay grateful, to escape the
waves of this troublesome world, and flee away and be at rest. Rest!
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
Surely it is hardly natural at my age to be longing for it so....[12]
But coward! take God’s benefits and flee His service, His battle?
It should be our’s ‘to act and to suffer, to do and to pray.’ No, it
cannot be right to flee rather than to overcome.
.fn 12
This longing for rest was something deeper than the ordinary sentimentality
of adolescence. She always said that by nature she was lazy,
and the saying was not devoid of truth.
.fn-
Well, to return. If I am, and ought, to preserve my health, how?
Suppose I make some kind of plan for the day, not rigid but suggestive.
Rise, breakfast with the rest of the world. 8½.
Have for walk till 11.
Then either some master or work for myself,—writing, painting,
etc., till dinner. 1.
Afternoon will be sure to be taken up with driving. Come in
about 4. Then read till tea. After tea write, or read out downstairs.
And go to bed with the rest of the world.
That would be rather more rational than my present programme:
Rise and breakfast at 11 or later. Dawdle till dinner.
Drive. Read till tea. Read or write till 2 or 3 a.m. Well, that
does sound bad....
.tb
Mother and I were talking about my marrying,—the chances
pro and con. I said I did not fancy I should ever marry, for I thought
I should require too many qualities to meet in the man I could
think of as my husband, for it to be likely that I should ever meet
such a paragon who could be willing to marry me.
Let me see; the indispensables are I think:—A perfect gentleman,
a sincere Christian, a liberal-minded broad-churchman; a
lofty intellect to which it would be a pride to bow, a firm will which
it would be a pleasure to submit to and concur in; a nice-looking
fellow,—for I could not be happy with one whose face I could not
love and admire in beauty of expression if not of form, and one
whose means combined with mine would lift us above genteel
poverty at least....
.tb
Had another squabble with Carry because she told me my own
Hertford House, which I was looking over, was not fit for Sunday.
She does meddle awfully. Still, she’s a precious sight better than
I am.... Bother her slow blood! She’ll drive me mad, she and
Daddy between them. Never mind, I have got my jewel of a Mother,
bless her!
24th. Sunday. Talking in the evening about an old woman in
Carry’s district who came from the Barrack Ground, Hastings.
And that put it strong into my head how I wanted to go there.
I had on Saturday evening written a letter to Amelia about the
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
treat, and then I thought how nice it would be to go and give the
treat myself.
30th. Saturday. Seven years today since I last saw old Hastings.
Isn’t it strange to return that day seven years! Pouring wet day.
Rather afraid of being disappointed in Hastings, I do love it so.
But I seemed so to have gone over and over every part in my dreams
that I could not be disappointed. I know it all so well.... After
dinner went to call on the Andrews. I thought I would go incog.
and see if they remembered me. Amelia opened the door. ‘I
think the Miss Andrews live here?’ ‘Yes, ’ ‘Are you not
connected with the Infant School?’ ‘Yes, ma’am.’ I asked if
I might come and see the children. She assented quite soberly.
I couldn’t stand it, jumped at her, and pinned her to the wall for a
kiss. She knew me in a moment, seized my hands and dragged me
in in wild delight....
Then I went to No. 3 [Croft Place] and when Mrs. L. said she
did not know me, I said, ‘I wonder if the house does, for I was born
in it.’ Then she knew me instantly.”
.pm end_quote
All this gives a vivid picture of the warm heart and riotous
spirits that endeared her to her friends, but there are not
wanting indications of the mysterious depression and forebodings—the
dread of something worse than death—that are
part of the heritage of gifted youth.
.pm start_quote
“26th. Friday. I am afraid I don’t care near so much for—as
I did,—am I changeable or is she changed? or is my standard
altered?... I read once of a person whose physical condition
was such that he could not love one person intensely for long,—not
many years if thrown much together.... I sometimes fear I am
similarly constituted. For even those nearest and dearest I have
experienced those fluctuations.... It is like a frightful trance to
know that I cannot keep a warm deep love equal; and yet in
a manner the real undercurrent of love flows on even in these
estrangements,—I cannot in myself cease to love one who has ever
been the object of that wild adoring love, though in my outer mind
and heart this tormenting, fiendlike malady makes me hate and
shrink from them while its fearful influence reigns. God grant
there is no touch of insanity in it; no words can tell how I dread
and deprecate it. There is a loathsome horrible fear in my mind
of its coming ever and anon. My ..., my beautiful, whom I used
to think mysteriously close to my soul, it has come on her. Oh,
God pity me! I fear I shall go wild. Every action, every word of
her’s seems to anger me unreasonably,—I feel the fiend on me and
yet the wild resistless love will not quite be swept away, and comes
.bn 080.png
.pn +1
back in floods of passing tenderness for a moment. And I can’t
tell her, make her understand, and she will lose her love for me
and—oh, dear I am very miserable. God grant in pity it may never
fall on my Mother! I have a horrible dread of it. I could not
live without her love,—my love for her. And I feel such wild
maddening love now, as if I knew it would soon be out of my power
to love her.”
.pm end_quote
This, of course, is morbid, and yet here again one is forced
to say that her depression is neither feigned nor wholly
without reason. Many people have experienced in some degree
the elemental fitfulness which she describes, and she probably
understood it better than most. And yet how many
can testify to her fundamental and self-sacrificing constancy!
But there is no doubt that at this period she was living far
too self-absorbed a life,—dreaming too much, thinking too
much of herself. It was time for something to happen,
and fortunately something did happen. Two breezy wholesome
girl cousins—half Irish, half Norfolk—came to Sussex
Square on a visit. They were the daughters of Ferrier
Jex-Blake, S. J.-B.’s uncle, but it chanced that she had
never met them before. She was out dining with friends
when they arrived.
.pm start_quote
“When I did come home, I went to take off my things, then to
the drawing-room, kissed them coolly enough, said, ‘How d’ye do,
cousins?’ and sat down to rattle. Tried hard to shock them with all
sorts of nonsense, and then carried them to see my room, and made
them some coffee. They, Elinor and Sarah, knew nothing of me,
and did not much admire me, I guess, that
.pm end_quote
By degrees, however, a very warm friendship sprang up.
.pm start_quote
“Oh, dear, those two girls!” she writes a fortnight later. “What
a flood of happiness they have brought into the house. And made
me behave a little too. Sarah makes me attend to my hair. Oh,
dear, home is a different place since they have been here. I am
so happy. All my gloom and troubles swept off like cobwebs.”
.pm end_quote
When they are gone, she writes pages of analysis of their
characters, and very able analysis it is. This is how it concludes:
.pm start_quote
“I feel as if I mean to love Ellie most, and Sarah forces me to
love her most. I love Ellie most in my mind, and Sarah most in
.bn 081.png
.pn +1
my heart. Sarah clings to me so, leans on me. Ellie walks upright
beside me, a companion, a guide, and gives me a hand. There
certainly is something of the angel about Ellie, with much of the
woman. You don’t connect the idea of angel with Sarah.
Sarah will do almost anything for me. I do not think she has
refused me one thing since she loved me. She rode with me when no
one on earth could get her to mount a horse; she went in a boat
with me, though she never will enter one. Oh, she is so good, so
loving to me. I wish I had her always.
And I am going to them at Dunham, my darlings.”
.pm end_quote
When it became known that she was going on a visit to
Great Dunham, a number of Norfolk relatives on both sides
of the house asked her to visit them also, and the result was
that for the next two months she had quite a gay time,—beginning
with her Mother’s elder sister, Mrs. Taylor, and
going from her to the Ferrier Jex-Blakes, the Evans, the
Blake Humfreys, the Cubitts and others. As a rule—not
without exceptions—she captivated her girl cousins, proved
very attractive to her uncles and elderly male cousins, and
contrived to rub along with her aunts. “I never appreciated
my old Daddy till now,” she writes on one occasion, “I
really believe, as Mummy says, he never said an un-nice
thing in his life, or approached a coarse or ungentlemanly
joke. He is certainly a beau-ideal gentleman, ‘Chevalier
sans reproche.’”
Of one family she says, “Not very quiet and not specially
dutiful. Rather reminds me of us, only they are more good-tempered
over it.”
.pm start_quote
“Uncle Evans amused me exceedingly at lunch yesterday, giving
his opinion in quite energetic style, and as if he had studied the
subject, that not only I should marry, which I said I shouldn’t,
but very soon.... Heaven knows who it could be.... I never
saw the man I would have.”
.pm end_quote
At Wroxham she made the acquaintance of a cousin,
Robert Blake-Humfrey, who was deeply interested in questions
of pedigree, heraldry, etc., and he found in the creator
of Sackermena an apt pupil.
.pm start_quote
“Hurrah! Going in for a good morning’s work at the pedigree. 9¼.
Near one! well, well! I certainly have had pedigree to my
heart’s content. Been hard at work for 3½ hours till my back aches
.bn 082.png
.pn +1
and I am properly tired. Never mind, I have learned a good deal
and secured a good deal. It is very kind of Robert to trust me with
his valuable pedigrees, so beautifully emblazoned.”
.pm end_quote
Mr. Blake-Humfrey was good enough to consider that he
too derived benefit from the lessons. “Your observant
eyes,” he writes when she is gone, “have done good service
in sundry ways towards the correction of errors, which
may atone in some measure for the mischief they are well-calculated
to cause in other ways.”
On May 28th she visited her Mother’s old home, Honing
Hall, and made the acquaintance of an elderly uncle who was
something of a character.
.pm start_quote
“He offered lunch, and then took us up to see the rooms. All
shutters up, and had to be re-opened and re-shut. In an upstairs
sitting-room I unluckily wanted to see a Family Bible, and said,
‘Is that the Family Bible with the names, etc.?’ ‘Yes, it is.
You leave it alone—unless you want to see I persisted I did
and he took it down. Then out came Burke’s Gentry and alia....
I thought I should have been eaten up the way he roared at me.
I asked if he hadn’t a pedigree, and he almost roared again, wanting
to know what I could want better than Burke. I might have told
him there were no shields, no intermarriages, etc., but I held my
peace, he really frightened me. I got him to show me my dear
old Mother’s room as a girl, and kissed the bed and furniture.
Thought of her as a girl there, her fun and her troubles, her courting-days
perhaps and the letters and thought and hopes that room had
witnessed. My precious darling Mother!”
.pm end_quote
In July she returned to Brighton, “much better and better-tempered”
as she expresses it, for the outing. Richer, too,
she was, in her whole outlook on life, and particularly in the
knowledge of her girl-cousins, Elinor and Sarah Jex-Blake,
and Mary Evans, with all of whom the friendship was to
prove a lasting one.
A month later, to Sophy’s great joy, Cousin Ellie accompanied
the Sussex Square party on a holiday visit to Wales.
Primary education at Bettws-y-Coed was at a low ebb in
those days, the village school being in the hands of a cobbler
whose acquirements were not great, and whose idea of discipline
was primitive in the extreme. Caroline and Sophy
Jex-Blake became deeply interested in the children and
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
gradually fell into the habit of taking a class in reading,
arithmetic, geography, etc. It was an arrangement that
gave great satisfaction to all concerned, and one into which
Sophy entered with whole-hearted enthusiasm. One is not
surprised to gather from the letters of the period that she
awakened a feeling deeper than interest in one of the professional
men with whom she was brought in contact, but
the diary makes no reference to the fact, and she may not
even have been aware of it.
“To me and to others as far as I can judge,” writes Cousin
Ellie about this date, “she is the warmest-hearted person
ever I came across.”
And six months later, reviewing the events of an eventful
year, S. J.-B. writes:
.pm start_quote
“But among the events of the old year, first and chief, my becoming
friends with my darlings, my stars, and getting acquainted with the
Evans and all the Norfolk folks.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 084.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.6
CHAPTER VI | LIFE AT QUEEN’S COLLEGE
.sp 2
Meanwhile, in the world outside, the feminist movement
was beginning to make itself felt,—if one may describe by
so inadequate a name an uprising which is due perhaps as
much to the men as to the women who have taken part in
it. As regards the whole movement S. J.-B. was living as
completely in a backwater as was possible to a girl of her
position and natural gifts; but sooner or later a current
from the main river was bound to come in even to her little
creek.
In the spring of 1858 she had made the acquaintance of
Miss Benson, sister of the Archbishop. “Henry and Ada
Benson came,” is the brief record in her diary. “Pleasant,
jolly girl, Ada.” The wanderings of that pleasant summer
hindered the development of the friendship for the moment,
but the thread was happily taken up again in the autumn.
.pm start_quote
“Yesterday went with Ada to the Swedish minstrels. Very
strange and beautiful.... After concert went for a drive in the
pony-chaise. Just beyond the battery a carriage and pair drove
into us. Coachman got down and was very civil. Everyone said
it was no fault of mine; he was trying to cut in between two. I
was not the least frightened.
Speaking to Ada on Thursday night revived the idea of Queen’s
College. Her sister there. Wrote Friday for prospectus. Tried
to speak to Daddy last night. He very impracticable, I after a
while very undutiful. At last I went into hysterics[13] which frightened
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
him dreadfully, poor old man. I shall certainly go, I think.
Michaelmas term begins 4th prox. I should very much like a year’s
or even less, good work, and a few certificates.
Very good last night Ada Benson’s story of the Bishop of ——
‘Opposed as I am to the Catholic faith, opposed, as I say I am to
the Catholic faith...’ on which a priest from the body of the meeting,
—‘Which faith except...,
.pm end_quote
.fn 13
It was an interesting and typical stage in the development of women
when a girl found it necessary to “go into hysterics” in order to convince
her father of her right to an education.
.fn-
How she always did delight in a good story! The most
strenuous passages of the diary are interspersed with pages
of jokes, riddles, anagrams, bon-mots, some very good, some
as she herself admits on reflection, very indifferent. She
used to say that a sense of humour had been her salvation,—that,
but for that, she never could have got through the
many struggles of her life.
And one is glad to think how often that sense of humour
must have come to relieve the intensity of that first conscious
struggle for freedom, when she herself felt that in venturing
forward she was renouncing a good deal,—that the life before
her was an uncharted sea.
.pm start_quote
“Worst thing about Queen’s College is—no Sarah till Christmas,”
she writes. me an invite to write for the Sunday School
Quarterly. Sat up till 2 a.m. Friday to write story on 18th after
Trinity. I wonder if I shall succeed, and, if so, how compatible
with Queen’s?
Sept. 25th. All settled for Queen’s. Mrs. Williams writes very
kindly.... Having rather hard work with Redknap, five lessons
a week. Must try for 2nd class in Mathematics, and, if I can, for
more.
Absurd panic at Dunham lest I should be a ‘governess’! Awful
phantom!”
.pm end_quote
It is difficult for girl students of the present day to imagine
all that was meant by the opening of Queen’s College in 1858.
The plan of establishing a college for women had been much
discussed by Alfred Tennyson, Charles Kingsley, and others;
and the work had been warmly taken up by Frederick Denison
Maurice, E. H. Plumptre (afterwards Dean of Wells) and R. C.
Trench (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin), all three of whom
were represented on the teaching staff.[14] We may imagine
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
what it meant for S. J.-B. to pass from the hands of the average
schoolmistress of that day to teachers such as these.
.fn 14
See Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s interesting record of “The First College for
Women.”
.fn-
On the 5th October she settled down to work, and three
days later she writes:
.pm start_quote
“Very delicious it is to be here. ‘Oh, if there be an Elysium on
earth, it is this, it is this!’ I am inclined to say. I am as happy
as a queen. Work and independence! What can be more charming?
Really perfection. So delicious in the present, what will it be to
look back upon?”
.pm end_quote
She was “fay” that night, as they say in Scotland: it
was scarcely lucky to be so happy. She little guessed, poor
child, “what it would be to look back upon” her life at
Queen’s. Much happiness she got from that life, no doubt,—a
rich harvest of education, contact with interesting temperaments
and able minds, friendships that were only broken
by death. But there are some people endowed for better or
worse, with the gift of taking what seem to be the side-issues
of life far too intensely, of living half-a-dozen lives in addition
to the one they have definitely chosen, of wringing out of an
average human lot an amount of joy, of experience and of
suffering that to their companions would seem simply incredible.
And S. J.-B. was essentially one of these. Incidentally
in the course of the day’s work she would develop fresh
interests, make unusual friendships, perhaps even incur
resentments that might well have demanded her whole
strength and energy; and all these threads had to be carried
on in addition to the recognized work of her life.
That the recognized work was in itself no sinecure may be
gathered from her report for the Michaelmas term. She has
“good,” sometimes “very good” reports in all her seven
classes,—four of them being signed by F. D. Maurice, E. H.
Plumptre and R. C. Trench. The classes were arithmetic,
geometry and algebra, English language and composition,
French, history, natural philosophy and astronomy, theology,
and church history.
She was popular with her fellow-students, and particularly
so with Miss Agnes Wodehouse (afterwards Mrs. Williams)
whom she greatly admired, and of whom she made, incidentally,
as profound a study as she did of her Euclid and history.
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
“How few ladies there are!” she concludes. “Agnes
Wodehouse is thorough. So is my Mother. Few else.”
And again in this connection, “I believe I love women too
much ever to love a man. Yet who can tell? Well, S. J.-B.,
don’t get sentimental, for patience’ sake.”
Unfortunately she was not so appreciative of one of the
younger women who was more or less in authority over her.
The new student meant no harm, but she took playful liberties,
and no doubt, as formerly at school, amused the other girls
by her wit and audacity. After a good deal of sparring and
chaffing, things came to an impasse, and it was judged better
by all concerned that S. J.-B. should seek a home for herself
elsewhere. This was not an easy matter in those days
when hostels and homes of residence for women students
were unknown; and so, to the other work of her life, was
added the toil of tramping about in search of suitable
quarters.
She made a number of unfortunate ventures, sampling
experiences familiar enough to the middle-class bachelor
woman of the present day, though somewhat staggering to
the well-bred mid-Victorian girl. The bankrupt householder,
the drunken landlady, the undesirable male lodger, “and
other fauna,” formed part of the things that had to be taken—and
were taken most pluckily—in the day’s work. If S. J.-B.
was instrumental in bringing ill-fortune on herself—as was
not infrequently the case—she never sat down and howled,—she
never even thought of giving in: she simply put her
shoulder to the wheel and went on with what she had been
doing. And so it was now, under very difficult conditions,
for, once and again, hopes were raised, hopes were dashed,
and the weary struggle began afresh,—with many bad headaches
and occasional sore throats to complicate matters.
“Quite an experience of troubles,” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake,
“as much as if you had lived many years. I think no one
could have acted more wisely than you have done”: and
again, “I wish I were near, yet I don’t think I could be a real
help: it is not in my way.” And the same might have been
said by many other friends. Greater drawbacks were involved
then than now in leaving one’s own social groove.
.bn 088.png
.pn +1
“You have behaved very sensibly through the whole trial,
which has not been a light one,” says her Father.
In her diary she writes,—
.pm start_quote
“Mummy says it is (my boarding-house troubles, she means)
quite an experience of life. Truly not in these alone. Many, I
believe, never live as much, and through as much, as I have done
already, in the whole course of life.”
.pm end_quote
Fortunately there was one house at least where she could
always take refuge, and never failed to find herself a welcome
guest,—the house of Mr. Cordery at Hampstead. Her brother
had married one of the daughters, Miss Henrietta Cordery,
in June 1857, but the friendship was of much longer standing
than that, and it would be difficult to exaggerate the comfort
and support she derived from it throughout life. With Mr.
James Cordery and his sisters Emma and Bertha (now
Mrs. S. R. Gardiner) in particular she remained in intimate
association, and always managed—even after years of separation—to
take up the threads again without a break. She
was always at her best in that Hampstead home, full of
gaiety and joie de vivre—never afraid to be her real audacious
young self.
Immediately after the extract from the diary given above,
she goes on light-heartedly:
.pm start_quote
“I am so thoroughly happy in this way of life, hardly any other
could suit me as well. So independent, yet so busy, so comfortable,
yet not luxurious. Plenty, yet no superfluity. It is certainly very
kind of the dear ‘old folks’ to let me have it so, and very wise. I
should never, at least at present, have settled at home. I should
have been ever longing for independence and work, and now I
have all I want and may yet do good. Having, as Maurice would
say, found my centre, other things will, I trust, grow up around it.
I trust most fervently I may yet be a real comfort to my precious
Mother and dear kind Father. As last year I computed my ‘worldly
estate,’ as quaint old Pepys, whose diary I am reading, would say;
I do it again. I have now for dress and private money £40 per year.
Henceforth I shall have tutor’s money as well. From my Father
I have, I think, as well as I can calculate, about £50 a term for all
expenses, besides all paid when at home, as well as travelling expenses
with them or anywhere (except while at College) and riding,
etc. So in actual money I have about £200 a year and in money’s
worth another £100. Therefore I conclude about £300 a year to
.bn 089.png
.pn +1
be about the happy medium of wealth for a single woman. Dear
generous old Father! Few would, I think, give so much in so good
a way to their children. I believe as regards happiness and satisfaction
never was money better, if never more kindly, spent. I
must try to pay back the ‘labour of love,’ and ‘requite my parents,’
dear, dear old things! Bless them both.
I really believe as regards money I am honestly quite contented.
I wish for no more. And as this is, they say, a somewhat remarkable
fact, I specially note it down. Yet it sounds ludicrously
tempting to reply to myself, Contented! Shame on you if you were
not, I think. Yet for actual pocket money, I am horribly pinched
just now,—only 9s. 9d. till next quarter,—nearly four weeks hence.”
.pm end_quote
The reference to “tutor’s money” is interesting. She had
not been two months at College when she was asked to take
the post of mathematical tutor. The suggestion gave her
great pleasure, and she broached the subject to her parents
when she next went home. Though startled, they were on
the whole pleased at the honour done her, but things assumed
a different aspect when her father realized the conditions on
which the tutorship was to be held.
The correspondence seems well worth quoting in extenso:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Jan. 28th.
.ll
Dearest, I have only this moment heard that you contemplate
being paid for the tutorship. It would be quite beneath you,
darling, and I cannot consent to it. Take the post as one of honour
and usefulness, and I shall be glad, and you will be no loser, be quite
sure. But to be paid for the work would be to alter the thing completely,
and would lower you sadly in the eyes of almost everybody.
Do not think about it, dearest, and you will rejoice greatly by and
bye with all who love you best.”
.pm end_quote
A few days later he writes again:
.pm start_quote
“My dear Sophy,—and you are very dear to me—you have been
much in my thoughts, and I have been grieved to know that you
have had so much real harass, and were so tried before you settled
down in your present peaceful domicile. Now all is well, I trust,
and you in peace and comfort, so, remembering the Appellant from
Philip drunk to Philip sober, make the application, giving me the
benefit of it, and bear with me, my own child, whilst I briefly tell
you what I think and hope. I heartily admire your readiness to
turn your talents to good account, and employ them in a way so
clearly beneficial to others, but believe me that if you take money
.bn 090.png
.pn +1
payment, you will make a sad mistake, debase your standing, and
place yourself in a position that people in general, including many
relations and friends, will never as long as you live understand otherwise
than as greatly to your discredit. You would be considered
mean and illiberal,—tho’ I am sure you are neither the one or the
other—accepting wages that belong to a class beneath you in social
rank, and which (it would be said) you had no right, under any
circumstances, to appropriate to yourself....”
.pm end_quote
The reply to this came by return of post:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Feb. 3rd ’59.
.ll
My own darling Daddy,
.ti 6
I got your kind old letter this morning, for which, thanks....
Well, as to this Tutorship. I have thought about it, and about
all the accompanying circumstances. If you will listen, I will try
to tell you what I think. I believe I am particularly suited for
teaching, my taste, and I fancy my talent, lies that way. I generally
succeed pretty well in making my pupils understand what I understand
myself and so far I suppose that proves my capability. Well,
there are so many who make teaching their profession, who do not
love it, and are not fond of it or fit for it, that I think anything
that can be done to raise the standard of teaching and teachers,
must be good. Well, this would be effectually done if everyone
who loved the business (and was therefore necessarily to a degree
fit for it) undertook it, and no others. I think this very College is
doing much to raise the standard, and I fancy they are particularly
anxious—the authorities, I mean—to get teachers of a somewhat
superior rank in society (as generally considered). Well, justly or not,
I am, I believe, supposed to be of rather higher class than the generality
of teachers, and therefore specially eligible. I suppose I
certainly have considerable talent for Mathematics, if for anything.
It is the one thing I know best and love best. Then—when the
Mathematical Tutorship is vacant,—surely I am right enough to
be anxious to obtain it. I was thought capable, and chosen.
Now remember, Father dear, I am not here taking the place from
anyone else, though if I were doing so, being myself the best fitted,
I do not think my conscience need be troubled,—but this Tutorship
has stood vacant for some months from sheer want of anyone capable
to fill it.
Well, the terms of the agreement are—do this work, and receive
this payment,—the payment contingent entirely on the work. The
conditions are, if the Tutor has four pupils, forming a college class,
she receives 5s. an hour. It is right and natural I think, I certainly
do work equivalent to the payment, and have fairly earned it. Why
should I not take it? You as a man, did your work and received
.bn 091.png
.pn +1
your payment, and no one thought it any degradation, but a fair
exchange. Why should the difference of my sex alter the laws of
right and honour? Tom is doing on a large scale what I do on a
small one,—I cannot recognize any fundamental difference in the
matter. I cannot say ‘I do not want this money, I have no use
for it,’ for in truth, tho’ having an ample and generous allowance,
I should have plenty of use for it. Then there is the honest, and
I believe, perfectly justifiable pride of earning. Did you not feel
this when you received your first salary? Why should I be deprived
of it? Then again you offer to give me the money if I refuse to take
it from the College. But this would be a wholly false position,
to get credit for generosity in refusing what I yet receive. I could
not do this. In that case I must say to the Dean, not ‘I am willing
to work without payment,’ but ‘My Father prefers that I should
receive payment from him, not from the College,’ and I think the
Dean would think us both ridiculous, or at least foolish.
If I wrote a book I should receive payment for that, and I presume
even you would not object: why then now?
For mental work done in the school the reward was a prize which
cost money, you thought this honourable,—why should the reward
of labour at College, being money, be dishonourable?
Hitherto I have had a class of only 3, and therefore I have not
been officially entitled to this salary. The Dean wished to make
some arrangement for my payment last term, but I said at once,—‘The
money is not of much consequence to me—I had rather, not
having the official number, teach them as a friend and ex-officially,’
and so I have done. Here I think I was right, I could afford to teach
them gratis, and I did so. The Dean was gratified, the pupils
obliged, and I was satisfied. So it was last term. But if this term
I get the official number, I do not see any reason except pride for
declining the payment. My pupils would pay the College all the
same, why should not the College pay me? I really do not see
that I am doing anything either mean or dishonourable, and I hardly
think you can think so either. I am sure the College authorities
do not. I do not think the Dean would think the better of me
for declining the money, which I should be glad to receive, on
account of a scruple of pride. Do you honestly, Father, think any
lady lowered by the mere act of receiving money? Did you think
the less of Mrs. Teed because you paid her? Would you have
thought better of her for refusing payment? I am sure you would
not. You are too much of a gentleman to attach importance to
money.
Of course the question of right or wrong, honour or dishonour,
is the point. This once settled, people’s opinion is worth nothing.
I should be glad that my friends had the sense to see clearly and
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
rightly in the matter, if they have not, I regret it for their own
sakes,—not for mine.
Of course I am speaking of indifferent people,—not of you or my
Mother. I care very much that you should think me right.
But even taking this lower view—of opinion—I do not believe
that many for whom I have any regard or esteem, would ultimately
think the worse of me for accepting well-earned wages. If I took
the post, and, even without accepting a salary, neglected my duty,
or did it not to the utmost of my power, I should be far more contemptible.
Mary Jane Evans, I know, for one, and she is one of the proudest
families of our relations, thinks me right. Miss Wodehouse, whose
family is older and better than mine, not only says I am right, but
showed she agreed with my opinion by her actions. She sees no
meanness in earning, but in those that think it mean. When
accepting Maurice’s school, she said to him, most nobly, I think,
‘If you think it better that I should work as a paid mistress, I will
take any salary you please; if not, I am willing to do the work
freely and for nothing.’ I think this more noble-minded than any
proud refusal of money could have been.
Well, darling Father, I have written you a very long letter, but
I wished to tell you honestly all I thought, and I trust you don’t
think my epistle too long....
.ll 68
.nf r
Your loving child,
Sophy.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.il id=i093 fn=i_093.jpg w=60% ew=60%
.ca
Emery Walker ph. sc.
Thomas Jex-Blake
from a drawing in chalks by H. T. Wells, R.A. 1862
.ca-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“4th Feb. 1859.
.ll
Dearest Sophy,
.ti 6
Your letter has given me unmixed pleasure....
About the tutorship, you write very ably, but your logic and
illustrations are not sound, as I hope to show you. I am sure you
are fit for, as you are fond of, teaching, and the desire to raise the
standard both of teaching and teachers is good, but your receiving
or not receiving wages for the work, can neither help or hinder the
matter. I agree to all you say in favour of working,—it is very
honourable, very right, and worthy of all praise, but what I object
to is your taking money for it. It is beneath you, and you will
be far happier to decline it, and let it flow into its proper channels,
to fructify widely and do real good.
The question is, as you say, one of right and wrong. In my
deliberate judgment it is wrong, in your position to receive pay for
what you do, to say nothing of the extent to which it would damage
you. The cases you cite, darling, are not to the point. I will
take each of them in the order you put them and then judge for
yourself. I never received a salary of any kind in my life. I was
.bn 093.png
.bn 094.png
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
of a liberal profession—a particularly honourable branch of it—and
(chiefly) lived by it. This was ‘right’ beyond all doubt. T. W.
is doing the same sort of thing. He feels bound as a man, with
ability to do so, to support his wife and family, and his position
is a high one, which can only be filled by a first-class man of character,
and yielding him nearer two than one thousand a year. The third
case—Mrs. Teed’s—like the others has no analogy whatever to my
dear Sophy’s—Mrs. Teed had no means. She went out in early
life as a governess to earn an honourable livelihood. She did earn
it well and her talents, by God’s blessing, led to her after success,
enabling her to lay by something to support herself and sister in
their later years.
How entirely different is my darling’s case. You want for nothing,
and know that (humanly speaking) you will want for nothing. If
you married tomorrow to my liking—and I don’t believe you would
ever marry otherwise—I should give you a good fortune. What
temptation is there for your doing that which, at best, will be misunderstood
to your prejudice? I should say at all events wait a
bit till you are a little older, and can form a riper judgment. My
feeling is strong that you being a paid teacher would certainly
damage you, in what precise degree nobody can say. Do the work—it
is a good work and I rejoice in it, but don’t put a penny into
your purse for doing it. Let the gold go in some other direction.
This will give you a greater and more lasting satisfaction than you
could derive from any money payment.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your loving Father,
T. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Feb. 5th ’59.
.ll
Dear Daddy,
.ti 6
Thanks for your letter. I do not know whether all my
reasoning was logical,—probably not—but I do not think that your
arguments respecting the relative position of (at least) Tom and
myself, are much better than ‘distinctions without differences.’
Refine it away as you may, Tom’s position and mine are considerably
analogous, though very unequal. As far as I can trace the
foundation of your asserted difference it is first his being a ‘man,’
which difference, as I said before, I cannot recognize as radical,—secondly,
that his position can only be filled by ‘a first-class man,’—and
I think, allowing, of course, for very great disparity of knowledge,
acquirements and requirements, the comparison holds, for it
is not easy, as has been proved by the length of time the office has
been vacant, to fill this Tutorship properly. I should say it is the
one the College finds hardest to fill, and therefore it is (in its degree)
as creditable a thing to hold as the mastership.
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
Then I cannot think that you mean to urge the superior lucrativeness
of his post as any argument, for the principle must be identical
in receiving one penny or ‘nearer two than one thousand a year.’
Then I cannot say that I want for nothing,—I do want the money,
and am quite satisfied to earn it, quite knowing that my allowance
is enough. I do not really see that I am in any degree wrong, if I
am it is unconsciously and honestly.
Well, I don’t think it is of much use to argue any more—I have
told you honestly what I think.... Thank you anyhow for listening
to me patiently and answering me. I do not like to vex you after
all this—you have been and are very good to me. You ask me to
wait a little while and consider. I have considered well, and I do
not believe any further thought would alter my opinion. However
I will promise you for this term only (not ceding the principle) not
to take any fees, but if they come (which I do not yet know) to
return them as a free gift to the College. If at the end of this term
I still hold my opinion, I trust you not to oppose my determination
again. Remember and understand, Daddy, I do promise this
simply and only because you wish it, and not because in the least
degree my mind is one whit altered on the point. I trust you to
meet me half way, and not be in any degree grieved if I resume
my intention next term.
.ll 68
.nf r
Goodbye darling,
Ever your loving child,
Sophy.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Saturday night. Feb. 5th 1859.
.ll
Dearest,
.ti 6
... Tom’s being a man makes all the difference, he has just
taken the plain path of duty. I am very pleased with the spirit in
which you write, darling, but I must be sincere, which I should not
be if I told you that I had the shadow of a doubt that you ought
not to be a paid teacher....
.ll 68
.nf r
Ever, dearest,
Your affect. Father,
T. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
So closes this delightful correspondence. It was not to
be supposed that she should have no regrets. In her diary
she says:
.pm start_quote
“Feb. 13th.... Like a fool I have consented to give up the
fees for this term only—though I am miserably poor. I am sorry.
It was foolish. It only defers the struggle.”
.pm end_quote
The Norfolk cousins were not a little impressed by the new
life S. J.-B. was making for herself, though it was not to be
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
expected that they should all take so enlightened a view of
it as Miss Evans did.
.pm start_quote
“You seem,” writes Cousin Ellie, “to be spending rather a jolly
time of it, but still it seems to me rather queer that a lot of girls
should walk about London when and where they please. I don’t
think you would come to any harm, but I am sure there are many
that would.”
.pm end_quote
And Sarah with whom “one does not connect the idea
of angel,”
.pm start_quote
“What glorious fun a girl might have if inclined, but you are
as steady as a rock. No fear of my dear old man doing anything
giddy. My dearest treasure, Goodnight.”
.pm end_quote
We gather from subsequent correspondence that the frivolity
of this letter brought down a very severe reprimand from its
recipient.
Elinor was the first to pay a visit to the unknown world,
and she writes a long account of it to the eager Sarah:
.pm start_quote
“When I first saw her that evening, I thought she did not look
so well, but since then I think the contrary—She is much thinner,
but in such good spirits, and so happy. I think she quite likes
everyone to know that she has been made mathematical tutor, for
it is considered a great honour.”
.pm end_quote
S. J.-B. would fain have seen more of these delightful
cousins, but their father held strict views as to the conditions
under which well-born girls might visit London.
.pm start_quote
“As to Ellie and Sarah,” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake in one of the
severe moods that had become so rare, “instead of being hurt they
do not accede to all you ask, you might well be proud of their warm
love. You have taken yourself out of your natural position, and
you cannot understand the need for their conforming to the proprieties
their Father so naturally and properly expects. Good-looking
girls do not needlessly go about London without chaperons.
Happily for them, their Father’s wish is sufficient to guide them.
There is a respect and duty to the position, however weak and
inferior you may judge a Parent to be.[15] Well, darling, God bless
and comfort you.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 15
The reference is not to S. J.-B.’s own parents.
.fn-
Yet, judged by present-day standards, S. J.-B. would not
have been considered deficient in the spirit of compromise.
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
Her letters to her Father on the subject of tutor’s fees is
evidence enough on that score, and those letters are in no
way at variance with her whole attitude.
.pm start_quote
“A triumph as to life!” she records in her diary. “Last Monday
told Mummy of my not going to the Opera without telling her, but
proclaimed my intention in the future. No interdiction. So I
talked a little about it to make all my ground sure, and coming
back on Tuesday found them going to Macbeth, Friday, and yesterday
told Mummy as a matter of course. She acquiesced if not consented,
and was glad we had so nice a party and hoped I shall not go often,
so entirely removing all interdiction....
Well, as to the Theatre! I believe I must confess myself disappointed.
Charles Kean as Macbeth did not satisfy me. Mrs.
C. Kean very good (I suppose) as Lady Macbeth. Yet not real,
as Shakespeare surely should be. After the murder of Duncan was
perhaps the grandest, most awful, most real.... The scene where
Macduff learns his loss more real than most. The fighting at the
end ludicrous.... I thought there would be decent fencing.”
.pm end_quote
A few months later she went (with Miss Wodehouse) to a
ritualistic church, and was moved to hot indignation.
.pm start_quote
“How can this man wear a priestly robe in the Church, and
subscribe to her 6th and 20th most scriptural articles? Well,
indeed, might we pray for the state of the Church Militant, when
within her walls are such teachers.
Yet was I right in not staying the sacrament because this sermon
so stirred my indignation? ‘The unworthiness of ministers hinders
not the effect of the Sacrament.’ Perhaps I was wrong. Yet I
could not have stayed in a peaceful or holy mind.
To the law and to the testimony! How precious is such unanswerable
decree!—so final a court of appeal!”
.pm end_quote
A note is inserted in the margin,—(“This May 1859. Sic
transit! Feb. 11, ).
Meanwhile her certificate examination was drawing near,
and mathematics absorbed most of her thoughts. On July 1st
she writes:
.pm start_quote
“Certificate examination nearly 4 hours. Out of 23 problems did
20½. So I trust I am pretty safe. I did get rather frightened as
the time drew on, but really have worked hard and I trust won.
Sent a telegram, ‘Success’ to Mother, though the declaration is
not yet made.
July 28th. My certificate won triumphantly and marked, ‘with
great credit’.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 099.png
.pn +1
Of course she was working too hard.
.pm start_quote
“I have a great deal of work in College,” she confesses some time
later. I take 8 classes,—English Literature, English History,
Mental and Moral Philosophy, Theology, Church History, Algebra,
Geometry, and German Conversation; and have 7 pupils. I am
afraid it is too much altogether.”
.pm end_quote
And what about the ordinary traditional preoccupations
and vanities of a young girl’s life in the midst of these manifold
interests and claims?—what about thoughts of dress, of
personal appearance, of love and marriage? Well, obviously
there was little room left for any of these. S. J.-B. was
under the impression that she cared a good deal about dress,
and she would not have been flattered if anyone had expressed
a different opinion. As a matter of fact she never had
time to give the subject much more than a passing thought,
and the poor little remnant of an allowance that remained
when more pressing claims and numerous little charities
had been met, was barely sufficient to pay for the work
of an ordinary seamstress. The adaptable coat and skirt,
and the endless variety of cheap ready-made dress had
not then come to the aid of the educated working-girl, and
S. J.-B. did not realize the difficulty of the problem she had
to tackle.
.pm start_quote
“I should like to see your muslin at 3s. 6d. before I got one,” writes
honest Ellie. “You know you are the last person in the world I
should copy in dress, or who I would trust to get one for me, for
it is the only thing almost you know nothing about, and you have
very peculiar, and, I think, generally bad taste.”
.pm end_quote
The letter may have been written in a moment of irritation
about something else, or indeed about this very subject of
dress, for young folks are sensitive as to the appearance of
their valued friends; but it certainly contained more than a
germ of truth. Fortunately youth and a radiant personality
cover a multitude of shortcomings in this respect, and contemporary
correspondence often points to the extent to which
the Almighty had “favoured” S. J.-B. “in person as well
as in mind.” In this connection there is an interesting letter
of this period from an old schoolfellow, the daughter of a
former schoolmistress. After a graphic account of a lecture
.bn 100.png
.pn +1
by Thackeray, at which the writer had the good fortune to
be present, she says:
.pm start_quote
“In face Thackeray is the image of—whom, do you think?
Guess. Someone you know,—of yourself. Yes, indeed, of you,
Sophy Blake. Mama and I were both struck, almost startled, by
the resemblance.”
.pm end_quote
It happened by a curious coincidence some years later that
Laurence was taking S. J.-B.’s portrait not very long after he
had taken Thackeray’s, and he expressed himself as greatly
struck by the similarity of the lines in the two faces. S. J.-B.’s
magnificent, speaking brown eyes, however, were hers alone.
“If they were taken out and laid on a plate,” said a forcible
young friend, “they would still be beautiful!”
As regards love and marriage, one can only say that, for
a girl in the middle of the last century she thought of them
surprisingly little. She speaks occasionally of her own
marriage as if it were as much a matter of course as her
coming of age, and, after enjoying some pleasant boy-and-girl
intercourse with an unknown “H.” at the house of her
cousins, she describes him as “the sort of man I may probably
marry in the end.” Visiting a newly-married girl
cousin, she frankly admits the charm of the comradeship,
for indeed, as a friend said of her (with more truth than
elegance of diction) a few years later than the point we have
reached: “You have taken on you a hard, hard vocation
from your youngest days,—and yet it is scarcely so hard for
anyone in the world to stand alone.”
In any case S. J.-B. went straight on her course, like many
of the finest girls of our own day, without giving any thought
to cross currents that might alter the course of her life. And
indeed her daily life was absorbing enough. It is scarcely
surprising if, among her many interests, her religious life was
somewhat smothered for the time, or that, at least she
thought so.
.pm start_quote
“Mrs. Thornton called my doing what I had done ‘noble’.
Yes, if for His sake, but, alas, much more—altogether—for my own.
Yet my loving the work is no disqualification for doing it for Him.
I trust I do do good a little. Surely honest intellectual help is something,
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
if of lower class.... I have thought—I cannot take more
work, Sunday School, etc., but what I do is good in its degree; if
done in His name, surely He will accept it.”
.pm end_quote
More and more, as she looked back on her own school life
from the vantage-ground of a year at Queen’s College, she
felt how much the education of girls might be improved.
On the last night of the year she writes:
.pm start_quote
“In this year my idea of work in the cause of education has
developed itself into that of a resident College of the Holy Trinity.
Heaven knows if ever to be carried out. If good,—yes, doubtless,—if
not, God will raise up better. Little ‘religious’ as I fear I am,
I do feel this thoroughly....
.pm start_poem
‘And may the New Year cherish
All the hopes that now are bright.’
.pm end_poem
Such a happy loving Goodnight to and from Daddy and Mummy.
Very happy I am tonight.
.pm start_poem
‘And once more ere thou perish,
Old Year, Good night! Good night!’”
.pm end_poem
.pm end_quote
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.7
CHAPTER VII | FRIENDSHIP
.sp 2
The great remain children to the last, and in this respect
S. J.-B. was essentially one of the great. To the end of her
life, for those who knew her well, she could be a delightful
child. But it was about the time we are considering—the age
of 20 to 21—that she may be said to have become a woman,
or, more truly, to have put on her manhood. She was too
busy at the time to describe or analyze in her diary the change
that was taking place—“Oh,” she says, “the little space of
time and paper! The mighty space of events ‘unheard’!”—she
was in no way self-conscious about it; but there are
indications, like straws on the surface of the water, that
show in what direction the current was setting. One sees
that she was beginning to look at life freshly and at first
hand, that the old traditional dogmatism was falling away
from her views of religion, of social questions, of the relation
between the sexes. To be sure this old husk was being
replaced by the even more acrid dogmatism of youth; but
in that very acridity one feels the promise of growth, of the
ripe wisdom of later years.
As far back as March 1859 one finds the following significant
passage:
.pm start_quote
“Had a long argument with Miss Wodehouse today. Two points
chiefly. 1. Are evil deeds, though always pernicious to the doer,
sometimes beneficial to mankind? I affirming: she denying.
2. Is it our first duty to seek our own salvation? She denying.
I cannot tell why I am so unable to argue with her. She seems
to get me into a maze. Yet I think she argues honestly. I sometimes
.bn 103.png
.pn +1
shrink from ‘sacred’ subjects with her, yet she considers all
equally sacred.
‘What is truth’ indeed? Yet am I not somewhat like ‘jesting
Pilate’ who ‘would not stay for an answer’?”
.pm end_quote
“What is truth?” one finds her asking again and again,
and she at least had one grand qualification for the search,—the
habit of treating truth with respect even in its humblest
fragments.
Her Father, of course, was uneasy about her.
.pm start_quote
“I should like to see you much,” he writes, “but I feel that Sunday
would be a heavy day for you here (as I don’t frequent popish mass
houses or the like), so that if you could run down here on Monday
evening....”
.pm end_quote
And again:
.pm start_quote
“When I think of the (at best) half teaching you have, but that
I confide in our gracious covenant head, I should tremble for you
when I am gone. I have no doubt at all that Maurice is a most
amiable man, but I believe that to this hour he has never come
clear out of Unitarianism, and therefore does not see distinctly,
nor, of course, teach scripturally, any one of those fundamental
Christian truths (all connected together) original sin, Christ’s vicarious
work atoning for sin and fulfiling the law, justification by faith,
and salvation by grace. Read, darling, ...”
.pm end_quote
The following “passage of arms” with a Norfolk cousin,
a man some years older than herself, is interesting in this
connection:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Hastings, March 12/60.
.ll
My dear Sophy,
.ti 6
I left Brighton on Friday with something of a heavy heart.
I saw I had grieved you where I had really no intention of doing so:
that was painful to me and I must regret it. I express to you my
strong regrets. But oh! tenthousandfold deeper was the sad conviction
forced upon me, that the advance you have made,—shall I
vex you if I say honestly and openly,—Romewards, since I last saw
you was very great. I believe you are as yet unconscious of your
own tendency. I told you so at Lyng. But in honesty I must tell
you, my dear Sophy, I tremble for you. It is such awfully slippery
ground. It is such a pleasant accommodation of religion to our
fallen nature. It so feeds our impulsiveness and fortifies our natural
religionism.
Will you forgive me if, with a cousin’s, I hope more than that,
.bn 104.png
.pn +1
anxious love I beseech you to ‘consider your ways,’ and bring your
soul before God in this matter. Pray don’t starve your soul on gilded
husks while bread lies at your feet in your Father’s house.
I know more than one amiable creature who began as you have done,
and has landed in Rome....
Dear Sophy, don’t trust your head, much less your heart, much
less any fallen man or imperfect church under the sun. Trust
Jesus, Jesus only, Jesus wholly, Jesus exclusively.
I trust this note will not make you wrath against me.... Be
sure of one thing, I banter no more, where feeling is evidently so
deep. Henceforth I will try and pray fervently for your poor soul’s
conversion to God.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“March 14th./60.
.ll
My dear ...
.ti 6
If I do not say that you have written me a most ridiculous
letter, it will be more from respect to its motive than its matter,—or
purport. I know people can work themselves up to any exaggerated
view of things, yet I can hardly believe that, if you have half
the sense people say you have, you can on sober reconsideration
really believe that there was the smallest ground for your tirade in
my objection to hear a Church—a house of God at least, spoken of
and criticised as if it were a right thing to visit it as you would a
theatre, and remain a looker-on while others were worshipping.
‘Seeking occasion against’ men was not the characteristic of the
followers of the Jesus whose name you reiterate so often. I believe
this was the whole feeling with which I spoke, exactly as I should
have done if it had been a Baptist Meeting-house you were commenting
on,—as I believe you would not have commented on a
Baptist Meeting-house.
You may, if you please, take my word for it that I am not going
over to Rome, among whose partisans, however, I must say that I
have never—no, nor I think from any other denomination under
the sun—heard the same virulent abuse of those who have at least
‘one Lord,’ if not ‘one faith and one baptism,’—that I have from
the Puritan portion of our own Church: and I am sure no God
and no Church was ever served by the one or the other....
What I have written is probably ill conceived and worse expressed.
Excuse all such deficiencies. If I have myself fallen into the error
I protest against, I need more than excuse—forgiveness. I have
not meant to be violent or uncourteous, but where I have felt strongly,
I doubt not I have so spoken.
For your cousinly care and affection I thank you heartily, as I
am ever
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affectionate cousin,
S. L. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 105.png
.pn +1
And not only in matters of thought and principle was she
developing; she was beginning, too, to take her full share
of responsibility as regards her fellow-creatures, entering into
the meaning of brotherhood and citizenship. In addition to
her work at Queen’s College, she undertook to teach bookkeeping
gratuitously in connection with the Society for the
Employment of Women, and had a class of children at Great
Ormond Street. “I don’t know how I should like her,”
said a candid critic, “but it is a pleasure to see anyone do
anything so well as she does teach.”
Reference was made in a former chapter to her faculty for
taking the side-issues of life too intensely. It may not be
right to look on friendship as a side-issue—though many of
the world’s workers are more or less forced so to regard it:
in any case it is scarcely too much to say that—even when
one takes into account the endless philanthropic interests
and activities of her later years—friendship constituted for
S. J.-B. the main work of life. If she had been paid for the
sheer hard work she did simply as a friend, she would have
been a very rich woman. She was always giving out, and
from this time forward, she acted on the maxim, “Bis dat
qui cito dat.” If she arrived home, dead-tired, to find a letter
asking immediate advice or help, she would answer the letter
then and there and carry her answer to the post. If a friend
was passing through London, or coming to spend a few hours
with her, she would piece out a laborious journey by bus
between her classes to meet that friend at some far-off station
and make things easy for her. If a fellow-student or a
teacher seemed on the point of breaking down, S. J.-B.
would write three or four letters and call on half-a-dozen
people to arrange for a holiday, and, if necessary, for a substitute.
“Then home very tired,” she writes to her Mother
after such an experience, “but very content to write this
account to you.” (As not infrequently happened, the invalid
had found a refuge at 13 Sussex Square, and Mrs. Jex-Blake’s
kind heart was set on an extension of the holiday.)
.pm start_quote
“I do not think I ever did so good a Lord’s Day work in my life,—if,
that is, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath Day,—to save life,
not to kill,—or let kill. I think I am very like a life-boat,—valueless
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
in itself, yet useful enough in saving better things alive. That,
indeed, its whole use and work.”
“I am sure all that driving and running about with me on Thursday
made your eye and headache much worse,” writes Cousin Sarah,
“but you are such a dear kind old pet,—would half kill yourself
for anybody.”
.pm end_quote
A former school friend writes at the same date:
.pm start_quote
“I feel I ought not to trouble you, occupied as you are, but,
whenever I have asked you for anything, your kindness and sympathy
have been so readily given that I always think of you when I hear
of any wants.”
“Mama sends her very best love,” writes Miss M. J. Evans, “and
Papa too. Oddly enough, both like you. How can they?—such
a trumpery heartless girl!”
.pm end_quote
And one comes upon hundreds of tributes to the same effect.
Sometimes S. J.-B.’s willing assistance was of a kind that
involved no small labour and anxiety. If a friend was shy
and gifted and poor, capable of producing work not yet
recognized as marketable, S. J.-B. was always ready to be the
middleman. She would write round to well-to-do friends
enlisting their interest, do up samples of the work for inspection,
and (most serious of all!) undertake the responsibility of
receiving the samples safe back again. “Put the responsibility
on me,” she used to say cheerily in after life, “my
shoulders are broad enough”; and there is no doubt she
began to say this—if not in so many words—before the age
of 20. People got into the way of trusting her to see a thing
through, of assuming that it was her métier to be competent
and to organize, of leaving to her the heavy end of the stick:
and no doubt she enjoyed it all and learned much from it,
though, when taken in addition to her regular work, it was
terribly hard on her hasty temper and “irritable brain.”
“You must be very thankful to be a medium of helping
so many,” writes her Mother,—“a great honour, I consider
it, pleasure without alloy.” But in the same letter she says,
“Sad, sad weather for you to knock about in. Darling,
don’t risk your health.”
.pm start_quote
“I would not and could not speak” (after parting from you),
writes Ellie. “I wish I was not such a silly fool, but I could not
.bn 107.png
.pn +1
help it and never can, if I have to leave you.... I wonder if you
have wished for me, if it was only to scold and fight with; but what
I wish most of all is that you would give up fighting. I would do
anything for you if I could only make even a slight alteration....
I do with all my heart wish that you would try to keep in that
temper of yours.”
.pm end_quote
Noble Ellie!—“Walks upright beside me, a companion, a
guide, and gives me a hand.”
S. J.-B. rarely, if ever, expected her friends to do her the
same kind of service; but, if they became very dear, she did
demand—more or less unconsciously to herself—a definite quid
pro quo. In her big masterful way she would proceed to
absorb their lives into her own; to establish a subtle growing
claim that was not easy to resist. She was splendidly loyal
herself, and the loyalty she exacted in return, though at
first glance an easier thing, involved more than she was in
any degree aware of. As life went on people found it increasingly
difficult to disagree with her: many simply ran
away—se sauvaient, as the French say; and yet it was only
when in the last resort one resisted her to the face for conscience
sake in some matter very dear to her heart,—that
one really gauged the greatness of her nature.
All this is taking us somewhat ahead of the early friendships
at Queen’s, but the frank recognition of this aspect of her
character is essential to an adequate understanding of her
life even in those days. A Queen’s College friend who, in
the most admirable and magnanimous spirit had accepted
what might be reckoned a heavy obligation to S. J.-B. and
her Father, writes as follows:
.pm start_quote
“I wish to tell you (I could not before, but think it right now)
that this ... will be more of a personal advantage and enjoyment
to me than anything else in the world....
With all my heart I rejoice to acknowledge an immense obligation
to you for your love to me at all times and for this particular way
of showing it, but not that sort of obligation which shall in any way
affect my words and doings with you for the future.”
.pm end_quote
If friendships are to be weighed, not counted, S. J.-B. was,
even at this period, fortunate in her possession of them.
The Norfolk cousins, the Cordery family, Miss Wodehouse,
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
Miss Ada Benson, Miss Lucy Walker (afterwards Mrs. Unwin)
who was her junior at Queen’s, Miss Martha Heaton (Mrs.
Hilhouse) a fellow teacher,—are the names that occur to
one most readily. And at this time there came into her
life a friendship that was destined to make a deeper impression
on her than any of these,—the deepest impression, in
fact, of any in the whole of her life.
This is how it began:
.pm start_quote
“Jan. 26th. 1860. Just had a lesson in book-keeping from Miss
[Octavia] Hill. Clever, pleasant girl,—much nicer than I thought.
Dined with me. What and how the deuce am I to pay her? £1 1s.,
I suppose. Dear old Patty Heaton! How fond I am of her, and
what wonderfully good friends we are!”
“Jan. 27th. I am sure I am a good companion for her (Miss
Heaton) if only in amusing her. I think laughing does her a deal of
good—hearty fun. I rejoice in her exceedingly. And I hope for
another sort of friend, or ally at least, in Miss Hill who came and
taught me book-keeping yesterday evening. Nice, sensible, clever.
Very good worker, I expect.”
.pm end_quote
In the published Life of Miss Octavia Hill, one cannot but
observe how good this dawning friendship was for her also, how
beneficient was the sunshine that it brought into her somewhat
grey young life. On Feb. 5th, 1860, she writes to her sister:
.pm start_quote
“I am always thinking of you both, and longing to have you
home again that you may really know all our doings and lives.
Mine lately you would assuredly consider rather of the dissipated
kind. I have been giving some book-keeping lessons to Miss J.-B.
She is a bright, spirited, brave, generous young lady, living alone,
in true bachelor style. It took me three nights to teach her, and
she begged me to come to dinner each time. She has a friend who
is killing herself by hard work to support her younger sisters. I
gather she would gladly give her friend help, for she speaks most
sadly of the ‘modern fallacy’ ‘that the money must be earned.’
She thinks it might be given when people are dear friends: she
says they’ve given the most precious thing and what difference
can a little money make?”[16]
.pm end_quote
.fn 16
Life of Octavia Hill.
.fn-
Almost from the first Miss Hill’s letters to S. J.-B. took a
serious tone. On March 18th she writes:
.pm start_quote
“I wonder whether you will think me very impertinent if I say
that I wonder you don’t see that, in turning away from so many
.bn 109.png
.pn +1
important thoughts with a half joke, you are refusing God’s means
of grace as much as in staying away from ordained services. It
is no good my writing sermons, however.... I trust to live to see
some one or some sorrow do for you what I cannot, to see such a
peace as ‘passeth all understanding’ come over you, to see the
thankful, perfect dedication of all your powers to His service for
His sake....
I too long for a nice quiet talk with you. I enjoy it so, and
your magnificent energy does me such good.”
.pm end_quote
The talks were not always quiet. There are those still
living who remember some animated discussions, for the
two girls had stepped, as it were, out of totally different
worlds. Here is a typical passage:
.pm start_quote
S. J.-B. (hotly), “I never heard the game laws attacked!”
O. H. (calmly), “I never heard them defended!”
.pm end_quote
In the Easter holidays of that year both Miss Heaton and
Miss Hill were guests at 13 Sussex Square, and the friendship
between the latter and S. J.-B. was greatly deepened.
.pm start_quote
“My dear loving strong child,” writes S. J.-B. in her diary after
this visit. “I do love and reverence her.... Had a loving solemn
letter (not altogether pleasing to me) on my telling her we had had
a ‘row’ [at home]. Told her by return ‘Hang you,’ and bade her
remember she was neither nurse nor parson.
Dear, dear child, though. Mother calls it beautiful letter.”
.pm end_quote
It was so characteristic of S. J.-B. to show that letter to
her Mother!
On April 29th Miss Octavia Hill writes again to her sister:
.pm start_quote
“You dear old thing, I wish I had you here to give you a good
rest and rousing, and refreshing. I am as merry as a grig.... Miss
J.-B. and I are always doing things together—great companions I
am with her. You know she’s teaching me Euclid. We went to
see Holman Hunt’s picture,...”[17]
.pm end_quote
.fn 17
Life of Octavia Hill.
.fn-
And again we quote from S. J.-B.’s diary:
.pm start_quote
“May 17th, Whitsunday. A most delicious day at Hurst with
Ruth[18] and Octa. Went down together second-class by 6 train....
Told Octa about Wales,—sitting in her room on the table, my heart
beating like a hammer. That Carry wanted to go to Wales and I too,
and most convenient about beginning of July, so ... ‘Put off my
.bn 110.png
.pn +1
visit?’ said Octa. ‘No, I was going to say (slowly) if you wish
to see anything of me, you must come too, I think, and not put off
the mountains till heaven.’ She sunk her head on my lap silently,
raised it in tears, and then such a kiss!”
.pm end_quote
.fn 18
Miss Heaton.
.fn-
There is a happy letter about this Welsh tour:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Bettws-Y-Coed,
July 26th/60.
.nf-
.ll
Darling Mother,
.ti 6
We have decided rather in a hurry as there are to be no
prizes, ... to give a treat to all, which, however, Mr. Jones specially
stipulates is not to be a school treat.... It is just coming off today.
I ordered 60 lbs. of dough and etcs. from Catherine Owen,—rather
less rich than last year (that is, fewer eggs and less butter). It
makes 88 lbs. altogether. But it was only settled on Monday, and
as this is Thursday I am half afraid all may not know. But we have
tried hard to send scouts everywhere....
Please tell me as early as possible where you will be each day of
the week beginning Sunday, August the 12th. Now don’t let Tom
just prevent your remembering or caring[19] to meet your little one.
I do long to see you so....
.fn 19
By the charm of his personality, she means, of course; not by design.
.fn-
Weymouth St. July 30th. All over, darling, now, and such a happy
time without a single blot I never remember in my life. Every
thing has been better than any anticipation of it. We have done
everything we wanted to do. We have been everywhere and have
had no mischance, no annoyance of any kind. Octa looks five
years younger, and as bright as a sunbeam. And I am in so
thoroughly happy a state of mind as hardly to know myself. I
really almost think I should be good-tempered now. We came
home by Llangollen on Saturday, 40 miles coach and 194 miles rail.
Not a bad journey for one day. We went up that morning to your
high mound. The view was glorious. I took poor old Ellen Jones
some squills for her cough, but she looks very ill indeed. She sent so
very much love to you, and wished she had something to send you.
The treat came off excellently on Thursday. It was grand fun
to see Octa playing with the children. At Hunt the Slipper once,
she, pretending she had the shoe, held up her boot toe, saying,
‘See, here it is,’ or something like it. Grace Owen, who was
seeking, seized hold of it as quick as light, crying ‘Let me have it
then,’ pulled away, and capsized Octa entirely amid roars of laughing.
Octa sprang up and chased her round and round the field till she
caught and tickled her. It was quite one of the bits of fun of the
evening.... The only contretemps was that poor little Hannah
.bn 111.png
.pn +1
fell down and sprained her arm. However, Miss Hill’s surgical
powers came in grandly, and I do not suppose Hannah is any the
worse except for a few days inaction. Well, how strange it is to
find this all over, and probably never to return. I cannot say I am
glad our tour is over, for I do believe I was never so happy for so
long in my whole life, but neither can I say I am sorry to see dear
old London again,—I am sure I could come back to no other place—as
a place—with near so much pleasure....
Just fancy Octavia’s energy,—after that tremendous journey not
reaching home till 10.30, she was off to Lincoln’s Inn at 7 a.m. the
next morning for the early communion, and went again, and I with
her in the afternoon. Her Mother and sister were so delighted
with her account of all her doings, and a glorious one she gave certainly.
I had tea with them last night. Goodbye, my darling, for
the present. Not so very long now, I trust, before we meet.
Aug. 1st. Although this has been in a ‘Milan’ envelope all this
time, I suppose I must now send it to Chamounix, as I foolishly
forgot to post it yesterday.
Today quite forgotten to order any dinner, so just bought some
cheese and strawberries.
Tell Carry John Davis has sent her a letter to complain of me,
which was forwarded to me, and which I have answered. Goodbye
darling.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
In August, when S. J.-B. and Miss Heaton were abroad
together, Miss Hill writes:
.pm start_quote
“London feels strangely desolate, the lamps looked as they used
to look, pitiless and unending as I walked home last night, and
knew I could not go to you.... I don’t the least suppose you’ll
go to Florence or see my sisters, but, if you should, pray take off your
‘spikes’ and remember ... how much they love England, and
everyone who is a friend of ours. I look forward to bright long
days in which I shall learn always more about you, and watch with
unending and unfathomable love and sympathy your upward growth,
and we may look back together on our lives, as I do often on my
own, and wonder how I could know and see so little, and wonder
more how, knowing so little, I should be led continually to deeper
truth.”
.pm end_quote
Here, one would have said, was the beginning of an ideal
friendship, and so it might have proved—allowing, of course,
for the necessary rubs between two such strong natures—had
the two girls been alone in the world. But each of the
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
two belonged to a family that in different ways exacted a
great deal from each of its members, and particularly of the
member involved in the present friendship. It is doubtful
whether even the two girls could have made a success of
living together, for the diary refers occasionally to “cataracts
and breaks,” and on both sides there are letters of penitence
for hot temper or “coldness and pride.” Moreover, Miss Hill
loved peace more than do most, and, dearly as she loved
S. J.-B., she was almost bound in time to find her “more
stimulating than quotidian,” to quote a quaint phrase of
Carlyle’s.
It is therefore with no small sinking of heart that one
reads the following entry in S. J.-B.’s diary:
.pm start_quote
“Sept. 9th. Sunday \[1860]. A plan on foot of my taking part
of a house with the Hills and having Alice for a servant. That
would be very jolly. But rents high about here,—least £120.”
.pm end_quote
Certainly a similar sinking of heart took possession of Mr.
and Mrs. Jex-Blake, and when they learned that the finding
of a tenant for the drawing-room floor was an essential part
of the scheme, it is not surprising that—short of stopping their
daughter’s allowance which had been increased some time
before—they did everything in their power to discourage
the arrangement. They were well aware that, here as everywhere,
the willing shoulders would take their full share of
work and responsibility. The reader will be prepared for
Mr. Jex-Blake’s point of view:
.pm start_quote
“Dearest Child,
.ti 6
You cannot surely mean to take a house and let lodgings in
direct opposition to your dear Mother and me. It would be quite
disgraceful and we never can consent to it. I will not believe, my
dear child, with all our love for you, that you will so directly disobey
us, or that Miss Hill, knowing our feelings on the subject, can be
a party to it.
When you spoke of the other house, you said a lawyer was to
look over the lease, and take care of the Hills, and I firmly believed,
till the last few days, that you were to hire rooms. I had no more
idea of your becoming a lodging-house keeper than of your keeping
a shop. You cannot suppose that I would assist Miss Hill in such
an exceedingly blameable transaction. I would with real pleasure
assist her in all possible ways ... but no Father or Mother who
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
love their daughter, in your position, could consent to her joining
in it. I trust, dearest child, you will give up all idea of such a thing,
which, once done, you would repent as long as you lived.”
.pm end_quote
The response to this protest has not been preserved. On
October 18th Miss Hill writes:
.pm start_quote
“My darling Child,
.ti 6
Thanks for all the trouble that you are taking about the
houses, I am quite ashamed it should all fall to your share. Is
Harley Street house quite out of the question? I received a letter
from Mama, earnestly desiring that we should keep near the park;
she would not at all like Bentinck Street. Don’t weary yourself
with searching. I certainly will return on Thursday (probably
much before) then we will look together again.... If it would secure
the Harley Street house by all means let us pay all the taxes whatever
they may be. I am writing in the dark. Goodbye, my own
darling treasure.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am,
Yours affectionately,
Octavia Hill.
.nf-
.ll
Mama has an affection now for Harley Street.”
.pm end_quote
Finally, the house 14 Nottingham Place was taken, and
rather more than the customary number of difficulties had
to be worked through in connection with it. In addition to
this, illness broke out in the house, and there were several
invalids to be nursed.
The most forgiving of mothers writes after a visit to her
daughter:
.pm start_quote
“It is all your own choice and doubtless right, but it sometimes
grieves me to think how many discomforts you have, and how many
indulgences I have—only it is not my doing that you have them
not. I wish I did not think of you as worn and fagged. Do assure
me that you go to bed as early as you can and get good rest.”
.pm end_quote
Fortunately youth and friendship make all things easy, or
at least bearable. During S. J.-B.’s brief absence in December
Miss Hill writes:
.pm start_quote
“Oh, child, your letters are such a delight, but I miss you so
dreadfully. I wander like a lost thing about the house and long
for you intensely. Every place seems so desolate. Every witness
of your thought and active care of and for me contrasted vividly
with Z’s odd procrastination till I almost felt unjust and unkind.
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
And yet I ought to glory in your kindness and goodness, and in
all that mighty and glorious energy that will help so many people in
this sad world, if it is spared to us. Your room, the fire, the thought
of all you had told me to provide for myself, fills my eyes with tears.
I mean to spend a very quiet and happy Sunday.” And again,
later,—“Do you know I get on very much more easily with strangers
than I used, all of which I owe to you. It is a great satisfaction to
me: it pleases one’s friends to have their friends like one.”
.pm end_quote
Up to this point the friendship had been an almost unqualified
gain, but, little by little, Miss Hill began to feel the
strain of dividing herself—so to speak—between her family,
her comrade and her work. In May 1861 she was called
away by the illness of her friend, Miss Harris,[20] and the change
to an ideally peaceful life was just what she needed. Her
own health had begun to suffer and she remained on at the
Lakes for some months to gain strength. In her absence,
S. J.-B. took on her own shoulders in great measure the
responsibilities of householder. Hitherto her acquaintance
with the other members of the Hill family had been slight,
but a warm friendship now sprang up between her and the
sister, Miranda, who often shared the meals made ready by the
devoted Alice and served by her in her young mistress’ room.
Few young people in the first glow of a new friendship have
sufficient tact, self-control and knowledge of life to avoid all
risk of wounding their elders, and such tact would scarcely
be possible in a nature like S. J.-B.’s. Little rubs and
frictions increased, and no doubt Octavia was the confidante
of all. In July she writes:
.fn 20
Life of Octavia Hill.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
“I hold myself prepared to come when it seems right, sure to be
given strength to do my duty, but certainly not longing for anything
that will bring me again into a world of contention. I can’t
bear to think how pained you would be if you could know the strength
of this feeling, for I know you would feel it a failure of love. I tell
you all this because I am sure you will feel it in my letters, because
I am sure such a cloud hurts less when frankly confessed, because
I am sure such a friendship as yours and mine need not fear it,
remaining untouched and immoveable, based on what can neither
change nor know fear.... All my life long this dread and misery
about even the slightest contention or estrangement has taken the
form of misery, continually saying in itself, ‘I cannot bear it.’ Since
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
physical strength has left me so far this wretched dread has increased
tenfold....
How delightfully kind and good you are to everybody. I can
fancy I see you, brightly kind, good and energetic, going about
among all the people, entertaining monitors, inviting my sisters to
tea, giving club dinners, learning about examinations, arranging
the play, talking to Miss Boucherett, delighting to plan work and
holiday for them all.... When I have thought, as I often have,
that it is probable that I may never have strength to work any more,
you cannot think how I have clung to the thought of your ever
ready and powerful help and care.”
.pm end_quote
Through all this tide of affection, one wonders whether
S. J.-B. in any way realized the very genuine apprehension her
friend felt about returning to the atmosphere of contention.
The probability is that she did not realize it at all, or rather
that she looked upon it as the expression of a transient
mood caused by physical weakness. No doubt she made a
generous resolve that “everything should be made easy for
Octa” when she returned; but she did not realize how
great was the need for resolve. She never saw her own
personality from the outside; and of course hers was not the
only “temperament” in the house. No member of the
family could have been described as a mere cabbage.
We all know how friction increases when the machinery is
out of gear: differences of opinion grew: Mr. and Mrs.
Jex-Blake protested against the imprudence of accepting a
banker’s reference only, in the case of a foreigner who was
in terms for the rooms, and for once their daughter upheld
their view with tenacity. Finally,—though this not till
October—the state of strain became so great that Octavia
was summoned home.
One can sympathize profoundly with her in the difficult
situation she was called upon to face. She knew by this
time what the faults were on both sides, knew in particular
that S. J.-B. was not a placid person; began to guess perhaps
that explosions of temper were as essential to that generous
nature as the thunderstorm is to a stretch of summer days.
Meanwhile everyone was counting on her to solve the difficulty
with a wave of her wand: and here was she, never very robust,
weary with a long journey, called away from a congenial
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
holiday to the intimate association with a thousand and
one petty cares in addition to the special crisis that had
summoned her home.
The extracts given above are a mere gleaning from many
unpublished letters which bear witness to her devoted attachment
to S. J.-B., but although her sympathy with her
own mother was perhaps less fervent at this time than it
afterwards became—she had a strong sense of filial affection
and duty. Moreover she had her work in the world
to do—invaluable work we know it proved—and she felt
that she could only do it in an atmosphere of peace and
quiet.
Assuredly it was not an easy situation to face. Looking
back upon the whole story after more than half-a-century,
one cannot but wish that she had simply compelled S. J.-B.
to realize the truth,—that she found herself unable to live
and do her work unless she could have the peace that her
soul loved, that—much as she had profited up to a certain
point by the stimulating friendship of one so unlike herself—the
time had come when she found that friendship too stimulating
under present conditions. Surely—one fancies—some
arrangement might have been arrived at by which so mutually
beneficial a friendship might have been continued.
Miss Hill, however, decided otherwise. In the watches of
that first night, after a long talk with her Mother (a talk
that, in the nature of the case, can scarcely have emphasized
S. J.-B.’s point of view), before she had even seen her friend,
she resolved to forego even the semblance of an attempt to
reconcile these conflicting claims. Something must go, and
that something must not be the mother and sisters to whom
she had devoted most of her ardent young life, the mother
and sisters who depended on her wisdom and goodness more
even than they knew.
It was one thing to make the great resolve: it was quite
another to explain it to the friend whose one conscious desire
was to make Octa’s life an easy one.
So she set her face like a flint, and, for the first time in the
course of their friendship, she refused to see S. J.-B.’s side of
the question at all. Peace must be secured at all costs, and,
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
if peace was to be secured, this delightful exacting friendship
must end. S. J.-B. might retain her rooms for the time as a
matter of business—
But neither S. J.-B. nor her indignant Mother would listen
to that.
Well, then, let it all go. The time for half measures—or
so Miss Hill thought—was over. All intercourse must cease.
“The relentless knife must cut sheer through.”
How much the effort cost her we gather from the extent to
which she overdid the part. She was at the end of her tether,
so to speak, and acting, doubtless, on an instinct of sheer self-preservation,
she would allow no discussion of any kind. She
set her face so flintily that S. J.-B. was driven in uttermost
bewilderment to the conclusion that the complete withdrawal
was due to some extraordinary aberration on the part of
her friend—an aberration for which so noble a being could
not be responsible, and which might therefore come to an
end as suddenly as it had begun. A thousand times she had
said to herself, “Everything will be right when Octavia
comes!” And now, behold, Octavia was here, and it was
no Octavia. It was a fairy changeling to whom the beautiful
past was a thing unknown. The rupture was so complete
that it was no rupture. It was a nightmare, an inexplicable
darkness at noonday, something so contrary to all known
laws of nature that it could not last. This hope, this attitude
of expectancy, was encouraged by the extraordinarily tender
and appreciative letters which, at intervals for some years,
broke through Miss Hill’s reserve. In one of these letters,
dated Nov. 5th, she writes:
.pm start_quote
“Oh, Sophy, how splendidly you and your Mother did act those
last days that now seem so far away.... When I see how deep your
forethought was, so loving as to have remembered the very slightest
things that might be the least trouble to us when you were no longer
near to take care of us, one feels as if an angel had (may I not say
still is taking) care of us.”
.pm end_quote
A generous letter indeed, but in the face of such letters
was it any wonder that S. J.-B. failed as of old to grasp the
extent of the difficulty,—that she refused to accept the situation
as final,—that she lived on in hope, and often all but
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
intolerable suspense? “Did I want to learn constancy?”
she says.
If the lesson was needed, most assuredly it was learned.
Till the close of her life the friendship on her side remained
unbroken, although she ceased in time to speak of it even to
her most intimate friends; in repeated wills she left the
whole of her little property to Miss Hill,[21] and, although other
friends came in time to fill the empty place—although she
even wrote playfully in her diary some twenty years later of
her “fanciful faithfulness”—until the eve of her last illness
she would not extinguish the hope that “even in this life”
the friendship might be renewed.
.fn 21
Until circumstances rendered Miss Hill independent of such aid.
.fn-
One might say more than this. From the time of the
rupture, Octavia Hill became to S. J.-B. a pure ideal—something
of what the subject of the In Memoriam was to the
author of that wonderful threnody.
In any case the whole history of the friendship was destined
to lie on higher levels because Octavia Hill had felt bound
to break it off.
.bn 119.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.8
CHAPTER VIII | A STEP BEYOND
.sp 2
It has never been customary among students of human
nature to attach great importance to the outpourings of a
romantic friendship, save in the rare cases where these have
achieved consummate literary form. The religion of the
adolescent, too, is a thing that we are apt to take a good deal
for granted. In S. J.-B.’s case, however, the ideal—the
vision—to which this brief friendship gave rise throws a
light on potentialities of feeling and expression which we
should otherwise never have had. The fact that so apparently
transient a gleam should have given rise to a great
and lasting inspiration lifts the passages that follow quite
out of the category of the great mass of similar experiences.
The effect of one personality upon another is a thing we
can never predict and seldom explain. It is not a mere
question of addition or even of multiplication. The process
is a vital one which can never be mechanically reckoned out.
We all see over and over again in life how the receiver may
contribute as much as the giver—the pupil no less than the
teacher. When the word of God went forth from Sinai, we
are told, each man heard it in the tongue in which he was born.
In any case that strange and new experience came with the
force of a ferment to S. J.-B. “She was never the same
again,” says a lifelong friend, looking back on the whole
history after more than fifty years: “it cut her life in
two.” But the cutting in two—like the division of the
primordial cell—was the earnest, not of death, but of life on
a larger scale.
.bn 120.png
.pn +1
“My Mother’s full glorious sympathy! What could I do
without that? God bless her, my darling,—mine for ever.”
So writes S. J.-B. in the first days of her trial. If anyone
knew the meaning of the words, “as one whom his mother
comforteth,” it was she.
And never did she need that comfort more than now.
She left the house in Nottingham Place at once, but she
gallantly finished her term at Queen’s College and then went
home to Brighton. “I must not get bitter and cynical,”
she says. “I don’t think I shall. And yet the crash has
been awful.”
As often before in lesser troubles she was thrown back on
her own deep religious faith.
.pm start_quote
“Bankrupt?” she asks herself. “No, by God’s grace, no! No
personal trouble, no trouble of any kind, can wreck a life in His
charge. Still His,—that the strong, the enduring thought.
From this very threshold of pain, whatever be its present issue,
shall go forth an earnest patient life,—to continue Christ’s faithful
soldier and servant to my life’s end.
Yes, I,—Christ’s soldier! Yes, earnestly, heartily, entirely,
though speculatively this Christ I know not,—though my mind asks
in all uncertainty What and Who?...
Dogmas are one thing; life is another.
Doing is clear; ‘doing the will,’—‘knowing the doctrine’ shall
come later. Not believing though. I mean understanding,—receiving
with reason and mind.”
.pm end_quote
So she prepared her altar, “and put no fire under,” but
the flash came.
.pm start_quote
“Dec. 13th. Sunday. 11.45 p.m. Who could have believed
what a happy holy evening has succeeded to all the pain, storm and
whirlwind of the morning?
Dr. Smith’s death.[22] The loss of Octavia’s day,—her visit of one
hour; the utter stupor of misery. Then, with all the pain, the
perfect feeling of content and assurance of Rightness in things.
Then this happy evening, lifting me altogether out of myself and my
pain into the trials and struggles and efforts and interests of Lucy
and Emily,—and, thank God, the power of helping both. Now
this calm perfect peace, which sends me to bed ‘resting.’... Oh,
God is most merciful, most bountiful. ‘Like as a Father pitieth
his children’.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 22
Dr. Southwood Smith, Miss Hill’s grandfather.
.fn-
.bn 121.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“12 p.m. Sunday night.
.ll
Don’t chide me for writing late, Mother. I must speak to you.
If I could give you an idea of the peaceful, happy evening I have
had,—sending me to bed with a heart full of love and joy and thankfulness.
No, nothing has changed in outer things. I have no
other news. But perfect peace has come. I can hardly tell you
how happy I am, Mother.
I have had such a happy, holy evening with two or three of the
girls.... And God seemed to give me such wonderful power to
help them, and I believe He has helped them. And in all this—I
know not how, but I wake up at their departing ... to find that
somehow God has rolled away my burden utterly.
I had forgotten it and myself altogether, and now I can find
neither. I can hardly believe in the pain and misery of the morning,
it seems a dim, far-off memory.
Is it not wonderful, Mother? Goodnight, my own darling.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very very lovingly,
Sophy.
.nf-
.ll
I do not know when I could so fully and entirely say, ‘I will lay
me down in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell
in ”
.pm end_quote
Follows an undated fragment, probably written to her
Mother next morning:
.pm start_quote
“—passed other quiet wayfarers, just as heavily weighted. How
gentle it ought to make one,—to see how utterly ignorant one may
be of sorrow at one’s elbow,—how one can only be generally tender
to people, if one would escape striking down an already tottering
neighbour because one does not and cannot know his needs.
It is only God who sees which is the bruised reed, and cherishes
that specially,—or can do so.
I am thinking how near 4 o’clock is coming. It may bring me a
kiss and a word from my darling. I am sure tonight’s post will at
any rate.
Well, dear, I have you always and forever, and with you only I
could never be desolate. And I have her too,—though she doesn’t
know it now.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very very lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“4.30 p.m. Thanks, many, darling, for your loving little note.
You will know before this that the cloud is not dispersing in the way
you mean,—that it has only more fully and certainly overspread
the sky. Yet there is—and will be more and more, please God,—a
light in it too.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 122.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Dec. 16th 1861. 8.30 p.m.
.ll
My own darling Mother,
.ti 6
Thanks so many for the loving little scrap of letter which I
knew would come to comfort me.
The sympathy is always delicious, but the active need for it is
utterly gone. You will have got my last night’s letter, so Mother
will not go to bed with a sad heart for her baby.
Yesterday I was wondering how it should be possible that I
should ever live out the next three days till I got home to you. Now
every sort of trouble seems to have fled utterly away. I never
knew before the meaning of the words, ‘the peace that passeth
understanding’....
I every now and then wake up with a kind of start of wonder to
find such a sunny smile of heart gladness all over my face. And
people see it too. It would be very odd if they didn’t when the
whole world is changed to me. It is the most wonderful separation
of the inner from the outer world that I ever knew. I suppose
nothing is changed in the physical world, but everything seems for
me bright and golden,—as in my Welsh tour with Octavia (I can
speak of it and her now with perfect quiet peace), as in those days
at Hurst.
Last night I thought it most glorious, but too delicious to last;
but it seems now the atmosphere of life, as if nothing can touch or
shake it....
Mother, a grand solemn wonder comes with it all, whether it is
that when we have actually and literally given up every will and
wish to God,—have rested utterly and entirely on Him with perfect
trust—whether then pain loses its power, and only blessing, even
now, can come.
... if so, what a glorious future one sees for all the sorrowful
here,—for all the tried and suffering. ‘For all the wanderers the
home is one’. The pain only till it has brought the bliss; the All-loving
Father that cannot wound but to heal.
Now my spirit is so perfectly at rest, all my strength seems to have
come back to me like Samson. I feel as if Edinbro’ or anything
else was nothing to me. ‘He hath set my heart at liberty’,—that
is the very truth. Mother, how naturally in every depth of sorrow
or joy one turns to those words about which verbally we quarrel,—not
really or deeply, Mother.
.ll 68
.nf r
Goodnight, my own Darling,
Yours very lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
From diary:
.pm start_quote
“Dec. 16th Monday. ‘For as soon as ever thou hast delivered
thyself to God with thy whole heart, and seekest not this or that
.bn 123.png
.pn +1
for thine own pleasure or will, but fixest thyself wholly upon Him,
thou shalt find thyself united and at peace.’
.ll 68
.rj
Thomas A Kempis.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Dec. 22nd. Sunday, 11 p.m. The last thread actually broken,—the
parting over.
Left London on Thursday evening by the 8 p.m....
Well, it is all in hands that cannot err,—speculative sceptic as
I may be, practically my trust is as firm as the rock on which it rests.
My Father doth do all things well,—and even makes me feel it,—even
now. And surely, to take a lower ground, I have been an
inapt pupil if the lessons of the last few months have not taught
me the utter impossibility of calculating the possibilities of the
future.
Should I have believed from man or angel on Tuesday the first
the events of Thursday the last of October?
But we don’t want low ground. He is the rock,—His work is
perfect.
And He will care for my child.”
.pm end_quote
Of course this mood of exaltation could not go on unbroken,
except at the cost of sanity itself. Hours of reaction had
to come. “We might have done anything together, we
two!”
.pm start_quote
“Dec. 29th Sunday. Tonight the bitterness seemed doubled in
finding ‘my teachers removed out of my sight.’ I just feeling my
way to truth,—saved by her from so much doubt and possible
infidelity. Well, God will teach me, will He not, Himself,—so
Mother said. I cannot (or feel as if I could not: cannot is not a
word for ‘Christ’s soldier and servant’, is it?) put it all away.
I seem so physically weak and rotten, so unable to exert will and force
myself to be quiet.
But I have found something to do. I behave infamously to the
dear old man. Well! I mean to throw my whole being into being
a good child at home. I won’t be rude and bad to him!
Now record this vow for a week,—don’t be superstitious, Jack;
say ‘God helping me’ and go on,—forget yourself. Just do this
piece of work,—and wait.
So be it.
What was the ‘chief evil’ to which the suffering must be directed
to be sufficient?
‘Selfishness,’ said I.
Truly, Jack. And what is it but intolerable selfishness,—this
brooding over a ‘bootless bene’,—this expecting sympathy and all
sorts of kindness and excuse from my Mother and the rest, and
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
talking about nerves and fiddle-de-dees,—instead of forgetting
myself and seeing to my work and to other people.
Well, God helping me, now for a new leaf—of strength and resolve
instead of whining self-pity.”
.pm end_quote
It was with this inspiration that she wrote to one of her
pupils:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Dec. 31st. 1861.
.ll
Dear Lucy,
.ti 6
... My Modern History was all right, thank you,—I forgot
you had it. By the bye, your handwriting seems to me to have
‘suffered an improvement’—I must congratulate you.
I am very glad you think I have helped you, dear child,—my
life has been a very pleasant one in London,—its memory will be
pleasanter still if it has been too not quite useless to some of the
people who have helped to make it so. I could not easily count
the people who have helped me,—some directly,—some merely
‘by living.’ It is a glorious thing, is it not, to be a link in that
chain of help which encircles the world,—to pass on to another
what one has given us,—feeling how all our broken bits of help
and gift are gathered up in the perfection of the Great Giver and
‘Father of Lights.’
I do heartily hope that you will go back to Queen’s just to take
and hold your place in that chain. Only do quite resolutely take
your part for the highest and noblest,—remember ‘the soldier and
servant’, and remember how very far we are from helping when we
acquiesce in any wrong doing,—in any low standard of right and
wrong, even by silence.
I do not think it would be easy to over-estimate the importance
of a high pure tone among the leading girls at such a place as
Queen’s,—perhaps such as you and L. hardly know what a power
lies in your hands, for the very life of the College,—and mayn’t
we look higher than that, and say for our Master’s work?
And after all that is the true and simple way of looking at it,—for
consequences we can’t calculate,—but we always can know right
from wrong, and the rest is not our affair.
Well, dear child, God bless and guide you,—that is the true help.”
.pm end_quote
And, finally, she writes in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“Dec. 31st. 1861. The last day of the year! Now to ‘take
stock’. I have just finished, and balanced exactly my money matters
(within a deficit of 2s. 8d. with which I left London). Now for the
moral and historical. See the last volume for the beginning of the
year. How well I remember the last day last year. Does she? How
we did and sorted accounts till the chimes,—and then leant together
.bn 125.png
.pn +1
out of the window in our new house fresh with plans and hopes,
saying so hopefully,
.pm start_poem
‘And may the New Year cherish
All the hopes that now are bright.’
.pm end_poem
And now truly almost,
.pm start_poem
‘For all my earthly hopes this (year) did kill.’
.pm end_poem
It is almost dreadful to look back and see how this book opens
with a jest. How full of joke and spirit all seems! The ‘deep
waters’ have come this year as never before. But it is a strange
wild comfort to find in myself so much capacity for suffering. I
had always despised myself as a weak shallow nature, to leave
others to suffer and escape with a laugh....
(Wrote one last letter to Frid[23] tonight—for her birthday tomorrow.
Weak? I think not.)
Well, now to ‘take stock’:
The opening of the year, bright, clear, hopeful. Octavia’s visit
to the north, but that no real break. Our delight in our new house,—its
quiet and peace. Some disappointment is not letting, but that
very endurable. No bar to happiness....
Then the return of Frid and Florence. My unwilling acquaintance
ripening gradually into love for Frid, called forth perhaps first by
her great love for me.
Then our glorious Whitsuntide at Hurst,—Octa and I. The few
days (Thursday to Tuesday) pure unmixed heart sunshine. Purer
and deeper if possible than that of Wales.
Then the strange double summons on May 21st., she to Mary
Harris, I to the O’Briens. Coming like a thunderbolt on our week,
but accepted by both obediently and willingly. Together to London.
Then my mission to Tufnell Park. The hurried tea, the night mail,
the parting hand pressure as the train moved, ‘in the sure and
certain hope’—is it blasphemous so to use the words? I think
not. There was a glorious churchlike solemnity always on our love.
Well!—then the five months’ parting,—hard it seemed then, but
painless—heaven—to what came after.
Perhaps I am not yet meant to see the ‘why’ of all that followed....
We seemed so helpful heavenwards to each other. Never
seemed our love truer, deeper, purer,—I know though now that mine
could be all three.
Yet with all this wondering, I do and have felt most
Surely it is best. ‘We shall see in Heaven why it could not be
otherwise.’
At least, Octavia, you have never had (in me at least) so true and
deep and leal a friend as now,—and yet quieter and so stronger.
.bn 126.png
.pn +1
And for her—God have her in His holy keeping!
I feel some work has been done when I can say as deeply, truly
as now that no earthly blessing could seem to me (except relating
to my Mother) comparable to her restoration to me (for every feeling
of hurt or wound or injury seems merged in deep earnest love
‘beyond words’) yet I am ready, and God helping me able to go
through the world—darkened and lightless as it seemed a few weeks
ago—and feel it yet my Father’s own world, ‘very good’ yet:
ready in it manfully and cheerfully to take up my burden, and
again and forever as ‘Christ’s faithful soldier and servant’ to fight
manfully till my life’s end—so help me God!”
.pm end_quote
.fn 23
Miss Miranda Hill.
.fn-
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.9
CHAPTER IX | FIRST EXPERIENCE OF EDINBURGH
.sp 2
It is the great miracle of life—that first glow and uplifting
of the soul in touch with the Unseen. “The immediate
consciousness of the religious man,” said Hegel, “has in it an
infinite worth, because an infinite content.” For the moment
it seems as if all the difficulties of life were swept away, as
if nothing temporal could matter any more. But if the world
at large is to be ennobled and spiritualised by these individual
experiences, the inspiration has got to be worked out in
“the commonplace clay with which the world provides us.”
And here comes in an all-important point, to which, on
the whole, far too little significance has been attached. To
some of those who have the vision, Fate gives a tractable,
malleable lump of clay, limited in mass, fine in texture,
ready to respond to the lightest touch of the potter: and
so we get sweet and saintly characters whose lives will bear
the minutest inspection—such characters as Maurice and
Eugénie de Guérin, or the wonderful family described in
Le Récit d’une Soeur. But there are some to whose lot a
very different problem falls. The big and rough jobs of the
world-spirit have to be tackled somehow. There are unwieldy
masses of clay, full of grit and impurities, masses that do not
seem to respond to the creative impulse at all. Rough
handling, bold tunnelling may be required; and if it be
true,—as it is—that the first beauty of the spiritual vision
seems degraded in any attempt at realization, how much
more is this the case when the seer is baffled and thwarted
at every turn by the sheer inertness and stupidity of the
.bn 128.png
.pn +1
lump, so to speak, when he is forced to resort to almost brutal
methods in order to get his idea expressed at all.
God gives man the vision and the lump of clay; and many
a man who escapes the censure of his fellows gives back the
two separately to God, like the talent wrapped in a napkin:
some men are privileged to return a piece of work that all
eyes can value in a trice: and some, “with aching hands
and bleeding feet” have merely blocked out a great conception,
have half-unconsciously drafted the rough outline of
one of the Almighty’s big schemes, an outline on the details
of which smaller souls will be abundantly occupied for
generations to come.
Before we judge of the finish of a man’s life, before we
judge of its correspondence with what he believes to be his
inspiration, let us ask—What was the extent of the problem
it had to grapple with?—What was the mass and what the
condition of the clay?—What, in a word, was the man’s
task?
There must, of course, be some sort of affinity, some mesmeric
attraction,—even if this should seem to show itself in an actual
distaste—between the man and the task. So far as human
stupidity makes this possible, we must believe that God
Almighty chooses His man, and the work of the Almighty
would be singularly limited in range if He chose for His
purpose only those whose natural endowments are such as
to make them an unqualified credit to any cause they may
espouse.
All this must be specially borne in mind in judging the
subsequent life of S. J.-B. We are bound, of course, to ask
how she worked out in life this beautiful vision of her adolescence—bound
to ask how she realized in practice the “infinite
(potential) worth and content” of that first radiant consciousness;
but before we attempt to answer the question, we must
take into full account the extent and the difficulty of the
task that fell to her share, and we must give full weight to
the natural attributes which were the tools placed at her
disposal.
It is clear that there was about her a doggedness, a high-handedness,
a disregard of tradition, an actual—if superficial—roughness,
.bn 129.png
.pn +1
which are not common qualities among the highly-educated
of either sex, and which were never admired in her
own. On the other hand, the reader of the foregoing pages
will no longer need to be told of her tenderness and sensitiveness—of
a capacity for loving and for suffering only commensurate
with her power of inspiring love, of incurring suffering.
In a sense she was a born fighter, but it is a very nice question
how far she enjoyed a fight. Thousands of times throughout
life she might truly have repeated the extract from her diary
quoted on p. #46#:
.pm start_quote
“This brought down an awful storm of wonder, reasoning, etc.,
till at length I got off to bed so tired.”
.pm end_quote
The diary continues after the extract quoted in the last
chapter:
.pm start_quote
“And now to turn to the outer facts of life.
Here I am, my London College life over, with all its pleasures,
all its cares, all its responsibilities, all its glorious delight at times.
Ten terms have I kept,—ten passed since the beginning of that
second volume of mine! How sorrowfully meagre seems the record.
Yet ‘the world could scarcely contain’ what might have been
written.
My rooms in Nottingham Place given up (first and second floors
let to Vs.). The world before me. Alice only bound to me. My
life in Scotland to begin whenever rested. Wants sufficient resolution
to make that ‘when.’ Yet I expect very needful.
I suppose the shock to my whole being of the last three months
could not be easily reckoned. Two months today since I left N.P.!
Again the burden has been lightened since my resolve (how inadequately
worked out!) of Sunday night. Not only Watch, but
Work and wait!...
By-the-bye, Frid’s lovely Christmas gift,—Christ on the Cross.
The Child Christ and verses (her’s?)
.pm start_poem
‘The love that brings salvation
Shall at last prevail!’
.pm end_poem
Amen.”
.pm end_quote
“My life in Scotland to begin whenever rested.”
It is not easy to say what induced S. J.-B. to seek
farther education in Scotland, except that she was anxious
to extend her experience in every possible way. A few
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
years later, thanks to the efforts of Mrs. Crudelius, Professor
Masson, Miss Louisa Stevenson, and others, the University
Classes for Women at Shandwick Place were successfully
started, but in 1862 there is no reason to think women were
better off in Edinburgh than in any other town of the same
size. A report seems to have gone forth, however, of the
superior advantages offered by some institution, and S. J.-B.
went north—accompanied by her faithful maid, Alice—full
of hope and ambition. On her last night at home, by an
interesting coincidence, she heard a sermon that impressed
her on the text: “They have no changes: therefore they
fear not God.”
The link that bound her with the world on which she was
entering was of the slightest. Mrs. Burn Murdoch (née Miss
Dora Monck Mason) was an old schoolfellow, a contemporary
of Caroline Jex-Blake, and the traveller carried with her an
introduction to Miss Margaret Orr, sister of Captain (now
General) Orr who afterwards married one of the Norfolk
cousins, Miss Henrietta Cubitt. In these acquaintanceships—both
of which were to ripen into lifelong friendships—S.
J.-B. was very fortunate; but as far as the immediate
object of the pilgrimage was concerned, she was destined to
bitter disappointment.
Here is her own account of her first lesson:
.pm start_quote
“Then went in to the Arithmetic class. Found the first division
doing Proportion! And, oh, such teaching! First question:—‘If
cloth is bought for 2s. a yard, at what price must it be sold to
gain 25 per cent?’ ... exhortation following in this style,—‘Now
say and exameen carefully’ (broad Scotch) ‘I think ye’ll find it
need consideration, etc.’ ‘It’s not quite a deerect question, etc., etc.’
‘Now what will be the third terrm?’ ‘Stand up the ladies who
can answer. What, Miss McCreechie! I think ye’ll hardly tell me,
but ye can try, etc., etc.’ And, sure enough, long took this abstruse
question to solve.
And such a lesson! No explaining,—some scolding, some
shouting,—a good deal of cry and small wool. Then he came to me.
‘Can ye do proportion?’ ‘Yes (!) I want to do Algebra.’ ‘Ay,—but
that’ll be Friday. But do ye know Fractions?’ I intimated
an idea that I did. He didn’t seem at all to believe it,—‘did I
understand them?’ I felt rather absurd and hypocritical, and
again said I did rather decidedly. However not a bit would he
.bn 131.png
.pn +1
believe me,—gave me (as a severe test, I suppose) ¾ x ⅝ to do and
explain. Well,—did it! ‘But why?’ I am sure I shall always
hereafter have pity on unfortunate examinees pounced upon. The
whole thing seemed so absurd,—I was so —it seemed so
silly standing up by that imp of a Sandy with a slate,—that I very
nearly failed to give any rational explanation. However I did somewhat,
and he had rather grudgingly to grant, ‘Ay, I see ye know it.’
Then, when I asked him about the Algebra, it seemed he had none
but quite beginners (don’t I pity them?) and ‘it wasn’t his subject’!
in fact, clearly enough he didn’t know as much as I did. Amazed
at my astounding erudition, ‘Where had I learned?’ ‘Oh, in
England.’ ‘Ay?’ (very surprised) ‘the English gairls generally
come very bad at Arithmetic,—we’ve one just now doesn’t know
her tables.’ I laughed out. ‘Well, you mustn’t take her for a
specimen.’ He seemed to think that the national average! ‘Ay,
but most we’ve had are very bad at it,’ very resolutely. He must
be a good judge by the specimen I saw. Well, he kept hovering
round me as a sort of strange animal, and told me how the girls
changed every year, and how he went through from the First Rules
to Decimals as the ne plus ultra.”
.pm end_quote
Clearly there was nothing to be gained here, so next morning
she “explained and apologised” to the Principal, and found
him “very nice and pleasant.” Her first impulse was to go
straight back to London (in fact arrangements were made
for her to live with Miss Wodehouse and study at Bedford
College) but in the end wiser counsels prevailed. That
arithmetic class was not the high-water mark of Edinburgh
achievement even as regarded the education of its women.
S. J.-B. made the acquaintance of Miss Blyth, who introduced
her to Mr. Begbie, Miss de Dreux and others, so she settled
down to a varied course of work, living comfortably in lodgings
with Alice to “do for her.” To Mr. Begbie she expresses her
gratitude over and over again.
.pm start_quote
“Mathematics not much with S. In answer to Miss de Dreux
told the truth. They so nice sensible and honest,—teachers born,
‘without respect of persons’. Mr. Begbie glad to hear truth,—promises
me a better far tomorrow. Mr. Weisse a good teacher,—right
good. German less formidable than I expected.”
.pm end_quote
One gathers from the letters that she made an extraordinarily
vivid impression on her teachers: several of them
refused to take fees, and Mr. Begbie persisted in his refusal.
.bn 132.png
.pn +1
“Miss de Dreux said my coming and work had given her a
fresh impetus and help forward. Isn’t that nice?”
On the whole these first months in Edinburgh though she
talks afterwards of their “grey pain,” were perhaps the high-water
mark of S. J.-B.’s life as regards sheer balance and
beauty of living. She was having, it is true, no physical
recreation, but, apart from that, her faculties were all called
equally into play. She was working steadily and hard,
chiefly at her beloved mathematics: her wider reading
included Jane Eyre, Le Juif Errant and Aids to Faith: she
was profoundly interested in religious problems and conscientiously
attended the churches of the best-known Edinburgh
ministers: she was happy in her friendships, and still
more in the passing beauty of her relation to her Mother: above
all, the flame of her religious life—in which was almost merged
at this time her devotion to Miss Octavia Hill—was burning
with a clearness that made it easy to ignore the little jars and
frictions. Even politics were not crowded out. “Daddy is
here,” says Mrs. Jex-Blake in one of her letters, “and says,
‘Tell dearest Sophy I would not have the Times, which she
makes such excellent use of, given up on any account.’”
One cannot read the record of this period of her life without
feeling that it was mainly here and now that her character
was made,—that it was the resolute determination with which
she took to work and stuck to it as the remedy for intolerable
heartache—that enabled her in later years to bear the brunt
of all she came through.
It is interesting to hear what she herself has to say about
the various elements in her life referred to above:
.pm start_quote
“There never was such a book as Jane Eyre—of its kind. Talk
of ‘finding’—that finds me through and through continually. How
people dare speak ill of such a book,—I suppose they simply can’t
understand it. Its grand steadfastness and earnestness and purity,
is something glorious. I read and re-read it as I never could another
novel, and how it helps one!”
.pm end_quote
Again:
.pm start_quote
“Aids to Faith put into my trunk by that dear old Mother who
in her weaker moment entertains an uncomfortable kind of desire
to proselytize me,—and yet can’t be quite dissatisfied.
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
Immensely interested in Aids to Faith. Read Cook’s Ideology
and Subscription, Brown’s ‘Inspiration,’ and am reading Mansel’s
‘Miracles.’ The last gives me a glimpse of light and clearness I
never had before. As far as I have read (and remember Essays and
Reviews, which I must get) I think this side has it. As to Ideology
I don’t understand it and don’t like to take the whole account from
the adverse side (though there seems great fairness and scholarlike
equity). As to subscription, I think Cook has it,—I never could
heartily sympathize with the other position, though I know it is
held by quite good and honest men. I suppose one real question
might arise,—Who is to determine the real sense of the Church?
For doubtless very grave doubts are found among equally good men.
As to ‘Inspiration,’ though I like the Essay, I hold more with
E. and R. a good deal. Most of all with Coleridge as quoted in
Aids,—‘what finds me’ is its own witness, but why impose upon
me what is not, because bound in the same covers?”
.pm end_quote
One finds among her papers brief notes of sermons by
Rainy, Candlish, Guthrie and Pulsford, of whom the last
appealed to her most.
.pm start_quote
“The prayers are what I can’t manage in the Scottish kirk.
‘Other people’s’ need too much effort to approve or disapprove
to leave your spirit free to pray. I find more and more the value
and rest of the Liturgy.... Saw Unitarian chapel. Shall I go?
Don’t expect to be in near such real sympathy as with Church of
England. Octa always said so. Bless her!”
.pm end_quote
For many reasons she was anxious to bring herself into
line with the orthodox; she accuses herself of being too
ready for an argument with her Calvinistic friends (what
earnest spirit is not too ready for an argument at her age?)
and at this time she read the Gospels carefully through
“with a fresh mind,” taking notes that might have a bearing
on dogma. If it distressed her to arrive at an unorthodox
conclusion, this was mainly because such a conclusion seemed
to separate her from those she loved best.
In the meantime she had made the acquaintance of Mr.
Pulsford, and had called to have a talk with him about her
difficulties.
.pm start_quote
“Much helpful sympathy and no horror of my questionings (how
helpful that is!) but not much direct word gain. I suppose it must
be lived out. He clearly does hold the Trinity, yet not, I think, as
some do. Certainly not the vicarious Atonement. He uses nearly
.bn 134.png
.pn +1
Maurice’s words,—‘To present humanity perfect to God.’ (I think
they are Maurice’s.) He believes Christ the man to have been
God, but at first in His manhood unconscious of His Godhead. This
seems to me very questionable and not clear. However, as I said—and
he agreed thoroughly—not being a question of spirit but of
history, it is not vital to me now, and living and desiring to know,
we shall know.
He again spoke strongly of not talking to people who can’t understand.”
.pm end_quote
The contrast of the next paragraph in the diary is irresistible:
.pm start_quote
“A mouse caught at last. Odd, how it annoys me! ‘Shall I
drown it, ma’am?’ ‘Oh, let it eat its cheese first!’ How Octa’d
laugh! Faugh!—poor little thing, how it struggled for its life,—and
how my heart beat! It was some courage to resolve it shouldn’t
suffer longer than need be.”
.pm end_quote
About her friends she has much to say as usual. On
March 31st she writes to Cousin Ellie:
.pm start_quote
“Now for friends. I think I really may put that word to Dora
Burn Murdoch and Margaret Orr, short as the time seems in days
since I have known them; but then days sometimes go for weeks
and they have both been so kind to me. ‘I was a stranger and they
took me in.’ [Dora’s] charity for others is something quite beautiful,
her unconsciousness of other people’s inferiority to her,—her width
of thought, and power of understanding those differing most widely
from herself—most admirable. You never hear her by any chance
say a harsh thing, a spiteful thing or a narrow thing,—neither do
you ever hear a weak one.”
.pm end_quote
She speaks many times in her diary of the rest and refreshment
derived from visits to Mrs. Burn Murdoch. But she
was working too hard, and Mrs. Jex-Blake’s letters at this
time take on an even deeper note than usual of love, appreciation
and solicitude. Varieties of note-paper were not great
in those days, so S. J.-B. had possessed herself of a large
quantity of common brown envelopes (similar to those used
for the delivery of telegrams) in order that her Mother might
see at a glance—without putting on her spectacles!—whether
the postman had brought the all-important thing. Many are
Mrs. Jex-Blake’s references to “the precious brown envelope,”
“the dear brown letters”; and well might she prize them.
.bn 135.png
.pn +1
Indeed one does not know which to admire more,—the painstaking
labour with which S. J.-B., at the end of a hard day’s
work, strove to keep her Mother informed of all she was
thinking and doing and trying to do—or the painstaking
labour with which her Mother strove to understand and
sympathize. She writes at great length about Jane Eyre,
about the higher education of women, and she enters into
her daughter’s religious arguments with a largeness of soul
that is simply uplifting:
.pm start_quote
“I expect,” she says, “I quoted in commas the very words you
wrote about the Atonement. The rest was, of course, my able and
learned commentary. I think I did take your words in your sense,
though I couldn’t help their expanding—you will perhaps say,
narrowing,—in my view. He will guide us both into all truth.”
.pm end_quote
The following extracts give some idea how these beautiful
letters go on:
.pm start_quote
May 6th. “I don’t think I ever had a letter from you that I
did not enjoy and enter into sympathy with, because I never will
open them till I can enjoy them. Sometimes one has come at dinner
time with others when Mr. O. has been here, and he has said,—‘Why
don’t you open the brown letter? I know it interests you.’
I answer, ‘Just because I can’t fully enjoy it’.”
May 7th. “You have a glorious field of usefulness before you. No
one can guess to what extent you may be permitted to be useful to
the generations to come. Plod on; expect rough waves that seem
ready to overwhelm your best energies, and almost quench life;
but One sitteth above the water floods Who will always bear you
through.”
May 8th. “My heart’s desire is that you should know the truth of
God, whether it be what I believe or not, and that I should know
it too.” (Previously she had written,—“I was thinking today how
surely God would guide you into all truth,—this text confirming
the thought,—‘If any man will do His will, he shall know of the
doctrine whether it be of God.’)
I think my cup of blessing would be fuller than I could bear did
we two fully agree on that which must be all-absorbing and by far
the most interesting of subjects. Though C. and I essentially agree,
we cannot communicate with each other—our natures are so different.
I don’t think I do her justice or fully understand her.”
May 9th. do well to struggle against that weary powerless
feeling, because, given way to, it might overcome all power of energy,
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
but I quite believe it is sometimes part of appointed discipline, and
it is no use to quarrel with ourselves for it. Still I do incline to
believe in your present case it proceeds from exhaustion of the
nervous system, occasioned by a shock struggled against with all
your power. You will be better when Dora is back, and you get
real interchange of thought and loving sympathy. God bless her
for giving it to my darling. Try not to allow yourself to think on
getting up,—‘How long will it be before I lie down to rest again?’
Remember you desire to give yourself to service, though not so
active just now, for others. Remember as a help how many bless
you for having sped them on their way. Your want just now is
someone to be helped and braced for usefulness.”
.pm end_quote
(“Never fail,” writes Mr. Jex-Blake, “to tell me of any
case you know of like that of the suffering governess; it is
blessed to receive in such cases, but doubly blessed to give.”)
.pm start_quote
May 10th. “Own darling, you write me such charming long
letters, you quite spoil me.... I suppose your work in Edinburgh
has been very intense while it lasted, and proportionately exhausting,—and
then you don’t, as a schoolboy does, get any reaction the
other way. You have no one to play with,—no positive recreation.
I always think the games and perpetual ‘outings’ in public schools
such a fine arrangement; and then an Oxonian or Cantab. has his
boat or his ride, My darling has positively nothing. Don’t little
one overwork herself: such concentration of thought as you give
in one hour is very exhausting.”
May 11th. “I fear it is impossible for me fully to appreciate your
child, and, even had you done differently, I question whether she
and I ever would have got at each other, but I quite believe in the
noble-heartedness you speak of. I would with avidity seize any
opening she offered, but I fear she will not make it. In the present
distortion of vision, she is more likely to suppose I am inclined to
alienate you from her. Had your’s been a common friendship, I
should have thought it possible that ‘Art might conceal too much,’
but she knows you in spite of all your faults and independently of
them,—and surely the wine was a messenger of love. You dared
not have sent it had you not been bound up in her.”
.pm end_quote
On a previous occasion Mrs. Jex-Blake had written on this
subject:
.pm start_quote
“How very remarkable and interesting is Mr. Pulsford’s statement
about valued friends apparently lost for a time. I had no idea
that your’s was a case that ever occurred,—I mean of increased love—a
stronger, deeper, truer love: it is really very grand.” “I
.bn 137.png
.pn +1
fancy I like ‘Sorrow’ better than ‘Fidelis,’[24] but the latter is
wonderfully your picture. I can scarcely grasp it, though I wonder
and admire.”
.fn 24
Poems by A. A. Procter.
.fn-
May 13th. “I have nearly finished Jane Eyre, and like much of
it exceedingly. What I object to is the personal handling she
allows ... and, grand as her conduct is, she marries a man of very
exceptionable conduct, and who to the last had a relish for
swearing.... I think she makes St. John very unfairly disagreeable,—his
icy coldness very unnatural....”
May 15th. “Well, darling, you and I must wait to talk it out
about Jane Eyre. I shall never be able to write it out. It appears
to me you have built up a wall to knock down.[25] I don’t at all ask
a different code of morals for men and women. But I do wish a
woman to be refined and pure, not because I am conventional, but
because I think it essential to self-respect and dignity.... I don’t
believe high-toned governesses fall in love with their employers....
I think it very cruel upon the race of governesses to put it into
people’s heads they are to fall in love. I always, since I took a
district in 1836 felt the tenderest, most motherly pity for any misguided
girl.... I certainly never did or will read impure things
in books or newspapers. I consider familiarity with impurity rubs
the bloom off the plum, which never can be restored. Minds differ,
some almost enjoy to read queer things. Impurity does not seem
to me to find any response in you: you can come in contact and it
runs off like quicksilver—leaves no print. I don’t think that is
common.”
.fn 25
The letter has not been preserved.
.fn-
“A letter from Elinor. She talks of enjoying your letters so much....
I am very glad Plumptre has sent you a testimonial you like.
I fully expected he would send (if asked) a very handsome one.
The world has many kind hearts, has it not?—none like my
own child.”
.pm end_quote
And again, talking of a sermon she had heard:
.pm start_quote
“I thought of my precious child when he pictured a strong
character with exceeding depth of tenderness and gentleness.”
.pm end_quote
One understands more and more fully the fervour with
which S. J.-B. was wont to say in her later years,—“No one
ever had such parents as mine!” “How I wish you had
known my mother!”
.tb
One naturally treats S. J.-B.’s religious life at this time as
something apart from her questionings about dogma, for
.bn 138.png
.pn +1
indeed the two belonged to different categories of her being.
The following is one of the few letters of this period that
have been preserved:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
8 p.m. March 17th, 1862.
.ll
.ti 6
“Darling Mother,—I know you care to hear all your child’s
thoughts and hopes and feelings,—I know you will not condemn
for conceit and egotism what might seem so to other people.
I want to talk to you,—I feel so sure you want to hear. I want
to tell you what a glorious Strength and Power has come out of all
the sharp pain,—how I feel that I am a better person, a stronger
and more real one, than I ever was before....
Some one says that it is ‘not pain undergone but pain accepted’
that bears fruit an hundredfold. You know the acceptance has
not been easy,—you know sometimes the flints have cut my feet
deep enough, but thank God for two things—I never for any single
moment lost the absolute certainty of Infinite Love and Wisdom
‘brooding over the face of the waters,’—the certainty of my Father’s
arms around me,—and secondly that no suffering or pain could
shake the love that has never been half so strong, so real, so ideal, so
unselfish as now. I doubt if I ever half knew what being a friend
was before,—I think I have earned the knowledge now—some
of it.
And, Mother, about my work. I cannot tell you the strong
exulting feeling that seems to set God’s seal to my work, in that
through all the personal agony I have held firm to that: at no moment,
I believe, would I have purchased what I longed for most on earth
at the price of that,—that I have felt through all ‘The light may
be taken out of my life (and thank God how far that is from being
so!) but the object never can!’ Don’t you know how the lines
that reminded us of the oath upon our head, that bade us ‘never
again our loins untie, or let our torches waste or die’ was the strong
helpful thing through it all.
And though I did believe in myself—and thou ever didst believe
in me, Mother!—yet so long as my work ‘walked in silken shoon’
and lay side by side with the pleasantest life possible for me, there
was a certain thought about fair weather sailing,—a certain (not
doubt, but) diffidence in looking on to the time of breakers,—a
feeling as of David, ‘I have not proved them.’ But now I feel that
I have come to the proof,—that my armour has not failed in the
battle,—something the sure happy confidence (farthest of all from
presumption) ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth
me.’ You can’t think how it ‘heartened’ me (you know that nice
old word?) to find that truly as well as verbally my work does hold
the first place....
.bn 139.png
.pn +1
I am beginning to have hope, Mother! If I only suffer enough—and
I don’t believe mine will ever be a smooth or easy life—I may
yet be fit to be the head for which I am looking so
But all seems centred in the one thought, ‘Lead Thou me on!’—or
rather, not ‘me’ but ‘us,’—all the wanderers.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Not that S. J.-B. was ever conventional even in her religion.
Here is a characteristic extract from the diary of the same
period:
.pm start_quote
“You never have the common honesty, Jack, in this most private
journal (they say hardly anyone has) to put down the thought if it
crosses your mind ‘Well, I think I am rather a fine fellow’ or its
equivalent. Because it never comes? Oh, dear your precious
‘humility’! I wish Miss W. could look into you:—do you? Not
you, you humbug!
‘Well, but,’ (retorts S. J.-B. accused) ‘I do work with a single
purpose,—I have tried very hard, and, am sure, succeeded somewhat
in this hard battle of these months,—what is the good of pretending
to call myself names? Did not Job ‘maintain his integrity’?
You coward! You must skulk behind Job. Looks respectable,
does it? Say honestly ‘I do try harder than some people do,’ for
in truth I believe that is all your conceit does amount to.
I know from my heart I do recognize and reverence holiness and
purity as far above mine as Snowden to a mole-hill. And is that
conceit? I don’t believe it is. No,—‘Not guilty, S. J.-B.’ Plead
boldly, and don’t give in for shamefacedness. And besides you
have no right to deny His triumph ‘Who giveth us the victory,’—by
fighting modest on the sham. You have won some victories.
Thank God quietly, and pressing on to the things before. ‘I press
towards the mark.’ God knows—and you know—there are enough
to win. Oh, how far away lies doing even what is our ‘duty to do.’
But I don’t know that the realest soundest life limits itself to calling
itself ‘miserable sinner.’ Zacchaeus told Christ what he tried to
do. He did not rebuke him as man does and say, ‘No, believe
yourself utterly vile (for the glory of your Maker?)’
There,—go to bed, S. J.-B.”
.pm end_quote
A few days later she recurs—as often—to the broken
friendship:
.pm start_quote
“... Well, I note markedly how, with all this light, all this
growth,—respecting the suffering—(and I think all this would have
brought a ‘right judgement’ too) I do not swerve one iota from my
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
judgement of facts. I cannot conceive it one hairsbreadth more
possible that any but a mental cloud can have worked in the way
it has,—that under any possible circumstances my child, with her
glorious nature and heart, can have acted as her image has....[26]
But while I have at last manfully and honestly and cheerily
faced the possibility of never seeing her again on earth—while I
believe my loins are girded for the way quite irrespective of any
future fate regarding her and me—while, having put my hand to
the plough, God shall grant me grace never to look back even for
her (who, God knows, is far enough before me) never to linger irresolute
with thoughts that should and shall urge me to double speed,—yet
it is curious how the whole fashion of my life shapes itself with
the arrière-pensée of being ready for her ‘at midnight or cock-crowing
or in the morning,’—saving with the thought of her as well as
myself,—looking at every path as it opens to see that it is wide
enough to tread together if she joins me ere its end,—making the
most of the working time now that a pause of rest may fall due
whenever she comes to claim the ‘moon.’
And I think, could she see my thoughts, my plans, my work, my
resolves, she would not have them otherwise.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 26
More than a year later Miss Hill wrote: “I wonder if it would be any
comfort to you if you could know the infinite love the thought of you,
specially of any pain of yours, calls up ... how passionately do I cling to
a like trust in you that your pain may not be tenfold increased ... by
any sense of desertion in spirit.... And yet, Sophy, this thought of me
must fail you as time goes on, for you cannot see why I act as I do.... My
love will be ready for you when He who is teaching us both shall bring
us together again.”
.fn-
.bn 141.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.10
CHAPTER X | GERMANY
.sp 2
It was perhaps well that an interesting new factor came
into S. J.-B.’s life at this moment. Miss Elizabeth Garrett
(afterwards Mrs. Garrett Anderson, M.D.) had made up her
mind to be a doctor, and, in the teeth of many difficulties and
much opposition, was striving to obtain the requisite education
and prospect of examination. A great effort had been
made to get the examinations of London University opened
to women, but the resolution (brought forward by Mr. Grote)
had been negatived by the casting vote of the chairman—the
vehement feeling shown by the opposition being, in the
opinion of the proposer, quite out of proportion with the
cogency of the arguments brought forward.
Miss Garrett had been in correspondence with S. J.-B. for
some time as to the nature of the prospects in Edinburgh,
in case London University should fail, and after talking the
matter over with Mr. Begbie and other friends, S. J.-B. urged
her to “come and see.” Small prevision had anyone concerned
of all that they were to see in Edinburgh a few
years later.
.pm start_quote
“Miss Garrett and her strength!” writes S. J.-B. in her diary on
May 19th, “making me break the 10th commandment. She doing
Trigonometry, Optics, etc. Running where I crawl!”
.pm end_quote
And on the 20th:
.pm start_quote
“Today Miss Garrett’s business. Wrote about ‘Commission.’
Twice to [Royal] Circus with very sore feet. Mrs. Darts, friend of
Lord Ardmillan. Lady Monteith (Lord Advocate). Argyle. Hope she
will come. It will be everything to have her to help a little if I can.”
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
“May 29th. E. G. coming tomorrow,—sent her off a telegram this
afternoon in case she might stay another day for the report I promised,
and so lose tomorrow’s appointment with Balfour, whom I saw
today with that splendid man, Begbie, who went down last night
and this morning with me, and is to arrange with Newbiggin tonight
for an appointment for her. My sore foot quite lame and not helpful
for this bustle. However I believe I shall have done a bit of real
work for her, and, as I said to Begbie, if there are such people, ready
to face such an ordeal let’s help them in God’s name. One great
obstacle the (sometimes) ‘faux air’ of consideration for ladies’
delicacy. People don’t seem to see how that is her affair. Besides
she has faced it: it’s a day too late.”
.pm end_quote
How familiar all this talk was to become some half dozen
years later!
Miss Garrett remained in Edinburgh for a fortnight, and
during that period the canvassing went on. Mr. Burn Murdoch
used to say that, when the two young women went
about, interviewing great ladies and important citizens,
considerable surprise was expressed that Miss Jex-Blake was
not the applicant. She was so tall and high-spirited, with
great flashing dark eyes, while the real heroine was small
and almost pretty, and fair.
Strangely enough, S. J.-B. was not at all fired at this time
by Miss Garrett’s example. She meant to be a teacher,
and medicine as a profession did not tempt her in the least.
She had her doubts even about the value to herself of a
University degree in Arts (supposing it could be had!)
although Miss Garrett and Miss Emily Davies were both
anxious that she should be of their number. “Chiefly I
want you to make up your mind to obtain the University
degree,” writes Miss Garrett. “You are one of the few who
could do so pretty soon, and it would take most women a
year and a half or two years to prepare for the Matriculation.”
In any case the opportunity did not arise. The following
letter to Mrs. Burn Murdoch explains the situation:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“June 21st, 1862.
.ll
Dearest Dora,
I do not know whether we are to look upon the result of the
Physicians’ meeting most as a defeat or as a triumph,—the motion
‘to consider the question of admitting Miss Garrett’ was negatived
.bn 143.png
.pn +1
by 18 votes to 16,—very disappointing as regards immediate results,
but very much as a victory for the principle, just as at London
University. You see they have not refused to admit,—only postponed
the question indefinitely, so that, when time and opinion
have been brought to bear, they can again entertain it without
inconsistency.
In the meantime the expedition to St. Andrews was very successful,—Dr.
Day and Principal Tulloch were both warmly favourable,
and it seems quite probable that Miss Garrett would be admitted
to the University there,—only unfortunately you see there is no
medical school there, and so it would be but half a solution to the
difficulties as she couldn’t get ‘nice little subjects’[27] there....
I have only just come to anchor after some 36 hours’ incessant
trotting about, etc., so I daresay my intellects are ‘even weaker
than usual’ as C. A. would say.
I suppose I may now thank you again on paper for all your help,
dear Dora. You can’t cough me down so conveniently. You don’t
know how much you have helped me through.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours affectly,
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 27
Talking of the difficulties in the way of Practical Anatomy, someone
had suggested that Miss Garrett should get ‘nice little subjects.’
.fn-
Previously to this decision, S. J.-B. had published sensible
letters on the subject in The Scotsman, The Daily Review and
other papers. She also drafted an amusing letter in reply to
her own, supposed to have been written by one of the retrogressive
“unco guid.”
.pm start_quote
“Well, it was grand fun,” she says in her diary, “and, if it had
got in, might have played very well; but the chief temptation
was the immense fun it would be. E. G. and I both thought we
could command our faces. Her sister opposed, but we agreed,
‘No harm. We don’t sign to it,—and it’s what some might say;
and, if the Review puts it in, it’s their look-out. It’s so weak, it
can’t do harm that She said, ‘Don’t let me know about it.’
I said she was very much like ‘Tom, steal the apple, and I’ll have
half.’
Well, we agreed to send it and no harm done. I went to bed.
I wasn’t quite content, yet I didn’t see any exact wrong,—and it
was such fun!...
Then somehow those dear eyes fixed themselves on me and I felt
their sad grieved look. I can’t, I can’t,—they would grieve,—‘Oh,
Sophy!’
.bn 144.png
.pn +1
For a minute I went back,—‘Nonsense, no harm,’—then—
.pm start_poem
‘Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear,’
.pm end_poem
and those words ‘righteous altogether’ rang in my ears....
I went out to the sitting-room and sat down to write, and my
first words to E. G. were, ‘Oh, I’ve annihilated the Review paper;
it’s not righteous altogether.’ She said instantly, ‘No, I’ve been
thinking in the night. I was going to advise you not to send it.’
My darling would be glad. God bless her!”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“‘Let all thy converse be sincere’: ‘and righteous altogether’.”
.pm end_quote
A real fighting life lay before S. J.-B.—a life in which she
received and gave hard blows, and lost sight sometimes in
the dust and turmoil—as a fighter must—of the right on the
adversary’s side; but the words quoted above were the rock
on which she built her achievement. One sees now that often
when lawyers and other well-wishers thought her candid to the
point of stupidity, she was simply determined that her converse
should be sincere, simply striving to be righteous altogether.
.tb
Her great desire for years had been to fit herself for the
work of a teacher, to found—or assist at the founding of—a
wonderful college and (as the very height of her ambition)
to be perhaps herself the headmistress. As she had planned
Sackermena of old, so now she drafted detailed schemes of
work, organization, finance. Such schemes, however, have
been so much more than realized by the work of others that
it is useless to quote them. She took a keen interest in the
school at Bettws-y-Coed, offered prizes, set delightful examination
papers in general knowledge, and wrote stimulating
letters to some of the elder girls. Long before this she had
written in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“Read the account of the College in Ohio for both sexes. Well,
‘Be thou but fit for the wall, and thou shalt not be left in the way.’
I do trust some day to graduate there or elsewhere. But still the
great thing is to be able; the actual fact matters little.”
.pm end_quote
The reader will recall, too, the letter to her Mother:
.pm start_quote
“I am beginning to have hope, Mother! If I only suffer enough,—and
I don’t believe mine will ever be a smooth or easy life,—I may
yet some day be fit to be the head for which I am looking so earnestly.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
Any girl in the present day who was fired with such enthusiasm
would have countless advisers ready and anxious to
give the necessary guidance. How different things were in
S. J.-B.’s girlhood may be gathered from the facts of her
pilgrimage to Edinburgh and search for education there.
She wanted now to go farther afield—to study the state of
women’s education in France and Germany, and—after some
considerable hesitation—her Mother supported her in this
desire. To her father, however, the feminist point of view
remained a sealed book—“Truly to him,” she says at this
time, “my whole life is as the ‘sight of dancers to him who
heareth not the music,’”—and many objections on his part
had to be overcome. Germany was so far away, and France
was peopled with Roman Catholics on the look-out to pervert
Protestant girls.
.pm start_quote
“While you are so young,” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake, “there will be
a fearful struggle to make Daddy bear your going abroad. We
belong to a Society for Governesses to protect them when they go
for the language,—young women have been sorely tried by bad R.C.s
to make them perverts or corrupt them. And he has heard so much
of this that Germany would be less terrible to him than Paris.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Written to Mummy at length about Germany,” she says. “Oh,
the weary kind of languor that deprecates work and talk! It seems
almost too much to have to do what is so hard, and to have, too,
to justify it to others.”
.pm end_quote
The letter to her Mother has been preserved:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“May 1st 1862.
.ll
Darling Mother,
.ti 6
... I had hoped that Germany was an accepted fact,—not
only to you, but to my Father, as at his (or your ?) wish I took that
before France, and at your’s before America.
I believe, my darling, that I am trying to look simply and earnestly
at my life simply as an instrument for my work,—and shaping the
one to serve the other.
I have long formed the conviction (which daily experience and
the opinion of others strengthens) that best of all now for my object
will be the devotion of years to the observation of other systems
and the endeavour to glean everywhere materials for my future
edifice. I believe that my work has come definitely before me as
early as it did, with the express intention that I should make this
use of years which later I could never recall.
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
It seems to me the simplest verbal expression of the presenting
our lives a holy sacrifice, as is our reasonable service, to say,—God
has, I believe, given me this work. I have certain qualifications
and facilities for it. I will give up my life first to perfect
those qualifications and then to use them as He shows me how.
So now my whole intention and bent is to go anywhere in the world
where, as it seems to me on sufficient grounds, I may expect to learn
most for my work,—to learn what will make me myself a better
scholar and to learn what will most help me to organize (if organization
falls to my lot) a better system here in England.
If I am myself to be the head, I will make myself as good a one,
God helping me, as He has put in my nature the material to make,—if
I am to be a servant I will certainly be as thorough and complete
a one as is in my utmost power. I do from the bottom of my heart
pray God that on no failure may be written, ‘Had I worked more
earnestly, more wisely, more diligently,—this had been avoided.’
You know, Mother, the purpose of my life,—you know the consecration,
as I trust, of every power to one aim,—you have helped
me nobly, gloriously to keep it in view,—you have told me that
‘manfully to fight under His banner’ is more blessed than ‘dreaming
out life even on Mother’s shoulder’....
Well, Mother, you know my object, you know my hope. Look
for yourself and tell me if you see for its fulfilment any course to be
adopted rather than the one which seems to me marked out. Look
at the work and that alone. Look at my life merely as the instrument,—see
how it may best be turned to account,—most solemnly
it is my deepest desire to arrive at a true answer.
What could I be doing that would as readily and as really forward
my aim? In what way could I as usefully devote my time and
power?
I believe most earnestly that it is not to any one plan or scheme of
my own that I cling,—show me anything better for my work—show
me anything even that you yourself think as good for it (looking
at it only) and I am willing, renouncing every present thought, to
take the new into deep consideration, and trust to the guidance of
the Light to show me which is my appointed path.
But take the question by itself,—satisfy yourself whether you
think I have judged rightly, as at least I have striven to judge
honestly,—and, if you arrive at my own conclusion I think you will
feel that that is the only important thing,—that if we are enabled
to ‘perceive and know what things we ought to do’ we shall also
surely be given ‘power faithfully to fulfil the same.’
As I have said often before, if you and my Father ever need me
at home,—ever even desire my presence there,—I will relinquish
for the time everything to that which I am sure God would have
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
me hold my highest and dearest duty,—But I believe nothing else
on earth must be suffered to come between me and my work, and,
please God, nothing shall.
I see ‘my Father’s business’ clearly before me,—help me, Mother,
wholly to consecrate my life as I would wish, to it.
As to all questions of detail, I think, darling, you need not be
disturbed or anxious. Acting rightly, I am quite sure I shall be
always cared for far more than I deserve. I think you have, and
may have entire confidence in my practical common sense,—I
think I have already shown that I am not very likely to get into
difficulties. You have trusted me a great deal, Mother, have you
had to repent it?
You may be sure that I shall strive my utmost to do wisely as
well as rightly—indeed the one cannot be without the other. I
think, moreover, you will be almost certainly satisfied with my
plans and arrangements,—I am sure I have ‘caution’ strongly
developed. And, though it may seem more new to you, I am very
unlikely to find in my new life as difficult circumstances as those
in which I have already had to act. I think that you may have
confidence that I know you trust me, and that I shall not fail your
trust. I think you may believe that I shall know and think of your
wishes.
Then, as to any anxiety for myself. You have said much to me
in the trials of the last months which I would ask you to repeat
to yourself. You have told me to trust my darling in perfect faith
to ‘Him who keepeth Israel’ and whose love you tell me is deeper
and truer than mine. Can you not trust me to Him too?
I think there were some circumstances which there are not here,
which did not make it easier.
And in truth, Mother, what is there to fear? If God (as I believe)
needs my life to do a work for Him, He will surely keep it safely
till that work is accomplished. If He does not, wherefore should
one live? Could you regret for anyone you loved that they ‘in
youth should find their rest’? When one feels completely how
each of us is a link in God’s great chain,—how individual life and
care sink out of sight, as hardly worthy notice. How one feels the
whole object and end of life to be that God’s will should be done
in us and by us in life and in death.
And whether in one or the other matters so little....
You see, Mother, I have had very much lately to realise all this;—that
time and distance,—that all severance—are things of time—and
shall be cast into the lake of fire. That now we have to do God’s
work, ... that here we are not even to look for the fruition....
I have to cling very very earnestly now to principles,—I cannot
see for myself,—my teachers are removed out of my sight,—I can
.bn 148.png
.pn +1
only cling to the belief which is above and beyond all that that
very sight and those very teachers were but instruments of the
great Guide,—and that now without them, as before with them,
‘the Lord alone doth lead him.’ As I said this morning, so it seems
to me tonight the root and fountain of everything ‘The Lord reigneth,—let
the earth rejoice.’
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
It is not to be supposed—nor desired—that all her letters
to her Mother were on such a plane. Doubtless the weary
flesh and spirit found expression often enough.
Of course that wonderful mother-heart never failed in
sympathy, though naturally the Mother’s mind did not
know what the strain of a modern woman’s life meant in those
early days when circumstances were all unadapted to meet
the new demand. “Little darling shall have all the rest
I can help her to,” she writes about this time, “for greatly
does her troubled spirit need it.”
And for a few weeks S. J.-B. really settled down to a restful
time at home. “I am just now chiefly living in the garden
and stable in my waking life,” she writes to Miss Lucy Walker,
“but there is a sufficient portion not included in that.”
.tb
Meanwhile Miss de Dreux had recommended a family at
Göttingen, who would be glad to have an English boarder,
and S. J.-B. arranged to go to them. To the last moment
before leaving home she was occupied in trying to persuade
the mother of a sick friend to let the invalid accompany her,
in the hope that change of air and scene might check the course
of a mortal malady. One cannot be altogether sorry—nor
surprised—that the mother refused.
So S. J.-B. started alone on July 21st, and crossed from
London to Antwerp. “Delicious, cool and pleasant passage—smooth
and comfortable. Beds on deck in a kind of room
knocked up under the ‘bridge.’ Quaint night,—with
crashing machinery, flashing lights, rough voices,—altogether
weird and quaint.”
The choice of adjectives is curious, as it was not till many
years later that “weird” and “quaint” became the stock
adjectives in the vocabulary of the young.
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
She spent the night at Cologne, and went on next day to
Hanover and thence to Göttingen. She was pleased with
her quarters, her hostess, and her reception. What the
family thought of her is another question, to which the
records furnish no answer; for she was still feeling worn-out
in body and mind, and nature simply insisted on a rest cure.
She seems to have made little effort even to learn the language,
much to the amazement of the elder daughter, who had enjoyed
the advantage of a conscientious visit to England. So weary,
indeed, was S. J.-B. that she actually chronicles the “great
blessing” of being freed from Sundays for a while—of having
rest all days, and “Calvinism, separation, none.”
.pm start_quote
“How peacefully came over me today ‘One sweetly solemn thought’
as they sat talking (I knew but a word or two) of someone found dead.
How uncongenial A.P.’s remark, ‘I find these so sudden deaths
awful.’ What she thought I don’t know, but I could not but say,
‘Oh, no!—going home?’
August 18th. Everybody going ‘zu reisen,’—Rhine, Harz, everywhere.
Ah, childie, if you would only come quickly, we could have
such a tour!—Alps,—Mont Blanc,—Geneva,—Venice, wherever you
would; in a few weeks it will be too late. Too late! For that.
But truly all is ‘in the fulness of time,’ and could we see and know,
even our restless impatience would not hurry it....
As to money, well enough. I really expect to clear £20 of my
allowance this quarter. I have that and about £1. 15s. in hand for
stamps, washing and wine to the end of the quarter, besides £9 for
rent. How jealously I do watch it! Really between my tour, my
E.E.U.,[28] and my distant college, I must look out that I don’t turn
into a miser in earnest! I get such a trick of watching and scraping
halfpence! And yet I don’t believe I should grudge them either
if need were.
And one must look to pence if one would do anything with
pounds.
Still, I believe of the two I have really more to look out against
‘nearness’ than extravagance. I was right enough when I told
Frid (that poor little darling, I am sure her’s are ‘vicarious
sufferings’)[29] that she need never fear my spending 1/2d. I did not see
my way to.
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
I expect, with my work, this is perhaps a fitness for it,—a
surety against a great danger....
“Today Lina and I reading English. Frau brought a young
man out, and Lina shut up all books at once—for the benefit of his
remarks, I suppose. I, rather wrath, took up Rawlinson.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 28
Englishwoman’s Educational Union,—a society planned by S. J.-B.,
which should form a meeting ground for really qualified teachers, and also
a means of registration.
.fn-
.fn 29
Miss Miranda Hill’s loyalty and devotion to S. J.-B. never flagged.
.fn-
During these weeks of comparative idleness, S. J.-B. was
making enquiries as to a place where she could profitably study
the position of the education of girls in Germany. Finally she
applied for the post of English teacher in the Grand Ducal
Institute at Mannheim.
As the Institution had embarked on a policy of strict
retrenchment and economy, this was refused, but she had
quite made up her mind to become an inmate in some
capacity (as an ordinary pupil if necessary) and finally she
set out without announcing her intention, in a fashion that
recalls an adventure in the life of Lucy Snow in Villette.[30]
The condensed account of this in her diary could scarcely be
bettered:
.pm start_quote
“Sept. 13th. Saturday.[31] Left Göttingen at 5 a.m. with pleasant
gifts from the children, and the famous glass knife from Frau B.
The morning cold, dank and misty,—darker than mornings are
here even yet, I think. As we came south, perceptible increase of
heat, till, leaving a cold autumn at Göttingen, we found a hot summer
at Frankfurt. Went to Pfälzer Hof,—clean, cheap, and civil. Had
a bedroom opening on a balcony, and very good night considering,—though,
as I lay down, the venture rose strongly before me,—quite
alone,—without counsel,—having come 200 miles to a place which
had already refused me,—with the slender chance of personal representation
prevailing,—uncertain, even if accepted, whether I could
do the work,—in fact feeling strongly ‘not knowing whither I went’
yet trusting, like Abraham, I ‘went forth’. So fell asleep, seeing
all perplexities, yet laying my head very softly on the pillow, ‘Oh,
Lord, in Thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded!’
.bn 151.png
.pn +1
Well, I slept long,—breakfasted deliciously in my room,—dressed
in black silk, etc., with no end of care, wrote a little note to Mother,
almost to the beating of my own heart all the time.
Frl. E. had promised to come at 11. I waited till 12,—then came
Frl. H. and Frl. M. Walked with them to the Institut,—was shown
into the ‘parloir’ and left. They fetched me again,—walked
round the square garden with its high convent walls[32] (oh, how I
remember those white berries!) Then out came Frl. von Palaus with
her fine port and clear good eyes, and round hat. I told her how I
wanted to study German education, and wished so much to enter here.
She asked ‘mes conditions’. ‘Moi, je n’en ai pas, Mlle.’ She
would ‘parler aux autres dames.’
Marie M. was to show me the house. Then in Miss von Palaus’
room:—
‘Would I come again at four?’ ‘Certainly’. Then a series of
warnings for my own comfort:—‘ Very simple here.’ ‘I most
happy to hear it.’ ‘Very plain little room.’ ‘I am no sybarite.’
‘Mixed communions.’ ‘I only ask toleration for myself, and am
most willing to give it.’ ‘But as to money!’ I leave it entirely
to them,—any arrangement of theirs I agree to. Enfin I said I
was sure to be more than content. I had no fears.
‘Would I stay and dine?’ ‘Very gladly.’ ‘Very plain food.’
I was no epicure, and sure to be pleased. So the result was, in fine,
that I have never dined anywhere else since, and find my prophecy
well fulfilled.
After dinner talked to the governesses; they said how comfortable
they were. I thought, ‘I only wish I were in your shoes,’ for I had
only asked to come anyhow, as pupil or anything. Then Frl. von
Gruben came from Frl. von Palaus:—A teacher (a Frl. von Endert)
was absent from illness for 6 months (was it not wonderful?) would
I take her place?—but (as the Institution was only just struggling
straight again after its shocks) without salary? ‘Very gladly.’
How my heart leaped, though I spoke very quietly. What a chance
for saving, if not gaining, money,—literally to earn my bread. Now
I could hope for money for my E.E.U., for the £50 for Christmas
/63,—perhaps for Bettws school,—perhaps for a tour!
Well, again I saw Frl. von Palaus,—her face had satisfied me
from the first. ‘Did I quite understand? Was I willing to have
no salary and no expense?’ ‘Very gladly.’
So off I went at 4 p.m., gay as a lark. Settled my bill, got a cab,
and by 5 p.m. (less than 24 hours from my arrival) was established
in my little cell at the G.D.I., Mannheim!—‘au comble de mes
voeux.’ Thank God!
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
And now I have been here nearly a month,—already established
as if for years, in full sunshine of content.
At work again! And, thank God, with such strength for it! A
new sap and strength in all my veins,—my heart in songs of gladness.
The heavy burden seems to have rolled away,—the sting and
bitterness quite gone; strength and power returned to my hand,—colour
and brightness to my life. Again I understand ‘the thrill,
the leap, the gladness’—again the sunshine has broken over earth.
Now I go up and down the long corridors, catching with my hand
at a great beam, in ‘superfluous energy’ again, (my darling!)—a
smile over my whole face as I think I will tell her of my life in this
weird old monastery—young bounding life all around—I myself no
longer ‘going softly’.
‘Thank God! Thank God!’ I can say nothing else.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 30
Mrs. Jex-Blake writes about this time,—“I feel such a real sympathy
for the English teacher—Lucy Snow—it is quite a pity you haven’t it
with you—I think your Institut and the Park and Ducal Palace tally
very well with Villette. Fortunately you have no male tyrant like Monsieur
Paul,—do you remember Miss Lucie being locked into an attic, with
beetles, a rat, and possibly a ghost:—to learn in a few hours a part in
a play?”
.fn-
.fn 31
The account is really written some weeks later, as there was great
delay in the arrival of the box in which she had packed her diary.
.fn-
.fn 32
The building had originally been a monastery.
.fn-
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.11
CHAPTER XI | LIFE AS A TEACHER AT MANNHEIM
.sp 2
To her Mother she writes:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sept. 15th, 1862.
.ll
My own Darling,
.ti 6
Though I must now be rather more economical of space (for
I can send but 1/4 instead of 1/2 oz) I cannot resist beginning a fresh
letter to you, having but just posted my last, with one also to Daddy.
I am afraid Mr. Bevan must be again disappointed to learn that
there is still no kind of prospect of starvation for me,—quite the
contrary.
I will tell you our plans as far as I know them yet. We get up,
as you know, at 5.30 a.m., breakfast at 6.30, begin work at 7. At
10 we have bread handed round, then at one we dine, very well, I
think.... At 3 we teachers (!) have cups of coffee, and at 5 or
6 some grapes before going out for a walk. At 6 tea (or perhaps
at 7) and then at 8.30 a regular meat supper. So you see we are
not so very badly off,—indeed it seems to me to be something going
all day almost!...
Mother, I can’t lie down without telling you of the very beautiful,
soothing influence one thing has (perhaps unexpectedly) over me.
I mean the perfect lovingness and charity in which we all of such
opposite faiths live together, and have just knelt and prayed together.
There seems to me something so inexpressibly touching and happy
in it,—everyone seems so loving to the rest, so far from cavilling
for ‘words and names’: each so absolutely free and all so far from
seeking to proselytize. At meals we stand round the table,—‘Nous
voulons prier, mesdemoiselles,’ and in silence everyone
together thanks God ‘in his own tongue’,—one marking only
that some cross themselves silently and some do not. Then at
night we kneel together,—we have a fine loving German hymn, and
a text for us all,—words lovingly pronounced by our Roman Catholic
head that yet every Presbyterian minister might say. There seems
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
to me something so inexpressibly soothing in this union,—so far
stronger than all differences. I can hardly tell you the rest and
refreshment it is to me now, worn and weary as my spirit is. It
struck me very much in its beauty tonight as Miss von Palaus
pronounced,—‘There is but one name given under heaven among
men whereby we may be saved’, and we all received it on our knees,—Protestants
and Romanists, Unitarians and Trinitarians,—each
‘in his own tongue.’ Was it not beautiful how just that name
bound us all together,—Christians,—seeking at least the spirit of
Christ who loved us all,—our Master,—that we might ‘love one
another’....
I am charmed to learn the Scotch girl, Janet McDonald, has
learned both Latin and Algebra,—both wonderful acquirements
here,—and I look forward to perhaps doing some work with her,
if she gets on well enough with other things.
2 p.m. Tuesday. The politeness of these girls is really quite
refreshing. Last night, going up to my room after dark, there
were several girls at the candle-stand, and, when I asked for a candle,
one of them lighted one, and, with a reverence and ‘Permettez-moi,
mademoiselle,’ carried it the whole way upstairs for me in spite of
my efforts to get hold of it,—it being quite out of her way....
7 p.m. Well, Mother darling, I wonder if you can sympathize in
my intense exaltation and delight at the—for the first time in my
life—literally earning my bread,—something like ‘My First Penny’,
you know. I have had my ‘surveillance de musique’, but am
longing quite childishly for the commencement of my special work,—I
see teaching all around, and am just wild to be at it. Can Mother
understand and sympathize?
Thursday 18th. My letter at last. I have been several times
to the post in hopes of it.... Today I have had one lesson,
and am just going to give another,—delicious! It’s really like
oats to a horse who has been kept a year on hay. Miss Garrett
was right enough when she said, ‘Get teaching!’ I quite laugh
at myself to feel how radiant I am with delight at being again in
harness.”
.pm end_quote
To Miss Walker she writes:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Sept. 22nd. 1862.
Mannheim.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Lucy,
.ti 6
You will, I think, already have heard from my Mother that I
cannot now offer myself to accompany L. to Paris. I do not know
if you are aware that three weeks ago I wrote to Mrs. B., urging her,
as strongly as I knew how, to entrust L. to me for the winter, and
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
offering to take her to any part of Europe which was thought best.
I believe, at Mrs. Z.’s entreaty, Mrs. B. did consult some medical
man on the subject, but I am sorry to say they confirmed her
resolution of ‘keeping her under her own eye’—of course not understanding,
as you and I think we do, all the circumstances.
I therefore got so decided a refusal that even I felt further entreaty
to be useless, and, giving up the point, I entered at once into a six
months’ engagement as English Teacher at the Grand Ducal Institution
at Mannheim, where I have now been just a week, and therefore,
of course, no further change is now in my power as regards
my own movements....
I am much pleased on the whole with the kind of tone I find
between teachers and pupils, and with the general principles, which,
if not the very highest, are yet greatly superior to what you find
in most English boarding schools.
By the bye, before I say Goodbye, I must tell you what horror
my open window at night (even now) occasions the natives! Having
violent headache some time back, an old servant assured me it was
‘the window’, and since I have been here I have been entertained
with the account of a gentleman who went mad, as I understand,
entirely from sleeping with an open window! So now you see the
fate before you as well as me! Besides that, the doctor here (more
shame for him) assures me I shall get a fever!
Goodbye, dear Lucy. Remember me to the B.s when you write.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very sincerely,
S. L. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
And again to her Mother:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sept. 30th. 1862.
.ll
My own Darling,
.ti 6
... It amuses me very much as a proof of how soon a habit
is acquired (and also, I think, an evidence that it suits me very
well indeed) to find that now, and indeed for a week past at least,
I always wake of myself just at 5.30 a.m.,—usually just 5 or 10
minutes before I am called.[33] I wasn’t wrong about my power of
adaptability, was I, Mother? Indeed I thrive greatly on hours,
fare and all other circumstances; I have not been so strong for many
months,—indeed now it is just a year. What a strange, grey,
weird year!...
.bn 156.png
.pn +1
You see idleness and listlessness is about the worst thing possible
(I was feeling that in Göttingen): now my days are full, not only
materially, but really, for it is the kind of employment that does
fill and satisfy me. And, I suppose, next to idleness, the worst
thing would be over mental fatigue.... It is, too, another advantage,
which anybody else can hardly appreciate, to have my day
mapped out for me with military exactness,—to find my work always
ready before me, and quite definite and imperative,—yet making
no demand on my strength almost—always pleasant and always
changing.
It would have been impossible to have planned a life suiting me
personally more exactly to my finest need,—and the glory is that
at the same time it is part of my work, and serving it very really
and materially. I don’t suppose in that point of view either it would
be possible to put my time to better advantage....
You see, Mother, how you get my sunny day-dreams now, as you
used to get the weary ones. I don’t know if everyone has words
running all day long in their head as I have,—it makes a glorious
song sometimes—silently enough, but running like a golden thread
through daily work and labour, raising it all till ‘the parapets of
heaven with angels leaning’ come full in view.... Do you remember
George Herbert’s delicious poem—?
.pm start_quote
‘My Joy! my Life! my Crown!
My heart was meaning all the day
Something it fain would say,—
And yet it runneth muttering up and down
With only this,—
My Joy! my Life! my Crown!’
.pm end_quote
It is to me so exquisitely significant of the joy and peace that floods
one’s whole being, but does not very readily find words, except in
those already familiar to it, like those Psalm utterances,—or like
sometimes fragments of our own dear Liturgy or hymns;—and I
think that is perhaps one of the greatest uses and values of such
things. In the deep struggle times, one of the things that helped
me most of all was always those glorious words of consecration that
reminded me of the cross on the brow ‘In token that thou shalt not
be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully
to fight under His banner against the world, the flesh, and the devil,
and to continue Christ’s faithful Soldier and servant unto thy life’s
end!’ And again, the Communion words about ‘ourselves, our
souls and bodies’.
Oh, dear, how one does write on! But I think it pleases Mother,
and I’m sure it helps me....
I fancy my darling will be pleased to get a kiss from her little one
.bn 157.png
.pn +1
to welcome her in London, as she cannot see her knight at Shoreditch!—dear
old lady,—would she could! But, Mother, you would
let Daddy go with you if you really wished for anyone? I tell you,
as I have told you a hundred times before, how gladly your child
will stay at home altogether if ever Mother really wishes for and
wants her there, or will come from anywhere at any moment as
rapidly as trains can bring her, if only Mother wishes for her for
any purpose or none.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 33
She did not always find this quite so easy. On October 17th she
writes in her “Being all but late this morning, it is decreed that
for one week from this time S. J-B. rises every morning while the stroke
of the half hour and minute hand are ‘one and the same straight line.’
“Now, Resolution:”
It is scarcely necessary to say that Resolution responded to the appeal.
.fn-
It is very unlikely that she gave those about her the impression
of being dévote: that never was her way. The “spikes”
Miss Octavia Hill referred to were probably in full evidence.
In her diary she writes,—
.pm start_quote
“A talk with Miss E. and Miss H. about the sacraments, and
‘preparation’. Miss Gruben instanced with horror,—‘In England
a party the night before.’ I said, ‘The theatre, with all my heart.’
Exclamations. ‘If I could not take the Communion half an hour
after leaving the theatre, I would never enter it.’ Then found myself
in the disagreeable position of apparent Pharasaism. ‘Wish
I were so good, etc!’ or hints like that. Yet surely, Octa? If
there is a time when we cannot kneel for the Communion, that time
should be blotted out. ‘Living to God’,—how that blends and
binds all life!
Today dear Mrs. Teed. God bless her! Yes, surely,—now she
would not be hard on ‘prayer for the dead’. Yet what a noble soul!
Ah, if she had lived,—if I could have justified myself to her whom
I so respected. But, as Dora says, she knows it all now! Perhaps
her spirit sees and sympathises with mine that looks with such love
to her footsteps gone before. In life she would have disapproved
of some things,—now at least she will see motives. ‘I believe in
the communion of saints.’...
Just been reading C. Brontë. Moved me almost to tears. What
honour and blessing to have dried some of those tears,—filled some
void in that heart. And yet doubtless ‘He has fixed it well’. At
least she and I and a multitude that no man can number all form
portions of the Hosts of the Lord.... And it is the work—not our
pleasure. The scattering is part of the benefit.
Ah, the Land of the Leal! The banishment past,—the solitude,—the
tears,—the struggle. In hoc signo. ‘The Lord shall wipe away
all tears from off all faces’.”
.pm end_quote
At this time she was extraordinarily happy in her work.
.pm start_quote
“How can people paint a teacher’s life as always such a suffering
one! My room now quite a little Paradise. Frl. von Palaus up
.bn 158.png
.pn +1
about it again this morning.... Now only some ivy and a tin pot
wanted!
My Schematism [?] very light. Certainly they take a generously
liberal view of ‘earning my bread’. Well, at all events it shall be
well earned, if not largely. I’m half afraid of myself now that I
have the responsibility of 25 English pupils. I am really very
anxious to get them on so well and so rapidly as to convince the
world of the wisdom of having an English teacher!”
.pm end_quote
How thoroughly she succeeded in this aim may be gathered
from the letter of one of her pupils written a few months
later,—
.pm start_quote
“We now have an English mistress. Miss Blake, and she gives us
so many things to do that I am already too fatigued to entertain
me any longer with you: she is an inhabitant of your land, and,
if all people are so diligent there, it is a wonder that you are not
all philosophers.”
.pm end_quote
Her diary abounds with shrewd and genial criticisms of her
fellow-teachers. Of one whom she rather disliked, she says:
.pm start_quote
“Miss D. has greatly laughed herself into my good books,—such
a cheery simple merry laugh. I don’t think anything very bad
could hide under such a laugh at her age.”
.pm end_quote
And again,—
.pm start_quote
“That good Frl. von Palaus! Well might I today liken her to a
sunbeam! How she lights up the very house,—how bright burns
her lamp,—yet how simply!”
.pm end_quote
No wonder her letters were a joy to the Mother watching
at home.
.pm start_quote
“Your letter has cheered me and done me good,” she writes on
Christmas day, “taking away the clouds in a great measure, that
would hang over a day that owed so much of its brightness to your
dear presence; but truly, as you say, we have a far truer unity and
a sympathy which I fear might never have come but through trial
and separation.”
.pm end_quote
Life was not all spent on the mountain heights, of course.
Even at this time she had her ups and downs like other
people. Here is one of the “downs”:
.pm start_quote
“Who is sufficient for these things? seems my whole cry today.
I don’t know why especially, but I seem so oppressed with a sense
of the greatness, the weight of my work,—and of my own miserable
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
insufficiency for it. Oh, so weak and stupid and unfit! And it
isn’t humility,—it’s just truth.
I’m horribly showy,—always (voluntarily or not) deceiving people
into a belief into talents I haven’t. Then I’ve will enough and
would work, but no health or strength for it. That’s not your
doing, S. J-B. ‘Hath not the Potter—?’
Besides, you’ll never be called upon to do what you can’t. God
will give you power or send another in your stead.... And ‘who
is sufficient?’ ‘My Grace is sufficient’.
Yet I am thankful, too, for even this fit of despair or at least
downheartedness,—for I was fearing horribly, lest, my whole heart
being bent on one hope and plan, I might be too far identifying
my success with it, lest I might be seeking to win something for myself,—not
simply to see God’s will done by me or without me. And
from the bottom of my heart did go up, ‘Lord, put me aside utterly
if need be!—and here, perhaps, the
.pm end_quote
She did not always take her reactions so seriously:
.pm start_quote
“Cold. Therefore rather cross and grumbling. Prowling about
the corridors with shoulders nearly up to my ears, mind do. And
I fool and sybarite enough to conjure up pictures of a certain dainty
little room with blazing fire.... ‘Shame on ye, Gallants, wha ride
not readily!’... Well, well, indeed it was not really a grumble,—only
a John Bull growl. You don’t think I really give in an inch
for such nonsense?
No. Well, there, that’ll do.
As well to grumble to my book as to poor small folk downstairs,
who want bracing not enervating.
Granted. But why either?
Oh, now you’re infringing the liberty of the press! I may write
anything that wells up.
There, there!—pax.”
.pm end_quote
This is one of the many dialogues between “The Infantine”
and “The Estimable,” as she called them. Greatly did her
Mother appreciate the titles.
A few weeks later, after some words of yearning for a
“comprehending ear,” a “sympathetic hand,” she breaks
off abruptly with,—“Heigh ho! Shut up Grumbles! ‘a
cussin’ and a swearin’ like that,’ as long coz would say.”
Greater troubles were in store than those constituted by
cold dark mornings. No mention is made in the prospectus
given above of holidays, and Mrs. Jex-Blake in her letters
complains much of the “No holiday” system. Apparently
.bn 160.png
.pn +1
the boarders only went home for a few days at a time, and
for months together S. J.-B. does not seem to have slept
away from the Institut for a single night. It was no
wonder if, under these conditions, teachers and pupils “got
on each other’s nerves,” and among Frl. von Palaus’ many
qualifications was not that of being a strict disciplinarian.
When the novelty wore off, the girls, after the fashion of
their kind, began to try how far they could go with the English
governess. As may be imagined from her previous history,
S. J.-B., though an admirable teacher, did not show herself
particularly strong in the matter of keeping order. The
pupils found out their power of “tormenting” her, and
the delicacy of their feeling may be gauged by the fact that
on one occasion they gaily charged her with having “weeped
in church” (“False, by the bye, in fact,” she says in her
diary). With delightful naïveté they summed up the things
she could not do. She could not sing, nor play, nor dance,
nor paint, nor embroider?—“What can you do, Miss Blake?”
Of course she would have thought it unworthy of her to
mention the things she had done and could do. Moreover,
for reasons given above, she was spending a minimum of
money, and vulgar schoolgirls drew their own conclusions.
She sometimes admits with remorse that she was hasty and
unjust in little things,[34] and, although there is no indication
that she ever fell into the tempests of passion that characterized
her girlhood, she owns that she often assumed a stony
indifference, which, of course, though she did not know it,
was a great deal worse. All the time (so her diary shows)
she was almost agonizing over these children, longing really
to get into touch and fire them with her own zeal; she did
not scruple to talk to them seriously and individually about
the great issues of life; but when the magnetic influence of
the interview was over, they felt a certain inconsistency in
her, a hastiness, a failure to conform to conventional standards
of right and wrong, a want of equity, or at least of equableness,
.bn 161.png
.pn +1
of which she herself was almost unaware. “But oh,
where is the special flaw?” she cries in her diary. “Lord
help me! ‘Thou wilt not pity us the less’—that fault of my
own forms my cross.”
.fn 34
“I an’t just. There’s a fact. I’m sorry for it, but it’s true. As
my sky is bluer or greyer, as I see, or think I see, more or less into a child’s
character, the scale varies. Justice is blind no longer, but gives a chuck to
one side or the other.”
.fn-
In any case her pupils felt the flaw. Her conscientiousness,
her zeal, her fine uprightness were more or less lost on them,
or so it seemed. A cheaper form of goodness would have
appealed to them more.
She never spoke of her home life and circumstances, and
probably even Frl. von Palaus had very little idea that the
English governess was a woman of family and position.
.pm start_quote
“Oh, how weary I am after those hours of struggle internal and
external!” writes S. J.-B. in her diary. “Almost like being tied to
a stake,—so suffering, so helpless. And this I?—who used to fancy
I had power to rule! Two months more will see me well nigh home
I trust. Some faint foreshadowing of ‘Then are they glad because
they are at rest.’ The thoughts of my green nest, and of the ruddy
firelight, and the hymns at Mother’s knee very frequent in these
days of struggle.”
.pm end_quote
She poured out the story of her failure to her Mother, and
delightful were the letters she got in reply:
.pm start_quote
“(Miss v. Palaus) will miss my darling and her unselfish love
terribly when she leaves.... Without any great vanity you must
know that your hearty ready help must be most refreshing to her,
and your wide-awake state must have a great influence over the
Girls.”
“I cannot believe that your work has been done as indifferently
as you think. I believe you have always done what you could,
and fought hard against feelings and every form of indolence or
selfishness. Surely you could somehow raise some response to fun;
only perhaps a good deal arises from your being English and they
not understanding.”
.pm end_quote
In spite of all, however, the trouble went deep, and she
chronicles sadly in her diary that “neither moon nor stars
for many days appeared.” Oddly enough, she never seems
to have entertained the idea of simply giving in her resignation
and going home. She entirely meant to serve her time,—nay
more,—to hold the position until some suitable person was
found to carry on her work. Certainly it was not the acquisition
of the language that served as an inducement to
.bn 162.png
.pn +1
remain, for, throughout her stay, she learned almost incredibly
little. The whole of her very limited energy was thrown
into her teaching.
“The hearty praise pouring in for the girls’
ought to comfort me there,” she says. “I suppose they
almost certainly have got on more rapidly than with 9 teachers
out of 10.”
One is glad to learn that months before she left Mannheim,
the tide of popularity turned; and, although even she attributed
the change in great part to the fact of her having worn
a “ravissant” gown at the School Carnival Ball (a gown
which she had worn as a bridesmaid in England) she was
glad to respond by expanding good spirits to the diminished
pressure. So the pretty frock served its turn. “There’s no
doubt about it that opinion altogether has veered round
widely about me. I think I am rather popular now,—I
certainly was thoroughly the contrary.”
She was, until the later years of her life, wanting in sympathy
with the more or less innocent and pardonable vanities of
youth, and yet during this period she did sometimes cry out
for a more vivid life,—or rather for days and hours of greater
vividness to break the monotony of the working life she had
deliberately chosen. It was one of her ambitions to be duly
presented to Queen Victoria, for whom throughout life she
had a great admiration, but the ambition was never realized.
“Darling,” writes her Mother, in answer to a very human
cry, “your young bright days are nobly spent for the Lord.
Shall we offer Him that which costs us nothing?... There
always has been (though probably not necessarily) so much
that is false, impure and hollow connected with most of
what are termed amusements that you would soon loathe
them, and feel work and even discipline more satisfying.”
But never for one moment from her twentieth year onwards
did S. J.-B. ask for amusement and vividness in place of
work and discipline.
She might have found recreation and stimulus in the music
of Germany, but her chief limitation was on the side of Art.
Music did not appeal to her, and, although one of her greatest
gifts was the possession of a beautiful speaking voice, with
.bn 163.png
.pn +1
a perfect natural production, she could not sing and had no
ear for music at all. She argues with herself on the subject,—“Surely
singing, for instance, is a wholesome and good amusement.
Surely it is right that some should contribute it for
others? Yet, perhaps, mere amusement, even for others,
is not a life-work for anyone? At least unless as a duty.
So few sing, as Fra Bartolomeo painted, ‘on their knees’.”
This is estimable enough so far as it goes, but artistic perception
is wanting, and throughout life she never got much
farther in this direction, though she always loved to hear a
simple congenial song sung by one she loved. “Do you
care for the ‘unlearned praise’?” she used to say. When
she quoted, as she sometimes did, “’Tis we musicians who
know,”—it was not of music she was thinking.
All through this period her main preoccupation was with
religion. She was reading, among other things, the In
Memoriam and Robertson’s Sermons, and she continued to
read them till the end of her life. Her volumes of Robertson
are falling to pieces with sheer honest careful lifelong use,
and many of the sermons are marked with a date and with
initials to remind her of the times when she shared her treasure
with some special friend. Assuredly, in the words of her
loved quotation, Robertson “found her.” Living, as she
was at this time however, mainly among Roman Catholics,
she felt—as so many have felt—a real desire to share their
communion.
“I mean to study Romanism as thoroughly as I can,”
she says. “Hitherto I have not by any means found, as
C. Brontë, my repugnance to Roman Catholicism increased
by close view.”
She was anxious to get a proper breviary or missal, and
apparently finding this difficult in Mannheim, she wrote to
her Mother to send her one. That wonderful old lady! She
can’t have enjoyed the commission, but she set about the
fulfilment of it most loyally. And, oddly enough, she too
met with many difficulties. She declined to be put off with
The Garden of the Soul, and finally she writes:
.pm start_quote
“I despair of getting a satisfactory breviary, unless you can send
me definite orders for Treacher to procure one. Marvellous rubbish
.bn 164.png
.pn +1
at the only R.C. shop. They were very anxious to fetch the R.C.
priest!—to help me,—‘were sure he was within.’ Fancy if Daddy
had come by, with the carriage at the door and I inside in deep
conversation with said Priest!...”
.pm end_quote
No, there never was such a Mother! Her openness of mind
shows itself in a hundred extracts. “I do not fairly know
Thomas à Kempis,” she says. “The passage you quoted was
very grand and beautiful.” “I wonder if you will care for
my extract from Pusey in the ‘Times’. I always think
there is such a chastened, disciplined spirit in what he writes,—no
pepper, nor vinegar.” “If I were obliged to have a
great deal of company, I should, I doubt not, feel ‘Lent’ a
grand repose and comfort; as it is, I am disposed to kick at
it as artificial.”
And she is no longer afraid to express her loving appreciation.
.pm start_quote
“I don’t call you so much a ‘sweet-tempered’ as an ‘excellent-natured’
girl,—most unselfish, energetic, and at all times ready in
the behalf of others. A regular ‘sweet temper’ is rarely found with
very strong deep feelings.... I don’t think there ever was such
true love as your’s—unless it be her’s under disguise. You would
not now be able to stand alone as you do had circumstances not
separated you. God has two great works,—one for her, one for you.”
“I am quite sure, by pouring out your heart to me, you help me
on as well as yourself. You bring before me such strengthening
texts and poetry, and our hearts get so very closely knit. It may
seem selfish to say so, but your sorrows have greatly enhanced
my joys by bringing us close, and, as it were, entwining us
inseparably.”
.pm end_quote
In a fine sermon on Old and Young, the late Bishop of
Oxford dwells on the “tragedy going on in the life of many
a home, ... as father and son or mother and daughter grow
conscious, sometimes with silent pain, and sometimes with
scarcely veiled resentment, of an ever-widening severance, a
perpetual and almost irrevocable ebbing of sympathy and
trust.” If any further proof were needed than has already
been given of the wholeheartedness with which this mother
and daughter resisted that tendency to severance and realized
the sympathy and trust, it may be found in the correspondence
that follows:
.bn 165.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Jan. 23rd, 1863. Friday night.
and Jan. 24th.
.nf-
.ll
My own Darling Mother,—I’m right sorry you didn’t get your
baby’s first morning greeting,—I went out on purpose to post the
letter on Friday that you might. It’s very tiresome too that the
other little messenger didn’t reach you,—however Mother knows
it was sent, and it’s useless to risk sending more the same way;
you shall get it in duplicate when I come home,—whenever that is.
Sometimes I think I ought to stay here till I have mastered my
difficulties and learned to rule,—then again I see that years and
years of my life will be but a learning of that lesson, and the great
thing is to see how to dispose of them most wisely, not in obstinacy
or in self-consenting even on a point like that. Besides month after
month of unbroken work does come to tell on one, specially if one
starts not over strong; and I feel myself looking forward with
significant expectation to the coming rest (and still more, refreshment
time) again,—to say nothing of seeing faces and hearing voices that
I fancy may too not be sorry to see and hear mine again. I am
watching the now really lengthening days almost like a schoolchild,—indeed
I am tremendously much of a child yet, Mother,—and
thinking how the days and weeks roll on and bring the homecoming
nearer. Even if I returned here, I must have a holiday and
not a very short one,—for I have got a good deal used one way or
another,—though now I am again delightfully cheery and strong,—and
able to work twice as well among the children when a laughing
word comes instead of a weary one; and they feel it too, I am sure.
I shall be very curious to read Colenso’s book,—will you send me
its name, please? It is so very easy a way to get up a laugh (which
somebody calls the Devil’s keenest sword) against opinions or people
you don’t agree with, by such a jest as that Colenso wants to turn
‘the Bible into Rule of Three sums’,—so much more easy than
justifiable or Christian. It’s just a word which, said of a great
Mathematician, is sure to ‘take’ whether there is any or no sense
in it. People like to laugh and repeat what sounds sharp, and
prove their own superiority (?) to such men as they can’t hope to
get within 100 miles of in attainments.
Besides in a certain non-sneering sense, it may really be true
without inferring any blame. (I wonder if you like me to discuss
the question or not? If not, just tear up the next page or two
unread, that’s all.)
The Rule of Three (as it is most absurdly called) is perhaps the
purest form of development of the principle of Cause and Effect,—the
principle that rules the world and lies at the root of all science
and all logic. You see an effect,—it must have a corresponding
cause. You are aware of a cause,—you imply with certainty
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
answering effect. ‘To look through Nature up to Nature’s God’—is
strictly (if you choose so to call it) a Rule of Three sum. Again,—‘These
are Thy works, Parent of Good,—Thyself how wondrous
then!’—a pure syllogism,—or, if you please, Rule of Three sum—thus:
.ta r:5 l:40
I.| The author must be greater than his works.
II.| God’s works are great beyond our conception.
III.| How infinite then their Maker!
.ta-
Or, more beautiful and more sacred than all,—‘He that spared
not His own Son ... how shall He not with Him freely give us all
things?’
The form of reasoning that St. Paul did not disdain to use need
hardly be a reproach to Colenso.
God Himself does give us minds and does bid us use them,—He
is not afraid of His truth standing in the sunlight, though some of
His people are. Robertson draws out very beautifully how the
Christ never sought blind credence,—superstitious belief even in
His words because they were His. He never said ‘I say so,—there’s
an end,’ (as so many of His followers like to put in His mouth).
‘If I say the Truth, why do ye not believe me?’—again, more exquisite
still in its loving humility,—‘Though ye believe not me,
believe the works’,—‘Search the Scriptures’ etc. etc.,—always
praying them to test Him by His works, by the voice of their own
conscience, by the testimony of their sacred books,—continually
protesting against the idea of His own assumption of sovereign
power, ‘I know nothing of Myself.’ But here I’m getting on another
subject, and I’ll stop.
But I always get greatly interested in a discussion about the
Bible,—people seem to me often so hopelessly superstitious and
illogical about it, and so to miss its truest, most blessed meaning.
It always seems to me that the question divides itself into two
perfectly distinct parts,—regarding, so to speak, the spiritual and
temporal part of the Bible. The first is entirely without the province
of the intellect or the reason,—‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, ...
but God hath revealed them unto us by His spirit.’ As Colani
says (I think, indeed, it was him I quoted before) it is not a question
of logic or of evidence whether we believe ‘the sacrifices of God are
a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God Thou wilt
not despise!’,—the certainty of its truth is self-evident to us; we
are absolutely sure the moment we hear the words that the All-Good
rejoices in repentance and not in blood. It is the word of
God from without speaking to the Spirit of God within us ‘whose
temples we are.’ In Coleridge’s forcible words, ‘it finds us’,—it
pierces through ear and brain irresistibly to the spirit of every man.
Yes, every man; there is not one in the world however debased who
.bn 167.png
.pn +1
could doubt whether God preferred a broken heart or a costly gift.
He may not think about it, he may let the words pass by him, but,
receiving them at all into his mind, he cannot doubt....
Feel,—suffer, and words like those bring their own proof; let
them once enter and you need not ask whether their truth is received
or not. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.’
We know it is so; no one in the world could really doubt for one
second whether holiness or impurity brings the man to God,—to
see Him....
In all this the whole mass of ‘Evidence’ goes for absolutely
nothing. If the Bible had never been heard of to this moment,
and I picked it off a dunghill, those words and truths would just as
irresistibly transfix and ‘find’ me as a two-edged sword.
But since, as Pulsford says, ‘Most people get their faith through
their heart, not through their head,’—there are thousands of God’s
children who, seeing and feeling the infinite beauty and pricelessness
of these words and truths,—but not seeing fully their infinite omnipotence,
their absolute impregnability,—fancy that to preserve
from the slightest danger what is to them so infinitely precious, it
is necessary to claim for the whole casket the same authority and
value that the jewel claims for itself: and then, because this claim
does not and cannot maintain itself, they rush to arms for it and
brand as ‘rejectors of the Bible’ some who, like your child, find in
its words the very deepest blessings of existence....
I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion worth anything,
but as far as I can judge, it seems to me the result of open fair
criticism rather establishes than disturbs the veracity of all Jewish
history as given in the Bible since the time of Moses, while it does not
seem to me possible satisfactorily to defend the authenticity of the
account of the Creation and probably the first few centuries,—both
from the certainties of Geology and probabilities of history, and also
from the internal evidence.
But what is the leading point to me is the folly of trying to arrest
honest investigation about anything,—and the especial mistake of
fancying that any result arrived at could touch the real standing
and position of the Bible. For myself, I can say in all sincerity
that if not one fraction only but the whole biblical history were
proved to be utterly unreliable and mistaken, it would not make
the difference of a straw’s weight either to my life or my faith,—it
is not as a rival of Herodotus that I have valued the Bible,—the
destruction of the historical credit of the one would matter just as
much to me as that of the other. We might lose some grand
illustrations of God’s love and care, but the truths would remain,
and the history of any century, of any land, of any man, leaves
Him not ‘without a witness’....
.bn 168.png
.pn +1
Well, Mother, it has indeed been more than a page or two,—if
it pains or wearies you do but burn it; but I am glad from the
bottom of my heart to tell you honestly what and why I believe on
a subject where I fear Mother is a little afraid of me;—to put at
least calmly and clearly before you other thoughts and words than
those you hear oftenest,—not that you may accept, but that you
may consider them. For you as for me, Mother, God ‘shall lead us
into all truth’.
Sunday. You asked me about Miss v. Palaus. She isn’t ill now,
but I think she suffers altogether from this terrible ‘no holiday’
system. Think what it is to go on for 26 years!—with only a week’s
break at a time, and that perhaps once a year.
Dear, I broke off abruptly, it occurring to me to apply the principle
of how bad it was to go on without change and how one was bound
to get all one could; also that it was a bright day and that I was
no use where I was, so had better go to Heidelberg....
The sermon was about sorrow and bereavement, commonplace
enough and disagreeable sometimes, but chiming in in bits with some
thoughts of mine. For one thing he said it was a duty to rouse
oneself after a time and go back to one’s daily work. Now, Mother,
you know better than anyone how I have strained every sinew to
take up my tool again and work on, from the very first months
even. But there is a certain state of things which I can’t honestly
conceal from myself which makes the struggle in some ways a very
terrible one.
I am sure ‘what is is best’, and I don’t say one word in the form
even of sorrow, only of perplexity. But, Mother, I haven’t the
least the mind I had,—I have waited and waited to see if they would
not waken but now for nearly 18 months my mental powers seem
struck with stupor. It’s no use urging them,—they don’t answer
the call. The love and power of mental work seem to have faded
away. I just jog on from day to day with sense enough for daily
life perhaps,—but I don’t seem to get any nearer any return of
intellects. I won’t say it would have been better—because if it would,
it would have been so—but I don’t doubt if I had had a crushing
physical illness last Xmas, the agony would have exhausted itself
and I probably risen from a brain fever as strong as ever,—but no
physical relief coming in this form, the whole weight seems to have
fallen on my brain and paralyzed it. My whole mind sometimes
seems a blank,—the children ask me simple questions and I know
nothing. Sometimes it’s hard work to crush back the tears when
it is so.
You know those terrible (they did frighten me horribly) kinds of
delusions that showed me a white dog or a wheelbarrow just when
I was going to pull up when driving you.
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
Well, Mother, it’s no use to go on,—no use even to say ‘What
am I to do?’ One feels sure in truth that God ‘will find a way’
and show it to me....
But the time goes on and on, very many months already, and
yet no streak of light comes from any quarter. One does not see
the faintest sign of change, and yet one cannot see how things are
permanently possible as they are.
You don’t think it is any want of will or effort in me, Mother?
Surely God ‘reaps not where He has not strawed’.
Oh, Mother, Mother, what it will be to rest the tired stupid old
head on your bosom again.
80 lessons a week is too much I’m afraid for Ruth, but I can’t pretend
to look after her when I’m in Germany,—and perhaps nobody
gets on much the worse for that fact. It’s a very forcible rebuke
to one’s vanity to find how little anybody is missed from anywhere,
(except in their Mother’s hearts, darling) and one or two others
perhaps. Yet that’s a hasty way to speak. I believe I do have a
great deal of love from more people than I deserve....
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly ever,
Soph.
.nf-
.ll
Please tell me by what post this arrives.”
.pm end_quote
An able letter surely, for one whose “intellects” were worn
out. Of course she fails to realize how different her whole
outlook on life would have been if she had found the Bible
for the first time accidentally in mature life, “on a dunghill”
or elsewhere. The Mother’s reply is surely at least as able:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Thursday, Jany. 29th.
.ll
My own Darling,
.ti 6
Your letter did not reach me till first post this morning.
I quite believe Truth will in itself bear coming to the light, without
suffering. But I do fear there are many minds, heads and hearts
without one sentence of heavenly truth upon which to fall back for
comfort, which may be irreparably injured by the doubt and
thrown upon historical parts; and thence deduce, ‘All is
false, and cannot do me good or help me in any way.’ I think I
must send you the last ‘Cornhill’ come in this afternoon. I imagine
the critique in it is from a man who would favour free enquiry,—a
son of Dr. Arnold’s,—Matthew Arnold. He says, ‘I censure
Colenso’s book because, while it impresses strongly on the reader
that the Pentateuch is not to be read as an authentic narrative;
it so entirely fails to make him feel that it is a narrative full of divine
instruction in morals and religion, etc., etc.’ I ought to have stated
that all this comes in in a critique upon Stanley’s ‘Lectures on the
.bn 170.png
.pn +1
Jews’, which Arnold greatly admires. Now that February is at
hand, I find that the January! Macmillan has an actual critique
upon Colenso. Shall I send it to you? I have not read it. I
asked Hetty if she had. She considers it severe on Colenso. I
think I shall send it.
Your long dissertation did not annoy or weary me at all, indeed
it rejoiced mother’s heart. You seem to have all you want to live
and die upon. What can you need more? Certainly I have individually
great comfort and enjoyment from seeing Christ as my
Substitute in a manner that I apprehend you do not. If it be, as
I suppose, needful, I am sure your loving Father will give it you in
His good time. As to your mental powers, it is very strange. We
can only wait patiently and say, ‘It is the Lord. Let Him do what
seemeth Him right’. I don’t suppose the important precious
discipline you are going through could have been produced in time
of full mental vigor. That will assuredly return if for your real
good. Meanwhile you may well trust Him who has done such
great things for you. I long as much as you to have you resting
on my bosom. Rest you must have: refreshment of spirit I pray
you may have.... Nothing, as you say, invalidates the grand
truths responded to from within. At all times the Eternal God is
thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your loving Mother,
M. E. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
A fortnight later she writes:
.pm start_quote
“Only fancy, Daddy has been reading Colenso’s book!”
.pm end_quote
.bn 171.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.12
CHAPTER XII | VARIOUS PROJECTS AND VENTURES
.sp 2
“Rest you must have: refreshment of spirit I pray you
may have.”
So wrote Mrs. Jex-Blake in the end of January; but even
the physical rest was destined to be long delayed. As explained
in the previous chapter, S. J.-B. did not at all draw
to the idea of deserting her post before a suitable person
arrived to supply it, and that suitable person was not easy
to find. So the months went by, and it was not till April
was well advanced that all arrangements were made for her
departure within a fortnight. She was wild with delight at
the prospect of getting home, but the fates were unkind.
On May 3rd she writes in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“Well, I do feel most uncommonly seedy,—no doubt about that,—having
just waded through my packing somehow, and ‘bitterly
thought of the morrow’, and how many leagues and hours lie between
me and a snug bed, clean sheets and beef tea. But, somehow or
other I do mean to push through and trust my luck for falling as
usual on my feet, catlike. Specially anxious, by the bye, not to be
spied out here or it’ll all go down to the baths”—she had been
bathing in the Rhine before breakfast—“as I daresay this heavy
cold may, which reduces me to, or below, the level of the inferior
animals.
Well, three days hence! Who can’t hold out that time?”
.pm end_quote
She certainly did her best to “hold out,” dragged herself
out of bed, and went downstairs looking like “une déterrée,” so
Frl. v. Palaus said. She refused to see the school doctor,
believing that he would prevent her going home, and also
that he would insist upon her keeping her window shut. For
.bn 172.png
.pn +1
some reason unknown Frl. v. Palaus resolutely declined to
have an English doctor sent for, and so things went on for
a day or two till the patient agreed that the German doctor
should be allowed to say whether her throat was “of importance.”
Whether he was allowed adequate means of
arriving at a diagnosis we have no means of knowing. In
any case his answer was in the negative. Two days later
the patient was obviously suffering from a sharp and typical
attack of scarlet fever.
It really was a blow, poor child! She was so longing for
her Mother, “My year’s work just done so painfully,—and
now my cruse snatched from my lips. It is hard, hard! I
didn’t one moment doubt it was right,—only very hard.”
Then like an audible voice came the reminder of the inner
light, and all pain went.
It does not necessarily follow that she proved a very easy
patient, though she tried hard to be reasonable, and even to
keep her window shut at night, which was quite unreasonable.
The whole situation was sufficiently trying for Frl. v.
Palaus; and S. J.-B., although she and her nurse became
attached to each other, got little of the petting which
throughout life she so greatly valued when just the right
person bestowed it. Her Mother’s letters as usual were an
infinite comfort, and her Father was with difficulty prevented
from sending out a London physician to look after
her, and, in due time, bring her home.
She made a good recovery, and was allowed to start for
England on the 27th, when an English lady was engaged to
accompany her. “Very like getting out of purgatory into
heaven,” she says. “The dear old folks!”
Her Father was nervous about infection, and, fortunately
for him, a trifling driving accident some four or five days
after her return forced her to consult “Sam Scott.” “He
couldn’t swear me free of fever, but said, ‘If you meet my
children on the cliff, you may kiss them.’”
.tb
So S. J.-B. settled down once more to the old life at home,
not without occasional “cataracts and breaks,” for her
Father did not advance with the times, and hers was not the
.bn 173.png
.pn +1
only hasty temper in the family. But she never doubted
that a definite work was in store for her somewhere.
Her diary is sometimes amusing reading. To an acquaintance
who—after visiting at Sussex Square and hearing the
intimate fireside names—wrote to her as “My dear Jack,”
she replies,
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss D.,
.ti 6
Firstly I don’t like being called names, and secondly I have
been overwhelmingly busy,—which two reasons must excuse my
not having earlier sent you the address.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“I agree with Macdonald,” is her connotation. “The only argument
some people understand is being knocked down, and it’s cruel
to withhold it from them.
And a very mild knocking down this time.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“July 8th. Annette’s Sunday School. ‘The outward and visible
sign in baptism?’
‘Please, ma’am, the baby, ma’am.’”
.pm end_quote
That her lamp was not burning dim one gathers from the
letter that follows. It relates to the young invalid college
friend whom she had wished to take with her to Germany:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Nov. 15th. 1863.
.ll
Dear Lucy,
.ti 6
Though I know you will have heard before this of dear L.’s
going home to her rest, I think you will like to have a few lines from
me, as I believe E. was not able to write to you herself.
You heard probably of her breaking a blood vessel last month
soon after her return to London, and it was very soon after that that
I saw her for the last time alive. She was very gentle and quiet
then, and I have since thought that she more entirely realised how
near the end was than I and others did,—for there was no immediate
danger then as far as anyone could know. When I told her again
how much a duty I thought it for her to take the utmost care of
her life for His service Who gave it, and added ‘Not that I want
you or anyone to fear death,—that is the last thought one should
have of the Home-going’,—she said,—‘Oh, yes,—I never did, and
I never understood why people do.’ I told her Mother of this afterwards,
and it is a very pleasant memory, among others.
Well, it was on Thursday, November 3rd. that this terrible spasmodic
asthma came on, and I am afraid the struggle was sore for
just the week,—but there was mercy in that too, for it made her
Mother glad to see her at rest after it. Just a week later she died,
.bn 174.png
.pn +1
very peacefully,—passing in sleep into the rest that remaineth. I
heard of it on Thursday and went up to London directly, and I
never was more heartily glad of having done anything in my life,
for both Mrs. B. and E. seemed so glad to see me, and you can hardly
believe the peaceful happy few hours we had together,—indeed
there came to me (and I think to them too in some degree) such an
intense realization of what the joy and light was into which she had
entered, that no room seemed left for any pain even for oneself.
I did love L. very much,—more perhaps than any of you knew,—but
when I stood looking down on that calm pale face, the only
words that would come into my mind were,—‘He was not, for God
took him’. It seemed quite impossible even for a moment to
identify her with that chill silence,—one felt she was already in the
everlasting arms. Dear child! She left altogether a very happy
memory,—of a bright clear life, and a calm peaceful death. We
‘thank God for this our dear sister departed....’
The funeral is to be next Wednesday,—I know that you will not
be absent in spirit, though you cannot be there in presence as I hope
to be. Mr. Plumptre will read the service at Kensal Green.
I do not know if I helped dear L. in her life. I know that she has
helped me in her death almost beyond my conception. I ‘never
feared’ death, and I always felt theoretically how it was the ‘going
home’ and that only, but I never felt it with the practical intensity
of this week. I never entered before into half its beauty and its
holiness,—I feel almost as if I could never associate sadness with the
idea again. Let it come in what form it may,—‘God giveth us
the Victory’.
Just before she died, L. finished a story at which she had been
working to compete for some magazine prize,—if it does not win
this, we hope to get it published separately, as a memorial that will
be beloved of many,—and indeed I hope it may come out in this
form. I have offered to undertake the whole business. It is very
pleasant to me that she has left this,—is it not to you?
Goodbye, dear Lucy,—my letter is already enormous, but I don’t
fear your criticisms.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours affectionately,
S. L. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The monotony of the life that followed was broken by one
or two visits to Paris and one to Germany, and she had a
great scheme of going to America to study the education of
girls there. Here again, of course, she was met by the strong
opposition of her Father, and again she was forced to put
forward all the good and attractive points in her plan while
.bn 175.png
.pn +1
herself profoundly convinced of its vagueness and of her own
physical inadequacy. She saw a good deal at this time of
Mrs. Ballantyne (afterwards Lady Jenkinson) whom she met
first in Edinburgh at the house of her sister, Mrs. Burn
Murdoch. This was the beginning of another lifelong friendship,
most refreshing to both,—a friendship characterized
almost equally by playful camaraderie and jesting, and by
many long talks about the things that lie deep.
“She is just good and true and ‘clear’,” S. J.-B. had
written in her diary some months before. She records how
they went together to an evening Holy Communion, what
they felt and said,—and goes on without a break:
.pm start_quote
“Then, again she so delicious about my bonnet (not calculated
.pm start_poem
‘To take upon it
The guilt of her wandering soul’.)
.pm end_poem
The first time. I saw you in it, nearly disliked you for it—only
it was past that.
Not your taste?—Then you oughtn’t to wear what isn’t,—nor to
get 14s. 9d. bonnets!
Poke into omnibuses?—Poke away, but wear proper bonnets.
Tottenham Court Road?—No business to go there for bonnets.
No money?—Then you must manage very badly! [Badly!—poor
generous child,—counting every halfpenny that she might
have the more to give away!]
Your sister?—No, I have nothing to do with her, but I have
with you. Buy proper bonnets,—then get them altered—
Whereon I vowed that if she didn’t come to London and choose
one, I’d buy the ugliest in Tottenham Court Road.
My compliments to Mrs. Heath, and she oughtn’t to compromise
her taste by letting you buy such bonnets, etc., etc.
So very very refreshingly, and with such bright arch eyes.”
.pm end_quote
It was certainly no lack of appreciation in the ordinary
relationships of life that urged S. J.-B. to find her vocation.
There are many indications of her popularity at this time
among cousins and friends.
.pm start_quote
“Dearest Sophy,” writes the mistress of Honing Hall,—“It will
be delightful to see you here. How often have I said to myself lately
(having no one else to address my remarks to,—your Uncle being
entirely taken up with his harvest, and more bothered than ever by
it). ‘I do wish Sophy would offer her company for a few days.’
So, well pleased was I to see your handwriting this morning.
.bn 176.png
.pn +1
I can meet you anywhere within reasonable distance. On Thursdays
I have only your old friend, Little Grey, and on Tuesday, 30th.,
some of the Catfield people are coming over. Should you be here
then, it would be an additional pleasure to all.”
.pm end_quote
And here is a characteristic note:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss Blake,
.ti 6
... Pray bring back from America a few more such good
stories as you told me yesterday. I say this not ‘hoping I should
see your face no more’.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
Frances P. Cobbe.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
On November 11th S. J.-B. received a letter that pleased
her much from the Revd. T. D. C. Morse, rector of Stretford,
Manchester:
.pm start_quote
“Madam,
.ti 6
I have had some correspondence with Professor Plumptre
of Queen’s College about establishing a Ladies’ College in this locality,
and he has referred me to you as likely to help me in this good work.
Notwithstanding the fact that the movement for the improvement
of female education has now been for some time set on foot, this
populous neighbourhood is still very destitute in this respect. I
have two girls, 12 and 13 years of age, and after making enquiries
in very competent quarters, I have been told that there is only one
Ladies’ School ‘worth a farthing’ in or near Manchester, and that is
the Ladies’ College on the north side of the city at Higher Broughton.
We are living on the south side and are surrounded by a large number
of wealthy people who must necessarily miss such educational
facilities. I wish therefore to try whether a good Ladies’ College
can be founded on this side of Manchester, and I would be glad to
know whether you could introduce me to a lady qualified to act as
Principal of such an Institution. Mr. Plumptre was not quite sure
whether you might be disposed to undertake such a work yourself
or not, but, if you were so, I feel sure from what he has told me
that the matter could not be in better hands.... You will
understand, of course, that the matter at present is only in the
phase of a project.”
.pm end_quote
“Plum, I owe thee one!” is S. J.-B.’s irreverent comment,—“good
old Plum!”
“Such a real ‘call’ it sounds—and what a field to learn
in!... Now America seems put in the background with a
vengeance.”
.bn 177.png
.pn +1
She plunged at once into plans and arrangements, timetables,
lists of tutors, etc., and on November 17th she writes
in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“On Tuesday and today received letters from Mr. Morse, telling
me of the Bishop’s support, and thus answering my question ...
asking me for ‘any suggestions’. I feel little more is to be done
without an interview, but write somewhat on essential heads ‘with
great diffidence’:
I am sure that no one can give their really best work to any scheme
which does not stand on foundation principles with which they are
in sympathy, and, bearing in mind the proposition you hinted at
in your first letter, I am bound both for your sake and for my own
to ascertain as far as possible how far the harmony of our views
would allow me to be a really efficient worker in your cause. I
have a great belief in the superiority of rule by Law over that of
individual will, and should as Director of any such College be very
anxious to have as little as possible left to my own choice and judgment;
but, having once been able to acquiesce in the spirit of
established regulations, would deem it essential to have absolute
authority to see them carried out alike by teachers and pupils. I
am sure that to have such questions ill-defined at first is one of the
most fruitful sources of after disturbance and failure in a college....
I believe that really good women teachers are more able to
measure the power of a girl’s mind, and force her to do a certain
amount of good work than men, who are in my experience very apt
to let young pupils slip between their fingers, as it were.
At the same time, after a thorough groundwork has been laid,
I think first-rate lecturers (almost useless till then) become quite
invaluable.
Meaning—I want an interview.
.sp 1
“Dec. 1st. 1864. Reached Manchester yesterday. Staying now
with the Morses.
Capital man he,—clear, energetic and practical; a little ‘trammelled’
by clerical bonds, but in the main wide and satisfactory.
Spite of the double assurance of Minnie and Ruth that I need not
talk of my Unitarianism,—I could not be quite silent, and so tonight,
naturally enough, and I think truthfully, gave in my half-declaration.
Mr. Morse said (in answer to my question whether we might not
be ‘too episcopal’) that, without wishing to exclude any, he wished
to have the College decidedly of Church origin, and should be sorry
to have other than Church main workers.
I said, ‘Then perhaps you had better not have me.’
‘But do you not belong to the Church?’
.bn 178.png
.pn +1
‘Well, I was baptized and confirmed in it.’
‘But you go there rather than Chapel?’
‘Well, I don’t know. I go there pretty often. I go where helps
me most.’
‘Where else?’
‘Oh, mainly Unitarian’, adding ‘I have not, however, any intention
of joining the Unitarians, but they have helped me’, and, in answer
to a farther remark ‘that I ought to make up my mind clearly
black or white’.
‘That I can’t do.... However on the whole, though very unorthodox,
I believe I am on the whole most of a Churchwoman, and
certainly non-proselytizing, nor, I believe in the least likely to
originate any religious difficulty.’
Still he was evidently ‘stumped’, and I daresay I shall hear
more of it.
Yet, on the whole, feeling as I do, I cannot regret speaking.
.pm start_poem
‘Be true to every honest thought
And as thy thought thy speech.’[35]
.pm end_poem
.pm end_quote
.fn 35
Mr. Morse had unwittingly given her some encouragement previously
by telling the story of a candidate for Orders, who when asked “If any
man broached before you doubts of the divinity of our Lord (‘and I needn’t
tell you,’ said Mr. Morse to S. J.-B., ‘what a difficult subject that is’)
what answer would you make?”
“My Lord, I beg that you won’t suppose that I keep such
“Well, but if——?”
“My Lord, I should take up my hat and walk out.”
“(Prudent too),” comments S. J.-B.
.fn-
She visited the Principal of Owens’ College, however, and
the Headmaster of the Grammar School, drew up a tentative
list of names for Council, and had a long talk with Mrs.
Gaskell, who promised to be a “Lady Visitor” if the College
was founded. (“I explaining it to mean ‘right to visit’.”)
.pm start_quote
“As to my contumacy (it’s really that and not the heresy!),
W. and G. to be consulted. I said how I wished him to do only
what he thought right,—yet believing they would be wise to have
me(!)
I think he surely wishes it, and, as I should guess he would find
his consultees not otherwise inclined, a very small push would
decide him that way.
(Stories,—‘The fool hath said in his heart,’ etc. Old sexton loq.
‘I can’t but think, sir, there is a God after all’).”
.sp 1
“Dec. 4th. Came to Rugby last night. The music in chapel
again and again bringing me well-nigh to tears,—so weak and thin
is one worn.
.bn 179.png
.pn +1
(Yet should surely notice the good Miss Garrett’s medicine does
me—taken about a fortnight now.)...
And how the conviction came (when first this Manchester scheme)
‘Yes,—“be thou but fit for the wall, and thou shalt not be left in
the way.” It is true!...
Is Minnie far wrong in her ‘Men have the best of it’? Easiest,—yes!—
Fancy the pleasure of going through School,—College,—returning
hallmarked, for good happy well-paid work here.
Yet is the easiest ‘Best’?
Must there not be pioneers?—can their work be easy?
Yet is there not (in many tongues and roads) a ‘noble army of
martyrs’?
Shall we like Erasmus ‘not aspire to that honour’?
But, oh, dear, when the heart’s light and brain clear and life sunny,
it’s easy to ‘scorn delights’ (having plenty of the reallest) but when
the ‘laborious days’ fail and only weary and dim ones remain—when
the tunnel narrows and darkens, and nearly all the light and
strength seems to have leaked out—
Then—?
‘My Grace is sufficient for thee’. No other help,—‘none other
fighteth for us’—and what need?—‘Only Thou, O God.’”
.pm end_quote
How little her friends could guess the attitude of her mind
may be gathered from the entry that follows:
.pm start_quote
“Dec. 5th. M.’s and my mutual objection to family prayers
evidenced by staying out tonight. Justified?
I say, prayer continual and interjectional rather than formal and
obligatory.
But follow out logically? Public worship, etc.”
.pm end_quote
Meanwhile she was hard at work, drawing up schemes for the
proposed College, visiting schools and colleges for men, and
striving to fit herself for the new work. Mr. Morse must have
felt that Mr. Plumptre had recommended a worker of remarkable
talents, fine sincerity and most unusual enthusiasm, one
whose knowledge of life and of the world was far in advance
of what might have been expected from her years. Such
qualities have to be paid for, of course. Nature has a rather
staggering way of throwing in counterbalancing asperities,
and, when S. J.-B. proposed to foster a religious spirit in the
college without the formality of daily prayers, he must have
begun to realize the inflexibility of the person he was dealing
.bn 180.png
.pn +1
with. He would probably have sympathized with the
dictum of Cousin Ellie,—“I would do anything for you if
I could only make even a slight alteration”!
All we actually know is that he showed no indication of
wishing to draw back; and at least one public meeting in
support of the scheme was duly held and reported at length
in the local papers. Public opinion, however, on the subject,
needed more fundamental education than Mr. Morse had
allowed for, and—although S. J.-B.’s budget was characterized
by the splendid economy that was one of her most striking
talents—the project failed for want of adequate financial
support.
.pm start_quote
“Feb. 22nd. Manchester scheme obiit. R.I.P.! I must be
really in a bad way to be able to find so few mental tears for this!
It does practically close up my foreground again. Heu mihi!
Why mayn’t useless people be smothered out of the way if there’s
no possibility of being or doing or having?
‘Because you’ve got to learn’, as that good Miss Harry said
last night.”
.pm end_quote
In the midst of these varied personal interests, S. J.-B. did
not lose touch with her old girls at Queen’s College. Indeed,
when one realizes the intensity of her own experiences, it is
rather refreshing to see how whole-heartedly she could enter
into those of others.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Feb. 23rd. 1864.
Brighton.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Lucy,
.ti 6
I feel rather guilty in not having written to you before this,
but I do not think that you will attribute the omission to any want
of interest in one of my dear old ‘children’.... I have to send
you my hearty congratulations and good wishes for the life that
seems opening so happily before you. Happiness is a wonderfully
solemn thing,—a thing to go down on one’s knees and thank God
for....
.pm start_poem
‘So pray they, bowed with sorrow down,—
While we whom love and gladness crown
Bend lower yet in prayer;
With hearts so full we need to pray,
“Oh, make us worthy, Lord, alway,
This weight of love to bear....”’
.pm end_poem
.bn 181.png
.pn +1
Don’t be too self-distrustful, dear child,—I don’t believe that
you are at all ‘unfit to be a help to anyone’.... Send me as long
a letter as your indolence will admit of, and tell me all about your
prospects, and whether your engagement is likely to be a short or
long one.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Dec. 13th. 1864.
.ll
... Having heard from E. B. of your marriage last month, I was
not quite so bewildered as I might have been at receiving an epistle
from a certain mysterious ‘Lucy Unwin’—
... I am so glad to hear of your being so happy, dear child (dear
me, I suppose I ought to be more respectful to so venerable a matron!)
I daresay if I heard the other side of the question it would not be
so full of wailings over your incompetencies general and particular
as yours is.... I should like exceedingly to see you in your new
sphere ... and please thank your husband very much for taking
me so much on trust as to want to see me,—though perhaps, after
all, the real compliment is to you! It will be a great pleasure for
me to come to you for a few days when I am next in the
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
[Received May 10th, 1865.]
.ll
I had hoped to pay you a visit before this, and I am afraid you
will be disappointed as well as myself when I tell you it must now,
I fear, be indefinitely deferred, for circumstances have made me
decide rather hurriedly to pay a long-planned visit to America for
the purpose of learning something about the schools and colleges
there.
I am to start from Liverpool on Saturday the 27th., and am going
to take with me a girl whom you will perhaps hardly remember at
Qu: College:—indeed I think she was after your time,—Isabel Bain.
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“May 14th., 1865.
.ll
Dear Lucy,
.ti 6
I should like exceedingly to see you if it were possible before
sailing for America, and your letter has made me wish more than
ever to do so.
If I found it just possible to come to you for one day and night,
would you think it worth while to have me? I do not know what
the possibilities are,—are you in the town?—or would it be an
undertaking to get to you from the station? Would it upset you
all terribly if I came and went at unearthly hours as I might have
to do?
I should like to see you exceedingly, and I should like very much
to see your husband,—if my coming in such a rush and making such
a fuss wouldn’t make him hate me.
Thank you very much for your photograph. There are no decent
ones of me, but I will see if I can find you up one of the least bad.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 182.png
.pn +1
The visit was paid in due course, and proved successful in
every way. Mr. Unwin frankly shared his wife’s admiration
for the character and gifts of her old college friend, and this
was by no means the last visit she paid to their Yorkshire home.
.tb
In the meantime S. J.-B. had carried out another idea that
had been simmering in her mind for long. It may be remembered
how in her childhood she had “bought tracts
(for 6d) with Carry,” and had even, apparently, been
encouraged by her Father to give them away. The distribution
of evangelical tracts was a great feature of the religious
world in which she had been brought up, and, with the
hopefulness of youth, she felt how much good might be done
by circulating helpful religious pamphlets of a non-doctrinal
kind. As a first step towards the realization of this scheme,
she herself wrote three tracts,[36] and had them printed at her
own expense. The most remarkable thing about them—in
view of the writer’s youth—is their non-controversial spirit.
A Father of the Church could not have written more
simply. With proper machinery for distribution they might
have met with some considerable success: as it was the
poor little booklets crept timidly into the world only to
be pronounced sadly wanting in essentials by most of those
who read them.
.fn 36
Appendix #B:appB#.
.fn-
“Very harmless, but very useless,” said Mrs. Jex-Blake,
and she at least knew enough of tracts to be an authority on
the subject. She had evaded reading these as long as possible,
and, of course it was not to the dearly-loved writer of them
that she made the crushing comment.
The Guardian, strangely enough, reviewed them rather
favourably, and a few total strangers wrote to say that this
was the thing for which they had long been looking; but on
the whole appreciation was rare.
“Frankly, I call them Cobbe and water,” said Mr. Morse.
For the Kingdom of Heaven is a treasure hid in a field, and
S. J.-B. never realized how few can avail themselves of the
treasure without first buying the field.
.bn 183.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.13
CHAPTER XIII | A VISIT TO SOME AMERICAN SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
.sp 2
“I have such a feeling that with the new world, a new life
will open.”
So S. J.-B. had written in October 1864, and, seven months
later, she sailed for Boston. This crossing of the Atlantic
was another considerable venture for the young woman of
those days; and, although S. J.-B. took with her a number
of introductions, she knew no one on the other side. She
was fortunate, however, in her travelling companion, Miss
Isabel Bain (now Mrs. James Brander, H.M. Inspectress of
Schools for Madras, retired), a young girl of exceptional
charm and promise, in whose education S. J.-B. and her
parents had taken a deep and active interest.
It is scarcely necessary to say that both Mr. and Mrs. Jex-Blake
regarded the new enterprise with profound misgiving:
a few days before the parting Mrs. Jex-Blake had written
to Mrs. Ballantyne:
.pm start_quote
“I was so sadly selfish and engrossed about America the few hours
you were here, that I must write a line to tell you how grateful
I feel for all your kindness to Sophy, and how thankful I am
that she has such a friend to consult with in this hour of need.
I hope you did not suffer for the way in which you were plagued
here: it really was very hard: though I quite believe you don’t
think so.
Tuesday. Sophy’s letter has just come, and I do indeed need
your prayers and sympathy. The wrench it is to me to have her
go is indescribable, but I hope and believe my view will be more
reasonable as time goes on. Any way, I know I shall have strength
to bear. It is quite a panic, and I feel as if I must run away from
.bn 184.png
.pn +1
it. Yet I would not prevent it if I could. I should have been very
thankful for an older companion....
I ought not to plague you, her good kind friend.
May God bless you and all dear to you.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours affectionately,
M. E. J.-B.
.nf-
.ll
I hope to write you a less selfish letter another time. I am hardly
myself now. Is it not curious,—I have such a prejudice against
Americans that I hardly ever will read a book describing American
manners. I hate descriptions of low life.”
.pm end_quote
Surely the frequent twinkle was returning to her eye when
she wrote the closing words of the postscript? In any case
there is no doubt about it a short time later when a question
arose about Miss Bain’s leaving S. J.-B. and becoming a
student in one of the colleges they had visited together:
.pm start_quote
“I think Daddy has a terror of only your bleached bones(!)
being found, if you went about without a companion.”
.pm end_quote
The two girls left Liverpool on May 27th, and, after experiencing
some rough weather which confined them to their
berths, they staggered gallantly up on deck to enjoy the
voyage and to make the acquaintance of their fellow-passengers.
“A very nice Scotch Independent, Dr. Raleigh
of Canonbury,” is specially noted.
The great excitement of the voyage is described in a letter
to her Mother:
.pm start_quote
“After I had done writing to you, we were summoned by a cry
of ‘Icebergs!’ and up we ran to see a bright white light on the
horizon, just visible, right on our track. Soon another came in sight
and it was really grand the next hour. The evening hardly beginning
to close in, but the cold intense, yet so beautiful.... On went the
ship, tearing on to the icebergs, that grew whiter and larger every
minute,—great cliffs of white rearing themselves out of the waves
that beat into spray at their base,—looking so strong and grim
and beautiful.”
.pm end_quote
On June 8th the Africa reached Boston about midnight,
and next morning the two young women went on shore to
begin the new life. The weather was very warm and most
of the people to whom they had introductions were out of
town. The travellers suffered a good deal from the heat and
.bn 185.png
.pn +1
from various minor inconveniences due mainly to the strangeness
and expensiveness of life in general; but S. J.-B.
does not fail to put on record how much they enjoyed
the ice-cream!
Dr. Lucy Sewall was at her post, but Mrs. Peter Taylor, in
providing this introduction had given the wrong address,
and it was a couple of days before they succeeded in finding
her. The meeting was destined to be full of significance in
determining S. J.-B.’s future career.
It was an interesting moment in which to visit the States.
The war was over, but feeling still ran high, and, although
the travellers met with much kindness and hospitality, they
were not a little surprised to find themselves in an atmosphere
of deep resentment against England.
.pm start_quote
“Oh, dear, How they turned on the tap, and talked right on end
when they got near politics, only pausing to wonder at our ‘ignorance’
in England (that being, of course, the only source of difference of
opinion with them). Finally, after listening with the utmost patience
indefinitely—only devoutly wishing to kick over the table—I got
mentally [sic] collared by Miss Peabody with an accusation of being
‘still incredulous’, to which I replied very frankly, that ‘certainly
till I heard both sides I could form no definite opinion.’
Emerson was refreshing after the rest, inasmuch as, after speaking,
he would allow you to answer.... A Miss Elizabeth Hoar told
me she had seen Carlyle in London in 1862, and that he had said to
her,—‘So you’re quarrelling out there? Why don’t you let the
Southerners go to the devil with their niggers if they like, and you
go to Heaven with your virtues if you can?’ Rather sensible, I
thought,—from one point of view at any rate.”
.pm end_quote
There is a pleasant little letter from Emerson, written after
this meeting:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
“Concord.
Monday 14th June.
\[1865.]
.ll
Dear Miss Blake,
.ti 6
I am sorry to be so very slow in sending you the address of
Mr. Fields’ good farmer in the White Mountains region. It is
Selden C. Willey, Compton Village, 6 miles from Plymouth, New
Hampshire. I looked for it immediately on my return from Mrs.
Mann’s, but could not find it, and now today have stumbled on it
in looking for something else. Tis probable that you may have
.bn 186.png
.pn +1
seen Mr. Fields himself before this time. When I have found my
right correspondent at Oberlin, I shall hope to bring you my letter
in person.
.ll 68
.nf r
With great regard,
R. W. Emerson.
.nf-
.ll
Miss Blake.”
.pm end_quote
The diary continues:
.pm start_quote
“Everyone most wonderfully kind and helpful to us personally—lots
of offers of introductions, etc. That nice Dr. Sewall very anxious
that I should not tire myself out and ‘get sick’. By the bye one
really can converse with her, I think.”
.pm end_quote
There is a kind little note from Dr. Sewall also:
.pm start_quote
“My dear Miss Blake,
.ti 6
As usual this evening I enjoyed your society so much that
I forgot to say half that I wanted to....
If you call on Mr. Emerson today, I think you had better call in
the afternoon, as he told me he was engaged Wednesday and Saturday
forenoons.
Don’t have any neuralgia when you come to the Hospital today,
or I may want to try my Electromagnetic machine on your face.
I have not seen Dr. Zakrzewska yet, but I want you to come early.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
Lucy C. Sewall.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Dr. Lucy Sewall was at this time a young woman of 28, a
worthy descendant of “a long line of truly noble ancestry.”[37]
She held the appointment of Resident Physician to the New
England Hospital for Women and Children (an institution
which had been founded in great measure through the exertions
of her father, the Hon. Samuel Sewall), but there was nothing
about her to suggest that she had adopted what was at that
time an unusual line of life for a woman. Singularly girlish
in appearance, she was and remained throughout life so gentle
and womanly that, until one knew her well, her reserves of
strength were a source of repeated surprise. “So simple and
humble and kindly,” writes S. J.-B. at this time,—“said
she ‘could not succeed in learning to think enough before
she spoke about a case.’”
.fn 37
See inter alia Whittier’s poem, “The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall,
1697.”
.fn-
No wonder S. J.-B. was attracted. A warm friendship
sprang up between the two young women, a friendship by
.bn 187.png
.pn +1
means of which S. J.-B. was introduced primarily to the world
of Medicine, and, secondarily, to the wide question of Feminism.
She had been living, of course, in a feminist world at home,
and a very choice world of its kind; but here the movement
had become more explicit, its aims were clearly defined and
partially realized. It had, no doubt, lost a certain amount
of charm in the process, but that is the fate of all movements
the world over. They too have to be worked out “in the
commonplace clay with which the world provides us.”
In any case S. J.-B. was profoundly influenced by the
change of atmosphere. Her conception of woman’s work
and woman’s sphere began to widen out. On June 22nd
she writes to her Mother:
.pm start_quote
“We saw Miss Crocker the other day,—late Mathematical professor
at Antioch,—and she impressed me extremely with her quiet dignity
and wisdom, and her tremendous Mathematics,—I should so like to
study under her some day. I felt like an uppish dwarf beside some
strong quiet giant.”
.pm end_quote
And a few days later:
.pm start_quote
“By the way that wonderful astronomer, Maria Mitchell, whom
I told you we were going to see, is a very nice woman—grand and
able and strong and kindly.... She is to be a professor at Poughkeepsie,
and, if we go there, I shall certainly hope to learn of her,—though
I did not know that Astronomy would ever have come into
my life. Any way it will be a great pleasure to know such a woman.”
.pm end_quote
On the same day she records in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“Sat for a couple of hours in Dr. Sewall’s dispensary this morning.
Some 36 cases heard and helped more or less. Some coming with
bright faces,—‘So much better, Doctor,’—some in pain enough,
poor souls. Dr. Sewall with such a kindly ready sympathy, and
such clear firm treatment for them all. Certainly the right woman
in the right place, except in as far as she herself gets to look sadly
fagged and tired sometimes.”
.pm end_quote
The state of S. J.-B.’s own health continued very unsatisfactory.
“What is one to do,” she says, “when one has
alternate days of ‘feeling like a tallow candle,’ and days of
feeling rather grand and energetic, like yesterday, when my
‘book’ was begun with a bounce?” After watching her
for some weeks, Dr. Sewall pronounced her “worn out in
.bn 188.png
.pn +1
mind and body,” and advised a holiday among the hills until
the excessive heat was over. So she paid a delightful visit
to Professor and Mrs. Rogers at Lunenburg, and then went
on to West Compton near the White Mountains. “The
railway (a single line) cut through delicious woods with no
fence or wall, just through the wildest glades full of ferns
and pyrolas,—vistas of sun on fir and maple boles,—then
again by the side of one lovely lake after another, a perfect
prodigality of beauty.”
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Aug. 18th 1865.
West Compton.
.nf-
.ll
Darling Mother,—I don’t think I shall be able to write by the
next mail, as we are going for a few days’ excursion round the
mountains, so I must send you off now as long a letter as I can
manage, telling you what we have been doing just lately.
First and foremost, I have been coming in useful as ‘teamster’, in
Yankee parlance, having been chiefly employed in driving my neighbours
all about the country lately. You would have laughed, I
think, had you seen my ‘span’ (pair of horses) the other day,—one
brown, pretty high,—the other mouse coloured and some three
inches lower, the most delightful variety prevailing in the harnessing
and general appearance of the two. Behind these beauties came
six of us in a big rough country ‘wagon’, all of painted wood,—two
big seats fixed in a sort of open cart.
We went through such a ford,—the Penningewassett River, and
(when the horses didn’t bite each other) we got on
“You haven’t the least idea what that word ‘woods’ means,—in
England there are just a few acres of carefully preserved trees
and ‘no trespassers allowed’. Here you plunge into a vast forest,
miles and miles every way,—lucky if you can find a path at all, else
guiding yourself by sun and stream and taking hours and hours to
get a mile or two,—yet all through so grand, so green, and so delicious!
If you could just have been with us yesterday! Every
few minutes we found some great tree fallen across our path, or some
black bog of decayed cedar or pine,—oh, the scents of those!—perfectly
delicious;—and then round we had to go, creeping, jumping
or gliding round the obstruction. Then we would come to some
little clearing, and catch such views of the mountains we were shut
in with,—then on again and hardly see daylight through the dense
trees. And such mosses, such ferns, such berries!
Then over the river somehow from rock to rock, and such a
scramble up among the cascades which came leaping down like
liquid silver in the sunlight, and such pools we did so want to bathe
.bn 189.png
.pn +1
in, and had to [refrain] for lack of time and towels! They called
the distance 2½ or 3 miles, but we took just 3 hours to get there,—and
then coming back pretty sharply in about half the time. The
only grief to me was—what perhaps you will hardly sympathize in—that
we didn’t come across any bear. There are a good many
left in the woods and one hears every now and then of their being
met, but they are getting few, and they are proportionately timid
and modest, running off full speed if they see you. Wouldn’t it
have been fun to see one?...
I think hardly anything strikes an Englisher more than the no-value
of wood here. Over the water it’s half high treason to hurt
a tree;—here, if you want a napkin-ring, you strip the bark off the
first birch you come to and make a lot; or, if you take it into your
head, set fire to the woods anywhere and have a bonfire of a dozen
trees, and no one says a word. We have seen woods on fire over and
over again, and no one says more than,—‘Oh, somebody’s fired the
wood’; and the odd thing is it doesn’t seem to spread as one would
expect.
One comes continually to clearings full of blackened stumps not
yet grubbed up,—the beginning of a garden or house place perhaps.
I want to see a great big forest fire some day,—and I only wish I
might see a prairie on fire too; only that is said to be horribly
dangerous. It is so funny to hear here, as when I was asking about
a certain road (from St. Louis to California), ‘Yes, it’s the shortest,
but the Indians are cross just now and have been scalping a lot of
people there’!
Well, darling, we had such a drive home by starlight last night,
and all enjoyed our day hugely. When we got in I suppose I walked
slightly lame or something, for my greeting was,—‘I guess you’re
tired, an’t you? You’re kind o’ waggling’!”
.pm end_quote
One is quite sorry to see the Boston postmark again; but
the high spirits do not flag. “You don’t know,” she writes
to her Mother, “what an immense thing it is for us to have
got free admission to the Woman’s Hospital life here,—we
are always doing something jolly together with the students
and doctors,—all women, by the way.
.pm start_quote
Dr. Sewall is resident Physician, and is always asking us to spend
jolly evenings there,—or to join them in going to theatres, etc.
Yesterday we made an expedition in the evening to a famous place
for ice-cream, 8 of us there were—4 M.D.s (one of whom is a splendid
surgeon,—the first female surgeon I have heard of) two students
and we two. After the ices we went back to the Hospital, and
played a most ridiculous game of cards called ‘Muggins’, keeping
.bn 190.png
.pn +1
us in roars of laughter half the time. Then Dr. Tyng (the surgeon)
sang, and, among other things gave us a specimen of the ‘Shaker’
singing—with its very peculiar religious dance,—have you heard
about the Shakers? I hope to see them and then I will tell you.
But can’t you understand how refreshing it is to slip into the
bright life of all these working people—working hard all day, and then
so ready for fun when work’s over? It reminds me of the full
colour and life of the old London times when all we working women
were together.”
.pm end_quote
So she utilised every opportunity of getting information
likely to help in her study of the conditions of Women’s
education. She regretted in after life that her dislike of
‘lion-hunting’ had prevented her from making—or cultivating—the
acquaintance of well-known people who did not
seem likely to be of direct help in her work. Not that she
disdained the opportunities when they actually came within
reach. Here is an interesting episode in the course of her
wanderings:
.pm start_quote
“Sept. 9th. Went over to Concord, Mass. by 11 a.m. train. At
the station found Waldo Emerson just fetching his wife and friends.
I spoke to him and he very cordially asked us to ‘take our dinner’
with him. We accepted, first paying a visit to Mrs. Horace Mann
and Miss Peabody. Mrs. Mann gave me a letter to Mr. Pennel (her
nephew) at St. Louis, whither I am advised to go after Oberlin and
Antioch perhaps. Poughkeepsie we must visit later, by wish of
the President, Dr. Raymond.
Went on to Emerson’s to dinner. Was received by one of the
daughters, Ellen,—simple and kindly, the ‘housekeeper’, I should
think—and shown into a room with several people.... About
3 p.m. dinner served, more English-wise than most, though with a
new Irish maid for waiter, who looked anxiously to ‘Ellen’ for
orders. Another daughter, Edith (about to be married) and a son,
Edward. They had sherry on the table, which I have only seen at
the Rogers’ besides,... Pears and grapes,—partly the queer sage
grapes with tarry flavour,—on a pretty basket, large and shallow.
Mr. Emerson struck me as having one of the sweetest expressions
I have ever seen on a man’s mouth. He was very kind in offering
help. We talked besides a little about Swedenborg, for whom he
seemed to have some admiration. ‘To be read as one reads a poet’s
ideas,—not critically,’ he said, and spoke of the pre-inspiration
works on science, etc., as really valuable.
Mrs. Emerson talked a little about ‘women’s questions’, female
franchise, etc.—and spoke of the wonderful blinding power of habit,—as
.bn 191.png
.pn +1
in slavery question,—looking to Christianity in its advance to
set all to rights.
I remarked that few had done more harm to the cause than St.
Paul by some of his words. She replied very truly that the fault
lay rather in those who would rigidly apply such words and consider
them binding out of all connection of time and
.pm end_quote
It was left to a later friend to point out that St. Paul
showed himself in this respect the John Stuart Mill of his
day when he asserted that ‘in Jesus Christ is neither male
nor female.’
.pm start_quote
“Speaking a little to an old schoolfellow of Emerson’s he told me
it was hard for anyone to say what Emerson’s opinions were. I
said I had heard of him as a pantheist; he said at any rate he was
one of the best of men and had been from boyhood up.”
.pm end_quote
A few days later she visited Niagara,—“the only ‘pleasure’
thing” she tells her Mother, “I resolved to do if possible.
We hope to spend next Sunday there,—not a bad church,
will it From Niagara she writes to Mrs. Unwin:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Sept. 17th. 1865.
Niagara.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Lucy,
.ti 6
I congratulate you with all my heart on the birth of your
little son! I think by this time you will have forgotten all doubts
and difficulties, and all but pleasant feelings of responsibility, in
your great content, have you not? God very seldom sends us
either duties or blessings without showing us how to fulfil and enjoy
and use them, and I do not doubt but you will have found in your
own case all sorts of new powers and instincts develop with the need
of them, and will have by this time a pretty definite idea ‘What to
do with a baby’—Is it not so?...
I wish there existed a visual telegraph (if such a phrase may be
coined) and that I could give you a glimpse of the scene I have in
front of me, and which is continually stealing my eyes from my
paper. No less than Niagara in its full glory!—and what that
glory is I don’t think any but eyes can tell. I have seen a good deal
of beauty and grandeur in my life, in Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland,
etc., but I think never anything so wonderfully, bewitchingly,
grandly as this. People talk of being disappointed in
Niagara, but I think it can only be because, for the first moment,
the enormous width of the Falls (900 feet in one case, 2000 in the
other,—separated by an island) prevents their recognizing their
height as well, or else they have not got the right natures to
.bn 192.png
.pn +1
admire with! (and I think that last is oftener the case than people
think).
It gives one most wonderfully the feeling of power and immensity,—the
sort of feeling that was [expressed] long ago, ‘When I consider
the work of Thy fingers, what is man that Thou are mindful of him?’—and
yet the feeling of infinite beauty and harmony too. Before
leaving we go under the Falls, and into the ‘Cave of the Winds’
behind a vast curtain of water, and that I think must give one
almost more strongly still the impression of might and vastness.
It is very little use to talk about it any more, I wish you could
see it!
Thank you very much for writing to my Mother about A. I
hope she will get away from her present uncomfortable place,—it
would give me great pleasure if she came to you. Only I warn you
I shall claim her some day!
Goodbye, dear child. With all good wishes for you and yours,
I am ever
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very sincerely,
S. L. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
From Niagara she went via Cleveland to Oberlin, and so
began the tour which she afterwards described in A Visit to
some American Schools and Colleges (published by Macmillan
in 1867). She had been very kindly advised by Dr. Hill,
the President of Harvard, as to the Colleges best worth
visiting, and the experience proved both interesting and
useful. At Oberlin the two sexes were almost equally represented,
and “coloured” students formed about a third of
the whole number. “In the year of my visit,” she writes,
“it so happened that the only woman who graduated was a
coloured girl, originally a slave, who had not even then paid
her full ransom to her former owners.” A considerable proportion
of students of both sexes supported themselves
wholly or in part by doing the domestic work of the establishment.
Manners were rather rough even for the America of
those days, but the standard of behaviour was high, and the
religious atmosphere almost overwhelming.
From Oberlin she went on to Hillsdale, St. Louis, and
Antioch (at Yellow Springs in Ohio) spending a few days or
weeks at each; and afterwards she visited a number of
schools. What impressed her perhaps more than anything
else was the success with which the joint education of men
.bn 193.png
.pn +1
and women was carried on, and this impression was destined
to play its part in the later struggles of her life.
“If anyone asks you again about my views of comparative
English and American teaching,” she writes to her Mother,
“I suppose I may say that I believe on the whole American
girls are more thoroughly, and especially more universally,
taught fundamental things. They learn Mathematics more
thoroughly, and Latin more invariably; their knowledge of
modern languages is decidedly inferior (very naturally, being
so far from France, Germany, etc.) and their English and
their manners both less polished. But I should think a
decidedly smaller number of them are able to manage to grow
up quite ignorant!” It annoyed her a good deal that, in
the matter of pronunciation, an American will always ask
you “what dictionary you go by,” and seems quite unable
to understand the unwritten law of language which in England
reigns supreme, and from which, if a dictionary differs, it
simply condemns itself.
Her birthday inspired a breezy letter from her brother:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Sussex Square, Brighton.
Jan. 21. 1866.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Sophy,
.ti 6
Many happy returns of your 26th birthday, as they would
say in Ireland: and may they ache find you younger and fresher!
We have been enjoying three very fresh but windy weeks here;
and are now leaving tomorrow for Rugby. We leave Violet, Katharine
and Netta here, however, as they are only half through measles....
We have ridden a good deal, been with the hounds more than
usual; and not read much. Lecky on Rationalism is the best book
I have read lately, of the fairly solid sort; Swinburne’s Atalanta
the best new poem; Citoyenne Jacqueline the best new novel;
Mr. ——’s the worst stale sermons. Is there anything good out in
American literature of late? Artemus Ward is good in his line,
but his line is audacious.
I should like six months in America immensely; locomotive, with
introductions, I don’t know the politics of the people you are with
or have been with; but I was always a Northerner.... I wonder
how the Mexican business will end: and cannot pretend to guess:
but I hope Louis Napoleon ... will soon withdraw his troops, and
Maximilian will collapse. We are on the eve of a noisy session, I
expect; Home Office stung by reform into a queer tarantula, and
Colonial secretaries badgered about Jamaica by both sides of the
.bn 194.png
.pn +1
House. I cannot pretend to judge till we get more evidence: but
as yet none has turned up which in my eyes justifies the execution
of Gordon—who for all that was probably deep.... Have I
wearied you out with politics? or have you not read so far?
.ll 68
.nf r
With love from us all,
I am your affecte brother,
T. W. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
She answered the letter while the stimulus of it was fresh:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Tom,
.ti 6
Many thanks for your birthday letter. Though they came
rather late, I got quite a budget at last.
I quite agree that you ought to come and see America,—both its
people and its scenery. It’s a queer study in all ways, one finds
so much to like and respect, and so much that one is inclined to
laugh at. People are certainly less tied and bound by the chain
of ‘on dit’, on this side the water, and that tells more for good
than for evil, I think; but on the other hand it lets people who are
so inclined fall into overgrown eccentricities, and set at nought to
an alarming extent all rules of grammar and etiquette when they
don’t suit. In fact I have not found more than three or four Americans
altogether who talk what we should consider cultivated English, or
behave as if they had been in what we call cultivated society. They’ll
pick their teeth while they talk to you (so will the shopmen—‘store
clerks’, if you please,—while they serve you) spit within an inch
of you, eat things in the streets while walking with you, perhaps
whistle and sing ditto; talk about what they ‘had ought to do’,
say they should ‘admire to do so and so for you’ or ask if they
shall ‘turn out the tea,’ etc. And all this from men who have been
through College, and women who know more Mathematics, Latin,
Greek and Philosophy than I dare think about. In fact there’s a
very curious contrast in the much higher level of learning and the
much lower level of outward signs of refinement in American as
compared with English averages.
I’m afraid that while we may have some few hundreds better
educated,—more ‘elegant scholars’—than any in America, we must
confess that there is here a very much higher percentage of fairly
well read and well educated people than with us. I notice this
specially among the girls—as to the men I know less. But almost
all girls here have studied a good deal things few English girls go
much into—specially Mathematics and natural science.
Then I am sure no one ought to speak more highly than I of
American kindness and hospitality,—I am very much afraid few
foreigners would have found in England such a welcome as I met
with here. People were so cordially kind in helping me in all sorts
.bn 195.png
.pn +1
of ways.... There seems to me much less of the spirit of ‘pride
of office,’ etc., much more readiness to admit one everywhere to see
everything, and to be ready to help without standing too much on
one’s dignity. I found this specially in the case of Dr. Hill, President
of Harvard University, the first in America—and the same in the
case of the presidents of the colleges for both sexes, Oberlin, Hillsdale,
and Antioch.
I don’t know whether you will care for all these results of my
observations, but your mention of America and wish to see it drew
them out.
As to politics, I knew very little about them before I came, and
had a faint sort of prejudice in favour of the South, believing the
North to be very insincere about slavery, etc. I now think that the
Anti-slavery cry has been used most shamelessly for private and
political ends by some, but that there is at the heart of Yankeedom
a strong true heart beating earnestly in favour of liberty for negroes
as well as whites, and that there are and have been very many
most sincerely bent on very unselfish ends, and a great deal of real
patriotism (on both sides probably) evolved by the war.
I am chiefly with some of the very best of the Anti-slavery people.
The Sewalls used to shelter escaped negroes when to do so was a
penal offence.
I saw Lecky’s Rationalism (which ought rather to be called the
History of Reasonableness) before I left England, but only read part
of it. I first found it on Miss Cobbe’s table, and liked it very much.
I don’t know of any great American books lately,—they pirate
almost everything English.
I think the English here must be feeling pretty badly about
Jamaican affairs,—I am. They say the French troops are certainly
to evacuate Mexico now....
I hope Hetty got thanked for her note a little while ago,—this
letter is meant as much for her as for you, though I forgot to begin
it so. Love to the bairns. I suppose I shall scarcely know them
when I get back.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your aff. sister,
S. L. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 196.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.14
CHAPTER XIV | QUESTIONINGS
.sp 2
When S. J.-B. left England her plan had been to spend at
least part of the winter with an old school-friend, now married
to the Revd. Addington Venables—afterwards Bishop—of
Nassau in the West Indies; but life in Boston proved too
attractive. She liked the women doctors and they liked
her; possibly they had designs on her; in any case Dr.
Sewall was anxious to get her health up to such a level
as would make professional life a possibility; and, for the
furtherance of this end, it was arranged that she should
share the resident’s little house in connection with the
hospital. Miss Isabel Bain had gone to pursue her education
in one of the good girls’ schools. Already in October one had
heard of S. J.-B. “helping the doctor through oceans of
figures in hospital reports,” and one can well believe that
she was an efficient member of the little community. The
very day after she took up her residence in the hospital
precincts the “student” who did the dispensing was summoned
away, and as—of course!—there was a run of arduous cases
at the same time, S. J.-B. cheerfully volunteered to do the
dispensing,—“and was very thankfully accepted” to fill the
gap! Within a week she writes to her Mother:
.pm start_quote
“It’s very amusing, dear, to learn to write and make up prescriptions
so easily,—I shall be up to the doctors in future you see! I
have just been making one up for myself under the doctor’s directions,
to my great amusement,— ... and precious nasty it is!
It’s a great comfort to be of some sort of use to these people who
are so frightfully overworked just now.... Besides being apothecary,
I’m general secretary,—write all the business letters (which
.bn 197.png
.pn +1
the doctor hates) and post up the hospital records of cases, etc.;
and besides this I requested to be and got appointed what I call
‘chaplain’ with discretionary powers. The only people who visit
in the hospital (besides friends at visiting hours) are the Lady
Managers, each of whom has a month on duty, and besides that
Mr. Barnard comes and holds a short service and preaches every
Sunday afternoon. So I thought that the patients would like some
reading, etc., sometimes, and Dr. Sewall gave me leave to do all I
liked.... You can’t think how pleased they were all of them, and
how heartily they asked me to come again, which I shall do pretty
often.”
.pm end_quote
A week later (Nov. 24th) she writes again:
.pm start_quote
“At present I am so exceedingly content in my quaint pleasant
quarters in the midst of so new a working world, that I hardly feel
the need of anything beyond; and I do greatly want quiet and rest
to ‘recuperate’ as the new word goes. I can’t tell you when I have
found so much chance of rest of mind and quiet interest in things
wholly unconnected with the old pain,—not for years, I am sure,
and I have ready to hand just as much work as I feel able for, and
yet no strain on me to do it if I am not able. I can’t tell you the
pleasure it gives one simply to see Dr. Sewall in her hospital and
especially among her poor patients. She is such a true Healer;—so
infinitely compassionate and sympathetic, with blue eyes sometimes
quite full of sorrow for the people’s pain, yet such strong firm
hand and will to remedy even through pain. I say a dozen times a
day,—‘Were I not a teacher, I would be a doctor’—if I could.
(Nov. 27th.) This hospital life is simply charming. So busy,
so simple, so quaint and so interesting! I am entering more and
more fully into it daily, and finding more and more nooks which I
can fill ... sometimes giving mechanical aid in operations where
they want an extra hand, etc.
Darling, one very unexpected result is coming out of this new life
which I embraced simply for its rest and comfort,—I find myself
getting desperately in love with medicine as a science and as an art,
to an extent I could not have believed possible. I always associated
so much that is repulsive and nasty with it in my mind, but I find
that one really loses all sense of that in close contact,—that the
beauty of nature’s arrangements and of art’s contrivances absorb
one’s mind from everything less pleasant, and I find myself saying
to myself a dozen times a day that, did I not feel my life devoted
to another object, I would be a doctor straightway. As it is, I mean
to use all the time I have in gaining all I can, by observation (for
which one so rarely has such a chance) even more than by study,
though I find myself devouring all sorts of medical works too, and
.bn 198.png
.pn +1
am quite amazed to find how far even in this little time I am able
to understand to a certain extent all sorts of things going on around
me, and how very interesting they all become in the new light.... Of
course one has access to an enormous medical library here, and the
junior doctors are all as ready to help or show me all I want as
possible. I in my turn do all I can to take extra work which I can
do off their hands. Today the hospital note-book was handed over
to me, and I went round with the physicians taking down directions
for food, medicines, etc., and then making up the latter and taking
them to the wards: all of which was very little for me to do, and
very interesting, but a great deal saved for the over-worked junior
doctor of the wards. I am really a great deal stronger and healthier
than I have been for a long time.”
“Nov. 27th. We get up at 6.30 a.m.,—breakfast at 7, then go
round the wards with the doctors, then I make up the hospital
medicines and see what drugs need to be ordered into the dispensary.
The Dispensary opens at 9, or two days in the week at 10, and on
Mondays and Thursdays (Dr. Sewall’s days) I am there all the
morning, making up prescriptions as fast as she writes them (two
of us generally have our hands full, but sometimes I am alone), and
very often we have not got through our work when the dinner-bell
rings at 1 p.m. Dr. Sewall always has an enormous number of
patients—from 60 to 70, and if I go down into the Dispensary
waiting-room I get seized on so eagerly,—‘Is Dr. Sewall here herself?’
as she is occasionally obliged to be absent part of the time.
I think anyone who passed a couple of mornings in this dispensary
would go away pretty well convinced of the enormous advantage
of women doctors; and one sees daily how the poor women feel it
by the crowds that come on the four days in the week when the
lady physicians are in charge, and the handful that comes on the
two days when a man presides.... They say that they have cases
again and again of long-standing diseases which the women have
borne rather than go to a man with their troubles,—and I don’t
wonder at it.”
I have just begun to have a little Sunday service in
the wards where there was none before. Dr. Sewall is very good in
letting me make such plans if I like, and comes herself to the service.
Of course we have a very mixed multitude, but I think we manage
to worship our ‘Father in Heaven’ and look forward to the ‘One
fold’ some day, when neither ‘Jerusalem nor this mountain’ shall
be the vital thing.”
“(Dec. 19th.) My chaplain’s work has rather fallen into abeyance
now from the crush of other things,—the only thing I do regularly
being the Sunday service, writing a weekly sermon for which, by the
.bn 199.png
.pn +1
bye, is not to be omitted in one’s list of work. It’s all but impossible
to find any printed ones one could read,—one needs to be so absolutely
non-doctrinal and non-combative; and besides the doctors
and people will come to hear mine when they’d think twice about
anything else.
The young surgeon I told you about has a splendid voice, and
last Sunday she brought a sort of large accordion and played all our
hymn tunes, so we are getting quite grand. Wouldn’t you like,
darling, to peep in at us and see all our busy doings?—I wish you
could.”
.pm end_quote
To say that the young doctors who came to her services
were frankly critical of her and her beliefs is an understatement
of the facts. Some of their remarks have survived,—clever
and flippant for the most part; but the following letter from
an intimate friend, whom she had persuaded to accompany
her to church, is worth quoting:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sunday evening, 11 o’clock.
.ll
My dear Baby, I cannot sleep for thinking of the rude speeches
I made to you this evening. I am so sorry that I said them, but at
the same time I could not help it,—the whole service and the going
to church of most all the people there was such a farce that it roused
the devil in my nature.
Besides all this, my Baby answered me so sweetly and truly that
it did me good to make her talk, and raised my faith in human goodness
which was getting almost extinguished by that man’s sermon.
If I ever get into such a disagreeable mood again, and say ugly
things to tease you, you must give me a good moral box on the ear
so as to bring me to my senses.
I do not believe that going to church is good for me.
Don’t think me foolish for writing this, and don’t let anything I
said today trouble you, but be as good to me as you have been.”
.pm end_quote
In the midst of all this busy life, S. J.-B. never forgot the
family festivals at home, the birthdays of parents and friends,
the date when such an one was to be married, or another to
sail for India. This was a striking gift, more of the heart
than of the head, that she retained throughout life. “I was
thinking in bed this morning of the faithful few who would
remember my poor old birthday,” wrote her childhood’s
schoolmistress, Miss Teed, at this time, “And a little bird
whispered, ‘You will get a letter from Sophy.’”
.bn 200.png
.pn +1
Not that she ever felt bound to say the thing that was
expected of her.
“I suppose you don’t expect me to say much about Uncle’s
death, darling,” she writes to her Mother. “It cannot seem
to me sad for anyone concerned. I do not think he would
have learned much more here; doubtless he will hereafter.”
Three weeks before the anniversary of her parents’ wedding,
she writes to her sister:
.pm start_quote
“Dear old Charlie,—Please keep the enclosed very secret till
the morning of May 12th.
Get a grand plant of some sort—full of blossom, geranium or
fuchsia or something,—any price up to 5s.—and put the letter in its
leaves on Mother’s plate at breakfast. Mind you get a glorious
plant....
.ll 68
.nf r
Your aff. sis.,
S. L. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
From a letter written to her Mother at Christmas 1865 one
realizes what a child she was still:
.pm start_quote
“Our rooms did get so prettily decorated,—Dr. Sewall is clever
that way,—and I took holly round to all the wards that everybody
might have some bits to look at. We had quite a rush of babies
just then—four born on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.—When
we were going round the wards on Christmas Day Dr. Sewall
ordered of course ‘light diet’ for the new Mothers,—so I said laughingly
to console them, ‘Well, I guessed the babies were worth losing
a dinner for, weren’t they?’ ‘Humph!’ says one of the Mothers,
‘a good dinner’s worth more to poor folks!’
To tell the truth I was too much taken aback to reflect what a
sensible woman she was!—What would you have said, dear?
Darling, I come more and more to the conclusion that anyone
who wishes to preserve intact all romantic ideas about ‘Mother’s
love,’ etc., had better not live in a Lying-in Hospital. It’s a grand
and blessed thing when it does come, but that isn’t always. We
had two of the babies born here found deserted in the streets a few
days ago,—the day after their mothers were discharged.”
.pm end_quote
On March 4th, 1866, she writes to her Mother:
.pm start_quote
“I have given up my Sunday service, or at least have resigned it
into the hands of a minister who already had a service in the medical
wards. I found it very hard to find time to prepare properly for
it, and sometimes it tried my nerves very much, and besides it got
to be a great weight upon me in the way of responsibility and absolute
.bn 201.png
.pn +1
honesty in what I said. Things seem so very un-clear to my own
mind that it rather weighs upon me and worries me to be trying
to say much about them to others. Perhaps this state may just
pass away again, but in the meantime I like best to ‘be true to every
honest thought’ and, till I’m sure, to be silent.
Much love to Daddy and Carry, and such a lot of kisses for my
darling.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
To understand the inner history of this change one must
revert to the diary,—the most intimate friend of all—and
this takes us back for a moment to the time of her arrival
in America.
.pm start_quote
“June 18th. How thoughts and plans and possibilities rush upon
me! The opening of the bar to women here,—Mr. Sewall’s wish
for a female pupil. ‘Ah,’ as I said to L.E.S. last night, ‘if I had been
an American, I believe I should not have doubted to be a lawyer.’
She thinks one should be, if one has the powers and will.
Yes, but is the ‘dedication’ and vocation of years nothing? Have
I believed rightly or wrongly that God meant me to do something
for teaching,—and that in England,—to the almost certain exclusion
of all other life-work? Rightly, I think.
Then, again, the ministry. What seems to draw me so irresistibly
that way? Is it pride or wish of note, or is it vocation? Is it
partly Dr. Arnold’s belief that Headmaster ought also to be chaplain?...
One seems at crossways,—‘the tide’ perhaps. Well, look,—and
surely the kindly Light will lead.”
.pm end_quote
Anyone who had gone through all S.J.-B.’s papers up to
this date with an open mind would have said that the choice
really lay between teaching and preaching. All her life she
had been more interested in religious subjects than in any
others, and her gifts of exposition and of public speaking were
far above the average in either sex. In later years, when she
was addressing thousands of people, she could make all hear
without seeming to raise her voice; it remained full, mellow,
easy, perfectly controlled, just as when she sat at the head
of her own dinner-table. She might have spent some considerable
part of the day in “wishing somebody would shoot
her,” but no one would have guessed it when the moment
came. “My mind is perfectly at ease when she rises to speak,”
.bn 202.png
.pn +1
said one of her patients in Edinburgh, many years later, “one
feels then that humanly speaking nothing can go wrong.”
As a matter of fact it was when she was addressing a large
audience that she looked most radiantly happy.
In many ways, then, she would have made a good minister;
we know that she wrote a number of sermons that were
appreciated by her colleagues, and she went so far as to preach
at Weymouth (Mass.) for the Rev. Olympia Brown. “On
seeing Him who is invisible” was the subject she chose, and,
judged by ordinary standards, the sermon seems to have
been a success.
The main reason why she did not follow it up was (as
indicated in the last-quoted letter to her Mother) the change
that took place in her religious views after she had lived some
time in America. In England she had been considered an
advanced thinker on religious subjects: in America—the
America in which her lot happened to be thrown—she was
amazingly orthodox and conservative. For the first time
she found herself among people who really did not care about
religion as she understood it.
.pm start_quote
“July 2nd. Very nice these people are,” she writes in her diary,
“and very nice Mrs. Rogers’ deep clear interest about the poor and
wicked,—refuges, etc.
Yet is there not in them the sort of un-religiousness which half
jars on one in Unitarians? I wonder why. I hope I shan’t get into
it. ‘More of reverence in us dwell.’ Yet so difficult in throwing
off old bonds of sentiment not to lose something of the real feeling,—and,
as Miss Cobbe says, if our religion is not a synthesis of all the
good and beauty we know, we are less, not more, by rejecting
errors.”
.pm end_quote
And again:
.pm start_quote
“A new psychical study in the shape of Mrs. F., who ‘can believe
in Providence but not in God,’ and who ‘means to say that there
is absolute right and wrong, but not good and bad people. People
were born with certain notions and acted accordingly; they did
the best they could and could do no more.’
Mr. F. allowing and accepting the consequence that men differed
no more from brutes than by finer organization, no more than the
elephant from the fish! It is really good to contrast opposite
extremes of thought,—it gives one a certain sense of stability and
.bn 203.png
.pn +1
reality to have to defend one’s castle on both sides, and so to feel
sure that it is one’s own at least....
Talking of struggle as the only root of good, I quoted ‘perfect
through suffering,’ and spoke of my belief in Christ’s struggle in those
30 years as the only possible root of his accordance of will with
God’s.
July 16th. Curious how the things most living to me are just
simple absurdities to another. Talking of tombstones, Mrs. H.
doesn’t like them, as preventing the dead rising—in idea. Mrs.
F.—‘Well, you don’t expect them to, do you?’ (as a sort of reductio
ad absurdum). ‘Certainly I do: the Bible says so.’ ‘Oh—aw—ah!’
with such a face,—‘if I thought so, I’d take to Banting at
once.’”
.pm end_quote
Curious how none of them seem to have seen that the
frivolous remark involved a great principle!
There were many stories and jokes on biblical themes, and—though
S. J.-B. even at this time was a touchstone in the
matter of jokes, never allowing one to pass which was not
funny enough or clever enough to justify its breadth or its
seeming irreverence—her sense of humour was keen.
.pm start_quote
“Suggestion to read the prayer for fair weather,—‘Lor, sir,—not
a bit of good with the wind in this quarter.’”
.pm end_quote
But she was constantly reverting to the old religious intensity:
.pm start_quote
“How reading of any spiritual conflict—even such an ‘ébauche’
as in Agnes of Sorrento—rouses one’s whole nature in a sort of
enthusiasm of longing and half prophecy!...
Sometimes I feel such intense sympathy and pity for Christ because
of his very deification. That after spending his whole life to learn
and tell men about his Father, he should find them, after his death,
trying to set him up himself to obscure that Father,—making God
a foil to Christ!”
.pm end_quote
With that extraordinary frankness that does such credit to
both, she writes to her Mother at this time,—“I was thinking
the other day how curious it was that I really never read one
Unitarian book till I was altogether Unitarian,[38]—never one
but the Bible at least, if that counts.”
.fn 38
It was only for a very brief period of her life that S. J.-B. would have
called herself by this name.
.fn-
“It is strange,” says someone, “that, in all our talk of the
.bn 204.png
.pn +1
evolution of the individual, we fail to recognize the evolution
of the medium.” S. J.-B. seems to have thought—as so many
earnest spirits thought in those days—that she stood practically
alone. “It has so been,” she says in the same letter
to her Mother, “(I can’t say chanced) that I have had next
to no human sympathy or help on my way. I do not remember
that anyone but Mrs. Ballantyne has given me much
of either in this one strife, and before I knew her the worst
was over.”
One must bear this in mind in reading the passage that
follows:
.pm start_quote
“To realize more and more that my life will be one—for years if
not to the end—of struggle and perhaps obloquy, certainly outcasting
from the synagogue,—struggle theological and social: and
will it even succeed at last? Yes, surely,—inasmuch as Robertson
says how to fall in the gap is success,—to be one of the conquering
army, if not of the
.pm end_quote
The next entry in the diary is the quotation of a flippant
joke about the Californians who “when they go to a certain
warm abode have yet to send back for their blankets.”
.pm start_quote
“July 30th. A very interesting talk with the Fs. ... trying
hard to show Mrs. F., who longs so to believe in a loving God, ‘Thou
wouldst not seek me, hadst thou not found me,’—and that to long
is almost to believe. Also to show her that Christ’s Christianity is
a strong true manly thing,—that what she deprecates is the letter
not the spirit, and that her willingness to live, and yet fear to die,
without Christianity is of the essence of Calvinism.
With him, still more interesting, (except that one pities and longs
to help her) about origin of evil, free will, etc. I arguing that God
could not give men the possibility of virtue without the possibility
of evil,—he arguing a higher state where evil not possible. I say—then
you exclude the idea of goodness from God.
With some effort cleared ideas so far as to detect the ‘undistributed
middle term,’ to distinguish between the possibility of evil and the
wish toward evil. Saying that the very truth we prized in Unitarianism
was that it said ‘Christ, if God, was no example’ and that
Christ’s very goodness consisted in that he had the possibility of
evil and no wish for evil.
Illustrating with May forbidden sugar, in a room with and without
it. In one case unable to disobey, in the other restrained from the
wish to disobey.
.bn 205.png
.pn +1
The two, confused in one, being absolute opposites.
Is this all part of my training ‘for the ministry’? Please God.
One does so gain a clearness never, one trusts, to be lost.
He asked me tonight if I did not find I had a clearness of thought
and language very rare; and she said I was the first person who had
made her feel the intense reality of the invisible and long after it.
Please God, a prophecy.
I said I had won through infinite struggle—almost ‘to blood’—a
certainty to which the visibility of the outer was nothing. And,
please God, it is deeply true.”
.pm end_quote
Ah me, Prometheus! The audacity of us small mortals
all!
But the words that follow are indeed ‘a prophecy.’
.pm start_quote
“I have such a conviction of infinite struggle and contest in the
future,—yet please God, of earnest, on-pressing struggle, and in
the end, victory and Rest....
Oh, dear, the ‘religious’ people and their effects!—very nearly
making L. E. S. hate the name. So far from all good being ‘in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ’ or rather in God’s, there is actually
room for the reverse to be said;—not wholly truly, I trust though.
But she said, ‘If I want help for those poor things in or out of
hospital, I never go near the pious people. I have and I know
them. Go to atheists, and you are never refused.’
Oh, dear!”
.pm end_quote
Knowing the spiritual history of earnest souls in that
generation, one is not surprised to come a couple of months
later upon the entry:
.pm start_quote
“I am wonderfully unsettled and uneasy somehow.... I do
believe this terrible sort of logical doubt of Theism that enters in—not
un-faith, but a failure of the abiding surety—an entrance of the
admission how possibly reasonable Atheism may be—hurts horribly.
And then isn’t the whole world void?
Oh for the ‘I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not‘!—and
doubtless one has it,—both in ’Neither pray I for these alone,’ and
also in those who live and love one, Mother and Octa....
L.’s absence of sympathy weighs heavily. Hitherto all my friends
have met me here,—she does not. ‘All the help she ever got, she
got from herself and her will.’ Not from the Bible or hymns, etc.
She calls herself a theist, but it seems to me to run close to practical
“Oct. 29th. She is so good! Told her something of today’s
pain, she so sympathizing and good! Believed that the struggle
.bn 206.png
.pn +1
was part of the sequence of early training and later reaction into
‘wider faith’—what many had to go through one time or another.
I spoke of herself,—asked her what practical difference she would
find if an atheist. ‘Not much generally,’ she thought, but in
trouble she did pray. She couldn’t help it, and believed it was good,
and when her friends died she was happier. ‘When she thought
of it, she felt very sure about God, but very seldom did stop to
think. She was sure her first duty was her work, etc. and then she
had small time and sense left.
I said lives not continually lived as seeing Him who is invisible
would be worth but little; she said Then her’s was so, and many
others. So I retracted hastily. ‘At least mine would be.’
Perhaps her’s is actually higher and more childlike. ‘He will
care for my soul,’[39] as it were.”
“Nov. 13th. Looking at p. 253, ‘the Ministry?’, I ask whether
the sort of spiritual speechlessness—almost deadness—is not perhaps
a merciful answer to that question. Clearly I can’t preach
now.”
“Nov. 24th. This temptation to medicine is pretty strong in some
ways, both as to present study and future life.... But ‘not each
on all’ come the claims,—this is surely already responded to, and
will surely grow without me.
I feel as if my work would not [how little she knew!] as if, at least,
it was given me to do and needed most of all my labour.
So ’Traveller, hold thy cloak’!
While it was identical with life interests and labour am I to claim
‘vocation,’ and then when others open, forsake it?
‘Shalt not excel.’”
“Nov. 25th. I cannot but believe that if God enables me ...
to do my work as I have believed and planned it, it will do wider,
deeper good for England than the addition of one woman doctor
can.[40]
.bn 207.png
.pn +1
And then if I say,—‘Ah, but see how my theology will impede
me!—well, would you have everyone give up working but those who
hold the popular views?—is it not just those whose views have
changed who need to work and justify them, and not hide light
under a bushel at call of indolence or cowardice? You know that
you believe in the horrible harm of leaving education to Calvinists,
downtreading and hardening earth round the root,—that you
believe in children being taught ‘the two commandments’ and no
more,—and yet, because you would so teach them, you half shrink
from the battle through which you must do it.
L. E. S. says, ‘If you feel you can and wish to be a doctor, you
ought.’ Ah, but I can do the other too. And if it is only selfish or
worldly considerations that sway you to medicine—if it is the
interest or the power or the success, mainly or wholly—if it is the
difficulties present or future that make you half yearn to turn from
the other—surely these are no reasons.
Surely, having presented ourselves, our souls and bodies, a reasonable
sacrifice, these things no longer enter in.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 39
The reference is probably to the reply of Wilberforce when asked
whether in his struggle for the emancipation of the slaves, he was not
neglecting his own soul,—“I had forgotten that I had a soul.”
.fn-
.fn 40
.pm start_poem
“But thou wouldst not alone
Be saved, my father! alone
Conquer and come to thy goal,
Leaving the rest in the wild.
* * * * *
... to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And, at the end of the day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.”
.pm end_poem
.fn-
In view of all that was to follow, it is interesting that, in
turning to Medicine, she should suspect herself of ‘half
shrinking from the battle.’ Here is proof, if proof were
needed, that while half of her enjoyed the fray, the other half
had to be dragged, an unwilling captive, begging always to
lie down and be at peace.
.pm start_quote
“The Medicine fascinates me.... If I resume teaching, it will
be grand to have an M.D. for head of College: if not, why Medicine
is a ‘good work,’ and if I am led up to it, it may be mine after all.
But won’t E.G. be cross?”
.pm end_quote
Here are two pleasant little sidelights on the situation—from
letters to her Mother:
.pm start_quote
“(Jan. 21st. 1866.) And, darling, do you know that the doctor
has such a splendid temper, and is so infinitely gentle, that I really
believe she is improving mine,—because I’m absolutely ashamed
to be cross to anybody so good. Suppose I come home angelic,
dear?”
.pm end_quote
Her best friends would have said there was no great cause
for anxiety on that score.
.pm start_quote
“(Feb. 6th.) Yes, dear, I mean to be a thoroughly good nurse
for you at any rate, if ever you need me; as to ‘Doctor too,’ I
can’t say. I should like to be enough of one at least to know how
.bn 208.png
.pn +1
to save you some pain. I listen to and learn specially everything
that I think can ever help my darling,—it would be grand to be
of some use and comfort to her if she was ill.”
.pm end_quote
A few weeks later she wrote to Mrs. Unwin:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Pleasant Street, Boston.
March 3rd. 1866.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Lucy,
.ti 6
I hope you are quite prepared to renew your invitation to me
for next summer, for I’m beginning to think seriously of my visit
home, and I want very much to see you! I say my ‘visit’ for I
have been so well and strong since I came to America, and have
found so much to interest me, that I think it very likely I may come
back here after seeing all my home folks....
I am so glad to hear that you have got Alice with you, and expect
to like her. She is a real friend of mine, and a very true and valuable
one.... I only hope you will let her take as good care of you as
she used to do of me....
Whenever you feel energetic enough to enjoy a chat by pen and
paper, I shall be very pleased to hear of your doings. Pray tell me
all about the Baby—of course the most wonderful of his kind—and
be sure, dear child, that I shall care very much to hear and know
about everything that concerns you.
Please give the enclosed lines to A. I shall enjoin her to feed you
up no end, and whenever we do meet, be sure I shall ask if you let
yourself be taken proper and sensible care of. I believe in food and
rest as just the best doctors in creation—with all my new medical
lights!
Goodbye, dear child. With every good wish for you in the New
Year, I am,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours affectionately,
S. L. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
All through this time her happy letters had been giving no
small pleasure to the “old folks” at home.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Brighton. 18th Dec. 1865.
.ll
Dearest,
.ti 6
Your welcome letter arrived a day or two before the 17th.,
but dear Mother kept it back till the morning. Thanks for all your
good wishes. One thing you can always do,—pray for me,—and
that, I trust, you will do daily. I have constant faith in prayer
simply offered up to our heavenly Father through the one mediator
between God and man. I believe it never fails.
I am rejoiced you are so quiet at Boston, and have employment
that interests you, but even that work will hurt you, remember,
.bn 209.png
.pn +1
if you have too much of it. You want rest, dearest child, and only
light agreeable work on your hands. I wish I could see Dr. Sewall,
to give her a Father’s heartfelt thanks for all her loving kindness
to you. She is indeed an invaluable friend. If I am to see her,
she must come to Europe, for I shall never cross the Atlantic....
I am very glad you are so well, and your letters are so cheery that
they are a great pleasure.
We are all, thank God, fairly well, and are to have Tom and his
wife, and four (I think) of the children here after Christmas. On
Thursday last, at 2 a.m. their house was on fire, and till 2.30 a.m.
he did not expect to save the house; and had there been a high
wind, nothing could have saved it probably. Mercifully it was a
still night and everything went well. Two engines were on the
spot rapidly, in perfect order,—plenty of water close by, and the
superintendent very active and intelligent. No crowd, and the
entrances kept clear by respectable known men: and by three
o’clock every spark was out.
The children were sent off rapidly to the school-house, and all
five (baby being put elsewhere) put in Miss Temple’s bed! Nobody
has been hurt,—a few colds and that seems all. Our God be praised.
How different it might have been!
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affecte Father,
T. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
And the Mother writes:
.pm start_quote
“Jan. 29th. 1866.... You were very good and very right not
to attempt to enter yet as a student....
I had much rather know you well and happy there than see you
ill and know you worried here. If they would only have the Cable,
I think Boston no distance. I should certainly like the Cable,—but
I don’t hear a word about it. Couldn’t you apply to Government?”
“Feb. 20th. I hope your medical education is progressing, and
that you don’t addle your brains. I shall expect you to make
something on the way home by your medical knowledge.”
“Mar. 5th. It is such a repose and joy to me to hear of your
being occupied so usefully and happily, and feeling comparatively
well, though I suspect sometimes my little one is a wee overdone.”
.pm end_quote
The medical study was more or less of a joke so far to her
friends at home, and many are the enquiries as to when she
means to return and go on with her life after this interesting
digression.
.pm start_quote
“I am very glad you find things and people pleasant in America,”
writes Mrs. Unwin. “I hope they won’t be so nice that they will
.bn 210.png
.pn +1
tempt you to stay there very long, for I shall be very glad when I
can think of you again without that great sea between us. I do
so want a long talk with you about no end of things. I don’t think
I ever wanted you more than when I was ill.”
.pm end_quote
And Mr. Unwin expressed the view of many when he wrote:
.pm start_quote
“If I told you of the estimate in which I hold the purpose to which
you are devoting your life, you would suspect me of flattery, so
I abstain; but, barring all that, your friends in England are in
great need of you, and I think it is very horrid that you should leave
them all, to whom you would be of infinite service, on God knows
what outlandish errand. They all grudge you to Boston entirely,
so pray be quick and come back.”
.pm end_quote
Dr. Sewall, on the other hand, had become not a little
dependent on her competent helper, and, although this
friendship too was not without the “cataracts and breaks”
to which S. J.-B. so often refers in her diary, there is no doubt
that the older and gentler woman found it not only a pleasure
but a great asset. “How I wish I had you here: I do so
want your strength! So few people are strong,” is a sentiment
that recurs in her letters many times from now to the end
of her life.
So in June 1866, S. J.-B. returned to England to see her
parents, and to talk over the whole question of her future
career with them and with other friends.
.pm start_quote
“Most people are much more in favour of Medicine than I expected,”
she writes, “except Miss Garrett, who thinks me not
specially suited, and E. S. M., who thinks it indecent of unmarried
women knowing all about these things.”
“July 8th. Sunday. ‘Taller,’ say Laurence, Mother and self.
‘More firmly knit,’ say do. ‘Muscles like iron, as if rowing all
morning and prize-fighting all afternoon,’ says Nigger.
Well done America and L. E. S.!—bless
.pm end_quote
Almost at the same moment Dr. Sewall was writing:
.pm start_quote
“I really feel quite well satisfied with the increase in my practice,
and if it continues to increase for the next two years as well, we
shall be able to take a fine house and live in style. I cannot tell
you how much pleasure I get out of anticipating our house-keeping.
When I am too tired to do anything, I lay on the sofa and plan
and plan and think what a good time we are going to have, and
am as happy as a cricket.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 211.png
.pn +1
So America won the day, though not without many questionings.
.pm start_quote
“August 12th. Sunday. On Sunday last at Mrs. Hyde’s
suggestion wrote to Macmillan. On Tuesday heard from him, and
had a ‘book—not too short’ warmly accepted by him, at ‘no risks
and half profits.’
So we gradually come to our wishes when we have ceased to look
for them. I accept it almost as I did the preaching,—because I
had so longed for it.
This day three weeks on the Atlantic,—5 weeks, home to L. E. S.,
I trust. Study Medicine? ... or push on in literary career now
opening apparently?
How about conflicting interests and powers hereafter? If my
book—inter alia—brings me to notice of Commission,[41] etc.,—cry
off from my chance because too busy as a doctor?
Ah, well,—long way off yet! Do the work ‘lies nearest thee’
and leave the rest!”
.pm end_quote
.fn 41
The Schools Inquiry Commission, presumably.
.fn-
.bn 212.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.15
CHAPTER XV | PIONEER WORK IN AMERICA
.sp 2
On September 1st, 1866, S. J.-B. sailed again for America. A
warm welcome awaited her, and she speedily fell back into
her niche at the Women’s Hospital. Her main interest for
the first month or two was the writing of her book on A
Visit to Some American Schools and Colleges, the manuscript
of which was duly despatched to Macmillan in November.
Based though it avowedly was on somewhat limited observations,
and dealing with a transient stage of a great subject,
the book was extraordinarily fair and clear, and was greeted
with genuine respect by those who were qualified to form an
opinion. What was equally important, it made really excellent
reading. At the close of a four column review the
Athenaeum said:
.pm start_quote
“An English teacher, whose special avocations enabled her to
gain prompt attention from American instructors, and qualified
her to detect the true worth and significance of the facts brought
under her notice, Miss Jex-Blake has written a sensible and entertaining
book upon an important subject; and, while we thank her
for some valuable information, we venture to thank her also for the
very agreeable manner in which she imparts it.”
“Redolent with common sense and practical suggestions,” said
The Stationer.
.pm end_quote
How sane a view she took of the whole subject may be
gathered from the quotations given in the appendix.[42]
.fn 42
Appendix #C.:appC#
.fn-
Having happily despatched her book, she was free to give
her whole mind to the subject of Medicine, and she seems
.bn 213.png
.pn +1
now to have enrolled formally as a medical student. In any
case we hear of her dissecting—when material could be got—and
finding, in the stimulus this gave to her work, a new
interest and fascination.
Excellent work was done at that Women’s Hospital in
Boston, as a number of our English women doctors have had
reason to testify: sickness was relieved, and—what is quite
as much to the point—competent and able doctors were
turned out year by year. But of course the scholastic side
of the work was on a very different level. Even for those
days, the practical scientific education, and, above all, the
sheer supply of material, were inadequate in the extreme.
Then as now, of course, it was true that “la carrière ouverte
aux talents,” and when women doctors were so rare there
was little doubt that a competent woman would make her
way. Certainly it was not the hallmark of a good University
degree that helped her, for good Universities existed for the
male sex only. Graduation in America to this day may
mean a great deal or it may mean just nothing at all. It was
not the fault of the woman doctor of that period if her
“degree” was one that failed to inspire the enthusiasm of
those that understood.
Now S. J.-B.’s entry on any new sphere in life could seldom
be fitly described as the addition of a little more of the same
stuff. For better or worse, she was apt to come somewhat
as the yeast comes to the dough, and yet that metaphor, too,
falls short, for the medium reacted upon her as intensely
perhaps as she acted on the medium. In the present case
she had drifted into medical work all uncritical and full of
admiration[43]; but a visit to England brought her back as
an outsider with her critical faculty fully awake. She saw
that the need of adequate Graduation—urgent though it
might be—was as nothing compared to the need of adequate
.bn 214.png
.pn +1
Education. It was hard to make bricks without straw. In
America women doctors had proved, against heavy odds,
that women doctors were wanted. Why not give them a
fair field? One heard on every side of the splendid advantages
laid, so to speak, at the feet of men students at
Harvard.
.fn 43
As early as June, 1866, she had written to Dr. Sewall:—“I am glad
you are pleased with prospects as to the College; but, however good
you may get it to be, take notice (if I study at all) I don’t mean to graduate
at any Woman’s College,—on principle,—or else for vanity and ambition
sake,—which is it?” Whichever it was, there can be no doubt as to the
soundness of the decision, but she little guessed what that decision was
to cost.
.fn-
Why should not women be admitted to Harvard?
Why not ask?
In April, 1867, the following correspondence was published
in The Boston Daily Advertiser:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“March 11th. 1867.
.ll
Gentlemen,
.ti 6
Finding it impossible to obtain elsewhere in New England
a thoroughly competent medical education, we hereby request
permission to enter the Harvard Medical School on the same terms
and under the same conditions as other students, there being, as
we understand, no university statute to the contrary.
On applying for tickets for the course, we were informed by the
Dean of the Medical Faculty that he and his coadjutors were unable
to grant them to us in consequence of some previous action taken
by the corporation, to whom now therefore we make request to remove
any such existing disability. In full faith in the words recently
spoken with reference to the University of Harvard,—‘American
colleges are not cloisters for the education of a few persons, but
seats of learning whose hospitable doors should be always open to
every seeker after knowledge’—we place our petition in your hands
and subscribe ourselves,
.ll 68
.nf r
Your obedient servants,
Sophia Jex-Blake.
Susan Dimock.[44]
.nf-
.ll
To the President and Fellows of the University of Harvard.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 44
Miss Susan Dimock was a student of great promise who afterwards
completed her education at Zurich. She was lost at sea in the wreck
of the steamer Schiller in May 1875.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Harvard University. April 8th. 1867.
.ll
My dear Madam,
.ti 6
After consultation with the faculty of the Medical College,
the corporation direct me to inform you and Miss Dimock that there
is no provision for the education of women in any department of
this university.
Neither the corporation nor the faculty wish to express any
opinion as to the right or expediency of the medical education of
.bn 215.png
.pn +1
women, but simply to state the fact that in our school no provision
for that purpose has been made, or is at present contemplated.
.ll 68
.nf r
Very respectfully yours,
Thomas Hill.
.nf-
.ll
Miss S. Jex-Blake.”
.pm end_quote
A few days later the following paragraph appeared in The
Advocate:
.pm start_quote
“The Beginning of the End. A correspondence between the
President and two lady applicants for admission to the Medical
School was published some days since in the ‘Boston Advertiser.’
We understand that the friends of female education have no notion
of resting satisfied with their first rebuff; and that prominent
Alumni of Boston are already taking measures for the prolonged
agitation of the question.”
.pm end_quote
A month later S.J.-B. had obtained introductions to each
of the professors in the Medical Faculty at Harvard, and to
each member of the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital
and of the Eye and Ear Infirmary: as well as to many people
of standing connected with these various institutions: and
she now proceeded to canvass them systematically. In
addition to a number of influential friends, she was ably
supported by Miss Dimock.
On the whole their reception was encouraging. The individual
letters, indeed, are so favourable, that the hopes of
the inexperienced young applicants must have run high.
The following from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes is typical of
some half dozen at least:
.pm start_quote
“I should not only be willing, but I should be much pleased, to
lecture to any number of ladies for whom we can find accommodation
in the anatomical lecture room, always provided that any special
subject which seemed not adapted for an audience of both sexes
should be delivered to the male students alone.”
.pm end_quote
Dr. Brown-Séquard is even more emphatic in a letter to
Dr. Holmes:
.pm start_quote
“My dear Professor,
.ti 6
Miss Blake, who will hand you this note, wishes me to say
that I am strongly in favour of the admission of persons of her sex
at the Medical College. As such is my decided opinion, I write
very willingly.
.ll 68
.nf r
Very faithfully yours,
C. E. Brown-.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 216.png
.pn +1
The corporation of Harvard, however, exerted its power to
veto any such inclinations on the part of individual professors.
S. J.-B. quotes the above and a number of similar letters
in the diary, and adds the comment:
.pm start_quote
“All which ends in ... smoke!”
.pm end_quote
There were always flashes of humour to temper the various
disappointments.
.pm start_quote
“Those wise men of Gotham at the Eye and Ear think it ‘the
kindest and most gentlemanly thing’ to shut us out after all!”
A. ‘not afraid of responsibility, of course’—only—he’d
rather not admit us till other people do”!
.pm end_quote
Here is the official letter from the wise men of Gotham:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary.
June 18th, 1867.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Madam,
.ti 6
The surgeons of this Infirmary are, at the same time, members
of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and are bound to respect the
opinion of its Councillors. And in view of the recent action of that
Board, we are of opinion that we cannot continue to allow female
students to attend our cliniques. Ungracious as is the task, we
therefore feel compelled to ask you to suspend your visits.
We have no hesitation in adding that our intercourse with yourself
and companions has been throughout most pleasant to us
personally.
.ll 68
.nf r
Very truly yours,
Hasket Derby,
for the Surgeons.
.nf-
.ll
Miss Sophia Jex-Blake.”
.pm end_quote
A certain amount of clinical teaching in the Massachusetts
General Hospital the women did obtain, and for this they
were duly grateful, though it only made them feel more
keenly the deficiencies of their lecture-room and laboratory
training. And, even in hospital, they walked with a constant
sense of insecurity, as one member of the staff was keenly
opposed to the presence of women, and was on the look-out
for causes of offence. Little by little S. J.-B. began to feel
the wear and tear.
.pm start_quote
“July 5th. Rest yesterday, but altogether weighed down yesterday
and today with the fear and horror of this irritability which
seems so fatally unconquerable,” she writes in her diary.
.pm end_quote
And one knows how terrible an enemy that irritability was.
.bn 217.png
.pn +1
Fortunately, a few weeks later, she and Dr. Sewall got away
together for a holiday; and this, apparently, was the first
of the long series of driving-tours which were to prove the
great joy and recreation of an arduous life.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Tuesday. July 30th. Atlantic House,
‘Town of Wells,’ Maine.
.nf-
.ll
Darling Mother,
.ti 6
As I have a spare hour, I may as well use it to chat a little
to you about the oddities of our journey.
I wrote to you from Newbury where we stayed one night at the
Merrimac House,—having slept the previous night at the Agawam
House, Ipswich (!)—both Indian names, of course. Yesterday we
drove (as I told you at the end of my last letter) from Newbury port
to Portsmouth, and were uncertain when I wrote whether to stay or
go farther. It had been a hot day, but, after posting your letter,
a violent rainstorm came up, deluging the streets for about 20
minutes about 5½ p.m.
After it was over, everything looked so cool and clear that Dr.
Sewall was anxious to get on, though I was a little afraid of the
heavy roads. So we set out soon after six, and had a most delicious
drive at first. By-and-bye, however, we came to terribly wet clay
roads and could only go at a walk. Our horse got tired and it
began to get dark, and we found that the distance to go was even
longer than we had been told.
It’s hard for you to understand the sort of society in these country
places,—no gentry and no peasantry—almost all small farmers
doing their own work and owning house and land, with some education
but no polish. We stopped at two or three houses, scattered
at wide intervals,—and enquired for lodgings, but with no success
till after dark when we got to a house belonging to a widow woman
who informed us we could come in and have bed and food, but there
was ‘no one in the house but her,—no one for the horse.’ However,
I was perfectly ready to act groom, so in we drove to such a queer
loose sort of yard, where I unharnessed by very uncertain lantern
light, and then the doctor and I had a tremendous job getting our
phaeton into a queer coach-house up a sort of hillock!
Then the lantern led on to the ‘barn,’ which (here as usual) meant
also stable, and soon I found myself plunging in the dark through
soft masses which proved to be long wet grass, leading my horse by
the halter. Then up among big loose stones, and up a step more
than 1½ foot high into a barn so low that my horse all but hit his
head. Then over some boards set edgewise to divide off stalls ... the
good woman being amazed at my venturing in ‘with the horse’!
Then a queer hunt in the half darkness for a pail for water and
.bn 218.png
.pn +1
wooden box for Indian meal (which, stirred with water, often replaces
oats here), and then to bed, tired enough!
This morning I groomed the horse, and, so doing, found a stone
in his foot, fed him, and we between us washed the carriage. You
may tell Daddy I had no idea what hard work it was before! We
washed a long while at it, and somehow it wouldn’t look quite clean
at last.
(N.B. Why will water dry muddy on to a carriage?)
Then we drove on again some distance and found a place for
dinner,—one of the big boarding-houses like what I was in at Compton,—and
then on again. Dr. Sewall began to get tired when we
were still 5 or 6 miles from our next point, Kennebunk,—and seeing
a notice on a bye-road, ‘Atlantic House 3/4 mile’—we drove down,—found
a charming inn almost on the sands, close to the Atlantic,—fresh
and bright and airy, and settled here for the night. If you only
knew what my afflictions are in American country inns,—I have
hardly seen decent food in one since I left Boston—you may
imagine my satisfaction at getting here the best supper I have had
yet,—excellent fresh fish, lobsters, etc., and currants, and nice
bread, and milk. Altogether the best table we’ve found yet.
It sounds natural, too, to hear the roar of the Atlantic as I write,—only
it seems sometimes to murmur, ‘Over the sea!’
But then it always makes me feel nearer home to see the actual
water which is the only thing between us,—of which you at Brighton
see but another part.
Wednesday.... We have spent the day quietly here, and shall
very likely drive to Portland in one day tomorrow,—30 miles is not
much for a rested horse. He has not been out today, except for a
short drive on the broad smooth sands which stretch for miles here.
It is deliciously cool here by the ocean,—Dr. Sewall says ‘cold,’
and borrows my old blue jacket.
It is very pleasant and restful after Boston. If Portland is hot,
we may return here for a few days on our way back.
Goodbye, darling. Yours lovingly,
.ll 68
.rj
Soph.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Atlantic House,
August 9th. 1867.
.nf-
.ll
Darling Mother,
.ti 6
Here we are staying again on the very verge of the Atlantic,
having found Portland more gay than restful, and desiring some
perfect quiet before we get home again.
Your letter of July 25th has been forwarded to me with a long
one from Carry, and one from an old schoolfellow of mine who had
seen and liked my book, and so bethought herself to write to me
and say so. She is a governess now.
.bn 219.png
.pn +1
I should like to see that review in the Pall Mall,—perhaps some
of you will send it to me,—and any others of which you hear....
“August 11th. Sunday evening. We have been spending the
afternoon ‘camping out’ in the midst of some woods (Haywards
Heath fashion) letting our horse graze and enjoying the cool and
quiet. We have one more day here and then go on towards home,
and expect to get there on Friday. Soon after—in September
probably—we shall make another attempt, aided by Mr. Loring,
and, I hope, by Prof. Rogers (have you seen him?) to get into
Harvard or to get some advantages out of them; and I suppose
on our success will depend a good deal what we do in the winter....
The Doctor begs me to send her love. I do hope you may know
her by this time next year. Don’t you?
Love to all. Tell Carry I’ll write soon in answer to hers.
.ll 68
.rj
Yours lovingly, Soph.”
.ll
“I think what you say is true about the difficulties of ‘Joint
Education’ in England,” she writes to her brother in answer to a
criticism of her book. “Myself, I care very little about it if both
sexes can somehow get all the education they want or wish for.”
.pm end_quote
There is little record of the winter’s work, though the
following rough draft—in S.J.-B.’s handwriting—of an appeal
to Harvard has been preserved:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Jan. 1868.
.ll
Gentlemen,
.ti 6
Having during the past year been granted access to the
clinical advantages of the Massachusetts General Hospital, but
finding it impossible anywhere in New England to obtain adequate
theoretical instruction in Medicine, we now earnestly entreat you to
reconsider the subject of the admission of women to the lectures at
Harvard Medical School,—such admission being, as we understand,
forbidden by no past or present statute of the University.
We do not wish to enter on the vexed question of the capability
or non-capability of women for the practice of Medicine, as we
believe that time and experience only can furnish its true answer,
but we now present our urgent petition that some opportunity may
be afforded us for the thorough study of the medical science and
art, that we may be granted at least some of the advantages that
are not denied to every man, and allowed to show whether we are
or are not worthy to make use of them.
We are willing, Gentlemen, to submit to any required examination,
to qualify ourselves according to any given standard, to furnish any
personal references, and to abide by any restrictions and regulations
which may seem proper to the Corporation or to the Faculty.
.bn 220.png
.pn +1
Several of the Professors having expressed their personal willingness
to allow us to attend their lectures, we earnestly request that
the Corporation will authorize our admission to those classes into
which the respective Professors do not object to receive us, and that,
in any case where the Professors does so object, we may be allowed
to receive private instruction from some medical gentleman approved
by the Faculty, whose lectures shall in our case be held equivalent
to those given to the College classes in the same subject.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Fighting on for Harvard with a sort of dull persistency,” she
records in her diary in March 1868, “expecting another answer
from the Corporation on the 11th.
Well, having been in Mass. Hospital for 8 months is something.
With all my dull atheism, I do believe somehow the Best will be,—if
not this, another. ‘And so far have brought me—to put me
to shame’?”
.pm end_quote
Many entries in the diary about this time prove that she
was passing through that veritable “dark night of the soul”
that has lain in the path of so many bright spirits of her
generation.
.pm start_quote
“I suppose it isn’t till the whole world—and oneself—breaks away
under one that one does know what rubbish one is made of,—‘dust
and ashes.... And what fine things I started with! Sir Launfal[45]
and gilded armour, etc. To conquer all the giants and beam Christian
charity everywhere.
I believe old folks do ‘know young folks to be fools.’
A nice result at near 28—Chaos!—with a possible sawbones in
futuro!”
.pm end_quote
.fn 45
Some few intimate friends will recall the evenings, 30 or 40 years
later, round the study fire at Windydene, when the white-haired woman
would recite Sir Launfal from beginning to end with a subdued enthusiasm
that was more expressive than pages of commentary.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
“Jan. 21st. 1868. ‘Quid sum miser tunc dicturus’!
Eight and twenty!—‘and a sinner!’”
.pm end_quote
One must bear in mind always, of course, that a diary is
apt to reflect the graver side of a character, the side that
associates, and even friends, would scarcely guess at. Certainly
the letters to “the dear old folks” bear small witness to this
stress and strain. They recount all sorts of innocent adventures
and happy doings which were quite as real—one is glad
to believe—as the strong crying and tears of the night watches.
.bn 221.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Pleasant Street,
Boston, U.S.
Monday, Jan. 27th. 68.
.nf-
.ll
Darling Mother
.ti 6
Such a sleigh ride as we had yesterday I hope you’ll never
have,—and indeed I don’t care about repeating the dose myself!
I drove the doctor eight or nine miles in a pelting snow-storm, partly
across open country, long bridges and marshes, etc., the thermometer
somewhere about 10° or 15°, a good deal of wind, which always
makes it feel much colder, and the sharp crystals of snow cutting
into our faces and eyes like so many pin points and causing actual
pain. Towards the end I found it rather hard to see,—some white
things seemed to get in front of my eyes;—what do you think they
were? Solid icicles hanging from all my eye-lashes on the side
exposed to the wind,—frozen together into three or four solid little
balls as big as small peas, and partly freezing the lids together!
When I got in I called Eliza to see them,—you should have heard
her ‘Gracious goodness!’
Even sealskin gloves fail one in such stormy cold,—one’s hands
freeze and have to be thawed out as regards sensation several times
in a drive! So we carry hot bottles to do it with, and Dr. Sewall
laughed at the figure I cut yesterday, driving with one hand, the
other grasping a big two-quart bottle upright on my lap, and my
head bent on one side like a lapwing’s to see out of the one eye that
wasn’t frozen up!
She herself offered to drive again and again, but speed was my
object, and I always make the horse go half as fast again as she does.
He did gallantly yesterday,—the roads and streets were clear, and
we spun over the white frozen surface at eight or ten miles an hour.
When it is not actually snowing, sleighing is very exhilarating,—the
horse has a light load and is generally in good spirits,—sleigh-bells
jangling merrily, etc.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“March 6th.
.ll
... A few days ago one of the women who had been confined
here was fetched home by her husband, and with him came a rather
big dog of the setter or lurcher kind, I think, or rather a cross on
one of them. The folks went away, and so did the dog, but in half
an hour he was back again, scratching at the Hospital door. He
was fetched again by the man and again ran back, no one having,
so far as I know, petted or enticed him at all. Then he was refused
admission or turned out on the street, and when his master came
again for him I believe he found him on the street; but in the evening
there came a scratching at our hall door—not the Hospital,—and in
walked the same dog again! I knew nothing of the previous story,
but remembered having seen him with the man who came to our
.bn 222.png
.pn +1
house to see Dr. Sewall, so I took him in. From that moment he
attached himself to me, so that he follows every step I take, and
whines at any door I enter without him. As the man didn’t come
again for him, I drove to his house this morning,—the dog following
close to the sleigh all the way (some two miles), and when he got
there the dog greeted his master certainly, but directly I rose to go,
up he jumped after me. So, as his choice seemed to be made, I
offered the man $5 (15s. 6d.) for him, and now am undisputed owner
of my loyal friend!
It is rather queer, for I had been wishing for a dog of my own,
and, though he is not a great beauty, he has a nice face, is very
obedient, clean, and, I think, intelligent,—though Dr. Sewall professes
to disdain him for being ‘so big’!—and then one can’t help
liking even a dog who so plainly declares ‘elective affinity.’”[46]
.pm end_quote
.fn 46
The dog was named Turk, and became a devoted friend.
.fn-
In the midst of all these new interests she had not forgotten
the question of education at Bettws-y-Coed, and she was
deeply interested in the maturing plans for a new school
there. She writes to her Mother:
.pm start_quote
“I am glad to understand that you have bought, not the first
bit of ground, but another near it. I hope Carry will soon send me
some idea of her plans, though, of course, we can’t build for some
months. I enclose a very rough sketch of what would be my own
idea of a schoolroom with gallery at one end and with classroom at
the other,—and besides the class room a sort of lobby with second
entrance and with stairs leading to the rooms above for Anne. The
porch to have places to hang hats, etc., as also under the gallery
(as at Hastings).
I can’t remember about dimensions, though I have a sort of idea
that, when we spoke of building before, we planned our schoolroom
at 18 ft. by 28, and 10 ft. or 11 ft. high, the class room to be perhaps
11 ft. by 8.
Ask Carry to see how that agrees with the standard space for
100 children.”
.pm end_quote
The school was actually built in 1869, everything being
done in a fashion characteristic of the Jex-Blake family.
They gave what was needed, but not in such a spirit as to
discourage the generosity of others. The landlord gave the
site—for a purely nominal rent,—together with permission to
take what stone was needed from a neighbouring quarry.
Farmers and others did the carting for love. For years the
.bn 223.png
.pn +1
Jex-Blakes had been educating a competent girl—a former
pupil—as mistress. Local sympathy and appreciation, combined
with the persevering interest of the founders, were the
very life-blood of the school. How much finer this than the
building of an ornamental edifice that should hand down the
name of the donor to future generations.
.tb
In March 1868 S. J.-B. gave up Boston in despair for the
moment, and went to New York, where she had the support
of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily, both of
whom had plans for the more adequate medical education
of women, and were organizing special classes. S. J.-B. also
persuaded the Head Demonstrator of Anatomy at Bellevue
to give her and another woman student a course of private
lessons in Dissecting and Practical Anatomy.
.pm start_quote
“March 28th. Saturday. Began dissecting with Dr. Moseley ...
oh, dear, isn’t it good to have some real teaching at last!
By-the-bye, the Blackwells think they could get us into Bellevue
if Harvard refuses. New York for 3 winters? Shall I bring Alice
or what? They want English ladies to come and make a class, and
offer to receive them into the Infirmary. (But English ladies are
not given to dine in kitchens on poor kitchen fare, etc.)
Is my old idea ever to work out by O. H. studying medicine?
Wouldn’t she be a good doctor!
By-the-bye, challenged by the Blackwells as ‘to whose management
(in re English Female University) would inspire me with £1000
confidence,’ I say, O. H., Miss M., etc.”
.pm end_quote
She wrote delightful long letters to Dr. Sewall about the
minutiae of her work, and was somewhat concerned as to how
the little Boston world was getting on without her.
.pm start_quote
“I am glad that you find out (as I told you you would) that I did
do one or two little things while you wondered how I spent my
time. I wish, however, that you had someone to do them now,—I
am afraid you will get so tired. I shall ask Eliza if you eat properly.
Tell her that I mean to write to her next time.
The little book of your bills is on my shelf in my secretary,—a
small account book. Don’t muddle the things in looking for it.
Be sure and put down in it all the bills you send out. Can’t you
get Miss Call to write them for you? She really can write (unusual
in the N.E.H.)....
.bn 224.png
.pn +1
Tell me if Eliza does nicely,—tell her I asked after her and her
housekeeping and Robert.
I am glad that my son Turk behaves better as he grows older.
Give him an extra bone with my blessing.”
.pm end_quote
To her Mother she writes a long account of her difficulty
in finding rooms at a reasonable price.
.pm start_quote
“So living in New York is neither easy nor cheap, you see, ... I
hardly know how I shall manage if I go to a medical college this
winter, and have to pay all lecture expenses, etc., besides living,—for
women have to incur extra expense in all sorts of ways, because
they can’t share the arrangements of some sorts made for men....
... while studying, Miss Garrett had, I know, to spend lots of
money,—paying £50 for a single course of lectures which the men got
(in class) for £5 each.
When there was an idea of my taking the Manchester College,
Daddy was willing to advance me £1000 or £2000 for the start,
instead of part of the income he allowed me;—do you think he would
be willing to do some such thing now? I suppose it is hard for you
at home who don’t realize exactly the hard battle we are fighting
(especially to get into the good medical colleges) to see how very
important it is not to be stopped from seizing every bit of advantage
obtainable for want of money. And it unfortunately happens that
most of the women who are studying Medicine really cannot get
money even when most necessary.
When I began I had no idea of going into any of this,—but somehow
one gets talking to Mother of what is uppermost in one’s mind
sometimes.
And I know Mother wants to hear all my bothers and perplexities.
Much love, darling, to Daddy and Carry.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“April 12th. Notwithstanding all the discomforts in the way
of board, I have been gaining greatly by my stay here. I have had
a better opportunity for dissecting, etc., than ever before, and besides
have learnt a good deal at the daily medical lessons which take
place at Dr. Blackwell’s every afternoon. If I am to be a doctor
at all, I mean to be a thoroughly good one, and now that I have
gone so far in medical study, I mean to go right through, unless some
very unforeseen obstacle comes. And then the future may decide
what use my knowledge may come to. I sometimes think that a
woman doctor could find very useful work in teaching Anatomy
and Physiology,—or at least something of them—to women and
girls, who are apt to be so terribly ignorant of them.
.bn 225.png
.pn +1
Lately I have been spending an hour or so of an evening (for rest)
in hearing a nice ‘daughter of the house’ read French to me, she
having very few chances of help, poor child.”
.pm end_quote
On the eve of sailing for England, she sums up the situation
in her diary with her usual relentless truthfulness:
.pm start_quote
“April 11th.... Within three weeks of leaving for home,—what
balance sheet?
Nearly three years in America.
In that time complete health regained,—probably better than
ever before,—real strength and power of study. A profession
opening calmly and clearly before me,—its sciences already ‘as
trees walking,’ becoming clearer daily. The edge of pain all gone.
But with it vivid faith and life in many directions—belief in all
invisible and much reaching after the heroic. A sort of passive
‘quo fata vocant,’—a sort of ceasing to demand the very good or
very true, perhaps,—a sort of coldbloodedness that is not peace,—a
nil admirari that only ‘will do for it.’ My vocation given up or
laid aside, and I quietly learning knowledge chiefly because it is
power,—hardly yet shaping out any end; but what does come,
selfish enough. Professor of Anatomy? Surgeon? Doctor-Teacher?
Sometimes a sharp pain rushes across,—‘Ah, if Mother shouldn’t
live to see me succeed!’—She does seem woven in with the heartstrings,—my
old darling who cannot forget.
All this health and new life—more than ever hoped for—comes
mediately from L.E.S.”
.pm end_quote
If this estimate of herself is just, one can only say that the
lulling for the time of her higher emotional nature was probably
a blessing in disguise. It helped her to make her
foundation of knowledge sure. She had in her measure to
learn—what every true scientist must learn—that “the
natural is the rational and the divine,” that “there is no
real break between the natural and the supernatural.”
.pm start_poem
“A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye—”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
and if his eye be single his whole body may yet be full of
light.
In any case the closing words of S. J.-B.’s ‘balance sheet’
are significant enough,—
.pm start_quote
“Comes—mediately—from L.E.S.”!
.pm end_quote
.bn 226.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap1.16
CHAPTER XVI | GOING HOME
.sp 2
It was in the course of this summer of 1868 that S. J.-B.
realized her earnest wish to welcome her friend Dr. Lucy
Sewall in England. She had raised great expectations among
her friends, but, notwithstanding this, the visitor’s sweetness
and grace won all hearts. “That woman is fit to be the
apostle of a great movement,” Dr. T. W. Jex-Blake had said
when he first saw her photograph, “with a face at once so
strong and so tender.” And a closer acquaintance only
served to confirm this judgment.
It is impossible to exaggerate the pride with which S. J.-B.
took “the Doctor” everywhere, in a world that knew not
the “sweet girl graduate” of the present day, and showed
her off—for choice in a pretty pale-blue frock—with secret
triumph to the friends who were expecting something very
masculine and aggressive. Quite a number of sick people—Mrs.
Unwin among the number—were eagerly waiting to
consult her: and many were the requests that she would
come and settle in England.
What Mr. Jex-Blake thought of her may be gathered from
the following most characteristic note written a month or
two later to his daughter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Sussex Square,
Brighton.
2nd August 1868.
.nf-
.ll
Dearest,
.ti 6
It is so much in my head and heart, and in the dear Mother’s,
to have the privilege of presenting your most valued friend with some
.bn 227.png
.pn +1
memento of her visit, that I beg you to use all your influence, and
entreat Dr. Lucy Sewall to accept a carriage, or any other thing
that she would value, as a remembrance of your dear Mother and
myself, when she has returned home. She can little imagine how
much she would please us both by doing so.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affectionate Father,
T. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Two other happenings specially marked the holiday,—a
visit from Mrs. Jenkinson (Mrs. Ballantyne), and a delightful
rapprochement between S. J.-B. and her Father.
Of Mrs. Jenkinson she writes in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“So good, so fascinating and dainty! I haven’t had so much
wide and deep talk with anyone for three years at least....
The proposal of her driving them to church ending in my doing
so. Somehow the service moved me greatly. ‘Gethsemane, can
I forget,’ etc....
‘What is truth?’—no jesting Pilate,—yet do I stay for an
answer? Oh, dear, the certainties of p. \[181], etc., and now! Yet I
think the wheel is beginning to sway upwards again. Please God!
Yes, surely the Ephesians stretched wise earnest hands (or may
have done) to the Unknown God. ‘Strenuous souls ... to stand in
the dark on the lowest stair.’”
“May 31st. Wonderful how content everyone is with my medical
prospects. Daddy decides our residence (!) for Mount Street,
Grosvenor Square. I say now pretty definitely,—in 4 more years
England, three years study, and one of practice.
Meanwhile a quiet satisfactory holiday must have. No one can
tell how many more with the old folks, and this must be what will
be good to remember.”
“June 20th. Maurice’s lecture. ‘Miss Jex-Blake’s investigations
in America might help much to the solution of the problem’ [of mixed
education, presumably]. And after the lecture he thanked me for
my book. I’m cock a hoop now!”
“June 24th. On the whole my resolve well kept till now,—one
month’s success in no (or few and light) ‘cataracts and breaks.’
Somehow I have a solemn sort of feeling about it this year, as if it
would be the last with one or other.”
“Ah, darling,” she writes to her Mother on the voyage, “it was
such hard work to say Goodbye last week! Do you know for one
little minute I wondered whether after all the price wasn’t too hard
to pay, and whether after all I shouldn’t give up doctor, hospital,
M.D. and all and just stay with the old
.bn 228.png
.pn +1
“Sept. 29th. Boston. I am sorry to say that Harvard has refused
me again, so I must go to New York!—Ah, well,—‘all things are
less dreadful than they seem’!”
.pm end_quote
In that autumn of 1868 the Blackwells carried out their
project of starting a medical school for women in New York.
Two class-tickets are extant admitting Miss S. L. Jex-Blake
to the classes of Practical Anatomy and of the Principles and
Practice of Medicine at the Women’s Medical College of the
New York Infirmary; and there is also a letter from Dr.
Elizabeth Blackwell giving advice about rooms:
.pm start_quote
“With regard to your winter’s work, we will discuss it when you
come. We shall be glad to meet your views in any way we can.
There are other matters connected with the school itself we shall
be glad to talk over with you, one in particular, which I think would
interest you, and in which, from your exceptional position in the
class, I think you could help us in our organisation; but I shall
leave its discussion till you come.
I hope you will allow time to get thoroughly settled and through
with the trouble of it before November.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Oct. 23rd. Friday. Came to New York.... Went 137 Avenue
for a week to hunt for rooms,—oh, dear!... At length decided
on 222 East Tenth [Street]—two back parlours and two above,—gas
and all $55. Alice arrived on Monday 26th.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“222 East 10th Street,
New York. Nov. 1st. 68.
.nf-
.ll
Darling Mother,
.ti 6
The term begins tomorrow, and I am glad to say that Alice
and I have just succeeded in getting things into some sort of order
in time. Besides laying down carpets, buying a stove and kitchen
pots and pans, a bedstead and chairs, etc., I have been providing
winter stores in American fashion, and yesterday bought two barrels
of potatoes, 30 lbs. of butter, etc. etc., to say nothing of flour and
wine. My money is running terribly low,—I have only about £20
left when this month’s rent is paid; but then most of my things
are bought now, and besides I can borrow from Dr. Sewall if needful.
Besides the Hospital owes me about £10 or £11 for duties paid, so
I can probably get on till my next quarter comes....
I know Mother will be thinking of me on my own hook in New
York. This last week has been a pretty hard time, but now things
are falling into shape. Alice has been invaluable. I know that
having her, with the proper food, will just make all the difference to
me of being able to work on all winter without breaking down. The
.bn 229.png
.pn +1
Blackwells are very pleasant, and, though I have no special friends
here, I shall be so busy and cosy that I expect to get on capitally.
I am afraid the poor little Doctor gets the worst of it,—she will
really miss my help in many ways, besides mutual loss of company,—and
I am sadly afraid she won’t take due care of herself. I can’t
tell you and Daddy how thankful I am that he has given her that
charming little carriage,—it is such a relief to my mind to know
that she will not be forced to drive herself when weary and half
frozen: and I believe it will make a real difference in her health.
Her Father was very pleased with it, though I believe he made
very careful enquiries as to whether the Doctor was sure Daddy
‘could afford to give her such a splendid present.’ Of course he
didn’t ask me that, but I took an opportunity of telling him that I
knew you both felt that the carriage represented only a small part
of your feeling of real gratitude to her for all the good she has done
me medically and otherwise. Wasn’t I
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Darling Mother,—I wrote the two other sheets on purpose
that you may pass them on to Daddy, and I mean to try to do so
as much as I can, and put anything private on a separate bit for you,
for I think the dear old man really likes to see my letters, and I am
sure I want to give him all the pleasure I can.
His Goodbye was so very kind and loving,—I often think of it.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Nov. 3rd.
.ll
Yesterday was the opening of our College, at which Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell made a speech which I was asked to report for the chief
medical paper here. I have done so, and will send you the paragraph
when it appears....
My rooms are not far from the College and other places where I
have to go daily, and altogether I may consider myself well off.
I have managed to buy as little furniture as possible, having brought
carpets from Boston, and having hired two tables, a bed and a stove,
from the landlady here. I have not yet bought more than £12
worth, and I mean to try to get on with as little more as possible.
I am very glad to hear of Miss Garrett’s good news. I shall send
her note on to the Doctor. I know it will please her so much.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“222 East 10th Street.
New York. Nov. 8th. 68.
.nf-
.ll
Darling Mother,
.ti 6
I enclose two letters which you can read and forward
to ‘Mr. H. 69 Jermyn Street, S.W.’ and to ‘Sam. Laurence,
Esq. 6 Wells Street, W.’ Don’t transpose them!
I have now got fairly settled in my new abode, and am really
very comfortable in it,—thanks to Alice. Our rooms are so situated
.bn 230.png
.pn +1
that we can keep quite to ourselves,—having even a back staircase
almost of our own,—and we get on famously. My daily routine
is pretty regular throughout the week. I go to the dissecting room
at 9 a.m. and work till about 11.15. At 11.30 comes a lecture on
Anatomy and Physiology on alternate days,—and I get home to
lunch a little before one. Alice always has things ready and nice
for me, and I rest for about half an hour after lunch, before going
to the afternoon lectures which begin at 2 p.m. and continue (except
on Saturday) till 5,—three lectures of an hour each. I have just
put in a petition to Dr. Emily Blackwell (who manages everything
and is very nice) for five minutes space between each two lectures,
for opening windows and a walk up and down the corridors,—to
which she instantly assented as desirable.
Pleasant as it was to live with the Doctor, and extremely grateful
as I feel for the very great good she has done me, I confess now to
rather enjoying a completely independent nest once more,—for a
while at least. You see it was inevitable that at Boston everything
had to be shaped to suit Hospital work, and that was sometimes a
nuisance.
I can study and write and read in a much more thoroughly undisturbed
way here than I could there,—in fact it would have been
simply impossible while living there to work as I am doing now,—there
were so very many inevitable interruptions.
And yet, but for my two years there, I never could have been
strong enough for my work here,—I believe that I never was so
strong in my life before—isn’t that grand?”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“222 East 10th Street,
Nov. 13th. 1868.
.nf-
.ll
Darling Mother,
.ti 6
Yesterday your letter (containing the one from the Times
agent) was brought to me in the dissecting-room, and wasn’t I
pleased to get it!... It is quaint sometimes to think of the
different scenes in which letters are written and read! I am really
very much grieved to hear of Daddy’s having been so ill,—I did
not understand fully before how serious his attack had been. I
comfort myself, however, with hoping that while the news is coming
here, he is really getting better daily. Give him much love from
me and a big kiss on each cheek.... I hope my old lady takes
care of herself. Do for my sake.
Darling, I ought sooner to have answered your enquiries about
the Colleges, etc. Harvard (Boston) is a University for men, and
we couldn’t get in there, because they wouldn’t have any women.
I was anxious to go there because the degree is considered a valuable
one. Here in New York the College I am at is just opened by Dr.
.bn 231.png
.pn +1
Elizabeth Blackwell for women only,—or at least only women
attend it, though I believe men would be admitted.
The teachers are 9 in number,—7 men and 2 women professors,
as you will see by the circular. In the actual classes we are all
women students; in going to hospitals, dispensaries, etc., we mix
with the men. The teaching is really very good and I am getting
on capitally.
Capitally in every way indeed....
I see it is now a little past nine, and I shall soon be off to bed and
sleep like a top till about 6 a.m.
I have never worked so hard in my life (for a continuance), and I
have never been in such good health. I am absolutely well, (and
what a blessing that is after all these years!) I eat and walk and
sleep perfectly, have no pains and aches, and the sweetest of tempers!
I only wish Mother could peep in and see me in my little den!—dog
and Alice and all.
With very much love, darling, to Daddy and Carry,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Saturday. Nov. 14th. [Diary.] In sober fact I get on grandly.
Better and stronger than I have ever been.”
“Monday, Nov. 16th. Oh, why, why didn’t they telegraph at
any rate? If people only would do as they are asked! Carry’s
note just come after Chemistry. ‘I believe if you could start from
New York today, you would have no prospect whatever of seeing
him alive’.”
“Sunday, Nov. 29th. Brighton. Reached home about 10.30
a.m. yesterday (after a rush through Dublin, Cork, etc.) to find that
he had died ten days even before that letter arrived. Nov. 6th.
9.50 a.m.”
.pm end_quote
It seems a pity for her own sake that S. J.-B. could not
have been with her Father during those last days of his life,
for his was certainly one of the cases in which
.pm start_poem
“The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.”
.pm end_poem
It is no very uncommon experience to see people go through
their last illness without a word of complaint, but Mr. Jex-Blake
rose to a higher level than that. He had felt the end
approaching for some months, and had set his house in perfect
order, even to the refinement of writing farewell letters—beautiful
letters they are—to be delivered to those nearest
.bn 232.png
.pn +1
him after he had left them. There was nothing now to be
done save to gather himself together for the great ordination
of death. “I suppose this is about as bad as can be,” he
said to the surgeon who attended him. “Nothing more
can be done, I take it.”
One complaint he did make in the early days of his illness,—that
he “could not collect his thoughts to pray,”—he whose
“whole life,” in the words of his son, “had been a prayer
and thanksgiving.” It was a great joy and comfort to
have that son at hand. “I am very happy, very comfortable,”
he said. “You cannot tell how happy I am.... God
is so good to me.”
When the end drew near, he wanted to be lifted out of bed,
but they dared not move him, except as to pillows. About
11.30 Mr. H. [the surgeon] moved him a little in bed, and he
said, “Beautiful, beautiful,” and never spoke again.
.tb
One can imagine the feelings with which his ardent wayward
“youngest little one” arrived in England to hear all this,
and to hear it through the transfiguring medium of bereaved
affection. With passionate intensity she recalls every detail
of the parting which had so lingered in her mind, and which
had proved to be the last:
.pm start_quote
“He had not risen. I went and lay on the bed by him and kissed
him, and he told me how they had enjoyed having me,—‘never had
so pleasant a summer together,’ etc.
I said I had tried hard and yet I hadn’t fully succeeded. I was
sorry I had been cross sometimes. ‘No, no,’ he said, stopping me,
‘I hadn’t failed,—there was nothing to forgive.’ And then I told
him I would try and do them credit in my profession, and then he
took my hands in his and prayed for me. And then I kissed him
again and got off the bed,—but he (very unlike him) sprang out after
me and embraced me again and again,—and so we parted very
lovingly,—I telling him, I think, that ‘next time’ it should be all
right. And so, please God, it shall,—if there is a God and a ‘next
time’!”
.pm end_quote
In the darkest hour she admitted that it might have been
worse: it might have been her Mother who was taken. One
could almost have foretold how she would act. Cancelling
.bn 233.png
.pn +1
the golden prospects in America with a stroke of her pen,—cheerfully
sacrificing the very considerable financial outlay,—the
class fees, the “snug little nest,” and “two barrels of
potatoes,”—she resolved that never again should the Atlantic
divide her from the life that was most dear.
It was not easy for Dr. Sewall to let her go thus finally,
and her first letters are not a little pathetic, but—born friend
of heroes as she was—she helped to fasten the armour on.
.pm start_quote
“If you don’t come back to America,” she said, “you won’t
give up the work. You will open the profession to women in
England.”
.pm end_quote
And so it came about that Sophia Jex-Blake sought a
medical education in her native land.
.bn 234.png
.bn 235.png
.pn +2
.sp 4
.h2 id=part2
PART II
.bn 236.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
It is as hard a thing to maintain a sound understanding, a tender
conscience, a lively, gracious, heavenly frame of spirit, and an
upright life, amid contention, as it is to keep your candle lighted
in the greatest storms.
.ll 68
.rj
Richard Baxter.
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
Individuals, feeling strongly, while on the one hand they are
incidentally faulty in mode or language, are still peculiarly
effective. No great work was done by a system; whereas
systems rise out of individual exertions. Luther was an individual.
The very faults of an individual excite attention;
he loses, but his cause (if good, and he powerful-minded) gains.
This is the way of things; we promote truth by a self-sacrifice.
.ll 68
.rj
John Henry Newman.
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 237.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.1
CHAPTER I | DRIFTING
.sp 2
S.J.-B. landed at Queenstown on November 27th, 1868, and
“came rushing through Cork, Dublin and Holyhead on that
weary 24 hours’ journey” back to the home in Brighton,
to find that she had arrived too late. Her Father had died
some three weeks before, and outwardly the household had
already settled down to the old life—as households do—in
a way that to her ardent nature must at first have seemed
passing strange. There was the joy and pain of meeting her
Mother again,—the joy and pain of finding that that Mother
was too fine a Christian to be broken-hearted at the prospect
of so brief a parting,—and then, little by little, there came
for S.J.-B. the realization of all she had left behind.
On board the Java she had written to Dr. Sewall:
.pm start_quote
“The first thing of all I want to do is to write and tell you what
I said so very imperfectly in my hurry and worry when you left,—how
much your kind thought for me in arranging even the little
things of my cabin has touched me.... Even now when I am going
home—and going under such circumstances—the thought of all you
have done for me and of all I owe you, comes uppermost....
Mrs. Browning says,—
.pm start_poem
‘God gives what he gives—be content,
He resumes nothing given, be sure,’
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
and your love and help have been given to me, and I know it is not
all over now....
I am going home now to try and be a child once more,—simply
to love and serve my Mother, as God will help me (for I do believe
in Him in my pain and my love in my heart of hearts) and I believe
that by being a child I shall learn to grow a better woman.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 238.png
.pn +1
Such was her resolve, and for months she struggled hard
to carry it out, with no small success when one considers the
complexity of the elements involved. She had come from
a busy bustling beneficent life, with an outlook that appealed
keenly to her energetic and ambitious nature, and she found
herself in the quiet, smoothly-ordered home of her childhood,
where she was only “Miss Sophy,” where her medical books
and microscope slides were roughly classified as “nasty,”
and where she was expected to conform to a rule of life which
had never given scope to her possibilities, and was little likely
to do so now that all its music was set in a minor key. The
free life in America had developed her capabilities; quite
possibly it had also rubbed off some few of those superficial
elegancies that were regarded as a primary essential in the
Englishwoman of her class.
There was another side to the question too. Glad as Mrs.
Jex-Blake always was to see her “youngest little one” again,
one can imagine that in the circumstances so electrical a
presence in the house was not an unmixed boon. “I had
much rather know you well and happy there [in Boston]
than see you ill and know you worried here,” the Mother had
written years before, and there is no reason to think that her
feeling in the matter had changed. Nothing could alter the
deep undercurrent of love and understanding between this
Mother and child, but neither of them had a naturally equable
temperament, and one gathers that on the surface things
were not always smooth.
.pm start_quote
“Poor little woman,” S.J.-B. writes to Dr. Sewall, on receipt
of the first letter from Boston, “I do feel so sorry for you all
alone and dreary, but don’t you think I am even worse off
than you are? You can fancy what this house is now,—so silent
and mourning,—and so much cut off even from outside, and at
any rate no people or work or occupation of any interest outside
ourselves.
M. and C. have their regular ways and plans, I suppose, but it is
so long since I have been at home except for a visit, that it’s hard
for me to fit in anywhere, and of course everybody’s feeling more or
less sad and pained doesn’t make matters smoother. Just at
present I am getting my books and drawers, etc., to rights, and after
that is done I mean to try and read some Medicine at least,—perhaps
.bn 239.png
.pn +1
if we stay here all winter I may apply to visit at the Hospital, etc.—only
it would be rather disagreeable all alone.
Oh, Lucy dear, I do think it’s too bad to be expected to go on
with Medicine, and not have you to help and interest me in it. If
I didn’t believe you would after all come and start me in practice
when I do get through, I don’t think I should have any heart to go
on at all. But we will be together again some day, old lady, won’t
we? Oh, dear, I am getting so tired of living and fighting and
hoping! As soon as one hopes one has got a little foothold it is all
knocked away from under one!”
.pm end_quote
The letter then plunges into the question of money and
accounts, which were not Dr. Sewall’s strong point.
.pm start_quote
“Poor little girl!—she has so many accounts, and I am dreadfully
afraid she will get into a dreadful mess with them all! Do tell me
if you got your accounts anything like straight after New York.”
.pm end_quote
Dr. Sewall was overwhelmed with work, but her letters
came as fast and frequently as mails could bring them. “I
do hope you do not miss me as much as I miss you,” she
wrote, and again:
.pm start_quote
“I do hope this New Year that begins so sadly may not be a very
hard one for you, though I fear you will have to fight hard before
you can settle down at home. Do try to get some visiting at the
Hospital or some medical work as soon as you can. It will do you
good and your Mother too.”
.pm end_quote
But she too, when it comes to a question of “business,”
relapses delightfully into the child. “Do say you are contented
with me, and that I have done well.”
.tb
For three weeks S.J.-B. drifted, uncertain of her course,
and then she set her sail.
.pm start_quote
“Today—after three weeks of doubt, indecision and rather
negation—I was suddenly inspired to get up out of the dining-room
arm-chair, walk to the Hospital, and ask Mr. Salzmann to read
Medicine with me,—so Thursday and seq.—Histology!
It’s quite odd how pleased I am at the prospect of ‘shop’!”
.pm end_quote
On the last night of the year, as was her wont, she made
her summing-up:
.pm start_quote
“Within a few hours of eight years ago,—the window,—and
.pm start_poem
‘May the New Year cherish—’
.pm end_poem
.bn 240.png
.pn +1
I don’t think there are any ‘hopes that now are bright.’ I
believe I have been growing downwards in some ways. The simply
quiet and comfortable, with no bother of any kind, seems to be
about my ideal now.”
.pm end_quote
And this on the eve of the ‘Edinburgh Fight’!
The truth is S. J.-B. was in one of those backwaters of life
which may at any moment give place to the swift rush of the
current. She was living a great deal, of course, in the life she
had left behind. On January 4th she writes to Dr. Sewall:
.pm start_quote
“When I find time I mean to write to your cousin.... I am
sorry for W., he is a very nice boy. But, dear me, they do seem
such a pair of children.
I don’t think she will get a nicer man, but of course that is nothing
if she doesn’t love him. I quite agree with you, ‘Never marry if
you can help it’!”
.pm end_quote
And, in the depths of her mind she was constantly pondering
the problems and mysteries of our being.
.pm start_quote
“Jan. 21st. [Diary] 29!—‘et praeterea nihil’!”
“Jan. 25th.... Yesterday Martineau’s fine definition of atheism,—the
mind that venerates nothing, aspires to nothing.”
“Jan. 31st. Came tonight across old Trench’s line,—‘When
God afflicts thee think He hews a rugged stone, which must be
shaped or else aside as useless thrown.’
And then those true sad pale lines of Martineau’s (‘Child’s Thought’)
about youth’s eagerness for truth, sometimes productive of dark
agonies of doubt and loneliness drearier than death,—leaving the
soul exposed upon the field of conflict without a God to strive for
or a weapon for the fight.
Yesterday his ‘Immortality’ helped me again to seize that idea,—apprehend,
‘hang on to’ (Trench). That the negative testimony
was stronger for than against—far harder to realize soul extinct than
immortal,—that instinct for immortality grows stronger in sorrow,
bereavements and on confines of death,—more likely teachers than
the dust and glare of Vanity Fair. That the strange ‘caprice of
death’ in selection, etc., inexplicable except in belief of future to
which this is the ante-chamber. ‘Simply migrations of mind.’”
.pm end_quote
Of course the outward stagnation of life, the want of a
definite object and purpose, renewed the old regrets for the
friendship by means of which “we might have done anything
together, we two.”
.bn 241.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
“Feb. 3rd. 4 p.m.
.pm start_poem
‘Are not the letters coming?
The sun has almost set.’
.pm end_poem
I seem to have two such abiding ideas (presentiments?—hopes?)
1st. That somehow, somewhen the old door must be reopened,—light
in the eventide,... 2nd. That some medical way will open—perhaps
in Scotland,—and at length some one take pity on me and
really teach me and push me.
Oh, dear, how I wish I had anyone with whom I could really take
counsel and make common cause.
Well, I believe I am learning silence and patience at least somewhat,
but how ‘bleak and bare’! Everything so grey and so dim.
Feb. 4th. In the night I woke and found M.’s head was ‘dreadful.’
So I laid one hand on her forehead and one on her hand and willed
and willed the pain away,—till she slept quietly.
Curious how weary and achy that arm was even next morning,—how
‘washed out’ I was!
She says,—‘How do you explain it?’
‘Nohow.’”
.pm end_quote
.bn 242.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.2
CHAPTER II | AT THE GATES OF THE CITADEL
.sp 2
In any case S. J.-B. was not to wait long for those “with
whom she could take counsel.” In the autumn of 1867 Mr.
Alexander Macmillan appears to have discussed with her the
projected publication of a volume of essays on questions
relating to modern women, and in January 1869 he writes
in answer to an enquiry from her:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Madam,
.ti 6
Mrs. Butler, 280 South Hill Park Road, Liverpool, is the
address. There has been nothing done about the proposed volume
yet. But I have by no means abandoned the hope of having it
done, and shall not be sorry if you allude to it in writing to Mrs.
Butler.
My own notion was that the volume should be wholly written by
ladies, and that some diversity of judgement should be allowed on
minor points at least, provided that a consensus were assured on
the large ground of higher culture for women. I confess myself
that the question of the Suffrage is a doubtful one.... I confess
myself to think that politics in the sense of mere government is by
no means of the highest importance to nations and to humanity,
and that what is done in homes is incalculably deeper and more
powerful [in its influence] on human character and destiny.
All these points are open to discussion, and I think a volume
claiming the very highest and widest culture for women might at
the same time discuss with advantage whether the field in which
it is to be exercised need be co-ordinate with men’s.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
Alex. Macmillan.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Apparently S. J.-B. approached Mrs. Butler without delay,
and a few weeks later she writes to Dr. Sewall from Bonchurch,
.bn 243.png
.pn +1
where they were staying for the benefit of Mrs. Jex-Blake’s
health:
.pm start_quote
“Did I tell you that I have been making friends with Mrs. Butler,
the head of the non-Davies party among the women? She approves
of the new Cambridge exams, which Miss Davies ... refuses because
not identical with those of the men. Mrs. Butler and I say ‘Take
all you can get and then ask for more,’ don’t you?
I expect to be here with my Mother for about three weeks longer,
then she will probably go to Cheltenham to see my brother, and I
may go to Cambridge, Edinburgh, St. Andrews, etc., to see if I can
poke in anywhere.
And yet, even if I got admitted, I don’t feel sure that I should
feel ready to leave my Mother next winter. Unless she changes
very much for the better, I cannot but think very badly of her. I
think she has aged five years since you saw her....
She said to me yesterday, ‘Don’t you wish Dr. Lucy were here?’
I said, ‘No, she’s doing better work,’ but I do sometimes ‘weary
for you’ all the same.”
.pm end_quote
Mrs. Butler was deeply interested in the new ally, and very
anxious that she should carry out her dream of obtaining a
proper medical education in her own country. Dr. T. W.
Jex-Blake was also sympathetic, and so it came about that
enquiries were made among University professors who might
be supposed to have an open mind on the subject. Some
interesting letters were the result:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Wimborne,
Jan. 14th.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I have not been able to obtain quite as accurate information
about London University as I should like, but there is no use in my
delaying any longer to answer your letter. As regards Cambridge,
I do not think that the most sanguine reformer would advise you
to look for any relaxation of barriers that would be of service to you,
for some years. I am among the most sanguine, and I do not think
that we shall be giving degrees to women until after ten years at
least. We do not as yet examine men unless resident in colleges.
The University of London, which is an open examining board,
ought to be much more hopeful. Unfortunately this university
(by an arrangement which ought not to have been borrowed from
its older sisters) is governed in the last resort by Convocation, an
assembly got together by agitation among all graduates of a certain
standard, and in which the influence of the London doctors is practically
.bn 244.png
.pn +1
preponderant. This assembly rejected last year a proposal
by which women would have been admitted to medical degrees.
The proposal will, I believe, be renewed, but I cannot say what
reason there is to anticipate a different result. My information is
only at second hand, and you may easily get more accurate in
London. As soon as I hear more precisely what is going to be done,
I will let you know. I cannot, from what I have heard advise you
to expect a very speedy change.
At the same time there is a general movement, of which it is hard
to estimate the force, against the exclusion of women from the
higher education. You say that you do not wish your plans to be
talked of. I am rather sorry, for if you would suffer yourself to
be made a grievance, it might help ‘the cause’ in London.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
Henry Sidgwick.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Trin. Coll. Cambridge.
Feb. 4th.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I have now been here nearly a week, and hoped to write to
you before, but I wished before doing so to see Markby, Bonney,
and one or two of the Medical Board, and, being overwhelmed with
work, have only just managed to do so. I find that neither Markby
nor Bonney estimate any higher than I do the chance of your request
being granted. Professor Liveing, one of the members of the Board,
is favourable, but shakes his head as to his colleagues. Doctors
preponderate on it, and one, Dr. Humphrey, professor of Anatomy,
whom I expected to find somewhat more liberal, is averse to women
practising medicine, ‘mainly on their own account, because’—but
you are familiar with the reasons.
I have not canvassed the others as you had a certain wish for
secrecy. If you think it worth while, I will ask Liveing to broach
the question at the Board, without mentioning your name, in order
to sound opinion: or I will in other ways ascertain privately the
views of the members. I do not however feel that this would be
decisive, as they may not have considered the question and might
yield to argument. However I feel almost sure that your appeal
would be rejected without much discussion. Markby is of opinion
that even supposing the Board consented to propose the change to
the Senate, that body would certainly reject it. And he (M.) is
inclined to think that it would injure the cause of female education
here in general, to stir up hostility in the Senate on this particular
matter. (I do not myself feel sure of this.) But he does not think
.bn 245.png
.pn +1
application to the Board would do any harm. Bonney also thinks
this course hopeless but harmless.
Even after consent of the Board and the Senate, you would have
to be admitted as member of some college; but in the case supposed,
that would not cause much difficulty....
I do not know whether you will think any thing more of us after
this. If you do come to look for yourself at the ‘terrain,’ you will
at any rate find a minority of sympathizers who will give you any
aid in their power, among them
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
Henry Sidgwick.
.nf-
.ll
P.S. You will see that, on reflection, I am somewhat doubtful
of the advantage of making the application. On the whole, however,
I still think it would be a good thing.”
.pm end_quote
Meanwhile Professor Masson of Edinburgh University had
written a letter to Mrs. Butler, from which S. J.-B. quotes
the following extract in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“It will give me much pleasure to see Miss Jex-Blake (whose
name is well known to me); Sir James Simpson will be very glad to
see her also.... I fear however that at present the chance of the
throwing open of professional education and degrees are not so
great with us as Miss Blake seems to imagine” (!)—The exclamation
point is S. J.-B.’s.—“But who knows what may happen or how
soon?”
.pm end_quote
On February 15th, S. J.-B. writes to Dr. Sewall:
.pm start_quote
“I think I may probably go to Cambridge and see whether there
is the least chance of anything medical there. I have almost no
hope, but it is thought well to apply at least to the Medical Board
just for the principle of the thing. Then I may probably go to
Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Glasgow, etc. I understand that Glasgow
was expressly founded on the model of Bologna;—now Bologna
admitted women!
Did I tell you that there is to be a volume of Essays published in
the summer about all sorts of Women’s questions, and I have been
asked to write about the Medical question. If I do, I rather think
I shall send you my essay to criticise first, shall I?... I wish very
much that I could find some English lady to go in for Medicine
with me,—it would be such a comfort in thundering at the Colleges,
and in working afterwards. There is one very capable woman of
about 30,—a thorough lady,—who is staying with us now, who
would like extremely to study for many reasons, but is withheld by
the great prejudice and very bad health of her mother.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 246.png
.pn +1
It was indeed a loss to the whole woman movement that
Miss Ursula Du Pre was prevented from taking a more articulate
part in it, for one tries in vain to think of one of her
contemporaries who was more generously gifted by nature
and circumstances. She had mental powers that would have
fitted her to shine in almost any of the professions strictly
preserved for the benefit of men, great common sense, a
finely balanced judgment, and—what appealed to S. J.-B.
perhaps more than anything else—a keen and unfailing sense
of humour. Tact too she had, and the singular charm of the
“great lady” who is at the same time one of the simple-hearted.
Deeply religious throughout life, she was absolutely
devoid of false humility and of the ultra-sensitiveness that
would have rendered her gifts of small avail beyond her own
circle. The accident of her sex set her free from the cares
and responsibilities of the landowner; and one cannot
wonder that S. J.-B. bitterly resented the unalterable decision
of some members of her family that a medical career was
out of the question.
Nothing, however, can really rob the world of the usufruct
of gifts like these. The influence of a man or woman can
never be measured by the number of those who experience
it at first hand. Who shall say whether it is better to have
a thousand disciples, or twelve, or one?
Mrs. Jex-Blake and Mrs. Du Pre had long been acquainted,
but it was in this month of January 1869 that the two daughters
first met and found each other. S. J.-B. brought much to
the friendship, as the reader of the previous volume is aware;
her gifts were great, her knowledge of life astonishingly wide
for a young woman of her day; but she found no less than
she brought. Never again could she complain of the lack
of a friend “with whom she could take counsel.” All
through the troublous times that were to follow so closely on
the inception of their friendship, Miss Du Pre was her
admiring critic, her confidante and counsellor, following
every move in the complicated game, disapproving, perhaps,
sometimes, but sympathising always. She was the
friend too of S. J.-B.’s friends and comrades, and in the
long days of hope deferred there were those who must surely
.bn 247.png
.pn +1
have fallen in the breach but for Miss Du Pre’s material and
spiritual aid.
.tb
Meanwhile S. J.-B. wrote the Essay on “Medicine as a
Profession for Women,” which was published a few months
later in the volume entitled Women’s Work and Women’s
Culture. “Fairish, not quite satisfactory,” is her own
verdict on the first draft, which was doubtless considerably
improved by the suggestions of friendly critics. As the
Essay appeared later in her book on Medical Women, it could
scarcely be bettered, and indeed it has proved a storehouse
of research and argument for all subsequent writers and
speakers on the subject.
Professor Newman, to whom Mrs. Butler sent the first draft,
wrote an admirable letter:
.pm start_quote
“I have no learning in the history of female physicians, but I
know that in my boyhood I read in a magazine an urgent remonstrance
with ladies for their prejudice against man-midwives, of
whom the writer speaks as a beneficent innovation. I think I have
read that they were first used in the Court circle of Louis XIV....
To prove negatives is always hard, but I should not fear to write
that the exclusion of women from acting as physicians to women
is quite a modern usurpation by the male sex, and limited to the
nations which cultivate modern science. The topic reminds me
of the address of the nurse to Queen Phoedra in Euripides’ Hippolytus,
when she observes her mistress to be wild and out of health,—‘If
thy complaint be anything of a more secret kind, here are
women at hand to compose the disease. But, if thy distress be
such as may be told to males, tell it in order that it may be communicated
to the physicians.’
This is almost as if in no case would the male physician do more
than give advice when the facts were reported to him through the
women.
It is nearly so in Turkey to this day. A Pasha wanted advice
for his wife from a friend of mine without his seeing her.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Do quote Euripides in your Essay,” writes Mrs. Butler. “Never
mind if we look a little more learned than we are. Let us spoil the
Egyptians.”
.pm end_quote
And again,—
.pm start_quote
“I am sure Mr. Newman intended you to use anything in his
letter which you could make available. He is so generously helpful.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 248.png
.pn +1
On February 24th, S. J.-B. writes to Dr. Sewall:
.pm start_quote
“I have written the Essay I spoke of about Medical Women, and
I shall send it to you to see in a week or two, as soon as I can get it
copied. There are several points on which I want your authority
and opinion;—tell me whenever you think I overstate facts or make
mistakes—or tell me if you think I might put things more strongly
with advantage. Tell me how many instances have occurred of
men doctors putting their womankind under your treatment, or
that of other women you know,—Dr. B., Dr. C., and J. W.?—any
more?
Also anything else that occurs to you generally.
I had a witty letter from Miss Putnam this morning, in which
she says how very indifferent it is to her if Mrs. D. chooses to ‘invent
Arabian Nights’ tales’ about her. I do hope that you have published
her letter,—don’t simply disregard me because I’m across the
Atlantic and can’t pinch you! She made me dreadfully envious
by saying that she is going in for some months’ work at Operative
Surgery, and that it will be ‘very jolly.’ I believe, however that
for the summer at any rate I ought to stay with my Mother and try
to make her very jolly (poor old darling!) If I can get into any of
the Colleges for the winter, that may be another matter, though I
am not sure.”
.pm end_quote
Meanwhile Professor Sidgwick was pursuing his kind and
public-spirited enquiries:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Trin. Coll. Cam.
Mar. 1.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I should have written to you before, but I have found it
difficult to make up my mind. I now, however, after some hesitation,
am inclined to dissuade you from making the attempt. I have
not visited any of the Medical Board (as I thought it best, if you
did come, that you should find them unprepared), but I have discussed
the matter with about ten discreet persons varying in age
and position.
Not one of us thinks that there is the smallest chance of your
request being granted. The feeling of the [? Board] is certain to
be decidedly against you: and there are minor obstacles interposed
by existing regulations, which might be easily set aside if there was
a desire to do so, but which will furnish excuses for rejection to any
who may require such.
The question then comes, Will the raising of the matter now advance
or retard our ultimate success? On this point we vary in opinion,
but no one very decidedly thinks it will be a gain, while some are
.bn 249.png
.pn +1
very strongly of opinion that it will do more harm than good. After
much hesitation, I have come myself to this latter view, not on
general grounds, for in general I like (as Lincoln said) to keep pegging
away: but because we have hitherto done what we have done for
women’s education by great quietness and moderation, and so far
it seems best to go on in the same way: if our present scheme for
examining women succeeds, it will be easier to take a further step:
moreover I expect that we shall soon open our examinations more
unrestrictedly to men, and that will make it easier to open them to
women. Your application now would thus be a ‘breach of continuity,’
and would appear extravagant to many undecided people
who after a few years may be brought to look upon a similar application
as quite natural.
Against this is to be set the advantage of raising the question,
and getting people to exercise their minds on it, especially with so
good a case (and I have no doubt advocacy) as yours.
In short, we should gain, I believe, by argument, but should very
likely lose more by hardening a mass of fluid prejudice, that may
otherwise evaporate in the natural course of events.
So that, on the whole, I am slightly[47] opposed to your making the
attempt, on public grounds only: and even if the balance between
probable gain and loss is about even, I should hardly like to advise
you to incur so much trouble that could not possibly benefit yourself.
If you do come, I need not say that I will do anything I can to
assist you, and generally to make your stay in Cambridge as pleasant
as possible.
My instinct is to tell you to come, but that is because I like a
fight: my soberer judgment is the other way.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
Henry Sidgwick.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 47
“Slightly” is interpolated in the original letter.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Trin. Coll.
Mar. 8.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I am sorry that we shall not have the pleasure of seeing you:
but, as regards the application, I am quite convinced that your
decision is right. Just at present the reformers here do not want
stimulating, and I think the neutral people want management. As
regards the Scotch Universities, I am afraid I cannot help you
personally....
I have taken counsel with a friend here—J. Stuart—who is now
examiner at St. Andrews. He has promised to write to you and
to send introductions to two or three people there whom you may
.bn 250.png
.pn +1
like to visit. I imagine that either Edinburgh or St. Andrews will
be more likely to serve your purpose than Glasgow or Aberdeen.
If I can find any means of aiding you at Edinburgh, I will write
again. I may have friends who know some of the Professors.
Masson is the only one of whom I know anything,—he having once
been an editor of mine. I should think he is very likely to help
you, Shairp, I should fear, not; but I may be wrong.
Of Ireland I know nothing: but from what I have heard I should
think our Conservatism here is nothing to the Conservatism of
Dublin—particularly when Gladstone is Disestablishing.
With best wishes for your success, I am,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very sincerely,
H. Sidgwick.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
On the following day came a letter from Mr. Stuart, offering
all the help in his power:
.pm start_quote
“I hope you will excuse my unceremoniousness in thus writing
to you by the belief that I have your success much at heart.”
“My husband and I both think that it would be better not to try
Cambridge in the face of Mr. Sidgwick’s opinion,” writes Mrs. Butler.
“No one is better able to test the feeling of the University than he.
I hope before long England will be ashamed of herself in this matter.
We must do all we can by working quietly and extensively on the
hearts and consciences of men. I find no man of ordinary candour
who is not easily convinced, but the M.D.s will be the obstacle.
They hang together so.
Shall you try Edinburgh? If not, do you think of taking a
foreign degree? I wish you were an M.D. You would have plenty
of patients at once.—myself among the number.”
.pm end_quote
Thus it came about that when Mrs. Jex-Blake went to
visit her son at Cheltenham, S.J.-B. “screwed her courage
to the sticking-point,” and went to Edinburgh. The entry
in her diary is characteristic:
.pm start_quote
“Monday, March 15th. To Edinbro. How I dreaded the
journey and sequence! On waking,—‘If Thou go not with me,
carry me not up hence’!”
.pm end_quote
.tb
Meanwhile the University of Edinburgh stood foursquare,
and the professors sat in their comfortable chairs, little
dreaming that their Day of Judgment was at hand. Even
at a cursory glance they were an imposing body of men.
Some few of them were great in character, or in intellect,
.bn 251.png
.pn +1
or in both: taken as a whole they were probably well
above the average. In any case they were men of like
passions with ourselves, well-disposed, kindly, just a little
blunted by success, desirous of smooth things. As they
acted, so would most similarly constituted bodies of men have
acted at that day. The only difference between them and
other men lay in the fact that it was to them the challenge
of the future came.
And who was to tell them that this was the challenge of
the future? It was so trifling an episode in outward seeming,—only
the visit of a gifted young woman, with a clear strong
head, but assuredly with no immunity from an average
human being’s liability to error and mistake. If the professors
had been canvassed on the subject of her request beforehand
the result would have been an almost unanimous No: they
had no more idea of admitting women to the University than
they had of founding a Chair of Millinery. But the applicant
was among them before they were aware; she knew what
she wanted and she knew how to state her wants effectively.
Her arguments were all at her finger-ends; and, although she
made no sex appeal, she was possessed of fine dark eyes and
a singularly musical voice.
In those days men had not learnt to be on their guard
against an apparently guileless young woman. To many she
stood for little more than a precocious child, who must be
humoured, and, if necessary silenced later by sheer force
majeure.
But S. J.-B. took them a step farther on than this. She
was obviously no mere child: she was a woman who had
seen a good deal of life, who realized something of the meaning
of sex as a factor in human affairs, and who was prepared
calmly to assert that it ought not to stand in the way of the
privilege she asked. When she faced the pundits with those
candid earnest eyes, there must have been some who were
literally mesmerised for the moment into sharing her belief.
Yes, the Day of Judgment was at hand. I do not mean,
of course, that the “sheep” were those who forwarded the
applicant’s claims, and the “goats” those who put difficulties
in her way. In those days there might well be room for two
.bn 252.png
.pn +1
opinions on an experiment that had scarcely been tried.
The Day of Judgment is apt to be a subtler, more searching
thing than that. What I mean is that one cannot go through
the vast mass of letters and documents relating to the whole
matter without seeing the stuff of which those men were
made,—the “worth” on the one hand, the “leather and
prunella” on the other,—and oh, such imposing leather and
prunella! One realizes afresh that when a big emergency
takes everyone by surprise, only those who are guided in life
by great principles can hope to act rightly. They may not
all act alike: they may or may not make mistakes; but at
least they act with essential dignity: they ring true; when
they lie in their graves their greatness shines out from the
musty old papers which have chanced for a few short years
to embody an imperishable record.
And there is no one whose greatness shines out more
clearly than does that of David Masson, Professor of Rhetoric
and English Literature, to whom S. J.-B. went first. From
first to last one’s admiration for him never swerves: one
does not know which to admire in him most, the clear insight,
the high courage, the fine discretion, or the sheer unfailing
brotherly sympathy.
This is the first impression he made upon S. J.-B.:
.pm start_quote
“Quiet, rather reserved, kindly. Promised introduction to most
of professors. Seems rather hopeful,—‘tide setting in.’”
.pm end_quote
One wonders what were the words in which he summed
her up. He must have rejoiced in the clear brain, the quick
wit, the cultured voice, the easy flow of sane and logical
speech. Did he guess at the impulsive nature that was
bound to make mistakes?—at the great warm heart that
was bound to suffer more than most?
In any case he gave her the following letter to the Dean
of the Faculty of Medicine:
.pm start_quote
“My dear Balfour,
.ti 6
Miss Jex-Blake, an English lady known as the author of a
work on American Schools, is now in Edinburgh for a few days,
chiefly with a view to ascertaining what chance there may be that
Edinburgh University may (now that Paris and other continental
cities have set the example) see its way to conferring a medical
.bn 253.png
.pn +1
degree, after due study and qualification, on a lady candidate. It
is but right that having come to Edinburgh for this purpose she
should see you as the Dean of the Medical Faculty, in order to receive
the best information and advice on the subject: and I shall be
obliged by your courtesy in this matter.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
David Masson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
There was a similar note to Dr. Christison, in which the
writer said:
.pm start_quote
“The question, I believe, has been already before you; but it
has seemed to Miss Blake possible that, now that Paris and other
Universities abroad have set the example, there may be some chance
of a modification of the previous conclusion of Edinburgh University
on the subject. As she will receive the best information and advice
on the whole subject from members of the Medical Faculty, I take
the liberty of giving her this note to you, with a request that you
will kindly explain to her the state of things as they are, and of
possibilities in the direction she has in view.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
David Masson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
And so, quite alone—she who was as dependent on a comrade,
on a “helpmeet,” as some of our greatest men have
been—with strange lodgings for a “base,”—she began the
great work of canvassing the Edinburgh professors and the
distinguished citizens who, for one reason or another, might
be supposed to have a voice in the matter. She stood absolutely
alone. She might belong to a good old family: her
brother might be Headmaster of an English public school:
but on the other side of the Tweed only a few of the enlightened
knew anything of that. She was merely a clever young
woman, with a rather outlandish name, who had conceived
the extraordinary desire of obtaining a medical education by
hook or by crook under the auspices of the Edinburgh University.
If only Dr. Sewall could have been with her—or
Mrs. Jenkinson, or Miss Du Pre,—what a stay she would have
been! Fortunately Mr. Begbie was “kind and helpful as
ever”; the old friendship with Miss Orr and with Mrs. Burn
Murdoch was a great resource still; and Mr. Burn Murdoch
was ready and willing to help to the utmost of his power.
Miss Orr, it is true, was rather uncertain about the whole
.bn 254.png
.pn +1
quest, wanted to know whether her old friend “went to
church and read the Bible”; and, however relevant the
question may have been,—S. J.-B. rightly felt that there
was no time to go into it at this stage.
Undoubtedly her two great supports through the time of
stress—if we set aside for the moment all that was involved
in her “If Thou go not with me,—!” were the deep interest
taken by Miss Du Pre in every detail of the story; and the
possession of Sadie’s poems, which had just been published.
In these latter she found fitting expression for the fightings
and fears of her own inner life, and for her hard-won “twilight”
consolation. It is an interesting fact that these two elements
should have come into her life just at this moment, for one
scarcely sees how she could have “won through” without
them. Sadie’s poems remained dear to her throughout life:
she knew many of them by heart and repeated them almost
on her deathbed; and her copy is worn even more “threadbare”
than are her volumes of Robertson’s Sermons. One
can imagine the feelings with which, after a keen exciting day’s
work, she went home to her lonely lodgings, with no “Alice”
looking out for her, to write her report to Dr. Sewall or Miss
Du Pre, and to copy in her diary—as she did—the lines:
.pm start_poem
“Up the way that is narrow, the path that is steep,
With no guide for my footsteps, no help for my fear:
Only this—that He knoweth the way that I tread,
And His banner of crimson is over my head.
With the loneliness awful pressed into my soul,
With no voice for companion, no grasp of a hand—”
.pm end_poem
Yes, one cannot help wishing that an intimate friend had
been at hand. One wonders whether she was even becomingly
dressed: we know she would have wished to be; but she so
seldom made the most of her appearance.[48]
.fn 48
“By the way your accounts of your dress are just a shade contradictory,”
writes Miss Du Pre somewhat later. “One day you tell me
you look disreputable and plunge me into depths of anxiety! and the
next you say you are ‘very tidy.’ Isn’t this more than average inconsistency?”
.fn-
In any case what happened is perfectly clear. The Professors
for the most part had a deeply rooted dislike to having
.bn 255.png
.pn +1
women students in the University: in fact, the idea of such
a thing was unthinkable; but when a gifted young woman
actually sat in their sanctums urging her plea, they could
not bear to say No. Strictly speaking, they should have
refused to see her, but did any man yet ever refuse to see a
woman whose name was before the public?
One wonders as one reads the papers how many of them
knew what their “powers,”—what the legal powers of the
University—really were?—how many of them really wished
to know? There was a comfortable conviction in the back
of their minds that insuperable difficulties lay shrouded in
those unprobed depths. In the meantime why not show a
little kindness to a gallant girl who was as modest as anyone
could be in formulating so outrageous a demand, and whose
pleading—so it has been said—would have “wiled the bird
from the bough”? It was after she was gone that the real
horror of the situation came home to them, and that they
fell back again with relief on the thought of those unprobed
depths,—the legal powers of the University.
It would all be very ordinary, and sometimes rather depressing,
reading, were it not that Professor Masson and some of
the others, when they gave her their provisional support,
really meant exactly what they would have meant in giving
their support to a man—no more and no less. Their own
principle, their own righteousness was involved; they were
quite prepared to see women students—if so it was to be—in
the University quadrangle and class-rooms; and they
meant to do what in them lay to give this woman a fighting
chance.
.bn 256.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.3
CHAPTER III | SUCCESS?
.sp 2
Meanwhile Miss Elizabeth Garrett was providing in her own
career the very example that was needed to clinch the argument.
After much arduous work and lavish expenditure of
money on special classes, she had obtained the “L.S.A.,” a
licence to practise from the Society of Apothecaries,[49] and good
use she had made of the platform thus gained. Henceforth
no one could deny that an Englishwoman had the physique
and the wit to study, “qualify,” and practise Medicine,—yes,
even to get her full share of patients. It was scarcely to be
expected that Miss Garrett would rest content without a
University degree, but she considered that the time was not
ripe for the agitation of the question in England, and she
had little sympathy with S. J.-B.’s efforts in Edinburgh.
None the less her successful career was a more valuable
argument than her support would have been,—even if, at
the moment, she had not been too fully occupied elsewhere to
enter into the question at all.
.fn 49
After Miss Garrett had obtained her diploma, the Society of Apothecaries
passed a resolution forbidding students henceforth to receive any
part of their education privately, thus making it impossible even for a
woman of means to follow in her steps.
.fn-
On March 21st, S. J.-B. wrote to Dr. Sewall:
.pm start_quote
“I have two nice little bits of news about Miss Garrett. One is
that the Princess Louise went to see her, and, after enquiring about
the medical prospects of women, expressed strong hopes of their
complete success. This is really worth a great deal, and I hope
you will have too much sense to sneer at it.
.bn 257.png
.pn +1
Secondly, I see in the British Medical Journal (which I shall try
to send you) a notice that Miss Garrett had ‘by special order of the
minister’ been admitted to the first examination for M.D. [in Paris]
and had passed it in the presence of a crowded audience with very
great éclat. That woman certainly has great power of study and
work, hasn’t she?
By the bye, you would have been interested at the scene in which
I noticed this paragraph. I was sitting yesterday morning at Sir
James Simpson’s breakfast table, between him and his wife, and
he passed the paper to me....
He was, of course, quite favourable to my application, and I am
to breakfast with him again tomorrow and hear what he will do
about it.[50] He is going off to Rome for a trip this week, but I am
very anxious that he should vote in my favour first. He is so unreliable
that I do not know how to make sure of his doing it though,—very
likely he’ll be at the other end of Edinburgh when the meeting
is held. I told him that you remembered him and always spoke
of his kindness to you. I am not quite sure whether he recalled it.
He spoke highly of Dr. Emily Blackwell.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 50
To the irreparable loss of the women students, Sir James Simpson
died in the spring of the following year.
.fn-
A few days previous to this an unobtrusive little note of
no small import appears in the diary:
.pm start_quote
“8.30 p.m. at Begbie’s met Campbell Smith, who walked home
with me. Older and more quiet than I had expected. Kindly.”
.pm end_quote
The favourable impression was mutual, if one may judge
from the letter that follows:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“30 Royal Circus,
21st March, 1869.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Blake,
.ti 6
I left your MS. yesterday with Mr. Findlay of the Scotsman.
I think he will give you some help. If nothing be in the Scotsman
tomorrow, and whether or not, you may call for him at the office.
He will be happy to see you. He said so, and said further that you
needed no note of introduction.
The review of your book appeared on 18th Nov., 1867, and you
will see that also in the pile when you call.
.ll 68
.nf r
Faithfully yours,
J. C. Smith.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Thus began that support from the Scotsman, which, in the
able hands of Mr. Alexander Russel, was destined to be of
such incalculable value to the whole Feminist movement.
.bn 258.png
.pn +1
The Scotsman was just approaching the height of its
reputation, and its advocacy was the more valuable because
it was not supposed to have a specially weak side for new
movements and forlorn hopes. It used to be said in those
days that, when the North Pole was discovered, a Scotsman
would be found sitting on it, and it might have been added
that the Scotsman would prove to be engrossed in the newspaper
that bore his name. In any case, from this moment
on, all that publicity could do for the cause was done. For
better and for worse, the doings of S. J.-B. were about to
be writ large for the whole world to read. They were the
text round which the whole question was threshed out by
countless firesides,—the text on which the life and character
of every other woman provided a running commentary.
Small notion had S. J.-B. of the great flame that small
spark was to kindle. In her diary she speaks quite casually
of “my” leader, “highly approved by Masson.”
Meanwhile the canvassing was proceeding steadily, and
S. J.-B.’s “thumb-nail” notes and sketches of character
often make interesting reading,—none the less so because
her gifts in this direction were necessarily immature.
.pm start_quote
“Thursday, 18th.... A long 1½ hours’ talk with Allman,—-going
earnestly over every inch of ground, he very nice; at last, he ‘should
be delighted to see me in his class,’ and he thought no legal objection
against admission to classes, however about degrees. I am sure
he will be a firm strong true friend.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Friday, March 19th. Today for the first time the astounding
idea dawned upon me that it was perhaps just possible that I really
might succeed after all!
If I did!—to enter first a British University!—(‘first’?—Yes,
rather mean, I know, but instinctive!—)
11 a.m. [after three hours’ work and visiting]—Fraser. Friendly,
but rather non-committal,—speaking of it as a ‘matter for the
medical faculty,’ etc.
12. Balfour. At first rather wavering and weak. Didn’t see
how a woman could dissect, etc., till I told him ‘I’d done it for some
months,’ etc.... Ultimately a very valuable suggestion that he
and A. should admit me to their summer courses, of Botany and
Natural History, and then, if all went well I matriculate in October,
and go to the rest. Proposes to call a Medical Faculty meeting
next week if before Simpson goes.
.bn 259.png
.pn +1
1.30, Lunch at the Grants. Very friendly and kind,—he with
real English Oxford manner and courtesy,—she very kindly.
He thought ‘all would agree as to end,—only difficulty as to
means,’—agreed with Balfour’s idea of wisdom of deferring degree
question. Was ‘very much interested’ in it all, and thought my
going to see each of the Faculty would make a great difference.
Told me that in a recent speech here, Jowett ‘hoped the Universities
would open to women’ and was cheered greatly.
Gave me (sealed) introduction to Christison (the ogre)—and
authorized me to tell him ‘he should make no difficulty,’ etc.
3 p.m. Henderson,—feared women ‘would get the cream of practice,
if any’ (noble fear!)—would ‘think over it,’—-after a futile ‘non
possumus’.”
.pm end_quote
On the following day S. J.-B. sent in her formal application
to the Dean of the Medical Faculty:
.pm start_quote
“Sir,
.ti 6
As I understand that the statutes of the University of Edinburgh
do not in any way prohibit the admission of women, and as
the Universities of Paris and Zurich have already been thrown open
to them, I venture earnestly to request from you and the other gentlemen
of the Medical Faculty permission to attend the lectures in
your Medical School during the ensuing session.
I beg to signify my willingness to accede to any such conditions,
or agree to any such reservations as may seem desirable to you, and
indeed to withdraw my application altogether if, after due and
sufficient trial, it should be found impracticable to grant me a continuance
of the favour which I now request. You, Sir, must be
well aware of the almost insuperable difficulty of pursuing the
study of Medicine under any conditions but those which can be
commanded by large colleges only; and, in view of the increasing
demand for the medical service of women among their own sex, I
am sure that you will concede the great importance of providing
for the adequate instruction of such as desire thoroughly to qualify
themselves to fulfil the duties of the medical profession.
Earnestly commending my request to the favourable consideration
of yourself and your colleagues.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, Sir,
Yours obediently,
Sophia Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
This letter is copied in her diary, and followed by the note:
.pm start_quote
“Taken to him, and meeting called to oblige me at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Oh, dear, how these folks gain by comparison with Harvard!
9.30 a.m. Turner. Quiet, thoughtful, realizing difficulty strongly,
.bn 260.png
.pn +1
and referring to Christison as ‘our Nestor.’ Still listening heedfully
and promising my words should ‘have due weight.’
10.30. Christison. ‘The matter has been decided.’ Not rude
but quite uncompromising. He should use no influence, but vote
against me.
... 2 p.m. Dr. Bennett, who declared himself tired of fighting
Syme and Christison, but will, I think, do it. He railed at them
most of the time. Did not see the need of women as doctors, but
acknowledged their possible value as assistant physiologists....[51]
Will admit me, if possible, to his non-obligatory histology class in
summer....
10 p.m. Was awfully cross at having to go to dine at ... and to
tea at ..., but at the latter ‘met the gods,’—a very nice woman
of 33 or 34 with curiously white hair,—Mrs. Evans, I think. She
and I held together on almost all subjects. She would like to study
Medicine (and I am sure has the power) but for an ‘old aunt.’ Oh,
dear, the ‘might have beens’!—And yet here was I ten minutes
ago defending ‘absolute right’ as the only rule.
Curious though how one’s instinct leaps forward at the smallest
chance.—‘Couldn’t we take a “flat” together?’”
.pm end_quote
.fn 51
As Physiology was Dr. Bennett’s speciality, the admission was worth
having.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
“Monday, March 22nd. A cup of tea and then to Simpson’s to
breakfast. He said he should probably be here tomorrow and would
go to the meeting if at all possible....
Then ... to Laycock ... who was ‘frank’(!)—and told me ‘as
a public man,’ etc., he must oppose,—informed me women ‘didn’t
understand their position,’ that they did their own work in the
world badly, that they had not sufficient strength for medical
practice,—‘if women are fit for war, I will allow them fit for medicine.’
And, when I instanced the Amazons, thought that had nothing to
do with it! Was sure women preferred men to do everything for
them, even in shops;—and informed me no decent woman knew
what young men are, or if she did, it was reprehensible, etc.
After lunch to Syme,—he more favourable than I had expected.
Did think women ought to supersede ‘that man in ... Street,’—and
thought if it was clearly understood that they only meant to
practise in Midwifery and uterine diseases, there ‘would be no
opposition.’ Not to be present tomorrow any way.
Spence,—rather doubtful-minded. Not strongly opposed,—might
turn either way, but is, I think, rather kindly and not irrational.
Then called on kind Lady Grant; then home to rest.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Tuesday, 23rd. 10.30 a.m. Now, having done all that lies in
one woman’s power—except, perhaps, an article in the Daily Review,—having
.bn 261.png
.pn +1
left a book, as a reminder, on Bennett, hunted up Sir
J. Y. S. and crammed him [with] Mlle Unpronounceable at St.
Petersburg,—I have to do what is hardest of all,—wait.
Four distinct votes in my favour, I believe, if all go and all keep
faith with me. Allman ... Bennett, Balfour, Simpson.
Against me distinctly,—Christison, Laycock, and probably Henderson.
Doubtful,—Turner, Spence, and, perhaps, Syme.
Besides Maclagan (ill), and Playfair (probably absent).[52]
.fn 52
It must be borne in mind that at this time the question was before
the Professors of the Medical Faculty only.
.fn-
To lunch with Simpson at 2 p.m., and hear results.
1.45 p.m. Waiting for the verdict? How will it be? Somehow
the probability seems rather for me this time,—but there,—the
Fates are so habitually adverse! I can’t help hoping and yet
I don’t expect success. I hope they won’t ‘give an uncertain
sound’ and put it off indefinitely!
8 p.m.—Gloria tibi Domine!...
At 2 p.m. went to Sir J. Y. S.,—found him out, but met him in
the street. ‘Yes, ye’re to be let in to the classes if the Senatus
allow ye,—‘ of course with all provisos as to ‘tentative,’ etc. But
the great fact is granted,—the thin end of the wedge in, and, though
nothing is secure till after the Senatus on Saturday, yet it is an
enormous triumph!
Three more days’ of calling and entreating and arguing,—then
‘after all these voices ... peace.’
After all, my aspiration to L. E. S. was not so ill-founded,—‘If
I can be the first woman to open a British University’—then surely
I, like Charlotte Brontë ‘shall have served, my heart and I’—even
if I die straightway.
For May, June and July, the Botany, Natural History, and
Histology, with preparation for the Matriculation exam.
Oh, dear, I do feel so exultant.... In one sense I do see all the
life-preamble to have been needed. The experience in the United
States gave me much more chance of success now,—the life there
gave me health really to use the chance when it comes.
I hardly fear the future at all;—not the students, nor the
work.
I am sorry not to be with Mother, but on the whole this must be
best, I think.
Four years of College! All alone? Surely not literally all the
time—spiritually, who knows?
What a pity, as I said to U.D. that they will use up gold for
toasting-forks!
.bn 262.png
.pn +1
Well, I am sure the hind-wheels may run by faith for a long time
now. Perhaps the tangle is beginning to unravel after all these
years,—and I shall have to cry, ‘Oh, why didn’t I bear on better
then!’ I suppose that is always the feeling when the cloud begins
to lift. But till it lifts,—
.pm start_poem
‘Still it is hard. No darkness will be light
Though we should call it light from night till morn.’
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
And surely the Father pitieth His children.”
.pm end_quote
The numberless quotations in the course of her diary,—however
fundamentally optimistic—are almost always in a
minor key; but the minor key proves inadequate in the
face of this great joy. One can see the dark eyes flash as
she goes on,—
.pm start_quote
.pm start_poem
“‘Fair are the Marcian kalends,
The proud ides, when the squadron rides,
Shall be Rome’s whitest day.’
.pm end_poem
Surely I shall have to institute a festival for March 23rd. I
wonder who’s the saint. It will be very odd if any other day in
my life will be (if all goes well) as vital an epoch as today....
I feel as if everybody was my peer today, for I want everybody
to shake hands with me. I am so glad. Dear old Mother!—why
are you not here to kiss me?... O.H.?... L.E.S.?... Ursula?...
Perhaps your thought is nearest me tonight, because you more
than any perhaps realize the day of crisis....”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Wednesday, March 24th. How very nice it is to wake with a
sense of something very good in the wind!”
.pm end_quote
Indeed it is small wonder that she was elated. Everyone
had assured her that the opposition of the doctors was the
thing to be feared, and now the Medical Faculty had recorded
its vote in her favour. True, the permission only applied,
in the first instance, to the Summer Term, and some of the
professors may well have thought that the Summer Term
would be more than enough to quench the ardour of the
solitary woman student. But there is really no need to
enquire into the manifold motives that may have swayed
them. They had done what she asked, and it was scarcely
to be supposed that the professors of the other faculties would
prove more obdurate. One thinks with satisfaction of some
of the men with whom she now had to deal,—Professor
.bn 263.png
.pn +1
Masson was not the only rock among them. One has but
to recall the names of Professor Calderwood, Professor Lorimer,
Professor Wilson, and others too, in order to realise that, so
far as they were concerned, her feet were on sure ground.
The diary of March 24th continues:
.pm start_quote
“Then to Masson’s, where I got 5 introductions. He very hopeful,
I think. Seems not to think the University Court have the right
to interfere.
Then to Tytler’s. He very quiet and legal. ‘Should go to the
Senatus quite unprejudiced,’—which was hardly all I wanted!...
... In afternoon went with Mr. Begbie to see ... Calderwood,—at
home and quite favourable. Should support me on Saturday.
‘Fine speaker,’ says Begbie.
Then Tait,—quite favourable.
Fleeming Jenkin,—rather so,—indeed I think he almost promised to
vote for me, but feared some legal difficulties as to Matriculation, etc.
After Begbie went home, I saw Kelland,—he mildly favourable,—but
saw ‘difficulties.’ Still will vote, I think.
In the evening at Blackies’. He with clear pure face, white hair
and straw hat! Half mad looking, certainly. But showed me
favourable passages in his Notes on the Iliad, etc.—XI. 740—, and
‘unless he hears strong things to the contrary’ will support me.
Mrs. Blackie also nice, I think,—not commonplace.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Thursday, 25th. Congratulations from Mother and U.D....
Left Iliad notes at Blackie’s. Then saw Lorimer. Very kind and
friendly. ‘Very glad to see me.’ Introduced me to Mrs. Lorimer,
was ‘sure women could do work men couldn’t’, etc., and were needed.
Introduced me to M‘Pherson, saying he ‘sufficiently expressed his
opinion by saying he intended to vote for me.’
Which McPherson doesn’t. Not disagreeable however, though less
earnestminded than most.
Cosmo Innes. Painfully deaf, but very friendly. Much interested
about my written communications about Bologna. Will support
me. I’m to send him facts from British Museum.
Muirhead—I had been taught to fear as surely opposed. So he
was at first, but candid and earnest and kind, and said at last, ‘You
have disposed of many of my objections.’ Much interested as
to University statistics,—Bologna, etc. Suggested Balfour should
write for information to Paris and Zurich.
Then bought stockings and basket, and called on Miss Blyth, and
came home pretty well done up. Now to start again soon.
(I hear Mr. M., downstairs, is interested to hear they have ‘that
lady’ here!)
.bn 264.png
.pn +1
3 p.m. Professor Playfair has been here,—very kindly,—very
much in earnest,—laying stress on Bologna degrees, etc. Introduction
to Piazzi Smith,—‘I am strongly in favour of granting her
desire to attend the classes, with the view of taking the degree in
Medicine. She is thoroughly in earnest and desires no favour. Do
give her an opportunity of stating her case to you.’
Then with D. B. M. to Stevenson ... who thinks it ‘haigh taime’
to have female practitioners, and means to vote for me, I think.
Then D. B. M. home, and with Mr. Begbie to Dr. C. who seems
to have been at a Tory clack with Christison and Co. in the morning
and won’t help me. He most naïvely let out ‘what Christison meant
to do,’—i.e. argue that the Senate could not act without more legal
advice,—delay,—and if possible refer to Chancellor Inglis. Whereon
I wrote to Tait, Innes and Playfair to put on guard.
6 p.m. Dinner at 22 Manor Place....
By the bye, how queerly much impressed Muirhead was with the
‘trouble I had taken’ at British Museum, etc.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Friday 26th. This morning at 10.30, to Piazzi Smith,—deaf and
very hard to get at. Declared nothing but Astronomy to be his
business,—and particularly no science used for money-getting!—Then
he rambled off to ‘supply before demand’—Meteorological
Society and Mr. Lowe, etc., and Registrar of Deaths, etc. Then—had
a ladies’ meeting been called to declare they would employ
women, etc.... However I might be sure he ‘would not vote
against me,’ and advised me not to be discouraged!... Oh, dear,
what a strain it is on one to have to sit out that sort of thing!
2 p.m. came Professor Wilson,—very kind and friendly,—though,
having inadvertently shown him my list, he instantly pounced down
on his own name and asked my authority. So I gave up Playfair
instantly!... A grave good thoughtful man,—a very sound
champion.
Then to see Lorimer who encourages me finely.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Saturday March 27th. Went with Mr. Begbie to see Oakeley
(at school with Tom) Oxfordish (i.e. non enthusiastic), but civil
enough. Said he should support.
11 a.m. Fraser. The Medical Faculty having agreed, he was
ready to do so too. I specially pleaded against “shelving” the
question.
Indeed I hope with all my writing and speaking and warning
(including my rather ill-advised raid on Balfour at College this
morning) I have put a spoke in Christison’s wheel. Just about
voting on it, I suppose,—3.30 p.m.
It is to be hoped Wilson will be prophetic,—‘We’ll have a great
fight, but we’ll beat them!’
.bn 265.png
.pn +1
10 p.m. Success,—and such a success,—14 to 4!—‘Nunc dimittis’?—No,
surely,—fresh zeal and energy for lifelong work.
Isn’t it good after such a fortnight of rush and battle and strain
to go to bed, saying,—‘The work is done!’
‘Of all the gifts of God...!’”
.pm end_quote
It is interesting to note that the speakers in S. J.-B.’s
favour at the Meeting of Senatus were:—Professors Balfour,
Tait, Lorimer, Fleeming Jenkin, Masson, Blackie, Bennett,
and Sir Alexander Grant. Against her were Professors
Christison, Turner, Laycock and Craufurd. To her great
surprise Professor Muirhead gave notice of an appeal to the
University Court. Professor Playfair was out of town, but
the following letter has been preserved:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“University Club,
Edinburgh.
26 March, 69.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Masson,
.ti 6
I have to express my regret that, in ignorance of there being
a Senatus Meeting tomorrow, I had made an important engagement
in Fifeshire.
I cordially concur in the recommendation of the Medical Faculty,
that Miss Blake should be allowed to attend the Summer classes.
If no inconvenience be found in practice, there are many precedents
for female graduation, and for female professors. Pope Joan herself
is an instance, although she professed and graduated in male
attire. But lesser people than a pope may be adduced as precedents,
in Salamanca, Bologna and Padua, especially from the thirteenth
century onwards. Sir Roundell Palmer would not object on the
ground of the legality of the prospect of female graduation, though
if he were a member of Senatus he might doubt the expediency.
For my part, I have faith that the students will act like gentlemen,
and will prove that the tentative session has not been lost by discourtesy
on their part.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
Lyon Playfair.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 266.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.4
CHAPTER IV | A CHECK
.sp 2
On the day following that memorable meeting of Senatus,
S. J.-B. had a curious conversation with the wife of one of
the professors:
.pm start_quote
“Mrs. A. tells me Christison actually threatened to resign if
women are admitted!—and to the Medical Faculty this is a formidable
threat. She thinks also ‘the professors haven’t treated me
fairly’ (which I deny) in not letting me know how much they dislike
the whole thing. Doubtless A. does,—and the babble of her bourne
is magnified to her.
Still I know all is not yet gained. Yet surely very much is. And
can ‘He so far have brought me’—? Not that that is a real argument,
because if it fails we must suppose failure is right in one sense.
Amusing how much personal power Mrs. A. attributes to me,
‘You’ve just turned them round your thumb,—I don’t believe
there’s another woman could have done it,—you are wholly exceptional,
etc.’ I say ‘very complimentary, but I think not quite
true.’ She thinks I’ve been ‘wonderfully clever,’ and when I object
to the phrase, ‘have really shown wonderful power and tact.’
I’m afraid one can’t help being a little pleased to think one’s own
effort has done something,—and yet the other feeling lies deeper:
.pm start_poem
‘If Thou didst will, a mighty sword
Out of my stem should grow.’
.pm end_poem
By the bye U. D. thinks my poem[53] the saddest in the book,
‘Poor child’ [she says] ‘how sorry I am for you! Oh, if the atmosphere
of Easter joy which is bright round me were only your’s too,
... Such an “only this,”—it would be better to be in the blackest
night with the hope of stumbling into broad daylight some time or
other. It is the sort of hopelessness of any more light to come that
makes the poem so sad to me.’
.bn 267.png
.pn +1
I don’t agree. I think the ‘only this’ is just everything,—enough
to live on and die on, though not enough (what is?) to prevent life
being very hard and stony. It seems to me just the essence of the—
.pm start_poem
‘... strenuous souls for belief and prayer—
Who stand in the dark on the lowest stair
Affirming of God,—He is certainly there.’
.pm end_poem
And did even Christ keep that much always?—
I believe Miss Cobbe is right,—in every Calvary there must be
‘darkness over the face of all the land’ for awhile.
Well, indeed, if we can always keep a firm grip of—
.pm start_poem
‘Only this, that He knoweth the way that I tread,
And His banner of crimson is over my head.’
.pm end_poem
And again,—
.pm start_poem
‘This only for solace,—God knoweth indeed
Where the poverty galls,—of what things we have
.pm end_poem
At 1.30 came Mrs. Evans with her clear good eyes and face. Much
disposed at least to Botany. How I hope she will!”
.pm end_quote
.fn 53
“Walking in Darkness.”
.fn-
Meanwhile S. J.-B. was undoubtedly the woman of the
moment, and she had the satisfaction—by no means an
unbroken one as life went on—of feeling herself a thoroughly
popular person. She lunched with this dignitary and dined
with that; some of the wives of the Professors offered to
accompany her to the lectures if no other women came forward
to join her; and some students whom she met at dinner told
her they thought the students would be delighted that she
should join the class.
Apparently this sanguine view was a mistaken one, for an
agitation was raised among some of the men—at whose
instigation we have no means of knowing—which resulted
in another appeal to the University Court against the decision
of the Senatus.
Very characteristically, but with Professor Masson’s
approval, S. J.-B. had called on Professor Muirhead to ask
him the grounds of his appeal. He told her he had appealed
because he did not think the question had been fully considered,
and he thought the vote of the Senatus had settled
the question too finally for all women. He pointed out that,
as things stood, she must matriculate even to go to the lectures,
.bn 268.png
.pn +1
but held out hopes that the University Court could give
tentative permission. He was “not at all unfriendly,” and
showed her cases of mediaeval women doctors to add to the
strength of her armoury.
Meanwhile Lord Advocate Moncrieff had proved “kindly
and favourable,” and the Lord Provost, “very lordly in his
big chair, but rather gracious” had promised to give the
question “his best consideration.” Sir Alexander Grant
thought the thing was won with the Professors, and had
“hardly a doubt” of the University Court.
.tb
When, on March 31st of that eventful year, S. J.-B. returned
to Brighton, she fully believed that her cause was so far
gained, and there is not the smallest doubt that a number
of the professors shared her belief. One cannot read the
diary and the letters of the periods without feeling how much
cause there was for confident anticipation; but we have
only to turn to dry-as-dust facts, to the constitution of Edinburgh
University, in order to realize how precarious the
situation was.
There were no less than four bodies whose business it was
to consider the question at stake, and who—in addition to
the Chancellor—had to be consulted before any important
change could be made:
.pm start_quote
1. The Medical Faculty, consisting of Medical Professors
only.
This hurdle, as the reader is aware, had been
somewhat unexpectedly passed.
2. The Senatus, comprising all the Professors of every
Faculty.
This obstacle, too had been passed.
3. The University Court, composed of the Rector, the
Principal, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh,—with
five others appointed respectively by the Chancellor,
the Rector, the Senatus, the Town Council
of Edinburgh, and the General Council of the
University.
4. The General Council, comprising all those graduates
who register their names as members.
.pm end_quote
.bn 269.png
.pn +1
Mr. Sidgwick’s remarks about Convocation naturally occur
to one at this stage; but what mainly strikes one on facing
these particulars is the extraordinary constitution of No. 3
as a body authorized to reconsider the decisions of No. 2.
The Rector was some distinguished man who might never
have been in Edinburgh in his life; the Lord Provost may
be fairly supposed to have his hands pretty full without
taking upon him the consideration of highly technical questions
that lay outside his sphere. As for some of the other members,—one
can only say that the manner of their election calls up
possibilities concerning them too varied for the human mind
to grasp.
No doubt there were occasions on which this “lay control”
had its advantages; but, when one considers how much must
depend on the point of view from which the case was laid
before the Court, one cannot but feel that it lay in the power
of so singularly-constituted a body to defeat the very end
for which it was created.
From S. J.-B.’s point of view then, as we have seen, two
hurdles had been successfully passed; but the dangers of the
third may be estimated from the fact—the importance of
which she as an outsider could not possibly gauge—that
her avowed and implacable opponent, “our Nestor,” Dr.
Robert Christison, was the only Professor and the only
medical man who had a seat on the University Court. He
had in fact the unique distinction of belonging to every body
by which the interests of the women had to be decided, viz.
the Medical Faculty, the Senatus, the University Court, the
University Council, and the Infirmary Board.
Add to all this that he was a respected and representative
citizen, one who made a strong appeal to the religious and
church-going public. “No man,” said Professor Masson
about this time, “walks the streets of Edinburgh whom I
more respect; ... but this is not the first time, and I suppose
it will not be the last, when grave and wise men will be found
defending a dying tyranny.”
Professor Masson’s feeling for the great man was destined
to be sorely tried.
It will surprise no one, then, to learn that on April 19th,
.bn 270.png
.pn +1
the following resolution was passed at a meeting of the University
Court held, as was the custom, in strict privacy:
.pm start_quote
“That the Court, considering the difficulties at present standing
in the way of carrying out the resolution of the Senatus, as a temporary
arrangement in the interest of one lady, and not being prepared
to adjudicate finally on the question whether women should
be educated in the medical classes of the University, sustains the
appeals and recalls the resolution of the Senatus.”
.pm end_quote
“As a temporary arrangement in the interests of one lady.”
Supposing that the decision of the University Court was
really to be taken at its face value, so to speak, it was one
of which nobody could fairly complain. Was it not simply
another way of saying,—“If this counsel or this work be of
men it will come to nought”? For, although it be true
that “God and one man make a majority,” the fighter who
has God on his side does not indefinitely remain alone, even
so far as his fellow men are concerned.
The mere fact of the adverse decision is recorded in the
diary almost without comment. One is glad to think that
when S. J.-B. received the news she was among her friends in
the south, and no longer so dependent on the lonely solace
of an unwritten page. On April 26th she wrote to Dr. Sewall:
.pm start_quote
“You will have seen my bad news in the papers I sent you on
Saturday,—I can no longer urge you to come and settle in Edinburgh,
for all my plans there have been overturned again. The University
Court has actually vetoed the permission given by the Medical
Faculty and confirmed by the whole Senatus (or conjoined faculties).
This is very unusual and seems very hard.
I expect to go to Scotland in a week or two still, to see whether
nothing can be done about it. If I had any legal standpoint I would
take the matter into the Courts.[54] If I can’t get in at Edinburgh, then I
shall try Glasgow, etc., but I should very much prefer Edinburgh....
You see it is very well that I asked you not to talk about Edinburgh
to other folks. When I really succeed, you may ‘boast’ as
much as you please! I am sure that anything I ever do in Medicine
will be all yours.
so glad that you are prospering so well, and getting patients
sent you by the men. Thank you for all the papers you send me,—when
you send whole papers, do mark the paragraph....
.bn 271.png
.pn +1
I am glad you like my Essay. It will be a good deal better when
it is rewritten, for I have a good deal of new evidence to bring in.
It may be out in July, or it may wait till October.
I have had terrible wear and tear to go through the last two months.
Edinburgh was very very tiring work,—to repeat endless arguments
to an endless succession of people took so very much out of one,—and
then too there was really a great deal to do, and tho’ I took cabs
recklessly I could not but get very tired....
I am sure you are right about women being fitter to understand
women. I will put in some more about that. Do you know whenever
it comes home to me personally I am more and more amazed
how women can go to men for uterine treatment. I think that,
sooner than go to any, I would come across the Atlantic again to
you. I wish you would let me know how often doctors have sent
you their own relations. I wish Dr. Cabot or some leading doctor
would publish a pamphlet or something expressing his strong belief
in the ‘need of women doctors for young girls.’ This is the point
that hits the public hardest, I think. If he could write me a short
note that I could quote in my Essay, with or without his name,
I would do so....
There is such a nice girl here,—Ursula Du Pre (a sort of connection
of Mrs. Jenkinson’s) who would like very much to study
medicine, but her Mother objects strongly and she is too ill to be
worried, she thinks.
It is a thousand pities, for she would make a splendid doctor;[55]
and, being extremely ‘well-born,’ it would have an excellent effect
for her to study. She is very anxious to see you,—she has fallen
in love with your picture. I tell everybody that neither that nor
anything else can tell them how good and sweet you are, my dear
child.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your very aff.
S. L. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 54
This suggestion had been made to her by one of the legal professors.
.fn-
.fn 55
“Tell me everything that happens,” writes Miss Du Pre about this
time, “so that I may not lose the thread of your history. I think I know
most of the people’s names now, and should not require much explanation.
You need not tell me in every letter that Sir A. Grant is the Principal.
I’ll try to remember that fact.”
.fn-
Meanwhile she was not left without sympathy from those
whose sympathy was a distinction in itself. On April 5th
Professor Masson had written:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
Here is the latest news. The case was to come up today
before the University Court—with these two new elements,—of
which I heard only on Saturday: viz. (i) That Professor Turner has
.bn 272.png
.pn +1
appealed independently to the Court, and (2) That there is a
petition against you to the Court by a large number of students—not
gainsaying the propriety of women studying or practising
Medicine, but laying stress on the difficulty and the injury to male
students, should a lady student be admitted to open lectures on
certain medical subjects, so that a Professor should be forced to
abstain from exhaustive treatment of those subjects.
It was known at a Senatus meeting on Saturday, that the appeal,
with these new conditions, might come before the University Court
today; and, in view of this, Professor Balfour and myself were
deputed to appear before the Court and defend the vote of the
Senatus,—representing the reasons of the majority of the Senatus
for the vote and replying to any new objections.
We were at our post for the purpose today; but the University
Court—whether from an excess of business, or because of a desire
for delay in this particular question,—postponed the consideration
of your case till the 19th of this month. So nothing was done today.
On the whole I am of opinion that delay will do no harm. Prof.
Muirhead appeals (as far as I can understand him) not as an enemy,
but in order that there may be farther discussion. Professor Turner’s
appeal is grounded, I believe, on his own difficulty as regards Anatomy.
And then there will be time for outside influences, and the considerations
they may induce....
Had I known in time that I should be deputed to defend the case,
I would have written to you to request suggestions. As it is, there
is plenty of time now, and what occurs to me immediately is that
any facts showing the prevalence of right opinion in British Society
(both Whig and Tory) might be converted into argument. Please
write to me anything that you can collect on this head, i.e. facts
and names to prove that the tendency to open the profession to
women is approved by eminent and representative personages, of
different political opinions, throughout the country.
I will write again. Meanwhile, with doubled zeal for all that
has happened, I am,
.ll 68
.nf r
resolutely Yours,
David Masson.
.nf-
.ll
P.S. Prof. Balfour received this morning a letter from the Medical
Dean at Zurich of very satisfactory tenor.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“3, Rosebery Crescent,
April 20th, 1869.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I regret to have to tell you that it went against you at the
University Court yesterday. After the three appellants (Profs.
Muirhead, Turner and Laycock) had been heard on the one side,
and Prof. Balfour and I on the other, we left the Court to their
.bn 273.png
.pn +1
private deliberations. These were long, and resulted, I understand,
in an agreement to something like this effect—that considering the
extreme inconvenience that would attend any present arrangement
for the end in view, especially when that is demanded for only one
lady, the Court, without pronouncing on the general question whether
ladies ought to be educated in the medical classes at the University,
do not consider it expedient, etc. I tried to get the exact terms of
the resolution, but, not having seen the Secretary, report the substance
as it was told me by Principal Sir A. Grant, and Mr. Nicolson.
The Scotsman of tomorrow will probably have the communicated
report: if so, I will send it to you.
Only five of the Court were present,—the Principal, Mr. Gordon,
Dr. Christison, Mr. Phin and Mr. Nicolson. I believe the petition
of the 180 students against you was really the determining argument,—the
Court foreseeing the chance of a disturbance, and not being
prepared to run the risk. Except two, I rather gathered that those
present favoured the notion of the medical education of women, if
circumstances would permit, and, on the whole, what has occurred
to me, since I learnt the decision, is, that, if a new attempt were to
be made, on the University of Edinburgh (and I hope there will),
and if it were to come in the form of a joint and simultaneous application
from a few ladies (say from half a dozen to a dozen), then our
authorities would be obliged to yield and to betake themselves to
the consideration of the means whereby such a class could be best
conducted—how far along with the men, how far apart.
Much chagrined at the result, but with the firm conviction that
your application and visit have done great good, and led to an
advance in the right direction beyond what could have been anticipated.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am,
dear Miss Jex-Blake,
Yours very truly,
David Masson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Aberdour, Fife, April 20th.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
Your letter has followed me to this place, which must be my
apology for not replying to it at once. I was indeed annoyed at
the reversal of our judgment in your case at the University Court,—the
more so considering how the Court,—at all times a most absurd
body to review the decisions of the Senate—was constituted on that
particular occasion. I have not a copy of the Universities Act
with me, and I cannot therefore express any opinion as to whether
this decision falls under the category of those which are reversible
by the Queen in Council. If it does belong to this category I should
.bn 274.png
.pn +1
say that your best course was at once to carry it there, and I should
say, with the majority you had both in the Medical Faculty and in
the Senatus, that the reversal of the decision of so very insignificant
and prejudged a body as the Court was which judged of your case
was pretty nearly certain. If this cannot be done—which Masson
or Playfair or Sir A. Grant will at once tell you,—then I suspect
the best thing is to bring the case before the next meeting of the
University Council. It has no power to decide, but it may recommend
to the University Court, and that will bring the matter up
again, and the constitution of the Court can be better looked after
than it appears to have been this time. It may be also—though
here again I am speaking without the Act, that such a recommendation
could be carried beyond the Court to the Queen in Council.
Any claim to admission on a legal construction of the Charter would
involve you in a law-suit which would not be decided for years and
would cost x=£s.!! Against that course I have no hesitation in advising
you, as a question of personal interest and comfort, though of the
legal merits of the question I can say nothing. I certainly, in your
case, however, would lose no time in seeing the Lord Advocate.
Substantially, I think he will be with you, and his advice in all such
matters is of great value, and will, I feel sure, be willingly given.
Mrs. Lorimer joins me in very kind regards, and in sympathy
for the annoyance which you are subjected to, and I am,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very faithfully,
J. Lorimer.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
In a later letter Professor Lorimer says:
.pm start_quote
“There is one point on which I find I am with you against many
of my colleagues—even those who are guided by reason and not
by tradition, viz. as to whether Medicine ought to be taught to ladies
separately, or in the open classes along with the male students.
As regards the question of delicacy, I am clearly and strongly of
opinion that in holding the latter view your female instincts have
guided you right. The root of indelicacy is immodesty, and the
root of immodesty is immorality, and the arrangement that would
in my opinion be immodest, and might be immoral, would be that
such subjects should be taught by one man to one woman. The
farther you recede from that arrangement, the more you separate
yourself from the circumstances in which according to a well-known
legal brocard, ‘charity ceases.’
The opposite pole as it seems to me, is the teaching of science
publicly in an open class, irrespective of the sex, age, or other
peculiarities of the audience; and mindful only of truth.
I am aware, however, that there are other considerations which
influence Sir Alexander Grant, and other members of Senatus who
.bn 275.png
.pn +1
would probably agree with me on this point. If young men and
women were thrown together daily, they say, imprudent marriages
and the like would come of it. Even here, however, I think the
balance of evil is on the existing arrangement, and not on that
which you propose to substitute for it. I have not seen Mr. Mill’s
‘Subjection of Women’ and I don’t go in much for that sort of
thing, but I cannot see why greater harm should come of men and
women meeting at their occupations than at their amusements;
and I think imprudent marriages are just as likely to come of croquet
parties and riding-lessons as of medical lectures.
As in later life one is sometimes apt to be deceived as to one’s
earlier feelings, I asked a young bachelor whom most Edinburgh
Mamas would not consider ‘an imprudent marriage’ what his feelings
were on the subject; and his reply was ‘Anything rather than
those dreary balls and idiotic evening parties which at present
afford the only occasions on which men who go in for work in the
early part of the day can make the acquaintance of persons of the
other sex.’
It can scarcely be doubted that by working together men and
women would learn to know each other better, and that many
mistakes that are now committed, would be avoided.
With kind regards from Mrs. Lorimer, believe me.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
J. Lorimer.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
No one who has grasped something of S. J.-B.’s character
will imagine that she was likely to mistake a check for a
checkmate, though she sometimes made the converse mistake.
She seems to have had some little correspondence with Professor
(afterwards Sir Lyon) Playfair, for the following letter
is among her papers:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Athenæum Club,
London, 10th May, 1869.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Blake,
.ti 0
I was much obliged by the list of women graduates and
grieved at the result of your case in Edinburgh.
There is no power of appeal against the decision of the University
Court. You had overcome the prejudices of the profession, but
not those of the students. With their strong opposition the University
Court could not possibly decide otherwise, for Scottish
Universities, without endowments, cannot go in face of the Constituency
by which they are supported. It would not do to ruin
classes by the admission of one pupil against the opinion of all the
others. Though I regret the result, I am not surprised at it. In
.bn 276.png
.pn +1
the face of this prejudice, the only hope that I see is for intending
female graduates presenting themselves in sufficient numbers to
induce the Universities to give them a separate education though
a common graduation.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
Lyon Playfair.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
“What I thought and think,” wrote Sir Alexander Grant,
“is that if a sufficient number of ladies could be found to
constitute a small extra-academical class in medical subjects,
the University of Edinburgh would be willing to make arrangements
for the teaching of such a class, and to examining the
lady pupils with a view to awarding them medical degrees.”
In her diary S. J.-B. writes,
.pm start_quote
“Tuesday, May 11th.... Wrote today to ask to see Goschen,—see
if anything can be made of appeal.”
“Friday. Saw Goschen, who will have the Act ‘looked up’
about appeals. Lord Advocate also to ‘write.’ Slept at Hampstead
Heath.”
“Saturday. Croquet. Came to Brighton by noon train.”
.pm end_quote
She used to recall many years later how on these much-prized
visits to the Corderys, some of the young folks got
up at 6 o’clock in the morning to have another game of
croquet before the work of the day began.
.pm start_quote
“Wednesday. Met U. at Waterloo Bridge. It did me good to
see her. Had just heard ‘No appeal’ from Moncrieff, and no
support except for private classes from Grant.”
.pm end_quote
Here then she was obliged to stop and take breath. Failure?
Surely not. I think no one can view the subject all round,
as we have done in the foregoing chapters,—realizing something
of the forces that were arrayed against her—without
a feeling of amazement that she should have accomplished
so much. Whatever the mistakes and failures of her subsequent
life, that first campaign must surely be pronounced
an astonishing success.
.bn 277.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.5
CHAPTER V | OPENING OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY TO WOMEN
.sp 4
The results of the campaign, duly chronicled in the Scotsman,
filtered through into other papers, and a certain amount of
public interest was the result. Before many days had passed
the following letter came to nerve a possibly flagging arm:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“8 Bedford Square, W.C.
May 15th. 69.
.nf-
.ll
Madam,
.ti 6
I venture to write to you as I see that the decision of the
University Court at Edinboro is based on the fact that they do
not feel justified in making ‘a temporary arrangement in the interest
of one lady.’ I also gather from the article in the Scotsman on the
subject of your application that you are desirous that in some cases
private instruction should be taken instead of compulsory attendance
at the public classes.
As these are your views, I should be glad, if you renew your
application, to join you in doing so, and I believe I know two or
three other ladies who would be willing to do the same....
Trusting you will pardon my troubling you on account of the
great interest I feel in promoting the entrance of women into the
medical profession, believe me, Madam,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
Isabel Thorne.
.nf-
.ll
Miss Jex-Blake.”
.pm end_quote
A few days later came an equally interesting letter from
Mrs. Butler:
.pm start_quote
“Your Essay is in Macmillan’s hands. You will receive a proof
soon. I have asked him also to let me see one, and to let you have
a duplicate to send to America.
I read it once again before sending it away. It is well worth
while to have included in it so much research. It gives one strongly
.bn 278.png
.pn +1
the impression while reading it, how much the present male monopoly
of the profession is an innovation; also how at all times women
seem to have striven to assert their right to a share in the healing
art. I cannot help hoping the publication of your Essay may be
the beginning of a new social era in those matters. God grant that
it may!
It is indeed most trying to be kept back so long by the difficulty
of getting leave to do good and to toil. O England, what a wicked
amount of conservatism of selfish customs have you to answer for!
I daresay to yourself your life must appear sometimes to be being
wasted—but it is not so. In every good cause there must be martyrs
and pioneers, who, with gifts for more, have had the hard task of
opening the way for others to work. I saw a Miss Pechey at Leeds,
who wishes to become a doctor, and Miss Wolstenholme told me
of a lady she knows who is studying.
I don’t think the story about the Greek lady at all indelicate. I
hope no one else will think so. Is it not strange how people cry
out at the indelicacy of speaking of a thing which it is far more
indelicate should exist, and yet to its existence they have no objection.
.pm end_quote
In a later letter she says:
.pm start_quote
“... Have you seen Miss Pechey? She did not seem to me very
clever, but very steady and nice,—a silent, quiet woman.”
.pm end_quote
One knows the fine reserve under which Edith Pechey’s
great gifts lay hidden. “I only wish,” wrote a friend who
knew her well, “that there were 12 more like her ready to
begin.”
This is what Miss Pechey had to say for herself:
.pm start_quote
“Before deciding finally to enter the medical profession, I should
like to feel sure of success—not on my own account, but I feel that
failure now would do harm to the cause, and that it is well that at
least the first few women who offer themselves as candidates should
stand above the average of men in their examinations.
Do you think anything more is requisite to ensure success than
moderate abilities and a good share of perseverance? I believe
I may lay claim to these, together with a real love of the subjects
of study, but as regards any thorough knowledge of those
subjects at present, I fear I am deficient in most. I am afraid I
should not without a good deal of previous study be able to pass
the preliminary exam, you mention, as my knowledge of Latin is
small and of Euclid still less. Still, if no very extensive knowledge
of these is required (and doctors generally seem to know very little
of them) I could perhaps be ready by the next exam., and the study
.bn 279.png
.pn +1
of Carpenter at the same time would be a relaxation. Could you
give me any idea when the next matriculation exam. will be held,
and whether candidates are examined in all the books of Euclid.
If I thought I could prepare myself in time for this, I think I could
arrange pecuniary and other matters so as to enter in October as
you advise; and, though for some reasons I should prefer to wait
another year, yet, as I am nearly 24, it will perhaps be better to lose
no time.
Allow me to thank you for your kindness in assisting me with
your advice. I feel especially grateful as I have no friend able to
supply the information I need.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me, dear Madam,
Yours sincerely,
Edith Pechey.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
We know how warmly S. J.-B. felt that the thanks were
not all on the side of her unknown correspondents, and she
would have felt this even more if she had known the sheer
value as human beings of her first two recruits. Taking
the trio together, one simply could not have wished for abler
representatives of a struggling cause.
.tb
Meanwhile a new avenue of hope had opened quite unexpectedly;
Mrs. Jex-Blake had been seriously ill, and her
daughter had taken her to consult Dr. King Chambers.
.pm start_quote
“I liked Dr. Chambers very much,” she writes to Dr. Sewall.
“I first had a talk with him alone, and told him I was
Medicine, about which he was very kind. He seemed to think
that if women were willing to pay for separate Anatomical teaching,
they could get into almost any of the London schools, and promised
to enquire about his own school,—St. Mary’s. I doubt whether
the way is quite so open as he thinks, but I shall be very glad to
hear his report, and meanwhile shall go on to Edinbro’ and see what
can be done there by way of a separate class. It would be a much
greater thing in the end to get the Universities open, for of course
the other medical schools feed Apothecaries’ Hall and the College
of Surgeons, and do not give the M.D.
I think it very possible that by guaranteeing some sufficient fees
for two or three courses (whatever the number of pupils) we could
get the thing tried, and, when once publicly done, I am sure numbers
would flock in. I had rather borrow and spend some money
it than be bothered any more. But of that I can tell you more
next week.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 280.png
.pn +1
In her diary she writes (June 19th):
.pm start_quote
“After opposite advice from Mrs. Butler (for St. Mary’s), and
Salzmann (Edinbro’) and much deliberation, decided for ‘baith, my
lord.’ The petition to go today to Dr. Chambers (signed by Miss
Pechey and Mrs. Thorne),—mine to Senatus on 25th. and to University
Court July
.pm end_quote
Dr. King Chambers spared himself no trouble in the matter.
.pm start_quote
“I have got over the chief difficulty,” he writes, “viz., that of
engaging the Anatomy lecturer, Mr. Arthur Norton, to undertake
a class of ladies. There is also a room they could have for dissecting,
and arrangements may be made with the porter’s wife to take care
of their cloaks and attend to their comforts. The other lecturers
shall be approached in due course, but I think Mr. Norton is the
chief one to be considered. What number of ladies can you get
to form a class?”
.pm end_quote
A fortnight later, however, he is obliged to write:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Madam,
.ti 6
I fear you will be disappointed with the result of my application
to the School Committee of St. Mary’s. It was a full meeting
which had been already called on another subject; so I took the
opportunity of getting as many of my colleagues as possible to
freely state their opinions. And the result is my agreeing with the
idea you expressed in your note, that the most insuperable of your
difficulties lay in the direction of the students—to which I may
add their parents and guardians; of whom, as customers, private
firms in the position of the medical schools of London, must stand
in awe. Such a sort of partnership is essentially opposed to change,
as, if even a minority object to a novelty, their colleagues shrink
from forcing it upon them.
It seems hard that British women should be sent abroad to get
that of which there is such abundance at home, but circumstances
seem to render this inevitable.
Repeating my regrets that I should have deluded you with false
hopes, I am
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours faithfully,
T. K. Chambers.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
It is pleasant to note that, if S. J.-B. failed to get from
Dr. Chambers the thing she wanted at the moment, she had
at least found in him a lifelong friend and helper.
It was well that she had decided for “baith, my lord.”
She now once more approached the University Court in the
.bn 281.png
.pn +1
person of its President, the Rector, asking whether they would
remove their present veto in case arrangements could be
made for the instruction of women in separate classes; and
whether in that case women would be allowed to matriculate
in the usual way, and to undergo the ordinary examination,
with a view to obtaining medical degrees in due course.
She also wrote to the Senatus, asking them to recommend
the matriculation of women as medical students on the understanding
that separate classes should be formed: and she
addressed a letter to the Dean of the Medical Faculty offering
on behalf of her fellow-students and herself to guarantee
whatever minimum fee the Faculty might fix as a remuneration
for these separate classes.
.pm start_quote
“I appreciate your truly kind and thoughtful plans with regard
to the pecuniary arrangements,” writes Miss Pechey in this connection.
“I shall be sorry if my means will not allow me to take a
full share of the expenses, but I am afraid I shall not be able to
afford more than double the usual fees for a man.”
.pm end_quote
S. J.-B. had returned to Edinburgh in order to further
arrangements, and to meet any difficulties that might arise.
The first thing to be done was to secure teachers, and, now
that it came to the point, some even of those who had been
most favourable showed a singular reluctance to take the
plunge. Their enthusiasm had had time to cool.
.pm start_quote
“June 26th ... Today went to see A. Most disappointingly
timorous,—‘could not give the extra time himself,’ though he did
not refuse to see the importance and responsibility of the case.
I hope he will vote for me still.
B. very disappointing,—very avaricious,—trying for the 100
guineas.
Balfour, out.
I very disheartened and weary....
I do fear failure now,—indeed it seems to me probable, in Medical
Faculty.
And then all the time and effort wasted since March 1st! A
year’s steady work would have been less strain!...
If one had but faith! Ought one not to say, ‘I fight and work
my best,—God will bring out the best result,—let me not prejudge
what is
And so be content either way.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 282.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
“June 30th. Christison has had to go to London,—wrathfully
enough they say,—hurrah! I hear that he asked to have the day
changed, and that Balfour refused,—the brick!
Of course this adds to my chances.
Also I had a long crack with Turner this morning. He did not
speak against it as in his own person,—only evidently thought how
awful it would be if ‘odium were thrown’ on two professors for
refusing perhaps what others had granted. I suggested that it might
perhaps be more awful to refuse all women for the sake of that.
9 p.m. The 40 lines of Virgil written out [in preparation for
the matriculation examination that as yet was a more than doubtful
prospect], eyes and head weary. (Oh, dear, ‘it is not good for man
to be alone.’)
By this time tomorrow Medical Faculty at least decided.
Thrown back utterly again? Today for the first time since
Friday I hope a little. (Something of the Caliban in me says,—
to say so!’)”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“July 1st. Yesterday O. H.’s ‘Two Poor Courts’ interested
me much.
7 p.m. Won after all!—and I do think this must be at last ‘the
beginning of the end.’ For me 4 out of 6:—Balfour, Bennett,
Spence, M‘Lagan. Turner would not vote dead against it, as
Laycock wished, so those two did not vote, but Laycock ‘protested’....
Allman absurdly wroth (to Masson) about canvassing and unjustifiable,
etc., etc., seeming to mean that my poor little calls on people
had interfered with their judicial wisdom.
Just seen a letter from A. G. J.—I must hear that organ at Lucerne
(with its storm, etc.) before I die.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Friday, July 2nd.... 6 p.m. Hurrah!—The Senate granted my
request without limitation and without division, though M‘Pherson
tried to get up a motion for delay,—no one (not even Turner!)
would second him. Turner wished to have it recorded that he
‘did not vote,’ but as no vote had to be taken this could not be,
so he reluctantly had it recorded that he ‘dissented,’ which I
regret, for I am sure that it is more than he wished.
Present,—14. Grant, M‘Pherson, Lorimer, Masson, Wilson, Tait,
Kelland, Craufurd, Liston, Stevenson, Balfour, Bennett, Spence,
Turner.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Monday. The day! Even now (4.30 p.m.) a University of
Britain may be literally open to women,—if so, won’t that have
been worth doing?
When I say to Alice, ‘The University Court may still stop it all,’—‘They’d
better not!’ quo’ she ferociously.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 283.png
.pn +1
What actually happened at the University Court this time
is best related in a letter to Dr. Lucy Sewall:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Maitland Street, Edinburgh.
July 6th, 69.
.nf-
.ll
My darling,
.ti 6
You may address to me here for a fortnight after you get
this, for I expect now to be here till about August 15th.
The Medical Faculty and the Senatus have both voted in favour
of special classes in the University for Women, and the University
Court at their meeting yesterday passed a vote in favour of the
measure. It seems however that there are some legal difficulties
about the old Charter, etc., and that the matter will require the
sanction of the Privy Council, which will cause delay, but I think
no real difficulty,—for the Queen is known to be favourable to women
doctors; and the present government is specially liberal. Indeed
it has this real advantage that it will make the whole thing very
public and very safe and permanent,—so that it will be almost
impossible ever again to exclude women.
So now I am looking forward to years of steady work here, and
am so very glad to be able to do so!
I am working at my Latin, etc., for the Matric. examination. It
would astonish the women studying in Boston to see the examination
that we have to pass here before we can even begin Medicine,—and
it is a capital thing, because it will keep out ignorant and silly
women to a great degree.... Oh, dear child, it is so nice to look
forward to having you here next summer to see and know all about
it. You will so enjoy Edinburgh. I have been thinking about
taking rooms or a house lately, and I keep saying to myself, ‘You
must have a room full of sun for my doctor!’ It is so good to look
forward to seeing you....
Have you seen Mill’s Subjection of Women? Your Father
would delight in it. I mean to send him a copy as a remembrance.
I am very glad to see that the British Medical Journal encourages
the opening of classes for women. I shall send you the number.
I am only anxious now to have a good big class of women and of
a creditable kind.... How I wish that you would come and settle
here! You could establish a Dispensary at once, and have all us
students at your orders. We shall want sadly some teaching of
that sort.... This climate would be so much better for you, and
I should feel so much happier about you if you were here. I know
if you are in Boston, I shall worry about you all winter....
Well, Goodbye, my dear child! Whether you come or stay, all
good be with you!
.ll 68
.nf r
Your very aff.
S. L. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 284.png
.pn +1
The reader will scarcely be surprised to learn that when
on July 23rd the University Court formally acceded to her
petition, S. J.-B. was almost too tired to feel elated, though
she admits that she would be “grieving bitterly had things
been otherwise.” In addition to her other work, she had
spent a fortnight in the house of a very dear friend, nursing
several serious cases of scarlet fever. Trained nurses for
private houses were almost unknown in those days, and she
did not spare herself. On July 9th she had written to ask
Mrs. Thorne—who was in Aberdeen at the time—to join her
in Edinburgh. “I won’t take the whole responsibility
alone,”—the responsibility of engaging lecturers and guaranteeing
fees,—she confides to her diary. The grasshopper
had become a burden. Even the modest amount of Latin
required for the Matriculation Examination was a great effort
to her, and she knew of old the importance of husbanding her
strength.
.pm start_quote
“Most folk,” she says with great truth and pathos,—“or at
least many, have only their indolence to strive with. If they conquer
that, all serene. I (after that done) have to pause half way,—ware
crash!—and to calculate nicely how much brain force I dare
bring to bear or use up.
Ah, well,—shall my strength be as my day,—or isn’t it fair to
apply that to self-imposed work?”
.pm end_quote
“Self-imposed?” There is a big question involved here.
No doubt the readers of this book will answer it in different
ways.
.tb
In any case she had achieved her task. Notwithstanding
a direct negative, moved by the Revd. Dr. Phin, the resolution
of the Court was approved by the General
Council on October 29th, 1869, and was sanctioned by the
Chancellor on November The following regulations,
drawn up by the Court, were officially issued at the same
date, and inserted in the Calendar of the University:
.pm start_quote
“(1.) Women shall be admitted to the study of medicine in the
University; (2.) The instruction of women for the profession of
medicine shall be conducted in separate classes, confined entirely
to women; (3.) The Professors of the Faculty of Medicine shall,
.bn 285.png
.pn +1
for this purpose, be permitted to have separate classes for women;
(4.) Women, not intending to study medicine professionally, may
be admitted to such of these classes, or to such part of the course
of instruction given in such classes, as the University Court may
from time to time think fit and approve; (5.) The fee for the full
course of instruction in such classes shall be four guineas; but in
the event of the number of students proposing to attend any such
class being too small to provide a reasonable remuneration at that
rate, it shall be in the power of the Professor to make arrangements
for a higher fee, subject to the usual sanction of the University Court.
(6.) All women attending such classes shall be subject to all the
regulations now or at any future time in force in the University as
to the matriculation of students, their attendance on classes, Examination
or otherwise; (7.) The above regulations shall take effect as
from the commencement of session 1869-70.”
.pm end_quote
This is how the “first British University”—the University
of Edinburgh—was thrown open to women.
.bn 286.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.6
CHAPTER VI | THE HOPE SCHOLARSHIP
.sp 2
The month of August brought some rest and refreshment,
though S. J.-B. remained in Edinburgh to “coach” for the
Matriculation Examination. Mrs. Burn Murdoch put her
spacious and comfortable house for a little time at the solitary
student’s disposal, and, to S. J.-B.’s great joy, Miss Du Pre
came to visit her.
There were delightful excursions up the Forth, through the
Trossachs, and even farther afield, and S. J.-B. spent what
is now known as a week-end, at his country-place, with Mr.
Findlay of the Scotsman, and his wife. One realizes by many
little indications how her views on the whole question of
women were becoming explicit. In the course of her visit,
her host showed her letters he had received from a clever
American woman—a journalist of sorts, apparently—in the
course of which she asked him to “help the little woman,”
“the wee bit thing.” “When will women learn,” says
S. J.-B., “if they claim to stand on common ground at all,
to ‘stand upright,’ to ask only ‘fair field and no favour’!”
On October 10th she moved into No. 15 Buccleuch Place,
“the house nice, airy, wholesome, roomy,—rent, taxes and
all probably £45,” and, on the following day Miss Pechey
lunched with her. A week later S. J.-B. sums the new comrade
up:
.pm start_quote
“I think her strong, ready-handed, with ‘faculty,’ great ability,
resolution, judgment; great calmness and quiet of manner and
action, and probably strength of feeling; good taste, good manner;
very pleasant face; rather good feet and hands; considerable
.bn 287.png
.pn +1
sense of humour; lots of energy and interest in things,—witness
dissecting the slugs, keeping caterpillars, etc. In fine, as good an
ally and companion as could well be had.”
.pm end_quote
She had occasion to add considerably to this estimate as
life went on, but in no wise to subtract from it.
Meanwhile Mrs. Evans had resolved to throw in her lot
with the little band, and S. J.-B. was coaching her in Arithmetic.
Miss Chaplin (afterwards the wife of Professor Ayrton)
had also joined their ranks, and it was a gallant and creditable
little phalanx that made its way up to the University on
October 19th to undergo the Matriculation Examination.
Of course they all passed, and passed far above the average,
though there was one “narrow squeak” in Arithmetic.
They were all cultivated women, all on their mettle, and
the result was scarcely more than might reasonably have
been anticipated. “We believe,—” as a local paper had
occasion to say, after a similar result some ten months
later,
.pm start_quote
“We believe that these results prove, not that women’s capacities
are better than those of men,—a thing that few people would assert,—but
that these women who are devoting themselves to obtain, in
spite of all difficulties, a thorough knowledge of their profession, are
far more thoroughly in earnest than most of the men are, and that
their ultimate success is certain in proportion. Nor would we omit
the inference that, this being so, those who wantonly throw obstacles
in the way of this gallant little band, incur a proportionately heavy
responsibility, as wanting not only in the spirit of chivalry, but even
in the love of fair play, which we should be sorry to think wanting
in any Briton.”[56]
.pm end_quote
.fn 56
Daily Review, Aug. 5, 1870.
.fn-
It was natural, however, that friends and well-wishers
should be not a little elated. Here is one of many delightful
letters:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Oct. 22, 1869.
.ll
My dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
This is just one word of warmest congratulation from us
both to you and the other ladies. We are rejoicing more than I
can tell you over the results of the examination. I have been a
prisoner today with a severe cold, or I should have been unable to
rest until I had shaken hands with you. Shall you be at home any
.bn 288.png
.pn +1
time tomorrow after one o’clock? If so, I shall like to come and
see you and Miss Pechey.
Do send me a line to tell me if you are as happy as I fancy you.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours faithfully,
E. Rosaline Masson.
.nf-
.ll
Mr. Masson was very much gratified by the papers of the ladies.
They fully justified his highest hopes.”
.pm end_quote
From diary:
.pm start_quote
“Tuesday, Nov. 2nd. ‘The deed—of life—was done!’—This
morning, 11.30 a.m., I, S. L. J.-B., first of all women, matriculated
as ‘Civis Academiae Edinensis!’—Tonight for the first time 5
women are undergraduates!—Hurrah!
.pm start_poem
‘With exactness grinds He all.’”
.pm end_poem
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“I do indeed congratulate you undergraduates with all my heart,”
wrote Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who had now settled in London.
“It seems to me the grandest success that women have yet achieved
in England; it is the great broad principle established that conducts
to every noble progress.
I feel as if I must come up to Edinburgh in the course of the winter,
to see and bless the class! Perhaps towards the close of the term
would be best,—advise me.”
.pm end_quote
So began a winter’s work that for most, if not all, of the
women students, was an experience of extraordinary interest
and happiness. S. J.-B. and Edith Pechey had settled
together in Buccleuch Place, and the house was a rendezvous
for a choice little circle. It would be difficult to say which
of the two proved the greater attraction to their friends. Miss
Pechey was younger, more adaptable, less obviously alarming,
though possibly more critical really, in proportion as she had
seen less of life. The reader is already aware that
S. J.-B., though a most interesting person to live with, was
not by any means always an easy person to live with, particularly
when she was overworked and overstrained. For her
friends as well as herself it was sometimes a question—in
her own significant words—of, “Ware crash!” Moreover,
although she often gave to others the advice,—“Glissez,
mortels: n’appuyez pas!”, she not infrequently failed to
act on it herself: she still, as when a child, staked her happiness
too readily on matters that might better have been
.bn 289.png
.pn +1
regarded as trifles: and this is a characteristic that becomes
a more serious factor in domestic and social life as the years
go on. On the other hand, when she really “let herself go”
in her most intimate circle, there was no one like her. The
diary and the letters give scarcely an indication of the sense
of humour and fun that were so ready to bubble over into
real whole-hearted laughter. The eyes so familiar with sorrow
could still sparkle with merriment like a child’s, and, when
anything struck her as irresistibly preposterous or comical,
she had a way of “tossing them up to the ceiling and catching
them again” that was a joy to behold. Increasingly as life
went on, she was a touchstone on which to test the things
that might be said, the stories that might be told. She could
enjoy a joke that would have shocked many women of her
generation; but, as her Mother had said long before, “anything
impure ran off her mind like quicksilver,” and she was
a past master in the art of calling home a conversation that
was lingering too long in permissible bye-ways.
More than this,—even at the time of which we are writing,
she was one of those with whom people know instinctively
that it is safe to speak, not only of the great things of life,
but of the disgraceful things, or the small disconcerting
things that want to be looked at in an atmosphere of greatness.
She was a Mother Confessor to many. “Now straight
into the fire!” she says in her diary of certain letters she
had received; and the smoke of that sacrifice meant something,
for—born chronicler as she was—it was pain and grief
to her to destroy a letter at any time.
She was particularly happy that winter term. On the
last night of the year she writes in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“11.30 p.m. The long tangle of accounts unravelled at last!—‘after
long travail, good repose!’
In more senses than one.
Nine years since that look from the window,—‘And may the
New Year cherish.’
Since then I suppose no such (visibly) important year in my
life. One very dear friend won,—one strong ally,—Edinburgh
opened!—What if one is a little tired? ‘After long travail good
repose!’
I see that a year ago I thought there were no hopes ‘now bright,’—and
.bn 290.png
.pn +1
‘an hour of joy I knew not was winging its silent flight.’
Indeed the next six months did cut out their own work.
The year has been glorious in many ways.
The chief point of pain....”
.pm end_quote
The chief point of pain was the fear that she was fickle,—that
the new interests and friendships were making her disloyal
to the strange unearthly friendship for Octavia Hill.
Whether this would have been blameworthy is a question
that it is unnecessary to discuss, as the contingency never
arose. The flame may have flickered and sunk low, but it
continued to burn for another forty years. Then “after
long travail good repose.”
And in any case she was very happy that winter term.
Strangely enough,[57] her family were thoroughly sympathetic
with her aims. Discussing the volume of Essays to which
she had contributed, her brother wrote:
.pm start_quote
“Miss Cobbe was very vigorous and suggestive: might have been
longer. So might yours without any risk of the interest flagging;
and more details of fact would (I think) have driven the nail deeper
in the Philistine’s understanding.... I should say that Mrs.
Butler’s and yours will hit the public hardest; most dissimilar as
they are.... On the main question, for you personally, I am very
glad that you are on the medical rails. They are real and solid
and really lead somewhere. There is more specialty about them
than in the somewhat vague educational line. They belong to an
old strong well-paid profession. They tend to the alleviation of
intense human misery; and that for a large class of delicate cases
women when properly trained are the right physicians I have felt
for years and feel increasingly. Stick to them head and hands and
feet. Don’t be drawn aside into tempting but irrelevant bye-ways.
You will be very useful and very happy in your work: and to have
helped to bring about the result that for the years to come girls
shall not be without the pale of professional and University education,—shall
not waste their best years in chafing at want of elbow room at
home—will be a great and additional satisfaction. Nothing succeeds
like success, and what you have got to do is to prove that a Lady
Physician can be trustworthy and a success. Do nothing but your
.bn 291.png
.pn +1
work, and you will do your work well. Of course get hold of the
widest and deepest Professional education within reach.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your aff. brother,
T. W. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 57
“Strangely” when compared with the families of her contemporaries.
“When I told Mamma I had got my certificate,” said a former fellow-student,
“she said ‘Have you?’ When I told Uncle, he said ‘What
good is it?’ When I told Emily, she said, ‘I am very glad to hear it,
but I am very much surprised.’”
.fn-
This last point, on which the writer touches so lightly, was
precisely the rub.
.pm start_quote
“Everything is just as we would have it,” wrote S. J.-B. at this
time to Dr. Sewall, “but that Professors are not compelled to lecture
to us. We have already arranged for two courses for this winter,—5
lectures a week each,—Physiology and Chemistry; and we are
now arranging for Anatomy, both in lectures and dissecting.
As we have to make entirely separate arrangements, the Anatomy
will be very expensive,—about £100 probably for us five,—and of
this I shall pay about one-third, as two of the students are not at
all rich.
Still it is worth any money to get the thing done, and I am only
thankful that I can spend the money. Of course I borrow it from
my Mother.[58] My fees for this year will be about £55 or £60,—about
$400,—for the 6 months.
I have made up my mind to spend if needful £1000 on this business.
I feel sure that one does more good in thus concentrating
one’s energies and one’s funds to get one thing done thoroughly,
than in frittering away lots of small sums in charity,—Don’t you
think so? It is a grand thing to enter the very first British University
ever opened to women, isn’t it?
My darling, you must come and see us this summer, for, as I tell
the other students here, the whole thing is due to you primarily;—when
they say that they feel grateful to me for having worked for
this, I say, ‘Thank Dr. Sewall,—she made me care for Medicine,
and resolve that a thorough education should be open to Englishwomen.’
So I told Dr. Blackwell too when she said something
pretty to me. She is very pleased about Edinburgh.
Well, dear child, I have settled down now for the winter in my
little new house. It amuses me to hear of your expenses in furnishing.
The whole I have spent is under £35,—about $200,—and yet we
are very comfortable!
Miss Pechey is very nice and very clever,—you will like her very
much, and she is excellent company....
Our classes begin on Nov. 3rd. I am very busy till then.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your very aff.
S. L. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 58
Money borrowed from Mrs. Jex-Blake was refunded as strictly as if it
had been borrowed from a banker.
.fn-
.bn 292.png
.pn +1
Busy indeed she was with the great task of finding lecturers.
The University of Edinburgh still stood foursquare, and the
Professors sat in their comfortable chairs, lecturing to enormous
classes of male students. Looking at the question as a sheer
matter of business, one asks what inducement had these men
to lecture to a handful of women students? S. J.-B., Mrs.
Thorne and the others might struggle and pinch to raise the
fees of a dozen or more, but what was that to men of assured
wealth and position?—men who looked upon a Scots professorship
as the topmost rung on the ladder of comfortable
success,—men to whom leisure and peace seemed almost a
matter of right, an essential part of the prize they had drawn
in the lottery of life? Why should they double their work
for the sake of this paltry pittance? It was not to be expected
that they should have a great enthusiasm for the
cause. How could they? They might, it is true, have been
possessed of a high sense of the trust conferred on them by
their position: but is such a sense in any sphere of life the
possession of more than the choicest few?
As regarded the class in Chemistry, everything had gone
with delightful smoothness. On July 10th, S. J.-B. had
written in her diary, “Dr. Crum Brown agrees,—not a word
of demur as to fees,—good fellow,” and a few days later she
had received a letter from Dresden in which he said:
.pm start_quote
“I am convinced that the experiment must be made, and do not
wish to place any unnecessary obstacles in the way. I therefore
cordially agree to your proposal, on the understanding that the
consent of the University Court is obtained, and that the course be
conducted in the Chemical Class-room of the University, and be in
all respects the same as the ordinary course of Chemistry.”
.pm end_quote
So far as the work was concerned, one is glad to think that
his generosity met with its reward. All the teacher in him
must have rejoiced in the mettle of the new students. Miss
Pechey, in particular, simply fell upon Chemistry and
proceeded to make it her own. In the house of which the
furnishing had cost £35, she and S. J.-B. rigged up some kind
of laboratory, and carried on experiments with a keenness
that to the stern advocate of “limited liability” might well
have endangered their success in class examinations.
.bn 293.png
.pn +1
When the winter session came to an end in March, however,
it was found that Miss Pechey stood third in the entire list,
and was really first of the first-year students,—two of the
men having attended the class before. There would have
been nothing calamitous in this state of affairs, had it not
chanced that there were certain small scholarships involved.
A previous Professor of Chemistry in the University—Dr.
Hope—had made the experiment of delivering a course of
lectures to ladies, and had devoted the proceeds—amounting
to about £1000—to the founding of four Hope Scholarships,
which entitled the winners to the free use of the College
Laboratory. What this privilege would have meant to a
born student like Miss Pechey one can easily imagine, but,
as mixed classes were forbidden, there might have been a
difficulty—scarcely insurmountable—about her making full
use of it.
Hitherto, as we have seen, the Professor had treated the
women generously. We know that he bore them no grudge;
and it is absurd to suppose that he had any wish to be unjust
to an engaging, deft-handed girl, with a calm strong face,
and a brain which he must have already seen to be far above
the average in either sex,—a girl, moreover, who was frankly
appreciative of her good fortune in having so able a man as
her teacher.
One can only conjecture the motives and the advice that
must have influenced him in the decision to withhold even
the name of Hope Scholar from this woman, and to give it
to the man who stood beneath her on the list. In explaining
his position, the Professor said that, having studied at a
different hour, she was not a member of the Chemistry Class;
but at the same time he awarded to her the official bronze
medal of the University, to which she could only lay claim
as a member of that class; and, in the published list of
honours, he put her name and those of the other women in
the place to which their marks entitled them.
It was a clumsy though well-meaning compromise, and
only led to greater difficulties farther on. Having said that
the women were not members of the Chemistry Class, how
could he give them certificates of attendance on that class?
.bn 294.png
.pn +1
It was obviously impossible, so he offered them written
certificates of having attended “a ladies’ class in the University,”—certificates
absolutely worthless from the point of
view of professional examination. One is reminded of the
strawberry jam labels which Mark Twain offered to the
conductor of a continental railway when his ticket was worn
out; but, unfortunately, the Registrar of a great University
is not to be appeased with strawberry jam labels.
In truth the Professor had done the cause an incalculable
service. A howl of indignation went up over the whole
country. The Times, the Spectator,—a faithful supporter from
the first,—even the British Medical Journal, were genuinely
roused. The Universities and the Profession had been governed
by a spirit of Conservatism, of Trades-unionism, of which this
was but a mild example; but now at last that spirit had
become explicit: here was the priceless desideratum of the
tangible grievance: and it was just like life—just the irony of
fate—that the man who provoked the outburst, the man who
had to suffer, was not one of the bitter opponents: he was, in
his own way, the friend and helper of the struggling cause.
He had taught the women Chemistry, and he had taught them
well; and that was the main thing, even though a bronze
medal, and a few “strawberry jam labels” were—for five
people in deadly earnest—to be the only outward and visible
signs of six months’ hard work.
The matter was referred to the Senatus, who decided by a
majority of one that Miss Pechey was not entitled to the
Hope Scholarship, and (on the motion of Professor P. G. Tait)
also by a majority of one, that the women should have the
ordinary class certificates. So the women grasped the
substance, if they did lose the shadow.
.pm start_quote
“I agree with you that the one vote stultifies the other,” wrote
Professor Masson, “and I think people are seeing this. At the
time I made up my mind that the first vote must carry the other
unfavourably with it; but it was not for me to keep the Senatus
consistent, and, when Tait announced his view, I grasped at the
unexpected accident and seconded his motion.”
.pm end_quote
But the outcry was not stilled. In those days the general
public knew little of the difference between one certificate and
.bn 295.png
.pn +1
another; but they had some idea of what was meant by the
losing of a scholarship, and Miss Pechey became the recipient
of an amount of condolence that was positively embarrassing
when compared with the extent of the injury inflicted. The
skilled appreciation of the situation, however, was delightful.
This was the tribute of the British Medical Journal:
.pm start_quote
“Whatever may be our views regarding the desirability of ladies
studying medicine, the University of Edinburgh professed to open
its gates to them on equal terms with the other students; and,
unless some better excuse be forthcoming in explanation of the
decision of the Senatus, we cannot help thinking that the University
has done no less an injustice to itself than to one of its most distinguished
students.”[59]
.pm end_quote
One can imagine the effect of criticism such as this on some
of the professors. Here was a tiresome muddle from which
it was difficult to see a dignified exit. What wonder if many
took the cheap and obvious course of exclaiming, “The
woman that Thou gavest me!—she is at the bottom of it
all?” So far as the explanation went, it was perfectly true:
and of course only a few of the pundits saw today with the
eyes of tomorrow; only a few realized that the difficulty
that was worrying them was a part of a world-wide upheaval
involving the whole human race.
Of course there were those who, without taking any extreme
view, were admirably sane and dignified. Instance the
following letter from Professor Fleeming Jenkin:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“April 5th, 1870.
.ll
Dear Madam,
.ti 6
I regret that I shall be unavoidably absent on Saturday next,
or, as far as might have been possible, I should have supported
Miss Pechey’s claims.
I regret my absence the less, however, as it seems to me that the
legal question of a particular reward is of far less consequence than
the fact of the position which you and Miss Pechey have taken in
the class.
Accept my very hearty congratulations and
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Yours truly,
Fleeming Jenkin.
.nf-
.ll
Miss Jex-Blake.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 59
Brit. Med. Journal, April 16th, 1870.
.fn-
.bn 296.png
.pn +1
There was a question of referring the matter to the University
Court, but one is glad to think that wiser counsels
prevailed. Miss Pechey had gone to her home in the country,
and was listening to the nightingales.
.pm start_quote
“Thank you for Masson’s letter,” she writes to S. J.-B. “He
is a grand fellow. Wilson has sent me the minutes of the Senatus
meeting about the scholarship. I suppose I ought to write to him.
I wish you were here to tell me what to do.
You understand that I leave you to do as is thought best about
the scholarship,—only remember that my own judgment—apart
from personal feeling—is against appealing, and that I do not wish
to do so unless our friends are very decisively of opinion that we
ought to.”
.pm end_quote
Well might Miss Pechey say, “He is a grand fellow.”
Professor Masson had taken up the cause of the woman as
wholeheartedly as if it had been a matter of vital import to
himself. At the next meeting of the General Council of the
University, he moved (seconded by Professor Balfour) that,
instead of having separate instruction, women should be
admitted to the ordinary classes of the University. The
original draft of the motion was as follows:
.pm start_quote
“That, as the present arrangements for the medical instruction
of women in the University impose great and unnecessary inconveniences
on the women who are students, and also on Professors,
and may, if continued, even nullify the resolution of the University
admitting women to the study of medicine \[and as it will not be
to the credit of the University that it should pretend to do a thing
and not do it],[60] the General Council recommend to the University
Court that women desiring to study medicine be admitted to the
medical classes as other students are, and on the same terms, except
in cases where the Court may see special reasons why the instruction
should be separate.”
“The motion is longish,” he says, “but I thought it well to have
something which, when printed, would explain itself and attract
attention of members of Council.... I am the more convinced
that we do right in moving the General Council as above, even if
we should lose, because I distinctly perceive a relapse on the part
of those who had merely acquiesced, and a kind of exulting feeling
on the part of others that the experience of the session may be
.bn 297.png
.pn +1
pleaded in proof that the University perpetrated a troublous blunder
when it admitted Eve’s sex at all. This state of feeling will be
but temporary; but it is time that the opposed forces should meet
in full conflict on the mixed-classes question.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 60
The words in brackets were omitted from the resolution, but introduced
in the speech supporting it.
.fn-
“Full conflict,” indeed, it proved. The opponents brought
forward arguments that called forth an indignant interruption
from the Professor of Moral Philosophy (Dr. Calderwood);
and the Times, while disapproving of mixed classes,
stated in a leading article:
.pm start_quote
“We cannot sufficiently express the indignation with which we read
such language, and we must say that it is the strongest argument
against the admission of young ladies to the Edinburgh medical
classes, that they would attend the lectures of Professors capable
of talking in this strain.”[61]
.pm end_quote
The motion was lost by 47 votes to 58.
.pm start_quote
“No speaking on our side could have changed the vote,” wrote
Professor Masson, “those present were all predetermined. Crum
Brown did well, and administered a proper reproof to L. Struthers
was present and voted with us; so did Nicolson (who was quite
in earnest when the time came), and Dr. Craufurd, who avows himself
a convert. On the other hand, Wilson, Bennett, Charteris and
Tait, of our side, were absent, reducing our number somewhat.
People today are consoling me—for I was really downcast—by
saying the result was a success in its kind, and an omen of final
success when the thing comes up again, as it must. All very well;
but how shall I console you? What are you to do this year? The
only thing I disliked in Crum Brown’s speech was his opening statement
that he thought the motion perhaps premature, the time not
having elapsed for the experiment of the other method. Premature!
This in face of his own refusal to continue, and in face of his subsequent
declaration that the existing method is impracticable!
Still he said and did well. What shall I say but that my heart is
sore for your immediate discomfiture? Time—a year or two—will
rectify the thing generally, here and elsewhere; but how you
are to get on with us is the question. Christison, who draws Turner,
Lister, and Sanders (L. is nothing) with him, seems determined to
get rid of you, and trusts to effecting this by mere continuance of
the present arrangement. Whether you can wriggle on with us by
any ingenuity in the hope of beating him is for your consideration.
Would it might be so!
.ll 68
.nf r
Ever yours truly,
David Masson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 61
The Times, April 25th, 1870.
.fn-
.bn 298.png
.pn +1
The view that the result of the motion was a success in
its kind proved to be a general one, and the matter was discussed
at great length by newspapers, lay, medical and
religious.
.pm start_quote
“There is no possible reason,” said the Guardian,[62] “why a very
large proportion of instruction may not be given with perfect propriety
to men and women together; but there are clearly some
parts in a medical course which cannot be so treated, and there
ought to be no difficulty whatever in making arrangements for these.
To provide separate lectures for a few special occasions is a very
different thing, both in the matter of convenience and expense, from
insisting on having two distinct and separate courses throughout in
every department.... Professor Masson’s motion was defeated,
but by a majority so small—eleven in a meeting of a hundred and
five—that its success at some future time seems certain. Let the
ladies only add to the exercise of one quality, with which the world
credits them, that of patience, another, which is supposed to be a
less common attribute of their sex, perseverance, and they will
assuredly gain their point.”
“The female students almost deserve this rebuff,” said the
Spectator,[63] “for making the concessions they have done to English
prudery, concessions not made either in France, Austria, or the
United States. The only safe ground for them to stand on is that
science is of no sex, and cannot be indelicate unless made so of
malice prepense, and that by the very conditions of the profession
the modesty of ignorance must be replaced by the modesty of pure
intent.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 62
April 27th, 1870.
.fn-
.fn 63
April 23rd, 1870.
.fn-
It is not to be supposed that the women students were
fortified by a unanimous chorus of journalistic support: far
from it: some six or seven months later the Spectator strove
to understand “the bitter and, so far as we know, the unprecedented
malignity with which women who aspire to be
Doctors are pursued by the literary class.”
One does not wish to dwell on this. It was simply bound
to be. As Sir James Stansfeld said seven years later in
reviewing the whole movement:
.pm start_quote
“It is one of the lessons of human progress that when the time
for a reform has come you cannot resist it, though, if you make the
attempt, what you may do is to widen its character or precipitate
its advent. Opponents, when the time has come, are not merely
.bn 299.png
.pn +1
dragged at the chariot wheels of progress—they help to turn them.
The strongest force, whichever way it seem to work, does most
to aid.”
.pm end_quote
It is the more pleasing, however, to record the sane and
wholesome view taken from the first by the leading responsible
papers, including Punch.
.pm start_quote
“I am very vexed about the General Council,” wrote Miss Pechey
from her home; “but it’s no use worrying,—at least so the nightingale
tells me. She sang two hours at my bedroom window last
night, and said all sorts of pretty things. I wish I could bring her
to Edinburgh with me, but she wouldn’t like it; besides they are
a very old family, and have lived in the place from the time of the
Britons, so she wouldn’t like to move.
Papa did not write to the Scotsman. I knew he wouldn’t unless
someone told him what to say; and I believe, if the truth were told,
he still has some lurking prejudice against mixed classes. He isn’t
a bit scientific, never notices the butterflies and beetles in a walk
unless I point them out to him, and there are lovely ones now,
peacocks and brimstones and tortoiseshells.”
.pm end_quote
It is clear that just then Miss Pechey was having a very
good time. She was the woman of the moment, a lion abroad
as well as in her country home, and she had the courage and
the sense to enjoy the position quietly and without making
a fuss. Moreover both she and S.J.-B. were human enough
to appreciate the situation all the more because, from the
ordinary point of view, the heroine was a truly pretty girl,
as disarming as heroine well could be.
.bn 300.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.7
CHAPTER VII | PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES
.sp 4
Perseverance—“wriggling on”—was thus the course recommended
to the women by stranger and friend alike.
The Professor of Botany (Dr. Balfour, formerly Dean of
the Faculty of Medicine) who had wished to admit them to
his ordinary class, made arrangements to teach them separately.
Professor Allmann also had declared his willingness
to admit S. J.-B. to his class of Natural History (see p. #234#)
but he did not feel able to follow the generous example of
his colleague in devoting special time and energy to the
purpose. Fortunately the women had a second string to
their bow in the person of Dr. Alleyne Nicholson, lecturer in
the Extra-Mural School,[64] and their application to him called
forth a letter which shows what the difficulties were which
even a kindly and open-minded man had to face.
.fn 64
Appendix #D:appD#.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“April 26th. 1870.
.ll
Dear Miss Blake,
.ti 6
I have not as yet succeeded in obtaining a positive assurance
as to the legality of my admitting you to my ordinary class, though
I no longer entertain any doubt as to my perfect freedom in the
matter, so far as the University is concerned. I have, however,
consulted several of my colleagues, and they are tolerably unanimous
in advising me to submit the question to my class.... They
advise me, namely, not to commence abruptly on Monday without
any warning, but to give my opening lecture separately, to my
ordinary class at one o’clock, and to you at 2 p.m. At the conclusion
of the hour I should explain to the students how matters
stand, and should ask their permission to make over to you a bench
.bn 301.png
.pn +1
in the general class. This is the advice which is given me, and I
have no doubt as to its wisdom.
I am fully aware that this will not be nearly so satisfactory to
you as unconditional permission on my part; and I must beg you
to believe that it is in many respects far from being so satisfactory
to my own feelings in the matter. If I were a thoroughly independent
man I can assure you that I should not be deterred from doing
what I thought right in this question by any fear of the consequences.
As things really stand, however, I do not feel justified in running
the risk of losing my ordinary class in whole or in part, as I am
assured I should do if I were to attempt to introduce this innovation
wholly without warning. If I knew my class, if I had the opportunity
of even two or three days’ acquaintance with them, I think I should
have little to apprehend as to their behaviour on any such question
as this. You will remember, however, that I am dealing with an unknown
quantity in making up my mind as to the course I shall adopt;
and that I am wholly without adequate data to guide me in my determination....
My present opinion is that whilst I have every wish to
admit you to my general class, it will be safest for me to submit the
question to my class and to abide by a decision of the majority.”
.pm end_quote
Apparently S. J.-B. obtained a verbal, but satisfactory,
modification of this programme by suggesting that the class
should be asked “to unite with the lecturer in inviting” the
women to join them, but that was a mere matter of detail.
Everything depended on the way in which Dr. Nicholson
stated the case, and one is not surprised to hear that the
favourable reply came not from a majority, but from the
entire class. “So,” says S. J.-B., “the first ‘mixed-class’
was inaugurated and continued throughout the summer without
the slightest inconvenience.”
.pm start_quote
“The course of lectures on Zoology which I am now delivering
to a mixed class,” wrote Dr. Nicholson later in answer to a mistaken
statement in a medical paper, “is identically the same as the course
which I delivered last winter to my ordinary class of male students.
I have not hitherto emasculated my lectures in any way whatever,
nor have I the smallest intention of so doing. In so acting, I am
guided by the firm conviction that little stress is to be laid on the
purity and modesty of those who find themselves able to extract
food for improper feelings from such a purely scientific subject as
Zoology, however freely handled.”
.pm end_quote
This was all very well, but the classes so far obtained were
mere outposts. The real Giant Difficulty lay with Anatomy
.bn 302.png
.pn +1
and Clinical teaching, and that session’s work was complicated,
for S. J.-B. in particular, by a constant undercurrent
of effort to obtain the necessary teaching. It was essential
that the teacher, if not a Professor, should at least be recognized
by the University, and there were representatives of the
University who were not desirous to make the matter easy.
Over and over again hopes were raised, only to be disappointed:
on one occasion the lecturer, after much parleying, had
actually agreed to do the work and had accepted his fee;
but, even at that late stage, he backed out and returned the
fee with an apology. (“How vexed I was!” says S. J.-B.,
“thoroughly upset and nervous.”) It happened repeatedly,
too, that the men who would have liked to help had already
on some other question taken up a position unpopular with
their more conservative confrères, and simply dared not
espouse another fighting cause.
S. J.-B. was urged to go to Zürich and fit herself to teach
Anatomy; but what assurance had she—what encouragement
had she even to hope—that the University would recognize
her teaching on her return? And what were the other
students—a growing number—to do in the meantime?
Try their fortune elsewhere?—and brave the inevitable,
“Lo, these who have turned the world upside down are come
hither also”?
Once and again some chivalrous man took up their cause,
refusing to believe that the difficulty was real; but little by
little he was apt to find that the intangible mist of opposition
was as impervious as an iron wall.
It was due to Dr. Arthur Gamgee that Dr. Handyside
finally agreed to admit the women to his ordinary Anatomy
class and dissecting-room at Surgeons’ Hall, provided the
other lecturers made no objection: and, so far the arrangements
for the following winter session were made.
.pm start_quote
“Saturday, [June] 25th. Called on Dr. Watson[65] (Surgery). He
signed my petition readily. Thought if we made no difficulty, no
one ought to about mixed classes,—anyone in earnest in his subject
should be able to teach all students. Of course the teacher should
.bn 303.png
.pn +1
put his foot down,—the students followed a beck,—and, if invited,
would of course make a row, etc....
Saw Keiller too.... Was quite favourable as to Handyside and
mixed classes;—he himself having had students and midwives....”
.pm end_quote
.fn 65
Afterwards Sir Patrick Heron Watson.
.fn-
The question of these mixed classes in the Extra-Mural
School was technically an infringement of Regulation 2 in
the Calendar (see p. #260#), and in this connection it was duly
brought before the Senatus of the University, with the proposal
to refer the matter to the University Court; but Professor
Bennett moved, seconded by Professor Tait, “that the Senatus
see no reason to interfere.” This amendment appears to have
been carried by the casting vote of the Principal.
“So that’s settled,” says S. J.-B.
“How fast events go! I really hope for mixed classes in
the University before 1871.”
She forgot to allow sufficiently for the fighting force of a
large minority, led by an angry few.
Meanwhile that wonderful Mother was following the struggle,
not indeed with the minute study Miss Du Pre was giving to
the question, but with the old unfailing sympathy. Like Miss
Pechey’s father, she had been rather staggered at first at the
thought of mixed classes, but shortly after this she writes:
.pm start_quote
“Darling,
.ti 6
I don’t now at all object to mixed classes. As the teaching
must at present be given by men, I don’t see why there should not
be mixed classes to listen: and I feel confident if you continue to
have such a nice set of women, the tone of the young men generally
will be greatly raised. If mixed classes answer so well at Zurich
and Paris, why not here?—but I confess to great ignorance.”
.pm end_quote
Intellectually, the supply of women showed no sign of
falling short. With the advice and coöperation of Miss
Garrett, Lady Amberley had offered a scholarship for competition
at the October Matriculation Examination, and
S. J.-B. proudly jots down the verdict of the examiners on
their work:
.pm start_quote
“‘Miss Barker’s Logic paper best ever had from medical students.’
‘Miss Bovell’s French best in University except one Frenchman’s.’
‘Miss Walker had the only 100 per cent. in Mathematics.’
Classical examiner wrote,—‘I was very much struck with the
accuracy as well as elegance of some papers.‘”
.pm end_quote
.bn 304.png
.pn +1
Of course a woman—or a man for that matter—may pass
a brilliant examination in Mathematics or Chemistry, and
yet be unable to keep her head at a difficult midwifery case;
and it was perfectly right and fitting that men doctors should
recognize and even emphasize this fact. One would not have
wished them to do otherwise. It was fortunate for the
women, however, that their opponents were apt to state their
case with a conspicuous want of any sense of humour, as the
following letter from the Lancet[66] sufficiently exemplifies:
.pm start_quote
“Sir,—In all popular movements, however one-sided and irrational
they may seem, there is some foundation of truth, the grain
of common sense in the bushel of chaff. And so it is with the movement
that is now taking place with respect to the admission of
women into the rank of medical practitioners. I believe most
conscientiously and thoroughly that as a body they are sexually,
constitutionally, and mentally unfitted for the hard and incessant
toil, and for the heavy responsibilities of general medical and surgical
practice. At the same time I believe as thoroughly, that there is
a branch of our profession—midwifery—to which they might and
ought to be admitted in a subordinate position as a rule.
In France, and in many other parts of the Continent, this division
of labour in Midwifery is fully carried out, and with great advantage
to both parties—to the regular practitioner, who is relieved of part
of his most arduous, most wearing and most unremunerative duties,
and to the women who have a vocation for medicine, who are able,
thus, in large numbers, to gain a respectable living in the profession
they wish to practise.
I think I may safely say that there are very few medical men
who have been ten years in practice, who would not gladly, thankfully,
hand over to a body of well-educated and friendly midwifes
their half-guinea or guinea midwifery cases. To a young practitioner
there is the charm of novelty, and the desire to improve, which
make remuneration altogether a secondary consideration. But
after ten years‘ practice, often long before, a very decided change
comes over the spirit of the dream.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 66
June 18th, 1870.
.fn-
The part of the letter that follows is perhaps too technical
for quotation; but the writer continues on the general
question:
.pm start_quote
“I would add in conclusion that, given women of exceptional
energy, capacity, and intelligence, nothing would be easier than for
.bn 305.png
.pn +1
them, if deserving, to rise out of the midwifery ranks into a wider
sphere of activity and worldly success. Let them show by their
energy, by their writing, by their contributions to the progress of
medical science, that they had exceptional powers of observation
and intellect, and fame would soon reach them. It has reached
the very few women, who, like Mrs. Somerville, have given evidence
not only of mere ability and talent, but higher powers, the power
to grasp the more recondite and abstruse teachings of science. But
even this power—the power to master and understand the existing
state of science—does not constitute the characteristic feature of
the male mind in the Caucasian race. The principal feature which
appears to me to characterise the Caucasian race, to raise it immeasurably
above all other races, is the power that many of its
male members have of advancing the horizon of science, of penetrating
beyond the existing limits of knowledge—in a word, the power of
scientific discovery. I am not aware that the female members of
our race participate in this power, in this supreme development of
the human mind; at least I know of no great discovery changing
the surface of science that owes its existence to a woman of our or
of any race. What right then have women to claim mental equality
with men?
That woman may attain an honourable social position and pecuniary
independence in our ranks in the position I point out, is proved
by a case that came under my observation last year. A German
lady M.D. in a German University, called on me on her way home
from San Francisco. She told me that she had been practising
there as an accoucheur and a ladies‘ and child’s doctor for twenty
years, had gained a small fortune, and was returning to Germany
to live and die in quiet. Her history was this: Early in married
life her husband lost his fortune and became a confirmed invalid.
She had thus her husband and two children to support. She studied
midwifery and medicine, took a degree, and then went to America,
settling at San Francisco. There she placed herself in a subordinate
position to the medical men, acting with them, under them, and
consequently supported by them. She had thus lived harmoniously
with her professional brethren, and had had a career of uninterrupted
professional success.
.ll 68
.nf r
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
Henry Bennet, M.D.”[67]
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 67
Not to be confused with Dr. Hughes Bennett, who had lectured to the
women on Physiology.
.fn-
One can imagine the somewhat grim smile with which this
lucubration was passed round the little band in Edinburgh:
.bn 306.png
.pn +1
and it is only fair to say that many of their opponents would
have been glad to cry:—“Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus
istis!” The Lancet was not the advocate of the women
students in those days, and one is glad to record that the
Editor allowed S. J.-B. the opportunity to reply. Her
letter is a fair sample of the style of writing that was becoming
habitual to her,—translucently clear, concise and businesslike,—absolutely
shorn of the picturesqueness that had
characterized the writing of her youth.
.pm start_quote
“Sir,—I see in your columns of June 1st, 1870, a letter on ‘Women
as Practitioners of Midwifery,’ and appeal to your sense of fairness
to allow me a fourth part of the space it occupied for a few words
in reply.
It is hardly worth while to discuss the early part of the letter,
as the second paragraph sufficiently disposes of the first. After
saying that women are ‘sexually, constitutionally, and mentally
unfitted for hard and incessant toil,’ Dr. Bennet goes on to propose
to make over to them as their sole share of the medical profession
what he himself well describes as its ‘most arduous, most wearing
and most unremunerative duties.’ In the last adjective seems to
lie the whole suitability of the division of labour according to the
writer’s view. He evidently thinks that women’s capabilities are
nicely graduated to fit half-guinea or guinea midwifery cases,‘ and
that all patients paying a larger sum of necessity need the superior
powers of the ‘male mind of the Caucasian race.’ Let whatever
is well paid be left to the man; then chivalrously abandon the
‘badly remunerated’ work to the women. This is the genuine
view of a trades-unionist. It is well for once to see it candidly
stated. As I trust the majority of medical men would be ashamed
of avowing such a principle, and as I am sure it would be indignantly
disallowed by the general public, I do not care to say more on this
point.
But when Dr. Bennet proceeds to dogmatise about what he calls
our claim to ‘mental equality,’ he comes to a different and much
more important question. I for one do not care in the least either
to claim or disown such equality, nor do I see that it is at all essential
to the real question at issue. Allow me to state in a few words the
position that I and, as I believe, most of my fellow-students take.
We say to the authorities of the medical profession,—‘State clearly
what attainments you consider necessary for a medical practitioner;
fix your standard where you please, but define it plainly; put no
obstacles in our way; either afford us access to the ordinary means
of medical education, or do not exact that we shall use your special
.bn 307.png
.pn +1
methods; in either case subject us ultimately to exactly the ordinary
examinations and tests, and, if we fail to acquit ourselves as well
as your average students, reject us; if, on the contrary, in spite
of all difficulties, we reach your standard, and fulfil all your requirements,
the question of ‘mental equality’ is practically settled, so
far as it concerns our case; give us then the ordinary medical licence
or diploma, and leave the question of our ultimate success or failure
in practice to be decided by ourselves and the public.’ This is our
position, and I appeal, not to the chivalry, but to the justice of the
medical profession, to show us that it is untenable, or else to concede
it at once.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Sophia Jex-Blake.
.nf-
.ll
Edinburgh, June 21st.”[68]
.pm end_quote
.fn 68
Lancet, July 9, 1870.
.fn-
Nothing conciliatory here: no appeal for help for “the
wee bit thing,”—the appeal that some men in those days
used to find so disarming: nothing even in the spirit of the
“Now remember, Daddy dear,” of those delightful controversial
letters of her girlhood. It is a fair field and no favour
with a vengeance now.
Possibly she might have shortened the battle if she had
adopted a more conciliatory attitude. One might say the
same of many of the martyrs. Had she done so, it would
have meant a smaller battle,—a victory far more limited in
its results. If a new move is being effectively made, it is
almost always overdone. That is in the scheme of things.
If there were not faults on both sides, there would be no
dramatic action,—no “story”; and the world would go on
its sleepy way, and pay no attention. “Individuals, feeling
strongly, while on the one hand they are incidentally faulty
in mode or language, are still peculiarly effective....
The very faults of an individual excite attention; he
loses, but his cause (if good, and he powerful-minded)
gains. This is the way of things; we promote truth by
a self-sacrifice.”
.tb
Here then were the opposing forces, duly ranged against
each other. One can almost imagine the move and countermove
.bn 308.png
.pn +1
that were bound to ensue. And we must not forget
the element furnished by the great mass of the students—though
there were “individuals” here, too, of course—on
the look out for mischief and fun, rejoicing in a
row, ready “to follow a beck” as that wise Heron Watson
had said.
.bn 309.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.8
CHAPTER VIII | THE RIOT AT SURGEONS’ HALL
.sp 2
S. J.-B.’s medical experience in America had consisted mainly
of practical hospital work, and that chiefly in connection with
the special diseases of women. She had done a little dissecting
in a rough and ready way, and the privilege of what she then
considered “real teaching” had just been put within her
reach when she was called home by the illness of her father.
She had this advantage, however, over her fellow-students,—she
knew that the “horrors” of the dissecting-room have
only to be faced in a spirit of serious intention in order to be
dispelled. She knew by experience that one must pull oneself
together in the first instance for fear of doing irreparable
damage to the dainty structures that lie almost as cunningly
hidden in surrounding tissue as the future statue lies in the
block of marble; and she knew that, little by little, the
privilege of laying bare that marvellous “handiwork” becomes
so enthralling as to make the earnest student oblivious to
everything else.
The Anatomy Class began formally in November, but the
rooms were open and teachers present from the beginning
of October, for those who cared to attend; so the women
had the advantage of meeting in the first instance only the
keener of the students, or at least those who were working
with a special object in view. The women would gladly
have had a separate room, had this been available, but in
their quiet corner they worked away steadily, forgetful of all
beyond. And everything went well. Never, the lecturer
said, had better work been done in his class-rooms.
.bn 310.png
.pn +1
Meanwhile influential friends were doing what in them lay
to forward the interests of the women in other quarters; for
it must be remembered that, as matriculated students of the
University they ought not to have been compelled to study
in Extra-Mural classes, and indeed it was only a limited
number of such classes that would be accepted for the University
degree. On October 28th a motion was brought
forward in the General Council of the University in favour
of affording farther facilities to the lady students. The
motion was met by a direct negative, Professor Christison
asserting in the course of his speech that Her Majesty Queen
Victoria had expressed her concurrence in the views that
had been put forth on a previous occasion by Dr. Laycock
and himself. If there was any truth in this, one can only
speculate as to the form in which the story had reached Her
Majesty’s ears,—certainly not through the medium of a leading
article in the Times. What weight her reported opinion
may have carried it is impossible to say, but, in any case,
when put to the vote, the negative was carried by 47 to 46.
(“Well, try again next year!” says S. J.-B.)
In reading the whole story, one is struck over and over
again by the narrowness of the majority by which things were
turned. Great is the responsibility of the weak and cowardly,
the lazy and double-minded,—the “unstable” who call themselves
impartial.
At this stage, wisely or not, the women were advised to
apply for permission to work in the wards of the Royal Infirmary.
This was the only hospital in Edinburgh large enough
to fulfil the requirements of the General Medical Council for
registration as a medical practitioner, and the women were
entitled to the privilege in virtue of their Matriculation
tickets. They knew that some of the doctors were in their
favour. Here are two of the “thumb-nail sketches” from
the diary:
.pm start_quote
“Saturday, Oct. 29th. Dr. Watson,—most friendly. Only too
happy to have us as pupils. Could not anticipate difficulty about
Infirmary, etc....
Dr. Littlejohn foresaw the ruin of his son by women doctors, but
‘would drink the bitter cup to its dregs,’ and vote for us.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 311.png
.pn +1
Their request, however, was met by a curt refusal.
.pm start_quote
“Monday, October 31st. Refused us dead.
Gordon says, ‘Try a written memorial!’ Wood says he believes
their charter compels them to admit all medical students.
Qui vivra verra.”
.pm end_quote
It is obvious that they had approached the very stronghold
of the enemy. Might is right and possession nine points of
the law. The matter lay in the hands of a body of Managers
who were obviously judging the case as represented to them
by the medical party in power; so now the duty fell upon
the women of explaining their position as far as possible to
those in whose hands the decision lay.
.pm start_quote
“Friday, Nov. 4th. Just put down this day’s work for a specimen!
Studying and canvassing at once,—
8.45. Started for Surgeons’ Hall.
9-10. Tutorial class, bones.
10-11. Surgery lecture.
11-1. Dissecting.
1-2. Anatomy Lecture.
2.10 Reached home and found a letter from Mr. Blyth (Manager)
telling me to meet him at 2 p.m.!! Got there (after bolting beef-tea
and wine) at 2.45. Talked at him for nearly an hour with good
results, I believe. Got back home 3.40. Bolted some food, and
went
4 p.m. Demonstration exam. Didn’t know the Acromion but got
13/20 marks.
Home to dinner.
7 p.m. Started on round of calls.
Home at 10 p.m. Not tired,—oh, dear no!”
“I don’t like you to be a perpetual battering ram,” writes Miss
Du Pre, “for I suppose battering rams do wear out after a good
many sieges; but still I thoroughly like and admire your ‘never
say die’ feeling, and it is a fight with something worth fighting for
to be got at the end, which is a great thing.
If only I could be with you!”
.pm end_quote
One must read the following letters, which were laid before
the subsequent meetings of the Board, in order to realize how
strong and sane the position of the women was:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“November 5, 1870.
.ll
My Lord and Gentlemen,—As lecturers in the Edinburgh
Medical School we beg most respectfully to approach your honourable
.bn 312.png
.pn +1
Board, on behalf of the eight female students of this school whom,
we understand, you object to admit to the practice of the Royal
Infirmary. On their behalf we beg to state:—
1. That they are regularly registered students of medicine in this
school.
2. That they are at present attending, along with the other
students, our courses of anatomy, practical anatomy, demonstrations
of anatomy, and systematic surgery, in the school at Surgeons’
Hall.
3. That as teachers of anatomy and surgery respectively, we find
no difficulty in conducting our courses to such mixed classes composed
of male and female students sitting together on the same
benches; and that the presence of those eight female students has
not led us to alter or modify our course of instruction in any way.
4. That the presence of the female students, so far from diminishing
the numbers entering our classes, we find both the attendance and
the actual numbers already enrolled are larger than in previous
sessions.
5. That in our experience in these mixed classes the demeanour
of the students is more orderly and quiet, and their application to
study more diligent and earnest, than during former sessions when
male students alone were present.
6. That, in our opinion, if practical bedside instruction in the
examination and treatment of cases is withheld from the female
pupils by the refusal to them of access as medical students to the
practice of the Infirmary, we must regard the value of any systematic
surgical course thus rendered devoid of daily practical illustration,
as infinitely less than the same course attended by male pupils, who
have the additional advantage of the hospital instruction under the
same teacher.
7. That the surgical instruction, being deprived of its practical
aspect by the exclusion of the female pupils from the Infirmary,
and therefore from the wards of their systematic surgical teacher,
the knowledge of these female students may very reasonably be
expected to suffer, not only in class-room examinations, but in their
capacity to practise their profession in after life.
8. That our experience of mixed classes leads us to the conviction
that the attendance of the female students at the ordinary hospital
visit, along with the male students, cannot certainly be more objectionable
to the male students and the male patients than the presence of
the ward nurses, or to the female patients than the presence of the
male students.
9. That the class of society to which these eight female students
belong, together with the reserve of manner, and the serious and
reverent spirit in which they devote themselves to the study of
.bn 313.png
.pn +1
medicine, make it impossible that any impropriety could arise out of
their attendance upon the wards as regards either patients or male
pupils.
In conclusion, we trust that your honourable Board may see fit,
on considering these statements, to resolve not to exclude these
female students from the practice of, at all events, those physicians
and surgeons who do not object to their presence at the ordinary
visit along with the other students.
Such an absolute exclusion of female pupils from the wards of the
Royal Infirmary as such a decision of your honourable Board would
determine, we could not but regard as an act of practical injustice
to pupils who, having been admitted to the study of the medical
profession, must have their further progress in their studies barred
if hospital attendance is refused them.—We are, my Lord and
Gentlemen, your obedient servants,
.ll 68
.nf r
P. D. Handyside,
Patrick Heron Watson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The second letter was a petition signed by the lady
students, the famous “Septem contra Edinam,” as they
were called, enclosing Paper A and Paper B. It may be
well to give the names of the gallant seven once for all:
Sophia Jex-Blake, Mary Edith Pechey (Mrs. Pechey Phipson),
Isabel Thorne, Matilda Chaplin (Mrs. Ayrton), Helen Evans
(Mrs. Russel), Mary Anderson (Mrs. Marshall), Emily Bovell
(Mrs. Sturge).
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“November 5, 1870.
.ll
Paper A.—We, the undersigned physicians and surgeons of the
Royal Infirmary desire to signify our willingness to allow female
students of medicine to attend the practice of our wards, and to
express our opinion that such attendance would in no way interfere
with the full discharge of our duties towards our patients and other
students.
.ll 68
.nf r
J. Hughes Bennett,
George W. Balfour,
Heron Watson.”
.nf-
.ll
In paper B, two other medical men expressed their readiness, if
suitable arrangements could be made, to teach the female students
in the wards separately.
.ll 68
.rj
“15 Buccleuch Place, Nov. 13, 1870.
.ll
My Lords and Gentlemen,—To prevent any possible misconception,
I beg leave, in the name of my fellow-students and myself,
to state distinctly that, while urgently requesting your honourable
Board to issue to us the ordinary students’ tickets for the Infirmary
.bn 314.png
.pn +1
(as they alone will ‘qualify’ for graduation), we have, in the event
of their being granted, no intention whatever of attending in the
wards of those physicians and surgeons who object to our presence
there, both as a matter of courtesy, and because we shall be already
provided with sufficient means of instruction in attending the wards
of those gentlemen who have expressed their perfect willingness to
receive us.—I beg, my Lord and Gentlemen, to subscribe myself
your obedient servant,
.ll 68
.rj
Sophia Jex-Blake.
.ll
To the Honourable the Managers of the Royal Infirmary.”
.pm end_quote
Now the managers of the Infirmary were worthy folk as
human nature goes, “several” of them, says S.J.-B., known
to the women as “just and liberal-minded men,” so it is not
surprising that a majority were sufficiently moved by these
arguments to desire that the request of the women be granted.
On the ground of want of notice, however, the party in power
got the matter deferred for a week.
And now, clearly, the moment had come when every effort
must be made to turn the women out altogether. If they
carried their point at the next meeting, all might well be lost.
It was at this juncture that, for the first time, some of the
students began to make themselves unpleasant, “shutting
doors in our faces, ostentatiously crowding into the seats we
usually occupied, bursting into horse laughs and howls when
we approached,—as if a conspiracy had been formed to make
our position as uncomfortable as might be.” A students’
petition against the admission of women to the Infirmary
was handed about, and 500 students signed it.
So the majority gained their point, and the party in power
won an easy victory.
“Follow it up,” said someone. “Don’t stop there. While
you are at it, why not get rid of the women altogether?”[69]
.fn 69
This is a neutral and harmless paraphrase of the arguments some of
the professors actually used in talking to the students, but one does not
want to perpetuate the memory of words used in an angry conflict.
.fn-
It was not a surprising suggestion; the presence of the
women was making some people very uncomfortable; but
those who made the suggestion must have had a pretty good
idea of how the students would proceed to carry it out, and
what class of student would take the lead.
.bn 315.png
.pn +1
For a day or two a feeble and cowardly effort was made
to obstruct the entrance of women into the class-room, but
S. J.-B., followed by her companions, simply failed to see
the students who half-heartedly stood in her way, and walked
through them.
And then came about the “riot at Surgeons’ Hall”, of which
so much has since been said, and of which Charles Reade
made picturesque use in his novel, The Woman Hater.
In order to get a plain, unvarnished account of what took
place, we cannot do better than quote the Courant[70] (the only
Edinburgh morning paper which was unfavourable to the
women) and the very brief record in S. J.-B.’s diary:
.pm start_quote
“A disturbance of a very unbecoming nature took place yesterday
afternoon in front of the Royal College of Surgeons, caused by the
entrance of the lady ‘medicals’ to the class-rooms. However
ungallant it may appear, there is no doubt that many of the students
look upon the admission of the ladies to the classes with no friendly
eye; but, unfortunately for their own credit, some have adopted
a very undignified mode of signifying their displeasure. Shortly
before four o’clock, the hour when the ladies arrive at the College,
nearly two hundred students assembled in front of the gate leading
to the building. As may be readily supposed, there was no lack of
animation amongst the students; and, with other popular melodies,
‘The Whale’ and ‘John Brown’s Body’ were sung with more spirit
than good taste by at least a hundred voices. Such a noisy demonstration
speedily attracted a large crowd, and greatly interfered
with the public traffic. Shortly before four o’clock those on the
outlook descried the approach of the ladies, and immediately their
appearance was greeted with a howl which might have made those
who are supposed to be possessed of more temerity, quail, but it
seemingly had no effect upon the ladies, for they most unconcernedly
advanced towards the gate, the students opening up their ranks to
allow them to pass. On reaching the gate it was closed in their
face. Amidst the derisive laughter which followed this very questionable
action, it must be said to their credit that a number of students
cried ‘shame.’ In a short time the janitor succeeded in opening one
leaf of the gate, and the ladies were admitted to the precincts, but
not before some of them had been considerably jostled.
The anatomical class-room to which they proceeded was crowded
to the door, and, in consequence of the noise and interruption, Dr.
Handyside found it utterly impossible to begin his demonstrations.
.bn 316.png
.pn +1
With much difficulty, he singled out those students belonging to
his class, and, turning the others out of the room, he was about to
proceed, when the pet sheep which grazes at the College was introduced
to the room, a student jocularly remarking that it would
be a good subject for anatomical purposes. Poor ‘Mailie’ was
kept a prisoner, and the lecturer was allowed to proceed.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 70
The Courant, Nov. 19, 1870.
.fn-
“Let it remain,” Dr. Handyside had said, “it has more
sense than those who sent it here.”
.pm start_quote
“When the class broke up, a number of the students seemed
determined to accompany the ladies home; but the result was that
several of them were apprehended by the police.”
.pm end_quote
The writer of the diary naturally saw things from a different
point of view:
.pm start_quote
“Friday, 18th. On getting in sight of S(urgeons’) H(all), found
mob of students and mixed multitude.
Had to go down to P.O. and to Houlden’s for Mrs. Evans [a most
characteristic touch this! in later life S. J.-B. often spoke of herself as
‘a sheep dog grown old.’] Then crossed road, ... Mrs. T[horne]
and I in front, then Mrs. K[ingsley] and others.
Reaching pavement, way cleft for us by one or two, till gate reached
and clashed in our face, by smokers inside. I placidly leant on it
outside, mid cries of ‘Shame,’ ‘Let them in,’ etc., till Sanderson
sprang forward and forced it open and in we went,—Mrs. K. not,
[she] remaining outside to hear ‘very bad language, in which I
didn’t join.’ (To S. M. M.’s great amusement.)
Then we went in and had demonstration,—some rushed in
after us.
Dr. Handyside went out and remonstrated, etc. Then sheep
introduced.
We passed rather good examination. Then at end H. asked if
we would go out by back door. ‘Oh, no,’ I said, ‘I am sure there
are enough gentlemen here to prevent any harm to us.’ And so
we went, Hoggan and Sanderson pioneering,—S. M. M. said she
got hit,—Wilson came up and took Mrs. K.’s arm (to our momentary
fright), then we proceeded home, escorted by
.pm start_poem
a. gallant cavaliers,
b. police,
c. general mob,
d. all boys and girls of the town.
.pm end_poem
“Monday, 21st. Had warning of a ‘more serious demonstration’,
so Wilson swore in the Irish Brigade. I asked Professor Wilson
.bn 317.png
.pn +1
about it, and he requested Turner to keep his class till past five,—they
were let out at 4.45![71]
.fn 71
One hopes this fact was incorrectly reported; it has never been contradicted.
Possibly the Professor was annoyed at being asked to effect
that by force which could safely be confided to the gentlemanly feeling
of his students.
.fn-
However, it being rainy, there was almost no crowd.
“Tuesday 22nd.... The Irish Brigade filed in to demonstration,
and then escorted us home,—some 30 or 40 in all. One woman
hissed. W. as we came to crossing regretted it ‘hadn’t been
swept,’ etc.—otherwise all quiet. The O’Halloran squired E. P.,
called her ‘ma belle,’ declared ‘a loife wasn’t much, but all the
Irishmen would lay down theirs before we came to harm,’ etc.
And in the passage, the same mighty chief shook my hand nearly
off, vowing the pleasure it would give him and his to be any service
to us, etc., etc.
They gave us a great cheer when they got to the door.
In the crowd B. heard,—‘You know they’d never do it if they
could get married.’ ‘Eh, you‘re wrong there, there are some very
good-looking ones among them.‘ ‘Eh, now, see the students
escorting them home,—isn’t it pretty?’
And O‘Halloran’s troubles with his men. ‘For God’s sake, look
after X.! It’s his first night out, and he’ll be wanting to distinguish
himself,—he’ll be hitting a
Altogether great ‘demonstration in favour,’ as Daily Review
says.
“Wednesday, 23rd. Same escort, though little necessary.”
.pm end_quote
The Wilson who swore in the Irish Brigade, has, of course,
no connection with Professor Wilson. He was a student,
and remained throughout life a loyal supporter of the
cause.[72] His letter, written on the Sunday following the riot,
is interesting:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss Pechey,—I wish to warn you, and, through you,
your friends, that you are to be mobbed again on Monday. A
regular conspiracy has been, I fear, set on foot for that purpose.
I wish you to tell your friends that, although the projected demonstration
against you on Monday is intended to be much more serious
than the one on Friday, and to frighten you all away, you need
not in the least fear it. I have made what I hope to be efficient
arrangements for your protection. I have passed the word round
.bn 318.png
.pn +1
amongst a lot of my friends—not wholly inexperienced in the kind
of work—and you will be all right.
I had a meeting with my friend, Micky O’Halloran who is
leader of a formidable band, known in College as the ‘Irish Brigade,’
and he has consented to tell off a detachment of his set for duty on
Monday. Micky was the formidable hero with the big red moustache
who stood by us on Friday and whose presence with us rather disappointed
the rioters who, I think, calculated on the aid both of
himself and his set. I have taken care of that, and I believe the
mere demonstration of the fact that you have men on your side able
and willing to protect you, will deter the mob from even an attempt
at a row.
They are a cowardly lot, nearly all very young, and I don’t think
they have even one amongst them, who has had experience of the
days when street-rioting was one of the accomplishments Edinburgh
students were acquainted with, so they are not likely to be very
troublesome. I believe they’ll ‘cave in’ if you only show a brave
front. I have considerable influence also with the Highlanders in
College, and expect to get a good deal of help from them, when I
pass the word round tomorrow.
May I venture to hint my belief that the real cause of the riots
is the way some of the professors run you down in their lectures.
They never lose a chance of stirring up hatred against you. For
all I know they may have more knowledge of the riotous conspiracy
than most people fancy. However, as I tell you, you and your
friends need not fear, as far as Monday is concerned. You will be
taken good care of.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours faithfully,
Robert Wilson.
.nf-
.ll
P.S. I would have sent this communication through Mrs. Kingsley,
but as I have no chance of seeing her tomorrow, and as you are her
friend, I send it to you.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 72
In January, 1886, Mr. Robert Wilson had an article, “Æsculapia
Victrix,” in the Fortnightly Review.
.fn-
Mr. Henry Kingsley was at this time editor of the Daily
Review, and almost as redoubtable a champion of the cause
as Alexander Russel himself. Of Mrs. Henry Kingsley’s
loyalty it is impossible to speak in exaggerated terms. In
the drawing-room, in the columns of a newspaper, and on
the platform, she was equally ready to defend a fighting
cause, and to correct the numerous misapprehensions that
sprang up in connection with it. She attended the scientific
classes without any idea of qualifying as a doctor, mainly for
the purpose of identifying herself with the movement, and with
people who had her wholehearted sympathy and admiration.
.bn 319.png
.pn +1
The news of the “Riot” went forth over the whole world,
and the indignation roused by the matter of the Hope Scholarship
was as nothing compared to that called forth by this
escapade. “We trust the authorities of the medical school
at Edinburgh will visit exemplary chastisement on the
cowardly cads—we have no milder name for them—who
could so conduct themselves towards the ladies who paid
them the compliment of supposing they could act like gentlemen.
Edinburgh has ceased to be so attractive as she was
as a centre of education.” This was a fair specimen of the
indignant criticism called forth, and one is glad to record that
none were more prompt to disown the delinquents than the
more reputable of the students themselves. Some few papers,
even of some standing, espoused the cause of the rioters;
and, in order to do this, it was perhaps almost necessary to
represent the women and their doings in a way that disgusted
all decent-minded men,—“a brutality,” said the Spectator,
with reference to a given article, “of which a costermonger
quarrelling with a fishwife would be ashamed.”[73]
.fn 73
Spectator, December 3, 1870.
.fn-
Some of us can imagine, too, the style of anonymous letter
which the women received, and such letters were rather
terrible to the women of those days.
.pm start_quote
“‘Well!—we are about in the deepest waters now,—that’s one
comfort,’ says S. J.-B.”
“‘What do you think your constitution is made of that it will
stand such overwork?’ writes Miss Du Pre at this time. ‘You will
be a real martyr to the cause, if you don’t take care. Yet I know
you never needlessly use up one atom of strength, so I get a
fearful idea of what the amount of work must be. I do wish
you could just sit down to your lessons quietly as the men students
can.
The two newspaper articles made me nicely angry! I think the
—— is the lowest, but, when you get to such a depth it is not easy
to measure degrees of lowness. I should think such attacks must
make you feel as if all people on the other side were low and mean
and wicked,—don’t they? It’s always so hard to believe that
one’s opponents may be good and honest and even sensible; but
when any of them write such letters as those, I think it must be
well nigh impossible.’”
.pm end_quote
.bn 320.png
.pn +1
A new Act came into operation at this time, and all the
Managers of the Royal Infirmary had to retire from the
Board unless re-elected. Now was the time to get in members
favourable to the admission of the women, if this could be
done. One can imagine the canvassing that took place on
both sides.
Here are some characteristic “thumb-nails” from the
diary:
.pm start_quote
“Littlejohn at Police Court,—very uncomfortable talk; he so
very candid and honest, but believing he ought to vote against us
in Infirmary, because ‘by hook or by crook’ they’d got up such
a spirit among the students (L. was ‘ashamed of his sex’) that he
was afraid persistence would injure the School.
M.,—£1000 subscriber. Quiet, simple, not narrow or hard,—only
not interested previously. Said he ‘must think of it now,’
though his prejudices were against women doctors. I showed him
that that was only a detail,—the question of justice lay beyond.
L. R.,—Had nothing to do with it, etc.,—but thought it all improper.
‘The young men in female wards?’... ‘Oh, it was their
business’!!”
.pm end_quote
At the Annual Meeting of Contributors on January 2nd,
1871, the hall at the Council Chambers was crowded long
before the advertised hour, though that hour was one o’clock.
Proceedings began with a hot dispute among the civic
magnates as to the propriety of adjourning to the High
Church (St. Giles’ Cathedral) which would seat a larger number
of people,—the representative of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners
declaring that the Police Court would be a more
suitable place, but allowing himself to be over-ruled on a
point of law by Mr. Duncan M‘Laren, M.P. for Edinburgh.
By the time the move to the church had been effected, everyone
was “rubbed up the wrong way,” and there was a good
deal of squabbling and noisy interruption before the main
question at issue came on at all.
The Lord Provost himself proposed the election of six men
known to be in favour of the women students, and an amended
list was proposed by one of the Infirmary Medical Staff.
Warm language was used on both sides, and interruptions
.bn 321.png
.pn +1
were frequent. This was the atmosphere in which S. J.-B.—in
the capacity of a subscriber—asked leave to speak.[74]
.fn 74
Someone has pointed out that she was the first woman to speak in
St. Giles’ Church since Jenny Geddes threw her stool at the minister.
.fn-
She was, as has been said, one of the finest women speakers
of her time; but, even in her maturity, she was wont to suffer
beforehand from an access of nervousness, of which, happily,
no trace was obvious when the crucial moment arrived.
What she must have suffered on this first occasion in Edinburgh
we can imagine. We know that she was over-worked
and tired, and that her honest resentment had been raised
to the highest pitch by the way in which some of those in
authority were inciting the students to make trouble. It was
deliberately said later by certain grave and responsible
Edinburgh citizens that she had suffered “unexampled
provocation.” She wished the contributors to know the real
truth of the situation, and she was resolved that the presence
of her adversaries should not deter her from giving a plain,
unvarnished account of what had taken place. She had
realized the danger of failing from cowardice; but, in her
inexperience, she had not realized the danger of going to
the other extreme: and that was what she did. Part of
her speech might quite justly be described as a direct
personal attack on one or two individuals.
She spoke well, of course, but she owed her gift to Nature,
in no way to Art: and she was confronted by those—double
her age and more—who had learned the full value of outward
calmness and urbanity in debate.
She had many friends in that church, and most of them
must have suffered acutely: not because they did not agree
with her, but because they did. Some whose allegiance was
of little value, or who had come with “an open mind,”
probably went over to the enemy. One is almost surprised
to hear that it was only by the usual narrow majority—94
to 88 in this instance—that her cause was defeated.
And yet, perhaps, one ought not to be surprised: for
courage and honesty make their own appeal; and the sore
heart-burnings of generous adherents are a fire in which great
things are kindled.
.bn 322.png
.pn +1
Of course hostile papers jeered. The Church Review went
out of its way to take up the matter. As it began by severely
criticising on literary grounds the speaker’s use of the words
“realize” and “emanate,” one wonders that it ever came
to the end of its indictment at all.[75]
.fn 75
At a later date (1872) the Church Review became definitely friendly.
.fn-
We quote the part of the speech that was destined to lead
to farther proceedings:[76]
.pm start_quote
“I want to point out that it was certain of these same men, who
had (so to speak) pledged themselves from the first to defeat our
hopes of education and render all our efforts abortive—who, sitting
in their places on the Infirmary Board, took advantage of the almost
irresponsible power with which they were temporarily invested, to
thwart and nullify our efforts. I believe that a majority of the
managers desired to act justly in this matter; but the presence of
those bitter partisans, and the overwhelming influence of every
kind brought to bear by them, prevailed to carry the day—to refuse
us not only admission on the ordinary terms, but also to refuse us
every opportunity which could answer our purpose. I know of
the noble protests made against this injury by some of the most
respected and most learned members of the Board, but all their
efforts were in vain, because strings were pulled and weapons brought
into play of which they either did not know or could not expose
the character. Till then, during a period of five weeks, the conduct
of the students with whom we had been associated in Surgeons’
Hall, in the most trying of all our studies, that of Practical Anatomy,
had been quiet, respectful, and in every way inoffensive. They
had evidently accepted our presence there, in earnest silent work,
as a matter of course, and Dr. Handyside, in answer to a question
of mine after the speeches at the meeting of the General Council,
assured me that, in the course of some twenty sessions, he had never
had a month of such quiet earnest work as since we entered his
rooms. But at a certain meeting of the managers when our memorial
was presented, a majority of those present were, I understand, in
favour of immediately admitting us to the Infirmary. The minority
alleged want of due notice of the question, and succeeded in obtaining
an adjournment.
What means were used in the interim I cannot say, or what
influence was brought to bear; but I do know that from that
day the conduct of the students was utterly changed, that those
who had hitherto been quiet and courteous became impertinent
.bn 323.png
.pn +1
and offensive; and at last came the day of that disgraceful
riot, when the college gates were shut in our faces and our little
band bespattered with mud from head to foot. (“Shame.”) It
is true that other students who were too manly to dance as puppets
on such ignoble strings, came indignantly to our rescue, that by
them the gates were wrenched open and we protected in our return
to our homes. But none the less it was evident that some new
influence (wholly distinct from any intrinsic facts) had been at
work. I will not say that the rioters were acting under orders, but
neither can I disbelieve what I was told by indignant gentlemen
in the medical class—that this disgraceful scene would never have
happened, nor would the petition have been got up at the same
time, had it not been clearly understood that our opponents needed
a weapon at the Infirmary Board. This I do know, that the riot
was not wholly or mainly due to the students at Surgeons’ Hall.
I know that Dr. Christison’s class assistant was one of the leading
rioters—(hisses and order)—and the foul language he used could
only be excused on the supposition I heard that he was intoxicated.
I do not say that Dr. Christison knew of or sanctioned
his presence, but I do say that I think he would not have been
there, had he thought the doctor would have strongly objected
to his presence.
Dr. Christison—‘I must again appeal to you, my Lord. I
think the language used regarding my assistant is language that no
one is entitled to use at such an assembly as this—(hear)—where
a gentleman is not here to defend himself, and to say whether it be
true or not. I do not know whether it is true or not, but I do know
my assistant is a thorough gentleman, otherwise he never would
have been my assistant; and I appeal to you again, my Lord,
whether language such as this is to be allowed in the mouth of
any person. I am perfectly sure there is not one gentleman in
the whole assembly who would have used such language in regard
to an absentee.’
Miss Jex-Blake—‘If Dr. Christison prefers——’
Dr. Christison—‘I wish nothing but that this foul language shall
be put an end to.’
The Lord Provost—‘I do not know what the foul language is.
She merely said that in her opinion——’
Dr. Christison—‘In her opinion the gentleman was intoxicated.’
Miss Jex-Blake—‘I did not say he was intoxicated. I said I
was told he was.’
The Lord Provost—‘Withdraw the word “intoxicated.”’
Miss Jex-Blake—‘I said it was the only excuse for his conduct.
If Dr. Christison prefers that I should say he used the language
when sober, I will withdraw the other supposition’ (laughter).”
.pm end_quote
.fn 76
Scotsman, January 3, 1871.
.fn-
.bn 324.png
.pn +1
The Pall Mall,[77] chuckling sympathetically over this and
another repartee, wisely concluded:
.pm start_quote
“It is sincerely to be hoped that these unhappy little differences
will soon come to an end. It cannot be to the advantage of anyone
that lady students should be pelted with mud, or that they should
use the power of retaliation displayed by their champion at the
Royal Infirmary meeting on Monday.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 77
January 5, 1871.
.fn-
So the conflict deepened, and it would have been small
wonder if all but the very brave had taken fright.
But Edinburgh did contain some very brave people besides
the women students.
At the meeting on January 2nd, the Revd. Professor
Charteris had been ruled out of order in some matter, but,
at the earliest opportunity he returned to his point, and
brought forward a motion, expressing the desire of the contributors
that immediate arrangement should be made for
the admission of the ladies to the Infirmary. This motion,
seconded by Sir James Coxe, M.D., was lost by a small
majority.
Several things happened at that meeting, however, which
were of more value to the cause than a formal victory would
have been:
A petition was read, signed by 956 women of Edinburgh,
expressing “our great interest in the issues involved, and our
earnest hope that full facilities for hospital study will be
afforded by the Managers to all women who desire to enter
the Medical Profession.”
More important still was the appearance of Mrs. Nichol,
a well-known and most gracious elderly lady, endowed with
the very fragrance of early Victorian womanhood, who came
forward to ask a question,—“not,” she said, “in the interests
of the lady students, but on behalf of those women who
looked forward to see what kind of men were they who were
to be the sole medical attendants of the next generation, if
women doctors were not allowed.”
.pm start_quote
“If the students studying at present in the Infirmary cannot
contemplate with equanimity the presence of ladies as fellow-students,
how is it possible that they can possess either the scientific
.bn 325.png
.pn +1
spirit, or the personal purity of mind, which alone could justify
their presence in the female wards during the most delicate operations
on, and examinations of, female patients.”
.pm end_quote
Yes, there were very brave people in Edinburgh besides
the women students.
This question was received with “laughter, hisses and
applause,” and no one ventured on a reply. No one except
the rougher of the students who were assembled in the gallery
on the look-out for a lark. They howled their appreciation
of the question; but it was only when S. J.-B. rose to speak—and
of course she had to pay the penalty of having rashly
described them as “puppets”—that they really let themselves
go,—shouting and yelling and pelting her with peas.
“Well,” said Professor Blackie, “ye can now say ye’ve
fought with beasts at Ephesus.”
As a matter of fact she had not meant to speak again, but
one of the professors had left her no alternative. In the
course of a long speech he had asserted that, in consequence
of mixed education, a college in America “had become so
degraded that a woman who respected herself shrank from
the contamination, and preferred to renounce the benefit of
years of study rather than don the academic robe of one of
its graduates.”
“Name the college,” said S. J.-B., and other voices took
up the cry of “Name!”
.pm start_quote
“He spoke on authority.” (A voice—“What authority?”) “On
the authority of Miss Blake herself, who ... when asked why she
had not pursued her studies instead of coming here, told him that
the character of female medical students in America had so deteriorated
that she could not consent to stay.”
.pm end_quote
It cannot be easy to speak when one has awaited one’s
opportunity through a storm of hooting and pea-throwing;
but now indeed S. J.-B.’s fine courage and truthfulness shone
out like the sun:
.pm start_quote
“She wished merely to give an absolute, unqualified denial to
Professor X.’s statement respecting her. She never made the statement
he asserted she had made. During her whole visit to America
she had never spent one whole session in any medical college whatever....
It was true she had studied two years in a woman’s
.bn 326.png
.pn +1
hospital, and every day’s experience there had made her long more and
more to see women in charge of their own sex—(Great interruption
and cries of ‘Order’)—and it was her experience in that hospital and
her knowledge of the ladies connected with it [One can almost hear
her inward cry, ‘Oh, Lucy!’] that made her devote her life to
getting medical education for herself and also for other women....
Some of the friends she was proudest of were women doctors in
America who had been educated there entirely, and in regard to
whom she scarcely knew any equals and certainly no superiors.”
.pm end_quote
It was only in answer to repeated calls that Professor X.
rose and said, “He was sure there was not an individual in
that meeting who would not give him credit for having given
what he believed to be the correct version of what occurred
according to his recollection two years ago—(Hisses and
cheers)—between Miss Jex-Blake and himself. If he had
misconceived what had been said, or if his memory had failed
him and he had stated what was not correct, he begged to
apologise, as it was purely unintentional.” (Applause and
hisses.)
A somewhat disappointing outcome this, of a long course
of training in scientific exactness.
It was now that the Professor of Moral Philosophy (Calderwood)
rose, profoundly stirred beneath the calm and judicial
demeanour that seldom failed him, and pointed out that
Professor X., while speaking to the amendment “that the
question (of the women students) be left to the unbiassed
decision of the Managers,” had voluntarily given them a fair
average specimen of an unbiassed opinion!
There are worse adversaries, in fact, than the honest beasts
at Ephesus.
A sore heart lay behind that jest of Professor Blackie’s if
one may judge by the following letter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“24 Hill Street,
Edinburgh.
20th January, 1871.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Miss Blake,
.ti 6
It is of no consequence to you, my poor sympathy with
you all at present, and my utter horror of the conduct of your
enemies; but I wish to tell you how saddened my husband was by
all he saw and heard at the Infirmary meeting last week. He
sat at tea-time shading his eyes, and saying quietly from time to
.bn 327.png
.pn +1
time, ‘I am ashamed of my sex.’ I never saw him so hurt before.
I am sure the unmanly and indecent conduct of these poor ill-led
young men, and the untruthfulness of their leaders will ultimately
do you good. If men lose our respect and confidence, let them look
to themselves. Your admirable letters must do great good.
Pardon this intrusion, and believe me always your true friend,
.ll 68
.rj
E. H. S. Blackie.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
No less welcome, we may be sure, was this:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
Huntly Lodge,
Monday Evening.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I am feeling inexpressibly for you and your friends this
evening, and cannot resist the inclination that has come over me
to tell you how deeply grateful everyone who has the welfare of the
next generation at heart must feel to you who are so nobly fighting
the battle which must soon be gained—the results of which will
bear precious fruit, I fully believe, long, long after even your heads
are laid in the grave.
You and the struggle you are carrying on remind me so forcibly
of the contest which the band of women in America so nobly waged
with the demon of Slavery. Your struggle will end much sooner,
I trust, than did theirs, but, whilst sympathising with you, I cannot
help feeling that the discussion is doing so much to educate people’s
minds, that it is better for the cause than if you had met with no
opposition; and in the end it may be better for you also, for by the
time you are ready to practise, persons will have become accustomed
to the idea and ready for you.
Meanwhile tell us if there is aught we outsiders can do for you,
and believe me, with love to dear Miss Pechey,
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affectionate,
E. P. Nichol.
.nf-
.ll
I am sure you will like to know that I don’t feel a bit the worse
for this day’s work.
You will excuse haste and some little weariness.”
.pm end_quote
Once more we are tempted to quote from a delightful
budget:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Sussex Square,
Brighton,
Jan. 19th. 1871.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Sophy,
.ti 6
One line to wish you many happy returns of the 21st, and
most of them quieter than this birthday seems likely to be.
.bn 328.png
.pn +1
I feel sure you will carry your point eventually, and should recommend
you to stick to Edinburgh where you have already so very
nearly won.
It must be very harassing at times, and need a great deal of
patience: for half the enemy seem wily and half seem roughs.
The speech you last made, when the gallery ought to have been
earlier cleared of its noisy occupants, seemed to me excellent: and
I thought Maclaren showed great judgment in dealing with the
adversary that same day. I should not be drawn much into newspaper
correspondence, if I were you; and I doubt if ... was worth
powder and shot. But he may be, from personal or local reasons
unknown to me.
I feel no doubt whatever of the ultimate victory, but the delay
is very fatiguing to the combatant.... Take it easy, and don’t
let the enemy make you angry. They are sure to try.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affectionate brother,
T. W. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Very soon, too, a long letter arrived from women in London,—“to
the Lady Students in Edinburgh:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Lady Students,
.ti 6
Let us entreat you to persevere—” and so on.
.pm end_quote
Here then were both parties firmly entrenched, with no
prospect of an end to the combat; but that fire in the hearts
of generous adherents was burning steadily. The Lord
Provost declined to accept his defeat. He proceeded to call
a meeting of citizens, and in a very short time a committee
was formed to share a burden that had become far too heavy
for the shoulders of a handful of women. The list of sympathizers
grew like a snowball, attracting many of the most
honoured names in the country, till it became a rallying cry
for weaker folk the wide world over. One can best describe
the significance of all this in S. J.-B.’s own words, written
some fifteen years later:
.pm start_quote
“To the Committee thus inaugurated, we owe a debt of gratitude
which I hardly know how to describe adequately. From that time
forward to the close of our battle in Edinburgh, they stood by us
with a fidelity and chivalrous readiness to help which was never
marred by officiousness or needless interference. In a very short
time they lifted from our shoulders the whole burden of pecuniary
risk and responsibility, and, by personal and public help of every
kind, made it possible for us to continue the struggle in which, without
.bn 329.png
.pn +1
such aid, we should have been hopelessly outnumbered. Where
so many gave us such invaluable assistance, it is almost invidious
to single out any for special thanks; and yet I cannot refrain from
putting on record our extreme debt of gratitude to three men, of
whom two have already passed away from among us, viz., the Lord
Provost of Edinburgh (William Law), who gave us continually the
support of his official countenance and assistance; Mr. Alexander
Russel, Editor of the Scotsman, whose advocacy was literally beyond
all price in those days, when our one hope and our great difficulty
was to get the real truth laid fully and fearlessly before the public;
and our still invaluable friend, Professor Masson, whose championship
of the weak and oppressed was then, and always has been,
worthy of the noblest days of chivalry.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 330.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.9
CHAPTER IX | THE ACTION FOR LIBEL
.sp 2
It is not to be supposed, however, that the dark days were
at an end. Far from it. The next act in the drama was
an action for libel brought against S. J.-B. by Professor
Christison’s assistant.
Of course she took the lawyer’s letter smiling, but it must
have seemed well-nigh the last straw, for she was sorely overstrained
by the public meetings and all the criticism they
called forth; and her entire Christmas holiday had been
spent in calling on Infirmary managers. These were naturally
of all sorts, from the big bustling prosperous brewer to the
refined gentlewoman of equally restricted outlook; and the
strain of adaptation to such divers personalities must have
been very great.
Even on Christmas Day[78] (a Sunday!) she had been at the
Scotsman office, arranging with the Editor for the alteration
and publication of various entries on the following day.
Things were not made easier by the fact that a heavy fall of
snow had been followed by alternating spells of slush and
ice. All the other students had gone out of town, and in
many ways it would have been better all round if she had
gone too. But her supporters simply could not get on without
her. She might on occasion be difficult and trying, expecting
more of people than they were prepared to give; but no one
else could even compare with her in knowledge of all the
facts and arguments that might at any moment be called for
.bn 331.png
.pn +1
by the emergencies of a big public controversy. There was
no need for professors, editors and others to charge their
memories with endless minutiae when S. J.-B. was at hand,
clear and concise, as a book of handy reference.
.fn 78
“God bless the Massons,” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake, “for cheering my
darling on Christmas Day.”
.fn-
Life was too full this year for the accustomed backward
survey at midnight on December 31st; there was no quotation
of “May the New Year cherish—” This is the entry:
.pm start_quote
“Less utterly hopeless tonight,—only so tired. E. P. just back,
bless her!”
.pm end_quote
Well, in any case, here was the lawyer’s letter, and it just
had to be faced. There is no reference to it in the diary till
long after—indeed, except as a register of facts that have
now lost all interest, the diary becomes almost non-existent—but,
in a day or two, the news was all over the country.
It was more than could be expected of human nature that
some of the women students should not have felt aggrieved
that the situation had been complicated by their leader’s
impulsiveness. On the whole they were loyal, especially the
three first recruits, Mrs. Thorne, Mrs. Evans, and “E. P.,—bless
her!”
But, as ever, faithful friends gathered round, and, if the
postman’s visit had become a thing to be dreaded, he also
brought much good cheer. Here is a letter from the wife
of a leading minister of religion:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Mrs. Evans,
.ti 6
The opposition have ‘crowned the edifice’ by bringing that
action of Damages against Miss Jex-Blake,—how unspeakably low
and unmanly it all is. I never knew before that saying a man
was drunk was actionable; if it is we must be very careful how we
speak even of our nearest and dearest. I think a subscription ought
to be set on foot at once to pay Miss Jex-Blake’s expenses, and I
shall be delighted to contribute my mite.”
.pm end_quote
One can only quote one or two out of many:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“The Athenaeum,
Jan. 23, 1871.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Sophy,
.ti 6
I will gladly pay half expenses of your action for libel brought
by Dr. Christison’s assistant.
I think it vital that you should have the best legal assistance,
and win. Be careful, and don’t let them ‘draw’ you into indiscretions
.bn 332.png
.pn +1
that are most forgiveable morally, but damaging to the
cause practically.
I don’t the least want to lecture you or assume the Mentor. I
only want you to win all along the line.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your aff. brother,
T. W. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The next is written in a clear and clerkly hand:
.pm start_quote
.in 2
.nf
“Miss Jex-Blake, Ph.D.
Edinburgh.
.nf-
.in
.ll 68
.rj
Kinbuck, 7 February, 1871.
.ll
Madam,
.ti 6
We the undersigned desire to express our most sincere
sympathy with your cause and earnest hopes for your success.
.ll 68
I am,
Your obedient Servants,—”
.ll
.pm end_quote
Follows a list of four names, apparently of young business
men. One wonders which of them conceived the bold idea
of the “Ph.D.” How gladly they would have made it
“M.D.” if they could!
The letter was addressed to “Miss Jex-Blake, Royal
Infirmary, Edinburgh,” and is grimly endorsed, “Not for
Royal Infirmary.”
One more letter we are tempted to quote with very mingled
feelings:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“19 Inverleith Row,
Edinburgh.
27 January 1871.
.nf-
.ll
My Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I see that Mr. C. has raised an action against you. If you
have not already fixed on a counsel to defend you, will you allow
me to propose that you should employ my son-in-law, Mr. Trayner.
I propose this, not for his advantage but your own, as I am quite
sure from the great interest he would take in your case, and also
that I know you would find in him, not only an able advocate, but
a kind friend, that you would have no cause to regret the choice.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me, dear Miss Jex-Blake,
Very truly yours,
Margaret Wyld.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
From another source one learns that Mr. Trayner [now
Lord Trayner], if employed, would have done the work
without fee, from sheer sympathy with the cause.
The pity of it! One cannot help feeling how differently
.bn 333.png
.pn +1
things might have gone, if S. J.-B. had availed herself of this
suggestion. “The best legal advice” is an expression
capable of varied interpretation, and of course S. J.-B.—young
and inexperienced—was guided by her solicitors. It
is possible, too, of course, that the advice was good.
Young and inexperienced she was in matters of this kind,—full
of hope that she, who had nothing to hide and everything
to gain from full publicity, would see herself substantially
justified in an open court of law.
On the whole, public opinion was against her. All sorts
of stories were rife, many of them entirely false, some with
just that grain of truth that makes a lie so deadly. When
the Winter Session came to an end in March, the President of
the College of Physicians and the President of the College of
Surgeons both announced that they would not preside at
the prize-giving if lady students were to be present and to
receive their prizes on this occasion.
On the other hand S. J.-B. was, of course, much sought
after by outsiders who admired her talent and courage. In
April she was urged by the leading women suffragists of the
day to speak at a Suffrage meeting in London, and, after
consulting Professor Masson and other friends in Edinburgh
as to the probable effect on her own “Cause,” she
agreed.
.pm start_quote
“Darling,” writes her sorely-tried Mother, “speaking at a public
meeting will be anything but restful. You positively require rest
to go on with the real work and worrying work before you. May
you be guided aright.”
.pm end_quote
The speech took place, however, and was a great success.
Her “pathetic voice” and clear exposition of the argument
deduced from her own trying experience are referred to
repeatedly. This was her first public association with a
cause of which, throughout life, she was one of the sanest
and most practical exponents.
It was in the course of this visit to London, too, that she
made the acquaintance of Mr. (afterwards Sir James) Stansfeld,
whose influence was to prove so priceless in the farther development
of the movement.
Meanwhile the law ran its slow and expensive course.
.bn 334.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
“Monday, May 22nd.... White Millar wants to know if I will
say C. ‘wasn’t drunk’ if he on his side allows that I ‘had been
told so.’
I don’t want to be too obstinately pugnacious, but I hate the idea
of giving a handle to people to say I ‘ate my words’. Calderwood
wisely says it should be a sine qua non that the public should know
the overture came from them, and I should like also to make C.
own he was ‘Foremost among the rioters’.
“Tuesday May 23rd. I have just accepted Lord Advocate at
fee of £200, so now it shall go on unless they pay costs....
“May 26th, Friday 10 p.m. ‘Where the wicked cease from
troubling and the weary are at rest.’
How inclined one feels to turn one’s face to the wall and say
with Elijah, ‘Lord, take away my life, I am not better than my
fathers’.
The obstinate lying of these students in preference to giving any
information possibly useful to us;—the constant hisses and rudeness
even in the streets,—J’s insolent civility, especially to Miss B.,—those
two scamps shouting ‘Whore’ after S. M. M., as she crossed
the George Square Gardens yesterday evening, etc.
Oh, dear, I hope Tuesday at least will end one worry satisfactorily.
I think it must clear me morally at any rate!—and yet I have that
nervous quiver through me as when one wakes with nightmare.
I wonder if any such hysterical wretch ever had to do such work
as mine!
And yet what good friends and helpers! Gilbert’s ever ready
kindness, Wilson’s hearty interest, ‘Well, if you lose on Tuesday,
even you will not be more vexed than I shall’.”
.pm end_quote
The case came on for trial on May 31st. On the morning
of the day, S. J.-B. received the following letter from her
Mother:
.pm start_quote
“God’s protection and blessing be with you, my own precious
child. I will not harass and plague you by writing further than to
assure you I am in spirit present with you.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your loving,
M. E. J.-B.
.nf-
.ll
I am quite well, and picturing how calm and collected you are,
and how many many are thinking of you with friendly thoughts.”
.pm end_quote
The case lasted two days. It was reported verbally in
the Scotsman and other daily papers. “Throughout the day
the Court-room was densely crowded, many ladies being
.bn 335.png
.pn +1
among the audience.” For many, of course, this was the
first opportunity of seeing these amazing women, and for
some time the provincial and weekly papers ran riot in impressions
of this kind:
.pm start_quote
“Mrs. Thorne succeeded as witness, and the assembled public
thought it very hard that she should be neither odd nor eccentric.
Why was she married? She was a medical student and ought not
to be married. Sedate, quiet and ladylike-looking, and dressed in
an unobtrusive fashion, and yet fairly within the pale of orthodoxy,
Mrs. Thorne confused the minds of many.”
“Miss Pechey was the sole remaining witness, and created a good
deal of fresh interest. A tall figure and a classically shaped head
with dark hair, are generally supposed to be the attributes of young
ladies who keep to their ‘sphere.’ That female medical students
should dare to be good-looking, dare to be married, dare to be
dressed in good taste, is, of course, an unpardonable crime.”
“Great interest of course was manifested in [Miss Jex-Blake’s]
appearance in the witness box. Plainly dressed in black, with white
round her neck and wrists, she presented the appearance of a tall
and well formed, handsome and determined woman, with dark hair
and eyes. She was perfectly cool and collected, and her manner
was a great contrast to the nervousness of Dr. Christison and the
‘smartness’ of Dr. Bell.”
.pm end_quote
So much for the “hysterical wretch”!
In truth the women had learned their lesson. There was
no bitter, impulsive speaking now. They said what they
meant to say, and they said it well and with restraint. “These
customers are composed!” a man in the back of the Court
was heard to exclaim.
As has been said, S. J.-B. had everything to gain from
publicity, from a full exposure of the facts. The worst she
had done had been to state her case in public without fear
of persons, without much tact and discretion, though with
no exaggeration of the actual truth. The public had already
passed judgment on her. She was now on her defence,
desirous only of asking her opponents, under cross-examination,
to deny the truth of what she had said.
But the law of libel is an intricate and parlous thing. S. J.-B.
had been told by several people of standing—including her
teacher and his assistant—that Professor Christison’s assistant
.bn 336.png
.pn +1
had been a ringleader in the riot; but she did not know of
her own knowledge that he had been so.
.pm start_quote
“I wished,” she says, “to plead the substantial truth of my
statement; but, being, of course, ignorant of Scotch law, I was
overruled by my Counsel, among whom was the Lord Advocate of
Scotland (Young), on the ground that I could not personally prove
the truth of what I had said, as indeed I did not know the young
man by sight, and it would be held an aggravation of the injury to
plead ‘Veritas’ in a matter which was, after all, only one of hearsay.
I was assured that, if the case came to trial, abundant opportunity
would be given to prove the young man’s real conduct in the
matter.”
.pm end_quote
This opportunity, however, was relentlessly withheld.
The case for the defence was one to rejoice the heart of a
brilliant counsel, being full of technical opportunity,—and
to a brilliant counsel it fell. So entirely did Mr. Shand
(afterwards Lord Shand) rely on his own bow and spear to
win the day,—and it must be admitted that there was nothing
else to rely on—that he dared to risk the conclusions which
must inevitably be drawn from his omission to call the
pursuer as a witness on his own side; he dared to provoke
a laugh by saying that Mr. C. “was not so fond of public
appearances as the defendant.” He laid down in his opening
statement the law that must govern the case, and with dogged
tenacity, he brought the Judge and everyone else in Court
to heel. Lord Mure, as it chanced, was easily led. The
choice of a Judge in Scotland lies with the pursuer, and in
any case it might not have been easy to find one in those
days who had a prejudice in favour of women doctors.
One is glad to know that the protagonist appeared “cool
and collected” to the indifferent observer, but she must have
been on the rack much of the time, for the “substantial
truth and right” for which she longed, got no chance at all,
or rather they saved their lives only by losing them, so to
speak; and that is one of time’s revenges that youth cannot
foresee.
The full report of the case appeared in the Scotsman of
May 31st and June 1st. The following extracts are taken
mainly from the Edinburgh Evening Courant, because they
.bn 337.png
.pn +1
are slightly abbreviated, and because they appeared in a
paper unfriendly to the cause of the women.
.pm start_quote
“There could be no doubt,” said the advocate for the pursuer,
“that, however injurious the arguments she used might be, if they
were justified by facts, it was perfectly open to Miss Jex-Blake to
maintain that her statements were true, and to take what is called
an ‘issue in justification,’ for the purpose of establishing upon her
own issue, as counter to the present one, what she said. But she
had not chosen to do that: it was not pretended that the statements
were true; and therefore the only question the jury had to
try was, practically, whether those statements were to the pursuer’s
loss, injury, and damage.[79]”
.pm end_quote
.fn 79
Scotsman, May 31, 1871.
.fn-
This argument, fair enough as coming from an advocate,
represents to all intents and purposes, the attitude adopted
by the Judge. The case positively bristled with arguments,
but the humblest appearance of a really relevant fact brought
Mr. Shand to his feet with a taboo.
.pm start_quote
“Thomas Sanderson deponed in answer to Mr. M‘Laren—I am
a student of medicine and last winter I attended Dr. Laycock’s
class. On the 18th November I was at the gate leading to Surgeons’
Hall. There was a large crowd of students and a larger crowd of
other people at the gate. The students were both inside and outside
the gate. The majority were University students. I assisted
the ladies to pass through the College gate. I was pulled about a
little by the students. The students were hooting, and oaths and
offensive expressions were used.
Among the students inside the gate did you recognize Mr. C.?
Mr. Shand (to witness)—Don’t answer that question.
Lord Mure sustained the objection.
Mr. M‘Laren—Did you see Mr. C. at any time on the 18th November?
Witness—Yes.
Where did you see him?—At the Surgeons’ Hall.
At what time of the day did you see him?—A few minutes after
four o’clock.
How was Mr. C. conducting himself?
Lord Mure disallowed the question.
E. C. C., examined by the Lord Advocate, deponed—I am the
pursuer in this action. I was twenty-one years of age last August.
You remember the riot at Surgeons’ Hall on the 18th of November?—I
do.
Where were you?
.bn 338.png
.pn +1
Mr. Shand objected to this question. His Lordship had already
ruled that no evidence could be led as to whether the witness took
part in these proceedings; and it seemed as if the Lord Advocate
was attempting to evade his Lordship’s decision.
Lord Mure said this was a general question and he allowed it to
be put to the witness.
The Lord Advocate—Where were you at the time? Witness—At
what time?
At the time of the riot?—I was at the College of Surgeons during
part of the time.
When did you go there?—Three o’clock.
When did the riot begin? Shortly after four.
What were you doing between three and four?—I was in the
class for practising physic.
When did it come out?—A few minutes before four.
Was there a mob of students at the gate?
Mr. Shand—Your lordship will understand that I am objecting
to all these questions.
The Lord Advocate—Were you present during the whole of the
riot?
Mr. Shand—I object to that question.
Lord Mure sustained the objection.”
.pm end_quote
In addressing the jury, Mr. Shand said,
.pm start_quote
“A slander had been committed and was unrepented, and only
by a verdict from the jury could the calumny be wiped off. A
nominal sum, however, would be an injury instead of an assistance.
Excessive damages[80] he did not ask, but only such a reasonable
sum as would mark their sense of the injury inflicted on the pursuer
by the statements made in his absence.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 80
The amount claimed—£1000—was only specified when the case came
into Court, having been inadvertently omitted from the issue.
.fn-
The Lord Advocate’s summing up was humorous in the
extreme, and called forth peals of laughter at the pursuer’s
expense; indeed in the end he almost went so far as to produce
a counter-wave of sympathy for the victim of his brilliant
raillery. But, indeed, nothing could be made of the case as
it stood.
In the final summing-up, Lord Mure said:
.pm start_quote
“He had not allowed any evidence to prove that the pursuer
had been a leader in the riot, because, according to his view of the
authorities on the subject, it was incompetent to allow such evidence
.bn 339.png
.pn +1
in the absence of an issue of justification. The jury had heard the
evidence of Dr. Christison and others as to the injury which a man’s
character was calculated to sustain from such a statement as had
been made use of by the defender; and it was for the jury to judge
whether that charge was one which was likely, without retractation
or apology, to injure the pursuer’s character.
The jury retired at five o’clock, and at half-past six they returned
to Court, and gave a unanimous verdict in favour of the pursuer,
assessing the damages at a farthing.”[81]
.pm end_quote
.fn 81
Edinburgh Evening Courant, June 1, 1871.
.fn-
On the following day a leading article in the Glasgow Herald
made the following comment:
.pm start_quote
“Miss Blake has not pled or proved the substantial truth of her
accusations. She has preferred to challenge Mr. C. to prove their
falsehood. We are altogether unable to understand why he should
not have accepted the challenge, and why he omitted to deny the
charges levelled against him. We cannot see how he could have
expected a jury to give him substantial damages for his injured
reputation when he refused to allow any enquiry into the circumstances
in which he stood. The witnesses who were present on the
occasion of the riot were not allowed to say whether they saw Mr.
C. present at the riot, whether he took part in it, or what he said
or did on the occasion if he was present. Miss Jex-Blake is accordingly
very properly fined one farthing for her rash and libellous
statements, and the public is left to wonder for what earthly reason
Mr. C. brought his action. It has only one compensation for the
loss of time involved in reading the evidence in a trial which has
established nothing. Miss Jex-Blake has completely vindicated the
title of her sex to aspire to the highest honours not merely in medicine
but in law. She has shown herself a perfect mistress of the art of
self defence. In no cricket field this season have there been so
many dangerous balls admirably stopped, and so many badly bowled
ones dexterously played. If the witness and the counsel could have
interchanged positions, the change might possibly have had considerable
effect upon the fortunes of Mr. C.”[82]
.pm end_quote
.fn 82
“Of course, as you know, I daresay,” writes Professor Jack to S. J.-B.
about this time, “all the articles that appear in the Herald are mine,
and especially the good ones.”
.fn-
But the end was not yet. It was still possible for the
Bench to make S. J.-B. responsible for the entire costs of
the case, and in due time she was called upon to pay—in
addition to the farthing damages—a bill of £915 11s. 1d.
.bn 340.png
.pn +1
Let it be recorded at once that her brother promptly
redeemed his promise, and sent a cheque for half the
amount.
As soon as the decision of the Court was made known,
one of the jurymen expressed his feelings in a letter to the
Scotsman:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Edinburgh, July 1871.
.ll
Sir,—As one of the jurymen before whom this case was tried, I
am extremely disappointed to observe from the papers that the
Court have found the pursuer entitled to his expenses.
I have been anxiously looking forward to the determination of
the case, in the hope that the verdict of the jury would be so applied
as to receive the effect which they intended by it.
The jury were of the opinion that the pursuer should have submitted
some evidence to them of his non-participation in the disgraceful
riot, of which Miss Jex-Blake had so much reason to complain,
to have entitled him to a verdict; and they would have made some
representation to the presiding Judge on the subject had it been
possible to do so.
After retiring, the first thing done was to appoint a foreman.
This gentleman turned out to be in favour of a verdict for the
defender. With the view of ascertaining the mind of the rest of the
jury, he asked us individually to write down on pieces of paper
whether we were for ‘libel’ or ‘no libel’. The result was an equal
division—six for finding that there was a libel, and six for no libel.
This was done a second time with the same result. In this predicament,
and after considerable discussion as to the amount of
damages, in the course of which I don’t think a larger sum than one
shilling was even mentioned, even by those who thought there had
been a libel, it was proposed to ask the Court whether the foreman
had a casting-vote. This was done, and the Clerk came back and
told us he had not. We then asked the Clerk whether we were
entitled to find for the pursuer without giving any damages, and he
told us we were not. Shortly after, we again sent for the Clerk, and
enquired whether a farthing of damages would carry expenses
against the defender. He stood a while, and said there was some
new Act which provided that a farthing of damages would not carry
expenses.
He went out to consult the Judge; but, having got this information
from him, we agreed upon our verdict, and rung the bell for
the macer at once. I had no doubt of the soundness of the Clerk’s
opinion, and in that belief I concurred in the verdict finding the
pursuer entitled to one farthing of damages. I certainly would not
have done so, had I for a moment anticipated the result which has
.bn 341.png
.pn +1
happened. I think the case a very hard one for the defender, more
especially when, but for the opinion given by the Clerk, the verdict
might have been in her favour. I think it is due to her that the
public should be informed of the circumstances under which the
verdict was given, for it seems a very illogical result to affirm that
the pursuer had suffered no damage by the alleged slander, or, at
least damage of only one farthing, and at the same time to compel
the defender to pay a large sum for expenses, especially when the
origin of the whole matter was a riot in which the ladies were so
badly used.—I am, etc.
.ll 68
.rj
A Juryman.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
This letter was followed by one from a lawyer:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Edinburgh, July 12, 1871.
.ll
Sir,—I am not surprised at the letter in your publication of
to-day, of a ‘A Juryman’ in the above case. The Clerk of Court
was in substance correct in his statement to the jury that by a recent
Act of Parliament the pursuer in an action of damages is not entitled
to expenses if the verdict is for less than £5, but he was wrong in
not at the same time informing them of the discretion still left to
the Court....
But the thing that strikes me most forcibly in the juryman’s
statement is how came it that a Clerk of Court was allowed to speak
to the jury at all on such a matter. The public are indebted to the
juryman for making this known, because it at once explains what
was intended by the verdict. I do not think in the circumstances
the verdict is worth anything, and I would strongly advise Miss
Jex-Blake to appeal the case, and have the verdict set aside on the
ground either of the Clerk’s interference, or that the decision of the
Judges is wrong. Certainly the decision on the matter of expenses
is very unsatisfactory to the legal profession, especially as it was
given without the usual statement of the grounds of judgment.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, etc.,
A Lawyer.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
It remained for Miss Pechey to give her views on the
practical outcome of the case. Poor little Hope Scholar!
She had travelled far since the days when she had refused to
“appeal” because she was better employed in listening to the
nightingales.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Edinburgh, July 13th.
.ll
Sir,—I see that a juryman has written to you to say how very
ill the recent decision as to the costs agrees with the intentions of the
jury, and a lawyer has made clear how extraordinary it is in point
.bn 342.png
.pn +1
of law. Will you allow me to say a few words, from personal experience,
on the practical results?
The medical students of Edinburgh have received a hint by which
some of them seem well inclined to profit. They have been told
pretty plainly that it is possible that there should be a riot got up
for the express purpose of insulting women, for one of the very
women insulted to be accused of libel when she complains of such
conduct, and then for the insulters to escape scot-free, and the complainer
to be mulcted in expenses. In fact the moral seems to be
that, unless a woman is willing to be saddled with costs to the amount
of several hundred pounds, she had better resolve to submit to
every kind of insult, without even allowing herself to mention the
facts.
I say that some of the students appear to have taken the hint
so given; for to this I must think is due the treatment received
by myself and some of my friends if we happen to meet students
on our way home in the evening. It will possibly strike some people
as sufficiently extraordinary that a knot of young men should find
pleasure in following a woman through the streets, and should take
advantage of her being alone to shout after her all the foulest epithets
in their voluminous vocabulary of abuse; yet such is the case.
I am quite aware that it would be useless to represent to those
students the injury they do to the University and to the medical
profession in the eyes of the public, because neither of these considerations
would weigh with them for a moment; but it may make
some impression on them to be told that the effect of their conduct
is really such as they would least desire. Dr. Christison is reported
to have said during his examination in Court, that he considered
the riot of November to be ‘a great misfortune,’ and from his point
of view he was undoubtedly right. If the wish of these students is
to bar our progress, and frighten us from the prosecution of the
work we have taken in hand, I venture to say never was a greater
mistake made. Each fresh insult is an additional incentive to finish
the work begun. I began the study of medicine merely from
personal motives; now I am also impelled by the desire to remove
women from the care of such young ruffians. I am quite aware
that respectable students will say, and say truly, that these are
the dregs of the profession, and that they will never take a high
place as respectable practitioners. Such is doubtless the case;
but what then? Simply that, instead of having the medical charge
of ladies with rich husbands and fathers, to whom, from self-interest,
they would be respectful, they will have the treatment of unprotected
servants and shop-girls. I should be very sorry to see any
poor girl under the care (!) of such men as those, for instance, who
the other night followed me through the street, using medical terms
.bn 343.png
.pn +1
to make the disgusting purport of their language more intelligible
to me. When a man can put his scientific knowledge to such degraded
use, it seems to me he cannot sink much lower.
How far the recent decisions are calculated to arrest or discourage
such conduct, I leave the public to judge.—I am, etc.
.ll 68
.rj
Mary Edith Pechey.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
One is glad to note that the Lancet now took fire:
.pm start_quote
“Common candour must compel any unprejudiced person to
admit that the fight has been pursued by the orthodox party per
fas et nefas, and that the ill-advised conduct of grave and learned
seniors in the profession has offered only too plausible an excuse
to the heated blood of younger partisans to indulge in coarse
excesses.”
.pm end_quote
It would be wrong to make too much of this ebullition of
wickedness from the hearts of “ill-led” boys; but we must
not forget that the women were scarcely more than girls,
unable to view these things as calmly as we view them now;
and all these experiences went to make them the thing they
became.
For the iron entered into their souls.
Thirty years later one of their number—a married woman
and a physician of standing—was heard to say that on her
occasional visits to Edinburgh, she would make a détour of
miles rather than pass the gates of Surgeons’ Hall.
“Would you really?” said S. J.-B.
.bn 344.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.10
CHAPTER X | SOME FRIENDSHIPS AND HOLIDAYS
.sp 2
Of course S. J.-B. was not allowed to pay one penny of her
expenses. The amount was subscribed, and more than
subscribed, by sympathizers all over the United Kingdom
in the course of a few weeks; and her brother’s cheque was
duly returned. It would almost seem as if nothing had done
so much to excite public interest and fellow-feeling as that
unfortunate speech and the lawsuit to which it led. The
very names of those who undertook to receive subscriptions
gave a striking indication of the challenge of popular
sympathy.[83]
.fn 83
Mrs. Hill Burton, Rev. Professor Calderwood, Treasurer Colston,
J. R. Findlay, Esq., David Greig, Esq., Mrs. Hope of Drylaw, Miss Agnes
M‘Laren, Mrs. Nichol, Admiral Sir W. Ramsay, K.C.B., Miss L. Stevenson,
and R. S. Wyld, Esq.
.fn-
There was no lack of criticism and condemnation, of course;
the move and countermove went on; but hundreds of letters
poured in, bearing witness, not only to the width, but to the
depth, of the feeling called forth. Miss Frances Power
Cobbe’s impulsive beginning,—“I want words to express my
indignation,—” was typical of many. Harriet Martineau,
too, was a subscriber and a cordial sympathizer.[84]
.fn 84
“If you, as the honoured and trusted representative of us working
women, are insulted for us all, the grosser the insult, the more secure you
must be of sympathy and gratitude from increasing multitudes of individuals,
and of the adoption of our cause as a practical aim by the best
part of society in our day.”
.fn-
A number of subscriptions were returned after the full
amount was raised, and many people expressed their disappointment
.bn 345.png
.pn +1
at hearing of the fund only through the announcement
that it was closed. “I wish it would open again,”
wrote the Revd. Professor Charteris, “even if it were only
a little chink.”
Here are two very different letters that one is glad to put
on record:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Inverness, Aug. 3/71.
.ll
Dear Miss Stevenson,[85]
Assuredly no man could calmly read Miss Jex-Blake’s case,
out of or in Court. And, could I do so publicly, I would cast from
me with loathing all my once valued connexions with the Edinr.
Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons; to show my utter disgust at
(with a few honourable exceptions) their unmanly brutal conduct
towards Miss Blake and her friends.
On the 9th (D.V.) I shall be in Edinburgh, when I shall call for
or write to you. On that day, I hope to get some help from absent
friends to add to the mite of
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours faithfully,
J. Mackenzie, M.D.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 85
Miss Louisa Stevenson and Mrs. Henry Kingsley had kindly undertaken
to be Hon. Treasurers of the fund.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“33 Richmond Place,
Edinburgh, 24th Aug. 1871.
.nf-
.ll
Madam,
I beg to enclose a P.O.O. for eight shillings. This small sum
is subscribed by a few working men in aid of the fund for defraying
the Law expences so unjustly thrust upon Miss Jex-Blake for simply
speaking the truth in her own defence in a Straightforward Manner.
They deeply sympathise with this lady in the noble she is
making for Womens right to a liberal education and remunerative
employment. May she be of good cheer, of good courage, and
continue steadfast unto the end.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, Madam,
Your obedient Servant,
James Gray.
.nf-
.ll
P.S. If this subscription be advertised please put it, A few
working men—8s. It is payable at the Nicholson Street Post
Office.
Miss A. M‘Laren.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 346.png
.pn +1
There was almost always an element of comic relief, too,
about these tragic and moving situations. The following
letter was one of those which provided it in this case:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“58 Altom Street,
Blackburn, 15 Aug./71.
.nf-
.ll
.ti 3
Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 2
Dear Madam,
.ti 6
Although a complete stranger to you I have long been familiar
with your name, and also with your efforts to open the Edinburgh
University to Ladies. I understand that you have been in America,
you will therefore be familiar with many of the Colleges and Universities
there. My wife who is in full practice here has studied Medicine
in the Hygeio-Therapeutic Medical College and has obtained her
M.D. Degree from the same College. As I am able to influence the
Degree of M.D. to either Ladies or Gentlemen who are able to satisfy
me as to their fitness to practise Medicine, I thought I would communicate
with you, as probably an American degree would answer
your purpose until it is possible to procure one from an English or
Scotch University.
After all, it is not the degree but the ability of a Medical practitioner
that should be appreciated....”
.pm end_quote
Truly: but the law has something to say about the signing
of death certificates, the registration of lunatics, the
recovery of fees, and other incidental details. More strawberry
jam labels!
The cheque, for over £1000, was presented to S. J.-B. at
a public meeting, when there was a large gathering of influential
citizens, the faithful Lord Provost occupying the
chair. When all expenses were fully paid, a balance remained
of over £100, which S. J.-B. asked leave to add to an already
existing “nest-egg” for the purpose of founding a future
hospital for women officered by women.
The immediate struggle with the University was not made
any easier, however, though the “Cause” was gaining
ground by strides all over the rest of the world. The Scotsman
continued to give a wholesome lead to the press: indeed no
woman gained scholastic or other honours anywhere without
having her name and achievement duly registered with an
implicit Verb. sap. at the end of the paragraph.
One is glad to record, too, that one or two delightful holidays
relieved the strain of this year’s work. Mrs. Thorne was
.bn 347.png
.pn +1
proving herself a most valuable representative, not comparably
so well versed as S. J.-B. in all the minutiae of the
conflict, but certainly less exacting and easier to work with.
Considering the stem from which she sprang—a Tory
family of landed gentry—S. J.-B. as prophetess had a surprising
amount of honour in her own house. Her conservative
old friend, Lady Waldegrave, had written a quite touching
letter of appreciation in April of this year; and her Norfolk
uncle and aunt, the Revd. Thomas and Mrs. Gunton actually
subscribed to the cause and allowed their names to be put on
her Committee, though Mrs. Gunton had postponed reading
the papers bearing on the subject for some time, from fear
that she and her husband would be constrained to refuse.
“How ANY WOMAN can have a desire for the Medical Profession
is indeed WONDERFUL,” she writes, “but of course
only very talented ones could go through the stiff examinations
that are required.”
She remarks too, with complacence, that men doctors will be
kept up to the mark when they have to compete against women.
In some remote part of Norfolk, Mrs. Jex-Blake gave her
name in a shop, whereupon “a lady stepped forward and
said what good work you were doing, but, if we were English,
we must think very ill of the Scotch. I said No, you had
received far more kindness than unkindness, having had a
great many real and warm friends.”
This incident leads one to note that the present year, 1871,
saw the ripening into lifelong friendship of S. J.-B.’s acquaintance
with Miss Agnes M‘Laren, daughter of the Member for
Edinburgh,—a lady who adds one more to the gallery of
truly noble women with whom we are brought into contact
when reviewing S. J.-B.’s life. At the time of “the Edinburgh
Fight,” Miss M‘Laren was engaged in Suffrage work with
Miss Taylour, acting as Hon. Secretary to the Association
(with no paid subordinate to do the drudgery), travelling on
occasion all over Scotland in serious propagation of her
principles.[86] She was perhaps the most public-spirited
.bn 348.png
.pn +1
member of a public-spirited family, for the reason that in her
the strong purpose, shrewd judgment and liberal sympathies
that characterized all, were combined with an instinctive
aloofness and even shyness, with a spirit almost of quietism,
with a real old-world grace of womanhood.
.fn 86
It is interesting to note that at this time almost all public-spirited
women thought the suffrage would be granted before the right to a medical
education. They had so nearly got it more than once! “You will
accomplish nothing,” S. J-B. was sometimes told, “until we get the vote.”
And one is grimly amused to find her expressing a serious fear that the
suffrage may be granted before she has had an opportunity of hearing
her friend, Miss M‘Laren, speak in support of it. She need have entertained
no undue apprehension on this score.
.fn-
She was hailed with something like reverence by the work-worn,
hard-driven students at 15 Buccleuch Place, and almost
from the first they spoke of her among themselves as “St.
Agnes,” a name to which she characteristically took exception
as soon as it reached her ears.
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss M‘Laren,” writes S. J.-B. in this connection,—
“You can’t seriously suppose that anybody in this house,—least
of all that I,—should really laugh at you!—though I don’t doubt
that you are a great deal too humble-minded to understand in the
least the sort of light in which most of us working women do regard
you. However we’ll keep our pet name for you to ourselves if you
don’t like it.”
.pm end_quote
And again a few weeks later:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“15 Buccleuch Place,
Edinburgh. June 7th.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss M‘Laren,
.ti 6
Though we all miss you here almost daily, I am unselfish
enough to be heartily glad that you are going to Germany. I am
sure the change of air and scene must do you good, and the chestnut
trees at Heidelberg must be simply lovely now.
When you get to the top and sit and look down at the valley of
the Neckar, you may picture me (as a lonely English teacher at
Mannheim) going over there on Sundays to church, and climbing
to that brow to enjoy the setting sun and the infinite peacefulness
and beauty of the whole scene.
I only wish I could be there with you!—If you stay at all at
Mannheim, do go and see my old school, the ‘Grossherzogliches
Institut’—I think they will still remember my name there,—and
I should like so much to hear news of them. They would be electrified
to hear of me as a doctor.
I finished up by having scarlet fever there, and shocked them
all by refusing to submit to the stupid old German regimen of
starvation and shut windows!...
.bn 349.png
.pn +1
I do most heartily wish you a pleasant journey and great rest and
refreshment in it. Do you know that when I got your letter such
a longing came over me to see the Rhine again that for a moment
I almost thought of asking if you would take me with you, but five
minutes reflection showed me how wrong and foolish it would be
for me to leave home just now in the midst of term, and with these
‘appeals’ still undecided, and with my petition to the Senatus
coming on! But it was a huge temptation all the same!”
.pm end_quote
This brings us back to the diary:
.pm start_quote
“Monday June 5th. The trial over at last. ‘Farthing damages’
satisfactory, I suppose.
But I so weary! If I could but get a month’s real rest! I wake
feeling driven,—I get through nothing all day, and I lie down tired
out at night.
Wednesday, June 7th. Sur ces entrefaites (as my present
neighbours would say) came a letter from St. Agnes saying she was
to go to Heidelberg on Saturday for three weeks. Instantly—Why
shouldn’t I go with her, quoth the Infantine.
Fifty reasons, quoth the Estimable,—law, money, study, Senatus,
etc., etc.
Telling Pussy[87] of the temptation overcome, came a proposal to
‘treat Resolution,’ urged by her, E.P., and even Mrs. Thorne.
.fn 87
The name by which Miss Louisa Stevenson was affectionately known
in the little circle.
.fn-
Millar [lawyer] said I could be spared.
So Thursday went to London with L. and F. Stevenson,... Good
journey. Slept at Hampstead.
Sunday 11th. Morning Stopford Brooke, St. James Chapel,
York Street. Stood till sermon, then pulpit stairs....
.pm end_quote
It might almost have been predicted that S. J.-B. would
not pass through Paris in a time of peace. The visit was
destined to prove exciting enough. She just dashes down a
few polyglot jottings in her diary to serve as stepping-stones
for memory later on:
.pm start_quote
Tuesday 13th. Reached Paris about 6.30. No cabs, no apparent
chance of any. At length in streets 2-seated fiacre, drove to [Hotel]
Folkestone, was deposited, C. M‘L.[88] returning for others.
.fn 88
Mr. Charles M‘Laren (now Lord Aberconway) and Mr. Walter M‘Laren
were of the party.
.fn-
Friday 16th. Writing all above (from 7th. onwards) by open
window of Hotel F.—rain falling on market outside. They not
back from Versailles, where gone in hope of hearing Assemblé, etc.
.bn 350.png
.pn +1
Wednesday. After long trudge found ‘voiture de grande
remise’ 4 frs. the hour, drove by Luxembourg, Notre Dame, Sainte
Chapelle, etc. (Not allowed to lift written scrap from street from
heap of ruins by side of Palais de Justice.) Great order and quiet
everywhere and civility.
Pantheon dinted with ‘obus’. Hotel de Ville gutted, (with all
registers, etc.)—Tuileries, and Palais de Justice Ditto. Ministère
de Finances even more utterly in ruins, and houses here and there,—e.g.
in Rue Royale by Madeleine and elsewhere.
Hotel de Clugny incendie but unhurt. All along streets notice
holes to cellars stopped up with plaster for fear of petroleum.
Thursday. Drove by Champs Elysées, to Champ de Mars,
Porte de Neuilly (where such destruction from bombs, etc., vault
of railway crashed in,—trees in splinters, etc.) Then by Quaies,
into Place de Carrousel between Tuileries and Louvre to Bastille
Column and (through bad parts of town ...) to Père la Chaise,
with its horrible trenches filled with hundreds of bodies and soaked
black with petroleum (clothes, etc., burnt over them?).
Then that ghastly corner where 250 and 140 (‘4, 5 femmes,’) were
shot ‘en pleine vigueur’ crying ‘Vive la République!’ as a keen
young fossier told with evident sympathy, he having had to stand
by,—see the firing, and bury the results.
Today Friday, 16th. The Petit Moniteur gives a horrible circular
(torn down last night in the Rue Rochechouard) inciting ‘Travailleurs
from every country to join against priests, soldiers and tyrants,
and succeed, or nous nous ensevelirons sous les ruines de Paris!’
Fancy crying for fresh bloodshed when steeped in it to the lips
now!
Some Frenchwomen at table curiously indignant at our small care
about English ‘communists’,—quite unable to understand how the
solidarity of national sentiment made such as these late events
impossible in England, and then, when I mildly said so, shooting
at me:—‘Pourtant, la Révolution où on a tué votre roi!’!!”
“Monday 20th. Went to Versailles to see the Chambre;—unpunctual
sitting, I only present during some minutes of debate.
Given ticket in ‘D’ by President Grévy.
6.30. Left Paris via Dieppe. 8 hours roughish sea.
Tuesday. Brighton.”
.pm end_quote
So there was no Heidelberg after all,—no sitting on the
brow of the hill to look down on the valley of the Neckar,
and recall ces jours heureux où nous étions si misérables. We
are not told why S.J.-B.’s holiday was cut so short: perhaps
railway communication was broken for the moment, and it
.bn 351.png
.pn +1
proved impossible to proceed: but in any case it may be that
the intense and unexpected picture of carnage and strife
served to take her more completely out of herself and her
worries than the more peaceful experience she would have
chosen.
Moreover a real holiday was in store that Autumn, a holiday
brightened by a visit from Dr. Lucy Sewall. How much
this meant to her one gathers from the following letter,
written about this date:
.pm start_quote
“My Darling,
I am so sorry for your loss of poor little Scamper,—I have
got a splendid big ‘Collie’ for you here,—the handsomest I ever
saw,—if you can take him back with you. If, that is, you must go
back; but, oh, Lucy, I do so wish you would stay with us here for
a few years.
People are getting wild for women doctors here,—and you might
make almost any income, and do quite incalculable good by living
here for the next five years.
We have eleven women studying here now, and absolutely no one
to give them [adequate] uterine teaching!
This morning I had a quite spontaneous offer of £200 to help found
a Women’s Hospital here, and I believe that in a week I could get
ten times that amount promised.
You should organize everything exactly as you liked, and, republican
wretch as you are, you would be a sort of Queen among
us,—and, what you would care for much more, would do quite
infinite good to everybody concerned,—ladies, poor women, students,
and all.
However, you shan’t be bothered or worried. I think the strongest
argument of all will be when you see for yourself how sorely we
need you.
I shall not make any definite plans for you till after you come.
If you like to stay quietly in Scotland all the time, we will do so,
or I will go with you to Zurich or Paris or anywhere you like....
Send me early word of the steamer by which you expect to come,
and, if at all possible, I will meet you at Liverpool....
I send you another copy of my Suffrage speech, and hope you
have received the newspapers about the trial.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your very aff.
S. L. J.-B.
.nf-
.ll
Turk has put on mourning for Scamper,—crape round his left
arm, as they do in the army. He evidently quite understands, for
he doesn’t try to get it off....”
.pm end_quote
.bn 352.png
.pn +1
The reader will not need to be told that S. J.-B. went out
on the tender to meet her friend at Liverpool,—“after awful
rush previous day with Surgeons’ Hall, leader, etc.”
Dr. Sewall’s choice of a holiday, happily, was a quiet time,
mainly in Perthshire; but, straight from Liverpool, the two
fellow-workers went to Shipley to see Mrs. Unwin, whose
health had been failing for some time.
The friendship between S. J.-B. and her fellow student had
never flagged. S. J.-B. had paid repeated visits to the
Yorkshire home, where husband and wife vied with each
other in the warmth of their welcome, and where both had
proved most loyal advocates and upholders of the new Cause.
More than once when a petition was being got ready for
Parliament on the subject of the medical education of women,
Mrs. Unwin had proved herself a keen and successful canvasser
for signatures in her neighbourhood, throwing into the scale
that weight of personal popularity which is so important a
factor in the achievement of any aim. She had even paid
a visit to the beehive at 15 Buccleuch Place, to be made much
of by the workers, and to be not a little impressed by the
sight of such divers and strenuous activities.
And now she was ill, and S. J.-B. was perfectly sure that,
if anyone could bring healing, it was “the little doctor.”
Fresh courage they brought indeed, a little fresh lease of
life in which the sufferer recovered strength and proved a
renewed source of comfort to husband and children before
she was called hence out of their sight; but healing in this
world was not to be. Dis aliter visum.
.tb
In other respects the holiday was a refreshing one. It
included attendance at a meeting of the British Association—great
joy for Dr. Sewall—and a stay at an old Perthshire
farmhouse, which, to many other attractions in S. J.-B.’s
eyes, added the crowning one of a ghost,—a ghost which
was visible to the dogs, and abundantly audible to herself
and Miss Du Pre, though it failed subsequently to make any
impression on the representatives of the Society for Psychical
Research.
From the farmhouse as a centre they made delightful
.bn 353.png
.pn +1
excursions, the germ of many subsequent driving-tours in
Perthshire, and it was on this occasion that the roadside inn
at Fortingal was discovered, with its restful surroundings,
cosy interior, and omelettes that constituted a positive object
in life to the healthy holiday-maker!
After a farewell visit to Mrs. Unwin, Dr. Sewall sailed for
Boston in September, parting from S. J.-B. on the tender
at Liverpool. Her “log” was a lengthy one, full of wise
observations and reflection, and every word of it was written
for S. J.-B....
.pm start_quote
“My dear one,
.ti 6
... I have been thinking last night that if you and I could
ever practise together, we ought to do better than either alone,
for you have many qualities in which I am wanting. I think if we
were together, you would write a valuable book, and so give the
world a higher idea of women doctors. I know I shall never succeed
in writing a good book by myself.
It hardly seems worth while to make you read all my fancies,
but it seems to bring you nearer to me while I am writing, and the
days are so long and lonely here.”
“When I lie awake nights and think of you wanting me to help you
in Edinburgh, it seems to me as if I must break off from all my ties,
and come back to you at once; but then my New England conscience
wakes up and tells me that my life must be duty and not pleasure,
and I try to be contented with doing the work that God gives me,
and trust that when I am really at work it will be all right.
I do hope that you are having a nice quiet time with Miss Du
Pre, and getting rested.”
“It is just a week now since I said Goodbye to you, but it seems
almost like a month to me. Last night for the first time since I
left, I dreamed of having patients instead of dreaming of you.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 354.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.11
CHAPTER XI | THE QUESTION OF PROFESSIONAL EXAMINATION
.sp 2
Apart from the ghost—which was a pure joy, though a very
exciting one—S. J.-B.’s holiday was broken in upon by very
disturbing rumours.
It was whispered by some of those who might have been
supposed to know, that—notwithstanding the paragraphs
that still stood in the University Calendar (see p. #260#)—an effort
would be made to prevent any new women candidates from
undergoing the Preliminary Examination, and from matriculating.
Worse than this, it was hinted that a similar effort
would be made to prevent the women who had been studying
for that express purpose for two years, from presenting themselves
for the First Professional Examination.
There were positive difficulties apart from these vague
rumours. In a previous chapter we saw that the President
of the Royal College of Physicians and the President of the
Royal College of Surgeons had refused to preside at the prize-giving
“if lady students were to be present and to receive
their prizes on that occasion.” This announcement was
followed by a decision on the part of the lecturers at Surgeons’
Hall “to rescind the permission given last summer to those
lecturers who desired to admit ladies to their classes,”—“it
being, however, understood that the prohibition should not
extend to the instructions by Dr. Keiller [in Midwifery] and
others, of women who were not registered students of medicine.”
It was still open to the women, of course, to get Extra-Mural
lecturers to teach them elsewhere, if rooms could be
found and the necessary arrangements made; but, as regarded
.bn 355.png
.pn +1
the original students, an automatic deadlock arose at this
point of which certain Professors unhappily elected to avail
themselves:
By the rules of the University only four classes might be
taken from Extra-Mural (non-professorial) teachers, and the
original students had already taken these four. Professor
Christison’s class was one of those that came next in turn,
and it would, perhaps, have been expecting too much of human
nature that he should have chosen this moment in which to
lay down his arms. In any case, he refused point blank.
In this dilemma, the women appealed to the Senatus,—(1)
to appoint special University lecturers (assistants to the
Professors or others) whose payment the women would
guarantee; or (2) alternatively, to relax, in the case of the
women, the ordinary regulations, so that they might take
an increased number of Extra-Mural classes.
Counsel’s opinion was taken by the Senatus as to the powers
of the University in this respect, and, an opinion adverse to
the wishes of the women having been received, the Senatus
decided by a majority of one to take no action in the matter.
Promptly S. J.-B. and her Committee submitted the facts
to other counsel (the Lord Advocate and Sheriff Fraser) and
received the opinion (1) that it was quite competent to the
University authorities to make any necessary provision for
the completion of the ladies’ education: and (2) that the
Medical Faculty were bound to admit the ladies to professional
examination on the subjects in which they were already
qualified to pass.
This latter point was included with special reference to the
incredible rumours referred to above.
As the day of the examinations drew near and nothing
happened, the leaders among the women began to feel reassured.
The following letters, however, show how well-founded
their fears were:
.pm start_quote
“Private.
.ll 68
.rj
Oct. 2. 71.
.ll
My dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I shall be at the Senatus any day you like, unless prevented
by something of which I have no present prospect.
I was glad to hear, from my wife, ... that Mr. Fraser has given
.bn 356.png
.pn +1
you a favourable opinion. His view that the Professors are bound
to teach all persons who present Matriculation tickets to them, is
what I have always held, and I believe often expressed to you. In
the same way I should say, they are bound to examine them. What
you must do now, then, I fancy, is to present your Mat: tickets
and class fees and demand class tickets, and present your Certificates,
etc., and demand Examination, and, on either or both being refused,
claim a legal remedy. If possible you ought to go to the Court of
Session and not to the University Court; and to the 2nd Division,
if you have to go beyond the Lord Ordinary. Moncrieff will be
much influenced by Fraser’s opinion, whereas Inglis will be influenced,
if at all, in the wrong direction. As Chancellor, however, I should
think he would himself decline to sit as a Judge in a case which may
come before him in the former capacity.
With kind regards from Mrs. Lorimer, believe me,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
J. Lorimer.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“16 Charlotte Square,
Edinburgh.
Friday, Oct. 13th. 1871.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
... I should very much like to see the legal opinion you
have obtained upon the point of legal responsibility as incurred by
the University Court in their pragmatic sanction of the lady students
matriculating and passing their preliminary examination.
A legal opinion depends so entirely upon the manner in which
the matter is laid before counsel, and usually leaves so many loopholes
for escape unperceived by a non-professional eye, that I am
always jealous of such opinions unless the interpretation thereof is
given by someone of good common sense and legal experience....
I shall be at home tomorrow (Saturday) evening at 7.40 p.m.
when it will give me the greatest pleasure to see you, if that will
suit your convenience.
Is it true that Mrs. de Lacy Evans is engaged to Mr. Russel of
the Scotsman?!!!
.ll 68
.nf r
Most faithfully yours,
Patrick Heron Watson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Here is a significant little letter, too, from the Secretary to
the University:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Inveresk. Oct. 13.
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
I have instructed Mr. Gilbert[89] to receive the money [for the
First Professional Examn.] and give the customary acknowledgments,
so that you may be all right with the Dean.
.bn 357.png
.pn +1
I am bound to call a meeting of Senatus upon a requisition signed
by 3 Professors. Secure a day likely to suit your friends. Saturday
is not a good day generally, and on Friday 2 or 3 are coming down
here to dine,—at least they are asked to do so.
How would Thursday or Monday do?
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
John Wilson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 89
Clerk of the University.
.fn-
That afternoon, we are told, there was a “furious row”
in the Medical Faculty, and a day or two later each of the
women candidates for the First Professional Examination
received a copy of the following letter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“University of Edinburgh,
October 14th, 1871.
.nf-
.ll
Madam,
.ti 6
I am instructed by the Medical Faculty to inform you that
your name and your fees have been received in error by the Clerk
of the University as a candidate for the first professional examination
during the present month, but that the Faculty cannot receive
you for such examination without the sanction of the Senatus
Academicus.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, Madam,
Your obedient servant,
J. H. Balfour,
Dean of the Medical Faculty.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Two days later S. J.-B. received the following letter with
reference to the Preliminary Examination:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“University of Edinburgh, Oct. 16. 1871.
.ll
Madam,
.ti 6
I am desired by the Dean of the Medical Faculty to inform
you that he has been interdicted by the Faculty from giving
examination papers to ladies on the 17th and 18th curt.
Kindly communicate this fact to the ladies whose names you
some time ago handed in to me for this examination.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, etc.,
Thomas Gilbert.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
It will be noticed that the letter was dated on the day
previous to that on which the examination was to take place.
Three ladies had come—or were on their way—from various
parts of the kingdom to submit to it. If they were not
allowed to enter, they would be thrown back in their
studies for a whole year.
.bn 358.png
.pn +1
Most women—and men—would have sat down under this
blow. S. J.-B. went straight to her solicitor and took him
with her to see the advocate (Mr. Fraser). The following
is a copy of the letter that was sent by them to the Dean of
the Medical Faculty:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Chambers, 8 Bank Street,
Edinburgh. Oct. 16th. 1871.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Sir,
.ti 8
We have been instructed to obtain the opinion of counsel
with reference to the legality of your refusal to admit ladies to the
Preliminary Examination in Arts, which will take place tomorrow.
We beg now to enclose the memorial submitted, and the opinion
given thereon by Mr. Patrick Fraser, for your perusal, and request
that you will, at your earliest convenience, return them to us.
We beg to point out that you are individually responsible if the
refusal is persisted in, and that we have been instructed, in that
case, to raise actions for damages against you at the instance of each
of the memorialists. You will also observe that the instructions
of the Medical Faculty, being in themselves illegal, will be no defence
against such actions.
We trust that you will, in these circumstances, reconsider the
matter, and see fit to retract the refusal, and prevent the necessity
of further proceedings.
.ll 68
.nf r
We are, etc.,
Millar, Allardice & Robson, W.S.
.nf-
.ll
.in 2
.nf
Professor Balfour, M.D.,
Dean of the Medical Faculty.”
.nf-
.in
.pm end_quote
There was no loss of time in receiving the reply:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“University of Edinburgh, Oct. 16th., 1871.[90]
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I have received the legal notice from your solicitor. Under
these circumstances I shall not take the responsibility of refusing
the ladies admission to the preliminary examination as heretofore.
But I must inform you that I admit them provisionally until the
matter is decided by the proper authorities, and without prejudice
as regards myself.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, etc.,
J. H. Balfour.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 90
The dates of these three letters are correctly given. They were all
delivered by hand.
.fn-
So the ladies were duly examined in the ordinary
course.
.bn 359.png
.pn +1
On applying for Matriculation tickets, however, they were
informed by the clerk that the Principal of the University
had written him word that, in consequence of representations
made to him by Professor Christison, no ladies were at present
to be allowed to matriculate. “Of course,” said a friendly
professor, “the Principal had no more authority to issue this
decree than had the janitor.”
In this case, fortunately, there was time to call a
of Senatus, as referred to by Professor Wilson above (letter
of October 13), and the necessary requisition was signed by
Professors Crum Brown, Tait, and Liston.
.pm start_quote
[Diary.] “Tuesday 17th. Preliminary examination all right,—Mundy,
Dahms, and Miller. Dr. Alex. Wood takes Motion in
General Council.
Thursday, 19th. Leader written yesterday, in proof today.
I, oh, so tired! Settled about motions in Senatus. Med. Fac.
want Lord Advocate’s opinion,—seem shaking in their shoes.
Ah, we will win,—but the price!”
.pm end_quote
Poor little Despotic Emperor! Where was her Sackermena?
.pm start_poem
“It may be that the gulphs will bear us down,
It may be we shall reach the happy isles....”
.pm end_poem
.pm start_quote
“How these worries must increase the difficulties of study in the
case of each one of you;” wrote a faithful friend, the Dowager
Countess of Buchan, next day. “But then the certainty of success
somehow, as the dear Newman used to say, when he meant that there
were benedictions in the air; and that you will surely have worked
out the greatest possible benefit for womankind for all generations,
even if hostilities are prolonged, must be a support now and an
abundant recompense, I hope, for all your toils when they are happily
concluded.”
.pm end_quote
About the same time another “honourable woman” was
writing:
.pm start_quote
“Sir,
.ti 6
I venture to trouble you with a post office Order for £2,—payable
from me to yourself,—as my small contribution to the
Fund needed by the General Committee for securing a Complete
Medical Education for Women in Edinburgh.
The question is so important, and the Lady-students have manifested
so fine a spirit and temper under the harassing trials, that
.bn 360.png
.pn +1
a large proportion of their countrymen will, I trust, feel the obligation
of sustaining them during their conflict with jealousies and prejudices
which will scarcely be credited by a future generation.
Permit me to offer you my thanks for the service you render to
a good cause by managing the financial concerns of the movement,
and believe me, Sir, with much respect.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours,
Harriet Martineau.
.nf-
.ll
W. L. Reid, Esq.”
.pm end_quote
At the Senatus meeting on Oct. 21st., the question of
admitting women to the First Professional Examination was
discussed, and the Medical Faculty was instructed to examine
them. It is interesting to know that all the candidates
passed.
But S. J.-B. was not one of them. All her strength was
being spent in carving out the way.
It was matter for congratulation, of course, that the schemes
of the enemy had been foiled; but the friends of the women
in the University were now more anxious than ever to raise the
whole question on to a level above these harassing obstacles.
At a meeting of the University Council Dr. Alexander Wood
moved that “the University is bound in honour and justice
to render it possible for these women who have already
commenced their studies, to complete them.”
“This,” said the Lancet, “is precisely the ground we
have always taken up about the matter; and we hope the
General Council of the University will, by the adoption of Dr.
Alexander Wood’s motion, put an end to the controversy
which has redounded so little to the credit of that school.”
Dr. Wood made a brave and telling little speech, and was
ably seconded by Mr. Alexander Nicolson. In moving the
amendment, Professor Turner, with great shrewdness, quoted
S. J.-B.’s letter to the Dean of the Medical Faculty of two years
before (see p. #235#), a letter which, at a superficial glance,
looked like the weakest point in her case—the letter in
which she had signified her willingness “to withdraw my
application altogether if, after due and sufficient trial, it
should be found impracticable to grant me a continuance
of the favour which I now request”; and of course
no one present knew enough of the facts to reply. It was
.bn 361.png
.pn +1
only after Dr. Wood’s motion had been lost by 107 votes to 97,
that S. J.-B. had an opportunity of pointing out—in the
hospitable columns of the Scotsman—that the letter quoted
had reference only to the tentative proposal that she, alone
and without matriculation, should attend Professor Balfour’s
and Professor Allman’s summer courses. This proposal the
University had refused, “deferring the whole question till
a permanent plan could be arranged and formally
sanctioned by all the necessary authorities,—which was
finally accomplished after eight months of consideration and
delay.”
This is one instance—out of hundreds—of S. J.-B.’s extraordinary
ability to refute statements that looked true, that
might have been true, that were nearly true,—by a precise
quotation of facts. It was an ability that made for her
more enemies than friends as life went on. Let it be noted,
too, that, but for the generosity of the press, she never could
have corrected such statements at all.
.pm start_quote
“To sum up the whole matter in one word,” she wrote, “I will
venture to say, that, instead of the daily trials of the past two years
and the apparent deadlock at which we have now arrived, we should
have found nothing but smooth paths for our feet, and no difficulties
from either students or professors, had Dr. Christison but kept to
the promise he voluntarily made to me at the close of my single
interview—of two minutes—with him 2 years ago—‘I shall vote
against you, but I shall take no measures to oppose you.’”
.pm end_quote
Once more the Lancet made dignified protest:
.pm start_quote
“The Edinburgh school has come badly out of its imbroglio with
the lady students. The motion of Dr. Alexander Wood, to which
we made reference last week, was negatived by a majority of ten.
As we then pointed out, the issue before the General Council was
neither more nor less than this,—to keep faith with the female
students whom the University had allowed to proceed two years
in their medical curriculum. The Council was not asked to commit
itself in the slightest degree to any opinion, favourable or unfavourable,
to the admission of ladies to a medical career. It had only to
concede, in common courtesy, not to say common fairness, the right
to which the best legal advice had clearly shown the female students
to be entitled,—the right to carry on the studies they had been
allowed to prosecute half way towards graduation. Will it be
.bn 362.png
.pn +1
believed? An amendment postponing the settlement of the difficulty
till it had been duly considered by the authorities of the University,
was put and carried; as if there was any more room for ‘consideration’
in the matter! Thus Edinburgh stands convicted of having
acted unfairly towards seven ladies, whom she first accepted as
pupils, and then stopped half-way in their career.”[91]
.pm end_quote
.fn 91
Lancet, November 4, 1871.
.fn-
Move and countermove follow with bewildering rapidity
at this time. Within a fortnight Professor Muirhead is
urging the Senatus to rescind the regulations for the admission
of women to the University, reserving the rights of those
already entered; and this is passed by a majority of one,—14
to 13.
Eighteen Professors, however, rose up in wrath to protest
against this decision, and—as only fifteen, out of a total of
thirty-five, could be got to support it,—the regulations of
Nov. 1869, were confirmed by the University Court, and
everything was left in statu quo![92]
.fn 92
“The Court find it inexpedient at present to rescind the said resolutions
and regulations, and therefore decline to give effect to the decision of the
Senatus. The Court must not be understood as indicating by this deliverance
any opinion as to the claims of women to proceed to graduation, or
as to the power of the University to confer on women degrees in the
Faculty of Medicine.” Commd. by direction of the University Court. J.
Christison, W.S., Sec.
.fn-
.tb
Meanwhile—in addition to classes for the seniors—arrangements
had to be made for the three new students who had
entered. It was probably in connection with these that
S. J.-B. received the following letter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“17 Drummond Place,
December 23rd. /71.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Madam,
.ti 6
As you will probably be aware before you receive this, I have
been utterly unsuccessful in my attempts to bring my Colleague to
my own way of looking at the matter in question.
I may mention to you that my own impression, derived from
various conversations with several of the most prominent of your
opponents, is that they would have but little objection to give you,
or at least to make arrangements for giving you, the instruction
you seek—provided it were sought as a favor and not claimed as
.bn 363.png
.pn +1
a right—in other words I think many of them are anxious to avoid
making what might be called a precedent. This I give you confidentially
and merely as an impression, but I have little doubt of its
being at least nearly a correct one.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me, dear Madam,
Yours truly,
P. G. Tait.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
This was the letter of a wise man, and it might, perhaps,
have been better for the cause in the immediate future if
S. J.-B. had acted on the advice it contained. Her reply
is not forthcoming, but we know quite well that she was not
prepared to run the risk involved in acting on the advice.
Two women had already secured registration “by a postern
gate,” and that was not her aim. She longed—no one more—to
write M.D. after her name; but she would, as a matter of
course, have foregone that right forever, if, by so doing, she
could have opened the gate for all.
.bn 364.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.12
CHAPTER XII | THE ROYAL INFIRMARY
.sp 2
A year previously to the date we have reached, Robert Louis
Stevenson had written in a letter to his cousin:
.pm start_quote
“You will probably know how nicely woman’s rights were received
by some of my fellow students the other day. The female medicals
were hooted, hissed and jostled till the police interfered. My views
are very neutral. I quite believe that Miss Jex-Blake and the rest
of our fellow studentesses are the first of a noble army, pioneers,
Columbuses and all that sort of thing. But at the same time, Miss
Jex-Blake is playing for the esteem of posterity. Soit, I give her
posterity, but I won’t marry either her, or her fellows. Let posterity
marry them. If posterity gets hold of this letter I shall probably
be burnt in effigy by some Royal Female College of Surgeons of the
future.”
.pm end_quote
It was many years before this letter was brought to S. J.-B.’s
notice, and when it was, she received it with a hearty laugh of
genuine appreciation. She enjoyed R. L. S. much more than
he enjoyed her, but she had never had the smallest wish to
marry him!
He was entirely wrong, moreover, in the assumption that
the women students would have to wait for posterity to marry
them. This very autumn of 1871—to the profound sorrow
and discomfiture of many upholders of the movement—saw
the engagement of no less than three of them. Mrs. Evans’
engagement has been already noted in a letter from Dr.
Patrick Heron Watson. In a characteristic passage, we learn
how the news of it came to S. J.-B.’s ears:
.pm start_quote
“After my business over with R., I rose to go.
‘Oh, sit down a minute. So your class is thinning?’ [Miss
Anderson had been married a month before].
.bn 365.png
.pn +1
‘Yes,’ quoth I dolorously. ‘We’ve lost one.’
‘And I hear you’re going to lose another!’
‘Oh, no,’ protestingly. ‘I hope not.’
‘But I think so.’
‘Do you? Well, have you heard who?’
‘Mrs. Evans.’
‘Oh, no,—I don’t believe it.’
‘Well, she told me so herself.’
‘Did she?—and who on earth to?’
R. got red up to top of bald crown. ‘Have you no idea?’
‘No,’ (a fib by this time).
‘Really no idea?’
‘How should I?’
‘Well,—she asked me to tell you about it,—does that give you
an idea?’
‘Mr. R.!—you don’t mean to say it’s you?’
Great redness, and ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well!!!—I hope your treachery will go between you and
your sleep!’
‘Now don’t you be hard upon her! Will you go and see her?’
‘No, certainly not. The most she can expect is that I don’t send
a policeman after her.’
‘And brand her with D?’
‘Yes. You may tell her I won’t do that,—and that’s the utmost
she can expect!’
And leaving,—‘Well, I think you’re an uncommonly lucky man,
but I hope your conscience will prevent your
.pm end_quote
This was all very well, but the blow was a severe one,
especially as Miss Chaplin was married—to Professor Ayrton—a
month or two later.
.pm start_quote
“I do hope you and Miss Pechey will remain firm to the end,”
writes Miss M‘Laren plaintively, “for really three marriages within
six months is quite alarming.”
.pm end_quote
How many times Miss Pechey was urged to forsake the
good fight one cannot even roughly conjecture. Certainly
very often.[93]
.fn 93
The following scrap has been inadvertently preserved. There is not
even any certain indication to whom it is addressed:
“When I came into the Anatomical room and saw you sitting there
dissecting, I was overpowered,—utterly conquered. When I spoke to
you and you looked up at me to answer, the look you gave me was the
coup de mort!—I determined then in my own mind to seek you for my
wife....
But to see you as you were then with your superlative beauty, working
so bravely, so sensibly,—all fashion, frivolity and folly cast aside,—was
to me so new, so strange and so admirable a sight, that on considering
and re-considering it, I don’t wonder at myself for flinging aside ordinary
prudence to make a snatch at a jewel of such unusual brilliancy.”
It is almost disappointing to reflect that the recipient of this tribute
was not equally prepared to “fling aside ordinary prudence.”
.fn-
.bn 366.png
.pn +1
There was no time, however, to weep over fallen comrades.
One must just give them decent burial, so to speak, and pass
on. From this time forth the work in hand must take a
two-fold direction:
1. The struggle in Edinburgh must be carried on with
unabated energy, as if success were a matter of course.
2. Every enquiry must be made, with the utmost secrecy
and discretion, as to a more hopeful solution of the problem
elsewhere.
The following letters indicate some of the influences at work:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Sussex Square,
Brighton.
1. November.
.nf-
.ll
Darling,
.ti 6
You must not think I don’t sympathize with you, but I am
so vexed and perplexed really I don’t know what to say. I always
hope you can see the next step in a clearer and brighter light than
I do, and,—you are sure you have my best wishes. I am rather
uneasy about you, being sure you must be worn and harassed, and
can hardly know what to do next.
I am very glad the examinations were successfully passed....
.ll 68
.nf r
Your loving,
M. E. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Trinity College,
Cambridge,
Oct. 18. 1871.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
Mr. Sidgwick has shown me in “the Scotsman” a notice to
the effect that they are attempting to exclude you from paying the
fees at Edinburgh.
Are they making a final effort to reject you? Will it be successful?
If so, have you any plan of action.
Please let us know, for Mr. Sidgwick and I have been consulting
together, and have made up our minds that we will try all that we
can now for your admission to this university, and we are ready to
.bn 367.png
.pn +1
begin, if you feel that this is your best place to turn to, and if you
need it. Let us know then.
We feel quite sure of ultimate success here in the matter of full
admission of women to the whole benefits of the university.
Still we do not know how distant ‘Ultimate’ may be. We are
not sanguine of success at present in your cause. Still we think it
worth while trying, if it would materially help you.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am,
Yours truly,
James Stuart.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
So there were very brave people in Cambridge as well as
in Edinburgh: for Mr. Stuart as well as Mr. Sidgwick knew
all about that unfortunate speech and the lawsuit to which
it led. S. J.-B. had scrupulously sent them the records;
and, as a matter of fact, Mr. Sidgwick had been one of the
many distinguished people who subscribed to the Fund for
defraying the expenses of the lawsuit.
If only the struggle had ended here: if only the University
had consented to give the women the little ledge they coveted
on its precipitous wall: or, failing that, if some young,
enlightened university had said, “Come to us!”—the story
would be in all ways a pleasanter one to tell. But that is not
how things happen in life. Removal to another university
at this stage would simply have meant beginning the fight
all over again; and Edinburgh—blundering old Edinburgh—was
so kind, so homelike, with its great army of friends, many
of them convinced that victory lay within sight, that the
inducement to stay in spite of all was great. The very next
turn of the wheel might revolutionize all things.
Meanwhile the protagonist had been on the strain for nearly
three years, and she was growing very weary of the struggle:
she was losing a little of the verve that had carried her on
hitherto. The incessant canvassing, organizing and writing
had developed her inherent business capacity to the last
point, and was making her a little intolerant of unbusinesslike
ways in other people. It was more difficult than formerly
in journalism and in verbal argument to show herself all things
to all men as she had done so finely in those first calls on
the Professors. But she had not the smallest idea of giving
.bn 368.png
.pn +1
in: like a strong man lost in the snow, she was conscious
mainly of a resolute determination to keep going on somehow.
“Your cause is sure to win,” Dr. Guthrie said to her about
this time; “but a cause may be won at the cost of a life.”
“I know,” she replied, “I am prepared to give it mine.”
But she did not mean to die if she could help it until the
work was done.
In any case the next move was fairly clear. The Annual
Meeting of Contributors to the Royal Infirmary was coming
round once more, and again the election turned on the question
of the admission of the women to the wards. S. J.-B. went
doggedly on with her canvassing, but the outer public was
getting a little bored with the whole subject, and she herself
had no longer the attraction of freshness and novelty. In
those days perseverance was not reckoned a special virtue
in a woman, and persistence was a positive vice. She received
one nasty snub (conveyed through the office-boy) from one
who had been almost a friend, and, in order to understand
what this meant to her, we must remember that family
tradition was strong in her still. Pelted with peas or pursued
by a mud-throwing mob, she never for a moment forgot that
she was, in her own way, grande dame. And now she was
too tired to brush the little insult off. “I was fool enough
to go out with eyes so full of tears that I doubted being fit
for my next call.”
But the moral thews and sinews were in fine fighting form,
and the ideals of youth were as fresh as ever. The very words
of the old inspiring quotations rose to her mind. How surprised
the old managers would have been if they had heard
them! They thought it was only that weary question of
Miss Jex-Blake and the Infirmary.
Kindly folk were many, however, and every now and then
she met an unexpected tribute of appreciation or respect;
and sufficient votes were gained to make the dreary proceeding
worth while.[94]
.fn 94
It was at this Christmas season that Miss Miranda Hill sent to her
old friend, in the form of a brooch, a “winged Victory,”—meaning, she
said, “many things,”—“the victory of a stedfast noble purpose over
outward obstacles, of love over time.”
.fn-
.bn 369.png
.pn +1
Sometimes she would return from these missions to find
herself called out to a slum maternity case undertaken through
the mediation of a friendly doctor. Then,—
.pm start_quote
“Home after 10 p.m. Then to write leader for Monday. Done
about 12.15. Then to relight fire and get warm,—then bed!”
“Sunday, [Dec.] 31st. Wrote paragraphs and finished article.
Went down to Scotsman Office....
Oh, dear, I hope the things will be in right tomorrow,—and oh,
how I hope we may win!
We have 296 votes more or less promised. We ought.
Now,—‘ring out the old, ring in the new’—Ah, that it may be
so in some things,—‘Ring out the care that frets the mind’[95]—Ring
in quiet and peace and liberty,—‘leave to toil’.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 95
“Ring out the grief that saps the mind,” is Tennyson’s line. S. J.-B.’s
version needs no explanation.
.fn-
Next day the great meeting took place, and this time a
large hall had been taken for the purpose.
As before, six candidates were proposed by those in power,
and six by those in favour of the women. The task of the
latter was made easier by the fact that the suggestion of
mixed classes had been given up some two or three months
before, the Committee for Securing a Complete Medical
Education for Women in Edinburgh having undertaken to
guarantee the payment of teachers, and to provide suitable
rooms and accommodation for the classes, if the University
should find this latter an insoluble problem.
Professor Christison pointed out incidentally that 80 beds
at £40 a bed would be one item in the reckoning.
When the votes were counted there were:
.ta l:20 r:5
For the Women, | 177
For the Powers, | 168
.ta-
“The result was received with great cheering and waving
of handkerchiefs from the ladies’ party.”
Professor Masson then proceeded to move:
.pm start_quote
“That henceforward all registered students of Medicine shall be
admitted to the educational advantages of the Infirmary without
distinction of sex,—all details of arrangements, however, being left
to the discretion of the managers.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 370.png
.pn +1
The hostile party raised an objection to this on the ground
of want of adequate notice—though Professor Masson had,
as a matter of fact, advertised it in the public papers as
required—and, through an indescribable hubbub, the proposer
stood his ground, ably supported by Professor Calderwood
and by Mr. M‘Laren, M.P. When it became clear that they
were going to carry their point, the opposing party rose and
left the hall almost en masse; and it was then that Dr. Guthrie
made what proved to be his last public speech, in support of
Professor Masson’s motion. At the close of his peroration,
with a wave of his hand towards the door through which the
great retreat had taken place, he concluded with the lines
S. J.-B. had quoted in her diary the night before,
.pm start_poem
“Ring out the old, ring in the new, ...
Ring out the false, ring in the true!”
.pm end_poem
The motion was then put to the meeting and carried
unanimously.
“I, oh so tired!” says S. J.-B.,—“hearing voices round
me in a sort of swoon.”
Her letter-bag for the next few days was enough to put
new life into anyone.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“24 Hill Street,
Edinburgh.
.nf-
.ll
“My dear Miss Blake, and all your brave sisterhood, Three cheers
for you and one cheer more! My husband has just come back and
told me of your victory.
May this be an augury of future success in every direction.
.ll 68
.nf r
Ever very truly yours,
E. H. S. Blackie.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
A lawyer who had strenuously opposed the idea of mixed
classes writes,
.pm start_quote
“For your sake, I shall make my first charity this year £5 to the
Infirmary.”
.pm end_quote
And no one was more enthusiastic than the young man
who was demonstrator of Anatomy at the time of the riot:
.pm start_quote
“It would be almost a mockery to wish you all a Happy New
Year after such success. It is enough to turn one’s head, but only,
I suppose, the heads which hammered on so hard in defeat, or rather
repulse, are not to be turned with victory.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 371.png
.pn +1
It would have been almost a mockery, certainly, though not
in the sense he meant.
.pm start_quote
“Sunday, Jan. 7th. Hear that the doctors are going about
getting their patients to sign papers,—exact tenor unknown.”
.pm end_quote
True enough, here were already the first mutterings of a
fresh storm, and indeed, most people must have been rather
uneasy at so terrifying a victory.
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss Jex-Blake,” writes Dr. Heron Watson on January 5th,
“See to it that there is a full representation on behalf of the
ladies on Monday week at the adjourned meeting, as I expect foul
play!...”
.pm end_quote
And another lawyer writes:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I don’t know whether you are taking any means to secure
a muster of your friends at the Infirmary meeting on Monday week;
but I think it would be worth while to do so. I am afraid our
opponents may attempt a surprise for the purpose of rescinding the
Statute passed at last meeting as to the admission of Lady Students.
I have not heard that they have any such plan on foot; but as no
notice requires to be given of any such motion, they may not improbably
try it, trusting to our being off our guard.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
William Robson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
A fortnight after the Annual Meeting, the Contributors met
to hear the result of a scrutiny of the votes, and it was then
that the following unexpected issue—quite distinct, of course,
from the immediate object of the scrutiny—was thrust upon
them:
On the side of the women had voted,
.pm start_poem
28 firms,
31 ladies,
7 doctors.
.pm end_poem
On the side of the powers,
.pm start_poem
14 firms,
2 ladies,
37 doctors.
.pm end_poem
It was now claimed that the votes of firms were incompetent,
.bn 372.png
.pn +1
at the majority really lay on the other
side.
.pm start_quote
“It mattered nothing,” said the Scotsman,[96] “that firms had voted
ever since the Infirmary was founded; that contributors qualified
only as members of firms had, as has now been ascertained, sat
over and over again on the Board of Management, and on the Committee
of Contributors. It was of equally slight importance that
the firms whom it was now sought to disqualify had been among the
most generous benefactors of the charity, and that, with the imminent
prospect before them of great pecuniary necessity, it would probably
be impossible, without their aid, to carry out even the plans for the
new building. The firms had voted in favour of the ladies, and the
firms must go, if at least the law would (as it probably will not)
bear out the medical men in their reckless endeavour to expel
them.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 96
January 29, 1872.
.fn-
An appeal to law, however, is a slow affair, and on this
occasion there was obviously no inducement for the law to
bestir itself unduly. It was not till July 23rd that Lord
Jerviswoode pronounced the votes of firms to be perfectly
valid.
The case was appealed to a higher court, where it did not
come on for trial till the end of October: it was then again
postponed and judgment was not given till December.
.pm start_quote
“Dec. 7th. Saturday. Judgment from Second Division in our
favour on all points.”
.pm end_quote
The Annual Meeting was now once more at hand, however,
when new managers might be elected who were unfriendly
to the women. Needless to say the woman’s party lost no
time. A Contributors’ meeting was called for December 16th,
and another for December 23rd, when a vote was passed
admitting the women to the Infirmary on condition that
their visits were to be separate from those of the men, and
that they were to go only to those wards where their presence
was invited by the physicians.
So at last they got their tickets, and began an attendance
which was to “qualify” for graduation.
“Qualify” in the technical sense; assuredly not in any
other. What the girl graduate of the present day would
.bn 373.png
.pn +1
say to such qualification, one need scarcely ask. Here is
S. J.-B.’s account of it:
.pm start_quote
“Dr. Balfour gave us a separate hour in his wards three times a
week, and such chances of practical study as could be arranged from
time to time. Dr. Watson’s very large practice, as the most eminent
surgeon in Scotland, made it impossible for him, at whatever inconvenience,
to repeat his visit in this manner, and our enemies would
have gained their point, had he not, with a kindness which I find
myself even now quite unable to acknowledge duly, given up for the
two whole winter sessions his Sunday mornings (his one day of rest)
to our instruction, while steadily refusing to accept any fees whatever
for this great sacrifice of his time and strength. Few more chivalrous
acts were ever done, and I only hope he found his reward in the
lifelong gratitude of a dozen women, who were not at that time
too much accustomed to such kindness and courtesy as his.”
.pm end_quote
To the end of her life, S. J.-B. looked upon these two men
as “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” and another
name she would have added with (in one sense) even better
reason—that of Dr. Peel Ritchie, who, a strong Conservative,
absolutely and avowedly at that time without sympathy for
the “cause,” from a sheer sense of fair play, gave up his
class of men at the Royal Dispensary in order to teach a
class of women instead.
.tb
Of course S. J.-B. was a “celebrity” by this time. Here
is an amusing letter from a distinguished man who had been
asked to meet her and her friends at dinner:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
[Letter undated.]
.ll
“My dear Editor,
.ti 6
Wae’s me that I am engaged on Saturday! If I could on
any decent pretence get off I would do it aftsoons, for apart from the
pleasure of meeting yourself and Mrs. R., I would like fine to meet
the other ladies in such company, especially some of them. I won’t
say which!
But I accepted an invitation the other day from —— to meet a
Mr. —— a very nice Irishman that’s working at our Celtic MSS., and
I promised to show the Milesian the way. So though I would go
far for the sake of the ladies and of you, I feel that it would be
rather too flagrant a breach of faith to tell old —— that I have
another engagement which I had forgotten. I wish he or his wife
would take some harmless disease for a day or two and put off
their dinner.
.bn 374.png
.pn +1
I needn’t say that I appreciate immensely the distinction of being
asked as the one man in Edinburgh worthy of admission to that
select company! It’s equal to the Cross of the Legion of Honour
and a great deal better. There’s something in the idea too that
piques the imagination. It’s as if—but far better—a favoured
mortal got a special card per Ganymede, to sup quietly in Olympus
with Mr. and Mrs. Jupiter and the Misses Minerva, Diana and
Urania: or like being asked by a Flamen and his wife to meet three
of the Vestal Virgins over a jar of Falernian; or again like an invitation
from the grand Lama to have a little jollification with a few
Buddhist lady abbesses in the innermost shrine of the great temple
at Lassa, or from a chief of Carbonari to take a glass and pipe with
Mazzini, Garibaldi, etc. There’s no end of the things it suggests.
As to your unworthy fears, fie upon them! You are more to be
envied than the Sultan, the Pope or Brigham Young.
Hoping to have a chance some other time of doing homage to the
Trinity, and to have the pleasure soon of calling upon Mrs. Russel.
.ll 68
.nf r
I rest,
Ever Yours,
——.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
And her fame—or notoriety—extended to the most unexpected
classes of society. “Miss Jex-Blake had that house
last year,” the driver of a Highland coach would say, pointing
with his whip in the direction of the farm where she had
stayed. Her name occurred repeatedly in that year’s pantomime,
and Harlequin and Columbine had called to ask if she
had any objection to this,—an incident which she always
recalled with amusement and appreciation. The main reference,
as it happened, was quite complimentary. A game was
played on the stage in which various Edinburgh dignitaries
were the cards; but “Miss Jex-Blake” took the trick.
Her dislike of publicity was great, but she had long since
hardened herself to endure it in so far as was necessary for
her work’s sake. Beyond that she drew the line absolutely.
The press rang with her name for a few years, but she steadily
refused to be interviewed. It was nothing to her that the
public had not the smallest idea of the more human side
of her character. “Nothing,” she wrote in response to
many requests, “would induce her to consent to the sale
of her photograph.” Her holidays were spent in absolute
retirement, and intimate friends will never forget how, on
.bn 375.png
.pn +1
the first day in the country, the words would rise to her
lips,—
.pm start_poem
“The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its number,
And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a slumber.”
.pm end_poem
A memorandum of this period directs that, in case of her
death, the funeral shall be as simple and inexpensive as
possible, and that the headstone—if headstone there be—shall
bear only her name, the dates, and the words,—“Then
are they glad because they be quiet.”
.pm start_quote
“Partly you see, I am so tired,” she had written half to herself
and half to Miss Du Pre in February,—“not physically or even
mentally exactly. I could come up to any given exertion of either
kind for the time being; but my whole nature is strained and
wearied. I can get up energy for nothing,—can but just get through
the day’s work in the day and long for rest!
.pm start_poem
‘Hades must rest us for ages,
Ere we can glory see.’
.pm end_poem
No, my glory is rest!...
How strange lives are! Miss Anderson’s husband—married Oct.
5th (?), died on Monday, November 12th,—love enough to change
a life for, and it,—no, not it, the marriage,—ends in 4 months!”
.pm end_quote
It was about this time that her friend Mrs. Unwin died.
Up to the last she had followed the Edinburgh campaign
with intense interest and sympathy. S. J.-B. had promised
that, whatever the claims of her work might be, she would
pay a last visit to the Yorkshire home in case of “utter
need”; but Mrs. Unwin refused to make this plea. Resolutely
she bore her own cross: and, with a last message
of “deepest love and regard,” she passed away.
.bn 376.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.13
CHAPTER XIII | THE ACTION AGAINST THE SENATUS
.sp 2
.pm start_quote
“Madam,
.ti 6
... I never read or heard of such a hard case as yours—and
so peculiar. It might be worth while to seek the advice of a Solicitor—who
would consult counsel—to find out whether you and your
disappointed friends have no case at Law. I would (if it be possible)
just like to know what the Court of Session would have to say,
touching—not only the arbitrariness, but the gross injustice, if not
absolute illegality, of the whole affair. You matriculate—get
through with about half of your classes—great loss of time—money—disappointment—even
exasperation or half ruin—all incurred:
and are then summarily brought to—made to fairly stick—and yet
no legal remedy! I can’t believe it. I would try and find out,—but
yet, it is an awful prospect. The length of time, and expense
that would have to be borne, ere any decision could be come to.
You seem to me like one who took a leap, without seeing from the
first,[97] where the leap was to land you. For surely, had you foreseen
all this,—you never would have set foot in Edinburgh....
.fn 97
.pm start_poem
“Believe and venture! as for pledges,
The gods give none.”
.pm end_poem
.fn-
The tide is coming in and nothing can retard it,—nothing worth
speaking of. And these views will be realised and acted upon some
day. Depend upon it.
The day will come when women will sit cheek by jowl with men
through a six months’ course of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery,
etc., etc., right cheerfully, and neither jeering nor sneering there—nor
winks nor any other impertinences—singularly misplaced and
out of time—if certain important personages could only see matters
rightly. Yes, and walk the Hospitals—surgical and medical—and
the lying-in Hospital also, the Eye Infirmary, the Cancer one and
the Consumptive one, and the Lock into the bargain. And then all
these important obstructives will be dead, buried, rotten—forgotten—and
their writings selling at three halfpence per lb.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 377.png
.pn +1
The above is quoted from the letter of a complete stranger,—the
so-called “man in the street” apparently, and is a
sample of many that came pouring in upon S. J.-B. during
those troublous years. “Has the University any right to
act like this?” friends kept asking constantly; and we
know that more than one of the Professors had advised an
appeal to a Court of Law.
Towards the close of 1871, S. J.-B. seems to have consulted
her brother on the subject, drawing from him the following
letters:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“The College,
Cheltenham.
Nov. 18. 1871.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Sophy,
.ti 6
I do not think you can gain anything by sueing the Professors
or by going to Law with the University in any other shape.
It may be too late now to persuade, but it would be at all times
hopeless to compel, a great University to open its doors to ladies.
I return the Queries and Opinions: and should distrust legal
opinions that advised further law-suits.
It is most provoking, and your treatment has been unjust: but
it comes to my mind to this, When they persecute you in one city,
flee ye to another.
You can make better use of your time by getting University
instruction elsewhere, than by throwing legal pebbles at the University
gates of Auld Reekie: and life being short you had better gather up
the net result of your Scotch experience, and go to Zürich or Paris,
or wherever your own knowledge and judgment lead you.
I am exceedingly sorry for you; but I see nothing else to be done,
so far as I understand the facts.
It is very tantalizing that the majorities have always been so
narrow: and that there has been so much to justify sanguine friends
in their advice.
I shall be glad to hear your decision, and both Hetty and I are
very sorry for you.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affect. brother,
T. W. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“The College,
Cheltenham,
Nov. 21. 1871.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Sophy,
.ti 6
There is more to be said for legal action than I knew of:
for I thought Paris or Zürich degree was legal qualification in
.bn 378.png
.pn +1
England: though of course to go abroad for degree is objectionable
in several ways, and the language must slightly increase the
difficulties.
Still there is nothing to be said for legal action unless it is likely
to succeed: and of that your Scotch lawyers are the best judges:
though their expectations hitherto have been more sanguine than
accurate in your case.
I am sorry I cannot be of much use, and very sorry the Trades
Union is so strong and so well organized.
It must be very annoying, and is certainly a horrible waste of
time: but half of most people’s time is spent in untying the foolish
knots of blind opponents.
Hetty joins in love.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affect. brother,
T. W. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Sussex Square,
Brighton.
Jan. 21. 1872.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Sophy,
.ti 6
One line to wish you many happy returns of the day, and
to tell you that all is going on very well here....
We were very glad that you crept into such a haven of rest as
Mrs. Nichol has to offer you: and I am quite sure the strain of so
much fighting and organizing must be very great.
It seems hardly possible that you should get on with your own
Medical education while there is so much polemical business on hand;
but if you carry the point for all women, it will be cheaply bought at
the sacrifice of two or three years of individual training in books
and bones.”
.pm end_quote
“When they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another.”
This was advice which S. J.-B. had always kept well in
mind, though not with regard to Paris and Zürich; and enquiries
as to other British Universities had been diligently
prosecuted. St. Andrews was the one that most naturally
suggested itself, “as a comparatively rural University, without
male students of medicine, and yet with the power to
grant degrees.” It is true that the Medical Curriculum at St.
Andrews was—and is—very incomplete; but the deficiency
might be made good by some teaching-school unable—or
unwilling—to grant degrees. Professor Lewis Campbell and
Mrs. Campbell had taken a deep interest in the project of
.bn 379.png
.pn +1
making their University the Alma Mater of the women
students; S. J.-B. had visited them at St. Andrews in the
autumn of 1871, with Miss Massingberd Mundy[98]; and there
are a number of cordial letters witnessing to the genuine
desire of both the Professor and his wife for the success of
the scheme.
.fn 98
Miss Massingberd Mundy was one of the junior students who did not
go on to graduation, but her gaiety and humour made her a real
acquisition to the little circle in the trying days.
.fn-
Their enthusiasm was not typical of the University, however,
though Principal Tulloch “seemed friendly in a vague
way”; and all hope in this direction had, for the moment,
to be given up.
Meanwhile S. J.-B., on behalf of herself and her fellow-students,
had made a final appeal to the University Court of
Edinburgh to provide them with the means of completing
their education, and she had also forwarded to them a farther
legal opinion from the Lord Advocate and Sheriff Fraser to
the effect that the University authorities had full power to
permit the matriculation of women in 1869; that the resolutions
then passed amounted to a permission to women to
“study Medicine” in the University, and that therefore the
women concerned were entitled to demand the means of
doing so; and finally, that if such means were persistently
refused, the legal mode of redress lay in an Action of
Declarator.
On January 8th the University Court resolved that it
was not in their power to comply with the requirements of
the women as regarded teaching: the whole question, they
said, had been “complicated by the introduction of the
subject of graduation, which is not essential to the completion
of a medical or other education”: if the ladies would altogether
give up the question of graduation, and be content
with certificates of proficiency, the Court would try to meet
their views.
.pm start_quote
“They forgot,” says S. J.-B., “that though a degree is ‘not
essential’ to a medical education, it is absolutely indispensable to
any practical use of it,—that is to any lawful practice of the medical
profession.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 380.png
.pn +1
She offered, however, to waive the question of graduation,—pending
an authoritative decision as to the powers and duties
of the University,—if arrangements might meanwhile be
made for the women to continue their education. To this
the Court agreed. Farther correspondence, however, elicited
the fact that the Court had no intention of coming to any
decision with regard to its own powers, and that it did not
mean to take any active steps in the matter.
.pm start_quote
“On the other hand,” says S. J.-B., “we had no less authority
than that of the Lord Advocate of Scotland for believing that we
were absolutely entitled to what we had so humbly solicited, and
that a Court of Law would quietly award to us what seemed unattainable
by any other means; we had the very widely spread
and daily increasing sympathy of the community at large, and
received constant offers of help from friends of every kind....
Under these circumstances we did the one thing that remained for
us to do, we brought an Action of Declarator against the Senatus
of the University,—praying to have it declared that the Senatus
was bound, in some way or other, to enable us to complete our
education and to proceed to the medical degree which would entitle
us to take place on the Medical Register among the legally-qualified
practitioners of medicine.”
.pm end_quote
Of course the news of this daring step was forthwith noised
abroad, and S. J.-B. received a protesting letter from Dr.
Elizabeth Blackwell, urging her not to waste on an uncertain
lawsuit, money that might be so much more profitably spent
in some other way.
The following is S. J.-B.’s reply:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Dr. Blackwell,
.ti 6
I suppose rumour very seldom does report things correctly,
so I do not wonder that you have been misinformed about the
action which we are on the point of bringing against the Senatus.
It is not one for breach of promise (what fun Punch would make of
it if it were!) but simply an Action of Declarator whereby we pray
one of the Judges of Session to declare that the Senatus is bound
to complete our education, according to the decided opinion given
by the Lord Advocate of Scotland.
In the brief space of a letter it would be impossible for me to
submit to you all the facts and grounds on which our intention is
based, tho’ I should be glad to explain them in detail if you were
on the spot, but you will be glad to hear that not only are the whole
.bn 381.png
.pn +1
of the students here of the same mind as myself on this point, but
our determination is strengthened by the advice and concurrence of
some of the wisest heads in Edinburgh, including those of friendly
Professors. I hope therefore that you will believe that, though you
find a difficulty at a distance from the field of action in concurring
in our present step, you would probably do so if all the facts of the
case were as thoroughly before you as they are before us and our
counsellors.
It is just because I find that London friends are so little au courant
of the facts that I am hoping to give an explanatory lecture when
in town next month, and I need not say how doubly glad I shall be
to give every explanation and information to you to whom [all]
of us medical women owe so much gratitude and respect as our
pioneer and forerunner.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Yours truly,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Now that there was something definite to be done, S. J.-B.
was in her element once more and the following letters make
it very clear that her “counsellors” were working con amore.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“University Club,
Edinburgh.
18 March, 72.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
Under the dread of bringing disgrace on the whole masculine
race, I applied myself today during all the time I could command
to the framing of the great Summons, and I brought it up to a point
at which I think nothing of importance remains to be added except
the historical statement and the pleas in law, both of which you
may take for granted will be made right. If I can get them done
this evening I’ll send them to you.
I thought as you were in a hurry to see the thing I had better
let you have what I had done at once, and so I took it to White
Millar and left it with him to send you. There must be a distinction
drawn between you and the other ladies who are ready for the first
professional exam., and the others who are not. So you will please
note on the margin of the M.S. who those are that occupy these
respective positions and the exact stage at which the less advanced
ones have arrived. I must also have the dates and exact terms of
the several resolutions and letters referred to in the last article, so
as to make the chronological statement complete and accurate.
I would like before the thing is finally adjusted to consult all the
available sources of information on the subject of graduation and
.bn 382.png
.pn +1
the original constitution of the University, and also I think if Bologna
was our model, as seems to be taken for granted, that it would be
worth while to communicate with some one there, such as the
Secretary of the Senatus, if they have one, or the Librarian, to get
authoritative statistics on the subject.
I have not heard from the Dean of Faculty yet in reply to my
inquiry on the point of professional punctilio involved in my undertaking
the case, but another eminent legal friend whose advice I
highly value thinks on the whole that I ought not to undertake it.
This did not prevent me, however, from doing the Summons! Meantime
you needn’t mention that I am doing it, in case of my not
going on with the case, which might lead to unfavourable remarks,
if it were supposed that I had begun and afterwards backed out of
it. I’ll be very sorry to do so, if that is the Dean’s opinion.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
Alex. Nicolson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Apparently the decision of the Dean was adverse to Mr.
Nicolson, for the case was taken up, and very ably argued,
by Sheriff Fraser and Mr. M‘Laren (afterwards Lord M‘Laren),
who had been junior counsel in the libel case.
.pm start_quote
“I am quite certain,” writes Mr. Fraser to S. J.-B., “that upon
a more thorough investigation it will be found that women did
attend the Universities and graduated.... When you are up in
London just now perhaps you would refer to some of the books in
the British Museum, mentioned by Watts, which are not in the
Advocates’ Library. You need not trouble yourself with the University
of Edinburgh, as I have gone over the whole Records of the
Council and of the Professors since the institution of the University,
and I cannot find a single case of a woman being a student. The
same I fear will be the result of an examination of the records of
the other universities. This was natural, for, until recently, both
the law and the social customs of Scotland, like those of other
barbarous countries, regarded women as nothing else but domestic
drudges and field hands.”
.pm end_quote
It was useless, of course, to suggest the British Museum.
S. J.-B. had long since exhausted that mine. And she had
no great faith in the information to be derived from correspondence
with foreign secretaries and librarians. She had
worked that vein too. It still remained to send an emissary
to examine the archives of the Italian Universities at first
hand, and this was what she now resolved to do. Someone had
.bn 383.png
.pn +1
commended to her interest about this time an able and well-educated
young lady whose health was causing her friends
some anxiety, and, after watching and tending her for some
time S. J.-B. despatched her on the mission, duly armed
with the following dossier:
.pm start_quote
“1. At each University get access, if possible, to the official
archives and lists of students, and make a complete list of every
woman who studied there, with date, Faculty, and other particulars.
2. If you cannot get access yourself, get the lists made by some
official, and, if possible, compare it with originals or other authorities.
3. If possible get the Secretary or Librarian, or some Professor
to attest the list with his signature, as truly extracted from the
records.
4. Pay any necessary fees, having as far as possible arranged for
these beforehand.
5. Make copies in one book of every list obtained, of name and
address of each person making or attesting such lists, and of all
additional information likely to be of value.
6. Send off attested lists to me in registered letters as soon as
obtained, marking in your M.S. book the exact duplicate in case of
loss and sending a separate letter to Miss P. to announce dispatch.
7. Do not let your own M.S. book out of your hands for any
purpose.
8. Send all lists on foolscap and not on foreign paper.”
.pm end_quote
The ambassador seems to have carried through her mission
most efficiently, and an imposing array of names was the
result. At any rate that vein was now worked out.
In the meantime “the great Summons” was duly delivered,
and on March 27th the Senatus met to consider what action
they should take with regard to it. We get the following
informal account of what took place from Miss Pechey:
.pm start_quote
“I could not get particulars of the Senatus meeting ... till too
late to write last night, but it appears that it was first moved to
defend the action; then Fleeming Jenkin proposed that an attempt
should be made to have an amicable lawsuit. This was negatived
by 17 to 10, and then the other motion not to defend the action
being put against the first, was negatived by 22 to 5. Many of our
friends voted to defend,—Wilson amongst others. He says he feels
sure that the thing will never be fairly settled without a legal decision.
I saw him today in his office. He is very anxious you should get
some member to ask a question when the Parliamentary grant is
.bn 384.png
.pn +1
being arranged.[99] He told me the enemy were dreadfully angry at
the suit, from which he concluded that our Summons is well drawn
up.”
“This was the great argument for assenting to the corporate
defence,” writes Professor Masson, “i.e. that the Senatus could not
possibly let judgment go by default, which would yield all your
demands (compulsion of Professors, etc.) and yet not really settle the
thing, inasmuch as the Professors or anyone might afterwards reopen
the whole judgment. On the same ground it is that friends don’t seem
to want to stir individually. They say the defence is corporately
by the Senatus and everybody will understand that, and hence that
individual secession is superfluous. Tait, however, said he would
consult his lawyer, and Craufurd and Jenkin meditated something
of the same.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 99
S. J.-B. appealed to Sir Robert Anstruther; and there is a businesslike
note from Lady Anstruther, asking for a very brief summary of all
the main events,—just the thing that only S. J.-B. could supply.
The matter was brought forward in Aug. 1872, on Sir Robert Anstruther’s
behalf, by Sir D. Wedderburn, see below.
.fn-
On the other hand, six members of the Senatus—anxious
though they well might be to have the weary question settled
one way or the other—simply could not allow the resolution
to pass without protest, and the following minute is duly
recorded in the books of the University:
.pm start_quote
“We dissent from and protest against the resolution of the Senatus
of March 27, 1872, to undertake the defence of the action. This we
do for the following reasons:—(1.) Because we see no just cause for
opposing the admission of women to the study and practice of
medicine; but, on the contrary, consider that women who have
honourably marked out such a course of life for themselves, ought to
be forwarded and aided in their laudable endeavour as much as
possible, by all who have the means, and especially by those having
authority in any University or other institution for education; (2.)
Because, in particular, we feel such aid and encouragement, rather
than opposition and discouragement, to be due from us to those
women who have enrolled themselves in the University of Edinburgh,
and we entirely concur, with respect to them, in the desire expressed
by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, the Rector of the University, that
they should obtain what they ask—namely, a complete medical
education, crowned by a degree; (3.) Because we have seen no
sufficient reason to doubt the legal and constitutional powers of
our University to make arrangements that would be perfectly
adequate for the purpose, and we consider the public questioning of
.bn 385.png
.pn +1
such powers, in present circumstances, by the University itself, or
any of its component bodies, unnecessary, impolitic, and capable of
being construed as a surrender of permanent rights and privileges
of the University, in order to evade a temporary difficulty; (4.)
Because, without pronouncing an opinion on the question now raised,
as to the legal rights which the pursuers have acquired by matriculation
in the University, admission already to certain examinations,
or otherwise, to demand from the University continued medical
instruction and the degree on due qualification, we yet believe that
they have thereby, and by the general tenor of the proceedings, both
of the Senatus and of the University Court in their case hitherto,
acquired a moral right, and created a public expectation, which the
University is bound to meet by the full exercise of its powers in their
behalf, even should it be with some trouble; (5.) Because, with
these convictions, and notwithstanding our utmost respect for those
of our colleagues from whom we may have the misfortune to differ
on the subject, we should individually feel ashamed of appearing
as defenders in such an action, and should account any such public
appearance by us in the character of opponents to women desiring
to enter an honoured and useful profession, a matter to our discredit.”
.pm end_quote
The following are the names of the six[100] Professors who
felt bound thus to stand out against the arguments of their
colleagues.
.fn 100
In addition to these six, Professor Fleeming Jenkin and Professor
Cosmo Innes removed their names from the list of defenders.
.fn-
.in 8
.ti -4
John Hughes Bennett, M.D., Professor of the Institutes
of Medicine,
.ti -4
David Masson, M.A., Professor of Rhetoric and English
Literature,
.ti -4
Henry Calderwood, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy,
.ti -4
James Lorimer, M.A., Professor of Public Law,
.ti -4
Archibald H. Charteris, D.D., Professor of Biblical Criticism
and Biblical Antiquities,
.ti -4
William Ballantyne Hodgson, LL.D.,[101] Professor of Political
Economy.
.in
.fn 101
Professor Hodgson was a recent addition to the professorial staff, and
a great asset to the women’s cause.
.fn-
.bn 386.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.14
CHAPTER XIV | THE LORD ORDINARY’S JUDGMENT
.sp 2
.pm start_quote
“Did you advertise your lecture in the Lancet? I expect you will
have a lot of blackguardly doctors there in consequence. Don’t
have any libel cases, and don’t be hard on the students. They’re
very bad, but they’re not so bad as the Professors.[102] I know you are
very busy writing and so on, and that there would be plenty of
copying for me to do if only I were at hand. Don’t you want me
to bully and be bullied by?
How I wish I could be in the gallery to make faces at you and
throw peas!”
.pm end_quote
.fn 102
As a matter of fact a number of students came—unasked—to serve
as stewards.
.fn-
An admirable and characteristic letter, this, from Miss
Pechey. Was a bracing message of warning and sympathy
to a senior and chum ever more tactfully and lightly
delivered?
On April 25th, after some days in the country, S. J.-B. went
to London and was met by Miss Du Pre and Miss M‘Laren,
who “heard and finally polished up the lecture,” which was
delivered the following day at St. George’s Hall in the presence
of a large and curiously assorted audience. The Earl of
Shaftesbury, who occupied the chair, was supported by
Professor Lewis Campbell, Rev. Dr. Martineau, Mrs. Garrett
Anderson, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the Dowager Countess
of Buchan, and other well-known folk, and among the general
public were a number of girlhood’s friends, including Miss
Ada Benson, Miss Miranda Hill, and many “modern women,”—with
a sprinkling of Norfolk cousins. In the course of his
.bn 387.png
.pn +1
address the Chairman made a shrewd remark, of which time
has proved the truth:
.pm start_quote
“The argument that women were not wanted in the medical
profession struck him as very singular. He was old enough to
remember when railways and electric telegraphs were not wanted
for the simple reason that they were not known. When they became
known and tried, we could not do without them, and in all probability
it would be the same with reference to ladies in the medical profession.”
.pm end_quote
In many ways the lecture was a success, and it was largely
quoted and referred to in the press; but, for the ordinary
hearer, it was overloaded with statistics, and—with a view
to that ever-possible action for libel—the lecturer kept herself
too well in hand. It is amusing to find The Christian World
hinting a regret that she “had not really worked herself up
into a passion” in narrating the injustice and vexations to
which she had been exposed.
On the other hand, Mrs. Priscilla Bright M‘Laren, an
unbiassed expert, expressed the wish that the lecture should
be delivered throughout the length and breadth of the land.
The publication of a pamphlet, she said, would not have the
same effect, because most people never have their sympathies
thoroughly roused unless they come face to face with the
person who has been persecuted. “If you could be seen
and heard” she wrote, “you would produce a wonderful
effect in favour of the cause you have at heart.”
S. J.-B. had serious thoughts of carrying out this suggestion,
but—in the interests of her own health—one is glad to record
that wiser counsels prevailed.
.pm start_quote
“Thank you very, very much, darling, for your telegram,” writes
Mrs. Jex-Blake, the day after the lecture. “I thought if you
knew how anxious I had been the last few hours, you would send
one, but I did not at all expect it.”
“I have not known where to direct to keep adding my rejoicing at
the many accounts of the success of your lecture. Well, I am very
very glad for you and with you, and I pray things may somehow take
a fresh start. How very nice of some medical students to come and
officiate. I wish Professor Masson could have been there.”
“I am very glad to think of you as once more snug at home and
I hope with less work in view and some anxieties abated.... I
.bn 388.png
.pn +1
am very glad indeed you have given up going about lecturing....
Tom, too, thinks you very wise to give it up: he was struck with
your looking so worn, and very vexed to see you so.”
.pm end_quote
It is interesting to note that S. J.-B. had taken an invalid
friend home with her to recruit! At the same time she is
writing to a protégée:
.pm start_quote
“I have seen Dr. Blackwell, and think she is rather disposed to
give you the work.... I think you should go in your bonnet, and
look sage, and not seem too eager for the work, and put a good price
on yourself,—say £2 a week, or, oh, you would accept £40 for the
6 months, etc. And be very confident you can do it all, if she asks
you to call on her.”
.pm end_quote
This is really the most worldly letter that S. J.-B. ever
wrote!
.tb
In all these later happenings, one misses the name of Mrs.
Butler, who had stood by S. J.-B. so enthusiastically in the
day of small things. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Butler was
now fully embarked on her own heroic campaign, and both
Mrs. Garrett Anderson and S. J.-B. had failed to give her
their support. Thinking differently from each other on many
points, characterised indeed by a fundamentally different
way of looking at life, the two medical women alike realized
the complications of modern civilization too profoundly to
add the stupendous question that occupied Mrs. Butler to a
programme that was already involved and difficult enough.
Mrs. Butler felt their attitude keenly, and it was evidently
with mingled feelings that she received a letter from Miss
Pechey about this time, asking the privilege of adding her
name and that of Canon Butler to the ever-growing Committee.
.pm start_quote
“My dear Miss Pechey,” she writes, “You are welcome to use
my own and my husband’s names if you think they will do your
cause any good. We cannot conceive that they would, and, on
that ground alone, we should be as glad that you should not use
them. It had better be left to Miss Jex-Blake’s judgment.
“All the world knows that we are on opposite sides on one of the
most vital questions of the day, and that the Medical ladies have
no sympathy with the efforts being made to get rid of the scandal
of a great State system of legalised Prostitution, and therefore it
.bn 389.png
.pn +1
appears to Mr. Butler and me an inconsistency that our names
should appear in any such adverse connexion, deeply as we desire
the prosperity and success of the medical woman movement....”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Dear Mrs. Butler,” writes S. J.-B. in reply,—“As Miss Pechey
tells me that you leave me to decide whether or no to place on our
Committee your name and Mr. Butler’s, I write to say that I shall
most gladly avail myself of your permission so to use your names.
I am glad to say that our Committee is made up of over a thousand
friends who not only differ widely on the point to which you refer,
but among whom differences no doubt exist on almost every other
question, social, political and religious.
As we cannot hope that even the most conscientious among us
will always agree on matters of judgment, I am sure that the only
wise rule is to keep each question distinct by itself, and to welcome
for it the support of all who care for its success, whether or no they
agree on other points.
With kind regards to Mr. Butler, believe me,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The breach was never quite healed. When people care
more for great causes than for personal pleasure and satisfaction,
the loss of a friend must sometimes be taken as part
of the day’s work. Sunt lachrymae rerum.
Meanwhile the work of propaganda was going on steadily,
and, as S. J.-B. had given up the idea of lecturing in the great
towns, she proceeded, as the next best thing, to publish her
lecture, in conjunction with her historical researches on the
subject of Medical Women, in the form of a small volume.
Just as she was seeing this through the press, news came
of the illness of her Mother, who was visiting the cousins at
Bylaugh Park.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“June 17.
.ll
Darling Mother,
.ti 6
I am very sorry to hear that you have had such an attack
again. I should be really unhappy if I did not believe and trust
in you that you would telegraph for me if you at all wished for me,
or if you felt really seriously ill. Am I right in so trusting you?
I am sure they will take all the care they can of you, and I hope
you will be good and wise enough to eat all you can, broth at first,
and then as much meat and vegetables as possible—and lots of
strawberries!—are they ripe yet at Bylaugh?
.bn 390.png
.pn +1
You know that I am doing Dispensary work now, and have several
patients of all kinds to look after, but I envy the doctor that has
my old lady instead of me.
If you decide against going to Wales, suppose you come up here
straight from Norfolk, and we have a quiet month quite alone
together?—somewhere in the Highlands—if I have to give up
Brighton.
Of course I shall send you your own copy of my new book myself,
but Miss Pechey will send any quantity more that you may order
for giving away, etc.
How good of dear old Auntie to write!
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The illness, however, rapidly assumed a dangerous character,
and S. J.-B. was telegraphed for next day.
.pm start_quote
“Luckily was up,” she says [she had been ill herself], “and
received the telegram by 9.50 a.m. Got things packed and off by
10.25 train. Thunder and lightning whole way up. Reached
Peterbro about 6.30,—Lynn 9.15. Got a carriage and drove to
Swaffham ...—thence to Bylaugh, arriving at 2.45 a.m. Crept up
to Mother’s room,—she, ‘My darling!’—She had been nervous and
restless, but slept, holding my hand.
Oh, the horror of seeing her all shrunk together in bed, hardly
articulate,—I thought dying.
And had been very nearly....”
.pm end_quote
As usual when life was doing its worst, there follow a few
blank pages in the diary,—pages that were to be filled in some
day! “I am so glad,” wrote Miss Jane Cubitt from Fritton,—Miss
Cubitt was the “sensible cousin” of the childhood, who
could do equations—“I am so glad that you have arrived
at Bylaugh. I feel now that all that can be done will be
done.” And fortunately on this occasion recovery came more
rapidly than the doctors had thought possible.
S. J.-B. returned to Edinburgh on the 8th July, not a
moment too soon. She was called out to a case the evening
of her arrival—having travelled north by day—and she
proceeded forthwith to finish seeing her book through the
press. Law business, too, was urgently claiming her return.
On Wednesday, the 17th July, the historic lawsuit came on
before Lord Gifford.
.bn 391.png
.pn +1
It must be understood that this lawsuit, though of almost
infinite importance to the women, was in no way a dramatic
affair like the last. In the nature of the case it afforded no
sensations to provincial papers. An Action of Declarator is
“for a decree defining and declaring the right of the pursuer,”[103]
and the evidence in Court was given by Counsel only.
.fn 103
See S. J.-B.’s letter to Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, pp. 356-7.
.fn-
The women repeated in effect the requests they had so
often made to the University, viz. that the Professors should
either receive them as members of their classes, or else appoint
(or recognize) other lecturers who would. The defence
consisted substantially of two pleas: 1. that all parties are
not called (see below); and 2. that the Senatus has not the
power to do what it is asked to do; in other words, (a) that
the University existed for men only, and, (b) that the University
authorities in making this experiment, had never intended
to admit women to graduation. If they did so intend, the
intention was ultra vires; and indeed they probably went
beyond their powers when in 1869 they framed regulations
admitting women to share their privileges at all.
The hearing of the case lasted two days, and it was fully
reported in the Scottish daily papers of July 18th and 19th.
Much of it, of course, consisted of sheer technical detail that
has long since lost interest, but Lord Gifford’s judgment—delivered
eight or nine days after the hearing of Counsel—was
characterized by a grip of the whole situation and enlivened
by a warmth of human interest that make it a landmark in
the history, not only of medical women, but of the whole
Feminist movement. If he allowed his sympathy with the
pursuers to appear rather too clearly, this was surely a fault
that, in view of all the circumstances, may well be reckoned
to him for righteousness. The gist of the judgment is contained
in the following sentences:
.pm start_quote
“The Lord Ordinary finds that, according to the existing constitution
and regulations of the said University of Edinburgh, the pursuers
are entitled to be admitted to the study of medicine in the said
University, and that they are entitled to all the rights and privileges
of lawful students in the said University, subject only to the conditions
specified and contained in the said regulations of 12th November
.bn 392.png
.pn +1
1869: Finds that the pursuers, on completing the prescribed studies,
and on compliance with all the existing regulations of the University
preliminary to degrees, are entitled to proceed to examination for
degrees in manner prescribed by the regulations of the University
of Edinburgh.”
.pm end_quote
In the “Note,” the Lord Ordinary discusses the case in
detail:
.pm start_quote
“It is not easy to over-estimate the importance of the questions
involved in the present action. The decision may affect, in various
ways, not only the interests of the pursuers, and of all who are
similarly situated, but also the future welfare of the University, and
indirectly the well-being of the community at large who are interested
in securing the services of thoroughly educated and accomplished
medical practitioners.
The Lord Ordinary has endeavoured to approach the consideration
of the questions dispassionately, and free from all prejudices or
prepossessions. He has also endeavoured to keep in view that his
functions are merely judicial and not legislative, and that his duty
is simply to declare and apply the law as it at present stands, and
in no way to endeavour to amend it, however strong his convictions
of what the law ought to be....
The importance of the question to the present pursuers, and to all
ladies who, like them, may contemplate the practice of medicine as
a profession, lies in this, that, by the provisions of the Medical Act
of 1858 no one is entitled to be registered as a medical practitioner
without possessing a medical degree from one or other of the universities
of the United Kingdom, or a licence equivalent thereto from
certain established medical bodies mentioned in the Act. A
foreign or colonial degree is not available, and does not entitle to
registration unless the holder thereof has been in practice in Great
Britain previous to October 1858. Unless the pursuers, therefore,
succeed in obtaining degrees, they will be practically excluded from
the profession of medicine, for they are not in a position to demand
licences from any of the authorised medical bodies, and it can
scarcely be expected that they will prosecute their medical studies
merely in order to be hereafter classed with empirics, herbalists or
medical botanists, or with those who, in common language, are
denominated quacks. Without legal registration under the Medical
Act of 1858, the pursuers would be denied all right to recover fees;
they would be incapable of holding any medical appointment; and
they would be subject to very serious penalties if they so much as
attempted to assume the name or title of medical practitioners.
It is a fact, whatever may be its effect in law, that no University
in Great Britain has ever yet granted a degree to a lady. The
.bn 393.png
.pn +1
Medical Register of Great Britain only contains the name of two
female practitioners—Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Dr. Garrett
Anderson. Dr. Blackwell obtained her degree in America, and,
being in practice in Great Britain before 1858, she obtained registration
in virtue of the exception in the Act. Dr. Garrett Anderson
obtained a licence from the Apothecaries’ Hall, London, and is
registered as such; but, since her admission, regulations have been
made which prevent any other lady from hereafter obtaining a
licence from the Apothecaries’ Hall. Accordingly the course pursued
by Dr. Blackwell and Dr. Anderson is not open to any of the pursuers,
and their only hope of being allowed to practise medicine in Great
Britain rests upon their being able to obtain a degree from one or
other of the Universities.
Practically, therefore, the questions are now raised for the first time,
Can a lady obtain a medical degree? and, Is any lady to be allowed to
practise in Great Britain?”
.pm end_quote
The Lord Ordinary then discussed the case for the defenders,
point by point: The first plea in law was the technical
plea that “all parties are not called,” or, in other words,
that the action should have been brought, not against the
Senatus and Chancellor, but against the University as a
whole.
This question, said the Lord Ordinary, should have been
raised before the record was closed, and settled in limine.
As a matter of fact, however, it was of little moment, as
the Senatus and Chancellor were the only parties complained
of,—it being assumed that the University as a whole was
ready and willing to do its duty as soon as such duty was
clearly defined. The Chancellor, indeed, had expressed this
willingness so far as he individually was concerned, and,
strictly speaking, he need not have been called as a party.
From the principle on which this preliminary plea was
repelled, it followed that there was in the present action no
attempt to impugn in the slightest degree the existing constitution
of the University. Its existing regulations and ordinances
must be taken as right, and the Senatus must simply
be called upon to give effect to these as they stood.
The Lord Ordinary proceeded to make one or two observations
of a general nature. He was clearly of opinion that,
by the law of Scotland, there was no inherent illegality in
.bn 394.png
.pn +1
women prosecuting the science of medicine, using the word
in its largest sense, or in their engaging in the practice of
medicine as a profession.... Indeed some branches of the
profession were peculiarly appropriate to women and peculiarly
inappropriate to men. For instance, in obstetric practice
and in numerous diseases of women, a male practitioner was
singularly out of place, and nothing but the deadening effect
of habit would ever reconcile the community to that anomaly
both in name and in reality, “a man-midwife.”
Keeping these preliminary observations in view, the Lord
Ordinary proceeded to consider the constitution and regulations
of the University of Edinburgh so far as they related
to women:
I. It had been broadly maintained by the Counsel for the
Senatus, in a very powerful and able speech, that the University
of Edinburgh was founded and existed for males alone.
If this proposition were well founded, there was, of course,
an end of the whole case. The Lord Ordinary, however, had
felt himself quite unable to affirm this proposition, but had
come ultimately, without any hesitation at all, to the conclusion
that there was no foundation for this first and general
contention of the defenders.
a. The charter gave no countenance to this supposition.
The masculine noun or pronoun was used merely in conformity
with ordinary brevity and simplicity of expression.
b. The fact that the Universities of Scotland were founded
to a great extent upon the model of Bologna, etc., seemed
to show that—as women were admitted to the Italian Universities—there
could have been no original intention to
exclude them from those founded in Scotland.
c. It was true that there was no recorded instance of a
woman having taken her degree in Scotland, and this was
an argument of some weight, perhaps considerable weight.
If, however, the women had the right originally, that right
would not be lost by the mere fact of non-usage. The right
in their case was res merae facultatis, like a man’s right to
build upon his own ground,—a right that is not lost though
no building be erected for hundreds or thousands of years.
To extinguish such a right there must be a contrary usage—a
.bn 395.png
.pn +1
possession inconsistent with the exercise of the right—and
that did not exist in the present case.
d. If there was no express exclusion of women and nothing
necessarily leading to their exclusion, it seemed fair to fall
back upon the inherent legality and appropriateness of the
study and practice of medicine by women, and to infer that
a medical school founded in the University could not have
as one of its conditions the exclusion of the female sex.
e. Passing from such general considerations, the Lord
Ordinary considered it quite conclusive of the whole question
that, by regulations lawfully enacted by competent and
sufficient authority, provision had actually been made for
the admission of women to the study of medicine in the University
of Edinburgh, and that actually detailed regulations
had been made regulating their studies and examinations.
II. The Lord Ordinary was of opinion that the “regulations
for the education of women in Medicine in the University”
of Edinburgh, enacted by the University Court of 10th
November, 1869, and approved of by the Chancellor on 12th
November, 1869, were valid and binding in every respect,
and formed an integral part of the constitution and regulations
of the University as it at present existed. At the
debate it was felt on both sides that these regulations formed
almost the turning-point in the case, and the counsel for the
Senatus, sorely pressed by them, had boldly challenged their
legality, maintained that they were ultra vires of the University
Court to enact, and had asked the Lord Ordinary to treat
them as a nullity. Here again the Lord Ordinary thought
the position taken by the Senatus was absolutely untenable.
The regulations in question were solemnly, after much
discussion, after long consideration, and after due communication
with the whole governing bodies of the University,
enacted by the University Court, a body which had very
large and almost legislative powers. The regulations were
enacted with all the required statutory requisites. “Due
communication” was had with the Senatus. The matter
was submitted to and was duly considered by the University
Council, and the regulations received the final sanction and
approval of the Chancellor. The Senatus, the University
.bn 396.png
.pn +1
Court and the University Council had all the benefit of the
very highest legal skill and experience. Most eminent
lawyers were members of all these bodies; and the Chancellor
who put the seal of his approbation and sanction to the
regulations held with universal acceptance the very highest
judicial office in Scotland.... So satisfied had the Senatus
been of the validity of the regulations, that they had actually
applied to the enacting power—that is, to the University
Court—to rescind them. The University Court had refused
to rescind the regulations and they still stood part of the
law of the University.
III. The Lord Ordinary was of opinion that the pursuers
were entitled in substance to the declaratory decree which
they demanded in the present action....
The right to medical graduation was really at the foundation
of the whole of the present dispute. If the ladies had been
content to study as mere amateurs—as mere dilettanti—it
rather appeared that no question would ever have been
raised. But their demand for degrees, and the announcement
of their intention to practise as physicians, had aroused a
jealousy which the Lord Ordinary was very unwillingly
obliged to characterize as unworthy, and hence this strife.
The Lord Ordinary was of opinion, without any doubt at
all that the proposal to withhold from successful or fully
accomplished female students the regular degrees, and to give
them instead mere certificates of proficiency was incompetent
as well as unjust. The proposal was not unnaturally stigmatized
by the pursuers as “a mere mockery.”
IV. All this, of course, had reference to the declaratory
conclusions. Beyond that the Lord Ordinary could give no
help. The first petitory conclusion asked that the Professors
be directed to admit women to their ordinary classes; but
this, as Lord Gifford pointed out, was more than the Senatus
had power to do, and the University Court could only do it
by altering regulations which the present judgment had
assumed to be right. The University Court, however, had
undoubted power to recognize extra-academical teachers;
and—as teachers of unquestionable standing and ability were
ready to give the pursuers instruction in separate classes—as,
.bn 397.png
.pn +1
moreover, the University had only been held back by a
doubt as to its own powers—the Lord Ordinary hoped that
this solution would terminate the unfortunate controversy
which had raged so long.
.tb
S. J.-B. records the result very briefly in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“Friday, July 26th. Lord Gifford’s judgment. Affirms declaratory
conclusions, i.e. full rights,—denies petitory conclusions, i.e.
says action so framed that he could not make order on Senatus.
Gloria tibi, Domine!
Substantially the whole cause won for all women, I believe.
His note too good to be easily set aside. May be fresh delay—hardly
defeat.”
.pm end_quote
In any case it was a great and inspiring judgment,—almost
enough to atone to S. J.-B. at the moment for all she had
come through; for it must not be forgotten that the epoch-making
enactments of November 1869, on which almost
everything turned, had been won by her own bow and spear,
practically before any other woman student had appeared
upon the scene.[104] Well might she cry, “Gloria tibi, Domine!”
.fn 104
See p. #260#.
.fn-
And within a few days a great pæan of rejoicing rang out
over the land,—rejoicing that was to spread over the whole
civilized world. Once more the postman was a delightful
visitant. Indeed, as one reads the letters, one is fain to
retract the dictum that this lawsuit was in any way devoid of
dramatic interest.
The telegraph boy came first, with a characteristic message
from Mrs. Kingsley:
.pm start_quote
.ce
“A thousand congratulations. How is R.C.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Eileanach,
Inverness.
July 31/72.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Blake,
.ti 6
A paragraph in the Daily Telegraph of the 30th made me
surprise sitters-by, by exclaiming ‘Thank God,’...
It is almost too good news to be true, although those not versed
in legal quibbles felt that your claim was both legal and equitable,
and must, in due time, be conceded. Yet, I would thankfully learn
.bn 398.png
.pn +1
that the case is ended, and that there is to be no appeal to keep it
open longer.
I mean to be in Edinr. (Cockburn Hotel) on the 8th August, and
will that day try to see and congratulate you on the blessed determination
you have shown, all along, not to be put down by mere
brute, unmanly force, but to compel justice to be done.
I am grieved that this should have cost you and your friends
such shameful trouble and expense, but know, that this loss to you,
will be the cause of myriads of dear women thanking God for having
won a victory that will do more for their welfare and happiness,
temporal and spiritual, than is now perceived but by a
very few....
May God be with you and your friends, and speedily fill the land
with true women like you, so that no woman may need to keep
secret for an instant a single pain, because she can only tell it to men.
.ll 68
.nf r
Very sincerely yours,
J. Mackenzie, M.D.,
Provost.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Wednesday, July 31.
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
Will you allow me to add my hearty congratulations to those
with which I doubt not you are now being overwhelmed, on the
success of your brave and patient conflict with prejudice and injustice?
I think the question is now practically settled.
Thanks for your kind I am very glad you liked St. Andrews.
Believe me with much respect,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very sincerely,
A. K. H. Boyd.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The letter that follows is from one who was to become an
invaluable champion.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“16 Wimpole Street.
July 27.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
Allow me to congratulate you most heartily on the decision
of Lord Gifford, which establishes the rights of the lady students at
Edinburgh.
I will do what I can to get your interesting little book noticed in
the Lancet.
I do hope that the Conservative party in the profession will now
have the sense to give way with a good grace.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me, dear Miss Jex-Blake,
Yours very truly,
Francis Ed. Anstie.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 399.png
.pn +1
The next is in the shaky handwriting of an invalid:
.pm start_quote
“My Darling,
.ti 6
I was so delighted to have your letter with the grand news.
I had not dared expect anything so good. From my heart I thank
God and rejoice. I feel so comfortably well, no aches or pains
whatever. May God bless and prosper my darling.
.ll 68
.rj
Your loving Mother.
.ll
Shall I give a copy to Nurse of the book when we part?”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Riffelberg.
July 30th. 1872.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Sophy,
.ti 6
I am delighted to see in Times of 27th, just arrived, that
Lord Gifford has given a judgment entirely in favour of yourself and
the other lady students. I congratulate you heartily and only hope
it is final.
I am here 8,400 ft. above the sea, having found it impossible to
get fresh in England, ...
I hope your legal perils are over; and, though one has regretted
that so much legal work prevented your own medical start, it has
been well worth all you have gone through, or yet may go through,
to open the Profession thoroughly to women.
As soon as you have completed your training, you have in my
opinion nothing but success before you: and, within 12 months of
settling in London as a properly qualified Physician, you will find
it easy to make £2000 a year, and impossible to avoid doing a very
large amount of good in making it....
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affectionate brother,
T. W. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
It was on the occasion of this visit to Switzerland that
Mr. Jex-Blake made the acquaintance of Miss Agnes M‘Laren—on
the top of the Eggishorn! It chanced one day that
he ran down from the summit to assist a fragile little lady
up the last steep climb, and, in the course of subsequent
conversation, lent her a guide-book, in which, to her great
surprise, she found the familiar name of Jex-Blake.
So the Eggishorn heard all about it.
Yes, friends were kind, and more than kind; but, as before,
the “man in the street” rejoices one’s heart:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Glasgow. 30th July, 1872.
.ll
Dear Lady,
.ti 6
I beg respectfully to convey my sincere thanks to you for the
gallant stand which you have made against those parties whom I
.bn 400.png
.pn +1
may term Medical Monopolists, and to express my delight at the
success which have attended your efforts.
Your address and ability in thwarting the selfish purposes of said
parties have endeared you to every liberty loving individual in the
civilised world, and I sincerely hope you will long be spared to
benefit suffering humanity by your experience and knowledge—knowledge
which you have pursued under such tremendous difficulties,
but the possession of which cannot fail eventually to raise
you to the very pinacle of your .
.ll 68
.nf r
I am,
Yours very respectfully, ...”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The following lines, written and sent to S. J.-B. a few
months later by a well-known Edinburgh citizen, may be
taken as a sample of much clever and spirited doggerel on
both sides of the question:
.pm start_poem
“I do rejoice, Miss Jex,
The gods have heard your Prex,
To vindicate your Sex,
By passing a new Lex,
Though that does sadly vex
Professor C., senex,
Who plays the part of Rex,
But may become an Ex,
Because he won’t annex
The females to his Grex.”
.pm end_poem
.bn 401.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.15
CHAPTER XV | PAYING THE PRICE
.sp 2
All through that autumn S. J.-B’s mind must have been
simply seething with the manifold interests that claimed her
attention.
.pm start_quote
“If anybody ever deserved a rest, you do,” writes Miss Stevenson,
“and I most earnestly hope you will take a thorough one. I do
not think any of us are able fully to realize the importance of Lord
Gifford’s decision to all men and women in all time coming.”
“I am truly glad that something is definitely settled at last,”
writes Miss Bovell from Paris, “and not least for your sake. I do
trust you may have much less worry in future, though I fear the
‘separate classes’ will still prove a source of trouble. Perhaps
some time hence the British Medical Profession, as well as the British
Public, may be sufficiently advanced to throw aside the unscientific
scruples which happily appear to have no existence here....
I suppose you will be going in for your Professional in October?
I wish you all possible honours. I trust your mind is now sufficiently
at ease for you to work at books, but you will take a holiday
in the country first, will you not?”
.pm end_quote
The difficulty of arranging classes was so great that a good
many of the students had scattered for the summer months.
Mrs. Chaplin Ayrton, as well as Miss Bovell, was in Paris;
Miss Massingberd Mundy and Miss Dahms had gone to Dr.
Lucy Sewall at Boston, and Miss Pechey was working at the
Lying-in Hospital in Endell Street.
.pm start_quote
“Oh, Lucy, I’m so tired of it all!” S. J.-B. had written to her
friend a month or two before this. “When those children went to
you a fortnight ago, I did so wish I could have gone and been
rested and nursed for a few months!
.bn 402.png
.pn +1
But I’m sure you will see how utterly without choice I am,—that
I must stay at my post as long as I can stand.
But I am getting more and more doubtful whether I myself shall
ever finish my education. I think when once the fight is won, I
shall creep away into some wood and lie and sleep for a year.
However all that is beside the question.”
.pm end_quote
A letter from Miss Pechey—written in September—takes
a sterner tone than is her wont. After reporting about her
work at Endell Street, she goes on:
.pm start_quote
“You have never told me how you are getting on with your
exam. subjects; such silence is very ominous, and I’m afraid you
haven’t been doing anything at them. You really must, if you
intend to go up in October, for it is by no means child’s play getting
up three such different subjects, and it would be simply awful if you
went up and didn’t pass....”
.pm end_quote
Here the writer has obviously dried the ink, and sat looking
at the space that remained, appalled, we may suppose, by
the contingency she has called up.
“Don’t you like me to lecture you?” she concludes finally,
and passes on to another subject.
There certainly were not many people who dared to ‘lecture’
S. J.-B. The mingled love and fear with which her juniors
(and not her juniors only) regarded her scarcely comes out
in the correspondence, though one gets more than a glimpse
of it in the following letter from one of the two who went
to Boston, the humourist and enfant gâtée of the little circle:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss Pechey,
.ti 6
I write to you for several reasons, the one chiefly worth
mentioning being that I want you to give some messages to Miss
Jex-Blake, as, however busy you are, you are not likely to be so
busy as she is, and therefore a letter is less waste of time to you.
I believe though at the bottom of my heart that my real reason is
that I am, even away from her, frightened of her. See how deep
the feeling is. (The writer proceeds to relate a perfectly fantastic
dream.)
Miss Jex-Blake, as you know, has written to Dr. Sewall, advising
me to stay in Boston this winter; the Dr. is so good as to say she
will keep me with her, and I am quite willing to stay, so unless my
father and mother object, that is settled....
What joyful news that lawsuit news has been. I have had
letters of rejoicing from many folks, but I declare I am chiefly glad
.bn 403.png
.pn +1
for Miss Jex-Blake’s sake, and I hope now she sees some prospect
of a quiet winter. Of course there is still much to do, but she has
put a great piece of the road behind her. Is it not so? And I assure
you the general question was becoming lost to sight by me in the
particular one of her success and rest.
If Miss Jex-Blake comments on my hand, tell her I do write my
copies, I do remember her rules, and only fall into this style when a
little tired as at present....
I have seen now Dr. Sewall use forceps three times, and it is
impossible to see anything prettier.... She uses any sort of instrument
beautifully. I should like to see her conduct some large
operation. I think well-done surgery is fascinating, and I never
saw anyone handle an instrument so easily and so securely. I
should feel safe whatever she was going to do to me or mine....”
.pm end_quote
Of course S. J.-B. saw the letter,—though the dream was
a most audacious one—and it made her quite homesick for
the old Boston life.
.pm start_quote
“Dearest Lucy,” she writes,
.ti 6
is just a year since we parted, and I do so want to see you
again. Miss —— makes me quite envious with her descriptions of
her happiness in Boston and of the goodness of ‘my doctor.’ Will
you come over with her in the spring?...
I am just going to set hard to work for 5 weeks in preparation for
my 1st Professional Exam., which comes off about October 22nd.
It would never do for me to be plucked! In fact I shall not go in
unless I feel pretty well prepared when the time comes. Please
thank Miss Call for her note to me, and tell her I wish she could
have come to Edinburgh.”
.pm end_quote
She did set to work hard, but events could scarcely be
called propitious. On the strength of Lord Gifford’s judgment,
she was renting a small house to serve as a medical school,
arranging for the winter’s course of teaching; and, especially,
trying to get an Anatomy lecturer recognized by a body of
men, who—rightly or wrongly—did not mean to recognize
him. Meanwhile editors showed themselves increasingly
glad to get her work—journalistic work—not only on subjects
connected with her special struggle, but about anything that
called forth her gift for clear and incisive writing: and all
the money she could earn in this way was not only welcome,
but actually needed to keep things going. Although she
was extraordinarily economical, as we have seen, her generosity
.bn 404.png
.pn +1
and her large and businesslike way of dealing with things
always gave the impression of larger means than she possessed;
and many appealed to her for help who would have been
amazed to learn how narrow her margin was.
.pm start_quote
“I am glad of both your articles,” writes Mr. Russel about this
time, “but the beginnings of both are de trop.
If I see a topic you would care to handle, I shall be prompt to
let you know.”
“I am much obliged by your MS., which will duly appear as a
leader tomorrow,” writes another editor.
.pm end_quote
Her book, too, was exciting no small interest, and the consequent
letters, enquiries and reviews[105]—very lengthy reviews
in some cases—were a preoccupation in themselves. Any
day might bring the opening up of a new vista.
.fn 105
The following is a fair average specimen of the cordiality with which
the book was received:—“So convincing is the argument, so obvious the
conclusions to which it leads up, that one fairly wonders, after putting
down the essay in which they are enforced, how it should have come to
pass in this nineteenth century that it should be necessary for any such
essay to be written.”—Liverpool Mercury.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sept, 11th.
.ll
Darling Mother,
.ti 6
I have but a moment to send you a piece of news that I know
will be very welcome, viz, that A Scotchman resident in India
called on me last night, asked how matters were progressing, said
the battle was being gallantly fought, and departed after stating
mildly that he would send us ‘a thousand pounds at once and more
if needed,’ that the fight might not fail for want of money! The
money is worth a great deal, but the moral effect is almost more,
as the man is an absolute stranger and cares simply for the principle.
Probably now we shall get a lot more.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly,
Soph.
.nf-
.ll
His name is Walter Thomson, he had just read my book. (Not
a bad 2s. 6d. worth, was it?)”
.pm end_quote
It is impossible to exaggerate the reverence—“respect”
is too weak a word—with which S. J.-B. throughout life
treated the money that came to her in this way. It was
infinitely more precious to her than possessions of her own:
and the amount of the donation made no difference. If it
.bn 405.png
.pn +1
was not to be used immediately, it was invested with the
greatest care and forethought; every penny was strictly
accounted for; and no farthing expended on administration,
or on any kind of work involved (railway journeys and so
forth), was allowed to come out of the fund itself. There
never were any “working expenses.” All that was done
for love.
More gifts on this scale did not follow forthwith, but her
lecture and the book that followed it were bringing in a return
that was worth even more. They were arousing interest
among men who might be able to assist the cause in a bigger
way than had yet suggested itself.
.pm start_quote
“I wonder,” writes Miss Wolstenholme, “whether you are
aware how deeply interested Mr. Stansfeld is in your question,
and how warmly disposed to help you by legislation or in any
other way.”[106]
.pm end_quote
.fn 106
Mr. Stansfeld was President of the Local Government Board.
.fn-
There follow a number of suggestions as to the amendment
of the Medical Act of 1858.
.tb
Meanwhile the University had appealed to the Inner House
against Lord Gifford’s judgment, and—after hanging fire for
long months—the case at this juncture became imminent.
It was in the midst of all this that preparation for the professional
examination went on.
Of course the task ought not to have been a formidable
one. S. J.-B. had done excellent class-work in the subjects
required, and they had been simmering in her mind for
years; but everyone who has watched the career of many
students knows that that man stands the best chance of
acquitting himself well who, having got his subject up, goes
in for the examination straightway, before the natural process
of selection and assimilation in his own mind emphasizes
this item and discards that, as the case may be. The knowledge
one wants for an examination is not the knowledge that
becomes one’s working equipment for life.
The “last straw” for S. J.-B. was the distressing illness
of a very dear friend in the course of those five precious weeks,
.bn 406.png
.pn +1
and finally we come without surprise to the following entry
in the diary:
.pm start_quote
“Sunday, Oct. 6th. Rather out of heart. I can’t get courage
or sense for the Organic Chemistry, and must leave it till E. P. comes;
and the Botany seems so desperately voluminous! My head seems
tired,—I can’t make it work more than an hour or so at a time,...
But somehow my fatalism makes me think I shall get through,
when E. P. comes and quiets me,—she comes Thursday, 10th.”
“Oct. 11th. I’ve had such bother about Anatomy rooms, etc.,
and shall have to organize about Fund, etc.
Things seem to crowd on me so. And other people get such nice
long holidays!—oh, dear! Well, as Robertson says, everything
has its price....
Then H. [the Anatomy teacher]. The Court refused him flat on
Monday, on ground of ‘no evidence of qualification’! He on
Tuesday is to send in his diplomas and other testimonials, and I have
to get them copied and printed, etc.
My own Botany stuck fast,—I nervous and shaky again,—feeling
strength go out of me drop by drop.
If only the 22nd were well over!
E. P. came back yesterday, dear child,—so loving and good.”
.pm end_quote
At this point S. J.-B. breaks off to record the—very indifferent—achievements
of the new students in their preliminary
examination!
.pm start_quote
“Oct. 22nd. Professional Exam.... Did good paper in Nat.
Hist.,—fair in Chemistry, poor in Botany. Went down to Falkirk
to sleep.[107]
“Oct. 23rd. Came up for Practical Chemistry Exam. White
Millar met me and worried me for [law] papers. Head dazed,—Crum
Brown let me up [? off] till another day.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 107
To visit the friend who had been ill.
.fn-
Well, there is no use in “spinning out the agony.” S. J.-B.
was rejected in her examination. With a mental endowment
obviously far above the average in either sex, she found
herself, after all these years of study,—so far as any practical
result was concerned—absolutely at the foot of the ladder.
She had nothing whatever to show for her work: she had
failed in a test that almost any schoolboy can pass,—and the
eye of the civilized world was upon her.
There is no denying that it was bad to bear, and the tragic
.bn 407.png
.pn +1
part of the matter was that she could not bring herself to
believe that—in the subject of Natural History at all events—her
paper had been fairly treated. So many petty difficulties
had been thrown in her way all along, so little magnanimity
had been shown her by some of those in authority,
that her fighting instinct rose almost automatically to the
encounter. What could this be but simply one effort more
on the part of the enemy to defeat her per omne fas et
nefas?[108]
.fn 108
See extract from Lancet, p. 319.
.fn-
About this time Professor Huxley seems to have expressed
to some mutual friend his sympathy with the women students;
he had refused—quite definitely, but with obvious regret—to
come to their assistance by examining their proposed
Anatomy lecturer[109] when the University of Edinburgh refused
to do so; and Miss Pechey now took upon herself the difficult
task of asking his opinion upon the Natural History paper.
It was a great venture from every point of view, and certainly
shows how confident S. J.-B. was in her view of the case.
.fn 109
See Huxley’s Life, i. 387.
.fn-
“Vor den Wissenden sich stellen—” is an admirable motto,
but the standard of examination in Natural History in
Edinburgh at that time was certainly not the standard
demanded by London now, and many a creditable Edinburgh
student of those days might have cause to congratulate
himself that he was not examined by Huxley.
.pm start_quote
“He was very kind about it,” writes Miss Pechey, “and I had a
long talk with him. He thought it would be difficult for H. to get
anyone to examine him, as even Ellis would not like to constitute
himself an examiner. I think he has rather altered his idea of the
honesty, etc., of the Edinr. Professors, but he said such conduct was
inexplicable to him. However, although I expect he thought
was giving him a one-sided statement, I think he considers us the
aggrieved party.
At first he would not look at the papers, but when he had asked me
about them, he said he would look over the Natural History, and
although he was very kind about it, his verdict was unfavourable.
Of course I have no doubt that they would have passed a man on
your paper, but still you must have them extra good before you can
make any fuss about it....
.bn 408.png
.pn +1
I hope you won’t worry yourself about the papers, as I hope we
shall have plenty of leisure so that we can go over the subjects again
in a proper way: it would have been a wonder if you could have
passed in the midst of all that worry.... God bless you, darling.”
.pm end_quote
As we know S. J.-B. had more worries on hand than the
sore question of her examination papers. The Appeal in the
famous case of Miss Jex-Blake v. the Senatus was really
before the Court of Session now, and she was “up till past 12
revising the proofs” for the daily papers.
.pm start_quote
“Sunday, Nov. 3rd. Word from E. P. (who went to London
Wednesday) that Huxley didn’t approve my Nat. Hist. paper. So
fight for ‘pluck’ given up.
Poor Nelly O’B. lost her father a few weeks ago.”
.pm end_quote
Apparently she wrote to report progress to her brother the
same day.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“The College,
Cheltenham. Nov. 4. 1872.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Sophy,
.ti 6
You have come to the right decision without a doubt. Probably
they were sharp upon you, but to prove injustice in an examiner
is a hopeless task. They are evidently very bitter, and apparently
not scrupulous; but to my mind that was not the point; for, in
writing to you[110] I had only to consider what was the wise course for
you; and it seemed to be exactly what I advised and what you
have done.
I am very sorry, and so is Hetty, for the mishap and the loss of
time: but you can turn it to benefit: and all’s well that ends well,
as your cause will end certainly.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affectionate brother,
T. W. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 110
The previous letter has not been found.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“The Elms.
Monday, 4th November.
.nf-
.ll
My precious Darling,
.ti 6
I am not all surprised, and so glad to hear that there is another
opportunity in April. I had said I had no doubt they would floor
you if they could. Your mind and time have been so engrossed
that you cannot be very angry with yourself. I quite think I have
felt for you more than you have for yourself....”
[The dear old Mother, with the sword in her heart!]
“I am getting on so nicely here. I hope you will not have any
lawyers to consult with about other pressing matters, nor articles
.bn 409.png
.bn 410.png
.bn 411.png
.pn +1
to write when you take up study for April. I shall like to know
when you begin (probably not till February) that I may ask help
where it is promised to be given. I hope my darling has a little
breathing time now, and will take every care of herself, as I will
of her baby.
.ll 68
.nf r
Ever your loving Mummy,
Maria Emily Jex-Blake.
.nf-
.ll
It is best for me to write little.”
.pm end_quote
.il id=i409 fn=i_409.jpg w=60% ew=60%
.ca
Henry J. Wells 1862
Emery Walker ph. sc.
Maria Emily Jex-Blake
from a drawing in chalks by H. T. Wells R.A. 1862
.ca-
Meanwhile enquiries poured in on every side. The following
paragraph appeared in a well-known Weekly:
.pm start_quote
“The question of the admission of Women to medical degrees in
Edinburgh University has been rather unexpectedly solved, at
least for the present. Miss Jex-Blake, a foremost champion of the
movement, has actually been ‘plucked’ in her examination and
sent back to complete her scientific studies.”
.pm end_quote
This paragraph was cut out and sent to S. J.-B. by other
papers and by many individuals as well, with a request for
an explanation, or, as they graciously put it, “for the means
of authoritatively contradicting it.”
.tb
Norfolk cousins who had been mildly loyal and sympathetic
at a distance, were roused to positive incredulity. The
delightful Sarah of the girlhood reverts to the old affection
and the old playful names:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Wimbledon.
Dec. 14th.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Old Man,
.ti 6
I want you to write and tell me all about yourself, and why
you did not pass your examinations. There must be a reason why
you did not. I want you to tell me, for I hear all sorts of things,
and want to know the truth. Send me a Scotch paper about you,
for I never see anything in the English papers for or against you—only
facts [!]...
Write to me like a good man.
.ll 68
.nf r
Ever your affectionate,
S[arah] J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Yes, things were pretty black. So black that one is not
in the least surprised to hear that at this time Miss M‘Laren
decided to throw in her lot with the women students. Retiring
and delicate though she was, the following letter written on
.bn 412.png
.pn +1
one of her propagandist Suffrage tours, is evidence that she
brought sufficient moral grit to the new life:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Strachie, [?] Argyllshire.
Nov. 10th. 1872.
.nf-
.ll
I wish so much that you could have joined us yesterday by balloon,
so as to have had this delicious day in the country,—besides the
pleasure of being together. The pure air would have refreshed you
very much,—and it is so lovely. Yesterday it rained in torrents....
I was so glad you were not with us, for I found I had promised more
than I could perform,—only a pleasant drive of two hours! Imagine
our horror when we found that the steamer advertised to sail from
Helensburgh to Dunoon was broken down and could not go,—and
we were told that it would be impossible for us to manage the
journey. Of course we had to find out a way to go, and it was to
drive 3 miles, then to ferry, then to drive 4 miles, then to catch a
steamer, then to have the 2 hours’ drive originally expected! ...
and only to reach this at 7—half an hour after hour of meeting!
It was out of the question to put meeting off, for there was no
telegraph, and the people had come 6, 8, or 9 miles. They knew
something must have happened to delay us, and waited patiently.
We had to hurry to the meeting, and found a large schoolhouse
crowded with people, and some half dozen dogs, and dimly lighted
by 8 candles! It was so funny! And they were so enthusiastic....
I have been thinking a great deal about joining you, and the
conclusion I have come to is to tell Papa and Mama that I would
like to try to study if they would give their consent.
If I felt I had a vocation for medicine, it would make me bolder,
but you know that I cannot honestly plead that. On the contrary
I have very grave doubts of my capacity for it, especially for the
preliminary years of study, and they might very probably prove to
be lost years....
No, the attractions to me would be a definite sphere, and an independent
one, and being associated with you in work of any kind.
It would be a great happiness to me to be with you, and to believe
that I was a help to you however small.
But then, I cannot but believe that you must before long have the
greater help of having Miss Du Pre with you, and, in the meantime,
till she can come, you may be sure I will be as much as possible
with you.”
.pm end_quote
A delightful correspondence ensued between Miss M‘Laren
and Miss Du Pre, who knew each other but slightly:
.pm start_quote
“As you cannot be with Sophy,” writes Miss M‘Laren, “I would
like very much to be with her, for she does really deserve all the help
.bn 413.png
.pn +1
she can get when she has so much to do.... It would, as you know,
be a great happiness to me to be with her, but I would not mind for
myself at all. If you could only be with her, I would be quite happy
not to be, feeling that it was not right for me to risk making family
discomfort, just for myself. What do you honestly think? I
would not of course think of troubling you about my concerns except
as they concern Sophy.”
“All my instincts are against causing family sorrow and trouble,”
writes Miss Du Pre in reply. “... but I cannot but think that in
your case the trouble would not be permanent.
I think myself that studying new and difficult sciences and trying
to help Sophy at the same time would be more than your strength
would stand,—at least I know I could not do it myself. Though,
on the other hand, it might be still more difficult to study at home
where all sorts of family habits and calls upon one’s time make it
so hard to do anything thoroughly.
I believe, if I were you, I would try to wear away by degrees the
opposition of my parents, perhaps by going to help Sophy for a
month or so, and then coming home again, being willing in the meantime
to be present at any dinner party when they particularly needed
my help, etc. I do think that people hate a plan so much less when
the thought of it is no longer new and startling to them.... I
cannot express to you how glad I shall be if you can see it to be
right to go to Sophy, for I think your presence and help are exactly
what she needs and needs sorely too. But you must not think that
I only care about it for her sake, for it would be a great pleasure to
me to think that you were enjoying her company and friendship.”
.pm end_quote
Of course Miss M‘Laren carried her point, and, if she never
quite succeeded in persuading herself of her “vocation,”
she left a large clientèle of patients in no doubt at all upon
the subject.
.bn 414.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.16
CHAPTER XVI | END OF THE BATTLE IN EDINBURGH
.sp 2
The year 1873 is not one of the most dramatic in the history,
but no other has a more impressive record of work done, of
resolute determination to try every door, and to keep on
trying.
It was becoming increasingly clear that—whatever the
immediate issue of the lawsuit might be—a wider appeal
must be made. Even S. J.-B. began to see that “no decision in
our favour can give us the good will of the Medical Faculty”;
and Mr. Stansfeld’s warm and appreciative interest in the
question seemed to open a new door of hope. From this
time forward the recurrence of his fine clear handwriting in
the correspondence (brief though his letters are) is a constant
reminder of how “Providence rescues and saves His elect
inheritance” as “the dear Newman” would have said,
though in another connection.
Mr. Stansfeld knew Professor Masson well, and probably
began his acquaintance with S. J.-B. in no ignorance of her
défauts,—the défauts that made so many timorous; but,
like Masson, he was a strong man; like Masson he thought
Carlyle was right in holding that “on the whole we make
too much of faults”; and to the end of the long history
he rejoiced wholeheartedly in the magnificent acumen and
strength of Sophia Jex-Blake.
S. J.-B. had made his acquaintance at the time of her
lecture, and now, after some little correspondence, she saw
him again, and received his introduction to some of his
colleagues.
.bn 415.png
.pn +1
We quote from diary:
.pm start_quote
“Dec. 10th \[1872] To London. At Cordery’s till 13th.
11th Wednesday. Saw Stansfeld at Whitehall. Then Simon,
who, though not very sanguine as to value of women doctors, is
quite clear they must have a chance. Suggests that the Colleges
could not refuse to examine us. Lord Ripon also kindly,—quite
inclined to make Medical Act as dependent as possible on Registration.
Lowe marvellously civil. Very glad to see me, was quite
clear it was a case for legislation. If we lost the lawsuit, he would
consult with Stansfeld, and do all he could.
Tuesday, 17th. (Dear old man’s birthday,—would have been
82!) To Yaxham. Mother fairly well.
For next 10 days stayed much in bed, read Gil Blas, etc., in utter
dearth of books. Worried by letters and telegrams from Edinburgh.
Thursday 26th. Started back for Edinburgh. Carriage to
myself whole way. Arrived
Friday 6 a.m. Slept an hour or two. Then 4 hours’ cab and
canvassing; and so on for next week.”
“Monday, Jan. 6th. 1873. Infirmary meeting. We apparently
beaten by 279 to 271—pending scrutiny. Turner and Lister waved
hats and hurrahed!”
“Feb. 10th. The piety of the Infirmary Managers actually
obliged them to turn us out of Sunday visit, at least ‘for the present.’
Cowan[111] delightfully indignant for once at ‘breach of faith’.
Feb. 16th. He went to Infirmary during Sunday visit; and
went away, telling Mrs. Thorne oracularly that ‘he had seen quite
enough for his purpose’.
Feb. 17th. Monday. He made a tremendous row at Managers’
Meeting. Said that the previous day he had visited the wards and
‘had never seen a more truly Christian, more truly Sabbatic sight,
than the ladies at the sick-beds.’ By 10 to 6 votes in again.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 111
Lord Provost.
.fn-
Such were the ups and downs of daily life.
.tb
The question was raised at this time of having one or more
women on the School Board, and S. J.-B. took up the matter
enthusiastically. It was useless to remind her that she had
more than enough on her hands already. Here was a matter
in which she really could serve. And a great occasion it
proved. Even those who were children at the time have not
forgotten the wild excitement in Edinburgh over that election,
.bn 416.png
.pn +1
and the lift given to the whole woman movement when the
two lady candidates—Miss Phoebe Blyth and Miss Flora
Stevenson—appeared on the list second only to the Roman
Catholic priest, who had, of course, all the suffrages of the
faithful.
“You and Miss Blake must have half killed yourselves in
getting a Committee with such names as you have,” Miss
Blyth had written.
“If you and Miss M‘Laren had not gone in so strongly for
my interests,” wrote Miss Stevenson, “I should have found
myself very much lower.”
So perhaps it was worth while, for the place taken by the
women on the list was a weapon of good fighting force for
the future.
It was a helpful distraction too for S. J.-B. herself, and at
that moment the constant pressure of unsatisfactory difficulties
and worries—some few of these latter, of course, created
by herself—was very wearisome. Always something trying
to do, and never anything to show for it,—that was the record
of her life at the time. Here is a heart cry such as one seldom
gets from her now:
.pm start_quote
“Sunday, May 18th.—Oh, dear!—for some brightness and
freshness and pleasure to break the long grey wait and work!—Nothing’s
wrong,—I’m fairly well, and by no means unhappy. I’ve
the real essentials of happiness,—love and work,—but the fruition
of both seems so far away!
And I want 3 or 4 days of bright sunshine,—rides and drives, ices
and champagne!—easy luxurious life for a few days’ change.
Ah, well! Some day I hope to have just such a bright easy home
or nest somewhere—and to find brain and body workers to take to
it for the 3 or 4 days’ rest and change! How one needs to experience
needs in order to understand them!”
.pm end_quote
There are some perhaps who will read this entry with no
little feeling when they remember how, long years after, she
realized this ideal in the home of her retirement, Windydene.[112]
.fn 112
“... And now a flood of memories of sweet Windydene brings tears
to my eyes. No fear there of rowdy ricsha coolies in a narrow alley
quarrelling over the right of way—nor rattle of carriages with their annoying
official bell ‘Clear the way’ up to 2 a.m.—but just silent peace. My
heaven will certainly have to be silence for a space. But Windydene
contains ... and the Doctor, and I remember talks over the drawing-room
fire, and those incomparable evenings in the Doctor’s Study, and as
these thoughts make one both weepy and sentimental, I had better stop.”
Extract from a letter from Dr. Lillie Saville, Tientsin, Jan. 7th, 1911.
.fn-
.bn 417.png
.pn +1
But the saving sense of humour was never less than dormant.
She seldom has time to quote jokes in the diary now, but here
is the very next entry:
.pm start_quote
“May 23rd. From Life of Barham. Dr. Thos. Hume charged
7s. 6d. instead of 5s. for death notice, because of ‘universally beloved
and deeply regretted.’ To surly clerk,—'Congratulate yourself,
Sir, that this is an expense to which your Executors will never be
put!’”
.pm end_quote
The mood was not quite evanescent, however, for the
anxious Mother reads it between the lines:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13 Sussex Square,
28 May.
.nf-
.ll
Darling,
.ti 6
I fear you were very weary when you wrote; Mother’s heart
is constantly with her little one, and yearning for some little word
of her health or her interests. Though I don’t want to be selfish
and have her write often,—when she does write she must mention
herself and how she is getting on.
H. [a former maid] is paying me a little visit. She looks very
poorly and she jumped at my offer to come here for a week....
She asked about you, and I lent her your book. She wishes enough
there were a lady doctor for her to consult.
.ll 68
.nf r
Ever your loving Mummy,
M. E. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
One is glad to know that the women students were having
a course of lectures on Medical Jurisprudence from Dr. (afterwards
Sir Henry) Littlejohn that term,—with all the delightful
excursions, topographical and mental, which that course
involved. No one who has had the privilege of the same
experience can regard the history of that summer as a trial
without compensation.
.tb
Meanwhile the lawsuit was dragging its weary course. One
cannot be surprised that the University should have appealed
against Lord Gifford’s decision. If appeal be made to law
at all, one must get the last word of the law,—especially if,
.bn 418.png
.pn +1
in the last resort, public funds are available to pay for it.
There were still lurking possibilities in that little word “vir,”
and it might yet be shown that the University had done an
illegal thing when it admitted the women in the first instance.
If that proved to be so—and it was the crux of the whole case—the
University (so it was argued) must be held excused from
all responsibility towards the women students themselves.
.tb
But, if one refrains from blaming the University, one
cannot sufficiently admire the behaviour of the women
students as a whole during those trying days of uncertainty.
While the younger members of the little band
were pursuing their education where and how they could,
the seniors were striving on every hand to find some open
door or to unlock one that was closed. Birmingham was at
least discussed, with its possibilities; St. Andrews, Durham,
and the various centres in Ireland were visited and worked
diplomatically, and for a time not without apparent prospect
of success. It is pathetic to go through the endless reams
of correspondence—vital once with hopes and fears—that
was destined to end, for the moment at least, in nothing.
In June S. J.-B. and Miss M‘Laren went on a mission to
Newcastle, and they had scarcely left Edinburgh before
Miss Pechey, who had just returned, sent the following
report:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“15 Buccleuch Place,
Edinburgh.
June 17th. 1873.
.nf-
.ll
Darling Soph,
.ti 6
I was going to write to you yesterday, but was overcome with
sleep, the result, I suppose, of getting up at 5 o’clock. Last night
Millar sent a copy of the Consulted Lords’ Opinion with a note to
say that the case would be put on this week, and that the proceedings
would occupy only a few minutes—merely formal. He is to let
me know when it comes on. Ormidale, Mure, Mackenzie and
Shand are dead against us, contending that the Court had no power
to make the regulations. Deas, Ardmillan, Jerviswoode and Gifford
only in favour of the regulations holding good and our right to
graduation,—but not a word as to the regulations being enforced,
and we are still left at the mercy of the individual professors.
‘That being the case, this coloured individual will take to the
.bn 419.png
.pn +1
woods.’ We must look either to Newcastle or St. Andrews. My
only care now about the decision of the other judges is with regard
to the expenses....
I hope the Newcastle people are behaving well.”
.pm end_quote
Individually they were behaving well of course, and individually
the applicants saw them. Two of S. J.-B.’s drafted
petitions have been preserved:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Station Hotel,
Newcastle. June 19th. 1873.
.nf-
.ll
Gentlemen,
.ti 6
Relying on the liberality with which the College of Science
of the University of Durham has been thrown open to women, I
venture to request that you will pursue a similar liberal policy with
reference to your College of Medicine, and will admit to it those
women who are desirous to enter the medical profession, and for
whose education absolutely no provision exists at this moment in
Great Britain.
If it is thought desirable that separate classes should be established
in any of the subjects of medical education, I am prepared to
guarantee for such classes the payment of whatever minimum fee
may be fixed by you, and I am further in a position to state that,
if your College is thrown open, at least fifteen women will at once
enrol themselves as students.
I have the honour to be, Gentlemen,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours obedly,
Sophia Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“June 23rd. 1873.
.ll
Dear Sir,
.ti 6
As I understand that some of the Medical Professors feel a
difficulty in arranging for the education of women, while others are
quite ready to do so, I venture to suggest whether it would not
be possible to admit ladies tentatively for a single term to the classes
of such teachers as are prepared to receive them, pending a final
decision of the whole question.
I think I mentioned to you that those among us who have studied
longest, have attended all the classes required for the Durham
licence, except those of Midwifery, Materia Medica and Therapeutics,
and that if these classes could be given in the winter session they
might present themselves for the April examination. After the
experience of such a tentative session, it might with greater certainty
be decided whether or not permanent arrangements could be made.
Indeed, even if it should be thought impossible to make any such
partial arrangement for instruction, it might be a matter for consideration
.bn 420.png
.pn +1
whether the Medical Council (in conjunction with the
Durham authorities) might not agree to examine women with a view
to the licence, if they presented certificates of having attended all
the necessary classes, and if they paid the fees for one session at
Newcastle, even without attending classes there, in case such attendance
should be found impracticable.
Commending the whole question to the most favourable consideration
of yourself and your colleagues, I remain,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours obedly,
Sophia Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
At least she and Miss M‘Laren were not kept waiting
long in suspense. On the very same day the answer was
despatched:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“University of Durham College of Medicine,
Newcastle on Tyne.
June 23rd. 1873.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Blake,
.ti 6
I am requested to forward you a copy of a resolution passed
unanimously at an extraordinary meeting of members held today.
‘That the members of this College, at an extraordinary meeting,
having considered the question of opening the Classes of the College
for the education of women, decide that they cannot consent to the
application made, either as to education or as to Examination for
Licences and Degrees.’
.ll 68
.nf r
I am,
Yours very truly,
W. C. M. Arnison, M.D.,
Secretary.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
St. Andrews seemed more hopeful. Professor Campbell,
as we know, was more than favourable; so was Professor
Baynes; there is a thoroughly encouraging letter from
Principal Tulloch at this time as to the prospects; and
Professor Birrell wrote “in a friendly spirit to the cause
which has been ennobled by the rare spirit with which you
and your friends have fought a hard fight in its defence.”
One wonders whether he had the faintest idea how hard
the fight had been.
In any case opposition proved too strong, and nothing was
done at St. Andrews.
One must remember that the full equipment of the medical
side of the University was a big financial undertaking; and,
.bn 421.png
.pn +1
although the women were prepared to bear their share, they
were naturally unwilling to do this without some pledge that
they would not be left stranded in the first emergency.
Moreover, they were anxious not to lose time, and above all
things St. Andrews was unwilling to be hurried.
Dr. King Chambers urged the women to get their classes
somehow—anyhow, and then to “practise boldly as unregistered
practitioners who are ready to submit to examination
when called upon.”
A heroic piece of advice all round. One hopes the unregistered
practitioners would be allowed breathing space
“when called upon” to refresh their recollection—for
instance—of the preparations of opium!
Meanwhile Mrs. Thorne was working hard to arrange
classes in Edinburgh, and—failing the University degree—to
secure for women the Licence of the Royal Colleges of
Physicians and Surgeons—a privilege which was actually
granted some dozen years later. She and others were also
enquiring about the possibilities of the Apothecaries’ Society
of London and the Apothecaries’ Hall of Ireland, and, with
a view to this, S. J.-B. went the length of securing a legal
apprenticeship to her old friend and teacher, Mr. Salzmann
of Brighton, who was most anxious to help her if he could.
In fact no stone was left unturned.
The women students were really so restrained, so admirable,
through all this, that it is a positive relief to come upon the
following outburst some months later from Miss Pechey:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Langham, Colchester,
October 12th. 1873.
.nf-
.ll
My darling Soph,
.ti 6
Since I saw you I have indeed suffered many things of many
physicians, and my temper is no better but rather worse. It is,
however, gradually working down to its normal again. If I could
only have spoken my mind when they talked their conceited bosh
about their infinite superiority, and said,—‘Do you know what a
poor fool you are making of yourself?’—it wouldn’t have been so
hard; but to sit still, smiling benignantly, when men, commonplace
enough, goodness knows, in everything but their uncommon stupidity,
boasted of their mental capacity!—it was no wonder that, having
to bottle it all up, while I mused the fire burned. They are so like
.bn 422.png
.pn +1
the fools that David had to contend with that I can’t help quoting
him.”
After reporting progress, she goes on: “Still I would not have
Mrs. Thorne stop in her arrangements for classes in Edinburgh, as
I think we have no chance, the influence of the medical men being
so much against us.
Yes, I am curious. I wonder what it is. Perhaps another hopdog?
The other died this morning,—poor thing, it had had to go too long
without food, and even fresh hops did not revive it.
Please give my love to Scrap....
I will telegraph to you when I hear from S.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly,
Edith.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Meanwhile the great decision of the Edinburgh Lords had
been formally given. The Lord Justice-General, being Chancellor
of the University, gave no judgment, but the Lord
Justice-Clerk and four others, including all the remaining
judges of the First Division were in favour of the women
students. The seven remaining judges, including Lord Mure
and Lord Shand, were against the women students; so the
case was lost by the usual “narrow majority.”
The adverse judgment was based mainly on the opinion
that the University Court had, in 1869, done an illegal
thing in admitting women to the University at all, and on
this ground the authorities were held excused from all
responsibility towards the women themselves.
As we look back on the episode after all these years, the
point that stands out is the brave and luminous judgment
of the Lord Justice-Clerk, of which the following is, from our
point of view, the most interesting passage:
.pm start_quote
“To deny the women students the degree which was essential
to their entering the profession, and with a view to which they had
studied, on the pretext—for it was no better—that no such end was
ever contemplated, was entirely unjust and unwarranted; and that
all the more that all the evils said to be connected with the admission
of females to the University attached only to the study which was
permitted, while the honour could injure no one, and was only
valuable as the passport to the medical profession, with which, as
a body, the defenders had no concern. That this question of graduation,
from whatever cause, was in reality the sole matter in dispute,
was sufficiently evident from the pleading of the defenders themselves.
.bn 423.png
.pn +1
No doubt they devoted a large portion of their argument
to prove that women never had been, and never ought to be, admitted
to University study; but in the sequel they disclosed with sufficient
frankness that if the pursuers would have contented themselves
with mere certificates of proficiency, and would have abandoned
their claim for graduation, they might possibly have fared better.
This alternative implied university study, and, therefore, as graduation
was the cardinal point in the case, his opinion was that, on
completing the curriculum as matriculated students, the pursuers
were entitled by the existing rules of the University to be admitted
to graduation, and, indeed, he had found little of argument addressed
to prove the contrary. This, in his opinion, was sufficient for the
decision of this case. It was, however, maintained by the defenders
that the University Court had no power to pass these regulations;
they said that by the constitution of the University no woman could
be admitted either for study or for graduation, and that the regulations
and all that has followed upon them were therefore a mere
nullity, and could receive no effect. He thought this answer entirely
irrelevant. Questions might no doubt arise between the superior
and subordinate powers in the University as to the legality of the
former’s orders, and these might legitimately be called in question.
But, when a student had entered the University, and had duly conformed
to the rules on the faith of which he entered, it would be no
defence on the part of the Senatus to his claim to graduate that the
rules under which he had been admitted were liable to legal objection.
The duty of the Senatus was to obey the de facto law of the University,
and any other principle would be not only subversive of academical
discipline, but would lead to the greatest injustice, as he thought
was the case here. The matriculation of the student created an
implied contract between him and the University authorities that,
if he complied with the existing rules, they would confer the benefits
in the hope of which he resorted to the University. They could
not, after the student had performed his part of the engagement,
refuse to fulfil theirs, on the ground that the contract was made
under rules which it was beyond the power of their academical
superiors to make. They could not compel the student, as a condition
of his graduation, to take upon himself the defence of the
laws of the University; his sole duty was to obey them, and if their
lawfulness was disputed, that must be done in a question with those
who made them, not with the student who trusted to them.”
.pm end_quote
The women students were ordered to pay the expenses of
the appeal: and thus ended the hard fought “Battle in
Edinburgh.”
.bn 424.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=chap2.17
CHAPTER XVII | THE QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT
.sp 2
How far S. J.-B. was depressed in mind and body by the
events of that wearing fight, we can fairly guess. But nothing
had happened to disturb in the smallest degree her faith,—her
philosophy of life. She never doubted that she was
fighting the battle of the Lord; but—greatly though she
hoped, sure though she felt of final victory for her cause—she
was always, in the background of her being, absolutely
prepared for the defeat of any one of her plans. In the
thick of the combat, she seemed so engrossed that comrades
and onlookers were wont to say,—“Defeat will kill her,”
but this was a complete misunderstanding of her attitude.
The moment defeat came, it was accepted as simply the will
of God, though it well might be that God still meant her to
try again.
In the occasional great affairs of later life it was positively
startling to contrast her apparent inability to recognize
another side to the question at issue with her instant acceptance
of an adverse decision when it came. But for the vital
record we now possess of her youth, most people would have
had no clue. She was not ordinarily taken for a religious
woman; but it is simply true that the watchword of her
life—passively and actively—was Fiat voluntas tua.
She was one of those who pray; but she would have thought
it wrong to pray for the success of a definite scheme, for the
life of a friend, even—in the hour of her greatest need—for
the renewal of a broken friendship.
And indeed there was always some comfort at hand, quite
.bn 425.png
.pn +1
apart from the highest philosophy. To the end of her life
the words were often on her lips, “You see we had such
excellent friends”; and though some few adherents were
estranged because they thought the battle was being fought
too pugnaciously, others became increasingly impressed by
the extraordinary constancy shown by the fighters, and, in
particular, by the protagonist’s rare and individual type of
unworldliness, an unworldliness which, just because it was
individual, often made life rather difficult for her supporters.
Here is a letter from one of the Edinburgh professors, who
in the early days had begged S. J.-B. not to speak harshly of
an Alma Mater of which she would yet be proud, and who,
later, had congratulated her on a book which “tells a very
sad and disgraceful story, and tells it clearly and temperately
and effectively,—all the more effectively because your justifiable
indignation is kept well within bounds”:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Edinburgh, 21 Oct. 1873.
.ll
Dear Madam,
.ti 6
I send you herein a cheque for five pounds towards the law
expenses of the lady medical students in the recent trial.
If I had the misfortune to be a member of the University Court,
I should think myself bound in honour to pay my individual proportion
of the whole expense incurred by these ladies in consequence
of their supposing that this learned Court knew the extent of its
own powers. Horace’s words, ‘Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi,’
may in this case be rendered, ‘The University Court blundered, and
the Ladies are mulcted in the costs.’ If any sense of justice is still
extant in this country, the result must be, not only the payment of
these costs by public subscription, but a more than ever energetic
agitation for the overthrow of male monopoly in the medical profession.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours most truly,
W. B. Hodgson.
.nf-
.ll
Miss Stevenson.”
.pm end_quote
Immediately after the legal decision had been given, the
Spectator took up the question in an article “Women’s Wrongs
at Edinburgh,” of which the following sentences give the
gist:
.pm start_quote
“To canvass the legality of the judgment itself is alike beyond
the present writer’s competency and his wish, though it may be
.bn 426.png
.pn +1
permitted to remark that the best known names are found in the
minority, and that the reasonings on the other side, while turning on a
very narrow principle, are exceedingly discursive and inconsequent.
... The Senate included some staunch friends of the lady students,
and about an equal number of resolute opponents, but the indifferent
majority who swayed the action of the body appears to have had
no aim except to hush up a troublesome affair. Their policy was
to do all they could to oblige the applicants, meanwhile trusting to
the chapter of accidents to escape the difficulties that might come
after.”
.pm end_quote
This was shrewd and true.
Within a few days a long and exhaustive review of the
position and its possibilities, from the pen of Mrs. Garrett
Anderson, appeared in the Times, in the course of which the
writer urged that the time was not ripe for the medical education
of women in Great Britain, and that “in no way could
women better serve the cause we desire to promote than by
going to Paris to study medicine, and returning here as soon
as might be to practise it.” “Never,” she said, “was there
a case in which the truth of the adage, ‘Solvitur ambulando,’
was more likely to make itself felt.” [In the spirit of Professor
Hodgson’s translation of Horace, one may say, in fact, that
“the difficulty might be solved by crossing the Channel.”]
Of course S. J.-B. did not agree with her, and she wrote
a detailed reply[113] which Jupiter supported with a leading
utterance in his own name. He was not enthusiastic about
women doctors at all, but in this particular difference of
opinion he gave his vote for the “equally deserving, but
hitherto less fortunate aspirant to the position of a legally
qualified practitioner.”[114]
.fn 113
Appendix #E:appE#.
.fn-
.fn 114
“In this case, as in most others, those who say they want a thing must
put their own shoulders to the wheel in order to obtain it, and must be
prepared to back the soundness of their opinions. If only twenty women
annually could be added to the ranks of the medical profession in this
country, the expediency of the addition would be speedily removed from
the domain of controversy, and the expression, ‘Solvitur ambulando,’
which Mrs, Anderson calls an adage, would be applicable to the case.”
.ll 68
.rj
Times, August 23rd, 1873.
.ll
.fn-
S. J.-B. knew more of the hidden springs than anyone, and
she did not consider that the time had come to give in. She
.bn 427.png
.pn +1
who had borne the brunt of so many disappointments
was still full of hope. She wanted her own country to
give her this thing. Above all she felt that “so long as
no means of education are provided at home, only a very
small number of women will ever seek admission to the
profession.”
“This last consideration,” she says, “was to me conclusive.”
“I greatly admire your letter to Mrs. G. Anderson,” wrote
Professor Hodgson, “and I am truly glad to see that you
are not so despondent as I am. The passive power of resistance
on the part of those who hold a position is terribly
difficult to overcome. It is not mere inertia; that would
be bad enough. Ultimate success I do not at all despair
of, but individual life is short and the journey is long and
arduous.”
Both Times and Spectator spoke severely of the behaviour
of the University, and on September 1st an apologia appeared
from the pen of the Principal. It was just the letter one
might have expected from an able, urbane, scholarly gentleman;
he scanned the whole history “as we do our own
poetry, laying stress on the right syllables and passing lightly
over a halting foot.” It would have been a fine and conclusive
defence,—if Jupiter had not allowed a poor overworked
medical student to answer it. The two letters represent
two conflicting schools of historians, the one sweeping,
picturesque, probable: the other definite, statistical, true.
The former is certainly the easier to read. The correspondence
is so essentially typical of many of the “disputes” S. J.-B.
had with others in the course of her life that it is given in
full in the appendix.[115]
.fn 115
Appendix #F:appF#.
.fn-
“I have seen the Venerable Principal’s letter,” wrote a
distinguished lawyer from Uig, “for even in these uttermost
parts of the earth the Scotsman has reached me, and I need
not say what I thought of it. I read also with great satisfaction
your thorough demolition of the learned and venerable
and inaccurate gentleman, and the Scotsman’s excellent
punching of his head.”
.bn 428.png
.pn +1
S. J.-B. spent part of that summer holiday visiting Norfolk
cousins, and she took the opportunity to read a paper on her
special subject at the Social Science Congress at Norwich,
under the auspices of her friend, Professor Hodgson, who was
President of the Education Section.[116] Here she made two
friendships of great value,—one with Miss Louisa Hubbard,
whose sister, Lady Rendel, had been S. J.-B.’s schoolfellow;
the other, even more memorable, with Miss Pauline Irby, who
was just entering upon her heroic and self-sacrificing life work
in Bosnia. In October S. J.-B. returned to Edinburgh to
clinch the arrangements Mrs. Thorne was making for the
winter session.
.fn 116
Lord Houghton was President of the Congress. In a letter to his
wife, dated October 3rd, 1873, he says, “Miss Jex-Blake and Mrs. Grey
both spoke capitally.” Lord Houghton’s Life, vol. ii. p. 281.
.fn-
It is one more instance of the extraordinary, dogged perseverance
of those women that during that winter session the
lectures were delivered to women as before by Edinburgh
Extra-Mural lecturers, the subjects being Materia Medica,
Pathology and Midwifery. S. J.-B. attended these lectures
when she could, and took honours in all of them; but she
was already in correspondence with Dr. Anstie and others
as to the possibility of opening some school for women in the
larger and more impersonal milieu of London. As a matter
of fact, the whole centre of interest had changed. The
question was now potentially before Parliament,—not indeed
as a question of practical politics to be decided by the rank
and file, but as a matter for private discussion by a few men
of courage and vision.
“It was necessary,” wrote Mr. Stansfeld in reviewing the
history three years later,[117] “to appeal to a yet higher tribunal.
Such appeal might have been made on the question of law
to the House of Lords; but that would have meant further
indefinite delay and further heavy expense, and then, if the
result were favourable, a probable refusal of the university
to act on their ascertained powers. It was necessary to
secure the admission of women to medical study and practice,
.bn 429.png
.pn +1
and not merely to ascertain that one out of nineteen examining
bodies could admit them if it liked. Miss Jex-Blake and her
friends determined to widen their appeal, to base it on the
ground of right, and to address it to Parliament and to public
opinion.”
.fn 117
“Medical Women,” by the Right Hon. James Stansfeld, M.P., Nineteenth
Century, July, 1877.
.fn-
As early as August 1872 Sir David Wedderburn (on behalf
of Sir Robert Anstruther) had moved that the vote for the
Scottish Universities should be reduced by the amount of the
salaries of the Edinburgh Medical Professors. He explained
that the motion was brought forward in order to lay before
the House the course followed by the authorities of the
University of Edinburgh, but that, in view of the fact that the
Lord Ordinary, had, a few days before, given a judgment in
favour of the ladies, he hoped the University would accept
the decision as final and as indicating to them their duties in
the matter; and he would therefore refrain from pressing
the motion to a division.
When the University appealed against the Lord Ordinary’s
decision, and got it reversed on appeal, Sir David Wedderburn,
on July 29th, 1873, gave notice that he would, early in the
following session, bring in a Bill to grant to the Scottish
Universities the power they were now supposed not to possess,
to educate women in medicine and to grant to them the
ordinary medical degrees.
It was highly desirable, of course, to secure Government
support for this Bill, and in October we find S. J.-B. in correspondence
with the Home Secretary. There is a long letter
marked “Private” in which Mr. Lowe (Lord Sherbrooke)
expresses his view of the matter, and asks her to let him
know what course she proposes to follow. Shortly after, we
get the following:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Secretary of State,
Home Department.
Oct. 13. 1874.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I have done what I can to forward your views. I should
think you would be met by the same legal difficulty in Ireland as
in Scotland. But though it may not be very agreeable to my
constituents I should have no objection if this were the only obstacle
to introduce an enabling Bill giving all Universities the power if
.bn 430.png
.pn +1
they please to confer medical degrees or indeed any other degrees
on women.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
Robert Lowe.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Clearly she was eager to follow up the opening, for ten days
later he writes again:
.pm start_quote
“I am afraid I cannot commit the Government to introducing
the Bill without consulting them. I will do so at the Cabinets
which will take place next month and tell you the result.”[118]
“The matter has been discussed to-day,” writes Mr. Stansfeld
on Dec. 1st, “but nothing is settled; I apprehend difference of
opinion....
I should advise personal communication with members of the
Government before January Cabinets. A concise but complete and
temperate statement in favour of legislation would, I think, be
useful.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 118
Mr. Lowe’s advocacy was strengthened by a fine memorial presented
to him at this time by 471 graduates of the University of London, praying
that the benefits of the University should be extended to women. This
memorial was secured through the exertions of Dr. Alfred Shewen.
.fn-
So, early in January, S. J.-B. went up to London to interview
ministers and others.
.pm start_quote
“Jan. 7th. Wednesday. Mr. Lowe, 4 p.m. Very cordial and
courteous. Would certainly bring in a Bill if his colleagues allowed
him,—very doubtful if they would,—if not, would help Wedderburn
all he could, ‘and I can do a great deal.’
Thought Enabling Bill more hopeful than compelling Medical
Boards to examine.”
“Jan. 10th. Saturday. In morning at Museum, looking up
Charters of Colleges, etc.
2 p.m. Sir J. Lubbock. Pleasant and friendly,—non-committal
rather. Would talk with Wedderburn,—‘generally agreed with him.’
At 4 p.m. Stansfeld. Friendly as ever. Thought Selborne’s
opinion most important.”
.pm end_quote
After a few days spent with Mrs. Jex-Blake at Brighton
the tale proceeds:
.pm start_quote
“Tuesday, 20th. At 1 p.m. saw Lord Aberdare,—quite friendly,—‘should
heartily support Bill.’ Was quite willing that Bill should
come from his office, by Forster.
.bn 431.png
.pn +1
2 p.m. Grant Duff, friendly but not encouraging as to his power
to help with Cabinet.
Wednesday 21st. Saw Thos. Hughes, 10 a.m. Very friendly.
Would speak to Forster, etc....
Thursday 22nd. Breakfasted with the Russell Gurneys. Very
friendly. He quite ready to put his name on back of Wedderburn’s
Bill. On the whole encouraged to get special Exam. and practise
in spite of Act, if no legislation to be got.[119]
11 a.m. Lady Selborne—‘knew nothing about’ our question,—laughed
at the idea of my seeing the Chancellor—but listened fairly
to what I had to say,—seemed impressed by the facts and by the
attention of the other ministers,—promised to report fairly what
I had said.
Not specially courteous or gracious, but I think honest.”
“8.30 p.m. express from King’s Cross to Edinburgh.
Friday 23rd. Illuminations, etc., for Duke of Edinburgh’s
wedding day.
Saturday, 24th. Dissolution! What next?”
.pm end_quote
.fn 119
“I was very much troubled by your last letter,” wrote Dr. Sewall a
month later, “for the idea of your beginning to practise without a diploma
seems to me such a mistake. It appears to me that by practising illegally
in that way, you will be giving up all you have been fighting for, and will
be opening a way that some women who have not studied thoroughly
may use; and there will be no way of your showing the public the difference
between your qualifications.”
.fn-
It was only too true. The time of reaction had come after
a long period of reforming energy under Mr. Gladstone, and
now—failing to find an adequate rallying cry for his party—he
dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country. In
the confusion of the moment the Home Secretary did not
forget the women students.
.pm start_quote
“My dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I am sorry to say that in the present state of things it is quite
impossible for me to bring in a Bill on your subject or indeed on
any other. I don’t think you will find much difficulty in getting
a man.
I congratulate you on your brother’s appointment.[120]
.ll 68
.nf r
Very truly yours,
R. Lowe.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 120
To the Headmastership of Rugby.
.fn-
.bn 432.png
.pn +1
This was followed on February 10th by a letter from Mr.
Stansfeld:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
The Conservatives will certainly come in and for a long time.
I should have thought that Russell Gurney might not improbably
now be placed upon the Bench. I don’t suppose that a political
appointment would suit him; unless it were that of Speaker and
I have not heard his name mentioned for it.
I think you can’t do better than ask him, saying at the same time
that you cannot but see that the coming political change may make
it out of his power to comply.
It is all very extraordinary and mortifying.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
J. Stansfeld.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The suggested letter was roughly drafted forthwith:
.pm start_quote
“To Russell Gurney.
Will you forgive me if, at such a busy and engrossing time, I
venture to trouble you about our comparatively small affairs, very
important as they are to us.
You are, of course, aware that Sir David Wedderburn is no longer
in Parliament,[121] and I suppose it is quite certain that the present
Government must go out, so that Mr. Lowe cannot at least introduce
the Bill as Home Secretary, and thus on both hands our prospects
are at an end.
I venture, however, to rely on the kind interest you expressed in
our cause, and to ask you whether it would be possible for you to
induce the Conservative Government to take it up, or, if not, whether
we might hope for your personal help still farther in the matter,—if
you do not take office, as I hear you may. I think Mr. Lowe would
be willing to help us as a private member, and it occurred to me
as possible that you and he might take up the Bill jointly so as to
conciliate both sides of the House.
I am personally very ignorant of political matters, and of what
could and what could not be done. I shall feel it the greatest
possible favour if you will kindly tell me how far you can help us
in this matter, and will give me any advice on the subject which may
occur to you. It is of extreme importance to us that the Bill should,
if passed at all, be passed as soon as possible, as it will at any rate
be difficult enough to make arrangements in time for next winter’s
session, and we can ill afford to lose another year.
I trust that you will at least excuse me for thus troubling you.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly obliged,
S. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 121
Sir David Wedderburn did not offer himself for re-election.
.fn-
.bn 433.png
.pn +1
A most gracious answer to this arrived without loss of time:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Queen’s Hotel, Hastings,
13th. Feb.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
Although politically opposed to Sir D. Wedderburn, yet for
your sake and for that of the cause which he so faithfully supported
I can sincerely regret the loss of his seat.
I really do not know what course to advise you to pursue. My
absence from Parliament during nearly the whole of the two last
Sessions makes it more difficult for me than it would have otherwise
have been.
I should think that it would scarcely be possible to get the new
Government as a Government to take up the measure. Coming
in at the time they do they will be sure to take up as few measures
as possible. If a Bill is brought in by Mr. Lowe or anyone else I
would not only support it but use any little influence I may have
with the Ministry to induce them not to oppose it.
The state of my health is such that I cannot undertake to take
charge of the Bill. I have come here in order to get a little rest
before the Meeting of Parliament and I am under positive orders
from my doctor to avoid all extra work.
I fear indeed that during the next Session I am likely to be a
somewhat useless member.
I shall always be ready to consult with you, though at present I
confess that I do not see my way.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Very sincerely yours,
Russell Gurney.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
It was characteristic of the vicissitudes of S. J.-B.’s life at
the time that within a few days of receiving this letter she
had a telegram from Mrs. Jex-Blake’s physician at Brighton:
“Your Mother is very poorly. I should like you to come.”
This was delivered at 8 p.m., and it is needless to say that
she started by the night train. A fortnight of anxious nursing
followed; but her affairs were not forgotten:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Local Government Board,
Whitehall. Feb. 24. 74.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Masson,
.ti 6
I have heard, of course, also from Miss Jex-Blake. I won’t
say ‘No’ at any rate at present.
First I will see Lowe and ascertain his mind; and then I should like
to see if someone more acceptable to Dizzy cannot be found. I think
one must look around one first in the new Parliament, before deciding.
.bn 434.png
.pn +1
Is not the Bill you propose simply one enabling Universities to
grant Degrees to women; or what else do you propose?
Whether it is good or bad I should tell you that the wirepulling
and newspaper doctors hate me.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours ever,
J. Stansfeld.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Feb. 25th. 74.
.ll
Dear Masson,
.ti 6
I have seen Lowe about your proposed Bill.
He is ‘heartily’ for it, but thinks that he and I had better support
and not originate. Just now, he says, whatever we do will probably
be considered wrong, as the tide is against us, and for this reason
none of these Bills should be introduced by any of us ex-cabinet
ministers. Moreover if any of them are to pass they must be made
as little unacceptable as possible to Dizzy & Co., which means that
they had better be proposed and seconded by men on either side
of the House—one on one side and one on the other—but not by us.
I must say that the more I think of it the more I find this reasoning
sound. And I am prepared to advise therefore that you should
not ask either Lowe or me.
As to myself there is another special reason, to which I have
already referred, why it might be more prudent not to choose me,
viz. that ‘the doctors’ hate me; and tho’ I can’t see exactly how
that fact might operate, it might at least be admitted that it might
operate unfavourably, and that therefore it would be safer to look
elsewhere.
I won’t write to Miss Jex-Blake yet, but will wait to hear from you
what you think.
Of course I would willingly support and help.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours ever,
J. Stansfeld.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“10, Regent Terrace, Edinr.
Feb. 26, 1874.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I have had two letters from Mr. Stansfeld, which I enclose.
The second, you will see, is less favourable than the first, though
not absolutely conclusive. In reply I have expressed my belief that
the second objection—that about his relation to the ‘doctors’—can
matter little, inasmuch as we can’t expect anyone who takes
up the cause to be a darling of the doctors or to remain one[122]; but on
.bn 435.png
.pn +1
the other objection I have not felt able to say much against the
experienced instinct of Mr. Lowe and himself. On the one side
there may be a good deal in their feeling that for an ex-minister of
the Gladstone Cabinet to move the Bill may move Disraeli to criticism,
if not to opposition; on the other it seems essential that the
lead should be taken by an eminent and faithful man. You will
weigh the whole matter in London and consult.
I daresay it will be best not to publish the Memorial to Disraeli
till the receipt of it is acknowledged. I have all the renewed signatures[123]
now except the Edinburgh ones; and these, I hope, will be
completed today or tomorrow.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
David Masson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 122
We must never forget that a minority of doctors had been helpful all
along. Years before this a petition to Parliament in favour of the women
had been signed by nearly two hundred.
.fn-
.fn 123
The Memorial had been originally addressed to Gladstone.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Stoke Lodge,
Hyde Park Gate, W.
Feb. 28. 74.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I could see you either on Monday or Tuesday afternoon.
But where? For the Local Government Board knows me no more.
I shall be working at the Athenaeum on Monday afternoon, and
could therefore easily call on you anywhere in town.
I could see you here on the Tuesday and could make any time
convenient, but the morning would be most so.
Pray let me know.
I enclose Mr. Lowe’s and Mr. Russell Gurney’s notes. You have
heard from Masson, I presume. I wrote after seeing Lowe. But
I will postpone telling you of our interview till we meet.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
J. Stansfeld.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
A sharp little illness made it difficult for Mr. Stansfeld to
pursue the matter for a week or two, but finally we get the
following:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“15 Gt. Stanhope Street, W.
March 21.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Stansfeld,
.ti 6
I am quite ready to take up the case of the women students
if a good Bill can be framed, and I shall have to see you on Monday
at the House.
.ll 68
.nf r
Ever yours,
W. Cowper Temple.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
[Telegram] “March 23rd. Cowper Temple, Great Stanhope
Street to Miss Jex-Blake, 15 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh.
Can you tell me a lawyer who knows the subject and will frame
the Bill or advise about it.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 436.png
.pn +1
This was apparently followed by a letter, for, at the earliest
possible moment on March 24th, S. J.-B. sent down a note
by hand to her solicitor:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Mr. Millar,
.ti 6
An eminent M.P. has undertaken to bring in an Enabling
Bill to enable Universities to educate and graduate women on the
same terms as men, and I have just got a letter asking me to send
up a draft of such Bill. As you are the best authority on such
matters I should like to see you at once about it, and should be
extremely glad if you could sketch out a draft beforehand, as time
is of the greatest moment.
Could I see you if I called between 12.30 and 1 p.m.?
.ll 68
.nf r
Yrs. truly,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The Draft Bill seems to have been posted that afternoon,
and the following day another telegram arrived:
.pm start_quote
“March 25th. Rt. Hon. Stansfeld, London, to Miss Jex-Blake,
15 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh.
I have seen Mr. Cowper Temple and we advise you to come and
see him.”
.pm end_quote
So of course S. J.-B. travelled up to London next day.
.pm start_quote
[Diary] “March 26th. Summoned up to London about Cowper
Temple’s Bill. He very kind, plenty of good will.... Stansfeld
admirable. Gurney do., only from health inactive. Lowe, Gallio-like.”
.pm end_quote
A day or two later S. J.-B. dined with the Cowper Temples
and details were threshed out.
.pm start_quote
“I am so glad,” writes Miss M‘Laren, “that you have succeeded
so well, and find Mr. Cowper Temple such a nice man and energetic
besides,—and trust all may go well. I am not afraid of opposition
at all, but what I do fear is that at this late season it may not get
through.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Broadlands.
April 15.
.nf-
.ll
To Miss Jex-Blake:
.ti 6
... Mr. Ewing consented when I explained the Bill to him, and
his name with that of Mr. Gurney and Dr. Cameron are on the back
of the Bill. I am not very sanguine of success if a serious opposition
should be manifested, but I have hopes that the moderation of the
measure may have the effect of not calling forth the latent antagonism
that exists against the cause.
.bn 437.png
.pn +1
But whether the Bill passes or not, it must advance the cause,
for at least we shall have a good debate on the subject.
I talked to Sir W. Maxwell when I first thought of undertaking
a Bill and I found that he took the view that in his representative
position as Rector of Edinburgh University he ought not to take a
part in a question in which there is so much difference of opinion
and warmth of feeling. I have fixed Friday 24th for the second
reading, but am not at all sure that it can come on that evening as
there will be many questions before it.
I return to London tomorrow.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours—[illegibly],
W. C. Temple.
.nf-
.ll
The names on the back of the Bill are
.pm start_poem
Mr. Cowper Temple,
Mr. Russell Gurney,
Mr. Orr Ewing,
Dr. Cameron.”
.pm end_poem
.pm end_quote
There was much discussion as to the desirability of keeping
quiet about the Bill, and allowing it to slip through, if possible,
without arousing all the energies of the opposition.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“10 Regent Terrace,
Edinburgh.
April 1, 1874.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
Best thanks for your letter. From what it says and from
what I had heard before to the same effect from Miss M‘Laren, I
have not the least doubt of the practical wisdom of the limitation
of the Bill to the Scottish Universities. The difficulty of taking
such differently-constituted Universities along in the Bill has struck
me so far; but I had not thought of the special difficulty that might
arise from jealousy of the divided powers of the University of London.
But, while our Bill goes on alone, there is no reason why the other
universities should not be moving, each for itself, and all such movement
would help ours.
I am not so sure of the policy of silence about our Bill. Miss
M‘Laren will have told you that Dr. Lyon Playfair has alarmed our
people here by informing them of it, and asking their opinion.
There is a Committee on watch with power to call a Senatus meeting
when the Bill is perfectly known. Possibly, when they see it, they
may feel inclined to do nothing, seeing that it only legitimises the
power the University thought it possessed when it passed the regulations;
but no one can tell. All that Dr. L. P. wanted was advice
for himself; and nothing, even of that kind, can be done collectively,
.bn 438.png
.pn +1
except by Senatus—as the Committee is for observation only. Still
the matter is public; and individuals may be at work. Also the
fact and drift of the Bill have been mentioned in the newspapers,
e.g. by the London correspondent of the Glasgow Mail. If, in these
circumstances, you are of opinion that the memorial to Mr. Disraeli
may be published, please return my copy with the signatures; and
I will send it to our three papers here—where perhaps it ought to
appear first. But you will, of course, act with the advice of Mr.
Cowper Temple and others; and I won’t publish till you give the
word. Anyhow it might be best to return the memorial to me.
A telegraph from you would then tell me to publish any day—if
not immediately.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
David Masson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“April 15, 1874.
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
After reading today the Scotsman’s report of the introduction
of the Bill, and observing how quietly and cautiously it seems to
be framed (‘to remove doubts as to the powers’ etc.)[124] I have thought
it better not at once to publish the memorial. If there is any possibility
that the Bill will be let through without opposition, our
memorial, as more strongly expressed, might interfere with this. At
all events I have thought it most prudent not to be in a hurry, but
to wait a day or two till we see how Mr. C. T.’s Bill is received
among the probable enemies. Very likely they will move against
it somehow,—secretly if not publicly; and, if we find this, then our
memorial ought to come out as a contribution to the argument.
You will perhaps hear how Dr. Lyon Playfair and Mr. Gordon act
in London: I will observe here. Perhaps I am prudent in excess;
but, once the memorial is out, it is past recall.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
David Masson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 124
“A Bill to Remove Doubts as to the Powers of the Universities of
Scotland to admit Women as Students, and to grant Degrees to Women.”
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“83 Belgrave Road, S.W.
16th April, 1874.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
The bill has been introduced by Mr. Cowper Temple, and
my name is one of those on its back. If it could be smuggled through
it would of course save a great deal of time and trouble, but I am
afraid it is of no use to think of that. The moment it is published
the bill will be telegraphed to all the Scotch papers, and every
.bn 439.png
.pn +1
professor in every university, and almost every medical man throughout
Scotland, will perceive its drift. Moreover you must remember
that the Lord Advocate is member for Glasgow and Aberdeen
University, and will have to keep his constituents well posted up
in everything affecting their interests. If I see anything concerning
the measure in the Scotch papers, I shall forward it to you, and
meanwhile remain
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very sincerely,
Charles Cameron.
.nf-
.ll
Miss Jex-Blake.”
.pm end_quote
So the glove was thrown down, and, as Dr. Cameron had
predicted, the news of it was instantly flashed from Dan to
Beersheba. In a very short time 65 petitions in favour of
the Bill were presented to Parliament, three of these being
from the Town Councils of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Linlithgow.
There was also one from the City of Edinburgh,
and one from 16,000 women. The most important, perhaps,
was from twenty-six Professors of Scottish Universities,
including eight (out of fourteen) Professors of the University
of St. Andrews,—among them the Rev. Principal Tulloch,—and
thirteen Professors of the University of Edinburgh. If
Glasgow was poorly represented in number, the women had
all the more reason to be proud of the weight of the two names,—John
and Edward Caird. There was also a petition from
those Edinburgh lecturers who had actually taught the women.
Against the Bill there were four petitions:
.in 8
.ti -4
1. From the University Court of Edinburgh.
.ti -4
2. From the Senatus of Edinburgh University.
.ti -4
3. From the Medical Faculty of the Senatus (probably identical with 2).
.ti -4
4. From the University of Glasgow.
.in
The second reading of the Bill was fixed for April 24th, but
at the urgent request of Dr. Lyon Playfair, member for
the University of Edinburgh, it was postponed to a later date
(“in order that his University might have time to consider
the subject”!) when the pressure of business made it impossible
to secure any day: or, as Miss M‘Laren had
predicted, it failed to “get through.” And so the whole
question was practically shelved for another year.
.bn 440.png
.pn +1
There was an interesting debate on the motion, however,
on June 12th, 1874, when able speeches were made by Mr.
Cowper Temple, Mr. Stansfeld and others,—the two members
for Edinburgh (Town and Gown) providing an almost dramatic
contrast.
Mr. M‘Laren (Town), hard-headed, shrewd man of business,
bluntly declared that “if it were a question to be decided by
the intelligent inhabitants of Edinburgh, nine-tenths would
vote in its favour.... If two or three of the professors
would only take a voyage round the world, the whole question
would be satisfactorily settled before they returned.
(Laughter.) Where the male students paid three or four
guineas for each class, the ladies paid eight or ten guineas,
so that money was no obstacle. There was no difficulty,
in fact, except want of will, and that arose from medical
prejudice,—at least that was the opinion of the great
majority of the people in Edinburgh.”
Dr. Lyon Playfair (Gown), scholar, courtier, man-of-the-world,
had a harder task. Even Punch was moved to
sympathy with him “as one in a perplexity between his
constituents and his convictions.”
.tb
In any case the whole question had entered on a new phase,
there was fresh enthusiasm for the cause, and, on the other
hand, those who had looked upon the idea of women doctors
as an amusing absurdity, were roused to perturbation and
alarm.
.bn 441.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.18
CHAPTER XVIII | THE LONDON SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FOR WOMEN
.sp 2
It is a terrible thing for a hasty, impulsive, faulty human
being to be placed as S. J.-B. was at this time, in a difficult
position—on a slippery ridge, as it were—in the eye of the
whole world. It has been said before that few people ventured
to “lecture” her: she liked to hear the truth, and, when her
friends were prepared to risk all, she took their faithful
dealing magnanimously, often nobly: but somehow she made
adverse criticism very difficult. It was said of her that she
would have made an excellent advocate,—she had so keen
an eye for the strong points of her own position and the weak
points of those of her adversaries; and it is only fair to say
that, in conversation with her, many people might well be
simply carried away. In a sort of esprit d’escalier—or jugement
d’escalier—they might see the other side of the question,
and sometimes they wrote a qualifying letter to say so;
but we know how few people are prepared in life to take
that amount of trouble in a matter that does not intimately
concern themselves. It is so much easier to sympathize
with those who confide to us their troubles and difficulties,
and then to vent our jugement d’escalier on the man we meet
in the street below. In the course of her life S. J.-B. got more
than her share of that kind of sympathy.
We have seen that, in the matter of her examination the
year before, she did not admit the justice of her rejection.
She was supported in this attitude by the opinion of three or
four lecturers and examiners in the subjects for which she
had entered, who had read her papers and had cordially
.bn 442.png
.pn +1
pronounced them—in writing—to be up to or above the pass
standard. Hundreds of people had, of course, expressed to
her their belief that she had not been fairly treated, and
their sympathy had steadily intensified the impression in
her own mind. She would have accepted Huxley’s verdict
loyally, if all the papers handed in at that examination could
have been submitted to him. No one who reads one paper
only can possibly say—except by an exercise of faith in his
fellow creatures—whether worse papers have been accepted
and better rejected, or no. It would have been strange indeed
if Huxley had not had that amount of faith in his colleagues.
From the moment of Dr. (afterwards Sir Wyville) Thomson’s
appointment to the Chair of Biology, S. J.-B. had dreaded
him as an examiner, on the ground that he was altogether
adverse to the women. “You will receive no insolence from
him,” Professor Tait had written to her in 1871, “but I fear
that is all I can say, though it is something.” And previously,
“although he is not in your favour, he is not a man to take
any mean or unfair advantage.”
She ought, of course, to have accepted this judgment once
for all as that of a just man, but from the time of her examination
the conviction that she had been unfairly treated never
wavered, though the whole matter was, she thought, a thing
of the past forever.
In a great controversy, however, nothing may ever be
safely assumed to be a thing of the past. It seems to be
buried forever, but it lies at the mercy of any chance turn of
the spade.
And this brings us back to the point where Dr. Lyon Playfair,
“in a perplexity between his constituents and his convictions”—those
constituents meaning to all intents and
purposes the “two or three Professors” for whom the Member
for Edinburgh had recommended a voyage round the world
as a means of solving the whole difficulty—Dr. Lyon Playfair
had so availed himself of the machinery of Parliament as to
shelve the whole question indefinitely.
One quite realizes that by this time it was war to the knife
on both sides, and one refrains from unduly criticising either;
but it is S. J.-B. whose life we are considering, and there
.bn 443.png
.pn +1
can be no doubt that for her—overworked and overstrained
as she was—the situation was very hard to bear.
And now the discussion in Parliament, literally bringing
the question “into the range of practical politics,” had
stirred up all the latent objection to the idea of women doctors,
and had brought every weapon into play. One can dimly
conjecture the number and variety of assaults that must
have been made on the leading newspapers, and it is small
wonder if some of them were sorely unsettled, so much so
that “the pulpit spake pure Canterbury in the morning and
Geneva in the afternoon.”
Even the Times began to talk of “all the delicacies and
best charms” of woman’s nature, and took occasion to say
in a leading article, “It is a little amusing, indeed, that one
of the Ladies who had rendered herself most conspicuous,
should after all have failed under the test of examination.”
The writer did not add—perhaps he had not been informed—that
three of the fellow-students of that conspicuous Lady
had successfully passed the examination in question in a
previous year; but the playful taunt—if taunt it was—was
more than the generous spirit of one of those successful candidates
could stand. She wrote an impulsive letter, mentioning
S. J.-B. by name, and explaining that it was “devotion to
our cause which led to her failure,” that “she had borne the
brunt of the battle, and had spared her fellow-students all the
harass and worry of the struggle, and had thus enabled them to
enjoy the leisure requisite for passing their examinations.”
Of course the writer should have consulted S. J.-B. before
sending this letter to the Times, but apparently it never
occurred to her that the defence might not be acceptable to
the one defended. In any case, the letter came upon S. J.-B.
like a thunderbolt, and she committed the great and crowning
mistake of her life,—she wrote a letter to the Times, implying
in effect that in the matter of the examination, she did not
believe she had been fairly treated.
It was quite a temperate letter from her point of view,
but—as her brother had said—she was throwing pebbles at
a fortress, and, what was worse, throwing them under the
gaze of the whole civilized world.
.bn 444.png
.pn +1
If Professor Crum Brown had done the Women’s Cause a
service by denying to Miss Pechey the name and privileges
of Hope Scholar, S. J.-B. had now repaid that service to him
and his colleagues, full measure, pressed down, shaken together
and running over.
Under the mighty Ægis of the University of Edinburgh,
the examiners replied, and Professor Huxley himself entered
the controversy in defence of his friend, Dr. Wyville Thomson,
who was away on the “Challenger” Expedition at the time.
Miss Pechey was only restrained by prudent friends from
publishing a generous letter in which she expressed her conviction
that, if Professor Huxley had examined the Edinburgh
students, 90 per cent. of them would have failed, and she
added a paragraph which shows at least how differently a
great institution may look when regarded from two different
points of view:
.pm start_quote
“It is really amusing to those who know anything of the constitution
of the University to find [the Examiners] gravely suggesting
that [S. J.-B.] could have appealed to the Medical Faculty, the
Senatus, and the University Court. The names have an imposing
sound, but, when one comes to consider, the Medical Faculty resolves
itself into the medical examiners, the Senatus (at that time of the
year, before the arts professors had returned for the winter) into
the Medical Faculty, whilst the University Court is in reality the
mouthpiece of one member who I fear would turn a deaf ear to any
appeal from Miss Jex-Blake.”
.pm end_quote
Well, there it was! If the cause could have been killed,
this mistake might probably have killed it. If S. J.-B.
could have been crushed, this mistake would have crushed
her. But the cause was intensely vital, and S. J.-B. was
tough.
One falls back once more on Newman’s brave and comforting
words:
.pm start_quote
“The very faults of an individual excite attention—he loses, but
his cause (if good, and he powerful-minded) gains—this is the way
of things, we promote truth by a self-sacrifice.”
.pm end_quote
S. J.-B. was just starting on her holiday when the correspondence
took place, and, although Miss Stevenson and
Mrs. Thorne both wrote to tell her of the “irreparable”
.bn 445.png
.pn +1
damage it had done, most of her friends and supporters were
disposed to let her enjoy her holiday—if she could—in peace.
So, in the silence and repose of a sojourn in Perthshire, she
laid her future plans.
.tb
As early as December 6th, 1873, Dr. Anstie had written
to her:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Madam,
.ti 6
I am afraid I do not see my way to any practical plan at
present.
“At Westminster it is quite possible that my colleagues would
consent to separate classes. But the fatal objection is want of
space; and I could not, I feel sure, persuade them to try the experiment
of mixed classes.
I fear there is no way, except by the ladies raising money enough
to found a school for themselves. In that case I, and I think others,
would be willing to go out of our way to afford them teaching. But
the difficulties about clinical teaching seem very great.
I will talk the matter over with my colleague, Mr. Cowell, and
write to you again....”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“16 Wimpole Street,
Dec. 12th.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Madam,
.ti 6
Three or four days of complete prostration with influenza
have prevented me from finding time to talk with Mr. Cowell.
But as regards the Westminster Hospital School I think it very
unlikely that any proposition would be entertained with regard
to surrendering our position as teachers of male students....
I think (so far as I can at present judge) that your best course
would be to take some premises in London, and build a thoroughly
good school, fit for first-class teaching of the theoretical courses.
I believe if that were done you would get teachers. And with that
solid evidence of sincerity and energy in your work I believe the
hospitals, or some of them, would give way and grant you hospital
practice.
But this is only my first crude idea. Believe me,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very faithfully,
Francis Ed. Anstie.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
It is impossible to over-estimate the whole-heartedness with
which Dr. Anstie took up the cause. There are numerous
letters in which he records the various advances and checks
which he experienced in the course of his advocacy. For a
.bn 446.png
.pn +1
time he had hopes of inducing his own School to admit women,
but the matter got wind, and an adverse medical paper raised
all that latent opposition with which the pioneers were becoming
so familiar. From this point of view the discussion in
Parliament did, for the moment, as much harm as good, and
finally we find Dr. Anstie writing:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“16 Wimpole Street,
July 2.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
For the moment we are thoroughly defeated, and it may be
well to rest on our oars for a little time. You will probably have
heard of the rejection by the Senate of U. L. of the proposition about
degrees, and I wrote to tell you that I also found it was impossible
to induce my colleagues at Westminster to open a female department
of the School.
I think there is nothing for it now but to make up your minds
to form a school for yourselves. Were that once done I do not
think there would be any very great difficulty in obtaining clinical
instruction and in becoming recognized by some of the corporations.
I am sorry to have had no better luck as your champion. But
there is no doubt just now for some reason or other, a strong current
of adverse opinion. As I said before I think you and the other
ladies should take counsel with your friends, and (without renewal of
the discussion in public) should set to work upon the scheme of a
school.
I feel little doubt that, if you could show the positive evidence
of energy and resource afforded by the establishment of a separate
school in London, you would get both sympathy and teaching help.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
F. E. Anstie.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Mr. Norton, too, of St. Mary’s Hospital, assured S. J.-B.
that “a thoroughly good school might be organised, apart
from the existing schools, but with friendly lecturers gathered
from any or all of them.” This suggestion obviated the very
real difficulty of getting fresh lecturers “recognised.”
Mrs. Anderson still thought the time was not ripe: Mrs.
Thorne was in Paris[125]: the other students were scattered far
and wide for the holidays. From every point of view it seemed
.bn 447.png
.pn +1
imperative that the winter session should be secured: so,
with the help of the two men mentioned above and of Dr.
King Chambers, S. J.-B. simply did the work herself.
.fn 125
Mrs. Thorne on her return tried to dissuade S. J.-B. from making the
attempt; but, on finding how much had been done, she gladly coöperated
in raising funds.
.fn-
The record is brief enough,—there has been no entry in
the diary since June 23rd: no reference to the Times controversy
at all:
.pm start_quote
“August 11th. Tuesday. To London, in one day [from Perthshire].
To Hampstead. Rested one day.
August 13th. Thursday. To Anstie and Norton. Both encouraging
and helpful.”
.pm end_quote
Follows another of those sheaves of blank pages which
always indicate intense activity or preoccupation; and her
book, Medical Women, just touches on “an almost incredible
amount of search, enquiry and disappointment”; there are
various stray lists of lecturers, possible, probable and certain;
and then we proceed without farther entry to:
.pm start_quote
“Sept. 15th. Actually signed lease and got possession of 30
Henrietta[126] Street. Rigged up some kind of beds and slept there
that night,—Alice coming from Wales to help me.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 126
The name was afterwards changed to Handel Street, and then to
Hunter Street.
.fn-
Here there is a footnote:
.pm start_quote
“Miss Irby also came for a night one day this month,—grand,
quiet, strong.”
.pm end_quote
Another blank page or two, and then:
.pm start_quote
“Oct. 9th. Friday. Entered into 32 Bernard Street,[127] Mother
and all. (She nearly extinguished by mattress!)
Oct. 12th. Monday. Opening of London School of Medicine for
Women.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 127
The house S. J.-B. had taken as her private residence.
.fn-
There is no farther entry till 1875. We owe to a stranger,
however, the following pleasant description of the School as
it was then:
.pm start_quote
“For the early existence of an institution like this School of
Medicine no more appropriate home could in all probability be found
within the wide area of London than the curious old house in Henrietta
Street. In a central position, within easy reach of museums
and libraries, but retired from the bustle of noisy thoroughfares, a
.bn 448.png
.pn +1
range of spacious rooms stretches a long front towards the green
sward of an old-fashioned garden. Apartments admirably adapted
for the purpose of lecture halls ‘give,’ as the Americans say, from
underneath a broad verandah on this pleasant outlook. Cosy in
winter, cool in summer, and undisturbed by the sounds of external
life always, these rooms should be highly favourable to philosophic
contemplation. In the upper story—there is only one above the
ground-floor—are several smaller apartments suitable for museums
and reading-rooms.”—Daily News, March 13, 1877.
.pm end_quote
How deep was the impression made upon Miss Irby by that
brief visit we gather from a letter written twenty years later
(on July 5th, 1894):
.pm start_quote
“I was on the point of writing to you after the prize-giving at
the London School of Medicine for Women. A visit to those
premises always recalls to me those few days with you when you
stood there alone in almost bare walls, establishing the fort. You
would wish nothing better than that the School should go on as
it is going on, friends and foes being drawn into it. But I always
burn with the recollection of your first days there.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 449.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.19
CHAPTER XIX | THE RUSSELL GURNEY ENABLING ACT
.sp 2
It was at this stage that Mrs. Anderson’s help was so invaluable
to the great venture. She had an assured position—social
and professional—in the metropolis; and her name
carried the weight that belongs to a sane and shrewd
and able personality. It is impossible to over-estimate the
good she had done to “the Cause” by simply showing that
a woman can be a reliable and successful practitioner. She
had founded a small hospital for women; but she still
thought that the time for the creation of a good medical
school for women had not come,—that it would have been
better to wait till public opinion was more distinctly in
favour of women doctors: and she would have fostered the
growth of public opinion by encouraging women to obtain
foreign degrees, and to practise in England as unregistered
physicians and surgeons.
She was strengthened in this position by the fact that
S. J.-B. was not the Founder she would have chosen: she
judged the Edinburgh campaign by its net result as regarded
the immediate object at which it had aimed, and, so far as
Edinburgh University was concerned, that net result was
failure. There were those, moreover, who assured her, not
without a measure of truth, that Miss Jex-Blake’s impulsiveness
(“want of judgment,” “want of temper,” she told
S. J.-B.) had done great harm in Edinburgh. She and her
informants alike failed, perhaps, at the moment to realize how
that same impulsiveness (mistakes and all) had formed the
picturesque element that made the popular appeal,—how
.bn 450.png
.pn +1
that same impulsiveness had roused and had borne the brunt
of the latent opposition which must have manifested itself
sooner or later under the wisest management.
There is abundant contemporary evidence to this effect.
Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi wrote from America:
.pm start_quote
“You have fortunately been able to interest a much larger and
better class of people than have ever bestirred themselves in the
matter here. The list of governors of your School is quite imposing.
You at least have had the advantage attaching to a conspicuous battle
with real and dignified forces engaged on each side; whereas here,—this
question, as so many others, has rather dribbled into the sand.”
.pm end_quote
Miss Pechey, too, after delivering a lecture in Yorkshire
a year later, wrote:
.pm start_quote
“I couldn’t conclude without saying that all we had done towards
opening up the medical profession to women was due mainly to
Miss Jex-Blake, who had got all the abuse because she had done
all the work,—in fact all along she had done the work of three women
or (with a grin at the phalanx of men behind)—of ten men! This
brought down the house.”
.pm end_quote
“Mrs. Garrett Anderson is a fine instance of an individual
success,” said one of the physicians who assisted the movement
in those early days; “but Miss Jex-Blake fights the
battle, not for herself, but for all.”
Of course an individual success cannot but assist a movement
of the kind quite as surely as any other contribution.
One thing the two pioneers had in common,—a fine
honesty and truthfulness: much plain speaking passed
between them: and, if it had been possible for two such
different natures to see things eye to eye, no want of candour
or breadth of view on either side would have prevented it.
Here is a sample of their correspondence:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Hampstead.
21st August, 1874.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Mrs. Anderson,
.ti 6
If I kept a record of all the people who bring me cock and
bull stories about you, and assure me that you are “greatly injuring
the cause,” I might fill as many pages with quotations as you have
patience to read, but, beyond defending you on a good many
occasions, I have never thought it needful to take much notice of
such incidents, still less to retail them to you.
.bn 451.png
.pn +1
Nor do I much care to know whether or no certain anonymous
individuals have confided to you that they lay at my door what
you call “the failure at Edinburgh,”—inasmuch as the only people
really competent to judge of that point are my fellow-workers and
fellow-students, such as Professor Masson, Professor Bennett, Miss
Stevenson, Mrs. Thorne, Miss Pechey, Dr. Watson, and Dr. Balfour,
and I do not fancy that it is from any of these that you have heard
the comments in question.
It can, as I say, serve no purpose whatever to go into this sort
of gossip which is very rarely indeed founded on any knowledge of
facts; but, quite apart from any such discussion, I am more than
willing to say that if, in the opinion of a majority of those who are
organizing this new school, my name appears likely to injure its
chances of success, I will cheerfully stand aside, and let Mrs. Thorne
and Miss Pechey carry out the almost completed plans.
So much for your second objection [to joining the Council of the
School] which I have taken first, because I feel that the other is
for your own consideration and Dr. Anstie’s, and that it is needless
for me to say anything on the point.
In conclusion let me say that I never said it ‘did not signify’
whether you joined the Council (though I did say that I believed the
School was already tolerably secure of ultimate success.) I think it
of very great importance, both for your credit and ours, that there
should, as you say, be no appearance of split in the camp, and I should
greatly prefer that your name should appear on the Council with Dr.
Blackwell’s and those of the medical men who are helping us.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Yours truly,
Sophia Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
So Mrs. Anderson joined the Council, taking no part in
the daily life and work of the School, but bringing to the
new venture excellent qualities in which S. J.-B. was lacking,
among them the valuable gift for bearing in mind who are
the people worth conciliating,—the people with whom one
simply must not quarrel.
S. J.-B., on the other hand, brought an amount of practical
capacity and experience which the reader can estimate for
himself. We have seen what she expected—and got—from
her solicitor in the matter of the draft of a Parliamentary Bill:
it is not to be supposed that she was less successful with
printers, nor with plumbers, carpenters and others. She knew
exactly how quickly a proof might be expected in an emergency,
.bn 452.png
.pn +1
and she knew what the printing ought to cost. If there was
anything about the printed page that struck the eye as “odd,”
she had her finger on the technical defect in a moment, and
saw that it was put right. She loved drawing up specifications
for tanks, etc., and making her drawing to scale:
carpentry was an unfailing joy,—nuts, bolts, staples, screws
were as familiar to her as were bourgeois, pica, leads, and
other mysteries of the printer’s craft. “I like working for the
Doctor,” an Edinburgh joiner said in later years, “she knows
what she wants, and she knows when it is well done”; but
of course it was only a competent and conscientious workman
who could rise to this view of the case. Fortunately life
provides a good many of these: when S. J.-B. met one,
she valued him as he deserved.
Recalling the early days of the School at a meeting of the
Governing Body more than twenty years later, Mr. Norton said:
.pm start_quote
“Miss Jex-Blake had come to him in 1874 after leaving Edinburgh,
and he had then expressed the opinion that if funds were raised
and a school established of which all the teachers were recognized
by the Examining Boards,—the Apothecaries’ Society would be
obliged to admit its students to examination. By the middle of
October Miss Jex-Blake had succeeded in obtaining £1300 and in
renting 30 Handel Street for the purposes of a School of Medicine
for Women. It was her great energy which succeeded in so promptly
carrying out the work of starting the School.”
“Mrs. Anderson said she recollected that in those early days she
had been timid and had considered the time had not yet arrived
for establishing a separate School of Medicine for Women. To
organize a School on the slender sum of money raised by Miss Jex-Blake
required great optimism....”
.pm end_quote
So it did. It required much more than optimism. It
required a unique capacity for directing and supervising every
atom of work done, a unique capacity for getting a full and
fair penny’s worth out of every penny, a unique capacity
for finding workers who would put their shoulder to the
wheel, and do things for love. Chief of these workers always
was herself.
After the first Prize-giving Miss M‘Laren writes:
.pm start_quote
“L[ouisa] S[tevenson] and I have just been saying that no one
but you could have done all that work on Wednesday. But indeed
.bn 453.png
.pn +1
there is almost nothing that you don’t do better than everyone
else.”
.pm end_quote
Few even of S. J.-B.’s opponents would have denied that
this was true. In everything connected with Board and
Business meetings she was an expert. To say one had been
trained under her was for many years an invaluable testimonial
among those who knew. Her enthusiasm was combined
with a clear-sighted grasp of every detail of the
situation. Repeatedly one finds Cabinet Ministers and other
busy people saying,—“I won’t look at the documents till
you come and give me the thread,” “I can’t begin to write
the paper till you come and talk me into it,” or words to
that effect.
Valuable qualities these: but not necessarily the qualities
that create the pleasantest possible atmosphere for those
who have been in the habit of slipping through life easily.
There must have been a good many then as later who would
have been glad on occasion to deal with someone a little less
business-like.
In any case the thing was launched, Mr. Norton accepted
the office of Dean[128]; there was a staff of able lecturers; and
twenty-three students joined during the first year. Mrs.
Anderson and others brought much needed financial help;
Lord Shaftesbury distributed the prizes at the end of the
first winter session; and Lord Aberdare presided at the first
meeting of the Governing Body. So far all went well.
.fn 128
To the great loss of the medical women—as to many besides—Dr.
Anstie died suddenly on September 12th.
.fn-
Many were the congratulations from Edinburgh and St.
Andrews, mingled naturally with regrets that the little social
centre at 15 Buccleuch Place seemed permanently broken
up. Professor Lewis Campbell and Principal Tulloch were
sure the situation as regarded their University had been
greatly simplified by the creation of a good School; and
Dr. G. W. Balfour wrote:
.pm start_quote
“I only regret that you will be so far beyond my reach that it
will be impossible for me to coöperate actively in your future education,—though
I shall always be very glad to do anything I can
for you.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 454.png
.pn +1
This was one of the rare blank cheques on futurity that
are destined to be redeemed to the last farthing.
Professor Masson, too, was keen as ever.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“10 Regent Terrace, Edinr.
Oct. 23, 1874.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I had purposed when in London to give myself the pleasure
of a visit to the new premises, and to hear from yourself all about the
school and its prospects; but I was up on the business of some
researches, and had to spend my days, almost to the last, at the
British Museum or Record Office. One day I had a glimpse of you
in a cab passing the British Museum gate, but too fast and too far
off to be stopped. Mrs. Masson who is to be in London for a few
days more will certainly make her way to Henrietta Street.
I was very glad indeed to hear of so much success in organizing
the new School, and glad also to hear several medical men I met in
London speak of it not only approvingly on their own account, but
also with a kind of conviction that it would settle matters. Are
there not several rocks ahead however? And what about the
Apothecaries and their disposition? May they not be acted upon
by those opponents in the profession whose opposition is now likely
to take the form of permitting women to qualify themselves under
a different title to that given to men. The conservatives of the
University of London Senate will probably promote this current
of opinion.
With best regards to all Edinburgh friends with you,
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
David Masson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Dr. Masson had put his finger precisely on the difficulty.
It was still necessary to secure two indispensable conditions
of success,—1. Qualifying Hospital Instruction, and 2. Recognition
by some Examining Board. It is clear that even
Mr. Norton had no idea when he first espoused the cause
how great this double difficulty would prove. Application
was made to every one of the nineteen Examining
Boards, and to every one application was made in vain. The
Hospitals proved equally obdurate. “Why should this
University be the corpus vile?” Dr. Lyon Playfair had
asked in Parliament the year before: and this very human
and comprehensible cry was doubtless echoed by every
Examining Body in the land.
.bn 455.png
.pn +1
S. J.-B. was determined not to let the public forget the
question, and in March 1875 she had an article in the Fortnightly,
which Mr. Morley (now Lord Morley) had accepted
very cordially.
“It will give me the most entire satisfaction,” he wrote,
“to join the Governing Body of the New School of Medicine
for Women, and I shall not grudge whatever time may be
necessary for taking part in its proceedings. I thank you for
your invitation.”
Once more the hopes of the women centred in Parliament.
On March 3rd, 1875, Mr. Cowper Temple again brought
forward his Enabling Bill, and a long debate ensued, but the
Bill was lost by 196 votes to 153. On March 25th he returned
to the charge with a Bill to permit the registration of the
degrees of the Universities of France, Berlin, Leipzig, Berne
and Zurich, where such degrees were held by women. This
was simply an extension of a concession in the Medical Act
of 1858, by which any persons in practice in England with
foreign degrees at that date were allowed to register. It was
found impossible, however, to obtain the support of Government
to this measure, and no day could be secured for a second
reading, so the matter was again deferred.
It was not to be expected that the students would go on
indefinitely taking theoretical classes that led to nothing,
and the future was beginning to look dark when at last a
step forward was made.
Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. Cowper Temple, and Mr. Russell Gurney
were all the kind of friends with whom one would go tiger-hunting,
and no one of the three showed any intention of
backing out. On the 16th of June, in answer to a question
of Mr. Stansfeld’s, Lord Sandon admitted in the name of the
Government that the subject of the medical education of
women, only very lately submitted to Government, demanded
their consideration; and he undertook that it should be
carefully considered by the Government during the recess,
so that they should be enabled to express definite views with
regard to legislation upon it in the next session.
In the meantime Mr. Simon, in the name of the President
of the Privy Council, had addressed a letter to the President
.bn 456.png
.pn +1
of the General Medical Council requesting the observations
of that Council on Mr. Cowper Temple’s Bill, and indeed on
the whole subject of the admission of women to the medical
profession.
The General Medical Council took up the question at last
in all seriousness, and the discussion lasted three days, during
which many remarkable things were said on both sides.
Finally a report was adopted and presented to the Privy
Council to the effect that,
.pm start_quote
“The Medical Council are of opinion that the study and practice
of Medicine and Surgery, instead of affording a field of exertion
well fitted for women, do on the contrary, present special difficulties
which cannot be safely disregarded; but the Council are not prepared
to say that women ought to be excluded from the profession.”
.pm end_quote
In the autumn of 1875 a fresh hope was raised, owing to a
really brilliant suggestion of Mr. Simon’s. He bethought
himself that those doctors who wished the women to have a
different qualification from that of men might be willing to
allow them to enter for the Licence in Midwifery of the College
of Surgeons. Now this Midwifery Licence, strangely enough,
was a regular qualification, involving the same medical
curriculum as the M.R.C.S., and entitling those who held
it to put their names on the Medical Register, and to practise
legally with full rights as doctors. There was no reason why
those women who had a complete set of certificates from
Edinburgh should not go in for it at once, and forthwith
become qualified general practitioners. It was not a very
dignified way of entering the profession, but it did seem to
be a way.
.pm start_quote
“Thursday, Nov. 11th. Today saw Simon again. He thinks
they would admit us for Midwifery Licence with present certificates,—not
for M.R.C.S.—though expressly same [certificates] required
in Regulations. Better to get on the Register anyhow it seems
to me?
Only, could it choke off anything better? Hardly. If told that
was open and refused, half our case gone. Besides any existing
Exam. better than a special one.
Shall ask K[ing] Ch[ambers] tomorrow.
Nov. 12th. Homme propose! K[ing] Ch[ambers] out of
town....
.bn 457.png
.pn +1
To see Sir J. Paget tomorrow.
Bertie[129] been here today. Quite agrees, get anything you can,—ask
for more by and bye.
In fact one’s position would be far stronger after one’s certificates
had been accepted for the one,—when identical are required for the
other. Ah, well! Qui vivra verra—many things!...
Saturday, Nov. 13th. Sir J. Paget this morning,—with Dr. A.
He very kind and courteous, infinitely more of a gentleman than
most.
He decidedly of opinion that we could not get admitted to the
M.R.C.S., but probably might to the L.M. He at least evidently
thought we ought, and thought most of the Council would think
so too. They meet apparently on Dec. 14th, and he advises us to
send in application before that, and then, if granted, we can be
examined by end of December.
Fancy an Exam. in Midwifery only putting one on the Register!...
Tuesday, 16th. Saw Sir James Paget again at his request.
He thinks we had better not apply before the meeting, but give
application to Critchett to present, if desirable at the time....
Wednesday 17th. Saw Critchett. Most friendly and wholehearted—willing
to raise the question of M.R.C.S. if we liked, but
I advised one step first, then leverage for next....
Chambers not quite satisfied about L.M. but thinks it on the
whole best for the cause (‘perhaps not for yourselves,’) to take it
if we can.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 129
Miss Bertha Cordery, now Mrs. S. R. Gardiner.
.fn-
So those three brave women, Mrs. Thorne, Miss Pechey
and S. J.-B. proceeded to rub up their Midwifery, and meanwhile
the authorities of the College took the opinion of counsel
as to their legal power to grant or refuse the application. If
no one else prospered by that long and wearing struggle,
certainly the lawyers did! On this occasion they earned
their salt by declaring “that the College had power to admit
women under its supplemental charter, and could be compelled
by legal process so to examine and grant certificates, ...
that the Medical Act clearly considered a holder of such
certificates a licentiate in midwifery, and as such entitled
to register.”
.pm start_quote
“Friday, 21st. Jan. My 36th birthday. Just half my life since
I began independently. So curious to look back on cogitations of
18th birthday! But even then I had a presentiment of ‘sunshine
and storm.’
.bn 458.png
.pn +1
It seems as if this year was really to gain (tho’ in rather mesquin
shape) what I have been fighting for in England for 7 years—Registration.
College of Surgeons on 7th Jan. decided on advice of their counsel,
Mr. Beaver, that they could not exclude women from the licence
in Midwifery,—so we three seniors have sent in our certificates, etc.—given
to Critchett on application on Dec. 4th,—presented by
him on Jan. 7th.”
.pm end_quote
On March 17th, the women were told that their certificates
had been accepted, but, on the public announcement of this
fact, the whole board of examiners resigned. In relating the
circumstances a year later, Mr. Stansfeld wrote that “since
then there had been no examiners and no examination.”
.pm start_quote
“Perhaps after all it is as well,” wrote Miss Pechey from Birmingham,
where she now held a post at the Women’s Hospital
under Mr. Lawson Tait,—“perhaps after all it is as well, as it gives
us a stronger case for Parliament, and that licence would have been
a sorry thing to practise upon....”
.pm end_quote
After suggesting a great scheme of a new “National University,”
she concludes,—
.pm start_quote
“I suppose you can’t think of any way in which I could earn
some money? I am beginning to wonder what I shall do when
I leave here: I can’t begin to practise till I have had more midwifery.
.tb
“I have only one other resource to suggest now this College of
Surgeons has failed, viz., that I should go over to Ireland, take that
Licence in Midwifery and then try to force the Registrar to register
it,—if he would not do so at once, by legal measures. Qu’en pensez-vous?
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours aff.
E. P.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
This is simply quoted to show the state—not indeed of
despair, but of desperation, which these gallant women had
reached. One can sympathize with this cri du coeur from
S. J.-B.’s diary:
.pm start_quote
“Here comes Miss Irby’s note this morning,—wanting a hospital
for the wounded at Serajevo.... Oh, dear, how I should love
to go! It would probably be just the making of me as a surgeon,—and
I have such a sort of wild feeling of wanting to ‘break out,’—of
having been sair hadden doun by many bubbly jocks,—by the
.bn 459.png
.pn +1
constant fighting, by Mother’s frequent illnesses, etc., etc. I feel
as if it would be an intense relief to break right away into half savage
parts and do hard rough work—and breathe!
And then how nice it would be with Miss Irby.... I want to get
away from mental strain and excitement,—to bodily hard work.
And what magnificent practice it would be!”
.tb
“U. D. P. against Serbian idea. Thinks my Mother would die
in my absence and I never forgive myself.
Also I should hurt ‘the cause’ by doctoring men.
I doubt both propositions, but can’t disprove either.
My brain is in a sort of dull ‘waiting’ condition,—‘quo Deus vocat.’
Well, isn’t that best? Yes, if thoroughly honest.
I suppose the constant worry and constant thwarting have made
me almost wild to break away for a bit. I feel somehow as if my
mind were all strained, and this better than anything would give
it back its tone.”
.pm end_quote
Miss Irby’s idea came to nothing for lack of funds, but in
any case, of course, S. J.-B. could not have gone. It was she
who held in her hands all the parliamentary threads, and
she was looking anxiously for some practical outcome from
Lord Sandon’s promise of the year before. On January 14th,
however, Mr. Cowper Temple wrote:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss Blake,
.ti 6
The Government are not prepared to tell me whether they
will introduce any Bill next session on the subject of the medical
registration of women, and therefore it will be necessary for me
to bring in my Bill again at the commencement of the session....”
.pm end_quote
S. J.-B. thought it worth while, however, to remind the
Government tactfully of their promise, and she had learned
by bitter experience to keep every possible iron in the fire.
So a deputation from the London School of Medicine for
Women, headed by Lord Aberdare, and including herself and
Mrs. Anderson, waited on the Duke of Richmond and Gordon,
Lord President of the Privy Council. The mission was ably
voiced by Lord Aberdare, Mr. Stansfeld, and Mr. Forsyth,
M.P., Q.C., whose name now appeared on the back of Mr.
Cowper Temple’s Bill; but, although courteously received,
the deputation elicited no farther encouragement.
In these circumstances, Mr. Cowper Temple again introduced
his “Foreign Degrees” Bill, but fortune did not favour
.bn 460.png
.pn +1
him in the matter of the ballot for dates, and, in the meantime,
S. J.-B. writes in her diary:
.pm start_quote
“Saturday, May 13th. Saw Russell Gurney [who was now
Recorder of London]. Found Government had intimated to him
that he should bring in Bill enabling all nineteen bodies,—to be
shown to General Medical Council on 24th.
If this passes!
Might graduate at Edinburgh after all.”
.pm end_quote
On the 5th of July Mr. Cowper Temple’s Bill came on for
second reading, but was withdrawn after debate upon a
statement from Lord Sandon that the Government were
prepared to support the Recorder’s Bill. Even then anxiety
was by no means at an end, for the Government were not
prepared to make the Bill their own and find a day for it,
and any persistent opposition would have been almost necessarily
fatal to its passing at so late a time. One can picture
the surprise with which S. J.-B. received the following letter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“8 Palace Gardens, W.
21 July, \[1876].
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I saw Lord Shaftesbury yesterday and he intends to give
notice on Monday to move the second reading on Tuesday.
The third reading will probably follow in a day or two.
All that we shall then have to wait for will be the Royal Assent.
.ll 68
.nf r
Always sincerely yours,
Russell Gurney.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
On August 12th the Bill became law. Henceforth no
University nor Examining Board could be in any doubt at
all as to its own powers. Those mysterious depths were at
least no longer “an uncharted sea.”
On August 7th Miss Pechey writes:
.pm start_quote
“Has our Bill received the Royal Assent? If so, I suppose Mrs.
Thorne and I might apply any time to Edinburgh, though I don’t
suppose she would consent to say what I intend to. I mean simply
to ask them whether now they have the power, they intend honourably
to fulfil the contract they made with me in 1869. It does not
matter to me when I send in the question, as we can’t be examined,
I believe, till next April. Isn’t it so? But of course we had better
not apply till the Arts Professors are back.
.ll 68
.nf r
Ever yours affect.
E. P.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 461.png
.pn +1
Edinburgh, however, did not prove encouraging even to
its own matriculated students, so Miss Pechey—accompanied
by Miss Shove—went to Ireland in September to see what
could be effected there. She was very cordially received,
though many with whom she had to deal were quite unaware
of the existence of the all-important Baby Act; and one can
imagine the joy with which, after much labour, she wrote to
report that both the Queen’s University and the King’s and
Queen’s College of Physicians had consented to examine
women, subject only to their complying with the ordinary
regulations. “Miss Pechey has done wonders,” wrote Mrs.
Thorne.
The University regulations required attendance at four
courses of lectures in one of the Queen’s Colleges (at Cork,
Belfast and Galway), and four professors at Galway agreed
to deliver these; but, owing mainly—as happened so often!—to
the opposition of one influential man, the Council of the
College interposed and vetoed the arrangement.
Fortunately the Irish College made no difficulties, and to
that body belongs the credit of being the first to grant to
women—and above all, to these women—the long-deferred
privilege of Registration. “I cannot realize,” wrote Mrs.
Thorne to S. J.-B. a few weeks later, “that an examining
body is absolutely open to us.” “You have been the mainspring
of the seven years’ struggle, and to you we are all
deeply indebted for the result.”
.tb
Before passing on, we must record one pleasant distraction
which that summer had afforded in the appearance of Mr.
Charles Reade on the scene, deeply interested in “the fight,”
and very anxious to obtain materials for his Woman Hater.
There are numerous letters from him to S. J.-B., asking
information about this happening and that: and he spent
many mornings at her house, studying the archives. The
novel achieved no small success by running its course in
Blackwood’s Magazine, within the very gates, so to speak,
of the enemy’s citadel.
.bn 462.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.20
CHAPTER XX | AT LAST
.sp 4
While all this business was pending, Miss M‘Laren, rendered
incredulous by her long family experience of parliamentary
life, that a Bill introduced so late could really pass—had
written glowing descriptions of the advantages offered by
Berne, and Miss Pechey had almost resolved to go there for
the M.D. As the regulations of the Irish College were
exacting in the matter of hospital work, she resolved to carry
out this intention in any case as a preliminary measure.
.pm start_quote
“I shall be very glad,” she writes, “of another good winter’s
hospital. I hope you will join me in this, so that we may keep
together. I think I should send in the Berne degree here [in Ireland]
when I had got it.”
.pm end_quote
The two friends were most desirous that Mrs. Thorne
should join them on this expedition for old sake’s sake;
but family claims made this impossible.
Well, it was something to break away, even thus far, and
be mere students again. For the moment S. J.-B. and Miss
Pechey may almost be said to have been resting on their
oars. Nothing more arduous was required of them than
preparation for professional examination!
It was on Wednesday, November 1st, that, accompanied
by Miss Clark (now Dr. Annie Clark), they entered Switzerland,
a white world, as it chanced, for snow had already fallen.
The diary begins again almost from the moment of arrival:
.pm start_quote
“Excellent déjeuner [at Bernerhof] 12.30. Then I lay down.
E. P. and A. C. went out exploring. Wonderful energy of youth!”
.pm end_quote
.bn 463.png
.pn +1
They all proceeded at once to interview professors (Professor
Masson had sent a delightful introduction), and forthwith
began to attend lectures and cliniques, and to complete
the theses which had been begun in England. S. J.-B. took
as her subject Puerperal Fever, she having unhappily experienced
an outbreak of that disease at Boston. The thesis was
clear and exhaustive at the time, but of little permanent value,
as the infective nature of the fever was not yet recognized,
and treatment everywhere was mainly on a wrong scent.
She suffered terribly from neuralgia, the result of past and
present strain, and work proceeded with difficulty. On
December 20th Miss Pechey and Miss Clark went home for
Christmas.
The diary has been brief and painful reading, but the
writer revives just in time:
.pm start_quote
“Tuesday [Dec.] 26th. Nearly seven hours’ work. Splendidly
well. Accepted for examination Jan. 10th.
Thursday 28th. Slept splendidly. For first time for weeks
without anodyne.
Wednesday. N. Schultz called. Very nice. To walk with me
before exam. next Wednesday. Rather made me nervous with her
pity.
Friday.... Letter from U. D. P., begging me not to hurry—‘if
I fail it can’t be kept secret.’ Are they all in league to shake
my nerves?
Saturday [Jan.] 6th. E. P. still in London. Glorious day.
Tuesday 9th. From 5 a.m. rather nervous—got better in day—and
did 9 hours’ work. Good head all through—thank God!
10 p.m. How very happy or very wretched I shall be this time
tomorrow! I really feel as if I ought to be able to pass as far as
knowledge goes,—tho’ not brilliantly,—but I am in despair about
Langhans, and in less degree about others.—Still they will surely
manage not to pluck me for mere want of German! Yesterday I
felt almost as if I should fail, tonight I hope I shan’t, but with
trembling....
Eh, dear, if I succeed, how I shall (half) laugh at past funk!—if
I fail, I feel as if I need never laugh again. (And yet, played
patience half an hour just now rather than be beat—‘ill to beat’
not a bad motto!) And, if I’m not beat,—fancy this being my last
night without M.D.!
Wed. 10th. Nothing from E. P. or A. C. Wonder if latter has
come.
.bn 464.png
.pn +1
Very curious my sort of duplex feeling, (a) If I could only feel sure
of passing, I should pass,—i.e. not being nervous. (b) If I felt sure—I
should be sure to fail, (superstition!) A sort of unworthy
Setebos feeling, I think.
Undertake for me!
.tb
And He has! Thank God! Every exam. fairly creditable, which
is worth twice a scratch.
Now to see how much better an M.D. sleeps than other
people!”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“13th Jan.
Brighton.
.nf-
.ll
My Darling,
.ti 6
Words cannot express my thankfulness at your success, and
release from anxiety. I did not fear because I did not see why
they should be unjust, but I am more than glad that it is settled.
I ought to have scolded you some days ago for more grapes. I
am very forgetful, and I really sleep so well that I do not require
them.
Well, dear, I am quite unsettled with the good news. Hoping to
meet so soon, and with great congratulations from Tom, and Hetty,
and Carry, and more love than a letter will take, ever your loving
Mother,
.ll 68
.rj
Maria Emily Jex-Blake.
.ll
I heartily echo your ‘Thank God.’ I am so thankful I cannot
settle.”
.pm end_quote
A few weeks later Miss Pechey and Miss Clark also passed
the examination.
.pm start_quote
“You will like to hear,” writes Miss Pechey, “that Professor
Hidber told Miss Clark that the Professors were much pleased with
your exam. and said it was evident that you had studied well. It
is more satisfactory, I think, to hear it indirectly like that than if
they had told you so.
Miss Clark says she is very glad you answered better than I did.
So am I: I only wish I had answered better for the credit of my
countrywomen.”
.pm end_quote
It still remained to get on the English Register through
the newly opened portal of the Irish College. S. J.-B. and
Miss Pechey spent some time in London, reading and attending
the Brompton Hospital, where Dr. Symes Thompson proved
very helpful.
.bn 465.png
.pn +1
There is a sheaf of blank pages in the diary, and then:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sunday, May 6th. Rugby.
.ll
‘One fight more,—the worst and the last!’ Oh, dear, if I pass
this Exam. I shall deserve all I may get if I ever go in for another!
Since Nov. 1st.,—indeed one might say since September 1st,—hardly
a day of rest and respite, but brain worked at highest pressure—often
when almost a blank.
Now it is over and ‘waiting for the verdict.’
Off tonight for Dublin with E. P. Dr. A[tkins] also to join.
‘Omne ignotum pro magnifico.’ The various tests loom vague and
large. Diagnosis at bedside,—horrible,—though enormously helped
by Brompton experience. Recognition of drugs and things under
microscope. 4 written exams. 2 hrs. oral, etc., etc.
I feel as if I really had fairly mastered my subjects and must know
more than the average medical practitioner just fledged,—not to
say have more sense.
But the stake is so enormous. A pluck would be so perfectly
awful after all antecedents.
But in spite of my work, my brain is wonderfully well and clear.”
“Monday, May 7th. 9.45 p.m. Books closed after 4½ hours’
reading and examination,—not to be opened probably till all is
over!
Be the fates propitious,—as I really think they ought, ... I the
most comfortable of the three. ‘Where angels fear...?’ No,—I
rather think on the principle of ‘While the child, etc.’
I’ve done my utmost,—and results are God’s.”
.pm end_quote
One is thankful to record that results were safe in His
hands (as indeed S. J.-B. would have said they must have
been whatever the examiners had decided). Two or three
days later the three women, with a number of men, were
solemnly summoned to the Board Room,—“repeated declaration
after Registrar, then signed book, and Dr. Hayden, as
Vice-President, took the hand of each and ‘admitted’ us!”
.pm start_quote
“Oh, dear, after long travail, good repose!”
“All dreadfully overwrought and tired. E. P. and I came to
fisticuffs over Mrs. A.’s Memorial to London University. Pair of
fools!”
.pm end_quote
A characteristic telegram went off at once to Mrs. Jex-Blake:
.pm start_quote
“Success just declared for all three of us.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 466.png
.pn +1
And within an hour this was followed up by a letter:
.pm start_quote
“... We are all so happy! The Exam. has been pretty stiff.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly,
S. L. J. B. M. D. L. K. Q. C. P. I.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The waiting Mother sends a mere scrap by return:
.pm start_quote
“I don’t know how to be thankful enough that all is so well thro’.
Nothing will seem a trouble now. God bless you,
.ll 68
.rj
Ever your loving Mother.
.ll
All going well with Pony, Turk, me, etc.”
.pm end_quote
And on the heels of this all the other congratulations pour
in. “If I could I would ring the bells from Bow to Beersheba,”
writes a friend and patient.
One almost feels that, if the bells had known the whole
story, they would have rung of their own accord.
.bn 467.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap2.21
CHAPTER XXI | THE ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL
.sp 2
The friendly reader will feel, without doubt, that the year
1876-77 had done something to justify its passage, so far as
the women were concerned, but the year 1876-77 was giving
more than this. S. J.-B.’s main ideal, “Not me but us,”
remained to be realized. The fundamental requisite, training
in a large General Hospital, was no longer practically attainable
in Great Britain. A handful of women had scaled the
coveted height by means of steps cut, as it were, in ice that
melted behind them. It remained to prepare a permanent
way for those who were following on. And the year 1876-77
was destined to give this too.
Mrs. Anderson and others had been endeavouring to obtain
admission for women students to some of the wards of the
London Hospital, and for a time their efforts had seemed
likely to prove successful. They ended in the failure to
which all the patient workers were becoming so accustomed,
but meanwhile “that which was for”—the women—“was
gravitating towards them.”
Before the end of 1876 Mr. Stansfeld had written:
.pm start_quote
“Private.
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I will bear the London University in mind as soon as I see
anybody....
I met Mrs. Garrett Anderson at dinner the other day; she did
not seem to have much hope or plan about the School in any way.
I have however something to tell you that I think you will be
rather pleased to hear. Mrs. Stansfeld and I went to Clapham
.bn 468.png
.pn +1
today to call on the Hopgoods, with whom we had become friendly
at Whitby: and Mr. Hopgood is Chairman of the Board of the
Grays Inn Lane Hospital. We found them both with us, but strange
to the question.
I am to send Mr. Hopgood something to read, and he is to consider
whether anything is possible there; he does not appear to be
in awe of the staff.
Just as I had begun to talk the Editor of the Contemporary Review
[? Nineteenth Century] came in and listened and then expressed
general sympathy in a timid way, but asked me if I would write
him a paper shewing a practical way and outcome; and I undertook
at once to do so.
The paper I can manage though I am glad to think I shall be
likely to see you before I send it; but in dealing with Mr. Hopgood
I very much wish you were here.... What time in January shall
you be back, probably time enough for us to act together in the
matter.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
J. Stansfeld.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
In subsequent letters Mr. Stansfeld writes:
.pm start_quote
“Jan. 5th. 77. I shall not consult anyone if I can avoid it. I
think you and I have the best chance of managing it alone.”
“Jan. 13. 77. I congratulate you seriously and sincerely; it
was time to get that particular anxiety off your mind, and to be
M.D. at all events....
I will defer what I may have to say till we meet; but we’ll win
and no mistake.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Stoke Lodge,
Hyde Park Gate, W.
Thursday evening.
[Feb. 9th. 77.]
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I have your letter, but feel a little doubtful about seeing Dr.
Chambers until after Sunday when I am to see Mr. Hopgood.
You may judge of what that interview should be, how hopeful
and how critical, by his letter just received, which I copy on the
other side.
I think that you ought to be with me on Sunday if possible. I
see there are plenty of trains.
We might be with him say at 3 p.m. If you would come here
and lunch at 1.30 I would drive you down.
Pray telegraph reply tomorrow that I may write and let him
know.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
J. Stansfeld.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 469.png
.pn +1
Follows the copy of Mr. Hopgood’s letter:
.pm start_quote
“I shall be at home all Sunday and glad to see you.... We
dine at 5.
I see my way so far clear that on receiving a formal application
from your Association it shall be without delay submitted to our
Weekly Board,—and I think they will forthwith summon a special
meeting of the Committee of Management, whose decision will be
final for the current year! My wish may be father to the thought,
but I think that if you can make some such proposition as that we
talked of we have a good prospect of success.
My wife feels such a deep interest in the success of the movement
that she wished me to say that if you think it desirable to form a
guarantee fund, her name may be put down as a subscriber or
guarantor to the extent of £100.”
.pm end_quote
There is no record of that interesting and critical Sunday,
but all seems to have gone as Mr. Stansfeld would have
wished, for a week or two later Mr. Hopgood writes to
S. J.-B.,—“I heartily wish that every success may attend
this movement,—if so I know to whom it will be chiefly due.”
.tb
During S. J.-B.’s preoccupations the School had been in
other hands.
On March 13th Mr. Stansfeld writes,
.pm start_quote
“Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
Have you noticed the article in the Daily News of today on
the London School of M. It is not written in our interest,—you
are not mentioned and I not much; but there is a list of names
rather new to me, omitting, however, Lord Aberdare, a true friend.[130]
It looks as if tomorrow were pretty certain.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
J. Stansfeld.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 130
A very true friend was Lord Aberdare. Here is a delightful letter
written a few months later:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Glen Tulchan, Advie, N.B.
June 23. 1877.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,—I yield to your request—an annual subscription
of £10. 10s. for 5 years, including the present—but with the same Caveat
which St. Peter made to Pope Gregory when he prayed that that virtuous
heathen Trajan might be admitted into Paradise viz ‘that you make
no more such requests.’ For I find extreme difficulty in refusing applications
for so good a work, and my ‘engagements’ are heavy. By this
post I must send a reluctant refusal to the hardworking promoter of an
excellent work.
.ll 68
.nf r
Ever sincerely Yours,
Aberdare.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn-
.bn 470.png
.pn +1
Close on the heels of this letter came a telegram:
.pm start_quote
“Mar. 15th. Right Hon. J. Stansfeld, London, to Miss Jex-Blake
13 Sussex Square, Brighton,
London Free Hospital have unanimously accepted my proposal.
Come before ten o’clock Saturday. I go out half past ten.”
.pm end_quote
Once more there was great rejoicing, and Mr. Stansfeld
forwards to S. J.-B. a cordial letter from Mrs. Anderson:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“March 19. 77.
.ll
Dear Mr. Stansfeld,
.ti 6
As I was not able to join in the cheer which I am glad to
hear was given for you at the School on Saturday, will you please
accept my very heartiest thanks for your grand success at Gray’s
Inn Road. We all owe more to you than to anyone. I do not
imagine there will be any difficulty about the £700 a year for five
years. I shall hope to be able to contribute £50 a year as my share.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly and gratefully,
E. G. Anderson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
One thing more that wonderful year had given. Miss
Edith Shove, who had accompanied Miss Pechey on the
mission to Ireland, had made formal application to the
University of London for admission to medical examination
and degree. In February Mr. Smith Osier moved in the
Senate that her request should be granted, and the motion
was carried by 14 votes to 7. The majority consisted of the
Chancellor (Lord Granville), Vice-Chancellor (Sir John Lubbock,
M.P.), Lord Kimberley, Dr. Billing, Mr. Fitch, Sir
William Gull, Mr. Heywood, Mr. Hutton, The Master of the
Rolls (Right Hon. Sir G. Jessel), Right Hon. R. Lowe, M.P.,
Mr. Osler, Sir James Paget,[131] Lord Arthur Russell and Dr.
.bn 471.png
.pn +1
William Smith. The minority consisted of Lord Cardwell,
the Dean of Lincoln, Mr. Goldsmid, Sir William Jenner, Dr.
Quain, Dr. Sharpey and Dr. Storrar.
.fn 131
The following interesting letter shows that Sir James Paget’s attitude
at this time was not that of a partisan but of a just man:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“1, Harewood Place,
Hanover Square, W.
Feb 26. 1877.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Mr. Stansfeld,
.ti 6
I intend to go, if possible, to the Meeting of the University Senate
on Wednesday that I may vote against hindering the entrance of Women
into the Medical Profession. I think them sadly mistaken in wishing for
it, but I see no sufficient grounds on which they can justly or usefully be
excluded.
.ll 68
.nf r
Believe me most truly yours,
James Paget.
.nf-
.ll
The Rt. Honble. James Stansfeld, M.P.”
.pm end_quote
.fn-
S. J.-B. received the intelligence in the following note
from Dr. Archibald Billing, the father of the profession, who
had taken his own degree at Oxford in 1818:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“34 Park Lane,
1/3/77.
.nf-
.ll
“Dear Friend,
.ti 6
All right. I was at my post and gave my opinion rather
freely. We had a majority about two to one, but you shall have
the minutes as soon as printed. Some of the medicos rather recanted.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
A. Billing.”[132]
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 132
This letter may probably have been written to Mr. Stansfeld.
.fn-
One last storm was raised in Convocation about the action
of the Senate, on the ground that it dealt with the Faculty
of Medicine only, but this final obstruction only proved the
truth of Mr. Stansfeld’s wise dictum that when the hour for
reform has come all that opponents can do is to widen its
character or to precipitate its advent. On January 14th,
1878, a new Charter admitting women to all degrees was laid
by the Senate before Convocation, and was carried by a
majority of 241 to 132.
.tb
So much good that year had brought—that annus mirabilis
1877—one must not be surprised if it brought some evil also.
And, to S. J.-B. personally, it dealt one heavy blow. The
School, as her Mother said, was her living child. She had
conceived it, brought it forth, tended it, fought for it,—done
most of the daily work it involved, with the help of a lady
secretary she herself had trained. Until she was a qualified
doctor, however, she did not wish her name to appear either
on the Council or on the Governing Body. In all the early
papers it occurs only as Trustee.
But she had always looked forward to her registration as
something that would initiate a new order of things. That
platform gained, and the dust of the struggle and fight left
behind, she expected to take officially, as Honorary Secretary,
.bn 472.png
.pn +1
the position she had filled hitherto without any recognition
at all. Up till now she had been constantly harassed, driven,—striving
for something that always receded when it seemed
within her grasp. No wonder if she had often been hasty,
high-handed, difficult. Now all that, so she thought, was
past. We recall the dreams and ideals of her youth,—how
she had longed to organize some fine new school for girls,
of which, conceivably, she might be worthy to be the head.
.pm start_quote
“I am beginning to hope, Mother! If I only suffer enough—and
I don’t believe mine will ever be a smooth or easy life—I may
yet be fit to be the head for which I am looking so earnestly.”
.pm end_quote
We have seen with what searchings of heart she laid aside
this ideal for the long struggle of her medical career; but
from first to last she never laid aside the sympathetic interest
in her colleagues and juniors which was perhaps the most
striking characteristic of her professional life. Is it strange
if she now looked forward to a realization of the whole dream ?
In any case that realization was not to be. Her enforced
absences in the matter of her examination had given people
a chance to do without her. We have seen that they had not
always found her particularly easy to work with. “You
wouldn’t let me muddle, and you wouldn’t let me dawdle, and
how could I be happy?” one of her “daughters” used to
cry in the radiant success of later years: and although it
would not be fair to generalize this into a solution of the
whole difficulty, it goes a long way to account for it. There
were those who were thankful that things should be done a
little less efficiently and more easily,—thankful to have a
little more say in matters for which they felt themselves
partially responsible. There were those who looked forward
with sinking of heart to the time when S. J.-B. would return
and really take up the reins.
We have seen repeatedly that she never realized the strain
of “difficulty” in her own nature, and she always had a
cohort of loyal supporters; but she must have heard—or
guessed—something of what was going on, for she wrote to
Mr. Stansfeld that the task of being Honorary Secretary was
too onerous to be undertaken except at the unanimous wish
.bn 473.png
.pn +1
of those concerned. Perhaps Mrs. Thorne—Dr. Atkins—Mrs.
Anderson—would care to undertake the task? Probably
she knew for a fact that the two first named would
refuse it; and it must have seemed impossible that Mrs.
Anderson—overwhelmed as she was with other work—would
entertain the suggestion.
S. J.-B. was still in Ireland when the question came up.
Mrs. Thorne proposed S. J.-B. as Honorary Secretary, and
someone else proposed Mrs. Anderson, both nominations
being duly seconded.
Mrs. Anderson was in a difficult position, and said so
frankly. She did not wish to take an unfair advantage over
her colleague; but if it was to be for the good of the School—?
Mr. Stansfeld and the Dean (Mr. Norton, who was always
S. J.-B.’s staunch supporter) were somewhat at a loss, and
so no doubt were others; it was not an easy situation for
anybody. After some talk the meeting was adjourned.
Everything pointed to Mrs. Anderson’s election.
But, when it came to the point, this was more than S. J.-B.
could stand. Many lesser people would have accepted the
situation gracefully, concealing any heartburning they might
have felt, but this was just what S. J.-B. could not do. It
was partly a personal question, of course. With every desire
and effort to be fair, Mrs. Anderson had always looked at
S. J.-B.’s life and work through the wrong end of the telescope,
so to speak, and it is not easy to appreciate fully the people
who make no secret of the fact that they take that view
of us.
But the personal question was not all. We remember how
warmly S. J.-B. had spoken of her colleague in the old days,
as “running where I crawl,”—how she had triumphed in
every stage of her colleague’s success. She honestly felt that
Mrs. Anderson was already too fully occupied to undertake
so big a job,—felt that, humanly speaking, Mrs. Anderson
could only lend her name, and do the work by proxy.
And even that does not exhaust the subject. The truth
is that S. J.-B., to the day of her death and with all her faults,
was an incorrigible idealist; and Mrs. Anderson, rich though
she was in excellent qualities, seemed to her to be lacking in
.bn 474.png
.pn +1
certain capabilities of insight and imagination which outweighed
everything else.
“Put me utterly aside if need be!” she had cried in the
self-surrender of her adolescence.
And now she was taken at her word. But it was not easy
to see the “need be.” For a time it was blotted out by the
bitter experience of personal opposition.
It was a painful situation all round, but like so many painful
situations, it called forth something fine. Mrs. Thorne was
persona grata with all parties, and finally Mrs. Thorne stepped
into the breach and allowed herself to be elected Honorary
Secretary of the School.
“About the best possible,” wrote S. J.-B. in her diary,
“with her excellent sense and perfect temper. much
better than I.”
It involved a definite sacrifice, for, although Mrs. Thorne
had taken all her classes with distinction, she had only passed
one professional examination; and she was not one of those
who are content to scrape through. She had aimed at a
London degree, and had even talked of taking her whole
course over again in order to fulfil every requirement. Dr.
Sewall had long since singled her out as “the doctor” in
potentiality among the English medical women.
Already family claims had made her pause. This new
claim, combined with the others, proved more than she could
withstand. She cast aside her own ambitions, and made the
success of the School her main object in life.
.tb
.pm start_poem
“Sweet Sackermena and her isles!
See how many yards and miles
It takes to walk round Sackermena.”
.pm end_poem
A breezy way this of paraphrasing the more familiar
passage:
.pm start_poem
“Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem.”
.pm end_poem
But what one really wants to express is,—See the amount
of work, the number of people it took to achieve this one bit
of human evolution! Even the many names in this book
are culled from a great multitude.
.bn 475.png
.pn +1
It was S. J.-B. who opened the subject boldly up, and
forced the whole world to discuss it. It was she who—in the
eye of the whole world—led the Edinburgh fight to its unforeseen
sequel in Parliament and in the opening of the London
School.
Miss Pechey was a loyal and stimulating comrade throughout,
disarming opponents by the personal charm,
and humour which eventually opened the Irish College and
gained the actual concession of the right of registration.
Mrs. Thorne contributed a fine undercurrent of stability.
It was not her way to write picturesque letters that lend themselves
to quotation, but it was mainly owing to her that the
London School became a lasting and conspicuous success.[133]
.fn 133
In later years, as Dean, Mrs. Anderson did much for the enlargement
and development of the School.
.fn-
Pari passu with all this, as we have seen, and antecedently
to any of it,—Mrs. Anderson was quietly showing the English
world that a woman can be a reliable and successful
doctor.
Fine records all four, and surely no less fine was the brave,
wise, unwearying championship of Professor Masson and Sir
James Stansfeld, without whom—humanly speaking—nothing
could have been achieved at all.
Sir James Stansfeld would not have allowed us to draw the
line there. In an able sketch of the whole movement up to
1877, in the Nineteenth Century, he concludes his survey with
the following significant words:
.pm start_quote
“One thing more remains to record. These pages will, I think,
have presented to the reader’s mind evidence of a tough and persistent
and continuous struggle. Such struggles do not persist and
succeed, according to my experience, without the accompanying
fact, the continuous thread, as it were, of one constant purpose and
dominant will. Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake has made that greatest of
all contributions to the end attained. I do not say that she has
been the ultimate cause of success. The ultimate cause has been
simply this, that the time was at hand. It is one of the lessons
of the history of progress that when the time for a reform has come
you cannot resist it, though, if you make the attempt, what you may
do is to widen its character or precipitate its advent. Opponents,
.bn 476.png
.pn +1
when the time has come, are not merely dragged at the chariot
wheels of progress—they help to turn them. The strongest force,
whichever way it seems to work, does most to aid. The forces of
greatest concentration here have been, in my view, on the one hand
the Edinburgh University led by Sir Robert Christison, on the other
the women claimants led by Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake. Defeated at
Edinburgh, she carried her appeal to the highest court, that most
able to decide and to redress, the High Court of Parliament representing
the Nation itself. The result we see at last. Those who
hail it as the answer which they sought have both to thank, in
senses and proportions which they may for themselves decide.”[134]
.pm end_quote
.fn 134
Nineteenth Century, July 1877.
.fn-
It would be easy to close on this note, but it is on the
earlier part of Sir James Stansfeld’s conclusion that one
prefers to dwell. A tough and persistent struggle is indeed
recorded in these pages—it was only on working through
the vast mass of original documents that the present writer
formed the faintest conception how tough and persistent
that struggle had been—and yet what will strike the reader
most is that it was emphatically not a “one man fight.”
S. J.-B. never said “I” in connection with it. “You see
we were so splendidly helped,” was her almost invariable
comment on looking back.
And she was splendidly helped. Not only by her fellow-students,
by friendly professors, by the Editor of the Scotsman,
and by those who would fain have been her patients. All
that one was prepared to find. The amazing thing is the
way in which—when all of these were almost paralyzed by
the strength of the opposition (yes, and by her mistakes)—help
came from somewhere. It might be the working-man,
sending her a shilling to represent his sympathy, or the
statesman in a London club, throwing down his newspaper
with the determination that that woman should be baited
no longer. In any case help came.
Truly, as Sir James Stansfeld said, the time was at hand.
And Newman is perfectly right when he says that, if the
individual be powerful-minded and the cause good, the mistakes
actually help. They increase the talk, increase the
interest, help to make the picture that appeals to the popular
.bn 477.png
.pn +1
imagination, till what has seemed to be the eccentric action
of a single individual spreads out in waves that envelop the
whole earth.
Writing exactly forty years after the events just narrated—at
a moment when women doctors are proving so vital an
asset to the nation and to humanity at large—one realizes
the difference it would have made to the whole world if Sophia
Jex-Blake had been content to qualify abroad and to slip on
to the Medical Register somehow, instead of throwing the
gates wide open for all who were to follow her.
Reference has been made above to her love of poetry, and
of all her poems there was none she was wont to recite
more solemnly than Kipling’s Explorer:
.pm start_poem
“Yes, your ‘Never-never country’—yes, your ‘edge of cultivation’
And ‘no sense in going further’—till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn’t. It’s God’s present to our nation.
Anybody might have found it but—His Whisper came to Me!”
.pm end_poem
.bn 478.png
.bn 479.png
.pn +2
.sp 4
.h2 id=part3
PART III
.bn 480.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
My fame is in the hands of others. I have weighed in a nice
and scrupulous balance whether it is better to serve men or to
be praised by them, and I prefer the former.
.ll 68
.nf r
Sydenham.
(Quoted in S. J.-B.’s commonplace book.)
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre?
Have I kept one single nugget—(barring samples)? No, not I.
.ll 68
.rj
Kipling.
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
Your goodness must have some edge to it,—else it is none.
.ll 68
.rj
Emerson.
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 481.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=chap3.1
CHAPTER I | EARLY DAYS IN PRACTICE
.sp 2
The dramatic days were over. The task that now lay before
S. J.-B. was to pick up all that remained of herself after the
conflict, and settle down to practice. It is a solemn moment
in the history of any doctor when he or she deliberately takes
in hand the issues of life and death: mistakes can no
more be avoided in this than in any other walk of life,
and yet the consequences here are so much more apparently
important.
And if it is a solemn moment for any man or woman, it
was surely not less so for her who for years had been a city
set on a hill. In the course of the long struggle youth had
quite slipped away; her best energies were spent; her
nervous system was overstrained beyond the possibility of
complete recuperation. If George Eliot could say with some
truth that she began Romola as a young woman and ended
it an old one, how much more might S. J.-B. have said this
of her education in medicine. Perhaps the coward in her
would gladly now have shunned the conflict altogether.
Small say was allowed to that coward at any time, and at
this juncture few even of S. J.-B.’s friends realized that—as
regarded output of energy—she had already done a life’s
work. No one would have been surprised if she had died a
few years before, in the stress of the fight; but the human
memory is short, and, as she had survived, almost everyone
now looked upon the toil of the last ten years as simply the
introduction to the volume. She was now expected to show
how great a success a woman doctor can be.
.bn 482.png
.pn +1
First came the anxious question where to settle, and,
while she meditated on this, she was making good, at Brompton
and wherever she could find an entry,[135] the deficiencies in her
hospital education.
.fn 135
We hear of her visiting the Middlesex, Moorfields, the Royal Free, the
Cancer, and the Children’s Hospitals.
.fn-
Her original plan had been to settle in London, to foster
the School she had founded, and at the same time to be
within easy reach of her Mother,—the Mother for whom she
would at any moment in her life have thrown up every hope
and plan that guided her.
There is no doubt that this would have been in most
respects the ideal arrangement. There is room for everyone
in London. In those days it was absolutely essential for a
woman doctor to settle in a town large enough to allow for
the overwhelming proportion of patients who declined to take
their lives in their hands, so to speak, by trusting one of their
own sex. Even if the patient herself was willing to lean
her whole weight on an untried plank, husbands and mothers
stood in the way. Indeed there were girls who reckoned it
the prime luxury involved in earning their own living that
they became free to employ the doctor of their choice—a
woman.
It is true that patients—and still more their male relatives—were
readier to trust S. J.-B. than they would have been to
trust most other women. Her inherent motherliness was
not weakened by any aggressive femininity; but on the
other hand it is not to be supposed that she was any less
alarming than she had been as a student. No doctor ever
inspired greater enthusiasm and devotion than she did, but
it was on the whole the few to whom she appealed. Her
vein of tenderness lay too deep for the casual eye to see;
and many were afraid of the occasional high-handed imperious
ways and the disregard of what people were likely to say.
“It was like being lifted on a comet’s tail,” writes a patient
to whom she had been called in an emergency in March 1878,
“when you came in, strong and swift, with your eagle wings,
getting over distances in a third of the time other people
take to do it.”
.bn 483.png
.pn +1
This is admirable, and describes what many felt, but
although being lifted on a comet’s tail is exactly what many
patients want, the treatment is not universally applicable.
London, then, would probably have supplied S. J.-B. with
a larger practice than she could have worked; many friends,
and particularly her brother, were keenly anxious that she
should settle there; Mr. Norton always regretted her departure;
but, now that the School had been taken out of her hands, it
seemed inadvisable that she should remain as a looker-on.
The difficulty was to find another place big and representative
enough: she dreaded the great midland towns. After
much consultation, she decided on the last place on earth she
might have been expected to choose,—on Edinburgh.
It was partly the bracing climate, partly the beautiful
drives, partly the many friends who had stood by her so
gallantly, that led to this spirited decision, but on the whole
it was a mistake. The smoke of the conflict was still hot, and
some of those who had admired her most had admired her for
qualities which were not what they sought in a physician.
Moreover, she was the last person on earth to play up to
the expectations of the community in which she lived. The
Edinburgh of those days was a more conventional place than
Edinburgh is now, and doctors above all were expected to
conform to a particular standard. There was a general impression
that piety paid and that an interest in missions was
a great help to success in practice.
“You never will succeed unless you conform to these
usages,” said a friend: “You might have Edinburgh at your
feet if you would go to church regularly and show yourself
a religious woman,” said another.
It is needless to say that these were not the arguments to
use with S. J.-B. Never, moreover, since the far-off school-days
in which she had given a highly-valued shilling to “the
Jews” had she taken any interest in missions. That vein
in her was worked out, or transmuted into something else.
The more she read of the old religions—and she did read—the
more she found in them to admire and respect,—the
more it seemed to her that they were the fitting medium for
the training of the people to whom they had been given.
.bn 484.png
.pn +1
It must be frankly admitted too that she continued to see
such questions in the atmosphere of the particular Evangelical
school in which she had been brought up; in recognizing the
evolution of the individual—of herself as an individual—she
failed to recognize the evolution of the medium; and
her life was so full of active beneficent interests as to leave
scant time for the consideration of questions that did not
at first sight appeal to her,—that did not seem to be her job.
In the Edinburgh, too, of those days, the ordinary people
who “counted” were the people who liked things done
“just so.” It disturbed their sense of the fitting, for instance,
that S. J.-B. should pay professional visits, driving herself
in a pony phaeton. Altogether she was too big, too untrammeled
for the post. What was wanted was the woman
who is a credit to any cause she may adopt. There are
plenty of them now-a-days.
Finally, S. J.-B. realized from the first that, with her
limited physical resources, she could not combine a social
with a professional life. Hospitality is a poor word to describe
the manner in which her door stood open to the few
she loved, to those whom she thought she could help, to all in
whom she recognized any sort of spiritual kinship; but from
ordinary social engagements she stood aloof. She refused invitations
to dinner,[136] or made excuse to leave so early that
she might better, perhaps, not have gone; she declined to be
lionised in any way; and she was apt to snub those whom she
suspected of wishing to know her from motives of curiosity.
.fn 136
For the same reason she went but seldom to the theatre, unless an actor
whom she greatly admired visited Edinburgh. When Henry Irving was
there she would go as often as three times a week, and usually take a little
party of friends. Louis XI. was, in her opinion, his masterpiece. For
Miss Terry she had, like all the rest of the world, a great admiration. Of
Ristori she used to speak almost with bated breath.
.fn-
We must not forget how different she could be from all
this,—how radiant, how sympathetic, how full of humour
and fun. “What a comfort it is,” writes a patient at this
time, “to see your dear supporting face!” “You always
come as Hercules did to Alcestis,” writes another. “Emily
and I have often spoken of your ‘How are you?’ being like
his, ‘I am here to help.’”
.bn 485.png
.pn +1
Nor am I working up to the avowal that she was a professional
failure: she was not: in many ways she was a great
success. But if Edinburgh—like Cousin Ellie of old—could
have made “even a slight alteration” in her, she might
almost indeed have had the town at her feet.
.tb
She took the house 4 Manor Place, and in June 1878 she
put her plate on the door and began. Three months later
she started a small dispensary. Her professional isolation
was great: Dr. Pechey was at Leeds; the other medical
women were in London or farther afield. A doctor in the
early days is sorely handicapped if he cannot discuss difficult
cases and questions with his contemporaries and seniors.
S. J.-B. never had, except for a few days at a time, the daily
chit-chat—what students call the “shop”—that is so helpful;
but she was not allowed to suffer. Dr. Heron Watson, Dr.
George Balfour, and Dr. Angus Macdonald supported her
with a chivalrous loyalty of which it is difficult to write
calmly even now. They encouraged her to appeal to them
at any time: they put the whole wealth of their learning and
experience at her disposal; and—what was not a matter of
course in those days—there was not a single question in all
the complicated domain of medicine which they would not
discuss with her as frankly as if she had been a man. It
must be borne in mind that in her own special subject, the
diseases of women, her equipment was all that could be
desired. It was not for nothing that she had worked for two
years under Dr. Sewall at Boston. If adequate training had
been available, she might have made a great gynæcological
surgeon, for she had great calmness and presence of mind in
an emergency, and her hands, though full of character, were
small and deft. Dr. Sewall always regretted the waste of her
potentiality in this respect.
The following extracts are from letters written during the
first few months of practice:
To her Mother,
.pm start_quote
“My Darling,
.ti 6
I know you will be pleased to hear that I yesterday received
fees which just completed my first £50,—earned in Edinburgh in
.bn 486.png
.pn +1
less than three months,—and that in what they call the “empty”
season. And what pleases me still better is that everyone of my
patients has done well. Several have left my hands practically
recovered, and those who are still there are all going on satisfactorily.
And as among them were two cases to which I was called when the
patient was described as ‘dying’ (and both got well) I think I may
very well be content. I have had 23 patients (nearly 100 visits)
at my private house, and about as many more at my Dispensary,
which has only been open a fortnight; so I don’t think there is
much doubt about the ‘demand’ nor about my prospects.”
.pm end_quote
To Dr. King Chambers,
.pm start_quote
“I feel I am learning a great deal from the large variety of practice
here. You will see from the enclosed paper that I have the help
and support of four[137] of the best medical men in Edinburgh, and they
are all excessively kind in giving me advice and help as often as I
want it. No one ever had better friends and I doubt if anyone
ever liked a profession better than I like mine.
I find that each of my cases involves so much reading and thinking
that I am almost anxious they should not multiply too fast.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 137
The three mentioned above, together with Dr. Peel Ritchie. In later
years, of course, she would have added to the list,—notably the names
of Dr. (Sir Thomas) Clouston and Mr. C. W. Cathcart.
.fn-
To Dr. (now Sir Thomas) Barlow to whom she had commended
a young colleague,
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“March 24th. \[1879.]
.ll
Dear Sir,
.ti 6
I thank you very much for the kind response to my note
which reached me this morning. I feel sure that you will find Miss
K. grateful for your kindness and most anxious to benefit by it.
I have had repeated cause myself in my own Dispensary work to
be thankful for the various lessons I learned from you and Dr. Lee.
Thank you also for the kind interest you express in my personal
success, which indeed is all that I could desire. I have about 25 or
30 patients at the Dispensary every day that it is opened, and I
also have a much larger private practice than is usual at so early a
date. I have not yet been established here in practice quite 9 months,
and I find that I have already had about 400 visits to or from private
patients, which I think you will allow shows the ‘demand’ is a
real one.
As you refer to the ‘general question of lady doctors’ you must
allow me to say that I am quite sure it would have your support,
from at any rate one point of view, if you had the least idea of the
.bn 487.png
.pn +1
amount of preventible suffering which women bear with rather
than consult men in special cases....
Now I do not care for a moment to argue whether this feeling is
right or wrong; ... if the feeling exists it should be distinctly
recognized as an element in the question; and I am quite sure that
you would be one of the very first to desire that every possible remedy
should be brought to such needless suffering.
In the same way I never care to argue at all about the relative
capabilities of men and women. I mean to try to do my own work
up to the very best of my power, and that is all that really concerns
me. I cannot imagine any work nobler or more perfectly fascinating,
than that of medicine, and I am very thankful to be allowed ever
so small a share in it.”
.pm end_quote
To Mrs. Henry Kingsley,
.pm start_quote
“I have full as much work at my Dispensary as I can manage,
indeed I am pretty well used up on those days, but I always enjoy
them.
I am just going to begin a course of lectures which I hope may
be successful.
It is hard work altogether, but nothing to the old worries.”
.pm end_quote
Hard work indeed it was, especially when one bears in
mind that she was urged at times to undertake confinements
at a very considerable distance,—as far off as Yorkshire.
Moreover, being a woman, she had of course the cares of
housekeeping, and S. J.-B. always took her housekeeping
very seriously.[138] She was herself a good cook and an excellent
manager, and her staff were expected to carry out her methods
and principles loyally. If they happened to be lazy and
unprincipled, or even easy-going, their tenure of office was
likely to be brief. Her comfortable home—in common with
all the other gifts of the gods—meant nothing to her unless
she could share it. How heartfelt was her hospitality may
be gathered from the following letters:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“August 15th. [? 1878.]
.ll
Dear Miss Irby,
.ti 6
Welcome home again! I saw in yesterday’s paper that you
had reached England, and was going to write when your letter came.
I shall be delighted to see you again! I expect to be here all autumn
.bn 488.png
.pn +1
and winter (with the exception of a few days) and shall be only too
glad to have you whenever you like best to come. Only do manage
to give me at least a week, and let me know which time suits you
best as soon as possible, so that I may make my plans suit yours.
Several people are most anxious to meet you, so I will ask them to
dinner, etc., when you fix a time; but I hope you won’t accept
invitations much (you are sure to have dozens) as I do want you to
get a little rest while with me, and I want to take you drives about
Edinburgh,—the country is so lovely. I shall tell everybody you
will be too tired to go out much.
Would you like a public meeting here? I daresay it would help,
though most residents are away at this season.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours affectionately,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 138
The invaluable Alice had retired from service to join a sister in Wales.
She and her mistress continued to correspond till the end.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“June 16th. \[1879.]
.ll
Dear Mrs. Thorne,
.ti 6
I hear that your two girls are coming to Morton next week.
Don’t you think it would be very wrong to let them travel so far
all alone? Don’t you think it is clearly your duty to come and
stay a week or two with me when you arrive? I should like so
very much to see you again at something like leisure, and also to
show you my Dispensary and all and sundry I am doing here. So
many Edinbro’ friends would like to see you! Do try to come if
only for a week or two!
I remember that the ‘wonderful woman’ went to London and
back for 24 hours once, so she can’t mind travelling! In haste
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“June 18th.
.ll
Dear Mrs. Thorne,
.ti 6
I shall be really delighted if you will come down with your
girls and spend a week or two with me while they are at Morton.
You and I have never had any really quiet time together since our
student days, and I cannot tell you how much I should enjoy some
talks with you, and how glad I should be of your advice about lots
of things in my Dispensary and otherwise. Dr. Sewall you know
always said you were the doctor among us, and I quite believe it.
I wish so very often that I could ask you about things.”
.pm end_quote
To a colleague in London she writes a month or two later:
.pm start_quote
“Your thanking me so much for a very moderate amount of good
nature shown to Miss X., makes me wonder how you expect one to
behave to people who are ill and poor. I am sure you yourself act
.bn 489.png
.pn +1
upon the ‘aux plus déshérités le plus amour’ principle? Seriously
I have done very little for her beyond what I should have done for
anybody more or less in her position, except perhaps half a dozen
drives and dinners which I promised ‘pour l’amour de vos beaux
yeux' before I saw her.
I am afraid you must think me a very ungrateful person in my
turn, for I don’t say a quarter as much about your various kindnesses
to me and my friends.”
.pm end_quote
She always had a word of brave and wise advice for
colleagues who appealed to her:
.pm start_quote
“I am inclined to think you had better send Miss Z. off to
Australia. I am sure Miss Du Pre will gladly do her part if you
write to her about it. She is now at ‘Surbiton, S.W.,’—no farther
address required.
I think you are quite wrong to think you will ‘not forgive yourself’
if the plan does not succeed. I have long ago come to the conclusion
that ‘efforts are ours, results are God’s,’—and, if you don’t like that
phraseology, you can paraphrase it as you like, so long as you
acquiesce in my conclusion that we are not to blame or worry ourselves
if things go wrong when we have done our best.
How I wish we could sit by that upstairs window and have a chat
over it all!”
.tb
“No, life isn’t a bit of a failure, and you wouldn’t think so if we
could get ten days’ holiday together up in the highlands!—don’t
I wish we could!—for I am very tired too.
I’ve got to go off to Yorkshire in a few days to attend ——’s
patient....
My coachman got drunk last week, and I turned him off at an
hour’s notice, and had to see to the stable myself for a day or two!—My
whole household has been upside down, and in the midst of
it my dear old Turk died last week, but quite quietly and without
pain. I have a new page, and a new cook, and a new groom,[139] and
am going to have a new housemaid,—don’t you pity me?—Still I
say ‘Life is good,’—Can you have better testimony?”
.pm end_quote
.fn 139
In place of the “coachman”; she never had both.
.fn-
Her advice on occasion could be fairly drastic:
.pm start_quote
“Yes,—I know about Miss W. Why do you let her stay 1½ hours
with you? At the end of five minutes I should take out my watch
and say,—‘Now I have just ten minutes more for you,—is there
anything you want to say?’ That’s the way to treat those sort
of folks. I am not ‘too good for this world.’”
.pm end_quote
.bn 490.png
.pn +1
Here is a rather amusing answer to a question from Dr.
Pechey,— do you recommend Vermouth?”
.pm start_quote
“Dear Edie,
.ti 6
I sent off my two cards to you too hurriedly to answer about
‘Vermouth’!—but now let me say at my leisure that I never
heard anything more beautifully illustrative of the way stories are
‘evolved.’
The one and only occasion when I made acquaintance with Vermouth
was when one day, during a hurried call at Mrs. Nichol’s,
the dear old lady in Mr. F.’s presence, offered me some Vermouth
as something new she had got, and insisted on my tasting it,—which
I did, and said I thought it ‘very nice,’ as in duty bound!
Neither before nor afterwards have I either seen or heard of it! It
really is nice, I think,—in the orange bitters line,—but further I
know nothing about it, and certainly never recommended it in my
life—nor expect to.
My professional life is, I find, largely a crusade against tea and
alcohol, so certainly I am not likely to preach up new liqueurs—if
this is one.”
.pm end_quote
To Dr. Sewall she writes,
.pm start_quote
“Oct. 8th. \[1879.] ... I have a very charming little brougham,
which my Mother gave me; and a beautiful horse, quiet as a lamb
and strong as a bull, from Miss Du Pre. Altogether it is an extremely
smart turn-out, and I should like so much to show it to you!
I hope I shall this summer. You must come then if possible,—it
is so hard to be apart so many years!
I am so sorry my Father’s carriage is worn out. That little gift
was such a pleasure to him and almost the last thing he did. I
think the letter in which he told me he had paid the money to my
bankers was the very last I had from him—dear old man!...
Dr. King Chambers gave the inaugural address at our School this
year, I moved the vote of thanks to him,[140] as it was my one day in
London. I will try to send you a report.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 140
This was probably not the occasion of which she writes in her diary,—“S. J.-B.
made very nice speech in moving vote of thanks,—only forgot
to thank much!”
.fn-
Later she writes,
.pm start_quote
“I have rather a sore heart today, for dear old Turk has just
died in my arms.... He seemed about as usual today, but rose
from where he was by the kitchen fire, walked into the scullery and
fell over. They fetched me, and he gave just two gasps in my arms
.bn 491.png
.pn +1
and died. It seems a bit of one’s life gone, when he had been in it
for 13 years!—and a Boston bit too.”
“Nov. 29th. 1879.... We are in great excitement here with the
visit of Gladstone to Edinburgh,[141] and his speeches. I send you
two papers today, to show you how he alludes in one speech to the
sympathy of women with his cause,—I have written a short letter
in today’s Scotsman asking if it would not be better that they should
be able legitimately to express that sympathy through the Suffrage....
How I hope and trust to see you here next year!”
.pm end_quote
.fn 141
This was the celebrated visit to contest the County of Midlothian,—a
“triumphal procession”!
.fn-
Apparently Miss Pechey did not think Gladstone’s appreciation
of women sufficiently adequate to be worth acknowledging,
for a few days later S. J.-B. writes to her,
.pm start_quote
“I like Gladstone much better than you do, or I shouldn’t have
written as in the Scotsman, but no doubt he is wrong about women,—his
wife’s fault however, I fancy. Miss Irby went to stay with them
for a day or two last year, and I know he admires her hugely,—perhaps
she may be a means of grace to him.”
.pm end_quote
It was about this time that the opinions of a number of
representative women were collected on the subject of the
Suffrage. S. J.-B. at first declined to respond, but, on Miss
Irby’s remonstrance she wrote the following lines, which are
quoted here because they represent fairly the calm and decided
attitude she took upon the subject throughout life:
.pm start_quote
“If I correctly understand the British Constitution, one of its
fundamental principles is that Taxation and Representation should
go together, and that every person taxed should have a voice in the
election of those by whom taxes are imposed. If this is a wrong
principle, it should be exchanged as soon as possible for some other,
so that we may know what is the real basis of representation in this
country; if it is a right principle, it must admit of general application,
and I am unable to see that the sex of the tax-paying householder
should enter into the question at all.
The argument respecting the ‘virtual representation’ of women
under the present system seems to me especially worthless, as it
can be answered alternatively thus:—If women as a sex have
exactly the same interests as men, their votes can do no harm, and
indeed will not affect the ultimate result; if they have interests
more or less divergent from men, it is obviously essential that such
.bn 492.png
.pn +1
interests should be directly represented in the councils of the nation.
My own belief is that in the highest sense, the interests of the two
sexes are identical, and that the noblest and most enlightened men
and women will always feel them to be so; and, in that case, a
country must surely be most politically healthy where all phases of
thought and experience find legitimate expression in the selection
of its parliamentary representatives.”
.pm end_quote
As regards the medical education of women S. J.-B. never
for one moment lost interest in the movement as a whole.
If her hand was no longer on the helm, she never deserted
her post on the bridge. A new Medical Bill was on the
tapis at this time,—a Bill which—very rightly—made it
essential that all doctors should hold a qualification in both
medicine and surgery. As, however, no College of Surgeons
would examine women (who nevertheless had gone through
the required surgical training), this Bill would have had
the result of placing women on a different and inferior
footing to men as doctors, and the hard-won steps that had
seemed to be cut in the solid rock would have melted away
once more.
The General Medical Council, in its suggested amendments
to the Bill, proposed to establish a special Board for the
examination of women, and to admit them in the end to a
separate register! It was the old “strawberry jam labels”
over again. Moreover in order to conform with the requirements
of this Board a woman must be in a position to assert
that she had received no part of her education along with men,—a
requirement that at once ruled out all the women who
were enjoying the great privilege of studying at the University
of Paris.
So there was small encouragement even now to relax that
keen look-out on the bridge.
In Dr. Heron Watson, who was at that time President of
the Edinburgh Royal College of Surgeons, S. J.-B. had a
keen and sympathetic adviser, and with his approval she
wrote to her former supporters, Mr. Stansfeld, Lord Aberdare,
Lord Ripon and others, begging them to keep a watchful eye
on the interests of the women. Early in the spring of 1878
she had urged Mrs. Anderson to write to two or three of the
.bn 493.png
.pn +1
London daily newspapers on the subject, while she herself
undertook two or three more; and on April 19th she writes
again:
.pm start_quote
“Dear Mrs. Anderson,—It occurs to me that it would be well
for the 8 registered women to send up a distinct protest against the
new Medical Bill to strengthen the hands of our friends in both
Houses.
I have made a rough draft of what I should propose, and
enclose a copy to you, while also forwarding one to Mr. Stansfeld.
Before doing anything further I shall wait to hear what you
and he think about it, and whether you have any alterations to
propose.
If the plan is adopted, can you tell me how we can get Dr. Blackwell’s
signature? There is no great hurry, as the petition need not
be presented for three or four weeks.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
To Mrs. Thorne she writes some months later,
.pm start_quote
“I had a long talk with Dr. Watson yesterday, and he tells me
the Government is likely to drop the Medical Bill for this session.
I shall be rather sorry if they do.
If they do not, I hope you will make a point of ‘keeping the run’
of every proposed amendment, and of watching very carefully how
each may affect women. I should look out very sharp if I were in
London, but here it is impossible to do so with sufficient efficiency
and promptitude; so please don’t let anything slip. The matter
is almost more important than School affairs, and even friendly
M.P.’s are too busy to be trusted and often they don’t see the
bearing of phrases. Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. Cowper Temple or Dr.
Cameron, could any of them get papers for you, but they need
reminding.”
.pm end_quote
Amid these manifold interests life ran its course in the early
years of practice. The happiest times were those when Miss
Du Pre came to stay with her friend, and it was the dream
of S. J.-B.’s life that these visits might develop into constant
companionship. No one who was not a doctor ever took
a more sympathetic interest in medical questions than did
Miss Du Pre: her advice in difficult social and professional
problems was invaluable; and then there was her delightful
sense of fun! “The only witty friend I ever had,” S. J.-B.
.bn 494.png
.pn +1
says about this time. And, added to all was her sheer goodness
and interest in the poor.
.pm start_quote
“32 at Dispensary,” writes S. J.-B. in her diary. “One or two
so hungry and forlorn that they went to my heart. Oh, dear, if
only J. [Miss Du Pre] were here to do her half of the work!
No motto of mine that over the Venice monastery, ‘O solitudo,
sola beatitudo!’”
.pm end_quote
It is needless to say that Miss Du Pre’s visits were as long
and as frequent as the many other claims in her life made
possible, and in her absence she entered as of old into every
detail of her friend’s life.
Of course this friendship could not but take in great measure
the place of the old enthusiasm for Octavia Hill, though the
latter never died.
In May 1877 someone had told S. J.-B. of the “terrible
trouble” Miss Hill was in. “Oh, dear,” she cried in her
diary, “I’m ashamed of the first sort of thrill of triumph
that she should know how it hurts!”[142]
.fn 142
It was not till later—not perhaps till she saw that regrettable number
of Fors Clavigera that S. J.-B. had any clear idea what the trouble was.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
“My life is full and complete again,” she writes in April 1878,
“if somewhat greyer for all the past pain; and, if I can have J.,
the former things may abide in shadow till the day of restitution
of all things. I can’t but believe that some day, some where, I shall
learn what it all meant,—even now one sees in some measure ‘why
it could not be otherwise.’
It is at any rate a grand thing that, over and through all, each
has kept on at her work and done yeoman service.”
“Dear L. E. S. turned the tide, gave me back the beginning of
strength and life, physical and mental, and since then for the last
12 years I have stumbled steadily onwards,—gaining in strength
and calm and hope,—till at length I can feel a wholesome life of my
own—quite independent of the old pain,—with a very dear hand
in mine, and with a grand life of work and struggle against disease
before me.”
.pm end_quote
On the last night of that year she writes:
.pm start_quote
“‘Tarry thou the Lord’s leisure,’ ... ‘and He shall strengthen
thy heart.’...
I believe profoundly in the ‘that He might be able to succour’.
One does learn through pain what one never learns without,—and,
.bn 495.png
.pn +1
hard as it is to feel it, I suppose one knows the ‘power of ministration’—the
‘Lo, I come’ is higher and more than even the personal
happiness.
So—take and use Thy work.
What is the use of talking about presenting ourselves a ‘living
sacrifice,’—and then moaning over pain,—wanting to ‘freeze on a
warm night’!
Oh, dear!—one’s own littleness.
Well, God teach and guide us all.”
.pm end_quote
A few weeks later she comes to the end of the volume, and
writes in a sunnier vein:
.pm start_quote
“Yet surely,—‘hitherto He has helped us’—Look at beginning
of this book,—or stronger still look back some 17 years and see how
the light has arisen out of darkness,—and shall it not grow and
grow.
I fully believe ‘God is very merciful to those who suffer .
How much harder the other way.
And much to be thankful for in health. No neuralgia,—very
great return of brain power....
Who can look forward?—who dare plan?
Domine dirige nos!”
.pm end_quote
.bn 496.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap3.2
CHAPTER II | LAST ILLNESS OF MRS. JEX-BLAKE
.sp 4
So far S. J.-B.’s success in Edinburgh had been on the whole
greater than most of her friends had anticipated. The
experiment could never have been made, had not Mrs. Jex-Blake
agreed to spend her winters in Edinburgh. S. J.-B.
was a good deal blamed by other members of the family for
urging this arrangement; but it must be borne in mind that
although Mrs. Jex-Blake was in fairly good general health,
she was subject to sudden alarming attacks of illness which
had repeatedly brought her daughter hundreds of miles in
hot haste to the sick bed, regardless of the studies, or the
still more important affairs she was leaving behind.
Modern methods would have grappled with the illness at
its source long before the patient had reached her present
age, and a radical cure might have restored her to perfect
health: as it was she lay under a sword of Damocles, and
was regarded as a more delicate woman than she really was.
It was impossible for S. J.-B. to embark on medical practice
under these conditions; so the Sussex Square house was
given up, and the old lady—who elected to have her own
ménage—divided her time between her daughter in Edinburgh
and her son at Rugby.
“You have always been different to me from my other
children,” she said to S. J.-B.; and, if she spoke with a
consciousness of the sword in her heart, the words were mainly
a tribute to her younger daughter’s untiring devotion, and
remained in later days the source of comfort they were meant
to be.
.bn 497.png
.pn +1
Towards the end of April 1881 Mrs. Jex-Blake went south,
leaving her daughter more reluctantly than usual. It was
only those who knew S. J.-B. very intimately who were at
all aware of the effort it sometimes cost her to get through
each “day’s darg,” and to keep a bright face turned to her
patients and a brave face to the world at large. She was
more tired than usual at the end of that winter, and Mrs.
Jex-Blake was well aware of this.
The usual series of love letters passed between Mother and
daughter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Eastfield,
April 30th. \[1881].
.nf-
.ll
Own Darling,
.ti 6
I am really well, but feel only half of myself without you.
I am very good,—I sleep well, eat well—two hot dinners a day,—but,
as I was very tired, keep my room, it is so much easier to be
quiet there. Florence quite mothers me....
You may be sure Dobbs is most attentive—and backs anything
she advises with the
.ce
Dr.’s wishes....”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“4 Manor Place,
Edinburgh.
May 1st.
.nf-
.ll
... Many thanks for your dear little letters, but you mustn’t
scribble too much to anybody!—Such sweet leaves in today’s note!
Yes, my darling, I miss my dear old lady very much, but we are
both going to be very good, and get quite strong for our reunion
in September. I shall be very grateful to you if you keep up your
‘two hot dinners’ honestly, and all the rest of it.... It breaks
my heart to find you run down as I do year after year when I come
to fetch you back again.
I don’t know exactly when Ursula comes, but you will hear from
her.
Dr. M‘Laren is back,[143] and so vexed to have missed saying ‘Goodbye’!
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours lovingly,
Soph.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 143
Dr. Agnes M‘Laren had taken the house adjoining S. J.-B.’s.
.fn-
Towards the end of June Mrs. Jex-Blake was less well,
but the doctor who attended her saw no cause for anxiety.
On the 28th, however, alarming indications of the old enemy
.bn 498.png
.pn +1
showed themselves suddenly, and he telegraphed to S. J.-B.
to come immediately. There was one more rush south “on
eagle’s wings,” but fortunately this time S. J.-B. had the
companionship of Miss Du Pre, with whom she reached Rugby
at 2 a.m.
The patient had been given up by the doctor and by all,
and even S. J.-B., when she saw her, thought she was dying;
but she fought for the precious life with every fibre of her
being, refusing to own defeat and absolutely regardless of
her own health. For ten days and nights she scarcely left
the room. The doctor in attendance was only too glad that
she should have a free hand, and after a few days they sent
for Dr. King Chambers, in whose skill S. J.-B. had almost
unlimited faith. His visit proved reassuring.
.pm start_quote
“Her life hung so evenly on the balance when I left,” he wrote
next day, “that I was obliged to acknowledge to myself that my
trust in her recovery was a sanguine one. Please one line about
her, and, if it is a favourable one, I shall answer it by a little
advice to yourself, which you will in that case be in a condition
to take.”
.pm end_quote
On July 7th all looked well, and S. J.-B. felt the wonderful
supporting power of hope, but, on the following day, there
was a sudden turn for the worse, and at half past six in the
evening, the patient passed quietly away.
.tb
The event is recorded in the diary by a great sheaf of blank
pages, with a pathetic notice from the Times in the middle
of them.
That is all, but constantly for a year, intermittently for
many years, the diary recurs to the old longings and regrets,
the gropings and questionings, the heart-searching and tears,
that have followed every great bereavement. The reader of
the preceding pages will not need to be told that S. J.-B.
drank the cup to the dregs.
There were not a few who had lost in Mrs. Jex-Blake their
dearest friend, but everyone’s first thought was of her younger
daughter.
“I do hope,” writes that wise Heron Watson, “that you
are not overborne by over much sorrow.”
.bn 499.png
.pn +1
“No human being loses what I do in her,” S. J.-B. wrote
to her friend, James Cordery, and this was perfectly true.
No one had loved her Mother as she had; no one else had
the same cause; and no one else had the same appalling
capacity for suffering.
It is interesting to note that of many beautiful letters of
sympathy there is not one that strikes the reader as more
truly comprehending than does Mrs. Anderson’s:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“4 Upper Berkeley Street, W.
July 13th, 1881.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
.ti 6
I have seen with very great regret the notice of your sorrow.
Knowing as I do how very close and tender was the tie between
you and your Mother and also what a fine and ennobling influence
she must have been to all within her range I am very full of sympathy
for you. It is always very sad to break away from the past by
losing one of these main links with it, but in your case there is very
much to increase your sense of this. You have not (as so many
others unhappily allow themselves to do) outlived the tenderness
of the relationship. I hope that after a time it will be a comfort to
you to remember this and to recal how happy she was in having
so much affection from you.
I was very sorry to find I had written on business last Sunday at
such a time.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
E. G. Anderson.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
S. J.-B.’s own letters are calm and restrained, of course.
To her assistant in Edinburgh she writes,
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“July 11th.
.ll
... Thanks for your kind note, and [your Mother’s] kind thoughtfulness.
But nothing would grieve me more than needlessly to part a
Mother and daughter who still have each other, and I beg her to
remain with you at least as arranged until the end of this month
during which time I shall almost certainly remain here and try
to get rested.
It was a hard battle,—it was bitter to fail just when we seemed
winning, but I believe it was her wish to go. On Thursday I heard
her murmur quietly, ‘Oh, Father, I pray Thee take me home,’—and
now all is peace.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
S. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 500.png
.pn +1
About the work in Edinburgh S. J.-B. had no anxiety at
all. It was her way, when she trusted people, to trust them
whole-heartedly, and she had absolute confidence in the
assistant who had worked with her for more than a year.
Well, indeed, she might, for she was extraordinarily fortunate
in that gallant-hearted and faithful young helper, whose only
fault seems to have been that she threw herself too completely,
too conscientiously, into everything she undertook,—her
chief’s work and interests, together with her own studies
and laboratory experiments.[144] S. J.-B. never realised what
a responsibility her very trust was to one wholly worthy
of it.
.fn 144
She was working at the solubility of fats, and the ether fumes were
supposed to have proved insidiously poisonous.
.fn-
In any case the double burden on the young shoulders
proved too great, and there was a sudden and tragic breakdown
ending in death.
One wonders how S. J.-B. bore the double shock. She had
fancied herself “girt with the girdle of him who has nought,”
when the second blow fell. She always said herself that she
never could have won through but for Miss Du Pre, who
simply carried her off to quiet places and tended her and
brought her gradually back to the possibility of beginning
again.
The practice in Edinburgh was given up for the time.
There was nothing else to be done. Miss Ellaby took up
the threads and finished them off as well as a stranger
might; but there was no medical woman free to remain and
fill the niche. It was hard on the practice.
.tb
In later years S. J.-B. met Mr. Frederick Myers, and she
was induced by her impression of him to read his Human
Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, when it appeared
some time later. She was deeply interested in the book, and
her mind was open on the subject always; but she “tried
the spirits” severely. “No human being,” she said one day
in the course of an earnest talk, “could strive to come into
touch with one gone before more earnestly than I tried to
come into touch with my Mother. I used to lie awake at
.bn 501.png
.pn +1
night concentrating every faculty on the effort. But I got
no response.”
Her diary became her great outlet again in those dark
days, in some places almost, as of old, a very cento of
beautiful or poignant thoughts from the treasure-house of her
memory; but that was never the side she turned to the
world, though intimate friends got glimpses of it that startled
them. One guessed it too from her anxiety to spare others
the pain she had suffered herself.
“Don’t you ever go through the farce, dear, of thinking
you haven’t been good to me,” she said to a friend years after
this; and, although throughout life she often spoke hastily
and over-sharply, she never spoke a word that might poison
the night-watches for those she left behind. Coventry
Patmore’s terrible poem[145] could never have been inspired by
her.
.fn 145
“Poor Child.”
.fn-
To one of her nieces she writes:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sept. 2nd, 1881.
.ll
Dear ——,
.ti 6
I found the enclosed treasured among Grandmamma’s most
valued papers, and I am sure you will like to have it back and to see
how she kept and cared for it through so many years....
I think all your life it will be a pleasure to you remember how
much you added to her happiness and helped to take care of her
during the last few years. She always said you were ‘a little
mother’ to her.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affec. aunt,
S. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 502.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap3.3
CHAPTER III | PATIENTS AND FRIENDS
.sp 2
It was hard to go back to the house in Manor Place, so full
of associations, and, as soon as might be, S. J.-B. and Miss
Du Pre removed to Bruntsfield Lodge, a roomy, rambling
old house[146] with a shady, high-walled garden, standing high
on the south side of Edinburgh, overlooking Bruntsfield
Links. The sunny rooms and the possibility of stepping
out into quiet greenness were worth a fortune to the strained
nerves and over-active brain.
.fn 146
This house is now the picturesque nucleus of the Edinburgh Hospital
for Women and Children.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
“You will be glad to hear that I am much stronger,” S. J.-B.
writes to Dr. Sewall in September 1883, “and am sleeping excellently.
I have just begun also to take short rides, and I do not think they
tire me too much.”
.pm end_quote
Here then she began the life of comparative seclusion and
active beneficence which was to last for sixteen years. The
keynote of her existence was sharing, taking others with
her, and the joy of sharing this comfortable house and
garden was very great.
Miss Du Pre’s absence is the occasion for some playful
letters written quite in a patriarchal spirit:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“August 25th. \[1883.]
.ll
... I have had an addition to my family as well as Mrs. B.,—though
it isn’t yet in the Times first column,—viz. a delightfully
comic small dog, white with one black eye, whom I have christened
Toby, and whom I bought from the Home for Lost Dogs for the
large sum of 2s. 6d. The police take stray dogs there, and if no one
.bn 503.png
.pn +1
claims them, or buys them, they are killed; so this little fellow has
escaped by the skin of his teeth, in virtue of his supposed excellences
in the cat-chasing line![147] Has cottoned up to me most amusingly—followed
me about all day, and whined at the door when shut
out....
The two boys are delighted, of course,—especially A., who declares
Mr. Toby to be the moral of a dog for whom his late master ‘wouldn’t
take £100.’ Nice profit wouldn’t it be if I clear £99. 17s. 6d.!
Lest the household should be too full, I have sent off a member,—viz.,
White Angel, to grass for a week at Currie,—H. being so overjoyed
at being let ride him out that cook declared he ‘couldn’t eat his
lunch‘! He walked back (6 miles) in 1¾ hr., not bad, was it?
Miss A. is coming tonight,—Mrs. J. went this afternoon. By
the bye on Thursday she asked me to ‘see Baby for a minute,’
and I found the child white and out of sorts, rather feverish, etc.,
and overjoyed Mrs. J. by prescribing ‘a little Bruntsfield’. So she
has been out here for 2 days, tumbling in the hay and delighting
Ann’s heart. She is so fond of children.
I also sent Mrs. S. off to Brackenrigg yesterday, as I decided she
did want a change before beginning a winter’s work. The fare
was 17s. 4d., and I gave her the rest of £4, which will pay everything
for 10 days, with 5s. or 6s. to spare. I haven’t heard from her yet,
but I am sure she will be in the seventh heaven.
Probably she will see Miss Anthony there,—she went the previous
day....
I think it was very good of you to ask for the Baring votes!...”
.pm end_quote
.fn 147
S. J.-B. made great friends with the birds in her garden, and cats were
accordingly taboo.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sept. 4th.
.ll
.ti 6
... Mrs. S. lunched here today, and says she feels infinitely
better for the change,—things no longer worry her in the same
way. She tells me that the red-room gentleman was back,[148]—and
that being confined to bed one day, he evidently heard Miss Anthony
haranguing on Women’s Rights in the next room,—and Mrs. W.
told them that he had asked ‘when those two ladies were going,—for
he heard enough to know they were men-haters, and he was a
woman hater!”
.pm end_quote
.fn 148
S. J.-B. and Miss Du Pre had visited the same hotel that summer.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sept. 9th.
.ll
I’ve had another addition to my family,—not a permanent one
this time! A. J. was very anxious not to catch scarlet fever so
as to be thrown back for his examinations, etc., and so I have taken
him in for a few days, and given him ——’s room upstairs. (Do
.bn 504.png
.pn +1
you think W. is in any danger?) He seems a very nice lad, but
by no means strong. He is so very pleased with the quiet,—he
says he can sleep so much better. Now a lad of his age ought to
be able to sleep in any row!”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sept. 13th.
.ti 6
... The grapes are getting on famously, some will be ripe within
a week I think, but they will be rather small this year.”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sept. 23rd.
.ti 6
You needn’t have asked so meekly for ‘2 or 3 grapes’. We have
cut none yet, but when they first began to colour, the most forward
bunch was dubbed ‘Miss Du Pre’s,’—and for the last 10 days the
household might be seen every morning with upturned chins gazing
to see ‘if Miss Du Pre’s bunch is ready’,—H. going up the ladder
and hanging in all sorts of odd positions to look at it all round.
The combined wisdom has decided to cut it tomorrow—in spite of
a red berry or two which won’t get right,—so probably you will get
it on Wednesday morning by P.P. Be sure to tell me how it travels.”
.pm end_quote
The first few months in the new house were a time of comparative
leisure, and S. J.-B.’s friends received letters less
telegraphic in their succinctness than they afterwards tended
to become. The following is to Mrs. Brander, who (when
Miss Isobel Bain) had accompanied S. J.-B. to America:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Sept. 26th. \[1883.]
.ll
Dearest Bel,
.ti 6
I wish you could peep in and see my new house now that it
is fairly in order. I think the quiet and airiness will be of very
great value to me. I have felt much better since I came here....
You have so often wished for good medical women in India that
you must now be pleased to have your wish granted. I don’t know
if you know Mrs. Scharlieb who is just entering on practice at Madras,
but, if you don’t, I wish you would go and call on her, and give my
card. I do not know her personally, but I have corresponded with
her, and respect her much for the gallant way in which she got
her education, first at Madras and then coming to England to perfect
herself. She passed the very difficult examinations of the University
of London (M.B. and B.S.) with great distinction, and won the gold
medal in Obstetrics from the whole University....
Have you heard also that Dr. Edith Pechey is going to settle at
Bombay? She has been invited to do so by a committee of native
gentlemen, who guarantee her an income and find her a hospital....
I am very sorry to lose her from England, but very glad to have
so admirable a representative in India. She always wins golden
.bn 505.png
.pn +1
opinions and does such excellent work. I do hope the Government
will do something for her. I have just written to Lord Ripon
about her.
You know I suppose that Mr. Fawcett has appointed a medical
woman (Miss Shove) as medical officer to the women post office
clerks, with £350 a year. It is an immense step in public opinion.
I am getting on very well here, but I begin to feel I am getting
old. My hair is so grey!...
Dear old Mrs. Brander came to see me the other day, looking as
nice as ever, ... I think I care more and more for old people’s
happiness as compared to young, though the world is hard enough
for them too sometimes,—and hardest of all I sometimes think for
the middle-aged folks who have outlived the spring and energy of
youth and not reached the calm of age. How much pain one sees
in the world!
I hope your life is getting easier and happier every year, dear
child. Tell me all about yourself some day....
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours affectionately,
S. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
She was planning a new edition of her book, Medical Women,
at this time, and she wrote to Mr. Osler to ask for statistics
as to the percentage of women, as compared with men, who
had so far passed the examinations of the University of
London. In reply to his information she writes:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Feb. 3rd. 1884.
.ll
Dear Mr. Osler,
.ti 0
I can hardly express strongly enough how grateful I am both
to you and to Mr. Milman, for the very valuable tables of numbers
sent me....
Please do not doubt for a moment that I quite agree with you
that it is unfair to compare ‘picked women’ (i.e. really in earnest)
and ‘unpicked men’. I have said so repeatedly. But you must
remember that a very few years ago I had a very hard fight to get
it admitted as a possibility that some women might do as good work
as men. In ‘Visits to American Schools’ (published 1867) I wrote
with at least sufficient diffidence,—‘Whether most women would
be capable of the amount of study required, for instance, for one of
our University degrees, I really do not know,’ etc. My one contention
has been all along,—‘Give a fair field and try’—and no one
can exaggerate the gratitude that all women ought to feel to the
University of London for giving that field.
At the same time, while quite conceding that ‘percentages’ need
correction by certain considerations on the men’s side,—youth,
.bn 506.png
.pn +1
want of choice, etc.,—you must not forget that women are quite
as much weighted in other ways,—e.g. by the greater reluctance of
parents to spend money on their education, and the more inconsiderate
claims made on their time, etc., at home, inferior early
teaching, etc., so that after all one set of difficulties go far to
balance another.
From a medical point of view my chief anxiety now is how women
are going to stand the strain; I am very much afraid of seeing the
movement discredited by the breakdown in health of girls who
begin too young, or with inadequate physical stamina, or who try
to ‘burn the candle at both ends’ by combining society or home
duties with serious study.
However, I must not trespass longer on your time and kind
patience, and with repeated thanks, I remain,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very gratefully,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
This subject of the education of girls had been brought
prominently before her mind by the breakdown of a rarely
gifted young friend. S. J.-B. had some great talks on the
subject with Miss Buss and others, and she wrote to various
papers about the danger of over-pressure. “The headmistresses
have a difficult problem before them,” she says,
“but it has got to be faced.”
As a matter of fact the problem was destined to be solved
abundantly in due course by the development of games and
physical culture generally,—all that side of life for the lack
of which she herself had suffered so terribly.
She was specially interested, of course, in the daughters
of her old friends, and, of these, Hermione Unwin and Katie
Ballantyne held a special place in her regard. To the former
she writes:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“July 29th. 1884.
.ll
My dear Hermie,
.ti 6
Thank you for sending me your examination papers. I am
very glad that you passed so successfully. What now interests me
most is to know to what use all this work is to be turned, for after
all knowledge is noblest when it becomes an instrument of work
beyond itself. Have you any tastes or wishes, or any thought of
any special kind of work?
I daresay that after all this study the best thing you can do is
to rest on your oars for six months or a year, but during that time
I hope you will be thinking in what way you can turn yourself to
.bn 507.png
.pn +1
best account. There is so much that needs doing in the world, and
it is such a privilege to help in the doing of it. I hope you will write
and tell me when you have any definite thoughts on the subject.
I have already had my holiday for this year, having spent June
in driving about (with the white pony) in the Perthshire highlands
with my friend, Miss Du Pre. I think there is hardly any kind of
holiday that rests one so much. You should persuade your Father
to take you all in a waggonette, a long drive into Scotland or to the
English Lakes. If you should decide on Scotland, I should hope
to find this house used as a stopping-place. I think I could take
you all in pretty comfortably.
Remember me very kindly to Mr. Unwin, and believe me
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Here is an interesting letter to an old friend whose husband’s
distinguished career separated her for the time from a dearly-loved
daughter:
.pm start_quote
“I much enjoyed seeing her for the flying visit which was all
she vouchsafed me, and I am delighted to see how very much she
is improved,—very much more healthy in mind and body all round....
She amused me much by plunging headlong into some theological
difficulties,—which reminded me of how she (aged 6!) used to harass
you about the Trinity. Her great trouble seems to be that she
can’t feel sure the world is governed by a beneficent and omnipotent
God,—she thinks there is so much pain in it which wouldn’t be
allowed unless God either didn’t wish to help it, or couldn’t help it.
That has never been my difficulty,—I have always had such a devout
belief in the possible blessing of pain,—
.pm start_poem
‘Because all noblest things are born
In agony.’
.pm end_poem
Do you remember Miss Cobbe’s hymn?
However she asked me if I felt sure the world was governed, etc.,
and I said frankly that I hadn’t absolutely made up my mind,—that
it seemed to me we had very small means of being ‘sure’ of
anything,—but that I thought, if there was a Ruler both good and
all powerful, it was at least perfectly conceivable that He might
allow all the pain, etc., partly because the very theory of free will
involved possibilities of evil with its consequences which not even
Omnipotence could avert, and partly because He might see that pain
was at any given moment the very best thing for the person who
suffered it.
Then she went off to,—Did I think it possible that any Being
could follow out the lives of millions of creatures at once, etc.,—to
.bn 508.png
.pn +1
which I said that certainly I couldn’t conceive how it should be
possible; but neither could I conceive many other things that yet
we knew to be scientific truths,—e.g. that our whole earth could be
swallowed up in one of the ‘spots’ of the sun, and not fill up the
spot, and that that very sun is only a unit in a myriad of worlds
whose immensities simply reduce us to silence.
However I didn’t mean to inflict a réchauffé of all this upon you,
though I think you will like to know how the child’s mind is working.
Let it work!—being in a wholesome atmosphere of love and labour,
she will learn all sorts of practical replies to theoretical difficulties,
and come to no harm.”
.pm end_quote
Interesting, as bearing on the above, is another letter
written to someone else about the same time:
.pm start_quote
“It is a double principle with me never to bring forward theological
questions, and never to seek to change the opinions of anyone who
is satisfied with his or her own; and on the other hand to be
always ready to say exactly what I think myself about any given
point to any intelligent person who cares to ask me the question,
and to say frankly where I feel that I know nothing. I do not
think anyone can possibly be more conscious than I of the immense
vastness and difficulty of questions that the general public answer
glibly offhand, and of my own utter incompetency to decide in the
abstract ‘what is truth’. Practically I think one is generally able
to see one’s own duty day by day, and probably Browning is right—
.pm start_poem
‘... more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act tomorrow what he learns today.’
.pm end_poem
Beyond that, I suppose that all that any of us can do is to be
very chary of either asserting or denying, but to strive to keep our
whole souls open to every ray of light we can get, and hope some
day to learn everything that it is needful for us to know. Personally
I am always getting to feel that opinions matter less and less, and
motives and feelings more and more.
Excuse this long dissertation and believe me,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
In December 1885 she writes to Miss Du Pre:
.pm start_quote
“Yes, we shall miss poor old X. sadly. It does seem pathetic,
doesn’t it?—and yet don’t you think it is something to be taken
away just when you have attained your highest ambition?...
The first thing I thought,—as it almost always is,—was, I wonder
what he thinks now that he ‘knows what Rhamses knows’. It
.bn 509.png
.pn +1
always does strike me so very curiously when someone who has
never, I suppose, thought half as much as I about the mysteries of
life and death, goes in in front of me,—if there is any ‘going in’.
I thought it so very strongly about Vanderbilt. How will he get
on where everything isn’t reckoned as on the Stock Exchange?”
.pm end_quote
Although the new house was certainly not in a central
position, S. J.-B.’s practice steadily grew. As the first woman
doctor in Scotland, she had, as she had told Sir Thomas
Barlow, numerous cases that had long gone untreated, and
she was the recipient of many a pent-up confidence. The
Edinburgh that criticized her would have been surprised if
it had known some of the secrets that lay, so safely, in her
keeping. She was often called upon to be a Mother Confessor,
and, although she always declared that “one profession
is enough for one person,” her practice was by no means
so rigid in this respect as was her theory. Many strange
problems were discussed in that quiet consulting-room, with its
book-lined walls and green spaces outside. To the end of life
her impulsiveness led her into mistakes for which she had to
suffer, but her advice to others was extraordinarily sane and
good. Yet the idealist in her never slept. “I took Colani from
the shelf,” she says on one occasion, “and read, ‘Cast thyself
down,—for the devil can suggest; compel can he never.’”
She was often asked, too, to take a resident patient who
wished to have her own suite of rooms and sometimes her
own attendant. More than one of these patients became
personal friends.
She of course received high fees for cases of this kind,
but she often had resident patients who paid no fees at all.
Some governess who could not get well in dreary lodgings
would be simply wrapped up in blankets and carried off in
the brougham—or was it on a comet’s tail?—a messenger
having been sent up to the house,—“Have blue room ready
in half-an-hour. Am bringing patient.”[149]
.fn 149
“Ah,” said an old servant in later years. “We did see life in that
house!”
.fn-
.pm start_quote
“I wonder,” writes a patient at this time, “if you have any idea
how pleasant it is to be lifted on somebody’s shoulders and carried
.bn 510.png
.pn +1
away from the shadows of your own life into the brightness of theirs.
No I do not think you can have; you do not seem to have dwelt
in the shadows.”
.pm end_quote
And another writes,
.pm start_quote
“I know you will believe me when I say that I have rarely, if
ever, been so supremely happy as during the past few weeks. The
feeling of peace and comfort was so delicious, and I only wish I
could prove myself just a little worthy of all I have enjoyed.”
.pm end_quote
We have seen how on one occasion she took in a lad who
could not afford to risk incurring the infection of scarlet
fever. On another occasion, when visiting a patient, she
was asked to see a boy of ten, who had unluckily fallen ill
while paying a short visit to the house. His hostess did not
understand boys, and he was having an uncomfortable time.
His plight roused all the boy—and there was plenty of it—in
S. J.-B. She carried him off, mothered him, took him
for drives when she could, got him well, and apparently
made him happy. At all events, when the time came to
say Goodbye, he flung his arms round her neck and kissed
her!
There are some men who are born with an instinctive
knowledge of the right thing to do in unusual circumstances.
Most useful was the comet’s tail in cases where some overworked
brain was on the point of a breakdown, where a
worry was developing into an idée fixe, and threatening to
drive the patient mad. S. J.-B. would carry the patient off,
regardless of possible developments more disconcerting even
than an outbreak of scarlet fever in her house, tend her,
feed her up, make her sleep, sympathize with her, bully her,
laugh at her, till the patient was ready to fall into line and
laugh at herself. Some of these “cures” were extraordinarily
rapid and complete, and there is no record of a single
failure.
.il id=i511 fn=i_511.jpg w=60% ew=60%
.ca
from a photograph by M. G. T.\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ Emery Walker ph.sc.
Sophia Jex-Blake
.ca-
She never heard of any over-weighted woman or child
without asking herself whether she could lift the burden.
.pm start_quote
“Dear Carry,”—she writes to her sister about this time—“...
I don’t like the idea of our teacher looking ‘pale and anxious’,—do
you know if she has any special troubles?—or is likely to be
.bn 511.png
.bn 512.png
.bn 513.png
.pn +1
short of money? Has she relations with whom she spends her
holidays? or is she at Bettws now?—When do the holidays begin
and end? What pay has she now?—Has it been raised lately?—What
is her name and nation?
A sad number of questions, but very short replies will suffice.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your aff. sister,
S. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
It was partly because she had so many guests of this kind
that she made it an absolute rule that none of her servants
were to receive gratuities from visitors,—a rule that some of
the visitors disliked extremely, and even refused to submit
to. Such cases sometimes led to an amusing breeze of
correspondence of which the following is a sample:
.pm start_quote
“Sir,
.ti 6
Well acquainted as I am with your many and great iniquities,
I confess that I did not expect you wantonly to abuse our humble
hospitality by deliberately inciting our household to rebellion
against constituted authority as distinctly announced to you by
written warning on the mantel-piece.[150] Manifold as are the notorious
vices of the Conservative mind, I had supposed it to have some
slight reverence for law, national or domestic. In future I shall
know better.
Sir, the humble but incorruptible member of my household whose
integrity you sought to corrupt, begs me to re-inclose to you the
accompanying lucre (2s. 6d.), of whose history you so falsely pretended
yourself ignorant, and as I see no reason why I should be
impoverished in consequence of your evil doings, I request you to
repay me on your return from the continent the commission charged
by H.M. Government (viz. ½d.) upon the enclosed remittance.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am Sir,
Yours more in sorrow than in anger,
S. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 150
“On est prié de ne rien donner aux domestiqúes.”
.fn-
The postal order was indignantly returned, with a request
to do what she liked with it, so she at once sent it to the
London Society for Women’s Suffrage, directing the secretary
to forward the receipt to her refractory Conservative
guest!
Notwithstanding this, and other differences of opinion, he
paid many more visits to her house, and for the future contrived
usually, at least, to elude her vigilance.
.bn 514.png
.pn +1
She used to consult him in all sorts of legal difficulties, and
he replied with unfailing patience.
.pm start_quote
“Dear James,”—she wrote on one occasion,—“I want to make
a codicil, leaving some money to ..., the income to her for life,—the
capital between her daughters. Will you please tell me the
simplest words in which I can do this?”
.pm end_quote
In sending a rough draft, he inserted the words,—“if only
one such daughter.”
.pm start_quote
“Of course I can put in ‘if only one such daughter,’ if you like,”
she replied, “but at present there are seven!”
.pm end_quote
The initial mistake, of course, was hers, and it was a kind
of mistake that was very unusual with her.
Her correspondence was very large,—so large that she
never had time to write a “proper letter about ‘Shakespeare
and the musical glasses’,” as she would have said. To her
most intimate friends she wrote with spontaneous charm,—letters
circumstantial, tender, nonsensical, as the case might be.
“Do you ever write any letters that would look well in your
memoir?” asks Miss Du Pre. “I begin to be anxious about
that book. It seems to me that it will be so fearfully dull,—unless
your diaries ... prove to be amusing.”
On the other hand, strangers consulted her about manifold
schemes and perplexities, and she always asked herself how
she could help.
“Dear Madam,” wrote one of these, “As you sit alone in
the evening with the curtains drawn, imagine that a woman
steals into your room, hunted to death by men. I am that
woman....”
Even this sensational beginning did not put S. J.-B. off,
and it was weeks before she allowed herself to be persuaded—by
Dr. Pechey and Miss Du Pre—that the case was one for
Dr. Clouston rather than for her.
.tb
But it was in her Dispensary, with working women and
girls, that one saw her, perhaps, at her best. She was so
vital, so sympathetic, yet so full of humour and common
sense that the regular provident patients were devoted to
her. They knew there was nothing to be gained by arguing.
.bn 515.png
.pn +1
“Well, I must just take my scolding,” they would say resignedly.
So keenly did she sympathize with their difficulty
in following out her directions in their own homes that in
1885 she added a few beds to the Dispensary, and thus
formed the nucleus of the Edinburgh Hospital for Women
and Children, which has since grown to great things and has
been honoured by a visit from the Queen.
Where the case was serious, and the remedy lay in the
husband’s hands, S. J.-B. always took the bull by the horns.
“Ask him to come and have a little talk with me,” she would
say breezily. “Tell him I can see him at such and such hours.”
And he would come!
She was admirably fitted for work of this kind. No woman
was ever more strictly fair. An injured husband was no less—and
no more—sure of her sympathy than was an injured wife.
And, of course, it was the old and feeble who at once found
the radiant side of her.
.pm start_quote
“The thanks and blessings of old J. G.—85—bring a rush of
tears,—‘Ah, somebody be good to my old lady!’
And yet I suppose she may be ‘old’ no longer, but young and
strong and bright, and sorry for my weakness and weariness,—
.pm start_poem
‘waits on the hills of Paradise
For her children’s coming feet.’”
.pm end_poem
.pm end_quote
She seldom rose quite above this sense of effort and weariness,
though few would have guessed it. “I always get so
much good from being with you,” writes Lady Jenkinson,—“body
and soul—especially soul.... I wish you would
’fess when you feel downcast.”
In her inmost circle, of course, she did ’fess, pretty often.
“Not strong enough for the place, John,” she used often to
quote whimsically from Punch. And here is an interesting
bit of heresy in a letter to Dr. Sewall—
.pm start_quote
“I don’t at all agree by the bye with your theory that ‘there is
nothing like work for producing real happiness.’ I don’t find that
it has even any tendency to produce it, though of course one must
work if one is able. ‘Otherwise she drops at once below the dignity
of man,’—so says Aurora Leigh.
To quote Mrs. Browning again,—‘What’s the best thing in the
world?—Something out of it I think.’”
.pm end_quote
.bn 516.png
.pn +1
The reader will not need to be told that the poetry of her
nature had not been crushed out by that long fight. Far from
it. All through the strenuous days she had been supported
by the very poems she had repeated by the fireside in Sussex
Square, but the store had grown till her repertory must have
been nearly unique. To many passages from the Psalms and
Isaiah, George Herbert, Trench, Alford and others, she had
added a harvest from Whittier, Emerson, Lowell and divers
less known American poets. She loved her Tennyson and
Browning too—Abt Vogler and Rabbi Ben Ezra—but indeed
the “poetry book-case” included a very catholic range, from
Macaulay’s Lays to Swinburne and Christina Rossetti, with a
corner for Jean Ingelow and for Mrs. Hamilton King. We
have seen the store she set in her youth on some of Sadie’s
Poems. No one who has ever heard it will forget how the
“pathetic voice” would repeat:
.pm start_poem
“Is it so, O Christ in Heaven, that the highest suffer most?
That the strongest wander farthest, and more hopelessly are lost?
That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain,
And the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?—
‘I have many things to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now.‘”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
or again,
.pm start_poem
“No, no, by all the martyrs, and the dear dead Christ;
By the long bright roll of those whom joy enticed
With her myriad blandishments, but could not win.
Who would fight for victory, but would not sin.
By these our elder brothers who have gone before,
And have left their trail of light upon our shore.
We can see the glory of a seeming shame,
We can feel the fulness of an empty name.”
.pm end_poem
It was recitations like this that formed the nucleus of the
“incomparable evenings in the Doctor’s Study” to which
Dr. Lillie Saville referred (see pp. 390-1, footnote). When life
was not too exacting—and sometimes when it was—such
evenings were very frequent, and they were a great refreshment
after the burden and heat of the day.
.tb
She derived much relaxation, too, from the best of the unceasing
current that flows through the circulating libraries.
.bn 517.png
.pn +1
Her brief criticisms of books are often interesting. She was
disappointed in George Eliot’s Life, because the long series
of letters was not sufficiently welded together by narrative.
Of the Carlyles she agreed with Mrs. Oliphant that “there
was a great deal of love on both sides,—with very raw nerves.”
Of two books she confessed to Miss Du Pre that she “sobbed
over them like a baby,”—one was Laetus Sorte Mea, the
other The Little Pilgrim in the Unseen.
.bn 518.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap3.4
CHAPTER IV | PUBLIC LIFE
.sp 2
It is not to be supposed that the “cataracts and breaks” were
a thing of the past. There were many who found S. J.-B. a
delightful person to work with, but even they had no difficulty
in seeing how it was that others had a different experience.
“But the Doctor is nearly always right,” said one of her
assistants in later years, “when she differs from other people.”
And this was perfectly true. She was nearly always right;
but the few times she was wrong were sufficient in many
quarters to give the dog the proverbial “bad name.”
Moreover, one must frankly admit that her rightness was
often too uncompromising, too business-like, too far in
advance of what other people could be expected to agree with,
too inconsiderate of ordinary human frailty. “You treat other
people like pawns,” Miss Du Pre used to tell her, but, although
she quoted the remark, she never seemed really to grasp it.
During the first few years of her life at Bruntsfield Lodge
she took a great interest in local women’s questions. She
was a moving spirit in the organization of one or two
large suffrage meetings, and in the laborious propagandism
and canvassing involved in the election of women as poor
law guardians. Evidence of the thoroughness of her work
persists to this day; but it was not always appreciated by
the Edinburgh ladies who coöperated with her. They thought
her so big and masterful that nobody else got a chance. It
was just as well that her own special work absorbed her more
and more. In 1884 she had written for Macmillan (at the
instigation of her friend Mrs. S. R. Gardiner) a useful little
.bn 519.png
.pn +1
book on The Care of Infants, which was warmly received
by the profession and by a considerable public, and she
was steadily taking notes for a second edition of her Medical
Women, which should bring the narrative down to the date
of publication.
Public affairs, too, demanded their share of interest. That
weary Medical Bill kept cropping up at intervals, and
S. J.-B. was often appealed to privately by members of
parliament and others for information and advice. They
were well aware, of course, that her main interest was to
safeguard the rights and privileges of women, but they also
knew something of her mental acumen and thoroughness of
method. Moreover, she was unconnected with any of the
great vested interests which constituted the great stumbling
block in the way of any Bill. There is a telegram extant
addressed to her by the President of the Edinburgh College
of Physicians who had gone up to London to watch the
debate,—“Please wire Mr. Stansfeld to be sure to be here
in time to secure dropping of bill proposed.”
Towards the end of 1884, the Edinburgh Extra-Mural
School made an effort towards incorporation, and memorialized
the Privy Council to grant them a Charter. S. J.-B. was
anxious to take advantage of this opportunity to raise again
the question of the admission of women to medical education
in Scotland, especially as, by this time, the various missionary
bodies were quite alive to the importance of the subject.
“The Free Church are also willing to move,” she writes
to Mr. Stansfeld on November 20th, “and they wish to
memorialize the Privy Council direct, and to request that
any Charter granted may not exclude women, but make it at
least optional for the College to admit them. To my intense
amusement the request has just come to me that I will ‘draft’
such a memorial, but I have not the remotest idea how even
to address the Privy Council!”
It was not only the Free Church that asked her help. The
lecturers, mindful of her power of enlisting the sympathy of
statesmen in the past, also begged her to use her influence in
high quarters, and, through the National Association, to
present a petition to the Privy Council. Mr. Stansfeld was
.bn 520.png
.pn +1
helpful as ever, advising her to interview Lord Carlingford,
from whom she had a gracious reception. “But the primary
condition must be,” she writes to Dr. Littlejohn, “that the
Charter distinctly commits the College to the admission of
women on equal terms. If this is not approved, the whole
thing falls to the ground.”
The reader of the foregoing chapters might not unnaturally
be prepared to hear that the College was duly incorporated,
and that the women were left in the lurch; but it was the
unexpected that happened. The effort of the Extra-Mural
School to achieve incorporation failed, but the examining
bodies for which the School existed, the Colleges of Physicians
and Surgeons, decided a few months later to admit women.
We may reasonably suppose that the renewed discussion of
the whole question had not been in vain, but, so far as S. J.-B.
was concerned, it was a case of the seed cast into the ground,
which springs and grows up “he knoweth not how.” On
March 17th, 1885, she writes to Dr. Pechey:
.pm start_quote
“Meanwhile I have two splendid pieces of news to send you, if
they have not yet reached you,—viz. (1) The Irish College of Surgeons
has not only opened all its examinations, and even its fellowships,
to women, but also all the classes in its School,—making separate
arrangements for Practical Anatomy only. (2) More wonderful
still, the Scottish Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh
and Glasgow (now combined to give one ‘Triple Qualification’)
have decided without a division to throw open all their examinations
to women. I am exceedingly surprised, for though I heard an
application had been made, I thought there was little hope of success,
and took no trouble about it. However, so it is, and I hope to have
classes opened in the Extra-Mural School (and perhaps in connection
with St. Andrews) next winter. Somebody has left St. Andrews
(subject to a life interest) a legacy of £50,000 on condition of admitting
women. So you see all round ‘Pigs is looking up.’
Mrs. Russel was here for a few days a fortnight ago, and is as
nice as ever.”
.pm end_quote
This great advance gave a fresh impetus and point to the
publication of Medical Women,[151] which was duly achieved a
.bn 521.png
.pn +1
few months later. It called forth a great sheaf of congratulatory
letters from those who remembered the old days.
.fn 151
Medical Women, by Sophia Jex-Blake, M.D. Oliphant, Anderson &
Ferrier. The book has long been out of print, but, as a storehouse of
facts, it is largely drawn upon by all writers on the subject, including the
author of the present volume.
.fn-
.pm start_quote
“Of course,” wrote Dr. King Chambers, “future generations will
think it necessary to season your arguments with the traditionary
grain of salt; but the facts are so clearly and calmly stated that
they will be accepted absolutely. As to the character of the movement
itself, the future must give it.”
“I am glad I was always a steady, if humble, adherent to the side
of justice before its cause was popular,” wrote Professor Charteris.
“I hope that you will long and increasingly enjoy the position that
you had such a hard fight to win. You got all the buffets for many
a day.”
.pm end_quote
And Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell:
.pm start_quote
“I am sorry that we have lost you from London. We much
need that combination of unselfish activity and wise combination
of practical qualities which we find in no other of the leaders of the
movement.”
“What a change,” says Dr. Heron Watson, “has come over the
spirit of the Medical Corporation since the story of your efforts in
the cause first appeared.”
.pm end_quote
And this—finally—is from a generous letter from the Revd.
William Pechey:
.pm start_quote
“If Edith is entitled to the praise of having borne, as you say,
‘an excellent part’ in the movement you narrate, she would, I
am sure, be the first to join me in saying that you alone can fairly
say: ‘Quorum maxima pars fui.’”
.pm end_quote
But the mention of Dr. Pechey’s name reminds one of a
delightful letter she forwarded from her little friend Rukhmabai
(now Dr. Rukhmabai) who, needless to say, was not one of
those who remembered the old days.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Girgaum,
“23rd June, 1886.
.nf-
.ll
My dear Miss Pechey,
.ti 6
I herewith return ... one of your books (The Roman Singer),
with many thanks. I looked it all over just enough to know the
purport of the story, which I found contains nothing but mere love
matters.
I shall return the other book (Medical Women) in a few days. It
is so very interesting to me that I don’t like to drop a single word
of it while reading. It gives me a great comfort as I see the truth
won the victory at last, though you had to suffer so much even in
.bn 522.png
.pn +1
a country like Europe. I would never have believed if some common
person were to tell me, that the people there were so against to
allow women to study medicine....
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours affectionately,
Rukhmabai.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
S. J.-B. was interested too at this time in the development
of a volume for the publication of which she had been responsible
in the first instance,—that most useful gazetteer, The
Englishwoman’s Year Book,—the success of which has
unhappily never been comparable to its merits: and she
continued to advise and help the first editor, her friend,
Miss Louisa Hubbard.
In 1886 she was asked to deliver one of a series of Health
Lectures in Edinburgh, and of course she consented gladly,—her
special lecture being addressed to women only. The
lectures were free, and the lecturers unpaid.
When arrangements were far advanced, she found that the
Committee proposed to charge one shilling for admittance to
her lecture, and she promptly rebelled. She wanted all her
Dispensary patients and all their friends to come and hear
what she had to say, and the charge seemed to her to do away
with more than half the good of her lecture. It was represented
to her that a charge was also to be made for the corresponding
lecture to men only, but she did not consider the
cases identical. In any case the men’s lecture was no affair
of her’s.
Mrs. Trayner (afterwards Lady Trayner) was an important
person on that committee, and she and Lord Trayner had a
great respect and cordial regard for S. J.-B. They understood
her, and they wanted other people to understand her
too. They were most anxious that she should waive her
objection to the shilling charge, partly and especially because
she was coöperating in the matter of the Health Lectures with
men doctors, and they—the Trayners—wanted her to show
herself gracious and conciliatory.
S. J.-B.’s reply to Mrs. Trayner’s letter is characteristic of
her attitude at that time:
.pm start_quote
“Pray thank Lord Trayner warmly for his kind interest in me
and the medical women generally. I think, however, that he
.bn 523.png
.pn +1
somewhat over-estimates the importance of what the men doctors
may think one way or the other. You and he will remember that
all that we have gained has been gained in the teeth of nearly all of
them, and if they have failed to hinder me hitherto, they are certainly
powerless to hurt me now.... I am willing enough to shake hands
with them if they wish it, but you must remember that it is I and
not they who have the old sores to forgive....
I am sure you will understand that I say this merely because I
want you to understand that my position is probably one of the
most independent in Edinburgh,—I want nothing from anybody
and I fear nothing from anybody. I mean to do in this, and larger
matters, what seems to me right, to the best of my lights, and I
have long ago learned while doing so to leave consequences to take
care of themselves.
With hearty thanks for your kindness, believe me,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
S. Jex-Blake.
.nf-
.ll
Pray excuse this hasty line, written at the end of a long day’s
work.”
.pm end_quote
If this seems written in an ungracious and reprehensible
spirit, the reader must bear in mind the fire the writer had
come through. And after all what is it but a somewhat
pagan rendering of St. Paul’s “From henceforth let no man
trouble me....”
In any case the Trayners were not of the kind to take
offence. Their interest in S. J.-B. and her work remained
unbroken. Lady Trayner visited the Dispensary more than
once and took on as a regular pensioner a brave old patient
with a disfigured face, who appealed to her sympathies more
than most.
The lecture was free, and proved a great success.
.pm start_quote
“You will like to know,” writes S. J.-B. to Miss Irby, “that my
lecture went off very well, the hall (which holds nearly 2000) was
crammed to the doors and stairways, and I lectured from slight
notes, much better, Ursula says, than if I had read a lecture.
I have already had 4 new patients in consequence.”
.pm end_quote
It now remained for women to avail themselves de facto
of their admission de jure to the Royal Colleges. “I trust,”
wrote S. J.-B. in a letter to the Times, announcing the fresh
step gained, “I trust that classes will now within a few
.bn 524.png
.pn +1
months be re-opened in Edinburgh. With a view to definite
arrangements for the ensuing winter session, I shall be very
glad to receive the names of any ladies desiring to study in
Scotland.” A few days later she wrote to the secretary of
the Extra-Mural School, who happened to be an old ally.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Bruntsfield Lodge,
March 17. \[1886].
.nf-
.ll
Dear Dr. Macadam,
.ti 6
I have already had nearly a dozen letters from ladies wishing
to study Medicine in Scotland, so it is clear that the demand is real
and considerable.
Can you give me any printed statement about the classes, etc., in
the Extra Mural School?... Of course I know that if separate
classes were required much greater expense must be involved, but
I sincerely hope that most of the lecturers may be willing to admit
women in the ordinary way. If so, I believe that a considerable
number would join the classes next winter. If you would kindly
let me have a list of the Lecturers, and would tell me when the next
meeting is to be, I might (if you thought it desirable) see some of
them before the meeting. I wish very much that the matter could
be favourably decided next month, as this would give us time to
make arrangements, and get up a good class, etc.
Would it not be well for you before the meeting to get an official
letter from the Registrar of the Irish College of Surgeons stating
that women are admitted to all the ordinary classes (except Practical
Anatomy) at Dublin?
To turn to another subject,—can you tell me the chemical nature
of the fluid contained in “Fire-Extinguishing Grenades,” etc. Are
they really reliable?
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours very truly,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
It is clear from this that she had not the smallest intention
nor wish to found a separate School of Medicine for Women;
but her hopes as regarded the lecturers were doomed to disappointment.
On the whole they showed themselves enlightened
and helpful, but they declined to admit women to
their ordinary classes.
They were quite willing—some of them—to lecture to
women separately, but one could not expect first-rate men
in rising practice to devote an hour or more of precious time
daily without more adequate remuneration than the fees of
.bn 525.png
.pn +1
the first handful of women students were likely to represent.
There must, of course, be a sufficient guarantee to make the
undertaking worth their while, and the students were assuredly
not in a position to provide that guarantee; so S. J.-B. made
herself responsible for it at once.
For the first year the women attended separate lectures at
one of the men’s schools, but it soon became obvious that
separate premises, in which students could study and dissect,
and change their dress, and generally make themselves at
home, were, if not absolutely necessary, at least highly
desirable.
Now it happened that, in the days of the old struggle, in
a moment perhaps when hope ran high, S. J.-B., Miss Louisa
Stevenson and Miss Du Pre had bought the famous old
premises in Surgeon Square, which had been a medical school
for generations. Here Robert Knox had lectured to his
students, and the place had thrilling and sinister associations
with Burke and Hare. When all hope of education in Edinburgh
seemed finally blighted, these premises had been let
to various tenants, but S. J.-B. had never lost sight of the
possibility that they might some day be used again for their
original purpose.
So now the old place was repaired and cleaned and painted
and heated,—under the personal supervision of S. J.-B. and
one or two friends, at small cost as regards money, but with
lavish expenditure of brains and good will.
It was necessary, too, that hospital instruction should be
provided, and to this end, S. J.-B. approached the authorities
at Leith.
.pm start_quote
“The very large number of students at the Edinburgh Infirmary,”
she wrote to Dr. Struthers, “make it almost impossible that women
should there get opportunities of study, and (as there is no other
suitable hospital of sufficient size in Edinburgh) I am anxious to
ascertain whether the Directors of the Leith Hospital would entertain
the idea of admitting them to opportunities of clinical study
in their wards.
If so, I should be glad to make any arrangement as to fees
that may be desired by the Directors; or if they preferred it
would at once guarantee fees to the amount of 200 guineas
yearly.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 526.png
.pn +1
Her application was warmly supported by Mr. R. Somerville,
and others of the Directors, and after a long series of letters
and interviews, the negotiation was completed.
.pm start_quote
“Every night I am quite as tired as is safe,” she wrote to Miss
Irby, who had begged for a postcard, “and yet every day I have
to omit half a dozen things that cry out to be done. However I
do not mean to break down again, so I simply do what I can and
leave the rest.”
.pm end_quote
Little by little the School became more of a corporate thing.
A resident secretary was necessary, of course, so S. J.-B. hit
on a likely person[152] and trained her. Caretakers (man and
wife) were found to look after the premises. A library was
provided, and, as soon as might be, anatomical and Materia
Medica museums. No one who has not lived through the
founding of a medical school can form the faintest idea how
much it means. S. J.-B. had been over the ground before,
and may be supposed to have realized what she was undertaking.
.fn 152
S. J.-B. never had a more loyal and devoted helper than the first
secretary of the School, Miss Janet Black.
.fn-
She had Dr. Balfour’s help from the first, and a tower of
strength he proved: by degrees a committee was formed:
but from first to last the responsibility rested to all intents
and purposes on her shoulders.
The position, too, on which the whole thing rested was
curious. The School was not recognized as such. Each
lecturer was recognized individually. At any moment any
lecturer in the Extra-Mural School was free to open a rival
class and cut the ground from under S. J.-B.’s feet.
The new venture, moreover, had all the disadvantages
inherent in a new creation. It had no senior students, none
even, at first, who had gone through the wholesome discipline
of the modern High School: it had no tradition. By the
sheer necessities of the case, S. J.-B. was compelled to be
senior student,—to be tradition.
For ten or more years the School did excellent work, but
the instability of its foundation proved too great. Whether
the “lion-hearted”[153] pioneer, with her extraordinary bent
.bn 527.png
.pn +1
for arranging detail, could in any case have made a success
of the venture, under such difficult conditions, when the
heroic days of initiation were over, it is impossible to say.
The reader will not need to be told—S. J.-B.’s bitterest
opponent never denied—that she put into the venture
infinitely more labour and sympathy and affection and brains
than she need have done,—and there were those among the
students who came near to appreciating these qualities as
they deserved. But of course there were others—as at
Mannheim of old—with whom a cheaper personality would
better have served the turn.
.fn 153
The adjective is applied to her by Charles Reade in The Woman Hater.
.fn-
For a year or two everyone was happy and contented,
and then the crash of temperaments came. There is no
need to tell the story in detail. Some of those concerned
were young, and some were foolish, and there are some
concerning whom one’s lips are sealed. The original
difficulty was complicated by side issues that never could
be fully threshed out. The actual story seems interminable,
and sometimes insignificant enough, but the principle
underlying it is of the real essence of tragedy. Enough
to say that at the end of a year or two, S. J.-B. found
herself confronted with a form of opposition which no one
in authority would cheerfully have gone to meet,—a form of
opposition peculiarly trying to one of her temperament.
Supreme tact might have weathered the storm,—and it must
always be remembered that, on many occasions in life, in
this connection and in others,—she evidenced a tact that was
all but supreme. In any case she failed here. Opposition
classes were started in due course on a cheaper basis, classes
in which the central controlling power was purely nominal.
There was endless propaganda; some sort of organization
was got together: everybody who had a grudge against
S. J.-B. remembered it now; her faults, mistakes and
deficiencies—particularly her want of enthusiasm for missions—came
back relentlessly upon her head: and she found
herself (as Thring has said of “every consistent worker on
principle”), “put in the position of opposing what she had
always worked for, and her opponents posing as the workers.”
Professor Masson and Miss Louisa Stevenson, both of whom had
.bn 528.png
.pn +1
considered the founding of a Scottish School at this moment
premature, wrote to her in grim amusement at some of the
names which now appeared in support of the cause.
Let it be conceded for all the concession is worth, that in
a sense S. J.-B. brought the difficulty upon herself. Once
again something was required of her which a smaller person
could have given, but which she could not give. The tragic
element lay in this that she never saw where she was at
fault. She was conscious of an honest purpose and of unwearying
unselfish endeavour. What more could one ask? So
many people succeed who give much less than this! She even
yielded on a good many points—when yielding was too late.
What strikes one most on looking back is the extraordinary
loyalty with which most of the students rallied round her
when the split came.
When one of the lecturers (who had striven, like so many
others, to make “even a slight alteration” in her) congratulated
her on the “brains” she had retained in the School, she
responded characteristically:
“And the heart.”
“And the heart,” he agreed.
Some of the lecturers were even finer. “The terms you
name are quite satisfactory,” wrote Dr. Aitken when things
were at quite their worst, and S. J.-B. could no longer guarantee
an adequate emolument. “I would take your students
without fee of any kind before I would see you beat, so you
need not let the matter give you any concern.”
And Dr. (now Professor) A. J. Thomson, when he heard
she was leaving Edinburgh, wrote:
.pm start_quote
“I have always felt, if I may dare to say so, that your part has
been like that of a general who won a great battle and then rode
away, leaving the achievement with the ungrateful. Happily you
know how many of us are neither ungrateful nor ignorant.”
.pm end_quote
But finest of all was the effect on S. J.-B. herself. She
fought on, of course,—that was in the nature of her,—and
loyal supporters were many;[154] but, although the long
.bn 529.png
.pn +1
struggle to keep the better School going,—to get it improved,
endowed, affiliated to the University of St. Andrews,—absolutely
wore her out, she never became embittered and
she never really lost her buoyancy. When Queen Margaret
College opened a medical side in 1890, one might have thought
it was the last straw, especially as it meant the removal of
eight of her students whose homes were in or near Glasgow,
but in this case her loss meant the progress of the cause, and
she rejoiced in it wholeheartedly. It was delightful to see
the happy terms on which she and Miss Galloway worked
in sympathy until and beyond the final closing of the Edinburgh
School.
.fn 154
The Marquis of Bute and Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff (Under Secretary
for Scotland) are among the best-known names in the company of those
who did their best to help her.
.fn-
So she always retained her gallant front. If she thought
sometimes of “that weary School” she never spoke so: she
always saw in it the ideal of what it was going to be. Success
was always just round the corner so to speak, all but within
reach; but success, in the form in which she looked for it,
never came.
Success there was, of course, “not its semblance, but itself.”
Honest work always means success. The brief life of that
School was the seed-time of much fine work that would otherwise
never have been done. Its students have acquitted
themselves nobly in many parts of the world. And on the
principle that “he who watereth shall himself be watered,”
it did much for S. J.-B. It gave her a little band of juniors
who in some measure understood her, who responded to her
ideals, who were proud to assist her and to reckon themselves
her disciples. The interest she took in them individually was
amazing. No trouble was too great that would forward their
interests in any way. As the years went on, she seemed to
forget herself altogether in their successes. She lived anew
in their lives. Her whole nature grew and mellowed, though
it could not change. And one is glad to record that never
again to the end of life did she suffer the weeks and months
of loneliness that had darkened the early days of her professional
career.
.bn 530.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap3.5
CHAPTER V | RE-OPENING OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY TO WOMEN
.sp 2
It seemed better in the previous chapter to explain at once
that, after a brief run of prosperity, the history of the Edinburgh
School of Medicine for Women was chequered by a
long fight against heavy odds; but no one who visited the
stirring bee-hive at Surgeon Square would have guessed at
the struggle that underlay its cheerful aspect. And, fortunately,
there were many strands in S. J.-B.’s life besides
the struggle for her School. In a doctor’s experience there
must always be much to interest and cheer, and S. J.-B.’s
range was wider than that of the ordinary doctor. Editors
were no less glad of her work than of old. In the autumn
of 1887, she wrote to the Editor of the Nineteenth Century,
offering him a paper on Medical Women which should supplement
the one contributed by Mr. Stansfeld ten years before.
Mr. Knowles replied immediately that he would be delighted to
receive such a paper from her, and “the sooner the better.”
The article duly appeared in November of that year.
At her little hospital she had a series of residents, some
from the London School and some from her own, whom one
can fairly describe as picked women,—keen and competent
and loyal; and she enjoyed and appreciated these as they
deserved. More and more, too, people sought her opinion
and advice on every subject of real human interest. One
doctor—a complete stranger—even wrote from far wilds to
ask whether there was any lady studying in her School who
she thought was likely to make him a suitable wife. He
was coming home, but his leave was short, and he would be
.bn 531.png
.pn +1
glad if she would save time by paving the way for him as far
as possible. I am afraid the students never even heard of
this opportunity!
How far she was from discouraging a true marriage may
be gathered from the following letter to one of her former
residents for whom she had designs in the way of more
ambitious work, and who wrote in some trepidation to confess
that she was engaged to be married:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“May 30, 1895.
.ll
Dear Miss ——,
.ti 6
I was very glad to get your letter of March 10th, and very
much interested in all your news. I may set your mind at rest by
saying at once that I am not going to scold you about your engagement.
I hold most strongly that ‘Love should still be Lord of all,’
and that if two good people love each other heartily in the right way,
they ought to marry under almost all circumstances. I don’t
believe in vows of celibacy for medical women any more than for
any one else. Women are women before they are doctors.
At the same time I am afraid you are rather sanguine in hoping
that you will be of more use in your profession married than single.
It is not the husbands that are the obstacles to practice, but the
babies. If a woman becomes a mother, I certainly think nothing
outside her home can have, or ought to have, so much claim upon
her as her children.
However I think it constantly happens that we plan out one kind
of life for ourselves, and then that another is shaped out for us, and
we must believe, if we believe in a God at all, that the wisdom that
decides for us is greater than our own.
So long as we act up to our highest light, I think we need not
trouble ourselves about results....
With all good wishes, believe me,
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
That this was no new attitude on her part we learn from a
letter written many years before to Miss Bertha Cordery.
“You are quite right in thinking that I do not by any means
as a matter of course congratulate people on their marriage,
but when you say that ‘having met, no other result was
possible,’ I think you express the essence of a good marriage
with the terseness worthy of the distinguished historian.[155]”
.fn 155
The “distinguished historian” of course refers to Miss Cordery
herself.
.fn-
.bn 532.png
.pn +1
This seems the best place to say one word about the special
interest S. J.-B. took in her Hindu students. The first of
these, Annie Jagannadham, was a young woman of such fine
and finished character that her early death, soon after her
return to her native land, was a matter for infinite regret,
but scarcely for surprise. When she qualified as a doctor,
S. J.-B. wrote to the Spectator to point out the desirability
of sending back Hindu women educated in England to minister
to their own countrywomen; and her letter called forth a
gratifying response from Mr. James Cropper of Ellergreen
(who had been interested in S. J.-B.’s first application to the
University of Edinburgh many years before) offering to found
a scholarship for Hindu women at her school. This was
accordingly done, and a series of Hindu students was the
result. Differing from each other in many respects, they
were alike in one thing, and that was a real gift for understanding
and appreciating their Dean. They seemed to find
the Mother side of her by a sort of instinct.
.pm start_quote
“I cannot tell you,” wrote one who had failed in an examination
abroad, “how much your kind letter comforted me. When I was
happy I wrote to other people; but when I was in distress I wrote
to you and was soothed, for failure did not seem so hard when you
were satisfied with my work.”
.pm end_quote
When Rukhmabai came to Edinburgh for her Final Professional
Examination, she was S. J.-B.’s guest, and a strong
mutual admiration and friendship was the result.
.tb
In accepting the chairmanship of the School, Dr. Balfour
had made it almost a stipulation that S. J.-B. should personally
undertake the teaching of Midwifery, and, in consequence of
this, she was the first woman to be recognized as a lecturer
in the Extra-Mural School. As a matter of fact, her special
technical training was necessarily out of date. Dr. Balfour
probably looked upon Midwifery mainly as a subject that
successful physicians leave behind them, and did not realize
that greater strides had been made in the teaching of this
subject than in any other. However, S. J.-B. was a born
teacher, as we know: she worked hard: and she had the
able coöperation of the late Dr. Milne Murray, whose attitude
.bn 533.png
.pn +1
towards her in this connection was one more of the splendid
loyalties bound up in the story of her life.
And one cannot talk of loyalty without recalling a characteristic
letter from Dr. Pechey, written when she received the
news of S. J.-B.’s appointment:
.pm start_quote
.pm start_poem
“Hip Hip Hooray!!
Hip Hip Hooray!!!
Hip Hip Hooray!!!!!
.pm end_poem
In the very place where we were stoned and beaten 18 years ago.
Well, I am glad to have lived to see the day. Just when your paper
came, I was feeling life a burden.
Do you think they would let me lecture on something—Shakespeare
or the musical glasses—when I come home if ever I do. When
you want an assistant let me know.
I don’t know when I have felt so pleased and elated and especially
that it should happen to you, it is so appropriate. Isn’t Mrs. Thorne
very pleased and everybody else?...
Dear Sophy, I am so pleased, more than if some one had left me
a million of money, though I do have to look hard at every anna
now before letting it go!”
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
“Thanks for your very hearty congratulations,” S. J.-B. wrote in
reply,—“... Selfishly, I regret it very much, for I have no idea
how to find either the time or the strength (or knowledge) for the
course, but I suppose I must just do the best I can.
Of course if you were here you could have the pick of the lecturerships
in the School, and after one precedent, they couldn’t refuse
to recognize you: but the pay would hardly keep your Highness
in hairpins.”
.pm end_quote
The idea of having her old friend in Edinburgh dwelt in
her mind nevertheless, and some time later—in May 1890—she
wrote:
.pm start_quote
“By the bye if you do decide to leave India next year, and if it
could possibly be made to fit in with Mr. Phipson’s plans,[156] I wish
with all my heart that you could see your way to come and settle
in Edinburgh, and take up with your splendid energy the very wide
field in Scotland that is almost ripe to harvest. My strength is
about spent, and besides you have elements of social success that
I never should have. You are far more of a woman of the world
and a far more able diplomatist. My Hospital will never develop
in my tired hands, but I believe you might make a splendid thing
of it; and at the same time I believe you would have a capital
.bn 534.png
.pn +1
west-end practice almost immediately, and of course a lectureship
if you cared to have it. Think this idea over thoroughly before
you decide against it.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.fn 156
Dr. Edith Pechey had married Mr. H. M. Phipson of Bombay.
.fn-
The feeling that her time of work was drawing to an end
was intensified by the news of the death of her friend, Dr.
Lucy Sewall. This was the last heavy bereavement she had
to face, and she took it hard. To her friend, Mrs. Brander,
her “eldest daughter,” she had written a month or two before
the above correspondence with Dr. Pechey:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Feb. 27. 1890.
.nf-
.ll
Dearest Bel,
.ti 6
For the second time I have to send you terribly bad news.
My dear friend, Dr. Sewall, has been as you know in bad health
for the last 4 or 5 years, and last month she was seized with a very
severe attack of bronchitis, from which she never regained strength,
and she passed away ‘very peacefully’ on Feb. 13th.
Though I have seen so little of her for some years back, it is a
great blow to me,—the greatest I have felt since 1881.
How I hope that she is again with the mother and father she
loved so very dearly. Indeed she has never really rallied, I believe,
from her father’s death (at 90) a year ago.
A whiter sweeter soul never lived, and her memory ‘smells sweet
and blossoms in the dust.’
I cannot write more today, but I could not let you hear it from
anyone else.
I hope you got the little book I sent you at Christmas. I could
not write but it carried much affection to you.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours affectionately,
S. J.-B.”
.nf-
.pm end_quote
For the Englishwoman’s Review she wrote an account of
this “strong and gentle soul,” quoting the lines Whittier had
written about her ancestor. “I enclose the whole verse
about Judge Sewall,” she says to the Editor, “in case you
have room for it. It might almost word for word have been
written of his far-away descendant.
.pm start_poem
‘Walks the Judge of the Great Assize,
Samuel Sewall, the good and wise.
His face with lines of firmness wrought,
He wears the look of a man unbought,
.bn 535.png
.pn +1
Who swears to his hurt and changes not;
Yet touched and softened nevertheless
With the grace of Christian gentleness,
The face that a child would climb to kiss!
True and tender and brave and just,
That man might honour and woman trust.’”
.pm end_poem
S. J.-B.’s hands might be tired, but the eye on the bridge
was as keen as ever. She had been aiming from the first at
some sort of reinforcement from St. Andrews, and in 1888
Lord Lothian’s Bill had seemed to open a new door of hope.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“May 10th. \[1888.]
.ll
Dear Mr. Stansfeld,
.ti 6
The Bill of which I wrote is the ‘Universities (Scotland) Bill,’
which has been introduced in the House of Lords by Lord Lothian.
I believe it has not yet come down to your House, but I am very
anxious, when it does so, that attention should be directed to the
clauses about women and about ‘affiliation of Colleges,’ which
latter might solve our problem, e.g. if our Edinburgh School were
affiliated to St. Andrews.
I shall be most grateful if you will talk about it beforehand with
members likely to be interested, and if possible speak on it also.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours always gratefully,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The previous day she had written,
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“May 9th.
.ll
Dear Lord Aberdare,
.ti 6
I am extremely obliged for your very kind letter, and shall
be most grateful if you can make Lord Lothian’s acquaintance,
interest him in our subject, and introduce me to him. I am very
anxious to secure his favourable attention, and that of the Commission,
and I am sure that your introduction would give me the best possible
chance. I am most anxious not to lose the present opportunity to
bring our needs to the front.
.ll 68
.nf r
With renewed thanks,
Yours very truly,
S. Jex-Blake.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
When the Bill was passed and Commissioners appointed,
she laid before them a memorial in support of the desired
aims, and in June 1891 she was summoned to give evidence
in person. On June 28th she wrote to Miss Du Pre:
.pm start_quote
“I had to appear before the University Commissioners last Wednesday,
and if possible I will send you a proof of my examination. It
.bn 536.png
.pn +1
was very satisfactory, as the Chairman (Lord Kinnear) said they
were satisfied that it was desirable and necessary to give medical
degrees to women in Scotland.”
.pm end_quote
To another friend she had written a week earlier,
.pm start_quote
“By the bye you will like to see the enclosed proof of my evidence
last week before the Universities Commission. Miss E.-L. made
me tell my class about it next day, and they clapped warmly; and
then, after the lecture, as I was going out, they gave me another
round. I stopped and said,—‘Oh, is that for Univ. Commission?’
‘For you, Doctor!’ shouted Miss Moorhead.”
.pm end_quote
The whole matter, as is usual with such things, ran a
leisurely course, for on April 27th, 1892, she writes again,
.pm start_quote
“... I had one very amusing experience on Monday. The
Scottish Universities Commission has been issuing some ‘Ordinances’
to which serious objections are taken, and among others a flaw has
been found in the Women’s Ordinance, which we want to have
remedied. All the objecting bodies were to meet together, so Dr.
Balfour and I were summoned by enclosed solemn document to
appear to represent our School, and it was amusing to find myself
an invited delegate, at whose entrance the Chairman rose and came
forward with outstretched hand, in the awful University Court
Room, where our case had over and over again been tried by a
hostile authority, and lost, without an opportunity for a word in
our own defence.
Sir Robert Christison looked down from the wall, and it made
me almost chuckle to think what he would have said!
Sic transit! How the world moves!
I have just heard this morning of a legacy of £100 for our Hospital,
and probably something for the School though (from vague wording)
that is less certain.”
.pm end_quote
At this time the great hope—as so often in the past—lay
in the direction of the University of St. Andrews, but the
hope proved illusory once more. In reading the history, one
feels again and again as if St. Andrews University had been
surrounded by some strange magic circle, for it happened on
numberless occasions that when everything seemed settled,
and every difficulty had been laboriously overcome, some
unsuspected link in the chain gave way, and endless exertion
was rendered null and void. So it seems to have happened
now, for in June 1894 we find S. J.-B. writing again to Miss
Du Pre:
.bn 537.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
“I have been desperately busy this week, chiefly at the University
or with University people, as circumstances have led to my very
suddenly applying to have our School recognized by the [Edinburgh]
University Court, which really seems possible, Calderwood and
Watson both being members of it. The story is a long one, arising
out of complications at St. Andrews.
I enclose a copy of my Memorial,—please return it. It comes
up tomorrow before the Court.
Watson said so very kindly that he hoped it would pass, if only
that I might have rest from my long labours,—wasn’t it sweet of
him? A quarter of a century is a long time!”
.pm end_quote
So the old warrior gathered herself together once more and
made a last appeal to the University Court of her own Alma
Mater to grant to other women the privilege that could never
now be her own. She reminded them that in 1869 the same
Court had conceded the principle of admitting women to
graduation in medicine, that that principle had never been
disallowed by them, and that the problem of its practical
accomplishment had been under the consideration of the
Court ever since.
It cannot be said that hope ran high even now. It had
always been a saying among Scottish students that Edinburgh
would be the last stronghold to yield; but the tide everywhere
was on the turn. After full consideration of the
subject, the Court rose nobly to the spirit of the resolution
passed by their predecessors in 1869, and in October 1894
made public their determination to admit women forthwith
to graduation in
.tb
The National Association for Promoting the Medical
Education of Women, which had done such excellent service
after its foundation in 1871, had for some years ceased to
exist; “At the present time many of its members had
passed away, and others were widely scattered, but it seemed
desirable to those women who had always been members
of it, and who were still resident in Edinburgh, that some
congratulation should be offered by them to Dr. Jex-Blake,
for the great victory that had been achieved by her in the
opening of the degrees of the University of Edinburgh to
women after a struggle extending over exactly five-and-twenty
.bn 538.png
.pn +1
years.”[157] So on Saturday, November 3rd, 1894, these honourable
women met together and presented the following address:
.pm start_quote
“We, the undersigned, women members of the original National
Association for the Medical Education of Women, resident at this
time in Edinburgh, desire to offer to you our warm and hearty
congratulations on the brilliant success you have achieved in securing
the opening of the Edinburgh University medical examinations and
degrees to women students. We know that it was largely due to
your great ability and knowledge that the enabling Bill of 1876
was passed, which put it into the power, if they so willed, of each
of the nineteen examining bodies of the United Kingdom to admit
women to qualifying examinations, and which was the foundation
of the success on which we congratulate you to-day. Many who
worked with and under you in the old days have passed away. We
who are left take this opportunity of expressing to you our appreciation
of the great sacrifice you have made of time, and strength, and
money, to win for younger women in their own country a complete
medical education crowned by a degree. To have done this in
Edinburgh we regard as a success of which you may be justly proud.
(Signed)—Elizabeth Pease Nichol, Anne H. Calderwood, Grant A.
Millar, Flora C. Stevenson, Ph[oe]be Blyth, Sarah E. Siddons Mair,
Emily Hodgson, Charlotte Geddes, Agnes Craig, Anne B. Foster,
Hannah Lorimer, M. G. Paton, Priscilla Bright M‘Laren, Elizabeth
Stuart Blackie, Elisa Carlile Stevenson, Mina Kunz, C. M. Charteris,
Margaret Wyld, Eliza Wigham, Jessie M. Wellstood, Euphemia
Millar, Eliza Scott Kirkland, Maggie A. Rose, Augusta G. Wyld,
Helen Brown, A. A. Skelton, C. M. Edington, A. Edington, Amelia
R. Hill, Mary Burton, Louisa Stevenson.—9th October, 1894.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 157
The quotation is from Miss Louisa Stevenson’s speech in presenting
the address.
.fn-
Before leaving the subject of S. J.-B.’s active life in Edinburgh,
it may be well to sum up some of her main characteristics
as a doctor and as a citizen, though to a great extent
these have already become evident.
First, was her great deftness in any kind of manipulation.
It was interesting to see her outshine in this respect so many
of the trig and dainty women who at one time or another,
worked under her.
Second, was her readiness in emergency. The grass never
grew under her feet. It is on record that she had finished
some minor operation before her anaesthetist knew that she
.bn 539.png
.pn +1
had begun. An amusing instance of her readiness occurs in
a chance episode with her carriage-builder. It was not unusual
for her to have little rubs with this man. He and his
subordinates had difficulty in living up to her ideas of punctuality,
and no doubt they considered her a bit of a nuisance.
One day she called to remonstrate about something and
found “the Governor” in great distress from a splinter of
steel which had become imbedded in his eye.
“I’ll take it out for you,” she said, and, turning to the
men, added, “Bring a chair.”
The chair was placed by her direction in the best light
obtainable, i.e. on the gallery surrounding the carriage yard,
in full view of the men and horses below. She made the
patient sit down, and, standing behind him, produced a
surgical needle from her instrument case and with its curved
convex edge deftly removed the splinter.
It was all done in the twinkling of an eye. Very simple,
but very characteristic.
And it would have been awkward if she had failed.
Third, was her refusal to let a patient die. No doctor
wishes to lose a case, but with S. J.-B. it was a matter of
definite personal struggle.
One day in the comparatively early days of practice, she
came in very late to lunch, having been urgently detained
with a private patient. She was anxious about a case in
her little hospital—a surgical case which had developed
medical complications—and she sent a messenger down for
news.
.pm start_quote
“Just sinking,” was the pencilled reply from the resident.
—— and Dr. —— [the consultants] have been here, and have given
her up. We have ceased to worry her with food.”
.pm end_quote
“Ceased to worry her with food!” One saw the summer
lightnings on S. J.-B.’s forehead. “Tell Charles to bring the
brougham round immediately.” Within half an hour the
beef-tea was being administered by her own hand; and there
was no more talk of “not worrying the patient with food.”
She was worried until she not only rallied, but got her foot
on to the ladder of a slow and sure recovery, a recovery that
.bn 540.png
.pn +1
meant just everything to the husband and children who were
anxiously awaiting the mother’s return to the little home.
As a neighbour and citizen S. J.-B. had certain outstanding
qualités, which, with their corresponding défauts, have never
tended to make the possessor of them universally popular.
She considered it a public duty to uphold as far as lay in one
person’s power the general standard of proper behaviour and
efficiency in the community. She had no use for sluggards
and shirkers. “Here’s the Doctor,—mind yersel’!” a cabman
was heard to say when he and a gossiping mate had allowed
their vehicles to sprawl right across the highroad just as the
familiar pony-chaise came in sight. No postal service ever
deteriorated in her vicinity. If lesser officials failed to listen,
she appealed to the Postmaster-General, and she accomplished
many minor reforms by which her neighbours profited as
much as she did herself. Assuredly she was no grumbler,
but she considered that those who make it their aim to slip
smoothly through life, leaving to others all the irksome work
of protesting, are—to say the least—acting an unheroic part.
She agreed that all things come to him who waits,—and come
through the exertions of those who have not been content
merely to wait. The callow upstart official was apt to fare
badly at her hands, but if the official happened to be an
elderly woman at—say—some isolated country post office,
one saw S. J.-B. at her best. She would steer the way gently
and patiently through some simple transaction that seemed
involved enough in those wilds; and, if she was met by a
flash of interest and intelligence, her appreciation was great.
“Why we’ll make you Postmaster-General!” she has been
heard to say, leaving a beaming face behind her as she gathered
up the reins and drove away,—a visitant indeed from another
world.
.bn 541.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap3.6
CHAPTER VI | DRIVING TOURS. ANIMAL FRIENDS
.sp 4
All through the years of work and conflict, S. J.-B. had
looked forward to her “Sabbatical year,” when, with a clear
conscience, she could retire from active life, and share with
others the rest and seclusion she longed for. As early as
1892 she had written to a cousin in New Zealand about a
visit from her brother, who had been examining at Fettes:
.pm start_quote
“Today he is gone south again. His life at Wells must be very
quiet and restful after the hard work of Rugby.
I am beginning to think that I must soon wind up my work and
rest. I have worked about as hard as anybody could for more than
thirty years, and I think I have almost done my share. There are
young people coming up now to do the medical work,—we have
about 130 women on the British Register,—in 1865 when I began
to work there was only one!”
.pm end_quote
Some months later she seems to have written in the same
vein to the old aunt in Norfolk, for Mrs. Gunton replies in a
holograph letter of four beautifully-written pages:
.pm start_quote
“You must not talk of being tired with your occupation at present.
Consider what a chicken you are! On the 11th of November I
was 93.”
.pm end_quote
How difficult to find any ground of comparison between
those two lives, grown on the same stock, the one of 52 and
the other of 93!
.tb
The opening of the University degrees to women cleared
the ground a good deal, but there were still three great difficulties
in the way of retirement. The first was the Hospital.
.bn 542.png
.pn +1
S. J.-B. was aware, as she had written to Dr. Pechey that it
“never would develop in her tired hands,” but before passing it
over to her juniors, she was anxious to use her name and
influence for all they were worth in the way of raising money
to constitute a small endowment, and justify building, or at
least a removal to larger “The one thing that I
do long for still,” she wrote, “is to see a thoroughly good
Women’s Hospital officered by women established in Edinburgh.”
On the whole it was hard work. She wrote many letters
in vain, but, little by little, she gathered a few thousands:
and there were, as usual, some pleasant surprises by the way.
Her old friend, Mrs. Arthur, when asked for £100, promptly
responded with a cheque for £500, and some of those who gave
little gave with a few words of gratitude and appreciation that
lifted the gift quite out of the region of shillings and pounds.
A greater obstacle, perhaps, than the Hospital was the sheer
difficulty of winding up and getting away. S. J.-B. had begun
life as an early Victorian girl with an exceptionally strong
hereditary tendency to store and treasure all sorts of things
great and small. Almost in the twinkling of an eye she
became a modern woman with a correspondence that ran to
dozens—sometimes hundreds—of letters in a day,—a modern
woman with no leisure at all for the always distasteful work
of weeding out and destroying. She was always giving, but
she never seemed to give away the things of which she would
be well rid. Moreover she always did things on a massive,
great-spirited scale. If a number of copies of any document
were wanted, it was better to get it printed,—and, if you were
getting it printed, it was safer and cheaper to get 500 or
1000 copies while the type was up. You never knew how
important that particular document might become. If any
article was nearly worn out, buy a new one by all means,—but
keep the old one too in case the new one should break
down.
And so it came about that in her roomy old house, with its
spacious attics and cellars, things were stored and stacked
and forgotten until their volume was almost incredible to
those who had not seen it.
.bn 543.png
.pn +1
And finally there was the great question where to settle.
She never lost her love for Edinburgh, and she was often
tempted to choose a house on the outskirts. On the other
hand, she had always dreamed of growing figs and peaches
on a sunny south wall in her beloved native county of Sussex:
and how was she to find just the right house in Sussex? So
the time slipped away, and she had one illness after another,
and it often seemed to those nearest her as if the Sabbatical
year would be spent on the other Side of the River.
She took holidays more and more frequently, however, and
rejoiced increasingly in the work of those who took her place.
“My daughters,” “my girls,” “my young doctors,”—how
proudly she used to say it! Her face the day five of them
were “capped” at the University was a thing to be seen.
And if she was an absolutely un-self-sparing worker, she
knew better than most how to make holiday; indeed her
holidays were as characteristic as everything else she did and
was. She hated publicity, hated the noise and bustle of trains,
so a driving-tour was her ideal of happiness and refreshment.
Her chaise had been specially built for the purpose, with
space in front of the dash-board to accommodate two small
valises, abundant room under the seats, and other incidental
conveniences that one only discovered by degrees. Little by
little she had made a fine art of her preparations. The list
of compact necessaries was always at hand, and the so-called
“work-box” alone contained in a condensed form resources
for emergencies of all descriptions. The groom had his own
kit behind, and woe betide him if his tools were not at hand
when a shoe came loose or a nut needed screwing up.
The strain of packing was apt to be considerable for everyone
concerned, and it lasted for the first mile or two of the
journey. Then gradually it melted away. She would draw
a deep breath and give herself up to the delightful sense of
freedom. “Oh, isn’t it good to be away!” “It seemed
yesterday as if we never should get off.”
She always elected to go for the first night or two, if possible,
to an inn she knew. She asked so little, but it had to be
just the particular little that she wanted. No “much” could
take the place of that.
.bn 544.png
.pn +1
“Thank you, that is very nice,” she would say breezily,
after surveying the rooms in some unknown inn where she
hoped to stay for more than a night. “Now will you open
the windows, and give us both some more towels and one or
two little tables, and take away the ornaments in the sitting-room.
We want room for our books.”
Sometimes the people were aghast, but much, much more
often they entered into the spirit of the thing and gave her
just what she wanted. She had a great knack of carrying
them with her. She was so easy-going in most ways, “because
of course,” as she used to explain, “one is not responsible
for inn servants as one is for one’s own.” And some few
inns became to her a real haven of refuge,—Rumbling Bridge,
under old Mrs. Macara; Fortingal, in the old days, under
Mr. and Mrs. Menzies; and—above all latterly—(under Mrs.
Beattie), her beloved Gordon Arms at Yarrow where she and
Miss Du Pre had perforce taken refuge one day in a storm,
little thinking what a sanctuary it was often to prove.
.pm start_quote
“Yarrow, with all its snows and storms, has answered splendidly
for both of us,” she writes to Miss Du Pre in April 1896, “and we
shall return on Saturday much refreshed and strengthened. I have
been walking a good deal as well as driving. There seems something
specially restful about this country,—and this inn is as good as old
Fortingal, in rather a different way.”
.pm end_quote
The showy inn where one got no real comforts and where
the cooking was bad, was of course the object of her special
detestation.
Many times she drove all over Perthshire; she went as
far north as Loch Maree, and, on one occasion at least, she
drove all the way from Brighton to Edinburgh arriving, by
the way, to find a patient on the door-step, and that patient
a dowager countess! As a rule the horse and chaise were
put on the train from Carlisle to Rugby.
And the woods and hills seemed the very home of her spirit.
More than anything else they brought the poetry to her lips,—Whittier’s
My Psalm very frequently in later years,—she did
so love those “robes of praise”—and his Autograph too,—
.pm start_poem
“Hater of din and riot,
He lived in days unquiet—”
.pm end_poem
.bn 545.png
.pn +1
.ti 0
But always most frequently of all, perhaps, Mrs. Browning’s
couplet,—
.pm start_poem
“The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its number,
And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a slumber.”
.pm end_poem
Of course there were hardships to be faced too,—as one
reckoned hardships in those days! Often the rain came
down in sheets when one was half way across a shelterless
mountain pass; or one drove unexpectedly into deeper and
deeper snow till it even happened that the groom had to
borrow a spade from a neighbouring cottage, and dig a way
out of the drift. Not infrequently night came on before a
suitable inn had been found,—for it is by no means every
country inn that has stabling,—let alone a lock-up coach-house,—and
one drove mile after mile with a tired horse and
diminishing hopes.
In all such minor emergencies the indomitable spirit rose
to meet the occasion. One well nigh forgot the ageing woman
and saw only the gallant-hearted boy. She loved driving
across a ford, though in some of the Highland rivers it is highly
desirable, if not necessary, to know the lie of the ground
beneath, and to choose just the right détour or zig-zag.
In the neighbourhood of Woking one day when the floods
were out, she stopped to ask the way, and was informed that
the route she proposed to take was under water and dangerous.
It would have been awkward to change plans at that stage,
so S. J.-B. drove on, though the water gradually rose above
the axles.
Presently a meek voice was heard from the groom behind.
“He said it was dangerous.” But S. J.-B. did not hear.
She was never foolhardy, but she did love the off-chance of
an adventure, and there would have been danger often if
her nerve had given way, or if she had not had a thorough
understanding with her horse. In the moment of emergency
one saw what excellent comrades they were. She knew how
to get the last ounce of pluck and endurance out of him in
case of need.
It was all made up to him when the strain was over! That
hot mash on reaching the inn was the first thing thought of,
.bn 546.png
.pn +1
and on a trying day there was always a snack of some sort
for the groom before the inn was reached, so that the thought
of his own supper might not bulk too largely in his general
view of life and duty.
She was the friend of all her horses, and was never happy
with one that failed to respond. Blinkers and bearing-reins
were an abomination to her. She even objected to brass,
and refused to use the smart be-crested harness that came to
her from her father’s stable.
Her first favourite was White Angel, a pony. Professor
Wilson had helped her to choose him for a driving-tour in
her student days. She hired him several times and finally
bought him. When she was at Berne for her degree, he lived
in her Mother’s stable at Brighton. “Angel and Turk send
their duty,” Mrs. Jex-Blake used to write. “Master Turk
says, ‘Very dull Christmas without Missis. He don’t think
much of Switzerland.’”
White Angel was badly named,—he was a lovable creature,
but far more of a sprite than an angel. There was never any
harm in his mischief, and she used to recount his pranks with
the greatest delight. Above all things he hated to be beaten.
Going up Corstorphine Hill, he would not allow even a pair
of horses to pass him. He would allow them to come close
up, and then he would throw up his heels and race to the
top as if the chaise had been a nut-shell. And she enjoyed
his spirit far too much to check him.
He continued this practice up to a period of life when most
creatures place comfort above such expensive luxuries; but
there came a time when he had to give in. Then, as he
heard younger hoofs gaining on him, he would turn his head
with great dignity and look the other way, refusing to see
that he was being outdone.
Very early in the days of practice, Blackbird came to
reinforce him, replacing a smarter, more troublesome horse
whom S. J.-B. passed on to Dr. Pechey: and on the whole
Blackbird was her dearest horse friend. He was such a
gentleman, so willing to coöperate with her, and if necessary
to exert himself only too much on those occasional long days
in the Highlands. She never could see that he was growing
.bn 547.png
.pn +1
old and ceasing to be a credit to her,—indeed she seldom
could see that of anything she had cared for. No flower
that had brightened her writing-table was allowed to spend
its last hour on an ash-heap. So Blackbird remained king of
the stable, doing an occasional easy job, till the remonstrances
of S. J.-B.’s friends prevailed against even that, and he was
lent to a farmer friend to fill an easy place in the country.
Everyone meant well and kindly, but the farmer lent him
after a time to a less soft-hearted dairyman, and one day
when S. J.-B. went out to visit her old friend, she found him
rheumatic and broken-kneed and lean. She said scarcely a
word, but asked to be left with him in the stable. She had
taken out a feed of beans, Blackbird’s special weakness, and
she gave him the feeding-bag herself,—then put her arms
round his neck and sobbed.
A day or two later Blackbird went to whatever place is
reserved for such good and faithful friends.
There was Austral, too, the favourite of her later years,—a
gentleman in every sense of the word,—his father and
mother both in the Australian stud-book. The father was
Oxford, the mother Uproarious, and the colt had been cleverly
named Undergraduate. It was S. J.-B. who changed his
name: she probably thought it inappropriate to a horse of
eight or nine years; and indeed it was a word that for her was
too full of associations.
No other animal came anywhere near horses in her estimation.
Cats she disliked. In the old student days she had
gone to see Miss Pechey at the home of the lady whose
children were fortunate enough to have her for their governess.
In the course of dinner, a spoiled and cherished family cat
leapt gently on to the table, coming between S. J.-B. and
the person to whom she was talking. Without stopping
to think, S. J.-B. put out her arm and brushed the cat on
to the floor.
When, some thirty years later, she was recalling how she had
wondered whether so pretty a girl as Miss Pechey could have
nerve enough to study medicine, and how she had been
informed by one who knew that the pretty girl was “calm as
an ox,” Mrs. Pechey Phipson grimly intervened,—“I assure
.bn 548.png
.pn +1
you I was anything but calm when you swept that cat on to
the floor!”
S. J.-B. laughed. And her laugh was a thing to hear,—especially
when the old jokes and the old stories were recalled,—a
hearty musical laugh that brought such wholesome tears to
her eyes, and that would not allow her face to set into really
tragic lines.
But there is something more to be said about her dislike
to cats. After lunch at Bruntsfield Lodge, it was her custom
to gather up the bits of bread that were left and take them
out to the lawn to feed the birds. She loved to see the
creatures flying towards her the moment she appeared, and
no cat was ever tolerated in the grounds.
One evening in early summer, when she came in from her
work to a high-walled garden all shimmering with promise, a
half-grown kitten stood in the way. “Shoo!” said S. J.-B.
“Go away! Who allowed that cat to be here?”
Everyone trembled,—except the little intruder. It looked
S. J.-B. full in the face, and held its ground.
Of course it was turned out, but a few days later she saw
it in the same place, leaping at a moth in the sunshine. And
that time nothing was said.
And a few days later still, when she had passed beyond the
garden into the house, the kitten walked forward to meet
her. This really was too much; but when she protested,
the kitten simply looked in her face and smiled.
So it was allowed to remain under due restrictions, until
one night S. J.-B. was awakened by a loud sneeze. She
struck a light, and there, on the shoulder of the sofa at the foot
of her bed, calmly reposing on a big woollen shawl, with its
eyes fixed on her in gentle protest against the open window,
was the kitten.
It was simply uncanny. Of course it was only a kitten,
but to S. J.-B. it was always more. “It must have known me
in a previous incarnation,” she said. So she called it Karma,
and before many days were over it was a favoured and
lovable member of the household, taking all sorts of liberties
in the most attractive way, and even lying unforbidden on
her lap. “Li’l cat!” she used to say affectionately.
.bn 549.png
.pn +1
There is one more animal friend worth recalling, though
pedigree and admirers he had none,—the Nameless Dog at
Bordighera.
S. J.-B. had gone to Bordighera in the winter of 1897-98
with a friend who had been ill, and greatly did she enjoy the
almost unfailing sunshine. She seldom made acquaintances
under such conditions, but two delightful Irish ladies proved
irresistible, and a pleasant partie carrée was the result. Every
day S. J.-B. used to walk with one or other of her friends
through the unlovely main street and sit for hours on the
rocks at the Cap, watching the waves tumbling about on
that fine bit of coast.
One day, in passing through the somewhat squalid town,
she was stopped by a brawl among a few dogs,—a poor half-starved
pariah was being set upon and robbed of some morsel
it had contrived to pick up. Never was a more unwholesome-looking
object than that dog,—with a coat utterly out of
condition,—wounds in every stage of refusal to heal,—and
an eye so mauled and battered that only a sanguine prognosis
could have associated it with the idea of any special function
in the future. The poor wretch showed no fight, but slunk
away as soon as its tormentors would let it go,—a pitiful
craven, utterly beaten in the struggle for life.
Next day it was seen again, slinking about in some bye-way,
afraid of everyone who came near. Of course S. J.-B. had
a crust in her pocket, and of course the dog got that crust,
in spite of rivals and in spite of its own groundless fears.
Next day it was looking out, and from that day the crust
never failed. Little by little the natural vitality of the
creature began to gain ground; he became something like
a dog, and able to hold his own. His wounds healed, and
he soon could forage a bit for himself; but he never forgot
to look out for S. J.-B., and he never refused her crust. He
began to walk with her to the Cap, and to lie at a respectful
distance till she was ready to go home.
One day when she was confined to the house, he appeared
on the steps of the hotel. The waiter of course gave him a
greeting that in former times would have driven him well on
the road to San Remo; but now he held his ground. “What
.bn 550.png
.pn +1
on earth does he want?” said the man. “Oh,” said one
of the others, “it’s Miss Blake’s dog.” At that moment
S. J.-B. came downstairs to déjeuner. She fetched him half
her roll from the dining-room, and the waiters might grumble
as they pleased.
From that time the dog formally constituted himself her
body-guard, and quite a creditable body-guard he was, with
two good keen eyes always on the look-out, and a coat worth
wearing. He had positively acquired a “presence.” He
waited for her every day at the hotel gate, and he walked
proudly in front of her to the Cap. No other dog dared to
come near. No beggar ventured to molest. The very
purveyors of inlaid jewellery had to keep their distance.
At last—just before she left the Riviera—the Nameless Dog
secured a large bit of strongly smelling fish. There would
have been a free fight for it in the early days, but no other
dog disputed his possession of it now. He can’t have been
overfed, poor fellow, even then; but he brought his coveted
trophy to S. J.-B. in triumph, and laid it at her feet.
I am afraid he missed her horribly, and of course she could
not explain to him and say Goodbye,—as no doubt she did
to Blackbird. But she left behind a creature able to stand
on his own legs, and show a brave face to the world: I am
not sure that she didn’t leave behind the germ of a soul.
And, while this little story is scrupulously true, it tells in a
humble parable many episodes in the life of S. J.-B. that were
known to very few.
.bn 551.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=chap3.7
CHAPTER VII | THE SABBATICAL YEAR
.sp 2
It was that winter at Bordighera that gave her strength and
energy for the final uprooting. The autumn of 1898-99 was
spent on a driving tour of 1100 miles through the S.E. counties
of England in search of a suitable house. She set about the
search in her usual business-like way,—pasting into a book
all the likely houses from the agents’ lists, rejecting at a
sweep all within ten miles of London, all above or below a
certain price and acreage, all that fell short of the desired
level above the sea, all that were in a town, or that advertised
their proximity to a railway station. The tour was
then planned to include as many as possible of those that
remained.
There were a few unusual disqualifications. One house
that attracted her belonged to the Rector of the parish, who
refused to let to a Roman Catholic or a dissenter, and, although
S. J.-B. was neither, she did not wish to be subjected to any
test. Another house—more strangely still—was only to be
let to someone who would carry on the evangelistic meetings
in an out-building. “What if I were to take the house and
preach Buddhism?” she said.
Finally she decided on the house which she afterwards
named Windydene, near the village of Mark Cross, on the
Forest Ridge of Sussex, some five or six miles south
of Tunbridge Wells. “It is neither a new or an old
house,” she wrote to her friend, Miss Keily,—“built probably
some 50 years ago,—very comfortable and airy, and
with pleasant garden and shrubberies, a good kitchen garden
.bn 552.png
.pn +1
(much neglected of late) and about 8 acres for pasture
and hay.”
Having put various negotiations and alterations in train,
she returned to Edinburgh for the final winding-up.
And there was much in those last months that lingered
pleasantly in her memory. In June 1898 the British Medical
Association had met in Edinburgh, and S. J.-B., like most
other doctors, had kept open house. Some thirty medical
women were present at the meeting, and, before it broke up,
Dr. Jane Walker organized a dinner under the presidency of
the old Edinburgh pioneer. Mrs. Garrett Anderson and
Mrs. Scharlieb were among the guests. As always, S. J.-B.
spoke very happily, and a number of those present got
for the first time something like a just impression of her
personality.
Early in 1899 a Farewell Reception was given in her honour
by the Committee of her Hospital, and some happy inspiration
made the occasion not only a social success, but a gathering
of unique interest. The majority of the large company were
in evening dress, but the Dispensary patients were encouraged
to look upon the Reception as their affair too, and they came
in what dress they had. Moreover, it was no mere “meeting,”
it was a real “party,” with refreshments galore in a side
room, and no compulsion to listen to more speeches than one
was in a mood for. The Marchioness of Bute, President of
the Hospital, who was ill, was represented by one of the Vice-Presidents,
Lady Helen Munro Ferguson. Lady Victoria
Campbell made a point of being present, as did the Countess
of Moray, and many patients, colleagues and allies of all
sorts.
It was Professor Masson who moved the resolution of the
evening:
.pm start_quote
“That this company, remembering all that has been done by
Dr. Jex-Blake so preëminently for the medical education of women,
and for the opening up of the medical profession to women, both
here and elsewhere, take this opportunity of congratulating her on
the present evidence of the success everywhere of the cause which
owes so much to her powerful initiation and persevering advocacy;
and regrets that the occasion should also be one of farewell.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 553.png
.pn +1
Dr. Balfour felt inclined, he said, to quote the words of the
old song:
.pm start_poem
“Dost thou remember, comrade old and hoary,
The days we fought and conquered side by side
On fields of battle, famous now in story?”
.pm end_poem
He indicated apologetically that the words were not wholly
appropriate, but S. J.-B. speedily set his mind at rest on that
score. She felt old and hoary enough.
Dr. Peel Ritchie recalled how he had begun to help the
women students simply from love of fair play, with no
enthusiasm at all for the cause, but how he had been gradually
worked up to a warmer feeling and interest; and Dr. (afterwards
Sir John) Sibbald confessed that he had taken no part
in the old conflict at all; but acknowledged gladly that his
original dislike to the whole thing had gradually given way
as he had watched the life of the protagonist, with increasing
admiration, appreciation and....”
At that fine silence he left it.
A bouquet of roses was presented by Dr. Jessie Macgregor,
one of the most brilliant of S. J.-B.’s students; and a basket
of flowers by Winifred Beilby, daughter of a lady who had
been a member of Committee for many years, and a patient
from the first.
Yes, it was a great send-off, and S. J.-B. was simple-hearted
enough to enjoy it all like a child.
There were other tokens of recognition too,—among them
a presentation from a great number of women doctors, and
another from the Dispensary patients.
.tb
There is no doubt that Dr. Sibbald voiced the opinion of
many in his tribute to S. J.-B. For years she had lived among
the Edinburgh people, driving about in her quiet brougham
or unpretentious pony-chaise, and retiring to the high-walled
garden. In a way they could not but get to know her. They
might like or dislike her, but she went on her way, doing her
work absolutely without ostentation, welcoming publicity when
it seemed likely to forward her aims or the welfare of the
community, shunning it absolutely as a matter of private taste.
.bn 554.png
.pn +1
With most of these whose opinion was worth having,
opposition and dislike were simply worn down. She was
impulsive, she made mistakes and would do so to the end
of her life: her naturally hasty temper and imperious disposition
had been chastened indeed, but the chastening fire had
been far too fierce to produce perfection. She held out at
times about trifles,—failed to see that they were trifles—and
at times she terrified people more than she knew. Above
all she cared nothing for the praise and blame of any but
those whom she respected or loved. Of her indeed it might
be said that she heard the beat of a different drummer. But
there was another side to the picture after all. Many of
those who regretted and criticised details were yet forced to
bow before the big transparent honesty, the fine unflinching
consistency, of her life.
.pm start_poem
“Yes, it was simply greatness.
There was nothing else I could say,
I had hedged my path more straitly,
But [hers] was the kinglier way.”
.pm end_poem
.tb
It remains only to give some picture of S. J.-B.’s life in
retirement. Dr. Clouston had shaken his head when he
heard what she proposed to do. It was a great risk to give
up a life packed with work and interest for one of leisure.
“I am not going to be idle,” she had said. “I am going
to farm.”
“Then you’ll lose a lot of money.”
“I can’t lose much on ten acres.”
“Ah!” He seemed to indicate that ten acres was not
enough; but as a matter of fact S. J.-B. reaped now all the
advantage of that love of detail which had so often proved
a snare. “Windydene” had been unoccupied and more
or less neglected for some time, so there was abundant scope
for an enterprising “Squire.” And the situation was as
choice as even the county of Sussex can provide. From the
terrace one looked right across to the South Downs, and
even Fairlight was supposed to be visible on a clear day.
The garden had been ideally planned on ground that fell
away rather steeply to the south. It had spacious lawns
.bn 555.png
.pn +1
cunningly planted, some of the trees being of real value and
beauty.
Beyond the lawns were shady paths and all sort of unexpected
openings and surprises; and beyond these again were
the meadows hedged with blackberries, and carpeted in spring
with cowslip and ladies’ smock. From the meadows one passed
through to the woods, and so to the whole billowy stretch of
the Weald, with its varied foliage, its blue lights and chasing
shadows, its lakes of white mist in the still summer mornings.
S. J.-B. had seen the place first in November. She actually
took possession in May, when the red chestnuts were in
bloom and the woods full of bluebells.
“‘The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places’,” she
said, “‘I have a goodly heritage’;” and the words were
constantly on her lips till the end. Kipling’s “Sussex by
the Sea” might have been written for her, so gratefully did
she take possession of it.
.pm start_poem
“Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground—in a fair ground—
Yea, Sussex by the sea!”
.pm end_poem
Her first care was to institute a fruit garden, building a
south wall and planting vines, figs, peaches, nectarines and
apricots. In the course of a few years her strawberries in
particular had acquired quite a reputation.
She started a dairy too, and supervised it herself. It was
a real joy to her to have cows in the paddock and to produce
her own cream and butter. The hay-making and the harvest
supper were great events in the year.
But long before she had got as far as this—before the
house was more than tolerably straight after the great flitting—she
was inviting guests to share the joys of the spring and
summer. All through the later years of her life she had the
intimate daily companionship she prized so generously, but
her doors stood open always as of old. “Windydene is a
Mecca,” one of the younger medical women said, and there
were those to whom it was a Mecca and something more.
From S. J.-B.’s old fellow-students down to some unknown
girl graduate, they came from all parts of the world. We
.bn 556.png
.pn +1
have seen what Dr. Lillie Saville thought of life at Windydene,
and indeed Lady Jenkinson’s “soul and body, especially
soul” often finds an echo. A woman doctor who met
S. J.-B. first at that British Medical Association dinner in
Edinburgh writes years later:
.pm start_quote
“Thinking it over, I see that the best new influence that came
into my life during the last seven years was the Doctor’s young
fresh interest, her enthusiasm, her breadth of mind, her spiritual
force and faith, and her strong original wisdom.”
.pm end_quote
But it was not only women doctors who came. Literary folk
were guests too, and, above all, the old friends, whatever they
had chanced to become. Miss Du Pre, Lady Jenkinson, Miss
Catharine Eliott-Lockhart, Miss E. Cordery, Mrs. Gardiner, Mr.
James Cordery, Mr. Phipson and Dr. Pechey Phipson, Mrs.
(Dr.) Mears, and many others. The arrival of Dr. Agnes
M‘Laren from her season’s practice on the Riviera was one
of the events of the early summer; she always came by
Newhaven and so to Crowborough, where S. J.-B. faithfully
awaited her. A still earlier event in the year was the arrival
of Miss Caroline Jex-Blake, “when the primroses were out,”
and her joy in the meadows and woods was a thing that only
those who knew her could conceive.
Little enough entertainment in the ordinary sense was
offered to the guests at any time. Breakfast in bed was an
unfailing institution for tired workers, and most of the guests
were tired workers. There was fruit and cream to heart’s
content and beyond it; there were long leisurely drives
uphill and down dale through that beautiful country,[158]—plenty
of chess for those who were worthy of chess,—unforgettable
evenings round the study fire; and at all other times—stated
meals apart—an almost unlimited choice of books,—and
liberty to do as one pleased.
.fn 158
“I took her to see the pixies,” writes S. J.-B. to a friend, in June, “I
don’t think she did see any, but she greatly enjoyed the woods, etc.”
.fn-
.tb
S. J.-B. used to say that her one extravagance at Windydene
was journals and books. She had always been a book buyer,
and books were more essential than ever now. New shelves
had to be put up every year or so. Her collection of recent
.bn 557.png
.pn +1
novels alone induced a well-known publisher to say that she
ought to have a testimonial from authors and publishers.
There was a certain amount of practical benevolence in this.
In Edinburgh she had often said that an important part of
her treatment of patients was the lending of suitable novels,
and at Windydene she often had twenty or thirty books out
at a time. Her taste was catholic in the extreme, but she
specially appreciated among others Peter Ibbetson, San Celestino
and Out of Due Time; and—like so many distinguished
people—she keenly enjoyed detective stories, especially for
reading in the watches of the night.
She had lost none of her love of poetry. The “poetry
book-case” had an honoured place as of old; but, as she
sat in her big chair by the fire, she had a revolving stand
filled with special favourites within reach of her right hand,
and, on her left (in the angle of the chimney-piece) a tiny
set of shelves brought from the corresponding nook in her
Edinburgh consulting room, contained her Mother’s Bible
and a few other chosen friends.
But the range of her purchases during those later years
was very wide: almost at random one recalls Blomefield’s
Norfolk, all Father Tyrrell’s works, a whole library of books
on social problems,—industry, poverty, labour, etc.—and a
fine copy of The Book of the Dead.
She retained her old interest in what one may call the
polemics of religion, and this was intensified by a delightful
and unexpected friendship of those later days.
She had not been many weeks in Mark Cross before some
mutual friend suggested that she might care to know the
Roman Catholic priest—a man, as it chanced, of scholarship
and culture—following up the suggestion with the loan of
a book which the priest had published some years before.[159]
A few days later S. J.-B. wrote the following letter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“June 15th \[1899].
.ll
Dear Sir,
.ti 6
I have been reading your book on Reunion with very great
sympathy and admiration; and, if you care to call on an elderly
.bn 558.png
.pn +1
woman who is not of your creed, I should be very glad to have the
honour of making your acquaintance.
I expect to be at home tomorrow afternoon, or could fix any day
except Monday, next week, if more convenient to you.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours truly,
Sophia Jex-Blake, M.D.
.nf-
.ll
Rev. Father Duggan.”
.pm end_quote
.fn 159
Steps towards Reunion. The book had been put on the Index
Expurgatorius.
.fn-
It did not strike the looker-on as a specially likely combination,
but it was the unlikely thing that happened. The
Revd. Father Duggan became one of the most welcome
guests at Windydene. He and his dog, Caesar, used to drop
in almost every Sunday afternoon for strawberries on the
lawn or tea round the study fire. I don’t pretend that
Caesar took any interest in the strawberries—possible rabbits
were a more absorbing subject—but he did enjoy his bowl
of tea, especially when a lump of sugar remained at the
bottom as a bonne bouche. He was the centre of interest
when his turn came, and, when the anticipated “crunch”
was heard, the general laugh of sympathy never failed.
They were just happy children together,—the Dog, the
Reverend Father and the old Pioneer, and now the world is
the poorer for the loss of all three.
There were great talks on those Sunday afternoons; it
was no uncommon thing to see three versions of the Bible
and half a dozen volumes of the Encyclopaedia lying about at
the end to witness to the interest of the discussion. There was
much borrowing and lending of books,—and no obvious change
of view on the part of anyone except in the direction of increased
tolerance and brotherly kindness. A very simple anecdote will
give as good an idea as any of the nature of the friendship.
Father Duggan had been the lender of Canon Cheyne’s
Commentary on the Psalms, which he had just reviewed for
a daily paper.
.pm start_quote
“I won’t pretend that I read the whole of it,” said S. J.-B. in
returning the volumes. “In fact”—with a sparkle of mischief,—“I
noticed when it came that only about a quarter of the leaves
were cut.”
“Yes,” he admitted tranquilly. “I did think of cutting a few
more before sending it up to you,—but I didn’t.”
“Ah, no!” she said. “You were an honest man.”
.pm end_quote
.bn 559.png
.pn +1
She was on excellent terms, too, with the local doctors:
they looked forward to a chat when they met her in the
country lanes, and, if, when she left Edinburgh, there had
been any hatchet left to bury, their boyish camaraderie
would soon have compelled her to bury it. “I confess I
had a prejudice against women doctors,” one of them said
after her death, “but she disarmed me completely.”
The life at Windydene was not unbroken. The clay soil
in that wooded garden was not conducive to the health of
a rheumatic person like S. J.-B., so several brief winters were
spent at various places on the Riviera, and one in Portugal,
mainly in the Sacred Forest at Bussaco. At Carqueiranne
in Provence one of the editors of the Matin was a fellow
guest, and he proved another unexpected comrade. It must
have been a matter of some surprise to him to meet in that
unlikely place, an elderly English gentlewoman with a grasp
of the range of European politics and a facility for discussing
it in excellent French.
It was at Carqueiranne that she and the intimate friend
of those days met Mr. Frederic Myers and Professor William
James, and here too there was a pleasant partie carrée for
some days with Professor and Mrs. Gardiner who were on
a cycling tour in the south of France. Professor Gardiner
had several times been S. J.-B.’s guest in Edinburgh, when
his researches brought him north to inspect some unique
document among the archives there, and it was a pleasant
change to meet when both were in purely holiday mood.
In the late Autumn of 1909—in spite of increasing physical
disqualifications—she made a last driving tour to her beloved
Yarrow.
.tb
It is needless to say that she never lost her interest in the
happenings of the world. She had latterly a profound distrust
of Germany, and was an eager reader of the articles
on this subject in the National Review. The Riddle of the
Sands was a novel that she helped to circulate widely. Her
name appeared pretty frequently in the correspondence
columns of the Times, sometimes in connection with Woman
Suffrage, more often in unavailing protest against the endless
.bn 560.png
.pn +1
“joy-riding”—degenerating into the sheer lawlessness of the
“road-hog”—that was making the loveliest English lanes a
nightmare of dust and danger.
It was to the Times, too, that she sent her last tribute to
the most heroic of her Edinburgh friends in the old days of
the “fight.”
.pm start_quote
“Sir,—It seems impossible to let the grave close over the mortal
remains of Professor Masson without one word of heartfelt gratitude
from those whom he befriended so nobly in 1869 and the following
years. Our struggle with the University was hard enough as it was,
but without his help and that of half a dozen other men it would
have been impracticable. I feel that it is really quite impossible
to do justice to the chivalry, the unselfishness, the constant readiness
to espouse the unpopular cause, and to fight in its foremost ranks,
which characterized Professor Masson, and it would take far too
much of your space to say even a fraction of what could be said of
the aid he gave us in that great battle.
But I beg you at least to allow me to say that those so deeply
indebted to him will never forget him, but hold his memory in love
and reverence as long as they live.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours obediently,
Sophia Jex-Blake.
.nf-
.ll
Windydene, Mark Cross, Sussex, Oct. 10 \[1907].”
.pm end_quote
The suffrage movement was always near her heart, though
she never grew restless or impatient over the long delay.
She never approved of tax-resistance, and militant methods
made her uneasy, though she admitted that they had given
the cause a prominence that nothing else could have done.
Looking back in 1879 on her own fight she had been able to
say, “We seemed led all the way; certainly our aim was
straight at the end [before us], but ‘highly and holily’ too.
I never minded dirt of others’ throwing, but I don’t think I
ever smirched my own conscience.” It was in her favour
that the Editor of the Spectator broke through his stern rule
of excluding all letters advocating the extension of the franchise
to women. “Our respect for so eminent a lady makes it a
pleasure to publish Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake’s letter.”
It was this question of the suffrage, too, as we shall see,
that brought her for the last time into touch with Octavia
Hill.
.bn 561.png
.pn +1
S. J.-B.’s outer circle had never suspected her of being
“religious,” and even by the fireside she spoke less perhaps,
rather than more, on the subject as time went on; but the
old quotations kept flashing up to witness to the fire beneath.
She was always profoundly interested in any genuine profession
of faith, any real conversion or perversion. Several
of her friends joined the Church of Rome in those later years,
and she was one to whom they always felt the need of justifying
themselves. They felt sure of an underlying sympathy,
however she might disapprove. Often, of course, she declined
to take the matter too seriously. To an old student she
wrote:
.pm start_quote
“I am not at all shocked at your Sunday programme, but I must
say I am amused at your going to a dissenting chapel.”
.pm end_quote
And again:
.pm start_quote
“I don’t trouble myself much about who goes ‘over to Rome’
and who does not. After all for each one,—‘To his own Master he
stands or falls,’ and what we must ask of each is to act to the best
of his lights.
But I think ‘subterfuging’ implies dim lights.”
.pm end_quote
Her own attitude grew steadily simpler, enriching the
vital elements of her Mother’s creed with the wisdom and
experience of her own life. As time went on she disliked
increasingly to be classed with those whose attitude towards
religion is one of indifference. Even before she left Edinburgh
she had written to an old school friend, in acknowledgement
of a book by another schoolfellow:
.pm start_quote
“To speak plainly then it strikes me as crude and superficial,—as
the work of a person who has caught up passwords rather than
of one who has struggled through the conflict of thought personally.
It reminds me forcibly of the old proverb, ‘Qui pauca considerat
facile pronuntiat.’ The deeper we go into problems, whether social
or religious, the less possible it seems to me to pronounce about
them offhand.
In theology you would, I suppose, rank me among the Agnostics,
as I feel very strongly how little we know on such subjects, and that
the truly scientific aspect of mind is one of suspension of judgment;
but I have no sympathy at all with C.’s attacks on Christianity and
the alleged motives of its advocates, and still less with her estimate
of the character of Christ.
.bn 562.png
.pn +1
The programme of Socialism strikes me (so far as I understand it)
as unworkable, because it ignores a great many of the facts of human
nature; and I am sure you are right in thinking that the true path of
progress lies in gradual improvement, and gradual removal of unjust
restrictions, rather than in sudden violence and revolution.”
.pm end_quote
To a much more intimate friend she had written about the
same time:
.pm start_quote
“Yes, I think —— is what I should call an Agnostic, but perhaps
you from lordly heights of orthodoxy don’t appreciate that that
differs ‘toto caelo’ from an atheist; and that it is one of the most
offensive of errors,—and one frequently made from culpable carelessness,—to
substitute the one for the other.”
.pm end_quote
Her appreciation of the Bible increased—and it had always
been an exceptional appreciation;—but there are two quotations
that stand out in one’s memory as belonging to her in
a special sense. She always appropriated to herself with
great fervour the prayer of Agur:—“Two things have I
required of thee...: Remove far from me vanity and lies;
give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient
for me; lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is
the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of
my God in vain.”
And more than once, after quoting the words from Isaiah:—“Thus
saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity,
whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place,
with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to
revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the
contrite ones,” she added almost under her breath,
“I am not sure that that is not the finest thing in the
whole Bible.”
But while she was one of those to whom the Old Testament
makes perhaps a special appeal, it was not by accident that
at the time of her death, and for years previously, the words
were fixed above the mantelpiece, both in her study and in
her bedroom,—“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so
fulfil the law of Christ.”
.tb
Some years before leaving Edinburgh, S. J.-B. had a heart
attack which caused Dr. Balfour grave uneasiness, and,
.bn 563.png
.pn +1
although she rallied in the course of a week, similar attacks
kept recurring at considerable intervals. On one occasion
at Windydene she was unconscious for several hours, and
finally “came out of blackness” to ask with great calmness,
“Well, what do you suppose has happened?”
Within a week of this attack she started for the Riviera.
It is probable that she never fully realized the seriousness
of these cardiac signs and symptoms; but, in one way or
another, death knocked at her door pretty frequently during
those later years.
In 1901-2, she suffered from a mysterious and anomalous
“growth,” for which a leading London surgeon refused to
operate on the ground that she was a bad subject. She was
not sorry for the refusal, but the enemy grew with appalling
rapidity, and it became increasingly clear that something
would have to be done. All through the period of uncertainty
she went on with her life absolutely as usual. “I did wake
up one night in a horror of great darkness,” she confessed,
“wondering what was going to happen; but very soon
Whittier’s words came into my mind:
.pm start_poem
“I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies....
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”
.pm end_poem
And then I just turned over on the other side and went to
sleep again.”
“How thankful we should be,” she said on another occasion,
“that we don’t know what is before us. Life is hard enough,
it would be much harder if we knew.”
When a friend remarked on her courage, she said,—and
this was a remark repeated many times before the end of
her life,—“No, no. I have been brave sometimes in my
life, but not now. There is nothing to be brave about
now.”
.bn 564.png
.pn +1
In response one day to a warmer expression of admiration,
she almost cried out in protest,—“Oh! ... God be merciful
to me a sinner. That is what one feels more and more.”
Then, after a pause:
.pm start_poem
“‘Suffice it if—my good and ill unreckoned,
And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace—
I find myself by hands familiar beckoned
Unto my fitting place.’”
.pm end_poem
Another day she said, “My life here will not be much longer,
but I feel that I have not reached the end. I have learnt a
great deal, and I have a great deal still to learn. Unless
one has absolutely refused to learn, one must get the chance
to learn more.”
Her friend quoted Thring. “My creed is life. Blessed
is life the King, etc.”
“Ah,” she said, “I don’t know that it will be better than
this life, but it will give us the chance to learn fresh things.”
It was on that occasion that she looked death in the face
while still in full possession of her powers—“‘I laid me
down with a will,’” she said—; but for the moment the sacrifice
was not required of her. When the malady reached a point
at which surgical interference was at worst a necessary
palliative, she proposed to ask two of her own old students
to come and undertake an operation. It was represented
to her that it was scarcely fair to put so great a responsibility
on them,[160] so she wrote to her friend, Mr. Cathcart of Edinburgh,
asking him to come and undertake the case. He
came at once, of course, and the operation proved a
triumphant success.[161]
.fn 160
At that time very few women had come into the front rank as surgeons.
.fn-
.fn 161
Her old fellow student, Dr. Annie Clark, who had graduated with her
at Berne, came from Birmingham to give the anaesthetic.
.fn-
So life was given back to her just as she had laid it down,
and the remaining years were in some respects the happiest
and most peaceful she had known. She renewed her youth,
though in truth she had never grown old, and lived more
than ever in the life of her “girls.” She had always said,
“Not me, but us.” Now more and more the “us” came
.bn 565.png
.pn +1
into the centre of her scheme of life. Perhaps her last ambition
was that some British University should give her its honorary
degree, but her friends only realized this when she had already
laid the ambition down. “I shall never have a University
hood,” she said once or twice quite simply. All the more
she enjoyed the glories of the young women doctors who
were coming on. She listened to their accounts of what they
had learned and of what they had done with an admiration
that was nothing short of poignant in its simplicity. Her
own share in the whole thing simply dropped out. At most
she would say when some gifted visitor was gone, “Wonderful
the work she is doing! Well, I did help a little bit once
upon a time, didn’t I?”
It was when one of her old girls seemed face to face for the
first time with that most bitter disappointment in a doctor’s
experience,—the loss of a patient for whose life one has
fought with repeated recrudescence of hope in the teeth of
despair,—that S. J.-B. wrote one of her last letters:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“Windydene,
7 p.m. March 19th. 1911.
.nf-
.ll
Dear Child,
.ti 6
I am so sorry for you, and I think of you so much! It is an
experience that has to come to all of us who live in our work,—and
we must believe ‘we shall see in heaven why it could not be
otherwise.’
Meanwhile ‘the Healer by Gennesaret shall walk thy rounds with
thee.’
When it is all over,—for I suppose that is now the end,—I think
you should come down here for a few perfectly quiet days. We
shall be so glad to have you.
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
S. J.-B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
There was, of course, one visitor whom she would fain have
welcomed to her “pleasant places.” She had followed
Octavia Hill’s life with unfailing interest, and had subscribed
to the Derwentwater scheme, and to other of Miss Hill’s
beneficent works. In July or August 1910 a letter opposing
the extension of the suffrage to women appeared in the Times
above the signature of Octavia Hill. S. J.-B. replied to the
.bn 566.png
.pn +1
letter, regretting that Miss Hill should have “given the
support of her honoured name” to the negative side of the
controversy. The Times did not often refuse a communication
from S. J.-B., but on this occasion her letter was not
inserted. Perhaps the trifling episode called up memories
too insistent to be stilled, for a day or two later she wrote
to her old friend:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“August 5th. 1910.
Windydene, Mark Cross, Sussex.
.nf-
.ll
Dear,
.ti 6
I wrote enclosed mainly as an answer to yours in the Times,
and as it has been sent back to me, crowded out, I send it to you,—to
show you another old woman’s point of view.
I am rheumatic and lame now, and cannot go about much, but
I wish you would come down and spend two or three days with me
here on the Sussex hills, and we would thrash out this Suffrage
question—surely one of us ought to be able to convince the other!
And I should like to see you again!
.ll 68
.nf r
Yours sincerely,
S. Jex-Blake.
.nf-
.ll
I grieved greatly with you in your loss in June.”[162]
.pm end_quote
.fn 162
Miss Miranda Hill died in June 1910.
.fn-
Miss Octavia Hill had allowed herself no “sabbatical
year,” and she was flagging in harness. Her life had been
spent in unremitting service of her fellow men. She answered
her old friend’s letter, but she could not respond. One has
no difficulty in understanding her attitude now. A conventional
meeting would have been useless, and anything else
would have involved a greater upheaval than most people
are willing to face as life goes on.
And it well may be that she had acted wisely all along.
As Mrs. Jex-Blake had said many years before with that
strange prevision that is given sometimes to the pure in
heart,—“God has two great works,—one for her, one for
you.”
Those two great works could never have been combined.
And, indeed, no one with a disposition like S. J.-B.’s can
go through life without losing friends. She might have said
with St. Teresa,—“For one thing, the devil sometimes fills
.bn 567.png
.pn +1
me with such a harsh and cruel temper; such a spirit of
anger and hostility at some people, that I could eat them up
and annihilate them.” But, as in the case of St. Teresa, the
obverse side of the medal was a capacity for loving that can
seldom have been surpassed in our human nature. “Went
not my heart with thee...?” she used to say: and it
did,—not only with those nearest to her, but with all who
appealed to her mother-heart. The comforting letter was
written, in spite of all fatigue and inconvenience, at the
earliest possible moment: the box of flowers, the grapes, the
wine, the cheque, the open hospitable doors,—all seemed
messengers waiting for their turn, like the swift-heeled
servants of the Fairy Queen.
No appeal ever came to her that she ignored. The Charity
Organisation Society was familiar with her name; and great
sometimes was her disappointment when those she wanted
to help were pronounced hopeless or unworthy. Nothing
that she loved ever grew old. Her friends, her horses,—even
the purely material things to which she was attached—grew
more beautiful in her eyes as their market value decreased.
She always parted deliberately with the flowers that had
stood by her hand. No one was ever allowed to throw them
away as a matter of routine, and often she would raise them
to her lips before putting them in the fire.
St. Teresa’s love no doubt was a more transcendent thing.
It was her lot to live in an age of faith. S. J.-B. often quoted
Whittier’s Autograph:
.pm start_poem
“If of the Law’s stone table,
To hold he scarce was able
The first great precept fast,
He kept for man the last.
Through mortal lapse and dulness
What lacks the Eternal Fulness,
If still our weakness can
Love Him in loving man?”
.pm end_poem
There are those of whom Teresa herself said:
.pm start_quote
“They may have more merit in His eyes than their more favoured
neighbours, because their obedience and their faith and their love
.bn 568.png
.pn +1
have cost them more. Their Lord deals with them as with strong
and valiant men, appointing them travail and trouble here, that they
may fight for Him the good fight of faith, and only come in for the
prize at the end.”
.pm end_quote
No portrait gives any adequate idea of Sophia Jex-Blake.
Someone who saw her first in 1886 writes:
.pm start_quote
“Although too stout in figure, she had a fine commanding presence,
and one was struck at once by the exceeding comeliness of her face.
It was strong, wise and benevolent, capable of an extraordinary
range of expression. The brow was ideally shaped, broad and
serene in repose, though always liable to the summer lightnings
that one half admired, half dreaded. Her hair was growing white,
but the eyebrows remained black till the end, and the eyes, both
by nature and by the long discipline of life, were extraordinarily
fine and expressive.”
.pm end_quote
It was twenty years later than this that a girl friend said,—“She
has the look of one ‘following fearlessly’.” Throughout
life, the tendency to sadness of expression was wholly contradicted
by her smile; her eyes very readily bubbled over with
merriment; as some reporter had said in the days of the fight,
“With those dimples she must be good-natured.” When an
old servant was shown the final portrait in this volume, she
said, “But I want her to look up at me and laugh as she
used to do!”
.tb
One does not wish to dwell on the history of the last few
months. From the physical point of view it is a familiar
story. One by one every medicament lost its efficacy: the
failing heart ceased to invigorate one organ after another.
But the strong and disciplined will held the shattered tabernacle
together. Sometimes acute symptoms forced her to stay
in bed for a day or two, but she always struggled on to her feet
again at the earliest possible moment and went for the daily
drive through her beloved lanes and woods. True that
towards the end she noticed these less and less,—drowsed
most of the way; but, if there was occasion to rouse herself
and speak to anyone, she did so almost as of old.
“The worst of lying awake at night,” she used to say
whimsically, “is that one realizes all the mistakes one has
.bn 569.png
.pn +1
made in one’s life.” It was not even lying awake sometimes:
it was a weary sitting up or lying down as each position in
turn became intolerable. And often, after only three minutes’
unconsciousness, she would exclaim in something like the old
happy voice, “I have had such a lovely sleep!”
Almost to the last day she repeated bits of her favourite
poems and psalms,—and nothing gave her so much pleasure
as to plan holidays for those who still had a day’s work before
them. She was infinitely mindful of those who tended her.
Almost her last words were,—“Now do go and have a good
rest.”
And so the end came,—suddenly but not unexpectedly.
She sat down one day more tired than usual—it was the
7th January, 1912—stretched herself back, and rendered up
her soul to God who gave it.
.tb
A great wave of feeling arose in the village and round about
when it was known that the familiar figure of the old warrior
would no more be seen in her Sussex lanes. Perplexed at
first, her neighbours of all classes had come in a measure to
understand her, to be proud of her,—some of them to love
her. With one or two, indeed, she had formed a warm and
intimate friendship. There was every token of respectful
sympathy and mourning when the little procession made its
way to Rotherfield Church.[163]
.fn 163
By a strange coincidence she lies within a few yards of her old friend
and champion, Sir James Stansfeld. See Appendix #G:appG#.
.fn-
And that wave of feeling went out over the whole world.
Messages and tributes of appreciation and regret poured
steadily in. The most beautiful and adequate was the paragraph
in the Pall Mall Gazette:
.pm start_quote
“The woman as Happy Warrior has passed away with the death
in her Sussex home of Sophia Jex-Blake. There is scarcely an
attribute of the great figure in Wordsworth’s poem which she did
not possess, with the crowning added happiness of seeing her fame
as a noble and successful pioneer in a great movement finally established.
She it was, more than anyone else, who compelled the gates
of the medical profession to be opened to women. Through years
.bn 570.png
.pn +1
of hostility and obloquy she never lost heart in her Cause; and,
meeting violence with reason and coarseness with dignity, she won
at last. Her longest and bitterest fight was with the University of
Edinburgh; and, later, when Parliament had recognized the right
of women to be doctors, it was in that city that she practised for
twenty-one years. Since the death of Florence Nightingale no
woman has died of whom more truly may it be written, Bene actæ
vitæ recordatio jucundissima est.
.pm end_quote
But the reader may find a special propriety in a very simple
resolution passed a few days later in an Over Seas dominion:
.pm start_quote
“That the members of the University Women’s Club of Toronto
do place on record their deep sense of the great influence and noble
life of Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake. Now that her distinguished career has
closed, they feel that she was the helper of all University women,—and
they love her for many reasons.”
.pm end_quote
The End
.bn 571.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=appA
APPENDIX A | PEDIGREE OF THE JEX-BLAKE FAMILY
.sp 2
S. J.-B.’s father was one of the Blakes of Bunwell, Scottow, etc.,
in the county of Norfolk.
A family of Blakes settled at Bunwell in 1620. It is said traditionally
that they came from Somersetshire and were descended from
the same family as Robert Blake, the great Admiral of the Commonwealth,
being probably a branch of the original family of the Blaks,
Blaaks or Blakes of Pinnels in the parish of Cawne or Calne, Co.
Wilts., there seated as early, at least, as 1400. These families bore
the same arms with slight differences, namely, argent a chevron
between three garbs sable. Crest, on a chapeau gules turned up
ermine, a martlet argent.
In the chancel of Bunwell Church, near the altar rails, is a tombstone
with the following inscription:
.pm start_poem
Under this Stone lyeth the Body of Mr John Blake
He dyed the 21 of August 1686 being sixtie 4
Yeares of age and upwards.
.pm end_poem
Above this legend are the arms of Blake as above: on the chevron
a fleur-de-lis for difference.
From this gentleman is descended in direct line all the present
family through his fourth son, Robert Blake, who settled at Scottow
about 1680, marrying Margaret, eldest daughter of William Durrant
of Scottow Hall. Their son, Thomas Blake of Scottow, born
November 7th, 1689, married Elizabeth, daughter of John Jex,
Esq. of Lowestoft, and the grandson of these last, William Blake
of Swanton Abbots, in the Commission of the Peace, and Deputy
Lieutenant for Norfolk, having inherited the chief part of the Jex
property, obtained on his petition by Royal Licence on August
17th, 1837, that he and his descendants should assume and use
the surname Jex in addition to and before that of Blake, and also
bear the arms of Jex quarterly, in the second quarter, with those
of Blake.[164]
.fn 164
See The London Gazette, Friday, August 25, 1837.
.fn-
.bn 572.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=appB
APPENDIX B | “WORDS FOR THE WAY.”[165]—No. 2. REST
.pm start_poem
“There remaineth a Rest for the people of God.”—Heb. iv. 9.
.pm end_poem
.fn 165
The authors have sought to supply a want, more or less widely felt, of simple
Tracts, which, while endeavouring to set forth the deepest truths of Christianity,
shall avoid the phraseology of certain schools, as jarring on the minds of many.
.sp 2
Those who see any degree of successful effort in the Tracts already published
are invited to assist in obtaining for them, and others of the series, such a circulation
as may best ensure their usefulness.
.fn-
What is the thing that you wish for most in the world?
I cannot hear your answers to my question, and I do not suppose
that everyone to whom it is addressed would answer it in the same
way; but I must try and fancy to myself what you would be most
likely to say. And first I suppose that each of you would be likely
to wish for that of which he has most felt the need.
Some of you, perhaps, who are very poor, would say, “Money.”
Well, money is a very good thing, and, if we know how to use it
rightly, a great blessing for which to thank God when He gives it
to us; but you might have money, and yet be far from happy—yet
have a great many of your deepest wants unsatisfied. And very
many of those who have most money would be the first to tell you
that this is the case; and I am sure that with very little of it, it
is possible to be very happy if we have some other things.
I hardly think that money is what we should wish for most.
Those of you who are very ill, and who are constantly suffering
pain that seems to be always coming freshly upon you, would perhaps
say, “Health.” Well, that too is a very good and great gift of
God’s, and those of us who have it should thank Him very much
for it, and pity heartily and helpfully those who have it not. But
I think that with even this blessing, there may be very great wants
left; and I believe that it is possible to be very blessed without it.
I do not think that Health satisfies the deepest want of our nature.
And some of you perhaps, who have felt how sad it is to be ignorant
of many things that it would be so good to know, and who are
longing to learn more about God and His great and wonderful works,
might say that “Knowledge” was the gift which of all others you
desire.
Some again who have felt how sad it is to stand all alone in this
great world, every part of which God has made so dependent on
the rest,—who long for some heart to lean upon in all life’s troubles,
some hand to help to cut a way through them, will say that “Love”
is the greatest blessing that it seems to them possible to receive.
.bn 573.png
.pn +1
I have no doubt that if I were really talking to you, or, still better,
could see the thoughts of your hearts, I should be told of many
wants which you earnestly desire to have satisfied,—wants, some
of them belonging to the lower and some of them to the higher
part of that wonderful nature which God has given to us all.
And now perhaps you would like to hear my answer to this question
I have been asking of you, “What is the thing we most want?”
It seems to me that there is one blessing which sums up in itself—which
seems to imply or to contain—almost all others, and which,
if we go deeply enough into it, does really satisfy all the great wants
of our nature. This is Rest.
Now let us think what Rest is: and see whether if you had that,
you would have the deepest part of all your wants satisfied.
You said you wanted Money? Well, was not the comfort which
you thought money could give you, just that freedom from care
and anxiety which we call Rest?—was it not really for this, and not
for the money itself, you longed?
And you wanted Health? Is it not just because health would
give you rest from pain and from continual weariness that it seems
to you the best of all things? Does not Health for you really
mean Rest?
And is it not because there is something that you are always
longing to know and understand that you desire so much to have
Knowledge? Is not your wish for it founded on the feeling that
God gave you a mind and understanding which can only be satisfied
by learning and knowing. Do you not really desire knowledge that
your intellect may have some firm standing ground?—that it too
may have Rest?
And most of all do not you who long for Love, long for it because
you feel that to have some one beside you to feel for you and help
you, to pray with and work with you through all the labours of this
life, is the nearest approach to Rest that we can have on earth,
except that deepest Rest which comes through feeling the constant
nearness of Him who loves most of all, who “will never leave thee
nor forsake thee” (Heb. xiii. 5). If then we can but look forward
to Rest, are we not sure of having all that we need?
And it is just this that is promised to us in the text we read at
the beginning, “There remaineth a Rest for the people of God.”
God knows so well all our wants, and knows so well what will best
supply them, that all through the Bible you will find beautiful
promises about Rest. Let us look at a few of them. Job in the
midst of his great troubles speaks of the future life as that “where
the weary are at Rest” (Job. iii. 17). The prophet Jeremiah promises
to those who will hear God’s will and seek to do it, that they “shall
find Rest for their souls” (Jer. vi. 16). Our Lord Jesus Christ
.bn 574.png
.pn +1
knew well about this deepest want in our nature when He spoke
that most beautiful of invitations to all who heard Him on earth,
and to all who read His words now, “Come unto me all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart:
and ye shall find Rest unto your souls” (Matt. xi. 28, 29).
And the whole argument of the chapter from which the text we
are talking about is taken, is this, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a
promise being left us of entering into His Rest, any of us should
seem to come short of it” (Heb. iv. 1).
But now let us ask what is implied or meant by those last words
about “coming short of it?” What is meant by our Lord’s telling
people that they must “take His yoke upon them” and be “meek
and lowly of heart” if they would find Rest? What is meant
when Rest is promised specially to the “people of
Now, if we believe that God loves us as He does, quite infinitely—more
than we can even understand—we may be quite sure that
He will always give us every good thing that He can—that He
will never put any limit to His promises if He can help it—that He
would like to give Rest and all other good things to everyone if it
were possible.
We must never doubt for one moment God’s willingness to give
us all good things, and to do all for us that it is possible for love to
do. Remember what Christ says about that, “If ye then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much
more shall your Father which is in heaven know how to give good
things to them that ask Him (Matt. vii. 11). And again, “I say
not that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself
loveth you” (John xvi. 26, 27). And St. Paul tells us that “He
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how
shall He not with Him freely give us all things?” (Rom. viii. 32).
So you see that we may be quite sure that if we do not get this
great blessing, Rest, it will not be because God is not willing to give
it to us.
But there are certain great principles, which we call laws, which
govern God’s world, which are of the very nature of God’s own
being, and the more we come to know and realize about these laws,
the more we shall find them to be the most wonderfully good and
beautiful and blessed ones which could be imagined, and see in every
one of them some great and glorious provision for the best possible
things, which could not come without them.
Now you know God made man in His own image (Gen. i. 27),
and, though man afterwards broke that beautiful image and lost
the perfect likeness that God had given him to Himself—(as we are
told in Eccles. vii. 29, “God made man upright; but they have
.bn 575.png
.pn +1
sought out many inventions”)—still man is so deep a partaker of
God’s nature, that the truest and deepest part of him is that which
is like God and akin to Him, so that St. Paul tells us, “In God we
live, and move, and have our being ... for we are also his offspring”
(Acts xvii. 28). Now just because our whole blessedness, and our
only hope of returning at last to the perfect image in which God
made us, lies in our trying to get nearer and nearer to God, and to
become more and more like Him, so that our Lord Jesus bids us
“Be perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”
(Matt. v. 48)—just because of this, I say, one of the great and merciful
laws of God is that none of us shall ever find any true happiness
apart from goodness; and no one can hope for Rest who does not
seek it in the way of striving to do God’s will. Some one has said
that the true Rest of the soul is attained only when God’s will is
our will. So we are told by Isaiah, that “There is no peace, saith
my God, for the wicked” (Isa. lvii. 21).
And “the wicked” do not mean those only who do great and
shameful sins, which seem very terrible even to us, but all who do
not strive in everything to do God’s will. Let us look a little more
closely at what this will of God’s is.
We are told in the Old Testament what it is. Look at Isaiah i.
16, 17, “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of thy doing
from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek
judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the
widow.” And again, look at Micah vi. 8, “He hath showed thee,
O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to
do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
And when we come to the New Testament, we find Our Lord
Jesus Christ telling men who those are whom God blesses—what
it is to do God’s will:
.pm start_poem
“Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the pure in heart.
Blessed are the peacemakers.” (See Matt. v.)
.pm end_poem
And while He says that that man only “shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven,” who “doeth the will of my Father which is in
heaven” (Matt. vii. 21), He explains that will to be, “Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy strength; and thy neighbour as thyself.... This
do and thou shalt live” (Luke x. 27, 28). So that if that Rest
seems to us a great and glorious thing to attain, we must seek it in
God’s way; we must try to do God’s will here, that we may rest
in perfect harmony and agreement with that will hereafter.
.bn 576.png
.pn +1
Is it not a wonderful and beautiful thing that God loves us so
much that He will not let us be otherwise than good?—that He
will not cease to remind us by constant unhappiness and restlessness
that we are not fulfilling our highest end, till we strive day by day
to come nearer to Him; so that at last, in that great happy day
of Rest, there will be no more striving; for “we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is.”
Would you like to hear once more those words, which I daresay
you know so well, and which tell us better than any others have
ever done, what that Rest shall be, and how it shall satisfy all our
wants at last, as “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.”
Let us turn to the Revelation of St. John, and hear the description
he gives of those who have entered into Rest: “They shall hunger
no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on
them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne
shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters:
and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” “Behold the
tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they
shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be
their God.... And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow,
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former
things are passed away.” “And there shall be no night there;
and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord
God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.”
“Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have
right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the
city” (Rev. vii. 16, 17; xxi. 3, 4; xxii. 5, 14).
.sp 4
.h3 id=appC
APPENDIX C | CONCLUSIONS FROM “A VISIT TO AMERICAN SCHOOLS\
AND COLLEGES”
.sp 2
“The two features of American education which strike an Englishman
as characteristic, are, the union of all classes in the same schools
and of both sexes in the same colleges; the first being nearly universal
throughout the Northern States; the second still exceptional, and
as regards public opinion, still on probation.
I. That no disadvantages attend the system of mingling all classes
in school can hardly, I suppose, be maintained, though it may be
thought that the advantages greatly preponderate.... So far as
distinctions and consequent separations of rank depend on merely
external circumstances, such as wealth and position, I do not believe
that we gain much by observing them; but when they rest on real
.bn 577.png
.pn +1
differences of culture and refinement, the case becomes different,
and it does not seem good policy to risk certain loss to one class,
without being sure of securing a more than proportionate gain to
another. In short it seems to me that, if we can mingle different
classes of children in such proportions and under such conditions
as to ensure that the higher standard shall prevail over the lower,
and the tone of all be raised to that of the foremost few, the measure
must be an altogether good one: and I am sure that to some extent
and under some restrictions this may be done: but if once the
inferior standard of refinement is allowed to predominate, the lower
dragging down the higher rather than being raised by it, I fear that
no results gained can pay for the loss accruing.
II. With regard to the joint education of the sexes, it seems to
be pretty clearly established that, in America at least, this system
can prosper for years without any markedly evil effects as to the
morals and manners of the fellow-students, and the evidence of most
professors and teachers goes strongly to show that, on the contrary,
the mutual influence exerted is usually very beneficial.
It seems also to be proved that at least a considerable number of
women can undertake and successfully complete the same course
of study that is usual for men, and that without more apparent
detriment to their health than students of the other sex.
The general issue divides itself into three practical questions:
(a) whether men and women shall pursue the same course of study;
(b) whether they shall continue it to the same point; and (c) whether
their studies, if identical, shall be pursued together....
(a) If there is no fundamental education answering to the needs
of common humanity, and, therefore, equally necessary both for
men and women,—it follows that the difference of sex is more
radical and more essential than is the common humanity that underlies
it.... Women have, I think, from the earliest times, suffered
from the fact of men’s pretensions to ‘evolve out of their moral
consciousness the idea of’ a woman,—which idea has not by any
means always happened to correspond with the facts that might,
perhaps, afford a surer guide.... It might perhaps be shown
that those who, starting with their ‘evolved idea’ of a woman,
deny that the same education may safely be given to each sex
because of the vast essential differences of nature, are in point of
fact more incredulous of the reality of that difference than those
who hold the opposite views.... The naturalist will not fear to
lay meat and hay before horses and lions, cows and tigers, for neither
will the lion be seduced by the offer of hay, nor will the horse and
cow lose their distinctive characteristics because they both partake
of it.....
I do not by any means intend to say that I desire to see the
.bn 578.png
.pn +1
education of all women made identical with that at present given
to men. It must first be proved that that education is, in truth,
the best and most desirable for the human being, before we can wish
to make it universal. But I do say that what is ultimately decided
by the wisdom of ages to be the best possible form of culture
for one human nature, must be so for another, for our common
humanity lies deeper in all, and is more essential in each, than any
differences.
I do not believe that women are to be ‘educated to be wives
and mothers’ in any sense in which it is not equally imperative to
educate boys to be husbands and fathers. I believe that each human
being, developed to his or her best and utmost, will most perfectly
fulfil the duties that God may appoint in each case, and if teachers
and parents have ever before their eyes the aim of making good,
true, and sensible women, I do not fear but they will also train the
best wives and mothers....
(b) I confess that I have been surprised in America to find how
much study young women do seem able to accomplish without
material injury, but I do not know how much allowance to make
for possible differences of national constitution.... My own belief,
founded mainly on observation of English girls, is, that in quickness
of intellect they in no way fall behind their brothers, and that
during one or two hours’ study of any subject they would be quite
able to keep up with them, but that after a certain time their physical
powers flag,—sooner perhaps than those of boys,—and that a long
continued strain is apt to be injurious to them. I state this opinion
with great diffidence, however, for many of my fellow-teachers and
friends assert the contrary....
Above all, be the limits of study what they may, let whatever is
done be done thoroughly, so that the only too well deserved reproach
of superficiality and incompleteness may at length be removed from
our system of female education. Work half done is not merely
unsatisfactory, it is absolutely injurious to the moral and mental
health of the worker; and I believe it is better to omit any and every
study altogether, than to allow a pupil to skim over it so as to gather
together a string of words thereto relating, with no solid meaning
or knowledge lying beneath.
(c) The third question,—whether men and women shall pursue
their studies together,—I do not much care to discuss, for I am by
no means sure of having sufficient data whereon to rest any opinion,
and moreover it seems to me not vital to the general issue. So
long as men and women can each obtain an absolutely good education,
it does not appear very material whether they get it in company
or not,—not material, that is, as regards the education, whatever
may be the case as to the social results.
.bn 579.png
.pn +1
But one thing does seem to me important, viz. that not merely
a similar but an identical standard should exist for all, whether it
be the many or the few who avail themselves of it. This fixed
standard does exist for men, being represented by the examinations
and degrees of the Universities, and that the same facilities should
be thrown open to women does seem to me vitally important. I
have already said that I should not care to see all women aim at
so high a mark; nor do I believe that, for many years, a large
number would present themselves for examination. But that
those who do, by earnest study, attain to the prescribed standard,
should be excluded from recognition of the fact, seems to be manifestly
unjust and wrong. Universities hold, I suppose, in some sense
a national trust, and that trust involves all possible aid to the cause
of education throughout the land.”
.sp 4
.h3 id=appD
APPENDIX D | THE EDINBURGH EXTRA-MURAL SCHOOL
.sp 2
The Edinburgh Extra-Mural classes are medical classes conducted
by fully qualified and authorized lecturers other than the University
professors. They prepare students primarily for the examinations
of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, but their certificates
are, as a matter of fact, accepted by many examining bodies.
The history of the association of these classes with the University
is—briefly—as follows:
In 1840 Professor Syme begged the Town Council of Edinburgh,
who were then the recognized patrons of the University, to order
the recognition of extra-mural classes, an argument for the innovation
being “that one of the professors was so comparatively inefficient
that many students, after paying his fee and obtaining his certificate
of attendance, went to learn his subject elsewhere.” In 1842 the
Town Council ordained that four Extra-Mural classes should be
allowed to count for graduation,—the classes to be chosen by each
student at his discretion. The Medical Faculty of the University
refused to consent to this except on the condition that any student
taking such classes should have a year added to his curriculum.
The Town Council refused this condition, and the Senatus, supporting
the Medical Faculty, referred the matter to the Court of Law. In
1850 judgment was given against the Senatus; they appealed to
the Inner House, but the judgment was confirmed in 1852. An
appeal was taken to the House of Lords, but again in 1854 the Town
Council gained the day. In 1855 the regulations came into operation
and have ever since remained in force.
.bn 580.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=appE
APPENDIX E | LETTER TO THE TIMES IN REPLY TO MRS. GARRETT ANDERSON
.sp 2
“To the Editor of the Times.
Sir,—I have only just seen the letter from Dr. Garrett Anderson
which you published on the 5th inst., and I venture to beg that
you will allow me to point out my reasons for thinking she has
selected the very worst of all the alternatives suggested, when she
advises Englishwomen to go abroad for medical education.
In the first place, I think that Dr. Anderson assumes greatly too
much in supposing that all the Scotch Universities are permanently
closed to women by the recent decision, especially when notice has
already been given in Parliament that a Scotch member will, at the
beginning of next Session, bring in a Bill to enable those Universities
both to teach and examine female students. Even if no such Bill
were announced, it would, I suppose, be open to every Scotch University
at this moment to obtain the necessary powers merely by
application for the sanction of the Queen in Council, as it was
repeatedly stated, both by the defenders in the late suit and by
those Judges who gave decisions in their favour, that it was merely
the absence of Royal authority for recent changes which rendered
those changes illegal. I think there is very good ground to hope
that this course may be taken by one or more of the other Universities,
even if Edinburgh is content to rest quietly under the imputations
on her good faith which can hardly be effaced in any other way.
Even if the Scotch Universities are left out of the question, those
of Cambridge and London may well be expected to move in a matter
like the present; or it would hardly seem unreasonable to hope that
some of the surplus revenues in Ireland might be applied in one way
or other to the solution of the present difficulty.
I think, moreover, that Mrs. Anderson concedes very much more
than has yet been proved when she states that the examining bodies,
such as the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, ‘have the power
to refuse to admit women to their examinations and qualifications.’
That they have the will to do so may, I fear, only be too probable,
but it is at least a very open question whether such power does lie
in their hands. I have been assured on very good authority that
this is not the case, and at any rate I believe no decision to that
effect has ever been given by a Court of Law. Certainly the primâ
facie assumption would be the other way. The Medical Act of 1858
in no way excludes women from the profession, and two women are
actually registered under its provisions. It is, therefore, hardly
credible, that when all candidates are by the Act required to submit
.bn 581.png
.pn +1
to certain examinations, the Examining Boards should at their
option be able to turn away all applicants who are not of the male
sex, no mention of any such power being contained in the Act itself;
nor, I think, need we assume even a desire to exclude women on the
part of all the Examining Boards until application has been made
to each individually; and this has never, so far as I am aware, been
done at present.
I trust, therefore, that I have shown that Mrs. Anderson’s advice
that all Englishwomen desiring to study medicine should at once
expatriate themselves is premature in the extreme; I hope further
to show that it is moreover radically erroneous in principle. Even
if it should ultimately be proved (as is at present by no means the
case) that women cannot obtain official examination in this country,
and therefore cannot enter their names on the Register, it would still,
I think, be very far from certain that their best plan was to seek such
examination abroad, seeing that after having spent years of labour
and much money they would, as regards legal recognition, be exactly
as far as ever from gaining their end. Mrs. Anderson says that they
would at least obtain ‘what is denied them in their own country,
a first-class medical education.’ If it were true that such an
education could not be got without going abroad, there would, no
doubt, be much force in this argument, but I submit that this is not
the case. Without stopping to consider the alternatives brought
forward by your correspondent herself—the establishment of a new
school for women or the purchase of one of the existing hospital
schools—either of which seems to me infinitely preferable, Mrs.
Anderson quite overlooks the fact that at this moment medical
classes of first-rate quality can be obtained in Edinburgh in the
Extra-Mural school (many of whose lecturers stand much higher
than the University professors in public estimation),[166] and that with
very little trouble a complete curriculum of medical study could be
there arranged, without altering any of the existing conditions of
affairs. The doors of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary have also
been thrown open to women, though under some restrictions, and
excellent clinical instruction is given to them there by two of the
best and most popular teachers in the city. Can any one doubt
that when so much has been secured, and when every year promises
increased facilities, it is infinitely better that Englishwomen should
study medicine under the direction of their own countrymen, in
their own language, and amid the social and hygienic conditions
which will occur in their own future practice, rather than in a foreign
land, from lecturers who teach in a strange language and in hospitals
where all the arrangements and theories vary from those of this
country, and where even the types of disease may be so far modified
.bn 582.png
.pn +1
as greatly to lessen the value of the instruction for those who intend
to practise medicine in Great Britain?
.fn 166
S. J.-B. was thinking mainly of Dr. Heron Watson and Dr. G. W. Balfour.
.fn-
In point of fact, the question of medical education in this country
may be already considered solved, even if we grant the necessity of
attending lectures on every subject in the medical curriculum. It
is, however, worth remark that many of the very first men in the
profession are becoming more and more strongly in favour of free
trade in study—i.e., of allowing every student to obtain his knowledge
as he pleases, whether from books or from lectures, requiring only
final evidence of satisfactory results. It may be that on investigation
the present system will be found to rest rather on the ‘vested
interests’ of teachers than on the needs of students, and, if so, the
question of medical education for women will be still further simplified.
At present, however, it is not needful to argue that question.
I have shown that provision for the education of women after the
present fashion is to a great extent already made, and that, for
purposes of instruction at least, it is quite unnecessary for them to
expatriate themselves.
With regard to examination, the case seems to me equally clear.
No foreign diploma or degree is at present acknowledged as qualifying
for registration in this country, and though it may be well for those
who covet such ornamental honours to go through the examinations
requisite to obtain them, I cannot see any ground on which it would
be worth the while of most Englishwomen to live for years abroad
to arrive at a result so eminently unpractical. We live under English
law, and to English law we must conform, so far as lies in our power;
if we are arbitrarily precluded from such compliance it is to the
English Government that we must look for a remedy. I can imagine
few things that would please our opponents better than to see one
Englishwoman after another driven out of her own country to obtain
medical education abroad, both because they know that, on her
return after years of labour, she can claim no legal recognition whatever,
and because they are equally certain that, so long as no means
of education are provided at home, only a very small number of
women will ever seek admission to the profession. I do not say
that a woman may not be justified in going abroad for education
if her circumstances make it imperative that she should as soon as
possible enter upon medical practice; but I do say, and I most
firmly believe, that every woman who consents to be thus exiled
does more harm than can easily be calculated to the general cause
of medical women in this country, and postpones indefinitely, so far
as in her lies, the final and satisfactory solution of the whole question.
It is not an easy thing to remember at all times that
.pm start_poem
‘They also serve who only stand and wait’;
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
but I do believe profoundly that at this moment the very best
.bn 583.png
.pn +1
service we can do to the cause in which we are all interested is to
make use of every opportunity open to us in this country to qualify
ourselves as thoroughly as possible for the profession we have
chosen, and then (refusing resolutely to be driven into byways or
unauthorized measures) to demand, quietly but firmly, that provision
for our ultimate recognition as medical practitioners which we have
a right to expect at the hands of the Legislature. Mrs. Anderson
seems to think it hopeless that the present Parliament should ‘promote
the interests of an unrepresented class,’ but it must be remembered
that one of the very strongest arguments against granting
the franchise to women has always been that their substantial interests
are and will be provided for by the existing Government, and a case
like the present will certainly afford a crucial test of the truth of these
assertions. If they be true, we cannot doubt that Parliament will
in its next Session make full provision for a case of such almost
unexampled hardship; and if, on the other hand, this be not done,
the argument above referred to can hardly be again brought forward
when the suffrage for women shall again be claimed.
Let me, therefore, conclude, as I began, by protesting as strongly
as lies in my power against this idea of sending abroad every Englishwoman
who wishes to study medicine; let me entreat all such women
to join the class already formed in Edinburgh, the great majority
of whose members are thoroughly of one mind with me in this matter,
and who, having counted the cost, are, like myself, thoroughly
resolved to ‘fight it out on this line,’ and neither to be driven out
of our own country for education nor to be induced to cease to make
every effort in our power to obtain from the Legislature that measure
of justice which we imperatively need, and which is, in point of fact,
substantially implied in the provisions of the Medical Act of 1858.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, Sir, yours obediently,
Sophia Jex-Blake.
.nf-
.ll
15, Buccleuch-place, Edinburgh. Aug. 8.”
.sp 4
.h3 id=appF
APPENDIX F | LETTER FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY,\
AND S. J.-B.’S REPLY
.sp 2
.nf c
LADY STUDENTS AT EDINBURGH
To the Editor of the Times.
.nf-
Sir,—In your article on the medical education of women, under
date the 23rd inst., you give utterance to reproaches against the
University of Edinburgh, which appear to me to be undeserved,
.bn 584.png
.pn +1
and which I feel sure you would not have admitted had the full
circumstances of the case been before you. May I be allowed as
briefly as possible to indicate what seems to me to be a correct
view of those circumstances? You say:
“It was next thought that an opening for female medical students
might be found or made at the University of Edinburgh, and a few
were for a time actually received there. The Professors, however,
were greatly divided upon the question, and those who were opposed
to the necessary concessions threw every possible difficulty in the
way of those who wished to make them. After much quarrelling
and litigation, and after transactions which reflected very little
credit on the University, a legal decision adverse to the ladies was
finally given by a bare majority of Scottish Judges, and will remain
binding unless carried by appeal to the House of Lords. Under
these circumstances the ladies were placed in a position of great
hardship and difficulty.”
I acknowledge and regret the hardship and difficulty of the position
in which the ladies referred to have been placed; but this is owing
to the state of the law of the land as interpreted by the Court of
Session, and not to any discreditable transactions on the part of the
University. I admit the manifestation, during the history of this
question, of a partisan feeling both for and against the medical
ladies, to some extent within the University itself, but far more in
the outside public of Edinburgh; but I confidently assert that the
main body of the Professors were not partisans on either side, and
that the general feeling was a desire to give facilities for medical
study to women, so far as this could be done consistently with the
maintenance of academical good order. Again, it must be remembered
that the Professors do not constitute or govern the University.
The governing body is the University Court, consisting of eight
members (of whom only one is a Professor), headed at present by
Sir William Stirling Maxwell, as rector. I utterly deny the appearance
of any unworthy feeling in the way in which this Court dealt
with the questions relating to female medical education which came
before it.
The University was solicited in 1869 to admit ladies, as an experiment,
to the lectures of Medical Professors. There was a certain
amount of opposition to this request, but the feeling of the majority
in each of the constitutive bodies of the University was in favour of
conceding under necessary restrictions what was asked. In one of
the debates on the subject it was indeed suggested that such a concession
should not be made without clearly ascertaining beforehand
whether we had the power of ultimately conferring degrees upon
women, should it be found on experiment that they succeeded in
completing their medical curriculum and in passing the examinations.
.bn 585.png
.pn +1
But such a delay was deprecated by the supporters of the application;
it was urged that such an inquiry would be premature, as what
was asked for the present was only that trial might be made of
ladies in the capacity of medical students. I need hardly point out
that these representations were dictated by the policy of “getting
in the thin end of the wedge.” And far better for all parties, more
prudent, and more consistent with the dignity of the University,
would it have been, had we resisted this policy, and refused to take
any step before endeavouring to ascertain our powers in respect of
the graduation of women. But the University Court yielded to an
impulse of liberality, and proceeded at once to frame regulations
forbidding mixed classes, but permitting any professor of medicine
to hold separate classes for the medical instruction of women. The
applicants appeared satisfied with what was done for them; and I
must say that it would then have been in their power to ascertain
beforehand how many of the Professors were prepared to institute
classes for them. The ladies must not now throw on the University
all the blame of their disappointment, for they were not without
sufficient warning that only a limited number of such classes, far
short of a full curriculum, would be provided for them. The regulations
said not a word of graduation or of a full course of study; they
were merely permissive, and, as had been requested, tentative. But
the ladies preferred to enter at once upon such lectures as they could
get, trusting, apparently, to the chapter of accidents. To several
of the Medical Professors it would have been impossible to open
full course lectures for ladies, in addition to their ordinary duties.
Some had already on hand the teaching of more than 300 students,
not only by lectures, but also by daily demonstrations for many
hours in the laboratory or dissecting-room. Others had extensive
and important medical practice to attend to, being sought out by
patients from all parts of the country. Altogether three of the
Medical Professors opened classes for ladies, and of these one has had
his health seriously broken down by the labour, and the two others
have both declared that the burden of such extra duty was more
than they could continue to bear.
Under these circumstances, the medical ladies applied that substitutes
might be appointed to lecture to them in the place of such
Professors as might be unable, or unwilling, to give them instruction.
Now, for the first time, the University determined to seek legal
advice. An impartial statement of the case was drawn up and
submitted to the Solicitor-General for Scotland, with the question
whether such measures as the ladies now asked were within the competency
of the University? The opinion of the Solicitor-General
was very strongly given, and went even beyond the exact point
inquired on; it was to the effect that any step tending towards the
.bn 586.png
.pn +1
graduation of women would be beyond the powers of the University.
This opinion paralyzed the action of the University. The University
Court informed the ladies, on further application from them,
that it was debarred by this opinion from promoting their graduation
until the legality of such graduation could be established, but it
offered to make, in the meantime, arrangements for their full
medical instruction, and it was suggested to the friends of the ladies
that an amicable suit should be instituted with a view of ascertaining
the law. These offers were rejected, and a suit was brought by the
ladies against the Chancellor and Professors of the University, which
has terminated, thus far, in a judgment that it is not within the powers
of the University to confer a degree upon a woman.
This, Sir, is in brief the history of an unhappy affair, in which
the University certainly made the mistake of consenting to an
experimental arrangement which was strongly urged upon them,
and for this it has been most severely punished. But I doubt if
there is anything in what has occurred which can be called a
“transaction reflecting little credit on the University,” with one
exception—namely, that on one occasion some of the students misbehaved
themselves and insulted the medical ladies. But I must
say that this lamentable occurrence was occasioned by those ladies
having transgressed the regulations of the University Court, and
having joined a mixed class in anatomy under an extra academical
lecturer. This outraged the feeling or prejudices of the students.
In conclusion, Sir, I sincerely sympathize in the earnest appeal
made by Miss Jex-Blake, in the very able letter which forms the
subject of your article, to the Legislature to take up the consideration
of the medical education of women. It is a subject well worthy
the attention of the Legislature, and one which can only be properly
dealt with, as a general social subject, by the Legislature. Whether
or not an University is a suitable institution for the medical instruction
and examination of women is a wide question on which I will not
venture to enter. But, however this be decided, all other Universities
of the United Kingdom must share in the decision of the
University of Edinburgh, and this University will loyally bear her
part in carrying out whatever Parliament may ordain as expedient.
In the meantime, under considerable obloquy, she can at all events
claim to have contributed something in the way of experience to
the elucidation of the question.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
A. Grant, Principal.
.nf-
.ll
August 27.
.bn 587.png
.pn +1
.ce
To the Editor of the Times.
Sir,—As Sir Alexander Grant, as representative of the University
of Edinburgh, has thought fit to lay before your readers a statement
respecting that University and its lady students which is, to use
the mildest term, imperfect in the extreme, I trust to your justice
to allow me to supplement his narrative with such additional facts
as he has not thought it desirable to make public.
Sir Alexander states that in 1869 the University was “solicited
to admit ladies as an experiment to the lectures of the medical
professors,” and further on speaks of the regulations as being, “as
was requested, tentative.” He implies that all that followed was
in compliance with this request, the claim to graduation being
altogether an afterthought on the part of the ladies. Now, the
real fact is that in March, 1869, I personally did request admission
to medical lectures on these terms, but though the application was
granted by the Senatus it was refused by the University Court on
the express ground of the inexpediency of making any such “temporary
arrangement in the interest of one lady.” About three
months later four other ladies joined me in making a new and
altogether different application—viz., that the University “would
sanction the matriculation of women as medical students, and their
admission to the usual examinations, on the understanding that
separate classes be formed for their instruction.” At the same time
(June 21, 1869) I addressed a formal letter to the Lord Rector of
the University urging the same proposal, and asking that, if separate
classes could be formed, women should be “allowed to matriculate
in the usual way, and to undergo the ordinary examinations, with a
view to obtain medical degrees in due course.”
Our new proposal was successively submitted to all the different
authorities of the University, and received the assent of all—viz.,
of the Medical Faculty, the Senatus Academicus, the University
Court, the University Council, and the Chancellor—and, after five
months of consultation and consideration, regulations were, in
November, 1869, framed and issued “for the education of women
in medicine in the University,” these regulations being henceforth
incorporated in the official University Calendar. The first of these
regulations states that “women shall be admitted to the study of
medicine in the University”; in the fourth regulation exceptional
provision is made for “women not intending to study medicine
professionally”; and the sixth regulation ordains that “all
women attending such classes shall be subject to all the regulations
now or at any time in force in the University as to the
matriculation of students, their attendance on classes, examination,
or otherwise.”
.bn 588.png
.pn +1
As the decision by which a bare majority of the Scotch Judges
absolved the University of Edinburgh from all responsibility towards
its matriculated lady students rests on the assumption that the
University Court exceeded its legal powers in passing the above
regulations, it may be worth while to state that the University
Court comprised at that time the then Lord Advocate of Scotland
(who is now Lord Justice Clerk), and also the previous Lord Advocate,
Mr. Gordon, and that the regulations in question were confirmed
by the Chancellor, who happens to be, as Lord Justice General of
Scotland, the highest legal authority in the country. It is certainly
a tolerably striking instance of the “glorious uncertainty of the
law,” that the two highest Judges in the land should concur in an
action which is subsequently declared by a majority of their brethren
to be illegal.
Sir Alexander further goes on to suggest that we might have
ascertained beforehand how many of the Professors would be willing
to hold separate classes for our benefit. The answer to this is twofold.
In the first place, no less than four of the medical Professors
have been changed since my first application was made, and in
every case the change has, as regards our interests, been for the
worse. One of those Professors whose loss we have most to deplore
is Sir James Simpson, whose generous liberality made him always
ready to espouse the weaker cause, and whose strong sense of justice
would have made him always our strenuous supporter in the councils
of the University. Had he been spared, it is, indeed, more than
possible that the whole history of the past four years would have
been different. On these losses it was impossible for us to calculate;
nor could we (before we learnt the full bitterness of professional
rancour) have foreseen that those Professors who were themselves
unable or unwilling to teach us would absolutely refuse their assent
to every one of the alternative measures by which others might have
been enabled to give us the necessary instructions. It is hardly
necessary to allude to your correspondent’s rather apocryphal
statement that the stupendous labour of giving two lectures a day
(which is habitually undergone by Professors in the Arts Faculty)
has ruined the health of one medical Professor and seriously endangered
that of two more. Suffice it to say that these facts are, to say
the least of it, quite new to me, and that, did space permit, I think
a very different version of the circumstances might be given.
As Sir Alexander has thought fit to refer to the students’ riot in
November, 1871 (though to my mind it is very far from the most
discreditable episode in this history), I think it right distinctly to
deny the interpretation he puts upon the event. It is true that the
riot did occur while we were attending an extra-mural class of
anatomy (we having utterly failed to obtain a private class, though
.bn 589.png
.pn +1
we had offered a fee of a hundred and fifty guineas for one), but the
rioters were, with few exceptions, not our fellow-students at all,
but a mob of University students who had been summoned together
by a missive circulated in the University class-rooms. The real
truth was that the riot was deliberately got up simply and solely
in the hope of frightening certain friendly infirmary managers from
admitting us to their wards, and perhaps also of frightening us by
showers of foul words and of street mud from pursuing our studies
any further. Fortunately, the chivalrous device was not permanently
successful in either direction.
I pass on, however, to notice the statements made respecting the
recent lawsuit and the events immediately preceding it. Sir Alexander
says that when the University “for the first time sought
legal advice” the authorities obtained an opinion adverse to the
ladies’ claims from the Solicitor-General. As that opinion has
never been published, there is no opportunity for its discussion;
but Sir Alexander appears entirely to forget the fact that an opinion
to the exactly contrary effect was delivered by the Lord Advocate
of Scotland, who takes official precedence of the Solicitor-General,
and that that opinion was not only submitted to the University
Court, but published more than once in the newspapers and elsewhere.
In that opinion the Lord Advocate stated distinctly that he
believed the University to be not only able, but distinctly bound,
to complete the education of those ladies whom it had invited to
matriculate, and that all necessary arrangements for that purpose
could legally be made. It will thus be seen that the above opinions
at any rate neutralized each other, and that, had the University
willed it otherwise, it certainly need not have been “paralyzed”
by one of them.
It is further stated that the University Court informed the ladies
that, by the opinion above referred to, “it was debarred from promoting
their graduation until the legality of such graduation could be
established, but it offered to make, in the meantime, arrangements
for their full medical instruction”; and, further, that such offer
was rejected by the ladies. Both these statements, Sir, I distinctly
deny. I have at this moment the whole correspondence before me,
and I fail utterly to find in it any such offer as that alleged. The
only thing that in any degree gives colour to Sir Alexander’s assertion
is a passage occurring in a Minute of the University Court of
January 8, 1872, which is as follows:
“The Court are of opinion that the question under reference has
been complicated by the introduction of the subject of graduation,
which is not essential to the completion of a medical or other education....
If the applicants in the present case would be content
to seek the examination of women by the University for certificates
.bn 590.png
.pn +1
of proficiency in medicine, instead of University degrees, the Court
believe that arrangements for accomplishing this object would fall
within the scope of the powers given to them by section 12 of the
Universities (Scotland) Act. The Court would be willing to consider
any such arrangements which might be submitted to them.”
On receiving a copy of this Minute I pointed out that certificates
of proficiency, not being recognized by the Medical Act of 1858,
would be quite useless to us; but added that, “As the main difficulty
before your honourable Court seems to be that regarding
graduation, with which we are not immediately concerned at this
moment, we are quite willing to rest our claims to ultimate graduation
on the facts as they stand up to the present date, and in case
your honourable Court will now make arrangements whereby we
can continue our education, we will undertake not to draw any
arguments in favour of our right to graduation from such future
arrangements, so that they may at least be made without prejudice
to the present legal position of the University.”
In answer to this letter I was informed that “If the names of
extra-academical teachers of the required medical subjects be
submitted by yourself or by the Senatus, the Court will be prepared
to consider the respective fitness of the persons so named to be
authorized to hold medical classes for women who have in this or
former sessions been matriculated students of the University, and
also the conditions and regulations under which such classes should
be held.”
I, of course, replied that we would willingly prepare and submit
such a list (though your readers will notice that this simply amounted
to all the arrangements being thrown upon us students, and not in
any degree made by the Court), but requested first to be assured
that, “though you at present give us no pledge respecting our
ultimate graduation, it is your intention to consider the proposed
extra-mural courses as ‘qualifying’ for graduation, if it is subsequently
determined that the University has the power of granting
degrees to women.” In reply I was informed that the Court would
do nothing of the kind; that we might, if we pleased, take all the
trouble and expense of finding teachers, and might “submit” their
names to the Court, but that in no case would the Court take any
measures for making their teaching of any practical use to us from a
University point of view. Your readers will therefore judge of what
value was the boon that we are alleged to have rejected—I had almost
said the trap that we were fortunate enough to have escaped!
I am sorry to have paused so long over this point, but the assertion
of your correspondent was so amazing that it seemed essential that
the real facts should be laid before the public. I should be only
too glad if your space would allow you to publish the whole correspondence,
.bn 591.png
.pn +1
of which I forward a copy for your own perusal. Should
any of your readers desire, however, to ascertain more of the facts,
they will find the correspondence fully given in the notes to a little
book called Medical Women, published last year by Oliphant & Co.,
of Edinburgh, to which also I may refer for a detailed account of
the whole struggle of the first three years at Edinburgh.
I notice that Sir Alexander Grant thinks it well to omit the fact
that, when we were at last driven to assert our rights in a court of
law (and I may remark that no proposal for an “amicable suit”
was ever made to me or to any of my fellow-students by the University
authorities, and therefore none was ever “rejected” by us),
an unhesitating decision in our favour was given by the Lord
Ordinary, before whom the case was tried, his Lordship also finding
the Senatus liable for three-fourths of our expenses. The University
refused, however, to accept this verdict, and appealed the case
to the Inner House, where they at length succeeded in obtaining
a judgment in their favour from a bare majority of the Lords of
Session, the whole costs being in this case thrown upon us. Perhaps
you will kindly allow me, however, to quote the following passage
from the judgment of the Lord Justice Clerk, who adhered to the
decision of the Lord Ordinary, and who had himself been Rector of
the University when we were admitted as students.[167] ... I may
mention that an abstract of the whole recent lawsuit has been
published as a sixpenny pamphlet, and may be obtained from
Mr. Elliott, 67 Princes Street, Edinburgh.
Apologizing for so large a trespass on your space,
.ll 68
.nf r
I remain, yours obediently,
Sophia Jex-Blake.
.nf-
.ll
.fn 167
The passage has already been quoted, pp. 396-7.
.fn-
.sp 4
.h3 id=appG
APPENDIX G | PERMANENT MEMORIALS OF SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE
.sp 2
In St. Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh,—a brass tablet placed by the
Very Rev. T. W. Jex-Blake:
.pm start_quote
.ll 67
.in 5
“Sacred to the Memory of Sophia Jex-Blake, M.D., by
whose energy, courage, self-sacrifice and perseverance
the Science of Medicine and the Art of Healing were
opened to Women in Scotland.”
.ll
.in
.pm end_quote
In the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children, placed by
the Committee and friends,—a medallion of cast bronze mounted
.bn 592.png
.pn +1
on a slab of verde-antique marble: on the medallion, surrounded by
a wreath of laurel, the family crest and motto:
.ce
Bene praeparatum pectus.
And below this the inscription:
.pm start_quote
.in 5
.ll 67
“In affectionate remembrance of Sophia Jex-Blake,
Founder of this Hospital, to whose large courage,
insight and constancy the admission of Women to the
Profession of Medicine in this Country is mainly due.”
.in
.ll
.pm end_quote
On the family monument at Ovingdean, near Brighton:
.nf c
SOPHIA LOUISA,
YOUNGEST CHILD OF THOMAS JEX-BLAKE,
AND MARIA EMILY, HIS WIFE.
DOCTOR OF MEDICINE,
FOUNDER IN 1874 OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FOR WOMEN,
AND IN 1888 OF A SIMILAR SCHOOL IN EDINBURGH,
WHERE SHE ALSO FOUNDED A HOSPITAL FOR
WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN 1886.
“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”
.nf-
In Rotherfield Churchyard, where her body was laid,—a grey
granite cross, bearing the words:
.nf c
SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE, M.D.
BORN 21ST JANUARY, 1840.
DIED 7TH JANUARY 1912.
.nf-
.in 5
.ll 67
“Then are they glad because they are at rest, and so
He bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.”
.in
.ll
.bn 593.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=INDEX
INDEX
.sp 2
.ix
Aberdare, Lord, #404#, #427#, #433#, #443# (footnote), #466#, #507#.
Aberdeen University, #226#, #413#.
Act, Russell Gurney Enabling. See #Table of Contents:GURNEY#.
Action of Declarator, Part II. Chap. XIII.
Advocate, The Boston, #191#.
Aids to Faith, #108#, #109#.
Aitken, Dr., #500#.
“A. K. H. B.” See Rev. A. K. H. #Boyd:BOYD#.
“Alice,” #88#, #105#, #106#, #107#, #168#, #185#, #204#, #205#, #207#, #230#, #258#, #421#, #461#.
Allman, Professor, #257#, #258#, #276#, #337#.
Amberley, Viscountess, #279#.
America, Life in. See #Table of Contents:AMERICA#.
Anderson, M.D., Mrs. Garrett (Miss Elizabeth Garrett), #117#, #118#, #119#, #120#, #155#, #187#, #200#, #205#, #232#, #233#, #279#, #362#, #364#, #368#, #369#, #400#, #401#, #420#, #423#, #424#, #425#, #426#, #433#, #441#, #444# (letter from), #447#, #449#, #466#, #467#, #473# (letter from), #524#.
Anderson, Miss Mary D. See Mrs. #Marshall:MARSHALL#, M.D.
Andrews, Miss Amelia, #56#, #57#.
Anstie, Dr. F. E., #402#, #421#, #425#, #427#;
letters from: 374, #419#, #420#.
Anthony, Miss, #477#.
Anstruther, Sir Robert, #360#, #403#.
Lady, #360#.
Atlantic House, #193#, #194#.
Antioch (at Yellow Springs in Ohio), #168#.
Apothecaries’ Hall of Ireland, #395#.
Society of London, #395#.
Ardmillan, Lord, #392#.
.bn 594.png
.pn +1
Arthur of Barshaw, Mrs., #514#.
Athenaeum, The, #188#.
Atkins, Dr. Louisa, #431#, #439#, #447#.
Ayrton, M.D., Mrs. Chaplin, #263#, #289#, #336#, #341#, #377#.
A Visit to some American Schools and Colleges, Part I. Chap. #XIII:chap1.13#., #188#, #228#, #479#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
B., Miss, #12#, #17#, #18#, #20#, #21#, #24#, #36#.
Bain, Miss Isabel (Mrs. James Brander), #159#, #160#, #172#, #478#, #506#.
Balfour, Dr. G. W., #289#, #349#, #425#, #427#, #459#, #498#, #504#, #508#, #525#.
Professor J. H., #118#, #228-9:Page_228#, #235#, #237#, #240#, #241#, #248#, #258#, #272#, #276#, #333#, #334#, #336#, #337#, #358#.
Ballantyne, Mrs. See Lady #Jenkinson:JENKINSON#.
Miss K., #480#.
Barker, Dr. Annie, #279#.
Barlow, Sir Thomas, #460#, #483#.
Baynes, Professor, #394#.
Beaconsfield, Lord. See #Disraeli:DISRAELI#.
Beattie, Mrs., #516#.
Bedford College, #107#.
Begbie, James, #107#, #117#, #118#, #229#, #233#, #239#, #240#.
Beilby, Lady, #525#.
Miss Winifred (Mrs. Frederick Soddy), #525#.
Bell, Dr., #311#.
Bellevue Hospital, #199#.
Bennet, Dr. Henry, #280-1:Page_280# (letter from).
Bennett, Professor Hughes, #236#, #237#, #241#, #258#, #273#, #279#, #289#, #361#, #425#.
Benson, Miss Ada, #62#, #63#, #84#, #362#.
Henry, #62#.
.bn 595.png
.pn +1
Bernerhof, #436#.
Berne University, #436#.
Bettws-y-Coed, #45#, #60#, #86-7:Page_86#, #120#, #127#, #198#, #485#.
Biblical Criticism, S. J.-B.’s views on, #142-4:Page_142#.
Billing, Dr. A. (father of the profession), #444#, #445#.
Birmingham University, #392#.
Birrell, Professor, #394#.
Black, Miss Janet, #498#.
Blackie, Professor J. S., #239#, #241#, #301#, #302#, #303#.
Mrs., #239#, #510#;
letters from: 302-3, #346#.
Blackwell, Dr. Elizabeth, #199#, #200#, #204#, #205#, #207#, #264# (letter from), #267#, #356-7:Page_356# (letter from S. J.-B.), #362#, #364#, #367#, #368#, #369#, #425#, #493#.
Dr. Emily, #199#, #204#, #205#, #206#, #233#.
Blackwood’s Magazine, #435#.
Blake-Humfrey, family, #59#, #60#.
Mr. Robert, #59#.
Blyth, Miss Phoebe, #107#, #239#, #390#, #510#.
Bologna University, #221#, #239#, #240#, #241#, #358#, #370#.
Bonney, Dr., #220#, #221#.
Bordighera, #521-3:Page_521#.
Bosnia, Miss Irby’s work in, #402#.
Boston