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THE LIFE OF SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE
_By the same Author_
------------------------------------
MONA MACLEAN
FELLOW TRAVELLERS
WINDYHAUGH
THE WAY OF ESCAPE
GROWTH
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
_Samuel Laurence pinx._ _Emery Walker ph. sc._
_Sophia Jex-Blake_
_at the age of 25_
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LIFE OF
SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE
BY
MARGARET TODD, M.D.
(GRAHAM TRAVERS)
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1918
_COPYRIGHT_
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
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
PREFACE
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. 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.
CONTENTS
_PART I_
CHAPTER I
PAGE
CHILDHOOD 1
Birth, parentage and descent—Early influences—
“Sweet Sackermena.”
CHAPTER II
SCHOOL LIFE 11
A “terrible pickle”—Home letters—Holidays—“Poems”—
A confession.
CHAPTER III
SCHOOL LIFE—_Continued_ 24
Indifferent health—Various educational
experiments—S. J.-B.’s character as seen by her
schoolfellows.
CHAPTER IV
SCHOOL LIFE—_Concluded_ 35
Leaves school abruptly—Fresh start—Illness of her
mother and sister—Letter from her father—
Confirmation.
CHAPTER V
LIFE AT HOME 50
Friendship with her mother—Dreams of authorship—
Self-centred life—Makes acquaintance of Norfolk
cousins.
CHAPTER VI
LIFE AT QUEEN’S COLLEGE 62
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
All-round development—Capacity for friendship and
service—Friendship with Miss Octavia Hill.
CHAPTER VIII
A STEP BEYOND 95
Confidence in her mother—Fresh dedication of her
life.
CHAPTER IX
FIRST EXPERIENCE OF EDINBURGH 103
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
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
Letters to her mother—Success of her work—
Transient wave of unpopularity—Letter to her
mother on Biblical criticism.
CHAPTER XII
VARIOUS PROJECTS AND VENTURES 147
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
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
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
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
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.
_PART II_
CHAPTER I
DRIFTING 213
Life at Brighton—Perplexities as to future
education.
CHAPTER II
AT THE GATES OF THE CITADEL 218
Correspondence with Mrs. Butler, Professor
Sidgwick and others as to possibility of
University training—Goes to Edinburgh—Canvasses
professors.
CHAPTER III
SUCCESS? 232
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
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
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
More lady students—_Cives Academiae Edinensis_—
Difficulty of getting teachers—Miss Pechey
deprived of Hope Scholarship—Newspaper support
and opposition—Differences among professors.
CHAPTER VII
PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES 276
Science classes—Efforts to get anatomical
teaching—Correspondence in the _Lancet_.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RIOT AT SURGEONS’ HALL 285
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
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
£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
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.
CHAPTER XII
THE ROYAL INFIRMARY 340
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
_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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
S. J.-B. and Miss Pechey study and graduate at
Berne, and obtain Licence of Irish College.
CHAPTER XXI
THE ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL 441
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_
CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS IN PRACTICE 455
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
S. J.-B. called south for last time—Unavailing
efforts—Death of Mrs. Jex-Blake.
CHAPTER III
PATIENTS AND FRIENDS 476
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
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
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
CHAPTER VII
THE SABBATICAL YEAR 523
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.
APPENDICES
A. Pedigree of the Jex-Blake family. Origin of 543
compound surname
B. “Words for the Way.”—No. 2. Rest 544
C. Conclusions from “A Visit to American Schools and 548
Colleges”
D. The Edinburgh Extra-Mural School 551
E. Letter to the _Times_ in reply to Mrs. Garrett 552
Anderson
F. Letter to the _Times_ in reply to the Principal of 555
Edinburgh University
G. Permanent Memorials of S. J.-B. 563
INDEX 565
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE _Frontispiece_
From a painting by Samuel Laurence
THOMAS JEX-BLAKE _To face p._ 70
From a drawing in chalks by Henry T.
Wells, R.A.
MARIA EMILY JEX-BLAKE ” 384
From a drawing in chalks by Henry T.
Wells, R.A.
SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE ” 484
_PART I_
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.
EDWARD CAIRD.
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD
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 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.
Footnote 1:
Appendix A.
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. 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.
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.
“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.”
and again:
“DEAR BROTHER,
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.”
“_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:
“DEAR SOPHY,
I am very pleased with your marker, I think it nicely done for
you. I wish you many happy returns of your birthday—now 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.
I am your affectionate Mother,
MARIA EMILY JEX-BLAKE.”
A day or two later she writes again:
“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.”
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.
“DEAR MRS. BLAKE,
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.
GRANDAFLORER.”
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.”
“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....”
In the next letter—endorsed by her Mother, “7th May, 1848”—she says,
“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.
S. L. B.”[2]
Footnote 2:
The paragraphs and brackets are the writer’s own.
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.
She begins gallantly many times: (We all know the experience.)
“See how pretily the sunbeams dance
Upon the fair waves of Speed-the-lance
See the Waters of Gold!”
and again,
“See Lord Grandaflora brave
Fighting his country and life to save....”
and again,
“See how gently Mordisca rules
O’er Sackermena and her pooles....”
or is it “fooles”?—The writing is very bad.
On the whole the most delightful stanza is the one that was probably the
first,
“Sweet Sackermena and her isles
See how many yards and miles
It takes to go round Sackermena!”
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:
“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 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.”
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 bonfire is made in the palace
gardens of Mt. Gilbow [!] which is perhaps seen to a greater distance.”
This is fine:
“The Despotic Emperor is the grand Law-giver General Judge Sage
Physician and in short the Father of his vast dominions.”
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.”
Footnote 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.”
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 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:
THE SACKERMENEE’S
POCKET BOOK
----------
_Containing many Little Accounts
of their Customs_
----------
PUBLISHED BY S. L. BLAKE & CO.
Hastings 1848
_Jan. 1850_
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.
CHAPTER II
SCHOOL LIFE
“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.
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:
“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.”
The second letter is nearly two months later:
“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,
Yours in the Lord,
MARY B.”
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:
“29th January [1849].
DEAR LITTLE SO,
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.
I am your affectionate Mother,
MARIA EMILY JEX-BLAKE.”
Mrs. Jex-Blake’s health never was robust, and at this time it was
causing her husband and intimate friends some uneasiness.
“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.”
And again,
“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 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.”
Footnote 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.
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]
Footnote 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.
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:
“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.”
_She_ never seems to have drawn a blank, poor little soul!
A previous entry is even more characteristic of the world she lived in:
“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.”
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:
“DEAR SOPHY,
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.”
Then follows in pencil:
“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.
Your affect. Papa,
T. J.-B.”
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 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!
Footnote 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.”
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,
“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.”
“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 on the back of a
hotel-keeper’s note. The Father begins in his scholarly handwriting:
“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.”
Whereupon Sophy comes hobbling on:
“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.”
Of course it is she who recommences the game:
“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.”
And the scholarly handwriting closes the page:
“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.”
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 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.)
“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.
Those marked * are Wednesday evening lectures.”
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, 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.
[1851].
“DEAR DADDY,
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.”
Her Mother, however, is always her main confidant.
“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.”
We know how fervently the Mother “_hoped_” the same!
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:
“MY DEAR MRS. BLAKE,
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.”
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:
“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 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.”
Footnote 7:
She had her own little garden at Ramsgate.
One can imagine that her Father was almost ashamed to confess that the
question was only a joke.
“Now for a word about the ‘bowing,’” he says in another letter. “It is
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.”
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:
“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.”
Another time after expatiating on her Mother’s virtues and unmerited
affection, she goes on to inform her that there is One—
“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.”
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.”
“MY DEAREST FATHER,
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_.
S. B.
1. If you died this instant what would become of you? And could you
face death unflinchingly?
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.
2. What would be your first emotion when you found yourself in the
presence of the Judge of quick and dead?
Fear I think but yet I think that I should claim Jesus’ promises to
lost sinners.
3. If Christ came this night and asked you ‘Lovest thou me’ what would
be your answer?
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.
4. Could you before God say truly ‘I strive to live as I hope to die’?
No I fear I could not although sometimes I do try to do things to
please Jesus.
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?
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 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.
6. Do you in your heart believe yourself to be a new creature?
I know not but I fear not although at times I have been fully
convinced that I am God’s child.
7. Do you earnestly desire to be such?
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.
8. Do you think you have ever known what true prayer is?
Most certainly and have sometimes obtained very gracious answers.
9. Where will you be 200 years hence?
In heaven I humbly hope and trust for I think the Lord has _begun_ a
good work in me.”
Gallant honest heart!
Is there a single word in the whole confession that the most devoted
parent would have wished different?
CHAPTER III
SCHOOL LIFE—_Continued_
“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:
“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 in showing
fruit, but we will not despair.”
The next vacation seems to have been disastrous. The child had grown
more indolent and self-centred, and no 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.
“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.”
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:
“MY OWN DARLING CHILD,
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_.”
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” 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:
“MY DARLING CHILD,
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.”
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:
“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 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.”
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:
“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.”
But nothing can show more clearly the futility of the educational
methods of that day than the following letter from the headmistress
herself:
“June, 1852.
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 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.”
Footnote 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?
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 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
“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 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.”
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.
“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.”
“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:
“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.”
“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. 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.
“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 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’.”
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
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:
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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:
“At any rate A. is the only friend I have got, and I don’t want to
lose her.”
To which D. responds:
“You are wise, but she is not the only friend you _might_ have.”
And Sophy all too proud:
“There are only one or two others I _could_ have as a friend.”
And finally M.:
“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.”
Of another schoolfellow under discussion Sophy explains that she finds
the young lady personally “aggravating,” and adds:
“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.
SOPHY.”
CHAPTER IV
SCHOOL LIFE—_Concluded_
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:
“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. 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.”
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:
“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.”
A month later he writes again:
“MY SWEET CHILD,
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.”
A fortnight later he paid the child a visit, to which she refers in the
following letter:
“11th Sept. 1854.
DARLING FATHER,
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 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.
Best best love,
SOPHY.
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.”
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:
“Went to sleep with a sore throat ... and a bit of mignonette on my
bosom. Darling Mother, how I treasure her flowers.
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.”
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:
“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.”
The diary continues:
“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.”
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:
“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’!”
The two men examined her spine—the headmistress, of course, being
present—
“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.”
She was condemned to an hour’s remedial exercises every day for six
weeks, and as it took double that time to make 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.
“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.”
Two days later he writes again in answer to her eager enquiries,
“If, darling, I _can_ buy anything with your money that I think Mummy
or Carry will be pleased with, be sure I will.”
And again, three weeks later,
“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.”
On Dec. 5th, 1854, his mind is sufficiently at ease to write a truly
delightful letter, though the handwriting is still shaky:
“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, 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. 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.
Your affect. Father,
T. JEX-BLAKE.”
Footnote 9:
There is no other reference to the visit to Worthing.
At last, on December 13th, comes a letter from her Mother:
“DARLING SO,
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.”
Meanwhile the scrap of a diary goes on:
“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.”
The wishing must have been volcanic in its intensity to judge by what
follows:
“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.”
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_.
“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’.”
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 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.
“13 Sussex Square,
10th Jan.
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.”
Footnote 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.
Sister Carry writes with characteristic calm and reasonableness:
“13 Sussex Square,
January 11th.
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 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,
Your very affectionate sister,
C. A. JEX-BLAKE.”
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.
“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.”
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.”
* * * * *
In May, 1855, a family holiday in Wales was proposed, and, as usual, the
question was raised whether Sophy could 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:
“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?”
The microscopic school diary had for five months been non-existent; the
imperious demand of this glorious anticipation called a fresh volume
into being.
“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 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, 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.”
This entry closes the school diary.
* * * * *
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.
“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!”
That life, even now, was not all “trifling and frivolity” is obvious
from the following letter, which was written a few weeks later:
“Monday, Sept. 8th. 1856.
MY OWN DARLING MOTHER,
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 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.
Your own child,
SOPHY.”
“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:
“10th Oct. 1856.
DEAREST SOPHY,
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.
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 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,
“And, on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.”
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.
CHAPTER V
LIFE AT HOME
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 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 flagging,
comparable with the most beautiful friendships in history.
Fortunately we have S. J.-B.’s own account of those first days at home:
“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,—
‘The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from _Thy_ throne,
And worship only _Thee_.’
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 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.”
Footnote 11:
“Dec. 20th, 1859. Strange truth this: How already that hope has
changed!”
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:
“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 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.”
We return to the diary:
“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 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! 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.
Footnote 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.
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....
* * * * *
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....
* * * * *
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 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, ma’am.’ ‘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.”
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.
“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 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.”
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.
“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 night.”
By degrees, however, a very warm friendship sprang up.
“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.”
When they are gone, she writes pages of analysis of their characters,
and very able analysis it is. This is how it concludes:
“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 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.”
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.”
“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.”
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.
“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 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.”
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.
“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 it.’ 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!”
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 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:
“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.”
CHAPTER VI
LIFE AT QUEEN’S COLLEGE
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.
“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 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..., etc.’”
Footnote 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.
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.
“Worst thing about Queen’s College is—no Sarah till Christmas,” she
writes. “M. brought 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!”
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 what
it meant for S. J.-B. to pass from the hands of the average
schoolmistress of that day to teachers such as these.
Footnote 14:
See Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s interesting record of “The First College for
Women.”
On the 5th October she settled down to work, and three days later she
writes:
“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?”
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. “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.
“You have behaved very sensibly through the whole trial, which has not
been a light one,” says her Father.
In her diary she writes,—
“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.”
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:
“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 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.”
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_:
“Jan. 28th.
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.”
A few days later he writes again:
“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 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....”
The reply to this came by return of post:
“Feb. 3rd ’59.
MY OWN DARLING DADDY,
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 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 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....
Your loving child,
SOPHY.”
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker ph. sc._
_Thomas Jex-Blake_
_from a drawing in chalks by H. T. Wells, R.A. 1862_
]
“4th Feb. 1859.
DEAREST SOPHY,
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 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.
Your loving Father,
T. JEX-BLAKE.”
“Feb. 5th ’59.
DEAR DADDY,
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.
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.
Goodbye darling,
Ever your loving child,
SOPHY.”
“Saturday night. Feb. 5th 1859.
DEAREST,
... 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....
Ever, dearest,
Your affect. Father,
T. JEX-BLAKE.”
So closes this delightful correspondence. It was not to be supposed that
she should have no regrets. In her diary she says:
“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.”
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 expected that they
should all take so enlightened a view of it as Miss Evans did.
“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.”
And Sarah with whom “one does not connect the idea of angel,”
“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.”
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:
“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.”
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.
“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.”
Footnote 15:
The reference is not to S. J.-B.’s own parents.
Yet, judged by present-day standards, S. J.-B. would not have been
considered deficient in the spirit of compromise. 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.
“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.”
A few months later she went (with Miss Wodehouse) to a ritualistic
church, and was moved to hot indignation.
“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!”
A note is inserted in the margin,—(“This May 1859. Sic transit! Feb. 11,
1865!”).
Meanwhile her certificate examination was drawing near, and mathematics
absorbed most of her thoughts. On July 1st she writes:
“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’.”
Of course she was working too hard.
“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.”
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.
“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.”
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 by Thackeray, at which the writer had the good
fortune to be present, she says:
“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.”
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.
“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, 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.”
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:
“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....
‘And may the New Year cherish
All the hopes that now are bright.’
Such a happy loving Goodnight to and from Daddy and Mummy. Very happy
I am tonight.
‘And once more ere thou perish,
Old Year, Good night! Good night!’”
CHAPTER VII
FRIENDSHIP
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:
“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 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’?”
“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.
“_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....”
And again:
“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, ...”
The following “passage of arms” with a Norfolk cousin, a man some years
older than herself, is interesting in this connection:
“Hastings, March 12/60.
MY DEAR SOPHY,
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,
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.”
“March 14th./60.
MY DEAR ...
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
Your affectionate cousin,
S. L. J.-B.”
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.)
“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 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.”
A former school friend writes at the same date:
“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!”
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.”
“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 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.”
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:
“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.”
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, 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:
“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.”
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:
“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]
Footnote 16:
_Life of Octavia Hill._
Almost from the first Miss Hill’s letters to S. J.-B. took a serious
tone. On March 18th she writes:
“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 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.”
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:
S. J.-B. (hotly), “_I_ never heard the game laws attacked!”
O. H. (calmly), “_I_ never heard them defended!”
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.
“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.”
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:
“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]
Footnote 17:
_Life of Octavia Hill._
And again we quote from S. J.-B.’s diary:
“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 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!”
Footnote 18:
Miss Heaton.
There is a happy letter about this Welsh tour:
“Bettws-Y-Coed,
July 26th/60.
DARLING MOTHER,
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....
Footnote 19:
By the charm of his personality, she means, of course; not by
design.
_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 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.
Yours lovingly,
SOPH.”
In August, when S. J.-B. and Miss Heaton were abroad together, Miss Hill
writes:
“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.”
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 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:
“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.”
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:
“DEAREST CHILD,
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 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.”
The response to this protest has not been preserved. On October 18th
Miss Hill writes:
“MY DARLING CHILD,
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.
I am,
Yours affectionately,
OCTAVIA HILL.
Mama has an affection now for Harley Street.”
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:
“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.”
Fortunately youth and friendship make all things easy, or at least
bearable. During S. J.-B.’s brief absence in December Miss Hill writes:
“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. 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.”
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:
Footnote 20:
_Life of Octavia Hill._
“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 can_not_ bear it.’ Since 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.”
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 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, 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:
“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.”
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 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.
Footnote 21:
Until circumstances rendered Miss Hill independent of such aid.
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.
CHAPTER VIII
A STEP BEYOND
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.
“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.
“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.”
So she prepared her altar, “and put no fire under,” but the flash came.
“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’.”
Footnote 22:
Dr. Southwood Smith, Miss Hill’s grandfather.
“12 p.m. Sunday night.
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.
Yours very very lovingly,
SOPHY.
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
safety.’”
Follows an undated fragment, probably written to her Mother next
morning:
“—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.
Yours very very lovingly,
SOPH.”
“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.”
“Dec. 16th 1861. 8.30 p.m.
MY OWN DARLING MOTHER,
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.
Goodnight, my own Darling,
Yours very lovingly,
SOPH.”
From diary:
“Dec. 16th Monday. ‘For as soon as ever thou hast delivered thyself to
God with thy whole heart, and seekest not this or that for thine own
pleasure or will, but fixest thyself wholly upon Him, thou shalt find
thyself united and at peace.’
THOMAS A KEMPIS.”
“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.”
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!”
“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 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.”
It was with this inspiration that she wrote to one of her pupils:
“Dec. 31st. 1861.
DEAR LUCY,
... 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.”
And, finally, she writes in her diary:
“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 out of the
window in our new house fresh with plans and hopes, saying so
hopefully,
‘And may the New Year cherish
All the hopes that now are bright.’
And now truly almost,
‘For all my earthly hopes this (year) did kill.’
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 solemnly. 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.
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!”
Footnote 23:
Miss Miranda Hill.
CHAPTER IX
FIRST EXPERIENCE OF EDINBURGH
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 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, 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:
“This brought down an awful storm of wonder, reasoning, etc., till at
length I got off to bed _so_ tired.”
The diary continues after the extract quoted in the last chapter:
“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?)
‘The love that brings salvation
_Shall_ at last prevail!’
Amen.”
“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 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:
“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 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 annoyed,—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_.”
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.
“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.”
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.
“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:
“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!”
Again:
“_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.
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?”
One finds among her papers brief notes of sermons by Rainy, Candlish,
Guthrie and Pulsford, of whom the last appealed to her most.
“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!”
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.
“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 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.”
The contrast of the next paragraph in the diary is irresistible:
“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.”
About her friends she has much to say as usual. On March 31st she writes
to Cousin Ellie:
“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.”
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. 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:
“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.”
The following extracts give some idea how these beautiful letters go on:
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. “We do well to struggle against that weary powerless feeling,
because, given way to, it might overcome all power of energy, 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.”
(“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.”)
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.”
On a previous occasion Mrs. Jex-Blake had written on this subject:
“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 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.”
Footnote 24:
Poems by A. A. Procter.
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.”
Footnote 25:
The letter has not been preserved.
“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.”
And again, talking of a sermon she had heard:
“I thought of my precious child when he pictured a strong character
with exceeding depth of tenderness and gentleness.”
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!”
* * * * *
One naturally treats S. J.-B.’s religious life at this time as something
apart from her questionings about dogma, for 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:
8 p.m. March 17th, 1862.
“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....
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 earnestly....
But all seems centred in the one thought, ‘Lead Thou me on!’—or
rather, not ‘me’ but ‘us,’—all the wanderers.
Yours very lovingly,
SOPH.”
Not that S. J.-B. was ever conventional even in her religion. Here is a
characteristic extract from the diary of the same period:
“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.”
A few days later she recurs—as often—to the broken friendship:
“... 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 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.”
Footnote 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.”
CHAPTER X
GERMANY
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.
“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!”
And on the 20th:
“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.”
“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.”
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:
“June 21st, 1862.
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 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.
Yours affectly,
S. L. J.-B.”
Footnote 27:
Talking of the difficulties in the way of Practical Anatomy, someone
had suggested that Miss Garrett should get ‘nice _little_ subjects.’
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.”
“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 way.’ 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!’
For a minute I went back,—‘Nonsense, no harm,’—then—
‘Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear,’
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!”
“‘Let all thy converse be sincere’: ‘and righteous altogether’.”
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.
* * * * *
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:
“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.”
The reader will recall, too, the letter to her Mother:
“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.”
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.
“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.”
“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.”
The letter to her Mother has been preserved:
“May 1st 1862.
DARLING MOTHER,
... 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.
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 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 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.’
Yours very lovingly,
SOPH.”
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.”
* * * * *
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.
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.”
“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.
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.”
Footnote 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.
Footnote 29:
Miss Miranda Hill’s loyalty and devotion to S. J.-B. never flagged.
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:
“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!’
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!
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.”
Footnote 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?”
Footnote 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.
Footnote 32:
The building had originally been a monastery.
CHAPTER XI
LIFE AS A TEACHER AT MANNHEIM
To her Mother she writes:
“Sept. 15th, 1862.
MY OWN DARLING,
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 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.”
To Miss Walker she writes:
“Sept. 22nd. 1862.
Mannheim.
DEAR LUCY,
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
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.
Yours very sincerely,
S. L. JEX-BLAKE.”
And again to her Mother:
“Sept. 30th. 1862.
MY OWN DARLING,
... 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!...
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—?
‘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!’
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
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.”
Footnote 33:
She did not always find this quite so easy. On October 17th she writes
in her diary: “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.
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,—
“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’.”
At this time she was extraordinarily happy in her work.
“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 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!”
How thoroughly she succeeded in this aim may be gathered from the letter
of one of her pupils written a few months later,—
“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.”
Her diary abounds with shrewd and genial criticisms of her fellow-
teachers. Of one whom she rather disliked, she says:
“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.”
And again,—
“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!”
No wonder her letters were a joy to the Mother watching at home.
“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.”
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”:
“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
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 answer.’”
She did not always take her reactions so seriously:
“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.”
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 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, 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.”
Footnote 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.”
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.
“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.”
She poured out the story of her failure to her Mother, and delightful
were the letters she got in reply:
“(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.”
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 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’ progress, 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 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:
“I despair of getting a satisfactory breviary, unless you can send me
definite orders for Treacher to procure one. Marvellous rubbish 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!...”
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.
“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.”
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:
“Jan. 23rd, 1863. Friday night.
and Jan. 24th.
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 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:
I. The author must be greater than his
works.
II. God’s works are great beyond our
conception.
III. How infinite then their Maker!
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 _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’....
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.
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....
Yours lovingly ever,
SOPH.
Please tell me by what post this arrives.”
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:
“Thursday, Jany. 29th.
MY OWN DARLING,
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 contempt
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 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.
Your loving Mother,
M. E. JEX-BLAKE.”
A fortnight later she writes:
“Only fancy, Daddy has been reading Colenso’s book!”
CHAPTER XII
VARIOUS PROJECTS AND VENTURES
“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:
“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?”
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 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.’”
* * * * *
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 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,
“DEAR MISS D.,
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.”
“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.”
“July 8th. Annette’s Sunday School. ‘The outward and visible sign in
baptism?’
‘Please, ma’am, the baby, ma’am.’”
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:
“Nov. 15th. 1863.
DEAR LUCY,
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, 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.
Yours affectionately,
S. L. JEX-BLAKE.”
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 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:
“Then, again she so delicious about my bonnet (_not_ calculated
‘To take upon it
The guilt of her wandering soul’.)
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.”
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.
“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. 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_.”
And here is a characteristic note:
“DEAR MISS BLAKE,
... 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’.
Yours very truly,
FRANCES P. COBBE.”
On November 11th S. J.-B. received a letter that pleased her much from
the Revd. T. D. C. Morse, rector of Stretford, Manchester:
“MADAM,
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.”
“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.”
She plunged at once into plans and arrangements, timetables, lists of
tutors, etc., and on November 17th she writes in her diary:
“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.
“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?’
‘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.
‘Be true to every honest thought
And as thy thought thy speech.’[35]
Footnote 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 company.”
“Well, but _if_——?”
“My Lord, I should take up my hat and walk out.”
“(Prudent too),” comments S. J.-B.
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’.”)
“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’).”
“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.
(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.’”
How little her friends could guess the attitude of her mind may be
gathered from the entry that follows:
“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.”
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 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.
“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.”
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.
“Feb. 23rd. 1864.
Brighton.
MY DEAR LUCY,
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....
‘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....”’
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.”
“Dec. 13th. 1864.
... 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 North.”
[Received May 10th, 1865.]
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.
“May 14th., 1865.
DEAR LUCY,
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.”
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.
* * * * *
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.
Footnote 36:
Appendix B.
“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.
CHAPTER XIII
A VISIT TO SOME AMERICAN SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
“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:
“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 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.
Yours affectionately,
M. E. J.-B.
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.”
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:
“I think Daddy has a terror of only your bleached bones(!) being
found, if you went about without a companion.”
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:
“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.”
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 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.
“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.”
There is a pleasant little letter from Emerson, written after this
meeting:
“Concord. Monday 14th June. [1865.]
DEAR MISS BLAKE,
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 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.
With great regard,
R. W. EMERSON.
Miss Blake.”
The diary continues:
“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.”
There is a kind little note from Dr. Sewall also:
“MY DEAR MISS BLAKE,
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.
Yours sincerely,
LUCY C. SEWALL.”
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.’”
Footnote 37:
See _inter alia_ Whittier’s poem, “The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall,
1697.”
No wonder S. J.-B. was attracted. A warm friendship sprang up between
the two young women, a friendship by 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:
“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.”
And a few days later:
“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.”
On the same day she records in her diary:
“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.”
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 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.”
“Aug. 18th 1865.
West Compton.
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 grandly....”
“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 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’!”
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.
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 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.”
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:
“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
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 place.”
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.’
“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.”
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 be?” From Niagara she writes to
Mrs. Unwin:
“Sept. 17th. 1865.
Niagara.
MY DEAR LUCY,
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 beautifully
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 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
Yours very sincerely,
S. L. JEX-BLAKE.”
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 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:
“13 Sussex Square, Brighton.
Jan. 21. 1866.
MY DEAR SOPHY,
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 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?
With love from us all,
I am your affecte brother,
T. W. JEX-BLAKE.”
She answered the letter while the stimulus of it was fresh:
“DEAR TOM,
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 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.
Your aff. sister,
S. L. J.-B.”
CHAPTER XIV
QUESTIONINGS
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:
“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 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.”
A week later (Nov. 24th) she writes again:
“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 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.”
15th.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 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.”
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:
“Sunday evening, 11 o’clock.
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.”
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.’”
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:
“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....
Your aff. sis.,
S. L. J.-B.”
From a letter written to her Mother at Christmas 1865 one realizes what
a child she was still:
“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.”
On March 4th, 1866, she writes to her Mother:
“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 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.
Yours lovingly,
SOPH.”
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.
“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.”
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,”
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.
“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.”
And again:
“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 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.’”
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.
“Suggestion to read the prayer for fair weather,—‘Lor, sir,—not a bit
of good with the wind in this quarter.’”
But she was constantly reverting to the old religious intensity:
“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!”
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.”
Footnote 38:
It was only for a very brief period of her life that S. J.-B. would
have called herself by this name.
“It is strange,” says someone, “that, in all our talk of the 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:
“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
conquerors.”
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.”
“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.
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.”
Ah me, Prometheus! The audacity of us small mortals all!
But the words that follow are indeed ‘a prophecy.’
“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!”
Knowing the spiritual history of earnest souls in that generation, one
is not surprised to come a couple of months later upon the entry:
“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
atheism....”
“Oct. 29th. She _is_ so good! Told her something of today’s pain, she
so sympathizing and good! Believed that the struggle 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]
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.”
Footnote 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.”
Footnote 40:
“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.”
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.
“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?”
Here are two pleasant little sidelights on the situation—from letters to
her Mother:
“(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?”
Her best friends would have said there was no great cause for anxiety on
that score.
“(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 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.”
A few weeks later she wrote to Mrs. Unwin:
“13 Pleasant Street, Boston.
March 3rd. 1866.
MY DEAR LUCY,
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,
Yours affectionately,
S. L. J.-B.”
All through this time her happy letters had been giving no small
pleasure to the “old folks” at home.
“Brighton. 18th Dec. 1865.
DEAREST,
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, 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!
Your affecte Father,
T. JEX-BLAKE.”
And the Mother writes:
“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.”
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.
“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 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.”
And Mr. Unwin expressed the view of many when he wrote:
“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.”
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.
“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 her.”
Almost at the same moment Dr. Sewall was writing:
“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.”
So America won the day, though not without many questionings.
“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!”
Footnote 41:
The Schools Inquiry Commission, presumably.
CHAPTER XV
PIONEER WORK IN AMERICA
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:
“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_.
How sane a view she took of the whole subject may be gathered from the
quotations given in the appendix.[42]
Footnote 42:
Appendix C.
Having happily despatched her book, she was free to give her whole mind
to the subject of Medicine, and she seems
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
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.
Footnote 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.
Why should not women be admitted to Harvard?
Why not ask?
In April, 1867, the following correspondence was published in _The
Boston Daily Advertiser_:
“March 11th. 1867.
GENTLEMEN,
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,
Your obedient servants,
SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE.
SUSAN DIMOCK.[44]
To the President and Fellows of the University of Harvard.”
Footnote 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.
“Harvard University. April 8th. 1867.
MY DEAR MADAM,
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 women, but
simply to state the fact that in our school no provision for that
purpose has been made, or is at present contemplated.
Very respectfully yours,
THOMAS HILL.
Miss S. Jex-Blake.”
A few days later the following paragraph appeared in _The Advocate_:
“_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.”
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:
“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.”
Dr. Brown-Séquard is even more emphatic in a letter to Dr. Holmes:
“MY DEAR PROFESSOR,
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.
Very faithfully yours,
C. E. BROWN-SÉQUARD.”
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:
“All which ends in ... smoke!”
There were always flashes of humour to temper the various
disappointments.
“Those wise men of Gotham at the Eye and Ear think it ‘the kindest and
most gentlemanly thing’ to shut us out after all!”
“Dr. A. ‘not afraid of responsibility, of course’—only—he’d rather not
admit us till other people do”!
Here is the official letter from the wise men of Gotham:
“Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary.
June 18th, 1867.
DEAR MADAM,
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.
Very truly yours,
HASKET DERBY,
for the Surgeons.
Miss Sophia Jex-Blake.”
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.
“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.
And one knows how terrible an enemy that irritability was.
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.
“Tuesday. July 30th. Atlantic House,
‘Town of Wells,’ Maine.
DARLING MOTHER,
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 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,
SOPH.”
“Atlantic House,
August 9th. 1867.
DARLING MOTHER,
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.
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.
Yours lovingly, SOPH.”
“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.”
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:
“Jan. 1868.
GENTLEMEN,
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.
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.”
“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’?”
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.
“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!”
Footnote 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.
“Jan. 21st. 1868. ‘Quid sum miser tunc dicturus’!
Eight and twenty!—‘and a sinner!’”
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.
“13 Pleasant Street,
Boston, U.S.
Monday, Jan. 27th. 68.
DARLING MOTHER
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.”
“March 6th.
... 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 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]
Footnote 46:
The dog was named Turk, and became a devoted friend.
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:
“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.”
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 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.
* * * * *
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.
“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.”
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.
“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.)....
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.”
To her Mother she writes a long account of her difficulty in finding
rooms at a reasonable price.
“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.
Yours lovingly,
SOPH.”
“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.
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.”
On the eve of sailing for England, she sums up the situation in her
diary with her usual relentless truthfulness:
“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.”
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.”
“A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye—”
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,—
“Comes—_mediately_—from L.E.S.”!
CHAPTER XVI
GOING HOME
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:
“13 Sussex Square,
Brighton.
2nd August 1868.
DEAREST,
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
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.
Your affectionate Father,
T. JEX-BLAKE.”
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:
“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 Mother.”
“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’!”
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:
“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.”
“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.”
“222 East 10th Street,
New York. Nov. 1st. 68.
DARLING MOTHER,
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 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 right?...”
“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.”
“Nov. 3rd.
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.”
“222 East 10th Street.
New York. Nov. 8th. 68.
DARLING MOTHER,
I enclose two letters which you can read and forward
respectively 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 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?”
“222 East 10th Street,
Nov. 13th. 1868.
DARLING MOTHER,
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. 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,
Yours lovingly,
SOPH.”
“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.”
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
“The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.”
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 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.
* * * * *
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:
“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’!”
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 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.
“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.”
And so it came about that Sophia Jex-Blake sought a medical education in
her native land.
_PART II_
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.
RICHARD BAXTER.
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.
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.
CHAPTER I
DRIFTING
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:
“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,—
‘God gives what he gives—be content,
He resumes nothing given, be sure,’
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.”
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.
“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 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!”
The letter then plunges into the question of money and accounts, which
were not Dr. Sewall’s strong point.
“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.”
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:
“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.”
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.”
* * * * *
For three weeks S.J.-B. drifted, uncertain of her course, and then she
set her sail.
“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’!”
On the last night of the year, as was her wont, she made her summing-up:
“Within a few hours of eight years ago,—the window,—and
‘May the New Year cherish—’
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.”
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:
“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’!”
And, in the depths of her mind she was constantly pondering the problems
and mysteries of our being.
“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.’”
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.”
“Feb. 3rd. 4 p.m.
‘Are not the letters coming?
The sun has almost set.’
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.’”