SOME FRIENDSHIPS AND HOLIDAYS
Of course S. J.-B. was not allowed to pay one penny of her expenses. The
amount was subscribed, and more than subscribed, by sympathizers all
over the United Kingdom in the course of a few weeks; and her brother’s
cheque was duly returned. It would almost seem as if nothing had done so
much to excite public interest and fellow-feeling as that unfortunate
speech and the lawsuit to which it led. The very names of those who
undertook to receive subscriptions gave a striking indication of the
challenge of popular sympathy.[83]
Footnote 83:
Mrs. Hill Burton, Rev. Professor Calderwood, Treasurer Colston, J. R.
Findlay, Esq., David Greig, Esq., Mrs. Hope of Drylaw, Miss Agnes
M‘Laren, Mrs. Nichol, Admiral Sir W. Ramsay, K.C.B., Miss L.
Stevenson, and R. S. Wyld, Esq.
There was no lack of criticism and condemnation, of course; the move and
countermove went on; but hundreds of letters poured in, bearing witness,
not only to the width, but to the depth, of the feeling called forth.
Miss Frances Power Cobbe’s impulsive beginning,—“I want words to express
my indignation,—” was typical of many. Harriet Martineau, too, was a
subscriber and a cordial sympathizer.[84]
Footnote 84:
“If you, as the honoured and trusted representative of us working
women, are insulted for us all, the grosser the insult, the more
secure you must be of sympathy and gratitude from increasing
multitudes of individuals, and of the adoption of our cause as a
practical aim by the best part of society in our day.”
A number of subscriptions were returned after the full amount was
raised, and many people expressed their disappointment at hearing of the
fund only through the announcement that it was closed. “I wish it would
open again,” wrote the Revd. Professor Charteris, “even if it were only
a little chink.”
Here are two very different letters that one is glad to put on record:
“Inverness, Aug. 3/71.
DEAR MISS STEVENSON,[85]
Assuredly _no man_ could calmly read Miss Jex-Blake’s case, out of or
in Court. And, could I do so publicly, I would cast from me with
_loathing_ all my once valued connexions with the Edinr. Colleges of
Physicians and Surgeons; to show my utter disgust at (with a few
honourable exceptions) their unmanly brutal conduct towards Miss Blake
and her friends.
On the 9th (D.V.) I shall be in Edinburgh, when I shall call for or
write to you. On that day, I hope to get some help from absent friends
to add to the mite of
Yours faithfully,
J. MACKENZIE, M.D.”
Footnote 85:
Miss Louisa Stevenson and Mrs. Henry Kingsley had kindly undertaken to
be Hon. Treasurers of the fund.
“33 Richmond Place,
Edinburgh, 24th Aug. 1871.
MADAM,
I beg to enclose a P.O.O. for eight shillings. This small sum is
subscribed by a few working men in aid of the fund for defraying the
Law expences so unjustly thrust upon Miss Jex-Blake for simply
speaking the truth in her own defence in a Straightforward Manner.
They deeply sympathise with this lady in the noble struggle she is
making for Womens right to a liberal education and remunerative
employment. May she be of good cheer, of good courage, and continue
steadfast unto the end.
I am, Madam,
Your obedient Servant,
JAMES GRAY.
P.S. If this subscription be advertised please put it, A few working
men—8s. It is payable at the Nicholson Street Post Office.
Miss A. M‘Laren.”
There was almost always an element of comic relief, too, about these
tragic and moving situations. The following letter was one of those
which provided it in this case:
“58 Altom Street,
Blackburn, 15 Aug./71.
MISS JEX-BLAKE,
DEAR MADAM,
Although a complete stranger to you I have long been familiar
with your name, and also with your efforts to open the Edinburgh
University to Ladies. I understand that you have been in America, you
will therefore be familiar with many of the Colleges and Universities
there. My wife who is in full practice here has studied Medicine in
the Hygeio-Therapeutic Medical College and has obtained her M.D.
Degree from the same College. As I am able to influence the Degree of
M.D. to either Ladies or Gentlemen who are able to satisfy me as to
their fitness to practise Medicine, I thought I would communicate with
you, as probably an American degree would answer your purpose until it
is possible to procure one from an English or Scotch University.
After all, it is not the degree but the ability of a Medical
practitioner that should be appreciated....”
Truly: but the law has something to say about the signing of death
certificates, the registration of lunatics, the recovery of fees, and
other incidental details. More strawberry jam labels!
The cheque, for over £1000, was presented to S. J.-B. at a public
meeting, when there was a large gathering of influential citizens, the
faithful Lord Provost occupying the chair. When all expenses were fully
paid, a balance remained of over £100, which S. J.-B. asked leave to add
to an already existing “nest-egg” for the purpose of founding a future
hospital for women officered by women.
The immediate struggle with the University was not made any easier,
however, though the “Cause” was gaining ground by strides all over the
rest of the world. The _Scotsman_ continued to give a wholesome lead to
the press: indeed no woman gained scholastic or other honours anywhere
without having her name and achievement duly registered with an implicit
_Verb. sap._ at the end of the paragraph.
One is glad to record, too, that one or two delightful holidays relieved
the strain of this year’s work. Mrs. Thorne was proving herself a most
valuable representative, not comparably so well versed as S. J.-B. in
all the _minutiae_ of the conflict, but certainly less exacting and
easier to work with.
Considering the stem from which she sprang—a Tory family of landed
gentry—S. J.-B. as prophetess had a surprising amount of honour in her
own house. Her conservative old friend, Lady Waldegrave, had written a
quite touching letter of appreciation in April of this year; and her
Norfolk uncle and aunt, the Revd. Thomas and Mrs. Gunton actually
subscribed to the cause and allowed their names to be put on her
Committee, though Mrs. Gunton had postponed reading the papers bearing
on the subject for some time, from fear that she and her husband would
be constrained to refuse.
“How ANY WOMAN can have a desire for the Medical Profession is indeed
WONDERFUL,” she writes, “but of course only very talented ones could go
through the stiff examinations that are required.”
She remarks too, with complacence, that men doctors will be kept up to
the mark when they have to compete against women.
In some remote part of Norfolk, Mrs. Jex-Blake gave her name in a shop,
whereupon “a lady stepped forward and said what good work you were
doing, but, if we were English, we must think very ill of the _Scotch_.
I said No, you had received far more kindness than unkindness, having
had a great many real and warm friends.”
This incident leads one to note that the present year, 1871, saw the
ripening into lifelong friendship of S. J.-B.’s acquaintance with Miss
Agnes M‘Laren, daughter of the Member for Edinburgh,—a lady who adds one
more to the gallery of truly noble women with whom we are brought into
contact when reviewing S. J.-B.’s life. At the time of “the Edinburgh
Fight,” Miss M‘Laren was engaged in Suffrage work with Miss Taylour,
acting as Hon. Secretary to the Association (with no paid subordinate to
do the drudgery), travelling on occasion all over Scotland in serious
propagation of her principles.[86] She was perhaps the most public-
spirited member of a public-spirited family, for the reason that in her
the strong purpose, shrewd judgment and liberal sympathies that
characterized all, were combined with an instinctive aloofness and even
shyness, with a spirit almost of quietism, with a real old-world grace
of womanhood.
Footnote 86:
It is interesting to note that at this time almost all public-spirited
women thought the suffrage would be granted before the right to a
medical education. They had so nearly got it more than once! “You will
accomplish nothing,” S. J-B. was sometimes told, “until we get the
vote.” And one is grimly amused to find her expressing a serious fear
that the suffrage may be granted before she has had an opportunity of
hearing her friend, Miss M‘Laren, speak in support of it. She need
have entertained no undue apprehension on this score.
She was hailed with something like reverence by the work-worn, hard-
driven students at 15 Buccleuch Place, and almost from the first they
spoke of her among themselves as “St. Agnes,” a name to which she
characteristically took exception as soon as it reached her ears.
“DEAR MISS M‘LAREN,” writes S. J.-B. in this connection,—
“You can’t seriously suppose that anybody in this house,—least of all
that I,—should really laugh at you!—though I don’t doubt that you are
a great deal too humble-minded to understand in the least the sort of
light in which most of us working women do regard you. However we’ll
keep our pet name for you to ourselves if you don’t like it.”
And again a few weeks later:
“15 Buccleuch Place,
Edinburgh. June 7th.
DEAR MISS M‘LAREN,
Though we all miss you here almost daily, I am unselfish enough
to be heartily glad that you are going to Germany. I am sure the
change of air and scene must do you good, and the chestnut trees at
Heidelberg must be simply lovely now.
When you get to the top and sit and look down at the valley of the
Neckar, you may picture me (as a lonely English teacher at Mannheim)
going over there on Sundays to church, and climbing to that brow to
enjoy the setting sun and the infinite peacefulness and beauty of the
whole scene.
I only _wish_ I could be there with you!—If you stay at all at
Mannheim, do go and see my old school, the ‘Grossherzogliches
Institut’—I think they will still remember my name there,—and I should
like so much to hear news of them. They would be electrified to hear
of me as a doctor.
I finished up by having scarlet fever there, and shocked them all by
refusing to submit to the stupid old German regimen of starvation and
shut windows!...
I do most heartily wish you a pleasant journey and great rest and
refreshment in it. Do you know that when I got your letter such a
longing came over me to see the Rhine again that for a moment I almost
thought of asking if you would take me with you, but five minutes
reflection showed me how wrong and foolish it would be for me to leave
home just now in the midst of term, and with these ‘appeals’ still
undecided, and with my petition to the Senatus coming on! But it _was_
a huge temptation all the same!”
This brings us back to the diary:
“Monday June 5th. The trial over at last. ‘Farthing damages’
satisfactory, I suppose.
But I so weary! If I could but get a month’s real rest! I wake feeling
driven,—I get through nothing all day, and I lie down tired out at
night.
Wednesday, June 7th. Sur ces entrefaites (as my present neighbours
would say) came a letter from St. Agnes saying she was to go to
Heidelberg on Saturday for three weeks. Instantly—Why shouldn’t I go
with her, quoth the Infantine.
Fifty reasons, quoth the Estimable,—law, money, study, Senatus, etc.,
etc.
Telling Pussy[87] of the temptation overcome, came a proposal to
‘treat Resolution,’ urged by her, E.P., and even Mrs. Thorne.
Footnote 87:
The name by which Miss Louisa Stevenson was affectionately known in
the little circle.
Millar [lawyer] said I could be spared.
So Thursday went to London with L. and F. Stevenson,... Good journey.
Slept at Hampstead.
Sunday 11th. Morning Stopford Brooke, St. James Chapel, York Street.
Stood till sermon, then pulpit stairs....
It might almost have been predicted that S. J.-B. would not pass through
Paris in a time of peace. The visit was destined to prove exciting
enough. She just dashes down a few polyglot jottings in her diary to
serve as stepping-stones for memory later on:
Tuesday 13th. Reached Paris about 6.30. No cabs, no apparent chance of
any. At length in streets 2-seated fiacre, drove to [Hotel]
Folkestone, was deposited, C. M‘L.[88] returning for others.
Footnote 88:
Mr. Charles M‘Laren (now Lord Aberconway) and Mr. Walter M‘Laren
were of the party.
Friday 16th. Writing all above (from 7th. onwards) by open window of
Hotel F.—rain falling on market outside. They not back from
Versailles, where gone in hope of hearing Assemblé, etc.
Wednesday. After long trudge found ‘voiture de grande remise’ 4 frs.
the hour, drove by Luxembourg, Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, etc. (Not
allowed to lift written scrap from street from heap of ruins by side
of Palais de Justice.) Great order and quiet everywhere and civility.
Pantheon dinted with ‘obus’. Hotel de Ville gutted, (with all
registers, etc.)—Tuileries, and Palais de Justice Ditto. Ministère de
Finances even more utterly in ruins, and houses here and there,—e.g.
in Rue Royale by Madeleine and elsewhere.
Hotel de Clugny incendie but unhurt. All along streets notice holes to
cellars stopped up with plaster for fear of petroleum.
Thursday. Drove by Champs Elysées, to Champ de Mars, Porte de Neuilly
(where such destruction from bombs, etc., vault of railway crashed
in,—trees in splinters, etc.) Then by Quaies, into Place de Carrousel
between Tuileries and Louvre to Bastille Column and (through bad parts
of town ...) to Père la Chaise, with its horrible trenches filled with
hundreds of bodies and soaked black with petroleum (clothes, etc.,
burnt over them?).
Then that ghastly corner where 250 and 140 (‘4, 5 femmes,’) were shot
‘en pleine vigueur’ crying ‘Vive la République!’ as a keen young
fossier told with evident sympathy, he having had to stand by,—see the
firing, and bury the results.
Today Friday, 16th. The Petit Moniteur gives a horrible circular (torn
down last night in the Rue Rochechouard) inciting ‘Travailleurs from
every country to join against priests, soldiers and tyrants, and
succeed, or nous nous ensevelirons sous les ruines de Paris!’
Fancy crying for fresh bloodshed when steeped in it to the lips now!
Some Frenchwomen at table curiously indignant at our small care about
English ‘communists’,—quite unable to understand how the solidarity of
national sentiment made such as these late events impossible in
England, and then, when I mildly said so, shooting at me:—‘Pourtant,
la Révolution où on a tué votre roi!’!!”
“Monday 20th. Went to Versailles to see the Chambre;—unpunctual
sitting, I only present during some minutes of debate. Given ticket in
‘D’ by President Grévy.
6.30. Left Paris via Dieppe. 8 hours roughish sea.
Tuesday. Brighton.”
So there was no Heidelberg after all,—no sitting on the brow of the hill
to look down on the valley of the Neckar, and recall _ces jours heureux
où nous étions si misérables_. We are not told why S.J.-B.’s holiday was
cut so short: perhaps railway communication was broken for the moment,
and it proved impossible to proceed: but in any case it may be that the
intense and unexpected picture of carnage and strife served to take her
more completely out of herself and her worries than the more peaceful
experience she would have chosen.
Moreover a real holiday was in store that Autumn, a holiday brightened
by a visit from Dr. Lucy Sewall. How much this meant to her one gathers
from the following letter, written about this date:
“MY DARLING,
I am so sorry for your loss of poor little Scamper,—I have got a
splendid big ‘Collie’ for you here,—the handsomest I ever saw,—if you
can take him back with you. If, that is, you _must_ go back; but, oh,
Lucy, I do _so_ wish you would stay with us here for a few years.
People are getting wild for women doctors here,—and you might make
almost any income, and do quite incalculable good by living here for
the next five years.
We have eleven women studying here now, and absolutely no one to give
them [adequate] uterine teaching!
This morning I had a quite spontaneous offer of £200 to help found a
Women’s Hospital here, and I believe that in a week I could get ten
times that amount promised.
You should organize everything exactly as you liked, and, republican
wretch as you are, you would be a sort of Queen among us,—and, what
you would care for much more, would do quite infinite good to
everybody concerned,—ladies, poor women, students, and all.
However, you shan’t be bothered or worried. I think the strongest
argument of all will be when you see for yourself how sorely we need
you.
I shall not make any definite plans for you till after you come. If
you like to stay quietly in Scotland all the time, we will do so, or I
will go with you to Zurich or Paris or anywhere you like.... Send me
early word of the steamer by which you expect to come, and, if at all
possible, I will meet you at Liverpool....
I send you another copy of my Suffrage speech, and hope you have
received the newspapers about the trial.
Your very aff.
S. L. J.-B.
Turk has put on mourning for Scamper,—crape round his left arm, as
they do in the army. He evidently quite understands, for he doesn’t
try to get it off....”
The reader will not need to be told that S. J.-B. went out on the tender
to meet her friend at Liverpool,—“after awful rush previous day with
Surgeons’ Hall, leader, etc.”
Dr. Sewall’s choice of a holiday, happily, was a quiet time, mainly in
Perthshire; but, straight from Liverpool, the two fellow-workers went to
Shipley to see Mrs. Unwin, whose health had been failing for some time.
The friendship between S. J.-B. and her fellow student had never
flagged. S. J.-B. had paid repeated visits to the Yorkshire home, where
husband and wife vied with each other in the warmth of their welcome,
and where both had proved most loyal advocates and upholders of the new
Cause. More than once when a petition was being got ready for Parliament
on the subject of the medical education of women, Mrs. Unwin had proved
herself a keen and successful canvasser for signatures in her
neighbourhood, throwing into the scale that weight of personal
popularity which is so important a factor in the achievement of any aim.
She had even paid a visit to the beehive at 15 Buccleuch Place, to be
made much of by the workers, and to be not a little impressed by the
sight of such divers and strenuous activities.
And now she was ill, and S. J.-B. was perfectly sure that, if anyone
could bring healing, it was “the little doctor.”
Fresh courage they brought indeed, a little fresh lease of life in which
the sufferer recovered strength and proved a renewed source of comfort
to husband and children before she was called hence out of their sight;
but healing in this world was not to be. _Dis aliter visum._
* * * * *
In other respects the holiday was a refreshing one. It included
attendance at a meeting of the British Association—great joy for Dr.
Sewall—and a stay at an old Perthshire farmhouse, which, to many other
attractions in S. J.-B.’s eyes, added the crowning one of a ghost,—a
ghost which was visible to the dogs, and abundantly audible to herself
and Miss Du Pre, though it failed subsequently to make any impression on
the representatives of the Society for Psychical Research.
From the farmhouse as a centre they made delightful excursions, the germ
of many subsequent driving-tours in Perthshire, and it was on this
occasion that the roadside inn at Fortingal was discovered, with its
restful surroundings, cosy interior, and omelettes that constituted a
positive object in life to the healthy holiday-maker!
After a farewell visit to Mrs. Unwin, Dr. Sewall sailed for Boston in
September, parting from S. J.-B. on the tender at Liverpool. Her “log”
was a lengthy one, full of wise observations and reflection, and every
word of it was written for S. J.-B....
“MY DEAR ONE,
... I have been thinking last night that if you and I could ever
practise together, we ought to do better than either alone, for you
have many qualities in which I am wanting. I think if we were
together, you would write a valuable book, and so give the world a
higher idea of women doctors. I know I shall never succeed in writing
a good book by myself.
It hardly seems worth while to make you read all my fancies, but it
seems to bring you nearer to me while I am writing, and the days are
so long and lonely here.”
“When I lie awake nights and think of you wanting me to help you in
Edinburgh, it seems to me as if I must break off from all my ties, and
come back to you at once; but then my New England conscience wakes up
and tells me that my life must be duty and not pleasure, and I try to
be contented with doing the work that God gives me, and trust that
when I am really at work it will be all right.
I do hope that you are having a nice quiet time with Miss Du Pre, and
getting rested.”
“It is just a week now since I said Goodbye to you, but it seems
almost like a month to me. Last night for the first time since I left,
I dreamed of having patients instead of dreaming of you.”