THE ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL
The friendly reader will feel, without doubt, that the year 1876-77 had
done something to justify its passage, so far as the women were
concerned, but the year 1876-77 was giving more than this. S. J.-B.’s
main ideal, “Not me but us,” remained to be realized. The fundamental
requisite, training in a large General Hospital, was no longer
practically attainable in Great Britain. A handful of women had scaled
the coveted height by means of steps cut, as it were, in ice that melted
behind them. It remained to prepare a permanent way for those who were
following on. And the year 1876-77 was destined to give this too.
Mrs. Anderson and others had been endeavouring to obtain admission for
women students to some of the wards of the London Hospital, and for a
time their efforts had seemed likely to prove successful. They ended in
the failure to which all the patient workers were becoming so
accustomed, but meanwhile “that which was for”—the women—“was
gravitating towards them.”
Before the end of 1876 Mr. Stansfeld had written:
“_Private._
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I will bear the London University in mind as soon as I see
anybody....
I met Mrs. Garrett Anderson at dinner the other day; she did not seem
to have much hope or plan about the School in any way.
I have however something to tell you that I think you will be rather
pleased to hear. Mrs. Stansfeld and I went to Clapham today to call on
the Hopgoods, with whom we had become friendly at Whitby: and Mr.
Hopgood is Chairman of the Board of the Grays Inn Lane Hospital. We
found them both _with us_, but strange to the question.
I am to send Mr. Hopgood something to read, and he is to consider
whether anything is possible there; he _does not appear to be in awe
of the staff_.
Just as I had begun to talk the Editor of the Contemporary Review [?
Nineteenth Century] came in and listened and then expressed general
sympathy in a timid way, but asked me if I would write him a paper
shewing a practical way and outcome; and I undertook at once to do so.
The paper I can manage though I am glad to think I shall be likely to
see you before I send it; but in dealing with Mr. Hopgood I very much
wish you were here.... What time in January shall you be back,
probably time enough for us to act together in the matter.
Yours truly,
J. STANSFELD.”
In subsequent letters Mr. Stansfeld writes:
“Jan. 5th. 77. I shall not consult anyone if I can avoid it. I think
you and I have the best chance of managing it alone.”
“Jan. 13. 77. I congratulate you seriously and sincerely; it was time
to get that particular anxiety off your mind, and to be M.D. at all
events....
I will defer what I may have to say till we meet; but we’ll win and no
mistake.”
“Stoke Lodge,
Hyde Park Gate, W.
Thursday evening.
[Feb. 9th. 77.]
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I have your letter, but feel a little doubtful about seeing Dr.
Chambers until after Sunday when I am to see Mr. Hopgood.
You may judge of what that interview should be, how hopeful and how
critical, by his letter just received, which I copy on the other side.
I think that you ought to be with me on Sunday if possible. I see
there are plenty of trains.
We might be with him say at 3 p.m. If you would come here and lunch at
1.30 I would drive you down.
Pray telegraph reply tomorrow that I may write and let him know.
Yours truly,
J. STANSFELD.”
Follows the copy of Mr. Hopgood’s letter:
“I shall be at home all Sunday and glad to see you.... We dine at 5.
I see my way so far clear that on receiving a formal application from
your Association it shall be without delay submitted to our Weekly
Board,—and I think they will forthwith summon a special meeting of the
Committee of Management, whose _decision will be final for the current
year_! My wish may be father to the thought, but I think that if you
can make some such proposition as that we talked of we have a good
prospect of success.
My wife feels such a deep interest in the success of the movement that
she wished me to say that if you think it desirable to form a
guarantee fund, her name may be put down as a subscriber or guarantor
to the extent of £100.”
There is no record of that interesting and critical Sunday, but all
seems to have gone as Mr. Stansfeld would have wished, for a week or two
later Mr. Hopgood writes to S. J.-B.,—“I heartily wish that every
success may attend this movement,—if so I know to whom it will be
chiefly due.”
* * * * *
During S. J.-B.’s preoccupations the School had been in other hands.
On March 13th Mr. Stansfeld writes,
“DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
Have you noticed the article in the Daily News of today on the
London School of M. It is not written in our interest,—you are not
mentioned and I not much; but there is a list of names rather new to
me, omitting, however, Lord Aberdare, a true friend.[130]
It looks as if tomorrow were pretty certain.
Yours truly,
J. STANSFELD.”
Footnote 130:
A very true friend was Lord Aberdare. Here is a delightful letter
written a few months later:
“Glen Tulchan, Advie, N.B.
June 23. 1877.
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,—I yield to your request—an annual subscription of
£10. 10s. for 5 years, including the present—but with the same
_Caveat_ which St. Peter made to Pope Gregory when he prayed that that
virtuous heathen Trajan might be admitted into Paradise viz ‘that you
make no more such requests.’ For I find extreme difficulty in refusing
applications for so good a work, and my ‘engagements’ are heavy. By
this post I must send a reluctant refusal to the hardworking promoter
of an excellent work.
Ever sincerely Yours,
ABERDARE.”
Close on the heels of this letter came a telegram:
“Mar. 15th. Right Hon. J. Stansfeld, London, to Miss Jex-Blake 13
Sussex Square, Brighton,
London Free Hospital have unanimously accepted my proposal. Come
before ten o’clock Saturday. I go out half past ten.”
Once more there was great rejoicing, and Mr. Stansfeld forwards to S.
J.-B. a cordial letter from Mrs. Anderson:
“March 19. 77.
DEAR MR. STANSFELD,
As I was not able to join in the cheer which I am glad to hear
was given for you at the School on Saturday, will you please accept my
very heartiest thanks for your grand success at Gray’s Inn Road. We
all owe more to you than to anyone. I do not imagine there will be any
difficulty about the £700 a year for five years. I shall hope to be
able to contribute £50 a year as my share.
Yours very truly and gratefully,
E. G. ANDERSON.”
One thing more that wonderful year had given. Miss Edith Shove, who had
accompanied Miss Pechey on the mission to Ireland, had made formal
application to the University of London for admission to medical
examination and degree. In February Mr. Smith Osier moved in the Senate
that her request should be granted, and the motion was carried by 14
votes to 7. The majority consisted of the Chancellor (Lord Granville),
Vice-Chancellor (Sir John Lubbock, M.P.), Lord Kimberley, Dr. Billing,
Mr. Fitch, Sir William Gull, Mr. Heywood, Mr. Hutton, The Master of the
Rolls (Right Hon. Sir G. Jessel), Right Hon. R. Lowe, M.P., Mr. Osler,
Sir James Paget,[131] Lord Arthur Russell and Dr. William Smith. The
minority consisted of Lord Cardwell, the Dean of Lincoln, Mr. Goldsmid,
Sir William Jenner, Dr. Quain, Dr. Sharpey and Dr. Storrar.
Footnote 131:
The following interesting letter shows that Sir James Paget’s attitude
at this time was not that of a partisan but of a just man:
“1, Harewood Place,
Hanover Square, W.
Feb 26. 1877.
DEAR MR. STANSFELD,
I intend to go, if possible, to the Meeting of the University
Senate on Wednesday that I may vote against hindering the entrance of
Women into the Medical Profession. I think them sadly mistaken in
wishing for it, but I see no sufficient grounds on which they can
justly or usefully be excluded.
Believe me most truly yours,
JAMES PAGET.
The Rt. Honble. James Stansfeld, M.P.”
S. J.-B. received the intelligence in the following note from Dr.
Archibald Billing, the father of the profession, who had taken his own
degree at Oxford in 1818:
“34 Park Lane,
1/3/77.
“DEAR FRIEND,
All right. I was at my post and gave my opinion rather freely.
We had a majority about two to one, but you shall have the minutes as
soon as printed. Some of the medicos rather recanted.
Yours sincerely,
A. BILLING.”[132]
Footnote 132:
This letter may probably have been written to Mr. Stansfeld.
One last storm was raised in Convocation about the action of the Senate,
on the ground that it dealt with the Faculty of Medicine only, but this
final obstruction only proved the truth of Mr. Stansfeld’s wise dictum
that when the hour for reform has come all that opponents can do is to
widen its character or to precipitate its advent. On January 14th, 1878,
a new Charter admitting women to _all_ degrees was laid by the Senate
before Convocation, and was carried by a majority of 241 to 132.
* * * * *
So much good that year had brought—that _annus mirabilis_ 1877—one must
not be surprised if it brought some evil also. And, to S. J.-B.
personally, it dealt one heavy blow. The School, as her Mother said, was
her living child. She had conceived it, brought it forth, tended it,
fought for it,—done most of the daily work it involved, with the help of
a lady secretary she herself had trained. Until she was a qualified
doctor, however, she did not wish her name to appear either on the
Council or on the Governing Body. In all the early papers it occurs only
as Trustee.
But she had always looked forward to her registration as something that
would initiate a new order of things. That platform gained, and the dust
of the struggle and fight left behind, she expected to take officially,
as Honorary Secretary, the position she had filled hitherto without any
recognition at all. Up till now she had been constantly harassed,
driven,—striving for something that always receded when it seemed within
her grasp. No wonder if she had often been hasty, high-handed,
difficult. Now all that, so she thought, was past. We recall the dreams
and ideals of her youth,—how she had longed to organize some fine new
school for girls, of which, conceivably, she might be worthy to be the
head.
“I am beginning to hope, Mother! If I only suffer enough—and I don’t
believe mine will ever be a smooth or easy life—I may yet be fit to
_be_ the head for which I am looking so earnestly.”
We have seen with what searchings of heart she laid aside this ideal for
the long struggle of her medical career; but from first to last she
never laid aside the sympathetic interest in her colleagues and juniors
which was perhaps the most striking characteristic of her professional
life. Is it strange if she now looked forward to a realization of the
whole dream ?
In any case that realization was not to be. Her enforced absences in the
matter of her examination had given people a chance to do without her.
We have seen that they had not always found her particularly easy to
work with. “You wouldn’t let me muddle, and you wouldn’t let me dawdle,
and how _could_ I be happy?” one of her “daughters” used to cry in the
radiant success of later years: and although it would not be fair to
generalize this into a solution of the whole difficulty, it goes a long
way to account for it. There were those who were thankful that things
should be done a little less efficiently and more easily,—thankful to
have a little more say in matters for which they felt themselves
partially responsible. There were those who looked forward with sinking
of heart to the time when S. J.-B. would return and really take up the
reins.
We have seen repeatedly that she never realized the strain of
“difficulty” in her own nature, and she always had a cohort of loyal
supporters; but she must have heard—or guessed—something of what was
going on, for she wrote to Mr. Stansfeld that the task of being Honorary
Secretary was too onerous to be undertaken except at the unanimous wish
of those concerned. Perhaps Mrs. Thorne—Dr. Atkins—Mrs. Anderson—would
care to undertake the task? Probably she knew for a fact that the two
first named would refuse it; and it must have seemed impossible that
Mrs. Anderson—overwhelmed as she was with other work—would entertain the
suggestion.
S. J.-B. was still in Ireland when the question came up. Mrs. Thorne
proposed S. J.-B. as Honorary Secretary, and someone else proposed Mrs.
Anderson, both nominations being duly seconded.
Mrs. Anderson was in a difficult position, and said so frankly. She did
not wish to take an unfair advantage over her colleague; but if it was
to be for the good of the School—?
Mr. Stansfeld and the Dean (Mr. Norton, who was always S. J.-B.’s
staunch supporter) were somewhat at a loss, and so no doubt were others;
it was not an easy situation for anybody. After some talk the meeting
was adjourned. Everything pointed to Mrs. Anderson’s election.
But, when it came to the point, this was more than S. J.-B. could stand.
Many lesser people would have accepted the situation gracefully,
concealing any heartburning they might have felt, but this was just what
S. J.-B. could not do. It was partly a personal question, of course.
With every desire and effort to be fair, Mrs. Anderson had always looked
at S. J.-B.’s life and work through the wrong end of the telescope, so
to speak, and it is not easy to appreciate fully the people who make no
secret of the fact that they take that view of us.
But the personal question was not all. We remember how warmly S. J.-B.
had spoken of her colleague in the old days, as “running where I
crawl,”—how she had triumphed in every stage of her colleague’s success.
She honestly felt that Mrs. Anderson was already too fully occupied to
undertake so big a job,—felt that, humanly speaking, Mrs. Anderson
_could_ only lend her name, and do the work by proxy.
And even that does not exhaust the subject. The truth is that S. J.-B.,
to the day of her death and with all her faults, was an incorrigible
idealist; and Mrs. Anderson, rich though she was in excellent qualities,
seemed to her to be lacking in certain capabilities of insight and
imagination which outweighed everything else.
“Put me utterly aside if need be!” she had cried in the self-surrender
of her adolescence.
And now she was taken at her word. But it was not easy to see the “need
be.” For a time it was blotted out by the bitter experience of personal
opposition.
It was a painful situation all round, but like so many painful
situations, it called forth something fine. Mrs. Thorne was _persona
grata_ with all parties, and finally Mrs. Thorne stepped into the breach
and allowed herself to be elected Honorary Secretary of the School.
“About the best possible,” wrote S. J.-B. in her diary, “with her
excellent sense and perfect temper. So much better than I.”
It involved a definite sacrifice, for, although Mrs. Thorne had taken
all her classes with distinction, she had only passed one professional
examination; and she was not one of those who are content to scrape
through. She had aimed at a London degree, and had even talked of taking
her whole course over again in order to fulfil every requirement. Dr.
Sewall had long since singled her out as “_the_ doctor” in potentiality
among the English medical women.
Already family claims had made her pause. This new claim, combined with
the others, proved more than she could withstand. She cast aside her own
ambitions, and made the success of the School her main object in life.
* * * * *
“Sweet Sackermena and her isles!
See how many yards and miles
It takes to walk round Sackermena.”
A breezy way this of paraphrasing the more familiar passage:
“Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem.”
But what one really wants to express is,—See the amount of work, the
number of people it took to achieve this one bit of human evolution!
Even the many names in this book are culled from a great multitude.
It was S. J.-B. who opened the subject boldly up, and forced the whole
world to discuss it. It was she who—in the eye of the whole world—led
the Edinburgh fight to its unforeseen sequel in Parliament and in the
opening of the London School.
Miss Pechey was a loyal and stimulating comrade throughout, disarming
opponents by the personal charm, intelligence and humour which
eventually opened the Irish College and gained the actual concession of
the right of registration.
Mrs. Thorne contributed a fine undercurrent of stability. It was not her
way to write picturesque letters that lend themselves to quotation, but
it was mainly owing to her that the London School became a lasting and
conspicuous success.[133]
Footnote 133:
In later years, as Dean, Mrs. Anderson did much for the enlargement
and development of the School.
_Pari passu_ with all this, as we have seen, and antecedently to any of
it,—Mrs. Anderson was quietly showing the English world that a woman can
be a reliable and successful doctor.
Fine records all four, and surely no less fine was the brave, wise,
unwearying championship of Professor Masson and Sir James Stansfeld,
without whom—humanly speaking—nothing could have been achieved at all.
Sir James Stansfeld would not have allowed us to draw the line there. In
an able sketch of the whole movement up to 1877, in the _Nineteenth
Century_, he concludes his survey with the following significant words:
“One thing more remains to record. These pages will, I think, have
presented to the reader’s mind evidence of a tough and persistent and
continuous struggle. Such struggles do not persist and succeed,
according to my experience, without the accompanying fact, the
continuous thread, as it were, of one constant purpose and dominant
will. Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake has made that greatest of all contributions
to the end attained. I do not say that she has been the ultimate cause
of success. The ultimate cause has been simply this, that the time was
at hand. It is one of the lessons of the history of progress that when
the time for a reform has come you cannot resist it, though, if you
make the attempt, what you may do is to widen its character or
precipitate its advent. Opponents, when the time has come, are not
merely dragged at the chariot wheels of progress—they help to turn
them. The strongest force, whichever way it seems to work, does most
to aid. The forces of greatest concentration here have been, in my
view, on the one hand the Edinburgh University led by Sir Robert
Christison, on the other the women claimants led by Dr. Sophia Jex-
Blake. Defeated at Edinburgh, she carried her appeal to the highest
court, that most able to decide and to redress, the High Court of
Parliament representing the Nation itself. The result we see at last.
Those who hail it as the answer which they sought have both to thank,
in senses and proportions which they may for themselves decide.”[134]
Footnote 134:
_Nineteenth Century_, July 1877.
It would be easy to close on this note, but it is on the earlier part of
Sir James Stansfeld’s conclusion that one prefers to dwell. A tough and
persistent struggle is indeed recorded in these pages—it was only on
working through the vast mass of original documents that the present
writer formed the faintest conception how tough and persistent that
struggle had been—and yet what will strike the reader most is that it
was emphatically _not_ a “one man fight.” S. J.-B. never said “I” in
connection with it. “You see we were so splendidly helped,” was her
almost invariable comment on looking back.
And she _was_ splendidly helped. Not only by her fellow-students, by
friendly professors, by the Editor of the _Scotsman_, and by those who
would fain have been her patients. All that one was prepared to find.
The amazing thing is the way in which—when all of these were almost
paralyzed by the strength of the opposition (yes, and by her mistakes)—
_help came from somewhere_. It might be the working-man, sending her a
shilling to represent his sympathy, or the statesman in a London club,
throwing down his newspaper with the determination that that woman
should be baited no longer. In any case help came.
Truly, as Sir James Stansfeld said, the time was at hand.
And Newman is perfectly right when he says that, if the individual be
powerful-minded and the cause good, the mistakes actually help. They
increase the talk, increase the interest, help to make the picture that
appeals to the popular imagination, till what has seemed to be the
eccentric action of a single individual spreads out in waves that
envelop the whole earth.
Writing exactly forty years after the events just narrated—at a moment
when women doctors are proving so vital an asset to the nation and to
humanity at large—one realizes the difference it would have made to the
whole world if Sophia Jex-Blake had been content to qualify abroad and
to slip on to the Medical Register somehow, instead of throwing the
gates wide open for all who were to follow her.
Reference has been made above to her love of poetry, and of all her
poems there was none she was wont to recite more solemnly than Kipling’s
_Explorer_:
“Yes, your ‘Never-never country’—yes, your ‘edge of cultivation’
And ‘no sense in going further’—till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, _I_ didn’t. It’s God’s present to our nation.
Anybody might have found it but—His Whisper came to Me!”
_PART III_
My fame is in the hands of others. I have weighed in a nice and
scrupulous balance whether it is better to serve men or to be praised
by them, and I prefer the former.
SYDENHAM.
(Quoted in S. J.-B.’s commonplace book.)
Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre? Have I
kept one single nugget—(barring samples)? No, not I.
KIPLING.
Your goodness must have some edge to it,—else it is none.
EMERSON.
CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS IN PRACTICE
The dramatic days were over. The task that now lay before S. J.-B. was
to pick up all that remained of herself after the conflict, and settle
down to practice. It is a solemn moment in the history of any doctor
when he or she deliberately takes in hand the issues of life and death:
mistakes can no more be avoided in this than in any other walk of life,
and yet the consequences here are so much more _apparently_ important.
And if it is a solemn moment for any man or woman, it was surely not
less so for her who for years had been a city set on a hill. In the
course of the long struggle youth had quite slipped away; her best
energies were spent; her nervous system was overstrained beyond the
possibility of complete recuperation. If George Eliot could say with
some truth that she began _Romola_ as a young woman and ended it an old
one, how much more might S. J.-B. have said this of her education in
medicine. Perhaps the coward in her would gladly now have shunned the
conflict altogether.
Small say was allowed to that coward at any time, and at this juncture
few even of S. J.-B.’s friends realized that—as regarded output of
energy—she had already done a life’s work. No one would have been
surprised if she had died a few years before, in the stress of the
fight; but the human memory is short, and, as she had survived, almost
everyone now looked upon the toil of the last ten years as simply the
introduction to the volume. She was now expected to show how great a
success a woman doctor can be.
First came the anxious question where to settle, and, while she
meditated on this, she was making good, at Brompton and wherever she
could find an entry,[135] the deficiencies in her hospital education.
Footnote 135:
We hear of her visiting the Middlesex, Moorfields, the Royal Free, the
Cancer, and the Children’s Hospitals.
Her original plan had been to settle in London, to foster the School she
had founded, and at the same time to be within easy reach of her
Mother,—the Mother for whom she would at any moment in her life have
thrown up every hope and plan that guided her.
There is no doubt that this would have been in most respects the ideal
arrangement. There is room for everyone in London. In those days it was
absolutely essential for a woman doctor to settle in a town large enough
to allow for the overwhelming proportion of patients who declined to
take their lives in their hands, so to speak, by trusting one of their
own sex. Even if the patient herself was willing to lean her whole
weight on an untried plank, husbands and mothers stood in the way.
Indeed there were girls who reckoned it the prime luxury involved in
earning their own living that they became free to employ the doctor of
their choice—a woman.
It is true that patients—and still more their male relatives—were
readier to trust S. J.-B. than they would have been to trust most other
women. Her inherent motherliness was not weakened by any aggressive
femininity; but on the other hand it is not to be supposed that she was
any less alarming than she had been as a student. No doctor ever
inspired greater enthusiasm and devotion than she did, but it was on the
whole the few to whom she appealed. Her vein of tenderness lay too deep
for the casual eye to see; and many were afraid of the occasional high-
handed imperious ways and the disregard of what people were likely to
say.
“It was like being lifted on a comet’s tail,” writes a patient to whom
she had been called in an emergency in March 1878, “when you came in,
strong and swift, with your eagle wings, getting over distances in a
third of the time other people take to do it.”
This is admirable, and describes what many felt, but although being
lifted on a comet’s tail is exactly what many patients want, the
treatment is not universally applicable.
London, then, would probably have supplied S. J.-B. with a larger
practice than she could have worked; many friends, and particularly her
brother, were keenly anxious that she should settle there; Mr. Norton
always regretted her departure; but, now that the School had been taken
out of her hands, it seemed inadvisable that she should remain as a
looker-on. The difficulty was to find another place big and
representative enough: she dreaded the great midland towns. After much
consultation, she decided on the last place on earth she might have been
expected to choose,—on Edinburgh.
It was partly the bracing climate, partly the beautiful drives, partly
the many friends who had stood by her so gallantly, that led to this
spirited decision, but on the whole it was a mistake. The smoke of the
conflict was still hot, and some of those who had admired her most had
admired her for qualities which were not what they sought in a
physician.
Moreover, she was the last person on earth to play up to the
expectations of the community in which she lived. The Edinburgh of those
days was a more conventional place than Edinburgh is now, and doctors
above all were expected to conform to a particular standard. There was a
general impression that piety paid and that an interest in missions was
a great help to success in practice.
“You never will succeed unless you conform to these usages,” said a
friend: “You might have Edinburgh at your feet if you would go to church
regularly and show yourself a religious woman,” said another.
It is needless to say that these were not the arguments to use with S.
J.-B. Never, moreover, since the far-off school-days in which she had
given a highly-valued shilling to “the Jews” had she taken any interest
in missions. That vein in her was worked out, or transmuted into
something else. The more she read of the old religions—and she did read—
the more she found in them to admire and respect,—the more it seemed to
her that they were the fitting medium for the training of the people to
whom they had been given. It must be frankly admitted too that she
continued to see such questions in the atmosphere of the particular
Evangelical school in which she had been brought up; in recognizing the
evolution of the individual—of herself as an individual—she failed to
recognize the evolution of the medium; and her life was so full of
active beneficent interests as to leave scant time for the consideration
of questions that did not at first sight appeal to her,—that did not
seem to be her job.
In the Edinburgh, too, of those days, the ordinary people who “counted”
were the people who liked things done “just so.” It disturbed their
sense of the fitting, for instance, that S. J.-B. should pay
professional visits, driving herself in a pony phaeton. Altogether she
was too big, too untrammeled for the post. What was wanted was the woman
who is a credit to any cause she may adopt. There are plenty of them
now-a-days.
Finally, S. J.-B. realized from the first that, with her limited
physical resources, she could not combine a social with a professional
life. Hospitality is a poor word to describe the manner in which her
door stood open to the few she loved, to those whom she thought she
could help, to all in whom she recognized any sort of spiritual kinship;
but from ordinary social engagements she stood aloof. She refused
invitations to dinner,[136] or made excuse to leave so early that she
might better, perhaps, not have gone; she declined to be lionised in any
way; and she was apt to snub those whom she suspected of wishing to know
her from motives of curiosity.
Footnote 136:
For the same reason she went but seldom to the theatre, unless an
actor whom she greatly admired visited Edinburgh. When Henry Irving
was there she would go as often as three times a week, and usually
take a little party of friends. Louis XI. was, in her opinion, his
masterpiece. For Miss Terry she had, like all the rest of the world, a
great admiration. Of Ristori she used to speak almost with bated
breath.
We must not forget how different she could be from all this,—how
radiant, how sympathetic, how full of humour and fun. “What a comfort it
is,” writes a patient at this time, “to see your dear supporting face!”
“You always come as Hercules did to Alcestis,” writes another. “Emily
and I have often spoken of your ‘How are you?’ being like his, ‘I am
here to help.’”
Nor am I working up to the avowal that she was a professional failure:
she was not: in many ways she was a great success. But if Edinburgh—like
Cousin Ellie of old—could have made “even a slight alteration” in her,
she might almost indeed have had the town at her feet.
* * * * *
She took the house 4 Manor Place, and in June 1878 she put her plate on
the door and began. Three months later she started a small dispensary.
Her professional isolation was great: Dr. Pechey was at Leeds; the other
medical women were in London or farther afield. A doctor in the early
days is sorely handicapped if he cannot discuss difficult cases and
questions with his contemporaries and seniors. S. J.-B. never had,
except for a few days at a time, the daily chit-chat—what students call
the “shop”—that is so helpful; but she was not allowed to suffer. Dr.
Heron Watson, Dr. George Balfour, and Dr. Angus Macdonald supported her
with a chivalrous loyalty of which it is difficult to write calmly even
now. They encouraged her to appeal to them at any time: they put the
whole wealth of their learning and experience at her disposal; and—what
was not a matter of course in those days—there was not a single question
in all the complicated domain of medicine which they would not discuss
with her as frankly as if she had been a man. It must be borne in mind
that in her own special subject, the diseases of women, her equipment
was all that could be desired. It was not for nothing that she had
worked for two years under Dr. Sewall at Boston. If adequate training
had been available, she might have made a great gynæcological surgeon,
for she had great calmness and presence of mind in an emergency, and her
hands, though full of character, were small and deft. Dr. Sewall always
regretted the waste of her potentiality in this respect.
The following extracts are from letters written during the first few
months of practice:
To her Mother,
“MY DARLING,
I know you will be pleased to hear that I yesterday received
fees which just completed my first £50,—earned in Edinburgh in less
than three months,—and that in what they call the “empty” season. And
what pleases me still better is that everyone of my patients has done
well. Several have left my hands practically recovered, and those who
are still there are all going on satisfactorily. And as among them
were two cases to which I was called when the patient was described as
‘dying’ (and both got well) I think I may very well be content. I have
had 23 patients (nearly 100 visits) at my private house, and about as
many more at my Dispensary, which has only been open a fortnight; so I
don’t think there is much doubt about the ‘demand’ nor about my
prospects.”
To Dr. King Chambers,
“I feel I am learning a great deal from the large variety of practice
here. You will see from the enclosed paper that I have the help and
support of four[137] of the best medical men in Edinburgh, and they
are all excessively kind in giving me advice and help as often as I
want it. No one ever had better friends and I doubt if anyone ever
liked a profession better than I like mine.
I find that each of my cases involves so much reading and thinking
that I am almost anxious they should not multiply too fast.”
Footnote 137:
The three mentioned above, together with Dr. Peel Ritchie. In later
years, of course, she would have added to the list,—notably the names
of Dr. (Sir Thomas) Clouston and Mr. C. W. Cathcart.
To Dr. (now Sir Thomas) Barlow to whom she had commended a young
colleague,
“March 24th. [1879.]
DEAR SIR,
I thank you very much for the kind response to my note which
reached me this morning. I feel sure that you will find Miss K.
grateful for your kindness and most anxious to benefit by it. I have
had repeated cause myself in my own Dispensary work to be thankful for
the various lessons I learned from you and Dr. Lee.
Thank you also for the kind interest you express in my personal
success, which indeed is all that I could desire. I have about 25 or
30 patients at the Dispensary every day that it is opened, and I also
have a much larger private practice than is usual at so early a date.
I have not yet been established here in practice quite 9 months, and I
find that I have already had about 400 visits to or from private
patients, which I think you will allow shows the ‘demand’ is a real
one.
As you refer to the ‘general question of lady doctors’ you must allow
me to say that I am quite sure it would have your support, from at any
rate one point of view, if you had the least idea of the amount of
preventible suffering which women bear with rather than consult men in
special cases....
Now I do not care for a moment to argue whether this feeling is right
or wrong; ... if the feeling exists it should be distinctly recognized
as an element in the question; and I am quite sure that you would be
one of the very first to desire that every possible remedy should be
brought to such needless suffering.
In the same way I never care to argue at all about the relative
capabilities of men and women. I mean to try to do my own work up to
the very best of my power, and that is all that really concerns me. I
cannot imagine any work nobler or more perfectly fascinating, than
that of medicine, and I am very thankful to be allowed ever so small a
share in it.”
To Mrs. Henry Kingsley,
“I have full as much work at my Dispensary as I can manage, indeed I
am pretty well used up on those days, but I always enjoy them.
I am just going to begin a course of lectures which I hope may be
successful.
It is hard work altogether, but nothing to the old worries.”
Hard work indeed it was, especially when one bears in mind that she was
urged at times to undertake confinements at a very considerable
distance,—as far off as Yorkshire. Moreover, being a woman, she had of
course the cares of housekeeping, and S. J.-B. always took her
housekeeping very seriously.[138] She was herself a good cook and an
excellent manager, and her staff were expected to carry out her methods
and principles loyally. If they happened to be lazy and unprincipled, or
even easy-going, their tenure of office was likely to be brief. Her
comfortable home—in common with all the other gifts of the gods—meant
nothing to her unless she could share it. How heartfelt was her
hospitality may be gathered from the following letters:
“August 15th. [? 1878.]
DEAR MISS IRBY,
Welcome home again! I saw in yesterday’s paper that you had
reached England, and was going to write when your letter came. I shall
be delighted to see you again! I expect to be here all autumn and
winter (with the exception of a few days) and shall be only too glad
to have you whenever you like best to come. Only do manage to give me
at least a week, and let me know which time suits you best as soon as
possible, so that I may make my plans suit yours.
Several people are most anxious to meet you, so I will ask them to
dinner, etc., when you fix a time; but I hope you won’t accept
invitations much (you are sure to have dozens) as I do want you to get
a little rest while with me, and I want to take you drives about
Edinburgh,—the country is so lovely. I shall tell everybody you will
be too tired to go out much.
Would you like a public meeting here? I daresay it would help, though
most residents are away at this season.
Yours affectionately,
S. JEX-BLAKE.”
Footnote 138:
The invaluable Alice had retired from service to join a sister in
Wales. She and her mistress continued to correspond till the end.
“June 16th. [1879.]
DEAR MRS. THORNE,
I hear that your two girls are coming to Morton next week. Don’t
you think it would be very wrong to let them travel so far all alone?
Don’t you think it is clearly your duty to come and stay a week or two
with me when you arrive? I should like so very much to see you again
at something like leisure, and also to show you my Dispensary and all
and sundry I am doing here. _So_ many Edinbro’ friends would like to
see you! _Do_ try to come if only for a week or two!
I remember that the ‘wonderful woman’ went to London and back for 24
hours once, so she can’t mind travelling! In haste
Yours sincerely,
S. JEX-BLAKE.”
“June 18th.
DEAR MRS. THORNE,
I shall be really _delighted_ if you will come down with your
girls and spend a week or two with me while they are at Morton. You
and I have never had any really quiet time together since our student
days, and I cannot tell you how much I should enjoy some talks with
you, and how glad I should be of your advice about lots of things in
my Dispensary and otherwise. Dr. Sewall you know always said you were
_the_ doctor among us, and I quite believe it. I wish so very often
that I could ask you about things.”
To a colleague in London she writes a month or two later:
“Your thanking me so much for a very moderate amount of good nature
shown to Miss X., makes me wonder how you _expect_ one to behave to
people who are ill and poor. I am sure you yourself act upon the ‘aux
plus déshérités le plus amour’ principle? Seriously I have done very
little for her beyond what I should have done for anybody more or less
in her position, except perhaps half a dozen drives and dinners which
I promised ‘pour l’amour de vos beaux yeux' before I saw her.
I am afraid you must think me a very ungrateful person in my turn, for
I don’t _say_ a quarter as much about your various kindnesses to me
and my friends.”
She always had a word of brave and wise advice for colleagues who
appealed to her:
“I am inclined to think you had better send Miss Z. off to Australia.
I am sure Miss Du Pre will gladly do her part if you write to her
about it. She is now at ‘Surbiton, S.W.,’—no farther address required.
I think you are _quite_ wrong to think you will ‘not forgive yourself’
if the plan does not succeed. I have long ago come to the conclusion
that ‘efforts are ours, results are God’s,’—and, if you don’t like
that phraseology, you can paraphrase it as you like, so long as you
acquiesce in my conclusion that we are _not_ to blame or worry
ourselves if things go wrong when we have done our best.
How I wish we could sit by that upstairs window and have a chat over
it all!”
* * * * *
“No, life isn’t a bit of a failure, and you wouldn’t think so if we
could get ten days’ holiday together up in the highlands!—don’t I wish
we could!—for I am very tired too.
I’ve got to go off to Yorkshire in a few days to attend ——’s
patient....
My coachman got drunk last week, and I turned him off at an hour’s
notice, and had to see to the stable myself for a day or two!—My whole
household has been upside down, and in the midst of it my dear old
Turk died last week, but quite quietly and without pain. I have a new
page, and a new cook, and a new groom,[139] and am going to have a new
housemaid,—don’t you pity me?—Still I say ‘Life is good,’—Can you have
better testimony?”
Footnote 139:
In place of the “coachman”; she never had both.
Her advice on occasion could be fairly drastic:
“Yes,—I know about Miss W. _Why_ do you _let_ her stay 1½ hours with
you? At the end of five minutes I should take out my watch and say,—
‘Now I have just ten minutes more for you,—is there anything you want
to say?’ That’s the way to treat those sort of folks. _I_ am not ‘too
good for this world.’”
Here is a rather amusing answer to a question from Dr. Pechey,—“Why do
you recommend Vermouth?”
“DEAR EDIE,
I sent off my two cards to you too hurriedly to answer about
‘Vermouth’!—but now let me say at my leisure that I never heard
anything more beautifully illustrative of the way stories are
‘evolved.’
The one and only occasion when I made acquaintance with Vermouth was
when one day, during a hurried call at Mrs. Nichol’s, the dear old
lady in Mr. F.’s presence, offered me some Vermouth as something new
she had got, and insisted on my tasting it,—which I did, and said I
thought it ‘very nice,’ as in duty bound! Neither before nor
afterwards have I either seen or heard of it! It really _is_ nice, I
think,—in the orange bitters line,—but further I know nothing about
it, and certainly never recommended it in my life—nor expect to.
My professional life is, I find, largely a crusade against tea and
alcohol, so certainly I am not likely to preach up new liqueurs—if
this is one.”
To Dr. Sewall she writes,
“Oct. 8th. [1879.] ... I have a very charming little brougham, which
my Mother gave me; and a beautiful horse, quiet as a lamb and strong
as a bull, from Miss Du Pre. Altogether it is an extremely smart turn-
out, and I should like so much to show it to you! I hope I shall this
summer. You _must_ come then if possible,—it is so hard to be apart so
many years!
I am so sorry my Father’s carriage is worn out. That little gift was
such a pleasure to him and almost the last thing he did. I think the
letter in which he told me he had paid the money to my bankers was the
very last I had from him—dear old man!...
Dr. King Chambers gave the inaugural address at our School this year,
I moved the vote of thanks to him,[140] as it was my one day in
London. I will try to send you a report.”
Footnote 140:
This was probably _not_ the occasion of which she writes in her
diary,—“S. J.-B. made very nice speech in moving vote of thanks,—only
forgot to thank much!”
Later she writes,
“I have rather a sore heart today, for dear old Turk has just died in
my arms.... He seemed about as usual today, but rose from where he was
by the kitchen fire, walked into the scullery and fell over. They
fetched me, and he gave just two gasps in my arms and died. It seems a
bit of one’s life gone, when he had been in it for 13 years!—and a
Boston bit too.”
“Nov. 29th. 1879.... We are in great excitement here with the visit of
Gladstone to Edinburgh,[141] and his speeches. I send you two papers
today, to show you how he alludes in one speech to the sympathy of
women with his cause,—I have written a short letter in today’s
_Scotsman_ asking if it would not be better that they should be able
legitimately to express that sympathy through the Suffrage.... How I
hope and trust to see you here next year!”
Footnote 141:
This was the celebrated visit to contest the County of Midlothian,—a
“triumphal procession”!
Apparently Miss Pechey did not think Gladstone’s appreciation of women
sufficiently adequate to be worth acknowledging, for a few days later S.
J.-B. writes to her,
“I like Gladstone much better than you do, or I shouldn’t have written
as in the _Scotsman_, but no doubt he is wrong about women,—his wife’s
fault however, I fancy. Miss Irby went to stay with them for a day or
two last year, and I know he admires her hugely,—perhaps she may be a
means of grace to him.”
It was about this time that the opinions of a number of representative
women were collected on the subject of the Suffrage. S. J.-B. at first
declined to respond, but, on Miss Irby’s remonstrance she wrote the
following lines, which are quoted here because they represent fairly the
calm and decided attitude she took upon the subject throughout life:
“If I correctly understand the British Constitution, one of its
fundamental principles is that Taxation and Representation should go
together, and that every person taxed should have a voice in the
election of those by whom taxes are imposed. If this is a wrong
principle, it should be exchanged as soon as possible for some other,
so that we may know what is the real basis of representation in this
country; if it is a right principle, it must admit of general
application, and I am unable to see that the sex of the tax-paying
householder should enter into the question at all.
The argument respecting the ‘virtual representation’ of women under
the present system seems to me especially worthless, as it can be
answered alternatively thus:—If women as a sex have exactly the same
interests as men, their votes can do no harm, and indeed will not
affect the ultimate result; if they have interests more or less
divergent from men, it is obviously essential that such interests
should be directly represented in the councils of the nation. My own
belief is that in the highest sense, the interests of the two sexes
are identical, and that the noblest and most enlightened men and women
will always feel them to be so; and, in that case, a country must
surely be most politically healthy where all phases of thought and
experience find legitimate expression in the selection of its
parliamentary representatives.”
As regards the medical education of women S. J.-B. never for one moment
lost interest in the movement as a whole. If her hand was no longer on
the helm, she never deserted her post on the bridge. A new Medical Bill
was on the _tapis_ at this time,—a Bill which—very rightly—made it
essential that all doctors should hold a qualification in both medicine
and surgery. As, however, no College of Surgeons would examine women
(who nevertheless had gone through the required surgical _training_),
this Bill would have had the result of placing women on a different and
inferior footing to men as doctors, and the hard-won steps that had
seemed to be cut in the solid rock would have melted away once more.
The General Medical Council, in its suggested amendments to the Bill,
proposed to establish a special Board for the examination of women, and
to admit them in the end to a separate register! It was the old
“strawberry jam labels” over again. Moreover in order to conform with
the requirements of this Board a woman must be in a position to assert
that she had received _no part of her education_ along with men,—a
requirement that at once ruled out all the women who were enjoying the
great privilege of studying at the University of Paris.
So there was small encouragement even now to relax that keen look-out on
the bridge.
In Dr. Heron Watson, who was at that time President of the Edinburgh
Royal College of Surgeons, S. J.-B. had a keen and sympathetic adviser,
and with his approval she wrote to her former supporters, Mr. Stansfeld,
Lord Aberdare, Lord Ripon and others, begging them to keep a watchful
eye on the interests of the women. Early in the spring of 1878 she had
urged Mrs. Anderson to write to two or three of the London daily
newspapers on the subject, while she herself undertook two or three
more; and on April 19th she writes again:
“DEAR MRS. ANDERSON,—It occurs to me that it would be well for the 8
registered women to send up a distinct protest against the new Medical
Bill to strengthen the hands of our friends in both Houses.
I have made a rough draft of what I should propose, and enclose a copy
to you, while also forwarding one to Mr. Stansfeld. Before doing
anything further I shall wait to hear what you and he think about it,
and whether you have any alterations to propose.
If the plan is adopted, can you tell me how we can get Dr. Blackwell’s
signature? There is no great hurry, as the petition need not be
presented for three or four weeks.
Yours truly,
S. JEX-BLAKE.”
To Mrs. Thorne she writes some months later,
“I had a long talk with Dr. Watson yesterday, and he tells me the
Government is likely to drop the Medical Bill for this session. I
shall be rather sorry if they do.
If they do _not_, I hope you will make a point of ‘keeping the run’ of
every proposed amendment, and of watching very carefully how each may
affect women. I should look out very sharp if I were in London, but
here it is impossible to do so with sufficient efficiency and
promptitude; so please don’t let anything slip. The matter is almost
more important than School affairs, and even friendly M.P.’s are too
busy to be trusted and often they don’t see the bearing of phrases.
Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. Cowper Temple or Dr. Cameron, could any of them get
papers for you, but they need reminding.”
Amid these manifold interests life ran its course in the early years of
practice. The happiest times were those when Miss Du Pre came to stay
with her friend, and it was the dream of S. J.-B.’s life that these
visits might develop into constant companionship. No one who was not a
doctor ever took a more sympathetic interest in medical questions than
did Miss Du Pre: her advice in difficult social and professional
problems was invaluable; and then there was her delightful sense of fun!
“The only witty friend I ever had,” S. J.-B. says about this time. And,
added to all was her sheer goodness and interest in the poor.
“32 at Dispensary,” writes S. J.-B. in her diary. “One or two so
hungry and forlorn that they went to my heart. Oh, dear, if only J.
[Miss Du Pre] were here to do her half of the work!
No motto of mine that over the Venice monastery, ‘O solitudo, sola
beatitudo!’”
It is needless to say that Miss Du Pre’s visits were as long and as
frequent as the many other claims in her life made possible, and in her
absence she entered as of old into every detail of her friend’s life.
Of course this friendship could not but take in great measure the place
of the old enthusiasm for Octavia Hill, though the latter never died.
In May 1877 someone had told S. J.-B. of the “terrible trouble” Miss
Hill was in. “Oh, dear,” she cried in her diary, “I’m ashamed of the
first sort of thrill of triumph that she should know how it hurts!”[142]
Footnote 142:
It was not till later—not perhaps till she saw that regrettable number
of _Fors Clavigera_ that S. J.-B. had any clear idea what the trouble
was.
“My life is full and complete again,” she writes in April 1878, “if
somewhat greyer for all the past pain; and, if I can have J., the
former things may abide in shadow till the day of restitution of all
things. I can’t but believe that _some_ day, some _where_, I shall
learn what it all meant,—even now one sees in some measure ‘why it
could not be otherwise.’
It is at any rate a grand thing that, over and through all, each has
kept on at her work and done yeoman service.”
“Dear L. E. S. turned the tide, gave me back the beginning of strength
and life, physical and mental, and since then for the last 12 years I
have stumbled steadily onwards,—gaining in strength and calm and
hope,—till at length I can feel a wholesome life of my own—quite
independent of the old pain,—with a very dear hand in mine, and with a
grand life of work and struggle against disease before me.”
On the last night of that year she writes:
“‘Tarry thou the Lord’s leisure,’ ... ‘and He shall strengthen thy
heart.’...
I believe profoundly in the ‘that He might be able to succour’. One
does learn through pain what one never learns without,—and, hard as it
is to _feel_ it, I suppose one knows the ‘power of ministration’—the
‘Lo, I come’ _is_ higher and more than even the personal happiness.
So—take and use Thy work.
What is the use of _talking_ about presenting ourselves a ‘living
sacrifice,’—and then moaning over pain,—wanting to ‘freeze on a warm
night’!
Oh, dear!—one’s own littleness.
Well, God teach and guide us all.”
A few weeks later she comes to the end of the volume, and writes in a
sunnier vein:
“Yet surely,—‘hitherto He has helped us’—Look at beginning of this
book,—or stronger still look back some 17 years and see how the light
has arisen out of darkness,—and shall it not grow and grow.
I fully believe ‘God is very merciful to those who suffer _young’_.
How much harder the other way.
And much to be thankful for in health. No neuralgia,—very great return
of brain power....
Who can look forward?—who dare plan?
Domine dirige nos!”
CHAPTER II
LAST ILLNESS OF MRS. JEX-BLAKE
So far S. J.-B.’s success in Edinburgh had been on the whole greater
than most of her friends had anticipated. The experiment could never
have been made, had not Mrs. Jex-Blake agreed to spend her winters in
Edinburgh. S. J.-B. was a good deal blamed by other members of the
family for urging this arrangement; but it must be borne in mind that
although Mrs. Jex-Blake was in fairly good general health, she was
subject to sudden alarming attacks of illness which had repeatedly
brought her daughter hundreds of miles in hot haste to the sick bed,
regardless of the studies, or the still more important affairs she was
leaving behind.
Modern methods would have grappled with the illness at its source long
before the patient had reached her present age, and a radical cure might
have restored her to perfect health: as it was she lay under a sword of
Damocles, and was regarded as a more delicate woman than she really was.
It was impossible for S. J.-B. to embark on medical practice under these
conditions; so the Sussex Square house was given up, and the old lady—
who elected to have her own _ménage_—divided her time between her
daughter in Edinburgh and her son at Rugby.
“You have always been different to me from my other children,” she said
to S. J.-B.; and, if she spoke with a consciousness of the sword in her
heart, the words were mainly a tribute to her younger daughter’s
untiring devotion, and remained in later days the source of comfort they
were meant to be.
Towards the end of April 1881 Mrs. Jex-Blake went south, leaving her
daughter more reluctantly than usual. It was only those who knew S. J.-
B. very intimately who were at all aware of the effort it sometimes cost
her to get through each “day’s darg,” and to keep a bright face turned
to her patients and a brave face to the world at large. She was more
tired than usual at the end of that winter, and Mrs. Jex-Blake was well
aware of this.
The usual series of love letters passed between Mother and daughter:
“Eastfield,
April 30th. [1881].
OWN DARLING,
I am really well, but feel only half of myself without you. I am
_very_ good,—I sleep well, eat well—_two_ hot dinners a day,—but, as I
was very tired, keep my room, it is so much easier to be quiet there.
Florence quite mothers me....
You may be sure Dobbs is most attentive—and backs anything she advises
with the
_Dr.’s wishes_....”
“4 Manor Place,
Edinburgh.
May 1st.
... Many thanks for your dear little letters, but you mustn’t scribble
too much to anybody!—Such sweet leaves in today’s note!
Yes, my darling, I miss my dear old lady _very_ much, but we are both
going to be very good, and get quite strong for our reunion in
September. I shall be very grateful to you if you keep up your ‘two
hot dinners’ honestly, and all the rest of it.... It breaks my heart
to find you run down as I do year after year when I come to fetch you
back again.
I don’t know exactly when Ursula comes, but you will hear from her.
Dr. M‘Laren is back,[143] and so vexed to have missed saying
‘Goodbye’!
Yours lovingly,
SOPH.”
Footnote 143:
Dr. Agnes M‘Laren had taken the house adjoining S. J.-B.’s.
Towards the end of June Mrs. Jex-Blake was less well, but the doctor who
attended her saw no cause for anxiety. On the 28th, however, alarming
indications of the old enemy showed themselves suddenly, and he
telegraphed to S. J.-B. to come immediately. There was one more rush
south “on eagle’s wings,” but fortunately this time S. J.-B. had the
companionship of Miss Du Pre, with whom she reached Rugby at 2 a.m.
The patient had been given up by the doctor and by all, and even S. J.-
B., when she saw her, thought she was dying; but she fought for the
precious life with every fibre of her being, refusing to own defeat and
absolutely regardless of her own health. For ten days and nights she
scarcely left the room. The doctor in attendance was only too glad that
she should have a free hand, and after a few days they sent for Dr. King
Chambers, in whose skill S. J.-B. had almost unlimited faith. His visit
proved reassuring.
“Her life hung so evenly on the balance when I left,” he wrote next
day, “that I was obliged to acknowledge to myself that my trust in her
recovery was a sanguine one. Please one line about her, and, if it is
a favourable one, I shall answer it by a little advice to yourself,
which you will in that case be in a condition to take.”
On July 7th all looked well, and S. J.-B. felt the wonderful supporting
power of hope, but, on the following day, there was a sudden turn for
the worse, and at half past six in the evening, the patient passed
quietly away.
* * * * *
The event is recorded in the diary by a great sheaf of blank pages, with
a pathetic notice from the _Times_ in the middle of them.
That is all, but constantly for a year, intermittently for many years,
the diary recurs to the old longings and regrets, the gropings and
questionings, the heart-searching and tears, that have followed every
great bereavement. The reader of the preceding pages will not need to be
told that S. J.-B. drank the cup to the dregs.
There were not a few who had lost in Mrs. Jex-Blake their dearest
friend, but everyone’s first thought was of her younger daughter.
“I do hope,” writes that wise Heron Watson, “that you are not overborne
by over much sorrow.”
“No human being loses what I do in her,” S. J.-B. wrote to her friend,
James Cordery, and this was perfectly true. No one had loved her Mother
as she had; no one else had the same cause; and no one else had the same
appalling capacity for suffering.
It is interesting to note that of many beautiful letters of sympathy
there is not one that strikes the reader as more truly comprehending
than does Mrs. Anderson’s:
“4 Upper Berkeley Street, W.
July 13th, 1881.
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I have seen with very great regret the notice of your sorrow.
Knowing as I do how very close and tender was the tie between you and
your Mother and also what a fine and ennobling influence she must have
been to all within her range I am very full of sympathy for you. It is
always very sad to break away from the past by losing one of these
main links with it, but in your case there is very much to increase
your sense of this. You have not (as so many others unhappily allow
themselves to do) outlived the tenderness of the relationship. I hope
that after a time it will be a comfort to you to remember this and to
recal how happy she was in having so much affection from you.
I was very sorry to find I had written on business last Sunday at such
a time.
Yours very truly,
E. G. ANDERSON.”
S. J.-B.’s own letters are calm and restrained, of course. To her
assistant in Edinburgh she writes,
“July 11th.
... Thanks for your kind note, and [your Mother’s] kind
thoughtfulness.
But nothing would grieve me more than needlessly to part a Mother and
daughter who still have each other, and I beg her to remain with you
at least as arranged until the end of this month during which time I
shall almost certainly remain here and try to get rested.
It was a hard battle,—it was bitter to fail just when we seemed
winning, but I believe it was her wish to go. On Thursday I heard her
murmur quietly, ‘Oh, Father, I pray Thee take me home,’—and now all is
peace.
Yours sincerely,
S. J.-B.”
About the work in Edinburgh S. J.-B. had no anxiety at all. It was her
way, when she trusted people, to trust them whole-heartedly, and she had
absolute confidence in the assistant who had worked with her for more
than a year. Well, indeed, she might, for she was extraordinarily
fortunate in that gallant-hearted and faithful young helper, whose only
fault seems to have been that she threw herself too completely, too
conscientiously, into everything she undertook,—her chief’s work and
interests, together with her own studies and laboratory
experiments.[144] S. J.-B. never realised what a responsibility her very
trust was to one wholly worthy of it.
Footnote 144:
She was working at the solubility of fats, and the ether fumes were
supposed to have proved insidiously poisonous.
In any case the double burden on the young shoulders proved too great,
and there was a sudden and tragic breakdown ending in death.
One wonders how S. J.-B. bore the double shock. She had fancied herself
“girt with the girdle of him who has nought,” when the second blow fell.
She always said herself that she never could have won through but for
Miss Du Pre, who simply carried her off to quiet places and tended her
and brought her gradually back to the possibility of beginning again.
The practice in Edinburgh was given up for the time. There was nothing
else to be done. Miss Ellaby took up the threads and finished them off
as well as a stranger might; but there was no medical woman free to
remain and fill the niche. It was hard on the practice.
* * * * *
In later years S. J.-B. met Mr. Frederick Myers, and she was induced by
her impression of him to read his _Human Personality and its Survival of
Bodily Death_, when it appeared some time later. She was deeply
interested in the book, and her mind was open on the subject always; but
she “tried the spirits” severely. “No human being,” she said one day in
the course of an earnest talk, “could strive to come into touch with one
gone before more earnestly than I tried to come into touch with my
Mother. I used to lie awake at night concentrating every faculty on the
effort. But I got no response.”
Her diary became her great outlet again in those dark days, in some
places almost, as of old, a very cento of beautiful or poignant thoughts
from the treasure-house of her memory; but that was never the side she
turned to the world, though intimate friends got glimpses of it that
startled them. One guessed it too from her anxiety to spare others the
pain she had suffered herself.
“Don’t you ever go through the farce, dear, of thinking you haven’t been
good to me,” she said to a friend years after this; and, although
throughout life she often spoke hastily and over-sharply, she never
spoke a word that might poison the night-watches for those she left
behind. Coventry Patmore’s terrible poem[145] could never have been
inspired by her.
Footnote 145:
“Poor Child.”
To one of her nieces she writes:
“Sept. 2nd, 1881.
DEAR ——,
I found the enclosed treasured among Grandmamma’s most valued
papers, and I am sure you will like to have it back and to see how she
kept and cared for it through so many years....
I think all your life it will be a pleasure to you remember how much
you added to her happiness and helped to take care of her during the
last few years. She always said you were ‘a little mother’ to her.
Your affec. aunt,
S. J.-B.”
CHAPTER III
PATIENTS AND FRIENDS
It was hard to go back to the house in Manor Place, so full of
associations, and, as soon as might be, S. J.-B. and Miss Du Pre removed
to Bruntsfield Lodge, a roomy, rambling old house[146] with a shady,
high-walled garden, standing high on the south side of Edinburgh,
overlooking Bruntsfield Links. The sunny rooms and the possibility of
stepping out into quiet greenness were worth a fortune to the strained
nerves and over-active brain.
Footnote 146:
This house is now the picturesque nucleus of the Edinburgh Hospital
for Women and Children.
“You will be glad to hear that I am much stronger,” S. J.-B. writes to
Dr. Sewall in September 1883, “and am sleeping excellently. I have
just begun also to take short rides, and I do not think they tire me
too much.”
Here then she began the life of comparative seclusion and active
beneficence which was to last for sixteen years. The keynote of her
existence was sharing, taking others with her, and the joy of sharing
this comfortable house and garden was very great.
Miss Du Pre’s absence is the occasion for some playful letters written
quite in a patriarchal spirit:
“August 25th. [1883.]
... _I_ have had an addition to my family as well as Mrs. B.,—though
it isn’t yet in the _Times_ first column,—viz. a delightfully comic
small dog, white with one black eye, whom I have christened Toby, and
whom I bought from the Home for Lost Dogs for the large sum of 2s. 6d.
The police take stray dogs there, and if no one claims them, or buys
them, they are killed; so this little fellow has escaped by the skin
of his teeth, in virtue of his supposed excellences in the cat-chasing
line![147] Has cottoned up to me most amusingly—followed me about all
day, and whined at the door when shut out....
The two boys are delighted, of course,—especially A., who declares Mr.
Toby to be the moral of a dog for whom his late master ‘wouldn’t take
£100.’ Nice profit wouldn’t it be if I clear £99. 17s. 6d.!
Lest the household should be too full, I have sent off a member,—viz.,
White Angel, to grass for a week at Currie,—H. being so overjoyed at
being let ride him out that cook declared he ‘couldn’t eat his lunch‘!
He walked back (6 miles) in 1¾ hr., not bad, was it?
Miss A. is coming tonight,—Mrs. J. went this afternoon. By the bye on
Thursday she asked me to ‘see Baby for a minute,’ and I found the
child white and out of sorts, rather feverish, etc., and overjoyed
Mrs. J. by prescribing ‘a little Bruntsfield’. So she has been out
here for 2 days, tumbling in the hay and delighting Ann’s heart. She
is so fond of children.
I also sent Mrs. S. off to Brackenrigg yesterday, as I decided she did
want a change before beginning a winter’s work. The fare was 17s. 4d.,
and I gave her the rest of £4, which will pay everything for 10 days,
with 5s. or 6s. to spare. I haven’t heard from her yet, but I am sure
she will be in the seventh heaven.
Probably she will see Miss Anthony there,—she went the previous
day....
I think it _was very_ good of you to ask for the Baring votes!...”
Footnote 147:
S. J.-B. made great friends with the birds in her garden, and cats
were accordingly taboo.
“Sept. 4th.
... Mrs. S. lunched here today, and says she feels infinitely
better for the change,—things no longer worry her in the same way. She
tells me that the red-room gentleman was back,[148]—and that being
confined to bed one day, he evidently heard Miss Anthony haranguing on
Women’s Rights in the next room,—and Mrs. W. told them that he had
asked ‘when those two ladies were going,—for he heard enough to know
they were men-haters, and _he_ was a woman hater!”
Footnote 148:
S. J.-B. and Miss Du Pre had visited the same hotel that summer.
“Sept. 9th.
I’ve had another addition to my family,—_not_ a permanent one this
time! A. J. was very anxious not to catch scarlet fever so as to be
thrown back for his examinations, etc., and so I have taken him in for
a few days, and given him ——’s room upstairs. (Do you think W. is in
any danger?) He seems a very nice lad, but by no means strong. He is
so very pleased with the quiet,—he says he can sleep _so_ much better.
Now a lad of his age ought to be able to sleep in any row!”
“Sept. 13th.
... The grapes are getting on famously, some will be ripe
within a week I think, but they will be rather small this year.”
“Sept. 23rd.
You needn’t have asked so meekly for ‘2 or 3 grapes’. We
have cut none yet, but when they first began to colour, the most
forward bunch was dubbed ‘Miss Du Pre’s,’—and for the last 10 days
the household might be seen every morning with upturned chins
gazing to see ‘if Miss Du Pre’s bunch is ready’,—H. going up the
ladder and hanging in all sorts of odd positions to look at it all
round.
The combined wisdom has decided to cut it tomorrow—in spite of a
red berry or two which won’t get right,—so probably you will get
it on Wednesday morning by P.P. Be sure to tell me how it
travels.”
The first few months in the new house were a time of comparative
leisure, and S. J.-B.’s friends received letters less telegraphic in
their succinctness than they afterwards tended to become. The
following is to Mrs. Brander, who (when Miss Isobel Bain) had
accompanied S. J.-B. to America:
“Sept. 26th. [1883.]
DEAREST BEL,
I wish you could peep in and see my new house now that it is
fairly in order. I think the quiet and airiness will be of very
great value to me. I have felt much better since I came here....
You have so often wished for good medical women in India that you
must now be pleased to have your wish granted. I don’t know if you
know Mrs. Scharlieb who is just entering on practice at Madras,
but, if you don’t, I wish you would go and call on her, and give
my card. I do not know her personally, but I have corresponded
with her, and respect her much for the gallant way in which she
got her education, first at Madras and then coming to England to
perfect herself. She passed the very difficult examinations of the
University of London (M.B. and B.S.) with great distinction, and
won the gold medal in Obstetrics from the whole University....
Have you heard also that Dr. Edith Pechey is going to settle at
Bombay? She has been invited to do so by a committee of native
gentlemen, who guarantee her an income and find her a hospital....
I am very sorry to lose her from England, but very glad to have so
admirable a representative in India. She always wins golden
opinions and does such excellent work. I do hope the Government
will do something for her. I have just written to Lord Ripon about
her.
You know I suppose that Mr. Fawcett has appointed a medical woman
(Miss Shove) as medical officer to the women post office clerks,
with £350 a year. It is an immense step in public opinion.
I am getting on very well here, but I begin to feel I am getting
old. My hair is so grey!...
Dear old Mrs. Brander came to see me the other day, looking as
nice as ever, ... I think I care more and more for old people’s
happiness as compared to young, though the world is hard enough
for them too sometimes,—and hardest of all I sometimes think for
the middle-aged folks who have outlived the spring and energy of
youth and not reached the calm of age. How much pain one sees in
the world!
I hope _your_ life is getting easier and happier every year, dear
child. Tell me all about yourself some day....
Yours affectionately,
S. J.-B.”
She was planning a new edition of her book, _Medical Women_, at this
time, and she wrote to Mr. Osler to ask for statistics as to the
percentage of women, as compared with men, who had so far passed the
examinations of the University of London. In reply to his
information she writes:
“Feb. 3rd. 1884.
DEAR MR. OSLER,
I can hardly express strongly enough how grateful I am both to you
and to Mr. Milman, for the very valuable tables of numbers sent
me....
Please do not doubt for a moment that I quite agree with you that
it is unfair to compare ‘picked women’ (i.e. really in earnest)
and ‘unpicked men’. I have said so repeatedly. But you must
remember that a _very_ few years ago I had a very hard fight to
get it admitted as a possibility that _some_ women _might_ do as
good work as men. In ‘Visits to American Schools’ (published 1867)
I wrote with at least sufficient diffidence,—‘Whether most women
would be capable of the amount of study required, for instance,
for one of our University degrees, I really do not know,’ etc. My
one contention has been all along,—‘Give a fair field and _try_’—
and no one can exaggerate the gratitude that all women ought to
feel to the University of London for giving that field.
At the same time, while quite conceding that ‘percentages’ need
correction by certain considerations on the men’s side,—youth,
want of choice, etc.,—you must not forget that women are quite as
much weighted in other ways,—e.g. by the greater reluctance of
parents to spend money on their education, and the more
inconsiderate claims made on their time, etc., at home, inferior
early teaching, etc., so that after all one set of difficulties go
far to balance another.
From a medical point of view my chief anxiety now is how women are
going to stand the strain; I am _very_ much afraid of seeing the
movement discredited by the breakdown in health of girls who begin
too young, or with inadequate physical stamina, or who try to
‘burn the candle at both ends’ by combining society or home duties
with serious study.
However, I must not trespass longer on your time and kind
patience, and with repeated thanks, I remain,
Yours very gratefully,
S. JEX-BLAKE.”
This subject of the education of girls had been brought prominently
before her mind by the breakdown of a rarely gifted young friend. S.
J.-B. had some great talks on the subject with Miss Buss and others,
and she wrote to various papers about the danger of over-pressure.
“The headmistresses have a difficult problem before them,” she says,
“but it has got to be faced.”
As a matter of fact the problem was destined to be solved abundantly
in due course by the development of games and physical culture
generally,—all that side of life for the lack of which she herself
had suffered so terribly.
She was specially interested, of course, in the daughters of her old
friends, and, of these, Hermione Unwin and Katie Ballantyne held a
special place in her regard. To the former she writes:
“July 29th. 1884.
MY DEAR HERMIE,
Thank you for sending me your examination papers. I am very
glad that you passed so successfully. What now interests me most
is to know to what use all this work is to be turned, for after
all knowledge is noblest when it becomes an instrument of work
beyond itself. Have you any tastes or wishes, or any thought of
any special kind of work?
I daresay that after all this study the best thing you can do is
to rest on your oars for six months or a year, but during that
time I hope you will be thinking in what way you can turn yourself
to best account. There is so much that needs doing in the world,
and it is such a privilege to help in the doing of it. I hope you
will write and tell me when you have any definite thoughts on the
subject.
I have already had my holiday for this year, having spent June in
driving about (with the white pony) in the Perthshire highlands
with my friend, Miss Du Pre. I think there is hardly any kind of
holiday that rests one so much. You should persuade your Father to
take you all in a waggonette, a long drive into Scotland or to the
English Lakes. If you should decide on Scotland, I should hope to
find this house used as a stopping-place. I think I could take you
all in pretty comfortably.
Remember me very kindly to Mr. Unwin, and believe me
Yours very truly,
S. JEX-BLAKE.”
Here is an interesting letter to an old friend whose husband’s
distinguished career separated her for the time from a dearly-loved
daughter:
“I much enjoyed seeing her for the flying visit which was all she
vouchsafed me, and I am _delighted_ to see how very much she is
improved,—very much more healthy in mind and body all round....
She amused me much by plunging headlong into some theological
difficulties,—which reminded me of how she (aged 6!) used to
harass you about the Trinity. Her great trouble seems to be that
she can’t feel sure the world is governed by a beneficent and
omnipotent God,—she thinks there is so much pain in it which
wouldn’t be allowed unless God either _didn’t wish_ to help it, or
_couldn’t_ help it. That has never been my difficulty,—I have
always had such a devout belief in the possible blessing of pain,—
‘Because all noblest things are born
In agony.’
Do you remember Miss Cobbe’s hymn?
However she asked me if _I_ felt sure the world was governed,
etc., and I said frankly that I hadn’t absolutely made up my
mind,—that it seemed to me we had very small means of being ‘sure’
of anything,—but that I thought, if there was a Ruler both good
and all powerful, it was at least perfectly conceivable that He
might allow all the pain, etc., partly because the very theory of
free will involved possibilities of evil with its consequences
which not even Omnipotence could avert, and partly because He
might see that pain was at any given moment the very best thing
for the person who suffered it.
Then she went off to,—Did I think it _possible_ that any Being
could follow out the lives of millions of creatures at once,
etc.,—to which I said that certainly I couldn’t conceive how it
should be possible; but neither could I conceive many other things
that yet we knew to be scientific truths,—e.g. that our whole
earth could be swallowed up in one of the ‘spots’ of the sun, and
not fill up the spot, and that that very sun is only a unit in a
myriad of worlds whose immensities simply reduce us to silence.
However I didn’t mean to inflict a réchauffé of all this upon you,
though I think you will like to know how the child’s mind is
working. Let it work!—being in a wholesome atmosphere of love and
labour, she will learn all sorts of practical replies to
theoretical difficulties, and come to no harm.”
Interesting, as bearing on the above, is another letter written to
someone else about the same time:
“It is a double principle with me never to bring forward
theological questions, and never to seek to change the opinions of
anyone who is satisfied with his or her own; and on the other hand
to be always ready to say exactly what I think myself about any
given point to any intelligent person who cares to ask me the
question, and to say frankly where I feel that I know nothing. I
do not think anyone can possibly be more conscious than I of the
immense vastness and difficulty of questions that the general
public answer glibly offhand, and of my own utter incompetency to
decide in the abstract ‘what is truth’. Practically I think one is
generally able to see one’s own duty day by day, and probably
Browning is right—
‘... more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act tomorrow what he learns today.’
Beyond that, I suppose that all that any of us can do is to be
very chary of either asserting or denying, but to strive to keep
our whole souls open to every ray of light we can get, and hope
some day to learn everything that it is needful for us to know.
Personally I am always getting to feel that opinions matter less
and less, and motives and feelings more and more.
Excuse this long dissertation and believe me,
Yours sincerely,
S. JEX-BLAKE.”
In December 1885 she writes to Miss Du Pre:
“Yes, we shall miss poor old X. sadly. It does seem pathetic,
doesn’t it?—and yet don’t you think it is something to be taken
away just when you _have_ attained your highest ambition?... The
first thing I thought,—as it almost always is,—was, I wonder what
he thinks now that he ‘knows what Rhamses knows’. It always does
strike me so very curiously when someone who has never, I suppose,
thought half as much as I about the mysteries of life and death,
goes in in front of me,—if there is any ‘going in’. I thought it
so very strongly about Vanderbilt. How _will_ he get on where
everything isn’t reckoned as on the Stock Exchange?”
Although the new house was certainly not in a central position, S.
J.-B.’s practice steadily grew. As the first woman doctor in
Scotland, she had, as she had told Sir Thomas Barlow, numerous cases
that had long gone untreated, and she was the recipient of many a
pent-up confidence. The Edinburgh that criticized her would have
been surprised if it had known some of the secrets that lay, so
safely, in her keeping. She was often called upon to be a Mother
Confessor, and, although she always declared that “one profession is
enough for one person,” her practice was by no means so rigid in
this respect as was her theory. Many strange problems were discussed
in that quiet consulting-room, with its book-lined walls and green
spaces outside. To the end of life her impulsiveness led her into
mistakes for which she had to suffer, but her advice to others was
extraordinarily sane and good. Yet the idealist in her never slept.
“I took Colani from the shelf,” she says on one occasion, “and read,
‘Cast _thyself_ down,—for the devil can suggest; compel can he
never.’”
She was often asked, too, to take a resident patient who wished to
have her own suite of rooms and sometimes her own attendant. More
than one of these patients became personal friends.
She of course received high fees for cases of this kind, but she
often had resident patients who paid no fees at all. Some governess
who could not get well in dreary lodgings would be simply wrapped up
in blankets and carried off in the brougham—or was it on a comet’s
tail?—a messenger having been sent up to the house,—“Have blue room
ready in half-an-hour. Am bringing patient.”[149]
Footnote 149:
“Ah,” said an old servant in later years. “We did see life in that
house!”
“I wonder,” writes a patient at this time, “if you have any idea
how pleasant it is to be lifted on somebody’s shoulders and
carried away from the shadows of your own life into the brightness
of theirs. No I do not think you can have; you do not seem to have
dwelt in the shadows.”
And another writes,
“I know you will believe me when I say that I have rarely, if
ever, been so _supremely_ happy as during the past few weeks. The
feeling of peace and comfort was so delicious, and I only wish I
could prove myself just a little worthy of all I have enjoyed.”
We have seen how on one occasion she took in a lad who could not
afford to risk incurring the infection of scarlet fever. On another
occasion, when visiting a patient, she was asked to see a boy of
ten, who had unluckily fallen ill while paying a short visit to the
house. His hostess did not understand boys, and he was having an
uncomfortable time. His plight roused all the boy—and there was
plenty of it—in S. J.-B. She carried him off, mothered him, took him
for drives when she could, got him well, and apparently made him
happy. At all events, when the time came to say Goodbye, he flung
his arms round her neck and kissed her!
There are some men who are born with an instinctive knowledge of the
right thing to do in unusual circumstances.
Most useful was the comet’s tail in cases where some overworked
brain was on the point of a breakdown, where a worry was developing
into an _idée fixe_, and threatening to drive the patient mad. S.
J.-B. would carry the patient off, regardless of possible
developments more disconcerting even than an outbreak of scarlet
fever in her house, tend her, feed her up, make her sleep,
sympathize with her, bully her, laugh at her, till the patient was
ready to fall into line and laugh at herself. Some of these “cures”
were extraordinarily rapid and complete, and there is no record of a
single failure.
[Illustration:
_from a photograph by M. G. T._ _Emery Walker ph.sc._
_Sophia Jex-Blake_
]
She never heard of any over-weighted woman or child without asking
herself whether she could lift the burden.
“DEAR CARRY,”—she writes to her sister about this time—“... I
don’t like the idea of our teacher looking ‘pale and anxious’,—do
you know if she has any special troubles?—or is likely to be short
of money? Has she relations with whom she spends her holidays? or
is she at Bettws now?—When do the holidays begin and end? What pay
has she now?—Has it been raised lately?—What is her name and
nation?
A sad number of questions, but very short replies will suffice.
Your aff. sister,
S. J.-B.”
It was partly because she had so many guests of this kind that she
made it an absolute rule that none of her servants were to receive
gratuities from visitors,—a rule that some of the visitors disliked
extremely, and even refused to submit to. Such cases sometimes led
to an amusing breeze of correspondence of which the following is a
sample:
“SIR,
Well acquainted as I am with your many and great iniquities,
I confess that I did _not_ expect you wantonly to abuse our humble
hospitality by deliberately inciting our household to rebellion
against constituted authority as distinctly announced to you by
written warning on the mantel-piece.[150] Manifold as are the
notorious vices of the Conservative mind, I _had_ supposed it to
have some slight reverence for law, national or domestic. In
future I shall know better.
Sir, the humble but incorruptible member of my household whose
integrity you sought to corrupt, begs me to re-inclose to you the
accompanying lucre (2s. 6d.), of whose history you so falsely
pretended yourself ignorant, and as I see no reason why I should
be impoverished in consequence of your evil doings, _I_ request
you to repay me on your return from the continent the commission
charged by H.M. Government (viz. ½d.) upon the enclosed
remittance.
I am Sir,
Yours more in sorrow than in anger,
S. J.-B.”
Footnote 150:
“_On est prié de ne rien donner aux domestiqúes._”
The postal order was indignantly returned, with a request to do what
she liked with it, so she at once sent it to the London Society for
Women’s Suffrage, directing the secretary to forward the receipt to
her refractory Conservative guest!
Notwithstanding this, and other differences of opinion, he paid many
more visits to her house, and for the future contrived usually, at
least, to elude her vigilance.
She used to consult him in all sorts of legal difficulties, and he
replied with unfailing patience.
“DEAR JAMES,”—she wrote on one occasion,—“I want to make a
codicil, leaving some money to ..., the income to her for life,—
the capital between her daughters. Will you please tell me the
simplest words in which I can do this?”
In sending a rough draft, he inserted the words,—“if only one such
daughter.”
“Of course I can put in ‘if only one such daughter,’ if you like,”
she replied, “but at present there are seven!”
The initial mistake, of course, was hers, and it was a kind of
mistake that was very unusual with her.
Her correspondence was very large,—so large that she never had time
to write a “proper letter about ‘Shakespeare and the musical
glasses’,” as she would have said. To her most intimate friends she
wrote with spontaneous charm,—letters circumstantial, tender,
nonsensical, as the case might be. “Do you _ever_ write any letters
that would look well in your memoir?” asks Miss Du Pre. “I begin to
be anxious about that book. It seems to me that it will be so
fearfully dull,—unless your diaries ... prove to be amusing.”
On the other hand, strangers consulted her about manifold schemes
and perplexities, and she always asked herself how she could help.
“Dear Madam,” wrote one of these, “As you sit alone in the evening
with the curtains drawn, imagine that a woman steals into your room,
_hunted to death by men_. I am that woman....”
Even this sensational beginning did not put S. J.-B. off, and it was
weeks before she allowed herself to be persuaded—by Dr. Pechey and
Miss Du Pre—that the case was one for Dr. Clouston rather than for
her.
* * * * *
But it was in her Dispensary, with working women and girls, that one
saw her, perhaps, at her best. She was so vital, so sympathetic, yet
so full of humour and common sense that the regular provident
patients were devoted to her. They knew there was nothing to be
gained by arguing. “Well, I must just take my scolding,” they would
say resignedly. So keenly did she sympathize with their difficulty
in following out her directions in their own homes that in 1885 she
added a few beds to the Dispensary, and thus formed the nucleus of
the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children, which has since grown
to great things and has been honoured by a visit from the Queen.
Where the case was serious, and the remedy lay in the husband’s
hands, S. J.-B. always took the bull by the horns. “Ask him to come
and have a little talk with me,” she would say breezily. “Tell him I
can see him at such and such hours.” And he would come!
She was admirably fitted for work of this kind. No woman was ever
more strictly fair. An injured husband was no less—and no more—sure
of her sympathy than was an injured wife.
And, of course, it was the old and feeble who at once found the
radiant side of her.
“The thanks and blessings of old J. G.—85—bring a rush of tears,—
‘Ah, somebody be good to my old lady!’
And yet I suppose she may be ‘old’ no longer, but young and strong
and bright, and sorry for _my_ weakness and weariness,—
‘waits on the hills of Paradise
For her children’s coming feet.’”
She seldom rose quite above this sense of effort and weariness,
though few would have guessed it. “I always get so much good from
being with you,” writes Lady Jenkinson,—“body and soul—especially
soul.... I wish _you_ would ’fess when you feel downcast.”
In her inmost circle, of course, she did ’fess, pretty often. “Not
strong enough for the place, John,” she used often to quote
whimsically from _Punch_. And here is an interesting bit of heresy
in a letter to Dr. Sewall—
“I don’t at all agree by the bye with your theory that ‘there is
nothing like work for producing real happiness.’ I don’t find that
it has even any tendency to produce it, though of course one
_must_ work if one is able. ‘Otherwise she drops at once below the
dignity of man,’—so says Aurora Leigh.
To quote Mrs. Browning again,—‘What’s the best thing in the
world?—Something _out of it_ I think.’”
The reader will not need to be told that the poetry of her nature
had not been crushed out by that long fight. Far from it. All
through the strenuous days she had been supported by the very poems
she had repeated by the fireside in Sussex Square, but the store had
grown till her repertory must have been nearly unique. To many
passages from the Psalms and Isaiah, George Herbert, Trench, Alford
and others, she had added a harvest from Whittier, Emerson, Lowell
and divers less known American poets. She loved her Tennyson and
Browning too—_Abt Vogler_ and _Rabbi Ben Ezra_—but indeed the
“poetry book-case” included a very catholic range, from Macaulay’s
_Lays_ to Swinburne and Christina Rossetti, with a corner for Jean
Ingelow and for Mrs. Hamilton King. We have seen the store she set
in her youth on some of Sadie’s Poems. No one who has ever heard it
will forget how the “pathetic voice” would repeat:
“Is it so, O Christ in Heaven, that the highest suffer most?
That the strongest wander farthest, and more hopelessly are lost?
That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain,
And the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?—
‘I have many things to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now.‘”
or again,
“No, no, by all the martyrs, and the dear dead Christ;
By the long bright roll of those whom joy enticed
With her myriad blandishments, but could not win.
Who would fight for victory, but would not sin.
By these our elder brothers who have gone before,
And have left their trail of light upon our shore.
We can see the glory of a seeming shame,
We can feel the fulness of an empty name.”
It was recitations like this that formed the nucleus of the
“incomparable evenings in the Doctor’s Study” to which Dr. Lillie
Saville referred (see pp. 390-1, footnote). When life was not too
exacting—and sometimes when it was—such evenings were very frequent,
and they were a great refreshment after the burden and heat of the
day.
* * * * *
She derived much relaxation, too, from the best of the unceasing
current that flows through the circulating libraries. Her brief
criticisms of books are often interesting. She was disappointed in
George Eliot’s _Life_, because the long series of letters was not
sufficiently welded together by narrative. Of the Carlyles she
agreed with Mrs. Oliphant that “there was a great deal of love on
both sides,—with very raw nerves.” Of two books she confessed to
Miss Du Pre that she “sobbed over them like a baby,”—one was _Laetus
Sorte Mea_, the other _The Little Pilgrim in the Unseen_.
CHAPTER IV
PUBLIC LIFE
It is not to be supposed that the “cataracts and breaks” were a
thing of the past. There were many who found S. J.-B. a delightful
person to work with, but even they had no difficulty in seeing how
it was that others had a different experience.
“But the Doctor is _nearly always right_,” said one of her
assistants in later years, “when she differs from other people.” And
this was perfectly true. She _was_ nearly always right; but the few
times she was wrong were sufficient in many quarters to give the dog
the proverbial “bad name.”
Moreover, one must frankly admit that her rightness was often too
uncompromising, too business-like, too far in advance of what other
people could be expected to agree with, too inconsiderate of
ordinary human frailty. “You treat other people like pawns,” Miss Du
Pre used to tell her, but, although she quoted the remark, she never
seemed really to grasp it.
During the first few years of her life at Bruntsfield Lodge she took
a great interest in local women’s questions. She was a moving spirit
in the organization of one or two large suffrage meetings, and in
the laborious propagandism and canvassing involved in the election
of women as poor law guardians. Evidence of the thoroughness of her
work persists to this day; but it was not always appreciated by the
Edinburgh ladies who coöperated with her. They thought her so big
and masterful that nobody else got a chance. It was just as well
that her own special work absorbed her more and more. In 1884 she
had written for Macmillan (at the instigation of her friend Mrs. S.
R. Gardiner) a useful little book on _The Care of Infants_, which
was warmly received by the profession and by a considerable public,
and she was steadily taking notes for a second edition of her
_Medical Women_, which should bring the narrative down to the date
of publication.
Public affairs, too, demanded their share of interest. That weary
Medical Bill kept cropping up at intervals, and S. J.-B. was often
appealed to privately by members of parliament and others for
information and advice. They were well aware, of course, that her
main interest was to safeguard the rights and privileges of women,
but they also knew something of her mental acumen and thoroughness
of method. Moreover, she was unconnected with any of the great
vested interests which constituted the great stumbling block in the
way of any Bill. There is a telegram extant addressed to her by the
President of the Edinburgh College of Physicians who had gone up to
London to watch the debate,—“Please wire Mr. Stansfeld to be sure to
be here in time to secure dropping of bill proposed.”
Towards the end of 1884, the Edinburgh Extra-Mural School made an
effort towards incorporation, and memorialized the Privy Council to
grant them a Charter. S. J.-B. was anxious to take advantage of this
opportunity to raise again the question of the admission of women to
medical education in Scotland, especially as, by this time, the
various missionary bodies were quite alive to the importance of the
subject.
“The Free Church are also willing to move,” she writes to Mr.
Stansfeld on November 20th, “and they wish to memorialize the Privy
Council direct, and to request that any Charter granted may _not
exclude_ women, but make it at least optional for the College to
admit them. To my intense amusement the request has just come to me
that I will ‘draft’ such a memorial, but I have not the remotest
idea how even to address the Privy Council!”
It was not only the Free Church that asked her help. The lecturers,
mindful of her power of enlisting the sympathy of statesmen in the
past, also begged her to use her influence in high quarters, and,
through the National Association, to present a petition to the Privy
Council. Mr. Stansfeld was helpful as ever, advising her to
interview Lord Carlingford, from whom she had a gracious reception.
“But the primary condition must be,” she writes to Dr. Littlejohn,
“that the Charter distinctly commits the College to the admission of
women on equal terms. If this is not approved, the whole thing falls
to the ground.”
The reader of the foregoing chapters might not unnaturally be
prepared to hear that the College was duly incorporated, and that
the women were left in the lurch; but it was the unexpected that
happened. The effort of the Extra-Mural School to achieve
incorporation failed, but the examining bodies for which the School
existed, the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, decided a few
months later to admit women. We may reasonably suppose that the
renewed discussion of the whole question had not been in vain, but,
so far as S. J.-B. was concerned, it was a case of the seed cast
into the ground, which springs and grows up “he knoweth not how.” On
March 17th, 1885, she writes to Dr. Pechey:
“Meanwhile I have two splendid pieces of news to send you, if they
have not yet reached you,—viz. (1) The Irish College of Surgeons
has not only opened all its examinations, and even its
fellowships, to women, but also all the classes in its School,—
making separate arrangements for Practical Anatomy only. (2) More
wonderful still, the Scottish Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons
of Edinburgh and Glasgow (now combined to give one ‘Triple
Qualification’) have decided _without a division_ to throw open
all their examinations to women. I am exceedingly surprised, for
though I heard an application had been made, I thought there was
little hope of success, and took no trouble about it. However, so
it is, and I hope to have classes opened in the Extra-Mural School
(and perhaps in connection with St. Andrews) next winter. Somebody
has left St. Andrews (subject to a life interest) a legacy of
£50,000 on condition of admitting women. So you see all round
‘Pigs is looking up.’
Mrs. Russel was here for a few days a fortnight ago, and is as
nice as ever.”
This great advance gave a fresh impetus and point to the publication
of _Medical Women_,[151] which was duly achieved a few months later.
It called forth a great sheaf of congratulatory letters from those
who remembered the old days.
Footnote 151:
_Medical Women_, by Sophia Jex-Blake, M.D. Oliphant, Anderson &
Ferrier. The book has long been out of print, but, as a storehouse
of facts, it is largely drawn upon by all writers on the subject,
including the author of the present volume.
“Of course,” wrote Dr. King Chambers, “future generations will
think it necessary to season your arguments with the traditionary
grain of salt; but the facts are so clearly and calmly stated that
they will be accepted absolutely. As to the character of the
movement itself, the future must give it.”
“I am glad I was always a steady, if humble, adherent to the side
of justice before its cause was popular,” wrote Professor
Charteris. “I hope that you will long and increasingly enjoy the
position that you had such a hard fight to win. You got all the
buffets for many a day.”
And Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell:
“I am sorry that we have lost you from London. We much need that
combination of unselfish activity and wise combination of
practical qualities which we find in no other of the leaders of
the movement.”
“What a change,” says Dr. Heron Watson, “has come over the spirit
of the Medical Corporation since the story of your efforts in the
cause first appeared.”
And this—finally—is from a generous letter from the Revd. William
Pechey:
“If Edith is entitled to the praise of having borne, as you say,
‘an excellent part’ in the movement you narrate, she would, I am
sure, be the first to join me in saying that you alone can fairly
say: ‘_Quorum maxima pars fui._’”
But the mention of Dr. Pechey’s name reminds one of a delightful
letter she forwarded from her little friend Rukhmabai (now Dr.
Rukhmabai) who, needless to say, was _not_ one of those who
remembered the old days.
“Girgaum,
“23rd June, 1886.
MY DEAR MISS PECHEY,
I herewith return ... one of your books (The Roman Singer),
with many thanks. I looked it all over just enough to know the
purport of the story, which I found contains nothing but mere
_love_ matters.
I shall return the other book (Medical Women) in a few days. It is
so very interesting to me that I don’t like to drop a single word
of it while reading. It gives me a great comfort as I see the
_truth_ won the victory at last, though you had to suffer so much
even in a country like Europe. I would never have believed if some
common person were to tell me, that the people there were so
against to allow women to study medicine....
Yours affectionately,
RUKHMABAI.”
S. J.-B. was interested too at this time in the development of a
volume for the publication of which she had been responsible in the
first instance,—that most useful gazetteer, _The Englishwoman’s Year
Book_,—the success of which has unhappily never been comparable to
its merits: and she continued to advise and help the first editor,
her friend, Miss Louisa Hubbard.
In 1886 she was asked to deliver one of a series of Health Lectures
in Edinburgh, and of course she consented gladly,—her special
lecture being addressed to women only. The lectures were free, and
the lecturers unpaid.
When arrangements were far advanced, she found that the Committee
proposed to charge one shilling for admittance to her lecture, and
she promptly rebelled. She wanted all her Dispensary patients and
all their friends to come and hear what she had to say, and the
charge seemed to her to do away with more than half the good of her
lecture. It was represented to her that a charge was also to be made
for the corresponding lecture to men only, but she did not consider
the cases identical. In any case the men’s lecture was no affair of
her’s.
Mrs. Trayner (afterwards Lady Trayner) was an important person on
that committee, and she and Lord Trayner had a great respect and
cordial regard for S. J.-B. They understood her, and they wanted
other people to understand her too. They were most anxious that she
should waive her objection to the shilling charge, partly and
especially because she was coöperating in the matter of the Health
Lectures with men doctors, and they—the Trayners—wanted her to show
herself gracious and conciliatory.
S. J.-B.’s reply to Mrs. Trayner’s letter is characteristic of her
attitude at that time:
“Pray thank Lord Trayner warmly for his kind interest in me and
the medical women generally. I think, however, that he somewhat
over-estimates the importance of what the men doctors may think
one way or the other. You and he will remember that all that we
have gained has been gained in the teeth of nearly all of them,
and if they have failed to hinder me hitherto, they are certainly
powerless to hurt me now.... I am willing enough to shake hands
with them if they wish it, but you must remember that it is I and
not they who have the old sores to forgive....