CHAPTER XIV

QUESTIONINGS

When S. J.-B. left England her plan had been to spend at least part of the winter with an old school-friend, now married to the Revd. Addington Venables—afterwards Bishop—of Nassau in the West Indies; but life in Boston proved too attractive. She liked the women doctors and they liked her; possibly they had designs on her; in any case Dr. Sewall was anxious to get her health up to such a level as would make professional life a possibility; and, for the furtherance of this end, it was arranged that she should share the resident’s little house in connection with the hospital. Miss Isabel Bain had gone to pursue her education in one of the good girls’ schools. Already in October one had heard of S. J.-B. “helping the doctor through oceans of figures in hospital reports,” and one can well believe that she was an efficient member of the little community. The very day after she took up her residence in the hospital precincts the “student” who did the dispensing was summoned away, and as—of course!—there was a run of arduous cases at the same time, S. J.-B. cheerfully volunteered to do the dispensing,—“and was very thankfully accepted” to fill the gap! Within a week she writes to her Mother:

“It’s very amusing, dear, to learn to write and make up prescriptions so easily,—I shall be up to the doctors in future you see! I have just been making one up for myself under the doctor’s directions, to my great amusement,— ... and precious nasty it is!

It’s a great comfort to be of some sort of use to these people who are so frightfully overworked just now.... Besides being apothecary, I’m general secretary,—write all the business letters (which the doctor hates) and post up the hospital records of cases, etc.; and besides this I requested to be and got appointed what I call ‘chaplain’ with discretionary powers. The only people who visit in the hospital (besides friends at visiting hours) are the Lady Managers, each of whom has a month on duty, and besides that Mr. Barnard comes and holds a short service and preaches every Sunday afternoon. So I thought that the patients would like some reading, etc., sometimes, and Dr. Sewall gave me leave to do all I liked.... You can’t think how pleased they were all of them, and how heartily they asked me to come again, which I shall do pretty often.”

A week later (Nov. 24th) she writes again:

“At present I am so exceedingly content in my quaint pleasant quarters in the midst of so new a working world, that I hardly feel the need of anything beyond; and I do greatly want quiet and rest to ‘recuperate’ as the new word goes. I can’t tell you when I have found so much chance of rest of mind and quiet interest in things wholly unconnected with the old pain,—not for years, I am sure, and I have ready to hand just as much work as I feel able for, and yet no strain on me to do it if I am not able. I can’t tell you the pleasure it gives one simply to see Dr. Sewall in her hospital and especially among her poor patients. She is such a true _Healer_;—so infinitely compassionate and sympathetic, with blue eyes sometimes quite full of sorrow for the people’s pain, yet such strong firm hand and will to remedy even _through_ pain. I say a dozen times a day,—‘Were I not a teacher, I would be a doctor’—if I could.

(Nov. 27th.) This hospital life is simply charming. So busy, so simple, so quaint and so interesting! I am entering more and more fully into it daily, and finding more and more nooks which I can fill ... sometimes giving mechanical aid in operations where they want an extra hand, etc.

Darling, one very unexpected result is coming out of this new life which I embraced simply for its rest and comfort,—I find myself getting desperately in love with medicine as a science and as an art, to an extent I could not have believed possible. I always associated so much that is repulsive and nasty with it in my mind, but I find that one really loses all sense of that in close contact,—that the beauty of nature’s arrangements and of art’s contrivances absorb one’s mind from everything less pleasant, and I find myself saying to myself a dozen times a day that, did I not feel my life devoted to another object, I would be a doctor straightway. As it is, I mean to use all the time I have in gaining all I can, by observation (for which one so rarely has such a chance) even more than by study, though I find myself devouring all sorts of medical works too, and am quite amazed to find how far even in this little time I am able to understand to a certain extent all sorts of things going on around me, and how _very_ interesting they all become in the new light.... Of course one has access to an enormous medical library here, and the junior doctors are all as ready to help or show me all I want as possible. I in my turn do all I can to take extra work which I can do off their hands. Today the hospital note-book was handed over to me, and I went round with the physicians taking down directions for food, medicines, etc., and then making up the latter and taking them to the wards: all of which was very little for me to do, and very interesting, but a great deal saved for the over-worked junior doctor of the wards. I am really a _great_ deal stronger and healthier than I have been for a long time.”

“Nov. 27th. We get up at 6.30 a.m.,—breakfast at 7, then go round the wards with the doctors, then I make up the hospital medicines and see what drugs need to be ordered into the dispensary. The Dispensary opens at 9, or two days in the week at 10, and on Mondays and Thursdays (Dr. Sewall’s days) I am there all the morning, making up prescriptions as fast as she writes them (two of us generally have our hands full, but sometimes I am alone), and very often we have not got through our work when the dinner-bell rings at 1 p.m. Dr. Sewall always has an enormous number of patients—from 60 to 70, and if I go down into the Dispensary waiting-room I get seized on so eagerly,—‘Is Dr. Sewall here herself?’ as she is occasionally obliged to be absent part of the time.

I think anyone who passed a couple of mornings in this dispensary would go away pretty well convinced of the enormous advantage of women doctors; and one sees daily how the poor women feel it by the crowds that come on the four days in the week when the lady physicians are in charge, and the handful that comes on the two days when a man presides.... They say that they have cases again and again of long- standing diseases which the women have borne rather than go to a man with their troubles,—and I don’t wonder at it.”

15th.I have just begun to have a little Sunday service in the wards where there was none before. Dr. Sewall is very good in letting me make such plans if I like, and comes herself to the service. Of course we have a very mixed multitude, but I think we manage to worship our ‘Father in Heaven’ and look forward to the ‘One fold’ some day, when neither ‘Jerusalem nor this mountain’ shall be the vital thing.”

“(Dec. 19th.) My chaplain’s work has rather fallen into abeyance now from the crush of other things,—the only thing I do regularly being the Sunday service, writing a weekly sermon for which, by the bye, is not to be omitted in one’s list of work. It’s all but impossible to find any printed ones one could read,—one needs to be so absolutely non-doctrinal and non-combative; and besides the doctors and people will come to hear mine when they’d think twice about anything else.

The young surgeon I told you about has a splendid voice, and last Sunday she brought a sort of large accordion and played all our hymn tunes, so we are getting quite grand. Wouldn’t you like, darling, to peep in at us and see all our busy doings?—I _wish_ you could.”

To say that the young doctors who came to her services were frankly critical of her and her beliefs is an understatement of the facts. Some of their remarks have survived,—clever and flippant for the most part; but the following letter from an intimate friend, whom she had persuaded to accompany her to church, is worth quoting:

“Sunday evening, 11 o’clock.

My dear Baby, I cannot sleep for thinking of the rude speeches I made to you this evening. I am so sorry that I said them, but at the same time I could not help it,—the whole service and the going to church of most all the people there was such a farce that it roused the devil in my nature.

Besides all this, my Baby answered me so sweetly and truly that it did me good to make her talk, and raised my faith in human goodness which was getting almost extinguished by that man’s sermon. If I ever get into such a disagreeable mood again, and say ugly things to tease you, you must give me a good moral box on the ear so as to bring me to my senses.

I do not believe that going to church is good for me.

Don’t think me foolish for writing this, and don’t let anything I said today trouble you, but be as good to me as you have been.”

In the midst of all this busy life, S. J.-B. never forgot the family festivals at home, the birthdays of parents and friends, the date when such an one was to be married, or another to sail for India. This was a striking gift, more of the heart than of the head, that she retained throughout life. “I was thinking in bed this morning of the faithful few who would remember my poor old birthday,” wrote her childhood’s schoolmistress, Miss Teed, at this time, “And a little bird whispered, ‘You will get a letter from Sophy.’”

Not that she ever felt bound to say the thing that was expected of her.

“I suppose you don’t expect me to say much about Uncle’s death, darling,” she writes to her Mother. “It cannot seem to me sad for anyone concerned. I do not think he would have learned much more here; doubtless he will hereafter.”

Three weeks before the anniversary of her parents’ wedding, she writes to her sister:

“DEAR OLD CHARLIE,—Please keep the enclosed very secret till the morning of May 12th.

Get a grand plant of some sort—full of blossom, geranium or fuchsia or something,—any price up to 5s.—and put the letter in its leaves on Mother’s plate at breakfast. _Mind_ you get a glorious plant....

Your aff. sis., S. L. J.-B.”

From a letter written to her Mother at Christmas 1865 one realizes what a child she was still:

“Our rooms did get so prettily decorated,—Dr. Sewall is clever that way,—and I took holly round to all the wards that everybody might have some bits to look at. We had quite a rush of babies just then—four born on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.—When we were going round the wards on Christmas Day Dr. Sewall ordered of course ‘light diet’ for the new Mothers,—so I said laughingly to console them, ‘Well, I guessed the babies were worth losing a dinner for, weren’t they?’ ‘Humph!’ says one of the Mothers, ‘a good dinner’s worth more to poor folks!’

To tell the truth I was too much taken aback to reflect what a sensible woman she was!—What would _you_ have said, dear?

Darling, I come more and more to the conclusion that anyone who wishes to preserve intact all romantic ideas about ‘Mother’s love,’ etc., had better not live in a Lying-in Hospital. It’s a grand and blessed thing when it does come, but that isn’t always. We had two of the babies born here found deserted in the streets a few days ago,—the day after their mothers were discharged.”

On March 4th, 1866, she writes to her Mother:

“I have given up my Sunday service, or at least have resigned it into the hands of a minister who already had a service in the medical wards. I found it very hard to find time to prepare properly for it, and sometimes it tried my nerves very much, and besides it got to be a great weight upon me in the way of responsibility and absolute honesty in _what_ I said. Things seem so very un-clear to my own mind that it rather weighs upon me and worries me to be trying to say much about them to others. Perhaps this state may just pass away again, but in the meantime I like best to ‘be true to every honest thought’ and, till I’m sure, to be silent.

Much love to Daddy and Carry, and such a lot of kisses for my darling.

Yours lovingly, SOPH.”

To understand the inner history of this change one must revert to the diary,—the most intimate friend of all—and this takes us back for a moment to the time of her arrival in America.

“June 18th. How thoughts and plans and possibilities rush upon me! The opening of the bar to women here,—Mr. Sewall’s wish for a female pupil. ‘Ah,’ as I said to L.E.S. last night, ‘if I had been an American, I believe I should not have doubted to be a lawyer.’ She thinks one _should_ be, if one has the powers and will.

Yes, but is the ‘dedication’ and vocation of years nothing? Have I believed rightly or wrongly that God meant me to do something for teaching,—and that in England,—to the almost certain exclusion of all other life-work? Rightly, I think.

Then, again, the ministry. What seems to draw me so irresistibly that way? Is it pride or wish of note, or is it vocation? Is it partly Dr. Arnold’s belief that Headmaster ought also to be chaplain?...

One seems at crossways,—‘the tide’ perhaps. Well, _look_,—and surely the kindly Light will lead.”

Anyone who had gone through all S.J.-B.’s papers up to this date with an open mind would have said that the choice really lay between teaching and preaching. All her life she had been more interested in religious subjects than in any others, and her gifts of exposition and of public speaking were far above the average in either sex. In later years, when she was addressing thousands of people, she could make all hear without seeming to raise her voice; it remained full, mellow, easy, perfectly controlled, just as when she sat at the head of her own dinner-table. She might have spent some considerable part of the day in “wishing somebody would shoot her,” but no one would have guessed it when the moment came. “My mind is perfectly at ease when _she_ rises to speak,” said one of her patients in Edinburgh, many years later, “one feels then that humanly speaking nothing can go wrong.” As a matter of fact it was when she was addressing a large audience that she looked most radiantly happy.

In many ways, then, she would have made a good minister; we know that she wrote a number of sermons that were appreciated by her colleagues, and she went so far as to preach at Weymouth (Mass.) for the Rev. Olympia Brown. “On seeing Him who is invisible” was the subject she chose, and, judged by ordinary standards, the sermon seems to have been a success.

The main reason why she did not follow it up was (as indicated in the last-quoted letter to her Mother) the change that took place in her religious views after she had lived some time in America. In England she had been considered an advanced thinker on religious subjects: in America—the America in which her lot happened to be thrown—she was amazingly orthodox and conservative. For the first time she found herself among people who really _did not care_ about religion as she understood it.

“July 2nd. Very nice these people are,” she writes in her diary, “and very nice Mrs. Rogers’ deep clear interest about the poor and wicked,— refuges, etc.

Yet is there not in them the sort of un-religiousness which half jars on one in Unitarians? I wonder _why_. I _hope_ I shan’t get into it. ‘_More_ of reverence in us dwell.’ Yet so difficult in throwing off old bonds of sentiment not to lose something of the real feeling,—and, as Miss Cobbe says, if our religion is not a synthesis of _all_ the good and beauty we know, we are less, not more, by rejecting errors.”

And again:

“A new psychical study in the shape of Mrs. F., who ‘can believe in Providence but not in God,’ and who ‘means to say that there is absolute right and wrong, but _not_ good and bad people. People were born with certain notions and acted accordingly; they did the best they could and could do no more.’

Mr. F. allowing and accepting the consequence that men differed no more from brutes than by finer organization, no more than the elephant from the fish! It is really good to contrast opposite extremes of thought,—it gives one a certain sense of stability and reality to have to defend one’s castle on _both_ sides, and so to feel sure that it is one’s own at least....

Talking of struggle as the only root of good, I quoted ‘perfect _through_ suffering,’ and spoke of my belief in Christ’s struggle in those 30 years as the only possible root of his accordance of will with God’s.

July 16th. Curious how the things most living to me are just simple absurdities to another. Talking of tombstones, Mrs. H. doesn’t like them, as preventing the dead rising—in idea. Mrs. F.—‘Well, you don’t expect them to, do you?’ (as a sort of _reductio ad absurdum_). ‘Certainly I do: the Bible says so.’ ‘Oh—aw—ah!’ with such a face,—‘if I thought so, I’d take to Banting at once.’”

Curious how none of them seem to have seen that the frivolous remark involved a great principle!

There were many stories and jokes on biblical themes, and—though S. J.- B. even at this time was a touchstone in the matter of jokes, never allowing one to pass which was not funny enough or clever enough to justify its breadth or its seeming irreverence—her sense of humour was keen.

“Suggestion to read the prayer for fair weather,—‘Lor, sir,—not a bit of good with the wind in this quarter.’”

But she was constantly reverting to the old religious intensity:

“How reading of any spiritual conflict—even such an ‘ébauche’ as in Agnes of Sorrento—rouses one’s whole nature in a sort of enthusiasm of longing and half prophecy!...

Sometimes I feel such intense sympathy and pity for Christ because of his very deification. That after spending his whole life to learn and tell men about his Father, he should find them, after his death, trying to set him up himself to obscure that Father,—making God a foil to Christ!”

With that extraordinary frankness that does such credit to both, she writes to her Mother at this time,—“I was thinking the other day how curious it was that I really never read one Unitarian book till I was altogether Unitarian,[38]—never one but the Bible at least, if that counts.”

Footnote 38:

It was only for a very brief period of her life that S. J.-B. would have called herself by this name.

“It is strange,” says someone, “that, in all our talk of the evolution of the individual, we fail to recognize the evolution of the medium.” S. J.-B. seems to have thought—as so many earnest spirits thought in those days—that she stood practically alone. “It has so been,” she says in the same letter to her Mother, “(I can’t say _chanced_) that I have had next to no human sympathy or help on my way. I do not remember that anyone but Mrs. Ballantyne has given me much of either in this one strife, and before I knew her the worst was over.”

One must bear this in mind in reading the passage that follows:

“To realize more and more that my life will be one—for years if not to the end—of struggle and perhaps obloquy, certainly outcasting from the synagogue,—struggle theological and social: and will it even succeed at last? Yes, surely,—inasmuch as Robertson says how to fall in the gap is success,—to be one of the conquering army, if not of the conquerors.”

The next entry in the diary is the quotation of a flippant joke about the Californians who “when they go to a certain warm abode have yet to send back for their blankets.”

“July 30th. A very interesting talk with the Fs. ... trying hard to show Mrs. F., who longs so to believe in a loving God, ‘Thou wouldst not seek me, hadst thou not found me,’—and that to long is almost to believe. Also to show her that Christ’s Christianity is a strong true manly thing,—that what she deprecates is the letter not the spirit, and that her willingness to live, and yet fear to die, without Christianity is of the essence of Calvinism.

With him, still more interesting, (except that one pities and longs to help her) about origin of evil, free will, etc. I arguing that God _could_ not give men the possibility of virtue without the possibility of evil,—he arguing a higher state where evil not possible. I say—then you exclude the idea of goodness from God.

With some effort cleared ideas so far as to detect the ‘undistributed middle term,’ to distinguish between the possibility of evil and the wish _toward_ evil. Saying that the very truth we prized in Unitarianism was that it said ‘Christ, if God, was no example’ and that Christ’s very goodness consisted in that he had the possibility of evil and no wish for evil.

Illustrating with May forbidden sugar, in a room with and without it. In one case unable to disobey, in the other restrained from the wish to disobey.

The two, confused in one, being absolute opposites.

Is this all part of my training ‘for the ministry’? Please God. One does so gain a clearness never, one trusts, to be lost.

He asked me tonight if I did not find I had a clearness of thought and language very rare; and she said I was the first person who had made her feel the intense reality of the invisible and long after it. Please God, a prophecy.

I said I had won through infinite struggle—almost ‘to blood’—a certainty to which the visibility of the outer was nothing. And, please God, it is deeply true.”

Ah me, Prometheus! The audacity of us small mortals all!

But the words that follow are indeed ‘a prophecy.’

“I have such a conviction of infinite struggle and contest in the future,—yet please God, of earnest, on-pressing struggle, and in the end, victory and Rest....

Oh, dear, the ‘religious’ people and their effects!—very nearly making L. E. S. hate the name. So far from all good being ‘in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’ or rather in God’s, there is actually room for the reverse to be said;—not wholly truly, I trust though. But she said, ‘If I want help for those poor things in or out of hospital, I never go near the pious people. I have and I know them. Go to atheists, and you are never refused.’

Oh, dear!”

Knowing the spiritual history of earnest souls in that generation, one is not surprised to come a couple of months later upon the entry:

“I am wonderfully unsettled and uneasy somehow.... I do believe this terrible sort of logical doubt of Theism that enters in—_not_ un- faith, but a failure of the abiding surety—an entrance of the admission how possibly _reasonable_ Atheism may be—hurts horribly.

And then isn’t the whole world void?

Oh for the ‘_I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not_‘!—and doubtless one has it,—both in ’_Neither pray I for these alone_,’ and also in those who live and love one, Mother and Octa....

L.’s absence of sympathy weighs heavily. Hitherto all my friends have met me here,—she does not. ‘All the help she ever got, she got from herself and her will.’ Not from the Bible or hymns, etc. She calls herself a theist, but it seems to me to run close to practical atheism....”

“Oct. 29th. She _is_ so good! Told her something of today’s pain, she so sympathizing and good! Believed that the struggle was part of the sequence of early training and later reaction into ‘wider faith’—what many had to go through one time or another. I spoke of herself,—asked her what practical difference she would find if an atheist. ‘Not much generally,’ she thought, but in trouble she did pray. She couldn’t help it, and believed it was good, and when her friends died she was happier. ‘When she thought of it, she felt very sure about God, but very seldom did stop to think. She was sure her first duty was her work, etc. and then she had small time and sense left.

I said lives not continually lived as seeing Him who is invisible would be worth but little; she said Then her’s was so, and many others. So I retracted hastily. ‘At least _mine_ would be.’

Perhaps her’s is actually higher and more childlike. ‘He will care for my soul,’[39] as it were.”

“Nov. 13th. Looking at p. 253, ‘the Ministry?’, I ask whether the sort of spiritual speechlessness—almost deadness—is not perhaps a merciful answer to that question. Clearly I can’t preach now.”

“Nov. 24th. This temptation to medicine is pretty strong in some ways, both as to present study and future life.... But ‘not each on all’ come the claims,—_this_ is surely already responded to, and will surely grow without me.

I feel as if my work would not [how little she knew!] as if, at least, it was given _me_ to do and needed most of all my labour.

So ’Traveller, hold thy cloak’!

While it was identical with life interests and labour am I to claim ‘vocation,’ and then when others open, forsake it?

‘Shalt not excel.’”

“Nov. 25th. I cannot but believe that if God enables me ... to do my work as I have believed and planned it, it will do wider, deeper good for England than the addition of one woman doctor can.[40]

And then if I say,—‘Ah, but see how my theology will impede me!—well, would you have everyone give up working but those who hold the popular views?—is it not just those whose views have changed who need to work and justify them, and not hide light under a bushel at call of indolence or cowardice? You know that you believe in the horrible harm of leaving education to Calvinists, downtreading and hardening earth round the root,—that you believe in children being taught ‘the two commandments’ and no more,—and yet, because you would so teach them, you half shrink from the battle through which you must do it.

L. E. S. says, ‘If you feel you can and wish to be a doctor, you ought.’ Ah, but I _can_ do the other too. And if it is only selfish or worldly considerations that sway you to medicine—if it is the interest or the power or the success, mainly or wholly—if it is the difficulties present or future that make you half yearn to turn from the other—surely these are no reasons.

Surely, having presented ourselves, our souls and bodies, a reasonable sacrifice, these things no longer enter in.”

Footnote 39:

The reference is probably to the reply of Wilberforce when asked whether in his struggle for the emancipation of the slaves, he was not neglecting his own soul,—“I had forgotten that I had a soul.”

Footnote 40:

“But thou wouldst not _alone_ Be saved, my father! _alone_ Conquer and come to thy goal, Leaving the rest in the wild. * * * * * ... to thee it was given Many to save with thyself; And, at the end of the day, O faithful shepherd! to come, Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.”

In view of all that was to follow, it is interesting that, in turning to Medicine, she should suspect herself of ‘half shrinking from the battle.’ Here is proof, if proof were needed, that while half of her enjoyed the fray, the other half had to be dragged, an unwilling captive, begging always to lie down and be at peace.

“The Medicine fascinates me.... If I resume teaching, it will be grand to have an M.D. for head of College: if not, why Medicine is a ‘good work,’ and if I am led up to it, it may be mine after all.

But won’t E.G. be cross?”

Here are two pleasant little sidelights on the situation—from letters to her Mother:

“(Jan. 21st. 1866.) And, darling, do you know that the doctor has such a splendid temper, and is so infinitely gentle, that I really believe she is improving mine,—because I’m absolutely ashamed to be cross to anybody so good. Suppose I come home angelic, dear?”

Her best friends would have said there was no great cause for anxiety on that score.

“(Feb. 6th.) Yes, dear, I mean to be a thoroughly good nurse for you at any rate, if ever you need me; as to ‘Doctor too,’ I can’t say. I should like to be enough of one at least to know how to save you some pain. I listen to and learn specially everything that I think can ever help my darling,—it would be grand to be of some use and comfort to her if she was ill.”

A few weeks later she wrote to Mrs. Unwin:

“13 Pleasant Street, Boston. March 3rd. 1866.

MY DEAR LUCY,

I hope you are quite prepared to renew your invitation to me for next summer, for I’m beginning to think seriously of my visit home, and I want very much to see you! I say my ‘visit’ for I have been so well and strong since I came to America, and have found so much to interest me, that I think it very likely I may come back here after seeing all my home folks....

I am so glad to hear that you have got Alice with you, and expect to like her. She is a real friend of mine, and a very true and valuable one.... I only hope you will let her take as good care of you as she used to do of me....

Whenever you feel energetic enough to enjoy a chat by pen and paper, I shall be very pleased to hear of your doings. Pray tell me all about the Baby—of course the most wonderful of his kind—and be sure, dear child, that I shall care very much to hear and know about everything that concerns you.

Please give the enclosed lines to A. I shall enjoin her to feed you up no end, and whenever we do meet, be sure I shall ask if you let yourself be taken proper and sensible care of. I believe in food and rest as just the best doctors in creation—with all my new medical lights!

Goodbye, dear child. With every good wish for you in the New Year, I am,

Yours affectionately, S. L. J.-B.”

All through this time her happy letters had been giving no small pleasure to the “old folks” at home.

“Brighton. 18th Dec. 1865.

DEAREST,

Your welcome letter arrived a day or two before the 17th., but dear Mother kept it back till _the_ morning. Thanks for all your good wishes. One thing you can always do,—pray for me,—and that, I trust, you will do daily. I have constant faith in prayer simply offered up to our heavenly Father through the one mediator between God and man. I believe it never fails.

I am rejoiced you are so quiet at Boston, and have employment that interests you, but even that work will hurt you, remember, if you have too much of it. You want _rest_, dearest child, and only light agreeable work on your hands. I wish I could see Dr. Sewall, to give her a Father’s heartfelt thanks for all her loving kindness to you. She is indeed an invaluable friend. If I am to see her, she must come to Europe, for I shall never cross the Atlantic.... I am _very_ glad you are so well, and your letters are so cheery that they are a great pleasure.

We are all, thank God, fairly well, and are to have Tom and his wife, and four (I think) of the children here after Christmas. On Thursday last, at 2 a.m. their house was on fire, and till 2.30 a.m. he did not expect to save the house; and had there been a high wind, nothing could have saved it probably. Mercifully it was a still night and everything went well. Two engines were on the spot rapidly, in perfect order,—plenty of water close by, and the superintendent very active and intelligent. No crowd, and the entrances kept clear by respectable known men: and by three o’clock every spark was out.

The children were sent off rapidly to the school-house, and all _five_ (baby being put elsewhere) put in Miss Temple’s bed! Nobody has been hurt,—a few colds and that seems all. Our God be praised. How different it might have been!

Your affecte Father, T. JEX-BLAKE.”

And the Mother writes:

“Jan. 29th. 1866.... You were very good and very right not to attempt to enter yet as a student....

I had much rather _know_ you well and happy there than see you ill and know you worried here. If they would only have the Cable, I think Boston no distance. I should certainly like the Cable,—but I don’t hear a word about it. Couldn’t you apply to Government?”

“Feb. 20th. I hope your medical education is progressing, and that you don’t addle your brains. I shall expect you to make something on the way home by your medical knowledge.”

“Mar. 5th. It is such a repose and joy to me to hear of your being occupied so usefully and happily, and feeling comparatively well, though I suspect sometimes my little one is a wee overdone.”

The medical study was more or less of a joke so far to her friends at home, and many are the enquiries as to when she means to return and go on with her life after this interesting digression.

“I am very glad you find things and people pleasant in America,” writes Mrs. Unwin. “I hope they won’t be so nice that they will tempt you to stay there very long, for I shall be very glad when I can think of you again without that great sea between us. I do so want a long talk with you about no end of things. I don’t think I ever wanted you more than when I was ill.”

And Mr. Unwin expressed the view of many when he wrote:

“If I told you of the estimate in which I hold the purpose to which you are devoting your life, you would suspect me of flattery, so I abstain; but, barring all that, your friends in England are in great need of you, and I think it is very horrid that you should leave them all, to whom you would be of infinite service, on God knows what outlandish errand. They all grudge you to Boston entirely, so pray be quick and come back.”

Dr. Sewall, on the other hand, had become not a little dependent on her competent helper, and, although this friendship too was not without the “cataracts and breaks” to which S. J.-B. so often refers in her diary, there is no doubt that the older and gentler woman found it not only a pleasure but a great asset. “How I wish I had you here: I do so want your _strength_! So few people are strong,” is a sentiment that recurs in her letters many times from now to the end of her life.

So in June 1866, S. J.-B. returned to England to see her parents, and to talk over the whole question of her future career with them and with other friends.

“Most people are much more in favour of Medicine than I expected,” she writes, “except Miss Garrett, who thinks me not specially suited, and E. S. M., who thinks it indecent of unmarried women knowing all about these things.”

“July 8th. Sunday. ‘Taller,’ say Laurence, Mother and self. ‘More firmly knit,’ say do. ‘Muscles like iron, as if rowing all morning and prize-fighting all afternoon,’ says Nigger.

Well done America and L. E. S.!—bless her.”

Almost at the same moment Dr. Sewall was writing:

“I really feel quite well satisfied with the increase in my practice, and if it continues to increase for the next two years as well, we shall be able to take a fine house and live in style. I cannot tell you how much pleasure I get out of anticipating our house-keeping. When I am too tired to do anything, I lay on the sofa and plan and plan and think what a good time we are going to have, and am as happy as a cricket.”

So America won the day, though not without many questionings.

“August 12th. Sunday. On Sunday last at Mrs. Hyde’s suggestion wrote to Macmillan. On Tuesday heard from him, and had a ‘book—not too short’ warmly accepted by him, at ‘no risks and half profits.’

So we gradually come to our wishes when we have ceased to look for them. I accept it almost as I did the preaching,—because I _had_ so longed for it.

This day three weeks on the Atlantic,—5 weeks, home to L. E. S., I trust. Study Medicine? ... or push on in literary career now opening apparently?

How about conflicting interests and powers hereafter? If my book— _inter alia_—brings me to notice of Commission,[41] etc.,—cry off from my chance because too busy as a doctor?

Ah, well,—long way off yet! Do the work ‘lies nearest thee’ and leave the rest!”

Footnote 41:

The Schools Inquiry Commission, presumably.