CHAPTER II

AT THE GATES OF THE CITADEL

In any case S. J.-B. was not to wait long for those “with whom she could take counsel.” In the autumn of 1867 Mr. Alexander Macmillan appears to have discussed with her the projected publication of a volume of essays on questions relating to modern women, and in January 1869 he writes in answer to an enquiry from her:

“DEAR MADAM,

Mrs. Butler, 280 South Hill Park Road, Liverpool, is the address. There has been nothing done about the proposed volume yet. But I have by no means abandoned the hope of having it done, and shall not be sorry if you allude to it in writing to Mrs. Butler.

My own notion was that the volume should be wholly written by ladies, and that some diversity of judgement should be allowed on minor points at least, provided that a consensus were assured on the large ground of higher culture for women. I confess myself that the question of the Suffrage is a doubtful one.... I confess myself to think that politics in the sense of mere government is by no means of the highest importance to nations and to humanity, and that what is done in homes is incalculably deeper and more powerful [in its influence] on human character and destiny.

All these points are open to discussion, and I think a volume claiming the very highest and widest culture for women might at the same time discuss with advantage whether the field in which it is to be exercised need be co-ordinate with men’s.

Yours very truly, ALEX. MACMILLAN.”

Apparently S. J.-B. approached Mrs. Butler without delay, and a few weeks later she writes to Dr. Sewall from Bonchurch, where they were staying for the benefit of Mrs. Jex-Blake’s health:

“Did I tell you that I have been making friends with Mrs. Butler, the head of the non-Davies party among the women? She approves of the new Cambridge exams, which Miss Davies ... refuses because not identical with those of the men. Mrs. Butler and I say ‘Take all you can get and then ask for more,’ don’t you?

I expect to be here with my Mother for about three weeks longer, then she will probably go to Cheltenham to see my brother, and I may go to Cambridge, Edinburgh, St. Andrews, etc., to see if I can poke in anywhere.

And yet, even if I got admitted, I don’t feel sure that I should feel ready to leave my Mother next winter. Unless she changes very much for the better, I cannot but think very badly of her. I think she has aged five years since you saw her....

She said to me yesterday, ‘Don’t you wish Dr. Lucy were here?’ I said, ‘No, she’s doing better work,’ but I _do_ sometimes ‘weary for you’ all the same.”

Mrs. Butler was deeply interested in the new ally, and very anxious that she should carry out her dream of obtaining a proper medical education in her own country. Dr. T. W. Jex-Blake was also sympathetic, and so it came about that enquiries were made among University professors who might be supposed to have an open mind on the subject. Some interesting letters were the result:

“Wimborne, Jan. 14th.

DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,

I have not been able to obtain quite as accurate information about London University as I should like, but there is no use in my delaying any longer to answer your letter. As regards Cambridge, I do not think that the most sanguine reformer would advise you to look for any relaxation of barriers that would be of service to you, for some years. I am among the most sanguine, and I do not think that we shall be giving degrees to women until after ten years at least. We do not as yet examine men unless resident in colleges. The University of London, which is an open examining board, ought to be much more hopeful. Unfortunately this university (by an arrangement which ought not to have been borrowed from its older sisters) is governed in the last resort by Convocation, an assembly got together by agitation among all graduates of a certain standard, and in which the influence of the London doctors is practically preponderant. This assembly rejected last year a proposal by which women would have been admitted to medical degrees.

The proposal will, I believe, be renewed, but I cannot say what reason there is to anticipate a different result. My information is only at second hand, and you may easily get more accurate in London. As soon as I hear more precisely what is going to be done, I will let you know. I cannot, from what I have heard advise you to expect a very speedy change.

At the same time there is a general movement, of which it is hard to estimate the force, against the exclusion of women from the higher education. You say that you do not wish your plans to be talked of. I am rather sorry, for if you would suffer yourself to be made a grievance, it might help ‘the cause’ in London.

Believe me, Yours very truly, HENRY SIDGWICK.”

“Trin. Coll. Cambridge. Feb. 4th.

DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,

I have now been here nearly a week, and hoped to write to you before, but I wished before doing so to see Markby, Bonney, and one or two of the Medical Board, and, being overwhelmed with work, have only just managed to do so. I find that neither Markby nor Bonney estimate any higher than I do the chance of your request being granted. Professor Liveing, one of the members of the Board, is favourable, but shakes his head as to his colleagues. Doctors preponderate on it, and one, Dr. Humphrey, professor of Anatomy, whom I expected to find somewhat more liberal, is averse to women practising medicine, ‘mainly on their own account, because’—but you are familiar with the reasons.

I have not canvassed the others as you had a certain wish for secrecy. If you think it worth while, I will ask Liveing to broach the question at the Board, without mentioning your name, in order to sound opinion: or I will in other ways ascertain privately the views of the members. I do not however feel that this would be decisive, as they may not have considered the question and might yield to argument. However I feel almost sure that your appeal would be rejected without much discussion. _Markby_ is of opinion that even supposing the Board consented to propose the change to the Senate, that body would certainly reject it. And he (M.) is inclined to think that it would injure the cause of female education here in general, to stir up hostility in the Senate on this particular matter. (I do not myself feel sure of this.) But he does not think application to the Board would do any harm. Bonney also thinks this course hopeless but harmless.

Even after consent of the Board and the Senate, you would have to be admitted as member of some college; but in the case supposed, that would not cause much difficulty....

I do not know whether you will think any thing more of us after this. If you do come to look for yourself at the ‘terrain,’ you will at any rate find a minority of sympathizers who will give you any aid in their power, among them

Yours sincerely, HENRY SIDGWICK.

P.S. You will see that, on reflection, I am somewhat doubtful of the advantage of making the application. On the whole, however, I still think it would be a good thing.”

Meanwhile Professor Masson of Edinburgh University had written a letter to Mrs. Butler, from which S. J.-B. quotes the following extract in her diary:

“It will give me much pleasure to see Miss Jex-Blake (whose name is well known to me); Sir James Simpson will be very glad to see her also.... I fear however that at present the chance of the throwing open of professional education and degrees are not so great with us as Miss Blake seems to imagine” (!)—The exclamation point is S. J.-B.’s.— “But who knows what may happen or how soon?”

On February 15th, S. J.-B. writes to Dr. Sewall:

“I think I may probably go to Cambridge and see whether there is the least chance of anything medical there. I have almost no hope, but it is thought well to apply at least to the Medical Board just for the principle of the thing. Then I may probably go to Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Glasgow, etc. I understand that Glasgow was expressly founded on the model of Bologna;—now Bologna admitted women!

Did I tell you that there is to be a volume of Essays published in the summer about all sorts of Women’s questions, and I have been asked to write about the Medical question. If I do, I rather think I shall send you my essay to criticise first, shall I?... I wish very much that I could find some English lady to go in for Medicine with me,—it would be such a comfort in thundering at the Colleges, and in working afterwards. There is one very capable woman of about 30,—a _thorough_ lady,—who is staying with us now, who would like extremely to study for many reasons, but is withheld by the great prejudice and very bad health of her mother.”

It was indeed a loss to the whole woman movement that Miss Ursula Du Pre was prevented from taking a more articulate part in it, for one tries in vain to think of one of her contemporaries who was more generously gifted by nature and circumstances. She had mental powers that would have fitted her to shine in almost any of the professions strictly preserved for the benefit of men, great common sense, a finely balanced judgment, and—what appealed to S. J.-B. perhaps more than anything else— a keen and unfailing sense of humour. Tact too she had, and the singular charm of the “great lady” who is at the same time one of the simple- hearted. Deeply religious throughout life, she was absolutely devoid of false humility and of the ultra-sensitiveness that would have rendered her gifts of small avail beyond her own circle. The accident of her sex set her free from the cares and responsibilities of the landowner; and one cannot wonder that S. J.-B. bitterly resented the unalterable decision of some members of her family that a medical career was out of the question.

Nothing, however, can really rob the world of the usufruct of gifts like these. The influence of a man or woman can never be measured by the number of those who experience it at first hand. Who shall say whether it is better to have a thousand disciples, or twelve, or one?

Mrs. Jex-Blake and Mrs. Du Pre had long been acquainted, but it was in this month of January 1869 that the two daughters first met and found each other. S. J.-B. brought much to the friendship, as the reader of the previous volume is aware; her gifts were great, her knowledge of life astonishingly wide for a young woman of her day; but she found no less than she brought. Never again could she complain of the lack of a friend “with whom she could take counsel.” All through the troublous times that were to follow so closely on the inception of their friendship, Miss Du Pre was her admiring critic, her confidante and counsellor, following every move in the complicated game, disapproving, perhaps, sometimes, but sympathising always. She was the friend too of S. J.-B.’s friends and comrades, and in the long days of hope deferred there were those who must surely have fallen in the breach but for Miss Du Pre’s material and spiritual aid.

* * * * *

Meanwhile S. J.-B. wrote the Essay on “Medicine as a Profession for Women,” which was published a few months later in the volume entitled _Women’s Work and Women’s Culture_. “Fairish, not quite satisfactory,” is her own verdict on the first draft, which was doubtless considerably improved by the suggestions of friendly critics. As the Essay appeared later in her book on _Medical Women_, it could scarcely be bettered, and indeed it has proved a storehouse of research and argument for all subsequent writers and speakers on the subject.

Professor Newman, to whom Mrs. Butler sent the first draft, wrote an admirable letter:

“I have no learning in the history of female physicians, but I know that in my boyhood I read in a magazine an urgent remonstrance with ladies for their prejudice against man-midwives, of whom the writer speaks as a beneficent innovation. I think I have read that they were first used in the Court circle of Louis XIV.... To prove negatives is always hard, but I should not fear to write that the exclusion of women from acting as physicians to women is quite a modern usurpation by the male sex, and limited to the nations which cultivate modern science. The topic reminds me of the address of the nurse to Queen Phoedra in Euripides’ Hippolytus, when she observes her mistress to be wild and out of health,—‘If thy complaint be anything of a more secret kind, _here are women_ at hand to compose the disease. But, if thy distress be such as may be told to males, tell it in order that it may be communicated to the physicians.’

This is almost as if _in no case_ would the male physician do more than give advice when the facts were reported to him through the women.

It is nearly so in Turkey to this day. A Pasha wanted advice for his wife from a friend of mine without his seeing her.”

“_Do_ quote Euripides in your Essay,” writes Mrs. Butler. “Never mind if we look a little more learned than we are. Let us spoil the Egyptians.”

And again,—

“I am sure Mr. Newman _intended_ you to use anything in his letter which you could make available. He is so generously helpful.”

On February 24th, S. J.-B. writes to Dr. Sewall:

“I have written the Essay I spoke of about Medical Women, and I shall send it to you to see in a week or two, as soon as I can get it copied. There are several points on which I want your authority and opinion;—tell me whenever you think I overstate facts or make mistakes—or tell me if you think I might put things _more_ strongly with advantage. Tell me how many instances have occurred of men doctors putting their womankind under _your_ treatment, or that of other women you know,—Dr. B., Dr. C., and J. W.?—any more?

Also anything else that occurs to you generally.

I had a witty letter from Miss Putnam this morning, in which she says how very indifferent it is to her if Mrs. D. chooses to ‘invent Arabian Nights’ tales’ about her. I do hope that you have published her letter,—don’t simply disregard me because I’m across the Atlantic and can’t pinch you! She made me dreadfully envious by saying that she is going in for some months’ work at Operative Surgery, and that it will be ‘very jolly.’ I believe, however that for the summer at any rate I _ought_ to stay with my Mother and try to make her very jolly (poor old darling!) If I can get into any of the Colleges for the winter, that may be another matter, though I am not sure.”

Meanwhile Professor Sidgwick was pursuing his kind and public-spirited enquiries:

“Trin. Coll. Cam. Mar. 1.

MY DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,

I should have written to you before, but I have found it difficult to make up my mind. I now, however, after some hesitation, am inclined to dissuade you from making the attempt. I have not visited any of the Medical Board (as I thought it best, if you did come, that you should find them unprepared), but I have discussed the matter with about ten discreet persons varying in age and position.

Not one of us thinks that there is the smallest chance of your request being granted. The feeling of the [? Board] is certain to be decidedly against you: and there are minor obstacles interposed by existing regulations, which might be easily set aside if there was a desire to do so, but which will furnish excuses for rejection to any who may require such.

The question then comes, Will the raising of the matter _now_ advance or retard our _ultimate_ success? On this point we vary in opinion, but no one very decidedly thinks it will be a gain, while some are very strongly of opinion that it will do more harm than good. After much hesitation, I have come myself to this latter view, not on general grounds, for in general I like (as Lincoln said) to keep pegging away: but because we have hitherto done what we have done for women’s education by great quietness and moderation, and so far it seems best to go on in the same way: if our present scheme for examining women succeeds, it will be easier to take a further step: moreover I expect that we shall soon open our examinations more unrestrictedly to men, and that will make it easier to open them to women. Your application _now_ would thus be a ‘breach of continuity,’ and would appear extravagant to many undecided people who after a few years may be brought to look upon a similar application as quite natural.

Against this is to be set the advantage of raising the question, and getting people to exercise their minds on it, especially with so good a case (and I have no doubt advocacy) as yours.

In short, we should gain, I believe, by argument, but should very likely lose more by hardening a mass of fluid prejudice, that may otherwise evaporate in the natural course of events.

So that, on the whole, I am slightly[47] opposed to your making the attempt, on public grounds only: and even if the balance between probable gain and loss is about even, I should hardly like to advise you to incur so much trouble that could not possibly benefit yourself.

If you do come, I need not say that I will do anything I can to assist you, and generally to make your stay in Cambridge as pleasant as possible.

My _instinct_ is to tell you to come, but that is because I like a fight: my soberer judgment is the other way.

Believe me, Yours very truly, HENRY SIDGWICK.”

Footnote 47:

“Slightly” is interpolated in the original letter.

“Trin. Coll. Mar. 8.

MY DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,

I am sorry that we shall not have the pleasure of seeing you: but, as regards the application, I am quite convinced that your decision is right. Just at present the reformers here do not want stimulating, and I think the neutral people want management. As regards the Scotch Universities, I am afraid I cannot help you personally....

I have taken counsel with a friend here—J. Stuart—who is now examiner at St. Andrews. He has promised to write to you and to send introductions to two or three people there whom you may like to visit. I imagine that either Edinburgh or St. Andrews will be more likely to serve your purpose than Glasgow or Aberdeen. If I can find any means of aiding you at Edinburgh, I will write again. I may have friends who know some of the Professors. Masson is the only one of whom I know anything,—he having once been an editor of mine. I should think he is very likely to help you, Shairp, I should fear, not; but I may be wrong.

Of Ireland I know nothing: but from what I have heard I should think our Conservatism here is nothing to the Conservatism of Dublin— particularly when Gladstone is Disestablishing.

With best wishes for your success, I am,

Yours very sincerely, H. SIDGWICK.”

On the following day came a letter from Mr. Stuart, offering all the help in his power:

“I hope you will excuse my unceremoniousness in thus writing to you by the belief that I have your success much at heart.”

“My husband and I both think that it would be better not to try Cambridge in the face of Mr. Sidgwick’s opinion,” writes Mrs. Butler. “No one is better able to test the feeling of the University than he. I hope before long England will be ashamed of herself in this matter. We must do all we can by working quietly and extensively on the hearts and consciences of men. I find no man of ordinary candour who is not easily convinced, but the M.D.s will be the obstacle. They hang together so.

Shall you try Edinburgh? If not, do you think of taking a foreign degree? I wish you were an M.D. You would have plenty of patients at once.—myself among the number.”

Thus it came about that when Mrs. Jex-Blake went to visit her son at Cheltenham, S.J.-B. “screwed her courage to the sticking-point,” and went to Edinburgh. The entry in her diary is characteristic:

“Monday, March 15th. To Edinbro. How I dreaded the journey and sequence! On waking,—‘If Thou go not with me, carry me not up hence’!”

* * * * *

Meanwhile the University of Edinburgh stood foursquare, and the professors sat in their comfortable chairs, little dreaming that their Day of Judgment was at hand. Even at a cursory glance they were an imposing body of men. Some few of them were great in character, or in intellect, or in both: taken as a whole they were probably well above the average. In any case they were men of like passions with ourselves, well-disposed, kindly, just a little blunted by success, desirous of smooth things. As they acted, so would most similarly constituted bodies of men have acted at that day. The only difference between them and other men lay in the fact that it was to them the challenge of the future came.

And who was to tell them that this was the challenge of the future? It was so trifling an episode in outward seeming,—only the visit of a gifted young woman, with a clear strong head, but assuredly with no immunity from an average human being’s liability to error and mistake. If the professors had been canvassed on the subject of her request beforehand the result would have been an almost unanimous No: they had no more idea of admitting women to the University than they had of founding a Chair of Millinery. But the applicant was among them before they were aware; she knew what she wanted and she knew how to state her wants effectively. Her arguments were all at her finger-ends; and, although she made no sex appeal, she was possessed of fine dark eyes and a singularly musical voice.

In those days men had not learnt to be on their guard against an apparently guileless young woman. To many she stood for little more than a precocious child, who must be humoured, and, if necessary silenced later by sheer _force majeure_.

But S. J.-B. took them a step farther on than this. She was obviously no mere child: she was a woman who had seen a good deal of life, who realized something of the meaning of sex as a factor in human affairs, and who was prepared calmly to assert that it ought not to stand in the way of the privilege she asked. When she faced the pundits with those candid earnest eyes, there must have been some who were literally mesmerised for the moment into sharing her belief.

Yes, the Day of Judgment was at hand. I do not mean, of course, that the “sheep” were those who forwarded the applicant’s claims, and the “goats” those who put difficulties in her way. In those days there might well be room for two opinions on an experiment that had scarcely been tried. The Day of Judgment is apt to be a subtler, more searching thing than that. What I mean is that one cannot go through the vast mass of letters and documents relating to the whole matter without seeing the stuff of which those men were made,—the “worth” on the one hand, the “leather and prunella” on the other,—and oh, such imposing leather and prunella! One realizes afresh that when a big emergency takes everyone by surprise, only those who are guided in life by great principles can hope to act rightly. They may not all act alike: they may or may not make mistakes; but at least they act with essential dignity: they ring true; when they lie in their graves their greatness shines out from the musty old papers which have chanced for a few short years to embody an imperishable record.

And there is no one whose greatness shines out more clearly than does that of David Masson, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature, to whom S. J.-B. went first. From first to last one’s admiration for him never swerves: one does not know which to admire in him most, the clear insight, the high courage, the fine discretion, or the sheer unfailing brotherly sympathy.

This is the first impression he made upon S. J.-B.:

“Quiet, rather reserved, kindly. Promised introduction to most of professors. Seems rather hopeful,—‘tide setting in.’”

One wonders what were the words in which he summed her up. He must have rejoiced in the clear brain, the quick wit, the cultured voice, the easy flow of sane and logical speech. Did he guess at the impulsive nature that was bound to make mistakes?—at the great warm heart that was bound to suffer more than most?

In any case he gave her the following letter to the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine:

“MY DEAR BALFOUR,

Miss Jex-Blake, an English lady known as the author of a work on American Schools, is now in Edinburgh for a few days, chiefly with a view to ascertaining what chance there may be that Edinburgh University may (now that Paris and other continental cities have set the example) see its way to conferring a medical degree, after due study and qualification, on a lady candidate. It is but right that having come to Edinburgh for this purpose she should see you as the Dean of the Medical Faculty, in order to receive the best information and advice on the subject: and I shall be obliged by your courtesy in this matter.

Yours very truly, DAVID MASSON.”

There was a similar note to Dr. Christison, in which the writer said:

“The question, I believe, has been already before you; but it has seemed to Miss Blake possible that, now that Paris and other Universities abroad have set the example, there may be some chance of a modification of the previous conclusion of Edinburgh University on the subject. As she will receive the best information and advice on the whole subject from members of the Medical Faculty, I take the liberty of giving her this note to you, with a request that you will kindly explain to her the state of things as they are, and of possibilities in the direction she has in view.

Yours very truly, DAVID MASSON.”

And so, quite alone—she who was as dependent on a comrade, on a “helpmeet,” as some of our greatest men have been—with strange lodgings for a “base,”—she began the great work of canvassing the Edinburgh professors and the distinguished citizens who, for one reason or another, might be supposed to have a voice in the matter. She stood absolutely alone. She might belong to a good old family: her brother might be Headmaster of an English public school: but on the other side of the Tweed only a few of the enlightened knew anything of that. She was merely a clever young woman, with a rather outlandish name, who had conceived the extraordinary desire of obtaining a medical education by hook or by crook under the auspices of the Edinburgh University. If only Dr. Sewall could have been with her—or Mrs. Jenkinson, or Miss Du Pre,— what a stay she would have been! Fortunately Mr. Begbie was “kind and helpful as ever”; the old friendship with Miss Orr and with Mrs. Burn Murdoch was a great resource still; and Mr. Burn Murdoch was ready and willing to help to the utmost of his power. Miss Orr, it is true, was rather uncertain about the whole quest, wanted to know whether her old friend “went to church and read the Bible”; and, however relevant the question may have been,—S. J.-B. rightly felt that there was no time to go into it at this stage.

Undoubtedly her two great supports through the time of stress—if we set aside for the moment all that was involved in her “_If Thou go not with me,—!_” were the deep interest taken by Miss Du Pre in every detail of the story; and the possession of Sadie’s poems, which had just been published. In these latter she found fitting expression for the fightings and fears of her own inner life, and for her hard-won “twilight” consolation. It is an interesting fact that these two elements should have come into her life just at this moment, for one scarcely sees how she could have “won through” without them. Sadie’s poems remained dear to her throughout life: she knew many of them by heart and repeated them almost on her deathbed; and her copy is worn even more “threadbare” than are her volumes of Robertson’s Sermons. One can imagine the feelings with which, after a keen exciting day’s work, she went home to her lonely lodgings, with no “Alice” looking out for her, to write her report to Dr. Sewall or Miss Du Pre, and to copy in her diary—as she did—the lines:

“Up the way that is narrow, the path that is steep, With no guide for my footsteps, no help for my fear: Only this—that He knoweth the way that I tread, And His banner of crimson is over my head.

With the loneliness awful pressed into my soul, With no voice for companion, no grasp of a hand—”

Yes, one cannot help wishing that an intimate friend had been at hand. One wonders whether she was even becomingly dressed: we know she would have wished to be; but she so seldom made the most of her appearance.[48]

Footnote 48:

“By the way your accounts of your dress are just a shade contradictory,” writes Miss Du Pre somewhat later. “One day you tell me you look disreputable and plunge me into depths of anxiety! and the next you say you are ‘very tidy.’ Isn’t this more than average inconsistency?”

In any case what happened is perfectly clear. The Professors for the most part had a deeply rooted dislike to having women students in the University: in fact, the idea of such a thing was unthinkable; but when a gifted young woman actually sat in their sanctums urging her plea, they could not bear to say No. Strictly speaking, they should have refused to see her, but did any man yet ever refuse to see a woman whose name was before the public?

One wonders as one reads the papers how many of them knew what their “powers,”—what the legal powers of the University—really were?—how many of them really wished to know? There was a comfortable conviction in the back of their minds that insuperable difficulties lay shrouded in those unprobed depths. In the meantime why not show a little kindness to a gallant girl who was as modest as anyone could be in formulating so outrageous a demand, and whose pleading—so it has been said—would have “wiled the bird from the bough”? It was after she was gone that the real horror of the situation came home to them, and that they fell back again with relief on the thought of those unprobed depths,—the legal powers of the University.

It would all be very ordinary, and sometimes rather depressing, reading, were it not that Professor Masson and some of the others, when they gave her their provisional support, really meant exactly what they would have meant in giving their support to a man—no more and no less. Their own principle, their own righteousness was involved; they were quite prepared to see women students—if so it was to be—in the University quadrangle and class-rooms; and they meant to do what in them lay to give this woman a fighting chance.