“My dear Mrs. Blake,
Dearest Sophy has laid her letter before me, and such a burden of grief I can scarcely bear to send—but you will look at my view of the picture likewise. The tears shed in writing that were very nearly all we have had; for soon after parting from her Papa the heavy clouds passed away, and, when established in the fly I was glad to hear, ‘Well, I am not quite so sorry as I expected to be,’ and then ‘Mummy says the air of Ramsgate will almost make amends for the parting.’ We got home and found dinner ready, but dear Sophy could only take a little rhubarb.... At tea she seemed surprised at being able to express herself as ‘hungry,’ though the appetite was soon satisfied, and she is now sitting reading in the garden, which she says is ‘delicious’. Dear Mrs. Blake do not think I will tax her head with anything beyond beneficial employment. It will be my study to get rid of that thin look which I could scarcely have attributed to so short a change (!). I ought to tell you that Sophy meant to say that she felt better when she got into Ramsgate than for some time, but grief swallowed up all other news.”
A week or two later her Father asks her in a rash moment if she can tell him “Why it is wrong to oppose Papal Aggression?” adding, “If you can’t, I will tell you.” The question was a mere conundrum, but she takes it very seriously:
“Dear Father,
I am very very sorry to hear that dearest Mother is so unwell (or I should say ill). I send her a marker as I have not many flowers that will press well.[7] Please tell her that she must not give it away to anyone. I am quite enchanted at Boy’s getting two poetry prizes; it is charming.
Well, about the question, ‘Why it is wrong to oppose the Papal Aggression?’ I really don’t see how it can be wrong and must think it quite right. I can’t see how it can be wrong for any zealous servant of God to oppose with all his might that which dishonours God and his word, which (when the Bible says ‘none can come unto the Father but by Me’) says that we must come by the Virgin and the saints etc. People might say ‘We must not oppose it for it is God’s will’ they might also say that ‘temptation was put before the Jews and that was God’s will’ but they were told to put the accursed thing far from them and destroy it utterly and I think the Papal Aggression is put in our way to try us and see if we will oppose it unto death. But of course you know more about it than I, so please tell me why it is wrong to oppose it.”
One can imagine that her Father was almost ashamed to confess that the question was only a joke.
“Now for a word about the ‘bowing,’”‘bowing,’” he says in another letter. “It is“It is of no importance in itself, and therefore I never tell my children or servants either to bow or not to bow; but particular circumstances may render it important, and if good and kind Miss B. thinks that at Christ Church, you may honour God rather by doing as she and others who are with her do, than by being singular on this point, I not only wish you to obey her, but to do it with a willing and ready mind, cheerfully, as a plain matter of duty. Which it is. It is for her to judge, and for you to do, gladly, what she tells you.”
Miss B. had the greatest admiration for her pupil’s gifts, and in particular she considered her a budding poetess. These are some of the effusions of the period:
Another time after expatiating on her Mother’s virtues and unmerited affection, she goes on to inform her that there is One—
Was it all mere humbug and “patter”? The question can best be answered by quoting the following letter to her Father. It is written impulsively in pencil on scraps of paper,—the questions and answers being on different slips. The wording of the questions has sometimes been altered and corrected, so presumably she drafted them herself. The little sheaf has been thrust “anyhow” into an envelope (addressed to Mrs. T. Jex-Blake) which bears postmark “Ramsgate, Ap. 21. 1851,” and Mrs. Jex-Blake has quaintly endorsed it “very nice.”
“My dearest Father,
I fear you are very uneasy about me for I have indeed manifested no visible proof of a new and clean heart, but I think much of my soul too much for me to speak even to you of it. But I cannot talk so whenever anyone tries to talk to me of it I always turn it into jest but I must write (I cannot speak) to you about it so I have written some questions down and endeavoured to answer them as before God. So do believe each word.
1. If you died this instant what would become of you? And could you face death unflinchingly?
I know not what would become of me but I fear I should go to eternal torments. And do not think I could face death unflinchingly for this reason.
2. What would be your first emotion when you found yourself in the presence of the Judge of quick and dead?
Fear I think but yet I think that I should claim Jesus’ promises to lost sinners.
3. If Christ came this night and asked you ‘Lovest thou me’ what would be your answer?
Yes Lord although I am very wicked and cold and dull yet I could say without hesitation I do love thee very much I often feel my heart warm towards thee and something tells me that one day I shall love thee far better than I do now.
4. Could you before God say truly ‘I strive to live as I hope to die’?
No I fear I could not although sometimes I do try to do things to please Jesus.
5. Do you really in your heart know your religion to be a mere form or do you really feel its life-giving influence on your heart?
I know I often say far more than I really believe, I even have been tempted so far as to doubt in my heart the existence of a Diety but yet I have had a few bright moments in which I could sincerely say Yes I know it I know that Christ is mine and I am his but a deep gloom is generally over my spirit.
6. Do you in your heart believe yourself to be a new creature?
I know not but I fear not although at times I have been fully convinced that I am God’s child.
7. Do you earnestly desire to be such?
Most earnestly whenever anything touches that chord in my heart and sometimes I could weep bitterly but generally I feel awfully indifferent as to my soul.
8. Do you think you have ever known what true prayer is?
Most certainly and have sometimes obtained very gracious answers.
9. Where will you be 200 years hence?
In heaven I humbly hope and trust for I think the Lord has begun a good work in me.”
Gallant honest heart!
Is there a single word in the whole confession that the most devoted parent would have wished different?
“I think the Lord has begun a good work in me.” Is there in the words a—very human and pardonable—suggestion of St. Augustine’s “Timebam enim ne me cito exaudires”? In any case, though doubtless the good work went on, it cannot be denied that the tares flourished abundantly with the wheat.
It happened most unfortunately at this time that the child’s physical health fell into a very unsatisfactory state: we hear of great digestive trouble and functional weakness of the joints. Modern hygiene would probably have made short work of both complaints. As things were, the weakness was “tinkered at,” and the child was encouraged to live the life of an invalid. We are startled to learn incidentally that she is going out in a bath chair!
Good Miss B. took her up to town to see a consultant, and sent the parents long detailed reports on the child’s health. We are not surprised to come upon the following under date July, 1851:
“You must not suppose, dear Mrs. Blake, that I overlook the self that you have rightly so much at heart. I see it too well, and it is commented on to Sophy so frequently that I sometimes check myself, ... but the punishment that I might inflict on another I hold back in Sophy’s case, not only from my own knowledge of her character, but because Mr. S. cautioned me if possible never to disturb the even tenor of her brain.... Her case is peculiar and such must be the ends to meet it: they will require patience and may be long inin showing fruit, but we will not despair.”
The next vacation seems to have been disastrous. The child had grown more indolent and self-centred, and no doubt the parents were unable to deny her the sweetmeats which she loved and which the supposed weakness of her joints made it impossible for her to “work off” as healthy children should. Moreover, few houses are large enough to contain two chronic invalids.
“I received your letter,” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake when the child is gone, “and very glad we were to hear of your safe arrival,—but, my own child, I could have cried over your words. They were nice and affectionate, but the very opposite of your acts.... Either my child means what she writes or she does not. Your conduct completely contradicts your assertions. More sad and foolish behaviour than yours it is difficult to imagine. You behaved so ill that I doubt if I could have borne it another day without being laid on a bed of sickness, and I might never have recovered. Your ever being with us again for three weeks at a time is quite out of the question till you have the good sense to understand (as other children of your age do) that to be happy and comfortable and to enable me in my weak state to have you at all, you must be good. When you seem really to feel how ill you have behaved, we will some time hence have you home for a week, and if I find you keep your word (which you do not now) we will have you home very often; and Papa says that he shall then think that he can never do enough to make you very very happy; but you now destroy your happiness and my health, and the medical men will not allow us to be together. Think of your great folly and sin, my dear child. Pray to God for grace, and He will give it to you for His dear Son’s sake....
When you have read this letter, I wish you to tear it up.”
As ill luck would have it, this most unusually severe indictment found the poor little culprit seriously ill in bed. Her penitent reply is not forthcoming, but five days later, her Mother writes again:
“My own darling Child,
I trust this will find you much better; if you want me to be happy you must make all possible haste to get well, and write to tell me you are well.... I quite believe, my darling, that you are sorry, and will, in God’s strength, take pains that the same shall never happen again. I do particularly wish you to tear up my last letter at once.”
She didn’t tear it up: she never could tear up “Mummy’s letters.” She tied the two together with a piece of red wool, and slipped in with them a Sunday School “ticket” bearing the words, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right.”
By the same post as the second of these letters her Father writes:
“My darling Child,
We have been so grieved to hear of your illness, and do hope that before you receive this, you will be much better. It will please you to know that dear Mummy is much better for the quiet and Norfolk air. Everybody is so kind and trying to get her quite strong, and they all enquire so kindly after little Sophy, whom they call ‘little Sophy’ still, everybody saying what a very sweet and darling child you were six years ago; and I do trust that, when you see them next, they will find you a more darling child, and more loveable than ever. God grant it be so, dearest, for I want you to be very happy.”
The next letter from Miss B. that has been preserved is dated September, 1851, and is addressed to Mr. Jex-Blake. “I ought not to express sorrow at the sudden removal of your child, hoping and believing that it is ‘ordered by the Lord.’ She bears away with her my affectionate love and prayerful interest.”
No record has been kept of the precise steps that led to the “sudden removal.”
For the next two years the child went to a boarding-school in Brighton, where her parents had now gone to reside, and there are, therefore, practically no letters of the period. Two of her schoolfellows, however, have been good enough to contribute their impressions of her. For better and for worse, they call up a very vivid picture. Miss Lucy Portal writes:
“Being the junior of Sophy, as we always called her, she and I were not much in touch, though I never forgot her, for she had a strong personality, and was so clever—in fact, far above our school-mistress in natural intelligence, and she made a lasting impression on those with whom she associated. Whenever I heard her name in after life the vision of a young capable girl who asked questions that bewildered her governess rose before me.
One day when we were walking on the ‘Downs’ with [an assistant governess] in the rear, Sophy saw a large stone by the wayside and seated herself on it. ‘What do you mean by this?’ said the governess. ‘I am tired and must rest,’ replied Sophy. ‘Get up at once,’ said Miss ——; ‘Do you suppose we are all going to wait your pleasure in this way?’ ‘Impossible to do what is beyond one’s capacity,’ was the rejoinder, and threats had no effect. At last Miss —— lost her temper and said ‘Sophy, distinctly understand that if you do not get up, I shall leave you here, and send a policeman to fetch you.’ ‘Ah,’ said Sophy, ‘that is a kind thought. I am sure he would prove of great assistance to me. But could you manage to procure two policemen, for I don’t believe one would be able to carry me, and two might do so.’ I need not say that the battle of words was soon over after that.”
Knowing as one does how anomalous was the position of an assistant teacher in those days, one can but admit that the child must often have inflicted far greater suffering and anxiety than she had the least idea of.
On the other hand, Mrs. Gover, widow of the late Canon Gover of Worcester, writes:
“Sophie set us a good example at school, and I shall always think of her as one of the most truthful girls I have ever known, the only girl I ever knew who would not allow her drawings to be touched up by her master. I had a very great respect for her high character.”
But nothing can show more clearly the futility of the educational methods of that day than the following letter from the headmistress herself:
Dearest Sophy,
I cannot tell you with what a feeling of anguish I heard the door close after you on Saturday when you departed, and I had not kissed or blessed you.... I saw you afterwards in the street, tho’ I was unseen by you, and I could not stop you, my dear child, lest the past should be renewed. On my return I saw your present of fruit, it was not as gratifying to me as the scrap of paper, which contained my Sophy’s acknowledgement of her fault.[8] Yet I thank you for the kind thought, as I hope you know me too well to suppose that any little gift can bribe me to forgive;—without that scrap, my Sophy, I should have turned away from receiving your fruit. The same afternoon at a friend’s house I read a portion of your favourite Scott, and could not but think of you while I read the account of the ‘evil and good’ trying for Mastery in Harold the Dauntless’ heart, remember his first act of forbearance was noted as a step towards heaven. Beloved child! do I beseech you remember the duty of a child, be gentle and tender to your dear Parents, then the Lord will love you, and some day the Lion will give place to the Lamb in your bosom. Dear Mary Bayly’s has turned to whooping-cough. I hope yours is better. Until I find where to send her, I cannot leave home. God’s will be done.”
For a year and a half Sophy remained under this lady’s care, and then one or two equally unsuccessful experiments were made. Meanwhile Mrs. Jex-Blake remained so ailing that it was not possible for her to have the child at home for the long vacation, and a “dear kind” lady invites the refractory young person to visit her for part of the time. Mr. Jex-Blake writes to inform Sophy of the fact, and adds, “Now have we not in this great cause of thankfulness to our kind God and Father who never forgets us?” This was perhaps asking a little too much of the homesick child.
The truth is that the parents at this time were not growing younger (as many parents do), and certainly they were growing more staid and set in their ways. It was becoming increasingly difficult to them to adapt themselves to this riotous child. “Avoid excitement which is your great enemy,” writes her Father, unaware perhaps that his own weakness was a tendency to be rather too fussy and precise. With hearts full of love they were demanding of her a standard of excellence which for her was wholly artificial, and in the half-hearted, or at least intermittent, effort to attain it, she fell in the breach. And parents and child were not the only factors in the difficult problem of home life. So long as Sophy could by any stretch of charity be reckoned a child, it was comparatively easy for her brother and sister to put up with her volcanic ways. But from a schoolgirl one expects some conformity to recognized standards, and Sophy’s elder sister had been such a pattern in this respect that the contrast was necessarily acute.
“I really don’t think you would enjoy [a visit from] Carry much at school even if we could spare her,” Mrs. Jex-Blake writes in reply to an eager request for this privilege. “You would be tempted to be odd and excitable, and then Carry would be vexed and all would be uncomfortable” and no one who knew the elder sister can doubt that such demonstrations of affection would probably have “vexed” her more than most. On the other hand “Brother” was now a young man, and if his main desire for the child was that she should grow up like the sisters of other men, he only shared the attitude common at that time to the overwhelming majority of his sex. One can see that his younger sister must have tried him a good deal. The idea that she was plain and even ugly had been firmly impressed upon her: the exhibition of vanity in matters of dress had been discouraged on every ground: and it was natural to her boyish temperament to be careless of such things. When, in addition to these shortcomings, she added a propensity for making people “uncomfortable,” one can quite understand that her brother did not feel specially proud of her, and the strength of her character probably made it difficult for him to influence her through the passionate affection and admiration she had cherished for him all through her childhood. In any case the relation between them became somewhat strained, and it is not surprising if she sometimes attributed the strictures of her parents to his influence and representations.
It is delightful to record that, in spite of countless differences of opinion and much plain speaking on both sides, a fine loyal camaraderie existed between the sisters throughout life.
I don’t know whether it ever occurred to the child to compare her brother’s education with her own. If she had done so, the reflection might well have made her bitter. In athletics as in the schools he was bearing off laurels at every turn, while she was being curbed and thwarted to meet the requirements of pious and half-educated schoolmistresses. From the best of motives her parents refused for her the outlet for the “excitability” they constantly deprecated; in other words they simply sat on the safety valve. In the summer of 1854 she begged—probably not for the first time—to be allowed to have riding lessons. The father replied
“I like to do anything in reason to please my own child, but you are so very excitable and have at present so lamentably little self-command that I should fear riding for you very much. It would do you no good and might be injurious to you in many ways. When will you prove to me that my hopes and expectations of you are not in vain?... You don’t know how the hearing you censured goes to my heart, and the not being able to place the most unbounded confidence in you is very trying to me and the dear Mother,—doubly so to her in her weak state.”
Of course it is easy now to see that he was wrong as regards the riding. Apart altogether from the physical exercise involved, the discipline of it would have been excellent. Big emergencies always braced her. She never lost her temper with a horse, nor her presence of mind in an accident.
Meanwhile the series of loving reproachful letters goes steadily on.
“Do you think, darling,” her Father writes, “that by divine grace you are less self-willed day by day? How earnestly do I desire to see you a loving happy child. Everybody seems to deprecate your presence as that which will spread discomfort all around.... God bless you and help you and give you His Holy Spirit to guide you continually.”
“Everybody” was an overstatement. At no time was the child without her own little circle of admiring friends. A schoolfellow with whom she remained on terms of intimate friendship throughout life says,—“At our house she was always good and happy, and a very welcome guest. My father thought very highly of her.”
A fortnight later Mrs. Jex-Blake writes:
“I rejoice at the nice accounts I have of you from school, and I hope (against experience) that you will when we see you again, be a pleasant child, the comfort you might so easily be to me.”
“Day and night,” her Father writes, “you are on my heart. You know how I love you. Why will you thus be your own enemy?”
The faith and perseverance of the parents is astounding: not less so the fact that at bottom the affection and filial piety of the child never flagged.
One has to remind oneself constantly—what the daughter never forgot, though small trace of it appears in the letters of this period—that Mrs. Jex-Blake had a keen sense of humour. When she and Sophy were together, they had many a good joke in common. It was when the mesmerism of the child’s presence was removed that the sense of responsibility asserted itself in full force. It is impossible to read the long series of letters without being profoundly convinced,—1. That the parents were devotedly attached to their youngest child (“Sophy was the favourite,” was the elder sister’s deliberate comment some sixty years later). 2. That their affection was returned with an intensity of which few children are capable. 3. That the warning that she was injuring her Mother’s health and must therefore be kept away from her dearly-loved home did not provide a motive strong enough to make the child run in harness like other people. The inference is that no motive would have been strong enough.
Did she ever really make an honest effort? One comes upon many impassioned scraps of prayer for grace to resist temptation. “Oh, that when a word irritates me I may remember how often I have said more unkind things and been forgiven.” “Oh, Lord, punish me, reduce me to submission in any way Thou seest fit, but oh, let me not alone, abandon me not despite my wickedness.” And, although these prayers are apt to run into conventional exaggerated language, it is impossible to doubt their sincerity. Her tiny booklets and papers were always kept with the strictest secrecy, and it is all but certain that no eye but her own ever saw them before her death.
Here is an isolated scrap of diary, recording probably a time of special effort.
“Feb. 26th, 1854. Oh, keep Thou my foot when I go up into Thy house of prayer. O how difficult it is to fix the mind for even that short time! Miss X. will treat me unlike any other human being, but that is no reason for transgressing the commandment of my God. She says she does not like to hear me name the name of Christ for I do not depart from iniquity, she thinks I had better not hold conversations on sacred subjects.
A complaint having been made of rudeness from one of the girls, Miss X. said it was just like one of Sophy’s tricks, heaven knows with what ground. All these things have aggravated me, and I fear I have sadly given way to temper and pride, not remembering Him who bare the contradiction of sinners against Himself though He never offended in word or deed. If sometimes unjustly spoken to, how often have I escaped my desert and how few are the faults the strictest find compared with an all-seeing God. Oh, for the charity that beareth all things....
27th Monday. I must expect trials this day, humiliating to my pride and trying to my temper....
Nothing special, though I gave way sadly at different times and again sinned in sending a letter to Mama [? Maria].
28th. Again, more and more against light, got sweets. Miss X. in her prayer speaks at poor Agnes who is just come. She prays that all may be kind to her, remembering the Fatherless and Widow are His special care, etc. How could she harrow up poor Agnes’ feelings so! The poor child was weeping under the infliction.... And in the prayer she announced her intention of expelling anyone who would make the others unhappy. O I could have knocked her down, and after prayers she really spoke kindly to me about beginning March afresh and any other time I could almost have promised to try. As it was I could not kiss her even. Oh how much I think of that which might and probably did proceed from a pure motive, and do not consider my unkindness often which I know does not do so.
March 1. Whole holiday. Gave way to passion to A. and B. tho’ perhaps they were provoking I should better have striven to retain my temper. Alas from my feelings since it seems as if it were the letting in of water. O preserve me from being so awfully passionate as I was. Overbearing and ordering in the afternoon. Oh for the Charity which ‘is kind’ which ‘is not puffed up’ ‘seeketh not her own’ and above all which ‘is not easily provoked’.”
She had no lack of self-control in other ways: why should she have failed so conspicuously in this? When all due weight is given to the reasons already assigned one is still forced to the conclusion that there was something elemental in her nature over which she not only had little control, but of which she was to a great extent unconscious. As a mere child she expresses her thankfulness in a letter to her Mother that she is less “irritable,” and at rare intervals all through life she would speak to intimate friends of the intolerable way in which the blood rushed to her head at times, making it all but impossible for her to weigh her words. But from first to last she was far less conscious of the moral aspect of the defect than one would have expected anyone of her sane judgment and essential humility to be. The severe self-analysis of the above extracts are on the whole exceptional. From childhood on, the thought that she had failed those she loved or had caused them anxiety and suffering, in a way that she understood, was a source of almost intolerable pain and compunction; but she seems to have rarely and inadequately realized the extent of the suffering she inflicted by her wilful ways and passionate temper.
“And yet there was always something loveable with it all,” a childhood’s friend reiterates. “She came bounding into a room, bringing with her an atmosphere of gaiety and glee that is indescribable.”
Nor are we as regards the judgments of contemporaries confined to the possibly idealized picture of later years. Fortunately for the accuracy of the picture, Sophy seems about this time to have originated in the school a practice of character-writing, in which the critics were encouraged to be absolutely frank. This is what she brought upon herself:
“Sophy is very affectionate and has more good in her than people think, she is truthful and can be trusted. She has an immense amount of self-conceit, self-sufficiency and pride. She will not be led by anything but affection, or a desire to make much of herself, and make herself well thought of. She has great talents and is very clever. She wishes to be thought an out-of-the-way character and is so. She lacks gentleness of feeling and manner.”
“Sophy is certainly excessively clever but unfortunately knows it, and makes a point of showing it off upon every possible occasion. She is truthfulness itself and can really be trusted. Very passionate but very penitent afterwards. Affectionate.”
“Clever, passionate, affectionate. Many bad habits but tries (lately at least) to get the better of them. Might be made a great deal of. Rather too fond of her own opinion. I think true.”
It is rather staggering to find how much wiser the young folks were in those days than were their elders!
Again Sophy propounds the question whether A. or E. is “the greater pet.” The discussion goes on in writing, and finally the originator ends it by saying:
“At any rate A. is the only friend I have got, and I don’t want to lose her.”
To which D. responds:
“You are wise, but she is not the only friend you might have.”
And Sophy all too proud:
“There are only one or two others I could have as a friend.”
And finally M.:
“As to your friends, I quite agree with D. I think you might have had many. I know you might have had me long ere this, had you tried.”
Of another schoolfellow under discussion Sophy explains that she finds the young lady personally “aggravating,” and adds:
“But I think she is very ingenuous, and would own to a thing, even to a little one, which is a great thing considering her pride.
That is what I do admire so ardently.
It will surprise no one who has read the extracts from Sophy’s diary on page 32 to learn that, at the end of the summer term, Miss X. announced her inability to keep her any longer in the school. The culprit evidently declined to manifest any proper sense of sin or even of humiliation; and the distress of her parents may be imagined. They recognized no other standard by which to judge her than the standard by which poor Sophy had so egregiously failed.
In any case their kindness never faltered: they could not face having the child at home, and for some months they did not even see her; but some “kind ladies” were found to take charge of her until she could be put temporarily in the care of her old schoolmistress, Mrs. Teed.
Very soon a reassuring report came to relieve the anxious parents. On July 10th, 1854, Mrs. Jex-Blake writes:
“I delight to think that my dear child is availing herself of this great opportunity of redeeming her character. The past is so sad, so disappointing, and the thinking of it is so sure to make me ill, that I endeavour with my utmost power to forget it. I will not dwell upon it, but look forward to a bright future when my own dear child ... will see that determination and self-willedness can only cause misery and discomfort to herself, and wellnigh shorten, certainly embitter my old age.
I do feel greatly comforted by Mrs. Teed’s giving a favourable account of you. She would like you to be less idle. Why do not you write out some papers about your natural philosophy subjects and zoology?”
“Well, darling,” her Father writes (July 17th), “I was very glad to get your letter, though I should like you to write more wisely. I don’t at all mind your writing about ‘unkind lectures’ for I know I never am and cannot be unkind to my own child; but I do earnestly wish that you saw (as others do) how exceedingly foolish your conduct has been, and that by nothing but a complete change can you ever be comfortable.”
Meanwhile arrangements were being made for the child to go to another school, and one is thankful to record that it was at least a great improvement on its predecessors. On July 21st, 1854, Mr. Jex-Blake writes:
“We have had a letter from Mrs. H. this morning, and it is now settled that G.W. you go to her the beginning of next month and Mrs. T. will take you and kindly give you the benefit of her introduction. You will go under the most advantageous circumstances possible, and it will be solely and entirely your own fault, my darling child, if everybody about you does not love you.”
A month later he writes again:
“My sweet Child,
I have just read your letter to the dear Mother.... Your letter gives me great pleasure, it is so sensible, and the tone throughout so like that of a dear dear child, who will never knowingly again give a minute’s pain to the very best of Mothers, that I felt I could not be happy without writing to my darling at once to tell her how I look forward to her being a real comfort to dearest Mummy, and a constant ‘sunbeam’ to me.... I believe the happy feeling of confidence she has about you now is doing more for her than all the doctors in the world.”
A fortnight later he paid the child a visit, to which she refers in the following letter:
Darling Father,
You know what immense pleasure I had on Friday. I often think of it even now it is past, I feel so glad to have seen you; but Daddy I am so sorry about the boat. I cannot forget it and I am very sorry,—will you forgive me?
Do come down tomorrow just to say goodbye. You know you can come down by the omnibus you took on Friday and just sit for an hour or so and then go back. You can be back by luncheon time or nearly and it would be such a pleasure. I cannot get an answer to this by letter but hope to secure one by ocular demonstration. I saw Miss B. and gave your message, but I fear unless you do as I hope you will that its fulfilment will be rather distant. We could just go in the Crescent Gardens or even sit still together in the drawing-room for one hour (just one) and it would be so enjoyable. I have so many things yet to say. You know we had so much walking and eating and shopping to get through on Friday that I was not able to tell you half the things I had to say.
If you have arranged for me to come home in 3 weeks time I will try to reconcile myself to not seeing you if it is really impossible or very inconvenient in joyful hope, but in that case I shall hope for a nice long letter (but even then I should not be sorry to see your darling face for an hour or so) on Wednesday. If not (but I hope no ‘not’ will be in the question) I think you will yourself think that considering that I have not seen you since about Jan. 26th, except for 3½ hours and should not see you till Christmas that really one hour would not be lost on your youngest little one. I am hourly experiencing the comfort of your last visit (I am now writing with some of the paper and a pen of your gift) and your face was like a sunbeam in the way. I want to feel your rough cheek once more, though I hope your Missis won’t let you come so unshaven and unshorn as you did last time. I did delight in your beautiful flowers which are even now on the chimney-piece—one flower I prized above all the rest—I could almost fancy Mother picked it—a little tiny bit of jasmine (I don’t know if that’s spelt right). It is so nice. Will you remember to bring some stamps tomorrow.
Darling Father I am so anxious to see you again. About 11½ I shall be on the tiptoe of hope. You won’t disappoint Sody? You didn’t say it was impossible to come, and if it is possible you will. Do bring a few more flowers please. Those stones of Cousin Jane’s were lovely. Oh, I was so delighted with them.
Hoping very very soon to see you, I need not write a very long letter but please give my best love to my darling darling Mother.
I am just taxing my small brain to make up a story of a martyrdom in Pagan Rome,—a sort of martyrdom at least; it is meant to be very affecting, but I don’t know if it is. I will show it you tomorrow I hope.
If you have got leave for me to come home it will be so much more if you come by yourself to tell me, and if not, if not it will certainly need all your presence to comfort me.”
Among other little gifts, on the occasion of this visit, her Father had given her a tiny note book, which she utilises at once as a diary:
“Went to sleep with a sore throat ... and a bit of mignonette on my bosom. Darling Mother, how I treasure her flowers.
15th. Knew all my lessons better to-day, and kept my place as 2nd.... Had a note from Carry. Hurrah, people don’t know how nice it is to get a note at school. Done all my algebra for Mr. R. It strikes me we can do those problems in Kavanagh by equations.”
The joy of this discovery! “Problems” became her passion: she begged friends to send her some to solve, and took a mischievous pleasure in sending them herself occasionally to those who had not been so fortunate as to find the master-key of the “unknown quantity.” Sister Carry writes:
“Many thanks for your letters and numerous sums; I think the latter are rather overwhelming to me. I think I ought to have a little more instruction when you come, so please don’t send me any more at present.”
The diary continues:
“Did Cousin Jane’s equation and am very glad I have got such a sensible cousin. Made one to send her, and then couldn’t answer it myself.”
As cricket, tennis and hockey were unheard of in the girls’ school of those days, and as the child was not allowed to ride or to dance, it is scarcely surprising to learn that she was again troubled with weakness of the joints. Mrs. H. took her to one “Professor Georgii” and the school doctor met them at his house. The patient’s account of the interview is interesting in view of later developments:
“Then he went into another room which was rather dark. Dr. L. said, ‘I suppose I may come too. I am the physician,’ and G. said, ‘I suppose so’!”
The two men examined her spine—the headmistress, of course, being present—
“and after about ten minutes I was allowed to dress with the 2 men staring at me. I think they might have let us retire....
The room for exercises is hung all round with prints of skeletons and flayed human beings, tho’ for a mercy they were covered with sort of curtains and only partially visible.”
She was condemned to an hour’s remedial exercises every day for six weeks, and as it took double that time to make the pilgrimage to and from the “Professor’s” house, three fatiguing hours were taken out of her working day.
And all for want of a few games in due season.
The “sheer stuff of life” was proving educative enough at this time, for Mrs. Jex-Blake and Sister Carry were both alarmingly ill, the latter with some contagious fever, the nature of which is not specified. It is touching to see the Father’s letters to his schoolgirl daughter: the handwriting has all at once become shaky and feeble, like that of an old man.
“I write in the dear Mother’s room,” he says in November, 1854, “in which and in sweet Carry’s I pass the greater part of the day. They have both been very ill, but I think I may say that now both are beginning to mend.... From the beginning of their illnesses they have never been able to see each other.... Oh, my darling child, I must not conceal from you the danger the best of Mothers has been in. God give you to value her more than ever, and keep you from ever, by disobedience of any kind, hurting her feelings and giving her pain.”
Two days later he writes again in answer to her eager enquiries,