“If, darling, I can buy anything with your money that I think Mummy or Carry will be pleased with, be sure I will.”
And again, three weeks later,
“My dear child,—Your letters give me great pleasure, but, great though it be, I will most willingly give it up to dearest Mother and Sister when they are well enough to read and write letters.”
On Dec. 5th, 1854, his mind is sufficiently at ease to write a truly delightful letter, though the handwriting is still shaky:
“First and most substantially (if not principally) the “plum pudding” plan. It is really a capital one—‘The Crimea Army Fund’ or some such title it bears, and subscriptions are pouring in to it from high and low—donations of hundreds of pounds down to sixpences. It does not in any way interfere with the sending out of what you rightly enough consider are things of still greater importance; and which (much later than it ought to have been) the government and the public are now despatching to the poor sufferers. The intention is to send out vessel after vessel as quickly as possible, not only with materials for plum puddings and brown stout, but to help our poor soldiers, officers and privates, to get through the great hardships and privations of their severe winter campaign, as far as that can be managed. Warm extra clothing, flannel shirts and waistcoats, stockings, gloves, leather of various kinds, needles and thread, tea, tobacco, sugar, preserved and potted meats, raisins, sugar, wine, porter and a hundred other things in large quantities—enormous quantities—for at least 40 or 50,000 men.
Noblemen are sending deer from their parks, and game to be potted and preserved and sent over, and some have offered their yachts to convey the good things; and tradespeople have come forward to give liberally from the stocks in their shops and warehouses. So I shall enclose 1s. and think you cannot do better than give it as your mite in the good cause. There are as you say ‘such hosts of things to subscribe to,’ and I am very thankful for the privilege God gives me of being able to help. It is one of the greatest luxuries we can enjoy, depend upon it, my own darling.... There is no literally ‘war news,’ this week, but there have been terrible disasters among the combined fleets in the Black Sea. A most furious storm there the middle of last month has sadly damaged many of the ships, and destroyed several—one went down laden with the intended winter store (in many articles) for our whole army,—forty thousand specially warm great coats, and numerous other things in proportion, which cannot be replaced instanter, and it is feared that very great suffering by thousands for some weeks must be the consequence. The loss of that one vessel and cargo is estimated at £1,000,000. But, worse than all the money loss, many hundred people perished in that and other vessels. Your cousin Robert, whom I don’t know that you ever saw even, embarks to-morrow for the Crimea. He is a young lieutenant in the 18th foot.
I think if we keep of the same mind, we can manage a backgammon board when you come home, cups and all; only, as I am an old hand at it—having played, I should think almost half-a-century ago—you will expect, please, to be soundly beaten if we engage together. I have read ‘Patronage’—about the same period, perhaps, as when we played that game of backgammon, but I do think novels in general are very so-so things, and some so wondrous foolish that it is worse than waste of time to read them....
There was a good deal at Worthing[9] that was very pleasant, my sweet Sophy, and I can recollect it with satisfaction. If there was anything otherwise, it never even crosses my mind, I assure you; and do you get rid of all thoughts of it too. I have not the smallest doubt that, by God’s blessing, you will be a great ‘comfort’ to me. I have said so a thousand times, and you won’t prove Daddy a false prophet I know. I have nothing to ‘forgive’ my own child—nothing whatever, darling. You have had childish faults enough, I daresay, but they were ‘the faults of a child’ certainly, and I could not remember a single one of them.
I won’t get a sore throat if I can help it, even for the sake of Sody’s black-currant jam; but, if I do catch one, I know I may have a whole jar if I want it, and I shall not perhaps like it the less that you made it. Love from all. I will not forget to come for you on the 23rd., my precious child. God keep you and bless you very much.
At last, on December 13th, comes a letter from her Mother:
“Darling So,
I feel very thankful to be once more able to enjoy a letter from, and to write to you. I look forward with great pleasure to Saturday week, but pray try to be quiet in your joy when I meet you, because I am still weak and soon upset, and people will be very vexed with you if I am the worse. Above all I could wish that you did not get into trouble, and say and do what you should not, because it agitates me to hear of it. If you, my own darling child, could but once realise how trying you are by your impetuosity and restlessness, and (must I still say?) roughness, even when you are not put out, you would try very hard to conquer any outbreaking into extra roughness.
And, indeed, dear So, God has bestowed upon you much wherewith you might be agreeable, and help others, if you would but avail yourself of it.”
Meanwhile the scrap of a diary goes on:
“Dec. 16th.... Got a letter from my precious sister. She says she is nearly well, but she is so careless of self I half mistrust her account, especially as I am told by Mummy and Tom she is very thin and pale. She speaks of a chance of her being shaved. I hope to goodness she won’t, the darling....
Thinking of darling Dad’s birthday tomorrow. I hope I shall wake early and be first to wish him joy.... His last day to be 64! In his 66th year tomorrow. The darling. Sody hopes she’ll make him so happy yet. This day week, heigh ho! I must try and persuade Daddy to let me stay over Sunday. It will be but one lesson lost and two days gained and one a Sunday....
17th. Dear Dad’s birthday. Woke up once I think, in the dark, and again before it was light to wish him many happy returns.”
The wishing must have been volcanic in its intensity to judge by what follows:
“While dressing, Kate, who had not got up, woke up to ask if it was not his birthday, she had been dreaming it was, and that he in consequence was playing a duet on the piano with her, but would play the bass first, not together with her.... Mrs. H. ill, not up all day. No Mangnall.... I must have walked 6 miles at least. Wonderful for me. Had a dispute about extempore sermons, I saying it meant without written help, Mlle and Sarah saying people might have notes and yet be extempore. Mlle as politely and sapiently as usual called me nobody. She has neither sense nor temper to dispute. It is foolish to entangle myself with her. My dear Dad’s birthday nearly over.
18th.... [Mrs. H.] promised I should nurse her when I came back, and I did, and after dinner played chess and backgammon with Mrs. H. and Conny. Mrs. H. lent me Woodstock to read. Nice, but not equal to some of Scott’s.
Turned out some of my letters from my pocket. Hope I have not turned out any I want of Carry’s, but they are safe in my glazed box.
21st. At Georgii’s had a fuss with Conny in the dressing-room because I was complaining of having only a week and asked her if she would think a week enough with her Mother. She said no, but her Mother was better than mine. I was silly enough to be offended, and gave her two good slaps on her shoulders which were convenient, as I was doing her frock, and then we had a regular squabble.... I said it was very ungenerous. I should not have said it if she had been my guest far away from her friends, and I don’t believe I should, though my conscience smote me about Mary Bayley.”
This reference to Mary Bayley is interesting, as Sophy had been at no less than three schools since the days of their companionship. The persistent recollection of some trifling unkindness is a typical instance of the compunction she suffered when she hurt anyone in a way she understood.
“Got such a jolly letter from Mummy as if she had half got back her mischief. Two bits of French, too, we are getting on. She certainly deserves a ‘satisfaisant’.”
When the Christmas holidays came on, Sophy’s course of exercises from the “Professor” was not nearly over, and a week’s interruption was the utmost that could be allowed. The holidays were long enough, however, to allow of another week at home towards the end of January. Her birthday fell in this second week, and suggestion was made that the two sisters should have a party and a “Christmas” tree. The correspondence about this little event is interesting as showing something of the conditions in which Sophy would be expected to settle down when her schooldays finally came to an end. The preparations contrast curiously with what young folk now-a-days, even in a much humbler walk of life, consider necessary on these occasions.
Darling So,
I am so much better for the quiet I have had the last week that I think I may authorize you to ask Mrs. H. to advance you 4, or, if needful, 5 shillings to spend in little things for a Christmas tree. I am very anxious to have it if possible, and I think it entirely depends on the self-command you can exert over yourself; if you and Carry will go about it quietly, and you yield at once if I say I do not wish to add to our numbers, or if I object on any other point....
One thing I must tell you that I cannot have a great many, neither do I wish unnecessary expense,[10] when the daily calls from societies where funds are failing and souls perishing for want are so numerous.”
Sister Carry writes with characteristic calm and reasonableness:
Dear Sophy,
I suppose probabilities are now in favour of the Christmas tree. I don’t think it need do Mummy much harm, supposing affairs are conducted with very unusual prudence and quietness. We shall defer buying any ready-made-sweetmeat-ornaments (this is an 8-syllabled compound word) until you come home, and then I think Mummy will quite like that we should get them without her presence. I also think it will be very desirable (if possible) that we should dress up the tree without troubling her much; but I don’t know exactly how far we should be up to it. However, I think the most important points of all are that a certain friend of ours should endeavour to live in, and diffuse around her, a certain atmosphere of peace and calmness; and that the tree should be quite ready in very good time, so that there should be no bustle or worry about it towards the last.... I mean to try to provide (with pecuniary assistance from Mummy) some supply of purses, penwipers and markers for the tree; I think a couple of cut markers such as you gave Daddy the other day, on broad ribbon, would be very good; of course I mean them to be made by you. I suppose I shall probably have a letter from you tomorrow or Saturday; I consider I ought to have had one. With best love, I am, dear Sophy,
Presumably the little festival took place in due course, but there is no further reference to it among the papers. The strain of loving parental homilies continues.
“Bear in mind that all our powers and faculties are perverted by the fall, but my child cannot be rid of her responsibility; if you say you cannot pray,—that is at once a subject for prayer. Down on your knees and tell God so.”
“I exceedingly like a letter from you, and bustle down a little earlier on Tuesday morning that I may have time to enjoy it before breakfast.... Cousins Kate and Elinor Jex-Blake say they do not at all delight in Mathematics, they are sorry to say.”
“We are very sorry to disappoint you, but indeed we cannot sanction your going to see the ‘Wizard of the North.’ I do hope and believe you will submit cheerfully to give up what it would make me very sleepless and unhappy to have you go to. Now get a victory and believe the disappointment all for the best.”
“Though I am most decidedly better, it arises, I think, from perfect quiet, the least change or bustle brings on spasm or headache, or both. Carry had Punch, and thought you sent it. I don’t like it, I think it a vulgar paper, and don’t wish it sent. I don’t at all object to the ‘Illustrated News’ occasionally.”
Apparently Sophy declined to sit down under this condemnation of her beloved Punch, for a fortnight later Mrs. Jex-Blake writes: “I will return both the Punches in the hamper. The last was capital.”
In May, 1855, a family holiday in Wales was proposed, and, as usual, the question was raised whether Sophy could be allowed to be of the party. There is no suggestion in all the correspondence that her Father ever wished to be rid of her company except on the ground of his wife’s health. On May 23rd Mrs. Jex-Blake writes:
“Daddy and I have a strong wish that you should see Wales, and it is truly painful to deny you such a pleasure and advantage but you see, dear, I can’t help my health, and the being so easily upset and made ill by worry. Indeed I am grieved to find you can fully understand this, for you say your head aches if you get excited; but, darling, strive to go on with your different duties and don’t get excited.... Now, sweetest, assure me that you will try to be controlled by me, and try to fall into our habits, not always restless and having some grand scheme of your own that must be carried out.... I do not ask you to promise, but if next week you feel you can, looking to God, assure me you will to the utmost try to be a comfort and not break out in these violent excitements, which not only upset me at the time but haunt and disturb me at night,... we are wonderfully anxious to give you the pleasure, but meanwhile don’t be excited at school about it.
Shall we not be happy at Bettws-y-Coed if darling So is with us and we all consider each other’s comfort?”
The microscopic school diary had for five months been non-existent; the imperious demand of this glorious anticipation called a fresh volume into being.
“Thursday, May 24th [1855.] My answer was to come about Wales. When I got my letter I prayed God to help me to bear it, for I was nearly sure it would be a refusal, and I was quite prepared for it and determined to keep my promise not to worry about it. I put my letter in my pocket and ran away from them all. Then I burst it open and read, ‘Daddy and I have such a strong wish you should see Wales, and it is truly painful to deny you such a pleasure.’ There, thought I, but I had expected it and didn’t feel so dreadfully disappointed. Then I read on and oh, I found it was not so, that I should go. Oh, I got so excited and half began to cry. Then came Mummy’s caution not to be excited, but it was impossible. Dropped down there and thanked God. Oh, then I trust He has granted my prayer. Glory to God in the highest. Oh, I was so thankful.
25th.... Got a letter from Tom. How kind of him to write, it really was, and he has got a first bachelor’s degree. G. told me he saw his name in the paper.
Had a great shortness and pain in taking long breaths. G. said there was some irregularity in the heart, I believe. Laurie came in afternoon and said my heart was wrong again. Left me some medicine.
28th. Mrs. H. told me to lie down and sleep if I felt tired, but I am much better.... K. seized on ‘Prince and Peasant’ and M. on ‘Anecdotes of Animals’ the 2 books Miss Smith had left me. I was very cross, I had nothing to do. I seized on Anecdotes after Prayers to take up. M. was in high dudgeon, as if it was her right. But I carried it off. But upstairs I thought it was not right. ‘In honour preferring one another.’ So I took it her. But it was a hard struggle.... I am glad I got that little victory.
Miss C. came to G.‘s for the last time. I was so sorry and so were most folks. She gave me a little parcel, or at least put it in my pocket on condition I should not open it till I got home. I thought it was some mischief but took it. It was such a lovely gold pencil case, ‘from a schoolgirl.’ Dear girl, it was very kind of her.
30th. Very difficult geometry problem. I doubt if I can do it. Mortimer was home, and told us some very good stories of —— the nurse of his ward. Mrs. H. said in the evening she would like to be nurse there (!) She said how should I get on who so hate injustice, and I said I thought such open acknowledged injustice was not the hardest to bear. This brought down an awful storm of wonder, reasoning, etc., till at length I got off to bed so tired.
June 1st. A little fracas with Mlle at G.’s. Little Henriquez is here. It is strange to be with a Jew and a R. Catholic so closely. Con rather worrying, and I not rather cross. Oh, dear, ‘Charity never faileth.’ ‘The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.’
Laurie came and left me some more medicine.
4th. Miss Teed’s birthday. Many happy returns to her. Wonder if Carry remembers.... I want so to know Minnie’s exact birthday.
know it is near....
Went in the gardens. K. and S. persecuted me with grass and I can’t run after them. When I caught S. and when we were indoors I gave it her rather roughly. She was very cross and would not have any of [my] jam at tea, she never will when she is cross with me. Got a sore throat.
5th. Throat very fairly bad, and very ‘cheval’ as M. would say. Apropos it’s her birthday....
Just before prayers I was in the cupboard and someone shut the door nearly on me. I threw it open again and half upset the great slate. We had been rather uproarious all afternoon as M’s sisters had been here and said holidays did begin on 18th. When I came out of the cupboard I managed to tread on M’s toes, and Mlle packed me off to bed. I said ‘All right,’ shook hands with her, kissed S. and went off. Mlle wasn’t very angry nor I very sorry and so we were all very comfable. Seized on K. for a kiss as she came up and she seemed forbidden to speak to me. However we had a nice hug and she wasn’t very horrified.
6th. Found a handbill on my dressing-table from Mrs. H. ‘for Sophy’ called Telling Jesus.”
This entry closes the school diary.
She seems to have remained at the Notting Hill school till Easter, 1856, and to have carried away with her the warm good will and genuine—if sorely tried—respect of her headmistress, Mrs. H., with whom she kept up a correspondence for some time. For another year and a half she seems to have attended some school at Brighton within reach of her home, but study here was discouraged, and she became the patient of another doctor—or quack?—who prescribed a course of rubbing.
“Under the new regulation of no study,” writes Mrs. H., “I suppose you have plenty and to spare of the dolce far niente. I smiled at the ‘few lessons,’ and wondered in what occupation you might possibly spend your 24 hours.... Be assured, dear Sophy, that so much trifling and frivolity is culpable in the sight of Heaven. It is an unworthy waste of God’s gifts, and you are capable of something so much better!”
That life, even now, was not all “trifling and frivolity” is obvious from the following letter, which was written a few weeks later:
My own darling Mother,
This subject of confirmation has come up again, and I really must say I am positively shocked at the way it is settled and talked about. It is ‘How old are you?’ ‘Does your Papa wish you to be confirmed?’ and never, ‘Are you fit to be?’ or ‘Do you really wish it?’ It is just as if it were a history lecture to be attended. I really think it is wicked. Miss H. took it for granted that I should be and stuck down my name. I said, ‘No thank you, Miss H.,’ to her great indignation. I assured her you wished me to do exactly as I liked on such a subject, which she did not choose to believe at all.
But I really do wish it, Mother. I think it would help me, and I long to take the Lord’s Supper with you. Will you let me be confirmed from home?—that is, spend the actual day of confirmation at home, so that I may think of something besides how I am dressed and how good or bad an examination I passed, on the day I take those solemn promises on myself. Mother, dear, I seem less able to speak to you than anyone, but I do feel very much about it. It is just,—‘I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments,’ I do hope. No, I can’t write what I mean or anything else. Just write me one line by return of post. Mr. E. is certainly not the minister I should have chosen, nor Miss H.’s the place I should have preferred, but I don’t think that ought to stand in the way, for it is not in respect to them I stand.
I think I should have preferred waiting another year, but I don’t think I can quite expect God’s blessing on His child while I defer owning myself such.
Oh, Mother, Mother, how I wish you were here, but it seems as if He had expressly left me to myself each time confirmation has been spoken of. I do not think you will refuse either the permission I ask, or your blessing on the step I take,—unless it would be too great an excitement for you,—though it need not be, for you need not go with me....
Well, darling, just tell me what you mean and think. But pray, pray, don’t show any of this to anyone....
God bless and keep my darling Mother.
Farewell, precious.
“I like the idea of your being confirmed very much,” her Father had written some months before. “God’s blessing be with you. Look to Him and be happy.”
Sophy’s first schoolmistress, Mrs. Teed, took a different view of the matter:
Dearest Sophy,
Your dear Mother tells me you are soon to be confirmed. When I read her letter I thought to myself,—Confirmed!—in what?—in following your own foolish ways? There needs no confirmation in that....
You told me in a letter written to me on my last birthday that you hoped you were one of Christ’s little ones. O dear Sophy, you know better.... I do not say do not deceive yourself, but I say never seek to deceive others,” and so on.
Those who have read with some sympathy the preceding pages may well be inclined to doubt whether Sophy was “seeking to deceive others,” or rather, perhaps, whether deception with her did not more readily take the form of concealing the depth and reality of her religious life. Christ’s lambs have not all been precisely of the type good Mrs. Teed had in mind. The real difficulty, however, is to fit the child into the categories of the pious people among whom she lived, or indeed, into any category at all. For better or for worse, she belonged to another plane of being.
If one were compelled to adopt the system of classification current in those days, one could but fall back with thankfulness on the remembrance of that “hasty image” of the Good Shepherd in the Catacombs,
In any case the stormy chequered school career had now come to a close. “I can’t fancy you, Sophy, with long frocks,” an old school-friend writes, “taller than Hetty, a regular grown-up young lady. Are you transformed yet? Do let me see you first like your own old dear self!”
“Your own old dear self!” One almost weeps to think of all the unnecessary friction and waste of energy in those school days. Those of us who have been teachers know how often the troublesome pupil proves to be the pick of the basket,—the keen student and the loyal co-worker: and perhaps more than one headmistress who reads these pages will wish that she had been privileged to have the training of Sophia Jex-Blake. Many admirable women prayed and wept over her in those days, struggled to make her all they thought she ought to be; and, if their perseverance and devotion seemed to be inadequately rewarded, this was due to no fault of theirs. They were what the Society of that day demanded, what Society made them. They were wanting only in what just chanced to be almost the one thing needful,—the modern spirit. Rather behind their own day, their lot was to be the trainers of a girl, who—unconsciously to herself—was far in advance of her own day,—a girl who would have appreciated to the utmost the free boyish education of our High Schools for girls, and who—had it been her good fortune to have lived under such auspices—might have written a somewhat different page in the book of life.
It is with a definite sense of relief that one takes up the thread of S. J.-B.’s life after she leaves school. She is still, it is true, a problem and a perplexity to many, and sometimes to those who loved her best: but at least she appeals now to a wider tribunal: her qualities get a chance to tell, even if they do not precisely conform to the pattern laboriously cut out by an early Victorian schoolmistress.
Her health, unhappily, still left a good deal to be desired. The doctors had much to say of the irritability of her brain. The stethoscope was supposed, too, to reveal something wrong with her heart, but this must have been functional, as no trace of it was discoverable in after life. Riding, fortunately was now allowed, and she entered into the enjoyment of it with characteristic intensity; but beyond this, in the early days of her—comparative—freedom, she certainly took no pains to improve her physique. The enterprising young women of those days had still so much to learn! It seldom occurred to them to balance their physical expenditure with their receipts.
Meanwhile it is not to be supposed that her parents had gained greater control over her than when she was a child: they remained quite uncompromising in the matter of dancing, theatre-going, and other “worldly” amusements, but they were unsuccessful in making her conform to the ordinary, wholesome, old-fashioned routine of English family life. Naturally her self-will in this respect annoyed both parents very much, and Mrs. Jex-Blake must often have been sorely put to it to restrain her own impatience and to preserve any semblance of peace.
To her credit be it said that she rose to a difficult situation in a manner that makes praise an impertinence. One is glad to gather from the records that her physical health was now on a firmer basis than formerly, but that was only one element in the case. Always a deeply religious woman, she seems to have stepped now into the full freedom of her faith,—faith, not only in God, but in the essential goodness and uprightness of her wayward child. She seems to have realized fully for the first time that the stormy ways which tried her so sorely were not a mere matter of whim and wilfulness, but that they arose from a definite strain in her daughter,—a strain that caused no small suffering to the owner of that nature,—a strain possibly fundamental in character, certainly far too deeply imbedded to be easily eradicated. And, having realized this, the Mother set herself, not as before to criticise the evil, but to foster and rejoice in the good, to make life as easy as might be, to reduce friction to a minimum, and, above all, to surround her daughter with a real glow and radiance of sympathy.
How sorely tried that sympathy must often have been, we can partly understand when we compare the old-world fragrance of the Mother’s personality with all that is suggested to us now by the name of Sophia Jex-Blake. “When I was young,” the Mother used to say, “it was not a question of whether we should marry, but simply of whom we should marry.” And to her lot fell a daughter who rarely thought of marriage at all, whose brain was teeming with all sorts of unfettered boyish ambitions, who made it clear to everyone whom it might concern that she meant to live her own life,—to “make good the faculties of herself” in the way that pleased her best.
And yet there was something in all this audacious, spontaneous life that found an answering chord in the Mother’s heart. She was not a phlegmatic conventional person by nature herself. She too, perhaps, long before, had beaten eager wings against the bars. In any case from this time on the friendship between the two was a sacred thing, never flagging, comparable with the most beautiful friendships in history.
Fortunately we have S. J.-B.’s own account of those first days at home:
“1857. Dec. 17th. Thursday. Came home for good. For good? Who can tell? Oh, what would I give to look forward ten, aye five, short years, and see what I shall be. Just 18; half my life at school. Then 28. Dr. Moore says,—and there seems a strange prophecy in his words,—that I shall be something, something good if not great, but not in the way I hope;[11] that ‘on a ruin of broken columns and shattered Grecian capitols, shall be laid the foundation of a temple of God.’ There’s something comes home to my heart in those shattered columns,—
Oh, that I had the strength, the faith, to pray so honestly,—but God help me! I have prayed little enough lately. I seem in such a torpor, such a prostration of mind, body, and, I fear, soul. I hope there is much physical in this.
That beautiful hymn,—‘What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!’ Once. So it is, and now. Never mind; I think God must have some mercy, some hope, to me when He has given and preserved to me my darling, my angel Mother. She seems a pledge of hope.
Well, shall I be a great authoress as my day and night dreams prompt me to hope?... Shall I ever be a happy wife and mother? Shall I ere ten years, or half ten years have passed, be dust?... I sometimes think so. (June 1st. 1869. At any rate never thought of being a sawbones.)
Dec. 25th. How awfully sentimental my first entries do look!... Daddy says he is sorry I have anything that ‘wants a lock.’ Hm, how very well he understands me and my wants! Never mind; dear old man, he is very loving and kind if not brilliant. Oh, Mother, Mother, what should I do without you?... Just said how earnestly I hoped never to see one dear to me die, that I may die first. ‘Oh, don’t think of self at all, Sophy,’ she said, ‘Just see what good you can do.’ Right.
31st. Writing now in my own dear room, darling Mother, how every article in it speaks of her love! They have gone to a New Year’s Eve prayer meeting at St. Mark’s School,—uncommonly slow, I should think. I do think however ‘good’ I became,—or rather I wonder whether I ever could like such very slow spiritualities. Still there’s Bishop Wilberforce and his ‘scaffolding.’ Don’t cry ‘spirit’ and take away ‘means,’—remove the scaffolding because its work is not accomplished.”
For some time she had been writing a story based on her own school life at Mrs. Teed’s,—a story that was never finished. It is very well written of course, but diffuse, and interesting chiefly for its autobiographical touches. She is intensely loyal to both school and schoolmistress, and one feels on reading her descriptions a fresh sense of regret that it should have been necessary to take her away from an atmosphere that seems in many ways to have suited her so well.
One episode is definitely autobiographical, and it is of more than passing interest. The small schoolchildren in the story, playing at “shop,” have helped themselves to a quantity of “jewels” in the shape of scraps of coloured quartz, etc., from a grotto in the garden. The theft being discovered, the heroine is called up first, and, in great fear and trembling, owns to having taken one of the fragments. Questioned as to a second, and fearing to add to her condemnation, she falters, “I don’t know.” Due punishment follows (banishment to bed and enforced reading of the chapter about Eli’s sons), then a public scene in hall and forgiveness. Now comes the point of the episode:
“But still there was one leaden weight on me,—the story I had told [Mrs. Teed] the day before. It seemed as though the forgiveness was not thorough, nor of full value while part of the offence was concealed. How easy it would have been I now saw to confess the whole offence at once, how difficult now! Remembrance, however, of the sorrow of the day before, and some innate love of truth, as I hope, urged me on, and when, after prayers [Mrs. Teed] passed away through the door at the extreme end of the schoolroom, I ran to meet her at the foot of the great staircase which she must ascend to her private rooms, and said hurriedly, ‘Mothy, I think I did not tell you quite the truth yesterday. I said I did not know who picked out the bit of yellow quartz. I think I did know I did.’
‘Thank God, my child,’ she said gently but solemnly, ‘that you have told me the truth now. It is better than a thousand pieces of quartz.’...
Reward enough I certainly had at the time in my lightened heart from that moment, but the effort I had made seemed hardly to merit such rich recompense as it received some time after when I heard that Mothy had said that she would believe everything told her by [S. J.-B.] as if she had seen it herself.
Oh, how proud and happy was I at that moment, and the desire fully to merit testimony so inexpressibly sweet to me had, I verily believe, far more effect on the truthfulness of all my after life than any suffering or punishment could have had; and it in great measure saved me from sinking utterly in after time into that slough of deceit into which almost all schoolgirls do fall at one time or another in more difficult circumstances and in the midst of a lower tone than that of Hertford House. And,—though many will deem, and perhaps rightly, the distinction of little worth,—though often in those after days, under less noble rule, guilty of equivocation, I do not think I ever from that day told a lie.”
We return to the diary:
“1858. Jan. 7th.... I must begin to write again if I don’t mean to lose the knack ... and so ought to go on with Hertford House or write something.... I want partly to write for the money,—now why, I wonder? Honestly, why? I have plenty of everything. In a handsome if not luxurious home, 6 servants all much at my orders, lots of rides, a most loving Mother, tender father, almost every wish gratified, £30 a year clear, and lots of presents, almost at will,—why I should write for money unless I am avaricious or spendthrift I don’t exactly know. Partly for the pride of earning it,—of knowing myself as well able to earn my bread as my inferiors. Surely, though, I ought least of all in my list of comforts—blessing, should I say?—to omit my most happy, most snug nutshell of a room, with its handsome furniture, cosy fire, and thoroughly comfortable arrangements. How truly loving my most precious pearl of a Mother has been to me in this especially....
I have conceived a rather wild idea of writing to Miss M. for counsel and sympathy.... But how get a letter to her? And, if I did, would she think it a bore? I think not. Send the letter to her publishers? Sure not to be opened? Then what to say if I do write? What do I want? Don’t exactly know.
Well, leave it.
Now for the more important at least more solemn part of todays journal. And I must make this some use. Just heard a sermon from Mr. Vaughan on ‘Truth,’—Gehazi being the scape-goat of warning. He spoke strongly of allowing ourselves to say more on religious subjects than we feel, calling it a dangerous deception and leading to worse. But does that include speaking a word—earnest and sincere at least—about the souls of others, tho’ our own may not be safe? Often at school I have felt driven to speak very solemnly to girls about their souls when I feel I am not worthy to say a word, for mine is perhaps as lost as theirs,—and often and often have risen in my throat,—‘Lest when I have preached to others I myself become a castaway.’ Yet if I am,—oh, fearful word, I can hardly write it,—if lost (oh, God, save me!) can it, would it not console, if consolation were possible,—to know I had warned others from the pit into which I fell. And I hope I may have done some little good.... And how happy I have felt—and better in myself too,—if I have even for a moment led some to think of Jesus else forgotten....
Dearest Mrs. Teed is dead. ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.’ ‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!’...
Dear Carry! At a moment like this I can’t help thinking ‘The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour.’ Oh, how far, far more excellent than I am and yet I have sometimes almost despised her because perhaps she has less intellectual power, for I do believe God has given me some genius,—surely there is no pride in saying so, remembering His grace, who gave thee all.
Jan. 8th. Feel very much as if I had been sentimentalizing last night. I wish I could keep in one frame of mind.
Jan. 10th. Sunday. Just been reading the ch. on ‘Happy and Unhappy Women’ in ‘Woman’s Thoughts.’ The Authoress speaks strongly about a sort of repining and melancholy, and about neglected health and almost voluntary sickness,—i.e. voluntary in not taking proper remedies and safe-guards,—and I cannot but feel much she says is not more than truth.
She urges action, usefulness.
Now I cannot but consider whether it does not become me to attend to her hints, or rather to her arguments. Well I am not. Over mental exertion may have had, and I believe has had, very bad effects, still whether by my own fault directly or indirectly I don’t make matters worse, is another question. And certainly my Father and Mother are getting wretchedly anxious about me ... perhaps, unless I make an effort, I may find life ebbing ere half its purposes are accomplished....
At all events efforts are mine, though results are God’s. Yet tho’ I try to draw brilliant pictures of the future, and to persuade myself life is sweet, I can’t but feel that, if I were once assured of peace with God, I could be well content, nay grateful, to escape the waves of this troublesome world, and flee away and be at rest. Rest! Surely it is hardly natural at my age to be longing for it so....[12] But coward! take God’s benefits and flee His service, His battle? It should be our’s ‘to act and to suffer, to do and to pray.’ No, it cannot be right to flee rather than to overcome.
Well, to return. If I am, and ought, to preserve my health, how? Suppose I make some kind of plan for the day, not rigid but suggestive.
Rise, breakfast with the rest of the world. 8½.
Have for walk till 11.
Then either some master or work for myself,—writing, painting, etc., till dinner. 1.
Afternoon will be sure to be taken up with driving. Come in about 4. Then read till tea. After tea write, or read out downstairs. And go to bed with the rest of the world.
That would be rather more rational than my present programme:
Rise and breakfast at 11 or later. Dawdle till dinner.
Drive. Read till tea. Read or write till 2 or 3 a.m. Well, that does sound bad....
Mother and I were talking about my marrying,—the chances pro and con. I said I did not fancy I should ever marry, for I thought I should require too many qualities to meet in the man I could think of as my husband, for it to be likely that I should ever meet such a paragon who could be willing to marry me.
Let me see; the indispensables are I think:—A perfect gentleman, a sincere Christian, a liberal-minded broad-churchman; a lofty intellect to which it would be a pride to bow, a firm will which it would be a pleasure to submit to and concur in; a nice-looking fellow,—for I could not be happy with one whose face I could not love and admire in beauty of expression if not of form, and one whose means combined with mine would lift us above genteel poverty at least....
Had another squabble with Carry because she told me my own Hertford House, which I was looking over, was not fit for Sunday. She does meddle awfully. Still, she’s a precious sight better than I am.... Bother her slow blood! She’ll drive me mad, she and Daddy between them. Never mind, I have got my jewel of a Mother, bless her!
24th. Sunday. Talking in the evening about an old woman in Carry’s district who came from the Barrack Ground, Hastings. And that put it strong into my head how I wanted to go there. I had on Saturday evening written a letter to Amelia about the treat, and then I thought how nice it would be to go and give the treat myself.
30th. Saturday. Seven years today since I last saw old Hastings. Isn’t it strange to return that day seven years! Pouring wet day. Rather afraid of being disappointed in Hastings, I do love it so. But I seemed so to have gone over and over every part in my dreams that I could not be disappointed. I know it all so well.... After dinner went to call on the Andrews. I thought I would go incog. and see if they remembered me. Amelia opened the door. ‘I think the Miss Andrews live here?’ ‘Yes, ma’am.ma’am.’ ‘Are you not connected with the Infant School?’ ‘Yes, ma’am.’ I asked if I might come and see the children. She assented quite soberly. I couldn’t stand it, jumped at her, and pinned her to the wall for a kiss. She knew me in a moment, seized my hands and dragged me in in wild delight....
Then I went to No. 3 [Croft Place] and when Mrs. L. said she did not know me, I said, ‘I wonder if the house does, for I was born in it.’ Then she knew me instantly.”
All this gives a vivid picture of the warm heart and riotous spirits that endeared her to her friends, but there are not wanting indications of the mysterious depression and forebodings—the dread of something worse than death—that are part of the heritage of gifted youth.