Читать книгу The Life of Sophia Jex-Blake - Graham Travers - Страница 13

“Certificate examination nearly 4 hours. Out of 23 problems did 20½. So I trust I am pretty safe. I did get rather frightened as the time drew on, but really have worked hard and I trust won. Sent a telegram, ‘Success’ to Mother, though the declaration is not yet made.

July 28th. My certificate won triumphantly and marked, ‘with great credit’.”

Of course she was working too hard.

“I have a great deal of work in College,” she confesses some time later. I take 8 classes—English Literature, English History, Mental and Moral Philosophy, Theology, Church History, Algebra, Geometry, and German Conversation; and have 7 pupils. I am afraid it is too much altogether.”

And what about the ordinary traditional preoccupations and vanities of a young girl’s life in the midst of these manifold interests and claims?—what about thoughts of dress, of personal appearance, of love and marriage? Well, obviously there was little room left for any of these. S. J.-B. was under the impression that she cared a good deal about dress, and she would not have been flattered if anyone had expressed a different opinion. As a matter of fact she never had time to give the subject much more than a passing thought, and the poor little remnant of an allowance that remained when more pressing claims and numerous little charities had been met, was barely sufficient to pay for the work of an ordinary seamstress. The adaptable coat and skirt, and the endless variety of cheap ready-made dress had not then come to the aid of the educated working-girl, and S. J.-B. did not realize the difficulty of the problem she had to tackle.

“I should like to see your muslin at 3s. 6d. before I got one,” writes honest Ellie. “You know you are the last person in the world I should copy in dress, or who I would trust to get one for me, for it is the only thing almost you know nothing about, and you have very peculiar, and, I think, generally bad taste.”

The letter may have been written in a moment of irritation about something else, or indeed about this very subject of dress, for young folks are sensitive as to the appearance of their valued friends; but it certainly contained more than a germ of truth. Fortunately youth and a radiant personality cover a multitude of shortcomings in this respect, and contemporary correspondence often points to the extent to which the Almighty had “favoured” S. J.-B. “in person as well as in mind.” In this connection there is an interesting letter of this period from an old schoolfellow, the daughter of a former schoolmistress. After a graphic account of a lecture by Thackeray, at which the writer had the good fortune to be present, she says:

“In face Thackeray is the image of—whom, do you think? Guess. Someone you know—of yourself. Yes, indeed, of you, Sophy Blake. Mama and I were both struck, almost startled, by the resemblance.”

It happened by a curious coincidence some years later that Laurence was taking S. J.-B.’s portrait not very long after he had taken Thackeray’s, and he expressed himself as greatly struck by the similarity of the lines in the two faces. S. J.-B.’s magnificent, speaking brown eyes, however, were hers alone. “If they were taken out and laid on a plate,” said a forcible young friend, “they would still be beautiful!”

As regards love and marriage, one can only say that, for a girl in the middle of the last century she thought of them surprisingly little. She speaks occasionally of her own marriage as if it were as much a matter of course as her coming of age, and, after enjoying some pleasant boy-and-girl intercourse with an unknown “H.” at the house of her cousins, she describes him as “the sort of man I may probably marry in the end.” Visiting a newly-married girl cousin, she frankly admits the charm of the comradeship, for indeed, as a friend said of her (with more truth than elegance of diction) a few years later than the point we have reached: “You have taken on you a hard, hard vocation from your youngest days—and yet it is scarcely so hard for anyone in the world to stand alone.”

In any case S. J.-B. went straight on her course, like many of the finest girls of our own day, without giving any thought to cross currents that might alter the course of her life. And indeed her daily life was absorbing enough. It is scarcely surprising if, among her many interests, her religious life was somewhat smothered for the time, or that, at least she thought so.

“Mrs. Thornton called my doing what I had done ‘noble’. Yes, if for His sake, but, alas, much more—altogether—for my own. Yet my loving the work is no disqualification for doing it for Him. I trust I do do good a little. Surely honest intellectual help is something, if of lower class. … I have thought—I cannot take more work, Sunday School, etc., but what I do is good in its degree; if done in His name, surely He will accept it.”

More and more, as she looked back on her own school life from the vantage-ground of a year at Queen’s College, she felt how much the education of girls might be improved. On the last night of the year she writes:

“In this year my idea of work in the cause of education has developed itself into that of a resident College of the Holy Trinity. Heaven knows if ever to be carried out. If good—yes, doubtless—if not, God will raise up better. Little ‘religious’ as I fear I am, I do feel this thoroughly. …

‘And may the New Year cherish

All the hopes that now are bright.’

Such a happy loving Goodnight to and from Daddy and Mummy. Very happy I am tonight.

‘And once more ere thou perish,

Old Year, Good night! Good night!’ ”