She always had a horror of schoolgirl French, and the practice at one time so common of permitting no talk except in French.
‘Our thinking power was hindered from developing by intercourse with one another, because we were required to speak in a tongue in which we could indeed talk, but in which conversation was impossible; and the language we spoke was one peculiar to English boarding schools.’[13]
Young as Dorothea was when she went to school, she was no doubt distinguished there for her industry and ability, and certainly for her conscientiousness. A little story of this remains. On one occasion she fainted in church, and when some kindly hand removed her bonnet, she revived, and clung to it desperately, because she would not have her head uncovered in church. The weary rounds in the garden lingered in the memory of those who performed them, and there were those who would tell in after years how faithfully the little Dorothea would perform her ‘turns,’ while some girls were not above cheating a little.
The school-days were not prolonged, for ‘fortunately,’ she says,—
‘Ill-health compelled me to leave at thirteen, and then began a valuable time of education under the direction of myself, during which I expended a great deal of energy in useless directions, but gained more than I should have probably done at any existing school; dreaming much, and seeking for a fuller realisation of the great spiritual realities, which make one feel that all knowledge is sacred. We had access to two large libraries; one that of the London Institution, the other that of Crosby Hall; besides which the Medical Book Club circulated many books of general interest, which were read by all and talked over at meal-times and in the evening, when my father used often to read aloud to us. Novels rarely came our way, but we found pasturage enough. We read a great deal of history: the works of Froissart, Thierry, Thiers, Alison, Miller’s Philosophy of History, Sir James Stephen’s books, Prescott’s, Creasy’s stand out very distinctly to memory.’[14]
The reading of a book named Scientific Dialogues she counted also as an era in her mental history. All the good reviews of the time, the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and Blackwood’s Magazine, came in her way, with books of travel and biographies. She made elaborate tables on all sorts of subjects, some of which in neat handwriting may still be seen. She had access to all Whately’s works, and worked up alone his Logic and Rhetoric.
This unwearied study was no accumulation of knowledge for its own sake, it was the outcome of a true if youthful admiration for what was noble and good. ‘I worshipped for years Isabella of Castile. Sir James Stephen’s essay on George the Third filled my imagination with magnificent visions; his Port Royalists were my ideal characters; especially was Pascal a hero, I read and re-read his Life and Provincial Letters.’[15]
Pascal’s life perhaps breathed for her a spirit of emulation. ‘I borrowed a Euclid, and without any help read the first six books, carefully working through the whole of the fifth, as I did not know what was usually done. It did not occur to me to ask my father for lessons in such subjects.’[16] She also made some way with algebra, and calculated for herself the distance to the moon. Much time, she owned, was wasted by working alone. But the very difficulties proved a source of help, showing her the value of knowledge acquired by effort and search, as opposed to mere information received from another. In all her reading she received both help and sympathy from her aunt, Elizabeth Complin, who herself understood Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, had considerable taste for mathematics, and was fond of philosophy. She was one of the first subscribers to Mudie’s. The London Library was also a mine of wealth to the young readers.
Outside her home, the chief educational influence for Dorothea at this period must have been the lectures of the Literary Institution at Crosby Hall, and more especially the Gresham Lectures. She attended some of these in company with a younger sister, who often grew weary and hungry when Dorothea, after a long morning’s work, would stay to talk abstrusely with a professor, or linger over a bookstall on the way home to dinner. The professor was probably Mr. Pullen, of whose lectures on astronomy she wrote that they ‘inspired a passionate desire to know more of mathematics, and to understand all the processes described. I obtained books on mechanics and spelt them out as well as I was able, but was often baffled. The mysteries of the Calculus I pored over in vain ... not knowing that I lacked the knowledge which alone could make it intelligible.’[17]