We cannot be too grateful to one member of the Unit who, in her impressions of Dr. Inglis, has given us a picture of her during these months in Russia that will live:
"I think so much stress has been laid, by those who worked under her, on the leader who said there was no such word as 'can't' in the dictionary, that the extraordinarily lovable personality that lay at the root of her leadership is in danger of being obscured. I do not mean by this that we all had a romantic affection for her. Her influence was of a much finer quality just because she never dragged in the personal element. She was the embodiment of so much, and achieved more in her subordinates, just because she had never to depend for their loyalty on the limits of an admired personality.
"There is no one I should less like to hear described as 'popular.' No one had less an easy power of endearing herself at first sight to those with whom she came in contact—at least, in the relations of the Unit. The first impression, as has been repeated over and over again, was always one of great strength and singleness of purpose, but all those fine qualities with which the general public is, quite rightly, ready to credit her had their roots in a serenity and gentleness of spirit which that same public has had all too little opportunity to realize. Her Unit itself realized it slowly enough. They obeyed at first because she was stronger than they, only later because she was finer and better.
"You know it was not, at least, an easy job to win the best kind of service from a mixed lot of women, the trained members of which had never worked under a woman before, and were ready with their very narrow outlook to seize on any and every opportunity for criticism. There was much opposition, more or less grumblingly expressed at first. No one hesitated to do what she was told—impossible with Dr. Inglis as a chief—but it was grudgingly done. In the end it was all for the best. If she had been the kind of person who took trouble to rouse an easy personal enthusiasm, the whole thing would have fallen to pieces at the first stress of work; on the other hand, if she had never inspired more than respect, she would never have won the quality of service she succeeded in winning. The really mean-spirited were loyal just so long as she was present because she daunted them, and Dr. Inglis's disapproval was most certainly a thing to be avoided. But the great majority, whatever their personal views, were quickly ready to recognize her authority as springing from no hasty impulse, but from a finely consistent discipline of thought.
"We were really lucky in having the retreat at the beginning of the work. It helped the Unit to realize how complete was the radical confidence they felt in her. I think her extraordinary love of justice was next impressed upon them. It took the sting out of every personal grievance, and was so almost passionately sincere it hardly seemed to matter if the verdict went against you. Her selflessness was an example, and often enough a reproach, to every one of us, and to go to her in any personal difficulty was such a revelation of sympathy and understanding as shed a light on those less obvious qualities that really made all she achieved possible.
"People have often come to me and said casually, 'Oh yes, Dr. Inglis was a very charming woman, wasn't she?' And I have felt sorely tempted to say rather snappishly, 'No, she wasn't.' Only they wouldn't have understood. It is because their 'charming' goes into the same category as my 'popular.'
"I am afraid you will hardly have anticipated such an outburst; the difficulty is, indeed, to know where to stop. For what could I not say of the way her patients adored her—the countless little unerring things she did and said which just kept us going, when things were unusually depressing, or the Unit unusually weary and homesick; the really good moments when one won the generous appreciation that was so well worth the winning; and last—if I may strike this note—her endless personal kindness to me."
The following letter to her sister, Mrs. Simson, reveals something of the lovable personality of Elsie Inglis. The nephew to whom it refers was wounded in the eye at the battle of Gaza, and died a fortnight before she did.
"Odessa,
"June 24th, 1917."Dearest, Dearest Amy,
"Eve's letter came yesterday about Jim, and though I start at seven to-morrow morning for Reni, I must write to you, dear, before I go. Though what one can say I don't know. One sees these awful doings all round one, but it strikes right home when one thinks of Jim. Thank God he is still with us. The dear, dear boy! I suppose he is home by now. And anyhow he won't be going out again for some time. We are all learning much from this war, and I know —— will say it is all our own faults, but I am not sure that the theory that it is part of the long struggle between good and evil does not appeal more to my mind. We are just here in it, and whatever we suffer and whatever we lose, it is for the right we are standing.... It is all terrible and awful, and I don't believe we can disentangle it all in our minds just now. The only thing is just to go on doing one's bit.... Miss Henderson is taking home with her to-day a Serb officer, quite blind, shot right through behind his eyes, to place him somewhere where he can be trained. I heard of him just after I had read Eve's letter, and I nearly cried. He wasn't just a case at that minute, with my thoughts full of Jim. Dear old Jim! Give him my love, and tell him I'm proud of him. And how splendidly the regiment did, and how they suffered!
"Ever your loving sister,
"Elsie Maud Inglis."
Another of her Unit, who worked with Dr. Inglis not only during the year in Russia, but through much of the strenuous campaign for the Suffrage, gives us these remembrances: