I suppose I may now thank you again on paper for all your help, dear Dora. You can’t cough me down so conveniently. You don’t know how much you have helped me through.
Yours affectly,
S. L. J.-B.”[S. L. J.-B.”]
Previously to this decision, S. J.-B. had published sensible letters on the subject in The Scotsman, The Daily Review and other papers. She also drafted an amusing letter in reply to her own, supposed to have been written by one of the retrogressive “unco guid.”
“Well, it was grand fun,” she says in her diary, “and, if it had got in, might have played very well; but the chief temptation was the immense fun it would be. E. G. and I both thought we could command our faces. Her sister opposed, but we agreed, ‘No harm. We don’t sign to it,—and it’s what some might say; and, if the Review puts it in, it’s their look-out. It’s so weak, it can’t do harm that way.’[way.’] She said, ‘Don’t let me know about it.’ I said she was very much like ‘Tom, steal the apple, and I’ll have half.’
Well, we agreed to send it and no harm done. I went to bed. I wasn’t quite content, yet I didn’t see any exact wrong,—and it was such fun!...
Then somehow those dear eyes fixed themselves on me and I felt their sad grieved look. I can’t, I can’t,—they would grieve,—‘Oh, Sophy!’
For a minute I went back,—‘Nonsense, no harm,’—then—
‘Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear,’