The diary continues:
“Everyone most wonderfully kind and helpful to us personally—lots of offers of introductions, etc. That nice Dr. Sewall very anxious that I should not tire myself out and ‘get sick’. By the bye one really can converse with her, I think.”
There is a kind little note from Dr. Sewall also:
“My dear Miss Blake,
As usual this evening I enjoyed your society so much that I forgot to say half that I wanted to....
If you call on Mr. Emerson today, I think you had better call in the afternoon, as he told me he was engaged Wednesday and Saturday forenoons.
Don’t have any neuralgia when you come to the Hospital today, or I may want to try my Electromagnetic machine on your face. I have not seen Dr. Zakrzewska yet, but I want you to come early.
Yours sincerely,
Lucy C. Sewall.”
Dr. Lucy Sewall was at this time a young woman of 28, a worthy descendant of “a long line of truly noble ancestry.”[[37]] She held the appointment of Resident Physician to the New England Hospital for Women and Children (an institution which had been founded in great measure through the exertions of her father, the Hon. Samuel Sewall), but there was nothing about her to suggest that she had adopted what was at that time an unusual line of life for a woman. Singularly girlish in appearance, she was and remained throughout life so gentle and womanly that, until one knew her well, her reserves of strength were a source of repeated surprise. “So simple and humble and kindly,” writes S. J.-B. at this time,—“said she ‘could not succeed in learning to think enough before she spoke about a case.’”