After all, my aspiration to L. E. S. was not so ill-founded,—‘If I can be the first woman to open a British University’—then surely I, like Charlotte Brontë ‘shall have served, my heart and I’—even if I die straightway.
For May, June and July, the Botany, Natural History, and Histology, with preparation for the Matriculation exam.
Oh, dear, I do feel so exultant.... In one sense I do see all the life-preamble to have been needed. The experience in the United States gave me much more chance of success now,—the life there gave me health really to use the chance when it comes.
I hardly fear the future at all;—not the students, nor the work.
I am sorry not to be with Mother, but on the whole this must be best, I think.
Four years of College! All alone? Surely not literally all the time—spiritually, who knows?
What a pity, as I said to U.D. that they will use up gold for toasting-forks!
Well, I am sure the hind-wheels may run by faith for a long time now. Perhaps the tangle is beginning to unravel after all these years,—and I shall have to cry, ‘Oh, why didn’t I bear on better then!’ I suppose that is always the feeling when the cloud begins to lift. But till it lifts,—
‘Still it is hard. No darkness will be light
Though we should call it light from night till morn.’