More gifts on this scale did not follow forthwith, but her lecture and the book that followed it were bringing in a return that was worth even more. They were arousing interest among men who might be able to assist the cause in a bigger way than had yet suggested itself.
“I wonder,” writes Miss Wolstenholme, “whether you are aware how deeply interested Mr. Stansfeld is in your question, and how warmly disposed to help you by legislation or in any other way.”[[106]]
There follow a number of suggestions as to the amendment of the Medical Act of 1858.
Meanwhile the University had appealed to the Inner House against Lord Gifford’s judgment, and—after hanging fire for long months—the case at this juncture became imminent.
It was in the midst of all this that preparation for the professional examination went on.
Of course the task ought not to have been a formidable one. S. J.-B. had done excellent class-work in the subjects required, and they had been simmering in her mind for years; but everyone who has watched the career of many students knows that that man stands the best chance of acquitting himself well who, having got his subject up, goes in for the examination straightway, before the natural process of selection and assimilation in his own mind emphasizes this item and discards that, as the case may be. The knowledge one wants for an examination is not the knowledge that becomes one’s working equipment for life.
The “last straw” for S. J.-B. was the distressing illness of a very dear friend in the course of those five precious weeks, and finally we come without surprise to the following entry in the diary:
“Sunday, Oct. 6th. Rather out of heart. I can’t get courage or sense for the Organic Chemistry, and must leave it till E. P. comes; and the Botany seems so desperately voluminous! My head seems tired,—I can’t make it work more than an hour or so at a time,... But somehow my fatalism makes me think I shall get through, when E. P. comes and quiets me,—she comes Thursday, 10th.”
“Oct. 11th. I’ve had such bother about Anatomy rooms, etc., and shall have to organize about Fund, etc.