Things seem to crowd on me so. And other people get such nice long holidays!—oh, dear! Well, as Robertson says, everything has its price....
Then H. [the Anatomy teacher]. The Court refused him flat on Monday, on ground of ‘no evidence of qualification’! He on Tuesday is to send in his diplomas and other testimonials, and I have to get them copied and printed, etc.
My own Botany stuck fast,—I nervous and shaky again,—feeling strength go out of me drop by drop.
If only the 22nd were well over!
E. P. came back yesterday, dear child,—so loving and good.”
At this point S. J.-B. breaks off to record the—very indifferent—achievements of the new students in their preliminary examination!
“Oct. 22nd. Professional Exam.... Did good paper in Nat. Hist.,—fair in Chemistry, poor in Botany. Went down to Falkirk to sleep.[[107]]
“Oct. 23rd. Came up for Practical Chemistry Exam. White Millar met me and worried me for [law] papers. Head dazed,—Crum Brown let me up [? off] till another day.”
Well, there is no use in “spinning out the agony.” S. J.-B. was rejected in her examination. With a mental endowment obviously far above the average in either sex, she found herself, after all these years of study,—so far as any practical result was concerned—absolutely at the foot of the ladder. She had nothing whatever to show for her work: she had failed in a test that almost any schoolboy can pass,—and the eye of the civilized world was upon her.
There is no denying that it was bad to bear, and the tragic part of the matter was that she could not bring herself to believe that—in the subject of Natural History at all events—her paper had been fairly treated. So many petty difficulties had been thrown in her way all along, so little magnanimity had been shown her by some of those in authority, that her fighting instinct rose almost automatically to the encounter. What could this be but simply one effort more on the part of the enemy to defeat her per omne fas et nefas?[[108]]