Of course an individual success cannot but assist a movement of the kind quite as surely as any other contribution.
One thing the two pioneers had in common,—a fine honesty and truthfulness: much plain speaking passed between them: and, if it had been possible for two such different natures to see things eye to eye, no want of candour or breadth of view on either side would have prevented it. Here is a sample of their correspondence:
“Hampstead.
21st August, 1874.
Dear Mrs. Anderson,
If I kept a record of all the people who bring me cock and bull stories about you, and assure me that you are “greatly injuring the cause,” I might fill as many pages with quotations as you have patience to read, but, beyond defending you on a good many occasions, I have never thought it needful to take much notice of such incidents, still less to retail them to you.
Nor do I much care to know whether or no certain anonymous individuals have confided to you that they lay at my door what you call “the failure at Edinburgh,”—inasmuch as the only people really competent to judge of that point are my fellow-workers and fellow-students, such as Professor Masson, Professor Bennett, Miss Stevenson, Mrs. Thorne, Miss Pechey, Dr. Watson, and Dr. Balfour, and I do not fancy that it is from any of these that you have heard the comments in question.
It can, as I say, serve no purpose whatever to go into this sort of gossip which is very rarely indeed founded on any knowledge of facts; but, quite apart from any such discussion, I am more than willing to say that if, in the opinion of a majority of those who are organizing this new school, my name appears likely to injure its chances of success, I will cheerfully stand aside, and let Mrs. Thorne and Miss Pechey carry out the almost completed plans.
So much for your second objection [to joining the Council of the School] which I have taken first, because I feel that the other is for your own consideration and Dr. Anstie’s, and that it is needless for me to say anything on the point.
In conclusion let me say that I never said it ‘did not signify’ whether you joined the Council (though I did say that I believed the School was already tolerably secure of ultimate success.) I think it of very great importance, both for your credit and ours, that there should, as you say, be no appearance of split in the camp, and I should greatly prefer that your name should appear on the Council with Dr. Blackwell’s and those of the medical men who are helping us.