My brain is in a sort of dull ‘waiting’ condition,—‘quo Deus vocat.’ Well, isn’t that best? Yes, if thoroughly honest.
I suppose the constant worry and constant thwarting have made me almost wild to break away for a bit. I feel somehow as if my mind were all strained, and this better than anything would give it back its tone.”
Miss Irby’s idea came to nothing for lack of funds, but in any case, of course, S. J.-B. could not have gone. It was she who held in her hands all the parliamentary threads, and she was looking anxiously for some practical outcome from Lord Sandon’s promise of the year before. On January 14th, however, Mr. Cowper Temple wrote:
“Dear Miss Blake,
The Government are not prepared to tell me whether they will introduce any Bill next session on the subject of the medical registration of women, and therefore it will be necessary for me to bring in my Bill again at the commencement of the session....”
S. J.-B. thought it worth while, however, to remind the Government tactfully of their promise, and she had learned by bitter experience to keep every possible iron in the fire. So a deputation from the London School of Medicine for Women, headed by Lord Aberdare, and including herself and Mrs. Anderson, waited on the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, Lord President of the Privy Council. The mission was ably voiced by Lord Aberdare, Mr. Stansfeld, and Mr. Forsyth, M.P., Q.C., whose name now appeared on the back of Mr. Cowper Temple’s Bill; but, although courteously received, the deputation elicited no farther encouragement.
In these circumstances, Mr. Cowper Temple again introduced his “Foreign Degrees” Bill, but fortune did not favour him in the matter of the ballot for dates, and, in the meantime, S. J.-B. writes in her diary:
“Saturday, May 13th. Saw Russell Gurney [who was now Recorder of London]. Found Government had intimated to him that he should bring in Bill enabling all nineteen bodies,—to be shown to General Medical Council on 24th.
If this passes!
Might graduate at Edinburgh after all.”