Off tonight for Dublin with E. P. Dr. A[tkins] also to join. ‘Omne ignotum pro magnifico.’ The various tests loom vague and large. Diagnosis at bedside,—horrible,—though enormously helped by Brompton experience. Recognition of drugs and things under microscope. 4 written exams. 2 hrs. oral, etc., etc.
I feel as if I really had fairly mastered my subjects and must know more than the average medical practitioner just fledged,—not to say have more sense.
But the stake is so enormous. A pluck would be so perfectly awful after all antecedents.
But in spite of my work, my brain is wonderfully well and clear.”
“Monday, May 7th. 9.45 p.m. Books closed after 4½ hours’ reading and examination,—not to be opened probably till all is over!
Be the fates propitious,—as I really think they ought, ... I the most comfortable of the three. ‘Where angels fear...?’ No,—I rather think on the principle of ‘While the child, etc.’
I’ve done my utmost,—and results are God’s.”
One is thankful to record that results were safe in His hands (as indeed S. J.-B. would have said they must have been whatever the examiners had decided). Two or three days later the three women, with a number of men, were solemnly summoned to the Board Room,—“repeated declaration after Registrar, then signed book, and Dr. Hayden, as Vice-President, took the hand of each and ‘admitted’ us!”
“Oh, dear, after long travail, good repose!”
“All dreadfully overwrought and tired. E. P. and I came to fisticuffs over Mrs. A.’s Memorial to London University. Pair of fools!”