You want my opinion about women's studying medicine; you personally have reason to think that the career of medicine is not incompatible with true womanliness, exquisite refinement, perfect grace and breeding. I really cannot copy your whole letter. The symptoms are, alas, only too familiar! You have met your Fate again (and those foolish old Greeks used to believe there were only three of 'em!) and she is a doctor, or is going to be one. Well—it's curious, as I said, for it happens that I have been thinking more or less about the same matter. I used to feel very strongly about it—hang it, I still feel very strongly about it! A girl doesn't know what she is doing when she goes into medicine. I grant that she does it, in many cases, from the highest possible motives. I grant that she is far ahead of most men in her ideas of the profession, and what it means, or ought to mean. But, all the same, she doesn't know what she is going in for, and I cannot conceive of a man's letting any woman he cares for go on with it. She must lose something; she must, I tell you; she cannot help it. And even if it isn't the essential things, still it changes her. She is less woman, less—whatever you choose to call it. A coarser touch has come upon her, and she is changed. Well, I say I believe all this, and I do, with all my soul; and yet, as you say, it's cruel hard for a young creature, all keyed up to a pitch of enthusiasm and devotion and noble aspiration, to be checked like a boy's kite, and brought down to the ground and told to mind her seam. It's cruel hard, I can see that; I can feel and sympathise intensely with all that part of it, and honour the purpose and the spirit, even though I cannot approve of the direction.
Oh, glancing at your letter again, I see that in your friend's case everything seems to be going on smoothly. Well, the principle remains the same. I suppose—I seem to have drifted away from your question, somehow—I suppose one woman in ten thousand may make a good physician. I suppose that this ten-thousandth woman—a woman who is all that you say—may be justified, perhaps, in becoming a physician; whether a woman physician can remain all that you say—ah! that is the question! Man alive, am I Phoebus Apollo, that I should know the answers to all the questions? I wish I could find the way to Delphi myself.
But don't get the idea that you bore me with your confidences, old man. Did I say so? on the contrary, tell me all you can; it interests me extremely. I am thinking about these matters—pathologically—a good deal. A physician has to, of course. Tell me how you feel, how it takes you. Do you find it gets into your breathing sometimes, like rarefied air? Curious sensation, rarefied air—I remember it on Mont Blanc.
What am I doing? Man, I am practising medicine! Cases at present, one typhoid, two tonsilitis, five measles, eight dyspepsia, six rheumatism, et id gen om., one cantankerousness (she calls it depression), one gluttony, one nerves. Pretty busy, but my wheel keeps me in good trim. I have been paddling more or less, too, to keep chest and arms up with the rest of the procession.
The old ladies are as dear as ever; if I am not wholly spoilt, it will not be their fault, bless their kind hearts! The niece is better, I think.
Good-bye, old man! write again soon, and tell me more about Amaryllis. How pretty the classical names are: Chloe, Lalage, Diana, Vesta. I was brought up on Fannies and Minnies and Lotties, with Eliza for a change. Horrible name, Eliza!
GEOFF.
The young doctor had just posted the above letter, and was sauntering along the street on his way home. It lacked an hour of tea-time, and he was wondering which of several things he should do. There was hardly time for a paddle; besides, Vesta Blyth had gone for a drive with the minister's daughter. Geoffrey did not think driving half as good for her as being on the water. He must contrive to get through his afternoon calls earlier to-morrow. He might stop and see how Tommy Candy was,—no! there was Tommy, sitting by the roadside, pouring sand over his head from a tin cup. He was all right, then; the young doctor thought he would be if they stopped dosing him, and fed him like a Christian for a day or two. Well,—there was no one else who could not wait till morning. Why should he not go and call on Mrs. Tree? here he was at the house. It was the hour when in cities the sophisticated clustered about five o'clock tea-tables, and tested the comfort of various chairs, and indulged in talk as thin as the china and bread and butter. Five o'clock tea was unknown in Elmerton, but Mrs. Tree would be glad to see him, and he always enjoyed a crack with her.
He turned in at the neat gate. The house stood well back from the street, in the trimmest and primmest little garden that ever was seen. Most of the shrubs were as old as their owner, and had something of her wrinkled sprightliness; and the annuals felt their responsibilities, and tried to live up to the York and Lancaster rose and the strawberry bush.
The door was opened by a Brownie, disguised in a cap and apron. This was Direxia Hawkes, aunt to Diploma Grotty. In his mind Geoffrey had christened the little house the Aunt's Nest, but he never dared to tell anybody this.