Anonymous

“ Lives cut off in our childhood and youth, or perhaps before we were born, may have endowed us with this or that constitutional bias, this weakness, that strength—to which of them do I owe this fault?—is this trait, for which I am commended, my own, or my great grandmother’s?—insoluble complexities, yet how we seek an answer, here and there, as we study our tree of life from the roots up! ”

“ The Doctor was then probably forty years of age—a tall, large-framed man, with a superb head, a fine brow, a firm mouth and chin, a face always pale, but eloquent with the determination to rise above suffering. Neurasthenic, crippled since youth from an injury to one knee, he was subject to frequent breakdowns, was seldom free from pain, and his work, confined to an office practice, was done under great disadvantage. I think he has the kindest eyes I have ever seen—eyes that look deep into the soul, seeing all its frailties and struggles, its triumphs and defeats. ”

“ I knew I should never meet friends like them again. As the days passed we drew nearer in sympathy; we had grown so in the habit of one another that the thought of separation was painful. Sometimes we sat long together saying little, not daring to trust ourselves to speak; then perhaps she would make a dash at me, hug and kiss me vigorously, and rush from the room, only to rush back again, angry at herself for this betrayal of emotion. Popping her head in the door, she would call to the Doctor:
“Come, Dearie, you better come home, too—before you get to snivelling,”—thus saving the situation. ”

“ It was perhaps after a half dozen calls that he began telling me about his early life, of his proud and passionate mother, and of her second marriage to a man so vastly inferior in race and breeding that his childhood and youth were made utterly miserable. As he recounted some of the experiences of his boyhood, and the shame and rage he had often been made to feel because of taunts concerning his step-father, I felt a great pity for him, and was able to understand, in a measure, his curious outbursts of temper of which he told me. ”

“ Through his writings I had learned to love all outdoors; to feel a kinship with Nature which had deeply enriched my life; and at length there came a day when I journeyed to his home, sat by his hearth, and felt a deepening of the sense of comradeship that I had felt in reading his books. He became my friend. Many years later I even gathered strawberries with him and Dr. Randolph from the upland meadows of which he had written in that essay which was the means of bringing this rare friendship into my life. ”

“ Going home in the early dawn, the queer look of the quiet streets, the physical weariness, combined with the night’s experiences, made me feel years older. Stealing up the steps at home and creeping into the hammock on the veranda, I slept until the opening of doors and windows in the house announced the family astir.
Perhaps a year after the death of this girl, another schoolmate died of the same disease—a brilliant, beautiful girl with smouldering dark eyes, a girl of great promise, who had made a brave fight for life. ”

“ A few years ago, one summer day, I went into Trinity and sat long in the obscurity—the solitude, the silence, and the enveloping peace were inexpressibly soothing. I seemed again to feel the uplift that had always come on hearing Phillips Brooks. I thought of all that had happened to me since, as a girl, I used to hear him pour out his rapid, inspired utterances. How directly they always came to me! ”

“ Sister, seeing the sorrow that follows in the wake of such indulgence, loses patience with a weakness she cannot understand, upbraids him, and chides the rest of us for lenience; yet, in spite of herself, breaks through her resolutions and, in practical ways, dispenses timely aid; and I, knowing it to be a disease, perhaps largely an inheritance, am bound to regard it charitably. Trying to throw around him what safeguards we can, I am thankful for the periods of well-doing, and can but be merciful when defeat comes. He tries hard, never stops trying, and suffers keen remorse at times. ”

“ While he was working over me I could hardly wait to see how Annette would look when I should tell her all about it. What a silly happy girl I was with my broken arm! Even having to stay out of school was compensated for by his daily visits. I treasured his lightest word. He whisked in, breezy and cheery. It was delightful to hear him speak my name—his rich, full voice, and his slight stammer—I doted on them. Days when the splints had to be changed and the bandage loosened were red-letter days, as his calls were then lengthened. ”

“ Childhood memories, trivial and signal events, portraiture, incidents, form a picture of real life convincing as only real things can convince. Through it we look into a heart and a life. It is life. One sees the writer from her forebears up. With what admirable art she brings certain scenes before us! One is present, sees and feels them all, and shares her inmost thoughts and emotions. One’s tears stand trembling at the doorway ”

“ One rejoices to know that there were imps in the girl who shows at the same time such a serious, earnest nature, such a vibrant, susceptible personality. One likes her for her pranks and her naughtiness, her stubbornness, her primness, and her deep attachments. She piques one and leads one on, a willing sharer in all her experiences. One comes to see that he is always to expect the unexpected from this demure, enigmatic creature who, though preserving her own individuality, is so like all girls of her time and race. ”

“ There, in that little bedroom, the Doctor and my father looking on, on my twenty-third birthday, I made the examination which revealed to us the cause of those agonizing attacks from which Grandma so long had suffered; but it was little more than a careful study of the case ought to have shown during life. In these later years I have thought with horror of the girl that stood there that afternoon and cut through the breast that had nourished her mother; through the dear breast that had pillowed so often her own childish head; down, down, into the poor, out-worn heart. ”

“ I thought then, and still think, that there is nothing in the study or practice of medicine that need make a woman less womanly. It ought rather to make her more so. By reason of being a woman she may lack some qualities that go to make the ideal physician, but, if so, this limits her as a physician; it need not detract from her qualities as a woman. [Pg 190] But few women, and by no means all men, physicians, possess the mechanical skill and other qualities that make a good surgeon; but the general practice of medicine, I think, is not beyond the mastery of many a woman’s mind and strength. ”

“ I shrank from such an ending to so beautiful a friendship, then blushed with shame at my unfounded fear. I was experiencing for the first time what, I think, is one of the saddest things about transgressions—the feeling of suspicion toward others that grows in us as soon as we have done wrong ourselves, or have even nibbled at the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. ”

“ In the rapid setting down of what comes crowding into the consciousness as the canvas of one’s life unrolls before him, one is not especially concerned with the orderly sequence of events; mental associations are intractable forces to deal with; a certain looseness of exterior matters is inevitable; the eye cannot look both in and out at the same time. What really matters is that one accurately read one’s own consciousness, without mistakes, without self-deception, without wilful deceit. ”

“ In New York, we witnessed the splendid spectacle of the Washington Centennial celebration; and then, in early May, returned to our little village amid the drumlins.
Spectacles and parades have never much interested me, but, besides the Washington Centennial parade, I recall one other (a few years later, however) which stands out significantly, more especially because of my own reactions to it. As a girl I had always been more moved by history or fiction dealing with any other nationality than with my own. ”

“ As Father, the Doctor, and the Professor were great cronies, I presume my teacher knew of the plan long before I did.
Dr. Barnard was a man of perhaps thirty-five, though to me he then seemed much older. He was comparatively a newcomer in the town but, being a Mason, found favour in Father’s sight. A good man with whom to be associated, a student of human nature, kind, easy-going, with a keen sense of humour, he was wide-awake as a physician and, what is especially to the point, he did not take me too seriously, but wisely concealed from me that he did not. ”

“ I felt the humiliation of our position before the girl who was showing impatience for us to start, but summoned enough spunk to say, “Please tell the Superintendent we would like to see her when she is at liberty.”
Leaving us with the parting shot that “Every room in the house is taken,” she went away.
Bursting into tears, Belle declared she would go home on the morrow; she didn’t want to study medicine—had never wanted to—only did it to please her people—didn’t like Boston—hated Dr. Matson, and didn’t want to be a woman doctor any way; she would go back and teach school. ”

“ One evening Belle and I closed our transom tight and lit a cigar which one of the men students had given me at college, daring me to smoke it. (And for a girl to smoke in those days was—well, most unusual.) How it smarted the lips! I didn’t like it a bit, but smoked it to the bitter end. And then we were scared, fearing the odour would penetrate the hall. Quickly airing the room, we sat down with our books and our bones; and none too soon; for down the hall came the matron, sniffing and declaring she smelled cigar smoke. ”

“ Our unfeeling idol remained in ignorance of our adoration, and actually wooed and married an attractive young woman of his own age! We tortured ourselves with watching the progress of this courtship, and tried hard to pose as blighted beings during the week of his wedding. At the fatal hour that gave him to another, we agreed to withdraw from the gaze of the cold world and battle with our sorrow alone. It fell to me to pick Grandma’s raspberries at that hour; but the hands could perform their task though the heart was wrung with grief. ”

“ Going from student to student, the Demonstrator instructed and encouraged each in turn. Soon the room, thinned of its spectators, took on a different aspect: the novices bent over their work with interest and absorption. [Pg 197] The painful emotion I had felt at seeing those bodies, stripped and at the mercy of our little knives and forceps, soon gave place to genuine enthusiasm. I dreaded the feel of the cold skin, but once that was removed, I was all interest; one then lost sight of the human side, and saw only the beautiful mechanism. ”

“ It is the only book I ever read that I feel ashamed to admit having read, though now I have only the faintest recollection what it was all about.
Our hospital life was a full one—much work and many emotions crowded in the days: patients coming to be [Pg 253] operated; many operations meaning life or death, and even the less serious ones always approached by the patients with dread and apprehension. It fell to the house-officers to receive and reassure patients and their friends; to calm their anxiety; to inspire their confidence in the operators, and their hope for the outcome. ”

“ One night after a quiz held at Miss Thorndike’s room, Belle having lingered behind a little, on joining me, grasped my hand and fervently whispered, “Genie! Miss Thorndike kissed me good night!” I could feel only pitying amusement at such extravagance. Miss Thorndike evidently enjoyed such triumphs; she tried to get me under her spell. The more I saw of her, I saw that certain girls and women were always falling a victim to her. Years later a sickly, neurotic girl became so absorbed in her as to become almost estranged from her family ”

“ Our life at the Y. W. C. A. building had much in common with boarding-school life—though less restricted in many ways—a community of women, its walls seldom echoed to a man’s step or voice, except in the evening when callers came. It sounded good to hear the deep tones of “Dan,” the janitor, when he brought trunks to the rooms, or was otherwise called up from the basement. Even the elevator-boy was a girl. ”

“ It was a grave wrong to burden a young girl with this hidden sorrow. But, nervous and sickly, she craved the sympathy I was ready to give; yet it was a shadow which should never have rested on my girlhood. I think it had no inconsiderable share in fostering in me the habit of duplicity. Her husband was a moody, morose man, subject to spells of unnatural gayety. Living with him was like living on the rim of a smouldering volcano ready at any moment to belch forth. ”