Eva Shaw McLaren

“ Surely she was able to weave around her heroine, from the depth of her own inner experiences of solved problems, the mantle of joy and freedom with which she herself was clothed.
The causes to which Elsie Inglis became a tower of strength; the "nation she twice saved from despair"; the many children, not only those in her own connection, on whom she lavished love and care, are the witnesses to-day of the completeness and the splendour of her power to mould each adverse circumstance in her life and make it yield a great advantage. ”

“ The women's irresistible movement, which has so suddenly flooded all departments of work previously considered the monopoly of men, required from the leaders indomitable courage, selflessness, and faith, qualities of imperishable splendour; and to read the life of Elsie Inglis is to recognize instantly that she was one of these ruthless adventurers, hewing her way through all perils and difficulties to bring to pass the dreams of thousands of women. ”

“ Inglis was no Amazon, but just a woman of gentle breeding, courteous, sweet-voiced, somewhat short of stature, alert, and with the eyes of a seer, blue-grey and clear, looking forth from under a brow wide and high, with soft brown hair brushed loosely back; with lips often parted in a radiant smile, discovering small white teeth and regular, but lips which were at times firmly closed with a fixity of purpose such as would warn off unwarrantable opposition or objections from less bold workers. ”

“ A Serb orderly expressed his devotion in a way that Dr. Inglis used to recall with a smile: "Missis Doctor, I love you better than my mother, and my wife, and my family. Missis Doctor, I will never leave you."
And a soldier from Russia said of her: "She was loved amongst us as a queen, and respected as a saint."
"In her Life you want the testimony of those who saw her. Dr. Inglis's work before and during the war will find its place in any enduring record; what you want to impress on the minds of the succeeding generation is the quality of the woman of which that work was the final expression." ”

“ Our thoughts are always turning to the past. There is not anything to link us on to the next generation. You see other women with their families—it is the future to which they look. However good the past has been, they expect more to come, for their sons and their daughters. Their life goes on in other lives.' Hildeguard clasped her hands round her knees and stared into the fire."
"Their life goes on in other lives"—the thought finds a home in Hildeguard's mind. When, soon after, the little Quakeress dies, Hildeguard, looking at the quiet face, says to herself: "Dear little woman! ”

“ In thus starting a maternity hospital in the heart of this poor district she showed the understanding born of her long experience in the High Street and her great sympathy for all women in their hour of need. Single-handed she developed a maternity indoor and district service, training her nurses herself in anticipation of the extension of the Midwives Act to Scotland. Never too tired to turn out at night as well as by day, cheerfully taking on the necessary lecturing, she always worked to lay such a foundation that a properly equipped maternity hospital would be the natural outcome. ”

“ Inglis lost her life after the retreat from Russia is a fresh proof of her devotion to Serbia. The Serbian soldiers mourn her death as that of a mother or sister. The memory of her goodness, self-sacrifice, and unbounded charity, will never leave them as long as they live, and will be handed down as a sacred heritage to their children. ”

“ Inglis came to our annual commemoration meeting and spoke to us of Serbia. None of those who were present will, I think, ever forget that afternoon, and the almost magical inspiration of her personality. Behind her simple narrative (from which her own part in the great deeds of which she told seemed so small that to many of us it was a revelation to learn later what that part had been) lay a spiritual force which left no one in the audience untouched. We feel that we should like to express our gratitude for that afternoon in our lives, as well as our admiration of her gallant life and death. ”

“ It may be truly said that special types of problems come before the unmarried woman for solution—problems as to her connection with society and with the race, which confront her as they do not others. Though few signs of a mental struggle were visible on the surface, there is no doubt that Elsie Inglis met these problems and settled them in the silence of her heart. ”

“ I am ever in admiration of these rare women, and never can I forget their watchword: 'Not one of our patients is to be without at least one egg a day, however far we may have to tramp for it.' Such labour, such love towards an almost totally strange nation, is something more than mere humanity; it is the summit of understanding, and the application of real and solid Christian teaching.
"Dr. Inglis cured not only the physical but the moral ills of her wounded patients. ”

“ She was a student of the School of Medicine for Women in Edinburgh of which Dr. Jex-Blake was Dean—a fine woman of strong character, to whom, and to a small group of fellow-workers in England, women owe the opening of the door of the medical profession. As Dean, however, she may have erred in attempting an undue control over the students. To Elsie Inglis and some of her fellow-students this seemed to prejudice their liberty, and to frustrate an aim she always had in view, the recognition by the public of an equal footing on all grounds with men students. ”

“ Will they fail us? Will they be content with a solution along lines that can only be called a second best? When we remember the clear-brained women in whose steps they follow, who opened the medical world for them, and whose spirits will for ever overshadow the women who walk in it, we know they will not fail us.
Elsie Inglis pursued her medical studies in Edinburgh and Glasgow. After she qualified she was for six months House-Surgeon in the New Hospital for Women and Children in London, and then went to the Rotunda in Dublin for a few months' special study in midwifery. ”

“ But thank God the instinct is not one that can be dammed up or lost, and in these writings we get a glimpse of that motherhood which was hers, and which her life showed to be deep enough and wide enough to sweep under its wing the human souls, men, women, and children, who, passing near it, and being in need, cried out for help, and never cried in vain. ”

“ Christmas Day in the novel finds Hildeguard a lonely and dissatisfied woman with no "sure anchor." She has had a happy childhood, with many relations and friends around her. One by one these are taken from her—some are dead, others are married—and she sees herself, at the age of thirty-seven, a forlorn figure with no great interest in the future, and her thoughts dwelling mostly on the joyous past. Two or three of Hildeguard's friends are conversing together in her rooms. None of them has had a happy day. Each in her own way is feeling the depression of the lonely woman. ”

“ The thought of self or self-interest never even entered Elsie Inglis's mind in anything she did or said.'" Again, another writes: "One recalls her generous appreciation of any good work done by other women, especially by younger women. Any attempt to strike out in a new line, any attempt to fill a post not previously occupied by a woman, received her unstinted admiration and warm support."
It was her delight to show hospitality to her friends, many of whom, especially women doctors and friends made in the Suffrage movement, stayed with her at her house in Walker Street, Edinburgh. ”

“ And so from the first she was a pioneer: in doing medical work among women and children; in achieving the rights of citizenship for women; and in the further great adventure of establishing the true League of Nations which lies in the will to serve mankind. ”

“ Serbia.
"By her knowledge she cured the physical wounds of the Serb soldiers. By her shining face she cured their souls. Silent, busy, smiling—that was her method. She strengthened the faith of her patients in knowledge and in Christianity. Scotland hardly could send to Serbia a better Christian missionary." [6]
As the days pass, bringing the figure of Elsie Inglis into perspective, these true and beautiful pictures of her fall quietly into the background, and one idea begins slowly to emerge and to expand, and to become the most real fact about her. ”

“ In the battle of the Dobrudja the Serb division had gone into the fight 14,000 strong; they were in the centre, with the Roumanians on the left and the Russians on the right. The Roumanians and Russians broke, and the Serbs, who had fought for twenty-four hours on two fronts, came out with only 4,000 men. Further slaughter such as this would have been the fate of the Serbian division if left in Russia.
"The men want to fight," said General Zivkovitch to Dr. Inglis; "they are not cowards, but it goes to my heart to send them to their death like this." ”

“ She worked at The Hospice with devotion. Though cherishing always her aim of an institution which, while serving the poor, should provide a training for women doctors, she threw herself heart and soul into the work because she loved it for its own sake, and she loved her poor patients.
In 1913 Dr. Inglis went to America, and her letters were full of her plans for further development on her return. At Muskegon, Michigan, she found a small memorial hospital, of which she wrote enthusiastically as the exact thing she wanted for midwifery in Edinburgh. ”

“ He affirms that woman because of her very nature has her roots in the future. "To women," he says, "the race is always more than the individual; the future greater than the present."
As we follow Hildeguard through the pages of the novel, she is shown to us as faced with the problem of becoming "a lonely woman," the problem that meets the unmarried and the childless woman. And the claims and the meaning of religion are confronting her too. The story traces the workings of Hildeguard's mind and the events of her life for a year. ”

“ To those inclined to hesitate, or at least to draw breath occasionally in the course of their heavy work of organizing, raising money, gathering equipment, securing transport, passports, and attending to the other innumerable secretarial affairs connected with so big a task, she showed no weakening pity; the one invariable goad applied was ever, 'it is war-time.' No one must pause, no one must waver; things must simply be done, whether possible or not, and somehow by her inspiration they generally were done. ”

“ May Heaven send thee eternal peace, so much merited, and so much desired by all those who knew thee, and above all and especially by all those Serbian hearts who have found in thee a great human friend. ”

“ As we run our eye over the crowded stage, we see the dim outline of the rock from which she was hewn, we feel the spirit which was hers, and we hail it again as it drives her forth to play her part in the great drama of the last three years of her life. ”

“ Inglis Serbia has come to know Scotland, for I must confess that formerly it was not recognized by our people as a distinctive part of the British Isles. Her name, as that of the Serbian mother from Scotland (Srpska majka iz 'Skotske') , has become legendary throughout the land, and it is not excluded that at a future date popular opinion will claim her as of Serbian descent, although born on foreign soil. ”

“ Inglis has rendered our woman movement in Serbia. To-day we have several active societies working for the enfranchisement of women, and there is no doubt that the record of the Scottish Women's Hospital, organized and equipped by a Suffrage society and entirely run by women, is helping us greatly towards the realization of our goal. ”

“ Inglis that somehow we should get to our meeting infected me, and, like many others who have followed her since, I felt able to achieve the impossible.
"It is true that Dr. Inglis seemed to me—since, after all, she was human—to have the faults of her qualities. No consideration of herself prevented her complete devotion to her work. I sometimes felt that there was an element of relentlessness in this devotion, which would [Pg 38] have allowed her to sacrifice not only other people, but even perhaps considerations which it is not easy to believe ought to be sacrificed. ”

“ Sad and more difficult though the road must seem to us now, our privilege has been a proud one: to have served and worked with her, to have known the unfailing support of her strength and sympathy, and, best of all, to be permitted to preserve through life the memory and the stimulus of a supreme ideal. ”

“ The world's standard of success may appear to give the prize to those who collect things, but in reality the crown of victory, the laurel wreath, the tribute beyond all material value, is always reserved for those invisible, intangible qualities which are evinced in character. ”

“ She could only bring to it her undeveloped powers of thought and of imagination, but she knew that stretching away, hid in an inexpressible light, lay depths undreamt of. To her nineteenth-century intellect life could only mean evolution—life ever taking to itself new forms, developing itself in new ways. ”