Elsie Inglis

“ 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. ”

“ Elsie Inglis was born on August 16, 1864, in India. The wide plains of India, the "huddled hills" and valleys of the Himalayas, were the environment with which Nature surrounded her for the first twelve years of her life. Her childhood was a happy one, and the most perfect friendship existed between her and her father from her earliest days.
"All our childhood is full of remembrances of father. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Inglis and her unit came to the help of the Jugoslavs, shared their privations and misfortunes, and spared no effort in their cause.
‘History will record the name of Elsie Inglis, like that of Lady Paget, as pre-eminent among that band of women who have redeemed for all time the honour of Britain in the Balkans. Among the Serbs it is already assuming an almost legendary quality. To us it will serve to remind us that Florence Nightingale will never be without successors among us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ DR. ELSIE INGLIS IN 1916, AFTER HER RETURN FROM SERBIA THE THREE MISS FENDALLS From a picture in the possession of Brigadier-General C. Fendall ELSIE INGLIS AT THE AGE OF TWO YEARS JOHN FORBES DAVID INGLIS, ELSIE INGLIS'S FATHER THE HOSPICE, HIGH STREET, EDINBURGH ELSIE INGLIS, BY IVAN MESTROVICH In the Scottish National Gallery ELSIE INGLIS IN AUGUST, 1916, BEFORE LEAVING FOR RUSSIA THE HIGH STREET, LOOKING TOWARDS ST. GILES'S
[Pg vii]
PREFACE
"To light a path for men to come" is the privilege of the pioneer ”

“ Elsie Inglis was not the first, nor will she be the last woman who has found help in the story of the Maid of Orleans, when the causes dear to the hearts [156] of nations are at stake. It is easy to hear the words that would pass between these two leaders in the time of their country’s warfare. The graven figure of Joan was instinct with life, from the undying love of race and country, which flowed back to her from the woman who was as ready to dedicate to her country her self-forgetting devotion, as Jeanne d’Arc had been in her day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Life with its way before us lies,
Christ is the path, and Christ the prize.’
‘Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.’ Elsie Inglis took up practice in Edinburgh, and worked in a happy partnership with the late Dr. Jessie MacGregor, until the latter left Scotland for work in America. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In later life in Edinburgh, they were connected with the Free Church of Scotland. To again quote from his daughter: ‘His religious outlook was magnificently broad and beautiful, and his belief in God simple and profound. His devotion to our mother is a thing impossible to speak about, but we all feel that in some intangible way it influenced and beautified our childhood.’
In 1870 Mrs. Inglis writes of the lessons of Elsie and her sister Eva. ‘The governess, Mrs. Marwood, is successful as a teacher; it comes easy enough to Elsie to learn, and she delights in stories [23] being told her. ”

“ She has no sound Christian principle to guide her. So different from our highly favoured England.’
Mr. Inglis’ letters are full of the courteous consideration for Elsie and for others which marked all the way of his life, and made him the man greatly beloved, in whatever sphere he moved. Punch and the Spectator went from him every week, and he writes: ‘I hope there was nothing in that number of Punch you gave M. Survelle to study while you were finishing your breakfast to hurt his feelings as a Frenchman. ”

“ Elsie Inglis has that magnetic personality which can command efficiency, even with inadequate equipment and in hopeless environment. The inspiring work of this great woman doctor makes her indeed a worthy leader for those wonderful Scottish women, who are putting their whole soul into the work they have undertaken, without any thought of recompense, without vainglory, and without any other motive than the desire to help and heal. ”

“ One by one they catch our eye, and we note their connection with the central figure.
Far back in the group (for it is near two hundred years ago) stands Hugh Inglis, hailing from Inverness-shire. He was a loyal supporter of Prince Charlie, and the owner of a yacht, which he used in gun-running in the service of the Prince.
A little nearer are two of Elsie's great-grandfathers, John Fendall and Alexander Inglis. John Fendall was Governor of Java at the time when the island was restored to the Dutch. ”

“ The Dean of the Order of the Thistle revealed the thoughts of many hearts in his farewell words:—
‘We are assembled this day with sad but proud and grateful hearts to remember before God a very dear and noble lady, our beloved sister, Elsie Inglis, who has been called to her rest. We mourn only for ourselves, not for her. She has died as she lived, in the clear light of faith and self-forgetfulness, and now her [251] name is linked for ever with the great souls who have led the van of womanly service for God and man. ”

“ By nature and temperament she was fitted to be what she succeeded in remaining to the end—a strong, noble woman, whose greatest strength lay in her tenderness, and whose nobility sprung from her tender femininity."
In her political sagacity, her optimism, and cheerfulness also, she reminds us of Elsie Inglis. During St. Catherine's Mission to Tuscany the following story is told of her by her biographer: "The other case" (of healing) "was that of Messer Matteo, her friend, the Rector of Misericordia, who had been one of the most active of the heretic priests in Siena. ”

“ M‘Laren says:—
‘Elsie and I used to go daily to the Charlotte Square Institution, which used in those days to be the Edinburgh school for girls. Mr. Oliphant was headmaster. Father never approved of the Scotch custom of children [30] walking long distances to school, and we used to be sent every morning in a cab. The other day, when telling the story of the S.W.H.’s to a large audience of working women in Edinburgh, one woman said to me, “My husband is a prood man the day! He tells everybody how he used to drive Dr. Inglis to school every morning when she was a girl.”’ ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ He said, ‘Pull down the blind.’ Then the chivalrous, knightly soul passed into the light that never was on sea or land.
‘It was a splendid life he led,’ writes Elsie to her brother; ‘his old Indian friends write now and say how “the name of John Inglis always represented everything that was upright and straightforward and high principled in the character of a Christian gentleman.” He always said that he did not believe that death was the stopping place, but that one would go on growing and learning through all eternity. ”

“ So you have got your future." But in her own case she does not wait for death to bring it to her; she faces her problems, and, refusing to be swamped by them, makes the currents carry her bark along to the free, open sea. She flings herself whole-heartedly into causes whose hopes rest in the future. She draws around her children, who need her love and care, and makes them her hostages for the future. In all this we see Elsie Inglis describing a stage in her own life.
But before the story brings us round again to Christmas, something else has helped to change the outlook for Hildeguard ”

“ It seems to me Elsie’s whole life was full of championship of the weak, and she was so strong in maintaining what was right. I feel sure she has inspired many. I remember once saying in connection with some work I was going to begin, ‘I wonder if I shall be able,’ and Elsie saying in her bright way, ‘What man has done man can do.’ I am so glad that she had the opportunity of showing her great administrative capacity, and that her power is known and acknowledged. She is a great woman. ”

“ The only method their own, all else chaotic and helpless, working night and day, the unit accomplished everything. At the station, packed with a country and army in flight, Dr. Inglis had a talk with a Rumanian officer. He told her that he had been in Glasgow, and had there been invited out to dinner, and had seen ‘English customs.’ ‘It was good to feel those English customs were still going on quietly, whatever was happening here, breakfast coming regularly and hot water for baths, and everything as it should be. ”

“ Jex Blake. After Mrs. Inglis’ death, Mr. Inglis decided to leave their home at Bruntsfield, and the family moved to rooms in Melville Street. Here Elsie was with her father, and carried on her studies from his house. It was not an altogether happy start, and very soon she had occasion to differ profoundly with [44] Dr. Jex Blake in her management of the school. Two of the students failed to observe the discipline imposed by Dr. Jex Blake, and she expelled them from the school. Any high-handed act of injustice always roused Elsie to keen and concentrated resistance. ”

“ She was an Imperialist in the very best sense, and had high ideals for her country and people. She was a very womanly woman, never affecting mannish ways as a pose. If she seemed a strong-minded woman it was because she had strenuous work to do. She was never “a lone woman.” She was always one of a family, and in the heart of the family. Elsie always had the lovingest appreciation and backing from her nearest and dearest, and that a [110] wide and varied circle. ”