Paris, but that the opportunity of seeing all that was remarkable in three thousand deliveries in that space of time could be met with nowhere else in the world; that it equalled the whole practice of most physicians, and he was persuaded that I should regret it if I did not remain. He parted saying he would talk the matter over again with me. If it be pure interest that makes him urge this, I am glad; but it seems to me now an impossible endurance.
October 4.—Another midnight scene—a strange spectacle of suffering and of science. As I stood on the crowded benches of the amphitheatre I heard the clock strike one, the holy noon of night. I wondered how long our sins would thus be fearfully visited upon us. The rain beat in torrents on the skylight, the wind shook the building, and I could look with intense interest on that rare and dangerous accident submitted to our investigation—lithotomy, the only way to save life; a tedious operation lasting, I should think, an hour, for in the hurry of midnight dressing I had forgotten my watch. . . .
To-night I have been walking in the wood; the wind blows fresh under the clear starlight. I am happier now that my mind is clearly determined to leave at the end of six months, with the conviction that my work here is thoroughly done. . . .
October 30.—Madame Charrier sent for me this afternoon to present me with my portrait. It was a lithograph picture of Elizabeth Blackwell, taken from a history of sages-femmes célèbres. This lady, about 1737, published a work on medical botany in two large folio volumes, in order to get her husband, a medical man, out of prison, where he was confined for debt.
I imagined a whole romance out of the picture, and a little biography—a romance of a beautiful, true spirit,
