Page:Pioneer work in opening the medical profession to women - autobiographical sketches (IA b28145227).pdf/194

This page needs to be proofread.

beg you not to imagine me sitting in a large bare room in an inn. The term 'inn' is only applied in this case to a particularly quiet and respectable little street. The term 'Inns of Court' means a number of buildings round an open court, withdrawn from the street, entered by an arched passage under some house, and used now or at some former time for law purposes. That was the origin of Thavies Inn; it was formerly a portion of an old law court, and is particularly proper, having iron gates at the archway, which are shut at night, and a porter living in the little house at the entrance, who is always on the look-out for beggars or other un-respectable characters; and the way in which a little barrel organ that has managed to slip in is 'shut up' at the first bar has always amused me, and provoked me at the same time. The room also, which was bare enough at first, has assumed a much more homelike aspect since two young friends sent me some pictures to hang on the walls, and a portfolio of paintings, with a little stand on which to place a new one every day; and having turned the sideboard into a bookcase, I can assure you it looks quite comfortable when I have drawn the round table to the fire and settled down for the evening.

Your letter alludes to many topics of interest. First of all this 'Woman's Rights Convention,' held at Worcester, Mass. I have read through all the proceedings carefully. They show great energy, much right feeling, but not, to my judgment, a great amount of strong, clear thought. This last, of course, one ought not to expect in the beginning; but in my own mind I have settled it as a society to respect, to feel sympathy for, to help incidentally, but not—for me—to work with body and soul. I cannot sympathise fully with an anti-man movement. I have had too much kindness, aid, and just recognition from men to make such attitude of women otherwise