‘_December 1878._ ‘MY LORD,—We owe to you so much for education work that I cannot but feel sorry you should by your recent quotation from Thucydides place before women a standard lower than the highest. I felt bound to protest against it, when a few days later I read a paper before the Social Science Congress in my own schoolroom. ‘Will the excuse be received from us: “I was afraid of being spoken of for good, and so I hid my talent in a napkin?” Must we not expect that our work will be measured, as was that of another woman by the words, “She hath done what she could?” I venture to enclose a few lines from an article of mine, signed “A Utopian,” in a Fraser[106] of 1866. It was provoked by the same quotation from Thucydides in a _Quarterly_ of that year.—I am, my Lord, yours with sincere respect and esteem, D. BEALE.’ To Mrs. Ashley Smith, at that date Miss Lucy Hall, a relation of Bishop Fraser’s, on the same subject:— ‘_December 12, 1878._ ‘DEAR LUCY,—I was glad to hear you thought you could be of use in the Board School. Could you not teach the boys some mathematics? If you could, I will send you an amusing book about Euclid. ‘I have asked Miss Gore to send you a copy of what I wrote to the Bishop. I think he should have got his secretary just to send me a line. I did not do it in a perky spirit, but I felt bound to protest, and having protested, I thought I should rather say to him, why. Many women do leave undone the things they ought to do, because they shrink from coming forward. I have done so myself. If he would preach that we should do what we ought in God’s sight, and never trouble our heads about what people say, when our conscience speaks, it would be better. Perhaps he will think twice before he again quotes that, and if so, I shall be satisfied. I would not care, if he were not so good and clever that people listen to what he says. He is, too, not conventional, yet he says what may promote a wrong kind of conventionality. I have since seen such a nice bit of a sermon about the idle lives that women lead; so if you do see him, I should like you to ask him about this too. ‘You must let me know when you really get to work as manager.’ To Miss Laurie, after reading _Pasteur’s Life_:— ‘_1902._