“8 Bedford Square, W.C. May 15th. 69. MADAM, I venture to write to you as I see that the decision of the University Court at Edinboro is based on the fact that they do not feel justified in making ‘a temporary arrangement in the interest of one lady.’ I also gather from the article in the _Scotsman_ on the subject of your application that you are desirous that in some cases private instruction should be taken instead of compulsory attendance at the public classes. As these are your views, I should be glad, if you renew your application, to join you in doing so, and I believe I know two or three other ladies who would be willing to do the same.... Trusting you will pardon my troubling you on account of the great interest I feel in promoting the entrance of women into the medical profession, believe me, Madam, Yours truly, ISABEL THORNE. Miss Jex-Blake.” A few days later came an equally interesting letter from Mrs. Butler: “Your Essay is in Macmillan’s hands. You will receive a proof soon. I have asked him also to let me see one, and to let you have a duplicate to send to America. I read it once again before sending it away. It is well worth while to have included in it so much research. It gives one strongly the impression while reading it, how much the present male monopoly of the profession is an innovation; also how at all times women seem to have striven to assert their right to a share in the healing art. I cannot help hoping the publication of your Essay may be the beginning of a new social era in those matters. God grant that it may! It is indeed most trying to be kept back so long by the difficulty of getting leave to do good and to toil. O England, what a wicked amount of conservatism of selfish customs have you to answer for! I daresay to yourself your life must appear sometimes to be being wasted—but it is not so. In every good cause there must be martyrs and pioneers, who, with gifts for more, have had the hard task of opening the way for others to work. I saw a Miss Pechey at Leeds, who wishes to become a doctor, and Miss Wolstenholme told me of a lady she knows who is studying. I don’t think the story about the Greek lady at all indelicate. I hope no one else will think so. Is it not strange how people cry out at the indelicacy of _speaking_ of a thing which it is far more indelicate should _exist_, and yet to its existence they have no objection. In a later letter she says: “... Have you _seen_ Miss Pechey? She did not seem to me very clever, but very steady and nice,—a silent, quiet woman.”