“13 Sussex Square, Brighton, Jan. 19th. 1871. MY DEAR SOPHY, One line to wish you many happy returns of the 21st, and most of them quieter than this birthday seems likely to be. I feel sure you will carry your point eventually, and should recommend you to stick to Edinburgh where you have already so very nearly won. It must be very harassing at times, and need a great deal of patience: for half the enemy seem wily and half seem roughs. The speech you last made, when the gallery ought to have been earlier cleared of its noisy occupants, seemed to me excellent: and I thought Maclaren showed great judgment in dealing with the adversary that same day. I should not be drawn much into newspaper correspondence, if I were you; and I doubt if ... was worth powder and shot. But he may be, from personal or local reasons unknown to me. I feel no doubt whatever of the ultimate victory, but the delay is very fatiguing to the combatant.... Take it easy, and don’t let the enemy make you angry. They are sure to try. Your affectionate brother, T. W. J.-B.” Very soon, too, a long letter arrived from women in London,—“to the Lady Students in Edinburgh: “DEAR LADY STUDENTS, Let us entreat you to persevere—” and so on. Here then were both parties firmly entrenched, with no prospect of an end to the combat; but that fire in the hearts of generous adherents was burning steadily. The Lord Provost declined to accept his defeat. He proceeded to call a meeting of citizens, and in a very short time a committee was formed to share a burden that had become far too heavy for the shoulders of a handful of women. The list of sympathizers grew like a snowball, attracting many of the most honoured names in the country, till it became a rallying cry for weaker folk the wide world over. One can best describe the significance of all this in S. J.-B.’s own words, written some fifteen years later: