How sorely tried that sympathy must often have been, we can partly understand when we compare the old-world fragrance of the Mother’s personality with all that is suggested to us now by the name of Sophia Jex-Blake. “When I was young,” the Mother used to say, “it was not a question of _whether_ we should marry, but simply of _whom_ we should marry.” And to her lot fell a daughter who rarely thought of marriage at all, whose brain was teeming with all sorts of unfettered boyish ambitions, who made it clear to everyone whom it might concern that she meant to live her own life,—to “make good the faculties of herself” in the way that pleased her best. And yet there was something in all this audacious, spontaneous life that found an answering chord in the Mother’s heart. She was not a phlegmatic conventional person by nature herself. She too, perhaps, long before, had beaten eager wings against the bars. In any case from this time on the friendship between the two was a sacred thing, never flagging, comparable with the most beautiful friendships in history. Fortunately we have S. J.-B.’s own account of those first days at home: “1857. Dec. 17th. Thursday. Came home for good. For good? Who can tell? Oh, what would I give to look forward ten, aye five, short years, and see what I shall be. Just 18; half my life at school. Then 28. Dr. Moore says,—and there seems a strange prophecy in his words,— that I shall be something, something good if not great, but not in the way I hope;[11] that ‘on a ruin of broken columns and shattered Grecian capitols, shall be laid the foundation of a temple of God.’ There’s something comes home to my heart in those shattered columns,— ‘The dearest idol I have known, Whate’er that idol be, Help me to tear it from _Thy_ throne, And worship only _Thee_.’ Oh, that I had the strength, the faith, to pray so honestly,—but God help me! I have prayed little enough lately. I seem in such a torpor, such a prostration of mind, body, and, I fear, soul. I hope there is much physical in this. That beautiful hymn,—‘What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!’ _Once_. So it is, and _now_. Never mind; I think God must have some mercy, some hope, to me when He has given and preserved to me my darling, my angel Mother. She seems a pledge of hope. Well, shall I be a great authoress as my day and night dreams prompt me to hope?... Shall I ever be a happy wife and mother? Shall I ere ten years, or half ten years have passed, be _dust_?... I sometimes think so. (June 1st. 1869. At any rate never thought of being a sawbones.)