Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Pioneer Work for Women
But the pioneer in this case did not belong to the youthful sinewy races. Elizabeth Blackwell was born and lived for the first eleven years of her life in Bristol. Her subsequent life in America no doubt placed her in an atmosphere that was favourable to the full development of her vigorous and self reliant Character. But readers of this book will see that she remained essentially an Englishwoman. She writes on her first visit to England, after her girlhood, of the strong attrae tion which her native land exercised over her, and of her desire to settle there for good; of the warm sympathy She received from her English friends, and how this strengthened that feeling of kinship to England which finally drew her back to it as her permanent home and last resting-place. It was not only the Climate and scenery of England that won her heart, she found in England a congenial social environ ment that appealed most powerfully to her.
In 1859 she writes to her sister Emily Blackwell: The more I see of work in England the more I like it. There is an immense charm in this fresh field where solid English heads receive the highest view of truth, where generosity and largeness of idea meet you at every turn. I like working and living in England, and there is no limit to what we might accomplish there.
So with all due appreciation of \valt W'hitman's noble poem let no one think that the elder races wearied over there beyond the seas are incapable of the heroic courage, the persistent steadfastness, the power to scorn delights and live laborious days, which every pioneer must bring to his task.
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