The life of Sophia Jex-Blake / by Margaret Todd (Graham Travers).

  • Margaret Todd
Date:
1918
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life of Sophia Jex-Blake / by Margaret Todd (Graham Travers). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    bonfire is made in the palace gardens of Mt. Gilbow [!] which is perhaps seen to a greater distance.” This is fine : ” The Despotic Emperor is the grand Law-giver General Judge Sage Physician and in short the Father of his vast dominions.” In spite of the mass of prosaic detail as to dress, provisions, etc., there is sometimes a hint of the supernatural about the whole thing. The dotted lines between the islands in one of the maps indicate “ invisible bridges ”, and in a request to “Victoria and Prince Albert” that a governor may be sent from England to “ controll the foreigners who wilfully destroy the peace and comfort of this happy and well-governed realm,” we are told that “ if this wish is complied with, the Most Gracious Despotic Emperor, Phrampton Omail Grandiflora,1 will stand the friend of your kingdoms on earth and admit 20 of your subjects to his unearthly Kingdom.” A great impetus to the whole conception may possibly have been given by a tour which the child was fortunate enough to make with her parents and sister to Warwickshire and thence to Scotland in June, 1850, a tour of which further particulars will be found in the next chapter. In the course of her very conscientiously kept diary, she says, “ We read the Lady of the Lake aloud,” and she herself is reading “ Ivanhoe, one of the Waverley novels.” There is no proof, however, that any part of her Utopia was sketched after this tour, and a great part of it was cer¬ tainly written before. On the whole, perhaps, the most remarkable thing in connection with “ Sackermena and her Isles ” is the staying power shown by the writer in developing her idea, and her determination to get everything down on paper. In this more than in anything else the child was father of the man. S.J-B. was a born chronicler. As regards Sackermena, the idea certainly afforded no lack of scope and variety. What with drawing maps, writing 1 Note the similarity of the name to her signature on p. 5. Many a little girl has loved to imagine herself a fairy princess. It would be interesting to know whether any other ever dreamed of being a “ Despotic Emperor.”
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