CHAPTER XXIV 



LETTERS TO PROKESSOR WALLACE ON THE LL.D. OF THE 

 UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 



Announcement of the Honorary LL.D. to be conferred Preliminary personal 

 arrangements Miss Ormerod 1 s feelings of appreciation and of anxiety 

 Letters of congratulation. 



THIS chapter is unlike any of the foregoing chapters of 

 correspondence in its purely personal character. Interested 

 readers will not fail to recognise in it the genuine feminine 

 feeling of anxiety at the approach of a trying public ordeal 

 to one so unaccustomed as Miss Ormerod to the pageantry 

 of academic functions. Nor will they fail to appreciate the 

 resolution with which she bore the physical strain put upon 

 one whose strength had been well-nigh spent in the cause 

 of science under a load of years and bodily infirmities. 



To Miss E. A. Ormerod. 



UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 



February 24, 1900. 



DEAR Miss ORMEROD, I hasten to announce to you 

 without a moment's delay that the Senatus of this University 

 have only a minute ago agreed to do our University the 

 distinguished honour of asking you to accept the honorary 

 degree of LL.D. of the University. I may tell you without 

 breaking any confidence that you are not only the first lady 

 who has ever been asked to accept the degree, but it was in 

 view of the necessity of recognising the great and dis- 

 tinguished labours which you have done for Science that 

 regulations were made by which it became possible for us 

 to confer the degree upon a lady. Any little share I had in 

 this matter is more than rewarded by the great gratification 



which I feel in connection with this proposed act of the 



287 



