A Country Doctor. Sarah Orne Jewett.

A Country Doctor.
Sarah Orne Jewett.
New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1884 (1994).

I don't know whether Nan wanted more to be unmarried or to be a doctor; likely, to be unmarried so she could be a doctor. There was a definite belief in her era that a woman could not be married and pursue a profession. (For example, Joe Crowell, Jr. in Our Town thought his teacher should remain a teacher and not get married. Apparently she could not be married and also be a teacher.). Nan was conscious of a purpose in life beyond settling for marriage. Her travels with her father, a doctor, in his rounds, gave her the ambition to be a doctor and the whole civilized world around her tried to talk her out of it and into marriage.

Some quotes from Nan's father, a doctor: "It is nature that cures after all." "But the young practitioners must follow the text-books a while until they have had enough experience to open their eyes to observe and have learned to think for themselves." "I believe there's less quackery in our profession than any other, but it is amazing how we bungle at it." "It is a long hill to study medicine or to study something else; and if you are going to fear obstacles you will have a poor chance at success." "If you don't drive a little faster, Sister Willet may be gathered before we get to her."

Nan's father (a doctor) told Nan many curious things as they drove about together: "Certain traits of certain families and how the Dyers were of strong constitution, and lived to a great age in spite of severe illnesses and accidents and all manner of unfavorable conditions; while the Dunnells, who looked a great deal stronger, were sensitive and deficient in vitality, in that an apparently slight attack of disease quickly proved fatal."

Youth and age: "The poor old captain waiting to be released, stranded on the inhospitable shore of this world, and eager Nan, who was sorrowfully longing for the world's war to begin."

Nan's response to pressure to marry: "But I think one should care more about being a good woman than a good Episcopalian, Aunt Nancy." "I know I haven't had the experience that you have, Mrs. Fraley, but I can't help believing that nothing is better than to find one's work early and hold fast to it, and put all one's heart into it." "I won't attempt to say that the study of medicine is a proper vocation for women, only that I believe more and more every year that it is the proper study for me."

"It certainly can't be the proper vocation of all women to bring up children, so many of them are dead failures at it; and I don't see why all girls should be thought failures who do not marry." "I know being married isn't a trade; it is a natural condition of life, which permits a man to follow certain public careers and forbids them to a woman." "Most girls have an instinct towards marrying but mine is all against it, and God knew best when he made me care more for another fashion of life." Nan to George Gerry who was besieging her to marry him: "I will always be your friend, but if I married you I might seem by and by to be your enemy." "But something tells me all the time that I could not marry the whole of myself as most women can; there is a great share of my life which could not have its way, and could only hide itself and be sorry."

"And suddenly she reached her hands upward in an ecstasy of life and strength and gladness: 'Oh, God,' Nan said, 'I thank thee for my future.' "