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^^^^^^^^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 


DR.  AND  MRS.  ELMER  BELT 


Florence    Nightingale. 

(From  a  »iodel  of  the  statue  by  A.  G.   Walker.      By  kind  tennissiorz 
of  the  Sctilptor.) 


FLORENCE 
NIGHTINGALE 

A    BIOGRAPHY 


BY 

ANNIE    MATHESON 

AUTHOR  OF 
"THE   STORY   OF   A   BRAVK  CHILD   OOAN   OF   ARC)' 


THOMAS    NELSON    AND    SONS,    Ltd. 

LONDON,     EDINBURGH,     AND     NEW    YORK 


Ac 

S 
NS 

D 
PREFACE.  RAt^e 


It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  this  little  bio- 
graphy is  based  mainly  upon  the  work  of  others, 
though  I  hope  and  believe  it  is  honest  enough  to 
have  an  individuality  of  its  ow^n  and  it  has  cer- 
tainly cost  endless  individual  labour  and  anxiety. 
Few  tasks  in  literature  are  in  practice  more 
worrying  than  the  responsibility  of  "  piecing 
together "  other  people's  fragments,  and  "  the 
great  unknown  "  who  in  reviewing  my  "  Leaves 
of  Prose "  thought  I  had  found  an  easy  way 
of  turning  myself  into  respectable  cement  for 
a  tessellated  pavement  made  of  other  people's 
chipped  marble,  was  evidently  a  stranger  to  my 
particular  temperament.  Where  I  have  been 
free  to  express  myself  without  regard  to  others, 
to  use  only  my  own  language,  and  utter  only  my 
own  views,  I  have  had  something  of  the  feeling 
of  a  child  out  for  a  holiday,  and  of  course  the 
greater  part  of  the  book  is  in  my  own  words. 
But  I  have  often,  for  obvious  reasons,  chosen  the 
humbler  task,  because,  wherever  it  is  possible,  it 


iv  PREFACE. 

is  good  that  my  readers  should  have  their  im- 
pressions at  first  hand,  and  in  regard  to  Kinglake 
especially,  from  whose  non-copyright  volumes 
I  have  given  many  a  page,  his  masculine  tribute 
to  Miss  Nightingale  is  of  infinitely  more  value 
than  any  w^ords  which  could  come  from  me. 

My  publisher  has  kindly  allowed  me  to  leave 
many  questions  of  copyright  to  him,  but  I  wish, 
not  the  less — rather  the  more — to  thank  all  those 
authors  and  publishers  who  have  permitted  use 
of  their  material  and  whose  names  will,  in  many 
instances,  be  found  incorporated  in  the  text  or  in 
the  accompanying  footnotes.  I  have  not  thought 
it  necessary  in  every  instance  to  give  a  reference 
to  volume  and  page,  though  occasionally,  for 
some  special  reason  of  my  own,  I  have  done  so. 

Of  those  in  closest  touch  with  Miss  Nightin- 
gale during  her  lifetime,  whose  help  with  original 
material  has  been  invaluable,  not  more  than  one 
can  be  thanked  by  name.  But  to  Mrs.  Tooley 
for  her  large-hearted  generosity  with  regard  to 
her  own  admirable  biography — to  which  I  owe 
far  more  than  the  mere  quotations  so  kindly  per- 
mitted, and  in  most  cases  so  clearly  acknowledged 


PREFACE.  V 

in  the  text — it  is  a  great  pleasure  to  express  my 
thanksgiving  publicly. 

There  are  many  others  who  have  helped  me,  and 
not  once  with  regard  to  the  little  sketch  have  I  met 
with  any  unkindness  or  rebuff.  Indeed,  so  various 
are  the  acknowledgments  due,  and  so  sincere  the 
gratitude  I  feel,  that  I  scarcely  know  where  to  begin . 

To  Miss  Rickards,  for  the  pages  from  her 
beautiful  life  of  Felicia  Skene,  I  wish  to  record 
heartfelt  thanks  ;  and  also  to  Messrs.  Burns  and 
Oates  with  regard  to  lengthy  quotations  from 
the  letters  of  Sister  Aloysius — a  deeply  interest- 
ing little  volume  published  by  them  in  1904, 
under  the  title  of  "  A  Sister  of  Mercy's  Memories 
of  the  Crimea  ;  "  to  Dr.  Hagberg  Wright  of  the 
London  Library  for  the  prolonged  loan  of  a 
whole  library  of  books  of  reference  and  the  help 
always  accessible  to  his  subscribers  ;  and  to  the 
librarian  of  the  Derby  Free  Library  for  aid  in 
verifying  pedigree.  Also  to  Lord  Stanmore  for 
his  generous  permission  to  use  long  extracts  from 
his  father's  "  Life  of  Lord  Herbert,"  from  which 
more  than  one  valuable  letter  has  been  taken  ; 
and   to    Mr.  John    Murray  for  sanctioning  this 


vi  PREFACE. 

and  for  like  privileges  in  relation  to  the,  lives  of 
Sir  John  MacNeill  and  Sir  Bartle  Frere.  To 
Messrs.  William  Blackw^ood,  Messrs.  Cassell, 
Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam  and  Sons,  as  well  as  to 
the  editors  and  publishers  of  the  Times,  Daily 
Telegraph,  Morning  Post,  and  Evening  News,  I 
wish  to  add  my  thanks  to  those  of  my  publisher. 

To  any  reader  of  this  book  it  will  be  clear 
how  great  a  debt  I  owe  to  General  Evatt,  and 
he  knows,  I  think,  how  sincerely  I  recognize  it. 
Mr.  Stephen  Paget,  the  writer  of  the  article  on 
Miss  Nightingale  in  the  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,  has  not  only  permitted  me  to  quote 
from  that — a  privilege  for  which  I  must  also 
thank  Messrs.  Smith  Elder,  and  Sir  Sidney  Lee — 
but  has,  in  addition,  put  me  in  the  way  of  other 
priceless  material  wherewith  to  do  honour  to  the 
subject  of  this  biography.  I  have  long  been 
grateful  to  him  for  the  inspiration  and  charm  of 
his  own  "  Confessio  Medici  " — there  is  now  this 
other  obligation  to  add  to  that. 

Nor  can  I  forgo  cordial  acknowledgments  to 
the  writer  and  also  the  publisher  of  the  charming 
sketch  of  Miss  Nightingale's  Life  published  some 


PREFACE.  vii 

years  ago  by  the  Pilgrim  Press  and  entitled  "  The 
Story  of  Florence  Nightingale." 

To  my  friend  Dr.  Lewis  N.  Chase  I  owe  the 
rare  privilege  of  an  introduction  to  Mr.  Walker, 
the  sculptor,  who  has  so  graciously  permitted  for 
my  frontispiece  a  reproduction  of  the  statue  he 
has  just  completed  as  a  part  of  our  national 
memorial  to  Miss  Nightingale. 

I  desire  to  thank  Miss  Rosalind  Paget  for 
directing  me  to  sources  of  information  and  be- 
stowing on  me  treasures  of  time  and  of  memory, 
as  well  as  Miss  Eleanor  F.  Rathbone  and  the 
writer  of  Sir  John  MacNeill's  Life  for  help 
given  by  their  books,  and  Miss  Marion  Holmes 
for  permission  to  quote  from  her  inspiring  mono- 
graph ;  and  last,  but  by  no  means  least,  to  express 
my  sense  of  the  self-sacrificing  magnanimity  with 
which  Miss  E.  Brierly,  the  present  editor  of 
Nursing  Notes,  at  once  offered  me  and  placed  in 
my  hands — what  I  should  never  have  dreamed  of 
asking,  even  had  I  been  a  friend  of  old  standing, 
instead  of  a  comparative  stranger — everything  she 
herself  had  gathered  together  and  preserved  as 
bearing  on  the  life  of  Florence  Nightingale. 


viii  PREFACE. 

When,  under  the  influence  of  certain  articles 
in  the  Times,  I  undertook  to  write  this  volume 
for  Messrs.  Nelson,  I  knew  nothing  of  the  other 
biographies  in  the  field.  Nor  had  I  any  idea 
that  an  officially  authorized  life  was  about  to  be 
written  by  Sir  Edward  Cook,  a  biographer  with 
an  intellectual  equipment  far  beyond  my  own, 
but  who  will  not  perhaps  grudge  me  the  name 
of  friend,  since  his  courteous  considerateness  for 
all  leads  many  others  to  make  a  like  claim,  and 
the  knowledge  that  he  would  put  no  obstacle  in 
my  path  has  spared  me  what  might  have  been  a 
serious  difficulty.  Had  I  known  all  this,  a  decent 
modesty  might  have  prevented  my  undertaking. 
But  in  every  direction  unforeseen  help  has  been 
showered  upon  me,  and  nothing  but  my  own  in- 
exorable limitations  have  stood  in  my  way. 

If  there  be  any  who,  by  their  books,  or  in  any 
other  way,  have  helped  me,  but  whom  by  some 
unhappy  oversight  I  have  omitted  to  name  in 
these  brief  documentary  thanks,  I  must  earnestly 
beg  them  to  believe  that  such  an  error  is  contrary 
to  my  intention  and  goodwill. 


"  The  Lady  with  the  Lamp." 

{from  the  statuette  in  the  Nightingale  Home.) 


CONTENTS 


Introductory  Chapter         .         .         .         •         .15 

I.   Florence  Nightingale  :  her  home,  her  birth- 
place, and  her  family  .  .  .25 

II.  Life  at  Lea  Hurst  and  Embley       .         .       41 

III.  The   weaving    of    many   threads,   both    of 

evil  and  of  good        .  .  .  -       SS 

IV.  The  activities  of  girlhood — Elizabeth  Fry 

— Felicia  Skene  again  ...        62 

V,  Home  duties  and  pleasures — The  brewing 

of  war        ......       71 

VI.  Pastor  Fliedner        ,         ....       90 

VII.  Years  of  preparation        .         .         ,         .101 

VIII.  The    beginning    of   the    war  —  A    sketch 

of  Sidney  Herbert      .  .  .  .117 

IX.  The   Crimean   muddle — Explanations  and 

excuses       ...,.,     134 


X  CONTENTS. 

X.  "Five  were  wise,  and  five  foolish"      .     142 

XI.  The  expedition     .         .         .         ,         .162 

XII.  The  tribute  of  Kinglake  and  Macdonald 

and  the  Chelsea  Pensioners     .         .172 

XIII.  The  horrors  of  Scutari — The  victory  of 

the  Lady -in -Chief — The  Queen's 
letter  —  Her  gift  of  butter  and 
treacle    ......     200 

XIV.  Letters  from  Scutari — Kinglake  on  Miss 

Nightingale  and  her  dynasty — The 
refusal  of  a  new  contingent    .  .216 

XV.  The  busy  nursing  hive — M.  Soyer  and 
his  memories — Miss  Nightingale's 
complete  triumph  over  prejudice  — 
The  memories  of  Sister  Aloysius    .     235 

XVI.  Inexactitudes — Labels — Cholera — "  The 
Lady  with  the  Lamp" — Her  hu- 
mour— Letters  of  Sister  Aloysius    .     247 

XVII.  Miss  Nightingale  visits  Balaclava — Her 
illness  —  Lord  Raglan's  visit — The 
Fall  of  Sebastopol  .         .         .         ,261 

XVIII.  The  Nightingale  Fund — Miss  Night- 
ingale remains  at  her  post,  organizing 
healthy  occupations  for  the  men  off 
duty  —  Sisters  of  Mercy  —  The 
Queen's  jewel — Its  meaning   .         .     27 


CONTENTS.  xi 

XIX.  Her  citizenship — Her  initiative — Public 
recognition  and  gratitude — Her  re- 
turn incognito — Village  excitement — 
The  country's  welcome  —  Miss 
Nightingale's  broken  health  —  The 
Nightingale  Fund  —  St.  Thomas's 
Hospital — Reform  of  nursing  as  a 
profession        .  .  .  .  .292 

XX.  William  Rathbone — Agnes  Jones — In- 
firmaries— Nursing  in  the  homes  of 
the  poor — Municipal  work — Homely 
power  of  Miss  Nightingale's  writings 
— Lord  Herbert's  death  .  .  .312 

XXI.  Multifarious  work  and  many  honours — 
Jubilee  Nurses — Nursing  Association 
—  Death  of  father  and  mother — 
Lady  Verney  and  her  husband — No 
respecter  of  persons — From  within 
four  walls — South  Africa  and  America     331 

XXII.  India — Correspondence  with  Sir  Bartle 
Frere  —  Interest  in  village  girls — 
The  Lamp      .....     346 

XXIII.  A  brief  summing  up    .         ,         .         .     360 

APPENDIX 367 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


Statue  of  Florence  Nightingale  by  A.  G 
Walker         .... 

"The  Lady  with  the  Lamp."     Statuette 

Embley  Park,  Romsey,  Hants 

Florence  Nightingale's  Father 

Florence    Nightingale    (after    Augustus 
Egg,  R.A.)  .... 

Florence  Nightingale  in   1854 

At  the  Therapia  Hospital    . 

At  Scutari   ..... 

Miss  Nightingale's  Medals  and  Decora 
tions     ..... 

The  Nightingale  Nursing  Carriage 

At  the  Herbert  Hospital,  Woolwich 

A  Letter  from  Miss  Nightingale 

Miss  Nightingale's  London  House 

Florence  Nightingale  in  her  Last  Days 


Frontispiece 


Fac, 


ngp.  8 
16 
32 


112 
176 
192 

280 
296 

304 
320 

344 

352 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER   FOR 
THE   ELDERS    IN    MY   AUDIENCE. 

It  is  my  hope  that  my  younger  readers  may 
find  this  volume  all  the  more  to  their  liking 
if  it  is  not  without  interest  to  people  of  my 
own  generation.  Girls  and  boys  of  fourteen  to 
sixteen  are  already  on  the  threshold  of  man- 
hood and  womanhood,  but  even  of  children 
I  am  sure  it  is  true  that  they  hate  to  be 
"  written  down  to,"  since  they  are  eagerly 
drinking  in  hopes  and  ideas  which  they  cannot 
always  put  into  words,  and  to  such  hopes  and 
ideas  they  give  eager  sympathy  of  heart  and 
curiosity  of  mind. 

For  one  of  her  St.  Thomases  nurses,  among 
the  first  nine  women  to  be  decorated  with  the 
Red  Cross,  the  heroine  of  this  story  wrote 
what  might  well  be  the  marching  orders  of 
many  a  good   soldier   in   the   divine   army,  and 


i6  INTRODUCTION. 

not  least,  perhaps,  of  those  boy  scouts  and  girl 
guides  who  would  like  better  a  life  of  adven- 
ture than  the  discipline  of  a  big  school  or  the 
"  duties  enough  and  little  cares  "  of  a  luxurious 
home  ;  and  as  the  words  have  not,  so  far  as 
I  am  aware,  appeared  in  print  before,  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  give  them  here  : — 

"  Soldiers,"  she  wrote,  "  must  obey  orders. 
And  to  you  the  '  roughing '  it  has  been  the 
resigning  yourself  to  '  comforts '  which  you 
detested  and  to  work  which  you  did  not  want, 
while  the  work  which  wanted  you  was  within 
reach.  A  severe  kind  of  '  roughing  '  indeed — 
perhaps  the  severest,  as  I  know  by  sad  ex- 
perience. 

"  But  it  will  not  last.  This  short  war  is  not 
life.  But  all  will  depend — your  possible  future 
in  the  work,  we  pray  for  you,  O  my  Cape  of 
Good  Hope — upon  the  name  you  gain  here. 
That  name  I  know  will  be  of  one  who  obeys 
authority,  however  unreasonable,  in  the  name 
of  Him  who  is   above   all,  and  who  is  Reason 

itself — of  one  who  submits  to  disagreeables,  how- 

(i.r64) 


o 


w 


o 


fcJO 


flH 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

ever  unjust,  for  the  work's  sake  and  for  His 
who  tells  us  to  love  those  we  don't  like — a 
precept  I  follow  oh  so  badly  —  of  one  who 
never  criticizes  so  that  it  can  even  be  guessed 
at  that  she  has  criticism  in  her  heart — and 
who  helps  her  companions  to  submit  by  her 
own  noble  example.   .   .   . 

"  I  have  sometimes  found  in  my  life  thai 
the  very  hindrances  I  had  been  deploring  were 
there  expressly  to  fit  me  for  the  next  step  in 
my  life.  (This  was  the  case — hindrances  of 
years — before  the  Crimean  War.) "  And  else- 
where she  writes :  "  To  have  secured  for  you 
all  the  circumstances  we  wished  for  your  work, 
I  would  gladly  have  given  my  life.  But  you 
are  made  to  rise  above  circumstances ;  perhaps 
this  is  God's  way — His  ways  are  not  as  our 
ways — of  preparing  you  for  the  great  work 
which  I  am  persuaded  He  has  in  store  for 
you  some  day." 

It  is  touching  to  find  her  adding  in  paren- 
thesis that  before  her  own  work  was  given   to 

her  by  the  Great  Unseen  Commander,  she  had 
(1.V64)  2 


i8  INTRODUCTION. 

ten  years  of  contradictions  and  disappointments, 
and  adding,  as  if  with  a  sigh  from  the  heart, 
"And  oh,  how  badly  I  did  it !" 

There  we  have  the  humility  of  true  great- 
ness. All  her  work  was  amazing  in  its  fruit- 
fulness,  but  those  who  knew  her  best  feel 
sometimes  that  the  part  of  her  work  which 
was  greatest  of  all  and  will  endure  longest  is 
just  the  part  of  which  most  people  know  least. 
I  mean  her  great  labour  of  love  for  India, 
which  I  cannot  doubt  has  already  saved  the 
lives  of  millions,  and  will  in  the  future  save 
the  health  and  working  power  of  millions  more. 

Florence  Nightingale  would  have  enriched 
our  calendar  of  uncanonized  saints  even  if  her 
disciplined  high-hearted  goodness  had  exercised 
an  unseen  spell  by  simply  beings  and  had,  by 
some  limitation  of  body  or  of  circumstance, 
been  cut  off  from  much  active  doing:  for  so 
loving  and  obedient  a  human  will,  looking  ever 
to  the  Highest,  as  a  handmaiden  watches  the 
eyes  of  her  mistress,  is  always  and  everywhere 
a  humane  influence  and  a  divine  offering.  But 
in   her   life — a   light   set   on   a   hill — being   and 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

doing  went  hand  in  hand  in  twofold  beauty 
and  strength,  for  even  through  those  years 
when  she  lay  on  her  bed,  a  secluded  prisoner, 
her  activities  were  world-wide. 

In  addition  to  the  work  for  which  she  is 
most  widely  revered  and  loved.  Miss  Nightin- 
gale did  three  things — each  leaving  a  golden 
imprint  upon  the  history  of  our  time  : — 

She  broke  down  a  "Chinese  wall"  of  preju- 
dice with  regard  to  the  occupations  of  women, 
and  opened  up  a  new  and  delightful  sphere  of 
hard,  but  congenial,  work  for  girls. 

She  helped  to  reconstruct,  on  the  lines  of 
feminine  common  sense,  the  hygiene  and  the 
transport  service  of  our  army — yes,  of  the  entire 
imperial  army,  for  what  is  a  success  in  one 
branch  of  our  dominions  cannot  permanently 
remain  unaccepted  by  the  rest.  And  in  all 
her  work  for  our  army  she  had,  up  to  the 
time  of  his  death,  unbounded  help  from  her 
friend.  Lord  Herbert. 

Last,  and  perhaps  greatest  of  all,  she  initiated, 
with  the  help  of  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  Sir  John 
Lawrence,    and   other    enlightened    men   of   her 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

time,  the  reform  of  insanitary  and  death-dealing 
neglect  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
India,  thus  saving  countless  lives,  not  only 
from  death,  but  from  what  is  far  worse  —  a 
maimed  or  invalid  existence  of  lowered  vitality 
and  lessened  mental  powers. 

One  of  her  friends,  himself  a  great  army 
doctor  holding  a  high  official  position,  has 
repeatedly  spoken  of  her  to  me  as  the  supreme 
embodiment  of  citizenship.  She  did  indeed 
exemplify  what  Ruskin  so  nobly  expressed  in 
his  essay  on  "  Queens'  Gardens  " — the  fact  that, 
while  men  and  women  differ  profoundly  and 
essentially,  and  life  would  lose  in  beauty  if  they 
did  not,  the  state  has  need  of  them  both  ;  for 
what  the  woman  should  be  at  her  own  hearth, 
the  guardian  of  order,  of  health,  of  beauty,  and 
of  love,  that  also  should  she  be  at  that  wider 
imperial  hearth  where  there  are  children  to  be 
educated,  soldiers  to  be  equipped,  wounded  lives 
to  be  tended,  and  the  health  of  this  and  future 
generations  to  be  diligently  guarded. 

"  Think,"  she  said  once  to  one  of  her  nurses, 
'*  less  of  what  you  may  gain  than  of  what  you 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

may  give."     Herself,  she  gave  royally — gave  her 
fortune,  her  life,  her  soul's  treasure.      I  read  in 
a    recent    contemporary     of    high     standing    a 
review  which   ended  with  what   seemed  to  me 
a   very  heathen   sentence,  which   stamped   itself 
on    my    memory    by    its    arrogant    narrowness. 
"  Woman,"    wrote     the     reviewer,    "  is    always 
cither  frustrate  or  absorbed  ;  "  and  there  leaped 
to  my  heart  the  exclamation,  "  Here  in  Florence 
Nightingale  is  the  answer ;   for  in  her  we  have 
one,    known    and    read    of  all    men,    who    was 
neither    the    one    nor    the   other."     That   there 
was    supreme    renunciation    in    her    life,    none 
who    is    born    to    womanhood    can    doubt ;    for 
where    could    there    be    any    who    would    have 
been    more    superbly   fitted    for   what    she    her- 
self   regarded    as    the     natural    lot    of   woman 
as     wife    and     mother  ?       But     she,     brilliant, 
beautiful,    and    worshipped,     was    called    to    a 
more    difficult    and    lonely    path,    and   if  there 
was    hidden    suffering,    it    did    but     make    her 
service    of    mankind     the    more    untiring,    her 
practical    and    keen-edged     intellect     the    more 
active    in    good   work,   her    tenderness    to    pain 


22  INTRODUCTION. 

and  humility  of  self-efFacement  the  more  beauti- 
ful and  just. 

It  has  been  said,  and  said  truly,  that  she 
did  not  suffer  fools  gladly,  and  she  knew  well 
how  very  human  she  was  in  this  and  in  other 
ways,  as  far  removed  from  a  cold  and  statu- 
esque faultlessness  as  are  all  ardent,  swift,  loving 
natures  here  on  earth.  But  her  words  were 
words  of  wisdom  when  she  wrote  to  one  dear 
to  her  whom  she  playfully  named  "  her  Cape 
of  Good  Hope " :  "  Let  us  be  persecuted 
for  righteousness'  sake,  but  not  for  unrighteous- 
ness. 

The  italics  are  mine,  because  in  their  warning 
they  seem  so  singularly  timely.  And  the  entire 
sentence  is  completely  in  tune  with  that  fine 
note  with  which  she  ends  one  of  her  delightful 
volumes  on  nursing — 

"  I  would  earnestly  ask  my  sisters  to  keep 
clear  of  both  the  jargons  now  current  every- 
where (for  they  are  equally  jargons)  :  of  the 
jargon,  namely,  about  the  *  rights'  of  women 
which'  urges  women  to  do  all  that  men  do, 
including    the    medical    and    other    professions, 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

merely  because  men  do  it,  and  without  regard 
to  whether    this   is   the    best    that   women    can 
do  ;    and  of  the  jargon  which  urges  women  to 
do  nothing   that   men  do,  merely  because   they 
are  women,  and  should  be  '  recalled  to  a  sense 
of    their    duty    as    women,'    and    because    'this 
is    women's    work,'    and    'that    is    men's,'    and 
'these    are    things    which    women    should    not 
do,'  which    is   all   assertion   and   nothing    more. 
Surely  woman   should   bring   the   best   she   has, 
whatever  that   is,   to   the  work   of  God's  world, 
without    attending    to    either    of    these    cries. 
For    what    are    they,    both    of   them,    the    one 
just  as  much  as  the  other,  but  listening  to  the 
^what    people    will    say,'    to     opinion,    to    the 
'  voices   from  without '  ?     And  as  a  wise   man 
has  said,  no  one  has  ever  done  anything  great  or 
useful  by  listening  to  the  voices  from  without. 

"You  do  not  want  the  effect  of  your  good 
things  to  be,  '  How  wonderful  for  a  woman ! ' 
nor  would  you  be  deterred  from  good  things 
by  hearing  it  said,  'Yes,  but  she  ought  not 
to  have  done  this,  because  it  is  not  suitable 
for  a  woman.'     But  you  want  to  do  the  thing 


24  INTRODUCTION. 

that  is  good,  whether  it  is  '  suitable  for  a 
woman,'  or  not. 

"  It  does  not  make  a  thing  good,  that  it  is 
remarkable  that  a  woman  should  have  been 
able  to  do  it.  Neither  does  it  make  a  thing 
bad,  which  would  have  been  good  had  a  man 
done  it,  that  it  has  been  done  by  a  woman. 

"  Oh,  leave  these  jargons,  and  go  your  way 
straight  to  God's  work,  in  simplicity  and 
singleness  of  heart." 


CHAPTER    I. 

Florence  Nightingale :  her  home,  her  birthplace^  and  her  family. 

In  the  heart  of  Derbyshire  there  is  a  quaint  old 
church,  once  a  private  chapel,  and  possessing, 
instead  of  a  churchyard,  a  bit  of  quiet  greenness, 
of  which  the  chief  ornament,  besides  the  old 
yew  tree  at  the  church  door,  is  a  kind  of  lovers' 
bower  made  by  two  ancient  elder  trees  which 
have  so  intertwined  their  branches  as  to  form  an 
arbour,  where  in  summer-time  sweethearts  can 
gossip  and  the  children  play.  It  belonged  to 
a  world  far  away  from  the  world  of  to-day, 
when,  in  the  high-backed  pews  reserved  for  the 
"quality,"  little  Florence  Nightingale,  in  her 
Sunday  attire  that  was  completed  by  Leghorn  hat 
and  sandal  shoes,  made,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  a 
pretty  vision  for  the  villagers,  in  whose  cottages 
she  was  early  a  welcome  visitor.  It  was  just 
such  a  church  as  we  read  of  in  George  Eliot's 


26        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

stories,  clerk  and  parson  dividing  the  service 
betw^een  them,  and  the  rustic  bareness  of  the 
stone  walls  matched  by  the  visible  bell-ropes  and 
the  benches  for  the  labouring  people.  But  the 
special  story  that  has  come  dow^n  from  those 
days  suggests  that  the  parson  w^as  more  satirical 
than  Mr.  Gilfil  or  Mr.  Tryan,  and  it  is  to  be 
feared  that  when  he  remarked  that  "  a  lie  is  a 
very  useful  thing  in  trade,"  the  people  who 
quoted  him  in  Derby  market-place  merely  used 
his  "  Devil's  text  '*  as  a  convenience  and  saw  no 
satire  in  it  at  all.  Have  we  really  travelled  a 
little  way  towards  honesty  since  those  days,  or 
have  we  grown  more  hypocritical? 

The  little  girl  in  the  squire's  pew  grew  up  in 
a  home  where  religious  shams  were  not  likely 
to  be  taken  at  their  face  value. 

Her  father,  who  was  one  of  the  chief  sup- 
porters of  the  cheap  schools  of  the  neighbour- 
hood, had  his  own  ways  of  helping  the  poor 
folk  on  his  estate,  but  used  to  reply  to  some  of 
the  beseeching  people  who  wanted  money  from 
him  for  local  charities  that  he  was  "  not  born 
generous."     Generous  or   not,  he   had  very  de- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        27 

cided  views  about  the  education  of  his  two 
children,  Florence  and  Parthe.  They  enjoyed 
nearly  a  hundred  years  ago  (Florence  was  born 
in  1820)  as  liberal  a  course  of  study  as  any  High 
School  girl  of  to-day,  and  no  doubt  it  is  true  that 
the  orderliness  of  mind  and  character,  at  which 
his  methods  aimed,  proved  of  countless  value  to 
Florence  in  those  later  days,  when  her  marvel- 
lous power  in  providing  for  minutest  details 
without  unnecessary  fuss  or  friction  banished 
the  filth  and  chaos  of  the  first  Crimean  hospitals, 
and  transformed  them  into  abodes  of  healing  and 
of  order.  She  grew  up  to  be  a  beautiful  and 
charming  woman,  for  whom  men  would  gladly 
have  laid  down  their  lives ;  yet  her  beauty  and 
her  charm  alone  could  not  have  secured  for  our 
wounded  soldiers  in  the  Crimea,  tortured  by  dirt 
and  neglect,  the  swift  change  to  cleanness  and 
comfort  and  good  nursing  which  her  masterly 
and  unbending  methods  aided  her  commanding 
personal  influence  to  win. 

But  this  is  leaping  too  far  ahead.  As  yet  she 
is  only  Parthenope's  little  playfellow  and  school- 
fellow in  the  room  devoted  to  "  lessons  "  at  Lea 


28        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Hall,  the  small  maiden  who  climbs  the  hill  on 
Sundays  to  the  church  where  the  yew  tree  guards 
the  door,  and  on  week-days  is  busy  or  at  play  in 
the  house  that  has  been  the  home  of  her  father's 
family  through  many  generations,  and  in  the 
grounds  of  the  manor  that  surround  it. 

Lea  Hall  is  in  that  part  of  the  country  which 
Father  Benson  has  described  in  his  novel,  "  Come 
Rack,  come  Rope,"  and  the  Nightingale  children 
were  within  easy  reach  of  Dethick  Hall,  where 
young  Anthony  Babington  had  lived.  It  must 
have  added  zest  to  their  history  lessons  and  their 
girlish  romancings  to  hear  of  the  secret  passage, 
which  was  supposed  to  lead  right  into  Wingfield 
Manor,  from  the  underground  cellar  close  to  the 
old  wall  that  showed  still  where  Dethick  had 
once  reared  its  stately  buildings.  The  fact  that 
the  farm  bailiff  now  kept  his  potatoes  there  and 
could  not  find  the  opening,  would  only  make 
it  a  constant  new  ground  for  adventure  and 
imagination.  For  they  would  be  told  of  course 
— these  children — how  Mary  Stuart  had  once 
been  a  prisoner  at  Dethick,  and  Anthony  had 
vowed   to   be   her  servant   in   life  or  death  and 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        29 

never  cease  from  the  struggle  to  set  her  free 
so  long  as  life  was  in  him.  Nor  did  he ;  for 
he  died  before  her,  and  it  was  not  at  Wing- 
field,  but  at  Fotheringay,  as  these  little 
students  very  well  knew,  no  doubt,  that  her 
lovely  head  soon  afterwards  was  laid  upon  the 
block. 

Enviable  children  to  have  such  a  playground 
of  imagination  at  their  doors  !  But,  indeed,  all 
children  have  that,  and  a  bare  room  in  a  slum, 
or  a  little  patch  of  desert  ground,  may  for  them 
be  danced  over  by  Queen  Mab  and  all  her  fairies, 
or  guarded  by  the  very  angel  who  led  St.  Peter 
out  of  prison.  Still,  it  is  very  exciting  to  have 
history  written  beside  the  doorstep  where  you 
live,  and  if  you  grow  up  in  a  home  where  lesson 
books  are  an  important  part  of  the  day's  duties, 
it  is  pleasant  to  find  them  making  adventures  for 
you  on  your  father's  own  estate.  It  mattered 
nothing  that  the  story  would  all  be  told  by  those 
contending  against  Anthony's  particular  form  of 
religion,  who  would  be  ready  to  paint  him  with 
as  black  an  ink  as  their  regard  for  justice  would 
allow.     To  a  child,  that  would  rather  enhance 


30        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

the  vividness  of  it  all.  And  there  was  the  actual 
kitchen  still  standing,  with  its  little  harmless- 
looking  trapdoor  in  the  roof  that  leads  into  the 
secret  chamber,  where  the  persecuted  priests  used 
to  hide  when  they  came  to  celebrate  a  secret 
Mass.  No  wonder  the  two  children  delighted 
in  Dethick,  and  wove  many  a  tale  about  it.  For 
had  they  not  seen  with  their  very  own  eyes  the 
great  open  fireplace  in  that  kitchen,  where  veni- 
son used  to  be  roasted,  and  the  very  roasting-jack 
hanging  from  its  central  beam  where  all  the  roof- 
beams  were  black  with  age  and  dark  with  many 
tragic  memories  ? 

Dethick  is  but  one  of  the  three  villages  in- 
cluded in  the  ancient  manor,  the  other  two  are 
Lea  and  Holloway  ;  and  in  the  days  of  King 
John,  long  before  it  came  to  the  Nightingales, 
the  De  Alveleys  had  built  a  chapel  there.  Those 
who  have  read  Mr.  Skipton's  life  of  Nicholas 
Ferrar  and  know  their  John  Inglesant,  will  be 
interested  to  hear  that  half  this  manor  had  passed 
through  the  hands  of  the  Ferrars  among  others, 
and  another  portion  had  belonged  to  families 
whose  names  suggest  a  French  origin.      But  the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        31 

two  inheritances  had  now  met  in  the  hands  of 
the  Nightingales. 

It  is  a  very  enchanting  part  of  the  Midlands. 
The  silvery  Derwent  winds  through  the  valleys, 
keeping  fresh  the  fields  of  buttercups  and  meadow- 
sweet and  clover,  and  in  the  tall  hedges  wild 
roses  mingle  their  sweetness  with  the  more  power- 
ful fragrance  of  the  honeysuckle,  until  both  yield 
to  the  strange  and  overwhelming  perfume  of  the 
elder  tree.  The  limestone  hills,  with  their  bold 
and  mountainlike  outline,  their  tiny  rills,  and 
exquisite  ferns,  had  been  less  spoiled  in  those 
days  by  the  tramp  of  tourists ;  and  the  purity  of 
the  air,  the  peacefulness  of  the  upland  solitudes, 
would  have  a  wholesome  share  in  the  "  grace 
that  can  mould  the  maiden's  form  by  silent 
sympathy." 

It  was  a  very  youthful  little  maiden  as  yet 
who  had  been  transplanted  into  these  English 
wilds  from  the  glory  and  the  sunshine  of  the 
Italy  where  she  was  born.  After  the  valley  of 
the  Arno  and  the  splendours  of  Florence,  it  may 
have  seemed  somewhat  cold  and  bracing  at  times. 
Rightly  or  wrongly,  the  father  of  the  little  girls 


32        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

— for  our  heroine's  sister,  named  after  another 
Italian  city,  shared  all  her  life  at  this  time — 
seems  to  a  mere  outsider  a  little  cold  and  bracing 
too.  He  came  of  a  very  old  family,  and  we 
hear  of  his  "  pride  of  birth."  His  wife,  on  the 
other  hand,  whom  Florence  Nightingale  re- 
sembled, lives  before  us  in  more  warm  and  glow- 
ing colours,  as  one  who  did  much  to  break  down 
the  barriers  of  caste  and,  with  a  heart  of  over- 
flowing love,  "  went  about  doing  good."  Both 
were  people  of  real  cultivation — good  breeding 
being  theirs  by  a  happy  inheritance — and  each 
seems  to  have  had  a  strong  and  distinctive 
personality.  It  might  not  be  easy  to  say  to 
which  of  the  two  the  little  daughter,  who  grew 
to  such  world-wide  fame,  owed  most ;  but  prob- 
ably the  equipment  for  her  life-work  was  fairly 
divided  between  the  two.  There  is  no  magnet 
so  powerful  as  force  of  character,  and  it  is  clear 
that  her  father  possessed  moral  and  intellectual 
force  of  a  notable  sort.  Love,  in  the  sense  of 
enthusiasm  for  humanity,  will  always  be  the 
heaven-born  gift  of  one  in  whom  religion  is  such 
a  reality  as  it  was  with  Florence    Nightingale, 


Florence  Nightingale's  Father. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.         33 

but  religious  ardour  may  be  sadly  ineffective  if 
defeated  by  the  slack  habits  of  a  lifetime,  or  even 
by  a  moral  and  mental  vagueness  that  befogs  holy 
intentions.  Mr.  Edward  Nightingale's  daughters 
were  disciplined  in  a  schoolroom  M^here  slackness 
and  disorder  v^ere  not  permitted,  and  a  somewhat 
severe  training  in  the  classics  was  supplemented 
by  the  example  of  Mrs.  Nightingale's  excellent 
housewifery,  and  by  that  fine  self-control  in 
manners  and  behaviour  which  in  the  old-fashioned 
days  used  to  be  named  "  deportment."  Sports 
and  outdoor  exercises  were  a  part — and  a  delight- 
ful part — of  the  day's  routine. 

But  let  us  go  back  a  few  years  and  give  a  few 
pages  to  the  place  of  Florence  Nightingale's  birth 
and  the  history  of  her  family.  Her  name,  like 
that  of  another  social  reformer  among  English- 
women, was  linked  with  Italy,  and  she  took  it 
from  the  famous  old  Italian  town  in  whose 
neighbourhood  she  was  born.  I  have  tried  in 
vain  to  trace  the  authorship  * — was  it  Ruskin  or 

*  I  wrote  to  the  author  of  the  charming  sketch  of  Florence 
Nightingale  in  which  I  found  it  quoted,  but  he  has  quite  forgotten 
who  was  the  writer. 


34        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

some  less  known  writer  ? — who  said  of  that  town, 
"  if  you  wish  to  see  it  to  perfection,  fix  upon 
such  a  day  as  Florence  owes  the  sun,  and,  climb- 
ing the  hill  of  Bellosguardo,  or  past  the  stages  of 
the  Via  Crucis  to  the  church  of  San  Miniato, 
look  forth  upon  the  scene  before  you.  You 
trace  the  course  of  the  Arno  from  the  distant 
mountains  on  the  right,  through  the  heart  of  the 
city,  winding  along  the  fruitful  valley  toward 
Pisa.  The  city  is  beneath  you,  like  a  pearl  set 
in  emerald.  All  colours  are  in  the  landscape, 
and  all  sounds  are  in  the  air.  The  hills  look 
almost  heathery.  The  sombre  olive  and  funereal 
cypress  blend  with  the  graceful  acacia  and  the 
clasping  vine.  The  hum  of  the  insect  and  the 
carol  of  bird  chime  with  the  blithe  voices  of 
men  ;  while  dome,  tower,  mountains,  the  yellow 
river,  the  quaint  bridges,  spires,  palaces,  gardens, 
and  the  cloudless  heavens  overhanging,  make  up 
a  panorama  on  which  to  gaze  in  trance  of  rapture 
until  the  spirit  wearies  from  the  exceeding  beauty 
of  the  vision." 

When   on    May    12,    1820,    Florence   Night- 
ingale was  born,  her  parents  were  staying  at  the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        35 

Villa  Colombaia,  near  to  this  beautiful  City  of 
Flowers ;  and  when  the  question  of  a  name  for 
her  arose,  they  were  of  one  mind  about  it — she 
must  be  called  after  the  city  itself.  They  had  no 
sons,  and  this  child's  elder  sister,  their  only  other 
daughter,  having  been  born  at  Naples,  had  taken 
its  ancient  and  classical  name  of  Parthenope.* 

Their  own  family  name  had  changed.  Mr. 
Nightingale,  who  was  first  known  as  William 
Edward  Shore,  was  the  only  son  of  Mr.  William 
Shore  of  Tapton,  in  Derbyshire,  and  the  child 
who  was  to  reform  England's  benighted  views 
of  nursing,  and  do  so  much  for  the  health,  not 
only  of  our  British  troops,  but  also  of  our  Indian 
Army,  was  related  through  that  family  to  John 
Shore,  a  famous  physician  in  Derby  in  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Second,  as  well  as  to  the  Governor- 
General  of  India  who,  twenty-three  years  before 
her  birth,  took  the  title  of  Baron  Teignmouth. 
It  was  through  her  father's  mother,  the  only 
daughter  of  Mr.  Evans  of  Cromford,  that  she 
was  linked  with  the  family  of  the  Nightingales, 
whose  name  her  father  afterwards  took.  Mary 
*  Her  full  name  was  Frances  Parthenope  Nightingale. 


36       FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Evans,  her  paternal  grandmother,  was  the  niece 
of  "  Old  Peter,"  a  rich  and  roystering  squire,  who 
was  well  liked  in  his  own  neighbourhood,  in 
spite  of  his  nickname  of  "  Madman  Peter  "  and 
the  rages  that  now  and  then  overtook  him. 
Florence  Nightingale  was,  however,  no  descendant 
of  his,  for  he  never  married,  and  all  his  possessions, 
except  those  which  he  sold  to  Sir  Richard  Ark- 
wright,  the  famous  cotton-spinner,  came  to  his 
niece,  who  was  the  mother  of  Miss  Nightingale's 
father.  When  all  this  landed  property  came  into 
the  hands  of  Mr.  Edward  Shore,  three  years 
before  his  marriage  and  five  years  before  Florence 
was  born,  his  name  was  changed  under  the 
Prince  Regent's  sign  manual  from  Shore  to 
Nightingale,  in  accordance  with  Peter  Night- 
ingale's will.  But  he  continued  to  live  in  Italy 
for  a  great  part  of  every  year  until  Florence  was 
nearly  five  years  old,  though  the  change  of 
ownership  on  the  English  estate  was  at  once  felt 
under  the  new  squire,  who  was  in  most  ways 
the  very  opposite  of  that  "  Old  Peter,"  of 
whom  we  read  that  when  he  had  been  drinking, 
as  was  then  the  fashion,  he  would  frighten  away 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        37 

the  servant-maids  by  rushing  into  the  kitchen 
and  throwing  the  puddings  on  the  dust-heap. 

Mr.  Edward  Nightingale,  our  heroine's  father, 
bore  a  character  without  fear  or  reproach.  Edu- 
cated at  Edinburgh  and  at  Trinity,  Cambridge, 
he  had  afterwards  travelled  a  good  deal,  at  a  time 
when  travel  was  by  no  means  the  commonplace 
that  it  is  now. 

He  is  described  as  "  tall  and  slim,"  and  from 
the  descriptions  we  have  of  him  it  is  clear  that 
no  one,  even  at  a  glance,  could  have  missed  the 
note  of  distinction  in  his  bearing,  or  mistaken 
him  for  other  than  that  which  he  was  proud  to 
be,  the  cultivated  and  enlightened  son  of  a  fine 
old  family. 

When  we  read  that  the  lady  he  married  was 
daughter  of  a  strong  Abolitionist,  Mr.  William 
Smith  of  Parndon,  in  Essex,  we  feel  that  the  very 
name  of  Abolitionist  belongs  to  a  bygone  past. 

In  those  days  the  American  Civil  War  was 
still  to  come,  but  the  horizon  was  already  begin- 
ning to  blacken  for  it,  just  as  in  Europe,  while 
two  happy  little  girls  were  playing  hide-and-seek 
in  the  gardens  of  Lea  Hall  and  racing  with  their 


38        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

dogs  across  the  meadows  to  Dethick,  the  hush 
before  the  tempest  did  not  blind  wise  statesmen 
to  those  dangers  in  the  Near  East  which  were  to 
overwhelm  us  in  so  terrible  a  war. 

Mr.  Smith,  in  desiring  ardently  the  abolition 
of  slavery,  was  ahead  of  many  Englishmen  of  his 
day.  He  was  an  eager  philanthropist,  who  for 
half  a  century  represented  Norwich  in  Parliament, 
and  had  therefore  real  power  in  urging  any  good 
cause  he  had  at  heart.  His  daughter  Frances, 
when  she  became  Mrs.  Nightingale,  did  not  cease 
to  labour  among  the  poor  in  the  spirit  of  her 
father  and  of  her  own  benevolent  heart.  She 
was  a  beautiful  and  impressive  woman,  and  in 
her  untiring  service  of  others  seems  to  have  been 
just  the  wife  for  Mr.  Nightingale,  who  was  ready 
to  further  every  good  work  in  his  own  neigh- 
bourhood. He,  in  his  artistic  and  scholarly 
tastes,  was  as  humane  and  enlightened  as  was  the 
woman  of  his  choice  in  her  own  skill  of  hand 
and  charm  of  household  guidance. 

For  Mrs.  Nightingale  was  not  only  a  notable 
housekeeper  and  her  husband's  companion  in  the 
world  of  books,  she  was  also  a  woman  whose 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        39 

individuality  of  thought  and  action  had  been 
deepened  by  her  practical  faith,  so  that  even  at 
a  time  when  England  was  still  tied  and  bound 
by  conventions  of  rank,  from  which  the  last 
fifty  years  have  released  many  devotees,  she  felt 
the  call  of  the  Master  to  a  deeper  and  wider 
sense  of  brotherhood,  and  had  a  great  wish  to 
break  through  artificial  barriers. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  found  many  innocent 
ways  of  doing  so.  But  she  did  not  know  in 
these  early  days  that  in  giving  to  the  world  a 
little  daughter  who  was  akin  to  her  in  this, 
she  had  found  the  best  way  of  all  ;  for  that 
daughter  was  to  serve  others  in  the  very  spirit 
of  those  great  ones  of  old — S.  Teresa  and  S. 
Catharine  and  the  Blessed  Joan  of  Arc — to  whom 
the  real  things  were  so  real  and  so  continually 
present  that  the  world's  voices  were  as  nothing 
in  comparison.  This  was  true  also  of  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing, whose  memory  has  already  come  to  mind, 
as  linked,  like  that  of  Florence  Nightingale, 
though  for  quite  other  reasons,  with  the  City 
of  Flowers  ;  and  although  a  life  of  action  in 
the  ordinary  sense  was  impossible  for  the  author 


40        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

of  "  Aurora  Leigh,"  yet  it  is  remarkable  how 
much  she  also  did  to  arouse  and  set  free  her  sisters, 
for  she  too,  like  the  others,  was  a  woman  of  great 
practical  discernment. 

The  little  peasant  maid  of  France,  who  was 
born  to  be  a  warrior  and  the  deliverer  of  her 
people,  had  this  in  common  with  the  little  Eng- 
lish girl  born  to  a  great  inheritance  and  aiming 
at  a  higher  and  humbler  estate  wherein  she  was 
the  queen  of  nurses,  that  both  cared  so  much  for 
the  commands  from  above  as  to  be  very  little 
influenced  by  the  gossip  round  about. 


CHAPTER    II. 

Life  at  Lea  Hurst  and  Embley, 

Florence  was  between  five  and  six  years  old 
when  the  Nightingales  moved  from  Lea  Hall 
into  their  new  home  at  Lea  Hurst,  a  house 
commanding  a  specially  beautiful  outlook,  and 
built  under  Mr.  Nightingale's  own  supervision 
with  much  care  and  taste,  about  a  mile  from  the 
old  home.  It  is  only  fourteen  miles  out  of 
Derby,  though  there  would  seem  to  be  many 
sleepy  inhabitants  of  that  aristocratic  old  town — 
like  the  old  lady  of  Hendon  who  lived  on  into 
the  twentieth  century  without  having  been  into 
the  roaring  city  of  London  hard  by — who  know 
nothing  of  the  attractions  within  a  few  miles  of 
them  ;  for  Mrs.  Tooley  tells  an  amusing  story 
of  a  photographer  there  who  supposed  Lea  Hurst 
to  be  a  distinguished  man  and  a  local  celebrity. 
To   some   it  seemed  that  there  was  a  certain 


42        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

bleakness  in  the  country  surrounding  Lea  Hall, 
but,  though  the  two  dwellings  are  so  short  a 
distance  apart,  Lea  Hurst  is  set  in  a  far  more 
perfect  landscape.  Hills  and  woodlands,  stretch- 
ing far  away  to  Dovedale,  are  commanded  by 
the  broad  terrace  of  upland  on  which  the  house 
stands,  and  it  looks  across  to  the  bold  escarpment 
known  as  Crich  Stand,  while  deep  below,  the 
Derwent  makes  music  on  its  rocky  course. 
Among  the  foxglove  and  the  bracken,  the 
gritstone  rocks  jutting  forth  are  a  hovering 
place  for  butterflies  and  a  haunt  of  the  wild 
bee. 

The  house  itself — shaped  like  a  cross,  gabled 
and  mullioned,  and  heightened  by  substantial 
chimney-stacks — is  solid,  unpretending,  satisfying 
to  the  eye.  Above  the  fine  oriel  window  in  the 
drawing-room  wing  is  the  balcony  pointed  out 
to  visitors  where,  they  are  told,  after  the  Crimea 
"Miss  Florence  used  to  come  out  and  speak  to 
the  people." 

The  building  of  the  house  was  completed  in 
1825,  and  above  the  door  that  date  is  inscribed, 
together  with  the  letter  N.     The  drawing-room 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        43 

and  library  look  south,  and  open  on  to  the 
garden,  and  "  from  the  library  a  flight  of  stone 
steps  leads  down  to  the  lawn."  In  the  centre 
of  the  garden  front  an  old  chapel  has  been  built 
into  the  mansion,  and  it  may  be  that  the  prayers 
of  the  unknown  dead  have  been  answered  in  the 
life  of  the  child  who  grew  up  under  its  shadow, 
and  to  whom  the  busy  toiling  world  has  owed 
so  much. 

The  terraced  garden  at  the  back  of  the  house, 
with  its  sweet  old-fashioned  flowers  and  blossom- 
ing apple  trees,  has  doubtless  grown  more  delight- 
ful with  every  year  of  its  advancing  age,  but  what 
an  interest  the  two  little  girls  must  have  had 
when  it  was  first  being  planted  out  and  each  could 
find  a  home  for  her  favourite  flowers  !  Fuchsias 
were  among  those  loved  by  little  Florence,  who, 
as  has  already  been  noted,  was  only  six  years  old 
when  she  and  her  sister  and  father  and  mother 
moved  into  Lea  Hurst,  and  there  was  a  large 
bed  of  these  outside  the  chapel.  The  old  school- 
room and  nursery  at  the  back  of  the  house  look 
out  upon  the  hills,  and  in  a  quiet  corner  of  the 
garden  there  is  a  summer-house  where  Florence 


44        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

and  her  only  sister,  who  had  no  brothers  to  share 
their  games,  must  often  have  played  and  worked. 

Lea  Hurst  is  a  quiet,  beautiful  home,  character- 
istically English  and  unpretending,  with  a  modest 
park-gate,  and  beyond  the  park  those  Lea  Woods 
where  the  hyacinths  bloom  and  where  it  is  still 
told  how  "  Miss  Florence  "  loved  to  walk 
through  the  long  winding  avenue  with  its  grand 
views  of  the  distant  hills  and  woods. 

But  the  Nightingales  did  not  spend  the  whole 
year  at  Lea  Hurst.  In  the  autumn  it  was  their 
custom  to  move  to  Embley,  in  Hampshire,  where 
they  spent  the  winter  and  early  spring.  They 
usually  sent  the  servants  on  ahead  with  the 
luggage,  and  drove  by  easy  stages  in  their  own 
carriage,  taking  the  journey  at  leisure,  and  putting 
up  at  inns  by  the  way.  Sometimes,  of  course, 
they  travelled  by  coach.  Those  of  us  who  only 
know  the  Derby  road  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
towns  like  Nottingham  and  Derby  now  that 
its  coaching  glories  are  past,  find  it  difficult  to 
picture  its  gaiety  in  those  old  coaching  days, 
when  the  very  horses  enjoyed  the  liveliness  of 
the  running,  and  the  many  carriages  with  their 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        45 

gay  postilions  and  varied  occupants  were  on  the 
alert  for  neighbour  or  friend  who  might  be  post- 
ing in  the  same  direction. 

Whether  in  autumn  or  in  spring,  the  drive 
must  have  been  a  joy.  The  varied  beauty  of 
the  Midlands  recalls  the  lines  in  "  Aurora  Leigh  " 
which  speak  of 

"  Such  nooks  of  valleys  lined  with  orchises, 
Fed  full  of  noises  by  invisible  streams  ; 
And  open  pastures  where  you  scarcely  tell 
White  daisies  from  white  dew,     .     .     . 
.     .     .     the  clouds,  the  fields. 
The  happy  violets  hiding  from  the  roads 
The  primroses  run  down  to,  carrying  gold ; 
The  tangled  hedgerows,  where  the  cows  push  out 
Impatient  horns  and  tolerant  churning  mouths 
'Twixt  dripping  ash-boughs, — hedgerows  all  alive 
With  birds  and  gnats  and  large  white  butterflies 
Which  look  as  if  the  May-flower  had  caught  life 
And  palpitated  forth  upon  the  wind ; 
Hills,  vales,  woods,  netted  in  a  silver  mist. 
Farms,  granges,  doubled  up  among  the  hills; 
And  cattle  grazing  in  the  watered  vales. 
And  cottage-chimneys  smoking  from  the  woods, 
And  cottage-gardens  smelling  everywhere. 
Confused  with  smell  of  orchards." 

Derbyshire  itself,  with  its  wild  lilies  of  the 
valley,  its  ferns  and  daffodils  and  laughing 
streams,    is    hardly    more    "  taking "    than    the 


46       FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

country  through  which  winds  the  silver  Trent, 
past  Nottingham  Castle,  perched  on  its  rock  and 
promontory  above  the  fields  where  the  wild 
crocus  in  those  days  made  sheets  of  vivid  purple, 
and  the  steep  banks  of  Clifton  Grove,  with  its 
shoals  of  blue  forget-me-not,  making  a  dim,  tree- 
crowned  outline,  with  here  and  there  a  gleam  of 
silver,  as  seen  by  the  chariots  "  on  the  road." 
WoUaton  Park,  with  its  great  beeches  and  limes 
and  glimpses  of  shy  deer,  would  give  gold  and 
crimson  and  a  thousand  shades  of  russet  to  the 
picture. 

And  farther  south,  at  the  other  end  of  the 
journey,  what  miles  of  orchards  and  pine  woods 
and  sweet-scented  heather — what  rolling  Downs 
and  Surrey  homesteads  along  the  turnpike  roads  ! 

Though  Parthenope  and  Florence  had  no 
brothers  to  play  with  them,  they  seem  to  have 
had  a  great  variety  of  active  occupations,  both 
at  Lea  Hurst  and  at  Embley.  Of  course  they 
had  their  dolls,  like  other  little  girls  ;  but  those 
which  belonged  to  Florence  had  a  way  of  falling 
into  the  doctor's  hands — an  imaginary  doctor,  of 
course — and  needing  a  good  deal  of  tender  care 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        47 

and  attention.  Florence  seemed  never  tired  of 
looking  after  their  various  ailments.  In  fact, 
she  had  at  times  a  whole  dolls'  hospital  to  tend. 
She  probably  picked  up  a  little  amateur  know- 
ledge of  medicine  quite  early  in  life  ;  for  the 
poor  people  in  the  neighbourhood  used  to  come 
to  her  mother  for  help  in  any  little  emergency, 
and  Mrs.  Nightingale  was,  like  many  another 
Lady  Bountiful  of  her  generation,  equipped  with 
a  certain  amount  of  traditional  wisdom  and  kindly 
common  sense,  aided  in  her  case  by  wider  reading 
and  a  better  educated  mind  than  the  ordinary. 

Florence,  having  somehow  escaped  measles 
and  whooping-cough,  was  not  allowed  to  run 
into  infection  in  the  cottages,  but  that  did  not 
prevent  the  sending  of  beef-teas  and  jellies  and 
other  helpful  and  neighbourly  gifts,  which 
could  be  tied  to  her  pony's  saddle-bow  and 
left  by  her  at  the  door.  She  learned  to  know 
the  cottagers  with  a  frank  and  very  human 
intimacy,  and  their  homely  wit  touched  her 
own,  their  shrewdness  and  sympathy  met  their 
like  in  her,  and  as  she  grew  older,  all  this 
added    to    her    power    and    her    charm.      She 


48        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

learned  to  know  both  the  north  and  the  south 
in  "her  ain  countree,"  and  when,  later  in  life, 
she  was  the  wise  angel  of  hope  to  the  brave 
"  Tommies,"  recruited  from  such  homes,  meet- 
ing them  as  she  did  amid  unrecorded  agonies 
that  were  far  worse  than  the  horrors  of  the 
battlefield,  she  understood  them  all  the  better 
as  men,  because  she  had  known  just  such  boys 
as  they  had  been  and  was  familiar  with  just 
such  homes  as  those  in  which  they  grew  up. 
According  to  Mrs.  Tooley's  biography,  the 
farmhouse  where  Adam  Bede  fell  in  love  with 
Hetty  was  just  the  other  side  of  the  meadows 
at  Lea  Hurst,  and  the  old  mill-wheel,  where 
Maggie  TuUiver's  father  ground  the  corn  of 
the  neighbourhood,  was  only  two  or  three 
miles  away.  Marian  Evans,  of  whom  the 
world  still  thinks  and  speaks  by  her  pen-name 
of  George  Eliot,  came  sometimes  to  visit  her 
kinsfolk  in  the  thatched  cottage  by  Wirks- 
worth  Tape  Mills,  and  has  left  us  in  her 
earlier  novels  a  vivid  picture  of  the  cottage 
life  that  surrounded  our  heroine  during  that 
part    of    the    year    which     she    spent    in    the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        49 

Derbyshire  home.  The  children,  of  course,  had 
their  own  garden,  which  they  dug  and  watered, 
and  Florence  was  so  fond  of  flowers  and  animals 
that  that  again  was  an  added  bond  with  her 
rustic  neighbours.  Flower-missions  had  not  in 
those  days  been  heard  of,  but  she  often  tied  up 
a  nosegay  of  wild  flowers  for  invalid  villagers, 
or  took  some  of  her  favourites  out  of  her  own 
garden  to  the  sick  people  whom  she  visited. 

The  story  of  her  first  patient  has  already  been 
told  several  times  in  print,  but  no  biography 
would  be  complete  without  it. 

She  had  nursed  many  dolls  back  to  conva- 
lescence— to  say  nothing  of  "  setting "  their 
broken  limbs — tempted  their  delicate  appetites 
with  dainties  offered  on  toy  plates,  and  dressed 
the  burns  when  her  sister  let  them  tumble  too 
near  the  nursery  fire  ;  but  as  yet  she  had  had 
no  real  human  patient,  when  one  day,  out 
riding  with  her  friend  the  vicar  over  the 
Hampshire  Downs  near  Embley,  they  noticed 
that  Roger,  an  old  shepherd  whom  they  knew 
very  well,  was  having  endless  trouble  in  getting 
his  sheep  together. 

(1.764)  4 


50        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

"  Where's  Cap  ? "  asked  the  vicar,  drawing 
up  his  horse,  for  Cap  was  a  very  capable  and 
trusted  sheep-dog. 

"  T'  boys  have  been  throwing  stones  at  'n 
and  they've  broken  t'  poor  chap's  leg.  Won't 
ever  be  any  good  no  more,  a'm  thinkin'.  Best 
put  him  out  of  's  misery." 

"  O  Roger  !  "  exclaimed  a  clear  young  voice, 
"  poor  Cap's  leg  broken  ?  Can't  we  do  anything 
for  him  ?  " 

"  Where  is  he  ? "  added  Florence  eagerly, 
for  the  voice  was  that  of  the  future  "  Queen 
of  Nurses."  "  Oh,  we  can't  leave  him  all  alone 
in  his  pain.     Just  think  how  cruel !  " 

"  Us  can't  do  no  good,  miss,  nor  you  nayther. 
I'se  just  take  a  cord  to  him  to-night  ;  'tis  the 
only  way  to  ease  his  pain." 

But  Florence  turned  to  plead  with  the  vicar, 
and  to  beg  that  some  further  effort  should  be 
made. 

The  vicar,  urged  by  the  compassion  in  the 
young  face  looking  up  to  his,  turned  his  horse's 
head  in  the  right  direction  for  a  visit  to  Cap. 
In  a  moment   Florence's   pony  was   put  to   the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        51 

gallop,  and  she  was  the  first  to  arrive  at  the 
shed  where  the  poor  dog  was  lying. 

Cap's  faithful  brown  eyes  were  soon  lifted 
to  hers,  as  she  tenderly  tried  to  make  him 
understand  her  loving  sympathy,  caressing  him 
with  her  little  hand  and  speaking  soothingly 
with  her  own  lips  and  eyes  ;  till,  like  the 
suffering  men  whose  wounds  would  in  the  far- 
off  years  be  eased  through  her  skill,  the  dog 
looked  up  at  her  in  dumb  and  worshipping 
gratitude. 

The  vicar  was  equal  to  the  occasion,  and 
soon  discovered  that  the  leg  was  not  broken  at 
all,  but  badly  bruised  and  swollen,  and  perhaps 
art  even  greater  source  of  danger  and  pain  than 
if  there  had  merely  been  a  broken  bone. 

When  he  suggested  a  "  compress,"  his  child- 
companion  was  puzzled  for  a  moment.  She 
thought  she  knew  all  about  poultices  and  band- 
ages, and  I  daresay  she  had  often  given  her 
dolls  a  mustard  plaster  ;  but  a  "  compress " 
sounded  like  something  new  and  mysterious. 
It  was,  of  course,  a  great  relief  when  she  learned 
that  she  only  needed  to  keep  soaking  cloths  in 


52        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

hot  water,  wringing  them  out,  and  folding 
them  over  Cap's  injured  leg,  renewing  them 
as  quickly  as  they  cooled.  She  was  a  nimble 
little  person,  and,  with  the  help  of  the  shep- 
herd boy,  soon  got  a  fire  of  sticks  kindled  in 
a  neighbouring  cottage  and  the  kettle  singing 
on  it  with  the  necessary  boiling  water.  But 
now  what  to  do  for  cloths .?  Time  is  of  im- 
portance in  sick-nursing  when  every  moment 
of  delay  means  added  pain  to  the  sufferer. 
To  ride  home  would  have  meant  the  loss  of 
an  hour  or  two,  and  thrifty  cottagers  are  not 
always  ready  to  tear  up  scant  and  cherished 
house-linen  for  the  nursing  of  dogs.  But 
Florence  was  not  to  be  baffled.  To  her  great 
delight  she  espied  the  shepherd's  smock  hanging 
up  behind  the  door.  She  was  a  fearless  soul, 
and  felt  no  doubt  whatever  that  her  mother 
would  pay  for  a  new  smock.  "  This  will  just 
do,"  she  said,  and,  since  that  delightful  vicar 
gave  a  nod  of  entire  approval,  she  promptlv 
tore  it  into  strips. 

Then  back  to  Cap's  hut   she   hastened,  with 
her    small    henchman    beside    her    carrying    the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        53 

kettle  and  the  basin  ;  for  by  this  time  he,  the 
boy  shepherd,  began  to  be  interested  too,  and 
the  vicar's  superintendence  was  no  longer  needed. 
A  message  of  explanation  was  sent  to  Embley 
that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nightingale  might  not  be 
anxious,  and  for  several  hours  Florence  gave 
herself  up  to  nursing  her  patient.  Cap  was 
passive  in  her  hands,  and  the  hot  fomentations 
gradually  lessened  the  pain  and  the  swelling. 

Imagine  the  wonder  and  gratitude  of  old 
Roger  when  he  turned  up  with  the  rope  in 
his  hand  and  a  leaden  weight  on  his  poor  old 
heart !  Cap,  of  course,  knew  his  step  and 
greeted  him  with  a  little  whine  of  satisfac- 
tion, as  if  to  be  the  first  to  tell  him  the  good 
news. 

"  Why,  missy,  you  have  been  doing  wonders," 
he  said.  "  I  never  thought  to  see  t'  poor  dog 
look  up  at  me  like  that  again." 

"  Yes,"  exclaimed  the  happy  young  nurse  ; 
"  doesn't  he  look  better  ?  Well,  Roger,  you 
can  throw  away  the  rope.  I  shall  want  you 
to  help  me  make  these  hot  compresses." 

"  Miss  Florence  is  quite  right,  Roger,"  inter- 


54       FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

posed  the  vicar ;  "  you'll  soon  have  Cap  running 
about  again." 

"  I'm  sure  I  cannot  thank  you  and  the  young 
lady  enough,  yer  riv'rence.  And  I'll  mind  all 
the  instrooctions  for  he." 

As  the  faithful  dog  looked  up  at  him,  eased 
and  content,  it  was  a  very  happy  man  that  w^as 
old  Roger.  But  the  doctor-nurse  was  not  pre- 
pared to  lose  her  occupation  too  quickly. 

"  I  shall  come  and  see  him  again  to-morrow, 
Roger,"  she  said  ;  "  I  know  mamma  will  let  me, 
when  I  just  explain  to  her  about  it  all." 


CHAPTER    III. 

The  weaving  of  many  threads,  both  of  evil  and  of  good. 

While  Florence  Nightingale  and  her  sister  were 
working  hard  at  history  and  languages  and  all 
useful  feminine  arts,  romping  in  the  sunny 
Hampshire  gardens,  or  riding  amongst  the 
Derbyshire  hills,  the  big  world  outside  their 
quiet  paradise  was  heaping  fuel  for  the  fires 
of  war,  which  at  last,  when  after  a  quarter  of 
a  century  it  flared  up  out  of  its  long-prepared 
combustibles,  was  "  to  bring  to  death  a  million 
workmen  and  soldiers,  consume  vast  wealth, 
shatter  the  framework  of  the  European  system, 
and  make  it  hard  henceforth  for  any  nation 
to  be  safe  except  by  sheer  strength."  And 
above  all  its  devastation,  remembered  as  a  part 
of  its  undying  record,  the  name  of  one  of  these 
happy  children  was  to  be  blazoned  on  the  page 
of  history. 


56       FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Already  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  the 
first  Napoleon  had  said  that  the  Czar  of  Russia 
was  always  threatening  Constantinople  and  never 
taking  it,  and  by  the  time  Florence  Nightingale 
was  twelve  years  old,  it  might  be  said  of  that 
Czar  that  while  "  holding  the  boundless  authority 
of  an  Oriental  potentate,"  his  power  was  supple- 
mented by  the  far-reaching  transmission  of  his 
orders  across  the  telegraph  wires,  and  if  King- 
lake  does  not  exaggerate,  "  he  would  touch  the 
bell  and  kindle  a  war,  without  hearing  counsel 
from  any  living  man." 

The  project  against  Constantinople  was  a 
scheme  of  conquest  continually  to  be  delayed, 
but  never  discarded,  and,  happen  what  might, 
it  was  never  to  be  endured  that  the  prospect 
of  Russia's  attaining  some  day  to  the  Bosphorus 
should  be  shut  out  by  the  ambition  of  any 
other  Power.  Nicholas  was  quite  aware  that 
multitudes  of  the  pious  throughout  his  vast 
dominions  dwelt  upon  the  thought  of  their 
co-religionists  under  the  Turkish  rule,  and 
looked  to  the  shining  cross  of  St.  Sophia, 
symbol  of  their  faith  above  the  church  founded 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        57 

by  Constantine,  as  the  goal  of  political  unity 
for  a  "  suppliant  nation." 

And  Kinglake  tells  us  with  an  almost  acid 
irony  of  Louis  Napoleon,  that  he  who  was  by 
the  Senatus-Consulte  of  1804  the  statutory 
heir  of  the  great  Bonaparte,  and  after  his  exile 
and  imprisonment  had  returned  to  France, 
laboured  to  show  all  men  "  how  beautifully  Nature 
in  her  infinite  wisdom  had  adapted  that  same 
France  to  the  service  of  the  Bonapartes  ;  and 
how,  without  the  fostering  care  of  these  same 
Bonapartes,  the  creature  was  doomed  to  degenerate, 
and  to  perish  out  of  the  world,  and  was  consider- 
ing how  it  was  possible  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  to  make  the  coarse  Bona- 
parte yoke  of  1804  sit  kindly  upon  her  neck." 

The  day  was  drawing  near  when  a  great' war 
would  seem  to  him  to  ofFer  just  the  opportunity 
he  wanted. 

Far  away  as  yet  was  that  awful  massacre  of 
peaceful  citizens  in  Paris  in  1851,  with  which 
the  name  of  Louis  Napoleon  was  associated  as 
responsible  for  the  coup  d'etat  —  a  massacre 
probably  the  result  of  brutal  panic  on  the  part 


58        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

of  the  soldiers,  the  civilians,  and  that  craven 
president,  Louis  Napoleon  himself,  vs^hose  con- 
science made  a  coward  of  him,  and  v^hose 
terror  usually  took  the  form  of  brutality — but 
long  before  that  date,  by  his  callous  plotting 
and  underhand  self-seeking,  he  w^as  preparing 
forces  which  then  made  for  death  and  terror, 
and  by  that  time  had  more  or  less  broken 
the  manhood  of  his  beautiful  Paris. 

Yet  all  over  the  world  at  all  times,  while 
the  enemy  is  sowing  tares  in  the  field,  the 
good  seed  is  ripening  also  in  the  ground  for 
the  harvest ;  and  through  these  same  years  far- 
off  threads  were  being  woven,  ready  to  make 
part  of  the  warp  and  woof  of  a  life,  as  yet 
busied  with  the  duties  and  joys  of  childhood, 
but  one  day  to  thrill  the  hearts  of  Europe 
and  be  remembered  while  time  shall  last. 

Elizabeth  Fry,  who  was  to  be  one  of  its 
decisive  influences,  was  bringing  new  light  and 
hope  into  the  noisome  prisons  of  a  bygone 
century,  and  we  shall  see  how  her  life-work 
was  not  without  its  influence  later  on  the  life  of 
the  child  growing  up  at  Embley  and  Lea  Hurst. 


FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE.  59 
And  a  child  nearly  of  Florence  Nightingale's 
own  age,  who  was  one  day  to  cross  her  path 
with  friendly  help  at  an  important  crisis,  was 
playing  with  her  sister  Curlinda — Sir  WaUer 
Scott's  nickname  for  her  real  name  of  Carohne 

and    being     drilled     in     manners    in     French 

schools     in     Paris    and     Versailles,     before     her 
family    moved    to    Edinburgh    and    her    more 
serious  lessons  began.     This  was  FeUcia  Skene, 
who   was    afterwards    able   to   give    momentary, 
but  highly  important  help,  at  a  critical  moment 
in  Florence  Nightingale's  career.     Like  Florence 
herself,  she  was   born  amid   romantic  surround- 
ings,   though    not    in    Italy   but    in    Provence, 
and   was    named   after    her   French    godmother, 
a    certain     Comtesse     de     Felicite.       Her     two 
earliest   recollections  were  of  the   alarming  and 
enraged    gesticulations   of  Liszt  when    giving   a 
music  lesson  to  her   frightened   sisters,  and   the 
very  different  vision  of  a  lumbering  coach  and 
six  accompanied  by  mounted  soldiers— the  coach 
and  six  wherein  sat  Charles  the  Tenth,  who  was 
soon    afterwards    to    take    refuge    in    Holyrood. 
That  was   in    Paris,  where   her   family  went  to 


6o        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

live  when  she  was  six  years  old,  but  at  the 
time  of  Cap's  accident  they  had  already  moved 
to  Edinburgh,  where  her  chief  friends  and 
playmates  were  the  little  Lockharts  and  the 
children  of  the  murdered  Due  de  Berri.  It  was 
there  that  Sir  Walter  Scott,  on  the  day  when 
he  heard  of  his  bankruptcy,  came  and  sat 
quietly  by  the  little  Felicia,  and  bade  her  tell 
him  fairy  stories,  as  he  didn't  want  to  talk 
much  himself.  He  was  an  old  and  dear  friend 
of  her  father,  one  link  between  them  being 
the  fact  that  Mr.  Skene  was  related  by  marriage 
to  the  beautiful  Williamina  Stuart  with  whom 
Scott  in  his  early  days  had  fallen  deeply  and 
ardently  in  love. 

The  little  Felicia  was  at  this  time  a  very 
lively  child  and  full  of  innocent  mischief.  Her 
later  devotion  to  the  sick  and  poor  did  not  begin 
so  early  as  was  the  case  with  Florence  Nightin- 
gale, though  there  came  a  time  when  she  and 
Florence  met  in  after  life  as  equals  and  fellow- 
soldiers  in  the  great  campaign  against  human 
suffering.  Her  travels  and  adventures  in  Greece 
and  her  popularity  at  the  Athenian  court  were 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        6i 

still  hidden  in  the  future,  and  while  Florence  at 
Embley  and  Lea  Hurst  was  gradually  unfolding 
a  sweetness  of  nature  that  was  by  no  means  blind 
to  the  humorous  side  of  things,  and  a  highly 
practical  thoroughness  in  all  she  undertook, 
Felicia  was  enjoying  a  merry  home-life  under  the 
governorship  of  Miss  Palmer,  whom  she  nick- 
named Pompey,  and  being  prepared  for  confirma- 
tion by  her  father's  friend.  Dean  Ramsay.  We 
are  told  of  her  that  she  might  have  said  with 
Coppee,  "  J'ai  eu  toujours  besoin  de  Dieu."  Full 
of  fun  and  of  interest  in  life's  great  adventure, 
for  others  quite  as  much  as  for  herself,  religion 
was  the  moving  force  that  moulded  the  soul 
of  her  to  much  unforeseen  self-sacrifice  as  yet 
undreamed. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

The  activities  of  girlhood — Elizabeth  Fry — Felicia  Skene  again. 

But  we  are  wandering  away  from  Embley  and 
from  the  two  daughters  of  the  squire,  who  were 
already  the  delight  of  the  village. 

Cap  was  by  no  means  the  only  animal  who 
owed  much  to  Florence,  and  Peggy,  a  favourite 
old  pony,  now  holiday-making  in  the  paddock, 
looked  for  frequent  visits  and  much  sport  be- 
tween lesson  hours. 

"  Poor  old  Peggy,  then  ;  would  she  like  a 
carrot  ?  " 

"  Well,  where  is  it,  then  ?  See  if  you  can  find 
it,  Peggy." 

And  then  a  little  game  followed,  to  which  the 
beloved  pony  was  quite  accustomed — snuffing 
round  her  young  mistress  and  being  teased  and 
tantalized  for  a  minute  or  two,  just  to  heighten 
the  coming  pleasure,  until  at  last  the  pocket  was 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        63 

found  where  the  precious  delicacy  was  hidden, 
and  the  daily  feast  began,  a  feast  not  of  carrots 
only,  for  caresses  were  of  course  a  part  of  the 
ritual. 

Florence  had  much  good  fellowship  also  with 
the  wild  squirrels  of  the  neighbourhood,  especially 
in  one  long  avenue  that  was  their  favourite  abode. 
They  were  not  in  the  least  afraid  of  her,  and 
would  come  leaping  down  after  the  nuts  that  she 
dropped  for  them  as  she  walked  along.  Some- 
times she  would  turn  sharp  round  and  startle 
them  back  into  their  homes,  but  it  was  easy 
to  tempt  them  down  again.  She  was  quick  at 
finding  and  guarding  the  nests  of  brooding  birds, 
and  suffered  very  keenly  as  a  child  when  the 
young  ones  were  taken  away  from  their  mothers. 

Lambs  and  calves  soon  learned  that  she  was 
fond  of  them,  and  the  affection  was  not  on  her 
side  only.  But  among  the  pets  that  the  two 
girls  were  allowed  to  have,  the  ailing  ones  were 
always  the  most  interesting  to  the  future  nurse. 

It  cannot,  however,  be  too  strongly  stated  that 
there  was  nothing  sentimental  or  lackadaisical  in 
the  very  vigorous  and  hard-working  life  that  she 


64        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

led.  It  was  not  by  any  means  all  songs  and  roses, 
though  it  was  full  of  the  happiness  of  a  well- 
ordered  and  loving  existence.  Her  father  was 
a  rigid  disciplinarian,  and  nothing  casual  or  easy- 
going was  allowed  in  the  Embley  schoolroom. 
For  any  work  carelessly  done  there  was  punish- 
ment as  well  as  reproof,  and  no  shamming  of  any 
sort  was  allowed.  Hours  must  be  punctually 
kept,  and,  whether  the  lesson  for  the  moment 
was  Latin,  Greek,  or  mathematics,  or  the  sewing 
of  a  fine  and  exquisite  seam,  it  must  come  up  to 
the  necessary  standard  and  be  satisfactorily  done. 
The  master-mind  that  so  swiftly  transformed  the 
filthy  horrors  of  Scutari  into  a  well-ordered  hos- 
pital, and  could  dare  to  walk  through  minor 
difficulties  and  objections  as  though  they  did  not 
exist,  was  educated  in  a  severe  and  early  school ; 
and  the  striking  modesty  and  gentleness  of  Flor- 
ence Nightingale's  girlhood  was  the  deeper  for 
having  grappled  with  enough  real  knowledge  to 
know  its  own  ignorances  and  limitations,  and 
treat  the  personality  of  others  with  a  deference 
which  was  a  part  of  her  charm. 

And  if  study  was  made  a  serious  business,  the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        65 

sisters  enjoyed  to  the  full  the  healthy  advantages 
of  country  life.  They  scampered  about  the  park 
with  their  dogs,  rode  their  ponies  over  hill  and 
dale,  spent  long  days  in  the  woods  among  the 
bluebells  and  primroses,  and  in  summer  tumbled 
about  in  the  sweet-scented  hay.  "  During  the 
summer  at  Lea  Hurst,  lessons  were  a  little  re- 
laxed in  favour  of  outdoor  life  ;  but  on  the  return 
to  Embley  for  the  winter,  schoolroom  routine 
was  again  enforced  on  very  strict  lines."  * 

In  Florence  Nightingale's  Derbyshire  home 
the  experiments  in  methods  of  healing  which 
dispensed  with  drugs  could  not  fail  to  arouse 
attention  and  discussion,  for  Mr.  John  Smedley's 
newly-built  cure-house  stood  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill  below  Lea  Hurst,  and  before  Florence  Night- 
ingale was  twenty  she  had  already  begun  to  turn 
her  attention  definitely  in  the  direction  of  nur- 
sing. Everything  tended  to  deepen  this  idea. 
She  was  already  able  to  do  much  for  the  villagers, 
and  in  any  case  of  illness  they  were  always  eager 
to  let  her  know.  The  consumptive  girl  whose 
room  she  gladdened  with  flowers  was  but  one  of 
*  Mrs.  Tooley,  p.  37. 

(1.764)  5 


66        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

the  many  ailing  folk  who  found  comfort  and  joy 
in  her  presence.  "  Miss  Florence  had  a  way 
with  her  that  made  them  feel  better,"  they  said. 

In  those  days  nursing  as  a  profession  did  not 
exist.  When  it  was  not  done  wholly  for  love 
by  the  unselfish  maiden  aunt  or  sister,  who  was 
supposed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  be  always  at 
the  disposal  of  the  sick  people  among  her  kins- 
folk, it  had  come  to  be  too  often  a  mere  callous 
trade,  carried  on  by  ignorant  and  grasping  women, 
who  were  not  even  clean  or  of  good  character. 
The  turning  of  a  Scutari  hell  into  a  hospital 
that  seemed  heaven  by  comparison,  was  a  smaller 
miracle  than  that  which  Miss  Nightingale's  in- 
fluence was  destined  later  to  achieve  in  changing 
a  despised  and  brutalized  occupation  throughout  a 
whole  empire  into  a  noble  and  distinguished  art. 

Of  course  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that 
through  all  the  centuries  since  the  Christian 
Church  was  founded,  there  had  been  Catholic 
sisterhoods  with  whom  the  real  and  the  ideal 
were  one — Sisters  of  Mercy,  who  were  not  only 
refined  and  cultivated  gentlewomen,  but  the  most 
devoted  and  self-sacrificing  of  human  souls. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        67 

And  now  in  England,  in  that  Society  of 
Friends,  which  among  Christian  communities 
might  seem  outwardly  farthest  away  from  a 
communion  valuing  as  its  very  language  the 
ancient  symbols  and  ritual  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  yet  was  perhaps  by  its  obedience  to 
the  inward  voice  more  in  sympathy  with  the 
sisterhoods  of  that  Church  than  were  many  other 
religious  groups,  there  had  been  lifted  up  by 
Elizabeth  Fry  a  new  standard  of  duty  in  this 
matter,  which  in  her  hands  became  a  new  stan- 
dard of  nursing,  to  be  passed  on  in  old  age  by 
her  saintly  hands  into  the  young  and  powerful 
grasp  of  the  brilliant  girl  who  is  the  heroine 
of  our  story.  The  name  of  Elizabeth  Fry  is 
associated  with  the  reform  of  our  prisons,  but 
it  is  less  commonly  known  that  she  was  also  a 
pioneer  of  decent  nursing.  She  understood  with 
entire  simplicity  the  words,  "  I  was  sick  and  in 
prison,  and  ye  visited  me."  Perhaps  it  was  not 
mere  coincidence  that  the  words  occur  in  the 
"lesson"  appointed  for  the  15th  of  February — 
the  day  noted  in  Elizabeth  Fry's  journal  as  the 
date   of  that  visit   to   Newgate,  when  the  poor 


68        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

felons  she  was  yearning  to  help  fell  on  their 
knees  and  prayed  to  a  divine  unseen  Presence. 
In  a  recent  number  of  the  Times  which  celebrates 
her  centenary  a  quotation  from  her  diary  is  given 
which  tells  in  her  own  words  : — 

"  I  heard  weeping,  and  I  thought  they  ap- 
peared much  tendered  ;  a  very  solemn  quiet 
was  observed  ;  it  was  a  striking  scene,  the 
poor  people  on  their  knees  around  us,  in  their 
deplorable  condition." 

And  the  Times  goes  on  to  say,  "  nothing  ap- 
pears but  those  qualities  of  helpfulness,  sympathy, 
and  love  which  could  tame  the  most  savage 
natures,  silence  the  voice  of  profanity  and  blas- 
phemy, and  subdue  all  around  her  by  a  sense 
of  her  common  sisterhood  even  with  the  vilest 
of  them  in  the  love  of  God  and  the  service  of 
man.  .  .  ,  But  the  deepest  note  of  her  nature 
was  an  intense  enthusiasm  of  humanity.  It  was 
this  which  inspired  and  sustained  all  her  efforts 
from  first  to  last — even  in  her  earlier  and  more 
frivolous  days — for  the  welfare  and  uplifting  of 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        69 

her  fellow-creatures  ;  and  it  is  only  right  to  add 
that  it  was  itself  sustained  by  her  deep  and 
abiding  conviction  that  it  is  only  by  the  love 
of  God  that  the  service  of  man  can  be  sanctified 
and  made  to  prosper."  A  letter  followed  next 
day  from  Mr.  Julian  Hill,  who  actually  remem- 
bers her,  and  tells  how  the  Institution  of  Nursing 
Sisters  which  she  organized  grew  out  of  her  deep 
pity  for  the  victims  of  Sairey  Gamp  and  her 
kind. 

All  this  was  preparing  the  way  for  the  wider 
and  more  successful  nursing  crusade  in  which 
her  memory  and  influence  were  to  inspire  the 
brave  young  soul  of  Florence  Nightingale. 
Speaking  of  all  the  difficulties  that  a  blindly 
conventional  world  is  always  ready  to  throw  in 
the  way  of  any  such  new  path,  her  old  friend 
writes  :  "  Such  difficulties  Mrs.  Fry  and  Miss 
Nightingale  brushed  contemptuously  aside." 

But  in  our  story  Miss  Nightingale  is  as  yet 
only  lately  out  of  the  schoolroom.  And  Eliza- 
beth Fry's  life  was  by  no  means  alone,  as  we 
have  seen,  in  its  preparation  of  her  appointed 
path,  for  about  the  time  that  Florence  Nightin- 


70        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

gale  was  taking  her  place  in  the  brilliant  society 
that  met  about  her  father's  board,  and  Felicia 
Skene  was  "  coming  out,"  a  new  experiment  was 
being  made  by  a  devout  member  of  the  Lutheran 
Church,  an  experiment  which  was  to  play  an 
important  part  in  the  world's  history,  though 
so  quietly  and  unobtrusively  carried  out. 

We    must    not   anticipate — we    shall    read   of 
that  in  a  later  chapter. 


CHAPTER    V. 

Home  duties  and  pleasures — The  brewing  of  war. 

Florence  was  very  happy  as  her  mother's 
almoner,  and  in  her  modest  and  unobtrusive  way 
was  the  life  and  soul  of  the  village  festivities 
that  centred  in  the  church  and  school  and  were 
planned  in  many  instances  by  her  father  and 
mother.  It  is  one  of  the  happy  characteristics 
of  our  time  that  much  innocent  grace  and 
merriment  have  been  revived  in  the  teaching 
of  beautiful  old  morris  dances  and  other  peasant 
festivities  that  had  been  banished  by  the  rigour 
of  a  perverted  Puritanism,  and  the  squire  of  Lea 
Hurst  and  his  wife  were  before  their  time  in 
such  matters.  There  was  a  yearly  function  of 
prize-giving  and  speech-making  and  dancing, 
known  as  the  children's  "  Feast  Day,"  to  which 
the  scholars  came  in  procession  to  the  Hall, 
with   their  wreaths  and   garlands,  to  the  music 


72        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

of  a  good  marching  band  provided  by  the  squire, 
and  afterwards  they  had  tea  in  the  fields  below 
the  Hall  garden,  served  by  Mrs.  Nightingale 
and  her  daughters  and  the  Hall  servants,  and  then 
ended  their  day  with  merry  outdoor  dancing. 
For  the  little  ones  Florence  planned  all  kinds 
of  games  ;  the  children,  indeed,  were  her  special 
care,  and  by  the  time  the  evening  sun  was 
making  pomp  of  gold  and  purple  in  the  sky 
above  the  valley  of  the  Derwent,  there  came 
the  crowning  event  of  the  day  when  on  the 
garden  terrace  the  two  daughters  of  the  house 
distributed  their  gifts  to  the  happy  scholars. 

Mrs.  Tooley  in  her  biography  calls  up  for  us 
in  a  line  or  two  a  vision  of  Florence  as  she 
was  remembered  by  one  old  lady,  who  had  often 
been  present  and  recalled  her  slender  charm, 
herself  as  sweet  as  the  rose  which  she  often 
wore  in  her  neatly  braided  hair,  brown  hair 
with  a  glint  of  gold  in  it,  glossy  and  smooth 
and  characteristic  of  youth  and  health.  We 
have  from  one  and  another  a  glimpse  of  the 
harmonious  simplicity  also  of  her  dress — the 
soft  muslin   gown,   the   little   silk   fichu   crossed 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        73 

upon  her  breast,  the  modest  Leghorn  bonnet 
with  its  rose.  Or  in  winter,  riding  about  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Embley  and  distributing 
her  little  personal  gifts  at  Christmas  among 
the  old  women — tea  and  warm  petticoats — her 
"  ermine  tippet  and  muff  and  beaver  hat." 

She  helped  in  the  training  of  young  voices 
in  the  village,  and  was  among  the  entertainers 
when  the  carol-singers  enjoyed  their  mince-pies 
and  annual  coins  in  the  hall.  The  workhouse 
knew  her  well,  and  any  wise  enterprise  in  the 
neighbourhood  for  help  or  healing  among  the 
poor  and  the  sad  was  sure  of  her  presence  and  of 
all  the  co-operation  in  the  power  of  her  neigh- 
bours, Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sidney  Herbert,  with  whom 
for  some  years  before  the  Crimea  she  shared 
much  companionship  in  such  work.  This 
friendship  was  an  important  influence  in  our 
heroine's  life,  for  Mr.  Herbert  was  of  those 
who  reveal  to  the  dullest  a  little  of  the  divine 
beauty  and  love,  and  his  wife  was  through  all 
their  married  life  his  faithful  and  devoted  friend, 
so  that  they  made  a  strong  trio  of  sympathetic 
workers  ;    for    "  Liz,"    as    her    husband   usually 


74        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

called  her  in  his  letters  to  their  common  friend 
Florence  Nightingale,  seemed  to  have  fully  shared 
his  unbounded  faith  in  the  noble  powers  and  high 
aims  of  the  said  Florence,  whom  she  too  loved 
and  admired.  She  was  a  daughter  of  General 
Charles  Ashe  a  Court,  and  she  and  Sidney 
Herbert  had  known  one  another  as  children. 
Indeed,  it  was  in  those  early  days,  when  she 
was  quite  a  little  child,  that  Elizabeth,  who 
grew  up  to  be  one  of  the  most  beautiful  women 
of  her  day,  said  of  Sidney,  then,  of  course,  a  mere 
boy,  that  that  was  the  boy  she  was  going  to 
marry,  and  that  she  would  never  marry  any  one 
else.  Many  a  long  year,  however,  had  rolled 
between  before  he  rode  over  to  Amington  from 
Drayton,  where  he  often  met  her,  though  no 
longer  such  near  neighbours  as  in  the  early 
Wiltshire  days,  and  asked  the  beautiful  Elizabeth 
to  be  his  wife.  The  intimacy  between  the  two 
families  had  never  ceased,  and  General  a  Court, 
himself  member  for  Wilton,  had  worked  hard 
for  Sidney's  first  election  for  the  county.  We 
shall  hear  more  of  these  dear  and  early  friends 
of    Florence     Nightingale     as     her     story     un- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        75 

folds,   but    let    us   turn    now   for   a   moment    to 
herself. 

Her  life  was  many-sided,  and  her  devotion 
to  good  works  did  not  arise  from  any  lack  of 
knowledge  of  the  world.  She  was  presented,  of 
course,  like  other  girls  of  her  order,  and  had  her 
"  seasons "  in  London  as  well  as  her  share  in 
country  society.  A  young  and  lovely  girl,  whose 
father  had  been  wise  enough  to  give  her  all  the 
education  and  advantages  of  a  promising  boy, 
and  who  excelled  also  in  every  distinctive  fem- 
inine accomplishment  and  "  pure  womanliness," 
had  her  earthly  kingdom  at  her  feet.  But  her 
soul  was  more  and  more  deeply  bent  on  a  life 
spent  in  service  and  consecrated  to  the  good  of 
others.  Her  Sunday  class,  in  the  old  building 
known  as  the  "  Chapel "  at  Lea  Hurst,  was  but 
one  of  her  many  efforts  in  her  father's  special 
domain  in  Derbyshire,  and  girls  of  every  faith 
came  to  her  there  without  distinction  of  creed. 
They  were  mostly  workers  in  the  hosiery  mills 
owned  by  John  Smedley,  and  many  of  them, 
like  their  master,  were  Methodists.  She  sang 
to  them,  and  they  still  remember  the  sweetness 


76       FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

of  her  voice  and  "  how  beautifully  Miss  Florence 
used  to  talk,"  as  they  sat  together  through  many 
a  sunny  afternoon  in  the  tiny  stone  building 
overlooking  Lea  Hurst  gardens.  Cromford 
Church,  built  by  Sir  Richard  Arkwright,  was 
then  comparatively  new,  and  time  had  not 
made  of  it  the  pretty  picture  that  it  is  now, 
in  its  bosoming  trees  above  the  river  ;  but  it 
played  a  considerable  part  in  Florence  Nightin- 
gale's youth,  when  the  vicar  and  the  Arkwright 
of  her  day — old  Sir  Richard's  tomb  in  the  chan- 
cel bears  the  earlier  date  of  1792 — organized 
many  a  kind  scheme  for  the  good  of  the  parish, 
in  which  the  squire's  two  daughters  gave  their 
help. 

But  Miss  Nightingale  was  not  of  a  type  to 
consider  these  amateur  pleasures  a  sufficient 
training  for  her  life-work,  and  that  life-work 
was  already  taking  a  more  or  less  definite  shape 
in  her  mind. 

She  herself  has  written  : — 

"  I  would  say  to  all  young  ladies  who  are 
called  to  any  particular  vocation,  qualify  your- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        77 

selves  for  it  as  a  man  does  for  his  work.  Don't 
think  you  can  undertake  it  otherwise.  Submit 
yourselves  to  the  rules  of  business  as  men  do, 
by  v^hich  alone  you  can  make  God's  business 
succeed,  for  He  has  never  said  that  He  will  give 
His  success  and  His  blessing  to  sketchy  and 
unfinished  work."  And  on  another  occasion  she 
wrote  that  "  three-fourths  of  the  whole  mischief 
in  women's  lives  arises  from  their  excepting 
themselves  from  the  rules  of  training  considered 
needful  for  men." 

It  has  already  been  said  that  her  thought  was 
more  and  more  directed  towards  nursing,  and 
in  various  ways  she  was  quietly  preparing  herself 
to  that  end. 

Her  interview  with  the  Quaker-saint,  Elizabeth 
Fry,  though  deliberately  sought  and  of  abiding 
effect,  was  but  a  brief  episode.  It  was  about 
this  time  that  they  met  in  London.  The  serene 
old  Quakeress,  through  whose  countenance  looked 
forth  such  a  heavenly  soul,  was  no  doubt  keenly 
interested  in  the  ardent,  witty,  beautiful  girl 
who   came   to   her   for   inspiration   and   counsel. 


78        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

They  had  much  in  common,  and  who  knows 
but  the  older  woman,  with  all  her  weight  of 
experience,  her  saintly  character,  and  ripened 
harvest,  may  yet  in  some  ways  have  felt  herself 
the  younger  of  the  two  ;  for  she  had  come  to 
that  quiet  threshold  of  the  life  beyond,  where 
a  soul  like  hers  has  part  in  the  simple  joys  of 
the  Divine  Child,  and  looks  tenderly  on  those 
who  are  still  in  the  fires  of  battle  through  which 
they  have  passed. 

Her  own  girlhood  had  defied  in  innocent 
ways  the  strictness  of  the  Quaker  rule.  Imagine 
a  young  Quakeress  of  those  days  wearing,  as  she 
had  done  on  occasion,  a  red  riding  habit  ! 

She  had  been  fond  of  dancing,  and  would  have, 
I  suspect,  a  very  healthy  human  interest  in  the 
activities  of  a  girl  in  Society,  though  she  would 
enter  into  Florence  Nightingale's  resolve  that 
her  life  should  not  be  frittered  away  in  a  self- 
centred  round,  while  men  and  women,  for  whom 
her  Master  died,  were  themselves  suffering  a 
slow  death  in  workhouses  and  prisons  and  hos- 
pitals, with  none  to  tend  their  wounds  of  soul 
and  body. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        79 

Be  this  as  it  may — and  without  a  record  of 
their  conversation  it  is  easy  to  go  astray  in 
imagining — we  do  know  that  like  all  the  greatest 
saints  they  were  both  very  practical  in  their 
Christianity,  and  did  not  care  too  much  what 
was  thought  of  their  actions,  so  long  as  they 
were  right  in  the  sight  of  God.  In  their 
common  sense,  their  humility,  their  warm, 
quick -beating  heart  of  humanity,  they  were 
kindred  spirits. 

The  interview  bore  fruit  even  outwardly 
afterwards  in  a  very  important  way.  For  it 
was  from  Elizabeth  Fry  that  Florence  Night- 
ingale first  heard  of  Pastor  Fliedner  and  his 
institute  for  training  nurses  at  Kaiserswerth,  as 
well  as  of  Elizabeth  Fry's  own  institute  for  a 
like  purpose  in  London,  which  first  suggested 
the  Kaiserswerth  training  home,  thus  returning 
in  ever-widening  blessing  the  harvest  of  its  seed. 

Her  desire  was  for  definite  preparatory  know- 
ledge and  discipline,  and  we  of  this  generation 
can  hardly  realize  how  much  searching  must 
have  been  necessary  before  the  adequate  training 
could    be    found.      Certificated    nursing    is    now 


8o        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

a  commonplace,  and  we  forget  that  it  dates 
from  Miss  Nightingale's  efforts  after  her  return 
from  the  Crimea.  We  have  only  to  turn  to 
the  life  of  Felicia  Skene  and  her  lonely  labour 
of  love  at  the  time  when  the  cholera  visited 
Oxford — some  twelve  years  later  than  Florence 
Nightingale's  seventeenth  birthday,  that  is  to 
say,  in  1849-51,  and  again  in  1854 — to  gain 
some  idea  of  the  bareness  of  the  field.  Sir 
Henry  Acland,  whose  intimate  friendship  with 
Felicia  dates  from  their  common  labours  among 
the  cholera  patients,  has  described  one  among 
the  terrible  cases  for  which  there  would,  it 
seems,  have  been  no  human  aid,  but  for  their 
discovery  of  the  patient's  neglected  helplessness. 

"  She  had  no  blanket,"  he  says,  "  or  any 
covering  but  the  ragged  cotton  clothes  she  had 
on.  She  rolled  screaming.  One  woman,  scarcely 
sober,  sat  by  ;  she  sat  with  a  pipe  in  her  mouth, 
looking  on.  To  treat  her  in  this  state  was 
hopeless.  She  was  to  be  removed.  There  was 
a  press  of  work  at  the  hospital,  and  a  delay. 
When  the  carriers  came,  her  saturated  garments 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        8i 

were  stripped  off,  and  in  the  finer  linen  and  in 
the  blankets  of  a  wealthier  woman  she  was 
borne  away,  and  in  the  hospital  she  died." 

This  is  given,  it  would  seem,  as  but  one  case 
among  hundreds. 

Three  old  cattle-sheds  were  turned  into  a  sort 
of  impromptu  hospital,  to  which  some  of  the 
smallpox  and  cholera  patients  were  carried,  and 
the  clergy,  especially  Mr.  Charles  Marriott  and 
Mr.  Venables,  did  all  they  could  for  old  and 
young  alike,  seconding  the  doctors,  with  Sir 
Henry  at  their  head,  in  cheering  and  helping 
every  one  in  the  stricken  town  ;  and  Miss 
Skene's  friend,  Miss  Hughes,  Sister  Marion, 
directed  the  women  called  in  to  help,  who  there 
received  a  kind  of  rough-and-ready  training. 
But  more  overwhelming  still  was  Miss  Skene's 
own  work  of  home  nursing  in  the  cottages,  at 
first  single-handed,  and  afterwards  at  the  head 
of  a  band  of  women  engaged  by  the  deputy 
chairman  as  her  servants  in  the  work,  of  whom 
many  were  ignorant  and  needed  training.  "  By 
day  and  by  night  she  visited,"  writes  Sir  Henry. 

(1,764^  6 


82        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

"  She  plied  this  task,  and  when  she  rested — or 
where  as  long  at  least  as  she  knew  of  a  house 
where  disease  had  entered — is  known  to  herself 
alone." 

Meanwhile  a  critical  moment  had  arisen  in 
the  affairs  of  Europe.  Our  own  Premier,  Lord 
Aberdeen,  had  long  been  regarded  as  the  very 
head  and  front  of  the  Peace  Movement  in  Eng- 
land, and  when  he  succeeded  the  wary  Lord 
Palmerston,  it  is  said  that  Nicholas,  the  Czar 
of  Russia,  made  no  secret  of  his  pleasure  in  the 
event,  for  he  saw  tokens  in  England  of  what 
might  at  least  leave  him  a  chance  of  pulling 
Turkey  to  pieces.  He  seems  also  to  have  had 
a  great  personal  liking  for  our  ambassador.  Sir 
Hamilton  Seymour,  who  was  fortunately  a  man 
of  honour  as  well  as  a  man  of  discretion  and 
ready  wit.  The  account  given  by  Kinglake  of 
the  conversations  in  which  the  Emperor  Nicholas 
disclosed  his  views,  and  was  not  permitted  to 
hint  them  merely,  makes  very  dramatic  reading. 
The  Czar  persisted  in  speaking  of  Turkey  as  a 
very  sick  man,  whose  affairs  had  better  be  taken 
out  of  his  hands  by  his  friends  before  his  final 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        83 

dissolution.  Sir  Hamilton  courteously  intimated 
that  England  did  not  treat  her  allies  in  that 
manner  ;  but  Nicholas  was  not  to  be  put  off, 
and  at  a  party  given  by  the  Grand  Duchess 
Hereditary  on  February  20,  1853,  he  again 
took  Sir  Hamilton  apart,  and  in  a  very  gracious 
and  confidential  manner  closed  his  conversation 
with  the  words,  "  I  repeat  to  you  that  the  sick 
man  is  dying,  and  we  can  never  allow  such  an 
event  to  take  us  by  surprise.  We  must  come 
to  some  understanding." 

The  next  day  he  explained  how  the  partition 
should  in  his  opinion  be  made.  Servia  and 
Bulgaria  should  be  independent  states  under  his 
protection.  England  should  have  Egypt  and 
Candia.  He  had  already  made  it  clear  that  he 
should  expect  us  to  pledge  ourselves  not  to 
occupy  Constantinople,  though  he  could  not 
himself  give  us  a  like  undertaking. 

"As  I  did  not  wish,"  writes  Sir  Hamilton 
Seymour,  "  that  the  Emperor  should  imagine  that 
an  English  public  servant  was  caught  by  this 
sort  of  overture,  I  simply  answered  that  I  had 
always  understood  that  the  English  views  upon 


84        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Egypt  did  not  go  beyond  the  point  of  securing 
a  safe  and  ready  communication  between  British 
India  and  the  mother  country.  '  Well,'  said  the 
Emperor,  '  induce  your  Government  to  write 
again  upon  these  subjects,  to  write  more  fully, 
and  to  do  so  without  hesitation.  I  have  confi- 
dence in  the  English  Government.  It  is  not  an 
engagement,  a  convention,  which  I  ask  of  them ; 
it  is  a  free  interchange  of  ideas,  and  in  case 
of  need  the  word  of  a  "  gentleman  " — that  is 
enough  between  us.'  " 

In  reply,  our  Government  disclaimed  all  idea 
of  aiming  at  any  of  the  Sultan's  possessions,  or 
considering  the  Ottoman  Empire  ready  to  fall  to 
bits ;  and  while  accepting  the  Emperor's  word 
that  he  would  not  himself  grab  any  part  of  it, 
refused  most  decisively  to  enter  on  any  secret 
understanding. 

All  through  1853  these  parleyings  were  kept 
secret,  and  in  the  meantime  the  Czar  had  failed 
in  his  role  of  tempter.  In  the  interval  the 
Sultan,  who  perhaps  had  gained  some  inkling 
of  what  was  going  on,  suddenly  yielded  to 
Austria's  demand  that  he  should  withdraw  cer- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        85 

tain  troops  that  had  been  harassing  Montenegro, 
and  thereby  rousing  the  Czar's  religious  zeal  on 
behalf  of  his  co-religionists  in  that  province. 
Everything  for  the  moment  lulled  his  previous 
intention  of  a  war  against  Turkey. 

But  the  Emperor  Louis  Napoleon  had  in 
cold  blood  been  driving  a  wedge  into  the  peace 
of  the  world  by  reviving  a  treaty  of  1740,  which 
had  given  to  Latin  monks  a  key  to  the  chief 
door  of  the  Church  of  Bethlehem,  as  well  as 
the  keys  to  the  two  doors  of  the  Sacred  Manger, 
and  also  the  right  to  place  a  silver  star  adorned 
with  the  arms  of  France  in  the  Sanctuary  of  the 
Nativity.  That  the  Churches  should  fight  for 
the  key  to  the  supposed  birthplace  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace  is  indeed  grotesque.  But  the  old 
temple  had  in  His  day  become  a  den  of  thieves ; 
and  even  the  new  temple,  built  through  His  own 
loving  sacrifice,  is  ever  being  put  to  uses  that 
are  childish  and  greedy. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  that,  by  means 
of  this  treaty,  awakening  the  vanity  and  greed 
that  cloak  themselves  under  more  decent  feel- 
ings   in    such    rivalries,    Louis    Napoleon    made 


86        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

his   profit   for   the   moment   out  of  the   powers 
of  evil. 

The  Czar's  jealousy  for  his  own  empire's 
Greek  version  of  the  faith  made  the  triumph 
of  this  treaty  wormwood  to  him  and  to  his 
people.  "To  the  indignation,"  Count  Nessel- 
rode  writes,  "  of  the  whole  people  following  the 
Greek  ritual,  the  key  of  the  Church  of  Bethlehem 
has  been  made  over  to  the  Latins,  so  as  publicly 
to  demonstrate  their  religious  supremacy  in  the 
East."  .  .  . 

"  A  crowd  of  monks  with  bare  foreheads," 
says  Kinglake,  "  stood  quarrelling  for  a  key  at 
the  sunny  gates  of  a  church  in  Palestine,  but 
beyond  and  above,  towering  high  in  the  misty 
North,  men  saw  the  ambition  of  the  Czars." 

The  Czars  did  not  stand  alone :  "  some  fifty 
millions  of  men  in  Russia  held  one  creed,  and 
they  held  it  too  with  the  earnestness  of  which 
Western  Europe  used  to  have  experience  in 
earlier  times.  .  .  .  They  knew  that  in  the 
Turkish    dominions   there  were   ten  or  fourteen 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        87 

millions  of  men  holding  exactly  the  same  faith 
as  themselves  .  .  .  they  had  heard  tales  of  the 
sufferings  of  these  their  brethren  which  seemed," 
they  blindly  thought,  "  to  call  for  vengeance." 

Nicholas  himself  was  a  fanatic  on  such  ques- 
tions, and  the  end  of  it  was  that  his  rage  hood- 
winked   his   conscience,   and   he    stole   a   march 
upon  England  and  France,  which  destroyed  their 
trust  in  his  honour.     He  had  already  gathered 
troops  in  the  south,  to  say  nothing  of  a  fleet  in 
the  Euxine  ;  and  having  determined   on  an  em- 
bassy to  Constantinople,  he  chose  Mentschikoff 
as  his  messenger,  a  man  who  was  said  to  hate 
the    Turks   and    dislike   the   English,   and  who, 
according   to    Kinglake,  was  a  wit   rather   than 
a  diplomat  or  a  soldier.     Advancing  with  much 
of  the  pomp  of  war,  and  disregarding  much  of 
the  etiquette  of  peace,  his  arrival  and  behaviour 
caused  such  a  panic  in  the  Turkish  capital  that 
Colonel  Rose  was  besought  to  take  an  English 
fleet  to  the  protection  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
Colonel  Rose's  friendly  willingness,  though  after- 
wards cancelled   by  our  Home  Government,  at 
once  quieted  the  terror  in  Constantinople ;    but 


88       FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

the  Emperor  of  the  French  cast  oil  upon  the 
smouldering  flame  by  sending  a  fleet  to  Salamis. 
This  greatly  angered  Nicholas,  and,  although  he 
was  pleased  to  find  England  disapproved  of  what 
France  had  done,  Mentschikojff  offered  a  secret 
treaty  to  Turkey,  with  ships  and  men,  if  she  ever 
needed  help,  and  asked  in  return  for  complete 
control  of  the  Greek  Church.  This  broke  all  his 
promises  to  the  Western  Powers,  and  England 
at  once  was  made  aware  of  it  by  the  Turkish 
minister. 

Prince  Mentschikoff  meanwhile  drew  to 
himself  an  army,  and  the  English  Vice-consul 
at  Galatz  reported  that  in  Bessarabia  preparations 
were  already  made  for  the  passage  of  120,000 
men,  while  battalions  from  all  directions  were 
making  southward — the  fleet  was  even  then  at 
Sebastopol. 

The  double-dealing  of  Russia  was  met  by  a 
gradual  and  tacit  alliance  between  England  and 
the  Sultan  ;  and  Lord  Aberdeen,  whose  love  of 
peace  has  been  described  by  one  historian  as 
"  passionate  "  and  "  fanatical,"  was  unknowingly 
tying  his  own  hands  by  the  advice  he  gave  in  his 


Florence  Nightingale. 

LFr(>m  the  painting  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  by  Augustus  Egg,  R.A.) 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        89 

despatches  when  consulted  by  Turkey.  More- 
over, in  Turkey,  our  ambassador,  Lord  Stratford 
de  RedclifFe,  stiffened  the  back  of  Ottoman 
resistance  against  the  Czar's  wily  handling  of 
"  the  sick  man."  Lord  Stratford's  tact  and  force 
of  character  had  moulded  all  to  his  will,  and  our 
admiral  at  Malta  was  told  to  obey  any  directions 
he  received  from  him.  Our  fleets  were  ordered 
into  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Dardanelles,  and 
Lord  Stratford  held  his  watch  at  Therapia  against 
the  gathering  wrath  of  the  Czar.  Only  a  very 
little  kindling  touch  was  needed  to  light  the 
fires  of  a  terrible  conflict  in  Europe. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Pastor  Fliedner. 

A  PEBBLE  thrown  into  a  lake  sends  the  tiny  circ- 
ling ripples  very  far,  and  one  good  piece  of  work 
leads  to  others  of  a  quite  different  kind.  Pastor 
Fliedner,  inspired  by  love  to  his  Master  and 
deeply  interested  in  Elizabeth  Fry's  efforts,  began 
to  help  prisoners.  Finding  no  nurses  for  those 
of  them  who  were  ill,  he  was  led  to  found  the 
institution  at  Kaiserswerth,  where  Miss  Nightin- 
gale afterwards  received  a  part  of  her  training. 

His  story  is  a  beautiful  one.  His  father  and 
grandfather  had  both  been  pastors  in  the  Lutheran 
Church,  and,  like  so  many  sons  of  the  Manse,  he 
was  exceedingly  poor,  but  he  lived  to  justify  his 
name  of  Theodor.  He  was  born  twenty  years 
before  Miss  Nightingale,  in  the  village  of  Epp- 
stein,  and  perhaps  he  was  the  more  determined 
to  prove  to  himself  and   others   that   he   had  a 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        91 

soul,  because  he  was  one  of  those  plump  children 
who  get  teased  for  looking  like  dumplings,  and 
when  his  father  laughingly  called  him  the  "  little 
beer-brewer "  he  didn't  like  it,  for  he  was  a 
bit  thin-skinned.  He  worked  his  way  bravely 
through  school  and  college,  Giessen  and  Got- 
tingen,  and  not  only  earned  his  fees  by  teaching, 
but  also  his  bread  and  roof ;  and  when  teaching 
was  not  enough,  he  had  the  good  sense  to  turn 
shoeblack  and  carpenter  and  odd  man.  He 
valued  all  that  opens  the  eyes  of  the  mind  and 
educates  what  is  highest  and  best.  Many  a 
time,  heedless  of  hardship  and  privation,  he 
would,  in  his  holidays,  tramp  long  distances  that 
he  might  see  more  of  God's  world  and  learn 
more  of  men  and  things.  He  taught  himself 
in  this  way  to  speak  several  languages,  learned 
the  useful  healing  properties  of  many  herbs,  and 
other  homely  knowledge  that  afterwards  helped 
him  in  his  work  among  the  sick.  Then,  too, 
the  games  and  songs  that  he  picked  up  on  his 
travels  afterwards  enriched  his  own  kindergarten. 
While  tutoring  at  Cologne,  he  did  quite  informally 
some  of  the  work  of  a  curate,  and,  through  preach- 


92       FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

ing  sometimes  in  the  prison,  became  interested 
in  the  lot  of  discharged  prisoners.  It  was  at 
Cologne  too  that  he  received  from  the  mother 
of  his  pupils  kindly  suggestions  as  to  his  own 
manners,  which  led  him  to  write  what  is  as  true 
as  it  is  quaint,  that  "  gentle  ways  and  polite 
manners  help  greatly  to  further  the  Kingdom 
of  God." 

He  was  only  twenty-two  when  he  became 
pastor  of  the  little  Protestant  flock  at  Kaisers- 
werth,  having  walked  there  on  foot  and  purposely 
taken  his  parishioners  by  surprise  that  they  might 
not  be  put  to  the  expense  of  a  formal  welcome. 
His  yearly  salary  was  only  twenty  pounds,  and 
he  helped  his  widowed  mother  by  sharing  the 
parsonage  with  a  sister  and  two  younger  brothers, 
though  in  any  case  he  had  to  house  the  mother 
of  the  man  who  had  been  there  before  him. 
Then  came  a  failure  in  the  business  of  the  little 
town — the  making  of  velvet — and  though  there 
were  other  rich  communities  that  would  have 
liked  to  claim  him,  he  was  true  to  his  own 
impoverished  flock,  and  set  forth  like  a  pilgrim 
in    search   of  aid   for    them.      In   this   apostolic 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        93 

journey  he  visited  Holland  and  England  as  well 
as  Germany,  and  it  was  in  London  that,  in 
Elizabeth  Fry,  he  found  a  noble  kindred  spirit, 
much  older,  of  course,  than  himself,  as  we  count 
the  time  of  earth,  but  still  full  of  all  the  tender 
enthusiasm  of  love's  immortal  youth.  Her 
wonderful  work  among  the  prisoners  of  New- 
gate sent  him  back  to  his  own  parish  all  on 
fire  to  help  the  prisoners  of  his  own  country, 
and  he  began  at  once  with  Diisseldorf,  the  prison 
nearest  home.  Through  him  was  founded  the 
first  German  organization  for  improving  the 
discipline  of  prisons. 

Most  of  all  he  wanted  to  help  the  women 
who  on  leaving  the  prison  doors  were  left  with- 
out roof  or  protector. 

With  his  own  hands  he  made  clean  his  old 
summer-house,  and  in  this  shelter — twelve  feet 
square — which  he  had  furnished  with  a  bed,  a 
chair,  and  a  table,  he  asked  the  All-father  to  lead 
some  poor  outcast  to  the  little  home  he  had 
made  for  her. 

It  was  at  night  that  for  the  first  time  a  poor 
forlorn   creature  came  in  answer  to  that  prayer. 


94       FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

and  he  and  his  wife  led  her  in  to  the  place  pre- 
pared for  her.  Nine  others  followed,  and,  by 
the  time  the  number  had  risen  to  twenty,  a  new 
building  was  ready  for  them  with  its  own  field 
and  garden,  and  Fliedner's  wife,  helped  by 
Mademoiselle  Gobel,  who  gave  her  services  "  all 
for  love  and  nothing  for  reward,"  had  charge 
of  the  home,  where  many  a  one  who,  like  the 
woman  in  the  Gospel,  "had  been  a  great  sinner" 
began  to  lead  a  new  life  and  to  follow  Christ. 

For  the  children  of  some  of  these  women  a 
kindergarten  arose  ;  but  the  work  of  all  others 
on  which  the  pastor's  heart  was  set  was  the 
training  of  women  to  nurse  and  tend  the  poor ; 
for  in  his  own  parish,  where  there  was  much 
illness  and  ignorance,  there  was  no  one  to  do 
this.  Three  years  after  his  earlier  venture,  in 
1836  when  Miss  Nightingale  in  her  far-away 
home  was  a  girl  of  sixteen  still  more  or  less 
in  the  schoolroom,  this  new  undertaking  was 
begun,  this  quiet  haven,  from  which  her  own 
great  venture  long  afterwards  took  help  and 
teaching,  was  built  up  by  this  German  saint. 

The  failure  of  the  velvet  industry  at  Kaisers- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        95 

werth,  in  the  pastor's  first  year,  had  left  an 
empty  factory  which  he  turned  into  a  hospital. 

But  when  it  was  opened,  the  faith  needed  was 
much  like  the  faith  of  Abraham  when  great 
blessing  was  promised  to  a  son  whom  the  world 
thought  he  would  never  possess ;  for  the  Deaconess 
Hospital,  when  the  wards  were  fitted  up  by  its 
pastor  with  *'  mended  furniture  and  cracked 
earthenware,"  had  as  yet  no  patients  and  no 
deaconesses. 

There  is,  however,  one  essential  of  a  good 
hospital  which  can  be  bought  by  labour  as  well 
as  by  money ;  and  by  hard  work  the  hospital 
was  kept  admirably  clean. 

The  first  patient  who  knocked  at  its  doors 
was  a  servant  girl,  and  other  patients  followed 
so  quickly  that  within  the  first  year  sixty  patients 
were  nursed  there  and  seven  nurses  had  entered 
as  deaconess  and  probationers.  All  the  deacon- 
esses were  to  be  over  twenty-five,  and  though 
they  entered  for  five  years,  they  could  leave  at 
any  moment.  The  code  of  rules  drawn  up  by 
the  pastor  was  very  simple,  and  there  were  not 
any   vows ;    but    the    form  of  admission   was    a 


96       FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

solemn  one  and  included  the  laying  on  of  hands, 
while  the  pastor  invoked  the  Threefold  Name, 
saying :  "  May  God  the  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  three  Persons  in  one  God,  bless 
you ;  may  He  stablish  you  in  the  Truth  until 
death,  and  give  you  hereafter  the  Crown  of 
Life.      Amen." 

It  all  had  a  kind  of  homely  grace,  even  in 
outward  things.  The  deaconesses  wore  a  large 
white  turned-down  collar  over  a  blue  cotton 
gown,  a  white  muslin  cap  tied  on  under  the  chin 
with  a  large  bow,  and  a  white  apron — a  dress  so 
well  suited  to  the  work  that  young  and  old  both 
looked  more  than  usually  sweet  and  womanly 
in  it. 

The  story  of  how  the  deaconesses  found  a 
head,  and  Fliedner  a  second  helper  after  the 
death  of  his  first  wife,  reads  rather  like  a  Hans 
Andersen  fairy  tale. 

He  travelled  to  Hamburg  to  ask  Amalie 
Sievekin  to  take  charge  of  the  Home,  and  as  she 
could  not  do  so,  she  advised  him  to  go  to  her 
friend  and  pupil  Caroline  Berthean,  who  had  had 
experience  of  nursing  in  the  Hamburg  Hospital. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        97 

The  pastor  was  so  pleased  with  Miss  Caroline 
that  he  then  and  there  offered  her  the  choice 
of  becoming  either  his  wife  or  the  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Deaconesses'  Home. 

She  said  she  would  fill  both  the  vacant  places, 
and  their  honeymoon  was  spent  in  Berlin  that 
they  might  "  settle "  the  first  five  deaconesses 
in  the  Charite  Hospital. 

Caroline,  young  though  she  was,  made  a  good 
Deaconess  Mother,*  and  she  seems  also  to  have 
been  an  excellent  wife,  full  of  devotion  to  the 
work  her  husband  loved,  through  all  the  rest 
of  her  life.  The  deaconesses  give  their  work, 
and  in  a  sense  give  themselves.  They  do  not 
pay  for  their  board,  but  neither  are  they  paid 
for  their  work,  though  they  are  allowed  a  very 
simple  yearly  outfit  of  two  cotton  gowns  and 
aprons,  and  every  five  years  a  new  best  dress  of 
blue  woollen  material  and  an  apron  of  black  alpaca. 
Also  their  outdoor  garb  of  a  long  black  cloak 
and    bonnet   is  supplied    to   them,    and    each    is 

*  For  a  charming  sketch  of  Fliedner's  first  wife,  a  woman  of 
rare  excellence,  my  readers  are  referred  to  "  A  History  of  Nursing," 
by  M.  Adelaide  Nutting,  R.N.,  and  Lavinia  P.  Dock,  R.N.  (G.  P. 
Putnam  and  Sons.) 

(1.7M)  -7 


98        FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

allowed  a  little  pocket  money.  Their  private 
property  remains  their  own  to  control  as  they 
please,  whether  they  live  or  die. 

The  little  account  of  Kaiserswerth  which  Miss 
Nightingale  wrote  is  most  rare  and  precious, 
having  long  been  out  of  print,  but  from  the 
copy  in  the  British  Museum  I  transfer  a  few 
sentences  to  these  pages,  because  of  their  quaint- 
ness  and  their  interest  for  all  who  are  feeling 
their  way  in  the  education  of  young  children  : — 

"  In  the  Orphan  Asylum,"  wrote  Miss  Night- 
ingale, "  each  family  lives  with  its  deaconess 
exactly  as  her  children.  Some  of  them  have 
already  become  deaconesses  or  teachers,  some 
have  returned  home.  When  a  new  child  is 
admitted,  a  little  feast  celebrates  its  arrival,  at 
which  the  pastor  himself  presides,  who  under- 
stands children  so  well  that  his  presence,  instead 
of  being  a  constraint,  serves  to  make  the  little 
new-comer  feel  herself  at  home.  She  chooses 
what  is  to  be  sung,  she  has  a  little  present  from 
the  pastor,  and,  after  tea,  at  the  end  of  the 
evening,  she  is  prayed  for.   .  .  . 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.        99 

"  One  morning,  in  the  boys'  ward,  as  they 
were  about  to  have  prayers,  just  before  breakfast, 
two  of  the  boys  quarrelled  about  a  hymn  book. 
The  '  sister '  was  uncertain,  for  a  moment,  what 
to  do.  They  could  not  pray  in  that  state  of 
mind,  yet  excluding  them  from  the  prayer  was 
not  likely  to  improve  them.  She  told  a  story 
of  her  own  childhood,  how  one  night  she  had 
been  cross  with  her  parents,  and,  putting  off  her 
prayers  till  she  felt  good  again,  had  fallen  asleep. 
The  children  were  quite  silent  for  a  moment  and 
shocked  at  the  idea  that  anybody  should  go  to 
bed  without  praying.  The  two  boys  were  recon- 
ciled, and  prayers  took  place.   .   .   ." 

In  the  British  Museum  also  is  a  copy  of  the 
following  letter : — 

"  Messrs.  Dubaw, — A  gentleman  called  here 
yesterday  from  you,  asking  for  a  copy  of  my 
'  Kaiserswerth '  for,  I  believe,  the  British  Museum. 

"  Since  yesterday  a  search  has  been  instituted — 
but  only  two  copies  have  been  found,  and  one 
of  those  is  torn  and  dirty.      I  send  you  the  least 


loo      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

bad-looking.  You  will  see  the  date  is  1851, 
and  after  the  copies  then  printed  were  given 
away  I  don't  think  I  have  ever  thought  of  it. 

"  I  was  twice  in  training  there  myself.  Of 
course,  since  then  hospital  and  district  nursing 
have  made  great  strides.  Indeed,  district  nursing 
has  been  invented. 

"  But  never  have  I  met  with  a  higher  love, 
a  purer  devotion  than  there.  There  was  no 
neglect. 

"  It  was  the  more  remarkable  because  many  of 
the  deaconesses  had  been  only  peasants  (none  were 
gentlewomen  when  I  was  there). 

"The  food  was  poor — no  coffee  but  bean  coffee 
— no  luxury  but  cleanliness. 

"  Florence  Nightingale.'* 


CHAPTER   VII. 

Years  of  preparation. 

Florence  Nightingale,  like  Felicia  Skene,  had 
that  saving  gift  of  humour  which  at  times  may 
make  bearable  an  otherwise  unbearable  keenness 
of  vision. 

Here,  for  instance,  is  her  account  of  the 
customary  dusting  of  a  room  in  those  days  (is 
it  always  nowadays  so  entirely  different  as  might 
be  wished  ?)  : — 

"  Having  witnessed  the  morning  process  called 
'  tidying  the  room '  for  many  years,  and  with 
ever-increasing  astonishment,  I  can  describe  what 
it  is.  From  the  chairs,  tables,  or  sofa,  upon 
which  *  things '  have  lain  during  the  night,  and 
which  are  therefore  comparatively  clean  from 
dust  or  blacks,  the  poor  *  things  '  having  '  caught 
it,'  they  are  removed  to  other  chairs,  tables,  sofas, 


102      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

upon  which  you  could  write  your  name  with 
your  finger  in  the  dust  or  blacks.  The  other 
side  of  the  things  is  therefore  now  evenly  dirtied 
or  dusted.  The  housemaid  then  flaps  everything 
or  some  things  not  out  of  her  reach  with  a  thing 
called  a  duster — the  dust  flies  up,  then  resettles 
more  equally  than  it  lay  before  the  operation. 
The  room  has  now  been  '  put  to  rights.' " 

You  see  the  shrewd  humour  of  that  observa 
tion  touches  the  smallest  detail.     Miss  Nightin- 
gale never  wasted  time  in  unpractical  theorizing. 
In  discussing  the  far-off  attainment  of  ideal  nurs- 
ing she  says : — 

"  Will  the  top  of  Mont  Blanc  ever  be  made 
habitable  ?  Our  answer  would  be,  it  will  be 
many  thousands  of  years  before  we  have  reached 
the  bottom  of  Mont  Blanc  in  making  the  earth 
healthy.  Wait  till  we  have  reached  the  bottom 
before  we  discuss  the  top." 

Did  she  with  her  large  outlook  and  big  heart 
see   our   absurdity  as  well  as   our  shame  when. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      103 

pointing  a  finger  of  scorn  at  what  we  named  the 
superstition  of  other  countries,  we  were  yet  con- 
tent to  sec  Spain  and  France  and  Italy  sending 
out  daily,  in  religious  service  to  the  poor,  whole 
regiments  of  gentle  and  refined  women  trained 
in  the  arts  of  healing  and  the  methods  of  dis- 
cipline, while  even  in  our  public  institutions — 
our  hospitals  and  workhouses  and  prisons — it 
would  hardly  have  been  an  exaggeration  to  say 
that  most  of  the  so-called  "  nurses "  of  those 
days  were  but  drunken  sluts  ? 
She  herself  has  said : — 

"  Shall  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  do  all  the 
work  ?  Has  not  the  Protestant  the  same  Lord, 
who  accepted  the  services  not  only  of  men,  but 
also  of  women  ?  " 

One  saving  clause  there  is  for  England  con- 
cerning this  matter  in  the  history  of  that  time, 
in  the  work  of  a  distinguished  member  of  the 
Society  of  Friends,  even  before  Florence  Night- 
ingale or  Felicia  Skene  had  been  much  heard 
of.  We  read  that  "  the  heavenly  personality  of 
Elizabeth   Fry  (whom  Miss  Nightingale  sought 


104      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

out  and  visited)  was  an  ever-present  inspiration 
in  her  life."     From   Elizabeth   Fry  our  heroine 
heard  of  Pastor  Fliedner's  training  institute  for 
nurses  at  Kaiserswerth,  already  described  in  the 
foregoing  chapter ;  but,  before  going  there,  she 
took  in  the  meantime  a  self-imposed  course  of 
training    in    Britain,    visiting    the    hospitals    in 
London,  Edinburgh,  and  Dublin,  though,  so  far 
as  the  nursing  was  concerned,  the  criticisms  in 
her    own    Nursing    Notes    of  later    years    would 
certainly    suggest    that    what    she    learned    was 
chiefly  what  not  to  do.      Her  gracious  and  win 
ning  dignity  was  far  indeed  from  the  blindness 
of   a    weak    amiability,    and    it    can    hardly    be 
doubted    that    what    she    saw    of   the    so-called 
"  nurses "  in  our  hospitals  of  those   days,   went 
far  to   deepen  her  resolve  to   devote   herself  to 
a   calling    then    in   dire    neglect    and    disrepute. 
Dirt,  disorder,  drunkenness — these  are  the  words 
used  by  a  trustworthy  biographer  in  describing 
the   ways  of  English   nurses   in   those   days — of 
whom,  indeed,  we  are   told   that    they  were   of 
a    very    coarse    order — ill-trained,    hard-hearted, 
immoral.     There  must  surely  have  been  cxcep- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      105 

tions,  but  they  seem  to  have  been  so  rare  as  to 
have  escaped  notice.  Indeed,  it  was  even  said 
that  in  those  days — so  strong  and  stupefying  is 
the  force  of  custom — decent  girls  avoided  this 
noble  calling,  fearing  to  lose  their  character  if 
found  in  its  ranks. 

But  whatever  were  Florence  Nightingale's 
faults — and  she  was  by  no  means  so  inhuman 
as  to  be  without  faults  —  conventionality  of 
thought  and  action  certainly  cannot  be  counted 
among  them ;  and  what  she  saw  of  the  poor 
degraded  souls  who  waited  on  the  sick  in  our 
hospitals  did  but  strengthen  her  resolve  to  be- 
come a  nurse  herself. 

Since  she  found  no  good  school  of  nursing 
in  England,  she  went  abroad,  and  visited,  among 
other  places,  the  peaceful  old  hospital  of  St. 
John  at  Bruges,  where  the  nuns  are  cultivated 
and  devoted  women  who  are  well  skilled  in  the 
gentle  art  of  nursing. 

To  city  after  city  she  went,  taking  with  her 
not  only  her  gift  of  discernment,  but  also  that 
open  mind  and  earnest  heart  which  made  of  her 
life-offering  so  world-wide  a  boon. 


io6      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

I  do  not  think  I  have  used  too  strong  a  word 
of  the  gift  she  was  preparing.  For  the  writer 
of  an  article  which  appeared  in  Nursing  Notes* 
was  right  when,  at  the  end  of  Miss  Nightin- 
gale's life,  she  wrote  of  her  : — 

"  Miss  Nightingale  belongs  to  that  band  of 
the  great  ones  of  the  earth  who  may  be 
acclaimed  as  citizens  of  the  world  ;  her  influence 
has  extended  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  nation 
to  which  she  owed  her  birth,  and  in  a  very 
special  sense  she  will  be  the  great  prototype  for 
all  time  to  those  who  follow  more  especially  in 
her  footsteps,  in  the  profession  she  practically 
created.  We  must  ever  be  grateful  for  the 
shining  example  she  has  given  to  nurses,  who  in 
her  find  united  that  broad-minded  comprehension 
of  the  ultimate  aim  of  all  their  work,  with  a  pa- 
tient and  untiring  devotion  to  its  practical  detail, 
which  alone  combine  to  make  the  perfect  nurse." 

But  as  yet  she  was  only  humbly  and  diligently 
preparing  herself  for  the  vocation  to  which  she 

*  The  reference  here  is  not  to  Miss  Nightingale's  book,  but  to 
the  periodical  which  at  present  bears  that  name. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      107 

had  determined,  in  face  of  countless  obstacles, 
to  devote  herself,  little  knowing  how  vast  would 
be  the  opportunities  given  to  her  when  once  she 
was  ready  for  the  work. 

During  the  winter  and  spring  of  1849-50 
she  made  a  long  tour  through  Egypt  with 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bracebridge.  On  her  way  there 
she  met  in  Paris  two  Sisters  of  the  Order 
of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  from  whom  she  took 
introductions  to  the  schools  and  "  misericorde " 
in  Alexandria.  There  she  saw  the  fruits  of 
long  and  self-denying  discipline  among  the 
Nursing  Sisters,  and  in  the  following  year  she 
visited  Pastor  Fliedner's  Institute  at  Kaiserswerth, 
where,  among  Protestant  deaconesses,  the  life 
of  ordered  simplicity  and  service  showed  some 
of  the  same  virtues. 

Miss  Nightingale's  first  visit  to  Kaiserswerth 
was  comparatively  short,  but  in  the  following 
year,  1852,  she  went  there  again  and  took 
four  months  of  definite  training,  from  June  to 
October. 

A  deep  and  warm  regard  seems  to  have  arisen 
between  the  Fliedners  and  their  English  pupil. 


io8      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

and  the  pastor's  friendship  for  Miss  Nightin- 
gale's revered  counsellor,  Elizabeth  Fry,  must 
have  been  one  pleasant  link  in  the  happy  bond. 

Fliedner  was  certainly  a  w^onderful  man,  and 
Miss  Nightingale's  comment  on  the  spirit  of 
his  work  was  as  true  as  it  was  witty.  "  Pastor 
Fliedner,"  she  said,  "  began  his  work  with  two 
beds  under  a  roof,  not  with  a  castle  in  the  air, 
and  Kaiserswerth  is  now  diffusing  its  blessings 
and  its  deaconesses  over  almost  every  Protestant 
land."  This  was  literally  true.  Within  ten 
years  of  founding  Kaiserswerth  he  had  established 
sixty  nurses  in  twenty-five  different  centres. 
Later  he  founded  a  Mother-house  on  Mount 
Zion  at  Jerusalem,  having  already  settled  some 
of  his  nurses  at  Pittsburg  in  the  United  States. 
The  building  for  the  Jerusalem  Mother-house 
was  given  by  the  King  of  Prussia,  and,  nursing 
all  sick  people,  without  any  question  of  creed, 
is  a  school  of  training  for  nurses  in  the  East. 

Alexandria,  Beyrout,  Smyrna,  Bucharest — he 
visited  them  all,  and  it  is  due  to  his  efforts 
nearer  home  that  to-day  in  almost  all  German 
towns  of  any  importance  there   is   a   Deaconess 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      109 

Home,  sending  out  trained  women  to  nurse  in 
middle-class  families  at  very  moderate  fees,  and 
ready  to  nurse  the  poor  without  any  charge  at  all. 
When,  in  1864,  "he  passed  to  his  glorious 
rest  " — the  words  are  Miss  Nightingale's — there 
were  already  one  hundred  such  houses,  and  during 
part  of  Miss  Nightingale's  visit  to  Kaiserswerth, 
Pastor  Fliedner  was  away  a  good  deal  on  the 
missionary  journeys  which  spread  the  Deaconess 
Homes  through  Germany,  but  they  met  quite 
often  enough  for  each  to  appreciate  the  noble 
character  of  the  other.  In  all  his  different  kinds 
of  work  for  helping  the  poor  she  was  eagerly 
interested,  and  it  may  be  that  some  of  her  wise 
criticisms  of  district  visiting  in  later  years  may 
have  been  suggested  by  the  courtesy  and  good 
manners  that  ruled  the  visiting  of  poor  homes 
at  Kaiserswerth  in  which  she  shared.  It  was 
there  also  that  she  made  warm  friendship  with 
Henrietta  Frickenhaus,  in  whose  training  college 
at  Kaiserswerth  400  pupils  had  already  passed 
muster.  It  should  be  added  that  Henrietta 
Frickenhaus  was  the  first  schoolmistress  of 
Kaiserswerth. 


no      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Mr.  Sidney  Herbert  visited  Kaiserswerth 
while  Miss  Nightingale  was  there,  and  when, 
in  the  great  moment  that  came  afterwards,  he 
asked  her  to  go  out  to  the  Crimea,  he  knew 
well  how  detailed  and  definite  her  training  had 
been. 

Pastor  Fliedner's  eldest  daughter  told  Mrs. 
Tooley  how  vividly  she  recalled  her  father's 
solemn  farewell  blessing  when  Miss  Nightingale 
was  leaving  Kaiserswerth  ;  laying  his  hands  on 
her  bent  head  and,  with  eyes  that  seemed  to  look 
beyond  the  scene  that  lay  before  him,  praying 
that  she  might  be  stablished  in  the  Truth  till 
death,  and  receive  the  Crown  of  Life. 

And  even  mortal  eyes  may  read  a  little  of 
how  those  prayers  for  her  future  were  fulfilled. 

She  left  vivid  memories.  "  No  one  has  ever 
passed  so  brilliant  an  examination,"  said  Fliedner, 
"  or  shown  herself  so  thoroughly  mistress  of  all 
she  had  to  learn,  as  the  young,  wealthy,  and 
graceful  EngUshwoman."  Agnes  Jones,  who 
was  trained  there  before  her  work  in  Liver- 
pool left  a  memorable  record  of  life  spent  in 
self-denying   service,    tells   how    the   workers    at 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      iii 

Kaiserswerth  longed  to  see  Miss  Nightingale 
again,  how  her  womanliness  and  lovableness  were 
remembered,  and  how  among  the  sick  people 
were  those  who  even  in  dying  blessed  her  for 
having  led  them  to  the  Redeemer  ;  for  through- 
out her  whole  life  her  religion  was  the  very  life 
of  her  life,  as  deep  as  it  was  quiet,  the  underlying 
secret  of  that  compassionate  self-detachment  and 
subdued  fire,  without  which  her  wit  and  shrewd- 
ness would  have  lost  their  absolving  glow  and 
underlying  tenderness.  Hers  was  ever  the 
gentleness  of  strength,  not  the  easy  bending  of 
the  weak.  She  was  a  pioneer  among  women, 
and  did  much  to  break  down  the  cruel  limitations 
which,  in  the  name  of  affection  and  tradition, 
hemmed  in  the  lives  of  English  girls  in  those 
days.  Perhaps  she  was  among  the  first  of  that 
day  in  England  to  realize  that  the  Christ,  her 
Master,  who  sent  Mary  as  His  first  messenger 
of  the  Resurrection,  was  in  a  fine  sense  of  the 
word  "  unconventional,"  even  though  He  came 
that  every  jot  and  tittle  of  religious  law  might 
be  spiritually  fulfilled. 

It    was    after    her    return    to    England    from 


112      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Germany  that  she  published  her  little  pamphlet 
on  Kaiserswerth,  from  which  quotations  have 
already  been  given. 

Her  next  visit  was  to  the  Convent  of  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul  in  Paris,  where  the  nursing 
was  a  part  of  the  long-established  routine,  and 
while  there  she  was  able  to  visit  the  hospitals 
in  Paris,  and  learned  much  from  the  Sisters  in 
their  organized  work  among  the  houses  of  the 
poor.  In  the  midst  of  all  this  she  was  herself 
taken  ill,  and  was  nursed  by  the  Sisters.  Her 
direct  and  personal  experience  of  their  tender 
skill  no  doubt  left  its  mark  upon  her  own  fitness. 
On  her  return  home  to  complete  her  recovery, 
her  new  capacity  and  knowledge  made  a  good 
deal  of  delighted  talk  in  the  cottages,  and  Mrs. 
Tooley  tells  us  how  it  was  rumoured  that  "  Miss 
Florence  could  set  a  broken  leg  better  than  a 
doctor,"  and  made  the  old  rheumatic  folk  feel 
young  again  with  her  remedies,  to  say  nothing 
of  her  "  eye  lotions,"  which  "  was  enough  to 
ruin  the  spectacle  folk."  She  was  always  ahead 
of  her  time  in  her  belief  in  simple  rules  of 
health  and  diet  and  hatred  of  all  that  continual 


Florence  Nightingale  in    1854. 

(From  a  drawing  by  H.  M.  B.  C) 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      113 

use  of  drugs  which  was  then  so  much  in  fashion, 
and  she  no  doubt  saw  many  interesting  experi- 
ments at  Matlock  Bank  in  helping  Nature  to  do 
her  own  work. 

As  soon  as  her  convalescence  was  over  she 
visited  London  hospitals,  and  in  the  autumn  of 
1852  those  of  Edinburgh  and  Dublin,  having 
spent  a  part  of  the  interval  in  her  home  at 
Embley,  where  she  had  again  the  pleasure  of 
being  near  her  friends  the  Herberts,  with  whose 
neighbourly  work  among  the  poor  she  was  in 
fullest  sympathy. 

Her  first  post  was  at  the  Harley  Street  Home 
for  Sick  Governesses.  She  had  been  interested 
in  many  kinds  of  efforts  on  behalf  of  those  who 
suffer  ;  Lord  Shaftesbury's  Ragged  School  labours, 
for  instance,  had  appealed  to  her,  and  to  that 
and  other  like  enterprises  she  had  given  the 
money  earned  by  her  little  book  on  Kaiserswerth. 
But  she  always  had  in  view  the  one  clear  and 
definite  aim — to  fit  herself  in  every  possible  way 
for  competent  nursing.  It  was  on  August  12, 
1853,  that  she  became  Superintendent  of  the 
Harley  Street  institution,  which  is  now  known 

(1,764)  8 


114      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

as  the  Florence  Nightingale  Hospital.  It  was 
founded  in  1850  by  Lady  Canning,  as  a  Home 
for  Invalid  Gentlewomen,  and  when  an  appeal 
was  made  to  Miss  Nightingale  for  money  and 
good  counsel,  she  gave  in  addition  herself  and 
became  for  a  time  the  Lady  Superintendent. 

The  hospital  was  intended  mainly  for  sick 
governesses,  for  whom  the  need  of  such  a  home 
of  rest  and  care  and  surgical  help  had  sometimes 
arisen,  but  it  had  been  mismanaged  and  was  in 
danger  of  becoming  a  failure.  There  Miss 
Nightingale,  we  read,  was  to  be  found  "  in  the 
midst  of  various  duties  of  a  hospital — for  the 
Home  was  largely  a  sanatorium  —  organizing 
the  nurses,  attending  to  the  correspondence, 
prescriptions,  and  accounts  ;  in  short,  performing 
all  the  duties  of  a  hard-working  matron,  as  well 
as  largely  financing  the  institution." 

"  The  task  of  dealing  with  sick  and  querulous 
women,"  says  Mrs.  Tooley,  "embittered  and 
rendered  sensitive  and  exacting  by  the  un- 
fortunate circumstances  of  their  lives,  was  not 
an  easy  one,  but  Miss  Nightingale  had  a  calm 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      115 

and  cheerful  spirit  which  could  bear  with  the 
infirmities  of  the  weak.  And  so  she  laboured 
on  in  the  dull  house  in  Harley  Street,  summer 
and  winter,  bringing  order  and  comfort  out  of 
a  wretched  chaos,  and  proving  a  real  friend  and 
helper  to  the  sick  and  sorrow-laden  women. 

"  At  length  the  strain  proved  too  much  for 
her  delicate  body,  and  she  was  compelled  most 
reluctantly  to  resign  her  task." 

She  had  worked  very  hard,  and  was  seldom 
seen  outside  the  walls  of  the  house  in  Harley 
Street.  Though  she  was  not  there  very  long, 
the  effect  of  her  presence  was  great  and  lasting, 
and  the  Home,  which  has  now  moved  to  Lisson 
Grove,  has  increased  steadily  in  usefulness,  though 
it  has  of  necessity  changed  its  lines  a  little, 
because  the  High  Schools  and  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  women  have  opened  new  careers  and 
lessened  the  number  of  governesses,  especially 
helpless  governesses.  It  gives  aid  far  and  wide 
to  the  daughters  and  other  kindred  of  hard- 
worked  professional  men,  men  who  are  serving 
the  world  with  their  brains,  and  nobly  seeking 


ii6      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

to  give  work  and  service  of  as  good  a  kind  as 
lies  within  their  povvrer,  rather  than  to  snatch 
at  its  exact  value  in  coin,  even  if  that  vs^ere 
possible — and  in  such  toil  as  theirs,  whether  they 
be  teachers,  artists,  parsons,  or  themselves  doctors, 
it  is  not  possible  ;  for  such  work  cannot  be 
weighed  in  money. 

Queen  Alexandra  is  President,  and  last  year 
301  patients  were  treated,  besides  the  16  who 
were  already  within  its  walls  when  the  new  year 
began. 


CHAPTER    VIIL 

The  beginning  of  the  war — A  sketch  of  Sidney  Herbert. 

It  was  on  April  ii,  1854,  that  war  was 
declared  by  Russia,  and  four  days  later  the  in- 
vasion of  the  Ottoman  Empire  began.  England 
and  France  were  the  sworn  allies  of  Turkey,  and 
though  the  war  had  begun  with  a  quarrel  about 
"  a  key  and  a  trinket,"  the  key  and  the  trinket 
were,  after  all,  symbols,  just  as  truly  as  the  flags 
for  which  men  lay  down  their  lives. 

England  had  entrusted  the  cause  of  peace  to 
those  faithful  lovers  of  peace.  Lord  Aberdeen, 
Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr.  Cobden,  and  Mr.  Bright  ; 
but  no  single  man  in  our  "constitutional" 
Government  is  in  reality  a  free  agent,  and  the 
peace-loving  members  of  the  Cabinet  had  been 
skilfully  handled  by  the  potent  Lord  Palmerston, 
and  did  not  perceive  soon  enough  that  the 
understanding   with    Turkey   and   with    France, 


ii8      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

into  which  they  had  drifted,  must  endanger  the 
peace  of  Europe  because  the  other  Powers  were 
ignored.  If  the  English  people  had  been  secretly 
longing  for  war — and  it  is  said  that  they  had — 
then  the  terrible  cup  they  had  desired  was  to  be 
drunk  to  the  lees  :  the  war  on  which  they  were 
entering  was  a  war  of  agony  and  shame,  a  war 
in  which  men  died  by  hundreds  of  neglect  and 
mismanagement,  before  a  woman's  hand  could 
reach  the  helm  and  reform  the  hospital  ordinances 
in  the  ship  of  State. 

Meanwhile,  before  we  plunge  into  the  horrors 
of  the  Crimean  War  we  may  rest  our  minds 
with  a  few  pages  about  Miss  Nightingale's 
friend,  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  who  became  an 
active  and  self-sacrificing  power  in  the  War 
Office. 

When  Florence  Nightingale  was  born,  Sidney 
Herbert — afterwards  Lord  Herbert  of  Lea — was 
already  a  boy  of  ten. 

Those  who  know  the  outlook  over  the  Thames, 
from  the  windows  of  Pembroke  Lodge  at  Rich- 
mond, will  realize  that  he  too,  like  Florence 
Nightingale,  was  born  in  a  very  beautiful  spot. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      119 

His  father,  the  eleventh  Earl  of  Pembroke,  had 
married  the  daughter  of  Count  Woronzow,  the 
Russian  Ambassador,  and,  in  Sidney's  knowledge- 
able help  afterwards  at  the  War  Office  during  the 
Crimean  War,  it  is  not  without  interest  to 
remember  this. 

His  birth  had  not  been  expected  so  soon,  and 
there  were  no  baby  clothes  handy  at  Pembroke 
Lodge,  where  his  mother  was  staying.  It  would 
seem  that  shops  were  not  so  well  able  to  supply 
every  need  with  a  ready-made  garment  as  they 
are  in  these  days  ;  so  the  first  clothes  that  the 
baby  boy  wore  were  lent  by  the  workhouse  until 
his  own  were  ready. 

In  later  days,  when  he  cared  for  the  needs  of 
all  who  crossed  his  path,  until  his  people  feared 
— or  pretended  to  fear — that  he  would  give 
away  all  he  had,  his  mother  used  to  say  that 
workhouse  clothes  were  the  first  he  had  worn 
after  his  birth,  and  were  also  clearly  those  in 
which  he  would  die. 

He  had  good  reason  to  rejoice  in  his  lineage, 
for  he  was  descended  from  the  sister  of  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  after  whom  he  was  named.      He 


120      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

too,  like  his  great  namesake,  was  all  his  life  full 
of  that  high  courtesy  which  comes  of  loving 
consideration  for  others  rather  than  for  self,  and 
is  never  more  charming  than  in  those  who, 
being  in  every  sense  "  well-born,"  have  seen  it 
in  their  fathers,  and  in  their  fathers  before  them, 
notwithstanding  that  in  those  others  who,  less 
fortunate,  whether  they  be  rich  or  poor,  having 
come  of  an  ill  brood,  are  yet  themselves  well- 
bred,  such  courtesy  is  of  the  courts  of  heaven. 

The  boy's  father  had  much  individuality. 
Being  the  owner  of  some  thirty  villages,  and  lord- 
lieutenant  of  the  county,  he  was  naturally  a 
great  magnate  in  Wiltshire.  He  was  very  fond 
of  dogs,  and  his  favourites  among  them  sat  at 
his  own  table,  each  with  its  own  chair  and  plate. 

Sidney  was  almost  like  an  only  son  at  home, 
for  his  elder  brother,  who  was,  of  course,  the 
heir  to  Lord  Herbert's  patrimony,  had  married 
unhappily  and  lived  abroad. 

The  little  boy  seems  to  have  been  really  rather 
like  the  little  angels  in  Italian  pictures,  a  child 
with  golden  curls  and  big  brown  eyes,  with  the 
look  of  love  and  sunshine  gleaming  out  of  them 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      121 

that  he  kept  all  his  life,  and  there  is  a  letter  of 
his  mother's,  describing  a  children's  fancy  dress 
ball,  at  which  she  dressed  him  up  as  a  little 
cupid,  with  wings  and  a  wreath  of  roses,  and 
was  very  proud  of  the  result.  He  was  either 
too  little  to  mind,  or  if  he  hated  it,  as  so  many 
boys  would,  he  bore  with  it  to  please  his  mother, 
who,  we  are  told,  made  as  much  of  an  idol  of 
him  as  did  the  rest  of  his  family.  And  indeed 
it  is  most  wonderful,  from  all  accounts,  that  he 
was  not  completely  spoiled.  Here  is  his  mother's 
letter  about  it  : — 

"  I  never  did  see  anything  half  so  like  an 
angel.  I  must  say  so,  although  it  was  my  own 
performance.  He  had  on  a  garland  of  roses  and 
green  leaves  mixed  ;  a  pair  of  wild  duck's  wings, 
put  on  wire  to  make  them  set  well  ;  a  bow  and 
arrow,  and  a  quiver  with  arrows  in  it,  tied  on 
with  a  broad  blue  ribbon  that  went  across  his 
sweet  neck." 

In  another  of  her  letters  we  are  told  of  a  visit 
paid,  about  this  time,  to  Queen  Charlotte,  and 
how  the  child  "  Boysey"  climbed  into  the  Queen's 


122      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

lap,  drew  up  and  pulled  down  window-blinds, 
romped  at  hide-and-seek  with  the  Duke  of 
Cambridge,  and  showed  himself  to  be  not  in 
the  slightest  degree  abashed  by  the  presence 
of  royalty. 

Lord  Fitzwilliam,  a  friend  and  distant  relation, 
used  often  to  stay  at  Pembroke  Lodge  and  at 
Wilton,  and  seems  to  have  been  pleased  by  the 
boy's  courteous  ways  and  winning  looks  ;  for, 
having  no  children  of  his  own,  when  he  left 
most  of  his  property  to  Lord  Pembroke,  the 
"  remainder,"  which  meant  big  estates  in  Ireland 
and  Shropshire,  was  to  go  to  his  second  son, 
Sidney. 

The  boy  loved  his  father  with  a  very  special 
intimacy  and  tenderness,  as  we  see  by  a  letter 
written  soon  after  he  left  Harrow  and  a  little 
while  before  he  went  up  to  Oxford,  where  at 
Oriel  he  at  once  made  friends  with  men  of  fine 
character  and  sterling  worth.  His  father  had 
died  in  1827,  and  he  writes  from  Chilmark, 
where  the  rector,  Mr.  Lear,  was  his  tutor,  and 
the  Rectory  was  near  his  own  old  home  at 
Wilton  : — 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      123 

"  You  cannot  think  how  comfortable  it  is  to 
be  in  a  nice  little  country  church  after  that  great 
noisy  chapel.  Everything  is  so  quiet  and  the 
people  all  so  attentive  that  you  might  hear  a  pin 
fall  while  Mr.  Lear  is  preaching.  I  like,  too, 
being  so  near  Wilton,  so  many  things  here  ever 
bringing  to  mind  all  he  said  and  did,  all  places 
where  I  have  ridden  with  him^  and  the  home 
where  we  used  to  be  so  happy.  In  short,  there 
is  not  a  spot  about  Wilton  now  which  I  do  not 
love  as  if  it  were  a  person.  I  hope  you  will  be 
coming  there  soon  and  get  it  over,  for  seeing 
that  place  again  will  be  a  dreadful  trial  to  you." 

Among  his  friends  at  Oxford  were  Cardinal 
Manning,  Lord  Lincoln,  who  as  Duke  of  New- 
castle was  afterwards  closely  associated  with  him  at 
the  War  Office  ;  Lord  Elgin,  Lord  Dalhousie,  and 
Lord  Canning,  all  three  Viceroys  of  India.  It  was 
there,  too,  that  his  friendship  with  Mr.  Gladstone 
began.  Lord  Stanmore  says  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
told  him  a  year  or  two  before  his  death  how  one 
day  at  a  University  Convocation  dealing  with  a 
petition  against  the  Roman  Catholic  Relief  Bill, 


124      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

to  which  he  had  himself  gone  as  an  under- 
graduate outsider,  he  had  noticed  among  the 
crowd  of  undergraduates  in  the  vestibule  of  the 
Convocation  House  "  a  tall  and  graceful  figure, 
surmounted  by  a  face  of  such  singular  sweetness 
and  refinement  that  his  attention  was  at  once 
riveted  by  it,  and  with  such  force  that  the  picture 
he  then  saw  rose  again  as  vividly  before  him 
while  talking  as  when  first  seen  sixty-eight  years 
before."  Mr.  Gladstone  inquired  the  name  of 
this  attractive  freshman.  "  Herbert  of  Oriel," 
was  the  answer.  They  became  friends ;  but  in 
those  days  friendships  between  men  of  different 
colleges  and  different  ages  were  not  always  easily 
kept  up.  The  more  intimate  relations  between 
himself  and  Herbert  date  only  from  a  later  time. 
Herbert's  noble  and  beautiful  life  was  to  be 
closely  intertwined  with  that  of  his  little  friend 
and  neighbour,  in  one  of  those  friendships — 
holy  in  their  unselfish  ardour  of  comradeship  and 
service  of  others — which  put  to  shame  many  of 
the  foolish  sayings  of  the  world,  and  prove  that, 
while  an  ideal  marriage  is  the  divinest  happiness 
God  gives  to  earthly  life,  an  ideal  friendship  also 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      125 

has  the  power  to  lift  both  joy  and  pain  into  the 
region  of  heaven  itself. 

This  was  a  friendship  which,  as  we  shall  see, 
arose  in  the  first  instance  partly  out  of  the  fact 
that  the  two  children  grew  up  on  neighbouring 
estates,  and  were  both  what  Mrs.  Tollemache 
has  called  "  Sunday  people  " — people  with  leisure 
to  give  to  others,  as  well  as  wealth  ;  and  at  the 
end  of  Sidney  Herbert's  life  it  was  said  that  the 
following  description  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  after 
whom  he  was  named,  was  in  every  particular  a 
description  of  him  : — 

"  He  was  gentle,  loving,  compassionate,  forgiv- 
ing as  a  woman,  and  yet  had  the  dignity  and  valour 
of  a  man.  His  liberality  was  so  great  that  with 
him  not  to  give  was  not  to  enjoy  what  he  had. 

"  In  his  familiarity  with  men  he  never  de- 
scended, but  raised  everybody  to  his  own  level. 
So  modest,  so  humble  was  he,  and  so  inaccessible 
to  flattery,  that  he  esteemed  not  praise  except  as 
an  encouragement  to  further  exertion  in  well- 
doing. His  tongue  knew  no  deceit,  and  his 
mind  no  policy  but  frankness,  courage,  and  sin- 


126      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

cerity,  and  .  .  .  England  has  had  greater  states- 
men, but  never  so  choice  a  union  of  the  qualities 
which  make  a  Sidney.  His  fame  is  founded  on 
those  personal  qualities  of  which  his  contem- 
poraries were  the  best  judges,  although  they  may 
not  leave  a  trace  in  books  or  in  history." 

And  of  both  might  it  most  emphatically  have 
been  said,  as  was  said  by  Mr.  Gladstone  of  one 
of  them  :  "  Rare  indeed — God  only  knows  how 
rare — are  men  with  his  qualities ;  but  even  a 
man  with  his  qualities  might  not  have  been  so 
happy  as  to  possess  his  opportunities.  He  had 
them,  and  he  used  them." 

The  story  of  his  betraying  a  State  secret  to  that 
other  friend,  who  was  the  original  of  "  Diana  of 
the  Crossways,"  is  a  myth  which  has  been  more 
than  once  disproved,  and  of  which  his  biographer 
says  that  any  one  who  knew  him,  or  knew  the 
real  "  Diana,"  would  have  treated  it  with  derision. 

But  he  was  always  ready  to  bear  lightly 
undeserved  blame,  just  as  he  took  it  as  of  no 
account  when  credit  that  should  have  been  his 
was  rendered  elsewhere.     Take,  for  instance,  the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      127 

warrant  which  relieved  soldiers  of  good  conduct 
from  the  liability  of  punishment  by  flogging. 
He  had  worked  hard  at  this  warrant,  and  it 
originated  with  him,  although  the  Duke  of 
Cambridge  supported  him  in  it.  But  when  one 
of  his  friends  expressed  annoyance  that  the  praise 
had  come  to  the  better-known  man,  he  replied 
impatiently  :  "  What  does  it  matter  who  gets  the 
credit  so  long  as  the  thing  itself  is  done  .?  " 

Nor  did  he  ever  seem  to  care  about  mere 
material  reward,  and  he  simply  could  not  under- 
stand the  outcry  of  one  useful  servant  of  the 
State  who,  when  likely  to  be  left  out  of  office 
in  prospective  Cabinet  arrangements,  exclaimed, 
"  And  pray  what  is  to  become  of  me  ?  " 

With  him,  as  with  Miss  Nightingale,  giving 
was  an  untold  and  constant  joy,  and  he  was  able 
to  be  lavish  because  of  his  great  personal  economy 
and  self-denial.  In  all  his  beautiful  home  at 
Wilton,  Lord  Stanmore  tells  us,  his  own  were 
the  only  rooms  that  could  have  been  called  bare 
or  shabby,  and  when  he  was  urged  to  buy  a  good 
hunter  for  himself,  he  had  spent  too  much  on 
others    to    allow    himself   such    a    luxury.      He 


128      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

delighted  in  educating   the  sons  of  widows  left 
by  men  of  his  own  order  without  means.     "  He 
maintained,"  we  read,  "at  one  and  the  same  time 
boys  at  Harrow,  Marlborough,  and  Woolwich, 
another  in  training  for  an  Australian  career,  and 
a  fifth  who  was  being  educated  for  missionary 
work.      And  he  expended  much  in  sending  poor 
clergymen  and  their  families  to  the  seaside  for  a 
month's    holiday.'*     And    to    gentlepeople    who 
were  poor  we  read  that  the  help  of  money  "was 
given  so  delicately  as  to  remove  the  burden  of 
obligation.     A  thousand  little  attentions  in  time 
of  sickness  or  sorrow  helped  and  cheered  them. 
In  all  these  works  his  wife  was  his  active  co- 
adjutor, but  "  we  read  that  "  it  was  not  till  after 
his  death  that  she  was  at  all  aware  of  their  extent, 
and  even  then  not  fully,  so  unostentatiously  and 
secretly  were  they  performed.      His  sunny  pres- 
ence," says  his  biographer,  "warmed  and  cheered 
all  around  him,  and  the  charm  of  his  conversation 
made  him  the  light  and  centre  of  any  company 
of  which  he  formed  a  part.*    There  are,  however, 

*  "Memoir  of  Sidney  Herbert,"  by  Lord  Stanmore.     (John 
Murray. ) 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      129 

many  men  who  are  brilliant  and  joyous  in  society, 
over  whom  a  strange  change  comes  when  they 
cross  their  own  threshold.  Sidney  Herbert  was 
never  more  brilliant,  never  more  charming,  never 
more  witty  than  when  alone  with  his  mother, 
his  wife,  his  sisters,  or  his  children. 

"  Nowhere  was  he  seen  to  greater  advantage 
than  in  his  own  home.  He  delighted  in  country 
life,  and  took  a  keen  and  almost  boyish  interest 
in  its  sports  and  pursuits,  into  the  enjoyment  of 
which  he  threw  himself  with  a  zest  and  fulness 
not  common  among  busy  men  ...  a  good  shot, 
a  bold  rider,  and  an  expert  fisherman,  he  was 
welcomed  by  the  country  gentlemen  as  one  of 
themselves,  and  to  this  he  owed  much  of  his 
great  popularity  in  his  own  country.  But  it 
was  also  due  to  the  unfailing  consideration  shown 
by  him  to  those  of  every  class  around  him,  and 
the  sure  trust  in  his  responsive  sympathy  which 
was  felt  by  all,  high  and  low  alike,  dwelling 
within  many  miles  of  Wilton.  By  all  dependent 
on  him,  or  in  any  way  under  his  orders,  he  was 
adored,  and  well  deserved  to  be  so.  The  older 
servants  were  virtually  members  of  his   family, 

(1.764)  9 


130      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

and  he  took  much  pains  in  seeing  to  their 
interests,  and  helping  their  children  to  start  well 
in  the  world." 

"  Never,"  says  Lady  Herbert,  "  did  he  come 
down  to  Wilton,  if  only  for  a  few  days,  without 
going  to  see  Sally  Parham,  an  old  housemaid, 
who  had  been  sixty  years  in  the  family,  and 
Larkum,  an  old  carpenter  of  whom  he  was  very 
fond,  and  who  on  his  death-bed  gave  him  the  most 
beautiful  and  emphatic  blessing  I  ever  heard." 

Of  his  splendid  work  in  the  War  Office,  and 
for  our  soldiers  long  after  he  had  laid  aside  War 
Office  cares,  we  shall  read  in  its  due  place. 
Meanwhile  we  think  of  him  for  the  present  as 
Florence  Nightingale's  friend,  and  her  neighbour 
when  in  the  south,  for  his  beautiful  Wilton  home 
was  quite  near  to  her  own  home  at  Embley. 

Before  the  Crimean  War  began  he  was  already 
giving  his  mind  to  army  reform,  and  while  that 
war  was  in  progress  the  horrors  of  insanitary  care- 
lessness, as  he  saw  them  through  Florence  Night- 
ingale's letters,  made  of  him  England's  greatest 
sanitary  reformer  in  army  matters,  with  the 
single  exception  of  Florence  Nightingale  herself. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      131 

The  two  had  from  the  first  many  tastes  in 
common,  and  among  those  of  minor  importance 
was  their  great  affection  for  animals.  He  was 
as  devoted  to  his  horse  Andover  as  she  had  been 
to  the  little  owl  Athene,  of  which  her  sister, 
Lady  Verney,  in  an  old  MS.  quoted  by  Sir 
Stuart  Grant  Duff,  gives  the  following  pretty 
history  : — 

"  Bought  for  6  lepta  from  some  children  into 
whose  hands  it  had  dropped  out  of  its  nest  in 
the  Parthenon,  it  was  brought  by  Miss  Nightin- 
gale to  Trieste,  with  a  slip  of  a  plane  from  the 
Ilissus  and  a  cicala.  At  Vienna  the  owl  ate 
the  cicala  and  was  mesmerized,  much  to  the 
improvement  of  his  temper.  At  Prague  a  waiter 
was  heard  to  say  that  '  this  is  the  bird  which 
all  English  ladies  carry  with  them,  because  it 
tells  them  when  they  are  to  die.'  It  came  to 
England  by  Berlin,  lived  at  Embley,  Lea  Hurst, 
and  in  London,  travelled  in  Germany,  and  stayed 
at  Carlsbad  while  its  mistress  was  at  Kaiserswerth. 
It  died  the  very  day  she  was  to  have  started  for 
Scutari    (her  departure  was   delayed   two   days). 


132      FLORENCE   NIGHTINGALE. 

and  the  only  tear  that  she  had  shed  during  that 

tremendous  week  was  when  put  the  little 

body  into  her  hand.     '  Poor  little  beastie,'  she 
said,  '  it  was  odd  how  much  I  loved  you.' " 

And  we  read  that  before  his  death,  Lord 
Herbert  with  a  like  tenderness  bade  a  special 
farewell  to  his  horse  Andover,  kissing  him  on 
the  neck,  feeding  him  with  sugar,  and  telling 
him  he  should  never  ride  again. 

That  was  when  he  was  already  extremely  ill, 
though  not  too  ill  to  take  care  that  a  young 
priest  who  was  dying  also,  but  too  poor  to  buy 
all  the  doctor  had  ordered,  should  be  cared  for 
out  of  his  own  purse. 

With  him,  as  with  Florence  Nightingale, 
giving  and  helping  seem  to  have  been  unceasing. 

The  friendship  between  them  was  very  dear 
to  both  of  them,  and  was  warmly  shared  by 
Lord  Herbert's  wife.  When  they  all  knew 
that  death  was  waiting  with  a  summons,  and 
that  Lord  Herbert's  last  journey  abroad  could 
have  but  one  ending,  even  though,  as  things 
turned  out,   he  was  to  have  just  a  momentary 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      133 

glimpse  of  home  again,  Florence  Nightingale 
was  the  last  friend  to  whom  he  bade  farewell. 
But  that  was  not  till  1861,  and  in  the  inter- 
vening years  they  worked  incessantly  together, 
for  the  good  of  the  army  and  the  improvement 
of  sanitary  conditions. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

Tfu  Crimean  muddle— Explanations  and  excuses. 

In  our  last  chapter  we  ended  with  a  word  about 
those  sanitary  reforms  which  were  yet  to  come. 
How  appalling  was  the  ignorance  and  confusion 
in  1854,  when  the  war  in  the  Crimea  began,  has 
now  become  matter  of  common  knowledge 
everywhere. 

I  note  later,  as  a  result  of  my  talk  with  General 
Evatt,  some  of  the  reasons  and  excuses  for  the 
dire  neglect  and  muddle  that  reigned.  John  Bull 
was,  as  usual,  so  arrogantly  sure  of  himself  that 
he  had — also  as  usual — taken  no  sort  of  care  to 
keep  himself  fit  in  time  of  peace,  and  there  was 
no  central  organizing  authority  for  the  equip- 
ment of  the  army — every  one  was  responsible, 
and  therefore  no  one.  The  provisions  bought 
by  contract  were  many  of  them  rotten  and 
mouldy,    so    cleverly    had    the    purchasers   been 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      135 

deceived  and  defrauded.  The  clothing  provided 
for  the  men  before  Sebastopol,  where,  in  at 
least  one  instance,  man  w^as  literally  frozen 
to  man,  were  such  as  would  have  been  better 
suited  to  India  or  South  Africa.  Many  of  the 
boots  sent  out  were  fitter  for  women  and 
children  playing  on  green  lawns  than  for  the  men 
who  must  tramp  over  rough  and  icy  roads.  The 
very  horses  were  left  to  starve  for  want  of  proper 
hay.  Proper  medical  provision  there  was  none. 
There  were  doctors,  some  of  them  nobly  un- 
selfish, but  few  of  them  trained  for  that 
particular  work.  An  army  surgeon  gets  little 
practice  in  time  of  peace,  and  one  lady,  a  Red 
Cross  nurse,  told  me  that  even  in  our  South 
African  campaign  the  doctor  with  whom  she 
did  her  first  bit  of  bandaging  out  there  told  her 
he  had  not  bandaged  an  arm  for  fifteen  years  ! 
But  indeed  many  of  the  doctors  in  the  Crimea 
were  not  only  badly  prepared,  they  were  also  so 
tied  up  with  red-tape  details  that,  though  they 
gave  their  lives  freely,  they  quickly  fell  in  with 
the  helpless  chaos  of  a  hospital  without  a  head. 
England  shuddered  to  the  heart  when  at  last 


136      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

she  woke  up  under  the  lash  of  the  following 
letter  from  William  Howard  Russell,  the  Times 
war  correspondent  : — 

"  The  commonest  accessories  of  a  hospital  are 
wanting,  there  is  not  the  least  attention  paid  to 
decency  or  cleanliness,  the  stench  is  appalling  .  .  . 
and,  for  all  I  can  observe,  the  men  die  without 
the  least  effort  to  save  them.  There  they  lie  just 
as  they  were  let  gently  down  on  the  ground  by 
the  poor  fellows,  the  comrades,  who  brought 
them  on  their  backs  from  the  camp  with  the 
greatest  tenderness,  but  who  are  not  allowed  to 
remain  with  them." 

"  Are  there,"  he  wrote  at  a  later  date,  "  no 
devoted  women  among  us,  able  and  willing  to  go 
forth  and  minister  to  the  sick  and  suffering 
soldiers  of  the  East  in  the  hospitals  at  Scutari  ? 
Are  none  of  the  daughters  of  England,  at  this 
extreme  hour  of  need,  ready  for  such  a  work  of 
mercy  ?  .  .  .  France  has  sent  forth  her  Sisters 
of  Mercy  unsparingly,  and  they  are  even  now  by 
the  bedsides  of  the  wounded  and  the  dying, 
giving   what   woman's  hand   alone    can    give   of 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      137 

comfort  and  relief.  ...  Must  we  fall  so  far 
below  the  French  in  self-sacrifice  and  devotedness, 
in  a  work  which  Christ  so  signally  blesses  as  done 
unto  Himself?    '  I  was  sick  and  ye  visited  me.'  " 

What  the  art  of  nursing  had  fallen  to  in 
England  may  be  guessed  from  the  fact  lately 
mentioned  to  me  by  a  great  friend  of  Miss 
Nightingale's,  that  when  Florence  Nightingale 
told  her  family  she  would  like  to  devote  her  life 
to  nursing,  they  said  with  a  smile,  "  Are  you 
sure  you  would  not  like  to  be  a  kitchen-maid  ? " 

Yet  the  Nightingales  were,  on  other  questions, 
such  as  that  of  the  education  of  girls,  far  in 
advance  of  their  time. 

Possibly  nothing  short  of  those  letters  to 
the  Times,  touching,  as  they  did,  the  very  quick 
of  the  national  pride,  could  have  broken  down 
the  "  Chinese  wall  "  of  that  particular  prejudice. 

Something  may  be  said  at  this  point  as  to  what 
had  been  at  the  root  of  the  dreadful  condition  of 
things  in  the  hospitals  before  Miss  Nightingale's 
arrival.  I  have  had  some  instructive  talk  with 
Surgeon-General  Evatt,  who  knows  the  medical 


138      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

administration  of  our  army  through  and  through, 
and  whose  friendship  with  Miss  Nightingale 
arose  in  a  very  interesting  way,  but  will  be 
mentioned  later  on  in  its  due  place. 

General  Evatt  has  pointed  out  to  me  in 
conversation  that  what  is  still  a  weakness  of  our 
great  London  hospitals,  though  lessened  there  by 
the  fierce  light  of  public  opinion  that  is  ever 
beating  upon  them,  was  the  very  source  of  the 
evil  at  Scutari. 

Such  hospitals  as  the  London,  doing  such 
magnificent  work  that  it  deserves  a  thousand 
times  the  support  it  receives,  are,  explained 
General  Evatt,  without  any  central  authority. 
The  doctors  pay  their  daily  visits  and  their  code 
is  a  high  one,  but  they  are  as  varied  in  ability 
and  in  character  as  any  other  group  of  doctors, 
and  are  responsible  to  no  one  but  God  and  their 
own  conscience.  The  nursing  staff  have  their 
duties  and  their  code,  but  are  under  separate 
management.  The  committee  secures  the  funds 
and  manages  the  finance,  but  it  is  again  quite 
distinct  in  its  powers,  and  does  not  control  either 
doctors  or  nurses. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      139 

The  Barrack  Hospital  at  Scutari  was,  said  the 
General,    in    this     respect   just    like    a    London 
hospital  of  sixty  years  ago,  set  down  in  the  midst 
of  the  Crimea.     There  was,  he  said — to  adapt 
a  well-known    quotation — "  knowledge   without 
authority,    and    authority    without    knowledge," 
but  no  power  to  unite  them  in  responsible  effort. 
Therefore  we  must  feel  deep  pity,  not  indignation, 
with  regard  to  any  one  member  of  the  staff ;  for 
each  alone  was  helpless  against  the  chaos,  until 
Miss  Nightingale,  who  stood  outside  the  ofKcial 
muddle,  yet  with  the  friendship  of  a  great  War 
Minister  behind  her,  and   in    her   hand   all   the 
powers    of    wealth,     hereditary     influence,    and 
personal  charm,  quietly  cut  some  of  the  knots  of 
red  tape  which  were,  as  she  saw  clearly,  strangling 
the  very  lives  of  our  wounded  soldiers.      When  I 
spoke  of  the  miracle  by  which  a  woman  who  had 
been  all  her  life  fitting  herself  for  this  work,  had 
suddenly  received  her  world-wide  opportunity,  he 
replied  :    "  Yes,  I  have  often  said  it  was  as  if  a 
very    perfect    machine   had   through   long   years 
been  fitted  together  and  polished  to  the  highest 
efficiency,  and  when,  at   last,  it   was   ready   for 


140      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

service,  a  hand  was  put  forth  to  accept  and 
use  it." 

Just  as  he  sought  to  explain  the  awful  condi- 
tion of  the  army  hospitals  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  ;  so  also  he,  as  a  military  doctor,  pointed  out 
to  me  that  there  were  even  many  excuses  for  the 
condition  of  the  transport  service,  and  the  idiotic 
blunders  of  a  government  that  sent  soldiers  to  the 
freezing  winters  of  the  Crimea  in  clothes  that 
would  have  been  better  suited  to  the  hot  climate 
of  India. 

The  army  after  the  Peninsular  War  had  been 
split  up  into  battalions,  and  had,  like  the  hospitals, 
lost  all  centre  of  authority.  England  had  been 
seething  with  the  social  troubles  of  our  transition 
from  the  feudal  order  to  the  new  competitions 
and  miseries  of  a  commercial  and  mechanical  age. 
Machinery  was  causing  uproar  among  the 
hand-workers.  Chartist  riots,  bread  riots,  were 
upsetting  the  customary  peace.  Troops  were 
sent  hither  and  thither,  scattered  over  the  country, 
and  allowed  a  certain  degree  of  licence  and 
slackness.  The  army  had  no  administrative 
head.     There    was    no     one    to    consider    the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      141 

question  of  stores  or  transit,  and,  even  when  the 
war  broke  out,  it  was  treated  with  John  Bull's 
too  casual  self-satisfaction  as  a  moment  of 
excitement  and  self-glorification,  from  which 
our  troops  were  to  return  as  victors  in  October, 
after  displaying  themselves  for  a  few  weeks  and 
satisfactorily  alarming  the  enemy.  The  moral  of 
it  all  is  ever  present  and  needs  no  pressing  home. 
Not  until  every  man  has  had  the  training  of  a 
man  in  defence  of  his  own  home,  and  is  himself 
responsible  for  the  defence  of  his  own  hearth, 
shall  we  as  a  nation  learn  the  humility  and 
caution  of  the  true  courage,  and  realize  how 
much,  at  the  best,  is  outside  human  control,  and 
how  great  is  our  responsibility  in  every  detail  for 
all  that  lies  within  it. 


CHAPTER    X. 

^^  Five  were  wise,  and  five  foolish^ 

When  the  great  moment  came,  there  was  one 
wise  virgin  whose  lamp  had  long  been  trimmed 
and  daily  refilled  with  ever  finer  quality  of  flame. 
She  was  not  alone.  There  were  others,  and  she 
was  always  among  the  first  to  do  them  honour. 
But  she  stood  easily  first,  and  first,  too,  in  the 
modesty  of  all  true  greatness.  All  her  life  had 
been  a  training  for  the  work  which  was  now 
given  to  her  hand. 

Among  the  many  women  who  longed  to  nurse 
and  tend  our  soldiers,  many  were  fast  bound  by 
duties  to  those  dependent  on  them,  many  were 
tied  hand  and  foot  by  the  pettifogging  prejudices 
of  the  school  in  which  they  had  been  brought  up. 
Many,  whose  ardour  would  have  burned  up  all 
prejudice  and  all  secondary  claim,  were  yet 
ignorant,  weak,  incapable.    Florence  Nightingale, 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      143 

on  the  contrary,  was  highly  trained,  not  only  in 
intellect,  but  in  the  details  of  what  she  rightly 
regarded  as  an  art,  "a  craft,"  the  careful  art 
of  nursing — highly  disciplined  in  body  and  in 
soul,  every  muscle  and  nerve  obedient  to  her 
will,  an  international  linguist,  a  woman  in  whom 
organizing  power  had  been  developed  to  its 
utmost  capacity  by  a  severely  masculine  edu- 
cation, and  whose  experience  had  been  deepened 
by  practical  service  both  at  home  and  abroad. 

Her  decision  was  a  foregone  conclusion,  and  a 
very  striking  seal  was  set  upon  it.  For  the 
letter,  in  which  she  offered  to  go  out  to  the 
Crimea  as  the  servant  of  her  country,  was  crossed 
by  a  letter  from  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  that 
country's  representative  at  the  War  Office,  asking 
her  to  go.  Promptitude  on  both  sides  had  its 
own  reward  ;  for  each  would  have  missed  the 
honour  of  spontaneous  initiative  had  there  been 
a  day's  delay. 

Here  is  a  part  of  Mr.  Herbert's  letter  : — 

"  October  15,  1854. 

"  Dear  Miss  Nightingale, — You   will  have 


144      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

seen  in  the  papers  that  there  is  a  great  deficiency 
of  nurses  at  the  hospital  of  Scutari.  The  other 
alleged  deficiencies,  namely,  of  medical  men,  lint, 
sheets,  etc.,  must,  if  they  ever  existed,  have  been 
remedied  ere  this,  as  the  number  of  medical  officers 
with  the  army  amounted  to  one  to  every  ninety- 
five  men  in  the  whole  force,  being  nearly  double 
what  we  have  ever  had  before  ;  and  thirty  more 
surgeons  went  out  there  three  weeks  ago,  and 
must  at  this  time,  therefore,  be  at  Constantinople. 
A  further  supply  went  on  Monday,  and  a  fresh 
batch  sail  next  week.  As  to  medical  stores,  they 
have  been  sent  out  in  profusion,  by  the  ton 
weight — 15,000  pair  of  sheets,  medicine,  wine, 
arrowroot  in  the  same  proportion  ;  and  the  only 
way  of  accounting  for  the  deficiency  at  Scutari, 
if  it  exists,  is  that  the  mass  of  the  stores  went  to 
Varna,  and  had  not  been  sent  back  when  the 
army  left  for  the  Crimea,  but  four  days  would 
have  remedied  that. 

"  In  the  meantime,  stores  are  arriving,  but  the 
deficiency  of  female  nurses  is  undoubted  ;  none 
but  male  nurses  have  ever  been  admitted  to 
military   hospitals.      It  would   be    impossible    to 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      145 

carry  about  a  large  staff  of  female  nurses  with  an 
army  in  the  field.  But  at  Scutari,  having  now  a 
fixed  hospital,  no  military  reason  exists  against  the 
introduction  ;  and  I  am  confident  they  might  be 
introduced  with  great  benefit,  for  hospital  orderlies 
must  be  very  rough  hands,  and  most  of  them,  on 
such  an  occasion  as  this,  very  inexperienced 
ones. 

"  I  receive  numbers  of  offers  from  ladies  to  go 
out,  but  they  are  ladies  who  have  no  conception 
of  what  a  hospital  is,  nor  of  the  nature  of  its 
duties ;  and  they  would,  when  the  time  came, 
either  recoil  from  the  work  or  be  entirely  useless, 
and  consequently,  what  is  worse,  entirely  in  the 
way  ;  nor  would  these  ladies  probably  even  under- 
stand the  necessity,  especially  in  a  military 
hospital,  of  strict  obedience  to  rule,  etc.   .   .   . 

"  There   is   but   one   person    in   England   that 

I  know  of  who  would  be  capable  of  organizing 

and  superintending  such  a  scheme,  and   I   have 

been  several   times  on   the  point  of  asking  you 

hypothetically    if,    supposing    the    attempt   were 

made,  you  would  undertake   to  direct  it.     The 

selection   of  the   rank   and    file  of  nurses  would 
(1.764)  10 


146      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

be  difficult — no  one  knows  that  better  than  your- 
self. The  difficulty  of  finding  women  equal  to 
the  task,  after  all,  full  of  horror,  and  requiring, 
besides  knowledge  and  goodwill,  great  knowledge 
and  great  courage,  will  be  great ;  the  task  of 
ruling  them  and  introducing  system  among  them 
great ;  and  not  the  least  will  be  the  difficulty 
of  making  the  whole  work  smoothly  with  the 
medical  and  military  authorities  out  there. 

"  This  is  what  makes  it  so  important  that  the 
experiment  should  be  carried  out  by  one  with 
administrative  capacity  and  experience.  A  number 
of  sentimental,  enthusiastic  ladies  turned  loose 
in  the  hospital  at  Scutari  would  probably  after 
a  few  days  be  mises  a  la  porte  by  those  whose 
business  they  would  interrupt,  and  whose  authority 
they  would  dispute. 

"  My  question  simply  is — would  you  listen  to 
the  request  to  go  out  and  supervise  the  whole 
thing  ?  You  would,  of  course,  have  plenary 
authority  over  all  the  nurses,  and  I  think  I  could 
secure  you  the  fullest  assistance  and  co-operation 
from  the  medical  staff,  and  you  would  also  have 
an  unlimited  power  of  drawing  on  the  Govern- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      147 

ment  for  whatever  you  think  requisite  for  the 
success  of  your  mission.  On  this  part  of  the 
subject  the  details  are  too  many  for  a  letter,  and 
I  reserve  it  for  our  meeting ;  for,  whatever 
decision  you  take,  I  know  you  will  give  me 
every  assistance  and  advice.  I  do  not  say  one 
word  to  press  you.  You  are  the  only  person  who 
can  judge  for  yourself  which  of  conflicting  or 
incompatible  duties  is  the  first  or  the  highest  ; 
but  I  think  I  must  not  conceal  from  you  that 
upon  your  decision  will  depend  the  ultimate 
success  or  failure  of  the  plan.  .  .  .  Will  you 
let  me  have  a  line  at  the  War  Office,  to  let 
me  know  ? 

"There  is  one  point  which  I  have  hardly 
a  right  to  touch  upon,  but  I  trust  you  will 
pardon  me.  If  you  were  inclined  to  undertake 
the  great  work,  would  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nightingale 
consent  ?  This  work  would  be  so  national,  and 
the  request  made  to  you,  proceeding  from  the 
Government  which  represents  the  nation,  comes 
at  such  a  moment  that  I  do  not  despair  of  their 
consent. 

"  Deriving  your  authority  from  the  Govern- 


148      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

ment,  your  position  would  ensure  the  respect 
and  consideration  of  every  one,  especially  in 
a  service  where  official  rank  carries  so  much 
respect.  This  would  secure  you  any  attention 
or  comfort  on  your  way  out  there,  together 
with  a  complete  submission  to  your  orders.  I 
know  these  things  are  a  matter  of  indifference 
to  you,  except  so  far  as  they  may  further  the 
great  object  you  may  have  in  view ;  but  they 
are  of  importance  in  themselves,  and  of  every 
importance  to  those  who  have  a  right  to  take 
an  interest  in  your  personal  position  and  comfort. 
"  I  know  you  will  come  to  a  right  and  wise 
decision.  God  grant  it  may  be  one  in  accordance 
with  my  hopes. — Believe  me,  dear  Miss  Night- 
ingale, ever  yours,  Sidney  Herbert." 

Miss  Nightingale's  decision  was  announced  in 
the  Times ^  and  on  October  23  the  following 
paragraph  appeared  in  that  paper : — 

"  It  is  known  that  Miss  Nightingale  has  been 
appointed  by  Government  to  the  office  of  Super- 
intendent of  Nurses  at  Scutari.  She  has  been 
pressed    to    accept    of  sums   of   money   for   the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      149 

general  objects  of  the  hospitals  for  the  sick  and 
wounded.  Miss  Nightingale  neither  invites  nor 
can  refuse  these  generous  offers.  Her  bankers' 
account  is  opened  at  Messrs.  Glyn's,  but  it  must 
be  understood  that  any  funds  forwarded  to  her 
can  only  be  used  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  the 
official  duties  of  the  Superintendent." 

This  was  written  by  Miss  Nightingale  herself, 
and  the  response  in  money  was  at  once  very  large, 
but  money  was  by  no  means  the  first  or  most 
difficult  question. 

No  time  must  be  lost  in  choosing  the  nurses 
who  were  to  accompany  the  Lady-in-Chief.  It 
was  not  until  later  that  she  became  known  by 
that  name,  but  it  already  well  described  her 
office,  for  every  vital  arrangement  and  decision 
seems  to  have  centred  in  her.  She  knew  well 
that  her  task  could  be  undertaken  in  no  spirit 
of  lightness,  and  she  never  wasted  power  in  mere 
fuss  or  flurry. 

She  once  wrote  to  Sir  Bartle  Frere  of  "  that 
careless  and  ignorant  person  called  the  Devil," 
and   she   did   not  want   any  of  his  careless   and 


150      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

ignorant  disciples  to  go  out  with  her  among  her 
chosen  band.  Nor  did  she  want  any  incompetent 
sentimentalists  of  the  kind  brought  before  us  in 
that  delightful  story  of  our  own  South  African 
War,  of  the  soldier  who  gave  thanks  for  the 
offer  to  wash  his  face,  but  confessed  that  fourteen 
other  ladies  had  already  offered  the  same  service. 
Indeed,  the  rather  garish  merriment  of  that  little 
tale  seems  almost  out  of  place  when  we  recall  the 
rotting  filth  and  unspeakable  stench  of  blood  and 
misery  in  which  the  men  wounded  in  the  Crimea 
were  lying  wrapped  from  head  to  foot.  No 
antiseptic  surgery,  no  decent  sanitation,  no  means 
of  ordinary  cleanliness,  were  as  yet  found  for  our 
poor  Tommies,  and  Kinglake  assures  us  that  all 
the  efforts  of  masculine  organization,  seeking  to 
serve  the  crowded  hospitals  with  something  called 
a  laundry,  had  only  succeeded  in  washing  seven 
shirts  for  the  entire  army  ! 

Miss  Nightingale  knew  a  little  of  the  vastness 
of  her  undertaking,  but  she  is  described  by  Lady 
Canning  at  this  critical  time  as  "  gentle  and  wise 
and  quiet " — "  in  no  bustle  or  hurry."  Yet  within 
a  single  week  from  the  date  of  Mr.   Herbert's 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      151 

letter  asking  her  to  go  out,  all  her  arrangements 
were  made  and  her  nurses  chosen — nay  more, 
the  expedition  had  actually  started. 

The  War  Office  issued  its  official  intimation 
that  "  Miss  Nightingale,  a  lady  with  greater 
practical  experience  of  hospital  administration 
and  treatment  than  any  other  lady  in  this  country," 
had  undertaken  the  noble  and  arduous  work  of 
organizing  and  taking  out  nurses  for  the  soldiers ; 
and  it  was  also  notified  that  she  had  been 
appointed  by  Government  to  the  office  of  Super- 
intendent of  Nurses  at  Scutari. 

The  Examiner  published  a  little  biographical 
sketch  in  reply  to  the  question  which  was  being 
asked  everywhere.  Society,  of  course,  knew  Miss 
Nightingale  very  well,  but  Society  includes  only 
a  small  knot  of  people  out  of  the  crowd  of 
London's  millions,  to  say  nothing  of  the  pro- 
vinces. Many  out  of  those  millions  were  asking, 
"  Who  is  Miss  Nightingale  ?  '*  and,  in  looking 
back,  it  is  amazing  to  see  how  many  disapproved 
of  the  step  she  was  taking. 

In  those  days,  as  in  these,  and  much  more 
tyrannically  than  in  these,  Mrs.  Grundy  had  her 


152      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

silly  (laughters,  ready  to  talk  slander  and  folly 
about  any  good  woman  who  disregarded  her.  To 
Miss  Nightingale  she  simply  did  not  exist.  Miss 
Martineau  was  right  when  she  wrote  of  her  that 
"  to  her  it  was  a  small  thing  to  be  judged  by 
man's  judgment." 

And  the  spirit  in  which  she  chose  the  women 
who  were  to  go  out  under  her  to  the  Crimea  may 
be  judged  by  later  words  of  her  own,  called  forth  by 
a  discussion  of  fees  for  nurses — words  in  which  the 
italics  are  mine,  though  the  sentence  is  quoted 
here  to  show  the  scorn  she  poured  on  fashion's 
canting  view  of  class  distinction. 

"  I  have  seen,"  she  said,  "  somewhere  in  print 
that  nursing  is  a  profession  to  be  followed  by  the 
'lower  middle-class.'  Shall  we  say  that  painting 
or  sculpture  is  a  profession  to  be  followed  by  the 
'  lower  middle-class' .?  Why  limit  the  class  at  all? 
Or  shall  we  say  that  God  is  only  to  be  served  in 
His  sick  by  the  '  lower  middle-class  '  ? 

"  //  appears  to  be  the  most  futile  of  all  distinctions 
to  classify  as  between  ^ paid'  and  unpaid  art^  so 
between  ^ paid'  and  unpaid  nursing,  to  make  into  a 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      153 

test  a  circumstance  as  adventitious  as  whether  the  hair 
is  black  or  brown — viz.,  whether  people  have  private 
means  or  not,  whether  they  are  obliged  or  not  to  work 
at  their  art  or  their  nursing  for  a  livelihood.  Prob- 
ably no  person  ever  did  that  well  which  he  did 
only  for  money.  Certainly  no  person  ever  did 
that  well  which  he  did  not  work  at  as  hard  as 
if  he  did  it  solely  for  money.  If  by  amateur  in 
art  or  in  nursing  are  meant  those  who  take  it 
up  for  play,  it  is  not  art  at  all,  it  is  not  nursing 
at  all.  Tou  never  yet  made  an  artist  by  paying  him 
well ;  but  an  artist  ought  to  be  well  paid.  ^^ 

The  woman  who  in  later  life  wrote  this,  and 
all  her  life  acted  on  it,  could  not  only  well  afford 
to  let  Punch  have  his  joke  about  the  nightingales 
who  would  shortly  turn  into  ringdoves — although, 
indeed.  Punch's  verses  and  illustration  were  delight- 
ful in  their  innocent  fun — but  could  even  without 
flinching  let  vulgar  slander  insinuate  its  usual 
common -minded  nonsense.  She  herself  has 
written  in  Nursing  Notes  : — 

'*  The  everyday  management  of  a  large  ward, 
let  alone  of  a  hospital,  the  knowing  what  are  the 


154      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

laws  of  life  and  death  for  men,  and  what  the  laws 
of  health  for  wards  (and  wards  are  healthy  or  un- 
healthy mainly  according  to  the  knowledge  or 
ignorance  of  the  nurse) — are  not  these  matters 
of  sufficient  importance  and  difficulty  to  require 
learning  by  experience  and  careful  inquiry,  just 
as  much  as  any  other  art  ?  They  do  not  come 
by  inspiration  to  the  lady  disappointed  in  love, 
nor  to  the  poor  workhouse  drudge  hard  up  for 
a  livelihood.  And  terrible  is  the  injury  which 
has  followed  to  the  sick  from  such  wild  notions." 

Happily,  too,  she  was  not  blinded  by  the 
narrow  sectarian  view  of  religion  which  was,  in 
her  day  and  generation,  so  often  a  part  of  the 
parrot  belief  of  those  who  learned  their  English 
version  of  the  faith  by  rote,  rather  than  with  the 
soul's  experience,  for  she  goes  on  to  say  : — 

"  In  this  respect  (and  why  is  it  so  ?)  in  Roman 
Catholic  countries,  both  writers  and  workers  are, 
in  theory  at  least,  far  before  ours.  They  would 
never  think  of  such  a  beginning  for  a  good- 
working  Superior  or  Sister  of  Charity.  And 
many  a  Superior  has  refused  to  admit  a  postulant 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      155 

who  appeared   to  have  no   better  '  vocation  '  or 
reasons  for  offering  herself  than  these. 

"  It  is  true  we  make  no  *  vows.'  But  is  a 
'  vow '  necessary  to  convince  us  that  the  true 
spirit  for  learning  any  art,  most  especially  an  art 
of  charity,  aright,  is  not  a  disgust  to  everything 
or  something  else  ?  Do  we  really  place  the  love 
of  our  kind  (and  of  nursing  as  one  branch  of  it) 
so  low  as  this  ?  What  would  the  Mere  Angelique 
of  Port  Royal,  what  would  our  own  Mrs.  Fry, 
have  said  to  this  ?  " 

How  silly,  in  the  light  of  these  words,  was  the 
gossip  of  the  idle  person,  proud  of  her  shopping 
and  her  visiting  list  and  her  elaborate  choice 
of  dinner,  who  greeted  the  news  of  this  nursing 
embassy  to  the  Crimea  with  such  cheap  remarks 
as  that  the  women  would  be  all  invalided  home 
in  a  month  ;  that  it  was  most  improper  for  "young 
ladies  " — for  it  was  not  only  shop  assistants  who 
were  called  "  young  ladies "  in  early  Victorian 
days — to  nurse  in  a  military  hospital ;  it  was  only 
nonsense  to  try  and  "nurse  soldiers  when  they  did 
not  even  yet  know  what  it  was  to  nurse  a  baby  !  " 


156      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Such  folly  would  only  shake  its  hardened  old 
noddle  on  reading,  in  the  Times  reprint  of  the 
article  in  the  Examiner,  that  Miss  Nightingale 
was  "  a  young  lady  of  singular  endowments  both 
natural  and  acquired.  In  a  knowledge  of  the 
ancient  languages  and  of  the  higher  branches 
of  mathematics,  in  general  art,  science,  and 
literature,  her  attainments  are  extraordinary. 
There  is  scarcely  a  modern  language  which  she 
does  not  understand,  and  she  speaks  French, 
German,  and  Italian  as  fluently  as  her  native 
English.  She  has  visited  and  studied  all  the 
various  nations  of  Europe,  and  has  ascended  the 
Nile  to  its  remotest  cataract.  Young  (about 
the  age  of  our  Queen),  graceful,  feminine,  rich, 
popular,  she  holds  a  singularly  gentle  and  per- 
suasive influence  over  all  with  whom  she  comes 
in  contact.  Her  friends  and  acquaintances  are 
of  all  classes  and  persuasions,  but  her  happiest 
place  is  at  home,  in  the  centre  of  a  very  large 
band  of  accomplished  relatives." 

Girton  and  Newnham,  Somerville  and  Lady 
Margaret  did  not  then  exist.  If  any  one  had 
dreamed  of  them,  the  dream  had  not  yet  been 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      157 

recorded.  Perhaps  its  first  recognized  expression, 
in  Tennyson's  "Princess"  in  1847,  mingling  as 
it  does  with  the  story  of  a  war  and  of  the 
nursing  of  wounded  men,  may  have  imper- 
ceptibly smoothed  away  a  few  coarse  prejudices 
from  the  path  Florence  Nightingale  was  to 
tread,  but  far  more  effectually  was  the  way 
cleared  by  her  own  inspiring  personality.  Mrs. 
Tooley  quotes  from  an  intimate  letter  the  follow- 
ing words  :  "  Miss  Nightingale  is  one  of  those 
whom  God  forms  for  great  ends.  You  cannot 
hear  her  say  a  few  sentences — no,  not  even  look 
at  her — without  feeling  that  she  is  an  extra- 
ordinary being.  Simple,  intellectual,  sweet,  full 
of  love  and  benevolence,  she  is  a  fascinating  and 
perfect  woman.  She  is  tall  and  pale.  Her  face 
is  exceedingly  lovely,  but  better  than  all  is  the 
soul's  glory  that  shines  through  every  feature 
so  exultingly.  Nothing  can  be  sweeter  than 
her  smile.     It  is  like  a  sunny  day  in  summer." 

She  who  advised  other  women  to  make  ready 
for  the  business  of  their  lives  as  men  make  ready 
had  been  for  long  years  preparing  herself,  and 
there  was  therefore  none  of  the  nervous  waste 


158      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

and  excitement  of  those  who  in  a  moment  of 
impulse  take  a  path  which  to  their  ignorance 
is  like  leaping  in  the  dark. 

But  she  knew  well  how  much  must  depend 
on  those  she  took  with  her,  and  it  was  clear  that 
many  who  desired  to  go  were  quite  unfitted  for 
the  work. 

With  her  usual  clearsightedness  she  knew 
where  to  turn  for  help.  Felicia  Skene  was 
among  those  whom  she  consulted  and  whose 
advice  she  found  of  good  service.  It  has  already 
been  noted  in  these  pages  that  Miss  Skene  had, 
without  knowing  it,  been  preparing  one  of  the 
threads  to  be  interwoven  in  that  living  tapestry 
in  which  Miss  Nightingale's  labours  were  to 
endure  in  such  glowing  colours.  Like  Miss 
Nightingale  she  had  real  intimacy  with  those 
outside  her  own  order,  and  by  her  practical 
human  sympathy  understood  life,  not  only  in 
one  rank,  but  in  all  ranks.  By  night  as  well 
as  by  day  her  door  was  open  to  the  outcast,  and 
in  several  life-stories  she  had  played  a  part 
which  saved  some  poor  girl  from  suicide.  Full 
of  humour  and  romance,  and  a  welcome  guest  in 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      159 

every  society,  she  will  be  remembered  longest 
for  her  work  in  rescuing  others  both  in  body 
and  in  soul,  and  you  will  remember  that,  on  the 
two  occasions  when  the  cholera  visited  Oxford, 
she  nursed  the  sick  and  the  dying  by  day  and  by 
night,  and  did  much  to  direct  and  organize  the 
helpful  work  of  others.  Miss  Wordsworth 
speaks  of  her  "  innate  purity  of  heart  and  mind," 
and  says  of  her,  "  one  always  felt  of  her  that  she 
had  been  brought  up  in  the  best  of  company,  as 
indeed  she  had."  It  was  just  such  women  that 
Miss  Nightingale  needed — women  who,  in  con- 
stant touch  with  what  was  coarse  and  hard,  could 
never  become  coarse  or  hard  themselves ;  women 
versed  in  practical  service  and  trained  by  actual 
experience  as  well  as  by  hard-won  knowledge. 

Moreover,  it  chanced  that  after  Miss  Skene's 
labour  of  love  in  the  cholera  visitation,  her 
niece,  "  Miss  Janie  Skene,  then  a  girl  of 
fifteen,  who  was  staying  in  Constantinople  with 
her  parents,  had  gone  with  her  mother  to 
visit  the  wounded  soldiers  at  Scutari.  Shocked 
by  their  terrible  sufferings  and  the  lack  of  all 
that    might    have   eased    their    pain,   she   wrote 


i6o      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

strongly  to  her  grandfather,  who  sent  her  letter 
to  the  Times,  where  it  did  much  to  stir  up  public 
opinion." 

"  It  struck  Felicia,"  says  Miss  Rickards,  "  that 
having  with  great  pains  trained  her  corps  of 
nurses  for  the  cholera,  they  might  now  be  utilized 
at  Scutari,  her  great  desire  being  to  go  out 
herself  at  the  head  of  them.  Had  these  events 
occurred  at  the  present  day,  when  ideas  have 
changed  as  to  what  ladies,  still  young,  may  and 
may  not  do  in  the  way  of  bold  enterprise, 
perhaps  she  might  have  obtained  her  parents' 
permission  to  go.  As  it  was  the  notion 
was  too  new  and  startling  to  be  taken  into 
consideration  ;  and  she  had  to  content  herself 
with  doing  all  she  could  at  home  to  send  out 
others. 

"  Her  zeal  was  quickened  by  a  letter  she 
received  from  Lord  Stratford  de  RedclifFe,  who 
had  been  much  struck  by  her  energy  and  ability, 
urging  her  to  do  all  she  could  in  England  to  send 
to  the  rescue. 

"  At   once   she   set   out   as   a   pioneer  in   the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      i6i 

undertaking,  delighted  to  encourage  her  nurses 
to  take  their  part  in  the  heroic  task. 

"  Meantime  Miss  Nightingale  was  hard  at 
work  enlisting  recruits,  thankful  to  secure  Felicia's 
services  as  agent  at  Oxford.  She  sent  her  friends 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bracebridge  down  there,  that  they 
might  inspect  the  volunteers  and  select  the 
women  they  thought  would  be  suitable. 

"The  interviews  took  place  in  Mr.  Skene's 
dining-room,  along  the  walls  of  which  the 
candidates  were  ranged. 

"  Kind-hearted  as  Mrs.  Bracebridge  was,  her 
proceedings  were  somewhat  in  the  '  Off  with 
their  heads  ! '  style  of  the  famous  duchess  in 
'Alice  in  Wonderland.'  If  the  sudden  ques- 
tions fired  at  each  in  succession  were  not  answered 
in  a  way  that  she  thought  quite  satisfactory, 
'  She  won't  do ;  send  her  out/  was  the  decided 
command. 

**  And  Felicia  had  to  administer  balm  to  the 
wounded  feelings  of  the  rejected."  * 

*  "  Felicia  Skene  of  Oxford,"  by  E.  C.  Rickards. 

(1.7«4)  II 


CHAPTER   XL 

The  Expedition. 

Of  the  thirty-eight  nurses  who  went  out  with 
Miss  Nightingale,  twenty-four  had  been  trained 
in  sisterhoods,  Roman  and  Anglican,  and  of  the 
remaining  fourteen,  some  had  been  chosen  in 
the  first  instance  by  Lady  Maria  Forrester,  others 
by  Miss  Skene  and  Mrs.  Bracebridge,  but  it  must 
be  supposed  that  the  final  decision  lay  always 
with  Miss  Nightingale. 

The  correspondence  that  had  poured  in  upon 
her  and  upon  Mr.  Herbert  was  overwhelming, 
and  there  was  a  personal  interview  with  all  who 
seemed  in  the  least  degree  likely  to  be  admitted 
to  her  staff;  so  that  she  worked  very  hard,  with 
little  pause  for  rest,  to  get  through  her  ever- 
increasing  task  in  time.  Each  member  of  the 
staff  undertook  to  obey  her  absolutely. 

Among  the  many  who  were  rejected,  though 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      163 

most  were  unsuitable  for  quite  other  reasons, 
there  were  some  who  objected  to  this  rule. 
Many  who  were  full  of  sympathy  and  generosity 
had  to  be  turned  away,  because  they  had  not  had 
enough  training.  Advertisements  had  appeared 
in  the  Record  and  the  Guardiafi,  but  the  crowd 
of  fair  ladies  who  flocked  to  the  War  Office  in 
response  were  not  always  received  with  such 
open  arms  as  they  expected.  Mr.  Herbert  was 
well  on  his  guard  against  the  charms  of  im- 
pulsive, but  ignorant,  goodwill,  and  he  issued  a 
sort  of  little  manifesto  in  which  he  said  that 
"  many  ladies  whose  generous  enthusiasm  prompts 
them  to  offisr  services  as  nurses  are  little  aware 
of  the  hardships  they  would  have  to  encounter, 
and  the  horrors  they  would  have  to  witness. 
Were  all  accepted  who  offer,"  he  added,  with  a 
touch  of  humour,  "  I  fear  we  should  have  not 
only  many  indifferent  nurses,  but  many  hysterical 
patients." 

He  and  his  wife  were  untiring  in  their  effi- 
ciency and  their  help. 

The  English  Sisterhoods  had  made  a  difficulty 
about  surrendering  control  over  the  Sisters  they 


164     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

sent  out,  but  Miss  Nightingale  overcame  that, 
and  the  Roman  bishop  entirely  freed  the  ten 
Sisters  of  his  communion  from  any  rule  which 
could  clash  with  Miss  Nightingale's  orders. 

It  was  on  the  evening  of  October  21,  1854, 
that  the  "  Angel  Band,"  as  Kinglake  rightly 
names  them,  quietly  set  out  under  cover  of 
darkness,  escorted  by  a  parson  and  a  courier 
and  by  Miss  Nightingale's  friends,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Bracebridge  of  Atherstone  Hall. 

In  this  way  all  flourish  of  trumpets  was 
avoided.  Miss  Nightingale  always  hated  public 
fuss — or,  indeed,  fuss  of  any  kind.  She  was 
anxious  also  to  lighten  the  parting  for  those  who 
loved  her  best,  and  who  had  given  a  somewhat 
doubting  consent  to  her  resolve. 

The  Quakerish  plainness  of  her  black  dress  did 
but  make  the  more  striking  the  beauty  of  her 
lovely  countenance,  the  firm,  calm  sweetness  of 
the  smiling  lips  and  steadfast  eyes,  the  grace  of 
the  tall,  slender  figure  ;  and  as  the  train  whirled 
her  out  of  sight  with  her  carefully-chosen  regi- 
ment, she  left  with  her  friends  a  vision  of  good 
cheer  and  high  courage. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      165 

But    however    quiet    the    setting    forth,    the 
arrival  at  Boulogne  could  not  be  kept  a  secret, 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  our  French  allies  for  those 
wrho   were   going   to   nurse   the   wounded    made 
the    little    procession   a    heart-moving    triumph. 
A   merry   band   of  white-capped   fishwives   met 
the  boat  and,  seizing  all  the  luggage,  insisted  on 
doing  everything  for  nothing.      Boxes  on  their 
backs  and  bags  in  their  hands,  they  ran  along  in 
their  bright  petticoats,  pouring  out  their  hearts 
about  their  own  boys  at  the  front,  and  asking 
only   the    blessing   of  a    handshake   as   the   sole 
payment     they    would    take.       Then,    as    Miss 
Nightingale's   train  whistled   its   noisy  way  out 
of   the   station,  waving    their   adieus   while   the 
tears  streamed  down  the  weather-beaten  cheeks 
of   more    than    one    old    wife,    they    stood    and 
watched  with   longing   hearts.      At    Paris   there 
was  a  passing  visit  to  the  Mother-house  of  Miss 
Nightingale's  old  friends,  the  Sisters  of  St.  Vin- 
cent de  Paul,  and  a  little  call  on  Lady  Canning, 
also  an  old  friend,  who  writes  of  her  as  "  happy 
and  stout-hearted." 

The  poor  "  Angels  "  had  a  terrible  voyage  to 


i66      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Malta,  for  the  wind,  as  with  St.  Paul,  was  "  con- 
trary "  and  blew  a  hurricane  dead  against  them, 
so  that  their  ship,  the  Fectis,  had  something  of  a 
struggle  to  escape  with  its  many  lives.  They 
touched  at  Malta  on  October  31,  1854,  and  soon 
afterwards  set  sail  again  for  Constantinople. 

What  an  old-world  story  it  seems  now  to  talk 
of  "  setting  sail  "  ! 

On  the  4th  of  November,  the  day  before  the 
battle  of  Inkermann,  they  had  reached  their 
goal,  and  had  their  work  before  them  at  Scutari. 

A  friend  of  mine  who  knows  Scutari  well  has 
described  it  in  summer  as  a  place  of  roses,  the 
very  graves  wreathed  all  over  with  the  blossom- 
ing briars  of  them  ;  and  among  those  graves  she 
found  a  nameless  one,  on  which,  without  reveal- 
ing identity,  the  epitaph  stated,  in  the  briefest 
possible  way,  that  this  was  the  grave  of  a  hospital 
matron,  adding  in  comment  the  words  spoken  of 
Mary  when  she  broke  the  alabaster  box — and  in 
this  instance  full  of  pathos — ';he  six  words, 
"  She  hath  done  what  she  could."  And  I  find 
from  one  of  Miss  Nightingale's  letters  that  it 
was  she  herself  who  inscribed  those  words. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      167 

Unspeakable  indeed  must  have  been  the  diffi- 
culties with  which  any  previous  hospital  matron 
had  to  contend,  rigid  and  unbreakable  for  ordinary 
fingers  the  red  tape  by  which  she  must  have 
been  bound.  On  this  subject  Kinglake  has 
written  words  which  are  strong  indeed  in  their 
haunting  sincerity. 

He  writes  of  an  "  England  officially  typified 
that  swathes  her  limbs  round  with  red  tape," 
and  of  those  who,  though  dogged  in  routine 
duty,  were  so  afraid  of  any  new  methods  that 
they  were  found  "  surrendering,  as  it  were,  at 
discretion,  to  want  and  misery "  for  those  in 
their  care. 

"  But,"  he  adds,  "  happily,  after  a  while,  and 
in  gentle,  almost  humble,  disguise  which  put 
foes  of  change  off  their  guard,  there  acceded 
to  the  State  a  new  power. 

"  Almost  at  one  time — it  was  when  they 
learnt  how  our  troops  had  fought  on  the  banks 
of  the  Alma — the  hearts  of  many  women  in 
England,  in  Scotland,  in  Ireland,  were  stirred 
with  a  heavenly  thought  impelling  them  to  offer 


i68     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

and  say  that,  if  only  the  State  were  consenting, 
they  would  go  out  to  tend  our  poor  soldiers  laid 
low  on  their  hospital  pallets  by  sickness  or 
wounds ;  and  the  honour  of  welcoming  into  our 
public  service  this  new  and  gracious  aid  belonged 
to  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert." 

He  goes  on  to  explain  and  define  Mr.  Her- 
bert's exact  position  at  the  War  Office  ;  how 
he  was  not  only  official  chief  there,  but,  "  having 
perhaps  also  learnt  from  life's  happy  experience 
that,  along  with  what  he  might  owe  to  fortune 
and  birth,  his  capacity  for  business  of  State,  his 
frank,  pleasant  speech,  his  bright,  winning  man- 
ners, and  even  his  glad,  sunshine  looks,  had  a 
tendency  to  disarm  opposition,  he  quietly,  yet 
boldly,  stepped  out  beyond  his  set  bounds,  and 
not  only  became  in  this  hospital  business  the 
volunteer  delegate  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle, 
but  even  ventured  to  act  without  always  asking 
the  overworked  Department  of  War  to  go  through 
the  form  of  supporting  him  by  orders  from  the 
Secretary  of  State ;  so  that  thus,  and  to  the  great 
advantage  of  the  public  service,  he  usurped,  as 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      169 

it  were,  an  authority  which  all  who  knew  what 
he  was  doing  rejoiced  to  see  him  wield.  If  he 
could  not  in  strictness  command  by  an  official 
despatch,  he  at  least  could  impart  what  he 
wished  in  a  *  private  letter  ; '  and  a  letter, 
though  ostensibly  *  private,'  which  came  from 
the  War  Office,  under  the  hand  of  its  chief, 
was  scarce  likely  to  encounter  resistance  from 
any  official  personages  to  whom  the  writer  might 
send  it. 

"  Most  happily  this  gifted  minister  had  formed 
a  strong  belief  in  the  advantages  our  military 
hospitals  would  gain  by  accepting  womanly  aid  ; 
and,  proceeding  to  act  on  this  faith,  he  not  only 
despatched  to  the  East  some  chosen  bands  of 
ladies,  and  of  salaried  attendants  accustomed  to 
hospital  duties,  but  also  requested  that  they 
might  have  quarters  and  rations  assigned  to 
them ;  and,  moreover,  whilst  requesting  the 
principal  medical  officer  at  Scutari  to  point  out 
to  these  new  auxiliaries  how  best  they  could 
make  themselves  useful,  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert 
enjoined  him  to  receive  with  attention  and 
deference  the  counsels  of  the  Lady-in-Chief,  who 


I70     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

was,  of  course,  no  other  than  Miss  Nightingale 
herself. 

"  That  direction  was  one  of  great  moment,  and 
well  calculated  to  govern  the  fate  of  a  newly 
ventured  experiment. 

"  Thus  it  was  that,  under  the  sanction  of  a 
government  acceding  to  the  counsels  of  one  of 
its  most  alert  and  sagacious  members,  there  went 
out  angel  women  from  England,  resolved  to 
confront  that  whole  world  of  horror  and  misery 
that  can  be  gathered  into  a  military  hospital 
from  camp  or  battlefield ;  and  their  plea,  when 
they  asked  to  be  trusted  with  this  painful,  this 
heart-rending  mission,  was  simply  the  natural 
aptitude  of  their  sex  for  ministering  to  those 
who  lie  prostrate  from  sickness  and  wounds. 
Using  that  tender  word  which  likened  the  help- 
lessness of  the  down-stricken  soldier  to  the  help- 
lessness of  infancy,  they  only  said  they  would 
'  nurse '  him  ;  and  accordingly,  if  regarded  with 
literal  strictness,  their  duty  would  simply  be  that 
of  attendants  in  hospital  wards — attendants  obey- 
ing with  strictness  the  orders  of  the  medical 
officers. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      171 

"  It  was  seen  that  the  humble  soldiers  were 
likely  to  be  the  men  most  in  want  of  care,  and 
the  ladies  were  instructed  to  abstain  from  attend- 
ing upon  any  of  the  officers."  * 

*  Kinglake's  "  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,"  vol.  ri.    (William  Black- 
wood and  Sons.) 


CHAPTER   XII. 

The  tribute  of  Kinglake  and  Macdonald  and  the  Chelsea 
Pensioners. 

But  before  continuing  the  story  of  Miss  Night- 
ingale's expedition,  we  must  turn  aside  for  a 
moment  in  Kinglake's  company  to  realize  some- 
thing of  the  devotion  of  another  brave  and  unselfish 
Englishwoman  who,  without  her  "commanding 
genius,"  yet  trod  the  same  path  of  sacrifice  and 
compassion.  The  words  "  commanding  genius  " 
were  spoken  by  Dean  Stanley  of  Miss  Night- 
ingale, and  it  is  of  Dean  Stanley's  sister  Mary 
that  a  word  must  now  be  spoken.  She  had  been 
the  right  hand  of  her  father,  the  Bishop  of 
Norwich,  and,  in  serving  the  poor,  had  disclosed 
special  gifts,  made  the  more  winning  by  her 
gentle,  loving  nature.  Having  had  experience 
of  travel,  which  was  much  less  a  thing  of  course 
than  it  is  in  these  days,  she  was  willing  to  escort 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      173 

a  company  of  nurses  chosen  for  work  in  the 
Levant,  and  at  first  this  was  all  she  expected  to 
do.  But  there  proved  to  be  a  difficulty  about 
receiving  them  at  Scutari,  and  she  could  not  bring 
herself  to  leave  them  without  guidance ;  so  she 
quietly  gave  up  all  thought  of  returning  to 
England  while  the  war  continued. 

"  Could  she,"  asks  Kinglake,  "  see  them  in 
that  strait  disband,  when  she  knew  but  too  well 
that  their  services  were  bitterly  needed  for  the 
shiploads  and  shiploads  of  stricken  soldiery  brought 
down  day  by  day  from  the  seat  of  war  ?  Under 
stress  of  the  question  thus  put  by  her  own 
exacting  conscience,  or  perhaps  by  the  simpler 
commandment  of  her  generous  heart,  she  formed 
the  heroic  resolve  which  was  destined  to  govern 
her  life  throughout  the  long,  dismal  period  of 
which  she  then  knew  not  the  end.  Instead  of 
returning  to  England,  and  leaving  on  the  shores 
of  the  Bosphorus  her  band  of  sisters  and  nurses, 
she  steadfastly  remained  at  their  head,  and  along 
with  them  entered  at  once  upon  what  may  be 
soberly   called   an    appalling    task  —  the    task   of 


174      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

'  nursing  *  in  hospitals  not  only  overcrowded 
with  sufferers,  but  painfully,  grievously  wanting 
in  most  of  the  conditions  essential  to  all  good 
hospital  management. 

"The  sisters  and  salaried  nurses,"  says  King- 
lake,  "  who  placed  themselves  under  this  guidance 
were  in  all  forty-six ;  and  Miss  Stanley,  with 
great  spirit  and  energy,  brought  the  aid  of  her 
whole  reinforcement — at  first  to  the  naval  hos- 
pital newly  founded  at  Therapia  under  the 
auspices  of  our  Embassy,  and  afterwards  to 
another  establishment — to  that  fated  hospital  at 
Kullali,  in  which,  as  we  saw,  at  one  time  a 
fearful  mortality  raged. 

"  Not  regarding  her  mission  as  one  that  needs 
should  aim  loftily  at  the  reformation  of  the 
hospital  management.  Miss  Stanley  submitted 
herself  for  guidance  to  the  medical  officers, 
saying,  *  What  do  you  wish  us  to  do  ? '  The 
officers  wisely  determined  that  they  would  not 
allow  the  gentle  women  to  exhaust  their  power 
of  doing  good  by  undertaking  those  kinds  of 
work  that  might  be  as  well  or  better  performed 
by  men,  and   their   answer   was   to   this   effect : 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      175 

*  The  work  that  in  surgical  cases  has  been 
commonly  done  by  our  dressers  will  be  performed 
by  them,  as  before,  under  our  orders.  What  we 
ask  of  you  is  that  you  will  see  the  men  take 
the  medicines  and  the  nourishment  ordered  for 
them,  and  we  know  we  can  trust  that  you 
will  give  them  all  that  watchful  care  which 
alleviates  suffering,  and  tends  to  restore  health 
and  strength.' 

"  With  ceaseless  devotion  and  energy  the  in- 
structions were  obeyed.  What  number  of  lives 
were  saved — saved  even  in  that  pest-stricken  hos- 
pital of  Kullali — by  a  long,  gentle  watchfulness, 
when  science  almost  despaired,  no  statistics,  of 
course,  can  show  ;  and  still  less  can  they  gauge  or 
record  the  alleviation  of  misery  effected  by  care 
such  as  this ;  but  apparent  to  all  was  the  softened 
demeanour  of  the  soldier  when  he  saw  approach- 
ing his  pallet  some  tender,  gracious  lady  intent 
to  assuage  his  suffering,  to  give  him  the  blessing 
of  hope,  to  bring  him  the  food  he  liked,  and 
withal — when  she  came  with  the  medicine — 
to  rule  him  like  a  sick  child.  Coarse  expressions 
and  oaths  deriving  from  barracks  and  camps  died 


176      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

out  in  the  wards  as  though  exorcised  by  the 
sacred  spell  of  her  presence,  and  gave  way  to 
murmurs  of  gratitude.  When  conversing  in  this 
softened  mood  with  the  lady  appointed  to  nurse 
him,  the  soldier  used  often  to  speak  as  though 
the  worship  he  owed  her  and  the  worship  he 
owed  to  Heaven  were  blending  into  one  senti- 
ment ;  and  sometimes,  indeed,  he  disclosed  a  wild 
faith  in  the  ministering  angel  that  strained  be- 
yond the  grave.  '  Oh  ! '  said  one  to  the  lady 
he  saw  bending  over  his  pallet,  *  you  are  taking 
me  on  the  way  to  heaven ;  don't  forsake  me 
now ! '  When  a  man  was  under  delirium,  its 
magic  force  almost  always  transported  him  to 
the  home  of  his  childhood,  and  made  him  indeed 
a  child — a  child  crying,  '  Mother  !  mother  ! ' 
Amongst  the  men  generally,  notwithstanding 
their  moments  of  fitful  piety,  there  still  glowed 
a  savage  desire  for  the  fall  of  Sebastopol.  More 
than  once — wafted  up  from  Constantinople — 
the  sound  of  great  guns  was  believed  to  announce 
a  victory,  and  sometimes  there  came  into  the 
wards  fresh  tidings  of  combat  brought  down 
from   our   army   in    front   of   the    long-besieged 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      177 

stronghold.  When  this  happened,  almost  all  of 
the  sufferers  who  had  not  yet  lost  their  conscious- 
ness used  to  show  that,  however  disabled,  they 
were  still  soldiers — true  soldiers.  At  such  times, 
on  many  a  pallet,  the  dying  man  used  to  raise 
himself  by  unwonted  effort,  and  seem  to  yearn 
after  the  strife,  as  though  he  would  answer  once 
more  the  appeal  of  the  bugles  and  drums." 

Kinglake*s  touching  description  of  what 
womanly  tenderness  could  do  for  our  soldiers, 
and  of  the  worship  it  called  forth,  is  followed 
by  these  words : — 

"  But  great  would  be  the  mistake  of  any 
chronicler  fancying  that  the  advantage  our 
countrv  derived  from  womanly  aid  was  only  an 
accession  of  nurses ;  for,  if  gifted  with  the 
power  to  comfort  and  soothe,  woman  also — a 
still  higher  gift  —  can  impel,  can  disturb,  can 
destroy  pernicious  content ;  and  when  she  came 
to  the  rescue  in  an  hour  of  gloom  and  adversity, 
she  brought  to  her  self-imposed  task  that  fore- 
thought, that  agile  brain  power,  that  organizing 

and  governing  faculty  of  which  our  country  had 
(i,7M)  1  •? 


178      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

need.  The  males  at  that  time  in  England  were 
already  giving  proofs  of  the  lameness  in  the  use 
of  brain  power,  which  afterwards  became  more 
distinct.  Owing,  possibly,  to  their  habits  of 
industry,  applied  in  fixed,  stated  directions,  they 
had  lost  that  command  of  brain  force  which 
kindles  *  initiative,'  and  with  it,  of  course,  the 
faculty  of  opportunely  resorting  to  any  very  new 
ways  of  action.  They  proved  slow  to  see  and  to 
meet  the  fresh  exigencies  occasioned  by  war, 
when  approaching,  or  even  by  war  when  present ; 
and,  apparently,  in  the  hospital  problem,  they 
must  have  gone  on  failing  and  failing  indefinitely, 
if  they  had  not  undergone  the  propulsion  of  the 
quicker — the  woman's — brain  to  *  set  them  going ' 
in  time." 

He  then  goes  on  to  tell  of  the  arrival  at  "  the 
immense  Barrack  Hospital "  at  Scutari  of  Miss 
Nightingale  and  her  chosen  band.  "  If,"  he 
says,  "  the  generous  women  thus  sacrificing  them- 
selves were  all  alike  in  devotion  to  their  sacred 
cause,  there  was  one  of  them — the  Lady-in-Chief 
— who  not  only  came  armed  with  the  special  ex- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      179 

perience  needed,  but  also  was  clearly  transcendent 
in  that  subtle  quality  which  gives  to  one  human 
being  a  power  of  command  over  others.  Of 
slender,  delicate  form,  engaging,  highly -bred, 
and  in  council  a  rapt,  careful  listener,  so  long 
as  others  were  speaking  ;  and  strongly,  though 
gently,  persuasive  whenever  speaking  herself,  the 
Lady-in-Chief,  the  Lady  Florence,  Miss  Night- 
ingale, gave  her  heart  to  this  enterprise  in  a 
spirit  of  absolute  devotion  ;  but  her  sway  was 
not  quite  of  the  kind  that  many  in  England 
imagined." 

No,  indeed  !  Sentimentalists  who  talk  as 
though  she  had  been  cast  in  the  conventional 
mould  of  mere  yielding  amiabihty,  do  not  realize 
what  she  had  to  do,  nor  with  what  fearless,  un- 
flinching force  she  went  straight  to  her  mark, 
not  heeding  what  was  thought  of  herself,  over- 
looking the  necessary  wounds  she  must  give  to 
fools,  caring  only  that  the  difficult  duty  should 
be  done,  the  wholesale  agony  be  lessened,  the 
filth  and  disorder  be  swept  away. 

Her  sweetness  was  the  sweetness  of  strength, 
not  weakness,  and  was  reserved  not  for  the  care- 


i8o      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

less,  the  stupid,  the  self-satisfied,  but  for  the 
men  whose  festering  wounds  and  corrupting 
gangrene  were  suffered  in  their  country's  pay, 
and  had  been  increased  by  the  heedless  muddle 
of  a  careless  peace-time  and  a  criminally  mis- 
managed transport  service. 

The  picture  of  their  condition  before  her 
arrival  is  revolting  in  its  horror.  There  is  no 
finer  thing  in  the  history  of  this  war,  perhaps, 
than  the  heroism  of  the  wounded  and  dying 
soldiers.  We  are  told  how,  in  the  midst  of  their 
appalling  privation,  if  they  fancied  a  shadow  on 
their  General's  face — as  well,  indeed,  there  might 
be,  when  he  saw  them  without  the  common 
necessaries  and  decencies  of  life,  let  alone  a  sick- 
room— they  would  seize  the  first  possible  opening 
for  assuring  him  they  had  all  they  needed,  and 
if  they  were  questioned  by  him,  though  they 
were  dying  of  cold  and  hunger — 

"  No  man  ever  used  to  say  :  '  My  Lord,  you 
see  how  I  am  lying  wet  and  cold,  with  only  this 
one  blanket  to  serve  me  for  bed  and  covering. 
The  doctors  are  wonderfully  kind,  but  they  have 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      i8i 

not  the  medicines,  nor  the  wine,  nor  any  of  the 
comforting  things  they  would  hke  to  be  given 
me.  If  only  I  had  another  blanket,  I  think 
perhaps  I  might  live.'  Such  words  would  have 
been  true  to  the  letter." 

But  as  for  Lord  Raglan,  the  chief  whom 
they  thus  adored,  "  with  the  absolute  hideous 
truth  thus  day  by  day  spread  out  before  him, 
he  did  not  for  a  moment  deceive  himself  by 
observing  that  no  man  complained." 

Yet  even  cold  and  hunger  were  as  nothing  to 
the  loathsome  condition  in  which  Miss  Night- 
ingale found  the  hospital  at  Scutari.  There  are 
certain  kinds  of  filth  which  make  life  far  more 
horrible  than  the  brief  moment  of  a  brave  death, 
and  of  filth  of  every  sort  that  crowded  hospital 
was  full — filth  in  the  air,  for  the  stench  was 
horrible,  filth  and  gore  as  the  very  garment  of 
the  poor,  patient,  dying  men. 

There  was  no  washing,  no  clean  linen.  Even 
for  bandages  the  shirts  had  to  be  stripped  from 
the  dead  and  torn  up  to  stanch  the  wounds  of 
the  living. 


i82      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

And  there  were  other  foul  conditions  which 
only  the  long  labour  of  sanitary  engineering 
could  cure. 

The  arrival  day  by  day  of  more  and  more  of 
the  wounded  has  been  described  as  an  avalanche. 
We  all  know  Tennyson's  "  Charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade  "  :  that  charge  occurred  at  Balaclava  the 
day  before  Miss  Nightingale  left  England.  And 
the  terrible  battle  of  Inkermann  was  fought  the 
day  after  she  arrived  at  Scutari. 

Here  is  a  word-for-word  description  from 
Nolan's  history  of  the  campaign,  given  also  in 
Mrs.  Tooley's  admirable  "  Life  "  : — 

*'  There  were  no  vessels  for  water  or  utensils 
of  any  kind  ;  no  soap,  towels,  or  cloths,  no 
hospital  clothes  ;  the  men  lying  in  their  uniforms, 
stiff  with  gore  and  covered  with  filth  to  a  degree 
and  of  a  kind  no  one  could  write  about  ;  their 
persons  covered  with  vermin,  which  crawled 
about  the  floors  and  walls  of  the  dreadful  den 
of  dirt,  pestilence,  and  death  to  which  they  were 
consigned. 

"  Medical   assistance   would   naturally    be   ex- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      183 

pected  by  the  invalid  as  soon  as  he  found  himself 
in  a  place  of  shelter,  but  many  lay  waiting  for 
their  turn  until  death  anticipated  the  doctor. 
The  medical  men  toiled  with  unwearied  as- 
siduity, but  their  numbers  were  inadequate  to 
the  work." 

The  great  hospital  at  Scutari  is  a  quadrangle, 
each  wing  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long,  and 
built  in  tiers  of  corridors  and  galleries,  one  above 
the  other.  The  wounded  men  had  been  brought 
in  and  laid  on  the  floor,  side  by  side,  as  closely  as 
they  could  lie^  so  that  Kinglake  was  writing 
quite  literally  when  he  spoke  of  "  miles  of  the 
wounded." 

Rotting  beneath  an  Eastern  sky  and  filling  the 
air  with  poison.  Miss  Nightingale  counted  the 
carcasses  of  six  dead  dogs  lying  under  the  hospital 
windows.  And  in  all  the  vast  building  there 
was  no  cooking  apparatus,  though  it  did  boast 
of  what  was  supposed  to  be  a  kitchen.  As  for 
our  modern  bathrooms,  the  mere  notion  would 
have  given  rise  to  bitter  laughter  ;  for  even  the 
homely  jugs  and   basins   were   wanting   in   that 


184      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

palace  of  a  building,  and  water  of  any  kind  was 
a  rare  treasure. 

How  were  sick  men  to  be  "  nursed,"  when 
they  could  not  even  be  washed,  and  their  very 
food  had  to  be  carried  long  distances  and  was 
usually  the  worst  possible  ! 

Miss  Nightingale — the  Lady-in-Chief — had 
the  capacity,  the  will,  the  driving  power,  to 
change  all  that. 

A  week  or  two  ago  I  had  some  talk  with 
several  of  the  old  pensioners  who  remember  her. 
The  first  to  be  introduced  to  me  has  lost  now 
his  power  of  speech  through  a  paralytic  stroke, 
but  it  was  almost  surprising,  after  all  these  long 
years  that  have  passed  between  the  Crimean  day 
and  our  own  day,  to  see  how  well-nigh  over- 
whelming was  the  dumb  emotion  which  moved 
the  strong  man  at  the  naming  of  her  name.  The 
second,  who  was  full  of  lively,  chuckling  talk, 
having  been  in  active  service  for  a  month  before 
her  arrival  in  the  Crimea,  and  himself  seen  the 
wondrous  changes  she  wrought,  was  not  only 
one  of  her  adorers — all  soldiers  seem  to  be  that 
— but  also  overflowing  with  admiration  for  her 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      185 

capability,  her  pluck.  To  him  she  was  not  only 
the  ideal  nurse,  but  also  emphatically  a  woman 
of  unsurpassed  courage  and  efficiency. 

"  You  know,  miss,"  he  said,  "  there  was  a 
many  young  doctors  out  there  that  should  never 
have  been  there — they  didn*t  know  their  duty 
and  they  didn't  do  as  they  should  for  us — and 
she  chased  'em,  ay,  she  did  that  !  She  got  rid 
of  'em,  and  there  was  better  ones  come  in  their 
place,  and  it  was  all  quite  diffisrent.  Oh  yes," 
and  he  laughed  delightedly,  as  a  schoolboy 
might.  "  Oh  yes,  she  hunted  'em  out."  I, 
who  have  a  great  reverence  for  the  medical 
profession,  felt  rather  shy  and  frightened  and 
inclined  to  blush,  but  the  gusto  with  which  the 
veteran  recalled  a  righteous  vengeance  on  the 
heads  of  the  unworthy  was  really  very  funny. 
And  his  gargoyle  mirth  set  in  high  relief  the 
tenderness  with  which  he  told  of  Miss  Nightin- 
gale's motherly  ways  with  his  poor  wounded 
comrades,  and  how  she  begged  them  not  to 
mind  having  their  wounds  washed,  any  more 
than  if  she  were  really  their  mother  or  sister, 
and  thus  overcame  any  false  shame  that  might 


i86      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

have  prevented  their  recovery.  "  Ah,  she  was 
a  good  w^oman,"  he  kept  repeating,  "  there's 
no  two  ways  about  it,  a  good  woman  !  " 

From  Pensioner  John  Garrett  of  the  3rd 
Battalion  Grenadier  Guards,  I  had  one  very 
interesting  bit  of  history  at  first  hand  ;  for  he 
volunteered  the  fact  that  on  his  first  arrival  in 
the  Crimea — which  was  evidently  about  the 
same  time  as  Miss  Nightingale's  own,  his  first 
engagement  having  been  the  battle  of  Inkermann 
— Miss  Nightingale  being  still  unknown  to  the 
soldiers — a  mere  name  to  them — she  had  much 
unpopularity  to  overcome.  Clearly  jealous  rum- 
our had  been  at  work  against  this  mere  woman 
who  was  coming,  as  the  other  pensioner  had 
phrased  it,  "  to  chase  the  doctors."  This,  of 
course,  made  the  completeness  of  her  rapid 
victory  over  the  hearts  of  the  entire  army  the 
more  noteworthy. 

"  And  afterwards  .?  "  I  asked. 

"  Oh,  afterwards  we  knew  what  she  was,  and 
she  was  very  popular  indeed  ! "  Though  he 
treasured  and  carried  about  with  him  everywhere 
a  Prayer  Book  containing  Florence  Nightingale's 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      187 

autograph — which  I  told  him  ought  to  be  a 
precious  heirloom  to  his  sons  and  their  children, 
and  therefore  refused  to  accept,  when  in  the 
generosity  of  his  kind  old  heart  he  thrice  tried 
to  press  it  upon  me — he  had  only  seen  her  once ; 
for  he  was  camping  out  at  the  front,  and  it  was 
on  one  of  her  passing  visits  that  he  had  his 
vision  of  her.  He  is  a  very  young-looking  old 
man  of  eighty-two,  Suffolk-born,  and  had  been  in 
the  army  from  boyhood  up  to  the  time  of  taking 
his  pension.  He  had  fought  in  the  battle  of 
Inkermann  and  done  valiant  trench-duty  before 
Sebastopol,  and  confirmed  quite  of  his  own 
accord  the  terrible  accounts  that  have  come  to 
us  of  the  privations  suffered.  "  Water,"  he  said, 
"  why,  we  could  scarce  get  water  to  drink — 
much  less  to  wash — why,  I  hadn't  a  change  of 
linen  all  the  winter  through." 

"  And  you  hadn't  much  food,  I  hear,  for  your 
daily  rations  ?  "  I  said. 

"  Oh,  we  didn't  have  food  every  day  ! " 
said  he,  with  a  touch  of  gently  scornful 
laughter.  "  Every  three  days  or  so,  we  may 
have     had     some     biscuits     served     out.       But 


i88      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

there    was    a    lot    of    the    food    as    wasn't    fit 


to  eat." 


He  was,  however,  a  man  of  few  words,  and 
when  I  asked  him  what  Miss  Nightingale  was 
like,  he  answered  rather  unexpectedly  and  with 
great  promptitude,  "  Well,  she  had  a  very  nice 
figger."  All  the  same,  though  he  did  not  dilate 
on  the  beauty  of  her  countenance,  and  exercised 
a  certain  reserve  of  speech  when  I  tried  to  draw 
him  out  about  the  Lady-in-Chief,  it  was  clear 
that  hers  was  a  sacred  name  to  him,  and  that 
the  bit  of  her  handwriting  which  he  possessed 
in  the  little  book,  so  carefully  unwrapped  for  me 
from  the  tin  box  holding  his  dearest  possessions, 
which  he  uncorded  under  my  eyes  with  his  own 
capable  but  rather  tired  old  hands,  between  two 
bouts  of  his  wearying  cough,  had  for  long  been 
the  great  joy  and  pride  of  his  present  quiet 
existence. 

I  had  a  talk  with  others  of  these  veterans  in 
their  stately  and  well-earned  home  of  rest  in  the 
Royal  Hospital  at  Chelsea,  and  it  was  clear  that 
to  them  all  she  was  enshrined  in  memory's 
highest   place.     This  may  be  a  fitting  moment 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      189 

for  recording  the  tribute  of  Mr.  Macdonald, 
the  administrator  of  the  Times  Fund,  who  wrote 
of  her  before  his  return  to  England  : — 

"  Wherever  there  is  disease  in  its  most  danger- 
ous form,  and  the  hand  of  the  spoiler  distressingly 
nigh,  there  is  that  incomparable  woman  sure  to 
be  seen  ;  her  benignant  presence  is  an  influence 
for  good  comfort,  even  among  the  struggles  of 
expiring  nature.  She  is  a  *  ministering  angel,' 
without  any  exaggeration,  in  these  hospitals, 
and,  as  her  slender  form  glides  quietly  along 
each  corridor,  every  poor  fellow's  face  softens 
with  gratitude  at  the  sight  of  her.  When  all 
the  medical  officers  have  retired  for  the  night, 
and  silence  and  darkness  have  settled  down  upon 
those  miles  of  prostrate  sick,  she  may  be  observed 
alone,  with  a  little  lamp  in  her  hand,  making 
her  solitary  rounds.  The  popular  instinct  was 
not  mistaken,  which,  when  she  had  set  out  from 
England  on  her  mission  of  mercy,  hailed  her  as 
a  heroine  ;  I  trust  she  may  not  earn  her  title 
to  a  higher  though  sadder  appellation.  No  one 
who  has  observed  her  fragile  figure  and  delicate 


190      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

health  can  avoid  misgivings  lest  these  should 
fail.  With  the  heart  of  a  true  woman,  and  the 
manners  of  a  lady,  accomplished  and  refined 
beyond  most  of  her  sex,  she  combines  a  surpris- 
ing calmness  of  judgment  and  promptitude  and 
decision  of  character." 

The  soldier  w^ho  watched  for  her  coming, 
night  by  night,  on  her  quiet  rounds,  after  dark, 
when  other  nurses  were  by  her  orders  resting, 
and  who  only  knew  her  as  "  the  Lady  with  the 
Lamp,"  has  been  quoted  all  over  the  world  ;  but 
it  has  been  well  said  that  she  was  also  "  the  lady 
with  the  brain."  Hercules  had  not  so  big  a 
task  before  him  when  he  cleansed  the  Augean 
stables,  and  the  swiftness  with  which  order  and 
comfort  were  created  in  this  "  hell  "  of  suffering 
— for  so  it  has  been  named  by  those  who  saw 
and  knew — might  well  be  called  one  of  the 
wonders  of  the  world. 

The  secret  lay  partly  in  the  fact  that  Florence 
Nightingale's  whole  life  had  been  an  offering  and 
a  preparation.  She  knew  all  it  had  been  possible 
for   her   to    learn    of  hospital   management   and 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      191 

training.  She  never  wasted  words,  nor  frittered 
away  her  power.  Her  authority  grew  daily.  Mr. 
Herbert's  support,  even  at  so  great  a  distance,  was, 
of  course,  beyond  price.  Lord  Raglan  soon  found 
the  value  of  her  letters.  She  inspired  her  orderlies 
with  utmost  devotion,  and  it  is  needless  to  speak 
of  what  her  patients  themselves  felt  to  her. 
Kinglake  is  not,  like  the  present  writer,  a  woman, 
and  therefore  he  can  write  with  a  good  grace 
and  from  his  own  knowledge  what  might  come 
with  an  ill  grace  from  a  woman's  pen.  He  shall 
again  therefore  be  quoted,  word  for  word,  through 
a  few  pages. 

"  The  growth  of  her  dominion  was  rapid,  was 
natural,  and  not  unlike  the  development  of  what 
men  call  '  responsible  government.'  One  of 
others  accepting  a  task  ostensibly  subordinate 
and  humble,  she  yet  could  not,  if  she  would, 
divest  herself  of  the  authority  that  belonged 
to  her  as  a  gentlewoman — as  a  gentlewoman 
abounding  in  all  the  natural  gifts,  and  all  the 
peculiar  knowledge  required  for  hospital  manage- 
ment.    Charged  to  be  in  the  wards,  to  smooth 


192      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

the  sufferer's  pillow,  to  give  him  his  food  and 
his  medicine  as  ordered  by  the  medical  officers, 
she  could  not  but  speak  with  cogency  of  the 
state  of  the  air  which  she  herself  had  to  breathe  ; 
she  could  not  be  bidden  to  acquiesce  if  the  beds 
she  approached  were  impure  ;  she  could  scarcely 
be  held  to  silence  if  the  diet  she  had  been  told 
to  administer  were  not  forthcoming  ;  and,  what- 
ever her  orders,  she  could  hardly  be  expected  to 
give  a  sufferer  food  which  she  perceived  to  be 
bad  or  unfit.  If  the  males  *  did  not  quite  under- 
stand the  peculiar  contrivances  fitted  for  the 
preparation  of  hospital  diet,  might  she  not, 
perhaps,  disclose  her  own  knowledge,  and  show 
them  what  to  do  ?  Or,  if  they  could  not  be 
taught,  or  imagined  that  they  had  not  the  power 
to  do  what  was  needed,  might  not  she  herself 
compass  her  object  by  using  the  resources  which 
she  had  at  command  ?  Might  not  she  herself 
found  and  organize  the  requisite  kitchens,  when 
she  knew  that  the  difference  between  fit  and 
unfit  food  was  one  of  life  and  death  to  the 
soldier  ?     And   again,   if  she   chose,   might   she 

*  Kinglake's  "  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,"  vol.  vi.  p.  426. 


:3 

o 


bX) 


fe 


o 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      193 

not  expend  her  own  resources  in  striving  against 
the  foul  poisons  that  surrounded  our  prostrate 
soldiery  ?  Rather,  far,  than  that  even  one  man 
should  suffer  from  those  cruel  wants  which  she 
generously  chose  to  supply,  it  was  well  that  the 
State  should  be  humbled,  and  submit  to  the  taunt 
which  accused  it  of  taking  alms  from  her  hand. 

"  If  we  learnt  that  the  cause  of  the  evils  afflict- 
ing our  Levantine  hospitals  was  a  want  of 
impelling  and  of  governing  power,  we  now  see 
how  the  want  was  supplied.  In  the  absence 
of  all  constituted  authority  proving  equal  to  the 
emergency,  there  was  need — dire  need — of  a 
firm,  well-intentioned  usurper  ;  but  amongst  the 
males  acting  at  Scutari  there  was  no  one  with 
that  resolute  will,  overstriding  law,  habit,  and 
custom,  which  the  cruel  occasion  required  ;  for 
even  Dr.  M'Gregor,  whose  zeal  and  abilities 
were  admirable,  omitted  to  lay  hold,  dictatorially, 
of  that  commanding  authority  which — because 
his  chief  could  not  wield  it — had  fallen  into 
abeyance.  The  will  of  the  males  was  always 
to  go  on  performing  their  accustomed  duties 
industriously,  steadily,  faithfully,  each  labouring 

(1,W4)  13 


194      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

to  the  utmost,  and,  if  need  be,  even  to  death  (as 
too  often,  indeed,  was  the  case),  in  that  groove- 
going  '  state  of  life  to  vs^hich  it  had  pleased  God 
to  call  him.'  The  v^ill  of  the  w^oman,  w^hilst 
stronger,  flew  also  more  straight  to  the  end  ;  * 
for  what  she  almost  fiercely  sought  was — not 
to  make  good  mere  equations  between  official 
codes  of  duty  and  official  acts  of  obedience,  but 
— overcoming  all  obstacles,  to  succour,  to  save 
our  prostrate  soldiery,  and  turn  into  a  well-ordered 
hospital  the  hell — the  appalling  hell — of  the  vast 
barrack  wards  and  corridors.  Nature  seemed, 
as  it  were,  to  ordain  that  in  such  a  conjuncture 
the  all-essential  power  which  our  cramped,  over- 
disciplined  males  had  chosen  to  leave  unexerted 
should  pass  to  one  who  would  seize  it,  should 
pass  to  one  who  could  wield  it — should  pass  to 
the  Lady-in-Chief. 

"  To  have  power  was  an  essential  condition  of 
success  in  her  sacred  cause  ;  and  of  power  accord- 
ingly she  knew  and  felt  the  worth,  rightly  judg- 
ing that,  in  all  sorts  of  matters  within  what  she 
deemed  its  true  range,  her  word  must  be  law. 
*  Kinglake's  "  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,"  vcJ.  vi. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      195 

Like  other  dictators,  she  had  cast  upon  her  one 
duty  which  no  one  can  hope  to  perform  without 
exciting  cavil.  For  the  sake  of  the  cause,  she 
had  to  maintain  her  dictatorship,  and  (on  pain 
of  seeing  her  efforts  defeated  by  anarchical  action) 
to  check  the  growth  of  authority — of  authority 
in  even  small  matters — if  not  derived  from  her- 
self. She  was  apparently  careful  in  this  direction  ; 
and,  though  outwardly  calm  when  provoked, 
could  give  strong  effect  to  her  anger.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  seeing  merit  in  the  labours 
of  others,  she  was  ready  with  generous  praise. 
It  was  hardly  in  the  nature  of  things  that  her 
sway  should  excite  no  jealousies,  or  that  always, 
hand  in  hand  with  the  energy  which  made  her 
great  enterprise  possible,  there  should  be  the 
cold,  accurate  justice  at  which  the  slower  sex 
aims ;  but  she  reigned — painful,  heart-rending 
empire — in  a  spirit  of  thorough  devotion  to  the 
objects  of  her  care,  and,  upon  the  whole,  with 
excellent  wisdom. 

"  To  all  the  other  sources  of  power  which  we 
have  seen  her  commanding,  she  added  oncof  a  kind 
less  dependent  upon  her  personal  qualities.    Know- 


196      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

ing  thoroughly  the  wants  of  a  hospital,  and  foresee- 
ing, apparently,  that  the  State  might  fail  to  meet 
them,  she  had  taken  care  to  provide  herself  with 
vast  quantities  of  hospital  stores,  and  by  drawing 
upon  these  to  make  good  the  shortcoming  of  any 
hampered  or  lazy  official,  she  not  only  furnished 
our  soldiery  with  the  things  they  were  needing, 
but  administered  to  the  defaulting  administrator 
a  telling,  though  silent,  rebuke ;  and  it  would 
seem  that  under  this  discipline  the  groove-going 
men  winced  in  agony,  for  they  uttered  touching 
complaints,  declaring  that  the  Lady-in-Chief  did 
not  choose  to  give  them  time  (it  was  always 
time  that  the  males  wanted),  and  that  the 
moment  a  want  declared  itself  she  made  haste 
to  supply  it  herself." 

Another  able  writer — a  woman — has  said  that 
for  Miss  Nightingale  the  testing  moment  of  her 
life  met  her  with  the  coming  of  the  wagon-loads 
of  wounded  men  from  the  battlefield  of  Inker- 
mann,  who  were  poured  into  the  hospital  at 
Scutari  within  twenty-four  hours  of  her  arrival. 
Had  the  sight  of  all  that  agony  and  of  the  sense- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      197 

less  confusion  that  received  it,  led  the  Lady-in- 
Chief  and  her  nurses  to  waste  their  power  in 
rushing  hither  and  thither  in  disorganized  fear  of 
defeat,  their  very  sympathy  and  emotion  dimming 
their  foresight  and  clouding  their  brain,  the 
whole  story  might  have  been  different.  But 
Miss  Nightingale  was  of  those  who,  by  a  stead- 
fast obedience  hour  by  hour  to  the  voice  within, 
have  attained  through  the  long  years  to  a  fine 
mastery  of  every  nerve  and  muscle  of  that  frail 
house  wherein  they  dwell.  The  more  critical 
the  occasion,  the  more  her  will  rose  to  meet  it. 
She  knew  she  must  think  of  the  welfare,  not  of 
one,  but  of  thousands ;  and  for  tens  of  thousands 
she  wrought  the  change  from  this  welter  of 
misery  and  death  to  that  clean  orderliness  which 
for  the  moment  seemed  as  far  away  as  the  unseen 
heaven.  There  were  many  other  faithful  and 
devoted  nurses  in  the  Crimea,  though  few,  perhaps, 
so  highly  skilled ;  but  her  name  stands  alone  as 
that  of  the  high-hearted  and  daring  spirit  who 
made  bold  to  change  the  evil  system  of  the  past 
when  no  man  else  had  done  anything  but  either 
consent  to  it  or  bemoan  it.     She,  at  least,  had 


198      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

never  been  bound  by  red  tape,  and  her  whole 
soul  rose  up  in  arms  at  sight  of  the  awful  suffer- 
ing which  had  been  allowed  under  the  shelter  of 
dogged  routine. 

Before  ten  days  had  passed,  she  had  her 
kitchen  ready  and  was  feeding  800  men  every 
day  with  well-cooked  food,  and  this  in  spite  of 
the  unforeseen  and  overwhelming  numbers  in 
which  the  new  patients  had  been  poured  into 
the  hospitals  after  Balaclava  and  Inkermann.  She 
had  brought  out  with  her,  in  the  Fectis,  stores  of 
invalid  food,  and  all  sorts  of  little  delicacies  sur- 
prised the  eyes  and  lips  of  the  hitherto  half-starved 
men.  Their  gentle  nurses  brought  them  beef  tea, 
chicken  broth,  jelly.  They  were  weak  and  in 
great  pain,  and  may  be  forgiven  if  their  gratitude 
was,  as  we  are  told,  often  choked  with  sobs. 

Mrs.  Tooley  tells  us  of  one  Crimean  veteran, 
that  when  he  received  a  basin  of  arrowroot  on 
his  first  arrival  at  the  hospital  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, he  said  to  himself,  "  '  Tommy,  me  boy,  that's 
all  you'll  get  into  your  inside  this  blessed  day, 
and  think  yourself  lucky  you've  got  that.'  But 
two  hours  later,  if  another  of  them  blessed  angels 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      199 

didn't  come  entreating  of  me  to  have  just  a  little 
chicken  broth !  Well,  I  took  that,  thinking 
maybe  it  was  early  dinner,  and  before  I  had  well 
done  wondering  what  would  happen  next,  round 
the  nurse  came  again  with  a  bit  o'  jelly ;  and  all 
day  long  at  intervals  they  kept  on  bringing  me 
what  they  called  *  a  little  nourishment.'  In  the 
evening,  Miss  Nightingale  she  came  and  had  a 
look  at  me,  and  says  she,  '  I  hope  you're  feeling 
better  ? '  I  could  have  said,  *  Ma'am,  I  feels  as 
fit  as  a  fightin'  cock,'  but  I  managed  to  git  out 
somethin'  a  bit  more  polite."  * 

The  barracks  had  thirteen  "  coppers,"  and  in 
the  old  days  meat  and  vegetables  had  just  been 
tossed  into  these  and  boiled  together  anyhow. 
It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  greasy  mess  to  which 
the  fevered  invalids  must  have  been  treated  by 
the  time  the  stuff  had  been  carried  round  to  the 
hospital. 

But  now,  sometimes  in  a  single  day,  thirteen 
gallons  of  chicken  broth,  and  forty  gallons  of 
arrowroot  found  their  way  from  the  new  kitchen 
to  the  hospital  wards. 

*  "  The  Life  of  Florence  Nightingale,"  by  Sarah  Tooley. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

The  horrors  of  Scutari — The  victory   of  the  Lady-in-Chief — The 
Queen^s  letter — Her  gift  of  butter  and  treacle. 

Miss  Nightingale's  discipline  was  strict ;  she 
did  not  mind  the  name  of  autocrat  when  men 
were  dying  by  twenties  for  lack  of  what  only 
an  autocrat  could  do  ;  and  when  there  was  con- 
tinual loss  of  life  for  want  of  fitting  nourishment, 
though  there  had  been  supplies  sent  out,  as  had 
been  said  "  by  the  ton-weight,"  she  herself  on 
at  least  one  occasion,  broke  open  the  stores  and 
fed  her  famishing  patients.  It  is  true  that  the 
ordinary  matron  would  have  been  dismissed  for 
doing  so ;  she  was  not  an  ordinary  matron — she 
was  the  Lady-in-Chief.  To  her  that  hath  shall 
be  given.  She  had  grudged  nothing  to  the 
service  to  which  from  childhood  she  had  given 
herself — not  strength,  nor  time,  nor  any  other 
good  gift  of  her  womanhood,  and  having  done 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      201 

her  part  nobly,  fortune  aided  her.      Her  friends 
were  among  the  "  powers  that  be,"  and  even  her 
wealth    was,    in    this    particular    battle,    a    very 
important  means  of  victory.     Her  beauty  would 
have   done    little   for   her   if  she   had    been   in- 
competent, but  being  to  the  last  degree  efficient, 
her  loveliness  gave  the  final  touch  to  her  power 
— her    loveliness    and    that    personal    magnetism 
which  gave  her  sway  over  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  men,    and   also,  let  it  be  added,  of  women. 
Not  only  did  those  in  authority  give  to  her  of 
their   best — their   best   knowledge,    their   closest 
attention,  their   most  untiring  service — but   she 
knew  how   to  discern    the   true  from   the  false, 
and  to  put  to  the  best  use  the  valuable  information 
often  confided  to  her.     She  had   many  helpers. 
Besides  her  thirty-eight  nurses  and  the  chaplain, 
Mr.    Sidney   Osborne,    there    were    her   friends, 
Mr.   and    Mrs.    Bracebridge,   and   that    splendid 
"  fag,"  as   he   called  himself,   the   young   "  Mr. 
Stafford,"  *  who  had  left  the  gaieties  of  London 
to  fetch  and  carry  for  the  Lady-in-Chief,  and — 
to  quote  Mrs.  Tooley,  "  did  anything  and  every- 

♦  Stafford  O'Brien. 


202      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

thing  which  a  handy  and  gallant  gentleman 
could  do  to  make  himself  useful  to  the  lady 
whom  he  felt  honoured  to  serve."  Among 
those  who  were  most  thoughtful  in  their  little 
gifts  for  the  wounded  officers  was  the  wife  of 
our  ambassador,  Lady  Stratford  de  RedclifFe,  and 
her  "  beauteous  guest,"  as  Kinglake  calls  her. 
Lady  George  Paget.  But  Miss  Nightingale's 
chief  anxiety  was  not  for  the  officers — they,  like 
herself,  had  many  influences  in  their  favour — her 
thought  was  for  the  nameless  rank  and  file,  who 
had  neither  money  nor  rank,  and  were  too  often, 
as  she  knew,  the  forgotten  pawns  on  the  big 
chessboard.  It  was  said  "  she  thought  only  of 
the  men  ; "  she  understood  well  that  for  their 
commanders  her  thought  was  less  needed. 

"  In  the  hearts  of  thousands  and  thousands  of 
our  people,"  says  Kinglake,  "there  was  a  yearning 
to  be  able  to  share  the  toil,  the  distress,  the 
danger  of  battling  for  our  sick  and  wounded 
troops  against  the  sea  of  miseries  that  encom- 
passed them  on  their  hospital  pallets ;  and  men 
still  remember  how  graciously,  how  simply,  how 
naturally,  if  so  one  may  speak,  the  ambassadress 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      203 

Lady  Stratford  de  RedclifFe  and  her  beauteous 
guest  gave  their  energies  and  their  time  to  the 
work;  still  remember  the  generous  exertions 
of  Mr.  Sidney  Osborne  and  Mr.  Joscelyne 
Percy ;  still  remember,  too,  how  Mr.  Stafford — 
I  would  rather  call  him  'Stafford  O'Brien' — 
the  cherished  yet  unspoilt  favourite  of  English 
society,  devoted  himself  heart  and  soul  to  the 
task  of  helping  and  comforting  our  prostrate 
soldiery   in   the   most   frightful    depths   of  their 

misery. 

"Many  found  themselves  embarrassed  when 
trying  to  choose  the  best  direction  they  could 
for  their  generous  impulses;  and  not,  I  think, 
the  least  praiseworthy  of  all  the  self-sacrificing 
enterprises  which  imagination  devised  was  that 
of  the  enthusiastic  young  fellow  who,  abandoning 
his  life  of  ease,  pleasure,  and  luxury,  went  out, 
as  he  probably  phrased  it,  to  '  fag '  for  the  Lady- 
in-Chief.  Whether  fetching  and  carrying  for  her, 
or  writing  for  her  letters  or  orders,  or  orally 
conveying  her  wishes  to  public  servants  or  others, 
he,  for  months  and  months,  faithfully  toiled, 
obeying  in  all  things  her  word. 


204      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

"  There  was  grace — grace  almost  mediaeval — 
in  his  simple  yet  romantic  idea ;  and,  if  humbly, 
still  not  the  less  usefully  he  aided  the  sacred 
cause,  for  it  was  one  largely,  mainly  dependent 
on  the  power  of  the  lady  he  served  ;  so  that, 
when  by  obeying  her  orders  he  augmented  her 
means  of  action,  and  saved  her  precious  time, 
there  were  unnumbered  sufferers  deriving  sure 
benefit  from  his  opportune,  well-applied  help. 
By  no  other  kind  of  toil,  however  ambitiously 
aimed,  could  he  well  have  achieved  so  much 
good." 

But  there  was  many  a  disappointment,  much 
that  did  not  seem  "  good  luck "  by  any  means, 
and  that  called  for  great  courage  and  endurance. 
The  stores,  which  Mr.  Herbert  had  sent  out  in 
such  abundance,  had  gone  to  Varna  by  mistake, 
and  the  loss  of  the  Prince,  a  ship  laden  with 
ample  supplies,  a  fortnight  after  Miss  Nightin- 
gale's arrival,  was  a  very  serious  matter. 

Warm  clothing  for  the  frost-bitten  men  brought 
in  from  Sebastopol  was  so  badly  needed  that  one 
nurse,  writing  home,  told  her  people  :    "  When- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      205 

ever  a  man  opens  his  mouth  with  '  Please,  ma'am, 
I  want  to  speak  to  you,'  my  heart  sinks  within 
me,  for  I  feel  sure  it  will  end  in  flannel  shirts." 

Every  one  had  for  too  long  been  saying  "  all 
right,"  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  all  wrong. 
Here  once  again  it  is  best  to  quote  Kinglake. 
"By  shunning  the  irksome  light,"  he  says,  "by 
choosing  a  low  standard  of  excellence,  and  by 
vaguely  thinking  '  War '  an  excuse  for  defects 
which  war  did  not  cause,  men,  it  seems,  had 
contrived  to  be  satisfied  with  the  condition  of 
our  hospitals ;  but  the  Lady-in-Chief  was  one 
who  would  harbour  no  such  content,  seek  no 
such  refuge  from  pain.  Not  for  her  was  the 
bliss — fragile  bliss  —  of  dwelling  in  any  false 
paradise.  She  confronted  the  hideous  truth. 
Her  first  care  was — Eve-like — to  dare  to  know, 
and — still  Eve-like — to  force  dreaded  knowledge 
on  the  faltering  lord  of  creation.  Then  declar- 
ing against  acquiescence  in  horror  and  misery 
which  firmness  and  toil  might  remove,  she 
waged  her  ceaseless  war  against  custom  and 
sloth,  gaining  every  day  on  the  enemy,  and 
achieving,  as  we  saw,  in  December,  that  which 


2o6      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

to  eyes  less  intent  than  her  own  upon  actual 
saving  of  life,  and  actual  restoration  of  health, 
seemed  already  the  highest  excellence." 

But,  of  course,  what  most  made  the  men  adore 
her  was  her  loving  individual  care  for  each  of 
those  for  whom  she  felt  herself  responsible. 
There  was  one  occasion  on  which  she  begged 
to  be  allowed  to  try  whether  she  could  nurse 
back  to  possible  life  five  wounded  men  who 
were  being  given  up  as  "  hopeless  cases,"  and 
did  actually  succeed  in  doing  so. 

In  all  that  terrible  confusion  of  suffering  that 
surrounded  her  soon  after  her  first  arrival,  the 
first  duty  of  the  doctors  was  to  sort  out  from  the 
wounded  as  they  arrived  those  cases  which  they 
could  help  and  save  from  those  which  it  seemed 
no  human  surgery  could  help. 

While  this  was  being  done  she  stood  by  :  she 
never  spared  herself  the  sight  of  suffering,  and 
her  eyes — the  trained  eyes  that  had  all  the  in- 
tuition of  a  born  nurse — saw  a  glimmer  of  hope 
for  five  badly  wounded  men  who  were  being 
set  aside  among  those  for  whom  nothing  could 
be  done. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      207 

"  Will    you   give   me   those   five   men  ? "    she 
asked.     She    knew   how   much   might   be   done 
by  gentle   and   gradual  feeding,  and   by  all   the 
intently  watchful  care  of  a  good  nurse,  to  give 
them  just  enough   strength  to  risk  the  surgery 
that   might   save  them.     With   her   own   hand, 
spoonful  by  spoonful,  as  they  were  able  to  bear 
it,  she  gave  the  nourishment,  and  by  her  own 
night-long  watching  and  tending  in  the  care  of 
all  those  details  which  to  a  poor  helpless  patient 
may  make  the  difference  between  life  and  death 
— the    purifying    of   the    air,   the    avoidance   of 
draughts,  the   mending  of  the  fire — she   nursed 
her  five  patients  back  into  a  condition  in  which 
the  risks  of  an  operation  were,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,   greatly  lessened.     The   operation   was   in 
each  case  successfully  performed  ;  by  all  human 
standards  it  may  be  said  that  she  saved  the  lives 
of  all  the  five. 

She  never  spared  herself,  though  she  sometimes 
spared  others.  She  has  been  known  to  stand  for 
twenty  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four,  and  at  night, 
when  she  had  sent  her  day-nurses  to  rest,  it  was 
she  herself  who  watched  in  all   the  wards   and 


2o8      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

silently  cared  for  the  needs  of  one  and  another. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  "  there  was  worship  almost 
in  the  gratitude  of  the  prostrate  sufferer,  who 
saw  her  glide  into  his  ward,  and  at  last  approach 
his  bedside  ?  The  magic  of  her  power  over  men 
used  often  to  be  felt  in  the  room — the  dreaded, 
the  blood-stained  room — where  '  operations '  took 
place.  There,  perhaps,  the  maimed  soldier,  if 
not  yet  resigned  to  his  fate,  might  at  first  be 
craving  death  rather  than  meet  the  knife  of  the 
surgeon ;  but,  when  such  a  one  looked  and  saw 
that  the  honoured  Lady-in-Chief  was  patiently 
standing  beside  him,  and — with  lips  closely  set 
and  hands  folded — decreeing  herself  to  go  through 
the  pain  of  witnessing  pain,  he  used  to  fall  into 
the  mood  for  obeying  her  silent  command,  and 
— finding  strange  support  in  her  presence — bring 
himself  to  submit  and  endure."  * 

M.  Soyer,  who  placed  his  culinary  art  at  her 
service,  has  written  a  book  about  his  experiences 
in  which  he  tells  us  that,  after  a  merry  evening 
in  the  doctors'  quarters,  when  on  his  way  back 
to  his  own,  he  saw  by  a  faint  light  a  little  group 

*  Kinglake's  "  Invasion  of  Crimea." 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      209 

— shadowy  in  the  half-darkness — in  a  corner  of 
one  of  the  corridors.  A  Sister  stood  beside  Miss 
Nightingale  with  a  lighted  candle  that  she  might 
see  clearly  enough  to  scribble  down  the  last 
wishes  of  the  dying  soldier  who  was  supported 
on  the  bed  beside  her.  With  its  deep  colouring, 
described  as  like  a  grave  study  by  Rembrandt, 
the  little  picture  drew  the  passer-by,  and  for  a 
few  minutes  he  watched  unseen  while  the  Lady- 
in-Chief  took  into  those  "tender  womanly  hands" 
the  watch  and  trinkets  of  the  soldier,  who  with 
his  last  gasping  breath  was  trying  to  make  clear 
to  her  his  farewell  message  to  his  wife  and 
children.  And  this  seems  to  have  been  but  one 
among  many  kindred  scenes. 

We  have  all  heard  of  the  man  who  watched 
till  her  shadow  fell  across  the  wall  by  his  bed 
that  he  might  at  least  kiss  that  shadow  as  it 
passed ;  but  few  of  us,  perhaps,  know  the  whole 
story.  The  man  was  a  Highland  soldier  who 
had  been  doomed  to  lose  his  arm  by  amputa- 
tion. Miss  Nightingale  believed  that  she  might 
possibly   be    able    to    save    the    arm    by    careful 

nursing,  and  she  begged  that  she  might  at  least 
(1,764)  14 


210      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

be  allowed  to  try.  Nursing  was  to  her  an 
art  as  well  as  a  labour  of  love.  The  ceaseless 
care  in  matters  of  detail,  which  she  considered 
the  very  alphabet  of  that  art,  stand  out  clearly 
in  her  own  Notes  on  Nursing.  And  in  this 
instance  her  skill  and  watchfulness  and  untiring 
effort  saved  the  man's  arm.  No  wonder  that  he 
wanted  to  kiss  her  shadow  ! 

To  the  wives  of  the  soldiers  she  was  indeed 
a  saving  angel.  When  she  arrived  at  Scutari, 
they  were  living,  we  are  told,  literally  in  holes 
and  corners  of  the  hospital.  Their  clothes  were 
worn  out.  They  had  neither  bonnets,  nor  shoes, 
nor  any  claim  on  rations.  Poor  faithful  creatures, 
many  of  them  described  in  the  biographies  as 
respectable  and  decent,  they  had  followed  their 
husbands  through  all  the  horrors  of  the  campaign, 
and  now,  divided  from  them  and  thrust  aside  for 
want  of  space,  they  were  indeed  in  sorry  case. 

Well  might  Miss  Nightingale  write  later,  and 
well  may  we  all  lay  it  to  heart — "  When  the 
improvements  in  our  system  are  discussed,  let  not 
the  wife  and  child  of  the  soldier  be  forgotten." 

After   being   moved   about   from   one   den    to 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      211 

another,  the  poor  women — some  wives  and  some, 
alas,  widows — had  been  quartered  in  a  few  damp 
rooms  in  the  hospital  basement,  where  those  who 
wanted  solitude  or  privacy  could  do  nothing  to 
secure  it  beyond  hanging  a  few  rags  on  a  line 
as  a  sort  of  screen  between  home  and  home. 
And  in  these  desolate  quarters  many  babies  had 
been  born. 

It  was  but  the  last  drop  of  misery  in  their  cup 
when,  early  in  1855,  a  month  or  two  after  Miss 
Nightingale's  arrival,  a  drain  broke  in  the  base- 
ment, and  fever  followed. 

Miss  Nightingale  had  already  sought  them 
out,  and  from  her  own  stores  given  them  food 
and  clothing ;  but  now  she  did  not  rest  until 
through  her  influence  a  house  had  been  requisi- 
tioned and  cleaned  and  furnished  for  them  out 
of  her  own  funds.  Next,  after  fitting  out  the 
widows  to  return  to  their  homes,  employment 
was  found  for  the  wives  who  remained.  Work 
was  found  for  some  of  them  in  Constantinople, 
but  for  most  of  them  occupation  was  at  hand 
in  the  laundry  she  had  set  going,  and  there  those 
who   were  willing  to  do  their  part   could   earn 


212      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

from  I  OS.  to  14s.  a  week.     In  this  way,  through 

our   heroine*s  wise   energy,   helped  by  the  wife 

and  daughter  of  Dr.  Blackwood,  one  of  the  army 

chaplains,  we  are   told   that   about  500   women 

were  cared  for. 

There  had  already  arrived  through  the  hands  of 

Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  who  forwarded  it  to  Miss 

Nightingale,  a  message  from  Queen  Victoria — 

in   effect   a   letter  —  which   greatly  cheered    the 

army  and   also  strengthened  Miss  Nightingale's 

position. 

"Windsor  Castle, 
^^  December  6,  '54. 

"  Would  you  tell  Mrs.  Herbert,"  wrote  the 
Queen  to  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  "  that  I  beg  she 
would  let  me  see  frequently  the  accounts  she 
receives  from  Miss  Nightingale  or  Mrs.  Brace- 
bridge,  as  I  hear  no  details  of  the  wounded, 
though  I  see  so  many  from  officers,  etc.,  about 
the  battlefield,  and  naturally  the  former  must 
interest  me  more  than  any  one. 

"  Let  Mrs.  Herbert  also  know  that  I  wish  Miss 
Nightingale  and  the  ladies  would  tell  these  poor, 
noble  wounded  and  sick  men  that  no  one  takes 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      213 

a  warmer  interest  or  feels  more  for  their  sufferings 
or  admires  their  courage  and  heroism  more  than 
their  Queen.  Day  and  night  she  thinks  of  her 
beloved  troops.     So  does  the  Prince. 

"  Beg  Mrs.  Herbert  to  communicate  these  my 
words  to  those  ladies,  as  I  know  that  our  sym- 
pathy is  much  valued  by  these  noble  fellows. 

"  Victoria." 

Miss  Nightingale  agreed  with  the  Queen  in 
her  use  of  the  word  "  noble "  here,  for  she 
herself  has  written  of  the  men  : — 

"  Never  came  from  any  of  them  one  word 
nor  one  look  which  a  gentleman  would  not  have 
used  ;  and  while  paying  this  humble  tribute  to 
humble  courtesy,  the  tears  come  into  my  eyes  as 
I  think  how,  amidst  scenes  of  .  .  .  loathsome 
disease  and  death,  there  rose  above  it  all  the 
innate  dignity,  gentleness,  and  chivalry  of  the 
men  (for  never,  surely,  was  chivalry  so  strikingly 
exemplified),  shining  in  the  midst  of  what  must 
be  considered  as  the  lowest  sinks  of  human  misery, 
and  preventing  instinctively  the  use  of  one  ex- 
pression which  could  distress  a  gentlewoman." 


214      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Having  transcribed  the  Queen's  letter,  this 
may  be  a  good  place  for  adding  from  the  letters 
of  Sister  Aloysius  a  little  instance  of  Her 
Majesty's  homely  kindness  to  her  troops  when- 
ever she  heard  of  any  need  which  she  could 
supply  : — 

"  When  Miss  Stanley  reached  England,  Her 
Majesty  the  Queen  (anxious,  of  course,  to  hear 
all  about  her  soldiers)  sent  for  her  ;  and  when 
the  interview  was  nearly  over  Her  Majesty  asked 
her  what  she  thought  the  poor  soldiers  would 
like — she  was  anxious  to  send  them  a  present. 
Miss  Stanley  said  :  '  Oh,  I  do  know  what  they 
would  like — plenty  of  flannel  shirts,  mufflers, 
butter,  and  treacle.'  Her  Majesty  said  they  must 
have  all  these  things  ;  and  they  did  come  out 
in  abundance  :  Kullali  got  its  share  of  the  gifts. 
But  the  very  name  of  butter  or  treacle  was 
enough  for  the  doctors  :  they  said  they  would 
not  allow  it  into  the  wards,  because  it  would  be 
going  about  in  bits  of  paper  and  daubing  every- 
thing. So  Rev.  Mother  at  once  interposed,  and 
said  if  the  doctors  allowed  it,  she  would  have  it 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      215 

distributed  in  a  way  that  could  give  no  trouble. 
They  apologized,  and  said  they  should  have 
known  that,  and  at  once  left  everything  to  her. 
Each  Sister  got  her  portion  of  butter  and  treacle 
(which  were  given  only  to  the  convalescent 
patients),  and  when  the  bell  rang  every  evening 
for  tea  she  stood  at  the  table  in  the  centre  of 
the  ward,  and  each  soldier  walked  over  and  got 
his  bread  buttered,  and  some  treacle  if  he  wished 
spread  on  like  jam.  We  told  them  it  was  a  gift 
from  the  Queen  ;  and  if  Her  Majesty  could  only 
have  seen  how  gratified  they  were  it  would  have 
given  her  pleasure.  One  evening  Lady  Stratford, 
and  some  distinguished  guests  who  were  staying 
at  the  Embassy,  came,  and  were  much  pleased 
to  see  how  happy  and  comfortable  the  men  were, 
and  how  much  they  enjoyed  Her  Majesty's 
gifts." 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

Letters  from  Scutari — Kinglake  on  Miss  Nightingale  and  her 
dynasty — The  refusal  of  a  new  contingent. 

Miss  Nightingale's  saving  sense  of  humour 
gleams  forth  in  her  letters  in  the  most  delightful 
way,  even  in  the  darkest  days.  In  the  following, 
something  of  the  hugeness  of  her  task  is  dimly 
seen  through  the  comic  background  of  the  un- 
becoming cap  that  "  If  I'd  known,  ma'am,  I 
wouldn't  have  come,  ma'am."  Here  is  the 
letter  just  as  it  is  given  in  Lord  Herbert's  life. 
It  begins  abruptly,  evidently  quoting  from  a 
conversation  just  held  with  one  of  the  staff 
nurses  : — 

"  *  I  came  out,  ma'am,  prepared  to  submit  to 
everything,  to  be  put  upon  in  every  way.  But 
there  are  some  things,  ma'am,  one  can't  submit 
to.     There   is   the   caps,  ma'am,  that  suits   one 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      217 

face  and  some  that  suits  another  ;  and  if  I'd 
known,  ma'am,  about  the  caps,  great  as  was  my 
desire  to  come  out  to  nurse  at  Scutari,  I  wouldn't 
have  come,  ma'am.' — Speech  of  Mrs.  L.,  Barrack 
Hospital.,  Scutari^  Asiatic  Side.,  November  14,  1854. 
"  Time  must  be  at  a  discount  with  the  man 
who  can  adjust  the  balance  of  such  an  important 
question  as  the  above,  and  I  for  one  have  none, 
as  you  will  easily  suppose  when  I  tell  you  that 
on  Thursday  last  we  had  1,175  sick  and  wounded 
in  this  hospital  (among  whom  120  cholera  pa- 
tients), and  650  severely  wounded  in  the  other 
building,  called  the  General  Hospital,  of  which 
we  also  have  charge,  when  a  message  came  to 
me  to  prepare  for  510  wounded  on  our  side  of 
the  hospital,  who  were  arriving  from  the  dread- 
ful affair  of  November  5,  from  Balaclava,  in 
which  battle  were  1,763  wounded  and  442 
killed,  besides  96  officers  wounded  and  38  killed. 
I  always  expected  to  end  my  days  as  a  hospital 
matron,  but  I  never  expected  to  be  barrack  mis- 
tress. We  had  but  half  an  hour's  notice  before 
they  began  landing  the  wounded.  Between  one 
and  nine  o'clock  we  had  the  mattresses  stuffed. 


2i8      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

sewn  up,  laid  down  (alas !  only  upon  matting  on 
the  floor),  the  men  washed  and  put  to  bed,  and 
all  their  wounds  dressed. 

"  We  are  very  lucky  in  our  medical  heads. 
Two  of  them  are  brutes  and  four  are  angels — 
for  this  is  a  work  which  makes  either  angels 
or  devils  of  men,  and  of  women  too.  As  for 
the  assistants,  they  are  all  cubs,  and  will,  while 
a  man  is  breathing  his  last  breath  under  the 
knife,  lament  the  *  annoyance  of  being  called 
up  from  their  dinners  by  such  a  fresh  influx 
of  wounded.'  But  unlicked  cubs  grow  up  into 
good  old  bears,  though  I  don't  know  how  ;  for 
certain  it  is,  the  old  bears  are  good.  We  have 
now  four  miles  of  beds  and  not  eighteen  inches 
apart. 

"  We  have  our  quarters  in  one  tower  of  the 
barracks,  and  all  this  fresh  influx  has  been  laid 
down  between  us  and  the  main  guard,  in  two 
corridors,  with  a  line  of  beds  down  each  side, 
just  room  for  one  person  to  pass  between,  and 
four  wards.  Yet  in  the  midst  of  this  appalling 
horror  (we  are  steeped  up  to  our  necks  in  blood) 
there    is    good — and    I    can   truly   say,   like    St. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      219 

Peter,  *  It  is  good  for  us  to  be  here ' — though 
I  doubt  whether,  if  St.  Peter  had  been  there, 
he  would  have  said  so." 

Meanwhile  England,  stirred  to  its  depths  by 
the  accounts  given  by  Mr.  William  Howard 
Russell,  of  the  sufferings  of  our  soldiers,  had 
begged  the  Times,  in  whose  pages  his  letters 
appeared,  to  receive  funds  and  send  them  out 
by  the  hand  of  Mr.  Macdonald,  a  man  of  vigour, 
firmness,  and  good  sense,  and  "  loyally  devoted 
to  his  duty."  Before  leaving  England,  he  saw 
the  Inspector-General  of  the  army.  Dr.  Andrew 
Smith,  and  also  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  but  was 
assured  that  Government  had  already  provided 
so  amply  for  the  sick  and  wounded  that  his  fund 
was  not  likely  to  be  needed.  When  he  reached 
the  Bosphorus  all  the  official  people  there  talked 
to  him  in  the  same  strain.  But  there  leaked 
out  through  an  officer  on  duty  one  little  fact 
that  showed  how  much  such  assurances  were 
worth. 

It  seemed  that  the  39th  Regiment  was  actually 
on  its  way  to  the  severities  of  a  Crimean  winter 


220      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

with  only  the  light  summer  clothing  that  would 
be  worn  in  hot  countries.  Happily,  the  surgeon 
of  the  regiment  appealed  to  Mr.  Macdonald,  and, 
more  happily  still,  Mr.  Macdonald  dared  to  go 
beyond  his  exact  instructions  and  give  help  out  of 
his  fund  which  might  prevent  illness,  instead  of 
waiting  for  the  moment  when  death  was  already 
at  the  door.  He  went  into  the  markets  of  Con- 
stantinople and  bought  then  and  there  a  suit  of 
flannels  or  other  woollens  for  every  man  in  that 
regiment. 

Mr.  Macdonald  saw  that  he  must  be  ready 
to  offer  help,  or  red  tape  and  loyalty  together 
would  seal  the  lips  of  men  in  the  service,  lest 
they  should  seem  to  be  casting  a  slur  on  the 
army  administration. 

There  is  humour  of  the  grimmest  kind  in 
what  resulted.  The  chief  of  the  Scutari  nos- 
pitals  told  him  "  nothing  was  wanted,"  and  on 
pushing  his  inquiry  with  a  yet  more  dis- 
tinguished personage,  he  was  actually  advised  to 
spend  the  money  on  building  a  church  at  Pera  ! 

"  Yet    at    that    very    time,"    says    Kinglake, 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      221 

"wants  so  dire  as  to  include  want  of  hospital 
furniture  and  of  shirts  for  the  patients,  and  of 
the  commonest  means  for  obtaining  cleanliness, 
were  afflicting  our  stricken  soldiery  in  the 
hospitals." 

The  Pera  proposal  —  rightly  described  as 
"  astounding " — led  to  an  interview  with  the 
Lady-in-Chief.  Tears  and  laughter  must  have 
met  in  her  heart  as  she  heard  this  absurdity, 
and  away  she  took  him — money  as  well — to 
the  very  centre  of  her  commissariat,  to  see  for 
himself  the  daily  demands  and  the  gaping  need 
— furniture,  pillows,  sheets,  shirts — endless  ap- 
pliances and  drugs — that  need  seemed  truly 
endless,  and  many  hours  daily  he  spent  with 
her  in  the  Nurses'  Tower,  taking  down  lists 
of  orders  for  the  storekeepers  in  Constantinople. 
Here  was  the  right  help  at  last — not  pretty 
mufflers  for  men  in  need  of  shirts,  nor  fine 
cambric  for  stout  bed-linen. 

However,  from  the  Lady-in-Chief  Mr.  Mac- 
donald  soon  learned  the  truth,  and  the  course  he 
then  took  was  one  of  the  simplest  kind,  but  it 


222      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

worked  a  mighty  change.  He  bought  the 
things  needed,  and  the  authorities,  succumbing 
at  last  to  this  excruciating  form  of  demonstra- 
tion, had  to  witness  the  supply  of  wants  which 
before  they  had  refused  to  confess.  So  now, 
besides  using  the  stores  which  she  had  at  her  own 
command,  the  Lady-in-Chief  could  impart  wants 
felt  in  our  hospitals  to  Mr.  Macdonald  with  the 
certainty  that  he  would  hasten  to  meet  them  by 
applying  what  was  called  the  "  Times  Fund  "  in 
purchasing  the  articles  needed. 

"  It  was  thus,"  adds  Kinglake,  "  that  under 
the  sway  of  motives  superbly  exalted,  a  great 
lady  came  to  the  rescue  of  our  prostrate  soldiery, 
made  good  the  default  of  the  State,  won  the 
gratitude,  the  rapt  admiration  of  an  enthusiastic 
people,  and  earned  for  the  name  she  bears  a  pure, 
a  lasting  renown. 

"  She  even  did  more.  By  the  very  power 
of  her  fame,  but  also,  I  believe,  by  the  wisdom 
and  the  authority  of  her  counsels,  she  founded, 
if  so  one  may  speak,  a  gracious  dynasty  that 
still  reigns  supreme  in  the  wards  where  sufferers 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      223 

lie,  and  even  brings  solace,  brings  guidance, 
brings  hope,  into  those  dens  of  misery  that, 
until  the  blessing  has  reached  them,  seem  only 
to  harbour  despair.  When  into  the  midst  of 
such  scenes  the  young  high-bred  lady  now  glides, 
she  wears  that  same  sacred  armour — the  gentle 
attire  of  the  servitress — which  seemed  '  heavenly  ' 
in  the  eyes  of  our  soldiers  at  the  time  of  the  war, 
and  finds  strength  to  meet  her  dire  task,  because 
she  knows  by  tradition  what  the  first  of  the 
dynasty  proved  able  to  confront  and  to  vanquish 
in  the  wards  of  the  great  Barrack  Hospital." 

In  everything  a  woman's  hand  and  brain  had 
been  needed.  It  was,  for  instance,  of  little  use 
to  receive  in  the  evening,  after  barrack  fires  were 
out,  food  which  had  been  asked  for  from  the 
supplies  for  some  meal  several  hours  earlier  ;  yet 
that,  it  appears,  was  the  sort  of  thing  that  hap- 
pened. And  too  much  of  the  food  officially 
provided,  even  when  it  did  reach  the  patients 
at  last,  had  been  unfit  for  use. 

As  for  the  question  of  laundry,  a  washing 
contract    that    had    only   succeeded   in   washing 


224      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

seven  shirts  for  two  or  three  thousand  men 
could  not  have  been  permitted  to  exist  under  any- 
feminine  management.  Nor  could  any  trained 
or  knowledgeable  nurse  have  allowed  for  a  single 
day  the  washing  of  infectious  bed-linen  in  one 
common  tub  with  the  rest.  Yet  this  had  been 
the  condition  of  affairs  before  the  Lady-in-Chicf 
came  on  the  scenes.  In  speaking  of  her  work 
among  the  soldiers'  wives  it  has  already  been 
noted  how  she  quickly  hired  and  fitted  up  a 
house  close  to  the  hospital  as  a  laundry,  where 
under  sanitary  regulations  500  shirts  and  150 
other  articles  were  washed  every  week. 

Then  there  arose  the  practical  question  of 
what  could  be  done  for  the  poor  fellows  who 
had  no  clothes  at  all  except  the  grimy  and 
blood-stained  garments  in  which  they  arrived, 
and  we  are  told  that  in  the  first  three  months, 
out  of  her  own  private  funds,  she  provided  the 
men  with  ten  thousand  shirts. 

The  drugs  had  all  been  in  such  confusion 
that  once  when  Mrs.  Bracebridge  had  asked 
three  times  for  chloride  of  lime  and  been  assured 
that  there  was  none,  Miss  Nightingale  insisted 


FLORENCE    NlGHllNGALE.      225 

on  a  thorough  search,  and  not  less  than  ninety 
pounds  of  it  were  discovered. 

The  semi-starvation  of  many  hospital  patients 
before  Miss  Nightingale's  arrival,  noted  on  an 
earlier  page,  wsls  chiefly  the  result  of  mismanage- 
ment— mismanagement  on  the  part  of  those  v^rho 
meant  well — often,  indeed,  meant  the  very  best 
within  their  power,  but  among  whom  there  was, 
until  her  coming,  no  central  directing  power, 
with  brain  and  heart  alike  capable  and  energizing 
and  alive  to  all  the  vital  needs  of  deathly  illness 
— alert  with  large  foreseeing  outlook,  yet  shrewd 
and  swift  in  detail. 

It  is  at  first  puzzling  to  compare  Kinglake's 
picture  of  the  confusion  and  suffering,  even 
while  he  is  defending  Lord  Raglan,  with  some 
of  the  letters  in  Lord  Stanmore's  "  Life  of  Lord 
Herbert,"  especially  one  from  General  Estcourt, 
in  which  he  says  "  never  was  an  army  better  fed." 
But  even  in  this  letter — dated,  be  it  noted,  a 
fortnight  after  Miss  Nightingale's  arrival — the 
next  sentence,  which  refers,  of  course,  to  the 
army  in  general  and  not  to  the  hospitals  under 
her  management,  shows  the  same  muddling  that 

(1,764)  jlj 


226      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

had  pursued  the  hospitals  until  she  came  to  their 
aid  with  Mr.  Herbert  and  the  War  Office  at 
her  back  ;  for  after  saying  that  the  ration  is 
ample  and  most  liberal,  it  adds — and  the  italics 
are  mine — "  but  the  men  cannot  cook  for  want  of 
camp-fettles  and  for  want  of  fuel. ^' 

Yet  even  with  regard  to  the  hospitals,  it  is 
startling  to  find  Mr.  Bracebridge,  in  his  first 
letter  to  Mr.  Herbert,  speaking  of  the  Barrack 
Hospital  as  clean  and  airy.  But  people  have 
such  odd  ideas  of  what  is  "  clean  and  airy,"  and 
it  would  seem  that  he  thought  it  "  clean  and 
airy  '*  for  the  patients  to  have  no  proper  arrange- 
ments for  washing,  for  the  drains  to  be  in  such 
a  noisome  state  as  to  need  engineering,  and  for 
six  dead  dogs  to  be  rotting  under  the  windows  ! 
I  suppose  he  liked  the  look  of  the  walls  and  the 
height  of  the  ceilings,  and  wanted,  moreover,  to 
comfort  Mr.  Herbert's  sad  heart  at  a  time  when 
all  England  was  up  in  arms  at  the  mistakes  made 
in  transport  and  other  arrangements. 

The  letters  of  the  chaplain  to  Mr.  Herbert 
are  full  of  interest,  and  in  reading  the  following 
we  have  to  put  ourselves  back  into  the   mind 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      227 

of  a  time  that  looked  anxiously  to  see  whether 
Miss  Nightingale  was  really  equal  to  her  task — 
an  idea  which  to  us  of  to-day  seems  foolish  and 
timorous,  but  which  was,  after  all,  quite  natural, 
seeing  that  she  was  new  and  untried  in  this 
particular  venture  of  army  nursing,  and  that  half 
the  onlookers  had  no  idea  of  the  long  and  varied 
training  she  had  had. 

"  My  dear  Herbert, — I  have  now  had  near 
a  week's  opportunity  of  closely  observing  the 
details  of  the  hospitals  at  Scutari.  First,  as  to 
Miss  Nightingale  and  her  company,  nothing  can 
be  said  too  strong  in  their  praise  ;  she  works 
them  wonderfully,  and  they  are  so  useful  that 
I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  some  twenty  more 
of  the  same  sort  would  be  a  very  great  blessing 
to  the  establishment.  Her  nerve  is  equal  to  her 
good  sense  ;  she,  with  one  of  her  nurses  and 
myself,  gave  efficient  aid  at  an  amputation  of 
the  thigh  yesterday.  She  was  just  as  cool  as  if 
she  had  had  to  do  it  herself.  We  are  close 
allies,  and  through  Macdonald  and  the  funds 
at    my    own    command,    I    get    her    everything 


228      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

for  which  she  asks,  and  this  is  saying  a  great 
deal. 

"  My  honest  view  of  the  matter  is  this  :  I 
found  but  too  great  evidence  of  the  staff  and 
means  being  unequal  to  the  emergency  ;  the 
requirements  have  almost  doubled  through  the 
last  two  unhappy  actions  at  Balaclava.  Still, 
day  by  day  I  see  manifest  improvement  ;  no 
government,  no  nation  could  have  provided,  on 
a  sudden,  staff  and  appliances  for  accident 
wards  miles  in  length,  and  for  such  sickness  as 
that  horrid  Varna  dysentery.  To  manage  more 
than  three  thousand  casualties  of  the  worst  nature 
is  indeed  a  task  to  be  met  in  an  entirely  satisfac- 
tory way  by  nothing  short  of  a  miraculous  energy 
with  the  means  it  would  require.  The  men  are 
landed  necessarily  in  a  rnost  pitiable  state,  and 
have  to  be  carried  up  steep  ground  for  con- 
siderable distance,  either  by  those  beasts  of 
Turks,  who  are  as  stupid  as  callous,  or  by  our 
invalids,  who  arc  not  equal  to  the  task.  Still, 
it  is  done,  and  as  this  is  war,  not  peace,  and 
Scutari  is  really  a  battlefield,  I  am  more  disposed 
to  lament  than  to  blame. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      229 

"  There  seems  now,  so  far  as  I  can  sec,  no 
lack  of  lint  and  plaister  ;  there  is  a  lack  of  linen, 
— we  have  sent  home  for  it.  The  surgeons  are 
working  their  utmost,  and  serious  cases  seem 
treated  with  great  humanity  and  skill.  There 
was  and  is  an  awful  want  of  shirts  for  the  men, 
and  socks,  and  such  matters  ;  we  have  already 
let  Miss  Nightingale  have  all  she  applies  for, 
and  this  morning  I,  with  Macdonald's  sanction, 
or,  rather,  in  concert  with  him,  have  sent  to  the 
Crimea  a  large  stock  of  shirts  of  warm  serge, 
socks,  flannel,  tea,  etc.,  etc.  I  spend  the  best 
part  of  every  day  there  acting,  at  one  time  as 
priest  to  the  dying,  at  another  helping  the  sur- 
geons or  the  men  to  dress  their  wounds  ;  again, 
I  go  to  the  landing-place  and  try  to  work  them 
into  method  for  an  hour  or  two,  etc.,  etc.  One 
and  all  are  now  most  kind  and  civil  to  me,  meet 
my  wishes  in  every  way  they  can.  Alas  !  I  fear, 
with  every  possible  effort  of  the  existing  estab- 
lishment, the  crisis  is  still  too  great  ;  there  arc 
wanting  hundreds  of  beds — that  is,  many  hun- 
dreds have  only  matting  between  the  beds  and 
the  stone  floor.     I  slept  here  Sunday  night,  and 


230     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

walked  the  wards  late  and  early  in  the  morning  ; 
I  fear  the  cold  weather  in  these  passages  will 
produce  on  men  so  crippled  and  so  maimed 
much  supplementary  evil  in  the  way  of  coughs 
and  chest  diseases.  The  wounded  do  better  than 
the  sick.  I  scarce  pray  with  one  of  the  lattei 
one  day  but  I  hear  he  is  dead  on  the  morrow. 
...  I  am  glad  to  say  the  authorities  have  left 
off  swearing  they  had  everything  and  wanted 
nothing  ;  they  are  now  grateful  for  the  help 
which,  with  the  fund  at  command,  we  liberally 
meet.  The  wounds  are,  many  of  them,  of  the 
most  fearful  character,  and  yet  I  have  not  heard 
a  murmur,  even  from  those  who,  from  the  press- 
ing urgency  of  the  case,  are  often  left  with  most 
obvious  grounds  of  complaint.  Stafford  O'Brien 
is  here  ;  he,  at  my  suggestion,  aids  my  son  and 
self  in  letter  writing  for  the  poor  creatures.  My 
room  is  a  post  office  ;  I  pay  the  post  of  every 
letter  from  every  hospital  patient,  and  we  write 
masses  every  day.  They  show  one  what  the 
British  soldier  really  is ;  I  only  wish  to  God  the 
people  of  England,  who  regard  the  red  coat  as  a 
mere  guise  of  a  roystering  rake  in  the  private  and 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      231 

a  dandified  exclusive  in  the  officer,  could  see  the 
patience,  true  modesty,  and  courageous  endurance 
of  all  ranks. 

"  Understand  me  clearly.  I  could  pick  many 
a  hole  ;  I  could  show  where  head  has  been 
wanting,  truth  perverted,  duty  neglected,  etc.  ; 
but  I  feel  that  the  pressure  was  such  and  of  so 
frightful,  so  severe  (in  one  way)  a  character, 
there  is  such  an  effort  at  what  we  desire,  that  I 
for  one  cry  out  of  the  past  '  non  mi  ricordo ;  *  of 
the  present,  '  If  the  cart  is  in  the  rut,  there  is 
every  shoulder  at  the  wheel.'  The  things  wanted 
we  cannot  wait  for  you  to  supply,  in  England  ; 
if  the  slaughter  is  to  go  on  as  it  has  done  the 
last  fortnight,  the  need  must  be  met  at  once. 
Macdonald  is  doing  his  work  most  sensibly, 
steadily,  and  I  believe  not  only  with  no  offence 
to  any,  but  is  earning  the  goodwill  of  all." 

Truth  is  a  two-edged  sword,  and  for  purposes 
of  rebuke  or  reform  Miss  Nightingale  used  it 
at  times  with  keenness  and  daring.  In  that 
sense  this  glowing,  loving-hearted  woman  knew 
how  on  occasions  to  be  stern.     Her  salt  never 


232      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

lost  its  savour.  She  was  swift,  efficient,  capable 
to  the  last  degree,  and  she  was  also  high-spirited 
and  sometimes  sharp-tongued.  Perhaps  we  love 
her  all  the  more  for  being  so  human.  A  person 
outwardly  all  perfection,  if  not  altogether  divine, 
is  apt  to  give  the  idea  that  there  are  faults  hidden 
up  somewhere.  It  was  not  so  with  Miss  Night- 
ingale. Her  determination  to  carry  at  all  costs 
the  purpose  she  had  in  hand  laid  her  often  open 
to  criticism,  for,  just  as  she  was  ready  on  occasion 
to  override  her  own  feelings,  so  also  she  was  ready 
sometimes  to  override  the  feelings  of  others.  Mr. 
Herbert  judged  from  her  letters  that  an  addition 
to  her  staff  of  nurses  would  be  welcome,  but  we 
saw  that  when  the  new  band  of  forty-six  arrived, 
under  the  escort  of  Miss  Nightingale's  old  friend 
Miss  Stanley,  they  were  not  admitted  to  the 
hospital  at  Scutari,  and  to  tell  the  truth,  Miss 
Nightingale  was  very  angry  at  their  being  thrust 
upon  her,  just  when  she  was  finding  her  own 
staff  rather  a  "  handful."  In  point  of  fact,  she 
not  only  wrote  a  very  warm  letter  to  her  old 
friend  Mr.  Herbert,  but  she  also  formally  gave 
in  her  resignation. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      233 

This  was  not  accepted.  Mr.  Herbert's  gener- 
ous sweetness  of  nature,  his  love  for  the  writer, 
and  his  belief  that  she  was  the  one  person  needed 
in  the  hospitals,  and  was  doing  wonders  there, 
led  him  to  write  a  very  noble  and  humble  reply, 
saying  that  he  had  made  a  mistake — which,  indeed, 
was  true  enough — in  taking  his  well-meant  step 
without  consulting  her.  She  yielded  her  point 
in  so  far  as  to  remain  at  her  post,  now  that  Miss 
Stanley  and  her  staff  had  moved  on  to  Thcrapia 
and  Smyrna,  and  were  doing  real  good  there, 
Miss  Stanley  having  given  up  all  her  own  plans, 
to  remain  and  look  after  the  nurses  who  had 
come  under  her  escort. 

But,  apart  from  the  fact  that  it  would  have 
been  a  great  hindrance  to  discipline  to  have 
forty-six  women  on  her  hands  who  had  not 
promised  obedience  to  her,  as  had  her  own 
nurses,  a  little  sidelight  is  thrown  upon  it  all 
by  these  words  in  one  of  Miss  Stanley's  own 
letters,  speaking  of  the  nurses  under  her 
guardianship  : — 

"  The  first  night  there  was  great  dissatisfaction 


234     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

among  them,  and  a  strong  inclination  to  strike 
work.  *  We  are  not  come  out  to  be  cooks, 
housemaids,  and  washerwomen,'  and  they  dwelt 
considerably  on  Mr.  Herbert's  words  about 
equality.      They  are  like  troublesome  children.^' 

Though  our  sympathy  goes  out  to  Miss  Stan- 
ley, it  is  not  impossible  that  Miss  Nightingale's 
decision  may  have  saved  Scutari  from  unavoidable 
confusions  of  authority  which  would  have  been 
very  unseemly,  and  from  more  than  a  possibility 
of  defeat  in  the  experiment  she  was  making,  in 
the  eyes  of  all  Europe,  as  to  how  far  women 
could  be  wisely  admitted  into  military  hospitals. 
Such  confusion  might  have  arisen,  not  from  any 
fault  in  Miss  Nightingale  or  Miss  Stanley,  but 
from  the  special  work  of  reorganization  which 
had  to  be  done  at  Scutari,  and  the  special  code 
of  obedience  by  which  Miss  Nightingale's  staff 
had  been  prepared  for  it.  She  did  not  want  for 
such  work  any  "  troublesome  children." 


CHAPTER    XV. 

The  busy  nursing  hive — M.  Soyer  and  his  memories — Miss 
Nightingales  complete  triumph  over  prejudice — The  memories 
of  Sister  Aloysius. 

Meanwhile  Miss  Stanley's  letters  give  us  a 
very  interesting  informal  glimpse  of  the  work 
that  was  going  on  and  of  Miss  Nightingale 
herself.  Here  is  one  in  which  she  describes  her 
visit  to  her  in  the  hospital  at  Scutari : — 

"  Wc  passed  down  two  or  three  of  these 
immense  corridors,  asking  our  way  as  we  went. 
At  last  we  came  to  the  guard-room,  another 
corridor,  then  through  a  door  into  a  large,  busy 
kitchen,  where  stood  Mrs.  Margaret  Williams, 
who  seemed  much  pleased  to  see  me  :  then  a 
heavy  curtain  was  raised  ;  I  went  through  a 
door,  and  there  sat  dear  Flo  writing  on  a  small 
unpainted  deal  table.     I  never  saw  her  looking 


236     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

better.  She  had  on  her  black  merino,  trimmed 
with  black  velvet,  clean  linen  collar  and  cuffs, 
apron,  white  cap  with  a  black  handkerchief  tied 
over  it ;  and  there  was  Mrs.  Bracebridge,  look- 
ing so  nice,  too.  I  was  quite  satisfied  with  my 
welcome.  It  was  settled  at  once  that  I  was  to 
sleep  here,  especially  as,  being  post  day,  Flo 
could  not  attend  to  me  till  the  afternoon. 

"  The  sofa  is  covered  with  newspapers  just 
come  in  by  the  post.  I  have  been  sitting  for 
an  hour  here,  having  some  coffee,  and  writing, 
Mrs.  Clarke  coming  in  to  see  what  I  have 
wanted,  in  spite  of  what  I  could  say. 

"  The  work  this  morning  was  the  sending  off 
General  Adams's  remains,  and  the  arrangements 
consequent  upon  it. 

"  A  stream  of  people  every  minute. 

" '  Please,  ma'am,  have  you  any  black-edged 
paper  ? ' 

"  '  Please,  what  can  I  give  which  would  keep 
on  his  stomach  ;  is  there  any  arrowroot  to-day 
for  him  .? ' 

" '  No  ;  the  tubs  of  arrowroot  must  be  for 
the  worst  cases  ;  we  cannot  spare  him  any,  nor 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      237 

is  there  any  jelly  to-day  ;  try  him  with  some 
eggs,  etc' 

" '  Please,  Mr.  Gordon  wishes  to  sec  Miss 
Nightingale  about  the  orders  she  gave  him.' 

"  Mr.  Sabine  comes  in  for  something  else. 

"  Mr.  Bracebridge  in  and  out  about  General 
Adams,  and  orders  of  various  kinds." 

Such  was  the  busy  life  of  which  Miss  Nightin- 
gale was  the  queen,  though,  unlike  the  queen- 
bee  of  the  ordinary  honey-hive,  this  queen  of 
nurses  was  the  hardest-worked  and  most  severely 
strained  worker  in  the  whole  toiling  com- 
munity. 

It  was  early  in  the  spring  of  1855  that  in 
the  feeding  department,  which  she  rightly 
considered  of  great  importance  to  her  invalids, 
she  received  unexpected  help. 

This  came  from  M.  Soyer,  who  may  be 
remembered  by  more  than  one  old  Londoner 
as  at  one  time  chef  of  the  New  Reform  Club, 
where  his  biography,  which  contains  some 
interesting  illustrations,  still  adorns  the  library. 
M.  Soyer  begged  to  be  allowed  the  command  of 


238      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

the    hospital   kitchen    at    Scutari.      He    was    an 
expert  and  an  enthusiast,  and  very  amusing. 

Also  what  he  offered  was  of  no  slight  impor- 
tance and  unselfishness.  In  February,  1855,  he 
wrote  as  follows  to  the  Times  : — 

"  Sir, — After  carefully  perusing  the  letter  of 
your  correspondent,  dated  Scutari,  in  your 
impression  of  Wednesday  last,  I  perceive  that, 
although  the  kitchen  under  the  superintendence 
of  Miss  Nightingale  affords  so  much  relief,  the 
system  of  management  at  the  large  one  at  the 
Barrack  Hospital  is  far  from  being  perfect.  I 
propose  offering  my  services  gratuitously,  and 
proceeding  direct  to  Scutari  at  my  own  personal 
expense,  to  regulate  that  important  department, 
if  the  Government  will  honour  me  with  their 
confidence,  and  grant  me  the  full  power  of 
acting  according  to  my  knowledge  and  experience 
in  such  matters. — I  have  the  honour  to  remain, 
sir,  your  obedient  servant,  A.  Soyer." 

His  proposal  was  accepted,  and  on  his  arrival  at 
Scutari  he  was  welcomed  by  Miss  Nightingale  in 
what  he  names,  after  his  rather  florid  manner,  "  a 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      239 

sanctuary  of  benevolence."  There  he  presented 
his  letters  and  parcels  from  the  Duchess  of 
Sutherland  and  Mr.  Stafford  and  others,  the 
Duchess  especially  commending  him  to  the 
Lady-in-Chief  as  likely  to  be  of  service  in  the 
cooking  department.  He  was  found  to  be  a 
most  valuable  ally,  and  his  letters  and  writings, 
since  published,  are  full  of  interest.  He  wrote 
home  at  once,  saying :  "  I  must  especially  express 
my  gratitude  to  Miss  Nightingale,  who  from  her 
extraordinary  intelligence  and  the  good  organiza- 
tion of  her  kitchen  procured  me  every  material 
for  making  a  commencement,  and  thus  saved  me 
at  least  one  week's  sheer  loss  of  time,  as  my 
model  kitchen  did  not  arrive  till  Saturday  last." 

This  is  interesting,  because  it  shows  yet  once 
more  Miss  Nightingale's  thoroughness  and  fore- 
sight and  attention  to  detail — the  more  valuable 
in  one  whose  outlook  at  the  same  time  touched 
so  wide  a  skyline,  and  was  so  large  in  its  noble 
care  for  a  far-off  future  and  a  world  of  many 
nations,  never  bounded  by  her  own  small  island 
or  her  own  church  pew. 


240     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Soyer's  description  of  her  is  worth  giving  in 
full,  and  later  we  shall,  through  his  eyes,  have  a 
vision  of  her  as  she  rode  to  Balaclava. 

"  Her  visage  as  regards  expression  is  very 
remarkable,  and  one  can  almost  anticipate  by  her 
countenance  what  she  is  about  to  say  :  alternately, 
with  matters  of  the  most  grave  importance, 
a  gentle  smile  passes  radiantly  over  her  counten- 
ance, thus  proving  her  evenness  of  temper  ;  at 
other  times,  when  wit  or  a  pleasantry  prevails, 
the  heroine  is  lost  in  the  happy,  good-natured 
smile  which  pervades  her  face,  and  you  recog- 
nize only  the  charming  woman.  Her  dress  is 
generally  of  a  greyish  or  black  tint  ;  she  wears  a 
simple  white  cap,  and  often  a  rough  apron.  In 
a  word,  her  whole  appearance  is  religiously 
simple  and  unsophisticated.  In  conversation  no 
member  of  the  fair  sex  can  be  more  amiable  and 
gentle  than  Miss  Nightingale.  Removed  from 
her  arduous  and  cavalier-like  duties,  which  require 
the  nerve  of  a  Hercules — and  she  possesses  it 
when  required — she  is  Rachel  on  the  stage  in 
both  tragedy  and  comedy." 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      241 

Soyer's  help  and  loyalty  proved  invaluable  all 
through  the  campaign.  His  volume  of  memories 
adds  a  vivid  bit  of  colour  here  and  there  to  these 
pages.  His  own  life  had  been  romantic,  and  he 
saw  everything  from  the  romantic  point  of 
view. 

We  read  and  know  that  although  Sidney 
Herbert's  letter  to  Dr.  Menzies,  the  principal 
medical  officer  at  Scutari,  asked  that  all  regard 
should  be  paid  to  every  wish  of  the  Lady-in- 
Chief,  and  that  was  in  itself  a  great  means  of 
power,  the  greatest  power  of  all  lay  in  her  own 
personality  and  its  compelling  magnetism,  which 
drew  others  to  obedience.  The  attractive  force 
of  a  strong,  clear,  comprehensive  mind,  and  still 
more  of  a  soul  on  fire  with  high  purpose  and  deep 
compassion,  which  never  wasted  themselves  in 
words,  became  tenfold  the  more  powerful  for  the 
restraint  and  self-  discipline  which  held  all 
boisterous  expression  of  them  in  check — her 
word,  her  very  glance, 

"Winning  its  way  with  extreme  gentleness 
Through  all  the  outworks  of  suspicious  pride." 

Her  strength  was  to  be  tried  to  the  uttermost  ; 
(i,7fl4)  16 


242      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

for  scarcely  had  her  work  in  the  hospital  begun 
when  cholera  came  stalking  over  the  threshold. 
Day  and  night  among  the  dying  and  the  dead 
she  and  her  nurses  toiled  with  fearless  devotion, 
each  one  carrying  her  life  in  her  hand,  but 
seldom,  indeed,  even  thinking  of  that  in  the 
heroic  struggle  to  save  as  many  other  lives  as 
possible. 

Miss  Nightingale  long  afterwards,  when 
talking  of  services  of  a  far  easier  kind,  once 
said  to  a  professional  friend  that  no  one  was 
fit  to  be  a  nurse  who  did  not  really  enjoy  precisely 
those  duties  of  a  sick-room  which  the  ordinary 
uneducated  woman  counts  revolting  ;  and  if  she 
was,  at  this  time,  now  and  then  impatient  with 
stupidity  and  incompetence  and  carelessness,  that 
is  not  wonderful  in  one  whose  effort  was  always 
at  high  level,  and  for  whom  every  detail  was  of 
vivid  interest,  because  she  realized  that  often  on 
exactitude  in  details  hung  the  balance  between 
life  and  death. 

On  their  first  arrival  she  and  her  nurses  may,  no 
doubt,  have  had  to  bear  cold-shouldering  and 
jealousy  ;  but  in  the  long  agony  of  the  cholera 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      243 

visitation  they  were  welcomed  as  veritable  angels 
of  light.     It  would  be  easy  to  be  sensational  in 
describing  the  scenes  amid  which  they  moved, 
for  before  long  the  hospital  was  filled,  day  and 
night,  with  two  long  processions  :   on  one   side 
came  in  those  who  carried  the  sick  men  in  on 
their  stretchers,  and  on  the  other  side  those  who 
carried  out  the  dead.     The  orderlies  could  not 
have  been   trusted   to   do   the  nursing   that  was 
required;  the  "stuping" — a  professional  method 
of  wholesale  hot  fomentations  and  rubbings  to 
release  the  iron  rigidity  of  the  cholera  patient*s 
body — was  best  done  by  skilled  and  gentle  hands, 
and  even  in  such  hands,  so  bad  were  the  surround- 
ing conditions — the  crowding,  the  bad  drainage, 
the    impure    water — that,    despite    the    utmost 
devotion,  only  a  small  proportion  of  lives  could 
be  saved. 

It  was  especially  at  this  time  that  the  feeling 
towards  the  Lady-in-Chief  deepened  into  a  trust 
that  was  almost  worship.  Watchful,  resourceful, 
unconquered,  with  a  mind  that,  missing  no 
detail,  yet  took  account  of  the  widest  issues  and 
the    farthest    ends,   she   was    yet    full   of  divine 


244      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

tenderness  for  each  sufferer  whom  with  her  own 
hands  she  tended ;  and,  although  she  did  not 
nurse  the  officers — she  left  that  to  others — in  her 
devotion  to  Tommy  Atkins  she  had  been  known 
to  be  on  her  feet,  as  already  has  been  said,  for 
twenty  hours  on  end  ;  and,  whether  she  was 
kneeling  or  standing,  stooping  or  lifting,  always 
an  ideal  nurse. 

The  graves  round  the  hospitals  were  not  dug 
deep  enough,  and  the  air  became  even  fouler  than 
before.  To  the  inroads  of  cholera  the  suffering 
of  Sebastopol  patients  added  a  new  form  of  death. 
Sister  Aloysius  writes  of  these  men  who  came  in 
by  scores  and  hundreds  from  the  trenches,  and 
whom  this  Sister,  greatly  valued  by  the  Lady-in- 
Chief,  helped  to  nurse  both  at  Scutari  and  at 
Balaclava  : — 

"  I  must  say  something  of  my  poor  frost-bitten 
patients.  The  men  who  came  from  the  'front,' 
as  they  called  it,  had  only  thin  linen  suits,  no 
other  clothing  to  keep  out  the  Crimean  frost  of 
1854-5.  When  they  were  carried  in  on  the 
stretchers  which  conveyed  so  many  to  their  last 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      245 

resting-place,  their  clothes  had  to  be  cut  off. 
In  most  cases  the  flesh  and  clothes  were  frozen 
together  ;  and,  as  for  the  feet,  the  boots  had  to 
be  cut  off  bit  by  bit,  the  flesh  coming  off  with 
them ;  many  pieces  of  the  flesh  I  have  seen 
remain  in  the  boot. 

"We  have  just  received  some  hundreds  of  poor 
creatures,  worn  out  with  sufferings  beyond  any 
you  could  imagine,  in  the  Crimea,  where  the 
cold  is  so  intense  that  a  soldier  described  to  me 
the  Russians  and  the  Allies  in  a  sudden  skirmish, 
and  neither  party  able  to  draw  a  trigger  !  So 
fancy  what  the  poor  soldiers  must  endure  in  the 
'  trenches.' 

"It  was  a  comfort  to  think  that  these  brave  men 
had  some  care,  all  that  we  could  procure  for 
them.  For  at  this  time  the  food  was  very  bad — 
goat's  flesh,  and  sometimes  what  they  called 
mutton,  but  black,  blue,  and  green.  Yet  who 
could  complain  of  anything  after  the  sufferings  I 
have  faintly  described — borne,  too,  with  such 
patience  :  not  a  murmur  !  .  .  .  One  day,  after 
a  batch  had  arrived  from  the  Crimea,  and  I 
had  gone  my  rounds  through  them,  one  of  my 


246      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

orderlies  told  me  that  a  man  wanted  to  speak  one 
word  to  me. 

"When  I  had  a  moment  I  went  to  him.  'Tell 
me  at  once  what  you  want  ;  I  have  worse  cases 
to  see  after ' — he  did  not  happen  to  be  very  bad. 
*  All  I  want  to  know,  ma'am,  is,  are  you  one  of 
our  own  Sisters  of  Mercy  from  Ireland  ? '  'Yes,' 
I  said,  '  your  very  own.'  '  God  be  praised  for 
that  ! ' 

"Another  poor  fellow  said  to  me  one  day, 
'  Do  they  give  you  anything  good  out  here  ? ' 
'  Oh  yes,'  I  said  ;  '  why  do  you  ask  me  ? ' 
'  Because,  ma'am,  you  gave  me  a  piece  of  chicken 
for  my  dinner,  and  I  kept  some  of  it  for  you.' 
He  pulled  it  out  from  under  his  head  and  offered 
it  to  me.  I  declined  the  favour  with  thanks. 
I  never  could  say  enough  of  those  kind-hearted 
soldiers  and  their  consideration  for  us  in  the 
midst  of  their  sufferings." 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

Inexactitudes — Labels — Cholera — '^  The  Lady  with  the  iMtnp^ — 
Her  humour — Letters  of  Sister  Aloysius. 

About  the  middle  of  December  Miss  Nightin- 
gale had  to  rebuke  very  severely  one  of  her  own 
nurses,  who  had  written  a  letter  to  the  Times 
which  made  a  great  sensation  by  its  lurid  picture 
of  the  evils  in  the  hospital — a  misrepresentation 
so  great  that  the  nurse  herself  confessed  in  the 
end  that  it  was  "  a  tissue  of  exaggerations  " — 
perhaps  "  inexactitudes  "  would  be  our  modern 
word. 

Meanwhile,  the  small-minded  parochial  gossips 
at  home  were  wasting  their  time  in  discussing 
Miss  Nightingale's  religious  opinions.  One  who 
worked  so  happily  with  all  who  served  the  same 
Master  was  first  accused  under  the  old  cry  of 
"  Popery,"  and  then  under  the  equally  silly  label 
of  "  Unitarianism."     Her  friend   Mrs.  Herbert, 


248      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

in  rebuking  parish  gossip,  felt  it  necessary  to 
unpin  these  two  labels  and  loyally  pin  on  a  new 
one,  by  explaining  that  in  reality  she  was  rather 
"  Low  Church."  The  really  sensible  person, 
with  whom,  doubtless.  Lady  Herbert  would  have 
fully  agreed,  was  the  Irish  parson,  and  his  like, 
when  he  replied  to  some  foolish  questions  about 
her  that  Miss  Nightingale  belonged  to  a  very 
rare  sect  indeed — the  sect  of  the  Good  Samaritans. 

Miss  Stanley  tells  a  most  amusing  story  of 
how  one  of  the  military  chaplains  complained  to 
Miss  Jebbut  that  very  improper  books  had  been 
circulated  in  the  wards  ;  she  pressed  in  vain  to 
know  what  they  were.  "  As  I  was  coming  away 
he  begged  for  five  minutes*  conversation,  said  he 
was  answerable  for  the  men  and  what  they  read, 
and  he  must  protest  against  sentiments  he  neither 
approved  nor  understood,  and  that  he  would 
fetch  me  the  book.  It  was  Keble's  '  Christian 
Year,'  which  Miss  Jebbut  had  lent  to  a  sick 
midshipman  !  " 

It  was  a  brave  heart  indeed  that  the  Good 
Samaritan  needed  now,  with  cholera  added  to 
the  other  horrors  of  hospital  suffering,  and  the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      249 

frost-bitten  cases  from  Sebastopol  were  almost 
equally  heart-rending. 

It  was  early  in  January  1855  that  Miss 
Stanley  escorted  fifty  more  nurses.  Most  of 
them  worked  under  Miss  Anderson  at  the 
General  Hospital  at  Scutari,  but  eight  were 
sent  into  the  midst  of  the  fighting  at  Balaclava, 
and  of  the  life  there  "  at  the  front "  the  letters 
of  Sister  Aloysius  give  a  terrible  picture.  We 
have,  for  instance,  the  story  of  a  man  ill  and 
frost-bitten,  who  found  he  could  not  turn  on  his 
side  because  his  feet  were  frozen  to  those  of  the 
soldier  opposite.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  for 
two  months  the  death-rate  in  the  hospitals  was 
sixty  per  cent. 

Night  after  night,  the  restless,  lonely  sufferers 
watched  for  the  coming  of  the  slender,  white- 
capped  figure  with  the  little  light  that  she 
shaded  so  carefully  lest  it  should  waken  any 
sleeper,  as  she  passed  through  the  long  cor- 
ridors watching  over  the  welfare  of  her  patients, 
and  to  them  she  was  "  the  Lady  with  the 
Lamp." 

We  still  see  with  the  American  poet : — 


250      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

"  The  wounded  from  the  battle-plain, 
In  dreary  hospitals  of  pain, 
The  cheerless  corridors, 
The  cold  and  stony  floors. 

**  Lo  !  in  that  house  of  misery 
A  lady  with  a  lamp  I  see 
Pass  through  the  glimmering  gloom. 
And  flit  from  room  to  room. 

*•  And  slow,  as  in  a  dream  of  bliss, 
The  speechless  sufferer  turns  to  kiss 
Her  shadow,  as  it  falls 
Upon  the  darkening  walls." 

"  Ah,"  said  to  me  old  John  Ball,  the  veteran 
of  the  Crimea,  who  had  been  wounded  at  Alma 
and  been  at  Scutari  a  month  before  her  arrival, 
so  that  in  his  later  days  there  he  saw  the  changes 
that  she  wrought,  "  ah,  she  was  a  good  soul — 
she  was  a^oo</ woman  !  "  And  through  his  words, 
and  those  of  the  other  old  men  who  remembered 
her,  it  was  possible  to  discern  a  little  of  the  glow, 
the  humour,  the  homely  maternal  tenderness  with 
which  the  Wohlgebohrene  Dame  had  comforted 
young  and  old  in  their  hours  of  patriotic  wound- 
ing and  pain. 

For  herself,  in  the  long  days  of  sacrificial  service, 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      251 

was  there  any  human  solace,  any  dear  companion- 
ship, any  dawning  light  of  love  ? 

For  us  at  least,  the  mere  outsiders,  to  whom 
she  is  just  a  very  practical  saint  and  a  very  great 
woman,  "  there  lives  no  record  of  reply."  But 
we  know  that,  though  hers  was  the  solitary  path, 
which  yet  was  no  solitude  because  of  the  out- 
poured love  and  sympathy  to  others,  when  in 
her  presence  once  some  one  was  chattering  about 
the  advantages  of  "  single  blessedness,"  she,  with 
her  quick  sense  of  humour,  replied  that  a  fish 
out  of  water  might  be  blessed,  but  a  good  deal 
of  effort  was  needed  to  become  accustomed  to 
the  air  ! 

None  of  the  letters  describing  the  Scutari  life 
are  more  interesting  than  those  of  Sister  Aloysius, 
the  Irish  Sister  of  Mercy,  from  whose  graphic 
descriptions  quotations  have  already  been  made. 

"  She  and  her  companions  had  had  only  a  few 
hours  in  which  to  prepare  for  a  long  and  danger- 
ous journey,  with  the  details  of  which  they  were 
quite  unacquainted,  only  knowing  that  they  were 
to    start   for   Turkey   at   half-past   seven   in    the 


252     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

morning,  and  that  they  went  for  the  love  of 
God. 

"  '  And  who  is  to  take  care  of  you  from  this  to 
Turkey  ? '  asked  one  of  their  amazed  well-wishers. 
To  which  the  Sisters  only  replied  that '  they  hoped 
their  guardian  angels  would  kindly  do  so.' " 

Needless  to  say,  the  little  party  did  reach 
its  destination  safely,  and  "  at  last,"  writes  Sister 
Aloysius,  "  a  despatch  came  *  to  say  that  five 
Sisters  were  to  proceed  to  Scutari,  to  the  General 
Hospital  ;  while  arrangements  were  made  for  the 
other  ten  Sisters  to  proceed  to  a  house  on  the 
Bosphorus,  to  await  further  orders.  At  once  the 
five  Sisters  started  for  Scutari :  Reverend  Mother, 
Sister  M.  Agnes,  Sister  M.  EHzabeth,  Sister  M. 
Winifred,  and  myself.  When  we  reached  Scutari 
we  were  shown  to  our  quarters  consisting  of  one 
little  room,  not  in  a  very  agreeable  locality.  How- 
ever, we  were  quite  satisfied  none  better  could  be 
found,  and  for  this  little  nook  we  were  thankful. 

"  Of  course,  we  expected  to  be  sent  to  the 
wards  at  once.      Sister  M.  Agnes  and  the  writer 

*  "  Memories  of  the  Crimea,"  by  Sister  Mary  Aloysius.     (Bums 
and  Oates.) 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      253 

were  sent  to  a  store  to  sort  clothes  that  had  been 
eaten  by  the  rats ;  Rev.  Mother  and  Sister  M. 
Elizabeth  either  to  the  kitchen  or  to  another 
store.  In  a  dark,  damp,  gloomy  shed  we  set  to 
work  and  did  the  best  we  could ;  but,  indeed, 
the  destruction  accomplished  by  the  rats  was 
something  wonderful.  On  the  woollen  goods 
they  had  feasted  sumptuously.  They  were  run- 
ning about  us  in  all  directions ;  we  begged  of 
the  sergeant  to  leave  the  door  open  that  we 
might  make  our  escape  if  they  attacked  us.  Our 
home  rats  would  run  if  you  '  hushed  '  them  ;  but 
you  might  '  hush '  away,  and  the  Scutari  rats 
would  not  take  the  least  notice. 

"  During  my  stay  in  the  stores  I  saw  number- 
less funerals  pass  by  the  window.  Cholera  was 
raging,  and  how  I  did  wish  to  be  in  the  wards 
amongst  the  poor  dying  soldiers  !  Before  I  leave 
the  stores  I  must  mention  that  Sister  M.  Agnes 
and  myself  thought  the  English  nobility  must 
have  emptied  their  wardrobes  and  linen  stores  to 
send  out  bandages  for  the  wounded — the  most 
beautiful  underclothing,  the  finest  cambric  sheets, 
with  merely  a  scissors  run  here  and  there  through 


254      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

them  to  ensure  their  being  used  for  no  other 
purpose.  And  such  large  bales,  too  ;  some  from 
the  Queen's  Palace,  with  the  Royal  monogram 
beautifully  worked.  Whoever  sent  out  these 
immense  bales  thought  nothing  too  good  for  the 
poor  soldiers.  And  they  were  right — nothing 
was  too  good  for  them.  And  now  good-bye 
stores  and  good-bye  rats ;  for  I  was  to  be  in  the 
cholera  wards  in  the  morning. 

"  Where  shall  I  begin,  or  how  can  I  ever 
describe  my  first  day  in  the  hospital  at  Scutari  ? 
Vessels  were  arriving,  and  the  orderlies  carrying 
the  poor  fellows,  who,  with  their  wounds  and 
frost-bites,  had  been  tossing  about  on  the  Black 
Sea  for  two  or  three  days,  and  sometimes  more. 
Where  were  they  to  go  ?  Not  an  available  bed. 
They  were  laid  on  the  floor  one  after  another, 
till  the  beds  were  emptied  of  those  dying  of 
cholera  and  every  other  disease.  Many  died 
immediately  after  being  brought  in — their  moans 
would  pierce  the  heart — the  taking  of  them  in  and 
out  of  the  vessels  must  have  increased  their  pain. 

"  The  look  of  agony  in  those  poor  dying  faces 
will  never  leave  my  heart. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      255 

"  Week  in,  week  out,  the  cholera  went  on. 
The  same  remedies  were  continued,  though 
almost  always  to  fail.  However,  while  there 
was  life  there  was  hope,  and  we  kept  on  the 
warm  applications  to  the  last.  When  it  came 
near  the  end  the  patients  got  into  a  sort  of 
collapse,  out  of  which  they  did  not  rally. 

"  We  begged  the  orderlies,  waiting  to  take 
them  to  the  dead-house,  to  wait  a  little  lest  they 
might  not  be  dead ;  and  with  great  difficulty  wc 
prevailed  on  them  to  make  the  least  delay.  As 
a  rule  the  orderlies  drank  freely — *  to  drown 
their  grief,'  they  said.  I  must  say  that  their 
position  was  a  very  hard  one — their  work  always 
increasing — and  such  work ;  death  around  them 
on  every  side ;  their  own  lives  in  continual  danger 
— it  was  almost  for  them  a  continuation  of  the 
field  of  battle. 

"  The  poor  wounded  men  brought  in  out  of 
the  vessels  were  in  a  dreadful  state  of  dirt,  and 
so  weak  that  whatever  cleaning  they  got  had  to 
be  done  cautiously.  Oh,  the  state  of  those  fine 
fellows,  so  worn  out  with  fatigue,  so  full  of 
vermin  !     Most,  or  all,  of  them  required  spoon- 


256      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

feeding.  We  had  wine,  sago,  arrowroot.  In- 
deed, I  think  there  was  everything  in  the  stores, 
but  it  was  so  hard  to  get  them.  .  .  .  An 
orderly  officer  took  the  rounds  of  the  wards  every 
night  to  see  that  all  was  right.  He  was  expected 
bv  the  orderlies,  and  the  moment  he  raised  the 
latch  one  cried  out,  '  All  right,  your  honour.' 
Many  a  time  I  said,  '  All  wrong.'  The  poor 
officer,  of  course,  went  his  way ;  and  one  could 
scarcely  blame  him  for  not  entering  those  wards, 
so  filled  with  pestilence,  the  air  so  dreadful  that 
to  breathe  it  might  cost  him  his  life.  And  then, 
what  could  he  do  even  if  he  did  come  ?  I  re- 
member one  day  an  officer's  orderly  being  brought 
in — a  dreadful  case  of  cholera ;  and  so  devoted 
was  his  master  that  he  came  in  every  half-hour 
to  see  him,  and  stood  over  him  in  the  bed  as  if 
it  was  only  a  cold  he  had ;  the  poor  fellow  died 
after  a  few  hours'  illness.  I  hope  his  devoted 
master  escaped.     I  never  heard. 

"  Each  Sister  had  charge  of  two  wards,  and 
there  was  just  at  this  time  a  fresh  outbreak  of 
cholera.  The  Sisters  were  up  every  night ;  and 
the  cases,  as   in  Scutari  and  Kullali,  were  nearly 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      257 

all  fatal.  Reverend  Mother  did  not  allow  the 
Sisters  to  remain  up  all  night,  except  in  cases 
of  cholera,  without  a  written  order  from  the 
doctor. 

"  In  passing  to  the  wards  at  night  we  used 
to  meet  the  rats  in  droves.  They  would  not 
even  move  out  of  our  way.  They  were  there 
before  us,  and  were  determined  to  keep  pos- 
session. As  for  our  hut,  they  evidently  wanted 
to  make  it  theirs,  scraping  under  the  boards, 
jumping  up  on  the  shelf  where  our  little  tin 
utensils  were  kept,  rattling  everything.  One 
night  dear  Sister  M.  Paula  found  one  licking 
her  forehead — she  had  a  real  horror  of  them. 
Sleep  was  out  of  the  question.  Our  third  day 
in  Balaclava  was  a  very  sad  one  for  us.  One  of 
our  dear  band,  Sister  Winifred,  got  very  ill  during 
the  night  with  cholera.  She  was  a  most  angelic 
Sister,  and  we  were  all  deeply  grieved. 

"  She,  the  first  to  go  of  all  our  little  band,  had 
been  full  of  life  and  energy  the  day  before.  We 
were  all  very  sad,  and  we  wondered  who  would 
be  the  next. 

"  Miss   Nightingale   was   at   the   funeral,  and 

(1.7M)  17 


258      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

even  joined  in  the  prayers.  The  soldiers,  doctors, 
officers,  and  officials  followed.  When  all  was 
over  we  returned  to  our  hut,  very  sad ;  but  we 
had  no  further  time  to  think.  Patients  were 
pouring  in,  and  we  should  be  out  again  to  the 
cholera  wards.  Besides  cholera  there  were  cases 
of  fever — in  fact,  of  every  disease.  Others  had 
been  nearly  killed  by  the  blasting  of  rocks,  and 
they  came  in  fearfuUv  disfigured. 

"  Father  Woolett  brought  us  one  day  a  present 
of  a  Russian  cat ;  he  bought  it,  he  told  us,  from 
an  old  Russian  woman  for  the  small  sum  of  seven 
shillings.  It  made  a  particularly  handsome  cap- 
tive in  the  land  of  its  fathers,  for  we  were  obliged 
to  keep  it  tied  to  a  chair  to  prevent  its  escape. 
But  the  very  sight  of  this  powerful  champion 
soon  relieved  us  of  some  of  our  unwelcome  and 
voracious  visitors. 

"Early  in  1856  rumours  of  peace  reached  us 
from  all  sides.  But  our  Heavenly  Father  de- 
manded another  sacrifice  from  our  devoted  little 
band.  Dear  Sister  Mary  Elizabeth  was  called 
to  a  martyr's  crown. 

"  She   was    specially    beloved    for    her    extra- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      259 

ordinary  sweetness  of  disposition.  The  doctor, 
when  called,  pronounced  her  illness  to  be  fever ; 
she  had  caught  typhus  in  her  ward.  Every 
loving  care  was  bestowed  on  her  by  our  dearest 
Mother,  who  scarcely  ever  left  her  bedside. 
Death  seemed  to  have  no  sting.  .  .  .  She  had 
no  wish  to  live  or  die,  feeling  she  was  in  the 
arms  of  her  Heavenly  Father.  '  He  will  do  for 
me  what  is  best,'  she  whispered,  '  and  His  will 
is  all  I  desire.'  " 

At  Scutari  Miss  Nightingale's  work  of  re- 
organization was  bearing  swift  fruit.  The  wives 
of  the  soldiers  were  daily  employed  in  the  laundry 
she  had  established,  so  that  they  had  a  decent 
livelihood,  and  the  soldiers  themselves  had  clean 
linen.  But,  of  course,  a  great  many  of  the 
soldiers  had  left  their  wives  and  children  at 
home. 

A  money  office  also  had  been  formed  by  the 
Lady-in-Chief,  which  helped  them  in  sending 
home  their  pay.  It  was  she  too  who  arranged 
for  the  safe  return  of  the  widows  to  England, 
and  it  was  she  who  provided  stamps  and  station- 


26o      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

ery  for  the  men,  that  they  might  be  able  to 
write  to  those  dear  to  them.  No  one  had  had  a 
moment,  it  seemed,  to  give  thought  to  anything 
but  the  actual  warfare  with  all  its  horrors,  until 
her  womanly  sympathy  and  splendid  capacity 
came  on  the  scene.  With  her  there  was  always 
little  time  lost  between  planning  and  achieving, 
and  happily  she  had  power  of  every  kind  in  her 
hand.  Besides  her  own  means,  which  she  poured 
forth  like  water,  the  people  of  England  had,  as 
we  saw,  subscribed  magnificently  through  the 
Times  Fund,  and  with  one  so  practical  as  the 
Lady-in-Chief  in  daily  consultation  with  Mr. 
Macdonald,  there  was  no  longer  any  fear  of 
giving  to  church  walls  what  was  intended  to 
save  the  lives  of  ill-clad  and  dying  soldiers. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

Miss  Nightingale  visits  Balaclava — Her  illness — Lord  Raglan's 
visit — The  Fall  of  Sebastopol. 

At  last,  in  the  May  of  1855,  the  Lady-in-Chief 
was  able  to  see  such  fruits  of  the  six  months' 
steady  work  at  Scutari  that  the  scene  of  her 
labours  could  be  changed,  and  she  set  out  for 
Balaclava  to  inspect  the  other  hospitals,  for 
which,  as  superintendent  of  the  ladies  in  the 
military  hospitals  in  the  East,  she  was  responsible. 
She  wished  to  see  for  herself  what  was  being 
done  for  the  soldiers  on  the  field.  Besides  Mr. 
Bracebridge  and  her  nursing  staff,  M.  Soyer 
accompanied  her  with  a  view  to  improving  the 
cooking  arrangements  for  the  army  in  the  field, 
and  he  writes  with  his  usual  vividness : — 

"  Thomas,  Miss  Nightingale's  boy,  the  twelve- 
year-old  drummer  who  had  left  what  he  called 


262      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

his  '  instrument  sticks '  to  make  himself  her  most 
devoted  slave  and  messenger,  was  also  allowed 
to  go. 

"  At  nine,"  says  M.  Soyer,  "  we  were  all  on 
shore  and  mounted.  There  were  about  eight 
of  us  ready  to  escort  our  heroine  to  the  seat  of 
war.  Miss  Nightingale  was  attired  simply  in 
a  genteel  amazone,  or  riding  habit,  and  had  quite 
a  martial  air.  She  was  mounted  upon  a  very 
pretty  mare  of  a  golden  colour  which,  by  its 
gambols  and  caracoling,  seemed  proud  to  carry 
its  noble  charge.  The  weather  was  very  fine. 
Our  cavalcade  produced  an  extraordinary  effect 
upon  the  motley  crowd  of  all  nations  assembled 
at  Balaclava,  who  were  astonished  at  seeing  a 
lady  so  well  escorted.  It  was  not  so,  however, 
with  those  who  knew  who  the  lady  was." 

Later  he  gives  us  a  most  characteristic  glimpse 
of  the  light-hearted  courage  and  high  spirit  of 
his  Lady-in-Chief : — 

"  Mr.  Anderson  proposed  to  have  a  peep  at 
Sebastopol.  It  was  four  o'clock,  and  they  were 
firing  sharply  on  both  sides.      Miss  Nightingale, 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      263 

to  whom  the  offer  was  made,  immediately  ac- 
cepted it  ;  so  we  formed  a  column  and, 
for  the  first  time,  fearlessly  faced  the  enemy, 
and  prepared  to  go  under  fire.  P.  M.  turned 
round  to  me,  saying  quietly,  but  with  great 
trepidation,  '  I  say.  Monsieur  Soyer,  of  course 
you  would  not  take  Miss  Nightingale  where 
there  will  be  any  danger  ? '  .  .  .  The  sentry  then 
repeated  his  caution,  saying,  *  Madam,  even 
where  you  stand  you  are  in  great  danger ;  some 
of  the  shot  reach  more  than  half  a  mile  beyond 
this  !'...'  My  good  young  man,'  replied  Miss 
Nightingale  in  French,  *  more  dead  and  wounded 
have  passed  through  my  hands  than  I  hope  you 
will  ever  see  in  the  battlefield  during  the  whole 
of  your  military  career ;  believe  me,  I  have  no 
fear  of  death  ! '  " 

By  a  little  guile  the  eager  Frenchman  led  the 
unsuspecting  idol  of  the  troops  into  a  position 
where  she  could  be  well  seen  by  the  soldiers ; 
and  while  she  was  seated  on  the  Morta,  in  view 
of  them  all,  it  hardly  needed  his  own  dramatic 
outcry  for  a  salutation  to  "  the  Daughter  of  Eng- 


264      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

land"  to  call  forth  the  ringing  cheers  which 
greeted  her  from  the  men  of  the  39th  Regiment, 
and  the  shouts  were  taken  up  so  loudly  by  all 
the  rest  that  the  Russians  were  actually  startled 
by  them  at  Sebastopol. 

The  darkness  fell  quickly,  and  half-way  back 
to  Balaclava  Miss  Nightingale  and  her  party 
found  themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  merry  Zouave 
camp,  where  the  men  were  singing  and  drinking 
coffee,  but  warned  our  friends  that  brigands  were 
in  the  neighbourhood.  However,  there  was 
nothing  for  it  but  to  push  on,  and,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  only  wound  received  was  from  the 
head  of  Miss  Nightingale's  horse,  which  hit 
violently  against  the  face  of  her  escort  at  the 
bridle  rein,  who  kept  silence  that  he  might 
not  alarm  her,  but  was  found  with  a  face  black 
and  bleeding  at  the  end  of  the  journey. 

After  her  night's  rest  in  her  state-cabin  in  the 
Robert  Lowe,  though  still  feeling  used  up  with 
the  adventurous  visit  to  the  camp  hospitals.  Miss 
Nightingale  visited  the  General  Hospital  at 
Balaclava  and  the  collection  of  huts  on  the 
heights,  which    formed   the   sanatoria,   and   also 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      265 

went  to  see  an  officer  ill  with  typhus  in  the 
doctors*  huts.  She  renewed  her  visit  next  day, 
when,  after  a  night  at  Balaclava,  she  settled  three 
nurses  into  the  sanatorium,  and  then  for  some 
days  continued  her  inspection  of  hospitals  and 
moved  into  the  ship  London,  the  Robert  Lowe 
having  been  ordered  home. 

Worn  out  by  her  ceaseless  labours  at  Scutari, 
she  had  probably  been  specially  open  to  infection 
in  the  sick  officer's  hut,  and  while  on  board  the 
London  it  became  clear  that  she  had  contracted 
Crimean  fever  in  a  very  bad  form. 

She  was  ordered  up  to  the  huts  amid  such 
dreadful  lamentations  of  the  surrounding  folk 
that,  thanks  to  their  well-meant  delays,  it  took 
an  hour  to  carry  her  up  to  the  heights,  her 
faithful  nurse,  Mrs.  Roberts,  keeping  off  the 
sun-glare  by  walking  beside  her  with  an  umbrella, 
and  her  page-boy  Thomas  weeping  his  heart  out 
at  the  tail  of  the  little  procession. 

A  spot  was  found  after  her  own  heart  near 
a  running  stream  where  the  wild  flowers  were  in 
bloom,  and  she  tells  in  her  Nursing  Notes  how  her 
first  recovery  began  when  a  nosegay  of  her  be- 


266     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

loved  flowers  was  brought  to  her  bedside.  But 
for  some  days  she  was  desperately  ill,  and  the 
camp  was  unspeakably  moved  and  alarmed. 

Britain  also  shared  deeply  in  the  suspense, 
though  happily  the  worst  crisis  was  passed  in 
about  twelve  days,  leaving,  however,  a  long  time 
of  great  weakness  and  slow  convalescence  to  be 
won  through  afterwards. 

During  those  twelve  days  some  very  sharp 
skirmishing  took  place,  and  there  was  talk  of  an 
attack  on  Balaclava  from  the  Kamara  side,  in 
which  case  Miss  Nightingale's  hut  would,  it  was 
said,  be  the  first  outpost  to  be  attacked.  Any  such 
notion  was,  of  course,  an  injustice  to  the  Russians, 
who  would  not  knowingly  have  hurt  a  hair 
of  her  head — indeed,  it  may  almost  be  said  that 
she  was  sacred  to  all  the  troops,  whether  friends 
or  foes.  But  at  all  events  it  gave  her  boy  Thomas 
his  opportunity,  and  he  was  prepared,  we  are  told, 
"  to  die  valiantly  in  defence  of  his  mistress." 

Soyer  gives  a  picturesque  account  of  Lord 
Raglan's  visit  to  Miss  Nightingale  when  her 
recovery  was  first  beginning.  He  begins  by  de- 
scribing his  own  visit,  and  tells  the  story  through 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      267 

the   lips   of   Mrs.    Roberts,   Miss    Nightingale's 
faithful  nurse. 

"...  I  was,"  he  writes,  "  very  anxious  to 
know  the  actual  state  of  Miss  Nightingale's 
health,  and  went  to  her  hut  to  inquire.  I 
found  Mrs.  Roberts,  who  was  quite  astonished 
and  very  much  delighted  to  see  me. 

'"Thank  God,  Monsieur  Soyer,'  she  exclaimed, 
'  you  are  here  again.  We  have  all  been  in  such  a 
way  about  you.  Why,  it  was  reported  that  you 
had  been  taken  prisoner  by  the  Russians.  I  must 
go  and  tell  Miss  Nightingale  you  are  found  again.' 

"  '  Don't  disturb  her  now.  I  understand  Lord 
Raglan  has  been  to  see  her.' 

"  '  Yes,  he  has,  and  I  made  a  serious  mistake. 
It  was  about  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when 
he  came.  Miss  Nightingale  was  dozing,  after  a 
very  restless  night.  We  had  a  storm  that  day 
and  it  was  very  wet.  I  was  in  my  room  sewing 
when  two  men  on  horseback,  wrapped  in  large 
gutta-percha  cloaks  and  dripping  wet,  knocked 
at  the  door.  I  went  out,  and  one  inquired  in 
which  hut  Miss  Nightingale  resided. 


268      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

" '  He  spoke  so  loud  that  I  said,  "  Hist  !  hist ! 
don't  make  such  a  horrible  noise  as  that,  my 
man,"  at  the  same  time  making  a  sign  with  both 
hands  for  him  to  be  quiet.  He  then  repeated 
his  question,  but  not  in  so  loud  a  tone.  I  told 
him  this  was  the  hut. 

"'"All  right,"  said  he,  jumping  from  his  horse, 
and  he  was  walking  straight  in  when  I  pushed 
him  back,  asking  what  he  meant  and  whom  he 
wanted. 

"  '  "  Miss  Nightingale,"  said  he. 

"  *  "  And  pray  who  are  you  .?  " 

"  *  "  Oh,  only  a  soldier,"  was  the  reply  ;  "but  I 
must  see  her — I  have  come  a  long  way — my 
name  is  Raglan  :  she  knows  me  very  well." 

"  '  Miss  Nightingale,  overhearing  him,  called 
me  in,  saying,  "  Oh  !  Mrs.  Roberts,  it  is  Lord 
Raglan.  Pray  tell  him  I  have  a  very  bad  fever, 
and  it  will  be  dangerous  for  him  to  come  near 
me. 

"  '  "  I  have  no  fear  of  fever,  or  anything  else," 
said  Lord  Raglan. 

" '  And  before  I  had  time  to  turn  round,  in 
came   his   lordship.     He    took    up    a    stool,   sat 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      269 

down  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  kindly  asked 
Miss  Nightingale  how  she  was,  expressing  his 
sorrow  at  her  illness,  and  thanking  her  and 
praising  her  for  the  good  she  had  done  for  the 
troops.  He  wished  her  a  speedy  recovery,  and 
hoped  that  she  might  be  able  to  continue  her 
charitable  and  invaluable  exertions,  so  highly 
appreciated  by  every  one,  as  well  as  by  himself. 

"  '  He  then  bade  Miss  Nightingale  good-bye, 
and  went  away.  As  he  was  going  I  said  I 
wished  to  apologize. 

"  '  "  No,  no  !  not  at  all,  my  dear  lady,"  said 
Lord  Raglan  ;  "  you  did  very  right  ;  for  I  per- 
ceive that  Miss  Nightingale  has  not  yet  received 
my  letter,  in  which  I  announced  my  intention 
of  paying  her  a  visit  to-day — having  previously 
inquired  of  the  doctor  if  she  could  be  seen."  '  "  * 

The  doctors,  after  her  twelve  days  of  danger- 
ous illness,  were  urgent  for  Miss  Nightingale's 
instant  return  to  England  ;  but  this  she  would 
not  do  :  she  was  sure  that,  with  time  and  patience, 
she  would  be  able  once   more  to   take   up   her 

*  "Soyer's  Culinary  Campaign,"  Alexis  Soyer-    (Routledge,  1857. '^ 


270      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

work  at  Scutari.  Lord  Ward  placed  his  yacht 
at  her  disposal,  and  by  slow  degrees  she  made 
recovery,  though  Lord  Raglan's  death,  June 
1 8,  1855,  was  a  great  grief  and  shock  to  her. 

Wellington  said  of  Lord  Raglan  that  he  was 
a  man  who  would  not  tell  a  lie  to  save  his  life, 
and  he  v/as  also  a  man  of  great  charm  and 
benevolence,  adored  by  his  troops.  He  felt  to 
the  quick  the  terrible  repulse  of  our  troops 
before  Sebastopol  that  June,  having  yielded  his 
own  counsels  to  those  of  France  rather  than 
break  the  alliance,  and  he  died  two  days  after  the 
despatch  was  written  in  which  he  told  the  story 
of  this  event. 

Writing  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  in  October, 
he  had  entreated  for  his  army  a  little  repose — 
that  brave  army,  worn  out,  not  only  by  the 
ordinary  fatigues  of  a  military  campaign,  and  by 
the  actual  collecting  of  wood  and  water  to  keep 
life  from  extinction,  but  by  cholera,  sickness, 
and  the  bitter  purgatorial  cold  of  a  black  hillside 
in  a  Russian  winter. 

"  Repose  !  "  echoes  Kinglake  with  sardonic 
bitterness,  and  we  too  echo  it,  remembering  how, 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      271 

two  days  afterwards,  it  was  riding  through  the 
devil's  jaws  at  Balaclava,  to  hurl  itself  but  a  little 
later  against  its  myriad  assailants  at  Inkermann  ! 

Repose  !  uncomplaining  and  loyal,  in  the 
bitter  grasp  of  winter  on  the  heights  of  the 
Chersonese,  holding  day  and  night  a  siege  that 
seemed  endless,  the  allied  armies  had  proved 
their  heroism  through  the  slow  tragedy.  And 
when  at  last,  on  the  day  of  victory,  amid  the 
fury  of  the  elements  and  the  avenging  fury  of 
their  own  surging  hearts,  they  grasped  the  result 
of  their  patient  agony,  though 

*  Stormed  at  with  shot  and  shell, 
Boldly  they  rode  and  well," 

that  final  moment  of  onset  did  but  crown  the 
fortitude  of  those  long,  slow  days  of  dying  by 
inches  in  the  slow  clutch  of  starvation,  that  had 
been  so  much  harder  to  bear,  while  they  saw 
their  comrades  in  the  anguish  of  cholera  and  felt 
their  own  limbs  freezing  beneath  them. 

But  it  was  doubtless  a  brave  assault,  and  it  was 
sad  that  their  loved  commander  was  not  there 
to  see  ;   for,  while  the  MalakofF  fell  before  the 


272      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

French,  it  was  the  British  troops  that  took  the 
Redan — that  Redan  of  which  it  has  been  written 
that  "  three  months  before  it  had  repulsed  the 
attacking  force  with  fearful  carnage,  and  brought 
Lord  Raglan  to  a  despairing  death." 

There  is  tragedy,  therefore,  in  the  fact  that 
when,  so  soon  afterwards,  Sebastopol  fell,  the 
triumph  was  not  his. 

It  was  on  September  8,  amid  a  furious  storm 
which  suddenly  broke  up  a  summer-like  day, 
that  the  cannonade  joined  with  the  thunder  and 
the  final  assault  was  made.  Though  the  first 
shouts  of  victory  came  at  the  end  of  an  hour, 
it  was  nightfall  before  the  fighting  ceased  and 
the  Russians  retreated.  Sebastopol  was  in  flames. 
And  before  the  next  day  dawned  the  last  act  in 
this  terrible  war-drama  was  over. 

Within  a  month  of  leaving  Scutari  Miss 
Nightingale  was  already  there  again,  and  during 
these  days  of  slowly  returning  strength,  when 
she  wandered  sometimes  through  the  beautiful 
cemetery  where  the  strange,  black-plumaged 
birds  fly  above  the  cypresses  and,  against  the 
background    of  the    blue    Bosphorus,   the    roses 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      273 

garland  the  tombs,  she  planned,  for  the  soldiers 
who  had  fallen,  the  monument  which  now  stands 
there  to  their  undying  memory,  where  under  the 
drooping  wings  of  the  angels  that  support  it  are 
inserted  the  words,  "  This  monument  was  erected 
by  Queen  Victoria  and  her  people." 


(l.T«4)  X8 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

The  Nightingale  Fund — Miss  Nightingale  remains  at  her  post, 
organizing  healthy  occupations  for  the  men  off  duty — Sisters 
of  Mercy — The  Queen's  Jewel — Its  meaning. 

Far  and  wide  spread  the  news  of  the  fall  of 
Sebastopol,  and  London  took  the  lead  in  re- 
joicings. The  Tower  guns  shouted  the  victory, 
the  arsenals  fired  their  salutes,  cathedrals  and 
village  churches  rang  out  their  welcome  to  peace. 
There  were  sons,  husbands,  brothers,  fathers,  for 
whom  there  would  be  no  more  home-coming  on 
earth;  and  some  who  would  come  back  broken 
and  maimed  :  but  all  had  served  their  country, 
and  heroism  lasts  beyond  time  and  death. 

All  through  the  empire  arose  an  outcry  of 
thanksgiving  to  the  woman  who  still  remained  at 
her  post  among  the  sick  and  the  dying — the 
woman  who  had  saved  England's  honour  in  the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      275 

day  of  disgrace  and  neglect,  and  had  saved  also 
countless  lives  among  her  brave  sons. 

The  Queen  and  all  her  people  were  eager  to 
know  what  there  was  that  they  might  lay  at  her 
feet.  In  one  form  only  would  Miss  Nightingale 
accept  the  testimony  offered — namely,  the  means 
of  yet  further  work.  The  Herberts  knew  she  had 
longed  to  organize  a  hospital  on  the  lines  of 
unpaid  nursing,  but  there  was  a  difficulty  for  the 
moment,  because  she  could  not  bring  herself 
to  leave  the  East  until  her  work  there  was 
fully  completed,  and  such  a  hospital  must,  they 
thought,  have  her  presence  from  the  first.  Just 
now  she  was  with  Sister  Aloysius  at  Balaclava, 
nursing  one  of  her  staff,  and  while  there  an 
accident  on  the  rough  roads,  which  injured  not 
only  herself,  but  also  the  Sister  who  was  walking 
beside  her,  led  to  a  thoughtful  kindness  from 
Colonel  Macmurdo,  who  had  a  little  carriage 
especially  made  for  her.  In  this  little  carriage, 
through  the  cutting  cold  and  snow  of  a  Crimean 
winter,  she  would  drive  about  among  the  camp 
hospitals  with  no  escort  but  her  driver,  as  she 
returned  through  the  dark  night  at  the  end  of  her 


276      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

long  day  of  self-imposed  duties.  Sometimes  she 
has  stood  for  hours  on  a  cold,  shelterless  rock, 
giving  her  directions,  and  when  one  and  another 
of  her  friends  entreated  against  such  risk  and 
exposure,  she  would  just  smile  with  a  quiet 
certainty  that,  for  all  that  in  her  eyes  was  her 
clear  duty,  strength  and  protection  would 
certainly  be  given. 

She  was  much  occupied  in  helping  and 
uplifting  the  convalescent,  and  not  only  these, 
but  also  all  the  soldiers  in  camp  in  the  army 
of  occupation,  which  was  for  a  while  to  be  left 
in  the  East  until  the  treaty  was  signed,  and  would 
necessarily  be  surrounded  by  special  temptations 
in  time  of  peace.  Her  way  of  fighting  drunken- 
ness— and  after  Sebastopol  you  may  be  sure  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  "  drinking  of  healths  " — was 
to  provide  all  possible  means  of  interest  and 
amusement.  Huts  were  built,  clubs  were  formed. 
Stationery  was  provided  for  letters  home.  So 
eiTectually  was  every  one  in  England  interested 
that,  while  Queen  Victoria  herself  led  the  way  in 
sending  newspapers  and  magazines,  all  through 
the  country  her  example  was  followed. 


FLOREI^CE    NIGHTINGALE.      277 

And  while  this  was  going  on,  the  great 
testimonial  fund  in  London  was  mounting  and 
mounting. 

The  Duke  of  Cambridge,  Lord  Houghton,  and 
the  Marquis  of  Ripon  were  members  of  the 
committee.  The  great  bankers  opened  their 
books.  The  churches  collected  funds,  the  rank 
and  file  of  our  impoverished  army  sent  ^4,000, 
and  taking  Mrs.  Tooley's  figures,  which  are 
doubtless  correct,  and  including  all  ranks  and 
all  troops  throughout  the  world,  the  military 
contributions  alone  appear  to  have  risen  to  about 
^10,000. 

Jenny  Lind,  then  Madame  Goldschmidt,  gave 
a  concert,  of  which  she  herself  bore  all  the 
expense,  amounting  to  about  jCs*^^*  ^^^  then 
gave  the  entire  proceeds,  about  /^2,ooo,  to  the 
fund.  This  was  so  warmly  appreciated  by  some 
of  those  interested  in  the  success  of  the  fund  that, 
by  private  subscription,  they  gave  a  marble  bust 
of  Queen  Victoria  to  the  Goldschmidts  as  a 
thank-offering. 

From  the  overseas  dominions  came  over 
^4,000  ;     from     provincial     cities,    towns,     and 


278      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

villages  in  Britain,  between  ^6,000  and  ^7,000, 
and  from  British  residents  abroad  also  a  very 
handsome  sum.  Indeed,  it  may  be  truly  said 
that  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe  men  and 
women  united  to  pour  forth  their  gratitude  to 
Miss  Nightingale,  and  to  enable  her  to  complete 
the  work  so  bravely  begun,  by  transforming  the 
old  and  evil  methods  of  nursing  under  British 
rule  to  that  ideal  art  in  which  fortitude,  tender- 
ness, and  skill  receive  their  crowning  grace. 
It  has  been  said — I  know  not  with  what  ex- 
actitude— that  no  British  subject  has  ever  received 
such  world-wide  honour  as  was  at  this  time  laid 
at  her  feet. 

At  one  of  the  great  meetings  Mr.  Sidney 
Herbert  read  the  following  letter  from  one  of  his 
friends  : — 

"  I  have  just  heard  a  pretty  account  from  a 
soldier  describing  the  comfort  it  was  even  to  see 
Florence  pass.  *  She  would  speak  to  one  and 
another,'  he  said,  '  and  nod  and  smile  to  many 
more,  but  she  could  not  do  it  to  all,  you  know, 
for  we  lay  there  by  hundreds  ;   but  we  could  kiss 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      279 

her  shadow  *   as   it   fell,    and   lay   our   heads   on 
the  pillow  again  content.'  " 

That  letter  alone,  we  are  told,  brought  another 
£10,000. 

The  gross  amount  had  reached  £44,000, 
but  in  1857  Miss  Nightingale  desired  that 
the  list  should  be  closed  and  help  be  given 
instead  to  our  French  Allies,  who  were  then 
suffering  from  the  terrible  floods  that  laid  waste 
their  country  in  that  year. 

And  whatever  she  commanded,  of  course,  was 
done.  Alike  in  England  and  in  the  Crimea,  her 
influence  was  potent  for  all  good. 

She  herself  was  still  busy  nursing  some  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  members  of  her  staff  in  the  huts 
on  the  snowclad  heights  of  Balaclava,  and  how 
heartily  she  valued  them  may  be  judged  from 
these  closing  sentences  of  a  letter  to  their 
Reverend  Mother  : — 

"  You  know  that  I  shall  do  everything  I  can 

*  I  know  not  whether  this  was  the  man  whose  arm  she  had 
saved ;  probably  many  others  echoed  his  feeling,  and  he  was  not 
by  any  means  the  only  soldier  who  thus  reverently  greeted  her 
passing  presence. 


28o      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

for  the  Sisters  whom  you  have  left  me.  T  will 
care  for  them  as  if  they  were  my  own  children. 
But  it  will  not  be  like  you." 

Not  very  far  from  the  sanatorium  on  the 
heights  above  Balaclava,  two  new  camp  hospitals 
had  been  put  up,  and  while  superintending  the 
nursing  there,  our  Lady-in-Chief  lived  in  a  three- 
roomed  hut  with  a  medical  store  attached  to  it, 
where  she  was  quite  near  to  sanatorium  and 
hospitals.  She  and  the  three  Sisters  who  were 
with  her  had  not  very  weather-proof  quarters. 
One  of  them,  whose  letters  are  full  of  interest, 
tells  of  their  waking  one  morning  to  find  them- 
selves covered  with  snow,  and  leading  a  life  of 
such  adventurous  simplicity  that  when  the 
Protestant  chaplain  brought  some  eggs  tied  up  in 
a  handkerchief  the  gift  was  regarded  as  princely  ! 
Happily,  they  were  able  to  reward  the  gentleman 
by  washing  his  neckties,  and  ironing  them  with 
an  ingenious  makeshift  for  the  missing  flat-iron, 
in  the  shape  of  a  teapot  filled  with  hot  water. 
Every  night  everything  in  the  huts  froze,  even  to 
the  ink.      But  Miss  Nightingale  tells  how  brave 


^wi. 


- .     / 


Q 


(L) 


fcuo 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      281 

and  entirely  self-forgetful  the  Sisters  were  under 
every  hardship  and  privation. 

By  those  v^ho  have  never  had  the  privilege  of 
knowing  such  women  intimately,  her  affection  for 
them  may  be  the  better  understood  from  the 
following  graphic  letter  written  by  Lord 
Napier  : — 

"  At  an  early  period  of  my  life  I  held  a 
diplomatic  position  under  Lord  Stratford  de 
Redcliffe  in  Constantinople.  During  the 
distress  of  the  Crimean  War  the  Ambassador 
called  me  one  morning  and  said  :  '  Go  down  to 
the  port  ;  you  will  find  a  ship  there  loaded  with 
Jewish  exiles — Russian  subjects  from  the  Crimea. 
It  is  your  duty  to  disembark  them.  The  Turks 
will  give  you  a  house  in  which  they  may  be 
placed.  I  turn  them  over  entirely  to  you.'  I 
went  down  to  the  shore  and  received  about  two 
hundred  persons,  the  most  miserable  objects  that 
could  be  witnessed,  most  of  them  old  men, 
women,  and  children.  I  placed  them  in  the  cold, 
ruinous  lodging  allocated  to  them  by  the  Ottoman 
authorities.     I  went  back  to  the  Ambassador  and 


282      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

said  :  '  Your  Excellency,  these  people  are  cold, 
and  I  have  no  fuel  or  blankets.  They  are  hungry, 
and  I  have  no  food.  They  are  dirty,  and  I  have 
no  soap.  Their  hair  is  in  an  indescribable 
condition,  and  I  have  no  combs.  What  am  I  to 
do  with  these  people  .? '  '  Do  ? '  said  the 
Ambassador.  '  Get  a  couple  of  Sisters  of  Mercy  ; 
they  will  put  all  to  right  in  a  moment.'  I  went, 
saw  the  Mother  Superior,  and  explained  the  case. 
I  asked  for  two  Sisters.  She  ordered  two  from 
her  presence  to  follow  me.  They  were  ladies  of 
refinement  and  intellect.  I  was  a  stranger  and  a 
Protestant,  and  I  invoked  their  assistance  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Jews.  Yet  these  two  women  made 
up  their  bundles  and  followed  me  through 
the  rain,  without  a  look,  a  whisper,  a  sign  of 
hesitation.  From  that  moment  my  fugitives 
were  saved.  I  witnessed  the  labours  of  those 
Sisters  for  months,  and  they  never  endeavoured 
to  make  a  single  convert." 

The  military  men  were  not  less  enthusi- 
astic. When  Colonel  Connolly,  brother-in- 
law   to   Mr.    Bruin,   of  Carlow,   was   travelling. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      283 

after  his  return  from  the  war,  near  the  Bruin 
estate,  a  fellow-traveller  spoke  disrespectfully 
of  nuns.  The  colonel,  a  Protestant,  not  only 
made  a  warm  defence  of  the  ladies  who  had 
nursed  him  in  Russia  and  Ottoman  regions,  and 
for  their  sakes  of  all  other  nuns,  but  handed  the 
assailant  his  card,  saying  :  "  If  you  say  another 
word  against  these  saintly  gentlewomen  I  shall 
call  you  out."  The  slanderer  subsided  very 
quickly. 

Sister  Aloysius,  one  of  those  very  Sisters  who 
were  with  Miss  Nightingale  in  the  huts,  has 
written  in  her  "  Memories  of  the  Crimea  "  : — 

"  It  was  said  at  one  time  that  the  War  Office 
was  on  the  point  of  issuing  a  mandate  forbidding 
us  to  speak  even  to  the  Catholic  soldiers  on 
religion,  or  to  say  a  prayer  for  them.  However, 
that  mandate  never  came  ;  we  often  thought  the 
guardian  angels  of  the  soldiers  prevented  it." 

It  made  no  difference  to  the  loyalty  of  their 
work  together  that  Miss  Nightingale  was  not  a 
Roman  Catholic  ;  they  all  obeyed  the  Master  who 
has  taught  that  it  is  not  the  way  in  which  He  is 


2S4      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

addressed  that  matters,  but  whether  we  help  those 
whom  He  gave  His  life  to  help,  and  in  loving 
and  serving  whom,  we  love  and  serve  Him. 

So  in  London  and  in  Balaclava  the  good  of  her 
influence  was  felt.  In  London  the  funds  mounted, 
and  at  Balaclava  the  excellent  work  among  the 
soldiers  still  went  on. 

Her  very  presence  among  the  men  helped  to 
keep  them  sober  and  diligent,  and  in  every  way 
at  their  best,  in  those  first  months  of  victory 
when  heads  are  only  too  easily  turned.  And  she 
had  the  reward  she  most  desired,  for  she  was  able 
to  speak  of  these  brave  fellows — the  nameless 
heroes  of  the  long  campaign — as  having  been 
"  uniformly  quiet  and  well-bred."  Those  words, 
it  is  true,  were  spoken  of  the  men  attending  the 
reading-huts  ;  but  they  are  quite  in  line  with  her 
more  general  verdict  with  regard  to  Tommy  ; 
though,  alas,  we  cannot  stretch  them  to  cover 
his  behaviour  at  the  canteens,  where  we  are  told 
that  much  drunkenness  prevailed. 

She  had  advanced  money  for  the  building  of  a 
coffee-house  at  Inkermann,  and  had  helped  the 
chaplain   to  get   maps  and  slates  for  his  school 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      285 

work,  and  the  bundles  of  magazines  and  illus- 
trated papers,  sent  out  from  England  in  answer 
to  her  appeal,  as  well  as  books  sent  out  by  the 
Duchess  of  Kent,  cheered  and  brightened  many 
a  long  hour  for  the  men.  She  was  always  on 
the  alert  to  help  them  about  sending  home  their 
pay,  and  quick  to  care  for  the  interests  of  their 
wives  and  children. 

Before  she  left  the  Crimea,  her  hut  was  beset 
by  fifty  or  sixty  poor  women  who  had  been  left 
behind  when  their  husbands  sailed  for  home 
with  their  regiments.  They  had  followed  their 
husbands  to  the  war  without  leave  and,  having 
proved  themselves  useful,  had  been  allowed  to 
remain.  And  now  they  were  left  alone  in  a 
strange  land  and,  but  for  Florence  Nightingale, 
the  end  of  the  story  might  have  been  bitter 
sorrow.  But  she  managed  to  get  them  sent 
home  in  a  British  ship. 

Many  a  mother  at  home  must  already  have 
blessed  her  ;  for  reckless  boys  who  had  enlisted, 
without  the  sanction  of  their  families,  had  again 
and  again  been  by  her  persuaded  to  write  home, 
and    in    the    first    months   of   the   war   she   had 


286      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

actually  undertaken  to  stamp  for  the  men  any 
letters  home  which  were  sent  to  her  camp.  And 
at  Scutari  she  had  arranged  a  provisional  money- 
order  office  where,  four  afternoons  in  each  week, 
she  received  from  the  men  the  pay  which  she 
encouraged  them  to  send  home.  When  we  are 
told  that,  in  small  sums,  about  jri,ooo  passed 
through  this  office  month  by  month,  we  realize 
dimly  something  of  the  labour  involved,  and 
thinking  of  all  her  other  cares  and  labours,  which 
were  nevertheless  not  allowed  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  such  practical  thoughtfulness  as  this,  we 
do  not  wonder  that  "  the  services "  loved  her 
with  a  love  that  was  akin  to  worship.  The 
money,  as  she  herself  says,  "  was  literally  so 
much  rescued  from  the  canteens  and  from 
drunkenness  ;  "  and  the  Government,  following 
her  lead,  had  themselves  established  money-order 
offices  later  at  Scutari,  Balaclava,  Constantinople, 
and  the  Headquarters,  Crimea. 

It  is  not  surprising  that,  in  the  "  Old  Country," 
songs  were  dedicated  to  her  as  "  the  good  angel 
of  Derbyshire,"  and  that  her  very  portrait  be- 
came a  popular  advertisement. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      287 

And  we  have  it  on  good  authority  that  her 
name  was  revered  alike  by  English,  French, 
Turks,  and  Russians. 

The  Treaty  of  Peace  was  signed  at  Paris  on 
March  30,  1856,  and  on  July  12  General 
Codrington  formally  gave  up  Sebastopol  and 
Balaclava  to  the  Russians.  When  the  last  rem- 
nant of  our  army  was  ordered  home  and  the 
hospitals  were  finally  closed,  Florence  Nightin- 
gale was  for  the  first  time  willing  to  leave  a  post 
which  she  had  held  so  bravely  and  so  long.  But 
before  she  left  she  wished  to  leave  a  memorial 
to  the  brave  men  who  had  fallen,  and  the  brave 
women,  her  comrades,  who  had  died  upon  that 
other  battlefield  where  disease,  and  Death  himself, 
must  be  wrestled  with  on  behalf  of  those  who 
are  nursed  and  tended. 

And  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  among  the  visible 
tokens  which  the  war  has  left  behind,  is  a 
gigantic  white  marble  cross  erected  by  Florence 
Nightingale  upon  the  sombre  heights  of  Bala- 
clava, where  it  still  opens  wide  its  arms  for 
every  gleam  of  golden  sunlight,  every  reflected 
shimmer,  through  the  dark  night,  of  silvery  moon 


288      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

and  star,  to  hearten  the  sailors  voyaging  north- 
ward and  mark  a  prayer  for  the  brave  men  and 
women  who  toiled  and  suffered  there.  It  is 
inscribed  with  the  words  in  Italian,  "  Lord,  have 
mercy  upon  us."  But  while  she  herself  asked 
only  mercy  for  herself  and  others,  that  human 
shortcomings  might  be  forgiven,  her  compatriots 
were  uniting  to  do  her  honour. 

On  December  20,  1855,  the  Morning  Post 
printed  the  following  announcement  : — 

"  The  country  will  experience  much  satisfac- 
tion, though  no  surprise,  on  learning,  as  we 
believe  we  are  correct  in  stating,  that  Her 
Majesty  the  Queen  has,  in  a  manner  as  honour- 
able to  herself  as  it  must  be  gratifying  to  her 
people,  been  pleased  to  mark  her  warm  apprecia- 
tion of  the  unparalleled  self-devotion  of  the  good 
Miss  Nightingale.  The  Queen  has  transmitted 
to  that  lady  a  jewelled  ornament  of  great  beauty, 
which  may  be  worn  as  a  decoration,  and  has 
accompanied  it  with  an  autograph  letter — such 
a  letter  as  Queen  Victoria  has  ere  now  proved 
she  can  write — a  letter   not   merely  of  graceful 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      289 

acknowledgment,  but  full  of  that  deep  feeling 
which  speaks  from  heart  to  heart,  and  at  once 
ennobles  the  sovereign  and  the  subject." 

Of  the  symbolic  meaning  of  this  jewel  the 
following  exposition  appeared  in  the  issue  of 
January  15,  1856,  of  the  same  paper  : — 

"  The  design  of  the  jewel  is  admirable,  and 
the  effect  no  less  brilliant  than  chaste.  It  is 
characteristic  and  emblematical — being  formed 
of  a  St.  George's  cross  in  ruby-red  enamel,  on  a 
white  field  —  representing  England.  This  is 
encircled  by  a  black  band,  typifying  the  office 
of  Charity,  on  which  is  inscribed  a  golden  legend, 
'  Blessed  are  the  merciful.'  The  Royal  donor  is 
expressed  by  the  letters  '  V.  R.'  surmounted  by 
a  crown  in  diamonds,  impressed  upon  the  centre 
of  the  St.  George's  cross,  from  which  also  rays 
of  gold  emanating  upon  the  field  of  white  enamel 
are  supposed  to  represent  the  glory  of  England. 
While  spreading  branches  of  palm,  in  bright 
green  enamel,  tipped  with  gold,  form  a  frame- 
work for  the  shield,  their  stems  at  the  bottom 

(1,764)  ig 


290      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

being  banded  with  a  ribbon  of  blue  enamel  (the 
colour  of  the  ribbon  for  the  Crimean  medal), 
on  which,  in  golden  letters,  is  inscribed  '  Crimea.' 
At  the  top  of  the  shield,  between  the  palm 
branches,  and  connecting  the  whole,  three 
brilliant  stars  of  diamonds  illustrate  the  idea 
of  the  light  of  heaven  shed  upon  the  labours 
of  Mercy,  Peace,  and  Charity,  in  connection 
with  the  glory  of  a  nation.  On  the  back  of  thif 
Royal  jewel  is  an  inscription  on  a  golden  tablet, 
written  by  Her  Majesty  .  .  .  recording  it  to  be 
a  gift  and  testimonial  in  memory  of  services 
rendered  to  her  brave  army  by  Miss  Nightingale. 
The  jewel  is  about  three  inches  in  depth  by  two 
and  a  half  in  width.  It  is  to  be  worn,  not  as  a 
brooch  or  ornament,  but  rather  as  the  badge  of 
an  order.  We  believe  the  credit  of  the  design 
is  due  to  the  illustrious  consort  of  Her  Majesty." 

Punchy  of  course,  had  always  taken  the  liveliest 
interest  in  Miss  Nightingale's  work,  and  having 
begun  with  friendly  jesting,  he  ended  with  a 
tribute  so  tender  in  its  grave  beauty  that  it 
would    hardly    have    been    out    of    place    in    a 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      291 

church  window  ;  for  below  a  sketch  of  Florence 
Nightingale  herself,  holding  a  wounded  soldier 
by  the  hand,  and  with  the  badge  of  Scutari 
across  her  breast,  was  a  vision  of  the  Good 
Samaritan. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

Htr  citizenship — Her  initiative — Public  recognition  and  gratitude — 
Her  return  incognito — Village  excitement — The  country's  wel- 
come— Miss  Nightingale^ s  broken  health — Th£  Nightingale 
Fund — St.  Thoma^s  Hospital — Reform  of  nursing  as  a 
profession. 

It  may  be  fairly  supposed  that  even  those 
benighted  Philistines  whose  mockery  had  at  the 
outset  been  of  a  less  innocent  quality  than 
Punch's  gentle  fun,  now  found  it  expedient  to 
alter  their  tone,  and  if  their  objections  had  been 
mere  honest  stupidity,  they  were  probably  both 
convinced  of  their  past  folly  and  a  good  deal 
ashamed. 

For  Britain  was  very  proud  of  the  daughter 
who  had  become  so  mighty  a  power  for  good  in 
the  State.  The  Sister  of  Mercy  whom  Miss 
Nightingale  used  laughingly  to  call  "her  Cardinal " 
had  responded  on  one  occasion  by  addressing  her 
with  equal  affection  as  "  Your  Holiness,"  and  the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      293 

nickname  was  not  altogether  inappropriate,  for 
her  advice  in  civic  and  hygienic  matters  had  an 
authority  which  might  well  be  compared  with 
that  which  the  Pope  himself  wielded  on  theo- 
logical questions. 

Among  the  doctors  at  Scutari  was  a  friend  of 
General  Evatt,  from  whom  he  had  many  facts  at 
first-hand,  and  it  was  therefore  not  without 
knowledge  that,  in  his  conversation  with  me  on 
the  subject,  the  latter  confirmed  and  strengthened 
all  that  has  already  been  written  of  Miss  Nightin- 
gale's mental  grasp  and  supreme  capacity.  To 
him,  knowing  her  well,  and  knowing  well  also 
the  facts,  she  was  the  highest  embodiment  of 
womanhood  and  of  citizenship.  Yet,  while  he 
talked,  my  heart  ached  for  her,  thinking  of  the 
womanly  joys  of  home  and  motherhood  which 
were  not  for  her,  and  all  the  pure  and  tender 
romance  which  woman  bears  in  her  inmost 
soul,  even  when,  as  in  this  noble  instance,  it  is 
transmuted  by  the  will  of  God  and  the  woman's 
own  obedient  will  into  service  of  other  homes 
and  other  lives. 

Perhaps   I    may  here   be   allowed  to  quote  a 


294      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

sentence  from  Mrs.  Tooley's  admirable  life  of 
our  heroine  ;  for  it  could  not  have  been  better 
expressed  :  "  No  one  would  wish  to  exempt  from 
due  praise  even  the  humblest  of  that  *  Angel 
Band  '  who  worked  with  Florence  Nightingale, 
and  still  less  would  she,  but  in  every  great  cause 
there  is  the  initiating  genius  who  stands  in 
solitary  grandeur  above  the  rank  and  file  of 
followers." 

Nor  was  official  recognition  of  the  country's 
debt  to  Miss  Nightingale  in  any  wise  lack- 
ing. When  the  Treaty  of  Peace  was  under 
discussion  in  the  House  of  Lords,  Lord  EUes- 
mere  made  it  an  opportunity  for  the  following 
tribute  : — 

"  My  Lords,  the  agony  of  that  time  has 
become  a  matter  of  history.  The  vegetation 
of  two  successive  springs  has  obscured  the 
vestiges  of  Balaclava  and  of  Inkermann.  Strong 
voices  now  answer  to  the  roll-call,  and  sturdy 
forms  now  cluster  round  the  colours.  The 
ranks  are  full,  the  hospitals  are  empty.  The 
Angel  of  Mercy  still  lingers  to  the  last  on  the 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      295 

scene  of  her  labours  ;  but  her  mission  is  all  but 
accomplished.  Those  long  arcades  of  Scutari, 
in  which  dying  men  sat  up  to  catch  the  sound 
of  her  footstep  or  the  flutter  of  her  dress,  and 
fell  back  on  the  pillow  content  to  have  seen 
her  shadow  as  it  passed,  are  now  comparatively 
deserted.  She  may  probably  be  thinking  how 
to  escape,  as  best  she  may,  on  her  return,  the 
demonstrations  of  a  nation's  appreciation  of 
the  deeds  and  motives  of  Florence  Nightin- 
gale." 

And  in  the  House  of  Commons  Mr.  Sidney 
Herbert  said  :  "  I  have  received,  not  only  from 
medical  men,  but  from  many  others  who  have 
had  an  opportunity  of  making  observations, 
letters  couched  in  the  highest  possible  terms  of 
praise.  I  will  not  repeat  the  words,  but  no 
higher  expressions  of  praise  could  be  applied  to 
woman,  for  the  wonderful  energy,  the  wonder- 
ful tact,  the  wonderful  tenderness,  combined 
with  the  extraordinary  self-devotion,  which  have 
been  displayed  by  Miss  Nightingale." 

Lord    Ellesmere   was   right   when    he    hinted 


296      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

that  Miss  Nightingale  would  be  likely  to  do  her 
best  to  escape  all  public  fuss  on  her  return.  The 
Government  had  offered  her  a  British  man-of- 
war  to  take  her  home  ;  but  it  was  not  her  way 
to  accept  any  such  outward  pomp,  and,  almost 
before  people  knew  what  had  happened,  it  was 
found  that  she  had  travelled  quietly  home  as 
Miss  Smith  in  a  French  vessel,  visiting  in  Paris 
her  old  friends  the  Sisters  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul, 
and  finding  that  by  having  embarked  at  night, 
at  a  moment  when  Scutari  was  not  looking  for 
her  departure,  her  little  ruse  had  been  very 
successful.  An  eager  people  had  not  recognized 
under  the  passing  incognito  of  Miss  Smith,  travel- 
ling with  her  aunt,  Mrs.  Smith,  the  great 
Florence  Nightingale  whose  return  they  had 
wished  to  celebrate.  The  village  gossips  at  Lea 
Hurst  have  it  that  "  the  closely  veiled  lady  in 
black,  who  slipped  into  her  father's  house  by  the 
back  door,  was  first  recognized  by  the  family 
butler,"  and  it  seems  a  pity  to  spoil  such  a 
picturesque  tradition  by  inquiring  into  it  too 
closely. 

There  was  great  joy  among  the  villagers  that 


I I II ii I I i iiimiitflii 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      297 

"  Miss  Florence  had  come  home  from  the  wars," 
but  it  was  understood  that  she  wished  to  be  quiet, 
and  that  bonfires  and  such-like  rejoicings  were 
out  of  the  question. 

Along  the  roads  near  Lea  Hurst  came  troops 
of  people  from  Derby  and  Nottingham,  and  even 
from  Manchester,  hoping  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
her ;  and  there  is  in  one  of  the  biographies  a 
vivid  account,  given  by  the  old  lady  who  kept 
the  lodge  gates,  of  how  the  park  round  Lea 
Hurst  was  beset  by  these  lingering  crowds,  how 
men  came  without  arms  or  without  legs,  hoping 
to  see  the  Queen  of  Nurses.  "  But,"  added  the 
old  lady,  "  the  squire  wasn't  a-going  to  let  Miss 
Florence  be  made  a  staring-stock  of."  And, 
indeed,  "  Miss  Florence  "  must  have  been  in  great 
need  of  repose,  though  never  to  the  end  of  her 
life  would  it  seem  that  she  was  allowed  to  have 
much  of  it ;  for  the  very  fruitfulness  of  her 
work  made  work  multiply  upon  her  hands,  and 
her  friend  Mrs.  Sidney  Herbert  knew  her  well 
when  she  said  that  to  Florence  Nightingale  the 
dearest  guerdon  of  work  already  done  was  the  gift 
of  more  work  still  to  do. 


298      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Perhaps  we  shall  never  any  of  us  fully  know 
what  it  must  have  been  to  one  so  abounding  in 
spiritual  energy  and  world-wide  compassion  to 
have  to  learn  slowly  and  painfully,  through  the 
years  that  followed,  what  must  henceforth  be  the 
physical  limitations  of  her  life.  When  we  think 
of  the  long,  careful  training  that  had  been  given 
to  her  fine  gifts  of  eye  and  hand  in  the  art  that 
she  loved — for  she  rightly  regarded  nursing  as  an 
art — an  art  in  which  every  movement  must  be  a 
skilled  and  disciplined  movement — we  may  divine 
something  of  what  it  cost  to  bear,  without  one 
murmur  of  complaint,  what  she  might  so  easily 
have  been  tempted  to  regard  as  a  lifelong  waste 
of  faculty.  Instead  of  allowing  herself  to  dwell 
on  any  such  idea,  gradually,  as  the  knowledge 
dawned  on  her  of  what  she  must  forego,  she 
gave  herself,  with  tenfold  power  in  other 
directions,  to  work  which  could  be  achieved 
from  an  invalid's  couch,  and  thus  helped  and 
guided  others  in  that  art  all  over  the  world. 

Among  the  greetings  which  pleased  her 
most  on  her  first  return  to  England  was  an 
address   from    the   workmen    of    Newcastle-on- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      299 

Tyne,   to   whom    she    replied    in   the   following 
letter : — 

August  23,  1856. 

"  My  Dear  Friends, — I  wish  it  were  in  my 
power  to  tell  you  what  was  in  my  heart  when  I 
received  your  letter. 

"  Your  welcome  home,  your  sympathy  with 
what  has  been  passing  while  I  have  been  absent, 
have  touched  me  more  than  I  can  tell  in  words. 
My  dear  friends,  the  things  that  are  the  deepest 
in  our  hearts  are  perhaps  what  it  is  most  difficult 
for  us  to  express.  '  She  hath  done  what  she 
could.'  These  words  I  inscribed  on  the  tomb  of 
one  of  my  best  helpers  when  I  left  Scutari.  It 
has  been  my  endeavour,  in  the  sight  of  God,  to  do 
as  she  has  done. 

"  I  will  not  speak  of  reward  when  permitted 
to  do  our  country's  work — it  is  what  we  live 
for — but  I  may  say  to  receive  sympathy  from 
affectionate  hearts  like  yours  is  the  greatest  sup- 
port, the  greatest  gratification,  that  it  is  possible 
for  me  to  receive  from  man. 

"  I  thank  you  all,  the  eighteen  hundred,  with 
grateful,  tender   affection.      And   I   should   have 


300      FLORENCE    NIGHTIIslGALE. 

written  before  to  do  so,  were  not  the  business, 
which  my  return  home  has  not  ended,  been 
almost  more  than  I  can  manage. — Pray  believe 
me,  my  dear  friends,  yours  faithfully  and 
gratefully,  Florence  Nightingale." 

Among  the  tokens  of  regard  which  the  late 
Duke  of  Devonshire  brought  to  his  old  friend  on 
her  return,  when  he  drove  over  from  Chatsworth 
to  Lea  Hurst  to  see  her  after  her  long,  eventful 
absence,  was  a  little  silver  owl,  a  sort  of  souvenir, 
I  suppose,  of  her  beloved  little  "  Athena,"  whose 
death  she  had  felt  so  keenly  when  leaving  for  the 
Crimea.  Queen  Victoria  and  the  young  princesses 
were  eager  to  welcome  Miss  Nightingale  to  Bal- 
moral ;  and  in  looking  back  on  her  little  visit 
there,  which  seems  to  have  been  a  happiness  on 
both  sides,  it  is  interesting  to  see  how  her 
influence  told  upon  the  Crown  Princess  and 
Princess  Alice  in  their  later  organization  of 
hospital  work,  and  to  be  reminded  by  Mrs. 
Tooley,  whose  words  we  here  venture  to  quote, 
that  the  "  tiny  Princess  Helena  was  to  become 
in    after   years   an    accomplished    nurse,  and    an 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      301 

active  leader  in  the  nursing  movement  of  this 
country ;  and,  alas,  to  yield  her  soldier  son  on 
the  fatal  field  of  South  Africa." 

Meanwhile,  before  and  after  this  visit.  Miss 
Nightingale  was  quietly  receiving  her  own  friends 
and  neighbours  at  Lea  Hurst,  and  entertaining 
little  parties  of  villagers  from  among  the  rustics 
she  had  so  long  known  and  loved.  Rich  and 
poor  alike  were  all  so  eager  to  do  her  honour 
that  it  is  impossible  to  speak  separately  of  all  the 
many  forms  which  their  expressions  of  gratitude 
took.  They  included  a  gift  from  the  workmen 
of  Sheffield  as  well  as  from  her  own  more 
immediate  neighbours,  and  found  their  climax 
in  the  fund  pressed  upon  her  by  a  grateful 
nation,  and  for  convenience  called  the  Nightin- 
gale Fund,  which  was  still  awaiting  its  final 
disposal. 

Meanwhile,  imagine  the  importance  of  the  ex- 
drummer-boy  Thomas,  her  devoted  servant  and 
would-be  defender  at  Balaclava,  promoted  now 
to  be  "  Miss  Nightingale's  own  man "  in  her 
home  at  Lea  Hurst — an  even  more  exciting 
presence  to  the  villagers  than  the  Russian  hound 


302      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

which  was  known  through  the  country-side  as 
"  Miss  Florence's  Crimean  dog." 

There  were  still  living,  we  are  told,  when  Mrs. 
Tooley  wrote  her  delightful  record,  a  few  old 
people  round  about  Lea  Hurst  who  remembered 
those  great  days  of  "  Miss  Florence's  return," 
and  the  cannon  balls  and  bullets  they  had  seen  as 
trophies,  the  dried  flowers  gathered  at  Scutari, 
and  Thomas's  thrilling  stories,  for  if  he  had  not 
himself  been  present  in  the  famous  charge  at 
Balaclava,  he  did  at  least  know  all  about  it  at 
first-hand. 

So  little  did  any  one  dream  that  Miss  Night- 
ingale's health  had  been  permanently  shattered 
that  when  the  Indian  Mutiny  broke  out  in  1857, 
she  offered  to  go  out  to  her  friend  Lady  Canning, 
and  organize  a  nursing  staff  for  the  troops.  And 
while,  with  her  customary  business-like  clearness, 
she  proceeded  to  draw  up  a  detailed  account  of 
all  the  private  gifts  entrusted  to  her  for  the 
Crimea,  and  took  the  opportunity  of  putting  on 
record  her  tribute  to  Lord  Raglan,  the  final 
arrangements  with  regard  to  the  Nightingale 
Fund  were  still  for  a  time  held  in  suspense,  in 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      303 

the  hope  that  she  would  so  far  recover  strength 
as  to  be  able  to  take  into  her  own   hands   the 
government  of  that  institution  for  the  training  of 
hospital  nurses,  to  which  it  was  to  be  devoted. 
When   her  friend   Mr.   Herbert  talked  gaily  in 
public  of  chaining  her  to  the  oar  for  the  rest  of 
her  life,  that   she   might   "  raise   the   system  of 
nursing   to    a    pitch    of  efficiency   never    before 
known,"  he   did   not   foresee   that   the   invisible 
chain,  which  was  to  bruise  her  eager  spirit,  was 
to  be  of  a  kind  so  much  harder  to  bear.     But 
when,  in    i860,  her  health  showed  no  signs  of 
recovery,   she   definitely   handed    over   to    others 
the  management  of  the  fund,  only  reserving  to 
herself  the   right    to    advise.     Her    friend    Mr. 
Herbert  was,  up  to  the  time  of  his  death,  the 
guiding  spirit  of  the  council,  and  it  gave  Miss 
Nightingale  pleasure  that  St.  Thomas's  Hospital 
should  from   the  outset   be  associated  with   the 
scheme,  because  that  hospital  had  originated  in 
one  of  the  oldest  foundations  in  the  country  for 
the  relief  of  the  sick  poor,  and  in  choosing  it  for 
the  training  of  lay  sisters  as  nurses,  its   earliest 
tradition   was    being    continued.     The   work   of 


304      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

the  fund  began  at  St.  Thomas's  in  i860,  in 
the  old  building  near  London  Bridge,  before  it 
moved  into  its  present  palace  at  Westminster, 
of  which  the  Nightingale  Training  Home  is  a 
part.  In  those  first  early  days  an  upper  floor 
was  arranged  for  the  nurses  in  a  new  part  of  the 
old  hospital,  with  a  bedroom  for  each  probationer, 
two  rooms  for  the  Sister-in-charge,  and  a  sitting- 
room  in  which  all  shared.  As  the  result  of  the 
advertisement  for  candidates  in  i860,  fifteen  pro- 
bationers were  admitted  in  June,  the  first  super- 
intendent being  Mrs.  Wardroper.  The  proba- 
tioners were,  of  course,  under  the  authority  of  the 
matron,  and  subject  to  the  rules  of  the  hospital. 
They  were  to  give  help  in  the  wards  and  receive 
teaching  from  the  Sisters  and  medical  staff,  and  if 
at  the  end  of  the  year  they  passed  their  examina- 
tion, they  were  to  be  registered  as  certified 
nurses. 

Thanks  to  Miss  Nightingale  and  other  pioneers, 
the  fifty  years  that  have  passed  since  then  have 
made  Mrs.  Grundy  a  little  less  Grundyish,  but 
in  those  days  she  considered  the  whole  business 
a  terrible  venture,  and  was  too  much   occupied 


o 
o 


O      2 


X 


X 


-en     ^ 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      305 

with  the  idea  of  possible  love  affairs  between  the 
doctors  and  nurses  to  realize  what  good  work 
was  being  done.  The  first  year  was  a  very 
anxious  one  for  Miss  Nightingale,  but  all  the 
world  knows  now  how  her  experiment  has 
justified  itself  and  how  her  prayers  have  been 
answered ;  for  it  was  in  prayer  that  she  found 
her  "  quietness  and  confidence "  through  those 
first  months  of  tension  when  the  enemy  was 
watching  and  four  probationers  had  to  be  dis- 
missed, though  their  ranks  were  speedily  filled 
up  by  others. 

At  the  end  of  the  year,  from  among  those  who 
were  placed  on  the  register,  six  received  appoint- 
ments at  St.  Thomas's  and  two  took  work  in 
infirmaries.  There  was  special  need  of  good 
nurses  in  workhouse  infirmaries,  and  there  was 
also  throughout  the  whole  country  a  crying  need 
for  nurses  carefully  trained  in  midwifery  :  lack  of 
knowledge,  for  instance,  had  greatly  increased 
the  danger  of  puerperal  fever,  a  scourge  against 
which  Miss  Nightingale  was  one  of  the  first 
to  contend  ;  and  it  had  been  wisely  decided  that 

while  two-thirds  of  the  fund  should  go  to  the 
(1.764)  20 


3o6      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

work  at  St.  Thomas's,  one-third  should  be  used 
for  special  training  of  nurses  in  these  branches  at 
King's  College. 

"  How  has  the  tone  and  state  of  hospital  nurses 
been  raised  ?  "  Miss  Nightingale  asks  in  her  little 
book  on  "Trained  Nursing  for  the  Sick  Poor," 
published  in  1876. 

"  By,  more  than  anything  else,  making  the 
hospital  such  a  home  as  good  young  women — 
educated  young  women — can  live  and  nurse  in ; 
and,  secondly,  by  raising  hospital  nursing  into 
such  a  profession  as  these  can  earn  an  honourable 
livelihood  in." 

In  her  "  Notes  on  Hospitals,"  published  in 
1859,  she  pointed  out  what  she  considered  the 
four  radical  defects  in  hospital  construction — 
namely  : — 

1.  The   agglomeration  of  a  large  number  of 

sick  under  the  same  roof. 

2.  Deficiency  of  space. 

3.  Deficiency  of  ventilation. 

4.  Deficiency  of  light. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      307 

How  magnificently  builders  have  since  learned 
to  remedy  such  defects  may  be  seen  in  the 
Nightingale  Wing  of  St.  Thomas's  Hospital. 

The  block  system  on  which  St.  Thomas's 
Hospital  is  built  is  what  Miss  Nightingale  has 
always  recommended,  each  block  being  divided 
from  the  next  by  a  space  of  125  feet,  across 
which  runs  a  double  corridor  by  means  of  which 
they  communicate  with  one  another.  Each  has 
three  tiers  of  wards  above  the  ground  floor. 

The  six  blocks  in  the  centre  are  those  used  for 
patients,  that  at  the  south  for  the  lecture-rooms 
and  a  school  of  medicine,  the  one  at  the  north, 
adjoining  Westminster  Bridge,  for  the  official 
staff.  From  Lambeth  Palace  to  Westminster 
Bridge,  with  a  frontage  of  1,700  feet,  the 
hospital  extends ;  and  there  would  be  room  in 
the  operating  theatre  for  600  students.  In  the 
special  wing  in  one  of  the  northern  blocks, 
reserved  for  the  Nightingale  Home  and  Training 
School  for  Nurses,  everything  has  been  ordered 
in  accordance  with  Miss  Nightingale's  wishes. 

To-day  the  whole  status  of  nursing  in  Britain 
and  British  dominions  is  recognized  as  that  of  an 


3o8      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

honoured  and  certified  profession,  and  year  by 
year,  at  St.  Thomas's  alone,  thirty  probationers 
are  trained,  of  whom  fifteen  pay  ^i,  is.  a  week 
for  the  privilege,  whereas  to  the  other  fifteen  it 
is  given  gratuitously.  At  St.  Thomas's  were 
trained  nurses  who  were  among  the  earliest  to 
be  decorated  with  the  Red  Cross,  that  inter- 
national badge  of  good  army  nursing  throughout 
the  world  which,  indirectly  as  well  as  directly, 
owed  much  to  Miss  Nightingale.  How  warmly, 
even  arduously,  Miss  Nightingale  shared  in  the 
trials  and  joys  and  adventures  of  her  nurses,  comes 
out  very  clearly  in  some  of  her  letters  to  one  of 
them,  whom,  as  a  personal  friend  and  one  of  the 
first  nine  to  receive  the  Red  Cross,  she  playfully 
named  "  her  Cape  of  Good  Hope."  Those  tender 
and  intimate  letters,  which  I  will  not  name 
emotional,  because  she  who  wrote  them  had 
justified  emotion  by  ever  translating  it  into 
useful  work,  made  me  feel  to  an  almost  startling 
degree  her  warm,  eager,  dominating  personality 
with  its  extraordinary  mingling  of  utmost  modesty 
and  pleading  authority.  To  me  that  personality 
seems  to  win  the  heart  of  the  coldest  and  dullest 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      309 

by  its  ardent  enthusiasm  and  humility,  and  those 
unpublished  letters,  which  I  was  privileged  to 
read,  brought  home  to  me  how  Miss  Nightingale 
— then  an  invalid  of  sixty-two — literally  lived  in 
the  life  of  those  pioneer  nurses  whom  she  had 
inspired  and  sent  forth. 

It  is  easy  to  see  in  them  how  much  she  feared 
for  her  nurses  any  innocent  little  trip  of  the  tongue, 
with  regard  to  the  rest  of  the  staff,  which  might 
set  rolling  the  dangerous  ball  of  hospital  gossip. 
She  puts  the  duty  of  obedience  and  forbearance 
on  the  highest  grounds,  and  she  draws  a  useful 
distinction  between  the  sham  dignity  which  we  all 
know  in  the  hatefulness  of  "  the  superior  person," 
and  the  true  dignity  which  tries  to  uplift  those 
less  fortunate,  rather  than  self-indulgently  to  lean 
on  them  or  make  to  them  foolish  confidences. 

And  while  she  is  all  aglow  with  sympathy  for 
every  detail  of  a  nurse's  work,  she  entreats  her 
friend  to  "  let  no  want  of  concord  or  discretion 
appear  to  mar  that  blessed  work.  And  let  no 
one,"  she  adds,  "  be  able  justly  to  say  what  was 
said  to  me  last  month,  *  It  is  only  Roman  Catholic 
vows  that  can  keep  Sisters  together.'  " 


310      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

What  she  wrote  when  asking  for  recruits  for 
St.  Thomas's  at  the  outset  still  remains  the  basis 
of  the  ideal  held  there.  "  We  require,"  she 
wrote,  "that  a  woman  be  sober,  honest,  truthful, 
without  which  there  is  no  foundation  on  which 
to  build. 

"  We  train  her  in  habits  of  punctuality,  quiet- 
ness, trustworthiness,  personal  neatness.  We 
teach  her  how  to  manage  the  concerns  of  a  large 
ward  or  establishment.  We  train  her  in  dressing 
wounds  and  other  injuries,  and  in  performing  all 
those  minor  operations  which  nurses  are  called 
upon  day  and  night  to  undertake. 

"  We  teach  her  how  to  manage  helpless 
patients  in  regard  to  moving,  changing,  feeding, 
temperature,  and  the  prevention  of  bedsores. 

"  She  has  to  make  and  apply  bandages,  line 
splints,  and  the  like.  She  must  know  how  to 
make  beds  with  as  little  disturbance  as  possible 
to  their  inmates.  She  is  instructed  how  to  wait 
at  operations,  and  as  to  the  kind  of  aid  the 
surgeon  requires  at  her  hands.  She  is  taught 
cooking  for  the  sick ;  the  principle  on  which 
sick    wards    ought    to    be    cleansed,    aired,    and 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      311 

warmed  ;  the  management  of  convalescents  ;  and 
how  to  observe  sick  and  maimed  patients,  so  as 
to  give  an  intelligent  and  truthful  account  to  the 
physician  or  surgeon  in  regard  to  the  progress 
of  cases  in  the  intervals  between  visits — a  much 
more  difficult  thing  than  is  generally  supposed. 

"  We  do  not  seek  to  make  '  medical  women,' 
but  simply  nurses  acquainted  with  the  principle 
which  they  are  required  constantly  to  apply  at 
the  bedside. 

"  For  the  future  superintendent  is  added  a 
course  of  instruction  in  the  administration  of  a 
hospital,  including,  of  course,  the  linen  arrange- 
ments, and  what  else  is  necessary  for  a  matron  to 
be  conversant  with. 

"  There  are  those  who  think  that  all  this  is 
intuitive  in  women,  that  they  are  born  so,  or,  at 
least,  that  it  comes  to  them  without  training. 
To  such  we  say,  by  all  means  send  us  as  many 
such  geniuses  as  you  can,  for  we  are  sorely  in 
want  of  them." 


CHAPTER   XX. 

William  Rathbone — Agnes  Jones — Infirmaries — Nursing  in  the 
homes  of  the  poor — Municipal  work — Homely  power  of  Miss 
Nightingale^ s  writings — Lord  Herbert's  death. 

A  WORD  must  here  be  said  of  Mr.  William  Rath- 
bone's  work  in  Liverpool.  After  the  death  of 
his  first  wife,  realizing  the  comfort  and  help 
that  had  been  given  during  her  last  illness  by  a 
trained  nurse,  he  determined  to  do  what  he  could 
to  bring  aid  of  the  same  kind  into  the  homes  of 
the  poor,  where  the  need  was  often  so  much 
more  terrible.  This  brought  him  into  touch 
with  Miss  Nightingale,  who  advised  him  to 
start  a  school  of  nursing  in  connection  with  the 
Liverpool  Hospital.  These  two  friends — for  they 
soon  became  trusted  and  valued  friends,  each  to 
each — were  both  people  of  prompt  and  efficient 
action,  and  one  step  led  to  another,  until  Liver- 
pool had  not  only  an  important  school  of  nurses 
for  the  sick  poor,  but  also  led  the  way  throughout 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      313 

the  country  in  the  reform  of  the  hitherto  scan- 
dalous nursing  in  workhouse  infirmaries.  Mr. 
Rathbone  set  his  mind  on  securing  the  services 
of  Miss  Agnes  Elizabeth  Jones  to  help  him  in 
his  work,  a  woman  of  character  as  saintly  as  his 
own,  and  the  difference  in  their  religious  outlook 
only  made  more  beautiful  their  mutual  relations 
in  this  great  work. 

Miss  Agnes  Jones,  who  has  already  been  men- 
tioned more  than  once  in  these  pages,  left  an  un- 
dying record  on  England's  roll  of  honour.  It  was 
of  her  that  in  1868  Miss  Nightingale  wrote*: — 

"  A  woman  attractive  and  rich,  and  young 
and  witty  ;  yet  a  veiled  and  silent  woman, 
distinguished  by  no  other  genius  but  the  divine 
genius — working  hard  to  train  herself  in  order 
to  train  others  to  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  Him 
who  went  about  doing  good.  .  .  .  She  died,  as 
she  had  lived,  at  her  post  in  one  of  the  largest 
workhouse  infirmaries  in  this  kingdom — the  first 
in  which  trained  nursing  has  been  introduced.  .  .  . 


*  (( 


'  Introduction  to  Memorials  of  Agnes  Elizabeth  Jones."     Re- 
printed from  Good  Words  for  June  1868.     Florence  Nightingale, 


314      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

When  her  whole  life  and  image  rise  before  me, 
so  far  from  thinking  the  story  of  Una  and  her 
lion  a  myth,  I  say  here  is  Una  in  real  flesh  and 
blood — Una  and  her  paupers  far  more  untamable 
than  lions.  In  less  than  three  years  she  had 
reduced  one  of  the  most  disorderly  hospital  pop- 
ulations in  the  world  to  something  like  Christian 
discipline,  and  had  converted  a  vestry  to  the  con- 
viction of  the  economy  as  well  as  humanity  of 
nursing  pauper  sick  by  trained  nurses." 

And  it  was  in  introducing  a  book  about  the 
Liverpool  Home  and  School  for  Nurses  that  she 
wrote  : — 

"  Nursing,  especially  that  most  important  of 
all  its  branches — nursing  of  the  sick  poor  at  home 
— is  no  amateur  work.  To  do  it  as  it  ought 
to  be  done  requires  knowledge,  practice,  self- 
abnegation,  and,  as  is  so  well  said  here,  direct 
obedience  to  and  activity  under  the  highest  of  all 
masters  and  from  the  highest  of  all  motives.  It 
is  an  essential  part  of  the  daily  service  of  the 
Christian  Church.  It  has  never  been  otherwise. 
It  has  proved  itself  superior  to  all  religious  divi- 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      315 

sions,  and  is  destined,  by  God's  blessing,  to  supply 
an  opening  the  great  value  of  which,  in  our 
densely  populated  towns,  has  been  unaccountably 
overlooked  until  within  these  few  years." 

As  early  as  1858  Miss  Nightingale  published 
"  Notes  on  Matters  affecting  the  Health,  Effi- 
ciency, and  Hospital  Administration  of  the 
British  Army,"  and  the  commission  on  this 
subject  appointed  in  1857  set  a  high  value  on 
her  evidence. 

Something  of  the  development  that  followed 
along  both  these  lines — that  of  army  reform  and 
of  nursing  among  the  submerged — may  be 
gleaned  from  the  following  clear  statement  of 
fact  which  appeared  during  the  South  African 
War,  on  May  21,  1900,  in  a  great  London 
daily  : — 

"  In  the  forty  and  more  years  that  have  elapsed 
since  her  return,  Miss  Nightingale  has  seen  the 
whole  system  of  army  nursing  and  hospitals 
transformed.  Netley,  which  has  been  visited 
by  the  Queen  again  this  week,  was  designed  by 
her,  and  for  the  next  largest,  namely,  the   Her- 


3i6      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

bert  Hospital,  Woolwich,  she  assisted  and  advised 
Sir  Douglas  Galton  in  his  plans. 

"  There  is  not  a  naval  or  military  hospital  on 
any  of  the  foreign  stations  or  depots  on  which 
she  has  not  been  consulted,  and  matters  concern- 
ing the  health  and  well-being  of  both  services 
have  been  constantly  brought  before  her.  Dis- 
trict nursing  owes  much  to  her,  and  in  this 
connection  may  be  cited  a  few  lines  from  a  letter 
which  she  wrote  when  Princess  Louise,  Duchess 
of  Argyll,  was  initiating  a  movement  to  establish 
a  home  for  the  Queen's  Jubilee  Nurses  in  Chis- 
wick  and  Hammersmith.  '  I  look  upon  district 
nursing,'  she  wrote,  '  as  one  of  the  most  hopeful 
of  the  agencies  for  raising  the  poor,  physically 
as  well  as  morally,  its  province  being  not  only 
nursing  the  patient,  but  nursing  the  room,  show- 
ing the  family  and  neighbours  how  to  second  the 
nurse,  and  eminently  how  to  nurse  health  as  well 
as  disease.'  " 

"  Everywhere,"  we  read  in  Mr.  Stephen  Paget's 
contribution  to  the  "  Dictionary  of  National  Biog- 
raphy," "  her  expert  reputation  was  paramount," 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      317 

and  "during  the  American  Civil  War  of  1862-4, 
and  the  Franco-German  War  of  1 870-1,  her 
advice  was  eagerly  sought  by  the  governments 
concerned."  The  "  Dictionary  of  National  Biog- 
raphy "  also  assures  us  that  "  in  regard  to  civil 
hospitals,  home  nursing,  care  of  poor  women  in 
childbirth,  and  sanitation.  Miss  Nightingale's 
authority  stood  equally  high." 

In  what  she  wrote  there  was  a  homely  direct- 
ness, a  complete  absence  of  anything  like  pose  or 
affectation,  which  more  than  doubled  her  power, 
and  was  the  more  charming  in  a  woman  of 
such  brilliant  acquirements  and — to  quote  once 
more  Dean  Stanley's  words  —  such  "  com- 
manding genius "  ;  but,  then,  genius  is  of 
its  nature  opposed  to  all  that  is  sentimental  or 
artificial. 

I  believe  it  is  in  her  "  Notes  on  Nursing  for 
the  Labouring  Classes  "  that  she  writes  to  those 
who  are  "  minding  baby  "  :  "  One-half  of  all  the 
nurses  in  service  are  girls  of  from  five  to  twenty 
years  old.  You  see  you  are  very  important  little 
people.     Then   there   are   all  the  girls  who   are 


3i8      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

nursing  mother's  baby  at  home  ;  and  in  all  these 
cases  it  seems  pretty  nearly  to  come  to  this,  that 
baby's  health  for  its  whole  life  depends  upon 
you,  girls,  more  than  upon  anything  else." 
Simple  rules,  such  as  a  girl  of  six  could  under- 
stand, are  given  for  the  feeding,  washing,  dressing, 
nursing,  and  even  amusement  of  that  important 
person,  "  baby." 

And  it  is  in  her  best  known  book  of  all  that 
she  says  :  "The  healthiest,  happiest,  liveliest,  most 
beautiful  baby  I  ever  saw  was  the  only  child  of 
a  busy  laundress.  She  washed  all  day  in  a  room 
with  the  door  open  upon  a  larger  room,  where 
she  put  the  child.  It  sat  or  crawled  upon  the 
floor  all  day  with  no  other  playfellow  than  a 
kitten,  which  it  used  to  hug.  Its  mother  kept 
it  beautifully  clean,  and  fed  it  with  perfect 
regularity.  The  child  was  never  frightened  at 
anything.  The  room  where  it  sat  was  the 
house-place  ;  and  it  always  gave  notice  to  its 
mother  when  anybody  came  in,  not  by  a  cry, 
but  by  a  crow.  I  lived  for  many  months  within 
hearing  of  that  child,  and  never  heard  it  cry  day 
or  night.     I  think  there  is  a  great  deal  too  much 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      319 

of  amusing   children   now,  and   not  enough   of 
letting  them  amuse  themselves." 

What,  again,  could  be  more  useful  in  its  sim- 
plicity than  the  following,  addressed  to  working 
mothers  : — 

"  Dear  Hard-working  Friends, — I  am  a 
hard-working  woman  too.  May  I  speak  to 
you  ?  And  will  you  excuse  me,  though  not  a 
mother  ? 

"  You  feel  with  mc  that  every  mother  who 
brings  a  child  into  the  world  has  the  duty  laid 
upon  her  of  bringing  up  the  child  in  such  health 
as  will  enable  him  to  do  the  work  of  his  life. 

"  But  though  you  toil  all  day  for  your  children, 
and  are  so  devoted  to  them,  this  is  not  at  all  an 
easy  task. 

"  We  should  not  attempt  to  practise  dress- 
making, or  any  other  trade,  without  any  training 
for  it ;  but  it  is  generally  impossible  for  a  woman 
to  get  any  teaching  about  the  management  of 
health  ;  yet  health  is  to  be  learnt.   .   .   . 

"  The  cottage  homes  of  England  are,  after  all, 
the  most  important  of  the  homes  of  any  class  ; 


320     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

they  should  be  pure  in  every  sense,  pure  in  body 
and  mind. 

"  Boys  and  girls  must  grow  up  healthy,  with 
clean  minds  and  clean  bodies  and  clean  skins. 

"  And  for  this  to  be  possible,  the  air,  the 
earth,  and  the  water  that  they  grow  up  in  and 
have  around  them  must  be  clean.  Fresh  air, 
not  bad  air  ;  clean  earth,  not  foul  earth  ;  pure 
water,  not  dirty  water  ;  and  the  first  teachings 
and  impressions  that  they  have  at  home  must 
all  be  pure,  and  gentle,  and  firm.  It  is  home 
that  teaches  the  child,  after  all,  more  than  any 
other  schooling.  A  child  learns  before  it  is  three 
whether  it  shall  obey  its  mother  or  not  ;  and 
before  it  is  seven,  wise  men  tell  us  that  its 
character  is  formed. 

"  There  is,  too,  another  thing — orderliness. 
We  know  your  daily  toil  and  love.  May  not 
the  busiest  and  hardest  life  be  somewhat  light- 
ened, the  day  mapped  out,  so  that  each  duty  has 
the  same  hours  ?   .   .   . 

"  Think  what  enormous  extra  trouble  it  entails 
on  mothers  when  there  is  sickness.  It  is  worth 
while  to  try   to  keep   the  family   in   health,  to 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      321 

prevent  the  sorrow,  the  anxiety,  the  trouble  of 
illness  in  the  house,  of  which  so  much  can  be 
prevented. 

"  When  a  child  has  lost  its  health,  how  often 
the  mother  says,  '  Oh,  if  I  had  only  known  ! 
but  there  was  no  one  to  tell  me.'  And  after 
all,  it  is  health  and  not  sickness  that  is  our 
natural  state — the  state  that  God  intends  for  us. 
There  are  more  people  to  pick  us  up  when  we 
fall  than  to  enable  us  to  stand  upon  our  feet. 
God  did  not  intend  all  mothers  to  be  accom- 
panied by  doctors,  but  He  meant  all  children 
to  be  cared  for  by  mothers.  God  bless  your 
work  and  labour  of  love." 

Or  in  a  widely  different  field,  in  that  fight 
against  one  of  the  most  important  causes  of 
consumption,  in  which  she  was  so  far  ahead  of 
her  time,  what  could  be  more  clear  and  con- 
vincing, both  in  knowledge  and  in  reasoning,  than 
the  following  analysis  with  regard  to  army 
barracks  : — 

"  The  cavalry   barracks,   as   a   whole,  are   the 

least  overcrowded,  and  have  the  freest  external 
(i,»64)  21 


322      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

movement  of  air.  Next  come  the  infantry  ;  and 
the  most  crowded  and  the  least  ventilated 
externally  are  the  Guards'  barracks  ;  so  that  the 
mortality  from  consumption,  which  follows  the  same 
order  of  increase  in  the  different  arms,  augments  with 
increase  of  crowding  and  difficulty  of  ventilation.^^  * 

Her  own  well-trained  mind  was  in  extreme 
contrast  with  the  type  of  mind  which  she 
describes  in  the  following  story  : — 

"  I  remember,  when  a  child,  hearing  the  story 
of  an  accident,  related  by  some  one  who  sent  two 
girls  to  fetch  a  '  bottle  of  sal  volatile  from  her 
room.'  'Mary  could  not  stir,'  she  said;  *  Fanny 
ran  and  fetched  a  bottle  that  was  not  sal  volatile, 
and  that  was  not  in  my  room.'  " 

All  her  teaching,  so  far  as  I  know  it,  is 
clearly  at  first-hand  and  carefully  sifted.  It  is  as 
far  as  possible  from  that  useless  kind  of  doctrine 
which  is  a  mere  echo  of  unthinking  hearsay. 
For  instance,  how  many  sufferers  she  must  have 
saved  from  unnecessary  irritation  by  the  following 
reminder  to  nurses  : — 

*  The  italics  are  added. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      323 

"  Of  all  parts  of  the  body,  the  face  is  perhaps 
the  one  which  tells  the  least  to  the  common 
observer  or  the  casual  visitor. 

"I  have  known  patients  dying  of  sheer  pain, 
exhaustion,  and  want  of  sleep,  from  one  of  the 
most  lingering  and  painful  diseases  known, 
preserve,  till  within  a  few  days  of  death,  not  only 
the  healthy  colour  of  the  cheek,  but  the  mottled 
appearance  of  a  robust  child.  And  scores  of 
times  have  I  heard  these  unfortunate  creatures 
assailed  with,  *  I  am  glad  to  see  you  looking  so 
well.'  *I  see  no  reason  why  you  should  not  live 
till  ninety  years  of  age.'  *  Why  don't  you  take  a 
little  more  exercise  and  amusement  ? ' — with  all 
the  other  commonplaces  with  which  we  are  so 
familiar." 

And  then,  again,  how  like  her  it  is  to  remind 
those  who  are  nursing  that  "  a  patient  is  not 
merely  a  piece  of  furniture,  to  be  kept  clean  and 
arranged  against  the  wall,  and  saved  from  injury 
or  breakage." 

She  was  one  of  the  rare  people  who  realized 
that  truth  of  word  is  partly  a  question  of  educa- 


324     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

tion,  and  that  many  people  are  quite  unconscious 
of  their  lack  of  that  difficult  virtue.  "  I  know  I 
fibbs  dreadful,"  said  a  poor  little  servant  girl  to 
her  once.  "  But  believe  me,  miss,  I  never  finds 
out  I  have  fibbed  until  they  tell  me  so  ! " 
And  her  comment  suggests  that  in  this  matter 
that  poor  little  servant  girl  by  no  means  stood 
alone. 

She  worked  very  hard.  Her  books  and 
pamphlets*  were  important,  and  her  correspond- 
ence, ever  dealing  with  the  reforms  she  had 
at  heart  all  over  the  world,  was  of  itself  an 
immense  output. 

Those  who  have  had  to  write  much  from  bed 
or  sofa  know  only  too  well  the  abnormal  fatigue 
it  involves,  and  her  labours  of  this  kind  seem  to 
have  been  unlimited. 

How  strongly  she  sympathized  with  all 
municipal  efforts,  we  see  in  many  such  letters  as 
the  one  to  General  Evatt,  given  him  for  election- 
eering purposes,  but  not  hitherto  included 
in  any  biography,  which  we  are  allowed  to 
reproduce  here  : — 

*  A  complete  list  is  subjoined  in  the  Appendix. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      325 

"  Strenuously  desiring,  as  we  all  of  us  must, 
that  Administration  as  well  as  Politics  should 
be  well  represented  in  Parliament,  and  that  vital 
matters  of  social,  sanitary,  and  general  interest 
should  find  their  voice,  we  could  desire  no  better 
representative  and  advocate  of  these  essential 
matters — matters  of  life  and  death — than  a  man 
who,  like  yourself,  unites  with  almost  exhaustless 
energy  and  public  spirit,  sympathy  with  the 
wronged  and  enthusiasm  with  the  right,  a 
persevering  acuteness  in  unravelling  the  causes  of 
the  evil  and  the  good,  large  and  varied  experience 
and  practical  power,  limited  only  by  the  nature 
of  the  object  for  which  it  is  exerted. 

"It  is  important  beyond  measure  that  such  a 
man's  thoughtful  and  well-considered  opinions 
and  energetic  voice  should  be  heard  in  the 
House  of  Commons. 

"You  have  my  warmest  sympathy  in  your 
candidature  for  Woolwich,  my  best  wishes  that 
you  should  succeed,  even  less  for  your  own  sake 
than  for  that  of  Administration  and  of  England. — 
Pray  believe  me,  ever  your  faithful  servant, 

"  Florence  Nightingale." 


326      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

And  also  the  following  letter  written  to  the 
Buckinghamshire  County  Council  in  1892, 
begging  them  to  appoint  a  sanitary  committee  : — 

"  We  must  create  a  public  opinion  which  will 
drive  the  Government,  instead  of  the  Government 
having  to  drive  us — an  enlightened  public 
opinion,  wise  in  principles,  wise  in  details.  We 
hail  the  County  Council  as  being  or  becoming 
one  of  the  strongest  engines  in  our  favour,  at  once 
fathering  and  obeying  the  great  impulse  for 
national  health  against  national  and  local  disease. 
For  we  have  learned  that  we  have  national 
health  in  our  own  hands — local  sanitation,  national 
health.  But  we  have  to  contend  against 
centuries  of  superstition  and  generations  of 
indifference.  Let  the  County  Council  take 
the  lead." 

And  how  justly,  how  clearly,  she  was  able  to 
weigh  the  work  of  those  who  had  borne  the 
brunt  of  sanitary  inquiry  in  the  Crimea,  with  but 
little  except  kicks  for  their  pains,  may  be  judged 
by  the  following  sentences  from  a  letter  to 
Lady  Tulloch  in  1878  :— 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      327 

"  My  Dear  Lady  Tulloch, — I  give  you  joy, 
I  give  you  both  joy,  for  this  crowding  recognition 
of  one  of  the  noblest  labours  ever  done  on  earth. 
You  yourself  cannot  cling  to  it  more  than  I  do  ; 
hardly  so  much,  in  one  sense,  for  I  saw  how^  Sir 
John  MacNeill's  and  Sir  A.  TuUoch's  reporting 
was  the  salvation  of  the  army  in  the  Crimea. 
Without  them  everything  that  happened  would 
have  been  considered  *  all  right.' 

"  Mr.  Martin's  note  is  perfect,  for  it  does  not 
look  like  an  afterthought,  nor  as  prompted  by 
others,  but  as  the  flow  of  a  generous  and  able  man's 
own  reflection,  and  careful  search  into  authentic 
documents.  Thank  you  again  and  again  for 
sending  it  to  me.  It  is  the  greatest  consolation  I 
could  have  had.  Will  you  remember  me  grate- 
fully to  Mr.  Paget,  also  to  Dr.  Balfour  ?  I  look 
back  upon  these  twenty  years  as  if  they  were  yesterday^ 
but  also  as  if  they  were  a  thousand  years.  Success 
be  with  us  and  the  noble  dead — and  it  has  been 
success. — Yours  ever, 

"Florence  Nightingale." 

We    see    from    this    letter    how    warmly    the 


328      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

old  memories  dwelt  with  her,  even  while 
her  hands  were  full  of  good  work  for  the 
future. 

The  death  of  Lord  Herbert  in  1868  had  been 
a  blow  that  struck  very  deeply  at  her  health  and 
spirits. 

In  all  her  work  of  army  reform  she  had  looked 
up  to  him  as  her  "  Chief,"  hardly  realizing, 
perhaps,  how  much  of  the  initiating  had  been  her 
own.  Their  friendship,  too,  had  been  almost  life- 
long, and  in  every  way  ideal.  The  whole  nation 
mourned  his  loss,  but  only  the  little  intimate  group 
which  centred  in  his  wife  and  children  and  those 
dearest  friends,  of  whom  Miss  Nightingale  was 
one,  knew  fully  all  that  the  country  had  lost 
in  him. 

It  may  be  worth  while  for  a  double  reason  to 
quote  here  from  Mr.  Gladstone's  tribute  at  a 
meeting  held  to  decide  on  a  memorial. 

"To  him,"  said  Gladstone,  "we  owe  the  com- 
mission for  inquiry  into  barracks  and  hospitals ; 
to  him  we  are  indebted  for  the  reorganization  of 
the  medical  department  of  the  army.     To  him 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      329 

we  owe  the  commission  of  inquiry  into,  and  re- 
modelling the  medical  education  of,  the  army. 
And,  lastly,  we  owe  him  the  commission  for 
presenting  to  the  public  the  vital  statistics  of 
the  army  in  such  a  form,  from  time  to  time, 
that  the  great  and  living  facts  of  the  subject  are 
brought  to  view." 

Lord  Herbert  had  toiled  with  ever-deepening 
zeal  to  reform  the  unhealthy  conditions  to  which, 
even  in  times  of  peace,  our  soldiers  had  been 
exposed — so  unhealthy  that,  while  the  mortality 
lists  showed  a  death  of  eight  in  every  thousand  for 
civilians,  for  soldiers  the  number  of  deaths  was 
seventeen  per  thousand.  And  of  every  two 
deaths  in  the  army  it  was  asserted  that  one  was 
preventable.  Lord  Herbert  was  the  heart  and 
soul  of  the  Royal  Commission  to  inquire  into 
these  preventable  causes,  and  through  his  work- 
ing ardour  the  work  branched  forth  into 
four  supplementary  commissions  concerning 
hospitals  and  barracks.  When  he  died.  Miss 
Nightingale  not  only  felt  the  pang  of  parting 
from  one  of  her  oldest  and  most  valued  friends,  but 


330      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

she  also  felt  that  in  this  cause,  so  specially 
dear  to  her  heart,  she  had  lost  a  helper  who 
could  never  be  replaced,  though  she  dauntlessly 
stood  to  her  task  and  helped  to  carry  on  his 
work. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

Multifarious  work  and  many  honours— Jubilee  Nurses — Nursing 
Association — Death  of  father  and  mother — Lady  Verney  and 
her  husband — No  respecter  of  persons — From  within  four 
walls — South  Africa  a?td  America. 

Her  activities  were  so  multitudinous  that  it  is 
difficult  even  to  name  them  all  in  such  a  brief 
sketch  as  this.  Besides  those  at  which  we  have 
already  glanced,  prison  reform,  help  to  Bosnian 
fugitives,  Manchester  Police  Court  Mission  for 
Lads,  Indian  Famine  Fund  —  merely  glancing 
down  two  pages  of  her  biography,  I  find  all 
these  mentioned.  She  was  herself,  of  course, 
decorated  with  the  Red  Cross,  but  M.  Henri 
Dunant's  magnificent  Red  Cross  scheme  for 
helping  the  wounded  on  the  battlefield  may  be 
said  to  have  been  really  the  outcome  of  her  own 
work  and  example.  For  it  was  the  extension 
of  her  own  activities,  by  means  of  the  Red  Cross 


332      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Societies,  which  throughout  the  European  con- 
tinent act  in  concert  with  their  respective  armies 
and  governments. 

She  was  the  first  woman  to  be  decorated  with 
the  Order  of  Merit,  which  was  bestowed  on  her 
in  1907,  and  in  the  following  year  she  received, 
as  the  Baroness  Burdett  Coutts  had  done,  the 
"Freedom  of  the  City  of  London,"  having  already 
been  awarded,  among  many  like  honours,  the 
French  Gold  Medal  of  Secours  aux  blesses  Mili- 
taires,  and  the  German  Order  of  the  Cross  of 
Merit.  On  May  10,  1910,  she  received  the 
badge  of  honour  of  the  Norwegian  Red  Cross 
Society.  But  there  was  another  distinction, 
even  more  unique,  which  was  already  hers.  For 
when  ;^7o,ooo  came  into  Queen  Victoria's  hands 
as  a  gift  from  the  women  of  her  empire  at  the 
time  of  her  Jubilee,  so  much  had  the  Queen  been 
impressed  by  the  work  of  the  Nursing  Associa- 
tion and  all  that  had  been  done  for  the  sick  poor, 
that  the  interest  of  this  Women's  Jubilee  Fund, 
^2,000  a  year,  was  devoted  to  an  Institution  for 
Training  and  Maintaining  Nurses  for  the  Sick 
Poor  ;  and  the  National  Association  for  Providing 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      333 

Trained  Nurses,  which  owed  so  much  to  Miss 
Nightingale,  was  affiliated  with  it,  though  it  still 
keeps  its  old  headquarters  at  23  Bloomsbury 
Square,  where  for  so  many  years  would  arrive 
at  Christmas  from  her  old  home  a  consign- 
ment of  beautiful  holly  and  other  evergreens 
for  Christmas  festivities.  H.R.H.  the  Princess 
Christian  is  President  of  the  Nursing  Associa- 
tion, and  Miss  Nightingale's  old  friend  and 
fellow-worker,  Mr.  Henry  Bonham  Carter,  is 
the  Secretary.  The  influence  of  Miss  Florence 
Lees,  described  by  Kinglake  as  "  the  gifted 
and  radiant  pupil  of  Florence  Nightingale,"  who 
afterwards  became  Mrs.  Dacre  Craven,  and  was 
the  first  Superintendent-General,  has  been  a 
very  vitalizing  influence  there,  and  the  home 
owes  much  also  to  her  husband,  the  Rev.  Dacre 
Craven,  of  St.  Andrew's,  Holborn.  Miss  Nightin- 
gale's warm  friendship  for  Miss  Florence  Lees 
brought  her  into  peculiarly  intimate  relations  with 
the  home,  and  both  the  Association  and  the  Queen's 
Jubilee  Institute  are  the  fruit  of  Miss  Nightingale's 
teaching,  and  a  noble  double  memorial  of  the 
national — nay,  imperial — recognition  of  its  value. 


334      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

The  Royal  Pension  Fund  for  Nurses  also,  in 
which  Queen  Alexandra  was  so  specially  in- 
terested, helped  to  crown  the  fulfilment  of  Miss 
Nightingale's  early  dream  and  long,  steadfast 
life-work. 

But  equally  important,  though  less  striking, 
has  been  the  growing  harvest  of  her  quiet, 
courteous  efforts  to  help  village  mothers  to 
understand  the  laws  of  health,  her  pioneer-work 
in  regard  to  all  the  dangers  of  careless  milk-farms, 
her  insistence  on  the  importance  of  pure  air  as 
well  as  pure  water,  though  she  had  always  been 
careful  to  treat  the  poor  man's  rooftree  as  his 
castle  and  never  to  cross  his  doorstep  except  by 
permission  or  invitation. 

After  the  death  of  her  father  at  Embley  in 
1874 — a  very  peaceful  death,  commemorated  in 
the  inscription  on  his  tomb,  "  In  Thy  light  we 
shall  see  light,"  which  suggests  in  him  a  nature 
at  once  devout  and  sincere — she  was  much  with 
her  mother,  in  the  old  homes  at  Embley  and 
Lea  Hurst,  though  Lea  Hurst  was  the  one  she 
loved  best,  and  the  beech-wood  walk  in  Lea 
Woods,  with  its  radiant  shower  of  golden  leaves 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      335 

in  the  autumn,  for  which  she  would  sometimes 
delay  her  leaving,  is  still  specially  associated  with 
her  memory :  and  her  thoughtfulness  for  the 
poor  still  expressed  itself  in  many  different  ways 
— in  careful  gifts,  for  instance,  through  one 
whom  she  trusted  for  knowledge  and  tact;  in 
her  arrangement  that  pure  milk  should  be  sent 
daily  from  the  home  dairy  at  Lea  Hurst  to  those 
in  need  of  it. 

With  faithful  love  she  tended  her  mother  to 
the  time  of  her  death  in  1880,  and  there  seems 
to  be  a  joyous  thanksgiving  for  that  mother's 
beauty  of  character  in  the  words  the  two  sisters 
inscribed  to  her  memory  :  "  God  is  love — Bless 
the  Lord,  O  my  soul,  and  forget  not  all  His 
benefits." 

After  her  mother's  death,  when  the  property 
had  passed  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  William  Shore 
Nightingale,  she  still  visited  her  kinsman  there 
and  kept  up  her  interest  in  the  people  of  the 
district. 

Among  the  outward  events  of  her  life,  after 
her  return  from  the  Crimea,  one  of  the  earliest 
had  been  the  marriage  of  her  sister  Parthenope, 


336      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

who  in  1858  became  the  second  wife  of  Sir 
Harry  Verney,*  and  her  home  at  Claydon  in 
Buckinghamshire  was  thenceforth  a  second  home 
to  Miss  Nightingale.  It  need  hardly  be  said 
that  in  Sir  Harry  Verney's  various  generous 
schemes  for  the  good  of  the  neighbourhood, 
schemes  in  which  his  wife  cordially  co-operated, 
Miss  Nightingale  took  a  warm  and  sympathetic 
pleasure.  His  keen  interest  in  army  reform  was, 
of  course,  a  special  ground  of  comradeship. 
Miss  Nightingale  divided  her  time  chiefly  be- 
tween her  own  home  in  South  Street,  Park  Lane, 
and  visits  to  the  rooms  that  were  reserved  for 
her  at  Claydon.  One  of  her  great  interests 
while  at  Claydon,  soon  after  her  sister's  marriage, 
had  been  the  building  of  the  new  Buckingham- 
shire Infirmary  in  1 861,  of  which  her  sister  laid 
the  foundation ;  and  her  bust  still  adorns  the 
entrance  hall. 

Mrs.  Tooley  reminds  us  that  not  only  was 
Lady  Verney  well  known  in  literary  and  political 
circles,   but   also   her   books   on  social  questions 

*  Sir  Harry  Verney  died  four  years  later,  and  Claydon  then 
passed  to  Sir  Edmund  Hope  Verney,  the  son  of  his  first  marriage. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      337 

had  the  distinction  of  being  quoted  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  She  gives  many  interesting  details 
with  regard  to  the  philanthropic  and  political 
work  of  Sir  Harry  Verney  and  his  family,  but 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  duplicate  them  here, 
since  her  book  is  still  available.  Lady  Verney's 
death  in  1890,  after  a  long  and  painful  illness, 
following  on  that  of  her  father  and  mother, 
bereaved  Miss  Nightingale  of  a  lifelong  compan- 
ionship, and  might  have  left  her  very  lonely  but 
for  her  absorbing  work  and  her  troops  of  friends. 

How  fruitful  that  work  was  we  may  dimly 
see  when  we  remember  that — to  instance  one 
branch  of  it  only — in  ten  years  the  death-rate 
in  the  army  in  India,  which  her  efforts  so  deter- 
minately  strove  to  lessen,  fell  from  sixty-nine  per 
thousand  to  eighteen  per  thousand.*  She  strove — 
and  not  in  vain — to  improve  the  sanitary  condi- 
tions of  immense  areas  of  undrained  country,  but 
she  also  endeavoured  to  bring  home  to  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  army  individual  teaching. 

She  gives  in  one  of  her  pamphlets  a  delightful 
story  of  men  who  came  to  a  district   in   India 

*  "  Life  of  Florence  Nightingale,"  by  Sarah  Tooley,  p.  295. 
(1,7M)  22 


338      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

supposed  to  be  fatal  to  any  new-comer,  but,  strong 
in  their  new  hygienic  knowledge,  determined  not 
to  have  cholera.  They  lived  carefully,  they  grew 
their  own  garden  produce,  they  did  not  give  way 
to  fear,  and  all^  without  exception,  escaped. 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  Britain,  since  a 
separate  chapter  is  reserved  for  India.  She  was 
before  her  day  in  contending  that  foul  air  was 
one  of  the  great  causes  of  consumption  and  other 
diseases.  And  her  teaching  was  ever  given  with 
courtesy  and  consideration.  How  strongly  she 
felt  on  this  and  kindred  subjects,  and  how  prac- 
tical her  help  was,  we  see  clearly  in  her  letters 
and  pamphlets.  She  delighted  in  making  festivi- 
ties for  companies  of  nurses  and  of  her  other 
hard-working  friends.  And  in  St.  Paul's  fine 
sense  of  the  phrase,  she  was  no  "  respecter  of 
persons " :  she  reverenced  personality,  not  acci- 
dental rank.  She  had  no  patience  with  those 
visiting  ladies  who  think  they  may  intrude  at 
all  hours  of  the  day  into  the  homes  of  the  poor, 
and  her  quick  sense  of  humour  delighted  in 
many  of  the  odd  speeches  which  would  have 
shocked  the  prim  and  conventional.     She  thought 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      339 

the  highest  compliment  ever  paid  to  her  staff 
of  nurses  who  visited  in  the  homes  of  the  poor 
was  the  speech  of  the  grubby  ragamuffin,  who 
seemed  to  think  they  could  wash  off  even  the 
blackness  of  the  Arch-fiend  and,  when  being 
scrubbed,  cried  out,   "  You  may  bathe  the  divil." 

But  with  all  her  fun  and  relish  of  life,  how 
sane,  how  practical,  she  was  ! 

Do  you  remember  how  she  laughed  at  the 
silly  idea  that  nothing  was  needed  to  make  a 
good  nurse  except  what  the  "  Early  Victorian  " 
used  to  call  "  a  disappointment  in  love  "  ? 

Here  are  other  of  her  shrewd  sayings  from 
her  Nursing  Notes: — 

"  Another  extraordinary  fallacy  is  the  dread 
of  night  air.  What  air  can  we  breathe  at  night 
but  night  air  ?  The  choice  is  between  pure 
night  air  from  without  and  foul  air  from  within. 
Most  people  prefer  the  latter.  .  .  .  Without 
cleanliness  within  and  without  your  house,  ven- 
tilation is  comparatively  useless.  .  .  .  And  now, 
you  think  these  things  trifles,  or  at  least  ex- 
aggerated.      But   what   you   '  think '  or  what  I 


340      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

'think'  matters  little.  Let  us  see  what  God 
thinks  of  them.  God  always  justifies  His  ways. 
While  we  are  thinking,  He  has  been  teaching. 
I  have  known  cases  of  hospital  pyaemia  quite  as 
severe  in  handsome  private  houses  as  in  any  of 
the  worst  hospitals,  and  from  the  same  cause — 
viz.,  foul  air.  Yet  nobody  learnt  the  lesson. 
Nobody  learnt  anything  at  all  from  it.  They 
went  on  thinking — thinking  that  the  sufferer  had 
scratched  his  thumb,  or  that  it  was  singular  that 
'  all  the  servants '  had  '  whitlows,'  or  that  some- 
thing was  '  much  about  this  year.' " 

If  there  had  been  any  hope  at  first  that  Miss 
Nightingale  might  grow  strong  enough  to  stand 
visibly  among  those  who  were  being  trained  as 
nurses  by  the  fund  raised  in  her  honour,  that 
hope  was  now  past,  and  when  the  great  new 
wing  of  St.  Thomas's  was  built — the  finest  build- 
ing for  its  purpose  in  Europe — the  outward  reins 
of  government  had  to  be  delivered  over  into  the 
hands  of  another,  though  hers  was  throughout 
the  directing  hand.  And  the  results  of  her  work 
are  written  in  big  type  upon  the  page  of  history. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      341 

In  India  and  America  she  is  acclaimed  as  an 
adored  benefactress,  but  what  has  she  not  done 
for  our  own  country  alone  ?  To  sum  up  even 
a  few  of  the  points  on  which  I  have  touched : 
she  initiated  sick  nursing  among  the  poor, 
through  her  special  appeal  was  built  the  Central 
Home  for  Nurses,  she  was  the  pioneer  in  the 
hygienic  work  of  county  councils,  and,  besides 
the  great  nursing  school  at  St.  Thomas's,  to 
her  was  largely  due  the  reform  of  nursing  in 
workhouses  and  infirmaries.  And  in  1890,  with 
the  ^70,000  of  the  Women's  Jubilee  Fund,  the 
establishment  of  the  Queen's  Nurses  received  its 
charter. 

In  affairs  of  military  nursing  it  is  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  she  was  consulted  throughout 
the  world.  America  came  to  her  in  the  Civil 
War  ;  South  Africa  owed  much  to  her  ;  India 
infinitely  more  ;  and  so  vital  have  been  the 
reforms  introduced  by  Lord  Herbert  and  herself 
that  even  as  early  as  1880,  when  General 
Gordon  was  waging  war  in  China  during  the 
Taiping  Rebellion,  the  death-rate  as  compared 
with    the   Crimea   was   reduced   from   sixty   per 


342      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

cent,  to  little  more  than  three  in  every  hundred 
yearly.''^ 

We  have  seen  that,  though  she  was  so  much 
more  seriously  broken  in  health  than  any  one 
at  first  realized,  that  did  not  prevent  her  in- 
cessant work,  though  it  did  in  the  end  make 
her  life  more  or  less  a  hidden  life,  spent  within 
four  walls,  and  chiefly  on  her  bed. 

Yet  from  those  four  walls  what  electric 
messages  of  help  and  common  sense  were  con- 
tinuously flashing  across  the  length  and  breadth  of 
the  world  !  She  was  regarded  as  an  expert  in 
her  own  subjects,  and  long  before  her  Jubilee 
Fund  enabled  her  to  send  forth  the  Queen's 
Nurses,  she  was,  as  we  have  already  seen,  busy 
writing  and  working  to  improve  not  only  nurs- 
ing in  general,  but  especially  the  nursing  of 
the  sick  poor  ;  and  unceasingly  she  still  laboured 
for  the  army. 

Repeated  mention  has  been  made  of  General 
Evatt,  to  whose  memory  of  Miss  Nightingale 
I  am  much  indebted. 

General    Evatt    served    in    the    last    Afghan 

*  See  "life  of  Florence  Nightingale,"  by  Sarah  Tooley,  p.  268. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      343 

campaign,  and  what  he  there  experienced  deter- 
mined him  to  seek  an  interview,  as  soon  as 
he  returned  to  England,  with  her  whom  he 
regarded  as  the  great  reformer  of  military  hygiene 
— Florence  Nightingale.  In  this  way  and  on 
this  subject  there  arose  between  them  a  delight- 
ful and  enduring  friendship.  Many  and  many  a 
time  in  that  quiet  room  in  South  Street  where 
she  lay  upon  her  bed — its  dainty  coverlet  all 
strewn  with  the  letters  and  papers  that  might 
have  befitted  the  desk  or  office  of  a  busy  states- 
man, and  surrounded  by  books  and  by  the  flowers 
that  she  loved  so  well — he  had  talked  with  her 
for  four  hours  on  end,  admiring  with  a  sort 
of  wonder  her  great  staying  power  and  her 
big,  untiring  brain. 

He  did  not,  like  another  acquaintance  of  mine, 
say  that  he  came  away  feeling  like  a  sucked 
orange,  with  all  hoarded  knowledge  on  matters 
great  and  small  gently,  resistlessly  drawn  from 
him  by  his  charming  companion  ;  but  so  vora- 
cious was  the  eager,  sympathetic  interest  of  Miss 
Niehtingale  in  the  men  and  women  of  that  active 
world  whose  streets,  at  the  time  he  learned  to 


344     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

know  her,  she  no  longer  walked,  that  no  con- 
versation on  human  affairs  ever  seemed,  he  said, 
to  tire  her. 

And  her  mind  was  ever  working  towards  new 
measures  for  the  health  and  uplifting  of  her 
fellow-creatures. 

We  have  seen  how  eager  she  was  to  use  for 
good  every  municipal  opportunity,  but  she  did 
not  stop  at  the  municipality,  for  she  knew  that 
there  are  many  womanly  duties  also  at  the 
imperial  hearth  ;  and  without  entering  on  any 
controversy,  it  is  necessary  to  state  clearly  that 
she  very  early  declared  herself  in  favour  of 
household  suffrage  for  women,  and  that  "  the 
North  of  England  Society  for  Women's  Suffrage 
is  the  proud  possessor  of  her  signature  to  an 
address  to  Mr.  Disraeli,  thanking  him  for  his 
favourable  vote  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
begging  him  to  do  his  utmost  to  remove  the 
injustice  under  which  women  householders 
suffered  by  being  deprived  of  the  parliamentary 
vote.' 


»»  * 


*  "  Florence  Nightingale,"  a   Cameo  Life-Sketch   by  Marioi) 
Holmes. 


^ 


Florence  Nightingale's  London  House,   lo  South  Street, 

Park  Lane  (house  with  balcony),  where  she  died, 

August   14,   1 9 10. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      345 

Whatever  could  aid  womanly  service — as  a 
voice  in  choosing  our  great  domestic  executive 
nowadays  undoubtedly  can — had  her  sympathy 
and  interest  ;  but  what  she  emphasized  most, 
I  take  it,  at  all  times,  was  that  when  any  door 
opened  for  service,  woman  should  be  not  only 
willing,  but  also  nobly  efficient.  She  herself 
opened  many  such  doors,  and  her  lamp  was 
always  trimmed  and  filled  and  ready  to  give  light 
and  comfort  in  the  darkest  room. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  in  describing  a  friend 
in  the  following  words,  she  unconsciously  drew 
a  picture  of  herself : — 

"  She  had  the  gracefulness,  the  wit,  the 
unfailing  cheerfulness — qualities  so  remarkable, 
but  so  much  overlooked,  in  our  Saviour's  life. 
She  had  the  absence  of  all  '  mortification  '  for 
mortification's  sake,  which  characterized  His 
work,  and  any  real  work  in  the  present  day 
as  in  His  day.  And  how  did  she  do  all  this  ? 
.  .  .  She  was  always  filled  with  the  thought 
that  she  must  be  about  her  Father's  business." 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

India — Correspondence  with  Sir  Bar  tie  Frere — Interest  in  village 
girls — The  Lamp. 

We  come  now  to  Miss  Nightingale's  most 
monumental  achievement  of  all,  the  reform  of 
sanitary  conditions  in  India — a  reform  ever 
widening  and  developing,  branching  forth  and 
striking  its  roots  deeper.  Her  interest  in  that 
vast  population,  that  world-old  treasury  of  subtle 
religious  thought  and  ever-present  mystical  faith, 
may  perhaps  have  been  in  part  an  inheritance 
from  the  Anglo-Indian  Governor  who  was 
counted  in  her  near  ancestry.  But  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  her  ardent  and  practical 
desire  to  improve  the  conditions  of  camp  life 
in  India  began  in  her  intimate  care  for  the 
soldiers,  and  her  close  knowledge  of  many  things 
unknown  to  the  ordinary  English  subject.  The 
world-wide  freemasonry  of  the  rank  and  file  in 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      347 

our  army  enabled  her  to  hear  while  at  Scutari 
much  of  the  life  of  the  army  in  the  vast  and 
distant  dominions  of  Burma  and  Bengal,  and 
she  had  that  gift  for  seeing  through  things  to 
their  farthest  roots  which  enabled  her  to  perceive 
clearly  that  no  mere  mending  of  camp  conditions 
could  stay  the  continual  ravages  of  disease  among 
our  men.  The  evil  was  deeper  and  wider,  and 
only  as  conditions  were  improved  in  sanitary  mat- 
ters could  the  mortality  of  the  army  be  lessened. 
She  saw,  and  saw  clearly,  that  the  reason  chil- 
dren died  like  flies  in  India,  so  that  those  who 
loved  them  best  chose  the  agony  of  years  of  part- 
ing rather  than  take  the  risks,  lay  not  so  much 
in  the  climate  as  in  the  human  poisons  and 
putrefactions  so  carelessly  treated  and  so  quickly 
raised  to  murder-power  by  the  extreme  heat. 

Much  of  this  comes  out  clearly  in  her  letter 
to  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  with  whom  her  first  ground 
of  friendship  had  arisen  out  of  their  common 
interest  in  sanitary  matters. 

What  manner  of  man  Sir  Bartle  was  may  be 
divined  from  a  letter  to  him  written  by  Colonel 
W.   F.    Marriott,   one  of  the  secretaries  of  the 


348      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

Bombay  Government,  at  the  time  of  his  leaving 
Bombay  : — 

"  The  scene  of  your  departure  stirred  me 
much.  That  bright  evening,  the  crow^d  on  the 
pier  and  shore  as  the  boat  put  off,  the  music 
from  the  Octavia^  as  the  band  played  '  Auld 
Lang  Syne  '  as  we  passed,  were  all  typical  and 
impressive  by  association  of  ideas.  But  it  was 
not  a  shallow  sympathy  with  which  I  took  in 
all  the  circumstances.  I  could  divine  some  of 
your  thoughts.  If  I  felt  like  Sir  Bedivere,  left 
behind  '  among  new  men,  strange  faces,  other 
minds,'  you  must  have  felt  in  some  degree  like 
King  Arthur  in  the  barge,  '  I  have  lived  my 
life,  and  that  which  I  have  done  may  He 
Himself  make  pure.'  I  do  not  doubt  that  you 
felt  that  all  this  '  mouth  honour  '  is  only  worth 
so  far  as  it  is  the  seal  of  one's  own  approving 
conscience,  and  though  you  could  accept  it  freely 
as  deserved  from  their  lips,  yet  at  that  hour  you 
judged  your  own  work  hardly.  You  measured 
the  palpable  results  with  your  conceptions  and 
hopes,  and  were  inclined  to  sav,  '  T  am  no  better 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      349 

than  my  fathers.'  But  I,  judging  now  calmly 
and  critically,  feel — I  may  say,  see — that  though 
the  things  that  seem  to  have  failed  be  amongst 
those  for  which  you  have  taken  most  pains,  yet 
they  are  small  things  compared  with  the  work 
which  has  not  failed.  You  have  made  an 
impression  of  earnest  human  sympathy  with  the 
people  of  this  country,  which  will  deepen  and 
expand,  so  that  it  will  be  felt  as  a  perpetual 
witness  against  any  narrower  and  less  noble 
conception  of  our  relation  to  them,  permanently 
raising  the  moral  standard  of  highest  policy 
towards  them  ;  and  your  name  will  become  a 
traditional  embodiment  of  a  good  governor.'*  * 

Frere  had  seen  that  the  filthy  condition  of 
many  of  the  roads,  after  the  passing  of  animals 
and  the  failure  to  cleanse  from  manure,  was  of 
itself  a  source  of  poison,  though  the  relation  be- 
tween garbage  and  disease-bearing  flies  was  then 
less  commonly  understood,  and  he  was  never  tired 
of  urging  the  making  of  decent  roads  ;  but  this, 

*  "Life   of  Sir   Bartle    Frere,"    by  John  Martineau.      (John 
Murray.) 


350     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

he  knew,  was  only  a  very  small  part  of  the  im- 
provements needed. 

His  correspondence  with  Miss  Nightingale 
began  in  1867,  and  in  that  and  the  five  following 
years  they  exchanged  about  one  hundred  letters, 
chiefly  on  sanitary  questions. 

It  was  part  of  her  genius  always  to  see  and 
seize  her  opportunity,  and  she  rightly  thought 
that,  as  she  says  in  one  of  her  letters,  "  We 
might  never  have  such  a  favourable  conjunction 
of  the  larger  planets  again  : 

"  You,  who  are  willing  and  most  able  to 
organize  the  machinery  here  ;  Sir  John  Lawrence, 
who  is  able  and  ^willing,  provided  only  he  knew 
what  to  do  ;  and  a  Secretary  of  State  who  is 
willing  and  in  earnest.  And  I  believe  nothing 
would  bring  them  to  their  senses  in  India  more 
than  an  annual  report  of  what  they  have  done,  with 
your  comments  upon  it,  laid  before  Parliament." 

In  order  to  set  in  motion  the  machinery  of  a 
sanitary  department  for  all  India,  a  despatch  had 
to  be  written,  pointing  out  clearly  and  concisely 
what  was  to  be  done. 

Frere    consulted    Miss    Nightingale    at   every 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      351 

point  about  this  despatch,  but  spoke  of  the 
necessity  for  some  sort  of  peg  to  hang  it  on 
— "  not,"  he  said,  "  that  the  Secretary  of  State  is 
at  all  lukewarm,  nor,  I  think,  that  he  has  any 
doubt  as  to  what  should  be  said,  or  how — that, 
I  think,  your  memoranda  have  fixed  ;  the  only 
difficulty  is  as  to  the  when.   .   .   . 

"  No  governor-general,  I  believe,  since  the 
time  of  Clive  has  had  such  powers  and  such 
opportunities,  but  he  fancies  the  want  of  progress 
is  owing  to  some  opposing  power  which  does 
not  exist  anywhere  but  in  his  own  imagination. 

"  He  cannot  see  that  perpetual  inspection  by 
the  admiral  of  the  drill  and  kit  of  every  sailor  is 
not  the  way  to  make  the  fleet  efficient,  and  he 
gets  disheartened  and  depressed  because  he  finds 
that  months  and  years  of  this  squirrel-like  activity 
lead  to  no  real  progress." 

The  despatch  with  its  accompanying  documents 
went  to  Miss  Nightingale  for  her  remarks  before  it 
was  sent  out.    Her  commentary  was  as  follows  : — 

"  I  find  nothing  to  add  or  to  take  away  in  the 
memorandum  (sanitary).     It  appears  to  me  quite 


352      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

perfect  in  itself — that  is,  it  is  quite  as  much  as 
the  enemy  will  bear,  meaning  by  the  enemy — 
not  at  all  the  Government  of  India  in  India, 
still  less  the  Government  of  India  at  home,  but 
— that  careless  and  ignorant  person  called  the 
Devil,  who  is  always  walking  about  taking 
knowledge  out  of  people's  heads,  who  said  that 
he  was  coming  to  give  us  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil,  and  who  has  done  just  the 
contrary. 

"  It  is  a  noble  paper,  an  admirable  paper — 
and  what  a  present  to  make  to  a  government  ! 
You  have  included  in  it  all  the  great  principles 
— sanitary  and  administrative — which  the  country 
requires.  And  now  you  must  work,  work  these 
points  until  they  are  embodied  in  local  works  in 
India.  This  will  not  be  in  our  time,  for  it  takes 
more  than  a  few  years  to  fill  a  continent  with 
civilization.  But  I  never  despair  that  in  God's 
good  time  every  man  of  us  will  reap  the  common 
benefit  of  obeying  all  the  laws  which  He  has 
given  us  for  our  well-being. 

"  I  shall  give  myself  the  pleasure  of  writing  to 
you  again  about  these  papers.     But  I  write  this 


Florence    Nightingale    in    her    Last    Days. 

{.From  a  drawing  from  memory.     Copyright  A.  Rischgitz.) 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      353 

note  merely  to  say  that  I  don't  think  this  mem- 
orandum requires  any  addition. 

"  God  bless  you  for  it  !  I  think  it  is  a  great 
work."* 

It  was  a  great  work,  and  it  might  have  been 
delayed  for  scores  of  years,  with  a  yearly  un- 
necessary waste  of  thousands  of  lives,  if  she  had 
not  initiated  it. 

Her  words  to  Sir  Bartle  Frere  at  the  outset 
had  been  :  '*  It  does  seem  that  there  is  no  element 
in  the  scheme  of  government  (of  India)  by  which 
the  public  health  can  be  taken  care  of.  And  the 
thing  is  now  to  create  such  an  element." 

As  early  as  1863,  in  her  "  Observations  on  the 
Sanitary  State  of  the  Army  in  India,"  she  had 
written  : — 

"  Native  *  caste  '  prejudices  appear  to  have 
been  made  the  excuse  for  European  laziness,  as 
far  as  regards  our  sanitary  and  hospital  neglects 
of  the  natives.  Recent  railroad  experience  is 
a  striking  proof  that  '  caste,'  in  their  minds,  is 
*  "Life  of  Sir  Baxtle  Frere,"  by  John  Martineau.    (John  Murray.) 

(1.W4)  23 


354      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

no   bar  to  intercommunication   in   arrangements 
tending  to  their  benefit." 

Sir  C.  Trevelyan  justly  says  that  "  a  good  sani- 
tary state  of  the  military  force  cannot  be  secured 
without  making  similar  arrangements  for  the 
populations  settled  in  and  around  the  military 
cantonments ;  that  sanitary  reform  must  be 
generally  introduced  into  India  for  the  civil  as 
well  as  the  military  portion  of  the  community." 

And  now  that  the  opportunity  arrived,  all  was 
done  with  wise  and  swift  diplomacy.  The  way 
was  smoothed  by  a  call  from  Frere  on  his  old 
friend  Sir  Richard  Temple,  at  that  time  Finance 
Minister  at  Calcutta,  asking  him  to  help. 

Those  who  know  India  best,  and  know  Miss 
Nightingale  best,  are  those  who  are  most  aware 
of  the  mighty  tree  of  ever-widening  health  im- 
provement that  grew  from  this  little  seed,  and 
of  the  care  with  which  Miss  Nightingale  helped 
to  guard  and  foster  it. 

"  She  was  a  great  Indian,"  her  friend  General 
Evatt  repeated  to  me  more  than  once,  "  and 
what  a  head  she  had  !     She  was  the  only  human 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      355 

being  I  have  ever  met,  for  instance,  man  or 
woman,  who  had  thoroughly  mastered  the  intri- 
cate details  of  the  Bengal  land-purchase  system. 
She  loved  India,  and  she  knew  it  through  and 
through.  It  was  no  wonder  that  every  dis- 
tinguished Indian  who  came  to  England  went 
to  see  Miss  Nightingale." 

She  bore  her  ninety  years  very  lightly,  and 
made  a  vision  serene  and  noble,  as  will  be  seen 
from  our  picture,  though  that  does  not  give  the 
lovely  youthful  colouring  in  contrast  with  the 
silvery  hair,  and  we  read  of  the  great  expressive- 
ness of  her  hands,  which,  a  little  more,  perhaps, 
than  is  usual  with  Englishwomen,  she  used  in 
conversation. 

It  was  a  very  secluded  life  that  she  lived  at 
No.  10  South  Street  ;  but  she  was  by  no  means 
without  devotees,  and  the  bouquet  that  the 
German  Emperor  sent  her  was  but  one  of  many 
offerings  from  many  high-hearted  warriors  at 
her  shrine. 

And  when  she  visited  her  old  haunts  at  Lea 
Hurst  and  Embley  she  delighted  in  sending 
invitations    to    the    girls    growing    up    in    those 


356      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

village  families  that  she  had  long  counted  among 
her  friends,  so  that  to  her  tea-table  were  lovingly 
welcomed  guests  very  lowly,  as  well  as  those 
better  known  to  the  world. 

Her  intense  and  sympathetic  interest  in  all 
the  preparations  for  nursing  in  the  South  African 
campaign  has  already  been  touched  upon,  as  well 
as  her  joy  that  some  of  her  own  nurses  from 
among  the  first  probationers  at  St.  Thomas's 
were  accepted  in  that  enterprise  with  praise  and 
gratitude. 

It  would  be  a  serious  omission  not  to  refer  my 
readers  to  a  very  moving  letter  which  she  wrote 
to  Cavaliere  Sebastiano  Fenzi,  during  the  Italian 
War  of  Independence  in  1866,  of  which  a  part 
is  given  in  Mrs.  Tooley's  book,  and  from  which 
I  am  permitted  to  quote  the  following: — 

"  I  have  given  dry  advice  as  dryly  as  I  could. 
But  you  must  permit  me  to  say  that  if  there 
is  anything  I  could  do  for  you  at  any  time,  and 
you  would  command  me,  I  should  esteem  it  the 
greatest  honour  and  pleasure.  I  am  a  hopeless 
invalid,    entirely   a    prisoner    to    my   room,    and 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      357 

overwhelmed  with  business.  Otherwise  how 
gladly  would  I  answer  to  your  call  and  come 
and  do  my  little  best  for  you  in  the  dear  city 
where  I  was  born.  If  the  giving  my  miserable 
life  could  hasten  your  success  but  by  half  an 
hour,  how  gladly  would  I  give  it  !  " 

How  far  she  was  ahead  of  her  time  becomes 
every  day  more  obvious ;  for  every  day  the 
results  of  her  teaching  are  gradually  making 
themselves  felt.  For  example,  it  can  no  longer, 
without  qualification,  be  said,  as  she  so  truly  said 
in  her  own  day,  that  while  "  the  coxcombries  of 
education  are  taught  to  every  schoolgirl "  there  is 
gross  ignorance,  not  only  among  schoolgirls,  but 
also  even  among  mothers  and  nurses,  with  regard 
to  "  those  laws  which  God  has  assigned  to  the 
relations  of  our  bodies  with  the  world  in  which 
He  has  put  them.  In  other  words,  the  laws 
which  make  these  bodies,  into  which  He  has 
put  our  minds,  healthy  or  unhealthy  organs  of 
those  minds,  are  all  but  unlearnt.  Not  but  that 
these  laws — the  laws  of  life — are  in  a  certain 
measure  understood,  but  not  even  mothers  think 


358      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

it  worth  their  while  to  study  them — to  study 
how  to  give  their  children  healthy  existences. 
They  call  it  medical  or  physiological  knowledge, 
fit  only  for  doctors." 

In  her  old  age,  loved  and  honoured  far  and 
wide,  she  toiled  on  with  all  the  warm  enthusiasm 
of  a  girl,  and  the  ripe  wisdom  of  fourscore 
years  and  ten  spent  in  the  service  of  her  one 
Master,  for  she  was  not  of  those  who  ever 
tried  to  serve  two.  And  when  she  died  at 
No.  lo  South  Street,  on  August  lo,  19 lo — 
died  so  peacefully  that  the  tranquil  glow  of 
sunset  descended  upon  her  day  of  harvest — the 
following  beautiful  incident  was  recorded  in 
Nursing  Notes,  to  whose  editor  I  am  specially 
indebted  for  bringing  to  my  notice  the  verses  in 
which  the  story  is  told  *  : — 

"  At  Chelsea,  under  the  lime  tree's  stir, 
I  read  the  news  to  a  pensioner 
That  a  noble  lord  and  a  judge  were  dead — 
*  They  were  younger  men  than  me,'  he  said. 

"  I  read  again  of  another  death ; 
The  old  man  turned,  and  caught  his  breath — 


*  "The  Lady  of  the  Lamp,"  by  F.  S.,  reprinted  from  the  Evening 
News  of  August  16,  1 910,  in  Nursing  Notes  of  September  i,  1910. 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      359 

'  She's  gone  ? '  he  said ;  *  she  too  ?     In  camp 
We  called  her  the  Lady  of  the  Lamp.' 

"  He  would  not  listen  to  what  I  read, 
But  wanted  it  certain — *  The  Lady's  dead  ?  * 
I  showed  it  him  to  remove  his  doubt, 
And  added,  unthinking,  '  The  Lamp  is  out.' 

"  He  rose — and  I  had  to  help  him  stand — 
Then,  as  he  saluted  with  trembling  hand, 
I  was  abashed  to  hear  him  say, 
*  The  Lamp  she  lit  is  alight  to-day.' " 

F.  S. 


CHAPTER   XXIIL 

A  brief  summing  up. 

Those  who  write  of  Florence  Nightingale 
sentimentally,  as  though  she  spent  herself  in 
a  blind,  caressing  tenderness,  would  have  earned 
her  secret  scorn,  not  unflavoured  by  a  jest  ;  for 
she  stood  always  at  the  opposite  pole  from  the 
sentimentalists,  and  perhaps  had  a  little  of  her 
father  in  her — that  father  who,  when  he  was 
giving  right  and  left,  would  say  to  some  plausible 
beggar  of  society  who  came  to  him  for  whole- 
sale subscriptions,  "  You  see,  I  was  not  born 
generous,"  well  knowing  that  his  ideas  of 
generosity  and  theirs  differed  by  a  whole  heaven, 
and  that  his  were  the  wider  and  the  more 
generous  of  the  two. 

She  had  a  will  of  iron.  That  is  what  one  of 
her  greatest  admirers  has  more  than  once  said  to 
me — and  he  knew  her  well.     No  doubt  it  was 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      361 

true.      Only  a  will  of  iron  could  have   enabled 
a    delicate   woman   to    serve,   for    twenty   hours 
at     a    time,    with    unwearying    tenderness    and 
courage    among    the    wounded    and    the    dying. 
Even  her  iron  resolution  and  absolute  fearlessness 
could  not  prevent  her  from  taking  Crimean  fever 
when    she    insisted    on   visiting    a    second    time 
the   lonely   typhus   patient   outside   Balaclava,  at 
a    moment   when    she   was   worn   out    with    six 
months  of  nursing  and  administration  combined. 
But  it  did   enable   her  to  go   back  to   her  post 
when   barely   recovered,   and,  later  in  life,   even 
when  a  prisoner  within  four  walls,  who  seldom 
left   her   bed,   that   will  of  iron   did  enable   her 
to    go  on  labouring  till  the  age  of  ninety,  and 
to   fulfil  for   the   good  of   mankind   the   dearest 
purpose  of  her  heart.     Nothing  is  harder  than 
iron,  and  that  which  is  made  of  it  after  it  has 
been  through  the  furnace  has  long  been  the  very 
symbol    of   loyalty    and    uprightness    when    we 
say  of  a  man  that  he  is  "  true  as  steel." 

Yes,  iron  is  hard  and  makes  a  pillar  of  strength 
in  time  of  need.  But  he  who  forges  out  of 
it  weapons  and   tools  that  are  at   once  delicate 


362      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

and  resistless,  knows  that  it  will  humbly  shoe 
the  feet  of  horses,  and  cut  the  household  bread, 
and  will  make  for  others  besides  Lombardy  a 
kingly  crown.  And  when  iron  is  truly  on  fire, 
nothing  commoner  or  softer  nor  anything  more 
yielding — not  even  gold  itself — can  glow  with  a 
more  steadfast  and  fervent  heat  to  warm  the 
hands  and  hearts  of  men. 

The  picture  of  Miss  Nightingale  that  dwells 
in  the  popular  mind  no  doubt  owes  its  outline 
to  the  memories  of  the  men  she  nursed  with  such 
tenderness  and  skill.  And  it  is  a  true  picture. 
Like  all  good  workmen,  she  loved  her  work,  and 
nursing  was  her  chosen  work  so  long  as  her 
strength  remained.  None  can  read  her  writing, 
and  especially  her  Nursing  Notes  and  her  pam- 
phlet on  nursing  among  the  sick  poor,  without 
feeling  how  much  she  cared  for  every  minutest 
detail,  and  how  sensitively  she  felt  with,  and  for, 
her  patients. 

But  such  a  picture,  as  will  have  been  made 
clear  by  this  time,  shows  only  one  aspect  of  her 
life-work.  One  of  her  nearest  intimates  writes 
to  me  of  her  difficulties  in   reforming  military 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      363 

hospitals,  and  her  determination  therefore  to  give 
herself  later  in  life  to  the  reform  of  civiHan 
nursing  ;  but  in  reaUty  she  did  both,  for  through 
the  one  she  indirectly  influenced  the  other,  and 
began  what  has  been  widening  and  unfolding  in 
every  direction  ever  since. 

Those  who  knew  her  best  speak  almost  with 
awe  of  her  constructive  and  organizing  power. 
She   was    indeed    a    pioneer   and    a    leader,   and 
girt  about  with  the  modesty  of  all  true  greatness. 
Like  Joan  of  Arc,  she  heeded  not  the  outward 
voices,     but,    through    all    faults    and    sorrows, 
sought  to  follow  always  and  only  the  voice  of  the 
Divine   One.     This    gave    her    life    unity    and 
power.     And  when  she  passed  on  into  the  hfe 
beyond,  the  door  opened  and  closed  again  very 
quietly,  leaving  the  whole  world  the  better  for 
her  ninety  years  in  our  midst.     "  When  I  have 
done  with  this  old  suit,"  says  George  Meredith, 
"  so    much    in    need    of   mending  ; "    but    hers, 
like  his,  was  a  very  charming  suit  to  the  last,  and 
even  to  the  end  of  her  ninety  years  the  colour- 
ing was  clear  and  fresh  as  a  girl's. 

Like  all  strong,  true,  disinterested  people,  she 


364     FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

made  enemies — where  is  there  any  sanitary  re- 
former who  does  not  ? — yet  seldom  indeed  has 
any  one,  man  or  woman,  won  deeper  and  more 
world-wide  love.  But  that  was  not  her  aim ; 
her  aim  was  to  do  the  will  of  her  Commander 
and  leave  the  world  better  than  she  found  it. 

Seldom  has  there  been  a  moment  when 
women  have  more  needed  the  counsel  given 
in  one  of  the  letters  here  published  for  the  first 
time,  when  she  begs  of  a  dear  friend  that  her 
name  may  be  that  "  of  one  who  obeys  authority, 
however  unreasonable,  in  the  name  of  Him  who 
is  above  all,  and  who  is  Reason  itself." 

And  as  we  think  of  the  debt  the  world  owes 
to  Florence  Nightingale  and  of  all  she  did  for 
England,  for  India,  and  not  only  for  the  British 
Empire,  but  for  the  world,  we  may  well  pause 
for  a  moment  on  the  words  that  closed  our 
opening  chapter,  in  which  she  begs  her  fellow- 
workers  to  give  up  considering  their  actions 
in  any  light  of  rivalry  as  between  men  and 
women,  and  ends  with  an  entreaty  : — 

"  It   does    not    make    a    thing   good,    that    it 


FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE.      365 

is  remarkable  that  a  woman  should  have  been 
able  to  do  it.  Neither  does  it  make  a  thing 
bad,  which  would  have  been  good  had  a  man 
done  it,  that  it  has  been  done  by  a  woman. 

"  Oh,  leave  these  jargons,  and  go  your  way 
straight  to  God's  work,  in  simplicity  and  single- 
ness of  heart." 

The  well-remembered  words  of  Ruskin's  ap- 
peal to  girls  in  "  Sesame  and  Lilies,"  published 
but  a  few  years  earlier,  were  evidently  in  Miss 
Nightingale's  mind  when  she  wrote  the  closing 
sentences  of  her  tribute  to  Agnes  Jones  — 
sentences  which  set  their  seal  upon  this  volume, 
and  will  echo  long  after  it  is  forgotten. 

"  Let  us,"  she  writes,  "  add  living  flowers  to 
her  grave,  'lilies  with  full  hands,'  not  fleeting 
primroses,  nor  dying  flowers.  Let  us  bring  the 
work  of  our  hands  and  our  heads  and  our  hearts 
to  finish  her  work  which  God  has  so  blessed. 
Let  us  not  merely  rest  in  peace,  but  let  hers  be 
the  life  which  stirs  up  to  fight  the  good  fight 
against  vice  and  sin  and  misery  and  wretchedness. 


366      FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE. 

as  she  did — the  call  to  arms  which  she  was  ever 
obeying  : — 

'  The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war — 
Who  follows  in  His  train  ? ' 

"  O  daughters   ot   God,  are   there  so  few   to 
answer  f  " 


APPENDIX. 


LIST   OF    PUBLICATIONS 
BY     FLORENCE     NIGHTINGALE. 

Letter  (on  the  Madras  Famine)  :  The  Great 
Lesson  of  the  Indian  Famine,  etc.      1877. 

Life  or  Death  in  India.  A  Paper  read  at  the 
Meeting  of  the  National  Association  for  the 
Promotion  of  Social  Science,  Norwich,  1873, 
with  an  Appendix  on  Life  or  Death  by 
Irrigation.      1874. 

Notes  on  Hospitals  :  being  two  Papers  read 
before  the  National  Association  for  the  Pro- 
motion of  Science  .  .  .  1858,  with  the 
evidence  given  to  the  Royal  Commissioners 
on  the  state  of  the  Army  in  1857  (Appendix, 
Sites  and  Construction  of  Hospitals,  etc.). 

Do.,  3rd  Edition,  enlarged,  and  for  the  most 
part  rewritten.     1863. 


368  APPENDIX. 

Notes     on      Matters      affecting      the      Health, 

Efficiency,   and   Hospital   Administration    of 

the    British   Army,   founded   chiefly   on   the 

experience  of  the  late  war.      1858. 
Notes  on  Nursing  :    What  it  is,  and  what  it  is 

not.      i860. 
New    Edition,     revised     and     enlarged,     i860  ; 

another  Edition,  1876. 
Miss  Florence  Nightingale  ovy  knitra  o  osctfovani 

nemocnych.  z  anglickeho  prelozila.  Krdlova, 

1872. 
Des  Soins  a  donner  aux  malades  ce  qu'il    faut 

faire,  ce  qu'il  faut  eviter.  Ouvrage  traduit  de 

1' Anglais.     1862. 
Notes    on    Nursing    for  the   Labouring  Classes, 

with  a  Chapter  on  Children.      1861. 
Do.,  New  Edition,  1868  and  1876. 
Observations  on  the  .   .   .   Sanitary  State  of  the 

Army  in  India.     Reprinted  from  the  Report 

of  the  Royal  Commission.      1863. 
On  Trained  Nursing  for  the  Sick  Poor  ...  A 

Letter  ...  to  The  Times  .  .  .  April  14,  1876. 
Sanitary   Statistics    of   Native    Nursing    Schools 

and  Hospitals.      1863. 


APPENDIX.  369 

Reproduction  of  a  printed  Report  originally 
submitted  to  the  Bucks  County  Council  in 
the  year  1892,  containing  Letters  from  Miss 
Florence  Nightingale  on  Health  Visiting  in 
Rural  Districts.      191 1. 

Statements  exhibiting  the  Voluntary  Contribu- 
tions received  by  Miss  Nightingale  for  the 
Use  of  the  British  War  Hospitals  in  the  East, 
with  the  mode  of  their  Distribution  in  1854, 
1855,  1856.      Published,  London,  1857. 


(1,764)  24 


A    LIST    OF    SOME     OF    THE     BOOKS 
CONSULTED 

In  case  any  of  my  readers  wish  to  read  further 
for  themselves  : — 

Kinglake's    Invasion    of  the    Crimea.      (William 

Blackwood.) 
Memoir    of  Sidney    Herbert,    by  Lord    Stanmore. 

(John  Murray.) 
Life    of  Sir    Bartle  Frere,   by  John   Martineau. 

(John  Murray.) 
Letters  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  edited  by  John  Elliot. 

(Longmans.) 
William  ^^athbone,  a  Memoir  by  Eleanor  F.  Rath- 
bone.      (Macmillan.) 
The  Life  of  Florence  Nightingale,  by  Sarah  Tooley. 

(Cassell.) 
Felicia  Skene  of  Oxford,  by  E.  C.  Rickards.     (John 

Murray.) 
Memoir    of  Sir   John    MacNeill,    G.C.B.,   by  his 

Granddaughter.      (John  Murray.) 


APPENDIX.  371 

Agnes  "Elizabeth  Jones,  by  her  Sister.      (Alexander 

Strahan.) 
A  History  of  Nursing,  by  M.  Adelaide  Nutting, 

R.N.,  and  Lavinia  L.  Dock,  R.N.      (G.  P. 

Putnam  and  Sons.) 
A  Sister  of  Mercy's  Memories  of  the  Crimea,  by 

Sister  Aloysius.      (Burns  and  Oates.) 
The  Story  of  Florence  Nightingale,  by  W.   I.   W. 

(Pilgrim  Press.) 
Soyers    Culinary     Campaign,    by    Alexis    Soyer. 

(Routledge.) 
Kaiserswerth,  by  Florence  Nightingale. 
Florence    Nightingale,    a  Cameo  Life -Sketch  by 

Marion       Holmes.        (Women's      Freedom 

League.) 
Patersons     Roads,    edited    by     Edward    Mogg. 

(Longmans,  Green,  Orme.) 
The  London  Library,  No.  3,  vol.  of  The  Times  for 

1910. 
Nursing    Notes,    by    Florence    Nightingale,    and 

other  writings  of  Miss  Nightingale  included 

in  the  foregoing  list. 


A    BRIEF    SKETCH 
OF     GENERAL     EVATT'S     CAREER. 

[As  given  in  Who's  Who.'] 

EvATT,  Surgeon -General  George  Joseph 
Hamilton,  C.B.,  1903  ;  M.D.,  R.A.M.C.  ; 
retired ;  Member,  Council  British  Medical 
Association,  1904  ;  born,  nth  Nov.  1843  ;  son 
of  Captain  George  Evatt,  70th  Foot  ;  married, 
1877,  Sophie  Mary  Frances,  daughter  of  William 
Walter  Raleigh  Kerr,  Treasurer  of  Mauritius, 
and  granddaughter  of  Lord  Robert  Kerr  ;  one 
son,  one  daughter.  Educated,  Royal  College  of 
Surgeons,  and  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  Entered 
Army  Medical  Service,  1865  ;  joined  25th 
(K.O.S.B.)  Regiment,  1866  ;  Surgeon-Major, 
1877  ;  Lieutenant-Colonel,  R.A.M.C,  1885  ; 
Colonel,  1896  ;  Surgeon-General,  1899  ;  served 
Perak    Expedition   with    Sir   H.    Ross's    Bengal 


APPENDIX.  373 

Column,  1876  (medal  and  clasp)  ;  Afghan  War, 
1878-80  ;  capture  of  Ali  Musjid  (despatches)  ; 
action  in  Bazaar  Valley,  with  General  Tytler's 
Column  (despatches)  ;  advance  on  Gundamak, 
and  return  in  "  Death  March,"  1879  (specially 
thanked  in  General  Orders  by  Viceroy  of  India 
in  Council  and  Commander-in-Chief  in  India 
for  services)  ;  commanded  Field  Hospital  in 
second  campaign,  including  advance  to  relief 
of  Cabul  under  General  Sir  Charles  Gough, 
1879  ;  action  on  the  Ghuzni  Road  ;  return  to 
India,  1880  (medal  and  two  clasps)  ;  Suakin 
Expedition,  1885,  including  actions  at  Handoub, 
Tamai,  and  removal  of  wounded  from  MacNeill's 
zareba  (despatches,  medal  and  clasp,  Khedive's 
Star)  ;  Zhob  Valley  Expedition,  1890  ;  com- 
manded a  Field  Hospital  (despatches)  ;  Medical 
Officer,  Royal  Military  Academy,  Woolwich, 
1880-96  ;  Senior  Medical  Officer,  Quetta 
Garrison,  Baluchistan,  1887-91  ;  Sanitary  Officer, 
Woolwich  Garrison,  1892-94  ;  Secretary,  Royal 
Victoria  Hospital,  Netley,  1894-96  ;  P.M.O., 
China,  1896-99  ;  P.M.O.,  Western  District, 
1 899- 1 902  ;   Surgeon-General,  2nd  Army  Corps, 


374  APPENDIX. 

Salisbury,  1902-3  ;  raised  with  Mr.  Cantlie 
R.A.M.C.  Volunteers,  1883  ;  founded,  1884, 
Medical  Officers,  of  Schools  Association,  London  ; 
and,  1886,  drew  up  scheme  for  Army  Nursing 
Service  Reserve  ;  Member,  Committee  Inter- 
national Health  Exhibition,  1884  ;  Member  of 
Council,  Royal  Army  Temperance  Association, 
1903  ;  President,  Poor  Law  Medical  Officers' 
Association  ;  contested  (L.)  Woolwich,  1886, 
Fareham  Division,  Hampshire,  1906,  and 
Brighton,  1910  ;  Honorary  Colonel,  Home 
Counties  Division,  R.A.M.C,  Territorial  Force, 
1908  ;  received  Distinguished  Service  Reward, 
1 910.  Publications :  Travels  in  the  Euphrates 
Valley  and  Mesopotamia,  1873  ;  and  many 
publications  on  military  and  medical  subjects. 


THE  END. 


PRINTED    IN   GREAT    BRITAIN. 


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