etext of simple sabotage field manual office of strategic services simple sabotage field manual strategic services (provisional) prepared under direction of the director of strategic services oss reproduction branch simple sabotage field manual strategic services (provisional) strategic services field manual no. 3 office of strategic services washington, d. c. 17 january 1944 this simple sabotage field manual strategic services (provisional) is published for the information and guidance of all concerned and will be used as the basic doctrine for strategic services training for this subject. the contents of this manual should be carefully controlled and should not be allowed to come into unauthorized hands. the instructions may be placed in separate pamphlets or leaflets according to categories of operations but should be distributed with care and not broadly. they should be used as a basis of radio broadcasts only for local and special cases and as directed by the theater commander. ar 380-5, pertaining to handling of secret documents, will be complied with in the handling of this manual. william j. donovan contents 1. introduction 2. possible effects 3. motivating the saboteur 4. tools, targets, and timing 5. specific suggestions for simple sabotage 1. introduction the purpose of this paper is to characterize simple sabotage, to outline its possible effects, and to present suggestions for inciting and executing it. sabotage varies from highly technical coup de main acts that require detailed planning and the use of specially-trained operatives, to innumerable simple acts which the ordinary individual citizen-saboteur can perform. this paper is primarily concerned with the latter type. simple sabotage does not require specially prepared tools or equipment; it is executed by an ordinary citizen who may or may not act individually and without the necessity for active connection with an organized group; and it is carried out in such a way as to involve a minimum danger of injury, detection, and reprisal. where destruction is involved, the weapons of the citizen-saboteur are salt, nails, candles, pebbles, thread, or any other materials he might normally be expected to possess as a householder or as a worker in his particular occupation. his arsenal is the kitchen shelf, the trash pile, his own usual kit of tools and supplies. the targets of his sabotage are usually objects to which he has normal and inconspicuous access in everyday life. a second type of simple sabotage requires no destructive tools whatsoever and produces physical damage, if any, by highly indirect means. it is based on universal opportunities to make faulty decisions, to adopt a noncooperative attitude, and to induce others to follow suit. making a faulty decision may be simply a matter of placing tools in one spot instead of another. a non-cooperative attitude may involve nothing more than creating an unpleasant situation among one's fellow workers, engaging in bickerings, or displaying surliness and stupidity. this type of activity, sometimes referred to as the "human element," is frequently responsible for accidents, delays, and general obstruction even under normal conditions. the potential saboteur should discover what types of faulty decisions and the operations are normally found in this kind of work and should then devise his sabotage so as to enlarge that "margin for error." 2. possible effects acts of simple sabotage are occurring throughout europe. an effort should be made to add to their efficiency, lessen their detectability, and increase their number. acts of simple sabotage, multiplied by thousands of citizen-saboteurs, can be an effective weapon against the enemy. slashing tires, draining fuel tanks, starting fires, starting arguments, acting stupidly, short-circuiting electric systems, abrading machine parts will waste materials, manpower, and time. occurring on a wide scale, simple sabotage will be a constant and tangible drag on the war effort of the enemy. simple sabotage may also have secondary results of more or less value. widespread practice of simple sabotage will harass and demoralize enemy administrators and police. further, success may embolden the citizen-saboteur eventually to find colleagues who can assist him in sabotage of greater dimensions. finally, the very practice of simple sabotage by natives in enemy or occupied territory may make these individuals identify themselves actively with the united nations war effort, and encourage them to assist openly in periods of allied invasion and occupation. 3. motivating the saboteur to incite the citizen to the active practice of simple sabotage and to keep him practicing that sabotage over sustained periods is a special problem. simple sabotage is often an act which the citizen performs according to his own initiative and inclination. acts of destruction do not bring him any personal gain and may be completely foreign to his habitually conservationist attitude toward materials and tools. purposeful stupidity is contrary to human nature. he frequently needs pressure, stimulation or assurance, and information and suggestions regarding feasible methods of simple sabotage. (1) personal motives (a) the ordinary citizen very probably has no immediate personal motive for committing simple sabotage. instead, he must be made to anticipate indirect personal gain, such as might come with enemy evacuation or destruction of the ruling government group. gains should be stated as specifically as possible for the area addressed: simple sabotage will hasten the day when commissioner x and his deputies y and z will be thrown out, when particularly obnoxious decrees and restrictions will be abolished, when food will arrive, and so on. abstract verbalizations about personal liberty, freedom of the press, and so on, will not be convincing in most parts of the world. in many areas they will not even be comprehensible. (b) since the effect of his own acts is limited, the saboteur may become discouraged unless he feels that he is a member of a large, though unseen, group of saboteurs operating against the enemy or the government of his own country and elsewhere. this can be conveyed indirectly: suggestions which he reads and hears can include observations that a particular technique has been successful in this or that district. even if the technique is not applicable to his surroundings, another's success will encourage him to attempt similar acts. it also can be conveyed directly: statements praising the effectiveness of simple sabotage can be contrived which will be published by white radio, freedom stations, and the subversive press. estimates of the proportion of the population engaged in sabotage can be disseminated. instances of successful sabotage already are being broadcast by white radio and freedom stations, and this should be continued and expanded where compatible with security. (c) more important than (a) or (b) would be to create a situation in which the citizen-saboteur acquires a sense of responsibility and begins to educate others in simple sabotage. (2) encouraging destructiveness it should be pointed out to the saboteur where the circumstances are suitable, that he is acting in self-defense against the enemy, or retaliating against the enemy for other acts of destruction. a reasonable amount of humor in the presentation of suggestions for simple sabotage will relax tensions of fear. (a) the saboteur may have to reverse his thinking, and he should be told this in so many words. where he formerly thought of keeping his tools sharp, he should now let them grow dull; surfaces that formerly were lubricated now should be sanded; normally diligent, he should now be lazy and careless; and so on. once he is encouraged to think backwards about himself and the objects of his everyday life, the saboteur will see many opportunities in his immediate environment which cannot possibly be seen from a distance. a state of mind should be encouraged that anything can be sabotaged. (b) among the potential citizen-saboteurs who are to engage in physical destruction, two extreme types may be distinguished. on the one hand, there is the man who is not technically trained and employed. this man needs specific suggestions as to what he can and should destroy as well as details regarding the tools by means of which destruction is accomplished. (c) at the other extreme is the man who is a technician, such as a lathe operator or an automobile mechanic. presumably this man would be able to devise methods of simple sabotage which would be appropriate to his own facilities. however, this man needs to be stimulated to re-orient his thinking in the direction of destruction. specific examples, which need not be from his own field, should accomplish this. (d) various media may be used to disseminate suggestions and information regarding simple sabotage. among the media which may be used, as the immediate situation dictates, are: freedom stations or radio false (unreadable) broadcasts or leaflets may be directed toward specific geographic or occupational areas, or they may be general in scope. finally, agents may be trained in the art of simple sabotage, in anticipation of a time when they may be able to communicate this information directly. (3) safety measures (a) the amount of activity carried on by the saboteur will be governed not only by the number of opportunities he sees, but also by the amount of danger he feels. bad news travels fast, and simple sabotage will be discouraged if too many simple saboteurs are arrested. (b) it should not be difficult to prepare leaflets and other media for the saboteur about the choice of weapons, time, and targets which will insure the saboteur against detection and retaliation. among such suggestions might be the following: (1) use materials which appear to be innocent. a knife or a nail file can be carried normally on your person; either is a multi-purpose instrument for creating damage. matches, pebbles, hair, salt, nails, and dozens of other destructive agents can be carried or kept in your living quarters without exciting any suspicion whatever. if you are a worker in a particular trade or industry you can easily carry and keep such things as wrenches, hammers, emery paper, and the like. (2) try to commit acts for which large numbers of people could be responsible. for instance, if you blow out the wiring in a factory at a central fire box, almost anyone could have done it. on-the-street sabotage after dark, such as you might be able to carry out against a military car or truck, is another example of an act for which it would be impossible to blame you. (3) do not be afraid to commit acts for which you might be blamed directly, so long as you do so rarely, and as long as you have a plausible excuse: you dropped your wrench across an electric circuit because an air raid had kept you up the night before and you were half-dozing at work. always be profuse in your apologies. frequently you can "get away" with such acts under the cover of pretending stupidity, ignorance, over-caution, fear of being suspected of sabotage, or weakness and dullness due to undernourishment. (4) after you have committed an act of easy sabotage, resist any temptation to wait around and see what happens. loiterers arouse suspicion. of course, there are circumstances when it would be suspicious for you to leave. if you commit sabotage on your job, you should naturally stay at your work. 4. tools, targets, and timing the citizen-saboteur cannot be closely controlled. nor is it reasonable to expect that simple sabotage can be precisely concentrated on specific types of target according to the requirements of a concrete military situation. attempts to control simple sabotage according to developing military factors, moreover, might provide the enemy with intelligence of more or less value in anticipating the date and area of notably intensified or notably slackened military activity. sabotage suggestions, of course, should be adapted to fit the area where they are to be practiced. target priorities for general types of situations likewise can be specified, for emphasis at the proper time by the underground press, freedom stations, and cooperating propaganda. (1) under general conditions (a) simple sabotage is more than malicious mischief, and it should always consist of acts whose results will be detrimental to the materials and manpower of the enemy. (b) the saboteur should be ingenious in using his every-day equipment. all sorts of weapons will present themselves if he looks at his surroundings in a different light. for example, emery dust -a at first may seen unobtainable but if the saboteur were to pulverize an emery knife sharpener or emery wheel with a hammer, he would find himself with a plentiful supply. (c) the saboteur should never attack targets beyond his capacity or the capacity of his instruments. an inexperienced person should not, for example, attempt to use explosives, but should confine himself to the use of matches or other familiar weapons. (d) the saboteur should try to damage only objects and materials known to be in use by the enemy or to be destined for early use by the enemy. it will be safe for him to assume that almost any product of heavy industry is destined for enemy use, and that the most efficient fuels and lubricants also are destined for enemy use. without special knowledge, however, it would be undesirable for him to attempt destruction of food crops or food products. (e) although the citizen-saboteur may rarely have access to military objects, he should give these preference above all others. (2) prior to a military offensive during periods which are quiescent in a military sense, such emphasis as can be given to simple sabotage might well center on industrial production, to lessen the flow of materials and equipment to the enemy. slashing a rubber tire on an army truck may be an act of value; spoiling a batch of rubber in the production plant is an act of still more value. (3) during a military offensive (a) most significant sabotage for an area which is, or is soon destined to be, a theater of combat operations is that whose effects will be direct and immediate. even if the effects are relatively minor and localized, this type of sabotage is to be preferred to activities whose effects, while widespread, are indirect and delayed. (1) the saboteur should be encouraged to attack transportation facilities of all kinds. among such facilities are roads, railroads, auto mobiles, trucks, motor-cycles, bicycles, trains, and trams. (2) any communications facilities which can be used by the authorities to transmit instructions or morale material should be the objects of simple sabotage. these include telephone, telegraph and power systems, radio, newspapers, placards, and public notices. (3) critical materials, valuable in themselves or necessary to the efficient functioning of transportation and communication, also should become targets for the citizen-saboteur. these may include oil, gasoline, tires, food, and water. 5. specific suggestions for simple sabotage it will not be possible to evaluate the desirability of simple sabotage in an area without having in mind rather specifically what individual acts and results are embraced by the definition of simple sabotage. a listing of specific acts follows, classified according to types of target. this list is presented as a growing rather than a complete outline of the methods of simple sabotage. as new techniques are developed, or new fields explored, it will be elaborated and expanded. (1) buildings warehouses, barracks, offices, hotels, and factory buildings are outstanding targets for simple sabotage. they are extremely susceptible to damage, especially by fire; they offer opportunities to such untrained people as janitors, charwomen, and casual visitors; and, when damaged, they present a relatively large handicap to the enemy. (a) fires can be started wherever there is an accumulation of inflammable material. warehouses are obviously the most promising targets but incendiary sabotage need not be confined to them alone. (1) whenever possible, arrange to have the fire start after you have gone away. use a candle and paper, combination, setting it as close as possible to the inflammable material you want to burn: from a sheet of paper, tear a strip three or four centimeters wide and wrap it around the base of the candle two or three times. twist more sheets of paper into loose ropes and place them around the base of the candle. when the candle flame reaches the encircling strip, it will be ignited and in turn will ignite the surrounding paper. the size, heat, and duration of the resulting flame will depend on how much paper you use and how much of it you can cramp in a small space. (2) with a flame of this kind, do not attempt to ignite any but rather inflammable materials, such as cotton sacking. to light more resistant materials, use a candle plus tightly rolled or twisted paper which has been soaked in gasoline. to create a briefer but even hotter flame, put celluloid such as you might find in an old comb, into a nest of plain or saturated paper which is to be fired by a candle. (3) to make another type of simple fuse, soak one end of a piece of string in grease. rub a generous pinch of gunpowder over the inch of string where greasy string meets clean string. then ignite the clean end of the string. it will burn slowly without a flame (in much the same way that a cigarette burns) until it reaches the grease and gunpowder; it will then flare up suddenly. the grease-treated string will then burn with a flame. the same effect may be achieved by using matches instead of the grease and gunpowder. run the string over the match heads, taking care that the string is not pressed or knotted. they too will produce a sudden flame. the advantage of this type of fuse is that string burns at a set speed. you can time your fire by the length and thickness of the string you chose. (4) use a fuse such as; the ones suggested above to start a fire in an office after hours. the destruction of records and other types of documents would be a serious handicap to the enemy. (5) in basements where waste is kept, janitors should accumulate oily and greasy waste. such waste sometimes ignites spontaneously, but it can easily be lit with a cigarette or match. if you are a janitor on night duty, you can be the first to report the fire, but don't report it too soon. (6) a clean factory is not susceptible to fire, but a dirty one is. workers should be careless with refuse and janitors should be inefficient in cleaning. if enough dirt and trash can be accumulated an otherwise fireproof building will become inflammable. (7) where illuminating gas is used in a room which is vacant at night, shut the windows tightly, turn on the gas, and leave a candle burning in the room, closing the door tightly behind you. after a time, the gas will explode, and a fire may or may not follow. (b) water and miscellaneous (1) ruin warehouse stock by setting the automatic sprinkler system to work. you can do this by tapping the sprinkler heads sharply with a hammer or by holding a match under them. (2) forget to provide paper in toilets; put tightly rolled paper, hair, and other obstructions in the w. c. saturate a sponge with a thick starch or sugar solution. squeeze it tightly into a ball, wrap it with string, and dry. remove the string when fully dried. the sponge will be in the form of a tight hard ball. flush down a w. c. or otherwise introduce into a sewer line. the sponge will gradually expand to its normal size and plug the sewage system. (3) put a coin beneath a bulb in a public building during the daytime, so that fuses will blow out when lights are turned on at night. the fuses themselves may be rendered ineffective by putting a coin behind them or loading them with heavy wire. then a short-circuit may either start a fire, damage transformers, or blow out a central fuse which will interrupt distribution of electricity to a large area. (4) jam paper, bits of wood, hairpins, and anything else that will fit, into the locks of all unguarded entrances to public buildings. (2) industrial production: manufacturing (a) tools (1) let cutting tools grow dull. they will be inefficient, will slow down production, and may damage the materials and parts you use them on. (2) leave saws slightly twisted when you are not using them. after a while, they will break when used. (3) using a very rapid stroke will wear out a file before its time. so will dragging a file in slow strokes under heavy pressure. exert pressure on the backward stroke as well as the forward stroke. (4) clean files by knocking them against the vise or the workpiece; they are easily broken this way. (5) bits and drills will snap under heavy pressure. (6) you can put a press punch out of order by putting in it more material than it is adjusted for--two blanks instead of one, for example. (7) power-driven tools like pneumatic drills, riveters, and so on, are never efficient when dirty. lubrication points and electric contacts can easily be fouled by normal accumulations of dirt or the insertion of foreign matter. (b) oil and lubrication systems are not only vulnerable to easy sabotage, but are critical in every machine with moving parts. sabotage of oil and lubrication will slow production or stop work entirely at strategic points in industrial processes. (1) put metal dust or filings, fine sand, ground glass, emery dust (get it by pounding up an emery knife sharpener) and similar hard, gritty substances directly into lubrication systems. they will scour smooth surfaces, ruining pistons, cylinder walls, shafts, and bearings. they will overheat and stop motors which will need overhauling, new parts, and extensive repairs. such materials, if they are used, should be introduced into lubrication systems past any filters which otherwise would strain them out. (2) you can cause wear on any machine by uncovering a filter system, poking a pencil or any other sharp object through the filter mesh, then covering it up again. or, if you can dispose of it quickly, simply remove the filter. (3) if you cannot get at the lubrication system or filter directly, you may be able to lessen the effectiveness of oil by diluting it in storage. in this case, almost any liquid will do which will thin the oil. a small amount of sulphuric acid, varnish, water-glass, or linseed oil will be especially effective. (4) using a thin oil where a heavy oil is prescribed will break down a machine or heat up a moving shaft so that it will "freeze" and stop. (5) put any clogging substance into lubrication systems or, if it will float, into stored oil. twisted combings of human hair, pieces of string, dead insects, and many other common objects will be effective in stopping or hindering the flow of oil through feed lines and filters. (6) under some circumstances, you may be able to destroy oil outright rather than interfere with its effectiveness, by removing stop-plugs from lubricating systems or by puncturing the drums and cans in which it is stored. (c) cooling systems (1.) a water cooling system can be put out of commission in a fairly short time, with considerable damage to an engine or motor, if you put into it several pinches of hard grain, such as rice or wheat. they will swell up and choke the circulation of water, and the cooling system will have to be torn down to remove the obstruction. sawdust or hair may also be used to clog a water cooling system. (2) if very cold water is quickly introduced into the cooling system of an overheated motor, contraction and considerable strain on the engine housing will result. if you can repeat the treatment a few times, cracking and serious damage will result. (3) you can ruin the effectiveness of an air cooling system by plugging dirt and waste into intake or exhaust valves. if a belt-run fan is used in the system, make a jagged cut at least half way through the belt; it will slip and finally part under strain and the motor will overheat. (d) gasoline and oil fuel tanks and fueling engines usually are accessible and easy to open. they afford a very vulnerable target for simple sabotage activities. (1.) put several pinches of sawdust or hard grain, such as rice or wheat, into the fuel tank of a gasoline engine. the particles will choke a feed line so that the engine will stop. some time will be required to discover the source of the trouble. although they will be hard to get, crumbs of natural rubber, such as you might find in old rubber bands and pencil erasers, are also effective. (2) if you can accumulate sugar, put it in the fuel tank of a gasoline engine. as it burns together with the gasoline, it will turn into a sticky mess which will completely mire the engine and necessitate extensive cleaning and repair. honey and molasses are as good as sugar. try to use about 75-100 grams for each 10 gallons of gasoline. (3) other impurities which you can introduce into gasoline will cause rapid engine wear and eventual breakdown. fine particles of pumice, sand, ground glass, and metal dust can easily be introduced into a gasoline tank. be sure that the particles are very fine, so that they will be able to pass through the carburetor jet. (4) water, urine, wine, or any other simple liquid you can get in reasonably large quantities will dilute gasoline fuel to a point where no combustion will occur in the cylinder and the engine will not move. one pint to 20 gallons of gasoline is sufficient. if salt water is used, it will cause corrosion and permanent motor damage. (5) in the case of diesel engines, put low flashpoint oil into the fuel tank; the engine will not move. if there already is proper oil in the tank when the wrong kind is added, the engine will only limp and sputter along. (6) fuel lines to gasoline and oil engines frequently pass over the exhaust pipe. when the machine is at rest, you can stab a small hole in the fuel line and plug the hole with wax. as the engine runs and the exhaust tube becomes hot, the wax will be melted; fuel will drip onto the exhaust and a blaze will start. (7) if you have access to a room where gasoline is stored, remember that gas vapor accumulating in a closed room will explode after a time if you leave a candle burning in the room. a good deal of evaporation, however, must occur from the gasoline tins into the air of the room. if removal of the tops of the tins does not expose enough gasoline to the air to ensure copious evaporation, you can open lightly constructed tins further with a knife, ice pick or sharpened nail file. or puncture a tiny hole in the tank which will permit gasoline to leak out on the floor. this will greatly increase the rate of evaporation. before you light your candle, be sure that windows are closed and the room is as air-tight as you can make it. if you can see that windows in a neighboring room are opened wide, you have a chance of setting a large fire which will not only destroy the gasoline but anything else nearby; when the gasoline explodes, the doors of the storage room will be blown open, a draft to the neighboring windows will be created which will whip up a fine conflagration. (e) electric motors electric motors (including dynamos) are more restricted than the targets so far discussed. they cannot be sabotaged easily or without risk of injury by unskilled persons who may otherwise have good opportunities for destruction. (1) set the rheostat to a high point of resistance in all types of electric motors. they will overheat and catch fire. (2) adjust the overload relay to a very high value beyond the capacity of the motor. then overload the motor to a point where it will overheat and break down. (3) remember that dust, dirt, and moisture are enemies of electrical equipment. spill dust and dirt onto the points where the wires in electric motors connect with terminals, and onto insulating parts. inefficient transmission of current and, in some cases, short circuits will result. wet generator motors to produce short circuits. (4) "accidentally" bruise the insulation on wire, loosen nuts on connections, make faulty splices and faulty connections in wiring, to waste electric current and reduce the power of electric motors, the power output or cause short circuiting in direct-current motors: loosen or remove commutator holding rings. sprinkle carbon, graphite, or metal dust on commutators. put a little grease or oil at the contact points of commutators. where commutator bars are close together bridge the gaps between them with metal dust, or sawtooth their edges with a chisel so that the teeth on adjoining bars meet or nearly meet and current can pass from one to the other. (6) put a piece of finely grained emery paper half the size of a postage stamp in a place where it will wear away rotating brushes. the emery paper and the motor will be destroyed in the resulting fire. (7) sprinkle carbon, graphite or metal dust on slip-rings so that the current will leak or short circuits will occur. when a motor is idle, nick the slip-rings with a chisel. (8) cause motor stoppage or inefficiency by applying dust mixed with grease to the face of the armature so that it will not make proper contact. (9) to overheat electric motors, mix sand with heavy grease and smear it between the stator and rotor, or wedge thin metal pieces between them. to prevent the efficient generation of current, put floor sweepings, oil, tar, or paint between them. (10) in motors using three-phase current, deeply nick one of the lead-in wires with a knife or file when the machine is at rest, or replace one of the three fuses with a blown-out fuse. in the first case, the motor will stop after running awhile, and in the second, it will not start. (f) transformers (1) transformers of the oil-filled type can be put out of commission if you pour water, salt water, machine-tool coolant, or kerosene into the oil tank. (2) in air-cooled transformers, block the ventilation by piling debris around the transformer. (3) in all types of transformers, throw carbon, graphite or metal dust over the outside bushings and other exposed electrical parts. (g) turbines for the most part are heavily built, stoutly housed, and difficult of access. their vulnerability to simple sabotage is very low. (1) after inspecting or repairing a hydro turbine, fasten the cover insecurely so that it will blow off and flood the plant with water. a loose cover on a steam turbine will cause it to leak and slow down. (2) in water turbines, insert a large piece of scrap iron in the head of the penstock, just beyond the screening, so that water will carry the damaging material down to the plant equipment. (3) when the steam line to a turbine is opened for repair, put pieces of scrap iron into it, to be blasted into the turbine machinery when steam is up again. (4) create a leak in the line feeding oil to the turbine, so that oil will fall on the hot steam pipe and cause a fire. (h) boilers (1) reduce the efficiency of steam boilers any way you can. put too much water in them to make them slow-starting, or keep the fire under them low to keep them inefficient. let them dry and turn the fire up; they will crack and be ruined. an especially good trick is to keep putting limestone or water containing lime in the boiler; it will deposit lime on the bottom and sides. this deposit will provide very good insulation against heat; after enough of it has collected, the boiler will be completely worthless. (3) production. metals (a) iron and steel (1) keep blast furnaces in a condition where they must be frequently shut down for repair. in making fire-proof bricks for the inner lining of blast furnaces, put in an extra proportion of tar so that they will wear out quickly and necessitate constant re-lining. (2) make cores for casting so that they are filled with air bubbles and an imperfect cast results. (3) see that the core in a mold is not properly supported, so that the core gives way or the casting is spoiled because of the incorrect position of the core. (4) in tempering steel or iron, apply too much heat, so that the resulting bars and ingots are of poor quality. (b) other metals no suggestions available. (4) production: mining and mineral extraction (a) coal (1) a slight blow against your davy oil lamp will extinguish it, and to light it again you will have to find a place where there is no fire damp. take a long time looking for the place. (2) blacksmiths who make pneumatic picks should not harden them properly, so that they will quickly grow dull. (3) you can easily put your pneumatic pick out of order. pour a small amount of water through the oil lever and your pick will stop working. coal dust and improper lubrication will also put it out of order. (4) weaken the chain that pulls the bucket conveyers carrying coal. a deep dent in the chain made with blows of a pick or shovel will cause it to part under normal strain. once a chain breaks, normally or otherwise take your time about reporting the damage; be slow about taking the chain up for repairs and bringing it back down after repairs. (5) derail mine cars by putting obstructions on the rails and in switch points. if possible, pick a gallery where coal cars have to pass each other, so that traffic will be snarled up. (6) send up quantities of rock and other useless material with the coal. (5) production: agriculture (a) machinery (1) see par. 5 b. (2) (c), (d), (e). (b) crops and livestock probably will be destroyed only in areas where there are large food surpluses or where the enemy (regime) is known to be requisitioning food. (1.) feed crops to livestock. let crops harvest too early or too late. spoil stores of grain, fruit and vegetables by soaking them in water so that they will rot. spoil fruit and vegetables by leaving them in the sun. (6) transportation: railways (a) passengers (1.) make train travel as inconvenient as possible for enemy personnel. make mistakes in issuing train tickets, leaving portions of the journey uncovered by the ticket book; issue two tickets for the same seat in the train, so that an interesting argument will result; near train time, instead of issuing printed tickets write them out slowly by hand, prolonging the process until the train is nearly ready to leave or has left the station. on station bulletin boards announcing train arrivals and departures, see that false and misleading information is given about trains bound for enemy destinations. (2) in trains bound for enemy destinations, attendants should make life as uncomfortable as possible for passengers. see that the food is especially bad, take up tickets after midnight, call all station stops very loudly during the night, handle baggage as noisily as possible during the night, and so on. (3) see that the luggage of enemy personnel is mislaid or unloaded at the wrong stations. switch address labels on enemy baggage. (4) engineers should see that trains run slow or make unscheduled stops for plausible reasons. (b) switches, signals and routing (1) exchange wires in switchboards containing signals and switches, so that they connect to the wrong terminals. (2) loosen push-rods so that signal arms do not work; break signal lights; exchange the colored lenses on red and green lights. (3) spread and spike switch points in the track so that they will not move, or place rocks or close-packed dirt between the switch points. (4) sprinkle rock salt or ordinary salt profusely over the electrical connections of switch points and on the ground nearby. when it rains, the switch will be short-circuited. (5) see that cars are put on the wrong trains. remove the labels from cars needing repair and put them on cars in good order. leave couplings between cars as loose as possible. (c) road-beds and open track (1) on a curve, take the bolts out of the tie-plates connecting to sections of the outside rail, and scoop away the gravel, cinders, or dirt for a few feet on each side of the connecting joint. (2) if by disconnecting the tie-plate at a joint and loosening sleeper nails on each side of the joint, it becomes possible to move a sections of rail, spread two sections of rail and drive a spike vertically between them. (d) oil and lubrication (1) see 5 b. (2) (b). (2) squeeze lubricating pipes with pincers or dent them with hammers, so that the flow of oil is obstructed. (e) cooling systems (1) see 5 b (2) (c). (f) gasoline and oil fuel (1) see 5 b (2) (d). (g) electric motors (1) see 5 b (2) (e) and (f). (h) boilers (1) see 5 b (2) (h). (2) after inspection put heavy oil or tar in the engines' boilers, or put half a kilogram of soft soap into the water in the tender. (i) brakes and miscellaneous (1) engines should run at high speeds and use brakes excessively at curves and on downhill grades. (2) punch holes in air-brake valves or water supply pipes. (3) in the last car of a passenger train or or a front car of a freight, remove the wadding from a journal box and replace it with oily rags. (7) transportation: automotive (a) roads. damage to roads [(3) below] is slow, and therefore impractical as a d-day or near d-day activity. (1) change sign posts at intersections and forks; the enemy will go the wrong way and it may be miles before he discovers his mistakes. in areas where traffic is composed primarily of enemy autos, trucks, and motor convoys of various kinds remove danger signals from curves and intersections. (2) when the enemy asks for directions, give him wrong information. especially when enemy convoys are in the neighborhood, truck drivers can spread rumors and give false information about bridges being out, ferries closed, and detours lying ahead. (3) if you can start damage to a heavily traveled road, passing traffic and the elements will do the rest. construction gangs can see that too much sand or water is put in concrete or that the road foundation has soft spots. anyone can scoop ruts in asphalt and macadam roads which turn soft in hot weather; passing trucks will accentuate the ruts to a point where substantial repair will be needed. dirt roads also can be scooped out. if you are a road laborer, it will be only a few minutes work to divert a small stream from a sluice so that it runs over and eats away the road. (4) distribute broken glass, nails, and sharp rocks on roads to puncture tires. (b) passengers (1) bus-driver can go past the stop where the enemy wants to get off. taxi drivers can waste the enemy's time and make extra money by driving the longest possible route to his destination. (c) oil and lubrication (1) see 5 b. (2) (b). (2) disconnect the oil pump; this will burn out the main bearings in less than 50 miles of normal driving. (d) radiator (1) see 5 b. (2) (c). (e) fuel (1) see 5 b. (2) (d). (f) battery and ignition (1) jam bits of wood into the ignition lock; loosen or exchange connections behind the switchboard; put dirt in spark plugs; damage distributor points. (2) turn on the lights in parked cars so that the battery will run down. (3) mechanics can ruin batteries in a number of undetectable ways: take the valve cap off a cell, and drive a screw driver slantwise into the exposed water vent, shattering the plates of the cell; no damage will show when you put the cap back on. iron or copper filings put into the cells i.e., dropped into the acid, will greatly shorten its life. copper coins or a few pieces of iron will accomplish the same and more slowly. one hundred to 150 cubic centimeters of vinegar in each cell greatly reduces the life of the battery, but the odor of the vinegar may reveal what has happened. (g) gears (1) remove the lubricant from or put too light a lubricant in the transmission and other gears. (2) in trucks, tractors, and other machines with heavy gears, fix the gear case insecurely, putting bolts in only half the bolt holes. the gears will be badly jolted in use and will soon need repairs. (h) tires (1) slash or puncture tires of unguarded vehicles. put a nail inside a match box or other small box, and set it vertically in front of the back tire of a stationary car; when the car starts off, the nail will go neatly through the tire. (2) it is easy to damage a tire in a tire repair shop: in fixing flats, spill glass, benzine, caustic soda, or other material inside the casing which will puncture or corrode the tube. if you put a gummy substance inside the tube, the next flat will stick the tube to the casing and make it unusable. or, when you fix a flat tire, you can simply leave between the tube and the casing the object which caused the flat in the first place. (3) in assembling a tire after repair, pump the tube up as fast as you can. instead of filling out smoothly, it may crease, in which case it will wear out quickly. or, as you put a tire together, see if you can pinch the tube between the rim of the tire and the rim of the wheel, so that a blow-out will result. (4) in putting air into tires, see that they are kept below normal pressure, so that more than an ordinary amount of wear will result. in filling tires on double wheels, inflate the inner tire to a much higher pressure than the outer one; both will wear out more quickly this way. badly aligned wheels also wear tires out quickly; you can leave wheels out of alignment when they come in for adjustment, or you can spring them out of true with a strong kick, or by driving the car slowly and diagonally into a curb. (5) if you have access to stocks of tires, you can rot them by spilling oil, gasoline, caustic acid, or benzine on them. synthetic rubber, however, is less susceptible to these chemicals. (8) transportation: water (a) navigation (1) barge and river boat personnel should spread false rumors about the navigability and conditions of the waterways they travel. tell other barge and boat captains to follow channels that will take extra time, or cause them to make canal detours. (2) barge and river boat captains should navigate with exceeding caution near locks and bridges, to waste their time and to waste the time of other craft which may have to wait on them. if you don't pump the bilges of ships and barges often enough, they will be slower and harder to navigate. barges "accidentally" run aground are an efficient time waster too. (3) attendants on swing, draw, or bascule bridges can delay traffic over the bridge or in the waterway underneath by being slow. boat captains can leave unattended draw bridges open in order to hold up road traffic. (4) add or subtract compensating magnets to the compass on cargo ships. demagnetize the compass or maladjust it by concealing a large bar of steel or iron near to it. (b) cargo (1) while loading or unloading, handle cargo carelessly in order to cause damage. arrange the cargo so that the weakest and lightest crates and boxes will be at the bottom of the hold, while the heaviest ones are on top of them. put hatch covers and tarpaulins on sloppily, so that rain and deck wash will injure the cargo. tie float valves open so that storage tanks will overflow on perishable goods. (9) communications (a) telephone (1) at office, hotel and exchange switch boards delay putting enemy calls through, give them wrong numbers, cut them off "accidentally," or forget to disconnect them so that the line cannot be used again. (2) hamper official and especially military business by making at least one telephone call a day to an enemy headquarters; when you get them, tell them you have the wrong number. call military or police offices and make anonymous false reports of fires, air raids, bombs. (3) in offices and buildings used by the enemy, unscrew the earphone of telephone receivers and remove the diaphragm. electricians and telephone repair men can make poor connections and damage insulation so that cross talk and other kinds of electrical interference will make conversations hard or impossible to understand. (4) put the batteries under automatic switchboards out of commission by dropping nails, metal filings, or coins into the cells. if you can treat half the batteries in this way, the switchboard will stop working. a whole telephone system can be disrupted if you can put 10 percent of the cells in half the batteries of the central battery room out of order. (b) telegraph (1) delay the transmission and delivery of telegrams to enemy destinations. (2) garble telegrams to enemy destinations so that another telegram will have to be sent or a long distance call will have to be made. sometimes it will be possible to do this by changing a single letter in a word -for example, changing "minimum" to "maximum," so that the person receiving the telegram will not know whether "minimum" or "maximum" is meant. (c) transportation lines (1) cut telephone and telegraph transmission lines. damage insulation on power lines to cause interference. (d) mail (1) post office employees can see to it that enemy mail is always delayed by one day or more, that it is put in wrong sacks, and so on. (e) motion pictures (1) projector operators can ruin newsreels and other enemy propaganda films by bad focusing, speeding up or slowing down the film and by causing frequent breakage in the film. (2) audiences can ruin enemy propaganda films by applauding to drown the words of the speaker, by coughing loudly, and by talking. (3) anyone can break up a showing of an enemy propaganda film by putting two or three dozen large moths in a paper bag. take the bag to the movies with you, put it on the floor in an empty section of the theater as you go in and leave it open. the moths will fly out and climb into the projector beam, so that the film will be obscured by fluttering shadows. (f) radio (1) station engineers will find it quite easy to overmodulate transmissions of talks by persons giving enemy propaganda or instructions, so that they will sound as if they were talking through a heavy cotton blanket with a mouth full of marbles. (2) in your own apartment building, you can interfere with radio reception at times when the enemy wants everybody to listen. take an electric light plug off the end of an electric light cord; take some wire out of the cord and tie it across two terminals of a two-prong plug or three terminals of a four-prong plug. then take it around and put it into as many wall and floor outlets as you can find. each time you insert the plug into a new circuit, you will blow out a fuse and silence all radios running on power from that circuit until a new fuse is put in. (3) damaging insulation on any electrical equipment tends to create radio interference in the immediate neighborhood, particularly on large generators, neon signs, fluorescent lighting, x-ray machines, and power lines. if workmen can damage insulation on a high tension line near an enemy airfield, they will make ground-to-plane radio communications difficult and perhaps impossible during long periods of the day. (10) electric power (a) turbines, electric motors, transformers (1) see 5 b. (2) (e), (f),and (g). (b) transmission lines (1.) linesmen can loosen and dirty insulators to cause power leakage. it will be quite easy, too, for them to tie a piece of very heavy string several times back and forth between two parallel transmission lines, winding it several turns around the wire each time. beforehand, the string should be heavily saturated with salt and then dried. when it rains, the string becomes a conductor, and a short-circuit will result. (11) general interference with organizations and production (a) organizations and conferences (1) insist on doing everything through "channels." never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. (2) make "speeches." talk as frequently as possible and at great length. illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments. (3) when possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." attempt to make the committees as large as possible -never less than five. (4) bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. (6) refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. (7) advocate "caution." be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. (8) be worried about the propriety of any decision -raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon. (b) managers and supervisors (1) demand written orders. (2) "misunderstand" orders. ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. quibble over them when you can. (3) do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don't deliver it until it is completely ready. (4) don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown. (5) order high-quality materials which are hard to get. if you don't get them argue about it. warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work. (6) in making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. see that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines. (7) insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye. (8) make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in the plant. (9) when training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions. (10) to lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work. (11) hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done. (12) multiply paper work in plausible ways. start duplicate files. (13) multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. see that three people have to approve everything where one would do. (14) apply all regulations to the last letter. (c) office workers (1) make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. confuse similar names. use wrong addresses. (2) prolong correspondence with government bureaus. (3) misfile essential documents. (4) in making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done. (5) tell important callers the boss is busy or talking on another telephone. (6) hold up mail until the next collection. (7) spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope. (d) employees (1) work slowly. think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one, try to make a small wrench do when a big one is necessary, use little force where considerable force is needed, and so on. (2) contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can: when changing the material on which you are working, as you would on a lathe or punch, take needless time to do it. if you are cutting, shaping or doing other measured work, measure dimensions twice as often as you need to. when you go to the lavatory, spend a longer time there than is necessary. forget tools so that you will have to go back after them. (3) even if you understand the language, pretend not to understand instructions in a foreign tongue. (4) pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions. (5) do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right. (6) never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker. (7) snarl up administration in every possible way. fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms. (8) if possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. see that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on. (9) misroute materials. (10) mix good parts with unusable scrap and rejected parts. (12) general devices for lowering morale and creating confusion (a) give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned. (b) report imaginary spies or danger to the gestapo or police. (c) act stupid. (d) be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble. (e) misunderstand all sorts of regulations concerning such matters as rationing, transportation, traffic regulations. (f) complain against ersatz materials. (g) in public treat axis nationals or quislings coldly. (h) stop all conversation when axis nationals or quislings enter a cafe. (i) cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks. (j) boycott all movies, entertainments, concerts, newspapers which are in any way connected with the quisling authorities. (k) do not cooperate in salvage schemes. [illustration: jean henri dunant] _the_ origin _of_ _the_ red cross "_un souvenir de solferino_" by henri dunant translated from the french by mrs. david h. wright, of the philadelphia chapter of the american red cross, independence hall. philadelphia, pa. 1911 the john c. winston co. philadelphia, pa. copyright, 1911, by mrs. david h. wright. american red cross. washington, d. c., november 9, 1910. mrs. david h. wright, philadelphia, pa. dear mrs. wright: i appreciate and thank you for your courtesy in dedicating to me, as president of the american red cross, this recent translation of henri dunant's "un souvenir de solferino." whoever calls attention of the people to the sufferings and misery caused by war so that men realizing its results become loath to undertake it, performs a public service. [illustration: handwritten signature of william howard taft] _president american red cross._ _editor's note_ _so far as is known, this book of such far-reaching influence has never before been translated or published in english._ preface _henri dunant, the famous author of "a souvenir of solferino," was born in geneva in 1828._ _the instruction and philanthropic principles received by him in his youth, together with his natural energy and power of organization, were a good foundation for the unfolding of the ideas and inclinations which led to his fertile acts._ _in 1859 occurred the event which definitely impelled him to a course of action which did not discontinue during his whole life. a course of action for the mitigation of the sufferings caused by war, or from a broader point of view, for the commencement of the reign of peace._ _this event was the battle of solferino, when he first organized, in castiglione, corps of volunteers to search for and nurse the wounded._ _having thus started the idea of a permanent organization of these voluntary bands of compassionate workers, and also of an international treaty agreement in regard to the wounded, he presented himself to marshal macmahon and afterwards to napoleon iii, who became interested in the project of dunant and immediately ordered his army no longer to make prisoners of the physicians and nurses of the enemy._ _soon dunant organized an aid committee in geneva, and shortly afterwards he published his "souvenir of solferino," which was enthusiastically received and greatly applauded._ _he met, however, opposition and obstacles, principally from the french minister of war._ _the philanthropic ideas of this book were received with interest by many european sovereigns with whom dunant had intercourse, either by correspondence or by conversation; he always propagated persistently his ideas in regard to the organization of a national permanent committee for the wounded, his international treaty, and the neutralization of those injured in war (he developed in separate works his ideas which were outlined only in the "souvenir")._ _the geneva society of public utility created a commission for the purpose of studying the question. meanwhile dunant had the opportunity to speak with the king of saxony, and to persuade representatives of some other countries to take up the question with their respective sovereigns._ _dunant interested the governments so much in his project that various nations sent delegates to the international conference, which was held in geneva, in 1863, when it was decided to establish a national committee, and when the desire was expressed that the neutralization of the physicians, nurses and injured should be provided by treaty, and for the adoption of a distinctive and uniform international emblem and flag for the hospital corps, and the unanimous thanks of this conference were extended to dunant._ _to consider this subject, a diplomatic international congress was held in 1864, at geneva, by invitation of the swiss federate counsel. the treaty there drafted accepted the projects of dunant and the formation of volunteer aid societies, later called red cross societies, was recommended by the convention to the signatory powers._ _in the further development of the ideas of dunant the hague conference, in 1899, extended the provisions of the treaty of geneva to naval warfare._ _thus, a single individual, inspired with the sentiment of kindness and compassion for his fellow-creatures, by his own untiring energy attained the realization of his ideas, and aided in the progress of mankind toward peace._ _thus, truly all men, and above all, the workers for peace, owe to this laborer merited and everlasting gratitude and remembrance._ * * * * * _the recompense, however, arrived late._ _in the zealous propaganda, for which, during four years, he edited pamphlets and articles in all languages, and traveled continuously through the whole of europe, dunant spent everything that he possessed, and, for many years, nothing more was heard of the modest and good man, to whom the approval of his conscience was all sufficient._ _at last, in 1897, he was discovered in the swiss village of heiden, where he was living in misery, in a "home" for old men, with almost no means other than a small pension received from the empress of russia._ _the baroness von suttner sent at that time to the press of the whole world, and especially to those interested in international peace, an appeal to raise a contribution of money to ease his last years. in 1901, when the nobel-peace-prize, valued at 208,000 francs, was awarded for the first time, it was divided between henri dunant and frederick passy._ _it is true that many peace workers did not approve of this decision of the nobel committee. they said in opposition, that the projects of dunant not only were not pacific, but could even have the contrary effect. to lessen the terrors of war is really, according to them, to destroy the most effective means of turning men from it, and consequently tended to prolong the duration of its reign. one of the chief representatives of this idea, signor h. h. fried, said that the geneva convention was only a small concession by the governments to the new idea that is fighting against war._ _without doubt, they do not approve of the humane plan of dunant, on the contrary, they think that it is not essentially peace-making; that it should not be recompensed by the first peace prize, and that it is dangerous to confuse pacification with simple humanitarianism._ _the contrary opinion is shown by the following words, written by signor ruyssin, in the review "peace by right," at the time when dunant received his prize:_ _"his glory has grown each year in proportion to all the lessening of suffering which his work has accomplished, to all the lives which it saves, and to all the self-devotion to which it gives birth._ _"henri dunant has decreased the abomination of war; frederick passy fought to make it impossible. one has accomplished more; the other has created more remote, but brighter hopes. one has harvested already; the other sows for the future harvest; and so it would be arbitrary and unjust to compare such dissimilar lines of work, both equally meritorious. the accomplishment of the wishes of nobel rightly placed identical crowns on the heads of two old men who employed their lives in fighting against war."_ _this disagreement is interesting in that it shows the contrary judgment to which different zealous peace workers were led in regard to the project of dunant._ _whatever may be the conclusion of the reader, about the relation between it and the peace propaganda, he will certainly be of the opinion that "a souvenir of solferino," showing the abominations of war, is a useful instrument of the propaganda, and that the name of dunant should be blessed, as that of one of the most self-devoted benefactors of mankind._ _henri dunant died at heiden, switzerland, on october the thirty-first, 1910._ the origin of the red cross the bloody victory of magenta opened the gates of milan to the french army, which the towns of pavia, lodi and cremona welcomed enthusiastically. the austrians, abandoning the lines of the adda, the oglio, and the chiese, gathered their forces on the bank of the river mincio, at whose head the young and courageous emperor joseph placed himself. the king of sardinia, victor emmanuel, arrived on the seventeenth of june, 1859, at brescia, where, with great joy, the inhabitants welcomed him, seeing in the son of charles albert a saviour and a hero. during the next day the french emperor entered the same town amid the enthusiastic cries of the people, happy to show their gratitude to the monarch who came to help them gain their independence. on the twenty-first of june, napoleon iii and victor emmanuel ii left brescia, from which place their armies had departed during the previous day. on the twenty-second they occupied lonato, castenedolo and montechiaro. on the evening of the twenty-third napoleon, who was commander-in-chief, published strict orders for the army of the king of sardinia, encamped at desenzano, and forming the left flank of the allied armies, to proceed early the following day to pozzelengo. marshal baraguey d'hilliers was ordered to march on solferino; marshal macmahon, duke de magenta, on cavriana; general neil was to proceed to guidizzolo; marshal canrobert to medole; marshal regnaud de saint-jean d'angley, with the imperial guard, to castiglione. these united forces amounted to 150,000 men, with 400 cannon. the austrian emperor had at his disposition, in the lombardo-venetian kingdom, nine army corps, amounting in all to 250,000 men, comprising the garrison of verona and mantua. the effective force prepared to enter the line of battle consisted of seven corps, some 170,000 men, supported by 500 cannon. the headquarters of the emperor francis joseph had been moved from verona to villafranca, then to valeggio. on the evening of the twenty-third the austrian troops received the order to recross the river mincio during the night to peschiera, salionze, valeggio, ferri, goito and mantua. the main part of the army took up its position from pozzolengo to guidizzolo, in order to attack the enemy between the rivers mincio and chiese. the austrian forces formed two armies. the first having as commander-in-chief count wimpffen, under whose orders were the corps commanded by field marshals prince edmund schwarzenberg, count schaffgotsche and baron veigl, also the cavalry division of count zeidewitz. this composed the left flank. it was stationed in the neighborhood of volta, guidizzolo, medole and castel-gioffredo. the second army was commanded by count schlick, having under his orders the field marshals count clam-gallas, count stadion, baron zobel and cavalier benedek, as well as the cavalry division of count mensdorf. this composed the right flank. it occupied cavriana, pozzolengo and san martino. thus, on the morning of the twenty-fourth, the austrians occupied all the heights between pozzolengo, solferino, cavriana and guidizzolo. they ranged their artillery in series of breastworks, forming the center of the attacking line, which permitted their right and left flanks to fall back upon these fortified heights which they believed to be unconquerable. the two belligerent armies, although marching one against the other, did not expect such a sudden meeting. austria, misinformed, supposed that only a part of the allied army had crossed the chiese river. on their side the confederates did not expect this attack in return, and did not believe that they would find themselves so soon before the army of the austrian emperor. the reconnoitering, the observations and the reports of the scouts, and those made from the fire balloons during the day of the twenty-third showed no signs of such an imminent encounter. the collision of the armies of austria and franco-sardinia on friday, the twenty-fourth of june, 1859, was, therefore, unexpected, although the combatants on both sides conjectured that a great battle was near. the austrian army, already fatigued by the difficult march during the night of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth, had to support from the earliest dawn the attack of the enemies' armies and to suffer from the intensely hot weather as well as from hunger and thirst, for, except a double ration of brandy, the greater number of the austrians were unable to take any food. the french troops already in movement before daybreak had had nothing but coffee. therefore, this exhaustion of the soldiers, and above all, of the unfortunate wounded, was extreme at the end of this very bloody battle, which lasted more than fifteen hours. both armies are awake. three hundred thousand men are standing face to face. the line of battle is ten miles long. already at three o'clock in the morning, corps commanded by marshals baraguey d'hilliers and macmahon are commencing to move on solferino and cavriana. hardly have the advance columns passed castiglione when they themselves are in the presence of the first posts of the austrians, who dispute the ground. on all sides bugles are playing the charges and the drums are sounding. the emperor napoleon who passed the night at montechiaro hastens rapidly to castiglione. by six o'clock a furious fire has commenced. the austrians march in a compact mass in perfect order along the open roads. in the air are flying their black and yellow standards, on which are embroidered the ancient imperial arms. the day is very clear. the italian sun makes the brilliant equipments of the dragoons, the lancers and the cuirassiers of the french army glitter brightly. at the commencement of the engagement the emperor francis joseph, together with his entire staff, leaves headquarters in order to go to volta. he is accompanied by the archdukes of the house of lorraine, among whom are the grand duke of tuscany and the duke of modena. in the midst of the difficulties of a field unknown to the french army the first meeting takes place. it has to make its way through plantations of mulberry trees, interlaced by climbing vines, which form almost impassable barriers. the earth is cut by great dried up trenches which the horses have to leap, and by long walls with broad foundations which they have to climb. from the hills the austrians pour on the enemy a constant hail of shot and shell. with the smoke of the cannon's continual discharge the rain of bullets is ploughing up the earth and dust into thousands of missiles. the french hurl themselves upon these strongly fortified places in spite of the firing of the batteries which falls upon the earth with redoubled force. during the burning heat of noon the battle everywhere becomes more and more furious. column after column throw themselves one against the other with the force of a devastating torrent. a number of french regiments surround masses of austrian troops, but, like iron walls, these resist and at first remain unshaken. entire divisions throw their knapsacks to the earth in order to rush at the enemy with fixed bayonets. if a battalion is driven away another replaces it; each hill, each height, each rocky eminence becomes a theatre for an obstinate struggle. on the heights, as well as in the ravines, the dead lie piled up. the austrians and the allied armies march one against the other, killing each other above the blood-covered corpses, butchering with gunshots, crushing each other's skulls or disemboweling with the sword or bayonet. no cessation in the conflict, no quarter given. the wounded are defending themselves to the last. it is butchery by madmen drunk with blood. sometimes the fighting becomes more terrible on account of the arrival of rushing, galloping cavalry. the horses, more compassionate than their riders, seek in vain to step over the victims of this butchery, but their iron hoofs crush the dead and dying. with the neighing of the horses are mingled blasphemies, cries of rage, shrieks of pain and despair. the artillery, at full speed, follows the cavalry which has cut a way through the corpses and the wounded lying in confusion on the ground. a jaw-bone of one of these last is torn away; the head of another is battered in; the breast of a third is crushed. limbs are broken and bruised; the field is covered with human remains; the earth is soaked with blood. the french troops, with fiery ardor, scale the steep hills and rocky declivities in spite of shot and shell. hardly does some harassed and profusely perspiring company capture a hill and reach its summit, when it falls like an avalanche on the austrians, overthrows, repulses and pursues them to the depths of the hollows. but the austrians regain the advantage. ambuscaded behind the houses, the churches and the walls of medole, solferino and cavriana, they heroically fight on and very nearly win the victory. the unending combat rages incessantly and in every place with fury. nothing stops, nothing interrupts the butchery. they are killing one another by the hundreds. every foot of ground is carried at the bayonet's point, every post disputed foot by foot. from the hands of the enemy are taken villages, house after house, farm after farm, each is the theatre of a siege. doors, windows and courts are abattoirs. a rain of cannon balls is sending death to the distant reserves of austria. if these desert the field they yield it only step by step, and soon recommence action. their ranks are ceaselessly reforming. on the plains the wind raises the dust, which flies over the roads like dense clouds, darkening the day and blinding the fighters. the french cavalry flings itself on the austrian cavalry; uhlans and hussars slash furiously at each other with their swords. the rage is so great that in some places, after the exhaustion of the cartridges and the breaking of the muskets, they fight with fists and beat one another with stones. the strongest positions are captured, lost, and recaptured, to be lost again. everywhere men are falling mutilated, riddled with bullets, covered with wounds. in the midst of these endless combats, these massacres, blasphemies arise in different tongues, telling of the diverse nationalities of the men, many of whom are obliged to become homicides in their twentieth year. the soldiers of the sardinian king, defending and attacking with fervor, continue their skirmishes from early morning. the hills of san martino, roccolo, madonno della scoperta are captured and recaptured five or six times. their generals mollard, la marmora, della rocca, durando, fanti, cialdini, cucchiari, de sonnoz, with all kinds and all grades of officers help the king before whose eyes lie the wounded generals cedale, perrier and arnoldi. the french emperor orders that the corps of baraguey d'hilliers and macmahon, together with the imperial guard, attack at the same time the fortress of san cassiano and occupy solferino. but the brave austrians make the allied army pay dearly for its success.... one of its heroes, prince aleksandro de hessen, after fighting with great courage at san cassiano defends against repeated attacks, the three heights of mount fontana.... at guidizzolo, prince charles of windischraetz, braves certain death in seeking to recapture under a hail of balls casa nova. mortally wounded, he still commands, supported and carried by his brave soldiers, who vainly make for him a rampart of their own bodies. marshal baraguey d'hilliers finally enters the town of solferino, courageously defended by baron stadion. the sky is darkened, dense clouds cover the horizon. a furious wind is rising. it carries away the broken branches of the trees. a cold rain, driven by the tempest, a veritable cloud-burst, drenches the combatants, exhausted from hunger and fatigue, while dust, hail and smoke are blinding the soldiers forced to fight also the elements. the army of the emperor francis joseph retreats. throughout the entire action the chief of the house of hapsburg shows admirable tranquillity and self-control. during the capture of cavriana the austrian emperor finds himself, together with baron schlick and the prince of nassau, on the adjacent heights, madonna della pieve, opposite a church surrounded by cypress trees. towards evening, the austrian center having yielded and the left flank not daring to hope to force the position of the allies, the general retreat is decided. in this grave moment, emperor francis joseph, around whom rained balls and bullets during the whole day, goes with a part of his staff to volta, while the archdukes and the hereditary grand duke of tuscany returned to valeggio. the austrian officers fought like lions. some, through despair, let themselves die, but sold their lives dearly. the greater number rejoin their regiments covered with the blood of their own wounds or with that of the enemy. to their bravery should be rendered merited praise. ... guidizzolo remains occupied by the austrians until ten o'clock in the evening.... the roads are covered with army wagons, carts and reserve artillery. the transport vans are saved by the rapid construction of improvised bridges. the first austrian wounded consisting of men slightly injured, commence to enter villafranca. the more seriously wounded follow them. austrian physicians and their assistants rapidly bandage the wounds, give some nourishment to the wounded and send them by railroad trains to verona, where the embarrassment is becoming terrible. although during its retreat the austrian army tries to carry away all the wounded which it could transport (and with what great suffering!), nevertheless, thousands remain lying on the ground moistened with their blood. the allied army is in possession of the conquered field. near the close of the day when the evening shadows creep over this vast field of carnage, more than one officer, more than one french soldier, seek here and there a comrade, a compatriot, or a friend, when he finds the wounded friend, he kneels beside, trying to restore him to consciousness, wiping away the blood, bandaging the wounds as well as he can, wrapping a handkerchief around the broken limb, but rarely can he secure water for the suffering man. how many silent tears were shed during this sad night, when all false pride, all human regard were set aside. during the battle, hospitals for the wounded established in nearby farmhouses, churches, monasteries, in the open air, under the shade of trees receive the wounded officers and non-commissioned officers, who are hastily given treatment. after these comes the turn of the soldiers, when that is possible. those of the latter who are still able to walk find their way to the field hospitals. the others are carried on litters and stretchers, weakened as they are by loss of blood, by pain, by continued lack of food, and by the mental and moral shock they have experienced. during the battle a pennant fixed on an elevation marks the station for the wounded and the field hospitals of the fighting regiments. unfortunately, only a few of the soldiers know the color of the hospital pennant or that of the hospital flag of the enemy, for the colors differ with the different nations. the bombs fall upon them, sparing neither physicians, nor wounded, nor wagons loaded with bread, wine, meat or lint. the heights which extend from castiglione to volta, sparkle with thousands of fires, which are fed by pieces of austrian gun-wagons and by huge branches of trees, broken by the tempest or by cannon balls. the soldiers dry their dripping clothes; then, overcome by fatigue and exhaustion, they fall asleep on the stones or on the ground. what terrible episodes! what touching scenes! what disillusionments! there are battalions without food, companies lacking almost every necessity, because of the loss of the knapsacks. water also is lacking, but their thirst is so intense that officers and soldiers resort to slimy and even bloody pools. everywhere the wounded are begging for water. through the silence of the night are heard groans, stifled cries of anguish and pain, and heartrending voices calling for help. who will ever be able to paint the agonies of this horrible night! the sun on the twenty-fifth of june, 1859, shines above one of the most frightful sights imaginable. the battle-field is everywhere covered with corpses of men and horses. they appear as if sown along the roads, in the hollows, the thickets and the fields, above all, near the village of solferino. the fields ready for the harvest are ruined, the grain trodden down, the fences overturned, the orchards destroyed. here and there one finds pools of blood. the villages are deserted. they bear traces of bullets, of bombs and shells and grenades. the houses whose walls have been pierced with bullets and are gaping widely, are shaken and ruined. the inhabitants, of whom the greater number have passed almost twenty hours in the refuge of their cellars, without light or food, are commencing to come out. the look of stupor of these poor peasants bears testimony to the long terror they have endured. the ground is covered with all kinds of debris, broken pieces of arms, articles of equipments and blood-stained clothing. the miserable wounded gathered up during the day are pale, livid and inert. some, principally those seriously injured, have a vacant look, they seem not to understand what is said to them. they turn their staring eyes toward those who bring them help. others, in a dangerous state of nervous shock, are shaking with convulsive tremblings. still others, with uncovered wounds, where inflammation has already appeared, seem frenzied with pain; they beg that someone may end their sufferings, and, with drawn faces, writhe in the last torments of agony. elsewhere, poor fellows are prostrated on the ground by bullets and bursting shells. their arms and legs have been fractured by the cannon wheels that have passed over them. the shock of the cylindrical ball shatters the bones, so that the wound it causes is always very dangerous. the bursting of shells and the conical balls make extremely painful fractures, the internal injury being terrible. every kind of pieces of bone, of earth, of lead, of clothing, of equipments, of shoes, aggravate and irritate the wounds of the patients and increase their sufferings. those who cross this vast field of yesterday's battle meet at every step, in the midst of a confusion without parallel, inexpressible despair and suffering of every kind. some of the battalions which had taken off their knapsacks during the battle, at last find them again, but they have been robbed of all their contents. during the night, vagabonds have stolen everything. a grave loss to the poor men whose linen and uniforms are stained and torn. not only do they find themselves deprived of their clothing, but even their smallest savings, all their fortune as well as of the treasures dear to them; small family mementoes given by mothers, sisters and sweethearts. in several places the dead are stripped of their clothing by the thieves, who do not always spare the wounded who are still living. besides these painful sights are others still more dramatic. here the old, retired general le breton wanders, seeking his son-in-law, the wounded general douay, who has left his daughter, madame douay, in the midst of the tumult of war, in a state of the most cruel uneasiness. there, colonel de maleville, shot at casa nova, expires. here, it is colonel de genlis, whose dangerous wound causes a burning fever. there, lieutenant de selve of the artillery, only a few weeks out of saint cyr, has his right arm amputated on the battle-field, where he was wounded. i help care for a poor sergeant-major of the vincennes chasseurs, both of whose legs are pierced through with balls. i meet him again in the brescia hospital; but he will die crossing mount cenis. lieutenant de guiseul, who was believed dead, is picked up on the spot, where, having fallen with his standard, he was lying in a swoon. the courageous sub-lieutenant fournier, of the flying-guard, gravely wounded, finishes in his twentieth year a military career commenced in his tenth year by voluntarily enlisting in the foreign legion. they bury the commander de pontgibaud, who died during the night, and the young count de saint paer, who had attained the rank of major hardly seven days before. general auger, of the artillery, is carried to the field hospital of casa morino. his left shoulder has been shattered by a six-inch shell, part of which remained imbedded for twenty-four hours in the interior of the muscles of the armpit. carried to castiglione he is attacked with gangrene, and dies as a result of the disarticulation of the arm. general de ladmirault and general dieu, both gravely wounded, also arrived at castiglione. the lack of water becomes greater and greater. the sun is burning, the ditches are dried up. the soldiers have only brackish and unwholesome water to appease their thirst. where even the least little stream or spring trickling drop by drop is found, guards with loaded guns have great difficulty in preserving this water for the most urgent needs. wounded horses, who have lost their riders, and have wandered during the whole night, drag themselves to their comrades, from whom they seem to beg for help. they are put out of their agony by a bullet. one of these noble chargers comes alone into the midst of a french company. the rich saddle-bag, fastened to the saddle, shows that it belongs to prince von isenberg. afterwards, the wounded prince himself is found; but careful nursing during a serious illness will allow him to return to germany, where his family, in ignorance of the truth, have believed him dead and have mourned for him. among the dead some have peaceful faces; these are the men who were struck suddenly and died at once. but those who did not perish immediately have their limbs rigid and twisted in agony, their bodies are covered with dirt; their hands clutch the earth, their eyes are open and staring, a convulsive contraction has uncovered their clenched teeth. three days and three nights are passed in burying the dead who are left on the battle-field. on so large a field, many of the corpses hidden in the ditches, covered by the thickets or by some uneveness of the ground are discovered very late. they, as well as the dead horses, emit a fetid stench. in the french army a number of soldiers from each company are detailed to recognize and bury the dead. as far as possible soldiers of the same corps must pick up their fellow-members. they write down the number stamped on the clothing of the dead. then, aided in this painful duty by paid lombardy peasants, they put the corpses in a common grave. unfortunately, it is possible that, because of the unavoidable rapidity in this labor, and because of the carelessness and inattention of the paid workmen, more than one living man is buried with the dead. the letters, papers, orders, money, watches found on the officers are sent to their families, but the great number of the interred bodies make the faithful accomplishment of this task impossible. a son, the idol of his parents, educated and cared for during many years by a loving mother who was uneasy at the very slightest indisposition. a brilliant officer, beloved by his family, having left at home his wife and children. a young soldier who has just left his betrothed and his mother, sisters and old father; there he lies in the mud and in the dust, soaked in his own blood. because of the wound in his head his face has become unrecognizable. he is in agony, he expires in cruel suffering, and his body, black, swollen, hideous, thrown in a shallow grave, is covered with a little lime and earth. the birds of prey will not respect his feet and hands protruding from the muddy ground of the slope which serves him as a tomb. someone will come back, will carry more earth there and, perhaps, will put up a wooden cross above the place where his body rests, and that will be all. the corpses of the austrians, clothed in mud-stained cloaks, torn linen jackets, white tunics stained with blood are strewn by thousands on the hills and plains of medole. clouds of crows fly over the bodies in hopes of having them for prey. by hundreds they are crowded into a great common grave. once out of the line of fire, austrian soldiers, slightly wounded, young first-year recruits, throw themselves on the ground from fatigue and inanition, then weakened by loss of blood, they die miserably from exhaustion and hunger. unhappy mothers in austria, hungary and bohemia, your sorrow will be great when you learn that your children died in the enemy's country, without care, without help, and without consolation! the lot of the austrian prisoners-of-war is very sad. led like simple cattle, they are sent in a crowd, with a strong guard, to brescia, where they at last find repose, if not a kind welcome. some french soldiers wish to do violence to the hungarian captives whom they take for croates, adding furiously that those "glued-pantalooners," as they called them, always killed the wounded. i succeeded in tearing from their hands these unfortunate, trembling captives. on the battle-field many austrians are permitted to keep their swords. they have the same food as the french officers. some troops of the allied army fraternally divide their biscuits with the famished prisoners. some even take the wounded on their backs and carry them to the ambulances. near me the lieutenant of the guard bandages with his white handkerchief the head of a tyrolese which was scarcely covered with old, torn, and dirty linen. during the previous day at the height of the battle, commandant de la rochefoucauld-liancourt, the fearless african hunter, threw himself upon a squad of hungarians; but his horse having been pierced through with balls, he himself was struck by two shots and made prisoner by the hungarians. learning that wounded la rochefoucauld had been captured by the soldiers, the austrian emperor ordered that he be treated with great kindness and given the best care. the commissary continue to pick up the wounded. these, bandaged or not, are carried by mules or wheelbarrows and litters to the field hospitals in the villages and towns near the place where they fell. in these towns, churches, monasteries, houses, parks, courts, streets and promenades are transformed into improvised hospitals. in carpenedolo, castel-goffredo, medole, guidizzolo, volta and neighboring places are arriving many of the wounded. but the greater number are carried to castiglione, where the least mutilated have already succeeded in dragging themselves. behold the long procession of vehicles of the commissary department, loaded with soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers of all grades mixed together; cavalry-men, infantry, artillerymen, bleeding, fatigued, lacerated, covered with dust. each jolt of the wagons which carry them imposing on them new suffering. then the mules come trotting in, their gait drawing, each instant, bitter cries from the throats of the unfortunate wounded whom they are bearing. many die during the transportation. their corpses are put on the sides of the roads. to others is left the duty of burying them. these dead are enscribed, "disappeared." the wounded are sent to castiglione. from there they are carried on to the hospitals in brescia, cremona, bergama, milan, and other cities of lombardy, where they will receive the regular care and will submit to the necessary amputations. but as the means of transportation are very scarce, they are obliged to wait several days in castiglione. this city, where the confusion surpasses all imagination, soon becomes for the french and austrians a vast temporary hospital. on the day of battle the field-hospital of headquarters is established there. chests of lint are unpacked, dressings for wounds and medicate necessities are prepared. the inhabitants give everything that they can get ready--coverings, linens, mattresses and straw. the hospital of castiglione, the monastery, the barracks of san luigi, the church of the capucines, the stations of the police, the churches of maggiore, san giuseppe, santa rosalie, are filled with the wounded lying crowded on the straw. straw is also arranged for them in the courts and in the public parks. plank roofs are quickly put up and linen is stretched to protect them from the hot sun. the private dwellings are soon converted into hospitals. officers and soldiers are there received by the inhabitants. some of these last run through the streets anxiously searching for a physician for their guests. later, others, in consternation, go and come through the city, insistently begging that someone take away from their houses the corpses with which they do not know what to do. a number of french surgeons, having remained in castiglione, aided by young italian physicians and by hospital orderlies, dress and bandage the wounds. but all this is very insufficient. the number of convoys of wounded becomes so great during saturday that the administration, the citizens and the few soldiers left in castiglione are incapable of caring for so much misery. then, melancholy scenes occur. there is water; there is food; and nevertheless the wounded are dying of hunger and thirst. there is much lint, but not enough hands to put it on the wounds! the greater number of the army of physicians must go to cavriana; the hospital orderlies make mistakes, and hands are lacking at this critical moment. a voluntary service, good or bad, must be organized. but this is difficult in the midst of such disorder, to which is added a panic of the castiglionians, which results in aggravating the misery of the wounded. this panic is caused by a very insignificant circumstance. as each corps of the french army had recovered itself, after taking up its position, on the day after the battle, convoys of prisoners were formed who were sent to brescia, through castiglione and montechiaro. the inhabitants took one band of captives coming from cavriana escorted by hussars, for the austrian army returning in force. alarm was given by the frightened peasants, by the assistant conductors of the baggage, by itinerant merchants who follow the troops in a campaign. immediately all the houses are closed, the inhabitants barricading themselves in their homes, burning the tri-color flags which had adorned their windows, hiding themselves in the cellars or the attics. some run into the fields with their wives and children carrying with them their most valuable possessions. others, less frightened and more sagacious, remain at home, but take in the first austrian wounded upon whom they lay their hands and overwhelm them with kindness and care. in the streets, on the roads, blocked by wagonloads of wounded, by convoys of supplies, are rapid transport wagons, horses flying in all directions, amid cries of fear, of anger and of pain. baggage wagons are overturned, bread and biscuits fall into the gutter. the drivers detach the horses, dashing away with hanging bridles on the road to brescia, spreading the alarm as they go. they collide with carts of provisions and convoys of wounded. these latter, trodden under foot and frenzied with terror, beg to be taken with them. in the city some of them deaf to all orders tear away their bandages, go staggering out of the churches, into the streets where they are jostled and bruised and finally fall from exhaustion and pain. * * * * * what agonies! what suffering during the days of june twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh! wounds poisoned by heat, by dust and by lack of water and care, have become intensely painful. suffocating stenches pollute the air in spite of efforts to keep in good condition these local hospitals. every quarter of an hour the convoys sent to castiglione are bringing new loads of wounded. the insufficiency in the number of assistants, of hospital orderlies, of servants is cruelly felt. in spite of the activity of the commissary department, which is organizing transportation to brescia by means of ox-carts; in spite of the spontaneous care of the inhabitants of castiglione, who transport the sick, the departures are much less numerous than the arrivals, and the crowding grows unceasingly greater. on the stone floors of the churches of castiglione are placed, side by side, men of every nation. french, germans, slavs and arabs are temporarily crowded to the most remote part of the chapels. many have no longer the strength to move themselves and cannot move or stir in the narrow space where they are lying. oaths, blasphemies and cries which can be interpreted by no expression, are sounding beneath the arches of the sanctuaries. "ah, sir, how i suffer!" say to me some of these poor fellows. "we are abandoned, left to die miserably, and yet we fought bravely!" they can get no rest, in spite of the nights they have passed in sleeplessness and long-endured fatigue. in their distress they beg for help which is not given. some, in despair, roll in convulsions which will end in tetanus and death. others, believing that the cold water poured on their festered wounds produce worms, which appear in great numbers, refuse to have the bandages moistened. others still, whose wounds were dressed at the improvised hospitals on the battle-fields, are given no further attention during the halt they are obliged to make in castiglione, and as these bandages are very tight, in view of the roughness of the transportation and have not been changed, they are suffering veritable tortures. these, whose faces are black with flies, with which the air is infested and which cling to their wounds, cast on all sides distracted glances. but no one notices. on these, the cloaks, shirts, flesh and blood form a compact mass that cannot be removed. here, lies a soldier totally disfigured; his tongue hanging far out of his broken jaws. he stirs and wishes to rise. i moisten his dried palate and hardened tongue. seizing a handful of lint i soak it in a bucket and squeeze the water from this improvised sponge in the formless opening which is in the place of his mouth. there, is an unfortunate man a part of whose face, the nose, lips and chin have been cut away by the stroke of a sword. incapable of speech, half blind, he makes signs with his hands, and by that heartrending pantomime, accompanied by guttural sounds, draws attention to himself. i give him a drink by dropping gently on his blood-covered face a little pure water. a third, with a cleft head, expires, his blood spreading over the stone floor of the church. he presents a horrible sight. his companions in misfortune push him with their feet, for he incommodes the passage. i protect his last moments and cover with a handkerchief his poor head which he still feebly moves. although every house has become an infirmary, and every family has dedicated itself to nursing the wounded officers, that it has gathered in, nevertheless i succeed by sunday morning in collecting a certain number of women of the people, who assist, as best they can, in the efforts made to help so many thousands of wounded men who are without succor. food must be given, and above all, drink, to the men who literally are dying from hunger and thirst. wounds must be bandaged, blood-stained bodies, covered all over with dirt and vermin, must be washed, and all this must be done in the extremely hot weather, in the midst of the suffocating, nauseating stench, and of groans and cries of pain. nevertheless, a little group of volunteers is formed. i organize, well as i can, aid in the section which seems to be the most without care, and i choose one of the churches of castiglione, called chiesa maggiore. nearly five hundred soldiers are crowded together on the straw, about one hundred others, suffering and groaning, are lying in the public park before the church. in the church the women of lombardy go from one to the other with jars and pitchers full of clear water, which serves to appease the thirst and to bathe the wounds. some of these improvised nurses are good-hearted old women, others are charming young girls. their gentleness, goodness, compassion, and their attentive care restores a little courage to the wounded. the boys of the neighborhood come and go between the church and the nearby springs with buckets, pitchers and jars. the distribution of water is followed by that of bouillon and soup, of which the servants of the commissary department are obliged to cook a marvelous quantity. thick bundles of lint are placed here and there. everyone can use it freely; but bandages, linen and shirts are lacking, and one can hardly procure the most necessary articles. i purchase, however, some new shirts by the aid of those kind-hearted women who have already given all their old linen; and, on monday, early in the morning, i send my coachman to brescia to bring back supplies. he returns after some hours with his cabriolet loaded with sponges, linen, pins, cigars, tobacco, camomile, mallow, sambuca, oranges, sugar and lemons. this makes it possible to give refreshing lemonade, wash the wounds with mallow-water, put on warm compresses and renew the material of the bandages. in the meantime we have gained some recruits, who help us. the first is an old naval officer, then some english tourists, who, desiring to see everything, have entered the church, and whom we keep almost by force. two other englishmen, on the contrary, show themselves desirous to help. they distribute cigars to the austrians. an italian priest, three or four travelers, a swiss merchant from neuchatel, a parisian journalist, who afterwards takes charge of the relief in the adjacent church, and some officers whose company has received orders to remain in castiglione, also aid us. but soon some of those voluntary nurses go away, not being able to bear the sight of this suffering. the priest follows their example, but he reappears, however, with delicate kindness to make us smell aromatic herbs and bottles of salts. a tourist, oppressed at the sight of these living debris, swooned from emotion. the merchant from neuchatel perseveres for two days, bandaging wounds and writing for the dying letters of farewell to their families. we are obliged to quiet the compassionate excitement of a belgian, fearing that he will have an attack of burning fever. some men of the detachment, left to garrison the city, try to help their comrades, but cannot endure the sight which breaks down their courage, striking too keenly upon their imagination. nevertheless, a corporal of the engineer corps, wounded at magenta, almost restored to health and about to return to his battalion, but whose orders leave him a few days of liberty, aids us with courage and perseverance. the french commissary, remaining in castiglione, finally grants, on my insistence, authority to utilize for service in the hospitals, some healthy prisoners, and three or four austrian physicians who aid the efforts of the few surgeons left in castiglione. a german physician remaining voluntarily on the battle-field to care for the soldiers, dedicates himself to the injured of both armies. after three days the commissary sends him back to mantua to rejoin his compatriots. "do not leave me to die," exclaim some of these agonized men seizing my hand in despair, but their death is not long delayed. "ah, sir, if you would write to my father, that he might console my poor mother!" said to me, with tears in his eyes, a corporal named mazuet, scarcely twenty years old. i noted down the address of his parents and a few minutes later he had ceased to live. the parents, who dwelt on rue d'alger, in lyons, and of whom this young man, enlisted as a volunteer, was the only son, received no other information about their child than that which i sent to them. he very probably, like so many others, has been enscribed, "disappeared." an old sergeant, decorated with many chevrons, repeated with profound melancholy and an air of conviction full of bitterness: "if someone had cared for me sooner, i should have lived, whereas, this evening i will die." that evening he died. "i do not want to die! i do not want to die!" cries, with savage energy, a grenadier of the guard, full of strength and health three days before, but who, mortally wounded, and feeling sure that his minutes are irrevocably numbered, fights against this dark certainty. i talk to him, he listens to me, and this man, calmed, soothed, consoled, finally resigns himself to die with the simplicity of a child. in the back of the church, on the steps of an altar, a chasseur d'afrique lies on straw. three balls have struck him, one on the right side, one on the left shoulder, the third remained in the right leg. it is sunday, and he asserts that he has eaten nothing since friday. he is covered with dried mud flecked with blood, his clothing is torn; his shirt is in tatters. after i had washed his wounds, given him a little bouillon and wrapped him in covers, he put my hand to his lips with an expression of unspeakable gratitude. later we were able to send him to a better hospital. at the entrance of the church is a hungarian who cries unceasingly, calling in heartrending tones for a physician. his back and his shoulders, ploughed with grapeshot, appear as if torn by iron hooks and are one mass of quivering, raw flesh. the rest of his body is swollen, green and black--horrible. he can neither lie down nor sit up. i dip some packages of lint in cool water and try to make a cushion for him, but gangrene soon carries him off. a little further on lies a dying zouave who is weeping bitter tears, and we console him as if he were a little child. the preceding fatigue, the lack of food and repose, the intensity of the pain, the fear of dying without help, excites even in these brave soldiers a nervous sensibility which betrays itself by sobs. one of their chief thoughts, when they are not suffering too cruelly, is the memory of their mother, and the fear of the grief she will experience on learning of their fate. on the corpse of a soldier we found, hanging from his neck, a medallion containing the portrait of an aged woman, without doubt his mother, which with his left hand he was pressing on his heart. in the part nearest the great door of the church maggiore lie, now, on straw, enveloped in covers, about a hundred french non-commissioned officers and soldiers. they are ranged in two nearly parallel ranks, between which one can pass. their wounds have been dressed. the distribution of soup has taken place. they are quiet. they follow me with their eyes; all heads turn to the left if i go to the left, to the right when i go to the right. sincere thanks are visible on their astonished faces. "one can easily see that he is a parisian," say some. "no," retort others, "he seems to be a southerner." "truly, sir, are you not from bordeaux?" asks a third, and each wishes that i might be from his city or province. i met afterwards some of these wounded men, who had become crippled invalids. recognizing me, they stopped to express their gratitude because i had nursed them in castiglione. "we called you 'the gentleman in white,'" said one, in his picturesque language, "for you were always dressed entirely in white. it is true the weather did not fail to be hot." the resignation of the poor soldiers was often touching; they suffered without complaint, they died humbly and silently. on the other side of the church, some wounded austrian prisoners fear to receive care which they distrust. they angrily tear off their bandages, opening their bleeding wounds. others remain silent, dejected, impassive. but the greater number are far from being insensible to kindness and their faces express their thanks. one of them, about nineteen years of age, who with forty of his compatriots is pushed into the deep recesses of the church, has been without food for two days. he has lost one eye, he trembles with fever, he is scarcely able to speak or to drink a little bouillon. our nursing revives him; twenty-four hours later when we are able to send him to brescia, he leaves us with sorrow, almost with despair, pressing to his lips the hands of the good-hearted women of castiglione, whom he entreats not to abandon him. another prisoner, a prey to a burning fever, draws attention to himself. he is not yet twenty years of age and his hair is already perfectly white; it became white during the battle, as his wounded comrades near whom he lies assure us. the women of castiglione, seeing that i make no distinction in nationality, imitate my example, showing the same kindness to all these men of such different origin and who are to them all equally strangers. "tutti fratelli," they repeat with compassion. "all are brothers." honor to these compassionate women, to these young girls of castiglione! as devoted as they are modest, they give way neither before fatigue, nor disgust, nor sacrifice; nothing repels, wearies or disheartens them. for the soldier recommencing the everyday life of the campaign, after the fatigue and emotions of a battle like that of solferino, the memories of his family become more strong than ever. that mental state is vividly described by the following lines from an officer writing from volta to his brother in france: "you cannot imagine how the soldiers are moved when they catch sight of the baggage-master who distributes the letters to the army; because he brings to us, understand, news from france, from our native land, from our parents, from our friends. each one listens, watches, and stretches to him eager hands. the happy men, who receive a letter--open it hurriedly and devour it immediately; the rest, deprived of this happiness, depart with heavy heart and isolate themselves in order to think about those so far away. "sometimes a name is called to which there is no response. the men glance at each other, they question among themselves, they wait. 'dead,' murmurs a voice, and the baggage-master files the letter away and returns it unopened to the writer. they had rejoiced when they sent it, and had said to one another. 'he will be happy to receive it!' when they see it returned, their poor hearts will break." the streets of castiglione are quieter; the deaths and the departures have left vacancies. in spite of the arrival of new wagons full of wounded, order, little by little, is established and regular attendance commences. the convoys from castiglione to brescia are more frequent. they consist principally of hospital wagons and heavy carts which, constantly carrying, to the french commissary department, gun supplies, and provisions, go back empty to brescia. they are drawn by oxen, walking slowly under the fierce sun and through the thick dust in which the pedestrian sinks to his ankles. these uncomfortable wagons are covered with branches of trees which very imperfectly protect from the rays of the coming sun. the wounded, piled up, one may say, one upon another. it is difficult to imagine the torments of this long ride. in these wagons some groan, others call for their mother; there are the ravings and delirium of fever, sometimes curses and blasphemies. the least interest shown to these unhappy men, a kind salutation, gives them pleasure and they return it at once with expressions of gratitude. in all the villages along the road leading to brescia, the women sitting before their doors, silently prepare lint. the communal authorities have had prepared, drinks, bread and nourishment. when a convoy arrives the women of the village go to the wagons, wash the wounds, renew the lint compresses, which they moisten with fresh water. they pour spoonfuls of bouillon, wine or lemonade in the mouths of those who have not the strength to raise their heads or extend their arms. in montechiaro, three small hospitals are under the care of the women of the people, who nurse with as much wisdom as kindheartedness. in guidizzolo, about one thousand invalids are placed in a large castle. in volta, some hundreds of austrians are received in an old monastery which has been transformed into barracks. in cavriana, they establish in the church a number of hungarians who had been forty-eight hours without help. in the field-hospital of the headquarters, chloroform is used in operating; this produces, in the austrians, almost immediate insensibility, and in the french nervous contractions, accompanied by exaltation before unconsciousness results. the people of cavriana are entirely without provisions; the soldiers of the guard feed them by sharing with them their rations and their mess; the country has been laid waste, and almost everything edible, cattle, garden produce, etc., has been sold to the austrian troops. the french army has campaign food in abundance, but only with difficulty can it procure the butter, meat and vegetables necessary for the ordinary food of soldiers. the wounded of the sardinian army, who have been transported to desenzano, rivoltella, lonato, and pozzolenzo, are in conditions less disadvantageous than the french and austrians temporarily established in castiglione--desenzano and rivoltella not having been occupied at a few days interval by two different armies. food is still to be found there; the hospitals are better kept and the inhabitants, less troubled, actively support the nursing service. the sick are sent to brescia in good carts provided with thick beds of hay. they are protected from the sun by arches of interlaced foliage which support a strong linen cover. the feeling that one has of his own insufficiency in such solemn circumstances, is an inexpressible suffering. it is extremely painful to feel that you cannot help all those who lie before you, because of their great number, or aid those who appeal to you with supplications. long hours pass before you reach the most unfortunate. you are stopped by one, petitioned by another, all equally worthy of pity. embarrassed at each step by the multitude of miserable sufferers who press about you, who surround you, who beg support and help. then, why turn to the left, while on the right are so many men who will soon die without a word of consolation, without even a single glass of water to appease their burning thirst? the thought of the importance of one human life that one might be able to save; the desire to alleviate the tortures of so many unfortunate and to restore their courage, the forced and unceasing activity which one imposes on himself in such moments, gives a supreme energy, a thirst to carry help to the greatest number possible. one becomes no longer moved by the thousand scenes of this terrible tragedy, one passes, with indifference, before the most hideously disfigured corpses and glances almost coldly at sights, so much more horrible than those already described, that the pen refuses absolutely to depict them; but it happens, sometimes, that the heart suddenly breaks, struck all at once by a poignant sadness at the sight of a single incident, an isolated fact, an unexpected detail, which goes directly to the soul, draws out our sympathy, moves the most impressionable cords of our being and brings a realization of the whole horror of this tragedy. worn out with fatigue, but unable to sleep, i have my little carriage harnessed on the afternoon of monday, the twenty-seventh, and go away about 6 o'clock to breathe in the open air the freshness of the evening and to find a little repose by escaping, for a moment, from the dismal sights which surround me on every side in castiglione. it was a favorable time, for no movement of the troops had been ordered during the day. calm had succeeded the terrible agitation of the previous days. here and there are visible pools of dried blood which redden the battle-field. one meets newly turned earth, white with freshly strewn lime, indicating the place where repose the victims of the twenty-fourth. at solferino, whose square tower has proudly dominated for some centuries that country, where for the third time have just met two of the greatest powers of modern days, one still picks up much debris which covers, even in the cemeteries, the crosses and the bloody stones of the tombs. the ground is strewn with swords, guns, haversacks, cartridge boxes, tin boxes, shakos, helmets and belts. almost everything is twisted, torn and broken. i arrive at cavriana at about 9 o'clock in the evening. the train of war surrounding the headquarters of the emperor of france is an imposing sight. i seek the marshal, duke of magenta, with whom i am personally acquainted. not knowing exactly where his army corps is encamped, i stop my little carriage on the park opposite the house occupied, since friday evening, by the emperor napoleon. i find myself suddenly in the midst of a group of generals, sitting on straw chairs and wooden stools, smoking their cigars and inhaling the fresh air before the improvised palace of the sovereign. while i inquire about the location of marshal macmahon, several generals, very suspicious of my arrival, question the corporal, wounded at magenta, who begged permission to accompany me on this excursion through the armies as his rank would ensure me safe conduct. sitting beside the coachman, he gives me, in a certain degree, official character. the generals desire to know who i am and to discover the object of the mission with which they suppose i am charged, for they cannot imagine that a simple traveler would dare to risk himself alone in the midst of the camps at such a time. the corporal, who knows nothing, remains impenetrable, while he replies respectfully to their questions. their curiosity increases considerably when they see me leave for borghetto where the duke of magenta is. the second corps, commanded by the marshal, has been moved from cavriana to castellaro, which is at a distance of five kilometers; its divisions are encamped on the right and left of the road leading from castellaro to monzambano. the marshal, himself, with his staff, occupies borghetto. although the night has arrived, we continue our way. the fires of the bivouac, fed by whole trees, and the lighted tents of the officers, present a picturesque appearance. the last murmurings of a sleeping, yet watchful, camp soothes a little my excited imagination. under this beautiful star-lit sky, a solemn silence at last takes the place of the noises and emotions of the preceding days. i breathe with delight the pure sweet air of a splendid italian night. having obtained only incomplete information, we mistake our way and follow a road leading to volta. we are about to fall into the army corps of general neil, made marshal three days before, which is encamped on the outskirts of the town. my italian coachman is so frightened at the idea of being very near the austrian lines that, more than once, i am obliged to take the reins from his hands and give them to the corporal seated beside him on the box. the poor man had run away from mantua several days before to save himself from the austrian service, taking refuge in brescia, he hired out as a coachman. his fears grow greater on hearing the discharge of a distant gun, fired by someone who disappears in the underbrush. after the retreat of the austrian army, many of the deserters hid themselves in the cellars of the houses of the villages, abandoned by their owners and partially plundered. in order not to be captured, they, at first, ate and drank in those underground retreats, then, being at the end of their resources and pressed by hunger, but well armed, they ventured out at night. the unhappy and terrified mantuan can no longer guide his horse. he constantly turns his head, he casts affrighted glances at all the thickets along the road, at all the hedges and hovels, fearing, any moment, to see emerge some hidden austrians. his fears increase at every turn of the road and he almost swoons, when, in the silence of the night we are surprised with a shot from a guard, whom we do not see on account of the darkness. his terror knows no limit when we almost collide with a large, wide open umbrella which we vaguely catch sight of at the side of the road near a path leading to volta. that poor umbrella, riddled with bullets and balls was, probably, a part of the baggage of some canteen-woman who had lost it during the storm of the twenty-fourth. we were retracing the road to reach borghetto. it was after 11 o'clock. we were making the horse gallop and our modest vehicle rolled across the space, almost without noise, on to the strato cavallara, when cries of "who goes there? who goes there? who goes there? or i fire," came like a bolt from the mouth of an invisible sentinel. "france," replies immediately a loud voice, which adds, in giving his rank: "corporal in the first engineer corps, company seventh." "go on," is the reply. without this presence of mind of the corporal we would have received a shot almost in the face. finally, at a quarter before twelve we reach, without other adventure, the first houses of borghetto. all is dark and silent. however, a light shines on the ground floor of a house on the principal street, where are at work in a low room the accounting officers. although embarrassed in their work and very much astonished at our appearance at such an hour, they treat us very kindly. a paymaster, signor outrey, gives me a cordial invitation to be his guest. his orderly brings a mattress on which i throw myself, completely dressed, to rest for several hours, after drinking some excellent bouillon, which seems to me the more delicious as i am hungry and for several days have eaten nothing even passable. i can sleep quietly, not being, as in castiglione, suffocated with fetid exhalations and tormented with the flies, which though satiated with corpses, attack also the living. the corporal and the driver settled themselves simply in the carriage, remaining in the street, but the unfortunate mantuan, always in great terror, could not shut his eyes during the whole night and the next day he was more dead than alive. tuesday, the twenty-eighth, at six in the morning i was received most kindly by marshal macmahon. at ten o'clock i was on the way to cavriana. soon after i entered the modest house, since historic, for there was lodged the emperor napoleon. at three o'clock in the afternoon i found myself once more in the midst of the wounded of castiglione, who expressed their joy at seeing me again. the thirtieth of june i was in brescia. this city, so charming and picturesque, is transformed, not into a large temporary shelter for the wounded like castiglione, but into a vast hospital. its two cathedrals, its palaces, its churches, its monasteries, its colleges, its barracks, in a word all its buildings receive the victims of solferino. fifteen thousand beds, of some sort, have been improvised in forty-eight hours. the inhabitants have done more than was ever done before under similar circumstances. in the centre of the city the old basilica, "il duomo recchio," contains a thousand wounded. the people come to them in crowds, women of every class bring them quantities of oranges, jellies, biscuits and delicacies. the humblest widow or the poorest little old woman believes that she must present her tribute of sympathy and her modest offering. similar scenes occur in the new cathedral, a magnificent temple of white marble, where the wounded are taken by the hundreds. it is the same in forty other buildings, churches or hospitals which contain nearly twenty thousand wounded. the municipality of brescia understood the extraordinary duty imposed upon it by such grave circumstances. with a permanent existence it associates with itself the best men of the town, who bring to it eager co-operation. in opening a monastery, a school, a church, the municipality created, in a few hours, as if by magic, hospitals with hundreds of beds, vast kitchens, improvised laundries for linen and everything that would be necessary. these measures were taken with so much courage that, after a few days, one was able to admire the good order and regular management of these hurriedly arranged hospitals. the population of brescia, which was forty thousand, was suddenly almost doubled by the great number of wounded and sick. the physicians, numbering one hundred and forty, displayed great self-devotion during the whole duration of their fatiguing service. they were helped by the medical students and some volunteers. aid committees being organized, a special commission was appointed to receive donations of bedding, linen and provisions of all kinds; another commission administered the depot or central store house. in the large rooms of the hospitals, the officers are ordinarily separated from the soldiers. the austrians are not mixed with the allies. the series of beds are all alike, on the shelf above the bed of each soldier, his uniform and military cap indicate to which branch of the service he belongs. they have commenced to refuse permission for the crowd to enter, it embarrasses and hinders the nurses. at the side of soldiers, with resigned faces, are others who murmur and complain. the idea of an amputation scarcely frightens the french soldier, because of his careless nature, but he is impatient and irritable; the austrian, of a less thoughtless disposition, is more inclined to be melancholy in his isolation. i find in these hospital wards some of our wounded from castiglione. they are better cared for now, but their torments are not ended. here, is one of the heroes of the imperial flying guard, wounded at solferino. shot in the leg, he passed several days at castiglione, where i dressed his wounds for the first time. he is stretched on a straw mattress; the expression of his face denotes profound suffering; his eyes are hollow and shining; his great pallor gives evidence that purulent fever has set in to complicate and increase the gravity of his condition; his lips are dry; his voice trembles; the assurance of the brave man has given place to fear and timidity; care even unnerves him; he is afraid to have any one approach his poor injured leg which the gangrene has already attacked. a french surgeon, who makes the amputations, passes by his bed; the sick man, whose touch is like burning iron, seizes his hand and presses it in his own. "do not hurt me! my suffering is terrible!" he cries. but one must act, and without delay. twenty other wounded must be operated on during the same morning, and one hundred and fifty are waiting for bandages. one has not time to pity a single case nor to await the end of his hesitation. the surgeon, cool and resolute, replies: "let me do it." then he rapidly lifts the covering. the broken leg is swollen double its natural size; from three places flows a quantity of fetid pus, purple stains prove that as an artery has been broken, the sole remedy, if there is one, is amputation. amputation! terrible word for this poor young man, who sees before him no other alternative than an immediate death or the miserable life of a cripple. he has no time to prepare himself for the last decision, and trembling with anguish, he cries out in despair: "oh! what are you going to do?" the surgeon does not reply. "nurse, carry him away, make haste!" he says. but a heartrending cry bursts from that panting breast; the unskilled nurse has seized the motionless, yet sensitive, leg much too near the wound; the broken bones penetrating the flesh, has caused new torments to the soldier whose hanging leg shakes with the jolts of the transportation to the operating room. fearful procession! it seems as if one were leading a victim to death. he lies finally on the operating table. nearby, on another table, a linen covers the instruments. the surgeon, occupied with his work, hears and sees only his operation. a young army doctor holds the arms of the patient, while the nurse seizes the healthy leg and draws the invalid to the edge of the table. at this the frightened man shrieks: "do not let me fall!" and he seizes convulsively in his arms the young physician, ready to support him and who pale from emotion is himself almost equally distressed. the operator, one knee on the floor and his hand armed with the terrible knife, places his arm about the gangrenous limb and cuts the skin all around. a piercing cry sounds through the hospital. the young physician, face to face, with the tormented man can see on his contracted features every detail of his atrocious agony. "courage," he says, in a low tone to the soldier, whose hands he feels gripping his back, "two minutes more and you will be saved." the doctor stands up again; he separates the skin from the muscles which it covers, leaving them bare; as he draws back the skin he cuts away the flesh, then returning to the attack, with a vigorous turn, he cuts away every muscle to the bone; a torrent of blood gushes out of the arteries, just opened, covering the operator and flowing down on to the floor. calm and expressionless, the rough operator does not speak a word; but, suddenly, in the midst of the silence reigning in the room, he turns in anger to the awkward nurse, reproaching him for not knowing how to press on the arteries. this latter, inexperienced, did not know how to prevent the hemorrhage by applying his thumb properly on the bleeding arteries. the wounded man, overcome by suffering, articulates feebly, "oh! it is enough, let me die!" and a cold sweat runs down his face. but he must bear it still another minute,--a minute which seems an eternity. the young physician, ever full of sympathy, counts the seconds as he watches sometimes the operating surgeon, sometimes the patient, whose courage he tries to sustain, saying to him: "only one minute more!" indeed, the moment for the saw has come and already one hears the grinding of the steel as it penetrates the living bone, separating from the body the member half gangrenous. but the pain has been too great for that weak, exhausted body; the groans have ceased, for the sick man has swooned. the surgeon, who is no longer guided by his cries and his groans, fearing that this silence may be that of death, looks at him uneasily to assure himself that he has not expired. the restoratives, held in reserve, succeed, with difficulty, in reviving his dull, half-closed, vacant eyes. the dying man, however, seems to return to life, he is weak and shattered, but at least his greatest sufferings are over. imagine such an operation on an austrian, understanding neither italian nor french and letting himself be led like a sheep or an ox to slaughter without being able to exchange one word with his well-meaning tormentors! the french meet everywhere with sympathy; they are flattered, pampered, encouraged; when one speaks to them about the battle of solferino, they brighten up and discuss it: that memory, full of glory for them; drawing their thoughts elsewhere than on themselves, lessens a little their unhappiness. but the austrians have not this good fortune. in the hospitals where they are crowded, i insist upon seeing them and almost by force enter their rooms. with what gratitude these good men welcome my words of consolation and the gift of a little tobacco! on their resigned faces is depicted a lively gratitude, which they do not know how to express. their looks tell more than any word of thanks. some of them possess two or three paper florins, a small fortune for them, but they cannot change this modest value for coins. the officers particularly show hearty appreciation of the attentions bestowed upon them. in the hospital where he is lodged, prince von isenburg occupies with another german prince, a comfortable little room. during several successive days i distribute, without distinction of nationality, tobacco, pipes and cigars in the churches and hospitals where the odor of the tobacco lessens a little the nauseous stench produced by the crowding of so many patients in suffocating places. besides that, it is a distraction, a means of dispelling the fears of the wounded before the amputation of a member; not a few are operated on with a pipe in the mouth, and some die smoking. finally all the supply of tobacco in brescia is exhausted. it must be brought from milan. an eminent inhabitant of brescia, signor carlo borghetti, takes me in his carriage, from hospital to hospital. he helps me to distribute my modest gifts of tobacco, arranged by the merchants in thousands of little bags that are carried by willing soldiers in very large baskets. everywhere i am well received. only a doctor of lombardy, named calini, will not allow the distribution of cigars in the hospital san luca, which is confided to his care. in other places the physicians, on the contrary, show themselves almost as grateful as their patients. but wishing to try once more at san luca, i visit again that hospital and succeed in making a large distribution of cigars, to the great joy the poor wounded, whom i had innocently made suffer the torments of tantalus. during the course of my investigations i penetrate into a series of rooms forming the second floor of a large monastery, a kind of labyrinth of which the ground and the first floors are full of the sick. i find in one of the upper rooms four or five wounded and feverish patients, in another ten or fifteen, in a third about twenty, all neglected (this is very excusable; there were so many wounded, everywhere), complaining bitterly of not having seen a nurse for several hours and begging insistently that someone bring them bouillon in place of cold water which they have for their only drink. at the end of an interminable corridor, in a little isolated room, is dying absolutely alone, motionless on a mattress, a young corporal attacked with tetanus. although he seems full of life as his eyes are wide open, he hears and understands nothing and remains neglected. many of the soldiers beg me to write to their relatives, some to their captains, who replace in their eyes their absent families. in the hospital of saint clement, a lady of brescia, countess bronna, occupies herself, with saintly self-abnegation, in nursing those who have had limbs amputated. the french soldiers speak of her with enthusiasm, the most repellant details do not stop her. "sono madre!" she says to me with simplicity: "i am a mother!" these words well express her devotion as complete as motherly. in the hospital san gaetano, a franciscan monk, distinguishes himself by his zeal and kindness to the sick. a convalescent piedmontese, speaking french and italian, translates the petitions of the french soldiers to the lombardy physicians. they keep him as interpreter. in a neighboring hospital chloroform is used. some patients are chloroformed with difficulty, accidents result and sometimes it is in vain that they try to revive a man who a few minutes before was speaking. i am stopped many times on the street by kind people who beg me to come to their homes, for a minute, to act as interpreter to the wounded french officers, lodged in their houses, surrounded by the best care, but whose language they do not understand. the invalids, excited and uneasy, are irritated at not being understood, to the great distress of the family whose sympathetic kindness is received with the bad humour that fever and suffering often call forth. one of them, whom an italian physician desires to bleed, imagining that they wish to amputate him, resists with all his strength, overheating himself and doing himself much harm. a few words of explanation in their mother tongue, in the midst of this lamentable confusion, alone succeed in calming and tranquilizing these invalids of solferino. with what patience the inhabitants of brescia devote themselves to these who have sacrificed themselves in order to deliver them from a foreign rule! they feel a real grief when their charge dies. these adopted families religiously follow to the cemetery, accompanying to its last resting place, the coffin of the french officer, their guest of a few days, for whom they weep as for a friend, a relative or a son, but whose name, perhaps, they do not know. during the night the soldiers, who have died in the hospitals, are interred. their names and numbers are noted down, which was rarely done in castiglione. for example, the parents of corporal mazuet, aided by me in the chiesa maggiore and who lived in lyons, 3 rue d'alger, never received other information about their son than that which i sent them. all the cities of lombardy considered it due to their honor to share in the distribution of the wounded. in bergamo and cremona special commisions organized in haste are aided by auxiliary committees of devoted ladies. in one of the hospitals of cremona an italian physician having said: "we keep the good things for our friends of the allied army, but we give to our enemies only what is absolutely necessary, and if they die, so much the worse for them!" a lady, directing one of the hospitals of that city, hastened to disapprove of these barbarous words, saying that she always took the same care of austrians, french and sardinians, not wishing to make any difference between friends and enemies, "for," she said, "our lord jesus christ made no distinction between men when it was a question of doing them good." in cremona, as everywhere else, the french physicians regret their insufficient number. "i cannot, without profound sorrow," said dr. sonrier, "think of a small room of twenty-five beds assigned, in cremona, to the most dangerously wounded austrians. i see again their faces, emaciated and wan, with complexion pallid from exhaustion and blood poisoning, begging with heartrending gestures, accompanied by pitiful cries, for one last favor, the amputation of a limb (which they had hoped to save), to end an intolerable agony of which we are forced to remain powerless spectators." besides the group of courageous and indefatigable surgeons, whose names i would like to be able to cite (for, certainly, if to kill men is a title to glory, to nurse them and cure them, often at the risk of one's own life, merits indeed esteem and gratitude), medical students hasten from bologna, pisa and other italian cities. a canadian surgeon, dr. norman bettun, professor of anatomy in toronto, comes to assist these devoted men. besides the people of lombardy, french, swiss and belgian tourists seek to render themselves useful, but their efforts had to be limited to the distribution of oranges, ices, coffee, lemonade and tobacco. in plaisance, whose three hospitals are administered by private individuals, and by ladies serving as nurses, one of these last, a young lady, supplicated by her family to renounce her intention to pass her days in the hospital, on account of the contagious fevers there, continued her labors so willingly and with such kindness that she was greatly esteemed by all the soldiers. "she enlivens the hospital," they said. how valuable, in the cities of lombardy, would have been some hundreds of voluntary nurses, devoted, experienced and, above all, previously instructed! they would have rallied around themselves the meagre band of assistants and the scattered forces. not only was time lacking to those who were capable of counselling and guiding; but the necessary knowledge and experience was not possessed by the greater number of those who could offer only personal devotion, which was insufficient and often useless. what, indeed, in spite of their good will, could a handful of persons do in such urgent need? after some weeks the compassionate enthusiasm began to cool and the people, as inexperienced as they were injudicious in their kindness, sometimes brought improper food to the wounded, so that it was necessary to deny them entrance to the churches and hospitals. many persons, who would have consented to pass one or two hours a day with the sick, gave up their intention, because a special permission was necessary, which could only be obtained by petitioning the authorities. strangers disposed to help met with all kinds of unexpected hindrances, of a nature to discourage them. but voluntary hospital workers, well chosen and capable, sent by societies with the sanction of the governments and respected because of an agreement between the belligerents, would have surmounted the difficulties and done incomparably more good. during the first eight days after the battle the wounded, of whom the physicians said, in low tones, when passing by their beds and shaking their heads: "there is nothing more to be done," received no more attention and died neglected. and is not this very natural when the scarcity of the nurses is compared with the enormous number of the wounded? an inexorable and cruel logic insists that these unfortunate men should be left to perish without further care and without having given to them the precious time that must be reserved for the soldiers who could be cured. they were numerous, however, and not deaf, those unfortunate men on whom was passed such pitiless judgment! soon they perceive their deserted condition and with a broken and embittered heart gasp out the last breath while no one notices. the death of many a one among them is rendered more sad and bitter by the proximity, on a cot by his side, of a young soldier, slightly wounded, whose foolish jokes leave him neither peace nor tranquillity. on the other side, one of his companions in misery has just died; and, he dying, must see and hear the funeral ceremony, much too rapidly performed, which shows him in advance his own. finally, about to die, he sees men, profiting by his weakness, search his knapsack and steal what they desire. for that dying man there have been, lying in the postoffice for eight days, letters from his family; if he could have had them, they would have been to him a great consolation; he has entreated the nurses to bring them that he may read them before his last hour, but they replied unkindly, that they had not time as there was so much else to do. better would it have been for you, poor martyr, if you had perished, struck dead on the field of butchery, in the midst of the splendid abomination which men call "glory!" your name, at least, would not have been forgotten, if you had fallen near your colonel defending the flag of your regiment. it would almost have been better for you had you been buried alive by the peasants commissioned for that purpose, when you, unconscious, were carried from the hill of the cypresses, from the foot of the tower of solferino or from the plains of medole. your agony would not have been long. now, it is a succession of miseries that you must endure, it is no longer the field of honor that is presented to you, but cold death with all its terrors, and the word "disappeared" for a funeral oration. what has become of the love of glory which electrified this brave soldier at the commencement of the campaign and during that day at solferino, when, risking his own life, he so courageously attempted to take the lives of his fellow-creatures, whose blood he ran, with such light feet, to shed? where is the irresistible allurement? where the contagious enthusiasm, increased by the odor of powder, by the flourish of trumpets and by the sound of military music, by the noise of cannon and the whistling of bullets which hide the view of danger, suffering and death. in these many hospitals of lombardy may be seen at what price is bought that which men so proudly call "glory," and how dearly this glory costs. the battle of solferino is the only one during our century to be compared by the magnitude of its losses with the battles of moscow, leipzig and waterloo. as a consequence of the twenty-fourth of june, 1859, it has been calculated that there were in killed and wounded, in the austrian and franco-sardinian armies, three field-marshals, nine generals, fifteen hundred and sixty-six officers of all grades, of whom six hundred and thirty were austrians and nine hundred and thirty-six allies, and about forty thousand soldiers and non-commissioned officers. besides that, from the fifteenth of june to the thirty-first of august, there were in the hospitals of brescia, according to the official statistics, nineteen thousand six hundred and sixty-five patients with fever and other illnesses, of whom more than nineteen thousand belonged to the franco-sardinian army. on their side, the austrians had at least twenty thousand sick soldiers in venice, beside ten thousand wounded, who, after solferino, were sent to verona, where the overcrowded hospitals were finally attacked by gangrene and typhus fever. consequently, to the forty thousand killed and wounded on the twenty-fourth of june, must be added more than forty thousand sick with fever or dying from illness caused by the excessive fatigue experienced on the day of the battle or during the days which preceded and succeeded it or from the pernicious effects of the tropical temperature of the plains of lombardy, or, finally, from the imprudence of these soldiers themselves. if one does not consider the military point of view, the battle of solferino was then, from the point of humanity a european catastrophe. the transportation of the wounded from brescia to milan, which takes place during the night because of the torrid heat of the day, presents a dramatic sight with its trains loaded with crippled soldiers arriving at the station filled with crowds of people. lighted by the pale flare of the tar torches, the mass of men seems to hold its breath to listen to the groans and the stifled complaints which reach their ears. the austrians, in their retreat, having torn up several places on the railroad between milan and brescia--this road was restored for use by the first days of july, for the transportation of ammunition, of supplies and of food sent to the allied army--the evacuation of the hospitals in brescia was in this way facilitated. at each station, long and narrow sheds have been constructed to receive the wounded. these, when taken from the cars, are placed on mattresses, arranged in a line one after the other. under these sheds are set up tables covered with bread, soup, lemonade, wine, water, lint, linen and bandages. torches, carried by the young men of the place where the convoy stops, light the darkness. the citizens of lombardy hasten to present their tribute of gratitude to the conquerors of solferino; in respectful silence they bandage the wounded whom they have lifted carefully out of the cars to place them on the beds made ready for their use. the women of the country offer refreshing drinks, and food of all kinds, which they distribute on the cars to those who must go on to milan. in this city, where about a thousand wounded have arrived every night for several nights in succession, the martyrs of solferino are received with great kindness. no longer are rose leaves scattered from the flag-ornamented balconies of the luxurious palaces of the milanese aristocracy, on shining epaulets and on striped gold and enameled orders, by beautiful and graceful ladies whom exaltation and enthusiasm rendered still more beautiful. to-day, in their gratitude, they shed tears of compassion which are interpreted by devotion and sacrifice. every family possessing a carriage, goes to the station to transport the wounded. the number of equipages sent by the people of milan probably exceeds five hundred. the finest carriages as well as the most modest carts are sent every evening to porto tosca, where stands the railroad station for venice. the italian ladies consider it an honor to themselves to place in their rich carriages, which they have provided with mattresses, sheets and pillows, the guests assigned to them and who are accompanied by the greatest noblemen of lombardy, aided in this work by their not less considerate servants. the people applaud the passage of these men, famed because of their suffering. they respectfully uncover their heads. they follow the slow march of the convoy with torches illuminating the sad faces of the wounded, who try to smile. they accompany them to the door of the hospitable palace, where awaits them the most devoted care. every family wishes to receive the french wounded and, by all sorts of kindness, try to lessen the sadness caused by distance from home, from parents and from friends. but after a few days the greater number of the inhabitants of milan are obliged to remove to the hospitals the wounded whom they have received in their houses. the administration desires to avoid too great scattering of the nursing and any increase of fatigue for the physicians. before solferino, the hospitals of this city contained about nine thousand wounded from preceding battles. great milanese ladies watch beside the bed of the simple soldier, of whom they become the guardian angels. countess verri, nã©e borromã©o, madame uboldi de capei, madame boselli, madame sala-taverna, countess taverna and many others, forgetting their luxurious habits, pass whole months by these beds of suffering. some of these ladies are mothers, whose mourning garments testify to a recent and sorrowful loss. one of them said: "the war robbed me of my oldest son; he died eight months ago, from a shot received while fighting with the french army at sebastopol. when i knew that the french wounded were coming to milan and that i could nurse them, i felt that god was sending me his first consolation." countess verri-borromã©o, president of the central aid committee, has charge of the great depot for linens and lint. in spite of her advanced age she devotes many hours a day to reading to the sick. all the palaces contain wounded. that of the borromã©o family has received three hundred. the superior of the ursulines, sister marina videmari, has converted her convent into a hospital and serves in it with her companions. this convent-hospital is a model of order and cleanliness. the marchioness pallavicini-trivulzio, who presides over the great turin committee with admirable devotion and self-forgetfulness, collects the donations from different cities and countries; thanks to her activity the depot in milan, situated contrada san paolo, remains always well provided. some weeks later, in the streets of milan, there were seen passing a few companies of convalescent french soldiers sadly returning to france. some have their arms in slings, others are supported by crutches or bear marks of wounds. their uniforms are well worn and torn, but they wear fine linen, which the rich men of lombardy have generously given them in exchange for their blood-stained shirts: "your blood flowed to defend our country," they said, "and we wish to keep these memories of it." these men, not long ago so strong, so robust, now deprived of an arm or a leg or with head bandaged, bear their misfortune with resignation. but, thus incapable of continuing in the army and earning bread for their families, they already with bitterness, behold themselves, after their return to their native land, objects of commiseration and pity, a care to others and to themselves. in one of the hospitals of milan, a sergeant of the zouave guard, with an energetic and proud face, who has had one leg amputated and had borne that operation without a complaint, was seized, some time after, with extreme sadness, although his health was improving and his recovery rapidly taking place. this sadness, increasing daily, was incomprehensible. a sister of charity, perceiving tears in his eyes, questioned so insistently that he at last confessed that he was the sole support of his aged and infirm mother to whom he used to send each month five francs of his pay. he added that, being unable to help her, this poor woman must be in great need of money. the sister of charity, touched with compassion, gave him five francs, the value of which was immediately sent to france. when the directress of the hospital wished to make him another gift, he would not accept it, and said to her thankfully: "keep this money for others who need it more than i; as for my mother, i hope next month to send her her usual allowance, for i count on soon being able to work." a lady of milan, bearing an illustrious name, placed at the disposition of the wounded one of her palaces, with one hundred and fifty beds. among the soldiers, lodged in this magnificent mansion, was a grenadier of the seventieth regiment of the french infantry, who, having undergone an operation, was in danger of death. the lady, trying to console him, spoke to him of his family. he told her that he was the only son of poor peasants in the department of gers, and that he was very sad at leaving his parents in misery, for he alone provided for their maintenance. he added that his greatest consolation would be to kiss his mother before he died. saying nothing to him of her project, the noble lady suddenly decides to leave milan, takes the train, reaches the departments of gers, near the family, whose address she has procured, takes possession of the mother of the wounded man. after having left a large sum of money for the infirm old father, she brings the humble villager with her to milan; and six days after the confession of the grenadier, the son kisses his mother, weeping and blessing his benefactress. but why recall so many pitiful and melancholy scenes and thus arouse such painful emotions? why relate, with complaisance, these lamentable details and dwell upon these distressing pictures? to this very natural question we reply with another question. would it not be possible to establish in every country of europe, aid societies, whose aim would be to provide, during war, volunteer nurses for the wounded, without distinction of nationality? as they wish us to give up the desires and hopes of the societies of the friends of peace, the beautiful dreams of the abbot of saint pierre and of count sellon; as men continue to kill each other without personal enmity, and as the height of glory in war is to exterminate the greatest number possible; as they still dare to say, as did count joseph de maistre, that "war is divine"; as they invent every day with a perseverence worthy of a better aim, instruments of destruction more and more terrible, and as the inventors of these death-dealing engines are encouraged by all the european governments--who arm themselves in emulation one of another--why not profit from a moment of comparative calm and tranquillity in order to settle the question which we have just raised, and which is of such great importance from the double point of view of humanity and christianity. once presented to the consideration of every man, this theme will probably call forth opinions and writings from more competent persons; but, first, must not this idea, presented to the different branches of the great european family, hold the attention and conquer the sympathies of all those who possess an elevated soul and a heart capable of being moved by the suffering of their fellow-men? such is the purpose for which this book has been written. societies of this kind, once created, with a permanent existence, would be found all ready at the time of war. they should obtain the favor of the authorities of countries where they are created, and beg, in case of war, from the sovereigns of the belligerent powers the permission and the facilities necessary to carry out their purpose. these societies should include in their own and each country, as members of the central committee, the most honorable and esteemed men. the moment of the commencement of war, the committee would call on those persons who desire to dedicate themselves, for the time being, to this work, which will consist in helping and nursing, under the guidance of experienced physicians, the wounded, first on the battle-field, then in the field and regular hospitals. spontaneous devotion is not as rare as one might think. many persons, sure of being able to do some good, helped and facilitated by a superior committee, would certainly go, and others, at their own expense, would undertake a task so essentially beneficent. during our selfish century what an attraction for the generous-hearted and for chivalrous characters to brave the same danger as the soldier with an entirely voluntary mission of peace and consolation. history proves that it is in no way chimerical to hope for such self-devotion. two recent facts especially have just confirmed this. they occurred during the war in the east and closely relate to our subject. while sisters of charity were nursing the wounded and sick of the french army in the crimea, into the russian and english armies, there came, from the north and west, two groups of self-devoted women nurses. the grand duchess helen pavlovna, of russia, born, princess charlotte, of wurttemberg, widow of the grand duke michael, having enlisted nearly three hundred ladies of st. petersburg and moscow, to serve as nurses in the russian hospitals of the crimea; she provided them with everything necessary, and these saintly women were blessed by thousands of soldiers. in england, miss florence nightingale, having received a pressing appeal from lord sidney herbert, secretary of war of the british empire, inviting her to go to the aid of the english soldiers in the orient, this lady did not hesitate to expose herself personally by great self-devotion. in november, 1854, she went to constantinople and scutari with thirty-seven english ladies, who, immediately on arrival gave their attention to nursing the great number of men, wounded in the battle of inkerman. in 1855 miss stanley, having come to take part in her labor with fifty new companions, made it possible for miss nightingale to go to balaklava to inspect the hospitals there. the picture of miss florence nightingale, during the night, going through the vast wards of the military hospitals with a small lamp in her hand, noting the condition of each sick man, will never be obliterated from the hearts of the men, who were the objects or the witnesses of her admirable beneficence, and the memory of it will be engraven in history. of the multitude of similar good works, ancient or modern, the greater number of which have remained unknown and without fame, how many have been in vain, because they were isolated and were not supported by a united action, which would have wisely joined them together for a common aim. if voluntary hospital workers could have been found in castiglione on the twenty-fourth, the twenty-fifth, and the twenty-sixth of june, and also in brescia, mantua, and verona, how much good they might have done. how many human beings they might have saved from death during that fatal friday night, when moans and heartrending supplications escaped from the breasts of thousands of the wounded, who were enduring the most acute pains and tormented by the inexpressible suffering of thirst. if prince von isenburg had been rescued sooner, by compassionate hands, from the blood-soaked field on which he was lying unconscious, he would not have been obliged to suffer for several years from wounds aggravated by long neglect; if the sight of his riderless horse had not brought about his discovery among the corpses, he would have perished for lack of help with so many other wounded, who also were creatures of god, and whose death would be equally cruel for their families. those good old women, those beautiful young girls of castiglione could not save the lives of many of those whom they nursed! besides them were needed experienced men, skillful, decided, previously trained to act with order and harmony, the only means of preventing the accidents, which complicate the wounds and make them mortal. if there could have been a sufficient number of assistants to remove the wounded quickly from the plains of medole, from the ravines of san martin, on the slopes of mount fontana, or on the hills of solferino, there would not have been left during long hours of terrible fear that poor bersaglier, that uhlan, or that zouave, who tried to raise himself, in spite of cruel suffering, to gesticulate in vain for someone to send a litter for him. finally, the risk of burying the living with the dead would have been avoided. better means of transportation would have made it possible to avoid in the case of the light infantryman of the guard the terrible amputation which he had to undergo in brescia, because of the lack of proper care during the journey from the battle-field to castiglione. the sight of those young cripples, deprived of an arm, or a leg, returning sadly to their homes, does it not call forth remorse that there was not more effort made before to avert the evil consequences of the wounds, which, often could have been cured by timely aid? would those dead, deserted in the hospitals of castiglione, or in those of brescia, many of whom could not make themselves understood, on account of the difference of language, have gasped out their last breath with curses and blasphemies, if they had had near them some compassionate soul to listen to them and console them? in spite of the official aid, in spite of the zeal of the cities of lombardy, much remained to be done, although in no other war has been seen so great a display of charity; it was nevertheless unequal to the extent of the help that was needed. it is not the paid employee, whom disgust drives away, whom fatigue makes unfeeling, unsympathetic and lazy who can fulfil such a noble task. immediate help is needed, for that which can to-day save the wounded will not save him to-morrow; the loss of time causes gangrene, which leads to death. one must have volunteer nurses, previously trained, accustomed to the work, officially recognized by the commanding officers of the armies, so that they may be facilitated in their mission. these nurses should not only find their place on the battle-field, but also in the hospitals, where the long weeks pass away painfully for the wounded, without family and without friends. during this short italian war, there were soldiers who were attacked with home-sickness to such a degree that, without other illness and without wounds, they died. on the other hand, the italians, and this is comprehensible, showed scarcely any interest in the wounded of the allied army, and still less for the suffering austrians. it is true, courageous women were found in italy, whose patience and perseverance never wearied; but, unfortunately, in the end they could be easily counted; the contagious fevers drove many persons away, and the nurses and servants did not respond for any length of time, to that which might have been expected of them. the personnel of the military hospitals is always insufficient; and, if it were doubled or tripled, it would still be insufficient. we must call on the public, it is not possible, it never will be possible to avoid that. only by this co-operation can one hope to lessen the sufferings of war. an appeal must be made, a petition presented to the men of all countries, of all classes, to the influential of this world, as well as to the most modest artisan, since all can, in one way or another, each in his own sphere, and according to his strength, co-operate in some measure in this good work. this appeal is addressed to women as well as to men, to the queen, to the princess seated on the steps of the throne, as well as to the humble orphaned and charitable maid-servant or the poor widow alone in the world, who desires to consecrate her last strength to the good of others. it is addressed to the general, to the marshal, the minister of war, as well as to the writer and the man of letters, who, by his publications, can plead with ability for the cause, thereby interesting all mankind, each nation, each country, each family even, since no one can say for certain that he is exempt from the dangers of war. if an austrian general and a french general, after having fought one against another at solferino, could, soon afterwards, finding themselves seated side by side at the hospitable table of the king of prussia, converse amicably one with the other, what would have prevented them from considering and discussing a question so worthy of their interest and attention? during the grand manoeuvers at cologne, in 1861, king william of prussia invited to dinner, in benrath castle, near dusseldorf, the officers of the different nations, who were sent there by their governments. before going to the table the king took by the hand general forey and general baumgarten: "now that you are friends," he said to them, smiling, "sit there, beside one another, and chat." forey was the victor of montebello, and baumgarten was his adversary. on extraordinary occasions, such as those which assembled at cologne, at chalons, or elsewhere, eminent men of the military art of different nations, is it not to be desired that they will profit by this kind of congress to formulate some international, sacred, and accepted principle which, once agreed upon and ratified, would serve as the foundation for societies for aid for the wounded in the different countries of europe? it is still more important to agree upon and adopt in advance these measures, because when hostilities have commenced, the belligerents are ill-disposed one towards the other, and will not consider these questions, except from the exclusive point of view of their own interests. are not small congresses called together of scientists, jurists, medical men, agriculturists, statisticians, and economists, who meet expressly in order to consider questions of much less importance? are there not international societies which are occupied with questions of charity and public utility? cannot men, in like manner, meet to solve a problem as important as that of caring for the victims of war? humanity and civilization surely demand the accomplishment of such a work. it is a duty, to the fulfilment of which every good man, and every person possessing any influence owes his assistance. what prince, what ruler, would refuse his support to these societies, and would not be glad to give the soldiers of his army the full assurance that they will be immediately and properly nursed in case they should be wounded? with permanent societies, such as i propose, the chance of waste and the injudicious distribution of money and supplies would often be avoided. during the war in the east an enormous quantity of lint, prepared by russian ladies, was sent from st. petersburg to the crimea; but the packages, instead of reaching the hospitals to which they were sent, arrived at paper mills which used it all for their own industry. by perfecting the means of transportation, by preventing the accidents during the journey from the battle-field to the hospital, many amputations will be avoided, and the burden of the governments, which pension the injured will be proportionately lessened. these societies, by their permanent existence, could also render great service at the time of epidemics, floods, great fires, and other unexpected catastrophes; the humane motive which would have created them would instigate them to act on all occasions in which their labors could be exercised. this work will necessitate the devotion of a certain number of persons, but it will never lack money in time of war. each one will bring his offering or his compassion in response to the appeals which will be made by the committee. a nation will not remain indifferent when its children are fighting for its defense. the difficulty is not there; but the problem rests entirely in the serious preparation, in all countries, of a work of this kind, that is, in the creation of these societies. in order to establish these committees at the head of the societies, all that is necessary is a little good-will on the part of some honorable and persevering persons. the committees, animated by an international spirit of charity, would create corps of nurses in a latent state, a sort of staff. the committees of the different nations, although independent of one another, will know how to understand and correspond with each other, to convene in congress and, in event of war, to act for the good of all. if the terrible instruments of destruction now possessed by the nations seem to shorten wars, will not, on the other hand, the battles be more deadly? and in this century, when the unexpected plays such an important role, may not war bring about the most sudden and unforseen results? are there not, in these considerations alone, more than sufficient reasons for us not to allow ourselves to be taken unawares? transcriber's notes obvious errors of punctuation and diacritics repaired. inconsistent hyphenation fixed. p. 25: monastary -> monastery. p. 71: transportation of ammunitions -> transportation of ammunition. p. 87: manouvers -> manoeuvers. p. 89: catastrophies -> catastrophes. florence nightingale the angel of the crimea [illustration: florence nightingale.] florence nightingale the angel of the crimea _a story for young people_ by laura e. richards author of "captain january," "the golden windows," etc. [illustration] illustrated d. appleton and company new york and london 1911 copyright, 1909, by d. appleton and company _published september, 1909_ printed in the united states of america to the sister eleanor of the sisterhood of saint mary herself through many long years a devoted worker for the poor, the sick, and the sorrowful, this brief record of an heroic life is affectionately dedicated for the material used in this little book i am chiefly indebted to sarah a. tooley's "life of florence nightingale," and to kinglake's "invasion of the crimea." contents chapter page i. how florence got her name--her three homes 1 ii. little florence 9 iii. the squire's daughter 19 iv. looking out 32 v. waiting for the call 40 vi. the trumpet call 45 vii. the response 58 viii. scutari 68 ix. the barrack hospital 75 x. the lady-in-chief 85 xi. the lady with the lamp 98 xii. winter 114 xiii. miss nightingale under fire 129 xiv. the close of the war 143 xv. the tasks of peace 159 florence nightingale. chapter i. how florence got her name--her three homes. one evening, some time after the great crimean war of 1854-55, a company of military and naval officers met at dinner in london. they were talking over the war, as soldiers and sailors love to do, and somebody said: "who, of all the workers in the crimea, will be longest remembered?" each guest was asked to give his opinion on this point, and each one wrote a name on a slip of paper. there were many slips, but when they came to be examined there was only one name, for every single man had written "florence nightingale." every english boy and girl knows the beautiful story of miss nightingale's life. indeed, hers is perhaps the best-loved name in england since good queen victoria died. it will be a great pleasure to me to tell this story to our own boys and girls in this country; and it shall begin, as all proper stories do, at the beginning. her father was named william nightingale. he was an english gentleman, and in the year 1820 was living in italy with his wife. their first child was born in naples, and they named her parthenope, that being the ancient name of naples; two years later, when they were living in florence, another little girl came to them, and they decided to name her also after the city of her birth. when florence was still a very little child her parents came back to england to live, bringing the two children with them. first they went to a house called lea hall, in derbyshire. it was an old, old house of gray stone, standing on a hill, in meadows full of buttercups and clover. all about were blossoming hedgerows full of wild roses, and great elder-bushes heavy with white blossoms; and on the hillside below it lies the quaint old village of lea with its curious little stone houses. lea hall is a farmhouse now, but it still has its old flag-paved hall and its noble staircase of oak with twisted balustrade, and broad solid steps where little florence and her sister "parthe" used to play and creep and tumble. there was another place near by where they loved even better to play; that was the ancient house of dethick. i ought rather to say the ancient kitchen, for little else remained of the once stately mansion. the rest of the house was comparatively new, but the great kitchen was (and no doubt is) much as it was in the days of queen elizabeth. imagine a great room with heavy timbered roof, ponderous oaken doors, and huge open fireplace over which hung the ancient roasting jack. in the ceiling was a little trap-door, which looked as if it might open on the roof; but in truth it was the entrance to a chamber hidden away under the roof, a good-sized room, big enough for several persons to hide in. florence and her sister loved to imagine the scenes that had taken place in that old kitchen; strange and thrilling, perhaps terrible scenes; they knew the story of dethick, and now you shall hear it too. in that old time which tennyson calls "the spacious days of great elizabeth," dethick belonged to a noble family named babington. it was a fine house then. the oaken door of the old kitchen opened on long corridors and passages, which in turn led to stately halls and noble galleries. there were turrets and balconies overlooking beautiful gardens; and on the stone terraces gay lords and ladies used to walk and laugh and make merry, and little children run and play and dance, and life go on very much as it does now, with work and play, love and laughter and tears. one of the gay people who used to walk there was anthony babington. he was a gallant young gentleman, an ardent catholic, and devoted to the cause of the beautiful and unfortunate mary queen of scots. though ardent and devoted, babington was a weak and foolish young man. he fell under the influence of a certain ballard, an artful and designing person who had resolved to bring about the death of the great english queen, and was induced by him to form the plot which is known in history as babington's conspiracy; so he was brought to ruin and death. in the year 1586 queen mary was imprisoned at wingfield manor, a country house only a few miles distant from dethick. the conspirators gathered other catholic noblemen about them, and planned to release queen mary and set her once more on the throne. they used to meet at dethick where, it is said, there is a secret passage underground leading to wingfield manor. perhaps--who knows?--they may have sat in the kitchen, gathering about the great fireplace for warmth; the lights out, for fear of spies, only the firelight gleaming here and there, lighting up the dark corners and the eager, intent faces. and when the plot was discovered, and queen elizabeth's soldiers were searching the country round for the young conspirators, riding hither and thither along the pleasant country lanes and thrusting their sabres in among the blossoming hedgerows, it was here at dethick that they sought for anthony babington. they did not find him, for he was in hiding elsewhere, but one of his companions was actually discovered and arrested there. perhaps--again, who knows?--this man may have been hiding in the secret chamber above the trap-door. one can fancy the pursuers rushing in, flinging open cupboards and presses, in search for their prey; and finding no one, gathering baffled around the fireplace. then one, chancing to glance up, catches sight of the trap-door in the ceiling. "ha! lads, look up! the rascal may be hiding yonder! up with you, you tall fellow!" then a piling up of benches, one man mounting on another's shoulders--the door forced open, the young nobleman seized and overpowered, and brought down to be carried off to london for trial. anthony babington and his companions were executed for high treason, and queen mary, who was convicted of approving the plot, was put to death soon after. all this florence nightingale and her sister knew, and they never tired of "playing suppose" in old dethick kitchen, and living over again in fancy the romantic time long past. and on sundays the two children went with their parents to old dethick church, and sat where anthony babington used to sit, for in his days it was the private chapel of dethick. it is a tiny church; fifty people would fill it to overflowing, but florence and her sister might easily feel that the four bare walls held all the wild history of elizabeth's reign. anthony babington in doublet and hose, with velvet mantle, feathered cap, and sword by his side; little florence nightingale in round leghorn hat and short petticoats. it is a long step between these two, yet they are the two most famous people who ever said their prayers in old dethick church. the lad's brief and tragic story contrasts strangely with the long and beautiful story of florence nightingale, a story that has no end. when florence was between five and six years old, she left lea hall for a new home, lea hurst, about a mile distant. here her father had built a beautiful house in the elizabethan style, of stone, with pointed gables, mullioned windows and latticed panes. there was a tiny chapel on the site he chose, hundreds of years old, and this he built into the house, so that lea hurst, as well as lea hall and dethick, joined hands with the old historic times. in this little chapel, by and by, we shall see florence holding her bible class. but i like still to think of her as a little rosy girl, running about the beautiful gardens of lea hurst, or playing house in the quaint old summerhouse with its pointed roof of thatch. perhaps she brought her dolls here; but the dolls must wait for another chapter. soon after moving to lea hurst, the nightingales bought still another country seat, embley park, in hampshire, a fine old mansion built in queen elizabeth's time, and at some distance from lea hurst. after this the family used to spend the summer at lea hurst, and the winter at embley. there were no railroads then in that neighborhood; the journey was sometimes made by stagecoach, sometimes in the nightingales' own carriage. embley park is one of the stately homes of england, with its lofty gables, terraces and shadowing trees; and all around it are sunny lawns, and gardens filled with every sweet and lovely flower. now you know a little of the three homes of florence nightingale, lea hall, lea hurst, and embley park; next you shall hear what kind of child she herself was. chapter ii. little florence. all the boys, and very likely some of the girls, who have got as far as this second chapter, will glance down the page, and exclaim: "_dolls!_" then they will add whatever is their favorite expression of scorn, and perhaps make a motion to lay the book down. wait a moment, girls, and boys too! i advise you to read on, and see what came in this case of playing with dolls. there were a good many thousands of boys in england at that time, in the twenties and thirties, who might have been badly off when the terrible fifties came, if florence nightingale had not played with her dolls. read on, and see for yourselves! florence nightingale loved her dolls dearly, and took the greatest possible care of them; and yet they were always delicate and given to sudden and alarming illnesses. a doll never knew when she might be told that she was very ill, and undressed and put to bed, though she might but just have got on her new frock. then mamma florence would wait upon her tenderly, smoothing her pillow, bathing her forehead or rubbing her poor back, and bringing her all kinds of good things in the doll-house dishes. the doll might feel very much better the next day, and think it was time to get up and put on the new frock again; but she was very apt to have a relapse and go back to bed and gruel again, once at least, before she was allowed to recover entirely. the truth is, florence was born to be a nurse, and a sick doll was dearer to her than a strong and healthy one. so i fear her dolls would have been invalids most of the time if it had not been for parthenope's little family, who often required their aunt florence's care. these dolls were very unlucky, or else their mamma was very careless; you can call it whichever you like. they were always tumbling down and breaking their heads, or losing arms and legs, or burning themselves at the nursery fire, or suffering from doll's consumption, that dreadful complaint otherwise known as loss of sawdust. when these things happened, aunt florence was called in as a matter of course; and she set the fractures, and salved the burns, and stopped the flow of sawdust, and proved herself in every way a most skillful nursery surgeon and physician. so it was that unconsciously, and in play, florence began her training for her life work. she was having lessons, of course; arithmetic, and all the other proper things. she and parthe had a governess, and studied regularly, and had music and drawing lessons besides; and her father taught her to love english literature, and later opened to her the great doors marked _latin_ and _greek_. her mother, meantime, taught her all kinds of handiwork, and before she was twelve years old she could hemstitch, and seam and embroider. these things were all good, and very good; without them she could not have accomplished all she did; but in the years that were to come all the other learning was going to help that wonderful learning that began with nursing the sick dolls. soon she was to take another step in her profession. the little fingers grown so skillful by bandaging waxen and china arms and legs, were now to save a living, loving creature from death. to every english child this story is a nursery tale. no doubt it is to many american children also, yet it is one that no one can ever tire of hearing, so i shall tell it again. much as florence loved dolls, she loved animals better, and in her country homes she was surrounded by them. there was her dog, who hardly left her side when she was out of doors; there was her own pony on which she rode every day over dale and down; her sister's pony, too, and old peggy, who was too old to work, and lived in a pleasant green paddock with nothing to do but amuse herself and crop grass all day long. perhaps peggy found this tiresome, for whenever she saw florence at the gate she would toss her head and whinny and come trotting up to the gate. "good morning, peggy!" florence would say. "would you like an apple?" "hooonh!" peggy would say. (horses have no spelling books, and there is no exact rule as to how a whinny should be spelled. you may try any other way that looks to you more natural.) "then look for it!" florence would reply. at this peggy would sniff and snuff, and hunt round with her soft velvety nose till she found florence's pocket, then delicately take out the apple and crunch it up, and whinny again, the second whinny meaning at once "thank you!" and "more, please!" horse language is a simple one compared to english, and has no grammar. well, one day florence was riding her pony in company with her friend the vicar. this good man loved all living creatures, but there were few dearer to him than florence nightingale. they had the same tastes and feelings. both loved to help and comfort all who were "in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity." he had studied medicine before he became a clergyman, and so was able to tell her many things about the care of the sick and injured. here was another teacher. i suppose everyone we know could teach us something good, if we were ready to learn. as i said, florence and the vicar were riding along on the green downs; and here i must stop again a moment to tell you what the downs are, for when i was a child i used to wonder. they are great rounded hills, covered with close, thick turf, like a velvet carpet. they spread in long smooth green billows, miles and miles of them, the slopes so gentle that it is delightful to drive or ride on them; only you must be careful not to go near the edge, where the green breaks off suddenly, and a white chalk cliff goes down, down, hundreds of feet, to the blue sea tossing and tumbling below. these are the white cliffs of england that you have so often read about. am i never going on with the story? yes; have patience! there is plenty of time. there were many sheep on the downs, and there was one special flock that florence knew very well. it belonged to old roger, a shepherd, who had often worked for her father. roger and his good dog cap were both friends of florence's, and she was used to seeing them on the downs, the sheep in a more or less orderly compact flock, cap guarding them and driving back any stragglers who went nibbling off toward the cliff edge. but to-day there seemed no order anywhere. the sheep were scattered in twos and threes, straying hither and thither; and old roger alone was trying to collect them, and apparently having a hard time of it. the vicar saw his trouble, and rode up to him. "what is the matter, roger?" he asked kindly. "where is your dog?" "the boys have been throwing stones at him, sir," replied the old man. "they have broken his leg, poor beast, and he will never be good for anything again. i shall have to take a bit of cord and put an end to his misery." "oh!" cried florence, who had ridden up with the vicar. "poor cap! are you sure his leg is broken, roger?" "yes, miss, it's broke sure enough. he hasn't set foot to the ground since, and no one can't go anigh him but me. best put him out of his pain, i says." "no! no!" cried florence. "not till we have tried to help him. where is he?" "he's in the cottage, missy, but you can do nothing for him, you'll find. poor cap's days is over. ah; he were a good dog. do everything but speak, he could, and went as near to that as a dumb beast could. i'll never get another like him." while the old man lamented, florence was looking eagerly in the face of the clergyman. he met her look with a smile and nod. "we will go and see!" he said; and off they rode, leaving roger shaking his head and calling to the sheep. they soon reached the cottage. the door was fastened, and when they tried to open it a furious barking was heard within. a little boy came from the next cottage, bringing the key, which roger had left there. they entered, and there lay cap on the brick floor, helpless and weak, but still barking as hard as he could at what he supposed to be intruders. when he saw florence and the little boy he stopped barking, and wagged his tail feebly; then he crawled from under the table where he lay, dragged himself to florence's feet and looked up pitifully in her face. she knelt down by him, and soothed and petted and talked to him, while the good clergyman examined the injured leg. it was dreadfully swollen, and every touch was painful; but cap knew well enough that the hands that hurt were trying to help him, and though he moaned and winced, he licked the hands and made no effort to draw the leg away. "is it broken?" asked florence anxiously. "no," said the vicar. "no bones are broken. there's no reason why cap should not recover; all he needs is care and nursing." florence quietly laid down her riding whip and tucked up her sleeves. "what shall i do first?" she said. "well," said the vicar, "i think a hot compress is the thing." florence looked puzzled; the dolls had never had hot compresses. "what is it?" she asked. "just a cloth wrung out in boiling water and laid on, changing it as it cools. very simple, you see, nurse florence! the first thing is to light the fire." that was soon done, with the aid of the boy, who hovered about, interested, but ignorant of surgery. on went the kettle, and soon it was boiling merrily; but where were the cloths for the compresses? florence looked all about the room, but could see nothing save roger's clean smock frock which hung against the door. "this will do!" she cried. "mamma will give him another." the vicar nodded approval. quickly she tore the frock into strips of suitable width and length; bade the boy fill a basin from the kettle, and then kneeling down beside the wounded dog, florence nightingale for the first time gave "first aid to the wounded." as the heat drew out the inflammation and pain, cap looked up at the little helper, all his simple dog heart shining in his eyes; the look sank into the child's heart and deepened the tenderness already there. another step, and a great one, was taken on the blessed road she was to travel. florence came again the next day to bandage the leg; cap got entirely well, and tended sheep for many a year after that; and old roger was very grateful, and mrs. nightingale gave him a new smock frock, and everyone was happy; and that is the end of the story. chapter iii. the squire's daughter. it soon became a recognized thing in florence's own home and in all the neighborhood, that she was one of the sisters of mercy. nothing was too small, no creature too humble to awaken her sympathy and tenderness. when the stable cat had kittens, florence was the first to visit them, to fondle the tiny creatures and soothe their mother's angry fear. when she walked along the pleasant wood roads of lea hurst, the squirrels expected nuts as a matter of course, and could hardly wait for her to give them. when anyone in the village or farm fell ill, it was florence who was looked for to cheer and comfort. mrs. nightingale was a most kind and charitable lady, and delighted in sending delicacies to the sick. it was florence's happy privilege to carry them, and whether she walked or rode there was apt to be a basket on her arm or fastened to her saddlebow. if you think hard, you can see--at least i can--just how it would be. old goody brown's rheumatism, let us say, was very bad one morning. you children who read this know little about rheumatism. very likely you think it rather a funny word, and that it is just a thing that old people have, and that they make a good deal of fuss about. if it were a toothache, now, you say, or colic--but the truth is, no pain is in any way pleasant. if a red-hot sword were run into your back you would not like it? well, sometimes rheumatism is like that. so old goody brown was suffering, and very cross, just as we might be; and nothing suited her, poor old soul; her tea was too hot, and her porridge too cold, and her pillow set askew, and--dear! dear! dear! she wished she was dead, so she did. martha, her good patient daughter, was at her wits' ends. "send to the 'all'!" said poor old goody. "send for miss florence! she'll do something for me, i know." so a barefoot boy would trudge up to the great house, and very soon a light, slight figure would come quickly along the village street and enter the cottage. a slender girl, quietly dressed, with perfect neatness and taste; brown hair smoothly parted, shining like satin; gray-blue eyes full of light and thoughtfulness; regular features, an oval face, cheeks faintly tinted with rose--this was florence nightingale. i cannot tell you just what she had in the little basket on her arm, whether jelly or broth or chicken or oranges; there was sure to be something good beside the liniment and medicines to help the aching back and limbs. but the basket held the least of what she brought. at the very sound of her voice the fretful lines melted away from the poor old face. i cannot tell you--i wish i could--the words she said, this little sister of mercy, yet i can almost hear her speak, in that sweet, cordial voice whose range held no harsh note; can see her setting the pillow straight and smooth, making the little tray dainty and pretty with the posy she had brought, coaxing the old woman to eat, making her laugh over some story of her pets and their droll ways. perhaps before leaving she would open the worn bible or prayer book, and read a psalm; can you not see her sitting by the bedside, her pretty head bent over the book, her face full of tenderness and reverence? i am sure that when she went away there was peace and comfort in that cottage room, and that heartfelt blessings followed the "angel child" as she went on her homeward way. "she had a way with her," they said; and that meant more than volumes of praise. the flowers that florence used to carry were from her own garden, i like to think. both at lea hurst and embley, she and her sister had each her own little garden and gardening tools. florence was a good gardener; indeed, i think she was a good everything that she tried to be, just because she tried. she dug, and sowed, and watered, pruned and tied up and did all the things a garden needs; and so her garden was full of flowers all summer long, giving delight to her and to every sick or lonely or sorrowful person for miles around. as florence and her sister grew older they became more and more helpful to their parents in the good works that they both loved to carry on. i have read a delightful account of the "feast day" of the village school-children, as it used to be given at lea hurst when florence was a girl. the children gathered together at the school-house, all in their best frocks and pinafores, and walked in procession up the street and through the fields to lea hurst. each child carried a posy and a stick wreathed with flowers, and at the head of the procession marched a band of music, provided by the good squire. in the field below the garden tables were set, and here mrs. nightingale and her daughters, aided by the servants, served tea and buns and cakes, waiting on their little guests, and seeing that every child got all he wanted--or at least all that was good for him. then when all had eaten and drunk their fill, the band struck up, and the boys and girls danced on the green to their hearts' content. what did they dance? polkas, perhaps, and the redowa, a pretty round dance with a good deal of stamping in it; and of course sir roger de coverley, which is very like our virginia reel. (if you do not know about sir roger de coverley himself, ask papa to tell you or read you about him, for he is one of the pleasantest persons you will ever know.) perhaps they sang, too; perhaps they sang the pretty old maypole song. do you know it? come lasses and lads, get leave of your dads, and away to the maypole hie, for ev'ry fair has a sweetheart there, and the fiddler's standing by. for willy shall dance with jane, and johnny has got his joan, to trip it, trip it, trip it, trip it, trip it up and down. "you're out!" says dick, "not i," says nick, "'twas the fiddler play'd it wrong." "'tis true," says hugh, and so says sue, and so says ev'ry one; the fiddler then began to play the tune again, and ev'ry girl did trip it, trip it, trip it to the men. then when feast and dance and song were all over, it was time to reform the procession and take up the homeward march. the two sisters, florence and parthe, had disappeared during the dancing; but now, as the procession passed along the terrace, there they were, standing behind a long table; a table at sight of which the children's eyes grew round and bright, for it was covered from end to end with presents. such delightful presents! books, and pretty boxes and baskets, thimble-cases and needle-books and pin-cushions; dolls, too, i am sure, for the little ones, and scrap-books, and--but you can fill up the list for yourself with everything you like best in the way of pretty, simple, useful gifts. i am quite sure that florence would not have wished to give the children foolish or elaborate gimcracks, and that mr. nightingale would never have allowed it if she had; and i think it probable that many of the gifts were made by the two sisters and their kind and clever mother. all about lea hurst, in many and many a pleasant cottage home, those little gifts are treasured to-day like the relics of some blessed saint; which indeed is just what they are. the saint is still living, and some of the children of the school feasts are living, too, and now in their age will show with pride and joy the gifts they received long ago from the hands of the beloved miss florence. as florence grew up to womanhood she found more and more work to do. there were mills and factories in the neighborhood of lea hurst; and in the hosiery mills, especially, hundreds of women and girls were employed, many of whom lived on the nightingale estate. she may have been seventeen or eighteen when she started her bible class for the young women of the district, holding it in the tiny ancient chapel at lea hurst which i described in the first chapter. gathering the girls around her, she would read a chapter from the bible, and then give them her thoughts about it, and explain the difficult passages; then they would all sing together, her sweet, clear voice leading the hymns. here is another memory very precious to the old women who were once those happy girls. they love to tell "how beautifully miss florence used to talk." long years after, when miss nightingale, spent with her noble labors, would come to lea hurst for a time of rest and refreshment, the daughters of these girls counted it a high privilege to gather on the lawn under her window and sing to her as she sat in the room above; and would go home proud and happy as queens if they had seen the saintly face smiling from the window. shall i try to show you florence nightingale at seventeen? her face was little changed from that of the girl we saw in the cottage, cheering old goody brown. she still wore her hair brushed smoothly "madonna-wise" on either side her face; often, now, she wore a rose at the side, tucked in among the shining braids or coils. you would think her frocks very queer if you saw them to-day, but then they were extremely pretty; full skirts (no crinoline! that was to come later) and full sleeves, with broad flat collar of lace or embroidery. when she went to church or to make visits she wore a spencer, a kind of full plaited jacket with a belt, something like a norfolk jacket--only different! and a leghorn bonnet. you have seen pictures of the leghorn bonnets of the thirties and forties; "coal-scuttles," some people called them, and they were something the shape of a scuttle. some of them were enormous in size, and they look queer enough now in the pictures, or--if your grandmamma had a way of keeping things--in the "dress-up" trunk or cupboard in the attic. but people who were young in those days tell me that they were extremely becoming, and that a pretty face never looked prettier that when it peeped out from the depths of a huge straw "coal-scuttle." when florence rode on horseback, her habit was so long that it nearly touched the ground (that is, if she followed the fashion of the day, but i should not wonder a bit if she and her mother were too sensible!) and she wore a round, broad-brimmed hat with long ostrich plumes. i remember a picture of the princess royal (afterwards empress frederick of germany), in a costume like this, which i thought one of the most beautiful things i ever saw, so i shall imagine florence, on an afternoon ride with the squire, let us say, dressed in this way; but when scampering about on her pony, i trust, she wore a less cumbrous costume. you will remember that the nightingales spent the winter at embley park, in hampshire. here, too, florence was busy in good and helpful work. at christmas time she found her best pleasure in giving presents to young and old among the poor people about her, in getting up entertainments for the children, training them to sing, arranging treats for the old people in the poorhouse. on christmas eve the village carol singers would come and sing on the lawn; old english carols, that had been sung by generation after generation. poor anthony babington over at lea hall may have listened on christmas eve to the same sweet old songs. as joseph was a-walking, he heard an angel sing, "this night shall be the birthnight of christ our heavenly king. "his birth-bed shall be neither in housen nor in hall, nor in the place of paradise, but in the oxen's stall. "he neither shall be rockã¨d in silver nor in gold, but in the wooden manger that lieth in the mold. "he neither shall be washen with white wine nor with red, but with the fair spring water that on you shall be shed. "he neither shall be clothã¨d in purple nor in pall, but in the fair white linen that usen babies all." as joseph was a-walking, thus did the angel sing, and mary's son at midnight was born to be our king. then be you glad, good people, at this time of the year; and light you up your candles, for his star it shineth clear. then who so glad as florence to call the singers in and bid them welcome and "merry christmas!" and aid in distributing the mince pies and silver coins which were always their due. when florence was fairly "grown up," other things came into her life, the gay and merry things that come to so many girls. mr. nightingale was a man of wealth and position, and liked his wife and daughters to have their share in the gayeties of the county. so there were many parties, at embley and elsewhere, and florence danced as gayly, i doubt not, as the other girls. she went to london, too, and she and her sister were presented to queen victoria, and had their share of the brilliant society of the time. but much as she may have enjoyed all this for a time, still her heart was not in it, and she soon tired, i fancy, of dancing and dressing and visiting. already her mind was turning to other things, already her clear eyes were looking forward to other ways of life, other methods of work. chapter iv. looking out. step by step, and all unconsciously, florence nightingale had been training her hand and eye to follow the dictates of her keen mind and loving heart. now, grown a young woman, she began to think seriously how she should apply this training. what should she do with her life? should she go on like her friends, in the quiet pleasant ways of country life? the squire's daughter was busy enough, surely. every hour of the day was full of useful, kindly work, of happy, healthy play; should she be content with this? her heart told her that she was not content. in her friendly visiting among the sick poor she had seen much misery and suffering, far more than she and all the other kindly ladies could attempt to relieve. she felt that something more was needed; she began to look around to see what was being done in the larger world. it was about this time that she met elizabeth fry, the noble and beautiful friend of the prisoner. mrs. fry was then an elderly woman, with all the glory of her saintly life shining about her; florence nightingale an earnest and thoughtful girl of perhaps eighteen or twenty. it is pleasant to think of that meeting. i do not know what words passed between them, but i can almost see them together, the beautiful stately woman in her quaker dress, the slender girl with her quiet face and earnest eyes; can almost hear the young voice, questioning, eager and ardent; the elder answering, grave and sedate, words full of weight and wisdom, of sweetness and tenderness. this interview was one of the great moments of florence nightingale's early life. a little later than this, in 1843, she met another person whose words and counsel impressed her deeply; and of this meeting i can give you a clearer account, for that person was my own dear father, dr. samuel g. howe. some ten years before this my father had decided to devote his life to helping people who needed help. he had established a school for the blind in boston; he had brought laura bridgman, the blind, deaf mute, out of her loneliness and taught her to read, write, and talk with her fingers; the first time this had ever been done with a person so afflicted. he had labored to help the prisoners and captives in the north, and the slaves in the south; in short he was what is called a _philanthropist_, that is, one who loves his fellow-men and tries to help them. my father and mother were traveling in england soon after their marriage, and were invited by mr. and mrs. nightingale to spend a few days at embley park. one morning miss nightingale (for so i must call her now that she is a woman) met my father in the garden and said to him: "dr. howe, you have had much experience in the world of philanthropy; you are a medical man and a gentleman; now may i ask you to tell me, upon your word, whether it would be anything unsuitable or unbecoming to a young englishwoman, if she should devote herself to works of charity, in hospitals and elsewhere, as the catholic sisters do?" my father replied: "my dear miss florence, it would be unusual, and in england whatever is unusual is apt to be thought unsuitable; but i say to you, go forward, if you have a vocation for that way of life; act up to your aspiration, and you will find that there is never anything unbecoming or unladylike in doing your duty for the good of others. choose your path, go on with it, wherever it may lead you, and god be with you!" it was in this spirit that miss nightingale now began to train herself for her life work. it is hard for you children of to-day to imagine what nursing was in the early part of the nineteenth century. to you a nurse means a trim, alert, cheerful person in spotless raiment, who knows just what to do when you are ill, and does it in the pleasantest possible manner; you are glad when she comes into the room, sorry when she leaves. but this pleasant person did not exist in those days, except in the guise of a catholic sister of charity. the other nurses were for the most part coarse and ignorant women, often cruel, often intemperate. when you read "martin chuzzlewit" you will find out more about them than i can tell you. but "martin chuzzlewit" was not written when miss nightingale determined to find out the condition of nursing in england and on the continent. she first spent some months in the london hospitals, and then visited those in scotland and ireland. she was horrified at what she found there; dirt and misery and needless suffering among the patients, drunkenness and ignorance and brutality among the nurses. then she turned to the continent and found a very different state of things. the hospitals were clean and cheerful, and the sisters of mercy in their white caps and aprons were as good and kind and capable as our trained nurses to-day. up to this time these good sisters had been the only trained nurses in europe; but in germany miss nightingale found a protestant sisterhood which was working along the same lines, and in a more enlightened and modern way; these were the deaconesses of kaiserswerth, the pupils of pastor fliedner. this good man--one of the best men, surely, that ever lived--was the son of a lutheran minister. his father was poor, and theodore had to work his way through college, but this he did cheerfully, for he loved work. he studied very hard and also gave lessons, sawed wood, blacked boots, and did other odd jobs. when his clothes began to wear out he sewed up the holes with white thread, all he had, and then inked it over. he loved children, and on the long tramps he used to take in vacation time he was always collecting songs and games, and teaching them to the children. when he was twenty-two years old theodore fliedner became pastor of a small protestant parish at kaiserswerth on the rhine. the people were so poor that they could do little either for their church or themselves, so the young pastor set out on foot to seek aid from other christian people. he traveled in germany, holland and england, and everywhere people felt his goodness and gave him help. in london he met elizabeth fry, and the noble work she was doing among the prisoners at newgate made a deep impression on him. he determined to do something to help the prisoners in germany, especially the poor women, who, after being imprisoned for a certain time, were cast upon the world with no possession save an ill name. in his little garden stood an old summerhouse, partly ruinous, but with strong walls. with his own hands the good pastor mended the roof and made the place clean and habitable. he put in a bed, a table and a chair, and then prayed that god would send to this shelter some poor soul who needed it. one night a homeless outcast woman came to the door, and the pastor and his wife bade her welcome, and took her to the clean pleasant room that was all ready. in this humble way opened the now famous institution of kaiserswerth. other poor women soon found out the friendly shelter; in a short time a new and larger building was needed, and more helping hands beside those of the good pastor and his devoted wife. the good work grew and grew; some of the poor women had children, and so a school was started; the school must have good teachers, and so a training school for teachers was opened. but most of all pastor fliedner wished to help the condition of the sick poor; three years after the first opening of the summerhouse shelter in the garden he founded the deaconess hospital. we are told that it was opened "practically without patients and without deaconesses." he obtained the use of part of a deserted factory, and begged from his neighbors old furniture and broken crockery, which he mended carefully, and put in the big empty rooms. he had only six sheets, but there was plenty of water to wash them, and when the first patient, a poor suffering servant maid, came to the door, she was made comfortable in a spotless bed, in a clean though bare room. i wish i could tell you the whole beautiful story, but it would take too long. by the end of the year there were sixty patients in the hospital, and seven deaconess nurses to care for them. to-day there is a deaconess hospital or home in almost every town in germany, and thousands upon thousands of sick and poor people bless the deaconesses, though they may never have heard the name of pastor fliedner. chapter v. waiting for the call. miss nightingale spent two periods of training at kaiserswerth. when she left it finally, good pastor fliedner laid his hands on her head and gave her his blessing in simple and earnest words; and she carried with her the love and good wishes of all the pious and benevolent community. i wish we had a picture of her in her deaconess costume. the blue cotton gown, white apron and wide collar, and white muslin cap tied under the chin with a large bow, must have set off her pensive beauty very sweetly. she always kept a tender recollection of kaiserswerth, and says in a letter: "never have i met with a higher love and a purer devotion than there." on her way home, miss nightingale spent some time with the sisters of st. vincent de paul in paris. here she saw what was probably the best nursing in the world at that time; and she studied the methods in her usual careful way, not only in the hospitals, but in the homes of the poor and suffering, where the good sisters came and went like ministering angels. she had still another opportunity, and this an unsought one, of learning what they had to teach, for she fell ill herself, and was tenderly cared for and restored to health by these skillful and devoted women. returning to england, she spent some time in the quiet of home, and as her strength returned, took up her old work of visiting among the sick and poor of the neighborhood. but this could not keep her long. it was not that she did not love it, and did not love her home dearly, but there were other benevolent ladies who could do this work. she realized this, and realized too, though perhaps unconsciously, that she could do harder work than this, and that there was plenty of hard work waiting to be done. she soon found it. a call came asking her to be superintendent of a home for sick governesses in london, and she accepted it at once. did you ever think how hard governesses have to work? did you ever think how tired they must often be, and how their heads must ache--and perhaps their hearts, too--when they are trying to teach you the lessons that you--perhaps again--are not always willing to learn? well, try to remember, those of you who have your lessons in this way! remember that you can make the teaching a pain or a pleasure, just as you choose; and that, after all, the teacher is trying to help you, and to give you knowledge that some day you would be very sorry not to have. in the days of which we are speaking, governesses had a much harder time than nowadays, i think. for one thing, there were not so many different ways in which women could earn their bread. when a girl had to make her own living she went out as a governess almost as a matter of course, whether she had any love for teaching or not, simply because there was nothing else to do. so the teaching was often mere drudgery, and often, too, was not well done; and that meant discontent and unhappiness, and very likely broken health to follow. the harley street home, as it was then called, was founded to help poor gentlewomen who had lost their health in this kind of life. when miss nightingale came to it, things were in a bad condition, owing to lack of means and good management. the friends of the institution were discouraged; but discouragement, was a word not to be found in miss nightingale's dictionary. there was no money? well, there must _be_ money! she went quietly to work, interested her own friends to subscribe, then talked with the discouraged people, restoring their confidence and inducing them to renew their subscriptions; and soon, with no fuss or flourish of trumpets, the money was in hand. then she proceeded, just as quietly, to reorganize the whole institution; engaged competent nurses, arranged the daily life of the inmates, planned and wrote and worked, every day and all day, till she had brought order out of chaos, and made the home, instead of a place of disorder and discontent, one of comfort, peace, and cheerfulness. you must not think that this was light or pleasant work. sick and nervous and broken-down women are not easy to deal with; a hospital (for this is what the home really was) is not an easy thing to organize and superintend. it meant, as i have said, hard and vexatious work every day and all day; and i dare say that often and often, when night came, florence nightingale lay down to rest more weary than any of her patients. at length her health gave way under the strain; she broke down, and was forced to give up the work and go home to embley for a long rest. it was here, in her own home, amid her own beautiful fields and gardens, that the call came which summoned her to the great work of her life. chapter vi. the trumpet call. willie, fold your little hands;[1] let it drop--that "soldier" toy; look where father's picture stands- father, that here kissed his boy not a month since--father kind, who this night may--(never mind mother's sob, my willie dear) cry out loud that he may hear who is god of battles--cry, "god keep father safe this day by the alma river!" ask no more, child. never heed either russ, or frank, or turk; right of nations, trampled creed, chance-poised victory's bloody work; any flag i' the wind may roll on thy heights, sevastopol! willie, all to you and me is that spot, whate'er it be, where he stands--no other word- _stands_--god sure the child's prayers heard- near the alma river. willie, listen to the bells ringing in the town to-day; that's for victory. no knell swells for the many swept away- hundreds, thousands. let us weep, we, who need not--just to keep reason clear in thought and brain till the morning comes again; till the third dread morning tell who they were that fought and--_fell_ by the alma river. come, we'll lay us down, my child; poor the bed is--poor and hard; but thy father, far exiled, sleeps upon the open sward, dreaming of us two at home; or, beneath the starry dome, digs out trenches in the dark, where he buries--willie, mark! where _he buries_ those who died fighting--fighting at his side- by the alma river. willie, willie, go to sleep; god will help us, o my boy! he will make the dull hours creep faster, and send news of joy; when i need not shrink to meet those great placards in the street, that for weeks will ghastly stare in some eyes--child, say that prayer once again--a different one- say "o god! thy will be done, by the alma river." open your atlas at the map of russia. look down toward the bottom, at that part of the great empire which borders on the euxine or black sea; there you will find a small peninsula--it is really almost an island, being surrounded on three sides by water--labeled "_crimea_." it is only a part of one of the smallest of russia's forty-odd provinces, the province of taurida; yet it is one of the famous places of history, for here, in the years 1854 and 1855, was fought the crimean war, one of the greatest wars of modern times. russia and turkey have never been good neighbors. they have always been jealous of each other, always quarreling about this or that, the fact being that each is afraid of the other's getting too much land and too much power. in these disputes the other countries of europe have generally sympathized with turkey, feeling that russia had quite enough power, and that if she had more it might be dangerous for all of them. some day you will read in history about the eastern question and the balance of power, and will find out just what these meant in the fifties; but this is all that you need know now, in order to understand what i am going to tell you. in 1854 turkey, feeling that russia was pressing too hard upon her, called upon the other european powers to help her. the result was that england, france, sardinia (now a part of italy, but then a separate kingdom), and turkey made an agreement with one another, and all together declared war upon russia. england had been at peace with all the world for forty years, ever since the wars of napoleon, which were closed by the great victory of waterloo. the english are a brave race; they had forgotten the horrors of war, and remembered only its glories and its victories; and they sprang to arms as joyously as boys run to a football game. "sharpen your cutlasses, and the day is ours!" said sir charles napier to his men, just before the british fleet sailed; and this was the feeling all through the country. the fleets of the allied powers gathered in the black sea, forming one great armada; surrounded the peninsula of the crimea, and landed their armies. in september, 1854, was fought the first great battle, by the alma river. the allies were victorious, and a great shout of joy went up all over england. "victory! victory!" cried old and young. there were bells and bonfires and illuminations; the whole country went mad with joy, and for a short time no one thought of anything except glory, waving banners and sounding trumpets. but banners and trumpets, though a real part of war, are only a very small part. after a little time, through the shouting and rejoicing a different sound was heard; the sound of weeping and lamentation, not only for the hundreds of brave men who were lying dead beside the fatal river, but for the other hundreds of sick and wounded soldiers, dying for want of care. there had been gross neglect and terrible mismanagement in the carrying on of the war. nobody knew just whose fault it was, but everything seemed to be lacking that was most needed on that desolate shore of the crimea. the english troops were in an enemy's country, and a poor country at that; whatever supplies there were had been taken by the russian armies for their own needs. food and clothing had been sent out from england in great quantities, but somehow, no one could find them. some supplies had been stowed in the hold of vessels, and other things piled on top so that they could not be got at; some were stored in warehouses which no one had authority to open; some were actually rotting at the wharves, for want of precise orders as to their disposal. the surgeons had no bandages, the doctors no medicines; it was a state of things that to-day we can hardly imagine. indeed, it seemed as if the need were so great and terrible that it paralyzed those who saw it. "it is now pouring rain," wrote william howard russell to the london _times_, "the skies are black as ink, the wind is howling over the staggering tents, the trenches are turned into dykes; in the tents the water is sometimes a foot deep; our men have not either warm or waterproof clothing; they are out for twelve hours at a time in the trenches; they are plunged into the inevitable miseries of a winter campaign--and not a soul seems to care for their comfort, or even for their lives. these are hard truths, but the people of england must hear them. they must know that the wretched beggar who wanders about the streets of london in the rain, leads the life of a prince compared with the british soldiers who are fighting out here for their country. * * * * * "the commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; there is not the least attention paid to decency or clean linen; the stench is appalling; the fetid air can hardly struggle out to taint the atmosphere, save through the chinks in the walls and roofs; and for all i can observe, these men die without the least effort being made to save them. there they lie, just as they were let gently down on the ground by the poor fellows, their comrades, who brought them on their backs from the camp with the greatest tenderness, but who are not allowed to remain with them. the sick appear to be tended by the sick, and the dying by the dying." he added that the snow was three feet deep on a level, and the cold so intense that many soldiers were frozen in their tents. no one meant to be cruel or neglectful; but there were not half enough doctors, and--think of it, children! there were _no nurses_. how did this happen? well, when the war broke out the military authorities did not want female nurses. the matter was talked over, and it was decided that things would go better without them. this was put on the ground that the class of nurses, as i have told you, was at that time in england a very poor one. they were often drunken, generally unfeeling, and always ignorant. the war department decided that this kind of nurse would do more harm than good; they did not realize that "the old order changeth, yielding place to new," and that the time was come when the new nurse must replace the old. but now the need was come, immediate and terrible, and there was no one to meet it. when the people of england realized this; when they learned that the hospital at scutari was filled with sick and wounded and dying men, and no one to care for them save a few male orderlies, wholly untrained for the task; when they heard that in the hospitals of the french army the sisters of mercy were doing their blessed work, tending the wounded, healing the sick and comforting the dying, and realized that the english soldiers, their own sons, brothers and husbands, had no such help and no such comfort, the sound of bell and trumpet was lost in a great cry of anger and sorrow that went up from the whole country. and matters grew worse and worse, as one great battle after another sent its dreadful fruits to the already overflowing hospital at scutari. on october 25th came balaklava; on november 5th, inkerman. you have all read "the charge of the light brigade"; yet i ask you to read it again here, so that it may fit into its place in the story of this terrible war. remember, it is only one incident of that great battle of balaklava, in which both sides claimed the victory, while neither gained any signal advantage. half a league, half a league,[2] half a league onward, all in the valley of death rode the six hundred. "forward, the light brigade! charge for the guns!" he said; into the valley of death rode the six hundred. "forward, the light brigade!" was there a man dismayed? not though the soldier knew someone had blundered; theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die: into the valley of death rode the six hundred. cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them volleyed and thundered. stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well; into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell, rode the six hundred. flashed all their sabres bare, flashed as they turned in air, sabring the gunners there, charging an army, while all the world wondered; plunged in the battery-smoke, right through the line they broke. cossack and russian reeled from the sabre-stroke, shattered and sundered. then they rode back, but not- not the six hundred. cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon behind them volleyed and thundered: stormed at with shot and shell, while horse and hero fell, they that had fought so well came through the jaws of death back from the mouth of hell- all that was left of them, left of six hundred. when can their glory fade? o the wild charge they made! all the world wondered. honor the charge they made! honor the light brigade, noble six hundred! i have already spoken of william howard russell. he was the war correspondent of the _times_, the great english newspaper, and a man of intelligence, heart and feeling. he was on the spot, and saw the horrors of the war at first-hand. his heart was filled with sorrow and pity for the suffering around him, and with indignation that so little was done to relieve it; and he wrote day after day home to england, telling what he saw and what was needed. soon after balaklava he wrote: "are there no devoted women amongst us, able and willing to go forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers of the east in the hospitals at scutari? are there 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 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.'" this was the trumpet call that rang in the ears of the women of england, sounding a clearer note than all the clarions of victory. we shall see how it was answered. chapter vii. the response. mr. sidney herbert (afterwards lord herbert of lea) was at this time at the head of the war department in england. he was a man of noble nature and tender heart, whose whole life was spent in doing good, and in helping those who needed help. he heard with deep distress the dreadful tidings of suffering that came from the crimea, and his heart responded instantly to the call for help. yes, the women of england must rise up and go to that far, desolate land to tend and nurse the sick and wounded and dying; but who should lead them? what one woman had the strength, the power, the wisdom, the tenderness, to meet and overcome the terrible conditions? asking himself this question, mr. herbert answered without a moment's hesitation: "florence nightingale!" he knew miss nightingale well; she was a dear friend of himself and his beautiful wife, and had again and again given them help and counsel in planning and managing their many charities, hospitals, homes for sick children, and so forth. he knew that she possessed all the qualities needed for this work, and he wrote to her, asking if she would undertake it. would she, he asked, go out to scutari, taking with her a band of nurses who would be under her orders, and take charge of the hospital nursing? he did not make light of the task. "the selection of the rank and file of nurses would be difficult--no one knows that better than yourself. the difficulty of finding women equal to a task after all full of horror, and requiring, besides intelligence 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 it is which makes it so important that the experiment should be carried out by one with administrative capacity and experience." he went on to assure miss nightingale that she should have full power and authority, and told her frankly that in his opinion she was the one woman in england who was capable of performing this great task. "i must not conceal from you that upon your decision will depend the ultimate success or failure of the plan.... if this succeeds, an enormous amount of good will be done now, and to persons deserving everything at our hands; and which will multiply the good to all time." it was a noble letter, this of mr. herbert's, but he might have spared himself the trouble of writing it. florence nightingale, in her quiet country home, had heard the call to the women of england; and even while mr. herbert was composing his letter to her, she was writing to him, a brief note, simply offering her services in the hospitals at scutari. her letter crossed his on the way; and the next day it was proclaimed from the war office that miss nightingale, "a lady with greater practical experience of hospital administration and treatment than any other lady in the country," had been appointed by government to the office of superintendent of nurses at scutari, and had undertaken the work of organizing and taking out nurses thither. great was the amazement in england. nothing of this kind had ever been heard of before. "who is miss nightingale?" people cried all over the country. they were answered by the newspapers. first the _examiner_ and then the _times_ told them 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 persuasive 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, and in simplest obedience to her admiring parents." one who knew our heroine well wrote in a more personal vein: "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 extraordinary 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." though well known among a large circle of earnest and high-minded persons, miss nightingale's name was entirely new to the english people as a whole, and--everything else apart--they were delighted with its beauty. had she been plain mary smith, she would have done just as good work, but it would have been far harder for her to start it. florence nightingale was a name to conjure with, as the saying is, and it echoed far and wide. everybody who could write verses (and many who could not), began instantly to write about nightingales. _punch_ printed a cartoon showing a hospital ward, with the "ladybirds" hovering about the cots of the sick men, each bird having a nurse's head. another picture represented one of the bird-nurses flying through the air, carrying in her claws a jug labeled "fomentation, embrocation, gruel." this was called "the jug of the nightingale," for many people think that some of the bird's beautiful, liquid notes sound like "jug, jug, jug!" not content with pictures, _punch_ printed "the nightingale's song to the sick soldier," which became very popular, and was constantly quoted in those days. listen, soldier, to the tale of the tender nightingale, 'tis a charm that soon will ease your wounds so cruel, singing medicine for your pain, in a sympathetic strain, with a jug, jug, jug of lemonade or gruel. singing bandages and lint; salve and cerate without stint, singing plenty both of liniment and lotion, and your mixtures pushed about, and the pills for you served out with alacrity and promptitude of motion. singing light and gentle hands, and a nurse who understands how to manage every sort of application, from a poultice to a leech; whom you haven't got to teach the way to make a poppy fomentation. singing pillow for you, smoothed; smart and ache and anguish soothed, by the readiness of feminine invention; singing fever's thirst allayed, and the bed you've tumbled made with a cheerful and considerate attention. singing succour to the brave, and a rescue from the grave, hear the nightingale that's come to the crimea; 'tis a nightingale as strong in her heart as in her song, to carry out so gallant an idea. of course there were some people who shook their heads; there always are when any new work is undertaken. some thought it was improper for women to nurse in a military hospital; others thought they would be useless, or worse; others again thought that the nurses would ruin their own health and be sent home in a month to the hospitals of england. there were still other objections, which were strongly felt in those days, however strange they may sound in our ears to-day. "oh, dreadful!" said some people; "miss nightingale is a unitarian!" "oh, shocking!" said others. "miss nightingale is a roman catholic!" and so it went on. but while they were talking and exclaiming, drawing pictures and singing songs, miss nightingale was getting ready. in six days from the time she undertook the work she was ready to start, with thirty nurses, chosen with infinite care and pains from the hundreds who had volunteered to go. there was no flourish of trumpets. while england was still wondering how they could go, and whether they ought to be allowed to go--behold, they were gone! slipping away by night, as if they were bound on some secret errand. indeed, miss nightingale has never been able to endure "fuss and feathers," and all her life she has looked for a bushel large enough to hide her light under, though happily she has never succeeded. only a few relatives and near friends stood on the railway platform on that evening of october 21, 1854. miss nightingale, simply dressed in black, was very quiet, very serene, with a cheerful word for everyone; no one who saw her parting look and smile ever forgot them. so, in night and silence, the "angel band" whose glory was soon to shine over all the world, left the shores of england. but though england slept that night, france was wide awake the next morning. the fishwives of boulogne had heard what was doing across the channel, and were on the lookout. when miss nightingale and her nurses stepped ashore they were met by a band of women, in snowy caps and rainbow-striped petticoats, all with outstretched hands, all crying, "welcome, welcome, our english sisters!" they knew, marie and jeanne and suzette. their own husbands, sons, and brothers were fighting and dying in the crimea; their own nurses, the blessed sisters of mercy, had from the first been toiling in hospital and trench in that dreadful land; how should they not welcome the english sisters who were going to join in the holy work? loudly they proclaimed that none but themselves, the fishwives of boulogne, should help the _soeurs anglaises_. they shouldered bag and baggage; they swung the heavy trunks up on their broad backs, and with laughter and tears mingled in true french fashion, trudged away to the railway station. pay? not a sou; not a centime! the blessing of our english sisters is all we desire; and if they should chance to see pierre or jacques _lã -bas_--ah! the heavens are over all. a handshake, then, and _adieu! adieu! vivent les soeurs!_ the good god go with you! and that prayer was surely answered. chapter viii. scutari. open the atlas once more at the map of russia, and look downward from the crimea, across the black sea toward the southwest. you see a narrow strait marked "bosporus" leading from the black sea to the sea of marmora; and on either side of the strait a black dot, one marked "constantinople," the other "scutari." it is to scutari that we are going, but we must not pass the other places without a word, for they are very famous. this is the land of story, and every foot of ground, every trickle of water, has its legend or fairy tale, or true story of sorrow or heroism. bosporus means "the cow's ford." it was named, the old story says, for io, a beautiful maiden beloved of zeus. to conceal her from the eyes of hera, his jealous wife, zeus turned io into a snow-white heifer; but hera, suspecting the truth, persuaded him to give the poor pretty creature to her. then followed a sad time. hera set argus, a giant with a hundred eyes, to watch the heifer, lest she escape and regain her human form. the poor heifer-maiden was so unhappy that zeus sent hermes to set her free; and the cunning god told stories to argus till he fell asleep, and then cut off his head, hundred eyes and all. hera took the eyes and put them in the tail of her sacred peacock, and there they are to this day. meantime io ran away as fast as she could, but she could not escape the vengeance of the jealous goddess. hera sent a gadfly after her, which stung her cruelly, and pursued her over land and sea. the poor creature fled wildly hither and thither; swam across the ionian sea, which has borne her name ever since; roamed over the whole breadth of what is now turkey, and finally came to the narrow strait or ford between the two seas. here she crossed again, and went on her weary way; and here again she left--not her own name, but that of the animal in whose form she suffered. poor io! one is glad to read that she was released at last, and given her woman's body again. true? no, the story is not true, but it is very famous. those of you who care about moths will find another reminder of io in the beautiful _saturnia io_, which is named for the greek maiden and her cruel foe, saturnia being another name for hera or juno. the scenery along the banks of the bosporus is so beautiful that whole books have been written about it. on either side are seven promontories and seven bays; indeed, it is almost a chain of seven lakes, connected by seven swift-rushing currents. the promontories are crowned with villages, towns, palaces, ruins, each with its own beauty, its own interest, its own story; but we cannot stay for these; we must go onward to where, at the lower end of the passage, with its long, narrow harbor, the golden horn, curling round it, lies constantinople, the wonder-city. here indeed we must stop for a moment, for this is one of the most famous cities of history. in ancient days, when rome was in her glory and long before, it was byzantium that lay shining in the curve of the golden horn; byzantium the rich, the powerful, the desired of all; fought over through successive generations by persian, greek, gaul and roman; conquered, liberated, conquered again. in the second century of our era it was besieged by the roman emperor severus, and after a heroic resistance lasting three years, was taken and laid waste by the conqueror. but the city sprang up again, more beautiful than ever, and a century and a half later the emperor constantine made it the capital of the roman empire, and gave it his own name. constantinopolis, the city of constantine; so it became in the year 330, and so it remains to this day, but not under the rule of romans or their descendants. "blessed shall he be who shall take constantinople!" so, three hundred years later, exclaimed mohammed, the prophet and leader of men. his disciples and followers never forgot the saying, and many wars were fought, many desperate attempts made by the mohammedans to win the wonder city. it was another mohammed, not a prophet but a great soldier, surnamed the conqueror, who finally conquered it, in 1453, after another tremendous siege, of which you will read in history. there is a terrible story about the entry of this savage conqueror into the city. it is said that its inhabitants, mostly christians, though of various nationalities, took refuge in the great church of st. sophia, and were there barbarously slaughtered by the ferocious turks. in the south aisle of the church the dead lay piled in great heaps, and in over this dreadful rampart rode mohammed on his war horse; and as he rode, he lifted his bloody right hand and smote one of the pillars, and there--so the story says--the mark may be seen to this day. from that time to our own constantinople has been the capital city of the turkish empire. again, i wish i might tell you about at least a few of its many wonders, for i have seen some of them, but again i must hasten on. the city is so great that it overflows in every direction; in fact, there are three cities in one: stamboul, the central division, filling the tongue of land between the golden horn and the sea of marmora; galata, on the farther bank of the horn; and scutari, on the opposite shore of the bosporus. it is to the last-named that we are going. although actually a suburb of constantinople, scutari is a town in itself, and a large and ancient one. in the earliest times of the great persian monarchy, it was called _chrysopolis_, the golden city. its present name means in persian a courier who carries royal orders from station to station; that is because the place has always, from its earliest days, been a _rendezvous_ for caravans, messengers, travelers of every description. here xenophon and his greeks, returning from the war against cyrus, halted for seven days while the soldiers disposed of the booty they had won in the campaign. here, for hundreds of years, stood the three colossal statues, forty-eight feet high, erected by the byzantians in honor of the athenians, who had saved them from destruction at the hands of philip the lacedã¦monian. here, to-day, are mosques and convents, palaces and tombs, especially the last; for the burying ground of scutari is one of the largest in the world, and its silent avenues hold, some say, twenty times as many dwellers as the gay and noisy streets of stamboul. it is a strange place, this great burying ground. beside each tomb rises a cypress tree, tall and majestic. the tombs themselves are mostly pillars of marble, with a globe or ball on the top; and perched atop of this globe is in many cases a turban or a fez, carved in stone and painted in gay colors. this shows that a man lies beneath; the women's tombs are marked by a grapevine or a stem of lotus, also carved in marble. at foot of the column is a flat stone, hollowed out in the middle to form a small basin. some of these basins are filled with flowers or perfumes; in others, the rain and dew make a pleasant bathing and drinking place for the birds who fly in great flocks about the quiet place. not far from this great cemetery is another place of burial, that of the english; and this is laid out like a lovely garden, and watched and tended with loving care; for here rest the brave men who fell in this terrible war of the crimea, or who wasted away in the great building that towers foursquare over all the neighborhood. we must look well at this building, the barrack hospital of scutari, for this is what florence nightingale came so far to see. through all the long, wearisome journey, i doubt whether she gave much heed to the beauties or the discomforts of the way. her eyes were set steadfastly forward, following her swift thoughts; and eyes and thoughts sought this one thing, this gaunt, bare building rising beside the new-made graves. let us follow her and see what she found there. chapter ix. the barrack hospital. the barrack hospital at scutari was just what its name implies. it was built for soldiers to live in, and was big enough to take in whole regiments. surrounding the four sides of a quadrangle, each one of its sides was nearly a quarter of a mile long, and it was believed that twelve thousand men could be exercised in the great central court. three sides of the building were arranged in galleries and corridors, rising story upon story; we are told that these long narrow rooms, if placed end to end, would cover four miles of ground. at each corner rose a tower; the building was well situated, and looked out over the bosporus toward the glittering mosques and minarets of stamboul. you would think that this vast building would hold all the sick and wounded men of one short war; but this was not so. seven others were erected, and all were filled to overflowing; but the barrack hospital was miss nightingale's headquarters, and the chief scene of her labors, though she had authority over all; i shall therefore describe the situation and the work as she found it there. if there had been mismanagement at home in england, there had been even worse at the seat of war. the battles, you remember, were all fought in the crimea. they were cruel, terrible battles, too terrible to dwell upon here. hundreds and thousands were killed; but other hundreds and thousands lay wounded and helpless on the field. in those days there was no red cross, no field practice, no first aid to the injured. the poor sufferers were taken, all bleeding and fainting as they were, to the water side, and there put in boats which carried them, tossing on the rough waters of the black sea, across to scutari. several days would pass before any were got from the battlefield to the ferry below the hospital, and most of them had not had their wounds dressed or their broken limbs set. often they had had no food; they were tortured by fever and thirst; and now they must walk, if they could drag themselves, or be dragged or carried by others up the hill to the hospital. we can fancy how they looked forward to rest; how they thought of comfort, aid, relief from pain. alas! they found little of all these things. the barrack hospital had been built by the turks, and lent to the english by the turkish government; it had been meant for the hardy turkish soldiery to sleep in, and there were no appliances to fit it for a hospital. we are told that in the early months of the war "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." is this too dreadful to read about? but it was not too dreadful to happen. the poor fellows, laid down in the midst of all this horror, would wait with a soldier's patience, hoping for the doctor or surgeon who should bind up their wounds and relieve their terrible suffering. alas! often and often death was more prompt than the doctor, and stilled the pain forever, before any human aid had been given. one of miss nightingale's assistants writes: "how can i ever describe my first day in the hospital at scutari? vessels were arriving and 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--and the look of agony on those poor dying faces will never leave my heart. they may well be called 'the martyrs of the crimea.'" where were the doctors? they were there, doing their very best; working day and night, giving their strength and their lives freely; but there were not half, not a tenth part, enough of them; and there was no one to help them but the orderlies, who, as i have said, had had no training, and knew nothing of sickness or hospital work. the conditions grew so frightful that a kind of paralysis seemed to fall upon the minds of the workers. they felt that the task was hopeless, and they went about their duties like people in a nightmare. the strangest thing of all, to us now, seems to be that they _did not tell_. though mr. russell and others wrote to england of the horrors of the hospitals, the authorities themselves were silent, or if questioned, would only reply that everything was "all right." there was no inspection that was worthy of the name. the same officers who would front death on the battlefield with a song and a laugh, shrank from meeting it in the hospital wards, the air of which was heavy with the poison of cholera and fever. "an orderly officer took the rounds of the wards every night, to see that all was in order. he was of course expected by the orderlies, and the moment he raised the latch he received the word: 'all right, your honor!' and passed on. this was hospital inspection!"[3] in fact, these orderlies too often, i fear, bore some resemblance to the old class of nurses that i described, and were in many cases rough, unfeeling, ignorant men. sometimes it was for this reason that they drank the brandy which should have been given to their patients; but often, again, it was because they were ill themselves, or else because they were so overcome by the horrors around them that they drank just to bring forgetfulness for a time. the strange paralysis of which i have spoken seemed to hang over everything connected with the unfortunate soldiers of the crimea. mr. sidney herbert assured miss nightingale that the hospitals were supplied with every necessary. he had reason to think so, for the things had been sent, had left england, had reached the shores of the bosporus. "medical stores had been sent out by the ton." but where were they? i have already told you; they were rotting on the wharves, locked up in the warehouses, buried in the holds of vessels; they were everywhere except in the hospitals. the doctors had nothing to work with, but they could not leave their work to find out why it was. the other authorities said it was "all right!" they knew the things had come, but they were not sure just who were the proper persons to open the cargoes, take out and distribute the stores; it must not be done except by the proper persons. this is what is called _red tape_; it stands for authority without intelligence, and many books have been written about it. i remember, when i was a child, a cartoon in _punch_ showing the british soldier entangled in the coils of a frightful serpent, struggling for life; the serpent was labeled "_red tape_." (the monster is still alive in our day, but he is not nearly so powerful, and people are always on the lookout for him, and can generally drive him away.) this was the state of things when miss nightingale and her band of nurses arrived at scutari. her first round of the hospitals was a terrible experience, which no later one ever effaced from her mind. the air of the wards was so polluted as to be perfectly stifling. "the sheets," she said, "were of canvas, and so coarse that the wounded men begged to be left in their blankets. it was indeed impossible to put men in such a state of emaciation into those sheets. there was no bedroom furniture of any kind, and only empty beer or wine bottles for candlesticks."[4] the wards were full to overflowing, and the corridors crowded with sick and wounded, lying on the floor, with the rats running over them. she looked out of the windows; under them were lying dead animals in every state of decay, refuse and filth of every description. she sought the kitchens; there were no kitchens, and no cooks; at least nothing that would be recognized to-day as a hospital kitchen. in the barrack kitchen were thirteen huge coppers; in these the men cooked their own food, meat and vegetables together, the separate portions inclosed in nets, all plunged in together, and taken out when some one was ready to take them. part of the food would be raw when it came out, another part boiled to rags. this was all the food there was, for sick and well, the wounded, the fever-stricken, the cholera patient. no doubt hundreds died from improper feeding alone. she looked for the laundry; there was no laundry. there were washing contracts, but up to the time of her arrival "only seven shirts had been washed." the clothes and bed linen of wounded men and of those sick with infectious diseases were thrown in together. moreover, the contractors stole most of the clothes that came into their hands, so that the sick did not like to part with their few poor garments, for fear of never seeing them again, and were practically without clean linen, except when a soldier's wife would now and then take compassion on them, and wash out a few articles. these were the conditions that florence nightingale had to meet. a delicate and sensitive woman, reared amid beauty and luxury, these were the scenes among which she was to live for nearly two years. but one thing more must be noted. do you think everyone was glad to see her and her nurses? not by any means! the overwrought doctors were dismayed and angered at the prospect of a "parcel of women" coming--as they fancied--to interfere with their work, and make it harder than it was already. the red-tape officials were even less pleased. what? a woman in petticoats, a "lady-in-chief," coming to inquire into their deeds and their methods? had they not said repeatedly that everything was all right? what was the meaning of this? this was her coming; this is what she found; now we shall see what she did. chapter x. the lady-in-chief. miss nightingale arrived at scutari on november 4th. you have seen what she found; but there was worse to come. only twenty-four hours after her arrival, the wounded from the battle of inkerman began to come in; soon every inch of room in both the barrack and the general hospital was full, and men by hundreds were lying on the muddy ground outside, unable to find room even on the floor of the corridor. neither lady-in-chief nor nurses had had time to rest after their long voyage, to make plans for systematic work, even to draw breath after their first glimpse of the horrors around them, when this great avalanche of suffering and misery came down upon them. no woman in history has had to face such a task as now flung itself upon florence nightingale. she met it as the great meet trial, quietly and calmly. her cheek might pale at what she had to see, but there was no flinching in those clear, gray-blue eyes, no trembling of those firm lips. ship after ship discharged its ghastly freight at the ferry below; train after train of wounded was dragged up the hill, brought into the overflowing hospital, laid down on pallet, on mattress, on bare floor, on muddy ground, wherever space could be found. "the men lay in double rows down the long corridors, forming several miles of suffering humanity." as the poor fellows were brought in, they looked up, and saw a slender woman in a black dress, with a pale, beautiful face surmounted by a close-fitting white cap. quietly, but with an authority that no one ever thought of disputing, she gave her orders, directing where the sufferers were to be taken, what doctor was to be summoned, what nurses to attend them. during these days she was known sometimes to stand on her feet _twenty hours at a time_, seeing that each man was put in the right place, where he might receive the right kind of help. i ask you to think of this for a moment. twenty hours! nearly the whole of a day and night. where a particularly severe operation was to be performed, miss nightingale was present whenever it was possible, giving to both surgeon and patient the comfort and support of her wonderful calm strength and sympathy. in this dreadful inrush of the inkerman wounded, the surgeons had first of all to separate the more hopeful cases from those that seemed desperate. the working force was so insufficient, they must devote their energies to saving those who could be saved; this is how it seemed to them. once miss nightingale saw five men lying together in a corner, left just as they had come from the vessel. "can nothing be done for them?" she asked the surgeon in charge. he shook his head. "then will you give them to me?" "take them," replied the surgeon, "if you like; but we think their case is hopeless." do you remember the little girl sitting by the wounded dog? all night long florence nightingale sat beside those five men, one of the faithful nurses with her, feeding them with a spoon at short intervals till consciousness returned, and a little strength began to creep back into their poor torn bodies; then washing their wounds, making them tidy and decent, and all the time cheering them with kind and hopeful words. when morning came the surgeons, amazed, pronounced the men in good condition to be operated upon, and--we will hope, though the story does not tell the end--saved. is it any wonder that one poor lad burst into tears as he cried: "i can't help it, i can't indeed, when i see them. only think of englishwomen coming out here to nurse us! it seems so homelike and comfortable." in those days one of the nurses wrote home to england: "it does appear absolutely impossible to meet the wants of those who are dying of dysentery and exhaustion; out of four wards committed to my care, eleven men have died in the night, simply from exhaustion, which, humanly speaking, might have been stopped, could i have laid my hand at once on such nourishment as i knew they ought to have had. "it is necessary to be as near the scene of war as we are, to know the horrors which we have seen and heard of. i know not which sight is most heartrending--to witness fine strong men and youths worn down by exhaustion and sinking under it, or others coming in fearfully wounded. "the whole of yesterday was spent, first in sewing the men's mattresses together, and then in washing them, and assisting the surgeons, when we could, in dressing their ghastly wounds, and seeing the poor fellows made as easy as their circumstances would admit of, after their five days' confinement on board ship, during which space their wounds were not dressed.... we have not seen a drop of milk, and the bread is extremely sour. the butter is most filthy--it is irish butter in a state of decomposition; and the meat is more like moist leather than food. potatoes we are waiting for until they arrive from france." this was written six days after arrival. by the tenth day, a miracle had been accomplished. miss nightingale had established and fitted up a kitchen, from which eight hundred men were fed daily with delicacies and food suitable to their condition. beef-tea, chicken broth, jelly--a quiet wave of the wand, and these things sprang up, as it were, out of the earth. hear how one of the men describes it himself. on arriving at the hospital early in the morning, he was given a bowl of gruel. "'tommy, me boy,' he said to himself, '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 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." how was the miracle accomplished? up to this time, the method of giving out stores had been much like the method (only there was really no method about it!) of cooking and washing. there were no regular hours; if you asked for a thing in the morning, you might get it in the evening, when the barrack fires were out. and you could get nothing at all until it had been inspected by this official, approved by that, and finally given out by the other. these were called "service rules"; they were really folds and coils of the monster red tape, at his work of binding and strangling. how was the miracle accomplished? simply enough. miss nightingale, with the foresight of a born leader, had anticipated all this, and was ready for it. the materials for all the arrowroot, beef-tea, chicken broth, wine jelly, of those first weeks, came out of her own stores, brought out with her in the vessel, the _victis_, from england. she had no intention of waiting a day or an hour for anyone; she had not a day or an hour to waste. it must have been a wonderful cargo, that of the _victis_; i can think of nothing but the astonishing bag of the mother in the "swiss family robinson," or that still more marvelous one of the fairy blackstick. do you remember? "and giglio returned to his room, where the first thing he saw was the fairy bag lying on the table, which seemed to give a little hop as he came in. 'i hope it has some breakfast in it,' says giglio, 'for i have only a very little money left.' but on opening the bag, what do you think was there? a blacking-brush and a pot of warren's jet, and on the pot was written, "poor young men their boots must black; use me and cork me and put me back!" so giglio laughed and blacked his boots, and put the brush and the bottle into the bag. "when he had done dressing himself, the bag gave another hop, and he went to it and took out- 1. a tablecloth and napkin. 2. a sugar basin full of the best loaf sugar. 4, 6, 8, 10. two forks, two teaspoons, two knives, and a pair of sugar-tongs, and a butterknife, all marked g. 11, 12, 13. a teacup, saucer, and slop-basin. 14. a jug full of delicious cream. 15. a canister with black tea and green. 16. a large tea-urn and boiling water. 17. a saucepan, containing three eggs nicely done. 18. a quarter of a pound of best epping butter. 19. a brown loaf. "and if he hadn't enough now for a good breakfast, i should like to know who ever had one?" when i was your age, i never tired of reading about this breakfast; and then there was that other wonderful day when the bag was "grown so long that the prince could not help remarking it. he went to it, opened it, and what do you think he found in it? "a splendid long gold-handled, red-velvet-scabbarded cut-and-thrust sword, and on the sheath was embroidered 'rosalba forever!'" but i am not writing the "rose and the ring"; i wish i were! so, as i said, all good and comforting things came in those first days out of the fairy florence's bag--i mean ship. she hired a house close by the hospital, and set up a laundry, with every proper and sanitary arrangement, and there, every week, five hundred shirts were washed, besides other garments. but now came a new difficulty. many of the soldiers had no clothes at all save the filthy and ragged ones on their backs; what was to become of them while their shirts were washed and mended? the ship bag gave another hop (at least i should think it would have, for pure joy of the good it was doing), and out came ten thousand shirts; and for the first time since they left the battlefield the sick and wounded men were clean and comfortable. but the lady-in-chief knew that her fairy stores were not of the kind that renew themselves; and having once got matters into something like decent order and comfort in the hospital, she turned quietly and resolutely to do battle with the monster red tape. the officials of scutari did not know what to make of the new state of things. as i have said, many of them had shaken their heads and pulled very long faces when they heard that a woman was coming out who was to have full power and authority over all things pertaining to the care of the sick and wounded. they honestly thought, no doubt, that the confusion would be doubled, the distraction turned to downright madness. what could a woman know about such matters? what experience had she had of "service rules"? what would become of them all? they were soon to find out. the lady-in-chief did not cry out, or wring her hands, or do any of the things they had expected. neither did she bluster or rage, scold or reproach. she simply said that this or that must be done, and then saw that it was done. her tact and judgment were as great as her power and wisdom; more i cannot say. suppose she wanted certain stores that were in a warehouse on the wharf. the warehouse was locked. she sent for the wharfinger. would he please open the warehouse and give her the stores? he was very sorry, but he could not do so without an order from the board. she went to the chief officer of the board. he was very sorry, but it would be necessary to have a meeting of the entire board. who made up the board? well, mr. so-and-so, and dr. this, and mr. that, and colonel 'tother. where were they? well, one of them was not very well, and another was probably out riding, and a third---would he please call them together at once? well, he was extremely busy just now, but to-morrow or the day after, he would be delighted---would he be ready himself for a meeting, if miss nightingale could get the other members of the board together? well--of course--he would be delighted, but he could assure miss nightingale that everything would be all right, without her having the trouble to---the board met; pen, ink and paper were ready. would they kindly sign the order? many thanks! good morning! and the warehouse was opened, and the goods on their way to the hospital, before the astonished gentlemen had fairly drawn their breath. "but what kind of way is this to do business?" cried the slaves of red tape. "she doesn't give us time! the moment a thing is wanted, she goes and gets it!!! the rules of the service----" but this was not true; for, as methodical as she was wise and generous, miss nightingale was most careful to consult the proper authorities, and, whenever it was possible, to make them take the necessary steps themselves. once, and only once, did she absolutely take the law into her own hands. there came a moment when certain stores were desperately needed for some sick and wounded men. the stores were at hand, but they had not been inspected, and red tape had decreed that nothing should be given out until it had been inspected by the board. (this was another board, probably; their name was legion.) miss nightingale tried to get the board together, but this time without success. one was away, and another was ill, and a third was--i don't know where. the clear gray-blue eyes grew stern. "i must have these things!" she said quietly. "my men are dying for lack of them." the under-official stammered and turned pale; he did not wish to disobey her, but--it meant a court-martial for him if he disobeyed the rules of the service. "you shall have no blame," said the lady-in-chief. "i take the entire responsibility upon myself. open the door!" the door was opened, and in a few moments the sick men had the stimulants for lack of which they were sinking into exhaustion. when miss nightingale arrived at scutari, the death rate in the barrack hospital was sixty per cent; within a few months it was reduced to one per cent; and this, under heaven, was accomplished by her and her devoted band of nurses. do you wonder that she was called "the angel of the crimea?" chapter xi. the lady with the lamp. whene'er a noble deed is wrought,[5] whene'er is spoken a noble thought, our hearts, in glad surprise, to higher levels rise. the tidal wave of deeper souls into our inmost being rolls, and lifts us unawares out of all meaner cares. honor to those whose words or deeds thus help us in our daily needs, and by their overflow raise us from what is low! thus thought i, as by night i read of the great army of the dead, the trenches cold and damp, the starved and frozen camp,- 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. as if a door in heaven should be opened and then closed suddenly, the vision came and went, the light shone and was spent. on england's annals, through the long hereafter of her speech and song, that light its rays shall cast from portals of the past. a lady with a lamp shall stand in the great history of the land, a noble type of good, heroic womanhood. nor even shall be wanting here the palm, the lily, and the spear, the symbols that of yore saint filomena bore. miss nightingale's headquarters were in the "sisters' tower," as it came to be called, one of the four corner towers of the great building. here was a large, airy room, with doors opening off it on each side. in the middle was a large table, covered with stores of every kind, constantly in demand, constantly replaced; and on the floor, and flowing into all the corners, were--more stores! bales of shirts, piles of socks, slippers, dressing gowns, sheets, flannels--everything you can think of that is useful and comfortable in time of sickness. about these piles the white-capped nurses came and went, like bees about a hive; all was quietly busy, cheerful, methodical. in a small room opening off the large one the lady-in-chief held her councils with nurses, doctors, generals or orderlies; giving to all the same courteous attention, the same clear, calm, helpful advice or directions. here, too, for hours at a time, she sat at her desk, writing; letters to sidney herbert and his wife; letters to lord raglan, the commander-in-chief, who, though at first averse to her coming, became one of her firmest friends and admirers; letters to sorrowing wives and mothers and sisters in england. she received letters by the thousand; she could not answer them all with her own hand, but i am sure she answered as many as was possible. one letter was forwarded to her by the herberts which gave a great pleasure not to her only, but to everyone in all that place of suffering. it was dated windsor castle, december 6, 1854. "would you tell mrs. herbert," wrote good queen victoria, "that i beg she would let me see frequently the accounts she receives from miss nightingale or mrs. bracebridge, 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 anyone. "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 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_ sympathy is much valued by these noble fellows.--victoria." i think the tears may have come into those clear eyes of miss nightingale, when she read these words. she gave the letter to one of the chaplains, and he went from ward to ward, reading it aloud to the men, and ending each reading with "god save the queen!" the words were murmured or whispered after him by the lips of sick and dying, and through all the mournful place went a great wave of tender love and loyalty toward the good queen in england, and toward their own queen, their angel, who had shared her pleasure with them. you will hardly believe that in england, while the queen was writing thus, some people were still sadly troubled about miss nightingale's religious views, and were writing to the papers, warning other people against her; but so it was. one clergyman actually warned his flock not to subscribe money for the soldiers in the east "if it was to pass through popish hands." he thought the lady-in-chief was a catholic; others still maintained that she was a unitarian; others were sure she had gone out with the real purpose of converting the soldiers to high-church views. in reading about this kind of thing, it is comforting to find one good irish clergyman who, being asked to what sect miss nightingale belonged, replied: "she belongs to a sect which unfortunately is a very rare one--the sect of the good samaritans." but these grumblers were only a few, we must think. the great body of english people was filled with an enthusiasm of gratitude toward the "angel band" and its leader. from the queen in her palace down to the humblest working women in her cottage, all were at work making lint and bandages, shirts and socks and havelocks for the soldiers. nor were they content with making things. every housekeeper ransacked her linen closet and camphor chest, piled sheets and blankets and pillowcases together, tied them up in bundles, addressed them to miss nightingale, and sent them off. when sister mary aloysius first began to sort the bales of goods on the wharf at scutari, she thought that "the english nobility must have emptied their wardrobes and linen stores, to send out bandages for the wounded. there was the most beautiful underclothing, and the finest cambric sheets, with merely a scissors run here and there through them, to insure their being used for no other purpose, some from the queen's palace, with the royal monogram beautifully worked." yes, and the rats had a wonderful time with all these fine and delicate things, before the sisters could get their hands on them! these private gifts were not the only nor the largest ones. the _times_, which you will remember had been the first to reveal the terrible conditions in the crimea, now set to work and organized a fund for the relief of the wounded. a subscription list was opened, and from every part of the united kingdom money flowed in like water. the _times_ undertook to distribute the money, and appointed a good and wise man, mr. mcdonald, to go out to the east and see how it could best be applied. and now a strange thing came to pass; the sort of thing that, in one way or another, was constantly happening in connection with the crimean war. mr. mcdonald went to the highest authorities in the war office and told of his purpose. they bowed and smiled and said the _times_ and its subscribers were very kind, but the fact was that such ample provision had been made by the government that it was hardly likely the money would be needed. mr. mcdonald opened his eyes wide; but he was a wise man, as i have said; so he bowed and smiled in return, and going to sidney herbert, told his story to him. "go!" said mr. herbert; "go out to the crimea!" and he went. when he reached the seat of war, it was the same thing over again. the high officials were very polite, very glad to see him, very pleased that the people of england were so sympathetic and patriotic; but the fact was that nothing was wanted; they were amply supplied; in short, everything was "all right." many men, after this second rebuff, would have given the matter up and gone home; but mr. mcdonald was not of that kind. while he was considering what step to take next, one man came forward to help him; one man who was brave enough to defy red tape, for the sake of his soldiers. this was the surgeon of the 39th regiment. i wish i knew his name, so that you and i could remember it. he came to mr. mcdonald and told him that his regiment, which had been stationed at gibraltar, had been ordered to the crimea and had now reached the bosporus. they were going on to the crimea, to pass the winter in bitter cold, amid ice and snow; and they had no clothes save the light linen suits which had been given them to wear under the hot sun of gibraltar. here was a chance for the _times_ fund! without more ado mr. mcdonald went into the bazaars of constantinople and bought flannels and woolens, until every man in that regiment had a good warm winter suit in which to face the crimean winter. did anyone else follow the example of the surgeon of the 39th? not one! probably many persons thought he had done a shocking thing, by thus exposing the lack of provision in the army for its soldiers' comfort. this was casting reflection upon red tape! better for the soldier to freeze and die, than for a slur to be cast upon those in authority, upon the rules of the service! so, though mcdonald stood with hands held out, as it were, offering help, no one came forward to take it. he went to scutari, and here at first it was the same thing. he offered his aid to the chief medical authority over the hospitals; the reply was calm and precise: "nothing was wanted!" he went still higher, to "another and more august quarter"; the answer was still more emphatic: there was no possible occasion for help; soldiers and sailors had everything they required; if he wished to dispose of the _times_ fund, it might be a good thing to build an english church at pera! "yet, at that very time," says the historian of the crimea, "wants so dire as to include want of hospital furniture and of shirts for the patients, and of the commonest means for maintaining cleanliness, were afflicting our stricken soldiery in the hospitals."[6] mr. mcdonald did not build an english church; instead, he went to the barrack hospital and asked for the lady-in-chief. i should like to have seen florence nightingale's face when she heard his story. no help needed? the soldiers supplied with everything they needed? everything "all right"? "come with me!" she said. she took him through the wards of the barrack hospital, and showed him what had been done, and what an immense deal was yet to do; how, though many were comfortably clad, yet fresh hundreds were arriving constantly, half naked, without a shred of clean or decent clothing on their backs; how far the demand was beyond the supply; how fast her own stores were dwindling, and how many of the private offerings were unsuitable for the needs they were sent to fill; how many men were still, after all her labors, lying on the floor because there were not beds enough to go round. all these things good mr. mcdonald saw, and laid to heart; but he saw other things besides. perhaps some of you have visited a hospital. you have seen the bright, fresh, pleasant rooms, the rows of snowy cots, the bright faces of the nurses, here and there flowers and pictures; seeing two or three hundred patients, it has seemed to you as if you had seen all the sick people in the world. was it not so? in the barrack hospital (and this, remember, was but one of eight, and these eight the english hospitals alone!) there were two or three thousand patients; it was a city of pain. its streets were long, narrow rooms or corridors, bare and gloomy; no furniture save the endless rows of cots and mattresses, "packed like sardines," as one eye-witness says; its citizens, men in every stage of sickness and suffering; some tossing in fever and delirium; some moaning in pain that even a soldier's strength could not bear silently; some ghastly with terrible wounds; some sinking into their final sleep. following the light, slight figure of his guide through these narrow streets of the city of pain, mcdonald saw and noted that "wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form, and the hand of the spoiler distressingly nigh, there is this 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 the 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 lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds. "the popular instinct was not mistaken which, when she set out from england, 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 health can avoid misgivings lest these should fail.... i confidently assert that but for miss nightingale the people of england would scarcely, with all their solicitude, have been spared the additional pang of knowing, which they must have done sooner or later, that their soldiers, even in the hospitals, had found scanty refuge and relief from the unparalleled miseries with which this war has hitherto been attended." look with me for a moment into one of these wards, these "miles of sick" through which the agent of the _times_ passed with his guide. it is night. outside, the world is wide and wonderful with moon and stars. beyond the dark-blue waters of the bosporus, the lights of stamboul flash and twinkle; nearer at hand, the moonlight falls on the white city of the dead, and shows its dark cypresses standing like silent guardians beside the marble tombs; nearer yet, it falls full on the bare, gaunt square of building that crowns the hill. the windows are narrow, but still the moonbeams struggle in, and cast a dim light along the corridor. the vaulted roof is lost in blackness; black, too, are the corners, and we cannot see where the orderly nods in his chair, or where the night nurse sits beside a dying patient. all is silent, save for a low moan or murmur from one cot or another. see where the moonbeam glimmers white on that cot under the window! that is where the highland soldier is lying, he who came so near losing his arm the other day. the surgeons said it must be amputated, but the lady-in-chief begged for a little time. she thought that with care and nursing the arm might be saved; would they kindly delay the operation at least for a few days? the surgeons consented, for by this time no one could or would refuse her anything. the arm _was_ saved; now the bones are knitting nicely, and by and by he will be well and strong again, with both arms to work and play and fight with. but broken bones hurt even when they are knitting nicely, and the highland lad cannot sleep; he lies tossing about on his narrow cot, gritting his teeth now and then as the pain bites, but still a happy and a thankful man. he stares about him through the gloom, trying to see who is awake and who asleep. but now he starts, for silently the door opens, and a tiny ray of light, like a golden finger, falls across his bed. a figure enters and closes the door softly; the figure of a woman, tall and slender, dressed in black, with white cap and apron. in her hand she carries a small shaded lamp. at sight of her the sick lad's eyes grow bright; he raises his sound arm and straightens the blanket, then waits in eager patience. slowly the lady with the lamp draws near, stopping beside each cot, listening to the breathing and noting the color of the sleepers, whispering a word of cheer and encouragement to those who wake. now she stands beside his bed, and her radiant smile is brighter, he thinks, than lamplight or moonlight. a few words in the low, musical voice, a pat to the bedclothes, a friendly nod, and she passes on to the next cot. as she goes, her shadow, hardly more noiseless than her footstep, falls across the sick man's pillow; he turns and kisses it, and then falls happily asleep. so she comes and passes, like a light; and so her very shadow is blessed, and shall be blessed so long as memory endures. chapter xii. winter. o the long and dreary winter![7] o the cold and cruel winter! ever thicker, thicker, thicker froze the ice on lake and river, ever deeper, deeper, deeper fell the snow o'er all the landscape, fell the covering snow, and drifted through the forest, round the village. * * * * * o the famine and the fever! o the wasting of the famine! o the blasting of the fever! o the wailing of the children! o the anguish of the women! all the earth was sick and famished; hungry was the air around them, hungry was the sky above them, and the hungry stars in heaven like the eyes of wolves glared at them! "the bad weather commenced about november the 10th, and has continued ever since. a winter campaign is under no circumstances child's play; but here, where the troops had no cantonments to take shelter in, where large bodies were collected in one spot, and where the want of sufficient fuel soon made itself felt, it told with the greatest severity upon the health, not of the british alone, but of the french and turkish troops.... to the severity of the winter the whole army can bear ample testimony. the troops have felt it in all its intensity; and when it is considered that they have been under canvas from ten to twelve months--that they had no other shelter from the sun in summer, and no other protection from wet and snow, cold and tempestuous winds, such as have scarcely been known even in this climate, in winter--and that they passed from a life of total inactivity, already assailed by deadly disease, to one of the greatest possible exertion--it cannot be a matter of surprise that a fearful sickness has prevailed throughout their ranks, and that the men still suffer from it."--lord raglan to lord panmure, february, 1855. after the battle of inkerman, the allied armies turned all their energies to the siege of sebastopol, the principal city of the crimea. you will read some day about this memorable siege, one of the most famous in history, and about the prodigies of valor performed by both besiegers and besieged; but i can only touch briefly on those aspects of it which are connected with my subject. the winter of 1854-5 was, as lord raglan says, one of unexampled severity, even in that land of bitter winters. on november 14th a terrible hurricane swept the country, bringing death and ruin to russians and allies alike. in sebastopol itself trees were torn up by the roots, buildings unroofed, and much damage done; in the camps of the besiegers things were even worse. tents were torn in shreds and swept away like dead leaves; not only the soldiers' tents, but the great hospital marquees were destroyed, and the sick and wounded left exposed to bitter blast and freezing sleet. the trenches were flooded; no fires could be lit, and therefore no food cooked; and when the snowstorm came which followed the tempest, many a brave fellow lay down famished and exhausted, and the white blanket covered his last sleep. in the harbor even more ruin was wrought, for the ships were dashed about like broken toys that a wilful child flings hither and thither. the _prince_, which had just arrived loaded with clothing, medicines, stores of every description, went down with all her precious freight; the _resolute_ was lost, too, the principal ammunition ship of the army; and other vessels loaded with hay for the horses, a supply which would have fed them for twenty days. this dreadful calamity was followed by day after day of what the soldiers called "inkerman weather," with heavy mists and low drizzling clouds; then came bitter, killing frost, then snow, thaw, sleet, frost again, and so round and round in a cruel circle; and through every variation of weather the soldier's bed was the earth, now deep in snow, now bare and hard as iron, now thick with nauseous mud. all day long the soldiers toiled in the trenches with pick and spade, often under fire, always on the alert; others on night duty, "five nights out of six, a large proportion of them constantly under fire." is it to be wondered at that plague and cholera broke out in the camp of the besiegers, and that a steady stream of poor wretches came creeping up the hill at scutari? the lady-in-chief was ready for them. thanks to the _times_ fund and other subscriptions, she now had ample provision for many days. moreover, by this winter time her influence so dominated the hospital that not only was there no opposition to her wishes, but everyone flew to carry them out. the rough orderlies, who had growled and sworn at the notion of a woman coming to order them about, were now her slaves. her unvarying courtesy, her sweet and heavenly kindness, woke in many a rugged breast feelings of which it had never dreamed; and every man who worked for her was for the time at least a knight and a gentleman. it was bitter, hard work; she spared them no more than she spared herself; but they labored as no rules of the service had ever made them work. through it all, not one of them, orderlies or common soldiers, ever failed her "in obedience, thoughtful attention, and considerate delicacy." "never," she herself says, "came from any of them one word or 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 arose 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 expression which could distress a gentlewoman." if it was so with the orderlies, you can imagine how it was with the poor fellows for whom she was working. every smile from her was a gift; every word was a precious treasure to be stored away and kept through life. they would do anything she asked, for they knew she would do anything in her power for them. when any specially painful operation was to be performed (there was not always chloroform enough, alas! and in any case it was not given so freely in those days as it is now), the lady-in-chief would come quietly into the operating room and take her stand beside the patient; and looking up into that calm, steadfast face, and meeting the tender gaze of those pitying eyes that never flinched from any sight of pain or horror, he would take courage and nerve himself to bear the pain, since she was there to help him bear it. "we call her the angel of the crimea," one soldier wrote home. "could bad men be bad in the presence of an angel? impossible!" another wrote: "before she came there was such cussin' and swearin' as you never heard; but after she came it was as holy as a church." and still another--perhaps our highland lad of the night vigil, perhaps another--wrote to his people: "she would speak to one and another, 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 her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on our pillows again content." miss nightingale never wearied of bearing testimony to the many virtues of the british soldier. she loved to tell stories like the following: "i remember a sergeant who, on picket--the rest of the picket killed, and himself battered about the head--stumbled back to camp (before sebastopol), and on his way, picked up a wounded man and brought him on his shoulders to the lines, where he fell down insensible. when, after many hours, he recovered his senses, i believe after trepanning, his first words were to ask after his comrade: 'is he alive?' "'comrade indeed! yes, he's alive--it's the general!' at that moment the general, though badly wounded, appeared at the bedside. 'oh! general, it was you, was it, i brought in? i'm so glad; i didn't know your honor. but if i'd known it was you, i'd have saved you all the same!'" i must not leave the story of this winter without telling of all that miss nightingale did for the soldiers' wives. there were many of these poor women, who had come out to this far country to be near their husbands. there was no proper provision for them, and miss nightingale found them in a wretched condition, living in three or four damp, dark rooms in the basement of the hospital. their clothes were worn out; they were barefooted and bareheaded. we are told that "the only privacy to be obtained was by hanging up rags of clothes on lines. there, by the light of a rushlight, the meals were taken, the sick attended, and there the babies were born and nourished. there were twenty-two babies born from november to december, and many more during the winter."[8] the lady-in-chief soon put an end to this state of things. first she fed and clothed the women from her own stores, and saw that the little babies were made warm and comfortable. in january a fever broke out among the women, owing to a broken drain in the basement, and she found a house near by, had it cleaned and furnished, and persuaded the commandant to move the women into it. all through the winter she helped these poor souls in every way, employing some in the laundry, finding situations for others in constantinople, sending widows home to england, helping to start a school for the children. altogether about five hundred women were helped out of the miserable condition in which she found them, and were enabled to earn their own living honestly and respectably. writing of these times later, miss nightingale says: "when the improvements in our system which the war must suggest are discussed, let not the wife and child of the soldier be forgotten." another helper came out to scutari in those winter days; a gallant frenchman, m. soyer, who had been for years _chef_ of one of the great london clubs, and who knew all that there was to know about cookery. he read the _times_, and in february, 1855, he wrote to the editor: "sir: after carefully perusing the letter of your correspondent, dated scutari ... i perceive that, though the kitchen under the superintendence of miss nightingale affords so much relief, the system of management at the large one in 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 honor me with their confidence, and grant me the full power of acting according to my knowledge and experience in such matters." it was april before m. soyer reached scutari. he went at once to the barrack hospital, asked for miss nightingale, and was received by her in her office, which he calls "a sanctuary of benevolence." they became friends at once, for each could help the other and greatly desired to do so. "i must especially express my gratitude to miss nightingale," says the good gentleman in his record of the time, "who from her extraordinary intelligence and the good organization 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 until saturday last." m. soyer, on his side, brought all kinds of things which miss nightingale rejoiced to see: new stoves, new kinds of fuel, new appliances of many kinds which, in the first months of her work, she could never have hoped to see. he was full of energy, of ingenuity, and a fine french gayety and enthusiasm which must have been delightful to all the brave and weary workers in the city of pain. he went everywhere, saw and examined everything; and told of what he saw, in his own flowery, fiery way. he told among other things how, coming back one night from a gay evening in the doctors' quarters, he was making his way through the hospital wards to his own room, when, as he turned the corner of a corridor, he came upon a scene which made him stop and hold his breath. at the foot of one cot stood a nurse, holding a lighted lamp. its light fell on the sick man, who lay propped on pillows, gasping for breath, and evidently near his end. he was speaking, in hoarse and broken murmurs; sitting beside him, bending near to catch the painful utterances, was the lady-in-chief, pencil and paper in hand, writing down the words as he spoke them. now the dying man fumbled beneath his pillow, brought out a watch and some other small objects, and laid them in her hand; then with a sigh of relief, sank back content. it was two o'clock. miss nightingale had been on her feet, very likely, the whole day, perhaps had not even closed her eyes in sleep; but word was brought to her that this man was given up by the doctors, and had only a few hours to live; and in a moment she was by his side, to speak some final words of comfort, and to take down his parting message to wife and children. the kind-hearted frenchman never forgot this sight, yet it was one that might be seen any night in the barrack hospital. no man should die alone and uncomforted if florence nightingale and her women could help it. this is how m. soyer describes our heroine: "she is rather high in stature, fair in complexion and slim in person; her hair is brown, and is worn quite plain; her physiognomy is most pleasing; her eyes, of a bluish tint, speak volumes, and are always sparkling with intelligence; her mouth is small and well formed, while her lips act in unison, and make known the impression of her heart--one seems the reflex of the other. 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 import, a gentle smile passes radiantly over her countenance, 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 recognize only the charming woman. "her dress is generally of a grayish 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 cavalierlike duties, which require the nerve of a hercules--and she possesses it when required--she is rachel[9] on the stage in both tragedy and comedy." the long and dreary winter was over. the snow was gone, and the birds sang once more among the cypresses of scutari, and sunned themselves, and bathed and splashed in the marble basins at the foot of the tombs; but there was no abatement of the stream that crept up the hill to the hospital. no frostbite now--i haven't told you about that, because it is too dreadful for me to tell or for you to hear--but no less sickness. cholera was raging in the camp before sebastopol, and typhus, and dysentery; the men were dying like flies. the dreaded typhus crept into the hospital and attacked the workers. eight of the doctors were stricken down, seven of whom died. "for a time there was only one medical attendant in a fit state of health to wait on the sick in the barrack hospital, and his services were needed in twenty-four wards." next three of the devoted nurses were taken, two dying of fever, the third of cholera. more and more severe grew the strain of work and anxiety for miss nightingale, and those who watched her with loving anxiety trembled. so fragile, so worn; such a tremendous weight of care and responsibility on those delicate shoulders! is she not paler than usual to-day? what would become of us if she---their fears were groundless; the time was not yet. tending the dying physicians as she had tended their patients; walking, sad but steadfast, behind the bier that bore her dear and devoted helpers to the grave; adding each new burden to the rest, and carrying all with unbroken calm, unwearying patience; florence nightingale seemed to bear a charmed life. there is no record of any single instance, through that terrible winter and spring, of her being unable to perform the duties she had taken upon her. she might have said with sir galahad: "my strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure." chapter xiii. miss nightingale under fire. in may, 1855, miss nightingale decided to go to the crimea, to inspect the hospitals there. in the six months spent at scutari, she had brought its hospitals into excellent condition; now she felt that she must see what was being done and what still needed to be done elsewhere. accordingly she set sail in the ship _robert lowe_, accompanied by her faithful friend mr. bracebridge, who, with his admirable wife, had come out with her from england, and had been her constant helper and adviser; m. soyer, who was going to see how kitchen matters were going _lã -bas_, and her devoted boy thomas. thomas had been a drummer boy. he was twelve years old, and devoted to his drum until he came under the spell of the lady-in-chief. then he transferred his devotion to her, and became her aide-de-camp, following her wherever she went, and ready at any moment to give his life for her. it was fair spring weather now, and the fresh, soft air and beautiful scenery must have been specially delightful to the women who had spent six months within the four bare walls of the hospital surrounded by misery and death; but when she found that there were some sick soldiers on board, miss nightingale begged to be taken to them. she went from one to another in her cheerful way, and every man felt better at once. presently she came to a fever patient who was looking very discontented. "this man will not take his medicine!" said the attendant. "why will you not take it?" asked miss nightingale, with her winning smile. "because i took some once," said the man, "and it made me sick, and i haven't liked physic ever since." "but if i give it to you myself you will take it, won't you?" i wonder if anyone ever refused miss nightingale anything! "it will make me sick just the same, ma'am!" murmured the poor soul piteously; but he took the medicine, and forgot to be sick as she sat beside him and asked about the battle in which he had been wounded. when they entered the harbor of balaklava, they found all the vessels crowded with people. word had got abroad that the lady-in-chief was expected, and everybody was agog to see the wonderful woman who had done such a great work in the hospitals of scutari. the vessel was no sooner brought to anchor than all the doctors and officials of balaklava came on board, eager to pay their respects and welcome her to their shore. for an hour she received these various guests, but she could not wait longer, and by the time lord raglan, the commander-in-chief, reached the vessel on the same errand, she had already begun her inspection of the hospital on shore. she never had any time to waste, and so she never lost any. but the visit of a commander-in-chief must be returned; so the next day miss nightingale set out on horseback, with a party of friends, for the camp of the besiegers. m. soyer, who was of the party, tells us that she "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 color, 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 balaklava, who were astonished at seeing a lady so well escorted." the road was very bad, and crowded with people of every nationality, riding horses, mules and asses, driving oxen and cows and sheep. now they passed a cannon, stuck in the mud, its escort prancing and yelling around it; now a wagon overturned, its contents scattered on the road, its owner sitting on the ground lamenting. everywhere horses were kicking and whinnying, men shouting and screaming. it is no wonder that miss nightingale's pretty mare "of a golden color" got excited too, and kicked and pranced with the rest; but her rider had not scampered over english downs and jumped english fences for nothing, and the pretty creature soon found that she, like everyone else, must obey the lady-in-chief. the first hospital they came to was in the village of kadikoi. after inspecting it, and seeing what was needed, miss nightingale and her party rode to the top of a hill near by; and here for the first time she looked down on the actual face of war; saw the white tents of the besiegers and in the distance the grim walls of the beleaguered city; saw, too, the puffs of white smoke from trench and bastion, heard the roar of cannon and the crackle of musketry. to the boy beside her no doubt it was a splendid and inspiring sight; but florence nightingale knew too well what it all meant, and turned away with a heavy heart. lord raglan, not having been warned of her coming, was away; so, after visiting several small regimental hospitals, miss nightingale went on to the general hospital before sebastopol. here she found some hundreds of sick and wounded. word passed along the rows of cots that the "good lady of scutari" was coming to visit them, and everywhere she was greeted with beaming smiles and murmurs of greeting and welcome. but when she came out again, and passed along toward the cooking encampment, she was recognized by some former patients of hers at the barrack hospital, and a great shout of rejoicing went up; a shout so loud that the golden mare capered again, and again had to learn who her mistress was. now they approached the walls of sebastopol; and miss nightingale, who did not know what fear was, insisted upon having a nearer view of the city. they came to a point from which it could be conveniently seen; but here a sentry met them, and with a face of alarm begged them to dismount. "sharp firing going on here," he said, and he pointed to the fragments of shell lying about; "you'll be sure to attract attention, and they'll fire at you." miss nightingale laughed at his fears, but consented to take shelter behind a stone redoubt, from which, with the aid of a telescope, she had a good view of the city. but this was not enough. she must go into the trenches themselves. the sentry was horrified. "madam," said he, "if anything happens i call upon these gentlemen to witness that i did not fail to warn you of the danger." "my good young man," replied miss nightingale, "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." they went on, and soon reached the three-mortar battery, situated among the trenches and very near the walls. and here m. soyer had a great idea, which he carried out to his immense satisfaction. you shall hear about it in his own words: "before leaving the battery, i begged miss nightingale as a favor to give me her hand, which she did. i then requested her to ascend the stone rampart next the wooden gun carriage, and lastly to sit upon the centre mortar, to which requests she very gracefully and kindly acceded. 'gentlemen,' i cried, 'behold this amiable lady sitting fearlessly upon that terrible instrument of war! behold the heroic daughter of england--the soldier's friend!' all present shouted 'bravo! hurrah! hurrah! long live the daughter of england!'" when lord raglan heard of this, he said that the "instrument of war" on which she sat ought to be called "the nightingale mortar." the 39th regiment was stationed close by; and seeing a lady--a strange enough sight in that place--seated on a mortar, gazing calmly about her, as if all her life had been spent in the trenches, the soldiers looked closer, and all at once recognized the beloved lady-in-chief, the angel of the crimea. they set up a shout that went ringing over the fields and trenches, and startled the russians behind the walls of sebastopol; and miss nightingale, startled too, but greatly touched and moved, came down from her mortar and mounted her horse to ride back to balaklava. it was a rough and fatiguing ride, and the next day she felt very tired; but she was used to being tired, and never thought much of it, so she set out to visit the general hospital again. after spending several hours there, she went on to the sanatorium, a collection of huts high up on a mountainside, nearly eight hundred feet above the sea. the sun was intensely hot, the ride a hard one; yet she not only reached it this day, but went up again the day after, to install three much-needed nurses there; this done, she went on with her work in the hospitals of balaklava. but, alas! this time she had gone beyond even her strength. she was stricken down suddenly, in the midst of her work, with the worst form of crimean fever. the doctors ordered that she should be taken to the sanatorium. amid general grief and consternation she was laid on a stretcher, and the soldiers for whom she had so often risked her life bore her sadly through the streets of balaklava and up the mountainside. a nurse went with her, a friend held a white umbrella between her and the pitiless sun, and poor little thomas, "miss nightingale's man" as he had proudly called himself, followed the stretcher, crying bitterly. indeed, it seemed as if everyone were crying. the rough soldiers--only she never found them rough--wept like children. it was a sad little procession that wound its way up the height, to the hut that had been set apart for the beloved sufferer. it was a neat, airy cabin, set on the banks of a clear stream. all about were spring buds and blossoms, and green, whispering trees; it was just such a place as she would have chosen for one of her own patients; and here, for several days, she lay between life and death. the news spread everywhere; florence nightingale was ill--was dying! all balaklava knew it; soon the tidings came to scutari, to her own hospital, and the sick men turned their faces to the wall and wept, and longed to give their own lives for hers, if only that might be. the news came to england, and men looked and spoke--ay, and felt--as if some great national calamity threatened. but soon the messages changed their tone. the disease was checked; she was better; she was actually recovering, and would soon be well. then all the crimea rejoiced, and at scutari they felt that spring had come indeed. while she still lay desperately ill, a visitor climbed the rugged height to the sanatorium, and knocked at the door of the little lonely hut. i think you must hear about this visit from mrs. roberts, the nurse who told m. soyer about it: "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 guttapercha cloaks and dripping wet, knocked at the door. i went out, and one inquired in which hut miss nightingale resided. "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 down at the foot of the bed, and kindly asked miss nightingale how she was, expressing his sorrow at her illness, and praising her for the good she had done for the troops. he wished her a speedy recovery, and hoped she might be able to continue her charitable and invaluable exertions, so highly appreciated by everyone, as well as by himself. he then bade miss nightingale goodbye, and went away...." after twelve days miss nightingale was pronounced convalescent. the doctors now earnestly begged her to return to england, telling her that her health absolutely required a long rest, with entire freedom from care. but she shook her head resolutely. her work was not yet over; she would not desert her post. weak as she was, she insisted on being taken back to scutari; she would come back by and by, she said, and finish the work in the crimea itself. sick or well, there was no resisting the lady-in-chief. the stretcher was brought again, and eight soldiers carried her down the mountainside and so down to the port of balaklava. the _jura_ lay at the wharf; a tackle was rigged, and the stretcher hoisted on board, the patient lying motionless but undaunted the while; but this vessel proved unsuitable, and she had to be moved twice before she was finally established on a private yacht, the _new london_. before she sailed, lord raglan came to see her again. it was the last time they ever met, for a few weeks after the brave commander died, worn out by the struggles and privations of the war, and--some thought--broken-hearted by the disastrous repulse of the british troops at the redan. rather more than a month after she had left for the crimea, miss nightingale saw once more the towers and minarets of constantinople flashing across the black-sea water, and, on the other side of the narrow bosporus, the gaunt white walls which had come to seem almost homelike to her. she was glad to get back to her scutari and her people. she knew she should get well here, and so she did. the welcome she received was most touching. all the great people, commanders and high authorities, met her at the pier, and offered her their houses, their carriages, everything they had, to help her back to strength; but far dearer to her than this were the glances of weary eyes that brightened at her coming, the waving of feeble hands, the cheers of feeble voices, from the invalid soldiers who, like herself, were creeping back from death to life, and who felt, very likely, that their chance of full recovery was a far better one now that their angel had come back to dwell among them. as strength returned, miss nightingale loved to walk in the great burying ground of which i have told you; to rest under the cypress trees, and watch the little birds, and pick wild flowers in that lovely, lonely place. there are strange stories about the birds of scutari, by the way; the turks believe that they are the souls of sinners, forced to flit and hover forever, without rest; but it is not likely that thoughts of this kind troubled miss nightingale, as she watched the pretty creatures taking their bath, or pecking at the crumbs she scattered. birds and flowers, green trees and soft, sweet air--all these things ministered to her, and helped her on the upward road to health and strength; and before long she was able to take up again the work which she loved, and which was waiting for her hand. chapter xiv. the close of the war. the sun soared over the gulf, where the water, covered with ships at anchor, and with sailand row-boats in motion, played merrily in its warm and luminous rays. a light breeze, which scarcely shook the leaves of the stunted oak bushes that grew beside the signal station, filled the sails of the boats, and made the waves ripple softly. on the other side of the gulf sebastopol was visible, unchanged, with its unfinished church, its column, its quay, the boulevard which cut the hill with a green band, the elegant library building, its little lakes of azure blue, with their forests of masts, its picturesque aqueducts, and, above all that, clouds of a bluish tint, formed by powder smoke, lighted up from time to time by the red flame of the firing. it was the same proud and beautiful sebastopol, with its festal air, surrounded on one side by the yellow smoke-crowned hills, on the other by the sea, deep blue in color and sparkling brilliantly in the sun. at the horizon, where the smoke of a steamer traced a black line, white, narrow clouds were rising, precursors of a wind. along the whole line of the fortifications, along the heights, especially on the left side, spurted out suddenly, torn by a visible flash, although it was broad daylight, plumes of thick white smoke, which, assuming various forms, extended, rose, and colored the sky with sombre tints. these jets of smoke came out on all sides--from the hills, from the hostile batteries, from the city--and flew toward the sky. the noise of the explosions shook the air with a continuous roar. toward noon these smoke puffs became rarer and rarer, and the vibrations of the air strata became less frequent. "'do you know that the second bastion is no longer replying?' said the hussar officer on horseback, 'it is entirely demolished. it is terrible!' "'yes, and the malakoff replies twice out of three times,' answered the one who was looking through the field-glass. 'this silence is driving me mad! they are firing straight on the korniloff battery and that is not replying.' "'there is a movement in the trenches; they are marching in close columns.' "'yes, i see it well,' said one of the sailors; 'they are advancing by columns. we must set the signal.' "'but see, there--see! they are coming out of the trenches!' "they could see, in fact, with the naked eye black spots going down from the hill into the ravine, and proceeding from the french batteries toward our bastions. in the foreground, in front of the former, black spots could be seen very near our lines. suddenly, from different points of the bastion at the same time, spurted out the white plumes of the discharges, and, thanks to the wind, the noise of a lively fusillade could be heard, like the patter of a heavy rain against the windows. the black lines advanced, wrapped in a curtain of smoke, and came nearer. the fusillade increased in violence. the smoke burst out at shorter and shorter intervals, extended rapidly along the line in a single light, lilac-colored cloud, unrolling and enlarging itself by turns, furrowed here and there by flashes or rent by black points. all the noises mingled together in the tumult of one continued roar. "'it is an assault,' said the officer, pale with emotion, handing his glass to the sailor. "cossacks and officers on horseback went along the road, preceding the commander-in-chief in his carriage, accompanied by his suite. their faces expressed the painful emotion of expectation. "'it is impossible that it is taken!' said the officer on horseback. "'god in heaven--the flag! look now!' cried the other, choked by emotion, turning away from the glass. 'the french flag is in the malakoff mamelon!'" * * * * * it is thus that tolstoi, the great russian writer, describes the fall of sebastopol, as he saw it. at the same moment that the french were taking the malakoff redoubt, the british were storming the redan, from which they had been so disastrously repulsed three months before. the flags of the allied armies floated over both forts, and in the night that followed the russians marched silently out of the fallen city, leaving flames and desolation behind them. the war was over. the good news sped to england, and the great guns of the tower of london thundered out "victory!" "victory!" answered every arsenal the country over. "victory!" rang the bells in every village steeple. "victory!" cried man, woman, and child throughout the length and breadth of the land. but mingled with the shouts of rejoicing was a deeper note, one of thankfulness that the cruel war was done, and peace come at last. in these happy days miss nightingale's name was on all lips. what did not england owe to her, the heroic woman who had offered her life, and had all but lost it, for the soldiers of her country? what should england do to show her gratitude? people were on fire to do something, make some return to florence nightingale for her devoted services. from the queen to the cottager, all were asking: "what shall we do for her?" it was decided to consult her friends, the sidney herberts, as to the shape that a testimonial of the country's love and gratitude should take in order to be acceptable to miss nightingale. mrs. herbert, being asked, replied: "there is but one testimonial which would be accepted by miss nightingale. the one wish of her heart has long been to found a hospital in london and to work it on her own system of unpaid nursing, and i have suggested to all who have asked my advice in this matter to pay any sums that they may feel disposed to give, or that they may be able to collect, into messrs. coutts' bank, where a subscription list for the purpose is about to be opened, to be called the 'nightingale hospital fund,' the sum subscribed to be presented to her on her return home, which will enable her to carry out her object regarding the reform of the nursing system in england." here was something definite indeed. a committee was instantly formed--a wonderful committee, with "three dukes, nine other noblemen, the lord mayor, two judges, five right honorables, foremost naval and military officers, physicians, lawyers, london aldermen, dignitaries of the church, dignitaries of nonconformist churches, twenty members of parliament, and several eminent men of letters"[10]; and the subscription was opened. how the money came pouring in! you would think no one had ever spent money before. the rich gave their thousands, the poor their pennies. there were fairs and concerts and entertainments of every description, to swell the nightingale fund; but the offering that must have touched miss nightingale's heart most deeply was that of the soldiers and sailors of england. "the officers and men of nearly every regiment and many of the vessels contributed a day's pay."[11] that meant more to her, i warrant, than any rich man's thousands. before a year had passed, the fund amounted to over forty thousand pounds; and there is no knowing how much higher it might have gone had not miss nightingale herself come home and stopped it. that was enough, she said; if they wanted to give more money, they might give it to the sufferers from the floods in france. but she did not come home at once; no indeed! the war might be over, but her work was not, and she would never leave it while anything remained undone. the war was over, but the hospitals, especially those of the crimea itself, were still filled with sick and wounded soldiers, and until the formal peace was signed an "army of occupation" must still remain in the crimea. miss nightingale knew well that idleness is the worst possible thing for soldiers (as for everyone); and while she cared for the sick and wounded, she took as much pains to provide employment and amusement for the rest. as soon as she had fully regained her strength, she returned to the crimea as she had promised to do, set up two new camp hospitals, and established a staff of nurses, taking the charge of the whole nursing department upon herself. these new hospitals were on the heights above balaklava, not far from where she had passed the days of her own desperate illness. she established herself in a hut close by the hospitals and the sanatorium, and here she spent a second winter of hard work and exposure. it was bitter cold up there on the mountainside. the hut was not weather-proof, and they sometimes found their beds covered with snow in the morning; but they did not mind trifles like this. "the sisters are all quite well and cheerful," writes miss nightingale; "thank god for it! they have made their hut look quite tidy, and put up with the cold and inconveniences with the utmost self-abnegation. everything, even the ink, freezes in our hut every night." in all weathers she rode or drove over the rough and perilous roads, often at great risk of life and limb. her carriage being upset one day, and she and her attendant nurse injured, a friend had a carriage made on purpose for her, to be at once secure and comfortable. it was "composed of wood battens framed on the outside and basketwork. in the interior it is lined with a sort of waterproof canvas. it has a fixed head on the hind part and a canopy running the full length, with curtains at the side to inclose the interior. the front driving seat removes, and thus the whole forms a sort of small tilted wagon with a welted frame, suspended on the back part on which to recline, and well padded round the sides. it is fitted with patent breaks to the hind wheels so as to let it go gently down the steep hills of the turkish roads."[12] this curious carriage is still preserved at lea hurst. miss nightingale left it behind her when she returned to england, and it was about to be sold, with other abandoned articles, when our good friend m. soyer heard of it; he instantly bought it, sent it to england, and afterwards had the pleasure of restoring it to its owner. she must have been amused, i think, but no doubt she was pleased, too, at the kindly thought. but this comfortable carriage only increased her labors, in one way, for with it she went about more than ever. no weather was too severe, no snowstorm too furious, to keep her indoors; the men needed her and she must go to them. "she was known to stand for hours at the top of a bleak rocky mountain near the hospitals, giving her instructions while the snow was falling heavily. then in the bleak dark night she would return down the perilous mountain road with no escort save the driver."[13] it was not only for the invalids that miss nightingale toiled through this second winter; much of her time was given to the convalescents and those who were on active duty. she established libraries, and little "reading huts," where the men could come and find the english magazines and papers, and a stock of cheerful, entertaining books, carefully chosen by the dear lady who knew so well what they liked. she got up lectures, too, and classes for those who wished to study this or that branch of learning; and she helped to establish a cafã© at inkerman, where the men could get hot coffee and chocolate and the like in the bitter winter weather. there really seems no end to the good and kind and lovely things she did. i must not forget one thing, which may seem small to some of you, but which was truly great in the amount of good that came from it. ever since she first came out to scutari, she had used all her influence to persuade the soldiers to write home regularly to their families. the sick lads in the hospital learned that if they would write a letter--just two or three lines, to tell mother or sister that they were alive and doing well--and would send it to the lady-in-chief, she would put a stamp on it and speed it on its way. so now, in all the little libraries and reading huts, there were pens, ink and paper, envelopes and stamps; and when miss nightingale looked in at one of these cheerful little gathering places, we may be sure that she asked jim or joe whether he had written to his mother this week, and bade him be sure not to forget it. does this seem to you a small thing? wait till you go away from home, and see what the letters that come from home mean to you; then multiply that by ten, and you will know partly, but not entirely, what your letters mean to those at home. it has always seemed to me that this was a very bright star in miss nightingale's crown of glory. the soldier's wife and child, mother and sister, were always in her thoughts. not only did she persuade the men to write home, but she used all her great influence to induce them to send home their pay to their families. at scutari she had a money-order office of her own, and four afternoons in each month she devoted to receiving money from the soldiers who brought it to her, and forwarding it to england. it is estimated that about a thousand pounds was sent each month, in small sums of twenty or thirty shillings. "this money," says miss nightingale, "was literally so much rescued from the canteen and drunkenness." after the fall of sebastopol the british government followed her example, and set up money-order offices in several places, with excellent results. sometimes it was miss nightingale herself who wrote home to the soldier's family; sad, sweet letters, telling how the husband or father had done his duty gallantly, and had died as a brave man should; giving his last messages, and inclosing the mementos he had left for them. to many a humble home these letters brought comfort and support in the hour of trial, and were treasured--are no doubt treasured to this day--like the relics of a blessed saint. the treaty of peace was signed at paris on march 30, 1856, and now all hearts in the crimea turned toward home. one by one the hospitals were closed, as their inmates recovered strength; one by one the troopships were filled with soldiers--ragged, gaunt, hollow-eyed, yet gay and light-hearted as schoolboys--and started on the homeward voyage; yet still the lady-in-chief lingered. not while one sick man remained would florence nightingale leave her post. indeed, at the last moment she found a task that none but herself might have taken up. the troopships were gone; but here, on the camping ground before sebastopol, were fifty or sixty poor women, left behind when their husbands' regiments had sailed, helpless and--i was going to say friendless, but nothing could be more untrue; for they gathered in their distress round the hut of the lady-in-chief, imploring her aid; and she soon had them on board a british ship, speeding home after the rest. and now the end had come, and there was only one more thing to do, one more order to give; the result of that last order is seen to-day by all who visit that far-away land of the crimea. on the mountain heights above balaklava, on a peak not far from the sanatorium where she labored and suffered, towers a great cross of white marble, shining like snow against the deep blue sky. this is the "nightingale cross," her own tribute to the brave men and the devoted nurses who died in the war. at the foot of the cross are these words: "lord have mercy upon us." to every englishman--nay, to everyone of any race who loves noble thoughts and noble deeds--this monument will always be a sacred and a venerable one. in the spring of this year, lord ellesmere, speaking before parliament, said: "my lords, the agony of that time has become a matter of history. the vegetation of two successive springs has obscured the vestiges of balaklava and of inkerman. strong voices now answer to the roll call, and sturdy forms now cluster round the colors. the ranks are full, the hospitals are empty. the angel of mercy still lingers to the last on the scene of her labors; 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 be thinking how to escape, as best she may, on her return, the demonstration of a nation's appreciation of the deeds and motives of florence nightingale." this was precisely what the lady-in-chief was thinking. she meant to return to england as quietly as she left it; and she succeeded. the british government begged her to accept a man-of-war as her own for the time being; she was much obliged, but would rather not. she went over to scutari, saw the final closing of the hospitals there, and took a silent farewell of that place of many memories; then stepped quietly on board a french vessel, and sailed for france. a few days later--so the story goes--a lady quietly dressed in black, and closely veiled, entered the back door of lea hurst. the old butler saw the intruder, and hastened forward to stop her way--and it was "miss florence!" chapter xv. the tasks of peace. now, the people of england had been on tiptoe for some days with eagerness, waiting to welcome the heroine of the crimea back to her native shores. they would give her such a reception as no one had ever yet had in that land of hospitality and welcomings. she should have bells and cannon and bonfires, processions and deputations and addresses--she should have everything that anybody could think of. when they found that their heroine had slipped quietly through their fingers, as it were, and was back in her own peaceful home once more, people were sadly disappointed. they must give up the cannon and the bonfires; but at least they might have a glimpse of her! so hundreds of people crowded the roads and lanes about lea hurst, waiting and watching. an old lady living at the park gate told mrs. tooley: "i remember the crowds as if it was yesterday. it took me all my time to answer them. folks came in carriages and on foot, and there was titled people among them, and a lot of soldiers, some of them without arms and legs, who had been nursed by miss florence in the hospital, and i remember one man who had been shot through both eyes coming and asking to see miss florence. but not ten out of the hundreds who came got a glimpse of her. if they wanted help about their pensions, they were told to put it down in writing, and miss florence's maid came with an answer. of course she was willing to help everybody, but it stood to reason she could not receive them all; why, the park wouldn't have held all the folks that came, and besides, the old squire wouldn't have his daughter made a staring stock of."[14] after the first disappointment--which after all was perfectly natural--all sensible people realized how weary miss nightingale must be after her tremendous labors, and how much she must need rest. all who knew her, too, knew that she never could abide public "demonstrations"; so they left her in peace, and began sending her things, to show their gratitude in a different way. the first gift of this kind she had received before she left the crimea, from good queen victoria herself. this was "the nightingale jewel," as it is called; "a ruby-red enamel cross on a white field, encircled by a black band with the words: 'blessed are the merciful.' the letters v. r.; surmounted by a crown in diamonds, are impressed upon the centre of the cross. green enamel branches of palm, tipped with gold, form the framework of the shield, while around their stems is a riband of blue enamel, with the single word 'crimea.' on the top are three brilliant stars of diamonds. on the back is an inscription written by the queen." another gift received on the scene of her labors was a magnificent diamond bracelet sent her by the sultan of turkey. i do not know of any more jewels; but two gifts that miss nightingale prized highly were a fine case of cutlery sent her by the workmen of sheffield, each knife blade inscribed with the words "presented to florence nightingale, 1857," and the silver-bound oak case inlaid with a representation of the good samaritan; and a beautiful pearl-inlaid writing desk, presented by her friends and neighbors near lea hurst. all these things were very touching; still more touching were the letters that came from all over the country, thanking and blessing her for all she had done. truly it was a happy home coming. miss nightingale knew that she was very, very weary; she realized that she must have a long rest, but she little thought how long it must be. she, and all her friends, thought that after a few months she would be able to take up again the work she so loved, and become the active leader in introducing the new methods of nursing into england. but the months passed, and grew from few to many, and still her strength did not return. the next year, indeed, when the dreadful indian mutiny broke out, she wrote to her friend lady canning, wife of the governor-general of india, offering to come at twenty-four hours' notice "if there was anything to do in her line of business"; but lady canning knew that she was not equal to such a task. slowly, gradually, the truth came to florence nightingale: she was never going to be strong or well again. always delicate, the tremendous labors of the crimea had been too much for her. while the work went on, the frail body answered the call of the powerful will, the undaunted mind, the great heart; now that the task was finished, it sank down broken and exhausted. truly, she had given her life, as much as any soldier who fought and died in the trenches or on the battlefield. and what did she do when she finally came to realize this? did she give up, and say, "my work on earth is done?" not she! there may have been some dark hours, but the world has never heard of them. she never for an instant thought of giving up her work; she simply changed the methods of it. the poor tired body must stay in bed or on the sofa; very well! but the mind was not tired at all; the will was not weakened; the heart had not ceased to throb with love and compassion for the sick, the sorrowful, the suffering; the question was to find the way in which they could work with as little trouble as might be to their poor sick friend the body. the way was soon found. whether at lea hurst or in london (for she now spent a good deal of time in the great city, to be near the centre of things), her sick room became one of the busiest places in all england. schemes for army reform, for hospital reform, for reform in everything connected with the poor and the sick--all these must be brought to miss nightingale. all the soldiers in the country must write to her whenever they wanted anything, from a pension down to a wooden leg (to their honor be it said, however, that though she was overwhelmed with begging letters from all parts of the country, not a soldier ever asked her for money). the nightingale fund, now nearly fifty thousand pounds, was administered under her advice and direction, and the first training school for nurses organized and opened. the old incapable, ignorant nurse vanished, and the modern nurse, educated, methodical, clear-eyed and clear-headed, took her place quietly; one of the great changes of modern times was effected, and the hand that directed it was the same one that we have seen holding the lamp, or writing down the dying soldier's last words, in the barrack hospital at scutari. that slender hand wrote books with all the rest of its work. in the sick room as in the hospital, miss nightingale had no time to waste. her "hospital notes" may be read to-day with the keenest interest by all who care to know more of that great story of the crimean war; her "notes on nursing" became the handbook of the nursing reform, and ought to be in the hands of every nurse to-day as it was in 1860, when it was written. nor in the hands of nurses only; i wish every girl and every boy who reads this story would try to find that slender, dingy volume in some library, and "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" its contents. they would know a good deal more than they do now. well might miss nightingale write, in 1861: "i have passed the last four years between four walls, only varied to other four walls once a year; and i believe there is no prospect but of my health becoming ever worse and worse till the hour of my release. but i have never ceased, during one waking hour since my return to england five years ago, laboring for the welfare of the army at home, as i did abroad, and no hour have i given to friendship or amusement during that time, but all to work." drop a stone in the water and see how the circles spread, growing wider and wider. after a while you cannot see them, but you know that the motion you have started must go on and on till it whispers against the pebbles on the farther shore. so it is with a good deed or an evil one; we see its beginning; we cannot see what distant shore it may reach. so, no one will ever know the full amount of good that this noble woman has done. the sanitary commission of our own civil war, the red cross which to-day counts its workers by thousands in every part of the civilized world, both owed their first impulse to the pebble dropped by florence nightingale--even her own life, given freely to suffering humanity. i have never seen, but i like to think of the quiet room in london, where she lies to-day in the white beauty of her age. nearly ninety years have passed since the little girl-baby woke to life among the blossoms of the city of flowers; more than half a century has gone by since the lady with the lamp passed like light along the corridors of the barrack hospital; yet still florence nightingale lives and loves, still her thoughts go out in tenderness and compassion toward all who are "in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity." let us think of that quiet room as one of the holy places of the earth; let us think of her, and take our leave of her, with loving and thankful hearts. the end. stories for young readers =journeys of the kit kat club.= _illustrated. 8vo. $2.00 net._ by william r. a. wilson. a beautifully illustrated volume filled with interesting and salient features of english history, folk-lore, politics, and scenery. =butt chanler, freshman.= _illustrated. 12mo. $1.50._ by james shelley hamilton, amherst '06. college sports are always a subject of interest to young readers, and here are incidents that are dear to all college associates. "the story is breezy, bright, and clean."--_the bookseller, new york_. =williams of west point.= _illustrated. 12mo. $1.50._ by lieut. hugh s. johnson. a story of west point under the old code. "every boy with red blood in his veins will pronounce it a corker."--_the globe, boston._ =the substitute.= _illustrated. 12mo. $1.50._ by walter camp. "presents the ideal to football enthusiasts. the author's name is guarantee of the accuracy of descriptions of the plays."--_the courant, hartford, conn._ =the forest runners.= _illustrated in color. 12mo. $1.50._ by joseph a. altsheler. this story deals with the further adventures of the two young woodsmen in the history of kentucky who were heroes in "the young trailers." the story is full of thrills to appeal to every boy who loves a good story. d. appleton and company, new york. two good novels. =cy whittaker's place.= a novel of cape cod life, by joseph c. lincoln, author of "mr. pratt," "cap'n eri," etc. 27 illustrations by wallace morgan, colored inlay on cover. 12mo. cloth, $1.50. cape cod life, as pictured by joseph c. lincoln, is delightful in its homeliness, its wholesomeness, its quaint simplicity. the plot of this novel revolves around a little girl whom an old bachelor, cy whittaker, adopts. her education is too stupendous a task for the old man to attempt alone, so he calls in two old cronies and they form a "board of strategy." a dramatic story of unusual merit then develops, and through it all runs that rich vein of humor which has won for the author a fixed place in the hearts of thousands of readers. cy whittaker is the david harum of cape cod. =the whispering man.= a detective story worth while, by henry kitchell webster. frontispiece. 12mo. decorated cloth, $1.50. a detective story you ought to read. something altogether _different_ in that the clues to the mystery lie open to the reader throughout the whole story, and are yet so concealed that the unsuspecting reader is amazed at the outcome. to those who have tired of the ordinary type of detective story, we commend this _different_ novel as most refreshing. d. appleton and company, new york. novels by robert w. chambers. =special messenger.= _illustrated. 12mo. cloth, $1.50._ a romantic love story of a woman spy in the civil war. =the firing line.= _illustrated. 12mo. cloth, $1.50._ "the tale is rich in vivid descriptions, pleasing incidents, effective situations, human interest and luxurious scenic effects. it is a story to be remembered."--_grand rapids herald._ =the younger set.= _illustrated. cloth, $1.50._ "the younger set" is a novel of the swirl of wealthy new york society. the hero, forced out of the army by domestic troubles, returns to new york homeless and idle. he finds a beautiful girl who promises ideal happiness. but new complications intervene and are described with what the new york _sun_ calls mr. chambers' "amazing knack of narrative." =the fighting chance.= _illustrated. cloth, $1.50._ one of the most brilliant pictures of wealthy american society ever painted; one of the most interesting and appealing stories ever written; one of the most widely read of all american novels. =some ladies in haste.= _illustrated. cloth, $1.50._ mr. chambers has written most delightfully, and in his charming satire depicts the plight of five society girls and five clubmen. =iole.= _illustrated. cloth, $1.25._ "think of eight pretty girls in pink silk pajamas and sunbonnets, brought up in innocence in a scientific eden, with a 'house beautiful' in the back-ground, and a poetical father in the foreground. think again of those rose-petalled creations turned loose upon new york society and then enjoy the fun of it all in 'iole.'"--_boston herald._ =the tracer of lost persons.= _illustrated. cloth, $1.50._ the captivating account of the strangely absorbing adventures of a "matrimonial sleuth," "a deputy of cupid." "compared with him sherlock holmes is clumsy and without human emotions."--_chicago inter-ocean._ =the tree of heaven.= _illustrated. cloth, $1.50._ if you looked squarely into a mirror and saw your profile instead of your full face, _if you suddenly found yourself 25 miles away from yourself_, you would be in one of the tantalizing situations that give fascination to this charming book. =the reckoning.= _illustrated. cloth, $1.50._ a story of northern new york during the last fierce fights between tories and revolutionaries and the iroquois indians, by which tribe the hero had been adopted. "it would be but an unresponsive american that would not thrill to such relations."--_new york times._ d. appleton and company, new york. by ralph henry barbour =the new boy at hilltop= illustrated in colors, ornamental cloth cover with inlay in colors, 12mo, $1.50. the story of a boy's experiences at boarding school. the first chapter describes his arrival and reception by the others. the remaining chapters tell of his life on the football field, on the crew, his various scrapes and fights, school customs and school entertainments. his experiences are varied and cover nearly all the incidents of boarding school life. =winning his "y"= illustrated in colors, 12mo, decorated cloth cover, $1.50. the scene of this story is yardley hall, the school made famous in "double play" and "forward pass!"; and we meet again the manly, self-reliant dan vinton, his young friend gerald pennimore, and many others of the "old boys" whose athletic achievements and other doings have been so entertainingly chronicled by mr. barbour. the new story is thus slightly connected with its predecessors, but will be fully as interesting to a boy who has not read them as if it were not. =double play= illustrated in colors, 12mo, cloth, $1.50. further experiences of dan vinton--hero of "forward pass!"--at yardley hall. he becomes in a way the mentor of the millionaire's son, gerald pennimore, who enters the school. there is the description of an exciting baseball game, and the stratagem by which the wily coach, payson, puts some ginger into an overtrained squad and develops from it a winning team will appeal to every boy. =forward pass!= illustrated in colors, 12mo, cloth, $1.50. in his new story, mr. barbour returns to the field of his earlier and more successful stories, such as "the half-back," "captain of the crew," etc. the main interest in "forward pass!" centers about the "new" football; the story is, nevertheless, one of preparatory-school life and adventures in general. the book contains several illustrations and a number of diagrams of the "new" football plays. mr. barbour considers this his best story. d. appleton and company, new york by walter camp =jack hall at yale= illustrated in colors, 12mo, cloth, $1.50. this is a story following, but not distinctly a sequel to, mr. camp's successful juvenile, "the substitute." it is a story dealing principally with football in college, but including rowing and other sports. mr. camp's idea in this book is to give a little more of a picture of college life and the relations, friendships, enmities, etc., of the students rather than to tell nothing but a football story. in other words, the book is more of an attempt at the "tom brown at rugby" idea than a purely athletic story, although the basis of the story, as in "the substitute," is still athletics. =the substitute= illustrated in colors, 12mo, cloth, $1.50. it describes vividly the efforts of the coaches in "whipping" the football team of a great university into shape for the season's struggles. the whole story is completely realistic--the talks of the coaches to the team; the discussion of points and tactics in the game; the details of individual positions; the daily work on the field. who can tell of yale traditions, yale ideals, and the militant yale spirit--which the famous author has marshaled on a hundred football fields--as well as walter camp? "those interested in the great college game of football will find a most fascinating tale in 'the substitute,' of which walter camp, the well-known coach and authority on the game, is the author."--_brooklyn eagle._ d. appleton and company, new york footnotes: [footnote 1: "by the alma river," by dinah maria mulock craik.] [footnote 2: "charge of the light brigade," by alfred, lord tennyson.] [footnote 3: tooley, "life of florence nightingale," p. 137.] [footnote 4: tooley, "life of florence nightingale," p. 126.] [footnote 5: "santa filomena," by henry wadsworth longfellow.] [footnote 6: kinglake, "invasion of the crimea."] [footnote 7: "hiawatha," by henry wadsworth longfellow.] [footnote 8: tooley, "life of florence nightingale," p. 154.] [footnote 9: rachel was a famous french actress, but i cannot imagine any real resemblance between her and miss nightingale.] [footnote 10: tooley, "life of florence nightingale," p. 220.] [footnote 11: tooley, "life of florence nightingale," p. 223.] [footnote 12: tooley, "life of florence nightingale," p. 229.] [footnote 13: tooley, "life of florence nightingale," pp. 231-32.] [footnote 14: tooley, "life of florence nightingale," p. 240.] transcriber's notes: _underscores_ show where _italic_ fonts were used in the original printed book. =equals signs= show where =bold= fonts were used in the original printed book. a nurse's life in war and peace by e. c. laurence, r.r.c. author of "modern nursing in hospital and home" with a preface by sir frederick treves, bart. g.c.v.o., c.b., ll.d. london smith, elder & co., 15 waterloo place 1912 [all rights reserved] printed by ballantyne, hanson & co. at the ballantyne press, edinburgh preface the charm of these letters, it will at once be found, depends upon their simplicity, their artlessness, their obvious candour. they present a plain, untinted account of a nurse's career, of the difficulties she has to face, and the problems she has to solve. those who wish to know something of a nurse's life and times will find in this writing a convincing narrative, unemotional and matter-of-fact. this is no small merit, since the record of nursing experiences is apt to be blurred by exaggeration or made nauseous by sickly romance. there is pathos enough in the sick-room and in the presence of death, but those who come in touch with it would do better to hush the knowledge in their hearts, rather than to proclaim it on the house-tops. apart from this, the world must be a little weary of the astute sick child who lisps melodrama into the ear of the "kind nurse," as well as of the bizarre aphorisms of the dying tramp. the faults of management and lapses of discipline which crop up incidentally in the story are now matters of the past, and are no longer to be found in either the "children's hospital" or the "general." the novice who is entering the profession of nursing will find in these letters a sensible and exact view of the prospect that lies before her. she may further glean some insight as to the qualifications of the good nurse. these qualifications are to be expressed neither by certificates nor by badges, neither by starched uniforms nor by examination results. they are happily beyond the mechanical gauge of any examiner, and above the platitudes of the official testimonial. of the perfect nurse it may be said that "her price is far above rubies," and that her place is high in the company of admirable women. she is versed in the elaborate ritual of her art, she has tact and sound judgment, she can give strength to the weak and confidence to the faint at heart, she has that rarest sight which can see the world through the patient's eyes, and she is possessed of those exquisite, intangible, most human sympathies which, in the fullest degree, belong alone to her sex. frederick treves. _december 1911._ contents i page at school--determined to be a nurse--royal red cross instituted--preliminary training 1 ii visit to tenerife--a storm in the bay--the beauties of the island 3 iii up the cañadas--voyage home on a cargo-boat--call at madeira 8 iv first experiences in a hospital--the food--some medical cases--my first "special" case 14 v moved to a surgical ward--in quarantine--a poisoned hand--"kathleen" 19 vi in the out-patient department--food improved, and heavy work reduced--act as night sister for two nights--am offered a post as staff nurse--my first certificate 25 vii to south africa for a year--voyage out on the _scot_--by train from cape town to kimberley 31 viii life on the diamond fields--i meet mr. cecil rhodes--the kimberley exhibition 37 ix a visit to cape town--up table mountain--return to kimberley 42 x on circuit in cape colony--a visit to natal--the doctor's fee 48 xi east london and port elizabeth--down a diamond mine (kimberley)--return to england 54 xii accepted for training at a general hospital--i begin in a medical ward--a sudden death 60 xiii on the surgical side--a heavy "take-in" week--lectures on physiology 66 xiv my first typhoid case--diphtheria tracheotomies--the rescue of the cat--on night duty 71 xv christmas in hospital--the dispensing examination--acting assistant matron--three weeks on duty in an infirmary 77 xvi first sister in the front surgery--a bad accident--a dog with a broken leg 83 xvii temporary ward sister--appointed night sister--interesting work--join the royal national pension fund for nurses--i spend christmas warded as a patient 89 xviii chloroform for a cat--i volunteer for plague duty (refused)--appointed ward sister--a fire alarm--a holiday in switzerland--a bomb in paris 95 xix i go to egypt--nursing at sea in rough weather--at helouan--ride out to the pyramids--the kasr-el-aini 102 xx up the nile by tourist steamer--at luxor--"hare and hounds" on donkeys 109 xxi war in the soudan--night and day nursing 115 xxii sent up to assouan--down the nile on a post boat--a saunter home across the continent 120 xxiii back to my old hospital--in a ward for women and children--christmas in a men's accident ward 126 xxiv scarlet fever--at marlborough house with r.n.p.f. nurses 132 xxv the boer war--a lucky meeting at the war office--joined the army nursing service reserve--choosing fittings, &c., for a hospital of 100 beds 137 xxvi voyage out on the _tantallon castle_--some military hospitals near cape town--we land in natal 143 xxvii inoculated against typhoid--we begin to build our hospital--increased from 100 to 200 beds--unpacking--a hospital ship at durban 149 xxviii our food supplies--washing arrangements--snakes and other creatures--a railway accident--our first patients 156 xxix the princess christian hospital train brings us some bad cases--men from elandslaagte--some officer patients--the bishop of pretoria 162 xxx dengue fever amongst the staff--first death amongst the officer patients--mafeking relieved--our hospital officially "opened"--colonel galway--the trappist monastery 169 xxxi a spion kop hero--orderlies knocking up with enteric--worsted work, &c., to amuse the convalescents--death of an orderly from enteric--poem by officer patients 175 xxxii some distinguished visitors--we become a military hospital--new orderlies arrive--"imperial bearer company" men--our major 183 xxxiii changes on our staff--the arrival of sick convoys--our servants--the hospital commission--the difficulties of transport 189 xxxiv i visit the battle-fields--at colenso--ladysmith--up spion kop--tin town hospital--on a red cross ambulance 196 xxxv the tugela falls--pieter's hill--hart's hill--chieveley--mooi river--maritzburg--back at pinetown 203 xxxvi prisoners from pretoria--our gardens--we start poultry keeping 209 xxxvii the natal volunteers return home--"john"--flying ants and other plagues 215 xxxviii the buckjumper--the excellence of the boer ponies--the home for lost dogs! 221 xxxix sudden orders for home--voyage with lord roberts on the _canada_--call at cape town--a funeral at sea 228 xl lord and lady roberts visit the hospital--christmas at sea--we anchor off cowes--lord roberts visits queen victoria at osborne--sixteen days' leave--rejoin the _canada_ to return to the cape 235 xli the death of queen victoria--lodgers at wynberg--the plague at cape town--up the coast with boer prisoners 242 xlii up country--under canvas--the sisters' horses 249 xliii our tent flooded--a cow shares my tent--night duty in the rainy season--afternoon duty 256 xliv in charge of medical tents--a present from the queen--within sound of the guns--"kit inspection"--the horrors of transport in the ambulance waggons 263 xlv a sudden collapse--the winter begins--tired of the war 270 xlvi night duty again--a sick convoy arrives in the night--a bad pneumonia case--nearly frozen 277 xlvii mentioned in despatches--ill with dysentery--a night at pinetown--with my brother to uitenhage 283 xlviii at port elizabeth--down the coast to mossel bay--we drive, _via_ george, to oudtshoorn--martial law--under escort to prince albert road--by train to kimberley 290 xlix tales of the siege--"long cecil"--refugee camps--a picnic under arms 298 l by train to cape town--night sister on a troopship--some sad cases--home once more 305 a nurse's life in war and peace i the school, lincoln, 1888. this is my usual day for writing letters, and i have nothing but the usual things to write to you about. each day we get up at the same time, do the same sort of lessons (not very difficult), eat the same sort of food (not very interesting), and go for the same dull walks, with an occasional game of tennis on a badly-kept lawn; but i have been thinking, and the long and short of it is, that i am going to persuade my people to let me leave school. i think you know that some years ago i determined that i would be a nurse. to be exact, it was in 1883 that queen victoria instituted the royal red cross, and in the same year i was grieving over the fact that none of the professions in which my brothers were distinguishing themselves would be open to me, as i was "only a girl"; so i at once decided that i would try to win the royal red cross. well, i am not thinking so much about the decoration now, as wars seem to be few and far between; but still i think the nursing profession is the only one i am a bit fitted for, and lately i have been reading everything i can get hold of on the subject. you see, i am not a bit clever, and i am no good at music or languages; so i could never teach. and, on account of having been so delicate when i was small, i am behind most girls of my age in many subjects; but in the two terms that i have been here i have won two prizes, and i think i can work up any subject that i want to as well as most people can. i know i am not old enough to begin nursing yet, but when i am, it may be necessary to pay for my first year's training, so i very much want them to save the money they are now paying for my education to pay for that, as it seems to me that i am being stuffed with many subjects that, after i leave school, i shall have no further use for. i have not yet quite decided which hospital i shall go to. it is clear that if i want to join the army nursing service, i must go in for three years' training in a good-sized general hospital first; but the best of these hospitals won't accept candidates till they are twenty-three, and that seems such a very long way off. so perhaps i may take a preliminary year in a children's hospital, or some other special hospital first, but i am not old enough even for that yet; and as i think f. is going out to the canary islands for the spring, i think it is very likely i may go with him, as you know i love travelling. i like this place very well, and i have many friends here; but one thing is quite definite, and that is that i mean to be a nurse, and with that in view i think i might be employing my time more profitably than i am doing here. ii port orotava, tenerife, _april 1889_. here we are, in comfortable quarters and in glorious sunshine, the grand old peak of tenerife (with its cap of snow) looking down upon us. i wish you could be transplanted to this warmth and brightness; but you would not have enjoyed our experiences on the way here. you know how cold it was when we left london on the _ruapehu_; and all down the channel it was very cold, but fine and calm. we called at plymouth (such a pretty harbour); then, after we left there, our troubles began. the next day there was a heavy swell, and very few people appeared on deck. our stewardess, they said, had "happened of an accident," but we were well waited upon by a nice little steward. m. was bad, and stayed in her berth; but with the steward's assistance i struggled up on the upper deck, and i would not have missed it for anything. towards evening it was really blowing hard, and the waves were grand. we took such plunges down into the trough, and then the great ship trembled, and seemed to pull herself together to rise on the crest of the next wave and then take another plunge. the men were on the trot all day, making everything fast. it was sunday, but there was no service--the crew all too hard at work, and the passengers chiefly in their berths. towards evening i was wondering how i should "make" my cabin, when the purser came along and asked if he might help me down below, as the wind was still rising, and he had been appointed "runner-in" by the captain, who said we had all better be down below. that night and the next day were really very bad indeed. we were battened down, and the dead-lights were screwed on about 4.30 p.m., and the electric light supply did not come on till after six; so for that time we were in darkness, and some of the passengers were really very much frightened. tons of water poured on the main deck and down the companion-ways, and men were bailing it out near our cabins all night long. i kept feeling in the dark to see if there was water in our cabin, as it rushed past the door with a great "swish"; but the step was high, and it did not come over. there was no sleep for any one that night; it was all we could do to keep from being pitched out of our berths. the men were very funny as they bailed the water out and mopped up. "reminds one of washing-day in our backyard--pity my old woman ain't here," "sometimes we see a ship, sometimes we ship a sea"--and heaps more to the same effect. our steward said he had never had to bail out so much water before, and he had been six years on the ship. one of the sails was carried away; and when we got to santa cruz the engineers discovered that part of the rudder had gone. two cooks and one of the sailors were knocked down and injured, but i think not very badly. two of the boats were washed out of the davits, and one of the heavy deck-seats (next to the one on which i had spent the afternoon) was smashed to bits. sleep was quite impossible, as it was most difficult to keep in one's berth, and every now and then there was a great crash as things were broken in the saloons and galleys. we are still bruised and stiff from the knocking about. i have always wanted to see a storm at sea; but i am now quite satisfied, and i shall never want to see another. it is most unpleasant to be battened down, and the engines sound to be so fearfully on the strain and tremble that you feel you must listen for the next beat of the screw, knowing that if the engines should fail your chance of weathering the storm would be a very small one indeed. after that the weather improved, and also became warmer, and the passengers one by one came crawling up on deck; but most of them looked as though they had been through a long illness, and could talk about nothing but their alarm in the storm; and the captain owned he had had a very anxious time. we landed at santa cruz early one afternoon--a very unsavoury town, with dirty beggars exhibiting various loathsome diseases and following you about. after a little delay we secured a carriage and three horses to drive across the island to orotava, twenty-six miles distant--a pretty, winding road, cool up in the hills, but becoming hot as we descended to puerto orotava. the hotel was full, but we secured rooms in a dependence; and when we had rested and changed, we found a _carros_ ready to take us across to dinner. a carros is a kind of sledge on broad runners drawn by two oxen. they are much used in the town, as the roads are paved with little cobbles, which would pull the wheels about a great deal. this is a nice hotel, cool and airy, and the garden is lovely--such quantities of roses, bougainvillias, and bright trees of hibiscus. there is a good billiard-room we can use, and it is open all down one side (only matting blinds). that shows how dry the climate is, as the table is perfectly "true." the waiters are spaniards, who know a little english and like to use it. "this is jarm, very goot," &c. we go about with our little red book of phrases, and sometimes get what we want, but more often fail to make ourselves understood. the natives are most interesting, the children such pretty little things with very bright eyes. up in the hills they still consider it is winter, and the men go about with blankets tied round their necks; and when they squat down on the ground, the blanket flows out and makes a little tent round them. down here it is really hot, and the small children wear nothing but a little chemise. the women are pretty, and they wear brilliant-coloured handkerchiefs tied over their heads. we are close to the sea, and it is such a gorgeous blue; i have never seen anything like it before. i suppose it is very deep round here, and the peak rises 12,000 feet, straight from the sea. there is no english church yet, but the chaplain holds services in a large room fitted up as a church. every one rides when he goes anywhere here, even when going to church; so during service there is a large company of ponies and donkeys outside, with the attendant men and boys (all in white suits, with bright-coloured sashes), and now and again the donkeys lift up their voices. i have found a good chestnut pony ("leaña") that goes well. they are sure-footed little beasts here; and it is necessary for them to be so, as there is only one "made" road, and for the rest we scramble up mountain paths. but when we get on the road they simply scamper along. m. has not done much riding; and sometimes, when we are scrambling up a steep place, i look back, and find her holding on for dear life with a most resigned expression on her face. but i think she is enjoying it all immensely. we walked up to the botanical gardens the other day, and they are perfectly beautiful--arum lilies and many of our choicest greenhouse flowers growing like weeds, and the ferns here are so beautiful too. up in the kloofs (here called _barrancos_) we find maidenhair growing wild, and in such enormous fronds. i measured one, and it was two feet high. at the gardens a very handsome young gardener--a spaniard--gave us huge bunches of roses to bring away. all the natives we come across are so polite and friendly (every man you pass raises his hat), we wish we could talk spanish to them; but so far, if we can ask for what we want, it is quite as much as we can manage. the better-class people often speak french, and i get horribly mixed. the other night a solemn señor asked me if i spoke french, and i said, "_un très mui poco_"! the word they seem to use the most is _mañana_ (to-morrow); as our nice waiter explained when a gentleman said, "antonio, the coffee is cold," "ah, it shall be hot to-morrow. with the english it is always now, to-day; with us it is _mañana_." we hear that laguna is the fashionable resort as soon as it becomes too hot down here, but that icod is the fruit-growing village of the island; so we think of driving over and spending a night there. iii ss. "fez," english channel, _june 1889_. since my last letter we seem to have been chiefly engaged in wrestling with steamship companies in the vain endeavour to persuade them to remove us from the island. f.'s leave was up early in june, and as we had return tickets by one line, we wrote to them in good time to secure berths. at first they made us various promises; but soon we learnt the truth--namely, that all their boats were full in every berth long before they came near the island. then we began to tackle other lines; but, you see, nearly all the boats come from new zealand or the cape, and this is the favourite time for going home; also there is the attraction of the paris exhibition. so i cannot tell you on how many ships we have applied for berths, and always in the end received the news, "every berth full." personally i did not mind, as i enjoyed every day on the island; but it was awkward for some things, and eventually we had to decide to sail on board a small cargo steamer that calls at orotava instead of at santa cruz, and carries a few passengers home at a leisurely speed. but before i tell you of the voyage, i must tell you a little about our last few days on the island. one day we drove over to icod, a pretty little village about two hours' drive from orotava. much coffee is grown at icod, and also plenty of fruit--oranges, lemons, figs, &c. we rode from there to gerachico (a pretty ride along the shore), where a whole village was engulfed when the peak last erupted; but it is now again built over, and we could not see much of interest remaining. señora carolina reigns at the small icod hotel, and made us very comfortable. but neither she, nor any one we met in the place, spoke any english; so it was good practice for us, and our spanish came off better than i thought it would. we decided not to climb the peak, as you cannot do it from orotava without spending a night somewhere up the mountain; but one day m. and i joined a party for a day on the cañadas--the range from which the peak rises. we mounted our ponies at 7 a.m. in brilliant sunshine, and at different points picked up our friends, till we were a party of ten, with a crowd of attendant boys to carry our lunch, &c. the first part of the ride was easy and pleasant; then, as we got higher, it became more of a scramble over loose stones, that any english pony would have said were only fit for a goat to be asked to walk over. just as the path was becoming really steep we left the sunshine, and found ourselves in a thick bank of clouds, cold and damp, and had to go very cautiously, in single file. the chattering pony-boys were very silent (their spirits are easily damped), and said it was "_mucha frio_." soon we emerged above the clouds into a scorching sun, and, finding a piece of fairly level ground, some of us took a little canter to try to get warm; but we came to a sandy place, and there leaña took it into her head to lie down and roll. i saw what she was up to, and managed to roll out of her way; so my saddle was more damaged than i was. but as my clothes were very wet with the mist, the sand adhered! we had a pleasant lunch, at a height of 8000 feet, while the ponies were off-saddled and fed; and some of us thought we should like to camp for the night and climb the peak in the morning. but when we had finished lunch we had only two ham-sandwiches left between us, so concluded we had better return before night. the view was lovely, looking _over_ the banks of snowy-white clouds to the very blue sea, with the other islands in the distance, and behind us the grand old peak. the ride down (a different way) was rather perilous, the ponies jumping from rock to rock in a perfectly marvellous way, often just on the side of a precipice. but it was too much for some of our party, and they insisted upon walking down; and this rather delayed us, as they could not go nearly so fast, nor were they so sure-footed as the ponies. we got in at 8 p.m., very tired and very sunburnt, but having enjoyed the day immensely; and our ponies were quite fresh, and wanted to gallop all the way directly they got on the road. i don't think i have told you about the tree-frogs; they make such a noise after sundown you might think there were thousands of ducks quacking. a gentleman wanted to take some back to england with him; so one day we caught half-a-dozen for him, and they all escaped in our rooms! such a hunt for them! and i could not finish telling you about orotava without one word about the _fleas_. they are really a great trial, and seem to abound everywhere, especially in the carriages. after various false alarms our little steamer, the _fez_ (560 tons), arrived, and began to take in a cargo of pumice-stone. the solemn old oxen brought the carros for our baggage, and our many friends escorted us down to the jetty, where most of the spanish population seemed to be collected to see us off. it is always a difficult landing at orotava, and the small ship's-boat gave us a good tossing before we were hauled up the gangway. it was rather horrid before we got away, and i was the only lady who was not sea-sick before the anchor was up! such a change from the _ruapehu_! just one very small saloon, and our cabins very tiny; no upper deck, and very little room on the main deck; of course, no doctor on board, and no stewardess. but it was only for a short time, we thought, and we were determined to make the best of things, and soon found there were compensations--namely, a charming captain, nice crew, and most attentive stewards. and very soon my small deck-chair was established on the bridge, and i learnt more about navigation than i should have learnt in years on a liner. there were twelve of us passengers (all people we knew), and twenty-two officers and crew; also a big dog, and a sheep who occasionally strolled into our cabins, until nearly the end of the voyage, when the meat hung up in the stern (there was no refrigerator on board) had run low, and then one day i saw a sheep's skin being washed over the side! there were also many noisy cocks and hens, and a few ducks; and, last but not least, swarms of rats! i had some sugar-cane in my cabin, and the rats rather fancied it; and when i threw things at them to make them go away, they would sit on the cabin doorstep to wash their faces and lick their lips! we had lovely weather as far as madeira. when we got there we found it was a public holiday, and we should have to stay three days, as there were 300 pipes of wine to be got on board, and the natives would not work on the holiday. this gave us a good opportunity to see the island, and it was very enjoyable. it is far more green than tenerife, but i should say the climate, though very mild, is not nearly so dry. the captain arranged a very nice trip for us to a part of the island that is not often visited by people who call only at funchal. we had to get up in the middle of the night, and go on board a small launch (that takes the mails round the island) at 2.30 a.m. it was beautiful moonlight, and funchal looked very pretty as we steamed away round the great loo rock. we reached caliette at 5 a.m., and had to whistle for some time before the people woke up and brought a small boat out for us. they made us some coffee, and we had breakfast, and then got into hammocks slung on long poles; and two men carried us up and up the hills till we came to a weird tunnel, which we went through by the light of pine-torches, and emerged in the most grand scenery--rugged hills and beautiful waterfalls, such very vivid greenery everywhere. and amongst all the semi-tropical vegetation we came upon one bed of english forget-me-nots that was most refreshing. we lunched and rested for some time by a beautiful waterfall, called, i think, "rabacal"; and then going down it was very hot, and, in spite of the steepness of the paths, some of us slept in the hammocks as we jogged along. the men carried us about twenty-five miles in the course of the day, and did not seem at all tired. but there was a little competition to carry me, as i was the lightest of the party! we got back to funchal about 9 p.m., and were quite ready for bed. owing to this delay at madeira (on account of the general holiday) the voyage is taking much longer than usual, and by the time we get in--or hope to get in--we shall be fourteen days out from orotava, instead of the five days we took from london to santa cruz. in consequence of this the provisions are running rather low, and a few things have quite run out; but i have enjoyed the voyage immensely. before i return home, i hope to visit two or three children's hospitals in london, to be interviewed by the matrons, so as to settle where i will go to begin training. i am not old enough for admission to a general hospital yet. iv children's hospital, london, _june 1891_. i thought i would wait till i had been here three months before writing to tell you of my raw probationer days. at first it was all so very new to me that it seemed very, very hard; and i really think that, if it had not been for the fact that one of my brothers had bet me that i should give it up in a fortnight, i should have done so in the first week. but i rarely bet, and when i do, i like to win! and having had to wait so many years before i could persuade a matron that i was old enough and strong enough, i really could not lightly give it up. by the end of my month on trial i began to feel my way, and was quite certain that i wished to stay on if they would keep me; and though they were not enthusiastic in telling me my services were invaluable, their only cause of complaint appeared to be that i was slow. so they were graciously pleased to accept my fifty-two guineas (in instalments), and for that sum to allow me the privilege of working hard and fast for an average of eleven hours a day (paying for my own laundry, and buying my own uniform) for the period of one year. i don't think i was slow in attending to the children; but at first a very large part of one's time is taken up with cleaning and housemaiding--sweeping, dusting, scrubbing, polishing the brass taps and bed-knobs, and washing the children's pinafores and bibs, &c. when i began, i hardly knew the difference between a broom and a scrubbing-brush. i knew nothing of the labour-saving properties of soda and hudson's soap, and i don't think i had ever dusted a room; so i did not know how fond the dust was of collecting on the top of screens and pictures and window-ledges, and it took me time to discover these things. at home our breakfast-hour had always been 9 a.m., and, except for a day's hunting, there were very few things that excited my interest before that hour; so i expected to find it difficult to have had my breakfast and to be ready to go on duty at 7 a.m. but in looking back upon my first week in hospital, the thing that impressed itself upon me more than the trouble of early rising was the fact that during that first month i was always hungry! i have got over the difficulty now, as a weekly parcel of "tuck" arrives from home; and when this comes to an end, i buy some potted-meat or (if funds are low) some plain chocolate to carry on till the next parcel arrives. nearly all the nurses either have food sent, or else buy a good deal. of course i did not know this would be necessary, and had not got money at first. and there are a few nurses who cannot afford to buy, but of course we share with them. dinner is at 6 p.m., and that is the best meal of the day, as the matron sometimes comes to it; so the meat is generally well cooked. it is always a scramble to get lunch some time between ten and twelve, and it is not interesting--just chunks of cold meat, and (every other day) bread-and-treacle. our butter is issued to us twice a week--¼ lb. in a little tin mug--and we have to carry this mug about, for meals in the dining-hall and in the ward kitchen, for as long as it lasts. but if you don't keep a sharp eye on your mug, it often becomes empty in the first day or two, and you stand a good chance of having to eat dry bread for the days before the new butter is put out. i very much dislike coffee; but there is nothing else provided for breakfast but coffee and a loaf of stale bread, and our own butter (if we have any left), so we don't seem to start the day very well. for the rest, we make tea twice a day in the ward kitchens, and can use the ward bread. if funds are high and the lunch bad, we sometimes indulge in rashers of bacon; sometimes on sunday we have a sausage or two; but it is more usual to fill in the cracks with tea and cake. up to now i have been working in a medical ward of twenty-one cots. the sister has charge of a surgical ward as well, and i think she prefers the surgical work; so we don't see very much of her, except when the physicians go round, or when we have very bad cases in. i like her very well, but she is rather stiff; and most of the information i am picking up is from the staff nurse and from the house physician, who is most kind in explaining the reasons for the various symptoms we notice in the cases, and what results he hopes for in the treatment he prescribes. we had a very sad case in the other day. a working man brought in a little chap of two, called stanley, very ill with pneumonia and rickets. he said his wife was in another hospital (for an operation), and he had to go to work and leave all his children in charge of the eldest, a boy of ten; and his wife had been so very ill he had had to go to see her in the evenings, and so had not noticed how ill stanley was. at first he kept holding out his arms to me, and calling in such a piteous little voice, "lady, lady"; but he soon got quite contented, only every day weaker and weaker. his quiet, patient father came every evening and sat by him, and his mother was to come to see him as soon as ever she was well enough; but the poor woman was too late, and when early one morning she arrived in a cab with a nurse from the hospital, he had just been carried down to the mortuary, and we could only take her to see him lying there, looking very sweet, with some white lilies in his hand. then we have dear philip in. he is tubercular, and _such_ a pretty boy; but i think he is too good to live. i am afraid his mother drinks, and he has a rough time of it at home; but his father is a very nice man. here we all spoil him, as he is really very ill, but is always so patient and bright. he has a mop of brown curls and the smile of an angel. he is one of the few children of the slums who always insists upon kneeling up to say his prayers; and though sometimes he has so little breath to spare that i have to say the words for him, he just kneels there and smiles when i get hold of the words he wants to help him out. as a contrast, another of my patients was samuel abraham, the very ugliest little scrap of skin and bones you ever saw. when he came in he was seven months old, and weighed only eight pounds. he was in for six weeks, and absolutely refused to put on a single ounce. then every one got tired of samuel, and as i had not had a turn at feeding him, he was handed over to me; and, more by good luck than by good management, he began to improve, and at the end of my first week he had put on six ounces, and since then he has steadily gained in weight, and begins to look more like a baby than a monkey. he went home the other day, and i wonder much whether his poor mother will be able to rear him, as i am sure he will miss the hourly attention he has had here. we should have kept him longer; but we had three cases of scarlet fever, and they had to be sent to the fever hospital, and all the children who could be moved had to go home, and the ward will be sulphured. but i am writing this letter as i sit in the bare ward beside one poor little boy called jackie, who is so desperately ill with meningitis that they don't like to move him. it is a curious case. jackie belongs to well-to-do people, and his illness was caused by a fall out of a mail-cart. his head is so retracted that it really nearly touches his buttocks, and he lies in a stiff backward bow. he is quite unconscious, and i have to feed him with a nasal tube; his temperature goes up to 104 and 105. at first i was rather nervous at being "special" with him, as i have been here only three months, and i have never seen a case like this before; and the sister may not come in to see me, as she has to go into the surgical ward, and we may still be infectious. but of course i can ask her advice about anything, and the house physician comes in twice a day, and is most kind. he assures me no one could possibly do more for jackie than i am doing. i think he will be moved to a small ward to-morrow (if he lives so long), and then i expect i shall have to disinfect, and very likely go to a surgical ward. v children's hospital, london, _november 1891_. i know it is a long time since my last letter to you, but really the days are so full of work there seems to be no peace for letters; and at night one is so weary that, after a wrestle to obtain a bath, one feels fit for nothing but bed. and when i get to bed i feel obliged to take my anatomy and physiology books and do a little study, as the residents are very good about giving us lectures, and i should hate not to do decently in the exams. i think when i last wrote we had just closed the medical ward (whose sister had had the honour of beginning my hospital education), and after a few hours off duty i was sent up to a surgical ward on the top floor, next door to the theatre. i went up rather in fear and trembling, as it was noted for being the hardest ward in the hospital--as the nurses were responsible for the theatre as well--and i didn't see how i could squeeze more work into the days than i had been doing on the medical side. but i received a nice welcome from the sister, and soon found that she was one of the best. she didn't wait for us to do things wrong, and then scold us; but she took pains to show us the _best_ way to do them, and then woe betide those who didn't do their best! i shall always remember my second morning up there, when she said, "nurse, your bathroom looks very smart and nice." it was the first time a sister had given me a word of praise, and from that day i didn't mind how hard i worked to please her. there was a different atmosphere about that ward, and i soon felt better in it. the children, too, were a more cheery set. some of them were very ill; but we did not get the poor little "wasting" babies, and it was very seldom we had a child who minded a noise, so that the boys (at certain hours of the day) could be allowed to sing all the popular songs of the day; and they were a very merry crew. many people think it must be very depressing to see so many sick children; but, as a matter of fact, the children have very little pain--or, at any rate, only for a very short time--and many of them are enjoying a better time than they have had in their lives before. they are kept clean and warm, and have plenty of good food and plenty of toys to play with, and people who understand them when they have a pain, even when they can't explain where it is. there have been many changes since i came here. several nurses who came after i did have already left, and one has gone away ill. i had been in the surgical ward only a fortnight when i was unlucky enough to pick up influenza, and was sent to bed, with another nurse, in a small quarantine-room up above the measles ward. they were rather suspicious as to whether we had scarlet fever, as there was still some in the hospital; so no one was supposed to visit us except the home sister. her visits were few and far between. poor thing, she was stout, and the stairs were many! we both felt pretty bad with high temperatures, and should have come off badly for attention if it had not been for the "measles nurse," who had only two convalescent children, and she used to break the rules and come up to look after us. one day she had run up with an offering of buttered toast, when we heard a door open downstairs, and _felt_ that the matron was coming. nurse vanished into our little kitchen-pantry; but there was no escape from that without passing our wide-open door, and, besides, the matron was sure to call upon the measles ward on her way downstairs. the buttered toast was stowed away under the bed-clothes, and we were trying to be calm and answer matron's enquiries as to our health, when we heard a rattling of the hand-lift on which our food was sent up from the kitchen, and we realised that nurse had determined to crawl into that, and so descend to her post of duty. with much alarm we heard the lift go down, and trembled lest the unaccustomed weight should cause it to go down with a run. matron must have thought us very distrait; but we pleaded severe headaches--a plea that was true enough--and she soon went away, "hoping we should shortly be fit for duty again." we were very thankful when nurse appeared to report her safety, with nothing worse than a crushed cap and a crumpled apron, which had been severely commented upon by the matron. they were short of nurses, so as soon as i could get about i went on duty again, and had a nice welcome back to my ward. but it happened to be very heavy just then with several small babies, and two of them had hare-lips that had been operated upon, and it was most important that they should not be allowed to cry at all. so one evening i was sitting in the ward cleaning some instruments that had been used in the theatre for a nasty case of mastoid abscess, and one of these babies began to whimper. i jumped up to subdue it, and in doing so i had the bad luck to prick my thumb. the baby soon settled down again, and then sister came in and cleaned and dressed my thumb; but in a few days i was in for a badly poisoned hand, and it had to be opened in several places by the house surgeon. he wanted me to be off duty, and out-of-doors as much as possible; so sister arranged to give me some extra off-duty time, and was awfully kind in doing part of my work for me. but when she told matron about it, matron said, "nurse has been off duty over a week with influenza. if she has to go off again, she had better go home and stop there, as she is not strong enough for the work." but sister didn't want me to go, and fortunately the ward was getting lighter, and i could keep the babies quiet even with my arm in a sling; so i did what i could, and was sent into the kitchen when the visiting surgeon went round, lest he should order me away. the house surgeon was furious with the matron about it, but he looked after me well, and though my arm was very painful for a fortnight, and allowed me very little sleep, it soon improved. but my thumb is still stiff and unbendable, and the house surgeon is afraid it will always be so, as he had to cut into it so deeply. i must tell you about a quaint child we had in about that time. she was a little irish girl called kathleen, with a mop of red hair and a pretty little face, but with very crossed eyes. kathleen was five years old, but had never walked, as her legs were badly deformed; but she got about at a great pace on the floor in a style of her own invention. you never quite knew where you were with kathleen. she had a very sharp temper; but she was devoted to sister, and was obedient to me. but any directions given to her as to her behaviour by other nurses were received with scorn and entirely ignored; and if sister and i happened to be off duty together, on our return we generally had to remonstrate with the child for some piece of naughtiness, and then she would soon be sobbing and penitent. one day i was off in the afternoon, and when tea-time came kathleen was missing. they searched everywhere for her; and matron, who happened to pass, joined in the search. eventually she was found shut up in the sisters' dining hall, very much engaged with the food-cupboard. the butter had all gone, so had most of the sugar, some of the biscuits, and, when discovered, she was just drinking up the vinegar with relish. matron remarked, "a good toffee mixture!" and then she spent half-an-hour trying to make the child say she was sorry, but without success; so she smacked her, and sent her to bed! on my return, of course, i had an account of kathleen's misdoings, and thought it better to take no notice of her. all the evening as i did my work the little white-faced thing sat up in her cot watching me go up and down the ward, with her poor crooked eyes quite dry; but when the children were all settled for the night and the lights turned down, i went to her, and she flung her arms round my neck and sobbed out, "i _am_ sorry, and i won't do it never no more. but i wasn't sorry to that woman, and i don't care if she does smack me; but i shall tell my mother when i go home." then i lifted her out of her cot to warm her toes by the fire, and after a long talk i extracted a promise that she would tell matron she was sorry next day; and in a very few minutes she was fast asleep. i expect that i shall be moved from this ward very soon, and i shall be very sorry. the work is hard and fast, but sister works as hard as we do; so we are very happy together, and i feel i am getting on. i have got used to the theatre work too, and (after much labour) have learnt the names of all the instruments in common use, so that i can hand them as they are asked for; and sometimes i am trusted to put out what i think will be required for an operation, and when sister looks them over she doesn't often find anything missing. vi children's hospital, london, _march 1892_. soon after i last wrote i was sent down to the out-patients' department--quite a different kind of work, and i shouldn't like it for long, but it was interesting for a time. the numbers vary a great deal. from fifty to a hundred children may be brought up in one day, and many of them require small dressings to be attended to. then, on two afternoons in the week, the surgeons do small operations; and sometimes there are half-a-dozen children all recovering from anæsthetics at the same time, and all requiring to be carefully watched. there is a dear old sister in charge, and one afternoon a week we go out together to visit any special hip cases that are being treated in their own homes, after having been in-patients here. _such_ slums we sometimes have to go to; and yet it is wonderful how nicely the poor mothers keep these children when they are just shown the right way. we have one jolly little chap, who has been for two months in an extension apparatus rigged up on a big perambulator, with the weight hanging over the handle. he has improved so much that they will soon wheel him up in his bed-carriage, and i think the doctor will then sign his release from the extension. some of the nurses had rather a joke the other day--a joke which had good results for the rest of us. there is a confectioner's shop near here which we largely patronise, and these girls who were on night duty were hungry as usual, and they went into this shop for tea and scones before going to bed. while they were there, our secretary superintendent came in; and afterwards mrs. ---(who is quite a friend of ours) told the nurses that, seeing them there, he asked her whether many nurses were customers of hers; and she, pretending not to know him, said, "oh yes, sir; but we gets more nurses from the children's hospital than from any of the other hospitals round here. you see, they feeds them _that_ badly there!" i believe he went straight back to the hospital and made inquiries about our food, for not many days after we had bacon for breakfast; and now there is always _something_ besides the bread put on the table, and we find it a vast improvement. another thing has happened which has helped us considerably. a new nurse has joined, who is a cousin of the senior surgeon. she is an awfully nice girl, but does not look very strong, and after a week or two she retired to bed with a strained back (not very bad). then her cousin visited her, and then he visited the committee; and it seems they had no idea we had to carry all the big lotion bottles up from the dispensary, and the heavy blocks of ice from the basement, and that we had to drag down the great bags of soiled linen to the basement and then along a lengthy passage--no joke on the doctor's day, when all the twenty cots have clean sheets and counterpanes, &c. so now the porters do these things for us, and we mournfully regret that we were not clever enough to arrange for one of our number to strain her back at the beginning of our training, instead of nearly at the end; but without a senior surgeon for a cousin it might not have paid! nurse is nearly well again now, and she has asked me to spend part of my next free sunday with her at the house of this same senior surgeon. i shall be horribly shy, but i can't well refuse. my brother h. has come to live in town now, and it is very nice for me. he is reading for an exam., and has rooms in barnard's inn--such a funny old rookery near holborn, and not far from here. he stands me a good dinner about once a week, when i am off in the evening; and in return i darn his socks for him, try to take him to church on sundays, and report his doings in my letters home, so that he need only send them occasional post-cards! while i was in the out-patient department i was supposed to have my sundays free, unless an "extra" was especially wanted anywhere; and one saturday evening i was preparing to go away for the night, when a message came that the night sister was not well, and matron (who was going away till monday) wished me to go on duty for her for the two nights. that was about 6 p.m.; so i went to lie down for a bit, and at 10 p.m. the home sister gave me the report and the hospital keys, and i took charge, feeling rather important, but also rather a fraud, as several of the charge nurses then on night duty had been here for many years, and knew far more than i did. however, we got on very well together, and i rather enjoyed running round to the different wards, and helping with the bad cases. there was one especially sad case--a girl of ten who had been frightened by rats when left locked up in a house. she had chorea so badly that we had to let her sleep on a mattress on the floor, and it was most difficult to keep any clothes on her, or to feed her. poor child, her temperature gradually rose till it reached 107.8 before she died, a few days later. the doctors said it was the worst case they had ever seen, and i hope i may never see another case die of chorea. on the monday morning i went to bed at 5 a.m., and had to be on duty in the out-patient department at 8 a.m. we had a heavy day; and when we finished at 5.30 p.m., you can imagine my disgust at receiving a message from matron that i was to relieve the nurse who was in quarantine with a whooping-cough case, from 6 to 10 p.m. i was very glad the child whooped fairly often, as otherwise i should probably have gone to sleep. the next morning i _did_ over-sleep, and was ten minutes late for breakfast, thereby incurring a lecture from the matron; but i could not refrain from remarking to her that i had had only two hours' sleep since sunday (until that night), and she said, "what _do_ you mean, nurse?" and then it came out that when she sent me to quarantine she had quite forgotten that i had been on night-duty for those two nights, but i had to relieve in quarantine again that night in spite of it. of course none of us ever mind doing extra duty when it is necessary, but there were plenty of others who might have done it, and got their full amount of off-duty time as well. since then i have been working in several different wards, and there are so many new nurses who have come since i did, that i am generally first probationer now, and it is far more interesting, and when the staff nurse is off duty, i take her place. matron has been quite civil to me lately, so i suppose my reports have been all right, as i believe she disliked me very much at first, and did not take much trouble not to show it. just now i am again in the out-patient department, as sister has been called home on account of illness, and i am working it with another probationer, and with no sister. the other probationer is two weeks senior to me, but she has not been down in the out-patients before, so we are not quite clear which of us is in command; at present i make her take the lead on medical days, and i do on the surgical days, as i am more used to the surgeons and their ways; and we get along very well. i shall very soon have finished my year here, and have been very much exercised over the question of what i had better do next. one of the sisters that i have liked here has been appointed matron of a small children's hospital, and she has offered me a post as staff nurse. this was very kind of her; but, on the whole, i think i would rather get my adult training before i do anything else, as i am afraid it would be rather hard to begin at the beginning again, if i went on to being a staff nurse with children. the matron advises me to take a good long rest before beginning in an adult hospital, as i have got very thin and run down of late, and i am still a year too young to be received at the best hospitals; so it is just possible i may accept an invitation from my eldest brother to go out to him for a year in south africa. in the meantime, i am gathering all information about the london hospitals, and am to visit two or three of them for interviews with the matrons before i leave here. i have passed my exams. all right, so my first certificate is fairly safe. for many reasons i shall be very sorry to leave here, but oh! i am so tired, and to think of being able to stay in bed till i feel i want to get up, is a joy indeed. vii kimberley, south africa, _july 1892_. when i last wrote to you i was still a humble pro., often a weary, hungry, and foot-sore pro., but withal a happy one, and i hope one day to be a pro. again--but for the present, times have changed. i have come out to stay with my brother, who is the judge-president here. he has lived here for the last eleven or twelve years, but this year there is a great exhibition in kimberley, so he has taken a larger house for the time being, and will be able to entertain a few friends who will be coming up for the exhibition. i left southampton in june, on the r.m.s. _scot_, and had a very pleasant voyage out in good weather. i suppose people are always especially kind to a "lone lady" on board ship; at any rate, i had a very good time. there were not many passengers on board, only forty-two gentlemen in the first class, and seventeen ladies, so i had a nice big cabin to myself. the _scot_ is the only twin-screw steamer on that line, and it was lucky she had a twin screw, as, when i woke up the first morning out from southampton, there was a strange silence on board, and when i got on deck i found there had been an explosion in the engine-room, and the top of the high-pressure valve was blown off; there was some talk of having to signal for a steamer to tow us into brest, but after awhile, the engineers concluded they could patch up matters, and we could proceed with one screw working; this reduced our speed, but i did not mind that at all. the bay behaved very nicely, and i did not miss a meal in the saloon all the way out. we had a few hours ashore at madeira while they were coaling and overhauling the damaged machinery, and the flowers and fruit were beautiful as ever; the men and boys swarmed round the steamer in little boats, and would dive into the sea for silver coins thrown overboard: one or two of them could dive down under our ship and come up on the other side. the next day we passed the canary islands, and had a good view of my old friend, the peak of tenerife. we had the usual board-ship entertainments; two dances (the stewards make a very good band), several concerts, an amusing "trial by jury" of one of the passengers, sports for the passengers and for the crew, plenty of cricket and other games. this is the programme for one day from my diary:-seven a.m.: salt tub. 7.30: on deck, tramp and talk, and then read. 8.30: breakfast; excitement over the sweepstakes on the ship's run, &c.; read, prepare programmes for the concert at night, hunt up people to sing, &c.; watch a whale and flying-fish. 12.30: fire and boat drill by the crew. 1 p.m.: lunch, sleep. 3: play cricket. 4: tea, choir practice, tramp and talk. 6.30: dinner. 8.30: concert, tramp and talk and watch the phosphorescence, and look for the southern cross till 11 p.m.; then bed, and as sound a sleep as though i had done a day's work. a sea-voyage, with pleasant people on board, and not too rough a sea, is the most restful way of taking a holiday i can imagine. it was very damp and hot crossing the line, and the cabins became so stuffy that sleep at night was somewhat difficult; but one could make up for that by sleeping a few hours in the day when up on deck. all too soon we anchored in table bay, under the shelter of table mountain. many people are disappointed in their first view of table mountain, but it has a grandeur all its own, and it grows upon you. my brother was unable to meet me as he had intended, but a friend of his came on board--a gentleman who was down in cape town for the session of parliament--and i found it was arranged for me to spend a day or two with him and his family at sea point, a suburb of cape town, before continuing my journey "up country." having come nearly 7000 miles alone, it did not seem to make a great deal of odds having to do another 700 miles alone; but i was glad of a few days' rest, with pleasant people. i had made so many friends on board the ship that it was quite sad to say good-bye to them all; and i had more than one kind invitation to stay with people in different parts of south africa. the day after we landed, i was taken to hear a debate in the house of parliament on the deceased wife's sister's bill. the people i was staying with went on to a reception at government house, and wanted to take me with them; but i begged off, not having unpacked suitable garments. it is very pretty all round cape town, and i hope to see more of it before i return home. then, one evening at 9 p.m., i was seen off from cape town station, and was once more a traveller on my own account, but not under such comfortable conditions as on board ship. i learnt that the dining and sleeping cars were attached to the trains only on one night of the week (the night the mail-boats come in), so i went in an ordinary first-class carriage, the ticket costing me more than £8, and found the seats were covered with horse-hair, and by no means comfortable for a night journey. above the seat there is a shelf which lets down at night, so that four people can secure lying-down room in each carriage. i soon learnt, also, that in this upside-down country, in spite of the fact that it was the month of july, it was also the middle of winter, and as we got up to higher altitudes it became intensely cold. i had the carriage to myself at first, and, having piled on all the clothes i had with me, i was trying to sleep, when, about 2 a.m., two old dutch ladies were put in with me, and for the rest of the night they chattered, and ate cheese and apples and onions, so that sleep was impossible until they left the train at matjesfontein. i am told the scenery we passed through that night is very grand. i hope some time to see it under more favourable conditions. cold and hungry, about 7 a.m., we stopped for breakfast at matjesfontein. i took my sponge-bag and towel, thinking i should find a waiting-room; but all i found was a tap on the platform, where we took our turn at a splash in icy-cold water, and then went on to a tin shanty, where breakfast was served--kippers, good bread, indifferent butter, and moderate tea. there did not seem to be any hurry; but when we had all finished, and the engine had had a drink, and the engine-driver had lit his pipe, we started off again. and all that day we strolled across the karroo, stopping (apparently) just when the driver felt inclined, and, when there was a hill, going so slowly one felt tempted to jump off and take a little exercise by running alongside. it was very grey and brown, this wonderful karroo country, with occasional kopjes (hills with great boulders of stones up the sides), and now and then a river or a stream, and always by any water a green line of the mimosa trees covered with their yellow flower. as the sun grew stronger i began to forget the discomforts of the night, and some pleasant dutch people came on board and told me many interesting things about the country we were passing through. then i was introduced to my first swarm of locusts; a weird sight it was, too. they were pointed out to me first when they were some miles ahead of us, and looked like a small black cloud; then, as they came near, the sky seemed to become black with them, and we had to shut all the windows or the carriage would soon have been full of them. they tell me sometimes the young ones settle on the lines in such masses, and the lines become so slippery, the trains can't get on, and the men have to turn out and shovel them off. fancy a great northern express being held up by a swarm of locusts! for most of the way the old waggon-road ran alongside the railway, and was marked out by the skeletons of horses and oxen, or the sadder sight of a mound of stones with a little wooden cross, where some poor fellow had "fallen by the way." we stopped at victoria west for dinner; and as there was another train (from up country) in the station, we were halted well out on the veldt, and i had to stumble along to the station, and then, across what seemed in the darkness to be a rickyard, to the tin shanty where dinner was served. i was the only lady there; but i had only had a snack lunch on board the train, and we were more than an hour later than we had expected to dine, so i was too hungry to mind much, and had a very good dinner. there is only a single line for all this long track, so the delays to allow trains to pass at the stations are numerous, and it is well never to travel without a supply of chocolate, as the meals are very movable feasts. i managed to sleep through that night, as it was not so cold, and i had the carriage to myself. early the next morning we steamed into kimberley, and my brother met me at the station. viii kimberley, south africa, _december 1892_. two things are prominent in my mind to-day: the first is that the thermometer is at 104° in the shade, and the mosquitoes are perfectly vicious; and the second is that the kimberley exhibition, with its round of gaieties, is actually closed. but before i tell you about this exhibition, i must try to go back and give you a few "first impressions" of the diamond fields. as you come into kimberley by train, you first pass the kaffir location; and, instead of the picturesque dwellings that one sees in pictures, you see an exceedingly untidy collection of huts built of all sorts of odds and ends--bits of galvanized iron, old paraffin tins, &c. then come small tin shanties inhabited by the "poor whites"; and so the houses improve, as one nears the centre of the town. we drove down from the station in a cape cart, which takes the place of a fly here. it is a comfortable kind of dog-cart with two wheels, drawn by a pair of horses; it has a movable hood, and the four passengers all sit facing the horse's tail. the most comfortable seats are at the back, and part of the driver's seat lifts up on a hinge while you get to the back seat. i found my brother had taken a house and bought all the furniture in it, so there was not much difficulty about settling in, except hanging our own pictures and buying a little more linen, plate, &c. it was a nice brick-walled bungalow, with the usual galvanized-iron roof, and a shady balcony (called here a stoep) all the way round the house, so that one could generally find a fairly cool place to sit. he had also secured a very good white woman as cook, and a dusky zulu called george, who waited at table, and generally fagged for the cook. george looked about fifteen, so i treated him as i would a boy of eleven or twelve, and he was soon my most devoted slave. but one day i asked him how old he was, and he said, "i was thirty-four last census, missus." but i shall continue to treat him in the same way, as it seems to answer well; and, after all, i think these blacks will always be rather like children, however old they are. i find he has a wife at a kraal, up country, and he is now saving up to buy some cows wherewith to secure another wife. i understand the present value of "a nice kaffir girl" is seven cows! there is a large compound at the back of the house; and thrown in with the house we found two dogs, a dignified cat, and some fowls and turkeys. at first i thought the kimberley people were rather uninteresting, and felt inclined to agree with the barber who, when he was giving me a most refreshing and much-needed shampoo after the dusty journey up, said, "you _will_ think the ladies here funny, miss, for they absolutely never talk about anything but their dresses"; but, poor things, there was very little else to talk about. every one was kind in coming to call, and i soon found some very nice people amongst them. sunday is the great day for all the gentlemen to call; and sometimes we had eight or nine men dropping in on sunday afternoon, and generally one or two came in to supper after church. there is a splendid library nearly opposite the club (which is also a fine building), and i very much appreciate the cool reading-room, with all the english papers and magazines, only about a month old. we play a good deal of tennis on gravel courts. there are two days in the week when ladies can play at the club, and some people who have private courts have regular "days," so that i generally play three or four afternoons a week. just lately i have had some good riding, as a young lady i know has gone down to the cape, and has left a nice and young horse behind. her mother offered to lend it to me one day, and i had a glorious gallop over the veldt with their groom; and then a kind note came, saying that "i was doing them a great favour by exercising the horse, as it was too fresh for the younger girls." i am glad to be able to do a favour so easily, and we make up very pleasant little riding parties. i think the thing one misses most in kimberley is water. if you ride or drive, you may find some out at the waterworks or (a variable amount) in the river out at alexanderfontein, but the water you can find within walking distance might be measured in bucketsful; and the men are fond of talking of the "early days," when it was cheaper to have a bath in soda-water than in plain water, and of a notice that was said to have been put up in a hotel, "please do not use soap, as the water is required for tea." in the season, with careful watering, one can grow a good many flowers. roses do especially well, and some people who are diligent with the watering-pot cultivate a small piece of grass; but a few days' neglect, or a few hours' visitation from a flight of locusts, and your treasured piece of grass is as though a prairie fire had been over it. of course there was much excitement up here about the opening of the exhibition. the governor and family came up from cape town for the ceremony, and stayed nearly a fortnight in mr. c.'s house--which he gave up to them--and there was much entertaining. we had the colonial secretary and his wife staying with us, and also a daughter of the governor of bechuanaland. as mr. ---was the minister in attendance on the governor, he had to bring his secretary with him, and the police superintendent posted a mounted orderly at our gate to take his messages about; so we felt quite important. many interesting people from all over south africa came up for the exhibition, and i am afraid i shan't be able to remember all those to whom i have been introduced. mr. cecil rhodes was here for a few days, and we went to supper with him one sunday evening. he is generally supposed to dislike ladies; but if that is true, he does not show it. there were not many there, and i sat next to him at supper. i believe it was a very good supper; but the conversation was so interesting (all about south africa and south africans) i couldn't attend to it, and i went home hungry, and had to have a private snack before i went to bed. the morning after the governor arrived we received an invitation to dine at government house that evening; and it was rather awkward, as we had a dinner party here. but p. and mr. ---went off to call and explain matters, and we were excused. they gave two huge garden parties, which we attended, and i enjoyed them very much--both the governor and lady so very pleasant and friendly. another day they were the guests of de beers, and we also were invited; so we saw all the process of diamond-mining under very comfortable circumstances: the blue stone as it was brought up from the mines in little trucks and laid out in the sun (surrounded by barbed-wire fences) to pulverize, then collected and crushed and washed; and then we went into the sorting-shed, and were given trowels to sort with, and i found four nice diamonds in ten minutes, and should like to have kept them! then to the packing-room, and saw _such_ diamonds, bags and bags of them. afterwards we drove out to kenilworth, the model village, all planned by mr. cecil rhodes for the de beers' men. such nice little houses, with water laid on, and every convenience; a good garden to each house; a school and a club-house; a recreation ground; and then miles of fruit-trees--grapes, peaches, apricots, &c.--that mr. rhodes has planted and has had carefully irrigated. one could hardly believe it was so near to kimberley, and kimberley dust. every day at the exhibition there was a good band playing, and every evening some fireworks and other entertainments. cricket matches--played on a pitch of cocoanut matting--tennis tournaments, &c., were the order of the day; so that now, when the governor and other visitors have returned to the cape, and the exhibition is closed, you can understand that kimberley seems a little flat, and i am much looking forward to a run down to the cape next month by way of a change. ix kenilworth, nr. cape town, _january 1893_. here we are, amidst lovely greenery and flowers, with the turtle-doves cooing in the garden, and with the very blue sea on one side and grand old table mountain towering above us on the other. kimberley was really a very warm place before we left it. we had had several bad dust-storms, when you shut up all the doors and windows, and still the dust comes through, and settles in inches on the furniture, and everything you touch or taste is dusty. one of the worst dust-storms, and the hottest of days, was christmas day. we had invited a few lonely men to dinner; and when i came in to dress, george met me at the door, and said, "missus, kitchen window all gone; dinner no good." and when i went to investigate, i found poor stanley nearly weeping, as the window had been blown completely in, frame and all, on to the table at which she was preparing our dinner; and the dignified cat was licking up the custard on the floor! fortunately the turkey was saved, and, with the help of a few extra tins, we scraped together a fairly good dinner. i don't know what would become of the people in kimberley if they were afraid to eat tinned foods. besides the dust (and my old enemies, the mosquitoes), the flies were very horrible. they settle everywhere, and it is necessary to keep everything very well covered up. you have to shoo them off the sugar before you help yourself; and if you venture to put some honey or jam on your bread, it is ten to one there is at least one fly on it before it reaches your mouth! well, we left kimberley still gasping for rain, and the train strolled down to the cape in two days and one night. the scenery we passed through on the second day was very fine indeed, all through the hex river pass. i saw a good many baboons. one little chap scuttled away, and then sat down and threw stones at us. a most quaint little beast he looked, in a fury of a temper. mr. ---met us at the station, and they have such a delightful house and garden. you have no idea what a rest it is to see plenty of greenery again, after all the sun and glare of kimberley. all the people about here seem to be so very pleasant and friendly, i am enjoying myself immensely. we went to dinner one night at government house. i was shy at the prospect of going, but it was really very jolly. i went in to dinner with captain ---of h.m.s. ---(now at simonstown), and he was very entertaining. the men were all in naval, military, or court dress, and they looked so nice. another day mrs. ---gave a picnic at constantia, the government wine farm, and the governor and party joined us there. it was a very pretty place, and after tea we went for a scramble up a ravine to pick blackberries. part of the way up i was trying to disentangle lady ---from a bramble, when the governor turned round and called to her, "hurry up, my dear, hurry up!" and she replied, "but, h. dear, i'm caught by my hair." so he had to return to assist; and then coming down he twice fell down, and each time pretended he had sat down only to admire the view! on sunday we went over to simonstown to call on the admiral's wife. there were two captains of men-of-war calling, and some other officers, and they invited us to visit them on their ships; but p. could not spare a day. i was rather disappointed. mr. cecil rhodes was away, but we walked over to see his place, groot schuur. it is a very lovely and peaceful spot, just at the foot of table mountain, and with lovely views in all directions. the hydrangeas that he is so fond of are quite a sight; they grow up the sides of a hollow glen in the grounds, and the mass of different shades is very beautiful. another day we went to lunch with the chief justice at wynberg. such a lovely place he has, with many beautiful trees in the grounds. amongst others they have a good many of the silver trees which grow up table mountain, and, i believe, nowhere else in the world. in the afternoon lady ---drove us to a huge garden party at newlands (government house). i heard that 1600 invitations had been sent out, and i should think most of them had been accepted. but there was still plenty of room, and the grounds are beautiful; and there was a good band playing. one of khama's sons was there, but i did not meet him. my brother was anxious to have a little sea-bathing, so we stayed for a few days at a small place called muizenberg, on the shore of false bay. i have never bathed in such deliciously warm water before. i believe there are some sharks around table bay, but false bay is considered quite safe; so many cape town people go out there to bathe, and some of them have bungalows near the sea. i was very keen to climb table mountain, so i left p. for one night at muizenberg, and went to spend the night again at kenilworth, with some friends who were making up a "mountain party." we were up early, and left in cape carts--a party of eight--at 5 a.m., and drove round to hout's bay neck. most unfortunately it was a cloudy morning, and the mountain is said to be dangerous in a fog; but we kept hoping it would clear, and we began the climb at 6.45 a.m. it was fairly steep, but never really a difficult climb. when we got to the ranger's cottage, we found he had just killed a horrid cobra snake that measured 5 feet 6 inches long. he did not hold out any hope of the weather clearing; but as we had gone so far, we thought we might as well go on. so we clambered to the top, where we arrived at 11 a.m., and were greatly disappointed not to get any view. the only compensations were the flowers we found, which were simply lovely--huge white heather, and many-coloured everlastings, and many flowers which i had never seen before. coming down in the afternoon, it was blowing and cold, and at one place we missed the path, and for about a mile had to force our way through some thick and very wet undergrowth, and then it began to rain. so we were rather a draggled-looking party when we reached the carts, and the drive home in our wet garments was not exactly comfortable. this may not sound as though we had a very enjoyable expedition, and yet i really did enjoy the day very much. the people were all so jolly, and made fun of all the discomforts. major ----, the governor's secretary, was one of the party, and he had provided himself with pins, needles, bandages, sticking plaster, and all sorts of other things, most of which came in useful in the course of the day. i heard afterwards that he told the governor that he had never done such a hard day's work before, as we made him walk for eleven and a half hours, and only let him sit down for half an hour! the time has gone so quickly down here, as there has been so much going on, and every one has been so kind. we have had about twice as many invitations as we could accept. now we are packing up to return to kimberley, and as they have had some good rains up there, i hope we shall find it a little cooled down. if only we could take some of this lovely greenery with us! you have no idea how grateful you ought to be in england that you can always find a green field if you go to look for it, instead of perpetual greyness and brownness and glare. soon after we get back p. will have to start off on circuit in the colony, and i am hoping to go part of the way with him, and then to start off on an expedition to visit some friends up country in natal; they are fifty miles from a railway. i am looking forward to this tremendously. and then soon after it will be time for me to make tracks for home, as i have now nearly reached the venerable age of twenty-three, and am therefore eligible for beginning my training in an adult hospital. and though this sort of life is very jolly for a time, i should not like it for always; it is not so satisfying as useful work. i am quite sad at saying good-bye to all my friends. i believe one makes real friends more easily out here than one does in england. it must be something in the air. x greytown, natal, _april 1893_. after my last letter to you we journeyed back, over the seven hundred odd miles to kimberley, and found life up there a little flat after the gay time we had been having at the cape; but i had some good tennis and riding, and then we had to prepare for the circuit. at each place that the judge visits he has to do a little entertaining, so he has to take a cook and a butler with him; and as some of the places where courts are held are quite villages, he has to take a certain amount of groceries along too--and, of course, wine. the government provide a saloon carriage with a small kitchen on board, so that is used as the judge's headquarters when near the railway lines; but many of the places visited entail long drives in cape carts. the first place we went to was colesberg, and we arrived there at 6 a.m. we were quite a large party with the barristers, the clerk and registrar, the interpreter, and the servants. we were met by the magistrate and the sheriff, with a smart escort of cape mounted police, and a party of convicts to take the baggage up. we found a nice little house ready for us, the owner having turned out to make room; and, after a wash and breakfast, the men all went off to the court, and i stayed to unpack and get things straight. there were three coloured girls left to do the housework, &c. none of them could speak english, and they had several babies scattered about. i knew we had to give a dinner party before we left, and felt rather hopeless about how it would go with the material to hand. however, everything went off very well in the end. lots of people called on me, and i had some good tennis at the club, and also some nice rides on a horse that was lent to me, the first one i have tried since i came to this country that had a good mouth; most of them are ruined with the bits they use. the surrounding country was rather pretty, and good for corn and cattle. we stayed four days at colesberg, and then moved on to craddock, ten hours on the railway. there was a lot of court work there, and it had to be fitted into five days; so the men were in court nearly all the time--one night up to 11 p.m.--and i found it a little slow. but i had some nice drives, one day going out to see some curious sulphur baths, and another day to a farm about eight miles off, where every imaginable kind of fruit seemed to grow. after this we parted company, my brother going on to middleburg, and i for another run of ten hours in the train to port elizabeth, where i joined the _drummond castle_ for durban. various people seemed to have asked the captain to take care of me, so i sat next to him at table, and he was most kind. when he found that i meant to put up at a hotel in durban, he told me that he wouldn't let me do that, as he had lots of friends there, and i should have a much better time if i went to stay with them. we got to east london next day. the sea was rather rough, and there was a lot of cargo to get on board, so we were there some time; but i didn't go ashore. when we had again got under way, the captain came up to me and said, "i have wired to some people in durban to ask them to meet you when we get there." was it not kind of him? when we reached durban i waited till the captain was ready to go ashore; and then we got into a kind of huge clothes-basket, and were swung over the side and into the tender, as these big steamers can't get into the harbour. and when we had come alongside the wharf, we found two ladies waiting for us, with a sweet pair of cream-coloured ponies. they assured me it was quite all right, and that they really had lots of room, and the captain was to come up to lunch. so off we drove to such a nice house up on the berea, with a lovely view right over the harbour. they were very pleasant scotch people, and they _were_ so kind to me, driving me about to see the town, &c. i stayed the night with them, and all the next day, as there was no train till 6 p.m.; and then they saw me off, and made me promise to visit them on my way back. i got to pietermaritzburg at 10.30 p.m. (i believe it is very fine scenery on the way up, but it was too dark to see it), and stayed a night at a hotel, where i found that my kind durban friends had wired to the proprietress to look after me; so everything was very comfortable. i was up early the next morning to have a look round maritzburg, and made friends with the driver of the post-cart, who promised me the box-seat. "john" was quite a character, and he entertained me well for all the forty-five miles we drove that day. we got away at 10.30 a.m. with six tough little horses and the funniest old noah's ark of a coach you ever saw. the road was very rough, and there were very steep bits down to rivers (or "spruits," as they are called here), and then a hard pull up the other side. we changed horses several times, and some of the teams were very raw and wild; and the leaders were sometimes inclined to turn round and come to see how the shaft-horses were getting on. so john had to use his huge whip at times, and i had to cling on, and i got so bumped about that i was stiff for days afterwards. john had many interesting stories to tell, having been a despatch-rider for us in the zulu war. my friends met me a mile or two outside greytown with a mule-cart, in which we drove up to their farm--such a delightful old house. it really belongs to mrs. ----'s father, but he is in england now, where they have some children at school; so they have come up from their smaller house in greytown to take care of the farm. i have been here a fortnight now, and have enjoyed every minute of it. for one thing, the climate is delightful. it is pretty hot, but not the damp heat you find near the coast, nor the dusty heat of kimberley. so i am feeling very fit, and the people _are_ so nice i should like to stay for months. it is a very free-and-easy life, and we are waited upon by a man in a shirt and an apron of cats' tails! it is very pretty country, and i am having delightful rides on a good horse. one day we rode out to see some people who live fifteen miles away from here, and they insisted upon our staying the night. of course they don't get many visitors out there. the next morning we rode on to a place where we got a splendid view over what they call the thorne country, right into zululand. we could see the mooi river valley, and they pointed out to me where the "defence of rorke's drift" saved natal. i had never been inside a kaffir hut, so we went one day to explore; and i was taken to call upon "sixpence," a zulu who works here. we had to crawl into the wattle and straw hut on our hands and knees, and at first i could not see anything and could hardly breathe, as the only escape for the smoke from their fire is through the doorway; but we squatted down on the floor--which looked clean and polished with much sitting upon--and soon i made out mrs. sixpence (sixpence can only afford one wife), with a blanket draped around her, and four children. the baby was absolutely naked, and the other children were chiefly clad in beads. and then there was sixpence's mother, a poor old thing who is over a hundred, and can remember chaka, the great zulu chief. i have collected many curios while staying here, and the other day i was given the skin of a huge python 18 feet long, which had been shot near to the house not long before. i can't bear snakes and creeping beasts, and there are a great many of them up here. there is more grass than there is in cape colony, and so better cover for the beasts. the other day, when i was out riding, my horse gave a great jump aside, and after i had remonstrated with him i looked back, and saw a horrid snake sitting up and hissing at us; so i had to explain to my gee how sorry i was that i had spoken! the doctor with whom i am staying has to take very long journeys on horseback to see his patients. he seems very popular, and often has to go to kaffir kraals a long way off, though many of the natives still stick to their faith in the witch-doctors and their weird remedies. very often they have no money, so he is paid in kind; and sometimes he returns from a visit to a chief with one or two cows, which he has to drive home before him. several people have asked me to stay with them; and if i was not in such a hurry to get back to work, i am sure i could put in several months up here with much enjoyment, the natal people are quite delightful, and so hospitable. but john has promised me the box-seat on his noah's ark again on tuesday, and i must once more make tracks for kimberley. xi kimberley, south africa, _june 1893_. i managed my journey back from natal very comfortably, and made several new friends on the way. the drive on the post-cart from greytown to maritzburg was somewhat perilous, as there had been a great deal of horse-sickness about, so that good horses were scarce; and several of our teams were very raw, and there was much bucking and kicking before each start; and several times the harness broke down, and john had to descend to make repairs. i am sure the passengers in the body of the ark were terrified lest the horses should take it into their heads to start off while the reins were entrusted to me; and though i am pretty good at managing a horse, i should be shy of trying to drive six of these bucking creatures. however, we got safely down to maritzburg in the course of the day, and again i had to spend a night there, taking the train the next morning for durban. the railway between these two towns is a wonderful piece of engineering work, crawling up one side of a mountain and scuttling down the other; very fine scenery, with sub-tropical vegetation, all the way down. my good durban friends again met me, and were most kind, putting me up for the night, and then seeing me off on the _courland castle_, rather a tub of a coasting vessel, that gave us such a pitching about that even i succumbed and was sea-sick. this greatly annoyed me, as i had come all the way out to the cape without a qualm! i had meant to do a jaunt up from east london to visit some people at grahamstown and at king william's town, but i was so happy at greytown that i stayed on longer than i intended, and had to give up the other visits. we anchored off east london for some hours, and the captain took me ashore to lunch with some friends of his; and they took us for a nice drive round the town and out to a place called cambridge, where we picked oranges and lots of flowers. the scenery at the mouth of the buffalo river is very pretty. then we went on to port elizabeth, and the captain again took me out to lunch; and we had a pleasant day exploring the town with some of his friends, and in the evening they saw me off by train for kimberley. the train was rather full, but i was so tired that i slept all night, and woke up only just in time to get some breakfast at craddock. i am getting quite experienced in making good use of the twenty minutes they allow you to get meals at these wayside stopping-places. all that day we were strolling along in the train--dinner at de aar junction in the evening--and at 4 a.m. the next morning i reached kimberley. no one to meet me, and no cabs; so i left my baggage with a porter, and walked down to our house. peter, the cat, was holding an "at home" in the garden, and carlo, the retriever, was on the stoep to welcome me, and assisted me to find the key under the doormat; and i was glad to find my bed ready to tumble into, after a much-needed wash. it is winter here now, and the people seem rather more energetic than usual. i have been to two dances since i got back, and there are some dinner parties in prospect. the other day i went down a diamond mine--a thing visitors don't often do, though, of course, a good many see all the workings above ground. i had to dress up in a canvas overall suit and sou'wester, and then, in a very rough cage, we were lowered to the 1800-feet level. i hear they will soon be working at 2000 feet below the surface, but 1800 feet is the depth they are working just now. it was all very interesting--swarms of natives (with very little on!), and the fussy little trucks rushing about with their loads of the blue-stone, in which the diamonds are found--but i was rather glad to get back to the daylight again. then on sunday afternoon i was invited to go and see a war-dance by the zulus in the mine compound. it was really very fine. only one tribe is allowed to dance at a time, or there would soon be fighting; and the men of the other tribes kept away at the far end of the compound, and would not look on. there were about forty zulus dancing. they were dressed in little aprons of cats' tails and a few beads, and wore feathers on their heads, and were waving skin shields and knobkerries (sticks with weighted knobs). they all stood in a row, and stamped, and clapped, and danced, and sang in very good time; and then single ones stalked out in front of the others, and, throwing themselves into extraordinary attitudes, with much stuttering and stammering, they recounted the great deeds they had done in war, and the others all chimed in with great "hoos" and "hoofs" of approval, stamping on the ground like angry bulls. some of these men fought against us in the zulu war. after the dance was over, one very line fellow was introduced to us as the man who had carried a lot of englishmen out of the mine when it was on fire a year or two ago. i think it is a wonderful system by which all these tribes--that have hated each other for generations--can be made to live together in one compound, working side by side, and earning very good wages. they have separate huts and messes, but they buy at the same store, and share the same chapel, hospital, and swimming-bath. there are about 2000 men in the compound, and they all seemed very happy. no beer or spirits are allowed. any man who likes can learn to read and write while he is in the compound; and many of them were sitting round the fires, where they were boiling their mealy meal, reading to their mates. we went into the hospital, which was very clean and trim. natives in white suits, acting as attendants, showed us with pride their neatly-kept charts. there were one or two minor accidents in, and some bad cases of pneumonia, but they all appeared well cared for and comfortable. the lady who lent me her horse has now returned to kimberley, so i have not had so much riding lately; but the other night we had a glorious scamper out to alexanderfontein by moonlight. about ten of us went, and we had supper out there. we had rather a mixed lot of horses and saddlery, and on the way back first one saddle came to grief, and then another. i distributed my gear by degrees--a girth to a gentleman who was riding with only one girth and it gave way, and i had two; a stirrup to a lady who dropped hers, and came off in consequence; and one of my reins to another lady, whose horse was too excited by the crowd of us, and required to be led. the others chaffed me, and begged for the bridle, and then for the saddle! now i am busy packing up for home, and trying to arrange things for my brother, who, when i go, intends to move into a smaller house just opposite to the club. there is also a good deal of tennis on just now, and between whiles i am struggling to pay my farewell calls. i was rather surprised to find there were about forty people i ought to call on; and as kimberley does not wake up from its siesta until 4 p.m., and it is dark by 6 p.m. now, it is difficult to get through things, and george will have to take some p.p.c. cards round for me. r.m.s. "scot," bay of biscay, _july 1893_. i am sorry i neglected to post this yarn from kimberley; but i believe i will still post it when i land, as i may not see you yet awhile, and it will bring the history of my travels up to date. i was more sorry to leave kimberley than i expected to be; but i suppose one can't live in a place for a year without making some friends whom you are sorry to leave. i journeyed down to the cape all alone; but some cape town friends came to see me off, and it was quite home-like to be on the _scot_ once more. the chief officer invited me to sit at his table, and we have had a delightful voyage, good weather, and pleasant people. we had a few hours ashore at madeira, and i think the flowers seem more beautiful every time i go there. some day i should like to stay some weeks in the island. we were all shocked to hear of the wreck of the _victoria_ off tripoli, and the loss of 420 lives; it does seem terrible. we find that, if all goes well, we should land on the day of the wedding of the duke of york and princess may. the bay of biscay is behaving like a lamb. this is the fourth time i have been through it, and only once has it kicked up its heels and been really disagreeable. i am going to spend a few days in town before i go home, so as to be interviewed by two or three matrons of the big hospitals. i think i know which hospital i would like best to get into, but whether i can persuade that particular matron that she really will have a vacancy in the autumn (i must spend a little time at home first), and that i really am the most suitable candidate for that particular vacancy, remains to be proved. i am rather thin in consequence of the heat, but i am as brown as a berry; so i am sure they ought to think i look tough enough for the work. xii general hospital, london, _may 1894_. it is a long time since i last wrote to you, but there has not been much of interest to write about. i tried very hard to get into some london hospital last autumn, but could not find a vacancy in any really good one, so i made up my mind it was better to wait for a vacancy here--where i had always wanted to train--than to slip in anywhere, where i did not _know_ that the training was good. so i have just stayed at home, and in the summer played tennis and cricket, and learnt to make butter and jam, &c., and in the winter had a little hunting (on rather a stupid horse that was always doing something foolish, and one day distinguished himself by lying down at the meet!), and helped to teach in the night-school, where big lads and men, who had been cutting turnips for the sheep all day, came in the evenings to learn arithmetic, geography, &c., with much perseverance. i went to help at the n. general hospital for a month in the autumn, as they had a lot of nurses ill. it was rather funny, as i was sent to a men's ward (35 beds) as staff nurse; and of course i had had to do only with children before, so i had to pretend to know rather more than i did. i had been there only a few days when the sister of my ward went off duty with influenza, and there did not seem to be any one to come in her place; so we had to muddle along without a sister. but everything went on all right, and the patients did well. the matron asked me to stay on permanently; but i thought a london certificate would be more valuable afterwards, so i only stayed until their sick nurses were able to return to duty. i rather enjoyed my time there. the rough cleaning work that we had had to do at the children's hospital was all done by ward-maids, so we were able to give all our attention to the actual nursing; also our food was better, and more plentiful. but in spite of these things, there seemed to be a great deal of grumbling amongst the nurses. i was not accustomed to this, and i was not there long enough to learn whether they really had any good cause for their complaints. the work was certainly hard, but that was partly because so many sisters and nurses were off duty ill; and when the doctors found that i was doing the sister's work as well as my own, they were most considerate in trying to save me trouble. i had been promised a vacancy here "in the summer" as an ordinary probationer for three years' training. then, one day early in february, i had a wire from the matron asking me whether i would like to enter as a lady pupil "if my fees were arranged for," and if so, i was to go up to see her the next day. i could not understand a bit what it meant, but thought i had better investigate. so up i trotted to town, and the matron explained to me that they have a system here of working in two ranks, officers and privates. the officers are the sisters, and they are recruited from the lady pupils; the privates are the probationers, who might rise to be staff nurses, but beyond that there is no promotion from the ranks. therefore, if i entered as a probationer, as i had arranged, i could never rise to be a sister. then she told me that it was probable there would be two or three vacancies for sisters in about a year, and a lady who was interested in the hospital had offered to pay the fees for some lady pupil, who would otherwise have entered as a probationer, so that she might have the advantage of the chance of promotion; and the matron had decided to give me the offer, partly on account of my having had previous training. of course there is no _promise_ of promotion, as that must depend on one's work; but there is the chance of it. did you ever hear of such good luck? of course i was only too glad to accept, and they wanted me at once; so i had to get my kit ready in a hurry, and began work here in february. this is a huge place, quite a little town in itself, and i am very happy here. i think i have been lucky in being first sent to a men's medical ward of forty beds. the sister is a first-rate nurse and a splendid manager. she works hard herself, and expects every one else to do the same; so the ward always looks trim, and the patients are very comfortable. my short experience at n. has been very useful to me, and i don't feel so much at sea in doing things for the men. i find that, as lady pupil, i am really acting as "sister's assistant." i go round with sister with the doctors, and if she is engaged with one doctor and another one comes, i have to escort him round; and it is necessary for me to know all about the cases, so as to be able to report about them. another of my duties is to give all the medicines, and that for forty medical cases takes up a good deal of time. i also have charge of four beds, and do everything for the patients in them. there are two staff nurses and two probationers (also two ward-maids), and i fill in my spare time with helping them in bed-making, carrying round meals, &c.; but i don't seem to be expected to do any of the cleaning work, and if i am busy helping sister, the routine work goes on just the same without my assistance. i am not quite sure that it is a good arrangement, as one of the staff nurses in this ward has been here for years and years, and the other one for over three years, so of course they know more about the cases than i do; and i should think a brand new lady pupil, who had had no training before, might find it rather difficult. but i must say the staffs have been very nice to me. i didn't mean to let it be known that i "had been out before," but it leaked out. there are about twenty of us lady pupils, and we live in the matron's house. we have all our meals in the large nurses' dining-hall--but at a separate table--except supper, which we have in the sisters' dining-hall. the food is ever so much better than it was at the children's hospital. some of the nurses grumble at it; but i think wherever people feed in a crowd there are always some who grumble. at any rate, it is not _necessary_ to buy food here. at first i had rather uninteresting cases in my beds, but now sister is giving me some good ones. i have one jolly fat baby of two and a half with tonsilitis, who was sent to us from a women's ward, because they were not sure that he was not going in for diphtheria, and they had other children in the ward. i had to do a good deal of treatment for him at first, and he hated it; but now he has forgiven me, and we are excellent friends, and all the men are doing their best to spoil him. then i have a poor man with bright's disease, who is very ill. he is a curious-looking object, as he is quite bald, and he likes to wear a red knitted cap in bed. he is often delirious now in the evenings, and then he uses very bad language. when sister is out in the evening, i have to read prayers in the ward. at first i was very shy of reading before all these men, especially when some of them are of quite a superior class; and when i was in the middle of prayers the other evening, my bald-headed man chimed in with a lot of bad language. it was really very trying, and i knew if either of the nurses went to remonstrate with him, he would only continue in a louder voice; so i had to shorten the prayers somewhat. if he continues like this, i am afraid he will have to go to the strong-room; but up there they have only male attendants, and we are rather loth to send him off, as he is really very ill, and needs a lot of nursing. a sad thing happened the other day. we had an old man in very ill with angina pectoris; he had great difficulty in breathing, and could not lie down at all. i was always trying to prop him up and make him comfortable. he got very little rest, but he was always so good and grateful. he was not one of my own cases; but he was on several medicines (to be given as required), so i had to go to him very often for one thing and another. one day i was going round giving the two o'clock medicines, and when i got to his bed, he was lying back on his pillows apparently asleep. it was so unusual for him to look at all comfortable, i thought i would certainly not disturb him for his medicine. sister was talking to a doctor a few yards away, and i was just going to point out to her that the old man was resting, when something made me turn back and look at him more closely, and i found he was quite dead. poor old fellow, he was indeed "resting." i just pulled a screen round him, and then called sister and the house surgeon; but he was quite gone, and even the man in the next bed had not noticed any change. xiii general hospital, london, _august 1894_. with much sorrow i left my nice and interesting men's medical ward, and found myself landed in a smaller surgical and accident ward for women and children. there could hardly have been a greater contrast. there everything was done with order and method, and well done; here every one seems to rush about in a breathless way, and the ward never looks tidy, and i am quite sure that the bustle that goes on is bad for the serious cases. i am responsible for eight cases instead of four, and at first i thought i should never get them all washed in time in the morning; but now i find so many of them can do a good deal more for themselves than the medical cases could; also the medicines in a surgical ward are nothing to those in a medical; so i get through all right, and keep up to time. three surgeons have beds in the ward, and that makes the work a little difficult, as sometimes they all arrive at the same time, and sometimes they all want to operate at the same time. this is most awkward, as we have not got fittings for them all, and have to run backwards and forwards for things. they seem to me a most amiable set of surgeons; i know the surgeons at our children's hospital would not have put up with being kept waiting as these men do; but i do hate not having everything they want ready before they ask for it. however, i am beginning to feel my way, and i think i shall soon be able to get different sets of things ready to use in these emergencies. it took me some time to find out why the ward was always in a state of chaos, and it is only because you are so far away that i can safely tell you the reason. i believe it is simply and solely because the sister, though a fairly good nurse, is really no good as a sister. i am sorry to say it, as she has been very nice to me, and the poor thing tries her best. she runs about, and does many things that the junior probationers ought to do, but she has no idea of looking after the nurses; and as the staff nurse is rather a shirker, and is very fond of chattering to the dressers, the probationers who are keen to work are rather overworked, and those who are not keen don't work. also, if there is a rush of work, sister rather loses her head, and runs about in an aimless sort of way; and in the theatre, if anything goes wrong, and they want things in a hurry, she always seems to hand the wrong thing. i find it a bit difficult, as the doctors get in the way of turning to me if they want things quickly. as soon as i found out what was wrong with the ward, and that sister was quite nice and "meant well," but just had not got it in her to be a good manager, i made up my mind that the ward _should_ be a smart ward, in spite of obstacles, and really it is improving by degrees. i have been having a good deal of correspondence lately about a small boy who, sister said, would have to go to the workhouse when he leaves here, and i thought he was a suitable case for dr. barnardo's homes; so she said i could try if i could get him in there, and i have just succeeded in doing so. his mother died when he was born, and his father appears to be a thoroughly bad lot, generally in prison. this boy had lived with his old grandmother and run wild; a pretty little chap, but quite a heathen, and fond of using bad language in the most innocent way. he came in here for a small operation, and while he has been here his grandmother died very suddenly. the people at dr. barnardo's homes have been very good about it, made all inquiries for themselves, and got the father's consent. now they have agreed to take him as soon as he is well. he is a plucky little chap, and i suppose they will probably ship him over to canada one day, and that will give him a better start in life than he might get from a workhouse. i think we get very good times off duty here--one hour off one day, and three hours off the next; and the sisters and lady pupils have a saturday to monday once a month--that means from 4 p.m. on saturday to 10 a.m. on monday. when i was moved to this ward, i just missed my saturday to monday; so, to make up for it, they gave me "extra leave" last week from saturday afternoon to monday night, and it just happened to be may week at cambridge, so i went down and had such a jolly time. b. seems to be very happy at clare, and to have very nice friends there. my sister was up for all the week, and having a first-rate time, going to all the dances, &c. it was my first visit to cambridge, and there was so much to see. it ought to be easy to work when you are in such beautiful surroundings. on the way back the engine of my train broke down, and i did not get in till 11 p.m., and i had to go and confess the next morning in the office that i was late; but it was the first time i had been late since i came, so i was forgiven. we had rather an exciting "take-in" week a fortnight or so ago: first of all a poor, tiny baby with a very badly-cut throat (done by its mother, who had afterwards proceeded to cut her own throat, and killed herself). they did tracheotomy for the baby, but it lived only a few hours. then came a poor little girl of eight, very badly burnt. she had had to get up to light the fire while her mother lay in bed (from her looks, i should think the mother had been drinking), and the child managed to set herself on fire. i think she will pull round, but it will be a long time before she will be able to walk again. she does not have much pain now, and i think she is quite enjoying herself here. the next case was another cut throat--a poor, feeble-looking woman, whose husband had first cut her throat and then his own. he is in the male accident ward, and not very much damaged; she is a good deal damaged, but i think they will both recover. i had arranged to go to the academy with l., as it was my free afternoon; but this poor woman came in soon after dinner, and i knew she would have to go up to the theatre, so i wired to l. that i could not meet her. and it was just as well i did, as three more accidents came in that afternoon, and one of these too had to go to the theatre (a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula); so we had a rushing time. yesterday was theatre day for our ward; and as sister had had to retire to bed with a sick-headache, i had the honour of taking our cases up to the theatre. i was rather nervous, as it was the first time i had been up alone for our senior surgeon, and he had one bad case--an excision of knee. but the other three cases were not very bad ones, and we got along all right. for the last three months we have been having a very interesting course of lectures on physiology, and the girl who shares my room and i spend all our spare minutes in reading up the subject. she is clever, but has not read much physiology before, so i have been able to help her a bit; and i should not be surprised if she does better in the exam. than i do. we are both of us looked upon as quite juniors amongst the lady pupils; but i don't fancy the seniors are taking much trouble, beyond just writing out their notes of the lectures, so i hope we shall do pretty decently. it is not easy to get much time to read when you have a heavy ward to wrestle with; but i am sure it helps you in exams. if you can manage to read rather more than you are absolutely obliged to about what the lecturer is trying to stuff into you in a condensed form. i have been here six months now, and may get sent off for my holiday any day; but there has been some delay on account of sister not being very well. she does not seem to want me to leave, as i shall probably not get sent back to this ward afterwards; but it has been very hot of late, and i shall be glad of a rest. xiv general hospital, london, _december 1894_. after my last letter to you i was bundled off for my holiday. i was glad enough to get it, but i missed the last two physiology lectures. this was rather a bore, as the exam. was the day after i got back; so i had no chance of borrowing any one's notes of those lectures, as i was supposed to do. however, i came out third, and my stable companion was first amongst the lady pupils--not so bad for two juniors; and we heard that four or five of the seniors had a little interview with the matron in her office, and were advised to work rather harder before the next exam. now we are having lectures on dispensing, and they are the most interesting lectures i have struck yet. we go down to the dispensary, and the head-dispenser makes us mess about, and make up prescriptions, and make pills, powders, &c. we fire off questions at each other at odd moments, when we meet--and also in bed at night--as to the various doses of different drugs, and what they are prescribed for, and the antidotes for different poisons, &c. i was sent to a very nice women's medical ward on my return from my holiday, and had some interesting work there. the sister was very nice to me (she has been here for years, and many of the lady pupils don't like her, but she is a first-rate nurse), and she gave me very good cases. one of my first cases was a little girl of ten with typhoid fever. she was very ill for some weeks, and then such a poor little wasted skeleton of a child! it was very nice feeding her up, when once it was safe to do so; and her great big eyes used to follow me about the ward, wondering what the next feed was going to be. sister said that i could hardly have had a more instructive case, as she had nearly all the bad symptoms a typhoid case can have, including a good deal of hæmorrhage. i was horribly proud one day when the senior physician was going round and lecturing to the students and speaking to them of the necessity for good nursing in typhoid; and he made sister show them the child's poor, bony little back and legs, with not a red mark on them; and he told them it had taken all her strength to battle with the fever, and if she had also had a bed-sore to sap her strength away, she could never have pulled through. we had two diphtheria tracheotomies while i was in that ward; and though they were not my cases (as they both had special nurses), i was present at the operations, and i learnt a good deal about their treatment, as sister used to let me relieve their nurses for meals, &c. and she taught me to change and clean their tubes, and so on; so that when i was put on as a special later on, i was not so much afraid of accidents as i should otherwise have been. it must have been a very bad form of diphtheria, as one of the specials became infected, and had to go away to the fever hospital; and then sister took it, but she was not very ill with it, and she was nursed in her own room. it has made them talk about the necessity for some isolation ward to put these cases in. of course they are only taken in here if they are too ill for it to be safe to send them on to the fever hospitals. we had a busy time when sister was ill, but the staff nurse was very good and to be depended upon, and things went on all right. i must tell you of a little joke we had one night in the matron's house, where all the lady pupils live. late one evening in september, when we were all undressed, one of them came to my room and said there was a wretched cat on some leads outside the bathroom window, and it was making such a row, as it could not escape. we went to inspect, and agreed that a rescue was necessary. by this time most of the lady pupils had assembled, and we fetched a ladder from the boxroom. it was too short; but we tied bath towels to it, and lowered it through the window to the leads. then the stupid cat would not come up, and only cried the more; so i was shoved through the window in my dressing-gown, and they held on to me until i got my feet on the ladder, and could climb down to the cat. just then matron's door opened, and they all slipped away to their rooms. i heard something about "too much noise" and "lights out," and then she came into the bathroom and shut down the window. it was lucky the ladder _was_ too short, or she must have seen it. it was pretty dark, and i was sitting down consoling the cat and waiting till the coast was clear, when i heard a smothered laugh, and then for the first time i remembered the gardens at the back, that belonged to some of our visiting doctors. i had looked at their houses and seen all the blinds down, and i had never thought they might be sitting under the trees at that time of night. after that, i very carefully kept my face to the wall; and soon the window was cautiously opened, and with some difficulty the cat and i were hauled in, and very quietly we pulled up the ladder. then i told them i was certain we had been watched, and we located the garden from which the laugh had come; and next morning, sure enough, there were two basket-chairs under the trees, so we knew which doctor it was. but he never gave us away, and i don't know to this day whether he recognised me; but i often fancied there was a twinkle in his eye when we met. then the question arose what to do with the cat, as it appeared to be hungry, and not inclined to be quiet; so eventually the most innocent-looking lady pupil was deputed to go to the home sister, and tell her she had caught this strange cat in the bathroom, and, as it seemed starving, might she go down and feed it, and then turn it out? the home sister was fond of cats, and her sympathies were aroused; so she assisted in providing it with supper and seeing it off the premises. in november i was sent on night duty. the lady pupils are not obliged to do night duty, as they are only here for one year; but matron was short of senior probationers, and asked me if i would like it, and i thought i would. part of the time i have been an "extra," just helping wherever they were busy, and helping in the theatre for any night operations. then i was put on as "special" with a tracheotomy (diphtheria) in a men's medical ward--such a nice boy, called albert, aged eight. and, when he was getting better, another little chap of three came in, so desperately bad that they had to do tracheotomy in the receiving room; and then he was brought over and put in a cot by my boy's bed, and i looked after them both. poor albert was rather jealous at first, and whenever i was attending to the small boy he began to "wheeze" too, thinking i should rush to his rescue; but he soon found that that did not pay. after these boys had both recovered, i disinfected, and had a night off to air myself; and then matron let me do the staff nurse's nights off--very interesting, but rather anxious, work. you go to a ward which perhaps you have never been inside before, and you don't know where anything is kept. there are from twenty to forty patients; if the latter, there is a probationer to help you. most of them are sleeping quietly; the few who are awake are probably wondering what sort of a rise they can take out of the strange nurse. some of the sisters are very good about giving one a full written report; but other sisters are rather casual, telling you much of what you may or may not do for number eight or number eleven, but seeming impatient if you try to jot down notes. the first night off i took was in a men's surgical ward, where there was a nice lad of eighteen who had had his leg amputated that day (for a tubercular knee). he was so good and patient, but of course he needed a good deal of attention, and i wished i could stay with him all the time; but there was an old man at the other end of the ward rather delirious, and he would insist upon saying his prayers with a loud voice, and confessing his sins to me, calling me "maria, dear." i was thankful when the house surgeon came round and ordered him a sleeping-draught; but it took me quite half an hour to persuade him to drink it, and then it was a long time before it had any effect. in another ward the sister told me that the patients needed nothing to be done for them until i gave them their breakfast in the morning, but "_would_ i take great care of her persian and manx cats, and not let them escape from the ward?" it was also airing night, so i had plenty to do airing sheets, &c., and putting on clean sheets in the morning; but it was not exciting. to-night i am staff nurse in the men's accident ward; but there is a bright little pro. on as well, and she seems to be accustomed to do most of the work. we have had one case in--a van-boy with slight concussion of the brain; but i have got him washed, and he is now asleep with an ice-bag on his head. there are several bad cases in the ward, but they all seem inclined to sleep; so i am actually sitting down to finish up this scribble to you. i like night duty; you seem to have more time to fad over the patients who are really bad, and to do little things for their comfort; and the convalescent ones generally sleep and don't worry you; but it is hard work sometimes, especially between 5 and 8 a.m., when every one wakes up, and every one wants something, and there are all the breakfasts to give round, and all the beds to make, and the temperatures to take, and the fomentations to change, and a hundred different things all needing to be done at once; and you rush around and expect every minute the day nurses will come in and say "what a muddle the ward is in!" and sometimes, when you are beautifully forward with your work and think sister will be pleased, a house surgeon runs up in his pyjamas and dressing-gown to say he is sending in a bad case, and then you have to give all your attention to that case, and can't do the final clearing up for which you thought there would be heaps of time! xv general hospital, london, _june 1895_. many and various are the jobs i have done since my last letter, and now i must tell you that i am a full-blown sister or, as they say here, i have got "my blue"; but i had better begin where i left off. i was then bustling about on night duty, and i spent a very happy christmas like that. of course, we should all like to be at home for christmas, but in hospital so much is done to make it bright and cheery for the patients, and so many of them have so little brightness in their lives, that it is nice to see how thoroughly they enjoy it. they all have really nice presents; there is any amount of good food provided; plenty of entertainments (music, christmas trees, &c.); and the men are allowed to smoke in the wards. the doctors and students are really splendid in the way they work at decorating the wards, &c., and carrying the patients who are well enough about to other wards for entertainments. the children of the slums around here will do anything to get into the hospital for christmas, and the front surgery is full of little imps who have all got a "very bad pain!" in january i had to retire to bed for a few days with a high temperature and a touch of influenza, and while i was in bed the day came for the dispensing exam., so i begged to be allowed to go, and vowed i was quite recovered, and they let me attend. i made up my prescriptions (a bottle of medicine and some powders), and then i got under way with the paper, and thought it was rather a nice one, but before i reached the end my head began to swim, and i felt convinced i had mixed everything up and given all the wrong doses, and i thought what an ass i had been to try it, and i was certain i should come out at the bottom of the list! one of my friends escorted me back to bed and took my temperature, and when she found it was 103 she went off and told the matron; so next morning the doctor appeared, and i was kept in bed for a whole week, and then sent away for a few days' change, but before i went away matron came to tell me that i was first in the dispensing exam., with 114 marks out of a possible 125. if i had any more exams. to go in for, i think i ought to arrange to have a little influenza beforehand, as it seems to stimulate my brain; but, thank goodness, that is my last. you know i have always vowed that nothing would induce me to be a matron? well, i have been rather near it; i have been acting as assistant matron for some time. first of all, the assistant matron was ill, and went away for a bit, and i did her work; then, when she came back, matron went away for a fortnight, and i stayed on in the office helping the assistant. it was rather interesting learning the ins and outs of the "administrative department," but i am still convinced that it is no catch to be a matron. sisters come to complain of a nurse, and you have to send for that nurse and scold her for her reported misdeeds, when, perhaps, all the time you have rather a feeling that sister has been unreasonable in what she has expected of the girl. then nurses have a way of sometimes getting ill, and it always seems to be the nurse whose place it is most difficult to fill; then matron goes out for the afternoon, saying to the assistant, "there are three extra nurses, and i have sent them to wards a., b., and c., where they are busy, so no one is likely to ask you for another extra," and as soon as she has gone a house surgeon runs in to say he has sent in a very bad diphtheria case to ward d. for immediate tracheotomy, and can i send specials over at once? i look on the list to see who the three extras are, and find not one of them is suitable to take on the case--one is going for her holiday in a few days and the other two are quite juniors--so i rack my brain to think which of the ward nurses is most suitable, and fix upon pro. 1 in ward a., as she has nursed one or two tracheotomies; so i have to interview sister a., and she is most reluctant to give up her pro. 1, and is quite certain matron would not have taken her away, but i have to be firm and try to console her by sending her the best extra in place of pro. 1 (thereby incurring black looks from sister b., who is quite sure her ward is far heavier than sister a.'s!); some one ought to be sent to bed to be ready to act as night special, but i conclude that can wait till matron returns, as she may have some nurse she has promised to put on as special. that is the sort of work the assistant matron has to do--a good deal of fagging about and acting as a sort of buffer between the sisters and the matron, much writing of letters and other work in the office, and a good deal of carving at meal times--one sunday i carved roast beef for seventy nurses, some of them day nurses and some of them night. i had just come to the end of my time in the office (i was still a lady pupil then), when an appeal came to the matron to lend two staff nurses to one of the large london infirmaries, where they had a great many nurses ill. i volunteered to go (as i thought it would be a new experience), and then another lady pupil also volunteered. it was a pouring wet evening in march when we set off in a hansom cab, the other lady pupils rather jeering at us, and saying that when _they_ went to the workhouse they should do the thing correctly in an aged four-wheeler! we had no idea where the infirmary was, but trusted to the cabby, and after a long drive he turned into a stone-paved yard and drew up at a heavily-barred door; it looked more like a prison than an infirmary, but i got out in the rain to explore, and after a little while i managed to explain to the old man in charge that i did not wish to apply for admission to the casual ward, but to find the infirmary. he told me that was more than a mile farther on; so the weary horse plodded on once more, and eventually brought us to an imposing building, where, in three weeks of hard work, we learnt many things. they were very busy and very short-handed. i was sent to a women's medical ward of thirty-two beds, but the place was so full that i had thirty-six patients, the extra ones sleeping on mattresses on the floor. for the first week, whenever a patient came in, i had to consider which of those in beds was the most capable of turning out and descending to the floor, to make room for the new-comer, but after that things quieted down, and before i left the patients were reduced to the correct number. there was a sister in charge of my ward and of another one just opposite of the same size. for a few days i worked with the staff nurse, and then she had to leave, and i was left to do the work of the ward with the help of a probationer, who came in for an hour and a half every morning, and who relieved me when i went off duty every other day; and on the alternate days, when the staff nurse from the opposite ward was off duty, i had to patrol her ward at intervals, and give the probationer any help she needed. at first i was appalled at the small number of the nursing staff for so many beds, but i soon found that everything was done in a way very different from our hospital methods, and that if we worked hard and fast it was possible to do all that was really necessary for the patients, but quite impossible to do the little faddy things that make so much difference to their comfort. for one thing, the convalescent patients were expected to do a great deal of the routine ward work, and, as a rule, the convalescents stayed in much longer than they do in a hospital, so they were more fit to assist, but this hardly applied to my short time in the infirmary, owing to the great pressure on the beds; also i found that there were only about six or eight out of the thirty-six patients really acutely ill, so i was able to give most of my attention to them--three of them were absolutely helpless, and needed much care and nursing. the rest of them were chiefly old ladies who were just not strong enough for the workhouse life, and so were drafted into the infirmary; most of them were able to get out of bed and potter about the ward. this they loved to do with very scanty clothing on--rather to my horror--and i found that when a doctor was sighted on his way to the ward it was best to clap my hands vigorously, when all the old dames scuttled into bed like so many rabbits into their holes. poor old things, several of them had evidently seen better days, and there were many sad stories to be listened to, and they did so much appreciate the little i could do for their comfort. it was very hard work, as one always seemed to be working against time, but i quite enjoyed my three weeks in the infirmary. matron had not told us we were to be paid for this work, so when we each received £6. 6s. for the three weeks, we felt very rich! we were quite glad to return to our good old hospital, and since then i have been doing sister's holiday work, and now i have just been appointed sister in the front surgery (where all the new cases and accidents come in); it is utterly different from being in the wards, but i think i shall find it interesting--at any rate for a time. i shall wait to tell you about it until i have been here a little longer, and have taken my bearings more correctly. xvi general hospital, london, _january 1896_. i think i shall be rather glad when i get a ward of my own and settle down; but every one seems to think i am lucky in getting such varied experience, so i suppose i ought to be grateful, and it is not yet two years since i first entered here. i spent six months as sister in the front surgery, and it was very interesting. there had never been a sister in charge there before, but just one old staff nurse, who had let the dressers do just what they liked, and there was a lot of waste and much disorder. matron gave me a very good probationer, and she was just as keen on getting the place nice and trim as i was. it took us a week or two to get all the drawers &c., scrubbed out and tidy, and a good many more weeks before we got all the splints sorted and padded. the medical superintendent was pleased, because i managed to reduce the cost of dressings every week from £10 to £7 before i had been there a month, and it was still further reduced after a few more weeks. of course it is difficult for young dressers (who come on for only three months at a time) to understand how much difference a little extravagance in each dressing makes in the weekly bills; and they can't be expected to know the relative value of different kinds of wool, &c., unless it is pointed out to them, but as a rule, when they do understand, they are quite willing to use the cheaper dressings (for cases where they do just as well) provided that we keep a supply ready to their hands. i often wonder whether, when people go round a hospital and see the rows of white beds and clean patients, and everything neat and tidy, they think the patients arrive here looking like that. very often in the wards, when the porters have carried up an accident case on the stretcher, i have hardly known how to get the man's dirty clothes off, and it takes time before you can get them reasonably clean; but in the wards you always receive a note or a message by the porter from the house surgeon, with a rough diagnosis of what the case is, so that you know which limb to be especially careful in moving. but it is different when you receive a patient in the front surgery; the policemen tramp in and deposit the stretcher on the floor, and there is much mopping of their foreheads before they tell you roughly what they know of the accident, and then you have to proceed to find out for yourself what is the extent of the injury, and often the patient is quite unconscious, so he cannot help you at all. i think at first i had a dim notion that every case that was carried in on a stretcher was sure to be admitted to the wards, but one soon learns that a good many of these cases are more frightened than hurt, and after a little rest and a thorough overhaul by the house surgeon they are able to go home again; on the other hand, every now and then a man who has had a very serious accident will manage to walk up to the hospital, and he may even sit down amongst the other waiting patients and quietly wait his turn to be seen, unless you happen to be on the look-out, and note that he is looking ill, and get him on to a couch for immediate attention. there is generally plenty doing in the front surgery, and whenever any of the men have nothing better to do they stroll in to see what is going on, so one hears all the gossip of the place; very quaint, too, are the tales the patients tell of their symptoms. i am not good at remembering these things, but there was one old lady who said the doctor told her that she had "the brownkitis, and that all her tubs (tubes) were full up." sometimes we had exciting times. i remember one morning when i came on duty the night nurse reported that a bad case of compound fracture of the jaw and other injuries had come in, and been taken straight up to the theatre, and that the house surgeon and all the available dressers were busy with it then. she had no sooner gone away than in tramped four big policemen with a stretcher, which they deposited on the floor; on uncovering the patient i found a poor man on whose head several heavy planks had fallen. part of the scalp was torn up, and it was bleeding profusely. i sent my probationer flying to the theatre to ask for some one to come to help, and then i made one policeman put pressure with his finger on an artery on one side of the head and another policeman on the other, while i collected some dressings, forceps, &c. much to my astonishment, first one policeman fainted and subsided on the floor, and then the other one did the same (the other two had gone outside); then the probationer returned to say the man in the theatre was bad, and they could not spare any one, but some one would come as soon as possible. just then the police inspector walked in, and his look of astonishment at his two prostrate men was very fine, but he called the other two men to move them, and then he gave me the help i needed, while the probationer and i did what we could to stop the hæmorrhage; it was pretty well subdued by the time the house surgeon got down, but he saw at once it was a bad case, and took the man straight up to the theatre. as soon as he had gone we dosed the two policemen with mist. ammonia, but it was a little while before they were fit to return to duty, and then we were just thinking we would begin our much delayed morning's work when, strangely enough, two men were carried in dead, the two stretchers arriving within a few minutes of each other; one was a suicide from the thames, and the dressers tried artificial respiration for some time, but the poor chap was quite dead; the other was a poor old gentleman who had apparently died of heart failure when hurrying to catch a train. we saw a great many infectious diseases in the front surgery, and had to keep them in an isolation room till the fever ambulance came to fetch them. i remember one day when we had samples of nearly all the infectious fevers to despatch--first came a case of smallpox, then one of scarlet fever, then one of diphtheria, and there were also cases of measles and chickenpox, but these had to be sent back to their homes. there was quite an outbreak of smallpox just then (i think we had twenty cases in the front surgery in one week), so everybody in the hospital who had not been recently vaccinated had to be done, and we were all very sorry for ourselves for a time. another little episode in the front surgery was when a baby took us all by surprise by being born there! we should have sent it on to the infirmary, but the mother was rather bad, so we had to take them in. one sunday evening i was in chapel when i heard some one come to the door, and then the porter came to fetch me, and at the door i found one of the dressers who told me there was a bad compound fracture in the surgery, and the house surgeon would be glad if i would come, as he wanted to give an anæsthetic. when i got there i found a crowd of men all standing round a poor little dog with a badly crushed leg! so we got some suitable splints, and they gave it an anæsthetic and put up the fracture; then they sent word to the male accident ward to get a fracture bed ready for a patient, and the porters were secured to carry it along on a big stretcher. it was in the hospital for some weeks, and got quite well again. just before christmas the matron was obliged to go home for a time, so once more i was asked to go on duty as assistant matron. christmas is always a busy time all over the hospital, and in the office (with the matron away) we had more than enough to do--so many presents to receive and acknowledge and distribute, and many visitors to show round, &c. then, after christmas, a good many nurses got ill (some with influenza), and every one seemed to be wanting special nurses at the same time, and all were quite hurt that i could not make new nurses to order. so i was not sorry when the sister of the nicest ward in the hospital told me that she had been appointed matron of another hospital (she had been here for years), and as she knew nothing of office work she wanted to ask matron if she would have her in the office for a few weeks' experience. i thought it would mean that i should go back to the front surgery, and i was quite pleased, but instead of that, matron wrote to ask me to take over that sister's ward for a couple of months, as she had not got a suitable sister ready to take it permanently (it is always given to one of the seniors here); so i was still more pleased, especially when i found that the pay was at the rate of £10 a year more than for the other wards. this is an awfully nice ward of thirty-two beds, in two divisions--one for men, and one for women and children. it is chiefly for medical cases, but there is a small theatre attached, and a good many abdominal operations are done; there is also a private ward, to which the surgeons can send any operation cases that need especial attention; and they have special nurses. in the wards i have a good staff, as it is always considered the most acute ward in the hospital, and i can generally get an extra nurse if i want, so i don't do much actual nursing myself, but there seem to be doctors constantly going round whom i have to attend, and somehow i always seem to be busy. the longer i am in hospital the more i see how much harder it is to be responsible for other people's work than just for your own, and i can quite understand why so many of the staff nurses much prefer to do all the best part of the nursing themselves than to teach the probationers and let them do it; but it is a wrong principle, as the probationers must be taught, and we must learn to trust others (even when we know we could do things quicker and better ourselves), and to increase the trust just in proportion as we find them worthy of it; that is where the art of the teacher comes in! xvii general hospital, london, _december 1896_. i think i last wrote when i had just taken charge of c. ward for two months. i had a most interesting time there, and was quite sorry to give it up, but it was hard work. unlike the other wards, that "take in" new cases for a week and then have a rest, c. is always "taking in," as the men in charge see every new case that comes up to the hospital (except accidents), and they can take them in if they like, as long as there are any beds empty in the ward; and if they don't think it is a particularly interesting case, it is passed on to the house surgeons or house physicians for the other wards; but, of course, they try their best to get all the most interesting cases for themselves; consequently the sister is never free to go out with any confidence that no new cases can be landed in while she is away; and when you do go out you generally find on your return that something has happened that makes you wish you had never gone! still i learnt a great deal in my time in that ward, and i enjoyed it. the physicians' talks with the students over these "selected cases" were most instructive. soon after i took charge we had a run of tracheotomies; the first was a dear, fat baby of thirteen months, but it had diphtheria very badly, and was not a hopeful case from the first; not many hours after it was operated upon another came in--a sweet little boy of three called "alex." he was much relieved by the operation, and got on so well; but the poor baby ran a temperature of 106° all through the second day, and died late that evening with a temperature of 108°, in spite of all we could do for it. i believe we were much more cut up about losing it than the mother was; she did not seem to mind a bit, and apparently had made all her plans for the funeral beforehand--and it was such a pretty baby too! the special nurses i had for these tracheotomies had never nursed one before, so you can imagine i could not leave them alone much, and was thankful i had had a good many to nurse when i was a lady pupil. we had one very curious case. a young man was brought in unconscious one afternoon about 2 p.m.; a little after five he got worse, and his respiration suddenly stopped, the pulse went on steadily, so they did artificial respiration; this went on till 9.30 p.m., and then they decided to trephine, thinking it must be a cerebral tumour pressing on the brain; of course no anæsthetic was necessary, as the poor man showed no sign of life except that the pulse was beating; they could not find any tumour, so he was put back to bed, and the men went on doing artificial respiration all through the night in turns, until the pulse suddenly stopped at 9.15 a.m., sixteen hours after the respiration had ceased--a very strange case. we often had rushing days, when it seemed impossible to make time for meals, and scarcely time to breathe. i remember one day especially, when we took in seven new cases, two of them, curiously enough, men from quite different districts, who had both taken oxalic acid with a view to suicide; one was an old man who was very bad for a day or two, and then seemed to be getting better, but died suddenly one night from heart failure; and the other was a poor young fellow of thirty, who had been waiter in one shop for eight years, and was then turned off by a new manager and replaced by a german lad. he had a wretched wife who drank, and she took away his clothes and then disappeared; so we had to rig him up in a suit when he went off; one of the other patients gave me five shillings for him, and he asked me to keep it till he had been before the magistrates, as he thought he would be sent to prison, but he came back after his appearance in the police courts to tell me he had been let off with a caution, and he thought his old master would take him back; such a nice, quiet-mannered man, and most anxious to do anything to help the nurses in their work, or to wait on the other patients, and they all liked him. the same day one of the house surgeons was admitted with a badly poisoned arm, and a friend of one of the students with typhoid fever; he had it very badly and caused us much anxiety, but pulled through all right in the end. after this spell in c. ward i expected to return to my front surgery, but instead i was offered in march (and gladly accepted) the post of night sister, and that is what i have been doing ever since, except for an interval for my summer holiday, and also for a few weeks when i took charge of a large male medical ward while the sister had her holiday. being night sister here means plenty of running about, and plenty of responsibility, but it also means better pay than ward sister, so that suited me all right. they are talking of having two night sisters soon--one medical and one surgical--and there would be plenty of work for two, as we have a good deal of theatre work in the night, and sometimes i cannot help being worried when i am kept long in the theatre with urgent cases, and i know there are bad cases over in the medical buildings (sometimes with only rather junior nurses in charge of them), and i can't get round to visit them. i have charge of about six hundred beds, and they are divided into twenty-one wards (of course nurses in each ward and two nurses in the large wards); i have to go all round three times every night, and run in much oftener to see any bad cases, and the nurses send for me in any difficulty; there is a slate in my office for messages, and when i return after my rounds i often find two or three messages, "please come at once to p."; "please come to n.--urgent," and so on, and i have to fly to whichever i think is likely to be the most urgent. the morning round always takes the longest, as all the patients are then awake, and i have to say good morning to them all, and remember to ask after their particular aches and pains, and it is not very easy to remember what is the matter with them all, though i know very well all the details about those who are very ill and have much done for them in the night. there is one place i don't enjoy visiting, and that is the strong room at the top of the surgical buildings. lately we seem to have had so many men who go off their heads (generally from drink), and if they are left in the wards they disturb the other patients so much that it is better for them to be moved, and then they have male attendants up there; but these male attendants are not members of our regular staff (i wish they were), and i never feel that i quite know their capabilities, or how much i can trust them, and more than once i have found them asleep; so i have to go up very often when any patient is bad there. i remember one night we had a very lively time of rushing about. we began with a man who had cut his throat--not very bad, but he had to go up to the theatre; then a lady who had taken three ounces of laudanum, and the doctors had to keep her walking up and down the corridor, with a weary porter on each side of her, for six hours before they thought it safe to let her turn into a bed; then i was called to a poor man in ward p., who got worse, and died rather suddenly--a phthisis case; next a tracheotomy came in, and had to be done at once, and while we were all busy with it a baby was born in ward d.; but the day sister had to be called to attend to that, as i was mixed up with the diphtheria case, and could not go near a confinement; then a fractured femur came in, and next an acute pneumonia--rather delirious. in the intervals of receiving these new cases and sorting them to the different wards we had to brew strong coffee and administer it to the lady who had taken poison, and provide refreshments for the porters who were minding her. in the early morning she was allowed to go to bed and to sleep; she recovered very soon, and i don't think she will do it again! i joined the royal national pension fund for nurses a few months ago; it seems to be a good thing, and if i can only keep up the premiums i shall have the noble pension of about £20 or so when i am fifty; it will keep me in extras when i retire to the workhouse, as i am certain no one can go on nursing for a great many years at the pace we have to go in hospital. just now i am having a rest (and another sister is rushing about on night duty), as i have been warded for the past fortnight, and in a few days i hope to go home for a change. i had a cold for many weeks, and did not pay much attention to it, as i thought it was only because i was about all night and did not get enough sunshine to help me to throw it off; but then i got very bad headaches, so i had to see a doctor, and he passed me on to our nose specialist, who has been most awfully kind, coming down every day, and sometimes twice a day, to see me. it was not really a cold, but some disease in the antrum, and he has done two small operations for me, and it has been horridly painful, but now it is getting well rapidly, and every one has been most awfully good to me, and i am beginning to feel less of a limp rag than i have done for some time past. it was funny spending christmas as a patient instead of running about looking after the patients; but it was nearly my first day up, so i was glad enough to be lazy, and i have had many visitors, so it has not been dull at all. xviii general hospital, london, _september 1897_. just now i am feeling so sorrowful at the prospect of leaving this hospital (my home for the last three and a half years) that i hardly know how to give my attention to telling you how the last few months have been spent. no, i have not been turned out, and they have given me a first-class certificate, and are good enough to say that they are very sorry i am going, and perhaps they will have me back again some day! i think i was warded when i wrote to you last, and after that they sent me home for a little rest. whenever i go home some one in the village gets ill, or some child gets scalded, or some accident happens; they seem to think it is necessary to keep my hand in; but during that visit home my only patient was poor jessie, the family cat! it was sunday evening, and we were all sitting in the dining-room just after prayers, when poor jessie hobbled in, really screaming with pain. one leg had evidently been caught in a trap, and there was a bad compound fracture which she could not bear me to handle, so i said we must either have some chloroform or the poor dear must be shot. the nearest doctor (and chloroform) was three miles away, but c. volunteered to fetch some, and went off on his bicycle, while i prepared some splints and strapping, &c., and poor jessie used bad language under the table. i have sometimes had to hold an obstreperous child while it has been given chloroform, but that is nothing to holding a cat! however, at last we got her under, and then put the fracture in good position and stitched up the wound, securing the leg very firmly on splints; this operation was watched with much interest by all the family and most of the servants; at first the cat would not come to, but we put her in a hamper with plenty of fresh air, and when she _did_ come to, the language she used was "something awful," but she soon settled down and made a good recovery. my people were very anxious for me to say i could not go back to the hospital at the end of my fortnight's sick leave as the cat was still in splints, but i had to leave her to my assistant. then i returned to duty as night sister again, and everything went on much as usual--generally rather more work than i could do well, and sometimes rushing nights of accidents and emergencies, when it seemed almost impossible to fit in all that had to be done. it seems that every year more operations are done; the cases are sent out more quickly, and so make room for more acute cases, and so the work grows, but the number of nurses does not grow in the same proportion. in february there was an urgent call for nurses to volunteer for plague duty in india, so i sent in my name--thought it would be a useful experience--and i wasted much time hanging about the india office for interviews, &c., but eventually they were unkind enough to say i was not strong enough, and refused to send me. _who_ would look very strong after acting for a year as single-handed night sister for a hospital of six hundred beds? then the authorities made a change, and they decided to increase the night staff by the addition of eight more nurses and one more sister. i was only on for a short time after this came into force, just to set things going, and then i was appointed day sister of m. ward, the women's surgical ward, where i had worked as a lady pupil, and knew and liked the surgeons so much. since i was lady pupil there, and before i was appointed sister of the ward, they had had several changes of sisters, and no one who had been there long enough to take much interest in it; so there was room for improvement, and the surgeons have been so awfully kind to me that i have had a very nice time. in that ward my bedroom opened out of my sitting-room (attached to my ward), and we had one very exciting night there. since the night staff were increased the nurses have had one meal during the night down in the dining-hall, and there are some probationers who relieve our staff nurses while they go down to this meal. i was fast asleep one night when a probationer rushed into my room, "oh, sister, come quick, it's all blazing!" i seized my dressing-gown, and was in the ward in a few seconds thinking that she had set the place on fire with the airing sheets (of course my proper nurse was down at her meal); but it was a house just across a narrow road that was indeed all blazing, and my ward was brilliantly lit up by the flames, and the poor patients were all awake, and some of them quite terrified. i turned on all the lights, so that they should not see the glare, and then we did our best to reassure them that there was no danger. two poor women with fractured femurs and their legs slung up to hodgin splints had already hopped out of their beds, and were literally tied by the leg, and they were all begging for their clothes; so i let two convalescents go to the clothes cupboard and put round the clothes to each bed, or dressing-gowns for the helpless ones, while we got our fire-hose out in case of need; but the firemen very soon got the fire under. two of our students, who lived in the house which was on fire, had to jump for their lives, and lost all their belongings, and one of them broke his leg. it was really a bit alarming, as the ward got so hot and smoky, but the patients soon settled down again, and after we had readjusted splints, &c., no one was any the worse. i had to take my month's holiday in june this year, rather earlier than i like (as it always seems more difficult to work when you come back to face all the hot weather), but we can't all have our holidays in the best months. a young brother and a sister and i agreed to spend a fortnight about our old haunts in switzerland, and we had such a jolly time together. of course we went first to paris, and were fascinated with the shops, but tore ourselves away from them to visit the venerable notre dame, and then to spend a little time in the louvre, but it was only time enough just to make us determined to stay longer in paris on our way back. in the afternoon we took one of the boats up the seine, and afterwards went for a walk in the bois de boulogne--a delightful breathing-place for the parisiennes--good roads, lovely trees, and greenery, and yet quite near to all the bustle of the town. the next day we had a hot and dusty journey on to geneva, rather afflicted by the presence of some old ladies who wished to keep all the windows shut--it is strange how these petty discomforts fix themselves in one's mind! at geneva we had vast, big rooms just looking over the lake, in the hotel des bergues, and we took a sabbath-day's rest there, finding a nice service in the english church, and for the rest of the day wandering about near the lake and up the river. the next day we felt more energetic, and b. went off for a trip round the lake by steamer, while we went up salève by steam and electric tram, a lazy way of proceeding, but it was rather an exciting journey crawling up the face of the mountain, and then such a view from the top; mountains, mountains everywhere, and grand old mont blanc poking his head over the top, and down below the lake so still and blue, with green trees down to its edge, and then the trees growing darker as they grow higher up, until they stop and the snow-line begins. the next day we moved on to chamonix; the train went only as far as cluses, and from there we had a drive of twenty-five miles by diligence. it was a delightful drive on a bright, sunny day; at every turn we seemed to get fresh views of mont blanc, and each view seemed more beautiful than the last. we walked a good part of the way while the horses climbed the hills, and we found many varieties of wild flowers and plenty of wild strawberries. chamonix is a charming place, but one wanted more time just to loaf about and enjoy the views. the mer de glace is, perhaps, the most noted glacier in switzerland; it is within easy distance of chamonix (about two hours' walk), and it is a wonderful sight, but somehow i can't describe it, it is all too solemn and grand. i always feel the truth of what the psalmist says about the men that go down to the sea in ships: "these men see the works of the lord and his wonders in the deep," and i think the same applies to those who climb into the heights of the mountains, but i suppose he had not had that opportunity! we left chamonix with regret, and walked from there over the col de balme to martigny; i think it was about twenty miles, but you can walk twice as far in switzerland as you can in england without being tired, the air is so clear and bracing. it was a lovely tramp, beautiful flowers and ferns, and rushing streams and waterfalls; the last part of the way was trying, as it was very steep going down into martigny, and the path was paved with little cobbles, so that we arrived rather footsore. from there we trained to glion, a very favourite place with us, just perched above chillon, with lovely views of lake leman, of chillon castle, and the fine old dent de midi at the end of the lake, and it is within easy walking distance of montreux. there are many nice walks and climbs about glion, and the flowers--gentians, narcissi, &c.--were perfectly lovely. then we had to turn homewards, and found that we could spare only one night again in paris (we had meant to stay longer): still it gave us a little more time to examine the treasures of the louvre. we had a small excitement in the afternoon. we had been walking through the flower market when a shower of rain came on. we sheltered under one of the stalls, and while we were there we heard what we thought was a sharp clap of thunder, but it proved to be a bomb exploding in the place de la concorde, but no one was seriously hurt. when we got back to london it was very busy with preparations for the queen's diamond jubilee, which was duly celebrated with much rejoicing all over the country before i returned to work in town. now, i had better explain why i am leaving here. i have promised to go as nurse to one of the hotels up the nile (either to luxor or assouan, where they always have a doctor and one nurse through the winter season), with a patient who has spent the last eight winters in egypt. he is now very ill, and still he wants to go, as he can live so much more comfortably in that climate. his mother can't go with him at present, and they can't bear to let him go alone, so i have promised to go to see him through the voyage (we are going by long sea) and to be at hand in case he should get worse before his mother can join him. you know i love travelling, so in a way i am glad, but i don't think i am fitted for private nursing, and i am a bit nervous, and also it will be anxious work if my patient gets worse out there, but somehow i could not refuse. it is just horrid saying good-bye to every one and everything here. i will write again soon from the sunny south. xix helouan, egypt, _november 1897_. here we are in lovely sunshine (the thermometer at 80° in the shade), just on the edge of the desert, and quite contented to rest a while (after a very anxious voyage) before we move on up the nile. we sailed from london on october 1st, and had a smooth trip down the channel, but i soon found my patient was much more of an invalid than i had expected, and was afraid he would get cold before we got into a warmer climate. the first sunday out we ran into a dense fog off cape finisterre, and our morning service was somewhat disturbed by the constant hooting of the foghorn; some of the passengers jumped up from their knees at each hoot, and the captain cut the service rather short and went up on the bridge. in a couple of hours we emerged into lovely sunshine, which soon dried the wet decks and awnings, but the next day, as we were putting on full steam to get into gibraltar before sunset, we again ran into a thick bank of fog, and eventually had to change our course and put out to sea until the morning, as they are not allowed to run through the straits after sunset. the next morning i was up on deck before five, just as we were running into gibraltar, and to watch the sun rise from behind the great rock was a most impressive sight. we had a pleasant trip down the mediterranean until we entered the gulf of lyons, and then the wind got up, and there was a nasty cross sea which made most of us feel squeamish and not sorry when we anchored at marseilles early one morning; but there we had to tranship to a smaller steamer, and it was raining and cold, and when we got on board the _clyde_ we found they were still coaling, and that the lighter with all our baggage on board was not likely to come for some time, so we could not establish ourselves in our cabins. as there seemed no comfortable place on the boat, we concluded the best thing to do was to take a cab and drive up to a hotel to get warm. then i went out to buy fresh cream and grapes, and to find out exactly at what time it was necessary to be on board. i shall never forget the storm of that night after we left marseilles. i tried to make some hot arrowroot; with much patience i managed it over a spirit lamp, which i wedged into my washing basin with supports; of course the tin of milk could not be trusted to sit on the top of the lamp, so i had to hold it there, and it was not an easy matter as i was flung from side to side in my cabin; then i found that a linseed poultice was indicated, so i again retired to my cabin and wrestled with the spirit lamp, and thought how little one appreciates the conveniences of a modern hospital until one has to do without them. after that the groans and fearsome noises from other cabins around us were very bad, and i, who have always prided myself on being a good sailor, actually succumbed for an hour or two; but i dragged myself up again in the early hours of the morning to make another poultice, and by breakfast-time the sea began to go down, and the sun came out, but it was several days before some of the passengers crawled up on deck, looking like limp rags, and the tables in the saloon were very empty until just before we reached alexandria. we stayed some hours at malta, and i had an interesting drive round the place. from alexandria we had meant to go straight on to cairo, but eventually agreed it was best to stay a night at a hotel in alexandria to rest before the dusty train journey. we had a wretched night, and, not knowing how to find a good doctor if i needed one, i felt very lonely in a vast hotel where no one seemed to speak english. the next day we managed to journey on to cairo in the morning, and rested at shepherd's hotel until the evening, and then moved on to this place--about half an hour by rail from cairo, and actually on the borders of the desert. we have many friends in cairo, and there is a good train service, so they often come out to spend the day with us, or for the afternoon, and then sometimes i go into cairo to do necessary shopping or to pay some visits. cairo is a very gay place, and the people very pleasant and friendly. one day i went to lunch with some friends, and they drove me to see the citadel (driving all through the native quarter of the town), and then we had tea with the sisters at the military hospital--a rambling big place, designed for a palace and not for a hospital--and they seemed very full up with enteric patients. then we went to see the mosque, and were seized by the feet by several arabs, who tied on sandals for us before we went inside, and in these we were allowed to flop about. the mosque is a vast dome, nearly all marble and alabaster, with a lovely alabaster fountain, where the people wash their feet before going in to pray. we walked all round the fortifications, and had a splendid view of cairo, and then drove back to town just in time to see the khedive arrive from alexandria; a stout, sad-looking young man, his native escort very smart, and riding such beautiful little horses. another day i was invited to bicycle out from cairo to mena house; so i went into cairo by the early morning train, and mounted a hired bicycle for the nine-mile ride to mena house hotel. the first two miles seemed very perilous, as our route lay all through the town, and many water-carts made the roads very slippery, and electric trams and steam trams rushed about in a most confusing way, and natives in swarms (many of them blind) seemed to take a pleasure in strolling in our track, and stupid donkeys and sad-eyed camels with unwieldy loads kept turning about in unexpected directions, and looking at us in a reproachful way, as much as to say they thought bicycles _quite_ out of place in their country. the narrow bridges over the nile were thick with traffic, and i was quite glad when we got out to the open country and on to a good road with trees all along. we left our bicycles at the hotel, and walked out to the great ghizeh pyramids, really a most marvellous sight. the big pyramid covers as much ground as lincoln's inn fields; enormous blocks of stone, apparently just tumbled one on the top of the other, and yet the whole worked into such perfect shape. to think of how they can have brought these vast blocks of stone down, without mechanical help, from upper egypt (for there was no such stone to be found near there) is indeed wonderful. the temple, also, is a thing to marvel at, great blocks of granite and alabaster cut and fitted together so perfectly, the doorway as straight as possible, and to think that all this work was done from 3000 to 5000 years ago and is still as sound as ever. we had not time to climb the pyramid, but of course we paid our respects to the sphinx, and wished we could stay to see her by moonlight, when she is said to be even more impressive than in the daylight. they gave us a very good lunch on the balcony of the hotel, which is said to be the best managed in egypt; and i should think it would be a very pleasant place to stay at, nice airy rooms and a lovely marble swimming-bath at the back. as we rode back there was a good deal of wind against us, and i was out of practice and rather tired, so i found the crowded streets of cairo alarming, and was much relieved to give up my bicycle without having run over any one or damaged the machine. i think there was more of a crowd than usual, as the khedive had driven to the station to meet the king of siam, and we saw the whole procession pass on their way back to the palace. the king of siam was very gorgeous in a white uniform with much gold lace, and his two sons were a somewhat curious contrast to the natives around, in their eton suits and top-hats; they are going up the nile on a private boat. helouan is beginning to fill up for the season (we were about the first arrivals), and we have many visitors. we are in comfortable lodgings, quite on the outskirts of the village; the servant who chiefly waits upon us is a fine arab with a black moustache, who stalks about in a white night-gown down to his heels, tied round with a red sash; he wears a red fez cap with a blue tassel, and red sandals on his feet; he does most of the housework, for which purpose he puts a housemaid's apron with a bib over his night-gown! his name is "abdul" (the "slave of god"); and there is a small arab boy called "ishmael," who runs messages, and is most interested in our doings. the mosquitoes are pretty bad at night here, and we have to sleep in nets. last week we had two days with a south wind blowing, and then the beasts--creeping, crawling, and flying--_were_ a trial; there were great wasps (quite three times as large as english ones), and horrid little beasts that look like bugs (only they fly and don't bite) settling on our dinner-table;--i am sure the south wind must have been blowing in the time of the plagues of egypt! i am busy collecting things that we want to take up the nile for our house, as we shall then be 450 miles from the nearest shop, and it is rather difficult, as i don't know at all what the house is like. there are so many things that i should like to do and see in cairo, but i have not time, as we are leaving by the first tourist steamer that goes up the nile, and i don't like to be out for any length of time, but i did manage a visit to the great native hospital, the kasr-el-aini, where i know several of the sisters. it is a very fine place with a very up-to-date theatre; the nurses are all natives (men for the male patients), but they all work under the english sisters. the sisters have a most delightful home, their dining and drawing rooms are very spacious apartments, and they each have a very large room, which most of them screen off into bed and sitting rooms. there is a special fund which provides a carriage and pair for their use, and they have a very good tennis court in their garden, in which they are "at home" one day each week, and the cairo people go to tea with them and to play tennis. i have not told you a word about the native bazaars and all the quaint sights of the cairo streets, but every one writes about them, and i find them too dazzling to describe. i could sit for hours on the balcony at shepherd's hotel just doing nothing but watch the people. take my advice, and come to see cairo some day, for it is a most fascinating place, and i am quite loth to leave it. xx luxor, upper egypt, _december 1897_. once more we have moved our camp, and though we managed the move with very little exertion for my patient, and are now settled in very comfortable quarters here, and he is pleased to be amongst old friends and in his old haunts, and the climate is perfectly beautiful, still it is sad to see that he is going downhill; so it has been arranged for his mother and younger brother to join us here, and we are counting the days till they arrive. we came up the nile on _rameses iii._, the newest of cook's tourist steamers, a very comfortable boat with nice airy cabins. i took all our baggage on board in cairo, but we had agreed it was better to avoid the noise and bustle of embarking in cairo, and that we should join the boat when she anchored a few miles away from helouan, at a place called badrachin. two of our doctor friends had meant to come to see us safely on board, but at the last moment they were both prevented, so we started off in an arabeyeh, escorted by a policeman mounted on a donkey, who had been sent to give us any help he could. much to my anxiety, before we had gone far, the sun had disappeared, and a sand-storm had got up, and by the time we had reached the nile it was quite cold, and the water was very rough with white waves showing. _rameses iii._ was anchored at sakkarah on the other side of the river, but our policeman rode on and signalled to them, and as soon as they saw us they sent off a boat to take us across; it was rather a perilous trip as the boat was a light one, and we shipped a good deal of water. i was thankful when we got safely on board, and found a good doctor and other friends to help us. the tourists--of whom there were not many, as this was the first trip of the season--were all away sightseeing at the sakkarah pyramids. strolling up the river on these steamers is a very pleasant way of travelling. though the banks of the nile are flat and there is a certain sameness about them, the lights are so wonderful that they never _look_ the same. i used to think that the only thing that it was really worth while having to get up early for was a day's hunting, but now i must add the sight of the sunrise on the nile, and as for the sunsets they are simply gorgeous, the intense red, gold, and orange as the sun sinks with the delicate blue above; and then you turn your back on the sun and face the rich indigo blue of the afterglow, and then in a few minutes it is all dark (no twilight here), and there is a solemn hush over everything. the steamers don't travel at night, and they stop at various points where there are interesting things to be seen, and then all the tourists troop off and mount the excellent donkeys, who seem to think nothing of the heaviest weights, but canter off to the tombs or the temples as though they quite enjoyed it. i had a very good ride on a big donkey called mahomet to the tombs of beni hassan, and another day i went ashore and had a good look round assiout. on the morning of november 23 i had a long ride out to see the temple of dinderah (a very beautiful temple), and then the same evening we reached luxor just at sunset, and walked up an avenue of palm-trees to the hotel, which just at this season is very empty, so we have large rooms on the ground floor, and there is a delightful garden, where at present we spend most of the day. we have a little house just across the road facing the hotel, and i am very busy getting it ready. as i am the only nurse here, if any visitors should come up ill, i should have to look after them; but so far people are behaving nicely. we have secured two good arab boys as servants--hassan and girgus. hassan can speak a little english, but girgus cannot, and it takes a long time to get much work out of people when you can't talk to them! you would be amused to see me wrestling with arab carpenters, who seem quite incapable of putting anything up straight, and with arab painters, who never get the same colour for two days together. the chaplain's wife, who came up the river with us, has gone on to assouan for a few days, and as she has left me her donkey to use, i get a little exercise every afternoon. the other day i had rather an amusing time. i had ridden out to karnak with miss l. to see the temple: it was very dusty, and we were very hot; and when we got into the shade of the temple we saw a party of people having tea, with two men in very gorgeous uniforms waiting upon them and a dignified dragoman standing by. i recognised the dragoman as one of cook's men who had helped us in cairo, and he gave me a sweeping bow as we passed. i said to miss l. as we moved away, "i am sure that nice dragoman would like to offer us some tea, and i do want some very badly," and we had not gone very far when the dragoman came after us with a visiting card and "sir g. n.'s compliments, and would the ladies accept a cup of tea?" so we joined the party and had a most pleasant tea, the dragoman having evidently explained who we were. they had come up on a dahabeah, and were staying only for one night now, but may return later on. they told us they thought they _must_ ride camels in egypt, so at keneh they all started off on camels, each with a boy attendant on a donkey, but all except one of the party returned on the donkeys, with the boys on the camels! the karnak temple is very beautiful; i have been to see it several times now, and find something new to gaze at every time i go; once i visited it by moonlight, and then it was most solemn. there is a very nice little hospital for natives in luxor, where they do a good many eye and other operations. the native doctor in charge has been most kind in lending me his horse, a perfect little arab that goes like the wind, and i have had some delightful gallops on the desert. all the houses in luxor are built of mud, or mud bricks, the bigger ones being colour-washed over, but often you see a little bit of straw sticking through the colour-wash just to remind you that it is "a house of straw." we are building a little summer-house out at karnak, and sometimes drive out there with our lunch and spend the day--the air is fresher away from the village and the cultivated land; and one of the engineers who is building the railway from cairo to assouan sometimes lends us his trolley on the line, and a couple of arabs shove us (with hassan in attendance) several miles out into the desert. we also do some sailing on the nile when there is any wind. _rameses iii._ stayed here a few days on her way down the river, and most of the passengers came to look us up. one evening they had a fancy dress ball on board. i went down for a little while, and it was such a pretty sight; the boat was moored close in, so that they could dance on deck and then stroll in the hotel grounds, and it was all lit up with japanese lanterns, and looked so pretty with the palms waving above. there was a gymkhana one day, and it was very good fun; camel races and buffalo races and all varieties of donkey races; one very amusing race was for gentlemen riding one donkey and driving another with long reins in front of him. the leaders would seldom go straight, and they got hopelessly mixed up in the reins, and had to be disentangled several times. a favourite amusement here is to play hare and hounds on donkeys. they have quite a big meet of hounds near the hotel, and the hares (three of them) have a long start to give them time to ride out to karnak, and then they have to try to ride back to the racecourse without being caught. the hounds are divided into three packs--the fast, the medium, and the slow; the master has to be a man of tact: he sends off with the fast pack the keen young tourists, many of them americans, the men riding in their shirt sleeves, and they gallop out to the boundary to drive the hares in; then the medium pack trot out in a business-like way, ladies and gentlemen, who are probably very correct in their costume for riding in the row, and who would not think of riding at home without a top-hat; and, lastly, the slow pack, consisting of people who (in some cases) hardly know a horse from a donkey, and who solemnly jog down to the racecourse and then loiter about to see the fun when the hares come in. the natives take a great interest in this sport, and call it "hunting the mahdi," but their sympathies seem to be entirely with the hares, and they give them every assistance by scouting about for the hounds, and secreting the hares and their donkeys in their mud houses when there is danger about. dr. r. and i were the hares one day, and we had a most exciting ride, but were caught at last just as we reached the racecourse. at one point i was hustled into a native house (just mud walls with no proper roof), and found a buffalo being milked in one corner and a baby lying on the ground in another, and from there i watched half-a-dozen hounds gallop past, thinking they were close on my heels, and when they got out of sight i doubled off in another direction. the donkeys seem quite to enter into the fun of the thing, and do their best, but sometimes they get excited and bray--inexcusable behaviour, which is most disconcerting when you are trying to hide in a patch of sugar-cane! xxi luxor, upper egypt, _january 1898_. it was difficult for us to realise the snow and cold that you had for christmas, while we were enjoying perpetual sunshine here. my patient is now established in his little mud house, just across the road from this hotel. i am thankful to say his mother and brother have arrived, so we share the nursing between us. it has been downhill work lately, and now he seldom leaves his bedroom, a large "upper chamber" with a nice view over the palm-trees to the nile. the nurse from assouan has come down to be with him at night, as i have been annexed by a poor lady in the hotel who is desperately ill; she came up from cairo with a very bad throat, and now that is better, but she is still very ill, and it is not quite clear whether it is typhoid fever or general pyæmia, but i am afraid, whatever it is, her strength cannot hold out much longer. i am with her for all the nights and part of the days, and go backwards and forwards to the house, and get some sleep in just when i can. there has been much excitement here about the rumour of war in the soudan, and now it is more than rumour, and the troops are being pushed up country as fast as they can. cook's people are in great trouble, as all their tourists going down to cairo have had to be turned off the boats at naghamadi (the present railroad head), and they have to go the rest of the way down by train, while the boats turn back to take the troops up to assouan. some regiments are being sent all the way by rail, in spite of the line not being yet finished. the engineers are working day and night. i met one of them just now, who said he was up to his eyes in work, and that he had twenty telegrams in his pocket, all different orders, and each contradicting the one before; so i said i supposed he did what he thought was right and hoped for the best! they have been busy here with an old tub of a steamer that has been used for years as a landing stage; with much tinkering at last they got the engines to work, and now she has gone wobbling down the nile to bring up stores. it was exciting when they first lit up the fires, as i hear she ran away and knocked pieces out of the road on the front. the oxfordshire and lincolnshire regiments have gone past, the men packed like sardines in the boats. i badly want to go up with them, but at present they don't seem to be sending any sisters, and my work is cut out for me here just at present. all the steamers that come up, besides being heavily loaded, are towing large barges with either men or stores in them, so there is a good deal of delay about our mails, &c. i expect you hear more of what is going on at the front than we do, as all the wires are blocked with service messages, and we hear only rumours; to-day we hear our troops have had a bad smash up near berber, and that they have lost a gunboat, but whether there is any truth in it or not is very doubtful. to-day the camerons are passing through here, and the natives are much excited at the kilts. i think they rather imagine that england has run out of men and has begun to send the women! somehow life seems very strange here just now; for one thing, there is the rustle and bustle of war in the air, then, at the same time, in this little place we are already having a stern fight against the enemy of disease, and all the time there are tourists filling up the hotel and making merry, and you hear them talk of the luxor meet of the sporting club, and which donkey they will secure as their mount, as though it was the most important thing in the world. until last week i still went for a ride now and then by way of refreshment. there is a doctor here who rides an enormous white syrian horse, and he was most kind in bringing me a beautiful little arab, and taking me out for a gallop when i could get away; the arab was too quick for the syrian, and often, having let it go, i had to wait for him afterwards. one day we were coming in from the desert and passed our chaplain, who afterwards amused my friends by telling them that i had passed him at such a pace on the arab that the wind i made nearly blew him off his donkey, and then about a mile behind something thundered past that at first he thought was a white elephant but afterwards concluded it was a watering-pot of a new fashion, as it left such a track of damp on the sand! one day the german consul took me to see his collection of curios (i believe he does a good deal of trading in them): he has got a splendid collection. i had to drink native coffee--which i can't abide--but before i left he gave me a beautiful little "antique," a little blue image that was found in a tomb near here, and probably dates from about 3000 b.c., so i forgave him the coffee! the other day miss c., the housekeeper at the hotel, knocked up with dysentery, and was very seedy for a few days. before she got well again there was an urgent call for more steamers for troops; so the steamer _rameses the great_, that happened to be moored here (meaning to stay four days while the passengers explored the place), suddenly had to turn all her passengers and their baggage off into the hotels and leave them there, while she did a trip up to assouan and back. the hotel was simply packed for five days, and the noise was very bad for our sick ones; poor miss c. was frantic at not being able to get about and see about rooms, &c., for all these people, so i had to do what i could to help her, but i was frightfully busy with so many ill. the nile is getting very low and "smelly," and we hear that they have several cases of dysentery at assouan, and there is a poor lady somewhere up the river on a dahabeah very ill with it, and there is no nurse within reach free to go to her. with all this urgent traffic on the river it is difficult to get things up from cairo (even urgent "medical comforts"), and you cannot imagine how many things one finds lacking for the sick ones from day to day, when you are 450 miles from the nearest chemist's shop, with uncertain communication by post or telegraph. i am always making raids on the little hospital, and the doctor there is most kind in helping us, but he is short of some things that he needs himself and cannot get--for one thing, the supply of chloroform is very nearly exhausted. we sent an urgent message (telegraph not available) by the last boat going up to assouan, and we hope the doctor there may be able to lend us some for the present. it seems weeks since i have had a night in bed; my poor lady is so ill that i can hardly leave her, and i just sleep in an arm-chair in her room when her husband sits by her for a time. the arab servants, especially hassan and girgus, are wonderfully attentive and good--in fact, all help us as much as they possibly can; but with people so desperately ill one does long for london, and the best physicians, and the best nurses to help one. it is not possible to do all one would wish for several patients at once both night and day; and having had so little sleep of late i am afraid of forgetting things, and i have to write all the orders down and tick them off as i carry them out. this letter has been written in scraps, and i am finishing it as i sit by poor mrs. ----; i must keep awake somehow till her husband wakes, then he will watch while i have a nap. i fear it is quite hopeless, and she has been unconscious for some hours now, so i cannot leave the poor man alone with her. xxii paris, _march 1898_. you would gather from my last letter that we were having a sad and trying time at luxor, and after i posted to you we had so much more of sadness and sorrow that it seems like a bad dream, and i can't write much about it. the poor lady died of pyæmia, and a few days later my patient was laid to rest in the little cemetery out in the desert that he loved so well. all the winter the tourists had been so fit and well up the nile (fortunately for me), but in january every one seemed to get ill, and they had quite an outbreak of dysentery. it began up at assouan, but two poor young ladies (travelling with a young brother) became very ill between assouan and luxor, and were carried ashore and brought to the hotel. our night nurse went off to nurse them, and as soon as i was free i had to go straight on to help her, as they were both desperately ill. it was my first experience of tropical dysentery, and in some ways it seemed almost more like cholera--nothing seemed to check it. a very good physician came up from cairo, and stayed some days trying everything to save them, and nurse and i were working night and day, but it was no use, and they both died within twenty-four hours of each other. then others got bad, and we had to go from room to room doing what we could for them, and wishing we either had half-a-dozen nurses, or else had all our patients in one hospital ward. gradually the others all began to improve, and we were beginning to think of going home, when i was telegraphed for to go up to assouan to nurse the bishop of ----, who was very ill; the nurse who was stationed up there also being laid up with dysentery. i was not pleased at having to go, as we were just packing up to travel home, clearing up the house, &c., and i was feeling very done up, but i could not well refuse, as there was no other nurse within reach; so i went off by the post boat, and spent most of the two days on board in sleeping, as i did not know how much work might be waiting for me, and i had a good deal to make up in the way of sleep. i find from my diary that between the 16th of january and the 3rd of february i had never had a complete night in bed, and sometimes even the odd hours of sleep were very few and far between. but when i got to assouan i found that every one was on the mend, and they hardly needed a nurse, so i stayed only a few days to help (and managed to explore philæ one afternoon), and then i left again by post boat for cairo, the doctor putting a lady, who had been very ill with dysentery, under my care, and giving me a little stock of medicines to use at my discretion, as the post boats--unlike the tourist boats--carry no doctor. we stayed an hour or two at luxor, so that i managed to collect my baggage and said many good-byes. all the inhabitants--including the servant boys and the donkey boys--seemed to be there to see us off, and they had all been so very kind to me through a very trying winter that i felt as though i had known them for years. there were pleasant people on board the boat, and the gentleman sitting next to me at table knew kimberley well, and knew my brother out there, so we had much talk about south africa. the boat was simply packed; and, as it was getting very hot, every one wanted to rush down the river at the same time. there were supposed to be thirty-two first-class berths, and the manager told me that there were fifty-five passengers on board--men sleeping in all the bathrooms, and the saloon full at night. i had a sort of little dog-kennel to myself in the second-class--not a bad little hole when i got there, but to get to it each time i had to cross the lower deck, where all the native passengers live and sleep. my sick lady improved as we got down the river, and it was very lucky she did, as before we reached cairo i became seedy with dysentery myself, and had to consume some of the drugs the assouan doctor had given me in case of need. the last day on board was exciting, as the nile was so low we kept banging on to sandbanks, and all the glasses were broken; and as many of the passengers had only just allowed time to catch their ship at alexandria, there was much anxiety lest we should stick fast. i saw my lady patient safely into good hands at mena house, and then just caught my friends in cairo (they had gone down from luxor when i went up to assouan), and after getting some advice from one of our good medical friends there, we went straight on to join our ship at alexandria. when i got on board i felt so absolutely done up, i had to turn straight into my berth, and the ship's doctor took me in charge. i believe he rather thought i was in for typhoid, and wanted us to go on to venice with them, so that he could look after me for a bit longer (as they stay some days at venice), but three days' rest at sea and some medicines pulled me together a bit, and i did not want to upset plans. we landed at brindisi, and spent an uncomfortable night in a hotel, because we found the sheets were very wet, and felt obliged to sleep in blankets, a thing i never enjoy. from there we had a train journey of eleven hours to naples, and we did an idiotic thing, for which we have not forgiven ourselves yet: we got up at 4.30 a.m., thinking our train started at 6 a.m., and when we got to the station found that our tickets were made out to travel by another route, and the train did not leave till 9.30 a.m.! naples was perfectly beautiful; from our windows such a glorious view of the bay and of vesuvius in the distance. we could not go up vesuvius as he was rather "active" just then, and some people who went up the day we arrived nearly got burnt with some hot lava. we went one day by steamer to sorrento (a place i should like to stay at some day), and then over to capri, and we explored the wonderful blue grotto there. capri is a sweet place, with such lovely flowers and ferns. another day we spent at pompeii, and wished we could spare more time for exploring the museum in naples, where most of the best things from pompeii are now shown; and then a drive we took along the bay to posilipo is one of the most beautiful drives i have ever enjoyed. from naples we moved on to rome. it is quite hopeless to try to "see" rome in anything under a month at least, so we did not try. the place seemed to be full of our egyptian friends, and we met them at every turn, so we had a very pleasant time there, and of course we did see _some_ of the sights. we spent some time at st. peter's and several more of the wonderful churches, and we explored the colosseum, and the forum, and the thermæ caracalla, and we went down some catacombs (and were very glad to get safely up again!); in fact, we saw just enough to make us wish to return some day with time (and money) to enjoy it all more fully. we then moved on to florence and had a few most enjoyable days there; the picture galleries were most fascinating--so many pictures that one has known and loved all one's life (from photographs), and will now love all the more for having seen the originals. the town is very interesting, and the surrounding country is lovely. our last day in florence was wet. this was disappointing, but as it was the first rain i had seen since last september i could hardly complain. we spent a night in the train, and then stayed a few hours in milan, just to see the very beautiful cathedral, and then got on board a corridor train to cross the st. gothard. near milan the fields were thick with primroses and anemones, and it was quite hot, but we soon got up amongst the snow, and then the scenery was simply grand. we stayed a few days with some swiss friends in zürich. they have a delightful house looking over the lake, and the snow mountains in the distance are such a restful sight. one day we went out by train, and then did a little climbing, and got up amongst the snow: it was so funny after all the scorching we have had just lately. from there we travelled by night on to paris; and now we have come to the end of our "saunter" across the continent, and i am sure it has done us all good, and has been most refreshing. i have just been out to get my hair shampooed, and i think i have now got rid of the last remains of egyptian dust. to-morrow we make tracks for england, and then i don't quite know what is to be my next move, but more work, i hope, of some kind or another. xxiii general hospital, london, _january 1899_. i don't think i have written to you since i slipped back into my work here. we got back from egypt in april, and i spent a little time at home and paid a few visits, and then the matron asked me if i would return to take charge of one of the women's surgical wards for four months while the sister was away on sick leave; so back i came at the beginning of july, and it seems as though i am likely to remain. i had such a nice welcome back from every one (from the surgeons down to the porters), that i soon felt quite at home again. at first it was rather strange, as they have changed the "off duty" times, and all the nurses get more time off, so that means you have more nurses, and when they were all on together it seemed such a crowd to me: in that ward for twenty-two beds and four cots i had a staff nurse, a senior probationer, and three other probationers, and two lady pupils, seven besides myself on day duty and a staff nurse and a probationer on night duty; but it is seldom they are all on at the same time, and i have to run around and see that those who are on attend to the work of those who are off, and that things are not neglected because "it is not my work"! it is nice for the nurses not to be so rushed as we used to be, but i am not quite sure that it is such good training; i don't think they feel quite so personally responsible for their patients' welfare as they did when there was no one equally responsible with them; it is rather difficult to explain exactly what i mean--for one thing, the staff nurses now have two days off together each month, so we have a senior probationer who takes over their work for those two days, and i find they get much more out of touch with what has been ordered for the patients than they did when they were away only for one day; but i am getting used to it now. the ward i had when i first came back was rather dingy, and i regretted all the nice flower-pots and vases i had left behind in the ward i had when i was last here, to say nothing of my nice stock of children's clothes (i had heaps of white sailor blouse tops for the small boys, and muslin pinafores for the little girls, with pale blue frocks to wear under the pinafores on high days and holidays); but i did not spend much on vanities in that ward, as it was not worth while for a short time, and the more fancy things you have the more it costs you in washing, as the hospital won't pay for vanities, though it does make a difference to the look of your ward when visitors go round, and the mothers just love to see their poor little kiddies dressed up "like a real little lady" instead of in flannelette! i liked both the night and the day staff nurse in that ward, and they were very nice to me (sometimes staff nurses are _not_ nice to a sister doing temporary work, as they often think they might have been allowed to do the sister's work themselves). the ward had been noted for never being without squalling babies, and i was rather amused to hear from another old nurse of mine that these staff nurses had learnt that i was very particular about tidiness, and very anxious that the babies should have no reasonable excuse for squalling; so they were determined to try to please me in those respects. one day i came down from the theatre (after being up for several operations) just at tea-time, and i thought the ward looked rather untidy, but i wanted my tea so badly and the ward-maid had it all ready for me, so, after taking a look at the operation cases, i--rather unwisely--concluded i would drink it before going round to tidy up, and, of course, before i had finished tea the matron came in, and i had to escort her round, inwardly fuming at some crumbs by a child's cot, and some of the trays brought down from the theatre and not put tidily away; but matron was very amiable, and when we got to the door she said, "sister, i never remember seeing the ward so trim and neat after a theatre afternoon, and not a single baby squalling!"--so of course i told the staff nurse, and she was mightily pleased. we had had a curious case in the theatre that afternoon--a poor little scrap of a baby, one day old, born with an imperforate anus; as soon as they began to give it an anæsthetic it stopped breathing, and after trying to revive it for some time the surgeon put on his coat and went away, but we continued doing artificial respiration, and eventually the child came round; so another surgeon (who was still in the hospital) came in, and he advised the house surgeon to do colostomy, which he did very rapidly, and the poor little mite was relieved, but it only lived a day. we had a first-rate house surgeon on just then, and he looked after his dressers well. you have no idea how slack and lazy the dressers sometimes get if the house surgeon is not keen, and it makes a vast difference to the patients' comfort. it happened to be our "take in" week when bank holiday came, and we had a very lively week. altogether we took in sixteen cases, but a few of them were injuries to arms or fingers, so they were able to go out again after a night or two, thus leaving beds free for others. on bank holiday itself things were pretty quiet until the evening, and then we had four accidents in two hours--an old lady of seventy-nine with a fractured femur, a baby with a scalp wound (fell from its chair on to the fender), a little child badly scalded, and a very big and fat woman with a fractured tibia and fibula, who, i was horrified to find, was expecting a baby to arrive very shortly, and as none of my nurses had had any experience of such things, nor had the present night sister, i felt obliged to keep within hail both night and day; but one sunday i thought it seemed safe to go out to church, and another sister promised to attend if required, and sure enough she _was_ required, but all went well, and the mother made a good recovery, and i think was rather pleased to go out with a fine healthy baby, having been saved all the expense of her confinement. when the sister of that ward returned, there was a small men's accident ward vacant, so i was offered that until a larger ward should be free. i was sorry to leave the children, but the new ward was under the surgeons for whom i had worked before i went to egypt, and i was glad to be on for them again. it was november when i moved my camp, and i seemed to have hardly had time to turn round before christmas was upon us, and a very bright and cheery christmas we had, in spite of the fact that we were "taking in," and the cases simply streamed in. altogether we admitted twenty-one cases during the week for our twenty beds. of course some kept going out, but we had to send our most movable patients to sleep in other wards, so as to keep a bed always ready for the next accident. amongst the cases we had two poor fellows who had cut their throats; one a lad of twenty-one who had had influenza, and the other a man of thirty-two who had been jilted by a girl. they both had tracheotomy done, and both did pretty well at first, but i don't think the younger man wanted to get better, and eventually he got pneumonia and died. the other man got all right again. all through christmas week they both had policemen sitting by them in case they should attempt suicide again, and these policemen were most useful in helping with the decorations. at the same time we had a big drayman in, who had fallen off his dray and got slight concussion of the brain. he did not get quite sensible for some time (though he was never very ill), and he was always trying to get out of bed, and whenever any one got up on the ladders to do a little decorating there would be a call that "no. 10 was getting out," and we all had to run to put him back and tuck him up again. these various interruptions made our decorations a very slow process, but eventually the ward looked very nice, and i think the patients had a very happy christmas; even the two poor cut-throat men seemed quite pleased and interested in their presents, though they were neither of them able to enjoy the privilege of a smoke, which all the other men (including the policemen) so much enjoyed on christmas day. one man who came in with a damaged knee told me that he was a rival "strong man" to sandow; and, as he was verging on delirium tremens for some days, we felt a little anxious until he calmed down; but he proved to be quite a nice patient. xxiv general hospital, london, _december 1899_. i seem to have been wasting a lot of time this year in being seedy in one way or another, so i don't think that i have much of interest to write to you about, and now that the war in south africa is making us all excited (as every one feels as if he ought to lend a hand), it is difficult to think of the trifles that have been filling up our lives for the last few months. after i wrote to you last, we had in yet another cut-throat who proved to be a lunatic, and he gave us a very lively time before we got him well enough to despatch to an asylum. one day he jumped out of bed in a great hurry (as he was very fond of doing if the policeman in charge took his eye off him for a minute), so the man in the next bed called out "halloa, mate, where are you off to?" to which he replied, "i've got a second-class pass for heaven, so i'm off," and it took some persuasion before he would believe that the train for that destination was not due yet. another night he proposed to the night nurse, as he thought they might get on well in "the fried fish line" together! it is strange how nervous men are with any one a little bit "off": even some of these big policemen always call out for us to come if a man gets restless. i am not a bit afraid of them, and can generally get them to do what i want with a little chaff; but i am heartily tired of having cut-throats in the ward: i seem to have had so many of them at one time or another, and they are a great anxiety. we had so many accidents in from the railway station near by last winter that the superintendent very kindly told me (as one of the accident sisters) i might have a free pass any week-end that i liked to apply for it to any station on their line; so i had a very good time going to visit friends and relations at the seaside when i was able to get away from saturday to monday; and they were first-class passes too, so that one could go by the fastest trains. one evening in may i found that a lad, who had been brought in with a broken leg, was peeling nicely all over, and we extracted a history that _might_ have meant a slight attack of scarlet fever, but it was so indefinite that the house surgeon did not believe it, and did not have him moved at once; and two days later another small boy developed scarlet fever, and then one of the nurses, and they began to talk about closing the ward; then one day i had a raging headache, but did not think anything of it, but when i went to bed (much to my disgust) i found i had a brilliant rash; and the next day the doctor came along and agreed in my diagnosis of scarlet fever, and offered to isolate me there or send me to the london fever hospital (paying), but i thought i would just as soon sample an ordinary m. a. b. hospital, so i took my departure in state in the fever ambulance, with a crowd of friends to see me off--from a safe distance--at the door. they made me very comfortable at the fever hospital, but i felt rather a fraud, as i had the fever so very mildly that i was never ill at all: no sore throat and no temperature after the first two days--in fact i think they doubted whether i had ever had it at all, and it was very slow work waiting to peel. having at last accomplished this process, i went back to the hospital to clear up my rooms, as a larger ward was going to be vacant soon, and matron wanted me to have it after i had taken a holiday. so i had a good time at home in the best of the summer weather, and paid a few visits, going down to the isle of wight and having some splendid bathing and boating there; but it is strange how it takes it out of one having scarlet fever, even when you have it as ridiculously mildly as i did, and i had a good deal of trouble with swollen feet and other forms of feebleness. in july i attended a very pleasant function at marlborough house, when the princess of wales presented me with my certificate of membership of the royal national pension fund for nurses, and i met many old friends amongst the one thousand odd nurses who were there. it was a scorching hot day, and there were some active non-commissioned officers of the scots guards who had their work cut out in marshalling the crowd of nurses for their march past; and we found it warm work standing in the sun, as we were wearing indoor uniform, and our caps were not much protection; but as soon as that was over we found plenty of shade under the beautiful trees, and were provided with ices and delicious plates of fruit and other refreshments. i knew a member of the household, and she very kindly took me round some of the royal apartments, and it was interesting to peep into the cool dining-room, with the lunch ready laid for the royalties to partake of as soon as they had dismissed us, but they stayed chatting with some of the nurses for some time, and altogether we spent a very pleasant time there. as i was travelling home afterwards in an express train we were suddenly pulled up with a tremendous jerk that threw us and our baggage about the carriage, and when we had picked ourselves up and could look out of the window, we discovered that our carriage was on fire. fortunately a signalman had noticed it, and telegraphed to the next signal-box to stop the train; we all had to bundle out at a country siding, and the carriage was taken off to be attended to by the men there, while we and our baggage were packed into the rest of the train--which already seemed quite full--and then we hurried on again; but if the signalman had not noticed it, it might have been very unpleasant for us. i went back to work early in august, and when i got to the hospital the doctor who generally looks after me was away. it never struck me that i needed to see a doctor, and the matron did not think to suggest it, so i took over my new ward and began to get things into shape and to my liking. it seemed to me that it was very hard work, but i just put it down to the fact that the weather was very hot, and that i had been slacking for so long; and i thought i must pull myself together; but in about a fortnight the doctor returned, and next day he came to see me and said i was not fit for work yet; so, much to my disgust, i was bundled off for more rest. towards the end of september i again got into harness, worked for about a fortnight, and then knocked up with acute neuritis in my head, with herpes, &c. i _was_ cross, but the pain in my head was too bad for me to worry about anything else. i was warded in a medical ward, given big doses of morphia at pretty frequent intervals, and generally fussed over, as i had the honour of being a "very interesting and unusual case." when my head got better the pain started down my legs--sciatica--so they kept me in bed for some time, and when i got up i was rather a wreck, and they said i must go south; so once more i went off to stay with some relations near southampton, and it was the middle of november before i eventually got back to work. just fancy having to take from may to november to get over scarlet fever and its effects, especially when the fever lasted only about a couple of days. of course every one who came to see me after i got back, wanted to know how long i had been at work, as they supposed i should be sent off duty for something else before i had worked a fortnight! while i was down near southampton, i went once or twice to the docks to see the first troops going off to south africa. the men looked very fit and trim in their new khaki suits, but they were very tight packed on the troopships and liners. one day i saw the _kildonan castle_ off with 2400 men on board; crowds of people to see them off, and _such_ cheering and singing of "auld lang syne" and "god save the queen." some of them looked such boys to go out and rough it at the front, and it is sad to think that they can't all come back--one wonders how many? i wish i could go too. opinions seem divided as to whether the war will soon be over or not. xxv r.m.s. "tantallon castle," _march 1900_. i couldn't stand it any longer; all my friends were going off to the front; and, though many people said the war would be over before they landed, we kept hearing accounts of how bad the enteric was, and that the nurses were being overworked, so i felt i must at least offer to lend a hand. i was afraid if i sent in my papers in the ordinary way i might get sent to a home station to free some army sister to go out, and that would not have suited me at all, so i thought i would go down to the war office, and see for myself if i could get sent to the front. about the middle of january i boldly went down and asked to see the secretary of the army medical department. i quite expected to be told i could not do so without an appointment, but i think the orderly must have thought i _had_ an appointment, for he showed me into a waiting-room, and there a strange thing happened: there were several people waiting, and amongst them a gentleman whose face i thought i knew, but i could not remember where i had met him before. after a few minutes he came up to me and said, "i think you are miss l.?" and i said i had been trying to think whether we had met before, and where? and then he reminded me of how we had travelled down the nile on the same post boat in 1898, and had talked of south africa then, as he knew of my brother out there. then he said, "but what do you want here?" and i replied, "like every one else, i want to get sent out to the cape." after he had meditated for a few minutes he said, "well, i'm offering to give them a field hospital of one hundred beds, and to run it for three months at the cape. if they accept it, will you go with it?" of course i said i would like a shot; and then he was sent for to see the secretary, and i waited and waited, and thought he must have forgotten all about me; but at last an orderly came to say, "the secretary wished to see miss ----," and the people who had been waiting longer than i had glared at me, as i was escorted to the secretary's room. there i found my friend of the nile still talking to the secretary, and the secretary turned to me with a frown, and asked me what i meant by coming down to the war office without an appointment, instead of sending for the application forms in the usual way? so i told him i did not intend to apply in the usual way, and risk being sent to some home station. i had too good a berth in england to give it up for that, but that if i found they would give me a chance of service at the front i would be glad to go and do what i could; that i knew south africa, and knew what to expect in the way of climate, and knew how to manage the native servants, and so on. then he melted a little, and said, "well, this gentleman has been most liberal in offering us a complete hospital, which we are going to accept, and he has asked for you to go with it, so if you will send in your papers and testimonials in the usual way you will stand a very good chance of success." did you ever hear of such a piece of good luck? if i had not gone down personally to the war office, i should never have met my friend of the nile, and if i had even gone five minutes later i should never have met him; and afterwards, if i had seen in the papers about his giving a hospital, i should never have thought of applying to go with it, as, when we met on the nile, i barely knew his name, and should never have connected him with the hospital. i asked him the other day what made him give me this chance on the spur of the moment, and he told me that he did not wish to leave the appointment of the staff entirely to the government, and he did not personally know any fully-trained nurse whom he could ask, and he thought if i had a quarter of the brains he knew my eldest brother to possess i should be a good help to him. i have had heaps of congratulations, as every one says that, though many sisters and nurses have gone from our hospital, this is the best appointment of any that has come our way. i sat up most of that night filling up papers required by the war office, and copying out testimonials to send in with them; also writing home, as i had not even told them i was applying to go. for the next day or two my ward was very heavy with bad cases, and took up most of my time and thoughts; but on the third day i was sent for, and told i was not only accepted but had been appointed lady superintendent, and was to select five sisters to go with me, and send their names in for approval. they hoped we should sail in about three weeks. then followed a very busy time; the authorities of my hospital were most kind in being willing to let me go, but the fact that so many sisters and nurses were leaving for the front was causing a great scarcity of seniors, so i felt obliged to stay as long as i possibly could, only going home for a long week-end to say good-bye. there were shoals of letters (sent for me to deal with) of nurses and others wishing to go with us. some of them were amusing: one was from a viscountess, another from a member of a theatrical troupe; a large proportion of the applicants had had no training, but were "willing to learn"; some offered to pay their own expenses if i would only act as their chaperon--they seemed to think we were going out for a picnic. however, there were plenty of applications from well and fully-trained nurses, and the chief difficulty was to know which to leave out. i had to attend at the war office for an interview with the selection committee. princess christian was one serving on this committee, and she came and shook hands with me and was most kind. all the sisters whose names i had sent in were duly appointed to the army nursing service reserve; and then, having settled the staff, i had to help in choosing the fittings and stores for the hospital, as they wished to take out everything so as to be quite independent when we landed wherever we might be sent. lengthy lists had to be made out of bowls and porringers, thermometers, splints, crutches, charts and chart-cases, syringes, bedding and linen, shirts, suits for convalescents, scrubbing and other brushes, tanks for disinfecting linen, &c. there are so many things that seem to come by nature in england which it would be most trying to find oneself without on the other side. and then there were the food supplies to be ordered: flour, sugar, all groceries, invalid foods, &c.--in fact everything, and enough of everything, to last for at least three months. having chosen all the fittings we could possibly think of, we found great difficulty in getting room on board ship to despatch our cargo, as men were being so urgently called for, and the ships were going out packed with regiments and their baggage. in the intervals of running a heavy surgical ward, selecting sisters, and choosing stores, i had to get my uniform made and buy a suitable kit for a hot climate; i also bought a second-hand saddle (which i knew would be useful wherever we were stationed), and had it packed in a tin-lined case, which took a good many other things inside the saddle, and i thought if we were living in tents the case would be useful to save some of my goods from the white ants. the hours i could give to sleep were few in those weeks, but i shall make up arrears on board ship. we had various false alarms as to the date of sailing, all of which i had to communicate to the sisters and then contradict! i left the hospital on february 22nd with many regrets, after six years' work, having been a sister, or a night sister, or an assistant matron there for the last five years. we thought we were going to sail at once, but in the end it was decided that the medical officers and the orderlies would have to leave a few days before the sisters. i was sorry for this, as i had hoped to get to know them a little on board ship. before they sailed, mr. x., who was providing the hospital, gave a dinner party to all the staff, and we had a most pleasant evening. after the dinner there was a large reception, and i was introduced to many people whose names are well known both in south africa and in england. the doctors sailed on february 28th, and on march 1st i was at the army and navy stores doing a little final shopping when the news came that ladysmith was relieved; the excitement was intense; such cheering and waving of flags, and they set all the musical boxes, &c., to play "rule britannia"! mr. x. had decided to go out with us to see the hospital erected, and on march 3rd we sailed from southampton on the r.m.s. _tantallon castle_. we have troops on board, and i shall never forget the cheering the people at southampton gave us as we got away. the first-class is full up with officers and some "gentlemen troopers" of the yeomanry. we are now ploughing down the channel with the sea so calm few people can even think of being sea-sick, so i thought i would send you a yarn up-to-date, and then you would understand that it has been impossible for me to come to say good-bye. until we reach cape town, we don't know what our destination will be; in the meantime i am having a good rest, and shall be quite fit for any amount of work by the time we land. i hope to post this at madeira. xxvi durban, natal, _april 1, 1900_. that was a strange voyage out on the _tantallon castle_. for one thing, instead of the usual mixed lot of passengers, the boat was nearly full of soldiers; there were very few ladies on board besides one army superintendent sister with a batch of sisters and my little party of six, also a few wives of the senior officers; there were practically no old people or children on board. as one would expect, with so many young men on board (many of them mere boys), there was a great deal of fun and joking, and yet beneath it all there was an under-current of solemnity. i think we all felt that it was not possible that we should all return (before we left we heard how many were dying of enteric and dysentery), and we hoped, if we were to be left behind, we should have a chance of doing a bit before we got knocked over. very few of the officers had ever been under fire, and they felt it was going to be a very new experience, and some of them talked of it with awe. i don't mean that they were the least bit "funky," but they wondered whether they would be certain to remember how to manage their men and lead them on as steadily as if they were on parade; some of them thought they would be sure to duck their heads when the bullets were flying, and it would "look so jolly bad." we played the usual games on board, but in the morning the upper decks were given up to the men, who drilled and did physical exercises to keep them fit. at the request of colonel h., we sisters held some classes on "first aid." about thirty officers put down their names as wishing to learn, and attended for half an hour every morning, and we taught them simple bandaging, how to stop hæmorrhage, and how to apply improvised splints, &c. at madeira we could not get much in the way of news from the front, so we supposed that nothing very exciting had happened yet; we had a few hours ashore to stretch our legs, and paid a visit to the fruit market. there was an american man-of-war anchored close to us, and when we left she manned her yards, and the men cheered tremendously, and her band played "rule britannia." there were three deaths on board during the voyage, all reservists, and all from pneumonia; it seemed so awfully sad that they should have given up their homes and everything to come out, and then have got knocked over before they had even seen the enemy or fired a shot. i heard that these men were ill before they came on board, but would not report themselves in case they should be left behind, and they came on board straight from their beds in bitter cold. i have never been to sea in such a crowded ship before; there were four in my cabin, and in a week or two at sea you get to know the good and bad points of your cabin mate's character better than in several months ashore. at our table there was a captain ---in charge of a company of "gentlemen yeomanry," who were going out, paying all their own expenses: it was rather strange for him having his troopers travelling in the first saloon. he had been in the army, but had given it up because he could not get five months free for hunting, besides some shooting and fishing! there was another captain also at our table who had been a.d.c. to general kitchener in the soudan campaign, and was going out to join him again; he had seen a lot of service, and was very interesting. amongst the soldiers in the third-class there are two district messenger boys going out as trumpeters for the cape mounted rifles. most of the officers and some of the soldiers were inoculated against typhoid during the voyage. but for a scarcity of lymph we also should have been inoculated, to avoid waste of time after our landing, but we gave it up, as it was more important for the men who would probably be sent straight up country. sunday on board was kept very quietly; it was good to see a large attendance at the holy communion service in the early morning, and the parade service was a very hearty one; we had the well-known hymns, "lead, kindly light," and "onward, christian soldiers," and then one that i did not know so well, beginning "o lord, be with us when we sail," and containing the two following verses, which seemed especially appropriate: "if duty calls from threaten'd strife to guard our native shore, and shot and shell are answering fast the booming cannon's roar, be thou the main-guard of our host, till war and danger cease; defend the right, put up the sword, and through the world make peace." the last night on board we had a farewell dinner-party, not sitting at our usual places, but making little parties of our friends. whenever i go for a voyage, i think there is something a little sad when it comes to an end, and we all part and go our different ways, but there was something especially sad in saying good-bye to all these bright young fellows, who had to go off to "face the shot and shell." we landed at cape town on 20th march, and found that the troopship, with our medical officers on board, had arrived only that morning, though they sailed some days before we did; they had had a good deal of illness on board, and had to send nearly fifty men into hospital at cape town, and they had had two deaths during the voyage. soon after we got into dock i received orders to take our sisters and their baggage up to a boarding-house in roeland street. this we accomplished with the help of the agents, who rejoice in the name of divine, gates & co.; but we had not been established there very long when i received further orders that we should rejoin our ship in a day or two, as our beds were more urgently required round in natal than in cape colony. cape town was in a great state of excitement; martial law was in force, and armed patrols were riding about, and there were constant rumours that the boers were close to the cape. the docks were crowded with men, horses, and stores, all being disembarked, and sent up country as rapidly as possible. i found my brother, who had been on circuit when the war began, and could not get back to his home at kimberley. he had been for some time at the cape, and was shortly going to england. i met a good many friends in cape town; some from kimberley who had come down to recruit after the siege. all the civilians whom i met from there were loud in their appreciation of mr. cecil rhodes and the way he had worked for them and cheered them through the siege--his especial thoughtfulness for the women and children. i took the sisters to see his beautiful house, groot schuur, and to tea with some old friends of mine at kenilworth. i was anxious to see all i could of the military hospitals and how they were managed, as i had had no experience of work for the army; but my first visit to a large military general hospital was not encouraging, as i thought the wards looked dirty and untidy to a degree; the men had portions of food left on their lockers from previous meals, and this food was covered with flies. knowing how much enteric there was in the camp, this, i thought, a great source of danger. the men were cheery, as usual, but complained that sleep was difficult to obtain owing to the live-stock in the beds; in some of the wards the legs of the beds were placed in condensed milk tins (containing some disinfectant), but even this was not always successful. another day i visited the portland hospital, and found everything very trim and the men very comfortable; the sisters had very nice quarters; they seemed rather horrified to hear that we had not brought any english maids with us, as they said they could never get on without theirs in this savage land (four miles from cape town!); but i have had to do with servants out here before, and prefer to manage with natives. i subsequently visited another large general hospital, and found it much better kept than the first one, and the patients more comfortable; so i conclude it depends on the head a good deal, and not so much on the system. a party of wounded men came in while i was there, most of them convalescents, but a few looked rather bad, and it seemed to be a very long time before they were put to bed. i also visited the red cross depot, and saw a good many ladies at work packing bags for the ambulance trains--a suit of pyjamas, a sponge, a handkerchief, a little writing-paper and a pencil, &c., in each bag, which must be a most welcome present for a soldier straight from the veldt. we re-embarked on the same ship on 24th march, and had a very rough trip up the coast, calling at port elizabeth and east london. at the latter place the weather was very hot with a cloudy sky, and all the officers were in their white suits, when we were suddenly _struck_ by a tremendous rain-storm with thunder and lightning, and the wind howling in the rigging; they had no time to change out of their white clothes, and in a few minutes looked like drowned rats. the steam was up and everything made fast in case we should have to put out to sea, but the storm soon passed over. we reached durban on 31st march, and now there is much speculation as to where we are to pitch our camp. xxvii pinetown, natal, _april 1900_. when we arrived at durban the town was very full, and the sisters had to stay on board until rooms could be found for them in a boarding-house. late in the afternoon a tug came out with a message that we were to disembark and go to a house called "sea breeze" in smith street. it was rather rough at the anchorage, and we had to get into a basket and were slung over the ship's side into the tug, then the tug had to go round and pick up a lot of lighters that had been supplying other ships with coal, &c., and by the time we got into harbour it was getting dusk, and the customs house, supposing that all the passengers had landed earlier, was closed. i had meant to leave our heavy baggage in the customs house till we knew where we were going; but it was impossible to leave it loose on the jetty, and there were no cabs or trolleys about, but a mob of riksha boys, dressed up in feathers and horns and beads (and very little else), who were all clamouring to be allowed to transport us up town. eventually we piled our baggage on these rikshas, and, distributing the sisters amongst it, we gave the boys the address, and, with much shouting, our cavalcade started off at a trot; we soon reached smith street, but then our troubles began, no one knowing sea breeze; we searched up and down the street, and one old gentleman told me he had lived all his life in smith street, but had never seen a sea breeze there! i tried all the places where i thought our officers might be--the r.a.m.c. depot, hotels, &c.--but could not find them, the sisters all very tired and hungry, and some of them rather nervous; then, by good luck, we met our major, who had come out to see if we were comfortable in our quarters, and discovered that we had been given the name of the wrong street! about 9 p.m. we found the house; but the landlady had given us up, and, thinking we should not land till the morning, had gone out; but some other lodgers (refugees from johannesburg) raided the larder for our benefit, and we thoroughly enjoyed our supper. the next day we found the idea had been to send us up to mooi river, but it was thought that, with the winter coming on, that would be a cold place for sick troops, so we had better be nearer the coast; and then a durban gentleman came forward, and most kindly offered the use of his estate of 150 acres at pinetown; it is only about seventeen miles from durban, but much higher up and more healthy; so the offer was gratefully accepted, and the building was at once begun. then followed a time when we all had to forget that we had come out to "nurse the sick and wounded," and turn to work at other jobs. before they were ready for us to go up to pinetown we were all inoculated against typhoid. it was not a pleasant experience: my temperature went up to 102°, and i had intense abdominal pain and headache; it seemed like a very concentrated touch of typhoid, but it kept us in bed only two or three days, and the following five or six days we felt as weak as though we had been ill for a month. as soon as possible i went up to see where our hospital was to be built, and found them busy levelling the ground for the tin pavilions. there were three permanent buildings already up on the land; one, we thought, would make a good ward for officers (eight beds); another had a large room we thought would do for our staff mess-room, and some small rooms suitable for medical officers' bedrooms; and the third was a row of rooms that was apportioned for sisters' rooms, and various offices, stores, &c. the orderlies were established in tents a little way off; they were all st. john's ambulance men, and camping out was a new experience for them, so of course they did not know how to make themselves as comfortable as regular soldiers would have done in a new camp. they had joined expecting to have the excitement of stretcher work at the front, and when they were told off to level the ground for the buildings, or to carry up the planks and the heavy boxes from the railway trucks, and to help the builders put up the pavilions, there was a good deal of grumbling. at first the major in command would not hear of our going up to stay until they had got some more of the stores up--beds, sheets, &c.; but when he found how slowly they got on, and how discontented the men were at having to rough it, he gave leave for me to go up with one other sister, as we thought we might help a bit, and, at any rate, could show the men we were willing to take our share. the hospital we had brought out was for one hundred beds, but there was urgent need for more beds, so the p.m.o. had given orders that more huts were to be sent to us, and that we were to open as a two hundred bed hospital. the railway was so hard worked that we had the greatest difficulty to get trucks to bring the building materials up from durban, and the docks at durban were so crowded with stores that it was most difficult to get the things through. some of our medical officers worked nobly at the docks, getting the things packed on to trucks, while the others superintended the unloading at pinetown. every engine seemed to be needed for taking men, horses, stores, water, &c., up to the front, and the only wonder was that so few accidents occurred on the much over-worked single line of rails. we had landed on the last day of march, and on the evening of 12th april sister ---and i went up to pinetown by rail, taking all the sisters' heavy baggage; and the other sisters went to give some temporary help on one of the hospital ships at durban, until we could fix up some rooms for them. some of the officers met us at the station, and a fatigue party had brought a truck for our baggage. a tramp of about ten minutes through thick sand brought us to our new abode. our first meal, a kind of supper, was somewhat quaint; a bare deal table in a room dimly lighted by two candles stuck into bottles; plates, knives, and forks had to be used with great economy, as there were not enough to go round; some good salt beef and biscuits and some fruit--and we were waited upon by an orderly in his shirt sleeves, who was an engine-driver when at home in england, and knew more about greasing engines than about cleaning the grease off plates! the weather was very hot, and the officers all looked dead tired, so we soon decided to turn in, and were escorted to our room (in the other building) by the light of a guttering candle, as there were said to be many snakes about. they had found us two beds, and actually some sheets, but absolutely nothing else in our room. however, i hunted up the cook, and he lent me a bucket with some water in, so that we might start fair with a wash in the morning. the next morning we were up before six, and started work in earnest, unpacking cases, sorting stores, and putting them away in different store-rooms, and trying to find the things we were most in need of for household use. some of the hospital fittings had been put ashore at cape town and not yet sent on, and more of the necessaries were still down at durban, so that it was very difficult to push on the building work; and all the time we knew the field hospitals were crowded up, and needing to send men down to us to give them a chance of recovery; and we heard that the generals said they could not fight any more till they could clear the field hospitals. all the cases of stores were numbered, so that when we wanted any particular thing, we had to look up in the list the number of its case, and then hunt about till we found that number; all day long it was "have you seen 4507?"--"no, i want 5470." sometimes we found a lot of jugs, and then could not find the basins; sometimes a lot of saucers, and no cups; and it seemed as though we never should get order out of the chaos. at first we had no house-boys, and the orderlies were all busy carrying the building materials up, so sister and i kept the bedrooms tidy, and the medical officers (in return) carried the water for the baths! as soon as i could, i annexed a fine old kaffir as a house-boy, and "john" is a great stand-by now. we tried first of all to fit up rooms with the bare necessary furniture for the rest of the officers and sisters, so that they could all come up and help us. if you saw the jetty at durban you would wonder that any stores ever got sent up to their right destination; literally hundreds of tons of boxes stacked up in hopeless confusion. durban is a bit overdone by military requirements, and quite run out of some stores. on april 3rd we were made very anxious by a strong rumour that mafeking had fallen. they say that _all_ the little children have died there. yesterday we heard of the loss of a british convoy and five guns, and also that the boers were going into laager again quite near to where cronje was taken. durban is full of refugees, and of ladysmith people recruiting after the siege. i went over one of the hospital ships, the _lismore castle_, before i came up here, and it was melancholy to see the _skeletons_ from ladysmith; one quite young fellow told me he had come here from india, got typhoid soon after the siege began, then, as soon as he began to convalesce, the only food they could give him was mealy meal and a little horse-flesh, so he got dysentery. he is now mending, but it is slow work with them all. before we came, our rooms had been occupied by refugees, and fleas abound; i catch about six _ter die_ and once in the night. luckily we are fairly free from mosquitoes. it is awfully hot, and the medical officers go about in trousers and vests only: we wish we could wear as little! this is a very scrappy letter; we work from 6 a.m. to dusk, and then i have been scribbling a little before turning in, but i am weary to a degree, and must fill up the gaps in my next. xxviii pinetown, natal, _april 1900_. you must not expect me to tell you anything about the progress of the war; the papers here give us very little news; of course we are constantly hearing many startling rumours, but they are frequently contradicted the next day, and probably you have more reliable news of the doings of our troops in your papers at home than we have. so i will just jot down things about our daily work here. we are getting into order by degrees, but at present life is rather a struggle against difficulties. you see we are not quite a civil hospital, nor are we quite a military hospital; for the 100 beds we brought out we were well equipped, and had many more comforts than a military hospital would have been provided with, but now we are to have 200 beds, and our resources are somewhat strained. i found that the mess waiter was in his shirt sleeves because the poor man had been nursing a case of scarlet fever on board ship, and all his kit had to be burnt, so i fitted him up in some pyjama coats to wait at table, until i could get time to go in to durban and buy him some white drill jackets. after a few days' work at unpacking, we got quite civilised in our room fittings, and sent for the other sisters to come up and help. if there had not been such need for hurry in getting the place ready, it would really have been very amusing; much of the furniture had been a good deal damaged on the way, and we all tried our hands at mending--to see our senior surgeon (who is on the staff of a large hospital in england) sitting on the ground trying to fit a leg on to a washstand, or to make a drawer run into a chest of drawers, is a fine sight; i have taken a few snaps with my kodak of the staff in unprofessional garb, and doing unprofessional jobs. i hope they will come out all right, but i don't see much prospect of having time to develop them. the theatre is fitted up, but has not been used yet, and mr. ---is working hard getting the x-ray room into order, and his apparatus fixed up. our food supplies (always called "skoff" here--the kaffirs' name for food) were very erratic at first. sometimes no meat would turn up, and then we made shift with bully-beef, which is really quite good, or sardines; sometimes no bread, then we used the barrel of biscuits that lived in the mess-room--you have no idea how difficult it is to eat enough of those biscuits to satisfy you (they are nearly as hard as dog biscuits!), and in about half-an-hour you feel starving again; sometimes there is no butter--then marmalade. now things are coming up more regularly, and i hope they will continue to do so, as it is easy for us to joke about short commons for ourselves, but it is no joke when you have sick men needing careful feeding up. one thing is very nice, and that is that the fruit is nearly ripe, and we shall soon have plenty of pineapples and oranges. our cook seems to try to make the best of things; he is only quite a lad, but he is managing to cook for us all (including the men), with only wood under a sort of gridiron, in the open air. there was much joy the other day when we came across a case of "mother's crushed oats"! and nearly all seem to enjoy porridge for breakfast. as it is still very hot, the food supplies are difficult to manage, the meat hardly keeping from one meal to another, even when cooked; and with very limited store-rooms i find it very difficult to see that everything is kept covered up and fly-proof. so far we have had no fresh milk, but now two cows have arrived, and i am having to watch the boys milk them, as we pay for the milk by the number of bottles supplied! we have just heard that the poor old _mexican_ has gone down on her voyage out: no lives lost, but we fear our letters have gone to the bottom with her. one thing i am worried about is that a big tank i had especially asked to have, in which we might boil all the typhoid linen, has been broken on the way, and i don't think i shall be able to get another. we are establishing a place for the washerwomen behind the hospital, on a slope where their water will run away from our direction; i should like to have had a separate place for the staff's washing, but cannot manage it, so must be contented with keeping special women and special tubs, &c., for it. the men are really working very well now, and it is hard work they have to do; they required a good deal of persuasion to work on saturday afternoon; but we hear the field hospitals are crowded up with 2000 sick, on this side alone, so we must push on the building. we are getting everything into order in the big store-room, so that as soon as any of the big pavilions are finished we shall have all the fittings quite ready to issue. i have been down to see the p.m.o. in durban. he seems very nice, and willing to give us all the help he can; he seems glad that we are going to have the extra beds, and promises to send us more doctors, sisters, and orderlies; we rather hope that some of the orderlies will be r.a.m.c. men, and that they will put a little backbone into our crew, who, i daresay, will be better when we get into order, but many of them are now rather inclined to say "we didn't pass our exams, and come out here, to do navvies' work." of course i shall be glad to have the larger place, as i know it is so badly needed, but the prospect of seeing 100 sick men properly looked after by these untrained men was alarming, and now the prospect of 200 sick men with more (possibly) untrained orderlies, plus some unknown sisters, is more alarming still; but i suppose we shall shake along somehow. i shall be so glad when the men can get time to cut the long grass round the camp, as there are a good many snakes about (two have been killed quite near my room). we all wear canvas gaiters, as a sort of protection; but there are other weird creatures about, and one night a wire came from the next station to say that a leopard, or some such creature, had carried off a kaffir baby, and we were to look out for the beast; so the men were much excited, but they have not seen anything of him. last sunday was easter sunday, and the men had a much needed day of rest, but the sisters and officers went on most of the day unpacking and sorting the things most urgently needed. we knocked off in the evening, and went to service at the pinetown church. the next day (april 16th) we had started work as usual, when the sergeant-major's whistle summoned all hands: a wire had come to say that a troop train had been thrown off the line about three miles from here. the major went off with the medical officers and orderlies, with stretchers. i provided them with brandy, water, a mug, a corkscrew, &c., and then hunted up some lint and bandages, and a few splints, and sent them after them. two or three orderlies who were sick in camp came down to see what the alarm meant, and wanted to go to help, but they did not look fit for a three miles' run in the burning sun, so i told them to collect all the natives who were left behind, and we made a hasty clearance of the building that was to be an officers' ward (temporarily used as a store-room). we set several boys to work to scrub the floor and clean the windows, while the orderlies fitted some beds together, and the sisters collected the bedding and made them up, and i got the most necessary ward fittings out of the store, so that when the stretcher party arrived we had quite a workable little surgical ward ready for them. two poor fellows had been killed, and fifteen mules were either dead or had to be shot; three men of the army service corps were injured, one with a badly broken leg, and the others with concussion, &c., and two black mule-drivers had each a dreadfully smashed up arm. the major had a tent pitched for these natives, not far from the ward. it is a wonder they were not killed, as they were in the same truck with the poor mules. one sister and some orderlies were told off to look after these, our first, patients; and then we returned to our building occupations. i did not put a night sister on for these few cases, but i take a prowl round some time during the night (the fleas always wake me up at least once, otherwise i am so tired i don't think i could wake myself), just to see that the orderlies are awake, and managing all right, and the medical officers go round the last thing before turning in, and we are all about by 6 a.m. one of the injured a.s.c. men had been ill before he arrived here, and it looks as though he is in for typhoid. last night, after a more than usually scorching day, we had torrents of rain. the poor orderlies were washed out of their tents, and all their things were soaked. they are not used to roughing it, and don't enjoy it. it seems ever so long since i came up here, but i had been here only four days before these cases came in, and we hope in about another week to be able to send word that we are ready to receive patients from the front. xxix pinetown, natal, _may 1900_. now we are really at work at last, and though i can't say everything is working very smoothly, i think the patients are being well looked after, and i suppose we must expect to have to worry through difficulties for some time to come. on april 26th the princess christian hospital train brought us fourteen officers and sixteen men, all stretcher cases, and all very ill. they had come from field hospitals, and if one did not know how impossible it is to nurse them or even feed them up there, one would say it was almost murder to have sent them a journey of many hours (over 200 miles) in a jolting train. there were no wounded in this first batch, and i think only about four or five who were not suffering from typhoid in one stage or another, from a few days, up to three weeks or more. it was day and night work for us for the first two or three days, as each man seemed to need individual nursing if he was to have a chance of pulling round; the orderlies (though very willing) had everything to learn of ward duties; they could not even undress these men when they had been lifted on to their beds, much less had they any idea of washing them; a delirious man was a new experience to them, and if he got out of bed and lay on the floor, the orderly would go and ask sister what he had better do! the doctors told us that four of these patients could not live through the first night (several of them had severe hæmorrhage), but they all struggled through that night, and it was a week later when one poor fellow of the royal artillery slipped through our fingers from sheer exhaustion, without ever having become conscious. his mates told us that he had been in a hospital previously with a sunstroke, and had been down with typhoid for some time before he arrived here. i can't describe the condition of these men; they have not had their clothes off for weeks, creeping things are numerous, but we are getting them clean by degrees. those who have been ill some time have sore backs--i can't say "_bed_-sores," as they have had no beds. many of them have come from elandslaagte, and i believe they are very short of both milk and water up there--none of the latter for washing purposes. several of the men had been with us over a week before they became conscious of their surroundings at all; but in the case of those who _were_ conscious, the comforts of a good bed, and a good wash, brought tears of gratitude to their eyes. with many of them it was months since they had slept in a bed: few have done so since they landed in this country, and some of them seem such boys to have gone through so much. i spent a good deal of my time at first helping the sister in the officers' ward, getting her patients washed and made comfortable, and it was most piteous to see these young fellows--most of them, probably, brought up in luxury--so wasted and thin, and _so_ grateful for the little that we could spare time to do for their comfort. lieutenant ---had been laid up for two months with a bullet in the groin, and is now very ill again with typhoid. captain ----, of the r.a.m.c., had been all through the siege of ladysmith, and had typhoid up there; now he has liver trouble and looks wretchedly ill; i fancy he will have to go home for operation. captain ----, of the royal artillery, was the worst case of typhoid amongst the officers, for some time his temperature persisting in keeping up to 105 and 106, and he was very delirious; he was always thinking he could see parties of boers, and he told me i was the worst scout he had ever come across, as i did not see them. he is doing well now. lieutenant ----, of the army service corps, had been ill for four weeks with typhoid before he was landed here (still with a very high temperature). he told me that no less than five times had he been moved on a stretcher, from one place to another, as his regiment shifted about, and he said that the order to move always seemed to come in the evening, when his temperature was at its highest, and he was feeling so bad, that at last he begged them to leave him behind to die; they had never been able to give him suitable food, and often not enough of unsuitable, and when at last he got to the line he had 280 miles of jolting over a single-line rail, before he reached us--such treatment for a case that, at home, we should be almost afraid to lift from one bed to another! but he is really mending now, and i hope we shall soon be able to send him home to recruit. i have never had to give so much stimulant to any patients as we have had to give to these men; all the first night i was going round giving milk and brandy, or bovril, to the worst cases, while the night sister sponged those whose temperatures were the highest; several of the men were on ten ounces of brandy for the first few days. they have been so overworked, and underfed, for some months past that they did not seem to have an ounce of strength left to battle with the fever. an army lady superintendent is supposed to take charge of a ward herself--generally the officers' ward; but i have not taken a ward yet, as, until we fill up, there are enough sisters, and it seems more profitable for me to go round supplying the sisters' needs from the stores, looking after the cooking, and the house-boys, and the washerwomen (i fear that my hair will turn grey in my efforts to keep the typhoid linen separate), to say nothing of the cows, which are not a success; and we have had to resort to frozen milk from australia--generally good, but sometimes there is a difficulty about unfreezing it. we have no quartermaster here, and the man in charge of the stores is quite unused to his job, so i have to see to a great many things with which an army lady superintendent has, as a rule, nothing to do. i am very much afraid some of our orderlies will be getting typhoid; of course they find it difficult to realise a danger they can't see, and though we all lecture them about taking precautions, we are so busy ourselves, that it is difficult to enforce them; and just at first there were so many patients quite unconscious and with severe diarrhoea and hæmorrhage, so that it meant constant changing of sheets, &c., by the orderlies. i think i told you some of the orderlies were ill when our first patients (from the train accident) arrived; it proved to be a form of dengue fever they had, and now the medical officers also are indulging in it; it is rather like influenza--high fever for two or three days, and then they are very weak and pulled down for a few more days. i only hope the sisters will refrain from having it until the orderlies have had a little more education: at present they are about as useful as an average ward-maid at home, and the sisters have to act as sister, staff nurse, and probationer too; but i don't want to grumble at them as they are working well, anxious to learn, and very patient with the men (some of them half delirious) who call "orderly, orderly" all day long. if they had had a few r.a.m.c. men amongst them, or even one or two r.a.m.c. ward-masters, it would have been easier; as it is, there is not a single man amongst them who knows anything of the usual routine in a hospital, though they are well up in "first aid" (for which we have no use here). the buildings are getting on, and we are ready for more patients as soon as they can get a train to bring them down. we hear nothing of more medical officers, sisters, or orderlies as yet. one of the men said to me that he did not think any of us could understand what a luxury it was to have a wash, a comfortable bed, and clean clothes; that for months he had been marching and sleeping (in the open) in one suit of clothes, frequently wet through, and remaining wet until the sun came out to dry them; he said that on the high veldt the nights were very cold, and they frequently had nothing but their greatcoats to sleep in; if they were lucky, and the baggage waggons had kept up with them, they would also have a blanket and perhaps a mackintosh sheet; but that the baggage waggons had a habit of getting stuck at the last drift, and then they had only what they carried. if we had only come out to south africa to nurse this one batch of thirty officers and men back to health, i think it would have been worth while, for they were just about as bad as they well could be, and one can't help thinking of the anxiety of their poor friends at home, who will have seen them reported on the "danger lists" from their field hospitals; and we go plodding on night and day trying to make them pull round. only one man has died, and i think the rest will get on, though some of them are still pretty bad. captain ---had cheyne stokes breathing for two nights, and made us very anxious, but now he is distinctly better. the bishop of pretoria came to lunch with us the other day, and was very nice in visiting the men. we are expecting more men any day now, and on the 25th of this month we are to be officially "opened" (on princess christian's birthday, i believe); a crowd of people are expected from durban and from pietermaritzburg. i could not help thinking the other day, when all these thirty men were dumped in upon us in a couple of hours, of the old days in london when we thought we had had a very heavy day if six or eight patients were admitted to our ward in a day; and there we had everything ready to hand, and several well-drilled nurses to help. here i can see it will take a little time before the sisters will realise that it is useless to try to have things done just the same as we can at home, and for them to distinguish between the _essentials_ of good nursing, which we must have, and the superfluous finish, which we must do without. xxx pinetown, natal, _june 1900_. we have had a stiff time of work since i wrote last. i think i told you that several orderlies were ill, when our first cases came in, with dengue fever, and soon the medical officers began knocking up with it--first one and then another; next, the sisters took it; no one has been very ill, but the fever was high for several days, and, of course, they were weak and seedy after it went down; so we have not had a full staff at work for some time, and with lots of bad cases in the wards it has made things very difficult. several odd cases have been straying in, and on the 17th we took in five officers, and then on the 19th of last month we admitted eight officers and thirty men from modder spruit, most of them very ill, and one poor fellow so bad with hæmorrhage (enteric) that he died the same night. we had to open a second officers' ward, and the sister put in charge was very hopeless (at having so many bad cases, and such inefficient help); so i had to spend a good deal of time helping her look after the worst cases, and then the next morning after they arrived i found she had dengue fever and could not come on duty; so i had to take charge of her ward for a few days, and do the best i could in looking after the patients with the help of the orderlies, amidst constant interruptions and appeals for help or advice from different parts of the camp. with every one so new to the work--the cook quite unused to military ways or the serving of hospital diets, the storekeeper hardly knowing where anything is, or whether he ought to issue it when he did know, ten kaffir women washing who could not read the marks on the linen, and so were quite incapable of returning it to the right place without my assistance, and, to do the house work, several new kaffir boys who really are quite "raw" and want constant looking after (they rejoice in the names of john, monday, charlie, and cup-of-tea; they can speak about six words of english between them, and it is awfully funny hearing the orderlies trying to make them understand), with much other work needing to be done in connection with fitting up new wards and preparing for our opening day ceremony--you can imagine it was difficult to be tied up in one ward with a lot of sick officers who required one's best attention, and more; but it had to be done, and i had to leave the rest to do the best they could, only going round to attend to the most necessary things when i could spare half-an-hour in the day, and after the night sister came on at night. my worst case was poor captain ----, of the ---dragoons, who was desperately bad from the day he came in, and was delirious most of the time; lieutenant ----, of the same regiment (a friend of his), was very good in sitting with him for part of the day, and when he was at his worst one of the other sisters and i took turns of acting night special (as the night sister could not possibly stay with him much); but he had been thoroughly worn out with the hardships of the campaign before he got the fever, and though he lingered on so that we kept hoping he would pull through, he died on the 30th of may--our first death amongst the officers, and we all felt very sad. it was terrible for lieutenant ---(ill with rheumatism), as he knows the captain's relations, and has been cabling to them daily. the funeral was the next day, and the station-master kindly stopped a goods train here, so that the few officer patients who were well enough might go to pinetown to attend, and all the medical officers who could leave also went. i was too busy to go, but i helped lieutenant ---to make a cross of white flowers to put on the coffin. a thing that always makes me feel creepy when i am working in the store is the sight, in one corner, of a little pile of coffins that have been sent up from durban; of course it is really necessary to keep them ready as, in this climate, the funeral must be the day following the death, but we have had them covered up now, as i did not like the men to see them when they went up to the store for things. all that last batch of men were frightfully poisoned with enteric, and nothing seemed to stop it; six of them have died, and most of them had symptoms of blood poisoning too. i don't think i told you that the two sisters who went to help on one of the hospital ships till we could get rooms ready for them, came up at the beginning of may. they brought a poor account of the nursing on that particular ship, and said that, when they went away, there was no fully-trained nurse left on board; that a large proportion of the men who had been ill any length of time, had sore backs (some before they reached the ship). it seems sad that when there are so many fully-trained nurses in england longing to come out, these poor fellows should not be getting the best nursing they might have, even right down at the base. on the 21st of may we heard that mafeking was really relieved, and on the 25th of may we were officially "opened." general wolfe murray was to have performed the ceremony, but he could not come, as general buller had sent for him, so the bishop of natal and colonel morris did it between them. there were special trains from maritzburg and durban; a good many people to lunch, and such a crowd in the afternoon--no one seems to know how many, but i think we gave tea to about five hundred. fortunately, sister ---was on duty again, so i was not fixed up in her ward, but she was still needing help with her bad cases. i made the teabags in the middle of the night while i took my turn at sitting by poor captain ----, and several people who live near here were very kind in helping me arrange flowers on the day, and they cut up cake for me. we had a lot of coolie waiters up from durban, and our house-boys and some whom mrs. t. (a most kindly neighbour) sent to help, were washing up all the afternoon. i can't say i enjoyed the day, as we had several patients very ill, and two poor fellows died that day, but we managed to keep their ward (and one of the officers' wards) closed to visitors, so they were not disturbed, and everything went smoothly and well. when the visitors were leaving, i asked the major if the orderlies might come and finish up the cakes, &c., as there was some good tea in the urns still, and they had all been working very well, so he told the sergeant-major they might. i was rather amused at one thing: i took a big tin and gave it to the sergeant-major, asking him to save a few cakes for the night orderlies, but he pointed out to me they were all present; the news of a tea and some good "skoff" had brought them all down from their tents, and they soon made short work of the remains. i went into durban one day to do some necessary shopping, and on the train met colonel galway, the p.m.o., going down to inspect the hospital ships. he was very nice to me, and told me that if i liked to engage any more sisters out here i might do so, and he would take them on; so i am engaging a lady as a kind of probationer and housekeeper. her husband is at the front, and she wants to help, and i think she will be able to relieve me a good deal by looking after the house-boys, putting out linen, &c. our sisters are working awfully well, but some of them don't get on well with the orderlies--a great mistake: they don't seem able to hide the fact that they think the orderlies very useless and incapable, and consequently the orderlies don't do their best in working with them; it is a great pity, as the men are quite willing and anxious to learn, and are very patient in having to do many jobs that must be very trying to them. at last i have got a nice white woman to look after the kaffir washing ladies, and she will do the starching, &c., for the staff. two of the kaffirs were washing all day with babies tied on their backs--such jolly fat and shiny little black-a-moors. i gave them an empty packing-case with some sawdust in it and a mat, and both the babies and mothers were delighted. i actually had a ride the other day; mrs. d. kindly lent me a horse, and i rode with the major over to a most interesting trappist monastery. the trappist fathers cultivate a lot of land, and teach the native boys various trades. they are going to supply us with eggs, vegetables, &c., and the major arranged with them that they should visit our roman catholic patients, and, if any of them die, they will bury them in their churchyard. we shall have to have a horse for funeral purposes, and we have been offered a rather nice-looking black animal, so i hope that, to my varied duties, will be added that of keeping the funeral horse exercised! i don't care much for walking about here, there is so much long grass, and you get covered with ticks (to say nothing of one's natural fear of snakes), so an occasional hour or two on horseback will be refreshing, though up to now i have hardly left the camp except to go to church at pinetown once on sundays. i had a letter the other day from the secretary of the durban ladies' club to say they had made us all honorary members--a very kind and friendly attention on their part. it is a nice club, but whether we shall ever have time to make use of it remains to be proved. there are many strange animals about here: a huge owl is getting quite tame, and comes to be fed by the night sister. the men are trying to shoot a wild cat, but can't get up near to it. after hearing them talking about it, i was rather frightened the other night (sleeping with my door and window open), when something jumped from the window on to my bed; i felt it creeping towards me, and was just going to dive under the bedclothes when it began to purr, and i found it was the camp kitten! xxxi pinetown, natal, _june 1900_. it is rather difficult to know what to write about that will interest you. there is always plenty of work, but it is not of an exciting nature--just steady plodding on, with difficulties always cropping up and having to be waded through. if one had time to sit and talk to the patients one could hear many exciting tales, but most of my time is spent with those who are too ill for much conversation. i think i told you of the arrival of the officers and men from modder spruit. opening the large ward for these officers caused some difficulty, as it is such a long way from the kitchen, but we soon got up from durban some hot tins, covers, &c., and the feeding is going better now. major ---had been very ill with ptomaine poisoning before he arrived here. he has been a difficult case to feed in this climate, and has been very slow in getting up any strength; but he is well on the mend now. then there was a bright-faced _boy_ with acute rheumatism, who said he had not been in bed for six months, and it was "just heavenly." lieutenant ---(a bishop's son) is 6 ft. 6 in., and we have to wrap up his feet on a chair beyond the end of his bed. he has enteric, but not so very badly; he called me to him the other day, and told me that he had had the most bitter disappointment of his life--the doctor had ordered him an egg, and he waited patiently till tea-time, expecting a nice boiled egg, but he never knew the orderly would bring him a beaten-up egg, and he had nearly drunk it before he recognised it! then there is second-lieutenant ----, who looks about sixteen, and who only joined his regiment nine months ago, but he has seen a lot of fighting, and was at spion kop, pieter's hill, and other battles. some of his men are here, and they think a great deal of him; they say at spion kop all his seniors were either killed or wounded, but he led the men on as calmly and well as possible; i believe he got a "mention" for it. his captain wrote to me so nicely asking after him, and said, "he is a good boy, and a1 when the bullets are flying." he had been wounded badly, and now has enteric, but only slightly. the other officers all call him "the boy." i hope we shall be able to send him home to his people soon, as i think he has done his share. some of these officers are beginning to get about now, and they _will_ go to visit the officers in the small ward and persuade them to give them tea there, and then return and get their own tea as well. they say they are "making up for past hardships"! amongst that same batch of men there were two or three rather smart r.a.m.c. men, and we don't think they are going to be fit for duty at the front again this campaign: they will be quite contented to stay here, and work as soon as they are well enough. we have just got the electric light into working order; and, though it is rather erratic, and often goes out, on the whole it is a great comfort. there has been a case of bubonic plague in durban, but they don't seem to think it is likely to spread. twenty more orderlies have arrived, st. john's ambulance men, and the buildings were all complete by the end of may. i have had a few rides on the funeral horse, and, as it is very tame in harness, i was astonished to find it was quite gay and hard to hold; but we have found out that it was once a racehorse, and of course it has never had a side-saddle on before. our nice compounder has been awfully ill with appendicitis and dysentery. we have had to write each mail to his people, but now i am glad to say he is doing well. several of the orderlies are down with enteric, including our mess-room waiter; so "cup-of-tea" has to wait on our mess of eighteen, and needs a good deal of looking after. i expect they will give me another orderly soon, but so many are ill, and the wards are heavy, and need a good many men for night duty. every few nights the orderlies have to do a spell on night (as well as their ordinary day) duty, so they are rather inclined to grumble, and it is difficult for them to keep awake; but i don't think any of them do longer hours than i do, as i prowl about a good deal in the night when the cases first come down and are bad; so they don't grumble too loud. the sisters seemed to be getting rather fagged out, so i have begun to give them in turn a monthly day off, and i look after their wards. i find it is rather useful, as i get a good opportunity of seeing how they have managed, and also of learning how much the orderlies are good for; it is quite touching how good they are to me: they want to show me they can be trusted, and they do everything they possibly can to save me trouble on these "days off." from the sergeant-major downwards they have always been very nice to me, and i am sure i do very little for them (except when they are ill and need fussing over) beyond scolding them for misdeeds for which the sisters report them. i wonder whether they guess that, all the time, i feel that the sisters are expecting too much of them! i was amused when a new sergeant arrived with twenty men the other day; of course, at first they did not know any of us, and when i met them and said "good morning," they simply gaped. the next day i had a fatigue party sent up to tidy the china and linen store; of course our old batch of men saluted when i went to show them what i wanted done; and i expect the new men received a few words from them on their slack manners afterwards, for since then there has been a very stiff draw up and salute whenever they come for orders or with a message. i hear the army sisters are not saluted as a rule. i think i told you how much we suffered from fleas at first; now they are quite banished. we have twenty coolies, and a good orderly in charge of them, and they do all the sanitary work, and sweep and scrub and generally keep the place tidy (they also have to dig the graves), and since we have got rid of all the packing-cases, and everything is trim and tidy, the fleas have disappeared. so far we have had very few wounded in--nearly all enteric or dysentery, with some cases of camp fever, rheumatism, &c.; the medical officers are disappointed at so little surgical work, but i don't think i mind, as we can feel we are actually saving the lives of some of these men by sheer hard nursing, and that is good enough for me; sometimes a man sees that i am worrying about a patient who does not seem to be improving, or who is going downhill, and he will come up and say "never mind, sister, he would have been dead long ago if he had been left in that field hospital any longer; you have given the chap a chance." it is grand to see the first batch of men, who came to us so desperately ill, so haggard, starved, dirty, and miserable, getting about now in their blue suits, looking so clean and bright, though still very thin. some of them are beginning to need to be amused, and the knitting wool and materials for worsted work that i brought out are coming in very useful; in fact, they will soon be finished, but the durban ladies have kindly promised to send me more. several of the men were making worsted belts in one ward the other day, and a big scotchman looked in and asked them to go for a walk, but they refused, saying they were busy, and the scotchman was heard to mutter "they've all turned blooming milliners!" lieutenant ---(the giant) is getting on very well, and he was always saying i must stay and amuse him, or else give him some toys, so i have started him with some worsted work, and he is more contented, and as fussy about my providing him with the right shades of wool as any old lady. the lieutenant in the next bed has learnt to knit, and major ----, the ptomaine poisoning case, looks surprised at their babyishness. the other day sister b. was going to have a day off, and these boys, overhearing her instructions about themselves, made up some poetry on the subject (which i enclose), and sister won't hear the last of it for some time. we have a service in the wards every other sunday, and the hymn-books i brought out are most useful. _june 13._--the last few days have been very busy and very sad. on the 7th we had a trainload of patients--two officers and seventy-three men--several of the men very bad. i was up most of the first night helping with the bad cases, but one poor fellow died the next day (he was never conscious after he got here); that day also, sister ---knocked up with slight fever, so i had to take over her ward, and there were several bad cases in it. the orderlies are knocking up with enteric--six of them warded; and i have hardly liked to leave them at night, as several of them are inclined to be delirious and try to get out of bed. l. was the worst, but he did not seem in any special danger till last wednesday: on that day i was orderly sister for the afternoon, and on my first round i talked to them all, and he seemed much as usual, but on my second round i found him distinctly worse, and with a failing pulse. i called his doctor, and we tried everything possible, but he soon became unconscious, and died at 7.30 p.m. all the orderlies are dreadfully cut up; several of them come from the same place in yorks. he was such a fine, strong young fellow, and it seems only the other day that he was acting as groom, and put me up on the black pony, and was so pleased i could manage him. he was a butcher by trade, rough in his ways, but so good-natured; i must write to his poor mother. he had a military funeral, and we let every orderly go who could be spared. the clergyman asked me if the men would like to have a hymn in church, so we sang "brief life is here our portion." several people sent wreaths, and the men are going to make a wooden cross. this was the first death amongst our staff. having so many orderlies ill, and the place pretty full, we have been very busy, and many of the men have had to do eighteen-hour shifts every two or three days: that is to say, their usual twelve-hour day and half the night. so they are having a heavy time of it. enclosure:- sister's "day off" there once was a sister called baker, of beds she's an excellent maker, she knows temperatures too, and between "me and you" is of medicines an excellent shaker. she shows each man's vice--how to treat it, and warns sister h. how to meet it: "no. 2 you can trust but show t-a crust, well, it's a thousand to one he'll eat it." she dilates on the treatment we need, all our habits, our drinks, our feed; "i repeat, mr. t- doesn't realise all, but he cannot be trusted for greed." "mr. n--, however, is wise, at the sight of eggs hard boiled he sighs, d-eschew them i must and that beautiful crust, for on me sister baker relies." you may ask how we know what was said the culprit there lying in bed, overheard in the dark, the whispered remark, and tears of hot anger he shed. the moral is not far to seek: a crust perforates you when weak, while eavesdropping at night is really not right for it's apt to raise anger and pique. (_with apologies to the authors._) xxxii pinetown, natal, _july 1900_. since my last letter we have had a good many changes of patients, some being sent back to the front, and others going home by various hospital ships. it is so nice to see some who were carried in desperately ill, able to march down to the train so cheery and bright, and tremendously grateful. we sent thirty home by the h.s. _dunera_ last month, and were just hoping to have time to breathe, and to get the sheets and blankets washed, when we had a wire to tell us to expect seventy-five more; so we had a scramble to get the beds and bedding ready for them, and they nearly filled us up; but they were not quite such a _bad_ lot as our previous batches had been, and there were a good many wounded by way of a change. we were still short-handed, so had to do a good deal of sorting of patients; turning some wards into convalescent wards, that needed only occasional visits from a sister, and no night orderlies--a sergeant patient being made responsible for good order in the ward. several of the orderlies are still ill: the mess-room man has had a relapse, and will not be fit for work for some time; the second compounder has also been very bad with typhoid--delirious for more than a week--but i think he will do all right now; it has been awkward, as the first compounder can only just crawl about after his spell of illness. we have had one man awfully bad with double pneumonia after a stiff turn of typhoid. then he got a bad abscess in the jaw, and had to have it operated on; for some days his temperature hovered between 105° and 106°, but now he is doing well, and will soon be sent home. we have been inspected by colonel clery, who, unfortunately, came on the day on which we had those seventy-five men in, and before we had got them all washed or their kit put away; but he was very pleasant to me, and said he was pleased with the wards and the looks of the patients, bedding, &c. we have also had several other distinguished visitors--sir john furley, sir william stokes, and major baptie of the r.a.m.c., who won his v.c. at colenso. we have all been very sorry to hear of the death of colonel forrester, who had been in charge of the princess christian hospital train, and had been here several times bringing us patients. the four months for which this hospital was given, equipped, and maintained by private generosity, are now nearly over, and in a few days we shall have become a government hospital. we shall then receive our pay and various allowances from the government; and we are now arranging to separate the mess of the sisters from that of the medical officers. i expect it will be difficult to keep our stores separately, but we shall wish to live more economically than they do. for the present we have decided to share the same cook, an indian who has been acting as our dhobie for the last few weeks, and who, we hear, is a good cook; his wife will continue to act as our dhobie; she is such a pretty little thing, with rings in her nose and bangles on her ankles and arms. i quite expected to be superseded by an army sister proper when the hospital was handed over, but the p.m.o. has asked me to "carry on" (which does not mean the same in the army as it does in cockney land!) the other day poor miss h. arrived. she had started from england as soon as she heard her brother was ill here, meaning to nurse him, and i think i told you he died here (our first death amongst the officers). it was awfully sad for her. i was frightfully busy the day she came, but felt i must walk over to the cemetery with her. she is a trained nurse, and we should have been very glad of her help if she could only have arrived in time, as her brother was delirious for so long, and we had to take turns at sitting up with him for some time; but everything that could possibly be done for him was done. they do seem to muddle things a bit; in the last few weeks we have had _seven_ new sisters sent to us; we would have given anything for a few of them a couple of months ago, but now there is much less fever, and many of the beds are filled with convalescents. we had no rooms for so many sisters, so had to put up tents for them. one day we sent off a batch of over fifty men for home, emptied several wards (putting the remaining cases into other wards), and had a general clean up; the same day we had a wire to tell us to expect seventy-two men the next evening, so we had a scramble to get the linen dry and everything ready for them. they proved to be all convalescents, and they came down thinking they were going straight on board ship for home, and of course were rather disgusted at being stopped here. the next day, having got them all settled in, and their kit stowed away, we had a wire asking us to send sixty men down to durban the next morning for home! so, again, there was a great bustle and inspection, and the lucky sixty having been selected had to retrieve their kit from the store and be fitted up with comforts for the voyage. we feel sure that it was all a mistake their coming here at all, and that they ought to have gone straight on board ship. of course it gave us an awful lot of work, and did not do them any good. we must try to see the remaining twelve get off with the next batch. the other day fifteen new orderlies came, men of the imperial bearer company (chiefly recruited from refugees and other colonials). some of them are quite old and bearded, and there was much puffing over their march up from the station. it is so funny to have to hurry these venerable gents round the wards when they look at me solemnly through their specs, and the tommies are rather inclined to humbug them. some of our original st. john's men will have to leave soon, as their time is up, and we are letting all those go who are not very keen on the work, but, unfortunately, some of the keen ones want to go too. i am sorry to lose them, and rather blame the sisters for it. the orderlies have been awfully nice to me; two of the best have been promoted to be sergeants. one, who has been chiefly in the officers' ward (he is a railway guard at home), has been splendidly patient with them all; and the other is the man who has been in charge of the sanitary work and managed the coolies. i have been having a little riding lately while the extra sisters have been here, and all the sisters in turn are having a few days' leave. one day some people asked us to go for a picnic (riding), so we collected all the screws we could, and, making a party of twelve, we rode to a very pretty waterfall about nine miles from here, and they had arranged for tea at a quaint old farmhouse near by. riding back by moonlight my (funeral) horse was so keen that i could hardly hold him, so i was riding ahead with one of the men, when, hearing a shout, we hurried back and found the senior civil surgeon had had a tumble. he was not much of a horseman, and they had put him on the very quietest nag, but it had stumbled, and he came off. he managed to ride home at a walk, though he was unconscious for a few minutes at first. he was a good deal shaken, and had to keep quiet for some days. another day we went to the trappist abbey; when we arrived, they kept us waiting some time in a room, and then a meal suddenly appeared--poached eggs, delicious brown bread, honey, fruit, tea, and tamarind wine. we were surprised, as it was early in the afternoon, but we felt obliged to accept it, and it was all very good, though i shied at the tamarind wine. afterwards they showed us round the place. it is really wonderful what these trappists do for the natives, with their schools, shops for bootmaking, saddlery, tanning, ironmongery, printing, photography, &c.; but whether it does the native any real and lasting good to teach him all these things is quite another matter. everything seems to be running more smoothly in the hospital now, and even if the place were full of bad cases (as it was at the first), now that the orderlies are getting to know their duties, we feel that we could tackle the work without the hopeless sensation of being unable to do half enough for everybody. we are very lucky in our major: he is very keen to have everything well done, and one can always go to consult him in any difficulty. xxxiii pinetown, natal, _august 1900_. we are now a full-blown military hospital, instead of being partly civil and partly military. everybody had talked so much about the coming of "red tape" that i had been a little nervous about the change; but, except just in the transition stage, everything has gone very smoothly, and when everybody gets used to the military ways i think it will be all right. personally, i shall have much less worry and responsibility, for we now have a lieutenant-quartermaster of the r.a.m.c., and i shall not have to try to look after the linen and other stores. moreover, a batch of indians has arrived and gone into camp, with a good headman, and they will do all the washing over which i have had so many struggles with careless kaffir women. i had to attend a big function down in durban, when the residents presented the gentleman who gave this hospital with an illuminated address. there were many speeches, and much "butter" for all the staff. i was presented with a large photograph of the address. we have had a good many changes in the staff, and among the civil surgeons who have gone home is the only one of us who understood the electric light plant, with which, in consequence, we have had difficulties. i hope we shall soon find an orderly who understands it, as, when the light fails and we have to grope about with candles, the men cannot read, and find the long evenings very dull. i hear many interesting tales when i go about trying to amuse the men on these occasions; the other day i was called to enjoy a joke--some of them had asked an irishman whether he knew what "strategy" meant? and he said "yes, it means like this, sure, when you've fired your last cartridge, don't let the enemy know, but jest kape on firing all the same!" i don't know whether it was original, but he brought it out as though it was. i have had a few days of slight fever since i wrote last, and i took a couple of days off, and spent them at umkomaas with some friends, who have a nice cottage down there. it is the most perfect little seaside place i have ever struck; such jolly woods all round the cottage, with semi-tropical growth, and lots of monkeys in the trees; glorious rocks, and _such_ a blue sea. i had a delightful rest, and came back much better, but of course found various muddles to face, and they always make one wish one had never gone! the worst thing i had to straighten out was a complaint from a medical officer about a sister; they had been rubbing each other the wrong way for some time, and of course i thought if i had not gone away i might have kept the peace; however, as the complaint was a definite one (though in no way serious), and was also _just_, i had to move her to a less important ward. this very much hurt her feelings, and i was sorry, as, though not a good manager, she is very good to the patients. now she works for a different doctor, and there is peace in the camp. all the civil surgeons and sisters growl at the new military rules and regulations, but i think they are rather inclined to make mountains out of mole-hills--they can really get all they want if they set about it in the proper way, but they don't take the trouble to find out what _is_ the proper way. perhaps i have rather spoilt the sisters by letting them have things that were urgently ordered from my stores at any time, but now that the place is not so crowded up with bad cases they must learn to order in the proper way and at the proper time. in one respect i was afraid that our system would be changed, but the major has very kindly arranged it as i wished; i saw, when at the cape (and heard of it in other hospitals), that when a sick convoy arrived there was much delay before the men were classified and put to bed--sometimes not until several hours after their arrival. one cause of the delay was that each man, if he could crawl, had to go up to the store to draw his kit and sign for it himself; the poor chaps used to look so frightfully ill and tired with this weary waiting about, before they could get food or a wash, after (perhaps) some days in a train. here we have managed quite differently; as soon as we received the wire saying that patients were coming (and the number), we had everything issued for that number; the beds were all made up, and before they arrived i used to go round and see that the crockery for each man was on his locker, a clean shirt, towel, soap and flannel, &c., all ready, so that the men could be carried straight to their beds as soon as they arrived, and have a good basin of bovril without any delay; then those who were well enough to go up to the store to give in their kit and to receive their hospital suit did so; and the orderlies took up the kit of those who were too ill (of course they did not want hospital suits). now it is necessary for all, who are able, to sign for their equipment (sheets, blankets, &c.); but the major lets us have some beds fully equipped in each ward before the men arrive, and the orderlies sign for those fittings until the men arrive, and then they countersign the book, so that the bad cases can still be carried straight to their beds. our new mess arrangements are working well; it is much more comfortable having a cook with a kitchen separate from that from which all the food for patients, orderlies, and others is served. we had to buy a new stove, but as the expense was shared between the medical officers and sisters, it did not come to very much. our madrassee cook is serving us very well. i thought it would be difficult to keep our stores separate, but he seems to manage well and economically, and he is a good cook and serves the things up very nicely. we share the expense of his wages with the doctors, but have separate boys for our mess waiters and for our rooms. i have kept john on for the sisters' rooms: he is very slow, but a good old thing, and very clean. it is the custom for these boys to go home for a day or two when their wages are paid, but you always keep some of what is due to them in hand (or they don't come back); but when the hospital was handed over to the government, the boys were all paid up to date, so of course they all cleared, but john promised to come back in two days, and i thought he would; but it was six days later when i found him slinking about his work and looking like a big dog that expected a whipping. i said, "oh, john, you bad boy, sisters not have you back any more," and then he said his wife was "plenty sick," but i told him i thought kaffir beer was plenty good, at which he grinned, and i had to forgive him! william, our good scamp of a mess-room boy, never returned, so i had to go into durban to the toct (or tax) master at the police station, who generally looks after all the natives and gives them their passes, &c. i chose a boy who was recommended, but he never turned up, so i was thinking i must go again and lead one out from durban with me, when the dearest little kaffir turned up, with a note from the toct master, saying he was a very good boy, and his name was "imdenbe, son of cholem, chief of imsugelum, umtenta," so i was rather relieved when the boy said his name was "dick"! i thought he was much too small to reach to put the things on the table, but he is very quick and nimble and clean, and both the cook and john are very fond of him; so we manage all right, and he looks perfectly sweet in his white suits with red braid--they all wear things like bathing-dresses, with short sleeves, and go about barefoot. the worst of the enteric season seems to be over now, and we are very slack, and we hear it is the same at all the hospitals up this side. the days are still very hot, but the nights are quite cold. i expect you hear more about this hospital commission than we do, but the r.a.m.c. men are very sick about it, as they have worked so tremendously hard all through the war. i think every one agrees that the tommies have never been so well looked after in any war before, but no doubt at the front they have suffered badly, more especially at bloemfontein, where, suddenly, the army was attacked by a perfect scourge of enteric (i believe there were about 6000 cases there); but people must remember they were 900 miles from their base, with only a single line of rail, and for the last 250 miles almost every bridge destroyed, so that all traffic had to be carried on with the utmost caution over temporary bridges, only a few trucks crossing at a time; also it was an unusually dry season, so that engines often had to drop their heavy trains, run on to get water, and then return for them. the transvaal could practically supply nothing to feed the troops, as the boers had planted no crops. to get sufficient rations up daily for the men and horses was just about all the one rail could do, and when it was necessary to leave the railway line, the troops often had to wait weeks to scrape together rations to carry with them. i believe the r.a.m.c. were well prepared for the probable number of wounded, but when unexpected sickness knocked the men over by the thousand, it is scarcely surprising that it was impossible to get up tents and all medical necessaries and comforts quickly enough. i believe the sick and wounded are quite comfortable now in bloemfontein; but no doubt there was suffering there, and the commission will find out whether it might have been prevented. there can have been little excuse for the bad management that is complained of at the base, and if that is proved, no doubt some one will get blamed for it. i know the single-line railway on this side, that passes close to us, has been very hard worked night and day; at one time eight trains went up each day with water-tanks only, besides almost incessant trainloads of men, horses, mules, stores, &c.; the only wonder is that there have been so few accidents. all the sisters have now had some leave, and as we have extra sisters here and very few bad cases, i am going to take a run up-country with a lady from here, and hope to tell you about that next time i write. xxxiv pinetown, natal, _august 1900_. i must first of all tell you of my interesting few days up-country. i left here on the evening of the 20th of last month with mrs. d. and her baby and a small kaffir nursemaid; she was going to stay with friends who have a hotel and store at colenso, and i had engaged a bed at this hotel, and took my saddle with me hoping to secure a horse there, and be able to explore the country around. two of our medical officers were going for a run up-country the same day, but as the train ran in two sections, i only saw them on the platform at maritzburg late that evening. at the same time i saw another officer in khaki looking at me, and then recognised in him a well-known london surgeon who is chief of another hospital out here--of course i was more used to seeing him in frockcoat and top-hat. he had his wife on the train, and as they also were going to colenso, i was very glad to be able to be with them there. the train rocked about so much (first crawling up a hill, and then tearing down the other side) that it was difficult to sleep, but the baby slept like an angel with the little kaffir girl, safely deposited on the floor. at 4.30 the next morning we arrived at colenso. it was very cold and very dark, but mr. edwards (the hotel proprietor) met us, and with him we stumbled across the veldt to his hotel, which is just a one-storey shanty, as their house had been knocked to pieces by the boers. unfortunately he could not possibly take in my friends, so they had to stay at the station. i was very glad to be able to tumble into a clean bed and have a good sleep, and by breakfast-time i was quite fresh again. then i was annoyed to find that i could not get a horse, as they were all engaged, and i had hoped to be able to ride to ladysmith and to spion kop; however, i got on all right in the end. that morning we climbed hlangwane hill, and saw some really wonderful boer trenches; you absolutely can see no sign of them in broad daylight till you nearly walk into them. then we saw the place where colonel long lost his guns (the dead cavalry horses are still lying there); and where poor young lieutenant roberts was mortally wounded in trying to save them; and where major baptie, r.a.m.c., won his v.c.--i think by carrying lieutenant roberts into a donga and staying with him, and other wounded, all through that day of heavy firing, trying to keep them comfortable with some morphia he had with him. we picked up as many pieces of shells and shrapnel as we could carry, and walked back along the banks of the tugela. i heard that a luggage train would be passing at 2.30 p.m., so i thought i would go into ladysmith by that, and see whether there was any chance of getting out to spion kop from there. there are very few passenger trains now (except just the mails), so we are allowed to travel in any train that happens to stop, but of course they don't undertake to keep to any particular time. directly after lunch i strolled down to the station--no station-master or any official there, but i met a gentleman who told me that he had walked all the way out from ladysmith, and was expecting to have to wait for the mail train to take him back, so he was very glad when i told him i knew the next goods train was going to stop there; he said his wife was in the waiting-room, so we walked along to find her, and soon i discovered she was mrs. ----, secretary of the women's patriotic league in durban, whom i had not actually met before, but with whom i had had much pleasant correspondence, as they had been very kind in helping us. so we trained in to ladysmith together, and on the way they pointed out to me the remains of the great dam which the boers made to try to flood ladysmith out, also the neutral camp of intombi; there is no hospital there now, only the cemetery, sadly full of graves. they told me they were staying at the "royal," and that people from there frequently drove out to spion kop; so i walked up with them and interviewed the manageress, who told me that a party of ladies had engaged a waggonette to drive out there next morning, and she thought i could easily secure a seat. eventually i met these ladies, and found they were durban people who had been over here to help at a concert for our men, so they were very kind and said i had better stay the night (as they had to start early in the morning) and dine with them. i went out and wired to colenso not to expect me back, bought a few necessaries, and then took a look round the town. the hotel i was staying in had had a big shell right through, which had killed a man who was sitting in the hall, and the town hall had had a great piece knocked off the tower by one of long tom's shells. then i climbed up to the convent, which was used at first as officers' quarters, but had been tremendously knocked about by shells. the kind old sisters were very busy with workmen, patching up holes in the walls, &c. then i walked out to the cemetery, rather a long walk, and it was getting dusk, so i could not stay long; there were rows and rows of siege graves, and amongst many interesting names i saw those of the earl of ava and poor george stevens of the _daily mail_. it was quite dark when i got back to the hotel, and i was glad of dinner, and not sorry to go early to bed. it is eighteen miles out to spion kop, and they won't send a carriage there for less than £5, but for that sum you have four horses, and six people can go in the carriage; i had told the manageress that i would gladly pay £1 for a seat, but in the end i was not allowed to pay anything, as there were only four besides myself, and they had already arranged to pay the £5, and would not let me share. we started at 6 a.m. with a black driver, and a small white boy to act as guide. many of the horses that went through the siege have not yet recovered; one of ours was taken worse on the way, and we had to wait while the driver crushed up a nut between two stones and thrust it down the horse's throat, then it struggled on till we reached the kraal at the foot of the hill at 9 a.m., and outspanned. on the way we passed the place where colonel dick-cunyngham was killed. we had a bite of lunch, and then started with our small guide up the thaba inyama, one peak of which is "spion kop." we had with us a january number of the _natal mercury_ giving a full account of _the_ day, so we were able to trace the positions, and i had heard the men talk so much about it i felt i knew my way quite well. of course we went up from the ladysmith side (where the boers were), but from the top we could look over to potgieter's drift and spearman's camp, and marvel how our poor chaps ever got up in the dark, with the boers in such good cover above them; and _then_ to be ordered back must have been frightfully disappointing. we saw many english and boer graves, and i took a good many photos, including one of the cross on the spot where general woodgate fell. we picked up heaps of cartridges (full and empty ones), emergency ration tins, soldiers' uniform buttons, &c.; it was too hard climbing to burden ourselves with any shells, but i bought a few from kaffirs who had gathered near our carriage. i am collecting a very varied stock of ammunition, including one soft-nosed cartridge. they were burning the grass down all round the base of the hill, and every now and then a cartridge went off; we hoped the fire would not come across any stray shells while we were there. we had a splendid view of the drakensberg range. returning to our carriage we had lunch, with an admiring crowd of rather naked kaffirs around (who seemed much to appreciate our remains), and we started for the return drive about 1 p.m. the sick horse was worse on the way back, and had to have several doses administered. as we were nearing ladysmith, i found we were passing close to tin town hospital; so, thinking it was a pity to miss seeing the place, i left the carriage and walked across a drift on the klip river. first i passed some officers on their ponies playing at "heads and posts"; then i came to the horses' sick camp, and met a nice old veterinary sergeant (who, i found, was a colonial who came from kimberley, and of course knew people whom i had met there); he told me he had charge of 400 sick horses, but many of them were "convalescent," and if he had known i wanted a horse he would gladly have lent me one; he said if i would stay another day or two i could send down for my saddle and he would lend me a horse and a mounted orderly so that i could ride to bulwana, waggon hill, cæsar's camp, and other places which i should much have liked to visit, but i could not spare the time. then he took me along to the sisters' huts. i found the lady superintendent was out, but some kindly kilburn sisters gave me some tea and took me round the hospital; not many cases in just now, but a few very bad enterics. the sisters told me that as the red cross ambulance (drawn by eight mules) was going into ladysmith, i could drive back in it. i was just going to climb inside when a gentleman in khaki came and asked me if i would not rather ride on the top with him, so i gladly climbed up, and found he was a doctor (one of the big civilian doctors); he had heard who i was, and amused me by saying he wished i had called at their mess (fancy shy _me_ calling at an unknown officers' mess!) instead of going to tea with "those estimable females," as they would have shown me more of the place, and they have a good collection of curios that would have interested me (he was looking at the things i had picked up). it was a very jolly drive, and he insisted on driving me right up to my hotel. i must really tell you about the rest of my travels in my next letter. i was away only five days, but you will see that i squeezed a good deal into those days. xxxv pinetown, natal, _september 1900_. i will just finish telling you of my travels while they are fresh in my memory, and then this letter can wait till there is enough material to fill it up. i was very sorry to hear from my friend on the ambulance of the death of sir william stokes (physician); he was ill only four days, and it seems only the other day he came round this hospital and was so cheery and bright, and i know he was meaning to say a good deal to the hospital commission in favour of the hospitals out here, and of the work they have done. i just had dinner with my friends at the royal, and then the 'bus took me to the station with my heavy bag of shells, &c., in time for the 7.40 p.m. train back to colenso. i was awfully tired, but the mosquitoes were bad, and did not let me have much sleep. the next day i was invited to go with a picnic party to the tugela falls. a large ox waggon was loaded up with children, provisions, &c., and i went with some more people in an army service corps scotch cart, with no springs, drawn by four mules, who frequently ran away, and who seemed to have a rooted objection to keeping to the road (or rather track); so the journey was rather perilous and distinctly painful. we passed fort wylie, and saw where all the fighting took place on pieter's hill, and we saw the rough bridge that the boers had made over the tugela by simply pulling up our rails with the sleepers attached and throwing them into the river. we had lunch close by the falls--even after this very dry season it is quite a big fall--and after lunch we climbed the hills around, including hart's hill. on the top of this hill is a big memorial stone to colonel thackery, several more officers, and _sixty-seven_ men of the 27th inniskillings, who fell up there, and we also saw their grave (fenced in) at the foot of the hill. by the time that we got down to the line again it was blowing a gale, and _such_ dust, so some of us sheltered in a platelayer's cottage. he had a fine collection of shells and other relics; his cottage had been used by the boers as a telegraph station, and we found he had been in the smash-up of the armoured train, when winston churchill was taken prisoner. as mrs. d. had her baby with her, and it was now a really bad dust-storm, this man kindly stopped a goods train with his red flag, and we returned comfortably to colenso in the guard's van. i should much like to have had longer stay both at colenso and ladysmith, there was so much of interest both in the places and in the people one met; but i wanted to visit a few places on the way down, so i left colenso the next morning at 9.30. my first stop was at chieveley, where there had been a big hospital, but all that remains now is a little closed-in graveyard, with nearly two hundred graves; many died from wounds, but many more from enteric. they had a clever way of marking the graves, each man's name, regiment, &c., being written on a slip of paper and enclosed in a medicine bottle and securely stuck into the mound. i saw poor lieutenant roberts' grave (it has a plain stone with an inscription, but i hear a cross is being sent out); they had brought him from colenso on the ambulance train the evening of the day he was wounded. the station-master told me he had helped to lift him out of the train, and he seemed sensible and comfortable then, but he died the same night. i saw a very fine redoubt at chieveley made by the royal engineers, but it was never used. i took the next train on to mooi river. before we reached frere station we passed the place of the armoured train disaster, and the graves of the royal dublin fusiliers who fell there. wherever you go there seem to be graves dotted about, most of them enclosed with barbed wire, and some with a cross set up, or the man's initials marked out in empty cartridge-cases. there is a large hospital at estcourt, but i had only time for a hasty lunch at the station there, as i wanted to have an hour or two at mooi river, to see the hospital, where i knew one of the doctors, and where it seemed probable that we should be sent when we first arrived; on the whole, i am glad we were _not_ stationed there, though they have had more interesting surgical work than we have. unfortunately my friend was away, but the superintendent kindly showed me round, and i had tea in the sisters' mess. they have 950 beds, nearly all under canvas. it was blowing hard, and while i was there it began to rain, and it was snowing on the drakensberg, and very cold, so every one looked rather miserable. it is a desolate place on the bare veldt. i left again on a goods train at 4.30, and rattled down to maritzburg by 9 p.m., where i meant to stay the night. miss ---kindly met me at the station, and we drove down to her house in a riksha; she has been taking in convalescent nurses, and feeding them and giving them a rest. she has had much anxiety about her brothers, one of whom was commandeered and had to fight for the boers, together with his son (a boy of sixteen). they were with cronje at paardeberg, and are now prisoners at st. helena; another brother was fighting for us, and was taken prisoner by the boers, but released when we took pretoria. miss ---wanted me to go out to howick to see the falls there, and to have a look at the big convalescent camp, where they have 1600 beds; but the train left half-an-hour earlier than she thought, so i missed it, and instead she took me to see the maritzburg hospitals, fort napier, grey's hospital (now civilian again), and the garrison church, the last the most comfortable looking hospital i have seen further up-country than this one, but it was a little strange to see the men in their hospital suits lounging and smoking on the church steps. i met a sister whom i had known in london. she was excited about playing in a cricket match; and as she and all the eleven sisters had been given a week's leave from duty to practise for this cricket match, they are evidently as slack in the way of work as we are. i had some nice greetings from some old patients of ours, now on duty in maritzburg. i left there about 6 p.m., had dinner at inchanga with a _daily news_ correspondent, and got back here about 9.30 p.m. some orderlies were at the station and kindly carried up my load of curios, &c. the two medical officers had got back the night before, and though they went as far up as newcastle they had not seen as much as i had, and regretted that they had not had my offer of a convalescent horse at ladysmith! i have seen a good many hospitals, and met a good many sisters, and i have gathered a few hints of little ways in which we might improve this hospital; but, though "i says it as shouldn't," i don't think there is any hospital up this side where the men are more comfortable and happy, and i think the sisters here are better fed and their mess bills are no higher than at any of the hospitals--indeed, lower than most of them. i was glad to find that they had had a peaceful time while i was away, and no difficulties; and as there are actually only eighteen men and ten officers in, we are still very slack; we expect some more any day now, but there is very little sickness just at present. you ask about the men and their letters; it was rather difficult when we were so frightfully busy at first to do all that one would have liked, but we always try to write for the men who are too ill to write for themselves, and i always saw that all the men who wished had writing materials, and they used to help each other. they say at some of the base hospitals stray lady visitors have been such a nuisance in interfering with the nurses, but i could well and safely have employed a few stray ladies in amusing the men, writing their letters for them, &c. the friends of those officers who were dangerously ill were all written to by each mail. now that we are slack, of course, i have much more chance of talking to the men, and they tell me many tales of the fighting, and of the rough time they have had at the front; but you will hear plenty of that from the men who have gone home. i am beginning to have many grateful letters from our patients' friends at home. there has been some delay about our pay lately, and some of the sisters who were lodging here had not received any since they left england, so were not able to pay their mess bills, and i had to pay various mess accounts when i got back from my run up-country, and began to feel rather anxious as to whether i could go on feeding my large party of sisters; but now the pay has turned up, so we have got straight again; and the government give us various allowances--colonial allowance, and for mess, servants, fuel, &c., so we are feeling rather well off. we are much enjoying a big package of papers that the red cross society now send up to us each week; whole weeks of _times_, _daily mail_, _daily graphic_, _daily telegraph_, _standard_, _illustrated london news_, _army and navy_, &c. they are the greatest boon to the whole camp. the men point out to me the "pretty boys" in the illustrated papers when they see any pictures of soldiers, as, by comparison, they all look so thin and rough out here. xxxvi pinetown, natal, _september 1900_. now we are really getting busy again. patients keep arriving, sometimes small parties, sometimes large. early in september we admitted thirteen men who had been prisoners in pretoria for nine months. they were very weak and run down, and so happy to be here; when i took them their first basket of fruit, they simply wolfed it down, as they had seen no fruit since they went up-country. then we had rather a "difficult" batch of officers sent down from mooi river. they have no officers' wards there, so these men had been quartered in a hotel more than a mile from the hospital, where each had his own room and servant, and they seem to have ordered and done just what they liked. up to now we have never had more than three or four officers well enough to sit up to meals at one time, as they have always come to us really ill, and as soon as they were well enough they have either rushed back to the front or have been sent home on the hospital ships; but with these officers from mooi river (none of them very ill), i suddenly found that we had twenty-four sick officers in, and that _sixteen_ of them were well enough to sit up to meals, and that it was not suitable for them to eat in the ward where there were a few men still very ill; so, eventually, a large tent had to be rigged up for them, and as it was a long way from the kitchen there was some difficulty in getting the food to them hot. the medical officer was a civilian, and he did not seem to think he had anything to do with the responsibility about feeding these hungry convalescent officers; in fact, every one seemed rather inclined to say "it isn't my work"--and our st. john's men are not like r.a.m.c. men, who may be accustomed to turning to as mess waiters on occasion; neither was the cook quite ready to serve up a dinner of several courses instead of single "diets" for each patient. i am afraid i had to worry the poor c.o.; but i knew if i did not do so the officers would complain they could not get anything to eat; and, after wrestling through the first night's dinner--(when i found well-meaning orderlies running down with the fish before the soup, and some vegetables after the sweets had been served!)--we laid plans for better management, and for a day or two the major went to the kitchen and saw the food sent down in proper order, and i received it and saw it served in the tent, and four of the officers' servants were told off to wait each night, and the orderlies had only to carry the food down for them. so now that is running all right, and i only just have to look in to see they have all they want. for some time we have been expecting to be inspected by the hospital commission, but at last we heard they were not coming here at all, as there had been "no complaints" about this hospital; so i should have been very vexed if our record had been spoilt at this late stage of the war. our next order was to prepare for a train that was bringing us seven officers and 108 men from pretoria (the biggest trainload we have yet received). having had sisters here over our correct number for some time, and very little for them to do, of course as soon as we got busy we kept having wires to send one sister for duty on the hospital ship _avoca_, or two sisters to the hospital ship _dunera_, and so on, and none of them wanted to go, so it was a little difficult to sort them. in fact, there have been so many orders and counter orders that i should never be surprised if i had a wire telling me to go off on a hospital ship, or if we had orders to pack up the whole hospital and take it up to pretoria. before mr. x. left, he let us buy some remaining groceries at home prices (a great saving for our mess), and after we found a small storeroom to arrange them in, i, rather foolishly, let them use the cases for firewood, which has been very scarce here; so, if we have to move, all the sisters intend to sling bottles of fruit, and tins of jam, sardines, &c., round them, as we really can't leave our stores behind! i hear that the army sisters on the hospital ships are rather horrified that i am still left in charge here, now that it is a military hospital, and that there are plenty of army sisters out in the country; but the p.m.o. has been very nice to me, and i am very glad to "carry on" as long as they want me; the only thing is that i should very much have liked to see a little of the work nearer up to the front, and as it seems probable that this place will become, later on, a sort of convalescent home, the work will not be so interesting. yesterday some officers went down to durban, and came back much excited by rumours that the line and the wire had been cut at standerton, that 1700 boer prisoners had been released, that johannesburg was surrounded, and a few more exciting items, but i dare say they are not true; i never pretend to tell you about the war. by degrees we are getting a few r.a.m.c. orderlies and non-commissioned officers, and of course they make the work easier for us; but we are quite proud of some of the st. john's men, who are becoming excellent and most efficient nurses, and they really knew nothing of nursing six months ago. i had a great triumph when the big batch of men (108) arrived, as everything had been issued for them the day before and signed for by the orderlies, and half-an-hour after they arrived every man was either comfortably in bed or had had a preliminary wash and was ready to sit down to a good meal, and after that he went up to the store to hand in his kit; some of the patients and some of the r.a.m.c. men told me that in many of the military hospitals it would have taken four or five hours to get so many of them settled and fed. there are several very bad cases amongst them, but also a good many convalescents. we have two officers desperately ill, one a major in the r.a.m.c., who, i fear, is not likely to get better, though they are trying everything possible for him, and the other is a lieutenant in the rifle brigade who has been delirious for a long time (enteric) and very ill, but i fancy he will pull round. i have been able to give him special nurses when necessary. also we have a bad case of enteric in the men's ward; i don't think i have ever seen a case where there has been so much hæmorrhage, and yet i think he will pull round, though he is nearly a skeleton, and even i can easily lift him up while his sheet is changed. i have been much pleased at the really tender way the orderlies have nursed this boy, as he has needed a great deal of patience. we are getting quite keen on our gardens now that we have a little more time to breathe, but whenever i plant anything i wonder whether, by any chance, i shall be here to see it grow up. i now have some healthy violets and some ivy-leaf geraniums. some time ago i had two beautiful orpington hens and a cock given to me. they lay splendidly, and the eggs have been very useful, but they showed no sign of wishing to sit, so i got a friend to put some of my eggs under a broody hen, and hope soon to have some young orpingtons. the men have not had time to make me a henhouse yet, so we have to keep a sharp look-out to secure the eggs, and our small dick is very attentive to them. i went into durban the other day to do some shopping for the mess, and saw some friends, and then i went down to the jetty to see some of our orderlies and patients (a nice lot of men of the coldstreams and other regiments, many of them wounded from pretoria), who were going home on the _montrose_. i met a sister whom i knew, and one of our medical officers was seeing the men on board, and one of the embarkation people invited us to go out in the tender to the _montrose_ at the outer anchorage; so we had a nice little sea breeze, and the officers on board gave us tea, and offered to show us our cabins, so we had a good chance to stow away for home! six of our orderlies were going home on duty, and they all came to say good-bye, and we had quite a "send off" from them and the old patients when we left the ship. to-day some people have been giving a picnic at a pretty place called krantz kloof. they invited all we could spare to join them, so i let six sisters go, and four of the medical officers and four convalescent officers also went off with them in an ox waggon at 8 a.m., and they did not get back till 9 p.m. i have been busy all day keeping an eye on the place generally to see that nothing was neglected while so many were away. the night sister and night special both went, so i have now sent them to bed for a few hours, and i have been writing beside lieutenant ---(of the rifle brigade), but i am sure he is better to-day, and to-night he is inclined to sleep; every now and then i let the orderly sit by him while i take a prowl round to see the other wards are all right; now it is 2 a.m., so i shall call the two sisters and turn in, and i need not hurry up in the morning unless there are any fresh orders to attend to. xxxvii pinetown, natal, _october 1900_. we have had a good deal of rain lately and the country is looking lovely again: you can almost see the things growing in the garden. sometimes it rains for three days without stopping, and south africa without the sun always looks very gloomy, but when the sun comes out again it makes up for the gloominess. it has begun to get very hot rather earlier than usual, and the thermometer showed 94° in the shade the other day. last month we took in fifty more men who had been prisoners with the boers; a good many of them were gentlemen troopers of the yeomanry; they were sent here _via_ delagoa bay; one of them brought a parrot, and there were several small birds as well. then the other day we took in eighty men from charlestown, nearly all convalescents, and such a mixed lot of regiments--scotch, irish, australians, new zealanders, and tasmanians, and one little australian bugler, aged fifteen, whom all the men spoil. the poor major of the r.a.m.c., who i told you was so ill, died in the early part of this month; it was very sad, as he knew so well what all the bad symptoms meant as they appeared. i think i told you also of lieutenant ----, who was desperately ill for so long. we had a very anxious time with him, as the delirium went on for so long that we began to fear it would become permanent, but at last he pulled round, and has been such a nice patient. we have very few officers in now. the natal volunteers were expected to return to durban on october 2nd (they have been a year at the front), but the boers attacked a convoy near dundee, and they were all ordered back. durban was preparing a great welcome for them, and the meat for the big lunch that the mayor was going to give them was actually cooked! they got home about a week later, and we all went down to the station to see them pass, many of our old patients amongst them. i had the bad luck to have a nasty fall out riding early in the month, and am only beginning to crawl about again, with a good deal of pain from a damaged kidney. one of the medical officers was ill, and had asked me to exercise his pony any time i liked to use it (he didn't like the kaffir boy taking it out), so, when the major and another man asked me to go with them to pay a few calls on people who have been very kind to us here, i thought it would be a good chance to exercise the pony. from here down to the station is a good bit of soft sand, and all the ponies were fresh, so we let them scatter along; then i saw there was a train shunting at the level crossing, so i wanted to pull up before we got mixed up on the line (of course no gates here), and just then one of the men lost his hat; my pony got cross at being checked, and bucked a bit, and then suddenly swung round and jumped a fallen tree, and off i went on the wrong side, falling across a branch of the tree. i can't think why i fell, except that i was so sure i could not come off, i never thought about sticking on, and was preparing to give him a licking for being so stupid. i did not feel much damaged at the time, though i thought i should have a big bruise just above my hip, and when they had caught my pony i remounted and we went on again; luckily most of the people were out, but at one place i had to get off, and when it came to remounting i simply could not spring, and had to condescend to mount from a chair, and when i got home i felt really bad and had to go to bed. fortunately there were plenty of sisters to do the work, and things went on all right while i was laid up, and now i can get about enough to do the housekeeping, and hope soon to get round the wards again, but they are very quiet at present. we have rather amusing "tiffs" between the officers' and sisters' mess; just now potatoes are very scarce, as the military people have bought them all up; i found the cook was using mine for the officers, as they had run out, so i told them i had had to pay 32s. 6d. for a bag, but i should charge them more by the pound! they thought i had paid too much, and asked the c.o., who was going into durban to bring them out a bag. when he came back, he had to confess that he had had to give 35s. for a bag, and it never turned up at the station, and he had no receipt, and did not know the name of the shop! we are constantly having to make little exchanges of food, &c., but it is necessary to keep a very sharp eye on our supplies. our nice little imp, dick--otherwise imdenbe, son of cholem, chief of imsugelum, umtenta--got home-sick, and wanted to go home to his mother, so now we have another boy for the mess-room. i dare say dick will come slinking back when he has spent his money. john, the big house-boy, is still here, and is an excellent servant. when we first came, mr. ---let him take care of his horse (of course paying him extra), but then, when other medical officers also got horses, the major said that one boy must look after them all--as there were difficulties about fodder, &c.--but when mr. ---told john, he said, "no, sir, me never give up tommy; tommy he clean, he fat, he happy, and john love him; john cry very much if boss give tommy one new boy." but poor john had to give him up; and i believe he _did_ cry. in my room i have the luxury of a big wardrobe with glass doors, and john takes great pride in this piece of furniture; i believe he loves to see himself in the mirror. one day i found he had turned my dresses out to dust inside--i expected him to proceed to tidy the drawers next, but i drew the line there! he keeps our rooms beautifully clean, and is absolutely honest. the other day he knocked at one of the sister's doors when she was having a bath, and when she told him he could not come in, he said "it's only me, old john," and was quite hurt that she would not unlock the door. i think i told you about his going home after payday and stopping too long: the same thing happened again the other day, and when he came slinking round with his broom and pail again (looking as though he expected me to hit him), i said, "oh, john, i just going to toctmaster for another boy," and he said, "no, missus, me never leave the sisters, but my wife very sick, and it rain very much, and--kaffir beer very good at my kraal," so i had to forgive him, as he was honest about it! we have had a good many changes amongst the sisters lately, but at present they seem a happy lot, and they work well; they have been much more contented since they took their few days up-country, as it has made them realise that in most ways they are better off here. as the summer comes on, the creeping and crawling beasts are getting very objectionable; amongst others that come into my room are grasshoppers, locusts, flying beetles (huge brutes), and mosquitoes. when they get very numerous, i have to turn my light off and wait till i hear them all make for the electric light outside. there are six cats about the place, and two of them insist on sleeping in my room (of course my door and window are always open); one always sleeps on my chest of drawers, and the other on the clothes basket, so i feel safe that snakes won't come in, as a cat always lets you know when one is about. one night the small tabby brought the most extraordinary creature into my room: it was like a small crab, and it ran round and round in a circle, and squeaked like one of those clock-work mice. the other day it began to rain, and then we were afflicted by a perfect scourge of flying ants, which i had never seen before in such numbers. they covered the walls of our rooms, and some of the sisters could eat no dinner, as they were so thick on the mess-room table. the men in the wards swept them up in bucketfuls; then, in a couple of hours, they all took themselves off again, without any apparent method in their madness. we have all sorts of vegetables and flowers coming on in the garden, the rainy weather suiting them well, but the wet days are rather dull for the men, and there seems to be more sickness starting again up-country. i had a letter from j. the other day from kroonstad, saying that he was fit and well, but heartily sick of trekking about the free state. really _all_ the men seem so tired of the war just now; it is all very well to put up with hardships, and short rations, for a few months, but when it runs on to a year, every one has had enough. the other day we had a wire to ask for a doctor to go to an officer who had been taken ill when on leave about an hour up the line from here. dr. ---went to see him and found him rather bad, so the next day a stretcher-party went up and brought him here. we have several rather bad cases in just now, but we have plenty of people to look after them, and there is none of the anxiety we had at first, when we were overwhelmed with enteric cases, and the orderlies were so helpless. we hear that lord roberts is coming down this way soon, but there are so many rumours that we hardly know what to believe. xxxviii pinetown, natal, _november 1900_. of course you will have heard that poor prince christian victor died at pretoria of enteric. he was buried in the military cemetery there, and there was a service in the cathedral; i heard it was very impressive--about 1000 troops attended. i should like to have been in pretoria when the proclamation declaring the annexation of the transvaal was read. i heard it was very fine. lord roberts arrived with a big escort (including some fine indians), and massed bands played "god save the queen," and then the royal standard was run up, and then again "god save the queen." after that there were no less than six victoria crosses for lord roberts to pin on--he stood on the steps of the old dutch church--and then there was a march past of 10,000 troops. i believe the march past took two hours, though the infantry left the square at the "double." it is very difficult to judge, but many people here seem to think the war is by no means over yet; however, if lord roberts does go home, we shall have k. of k. to finish the business. the chief thing of interest here early in the month was some difficulty about the three civil surgeons who were still here (of those who came out with us). there has been some muddle since the government took over the hospital, as to whether they were to have the pay of medical officers engaged at home or of those engaged out here; after some correspondence they were dissatisfied with the terms, and thought they were being hardly treated; and then a wire came that they were to prepare to proceed to england, as their services were no longer required. i expect they will get the matter settled all right when they get home. it was quite a business getting them all packed up in a hurry, and they had to arrange about selling their horses, &c. they gave a farewell dinner-party, which we all attended. the army medical department is a bit unsettling; of course you have to do exactly what you are told, and you are told to do things so suddenly: just a wire comes, and very often next day you move. colonel galway (the p.m.o.) has gone home, and we miss him very much; he has been so particularly nice every time he has been here. we have had a very quiet time lately. they are closing some beds up at maritzburg, and sent us down a very good wardmaster and fifteen r.a.m.c. orderlies--some of them men with six or seven years' service. at first the sisters could hardly realise that these men were really good nurses, as they have been so used to having to do most of the nursing themselves until they had shown each particular orderly how to do things; so they think now that the army sisters, in time of peace, must have a very easy life! one night we had some people to dinner, and then they gave the men such a good concert. some of the orderlies helped--one of them plays the violin beautifully, and the little australian boy "bugled." another day a clergyman, who has a boys' school up the line, brought all his boys down to pay us a visit, and they played a cricket match against the medical officers and orderlies. one other form of amusement has been very popular with the men, though rather an unusual one for hospital patients; we have a lieutenant of the r.a.m.c. on duty here now, and when he went to the remount depot to secure a horse, he was rather surprised that a very nice-looking beast was willingly handed over to him when he said he would like it; but when they got it up here it promptly chucked all the stableboys in turn, and proved to be a bad australian buckjumper! then the men, patients and orderlies, wanted to try their hand with him, and some of the australian bushmen are splendid at sticking on. now he is getting quite tame, and only bucks a little when they first mount. the daily riding of the buckjumper has amused the whole camp; and i should simply have loved to try my hand at sticking on, but my damaged side won't allow me to ride anything for some time yet, though i am getting about my work all right, going slow. they have had a very "mixed" lot of horses out here, and many people seem to think the war might have been over now if they had had a better supply of horses at first. the english chargers have worked awfully well, but the food of the country has not been suitable for them, and the little boer ponies are much better suited for the rough ground and the poor food. they are so used to picking their way on the veldt that they hardly ever put a foot into a hole; and then at night they will peck about and nibble odds and ends at which an english horse turns up his nose. at first the men did not think the boer ponies were big enough to carry the necessary weight, but now they find they are, and that they wear better, because they are not always hungry, as seems to be the case with the unfortunate big horses. still, the good old london 'bus horses have done very useful work with the guns. they have had many horses from new zealand, australia, and the argentine--these last often very bad-tempered beasts. as the men all seem so well satisfied with these boer ponies, it might be a good plan after the war to start a big government breeding station out here, in some bit of healthy grass country. a man told me they could ship horses to england for about £20 for the voyage, and that if it was undertaken in a proper way, it ought not to cost more than about £5 to rear a horse, or perhaps £7 to put a four-year-old on board ship, so they could have one of the best landed in england for under £30, where there is so much trouble about getting the right kind of horses in sufficient numbers. they would be suitable for work in almost any climate, as they have to put up with such rapid changes of temperature here. we have lately had a r.a.m.c. major here, partly as a patient and partly as a visitor. he was in ladysmith through the siege, and had very hard work (so many doctors ill); then he was sent down to a hospital ship as a patient, and very soon the c.o. was called away, and he was put in charge while still ill. he has been three trips in her, and seems to have had a lot of work and worry, and now he is ordered to go up and take charge of a 500-bed hospital, and is not in the least fit for it. they won't spare any r.a.m.c. men to be invalided home just now, as they seem to want to weed out all the civil surgeons first. this man wants the most careful feeding to get him right; at first i was always running after him with egg flips or some little feed, but now he is beginning to enjoy ordinary food better. i have heard a good deal about the siege from him: he tells me it was awful being responsible for sick men and not being able to get things for them. at one time he had 400 very sick under his charge, and all he could get for them was five, or sometimes six, small tins of condensed milk a day, when they all needed milk. he says that the men had no time to convalesce: it was three days up and out of bed, and then straight to the trenches; the poor fellows were so awfully weak that they used to have to send a mule waggon to cart them down. they put a rifle in their hands, and carted them back again at night. for a short time, too, we had another major for a "rest and feed up"; he is an m.p. when he is at home, but was out here with the yeomanry. he is also on the mend now. i have had the very sweetest puppy given to me--a little black spaniel. he has been christened "bobs," and he follows me about everywhere. i must tell you a little joke about some officers who were here. there is a big convalescent depot at howick, and no one seems to like going there, but at one time we were so full up with officers (and more wanting to come), that the major chose out three or four who were practically well, but not quite fit to rough it at the front yet, and sent them up to howick. we gave them some sandwiches and fruit to console them on the way, and at maritzburg they bought a bottle of champagne, and were having a great lunch in the train. there was one little man in plain clothes in the carriage besides our party, so they invited him to lunch, but he refused. while they were lunching they were all talking about what a good time they had had here, and what hard luck it was that the c.o. had pitched on them to go up to the "home for lost dogs" (as howick is called)--every one said it was a horrid hole, and of course they exaggerated all the bad things they had heard about it. when they got to howick the little man in plain clothes got out, and an orderly came up and saluted and took his bag, and he proved to be the colonel in charge at howick! we sent off sixty men on the 21st, and, a few days later had seventy men down from standerton, all supposed to be convalescents, but two of them have developed definite enteric, and as they have been at standerton for some time ill with something else, they must have become infected up there. i am afraid enteric is getting rather bad again farther up, but of course there always is more at this season, and they are better prepared to tackle it now. the big hospital at estcourt has been moved up to pretoria, and i believe the beds at maritzburg have been reduced from 1600 to 200; and now we hear that they are having rather a scare lest they should be short of beds on this side. the other day a man from the ordnance department came up to see about putting new sinks in the theatre and otherwise improving the buildings, so that does not look as though we were to close just yet; but i think if the place is kept going into the new year they are bound to send an army superintendent in my place, as it would be too "irregular" to leave me here now that there are so many army sisters about (with some hospitals already closed), and not by any means all of them acting as superintendents. xxxix s.s. "canada" between cape town and st. helena, _december 1900_. we have had an exciting time since i last wrote to you; i had better begin at the beginning, and tell you of the upheaval. at the beginning of the month we heard that the p.m.o. was hovering near, so we thought he would come to inspect us, and then we should learn our fate. instead of that, one sunday our major had a wire asking him to go down to see the p.m.o. in durban the next morning "on urgent business." every one was so excited on monday they did not know how to work, and i saw that all the medical officers were ready to waylay the poor major as soon as he got back, so i kept out of the way, thinking he would be tired, and that we should hear the news after he had had some tea. but very soon he came to my room and said, "well, sister, would you like to go to england to-morrow?" i only _said_, "no, sir, not particularly; i think it would be rather cold there just now, and i should like to see the war through," but i _thought_ to myself, "what has gone wrong that he wants to ship me off?" because we had worried through some very thick times of difficulties together; but then he explained to me that _he_ had been chosen to go home in charge of the sick on the ship on which lord roberts was to go--the _canada_--and he was to choose two sisters and some good orderlies to take with him; he thought the trip would do me good, as i had not been really well since my accident, and he thought i could certainly come out again if i wished, but (of course) i should very likely not get back here as superintendent. i did not mind that at all, as for some time i had been keen on seeing some work farther up-country, and it seems likely that this place will become more of a "rest camp," and less of an acute hospital as time goes on. anyhow, he seemed to wish me to go with him, so in ten minutes i had made up my mind to go, and we had decided to take sister ---(one of our original batch of sisters) with us; and then there were the orderlies to choose. it was 5.30 p.m. on monday when i got my marching orders, and the major had to leave the next day at 12.17, and we to follow him at 3.40 p.m., so you can imagine we had a rush, and there was little sleep for us that night. the r.a.m.c. lieutenant was put in temporary charge until the p.m.o. could send a major down; my senior sister took over the superintendent's duty for me, and i had to show her all the details about the mess accounts, stores, linen, washing, &c.; arrange to send my dog back to the people who had given him to me (as i should not have been able to land him in england); send my saddle up to maritzburg to be sold, so as to make room in my saddle-box for packing curios, &c.; to say nothing of my own packing up, and heaps of other things to arrange about. i could not go to see any of the many friends who had been so kind to us; but before the ship sailed i was able to write fifteen letters of farewell and apologies, and managed to send them ashore. there was a good deal to settle about the servants too: our good madrassee cook was to leave the next day, and all the black boys said they "no stay if the big boss and the little missus go to england"; but perhaps they will settle down again. all the orderlies came crowding down to the station to see us off, and gave us such cheers; and john and the other black boys were all mopping their eyes, charlie holding on to my little bobs, who was whining and struggling to come with me--but he will go back to a very good home. when we got on board at durban we found the ship had to go to the outer anchorage. we were disappointed that we could not even go up the town to say good-byes, and really we might have had another night ashore, as lord roberts never came down till the next day. our good friend, mr. t., from pinetown, kindly came on board to say good-bye, and brought us a lovely hamper of flowers, some of which we arranged in lord roberts' cabin. fifty men were to leave the day after we did, so they will be very light in the hospital, and the p.m.o. said he should not send more down till he had settled the staff. lord roberts came on board with his staff at 6 p.m. on december 5th, and we sailed at once. only 400 troops came on board at durban, but we heard we should have 1200 after cape town. the _canada_ is a splendid boat, with the finest stretch of upper deck that i have seen on any ship. from durban to cape town the saloon was very empty; besides sister and myself there was only one lady on board, the wife of a chaplain from wynberg--they have been to ceylon for a trip with a shipload of boer prisoners. besides lord roberts, we have on board general ian hamilton, general kelly-kenny, general marshall, lord stanley, and others. i was shown a copy of the orders about the medical company to be put on board this ship: it read, "to include two specially selected sisters"--it sounded like choosing turkeys for christmas! there is a hospital with eighty-four cots on board, but, as the men were supposed to be chiefly time-expired men and not sick troops, we did not expect very much work. we had fine weather coming round the coast, and lord roberts went ashore to receive addresses both at east london and at port elizabeth; after port elizabeth there was a very heavy swell till we reached cape town, and poor sister ---was so bad we were quite glad the hospital was still empty. before we reached cape town lord roberts came up to speak to me, and we had quite a long chat; he was very anxious that we should have everything that we wanted for the hospital. he told me that lady roberts and his two daughters would join us at cape town; and two sisters who have been nursing her are coming home with the miss roberts who has been ill. at cape town lord roberts had a great reception, of which i got some good photos. when i could get away from the ship i went up the town and wired to my brother in kimberley, to tell him that i was going home, but after doing so i thought i might as well inquire whether, by any chance, he was down in cape town, so i went to his club, and was much surprised to find he was in the town; so i left a note to arrange to meet him next day. the next day was sunday, and sister and i went to service in the cathedral (which lord roberts attended with his staff), and then my brother met us, and took us up to an excellent lunch at mount nelson hotel. after lunch sister ---went off to see some friends at wynberg, and my brother and i went to see various friends in the suburbs, and finished up with supper with the s.'s at their lovely kenilworth home. it was nice meeting so many old friends; and then i went back to sleep on board. the next morning i made a raid on the red cross society and the "absent minded beggar" people to beg for games, cards, books, tobacco, &c., for the men on the way home; and in a few hours' time they sent me on a splendid supply. then it was "ladies' day" at the club, so i found time to run up to lunch with my brother there, and he had some old kimberley friends also lunching with him. after that the troops were coming on board, so i had to go back to duty. i was appointed lady superintendent for the voyage, and two more sisters were sent on to help us--also three roman catholic sisters who had been nursing in bloemfontein, had a passage home on the _canada_, and were to be "available for duty" if i wanted them. the cape town people gave lord roberts a great send off on december 10th, and h.m.s. _doris_ escorted us out to sea. we have very comfortable cabins, and the major (who is p.m.o. on board) invited sister ---and me to sit at his table in the saloon with four other officers, so we are well looked after. a great many of the men are wounded, some of them going home for operations. we had twenty sent straight into the hospital before we sailed, and we soon began to fill up there and to get busy. before we reached st. helena one poor fellow of the yeomanry had died; he did not seem particularly bad when he came on board, but he came down to the hospital saying he felt "a bit queer"; his temperature was only 100°, but we admitted him at once, and he was evidently just beginning a relapse (enteric), and then he had a dreadful septic abscess and other complications, so we had to isolate him in a little cabin, to reach which we had to go past all the stables--there were several horses on board, including the charger poor lieutenant roberts was riding when he fell. he was so bad one evening that sister ---volunteered to sit up with him, but when i went to relieve her at 7 a.m. we could both see that he was dying, and sister offered to stay so that i should not infect myself; but she looked so done up (she is a bad sailor) i thought she had had enough, and the other sisters could quite well manage the hospital, so i sent her to disinfect, and go to bed. the poor man died about 10 a.m., and was buried in the afternoon, lord roberts and all his staff attending. i don't think anything is more solemn than a funeral at sea; the slow march out to the stern, and the service read, and then the engines stop, and there is such a hush when the constant beat of the screw ceases; next the little splash as the body, heavily weighted and sewn up in a blanket, slides into the sea, and then the mournful "last post" sounded: once more the engines start, and we all go back to our posts. i did not put on a regular night sister except when there was special need; but we took it in turns to be responsible for a night at a time, and the responsible one stayed up till twelve, and then (if all was quiet) turned in, and was called again at 4 a.m. to take a look round; but if she was kept up much, we relieved her from duty for the next morning; we had very good orderlies, and we found this plan worked well. xl s.s. "canada" (nearing st. helena, on return voyage to the cape), _january 1901_. i am now on my way back to the cape after sixteen days' leave in england; a rushing time, amid snow and sleet; but i must first tell you about the voyage home. we reached st. helena on december 16th, and lord roberts and nearly every one went ashore for a few hours. i did not go off as i was busy in the hospital. several men were very ill with enteric, and one with double pneumonia; of course it was frightfully stuffy for them in the hospital, but lord roberts had most kindly said that we were to use part of the upper deck (that had been reserved for him and his family), if it would be any better for the men; so we rigged up a screen, and put two or three men, who seemed most in need of fresh air, up there, and they were so grateful. there was always a good supply of ice, and the sterilised milk was good; one man (who was very ill) could not take it, but for him i was able to get fresh milk, as there were two cows on board. the "skoff" for the convalescents was excellent, and they were all delighted with the variety of food supplied by the company, after the sameness of the army rations. both the ship's officers and the stewards were most kind in every way in helping me to get what i wanted for the men. we had a spell of very hot weather between the 16th and the 21st, and on the 20th we had another sad death, a young st. john's ambulance man, who was admitted on the 16th with acute rheumatism (he had had enteric in south africa). it was my night on duty, and at 11.45 i did not think he seemed so well, and i found his temperature had run up to 105°, and his pulse was very bad; we did everything that was possible for the poor boy, but his temperature continued to rise and his heart to fail; he was dreadfully breathless, and it was so difficult to prop him up enough in the bunks; by 1 a.m. his temperature had reached 106.6°, and he knew that he was dying, and was able to tell me where to write to his mother. he died very soon after. it was dreadfully sad for the other men, as, of course, they were all awake, and in such terribly close quarters--one man in the bunk above him, and two more close beside him; and it does seem such hard luck for these two men to have got through their time in south africa and then to knock over just when they are nearing home. a nice sergeant in a bunk near by saw that i was very much cut up about this poor boy, and said, "never mind, sister, no one could have done more for the poor lad to give him a chance than you have; but i know i have seen many men die on the battlefield, but it's a lot worse to see one die between decks here." afterwards we carried him out to a small bathroom, and he was buried the next day. i found one of the patients in the hospital was a bart.'s student who had been serving at the front. both lord and lady roberts took a great interest in the men, and lord roberts used to come up to me in the morning and ask how they had got through the night; and he would ask after the men who were especially ill by name: of course they were awfully pleased when i told them. they both went round the hospital several times, and on christmas day they went down and shook hands with all the men in hospital, wishing them a happy day, and then they sent down a large sugared cake and some chocolate for the men who were well enough to enjoy it, and the very sick ones all had some champagne; the men appreciated it very much, and there was a great demand for envelopes to take "a bit of bobs' cake home." many of the beautiful baskets of flowers that came on board for lady roberts at the different ports found their way down to the hospital, and the men especially treasured a beautiful union jack that came on board at madeira, made of red geraniums and blue and white violets. by the 22nd it had become cooler and rather damp, so all the men returned to the hospital (from the upper deck). on the 24th one of the officer patients had to have an anæsthetic for a slight operation on his arm; and i had a busy night in the hospital, as one man had a fit, and there were several enterics very ill. on christmas day it was good to see about twenty officers and between forty and fifty men at the early communion service, and we also had a service in the hospital. the saloon was quite full for the morning services at 9.15 and at 10 a.m.--there were too many for all to attend one service. sister and i found two huge stockings on our plates at breakfast time, with all sorts of silly presents in them. we had a very pleasant day and a jolly dinner party at night. we reached madeira that evening, and did not leave again till 2 p.m. the next day, so i had a run ashore with some people in the morning. on the 28th we anchored at gibraltar at 8.30 a.m., and the guns thundered out such a welcome to lord roberts! we stayed there till 1 p.m. the next day, and i again went ashore with some friends, and had a good look round the town. sir george white and his daughter came on board, and afterwards lord and lady roberts went ashore. we had fairly good weather all the way home, but after gibraltar the ship was rather inclined to roll; the remark on the ship's log was "fresh to moderate gale, with confused (!) sea." two of the sisters were rather bad, so the remaining sister and i had a busy time between the sick officers and the hospital; and, though neither of us was sea-sick, i can't say that we exactly enjoyed it when we had to sponge a bad typhoid in an upper berth (to reach whom we had to stand on a box, and have a man wedged in the gangway to hold our basin of water; never quite sure whether the next roll would not oblige him to pitch all the water over either us or our patient); and the daily syringing of the arm of the officer who had the operation was just about as much as i could stand on the rough days; so we were glad when the wind abated, and all the sisters could take their turn for night duty, &c. lord roberts was awfully nice to me about having looked after the men on board, and he asked me whether i wanted anything he could help me with; so i told him i only wanted to be sure they would let me go back and do some more work, and not get sent to a home station; so he most kindly sent for his secretary, and asked him to write to the director-general to say he would be obliged if my wishes on this point could be attended to. was it not kind of him? if i had not been so surprised i should have asked to be allowed to work for the same major again, but he was just chatting in such a kind, informal way on the deck, that i did not realise how much he could have helped me if i had thought to ask. i saw the new year in down in the hospital, and the stokers made such a noise to celebrate it, beating with their shovels, &c. luckily, by then, all our patients were improving, though some of them were still very ill; all except the very sick ones were tremendously excited at the thought of getting home. we were rather before our time, so, on the evening of january 1st, we had to anchor in swanage bay, and then arrived and anchored off cowes the next morning at 10 a.m. it was freezing hard and bitterly cold, and we were all longing to get home; but in the afternoon lord roberts went ashore to be received by queen victoria at osborne. he returned an earl and a knight of the garter, and i believe the queen handed him the v.c. won by his son at colenso. that night we anchored off netley, and the cold was intense; we got up to southampton at 9.30 a.m. on january 3rd, and such a crowd was there to welcome lord roberts. of course it was some time before he got away and we could get our patients landed; but as soon as we got into dock some orderlies came on board from netley with a good supply of fresh milk, which was much enjoyed in the hospital, and, eventually, we were thankful to see all the bad cases safely off to netley--three of them had been so very ill, and several times we had thought they could not live to get home. it is always a little sad saying good-bye to people you have got to know well on board ship, but not nearly so bad near home as out at the front. we had orders to report ourselves at the war office, and, after having cleared up the hospital, we were able to get away about 1 p.m. the next day i called at the war office, and presented lord roberts' letter, and was told that i should go back; they would let me know when--and then i went on leave. on the 15th of january i had a wire to rejoin the ship for the return voyage on the 19th. it was bitterly cold all the time i was in england, and i had rather a rush to get some new uniform and other necessaries, to unpack and "sort myself," and repack again. when i got on board the _canada_ i was rejoiced to find that sister ---was returning too, and three of our original medical officers. the ship was very full (122 in the saloon), and there were sixteen sisters and one other lady; but my old friend, the stewardess, was kind enough to manoeuvre so that i got a small cabin to myself. just before we got away the _manhattan_ backed into our stern, and sent us first with such a bang against the wharf, that the people standing there fell down flat like ninepins (and it was raining, so there were inches of mud for them to fall into!); and then we broke away from our moorings, with some visitors and the embarkation officers still on board. after a little excitement they managed to anchor off netley, and found our damage was chiefly to the boat deck (one boat was stove in) and the railings--it would have been more serious if our steam had not been up and ready for us to get away, so they were able to get her under control at once--but there we had to remain all the next day repairing, and it was very tantalising having to waste that time on board, especially as i have some relations who live within a couple of miles of where we were anchored. before we sailed we heard that the queen was very ill, and i fear she has been very feeble lately, and very much troubled about the war; so we all feel anxious, and every night when the band plays "god save the queen," and all stand at the salute, we wonder how she is. xli s.s. "victorian" (between cape town and durban), _february 1901_. just as we got in sight of st. helena on february 2nd our engines broke down, and we had to lay to for some hours while they were being repaired. then, as we steamed slowly up to the anchorage, h.m.s. _thetis_ signalled to us that our queen had died on january 22nd; so we ought to have been singing "god save the _king_" for the past eleven days. the men were all joking and playing games, &c., when the news came, and then there was such a hush of sorrow on the boat, and all the games were put away. we were at st. helena all the next day while the repairs were going on. the _mongolian_ arrived with 600 boer prisoners, and last week they had 1300 from simon's town. since we were last here some of the prisoners had made an attempt at escape, and they had also had a nasty mutiny amongst the men of the west indian regiment, who were stationed there. we anchored in table bay, after a very uneventful voyage (with no work in the hospital, except five cases of german measles), on february 8th, but did not get alongside till the following evening; and then (as we were receiving fresh orders about every half hour) we stayed quietly on board till the 11th--when the _canada_ was sailing again. the only thing that was definite was that the medical officers and sisters who had been in natal before were to return to that command, but how to get there was a different matter; the ship by which they proposed to send us by was not yet in, and it seemed likely that when the _canada_ left we should remain on the wharf sitting on our boxes. sister ---and i were the only sisters who had been in natal before, so we saw the others off by train for pretoria and elandsfontein. then the _city of vienna_ came in, and she was so full she could only just take on the medical officers, and sister and i had to wait to go by some other boat; but we were told we could go out to wynberg and lodge at the hospital till they could find berths for us, leaving our heavy baggage in store at the docks. there we were kept waiting ten days for a ship, and had a very dull time of it, as we were afraid to go to any distance in case any sudden orders came for us. wynberg is a very pretty place in pine woods; but the huts were infested with creatures, so that sleep was difficult, and though we are neither of us very particular about our food, it was so badly served and dirty that we could not enjoy it. i can't understand about the mess, as the sisters have to pay all their allowance of 21s. a week for food, and don't get anything like such good food as we had at a cost of 14s. or 15s. a week (though the actual cost of food is less at cape town), and they have no variety. there were some pretoria sisters staying there to recruit after enteric, and i felt so sorry for them, as the food was absolutely unsuitable for convalescents; and they told me they had been very well cared for all the time they were ill at pretoria, and so they were missing the careful feeding they had been used to. of course we did not get to know really very much about the hospital, as we were not on duty, and were only "lodgers," but a sister who came out with us was on duty, and was not at all happy; there were so many petty rules for the sisters that they seemed to spend their time in trying to evade them--not a good hospital tone. we found no news at all in the cape town papers, but certainly the war does not seem likely to be over just yet; they say all civil traffic and mails north of de aar have been stopped. there was a rumour that there were boers within thirty miles of cape town, so all the boer prisoners were being sent away from simon's town. some naval guns have been mounted on the "lion's head" (a part of table mountain), and the town guard were sent up there in watches, as well as some of the regulars. the town guard were most energetic and constantly drilling. one day i wanted to speak to one of the customs' men, and found they were all drilling with their rifles in the customs' shed, and the customs' business had to wait. then, of course, you will have heard there was plague in cape town, and there was some alarm lest it should get amongst the soldiers, and cripple us in that way; but they seem to be attacking it in an energetic way, and so far it is practically confined to the coloured people. as usual it started among the rats on the south arm at the docks; large numbers of them died, and the rest went off in a body to green point, at which place there is a large military camp, so that the sanitary officials were rather anxious. then the natives got frightened, and wanted to go home; but the government stopped that by not allowing any of them to travel by train, except with special permits; this was partly to prevent their spreading the plague about the country, and also because it would have been difficult to get the dock work done if the natives had cleared. at the same time a large native location is being built on the cape flats (where they will all have to live), and a light railway to bring them into their work. rats are being bought for threepence each, and several hundreds of their bodies are being cremated daily at the gasworks. at last we went into cape town and saw the p.m.o., but he said he could not say when we should get on; so we went on to our friend the embarkation officer, and told him that if there was no transport coming soon, we would pay our own passage to go up to natal by a mailboat rather than waste more time at wynberg; but he promised we should get a ship before the next mail and save our money, which we were glad enough to do; but my private opinion is that we should have been waiting at wynberg still if we had not gone into cape town and agitated about it! we paid a visit to the yeomanry hospital at maitland, where a brother of sister's was in as a patient (but getting better), and i found several old friends on the staff there. at last, on the 20th, we received orders to join the _victorian_ at cape town. it was pouring with rain, but sister ---went off at once to find a cab, while i hastily packed up, paid our mess bill, &c. before she got back, there was a telephone message to tell us to hurry, as the ship was going soon; we bundled our things on to the cab, and just managed to catch a train at wynberg, which (by good luck) was an express, as most of the trains loiter about at all the suburban stations. at cape town we hastily cabbed to the p.m.o.'s office for orders, but were told to go straight down to the ship; at the dock gates i sent sister on with our small things to the ship, to say we were coming, while i went to the agents, and was lucky in finding an empty trolley, and getting them to tumble our heavy baggage on to it, though they said it was too late for the _victorian_, as she had been hooting for some time; however, i got on to the waggon and rattled down to the south arm. there i found sister ---looking very melancholy, as they told her on board we were not expected, and there was no room for us, and "where were our written orders?" of course we _had_ no written orders, as all had been by telephone; but i did not mean to be left behind, so, taking my bag, and telling sister to bring hers, i bundled up the gangway, which they were on the point of removing, and asked to see the c.o., telling them that i did not mind a bit if there was no cabin, but that we could travel on deck! just then the embarkation officer came bustling along, and said that he had thought we could not get down in time, but that it was all right, and they had got to make room for us! so some soldiers soon carried our baggage on board, and as our last box came on the embarkation officer went off, and we were away. the cabins were really all full, but, after some delay, two poor young officers had to double in with some others and give us their cabin. the _victorian_ is rather a grubby boat--a cattle-boat when she is at home. there are two hundred boer prisoners on board, going up to a place near ladysmith; four of them are officers, who are berthed on the upper deck, but don't mess with us. they seem quite a superior sort (one of them was a commandant), and they are very polite to us, always ready to move our chairs, or to do anything to help us. there are about twenty officers in the saloon, and one officer's wife. the ship is not accustomed to having any ladies on board, but every one is very good to us, and the stewards are most attentive (there is no stewardess). i sit next to the c.o., a colonel from australia, who had had a bad fall from his horse, and is going back to australia for the voyage to recruit (this boat is going to take time-expired men from durban to australia, and will return with a full load of men and horses from there); he and his son have both been fighting out here. just lately he has been a patient in the hospital where we have been lodging, and he speaks very plainly about the bad management there, after he had been very well nursed in another hospital up-country. there is a very pleasant, and very irish, r.a.m.c. major in medical charge. he has had a rough time trekking about with his regiment for the last fifteen months, and is now going for the trip to australia to recruit after fever; he wants us to go with him, as they will probably send a couple of sisters, and we already have the promise of "a good time" in australia while the ship is there; sister says she would like to go, but i would like to see this show through first. the officer's wife has been in her cabin sea-sick all the way, so we have had to look after her a bit. it has been a little rough, but even sister ---has kept well--we conclude because we had been doing a compulsory fast in consequence of the bad feeding at wynberg before we came on board! we should have thought the feeding on this boat very poor after the _canada_, but it is first rate after wynberg. we shall soon be at durban now, and then they say we may have to be quarantined outside for ten days (on account of the plague at the cape), but we hope our services may be so urgently required at the front that they may forget to quarantine us! xlii general hospital, natal, _march 1901_. we arrived at durban on february 23rd, and were eventually allowed to land without being quarantined. it was saturday afternoon, and no orders came on board for us, and by the time the boer prisoners were landed, and we were able to get our baggage ashore, the durban p.m.o. had left his office; so we felt free to do as we pleased till the following day, when (though sunday) we _might_ be able to report ourselves. if we had been new sisters arriving it might have been awkward, but it suited us down to the ground. sister ---just caught the evening train up to pinetown to stay with some friends, and i promised to wire to her if we were needed on sunday; otherwise she would return on monday. then a kind sergeant-major helped me to get our baggage on to a trolley and take it up to the medical store, where it would be quite safe; and after that i went up to see some friends on the berea, and they most kindly took me in. from them i learnt many things; amongst others, that our old hospital had been turned into a rest camp of 300 beds, and that they thought we were to have the chance of going back there, but, for various reasons, they strongly advised us not to do so if we could avoid it; that our late medical officers had already been sent farther up-country (we had hoped to work for them again, but did not succeed in doing so). on sunday morning i went to report "ourselves" to major ----, and he was very pleasant and kind, wanted to hear all about our voyage home, &c., and asked me where we wanted to go? so i told him "as near up to the front as we could get"; then he told me that the order from the natal p.m.o. was for us to return to pinetown, but if i liked he would wire to him to ask him to let us go up-country, and that we could stay with our friends till he got a reply. i had a quiet sunday in durban, meeting many friends, and going to church in the evening. the next morning i met sister at the station, and the first thing she said to me (before i could tell her the orders) was, "sister, i _won't_ go to pinetown, i would rather resign, if they want to send us there." so then i told her that our fate was waiting on a wire from the p.m.o.; and as we walked along to the office she told me a good deal of what she had heard about pinetown--of course we can scarcely judge how much of it is really true, but at any rate it appears that some of the sisters now there seem to think that they have come out to south africa only to enjoy themselves, and that they are setting about it in a way which no lady would care to emulate. it was rather strange that we should both have received the same advice from quite different sources: "don't go there." together we went to the office, and stayed there some time, but no wire had come; they thought we should probably go _somewhere_ by the 6 p.m. mail train. we were advised to take some food if we went up, as meals on the way were uncertain. so i stocked my tea-basket, and bought some potted meat, &c., in case we went. all day we had to hover near the office or within sound of the telephone, and at 5 p.m. a wire came for us to go up to no. -general hospital by the mail train. one of the medical officers kindly helped us to get our baggage to the station, and secured a carriage for us. it is always a shaky journey up from durban, but we got some sleep, and the next morning, when we were having breakfast at glencoe, we were delighted to meet major ----, of the royal engineers, an old patient of ours, who has done splendid work up this side; he was going down to ladysmith. a little farther on we met two officers who had come out in the _canada_ with us, so they came into our carriage, and shared our lunch, and we brewed some tea with my tea-basket. at newcastle general hilliard was on the platform, and also a sister whom we knew. we had no sooner reached our destination than sergeant c. came up to welcome us--he had been at pinetown--and also went home with us; he does not seem at all pleased at being sent here, and is already trying to get a change. this hospital has been a "stationary hospital" up to now, but is just being turned into a "general hospital," so they say it is in rather a muddle at present. sister ---and i were allotted a tent with just bed and blankets--nothing else; we were not required on duty that day, so we went down to the coolie store and invested in some cheap sheets, a bucket, basin, &c.; also table fittings, as they told us no plates, cups, knives, or anything were provided. many people out here prefer to sleep in blankets, but as the army blankets are dark brown, rather of the texture of horsecloths, and as these were obviously not new (and the washing and disinfecting of army blankets in a satisfactory way is still an unsolved problem out here), we preferred to put some sheets in between! the air is lovely and fresh up here, where we are 5000 feet above the sea-level--always hot sun in the day, but very cold nights. a most unfortunate thing occurred the first night we were here: a sister, who came out in the _canada_ with us, had two large cases of feather cushions given her by the princess of wales--whom we must now learn to call queen alexandra--with the request that they should go to men in hospital near up to the front. she had promised me that if i went up-country i should have one of the boxes to distribute. when we arrived here i found a wire from her saying that she was passing our station about 8.30 p.m., and would i meet her? she was one of the sisters who had landed at cape town, but was now coming down to a hospital on this side. so, when we had got our tent straight, we went to the lady superintendent and said that if we were really not wanted on duty, might we go down to the station after dinner to meet this sister? she said certainly we might; she was sorry she had some letters to write, or she would have walked down with us. when we got to the station we found we were rather too soon, and there were a lot of orderlies standing about, and a few officers (whom, of course, we did not know), so i said to sister, "i vote we walk about outside till we hear the train coming"; and we were just beating a retreat from the platform when an officer stalked up and said, in a very rude way, "who are you?" we just gave our names, and were walking away, when he again stopped us, and asked what we wanted at the station? by this time sister ---was bubbling over with wrath, but we had to explain that we had obtained leave to meet a sister. i believe if i had said that i was expecting a box of things from the queen, he would have knuckled under, but i was not going to trade on that; and the long and short of it was that he did not believe that we had been given leave, and said we were not allowed in the station and were to return to camp. of course we went back furious at his rudeness, and then discovered he was the c.o. here! i expect the lady superintendent had forgotten to tell him we had leave (or something of that kind), but he might have believed our word, and not been so rude to us before a lot of orderlies, and she was very much annoyed with him. the next morning, when we were formally introduced to him, he was, i think, penitent, and invited us to go out for a picnic on the following day, when some people whom we knew were coming here, partly to inspect the hospital and partly for this excursion. sister ---went with them, but i was going on night duty that night, so i begged off. this is a "ration station" (as it would be difficult to buy food privately so far from the base), therefore we don't get quite so many "allowances," but the "skoff" seems very fairly good; they bake bread in the camp; and as long as you can get decent bread you can be content. we are just on the border of the transvaal, and there are plenty of boers about; two or three of our columns are trekking about in the district, and they say that we often have sick and wounded sent in from them. most of the sisters here seem to ride, but i can't take to that again yet. the night sisters had a little excitement two nights ago, when two horses galloped into the camp, and they--with the help of a convalescent officer--caught and tethered them. they hoped they would be allowed to keep them, but, unfortunately, they were reclaimed by some yeomanry men; but they say that very often droves of horses pass here, and sometimes a few escape, or are left behind too sick (or too tired) to go on; and then the orderlies catch them and sell them to the sisters for £1 or £2! i think there are about 500 beds here, nearly all under canvas. there are a few buildings of wood, and amongst them is a small room that the sisters use as a duty room, and the night sisters (two of them) sit there, and they have a small stove for boiling water, &c. there is no arrangement for hot water near the tents for the patients--we used to have (and i have seen them in other hospitals too) boilers on wheels with a coolie to keep the fire going, and if the water was not always hot, the coolie soon heard about it from the orderlies. one day the c.o. asked me whether i had everything i wanted, and i said, "no, i wanted a good many things for the men, one being hot water"; but he said he had never heard of these movable boilers, and seemed to think them an unnecessary luxury. at the sisters' camp we have a comfortable room that they use as a sitting-room, with a mixed lot of furniture that has been "commandeered" from houses in the district. the other day an officer sent us a lot of china plates taken from a boer hotel; they were very welcome, as we were most of us using enamel plates out of our tea-baskets, &c. we have our meals in a tent--just a long table, and benches without backs. our sleeping tents are chiefly the big square kind, called e. p. tents; they are supposed to hold four beds, so we may have to pack tight, but at present sister and i are alone. some of the sisters have made their tents very nice, and have rigged up curtains to divide them. at present we use our boxes as washstand, &c., and as a general hospital is given a certain amount of furniture for the sisters, we intend not to buy anything that is not really necessary until we see what they are going to give us. xliii general hospital, natal, _march 1901_. now i have waded (both literally and figuratively) through my first spell of a fortnight on night duty, and it has not been pleasant; but when one thinks how much worse it must be for the troops out trekking, one does not mind. i have always thought that south africa _without the sun_ was rather a poor sort of a place, and, living in a tent in the wet season, i am confirmed in that opinion. it began to rain the first night i went on duty, and during the fortnight i had only four fine nights: the other nights it rained--generally in bucketfuls. the first day when i went to bed it was very hot and stuffy in the tent, so i did not sleep for some time, but was sleeping in the afternoon when the rain began, and soon it woke me up by splashing on my face; then i found it was coming down in torrents, and our tent had been so badly pitched, with no trench round it, that there was a deep stream flowing through. i had to paddle about and rescue all our goods from the floor, pitching most of them on to sister's bed; and she was rather amused when she came over to call me, to find me fast asleep under a mackintosh and umbrella, my bed a simple island, and no room for her to get into her own bed! most of the sisters were prepared for this, and had suitable garments, but it was several days before i could obtain them, so i very soon had not a dry garment to my name. before i leave the subject i may as well tell you what is the correct garb, and then you can imagine us sitting on a bench at our mess--and i am sure no one seeing us would think we were sisters; with our lanterns hung up behind us, we look more like miners, or something of that sort! the first essential is a pair of knee "gum" boots, as the grass between the tents is long; then you must have knickerbockers, with a very short serge skirt (some omit the skirt altogether on night duty!), then a mackintosh. when it does not rain, you substitute for the mackintosh a "british warmer" coat--that is the short khaki overcoat that both officers and privates wear, a very rough wool with a warm flannel lining. for headgear we have a sailor hat, or a wool cap, or a sou'wester, according to taste. white caps and aprons are quite impossible when you have to go from tent to tent. of course there is no chance of drying anything till the sun comes out again, and when we get out of bed it would never do to turn it down; instead of that you put anything you wish to _try_ to keep dry inside, and cover it all up with every rug and blanket and mackintosh that you can lay hands on. our tent was so hopelessly bad, that after some days they let us move into another, and that one having a wooden floor, we were better off. i was so tired after moving our things into the new tent, and after a heavy night on duty in the pouring rain, that i slept like a top, and when i woke in the evening i found everything upset in the tent, and evident marks that a cow had been taking shelter with me! the sisters gibed at me, and said i should probably not have waked up if it had been a boer commando. there are a lot of men very ill. i was supposed to have charge on night duty of the medical side (about 250 beds), and that included the enteric tents with about 100 beds. they seem to have a mania for shifting the men about, so it was often difficult to find the bad cases; there were generally only night orderlies in the enteric tents, so that men who needed much attention in the night were supposed to be sent to the enteric line, whether they had enteric or not. to escape this risk of infection for them, we sisters used to try to do all for them in their own tents as long as we possibly could, and the poor chaps were so grateful to us, and the day sisters (who were equally keen not to have them sent down) used to tell us that the men always assured the medical officers that they had everything they wanted in the night. you know how at home if a sick man wakes up, and is alone for a few minutes, he thinks he is being neglected, but these poor chaps must have many lonely hours in the dark tents, and yet they never complain; they know that so many are dying of enteric, and they seem to have a horror of being sent down to that line. it really was pretty horrid paddling about in the dark and the long grass between the tents; and it was so slippery with mud and rain that twice i fell down, and it took some time before i could find my lantern and the kettle which i had just boiled up, and was carrying down to make a poultice for a poor chap with pneumonia: it was very annoying, as, of course, it took time to reboil the kettle. the day sister leaves everything ready, with the linseed in a bowl, so that i have only to pour the water on, and then i put everything all ready for the next one; in this way we can get fairly hot poultices, though the tents are a long way from the fire. the men used to be so sorry for us being so constantly wet; and many a convalescent man used to beg me to let him stay awake with a man who was very ill and give him his drinks, &c., promising to come and fetch me if he wanted anything, so that i need not go round so often,--but, of course, i could not let him do that. one man (a new zealander) said to me, "well, sister, i have often grumbled at having to do sentry-go for two or three hours on a wet night, but i never knew that any woman had to do it for twelve hours at a stretch; i shan't grumble at my share again in a hurry." the other day we had in a big convoy of eighty sick and wounded from general french's column. they had been eight days in ox waggons coming seventy-two miles; poor chaps, they were glad to get into beds. two days from here they had got stuck in a drift one night, and the boers came down and fired on them, killing a corporal and a private of the guard and wounding two others. one man had been shot in the thigh, and sister made him comfortable in bed, and the doctor said they should not do anything till next day; the man slept like a top for over twelve hours, and when he woke in the morning sister said something to him about having been comfortable, and he said, "yes, sister, i was not going to miss five minutes' enjoyment of that bed, for i have not been on a bed for fifteen months." this convoy also brought in a lot of boer women and children, but they have gone into a camp about three miles from here. if you, or any of your friends, care to post me any illustrated papers or magazines, they would be most gratefully received, or in fact anything wherewith to amuse the men. we should be very glad, too, of warm garments, as the winter is coming on, and the red cross people have stopped sending the splendid big bundles of papers that our men used to appreciate so much; in fact, most people seem to have tired of sending the things with which we were so well supplied at first. the poor tommies feel a little hurt at no free supplies of tobacco or cigarettes, and i would give anything to have my old supply of warm shirts, sweaters, wool caps, &c., for the men who have to go back to roughing it on trek. now that the rain has stopped, we are having perfectly lovely days, but the nights are very cold; they say that a little later on it is bitterly cold up here. there were six deaths during my first fortnight on night duty, and it was awfully sad, as one felt they had so little chance, and i cannot really see why they should not be better "done by"; but the sisters seem to think that it is the natural order of things, and that we must just "do our best and leave the rest." the general was here the other day, and said that all the men were to have tumblers instead of mugs, but i suppose he does not know that they have not each got a mug yet! there is one enteric tent (the last one opened) of fourteen beds, and their equipment includes only four mugs, and not a single feeding-cup at all. one night i found a man, who had not got enteric, sent there for the sake of having night orderlies, as he was very ill; so i had to borrow a mug for him from another line, and the next day i bought him the necessary fittings at the coolie store; but it won't do much good, as the orderlies probably won't take proper precautions to wash up for him separately. there are some new r.a.m.c. officers here now, and one of them seems energetic; i don't know what had gone wrong that he was poking into, but one of the sisters heard him say to a sergeant, "hospital scandals are not in it," so we can only hope things will improve here. there was much excitement here one night. a major arrived, sick, in a mule buggy from a column near here; the c.o. saw him, and told him what tent to go to, but he never arrived. after much searching of the camp, neither the officer nor his mules could be found; then the heliograph was set to work, and eventually he was located at the next station, and when he was brought back he said the c.o. was so rude to him that he thought he would not stay, and had gone to a hotel! since i came off night duty i, and two other sisters, have been doing only "afternoon duty," which means looking after the camp while all the other sisters are off duty; this is because there are more sisters here than the proper number: if there were only the right number, two of the sisters who have lines would stay on every afternoon in turn; but the stupid thing about it is that if we were each turned on to a big tent of enterics (instead of one sister having all the line on her hands) we might be doing really useful nursing; as it is, there is not much to do in the afternoon, beyond prowling round and trying to talk to the men and cheer them up a bit. the other day one of them presented me with these lines of his own composition; he was in a tent when i was on night duty where there was a very bad case: (_by an australian trooper._) you may talk of our soldiers and sailors, of our brave colonials too, but nothing is thought of our nurses, with hearts so tender and true. they have suffered great hardships, and endured the trials that fell to their share, and so caused their names to be cherished on every barrack room square. so give three cheers for our sisters who've shown us what they will do to help the cause of old england by nursing our sick soldiers through. xliv general hospital, natal, _april 1901_. our tent has filled up now--four of us in it--so we feel rather tightly packed. one of the four is a sister who has been in india, and done some camping out, so she thinks she knows all about tents and how to live in them; we rather trade on this, and when it rains we assure her she ought to go round and slack the guy-ropes in case they should shrink with the wet and pull the pegs up, as she knows so much more about how to do it than we do; or if it comes on to blow in the night we wake her up, and offer her the hammer to go round and knock in the tent-pegs! the wind gets up so suddenly here that we have to be careful not to leave anything about that is not tethered, or it may be miles away over the veldt before we wake up. i now have charge of a medical line of tents, and find the work very interesting, though there are many difficulties to contend with. the boers seem very thick in the country round; they have captured a train with 250 horses between here and h., and the other day they took 600 head of cattle from a loyal farmer only about six miles from here, and he had to fly for protection. some dragoons, who have been scouring the country for some weeks, were through here the other day, and one of their poor horses fell, exhausted, near to my tent; after a rest they got him up and went on, but soon a sergeant returned to say that he had fallen again, and they were going to shoot him, could he borrow some mules and tackle to pull his body off the path? i said, "oh, don't shoot him--i badly want a horse, and i'll get him some gruel and brandy from the store." he said i might have him if i would look after him, or else get him shot; but when we went out we found the men had already shot the poor beast. there are so many dead horses, mules, and oxen about that it is rather horrid walking anywhere beyond the camp, and sometimes we hear that the boers have put a dead mule (and once we heard some dead kaffirs) into our water supply, and it makes us rather squeamish, as we can't even get our drinking water boiled here. some of the officer patients tell us that they have drunk nothing but boiled water all through the campaign until they came here, and now they can't get it boiled for them. i am beginning to get papers from home, and they are much appreciated by the men, especially the six numbers of the _daily mail_ that come each week; i take one to each of my tents, and then they exchange them about. of course they are a month old, but, for all that, they are the latest news, and heaps of men from other lines congregate to hear them read. after much trouble i have retrieved that box of cushions sent by the queen, and they are treasures indeed; nice big feather cushions covered in red twill, and labelled "a present from the princess of wales." it was a little difficult to know to whom to give them, as, of course, all the men wanted one. i am trying to give them to invalids who will go home when well enough, as they will be very useful on the voyage, and the men could hardly carry them with them on trek. we had much excitement here early this month: one morning we were awakened at 5 a.m. by the sound of big guns, and in the course of time we heard that the boers had blown up some culverts in the night, and captured a provision train; then there was a heliograph message to say, "heavy fighting since daybreak," and they wanted some medical officers; so two men went off with ambulances, but it seems none of our men were wounded; five or six boers were killed, and two of their wounded were brought here: one poor chap with a shell wound of the head is not likely to live; he looked just a rough country boy in corduroys, but he has "f. j. joubert" marked on a handkerchief, so he may be some relation of the general. the guard of the train had a rough time, as they took away his boots, and then made him carry sacks of provisions for them up a steep kopje. for the present, they have stopped the trains from running at night. i do think the railway men have been awfully plucky in sticking to their work, when they could never feel confident that the line was not mined. we had orders not to go outside the camp for some days, and the c.o. went round and took notes of all the men who were fit to take a rifle if there was an attack; and of course all the men ride about armed. we had a quiet easter day here. the sisters were expecting some officers of the 5th dragoons over to tea, but they did not turn up, as they had been out all night chasing boers. a few days later the boers burnt a hotel and stores at ingogo, and some troops were hurried through here to go after them, but of course they got away. still a great many deaths here; the other day we had four in twenty four hours; one of those who died was a doctor whom i knew slightly (he travelled up the coast with us when we first came out). he had been practising out here, so his wife was able to come and be with him, and she stayed in our camp. the poor man had heart disease. of course he wasn't in my line, but the sister of the officers' ward had a case in the theatre, and as he had been asking for me the lady superintendent asked me if i would go to sit with him if i could leave my line for a bit. i managed to be with him most of the day, and he died in the evening, and i went with his wife to the funeral the next day. the enteric line is now full, so one of my tents has been allowed to have night orderlies, and we collect the bad cases into that. you would be amused at a "kit inspection" here: when one is proclaimed, the excitement is great, and the orderlies, almost tearing their hair, are so distracted that if the sister has any bad cases, she must nurse them herself, or understand that they will get no attention till the inspection is over! all the ward equipment, mugs, plates, buckets, brooms, &c., has to be laid out at the tent door for the officers to count. in a hospital at home, when "stock-taking" comes, you know that anything that is worn out, or damaged, or really lost, will be replaced, and you are glad of the chance of getting things made correct; but here they assure me that things must _be_ correct, or the orderly gets fined or punished; so, to avoid this, he resorts to strategy. as soon as the officer (with the wardmaster and orderly in attendance) has passed one tent as correct, the things may be put away again, and then comes in the help of the patients (who fully enter into the game), the most nimble trotting off with a medicine glass to one orderly who is short of that, or a bucket to another; i have known a good broom do duty for three different lines by careful dodging about. i find one of the senior sisters here is one who applied to me when i was choosing sisters to bring out at first; but i had many to choose from, and i made no mistake in thinking others more suited for the work! another sister who _did_ come out with me has recently come up here, but she has not been very well since she came, and thinks the life here is very rough, so she is trying to get an exchange. sisters can get away from here only by inducing others to exchange with them; and it is not easy to make any one believe that this is a desirable station. i have not tried yet, as i want to stick to it if i can (of course i can't do much, but i can make a few men more comfortable), but most of the others are trying to exchange. our meat chiefly consists of trek ox, and it is so tough that it is difficult to tackle; about once a week we get skinny mutton. the bread is all right, but several times lately the butter has not arrived, and we have to do without. we buy chocolates and biscuits at the coolie store to fill up the cracks. the other day we had in a sick convoy that had been seven days on the road, and one poor fellow was so bad with dysentery that he died an hour after they lifted him out of the ambulance; really these long days of knocking about in the ambulances seem about the worst of the hardships that the poor chaps have to put up with, especially for the very sick or the wounded. you see, most of the waggons are drawn by about sixteen mules, and sometimes they trot and sometimes they walk, but sometimes they turn really mulish and won't budge; and then, after much hauling and thrashing and shouting, they start with a great bound and go off at a gallop. they are seldom on anything that you could call a road, and are much more frequently on the rough veldt. a man who has been badly wounded can tell you all about the day when he got knocked over--he does not care to say much about the long day in the blazing sun, when he lay thirsty where he fell before the bearer company came along; and then, perhaps, the dark night with frost on the ground, or rain falling; he shudders when he tells you of the groaning men who lay around him, and who gradually ceased to groan, and how he began to think the ambulance would be too late to pick him up too--but what he simply can't bear to speak about is the agony of being pitched about with a fractured bone for days in one of those waggons. it is not so bad when the fighting is anywhere near the rail, as then the wounded are soon placed in the hospital trains, and are fairly comfortable; but the long days of travelling by waggon are terrible. general dartnell's column was through here the other day, and they have gone into camp about two miles from us for ten days' rest. he has about 3000 men with him, and they have about filled us up with sick, while a good many went straight on board a hospital train. major ----, of the commander-in-chief's bodyguard, was with this column, and came over to see me; his wife was in cape town when i was last there, and went home on the _canada_. you know how particular he is about his horses, &c., at home? he drove over to see me in a very ramshackle old cape cart with a big horse running as a pair with a rough little boer pony. his uniform was in rags, and we did a little stitching up for him before he returned; they are having a very rough time of it. xlv general hospital, natal, _may 1901_. there have been some big ructions here lately, but i think, perhaps, they may have done good in some ways. i don't think that i told you of a difficulty with which i had to wrestle when i was on night duty, and which bothered me a good deal. i believe it is a general rule in the army nursing service that the sisters give all the medicines and stimulants; and, of course, i expected to do the same here, but when i got to the enteric line on night duty, i found that the day sister left them all to the orderlies to give in the daytime, and the night orderlies gave them in the night. generally there were good orderlies there, who were quite to be trusted, but every now and then there were odd men on, and of course i could not be sure that the stimulants, &c., were correctly given. the day sister gave me no report of what the men were on, but it was given to the orderly. i did not quite know what to do, but i went to the lady superintendent (after seeing the sister of the enteric line) and told her that if i was to be responsible that they were given, would she arrange that i was given the report, as otherwise i could not tell that everything was given as directed; but if it was right to leave it in the hands of the orderlies i would _try_ to see that it was all right, but would not be responsible if anything went wrong. she seemed to think the day sister would not have time to give all herself (she had charge of only the one line, whereas the night sisters each had five or six lines). anyhow, she did not do anything at all in the matter, so i just muddled on as best i could, and used always to try to be around when important medicines were due, so that i don't _think_ much was neglected. then, last month, another night sister was on, who did not get on well with the orderlies, and she reported one of them for being asleep, and he promptly replied by reporting her for not doing her duty and giving the medicines, &c., so that he had to do it all. then came the ructions, and now the sisters have to give everything, and i believe they are going to put on a third night sister, so i think things will go more smoothly in time. the lady superintendent has only once been round my line since i have had charge of it. i had a curious case the other day that gave us a good deal of anxiety--that of a young lance-corporal, who had been bad with malaria, but was better and able to sit up in bed. i left him one night very cheery and bright, and the next morning i happened to meet the night sister as she went off duty, and she said, "oh, sister, i forgot to report that that lance-corporal of yours in tent 3 did not seem so well, and he was sick this morning." i thought that i would go and look at him first instead of beginning my round in tent 1, and i was shocked to find the poor boy quite unconscious, and almost pulseless. of course i sent for the doctor and got brandy, hot bottles, &c.; the doctor thought it was all up, but he injected strychnine; he said he thought it must have been typhoid and not malaria, and that this meant perforation. anyhow, the boy began to revive; i hardly left him all day, but now i think i may say he is out of danger; i really think it was heart trouble, perhaps embolism, but i have seldom seen a man pull round after being as nearly gone as he was. of course you will have heard that the poor old _tantallon castle_, the ship on which we first came out, has gone down on robben island. the passengers and the mails were saved, and i was rejoiced when a nice, soft little blanket arrived that my people had sent out by her; i roll myself in it inside my sheets, and am much more comfortable. it is a curious thing that so many ships in which i have travelled have gone to the bottom: i made one trip years ago up the coast on the _drummond castle_, and went down the coast on the _courland castle_; i also went home from tenerife on the _fez_--they have all gone down, and now the _tantallon castle_ has shared their fate. there was a big dance one night about three miles from here, to which twelve of the sisters went, and another night there were some theatricals. i daresay i am wrong, but somehow these festivities seem a little out of place while the war is still going on. some of the sisters appear to think that they have come out here to have as much fun as they can get, and they talk about very little except the men they have been dancing with, and so on. the wind has been tremendous lately, and four of the patients' tents have been blown to ribbons; we seem to spend most of our time on duty trying to keep the men's tents up (with not more of the gale than is absolutely necessary blowing round the bad cases), and most of our time off duty in attending to our own tent-pegs, &c. of course wind here always means dust, and sometimes it seems as though the stones fly up and hit you in the face, and unless one takes great care the patients' milk is soon full of sand. really, if it was not that the men suffered for them, some of our difficulties would be amusing. when this hospital was a "field stationary" all the men had warm, grey flannel shirts; when it became a "general" they were given instead white cotton shirts and white flannel vests. that was all right at first, but recently the hospital has been enlarged, and, though there are plenty of the cotton shirts, they have run out of the flannel vests. now the winter has begun, and we have many men in with rheumatism and chest complaints, and the tents are very cold, but the poor chaps are only given cotton shirts. i know there are plenty of the old "greybacks" in the store, but because this is now called a general hospital they are not correct, and so cannot be issued, and the men must wait till more vests arrive! we have all fussed about it as much as we could, and we bought flannel shirts at the store for our worst cases (a man is always most grateful for an extra shirt to take with him when he goes away, so they won't be wasted), and now, at last, the old greybacks have been dealt out. at last they have got some boilers on wheels, so that we can get hot water in the tents; but _why_ should we have to wrestle so long to get things that make so much difference to the health and the comfort of the men? the lady superintendent is always saying that she does not know how we should have done in ladysmith; but we all reply that we should have tried to make shift, but we can't see why we should have to "make shift" here quite so much, with an open line to the base. i do wonder when the war will be over: the poor tommies are so heartily sick of it, and are beginning to try every means to get sent home; you see most of the excitement of war has pretty well worn off, and now they just have to keep on trekking about the country, destroying farms, and bringing in boer women and children to the refugee camps. they generally collect more destitute people on the way than they reckoned for, and, as they have to feed them, the rations for the troops run short, and the men are cut down to half rations (and sometimes quarter rations); and some columns out this way have had nothing but "mealie meal" (indian corn), and not too much of that, for some days before they got into camp. sometimes they have been on such short rations that men have had to be punished for stealing their horses' rations of mealie meal. when they pass through a village, the first place they make for is the baker's shop, and it is very soon cleared, and you see the men going on with loaves slung around them, and rather in the way of their rifles. when you consider that they are generally marching all day in a hot sun, and that in summer the nights are often wet, and in winter they are generally frosty, and the men just have to lie down hungry on their mackintosh sheet (no tents), with their greatcoat and sometimes one blanket; that they hardly ever have a chance of shooting at a boer, but are constantly being sniped at during the nights--is it any wonder that they are utterly weary of it all? we have not heard so much about boers being close around here since general dartnell's column went through, and now the sisters are generally allowed to ride again. our tent is the last one at this end of the camp, and when we were told that we were not to go more than a mile from the camp in any direction (except along the line) it used to be strange to walk out, after we came off duty, for a few hundred yards beyond my tent, and then sit down on a grassy ridge as it got dark and watch the heliographs flashing around, and wonder whether the little lights we saw meant our men or boers camping out. sometimes we used to imagine they were quite close and watching us, and used to go back to our tents feeling quite creepy, and borrowing an extra piece of string to tie up our tent door! and then, when we heard the guns in the distance, it was always a debatable point whether it was worth getting up and dressing in case any wounded were brought in soon, but we generally decided to finish our usual allowance of hours in bed. people are kindly sending me english papers now, both from england and passed on from durban, and they are very much enjoyed; the men were especially delighted last week when they got hold of an old weekly edition of _the times_ in which general buller and general roberts mentioned some of the regiments to which they belonged. it is getting frightfully cold at nights; there are big icicles hanging round the water tanks, and when one of them overflowed there was quite a little sea of ice round it; the water in our tents often freezes, and it is quite difficult to break it to wash in the morning. the night sisters are very miserable with the cold; i shall have to take my turn on night again next month, and i shall be quite sorry to give up my line, as the patients are so awfully grateful for what one can do for them, and i have nice orderlies just now. we go to bed directly we finish dinner at night, so as to try to get warm. xlvi general hospital, natal, _june 1901_. thank goodness the winter will soon be over. i have never felt anything like the keenness of the cold up here. on the whole, things have been fairly quiet in the country round just lately, though once the line was threatened and some of the trains delayed; and on another day there was a rumour of fighting not far off, and it was said that we had lost some guns, but i don't think there was much truth in the report. things are also going a little better in the hospital. we have a new lady superintendent, the other having gone home on a hospital ship. there has been another big dance, to which most of the sisters went, and some other entertainments. one night we (my tent full) had all gone to bed to try to get warm, when some one came banging on the canvas, and sister ---of the hospital train put her head in; you know she was an old london friend of mine. her train was tied up here for the night, and, as she had heard our men were suffering from the cold, she had brought up a noble present of flannel jackets for them. they really were treasures: of course, i wanted them all for my own line, but had to be generous and give up a few to sisters who really had some bad chest and rheumatism patients. talking about rheumatism--i had one man in with rheumatism who was rather bad at first; he would not improve, but remained so helpless that the orderly had to lift him about. i did not quite know what to do with him, and began to think that if an r.a.m.c. surgeon had been on my line the improvement would have been rather more rapid than with the civil surgeon who had charge! then, one day, i had a man bad in the next tent to this man, so i asked leave to go down to do something for him one evening after we had gone off duty, as i knew the night sister would be too busy to go to him when she first went on--and here there is always an hour's interval after the day sisters leave the camp and before the night sisters go down. what was my surprise when i got to the tent to find my rheumatic patient in there playing cards! he had pretended he could not sit up in bed. i only said to him that i thought it was time he turned in for the night; and the next day i handed his board to the medical officer when he came round, and said that if he did not mind marking him "up," i thought it would do him good to sit out in the sun in the middle of the day, if the orderly put him to bed after tea. you can imagine the poor man felt pretty small, and in a few days he told the civil surgeon that he thought he felt fit to go back to duty, so we shook hands and parted good friends. i hope that he will not get shot, or i shall wish i had let him slack a bit longer! we have had a good many boer patients in lately; one poor young captain has lost his leg. one old fellow used to crawl about on crutches, but he was caught one night slipping about without them, and a boer woman was found outside the fence with his clothes; so now all the boers have been collected together and a guard posted. i am now on night duty again, and find the orderlies more attentive, and the patients (generally) better nursed. the first night i was on duty i was just reading the reports and trying to find out where the worst cases were, so as to visit them first (i now have 285 beds on my side, instead of the 250 i had when i was on before), when a wardmaster came to tell me that a sick convoy had turned up unexpectedly from general bullock's column, and one man had been wounded on the way and had some hæmorrhage from a shattered hand. i helped the surgical sister get the theatre ready in a hurry, and then she stayed for the operation, while i went to see the others. there were only fifteen men, and they were black as sweeps and very cold; but they did not seem very bad, and they were delighted to be in shelter, with the prospect of a bed. the orderly officer asked me to give them anything i liked, and he would order it afterwards, while he went to the theatre with the case; the wardmaster got them all some bovril, and we soon settled which of them might have bread with it; and then i had not the heart to insist on the usual wash, as it was so bitterly cold, but i let them all tumble into beds, and then took round a bottle of whisky and a kettle and gave them all a hot drink; there was nothing more heard of that lot of men (but snores) for a good many hours! poor chaps, they were absolutely tired out, and the medical officer quite approved, only saying he thought they might have had two bottles of whisky amongst them instead of one, but you know i am a strict teetotaller! having settled them, i started my rounds, and soon found that the worst case was a poor chap with pneumonia; fortunately he was in a building (instead of a tent), so it was possible to keep him fairly warm. the night orderly was not a very intelligent youth, but he was fairly watchful and obedient, and for four nights i spent every spare minute with this man, and really thought we should pull him through; then the fifth night the day sister met me in a very bad temper, and said, "what _do_ you think? they have moved our poor o. down to a very draughty enteric tent; after all the trouble we have taken to pull him round! i am sure he will die there." i asked why he had been moved, as there had been no sign of enteric, and she replied that she could not get any reason, but an orderly had told her that "the doctor said that he was going to die, and he did not want any death up there." poor chap, he did die the next day, and of course he _might_ have done so in any case, but to shift him then just took away his only chance. it has been very cold all the time that i have been on night duty, but two of the nights were so horrible that i don't think i shall ever forget them. sister ---is on with me now, so we grumble together; for those two nights it was blowing _hard_, and then a sleety rain came on that positively cut like knives, and was almost paralysing; on the second of those two nights i struggled back to the duty room and flopped down by the fire, which was very low, but i had not even the energy to poke it up; after a bit sister came in dripping wet and looking blue with cold; she set down her lantern, and then came to the fire and gazed at me, and, after a bit, said, "sister, you do look ill." i tried to laugh, but i think we were both much nearer crying with cold; so i struggled up to attend to the fire and brewed some tea, and after a bit sister said, "do you know, sister, when i came in i thought you looked as though you were going to die, and if you had been, i positively had not the power to set to work to get you a hot drink or anything." i told her i thought we were both too tough to die of cold, and then we both (feeling a little better for the tea and warmth) had to tramp off again to give brandy to some of the bad cases. after that, they put on another night sister, so the work was not quite so hard, and we could take rather longer spells in the duty room to get warm, but we have not had rain (as well as the cold) except on those two nights. last night was full of excitement: during the day a poor young australian lad had gone off his head and had been put in a guard tent, and he tried to get hold of the sentry's bayonet. then there was much commotion because the c.o. found one of the signalmen was drunk, and brought him down to the guard tent. then sister ---found an orderly straying about, who was supposed to be special with a young r.a.m.c. lieutenant who is down with fever, and the orderly did not seem to know what he wanted; so sister flew off to the tent, and found the lieutenant very much upset, and saying that the orderly was quite mad, and had refused to go and fetch the wardmaster when he ordered him to do so; he said he could not tell sister what mad things the orderly had been doing; so she had to send for the medical officer, who got the orderly removed at once and another posted. there is not nearly so much drinking as there was at first, but still they do find ways of getting drunk at times. a little while ago there was a great row because the convalescent officers were allowed to drive or ride about, and they used to go over to the next town and bring back whisky and champagne. i don't think there was much harm in it at first (except that it was a bad example for the men), and it was winked at for some time, until they had a very rowdy lot of men in, and then one day one of them was found to be suffering from d.t. i am glad i am not lady superintendent up here: i should find it hard to know where to draw the line with the present lot of sisters; at first they were given every liberty, and were rather encouraged to go to dances and riding picnics, &c., with the men; then, when their behaviour began to be talked about, the authorities put up notices in our mess-room of rules referring to conduct of which no lady would be guilty, rules which were, in fact, an insult to us, but which we cannot say are unnecessary, because there are just a few sisters who don't care what they do--one of them was seen at a hotel at the next station smoking cigarettes with a most undesirable companion! we can only hope the war will soon be over, and let us all go home; otherwise, the sooner sisters of that sort are weeded out the better. they seem to have been choosing the sisters in a very casual way at home lately, and, though there are plenty of sisters out here who are working hard and well, they will probably all get classed together in the public estimation with those who are simply "frivolling" and getting themselves talked about. xlvii uitenhage, cape colony, _october 1901_. it is a long time since i have written to you, but for some time things went jogging on very much the same as when i wrote last, and there was little to write about, and then lately i have had a wretched time of it, so did not feel inclined for writing. after i finished my turn on night duty i went back to my line, but soon knocked up, and was ill and off duty for nearly three weeks; first with dysentery, and then my damaged side got bad again. by the time i got to work once more, the weather had very much improved, and my tents were very light. i received from home some splendid boxes of literature, and also of tobacco and jerseys, and some games for the men. i taught them to play halma, and it was very popular; they used to make out it was a competition between the different branches of the service--the greens were always the volunteers, the yellows were the yeomanry, the reds the regulars, and the blues the navy or the colonials; sometimes they could get a representative of each branch to play the men, and then there was much excitement as to which would get in first. the men in my line got a photographer to photograph them, and presented me with a large copy. you can understand that we were fairly slack when i tell you that we used to brew toffee in the duty room on afternoon duty. i think we were all very tired of ration feeding, and we were all getting thin, and when one gets to that stage one has a sort of craving for sweet things, so the toffee was very popular. something went wrong with the washing arrangements for a time, and we could not get our things washed, so for a week or two we had to wash for ourselves, and, irons being very scarce, we had to press our things by putting them under our mattresses and sleeping on them! a column camped for a night near to us, and sent us in some sick, including a good many cases of measles, that had to be sent to an isolation camp. they had no sisters out there, and it was pretty rough and very dull; but the provision cart went out every day, so i was often able to send them parcels of papers, &c. early in september the town guard were all under arms, as there was some looting of stock quite near to us; and there were many rumours that we were going to be attacked (for the sake of the rifles and ammunition that the patients had brought in). the rifles, &c., were therefore sent to the next station. after that there was more fighting down at dundee, and then the natal volunteers were ordered out again. all this time i was very seedy, and trying to exchange to another station; but several of us had rather good reason to believe that, so many sisters having sent in for an exchange, their applications were never forwarded to the p.m.o.! then they had a "court of inquiry" at the hospital, and i was obliged to give some evidence: and it was simply horrid having to do so. after that i felt so bad i wrote to the p.m.o. direct to say that as i could not get an exchange, might i be allowed to resign? as my brother was just now in natal, and i proposed to go to stay with him, before going to england. at last i obtained leave of absence, and later on obtained leave to resign. _very_ much to my surprise, about this time, i learnt that i had been "mentioned in despatches," and, a little later on, that i had been awarded the royal red cross; i am sure i have not done anything to earn it, nor have i done as much as many of the others; but, of course, it is very nice all the same. i had such an awfully kind letter of farewell from the men of my line before i left, thanking me for what i had done for them. we had a good many "gentlemen troopers" in, the last part of my time, and some exceedingly nice fellows amongst them. one, who was especially helpful, had been an officer on one of the big liners that came out here, before the war. he is now a gunner on one of the armoured trains, and has had a very exciting time of it. my brother was in durban, so i left one morning at 3 a.m. to join him; i put myself to bed in the train the night before, but i was prevented from sleeping by the shunting of engines and by the letting off of steam, &c. i was the only lady on the train till we had got some way down the line. we were delayed for an hour soon after we had started, as there had been a bad collision the day before, and as the telegraph line was damaged they had to give us a pilot engine. it was a very rough line, and the train swayed about so tremendously that i was feeling quite sea-sick; then, when we were rattling down a steep hill, there was a sudden explosion, which, of course, made us think of boers and many things, and we pulled up with such terrific jerks that we and our baggage all became mixed up on the floor. as soon as we could disentangle ourselves, we looked out--quite expecting to see a party of boers--but only saw one man waving his arms violently, and we came to a standstill just as we rounded a sharp curve, and found ourselves immediately on the tail of a heavy coal train that had got stuck on our line; the explosion was a fog signal they had laid to stop us, and it saved us from coming a very nasty cropper down a steep bank. i had told my brother i should spend the night with friends at pinetown and join him in durban the next day; but when i was leaving i had a wire from him to say i had better come straight down, as he might have to sail the next day, so, _en route_, i wired to my friends not to expect me. i had a very early breakfast at glencoe (and the usual wash at a tap on the platform!), and we were so late in reaching estcourt, where we were supposed to lunch, that by that time i had a really bad headache, and could only rise to a cup of tea and a roll. inchanga is the place where one always dines, whether going up or down, and we were due there about 7 p.m., but about 8.30 p.m. we got stuck in a siding about a mile from inchanga; and there we had to remain nearly an hour because lord milner was dining at inchanga, and we had to wait till he had passed; we did not bless him for taking so long over his dinner while we starved! by this time i was feeling really ill, and thought it might be partly from want of food, so i made myself eat some soup and a little chicken; then i was establishing myself in the train again (thankful to think that it was a "no stop" run to durban), when another wire was thrust into my hand from my brother saying, "no beds, if possible sleep pinetown; not leaving till following day." i groaned, but bundled out again, with my kit-bag open, and my rugs, pillow, books, &c., all loose, just as the train departed. i thrust my goods into the hands of an astonished little kaffir boy, who helped me to pack up my kit-bag, and of course i had to leave my heavy baggage to take care of itself. i did not have to wait long for the "kaffir mail," which _does_ stop at pinetown, but i knew my friends would all have gone to bed as they were not expecting me, and of course no one would meet the train, and their house was some way from the station, and it was raining steadily! so i felt pretty miserable. i was put in a carriage by myself, and after we had started found there was no light in it, and i felt really ill, and wished i had not made myself eat any dinner! however, just as we ran into pinetown i looked out, and some one hailed me, and there was one of my best old pinetown orderlies (now working on the line). he seemed so pleased to see me that i felt inclined to embrace him, but refrained! as soon as he had seen the train off and had locked up the station, he shouldered my bag and escorted me to my friend's house. they were all fast asleep, but soon let me in, and i don't know when i have been so thankful to turn into a comfortable bed as i was that night. it was a little over eight months since i had slept in a house. the next morning they brought me a delicious breakfast in bed--hot scones, &c.; you don't know what it was like after camp feeding, to have a pretty tray with a cloth on it, and everything dainty and nice; and i was very loth to leave both my bed and my kind friends; but about mid-day i again boarded the train for durban, retrieved my baggage at the station, and then found my brother at the marine hotel. i had time to see a few friends and do a little very necessary shopping, and then we went on board the _arundel castle_ to go down the coast to port elizabeth. you can't think how funny it was to walk upstairs again: the pinetown house was a bungalow, so i did not have to try stairs till i got on board ship. i still feel as though i must duck my head every time i go through a door, and when it blows in the night i always wake up and wonder whether i ought to take the mallet and attend to the tent-pegs; and then, when i realise i am not under canvas, there is such a satisfaction in being able to lie down and go to sleep again. we did not stay in port elizabeth, but travelled by train straight on here, where my brother has about three days' work. we have a very comfortable little house to ourselves, with a garden full of such lovely flowers--maréchal niel roses, &c. this is a pretty little town, and many of the people, who are most pleasant and friendly, have called on me. near to uitenhage there are still some wild elephants, but i had not time to make their acquaintance. to-day the minister of the dutch reformed church took us to see the riebeck girls' college; such good buildings, and such bright-looking scholars. they have a kindergarten, and then all the standards up to the highest--those working for university exams. the resident magistrate took us to see some nursery gardens that send flowers all over south africa. after the barrenness of the natal uplands these masses of flowers were quite lovely, and i was given a beautiful bunch of carnations. to-night we have some people dining with us, and to-morrow we return to port elizabeth, where we shall probably stay about ten days. xlviii kimberley, south africa, _december 1901_. from uitenhage we returned to port elizabeth, where my brother had about a week's work, and then we had to wait a few more days for a steamer; but several old kimberley friends were down there, and a good many other people called, so i had a very pleasant time. port elizabeth was a little agitated about the plague; they had had about a hundred cases, and about half of that number had died, but just then there were only twelve in the hospital. one day i went out with three ladies to a place they call the red house, and had a delightful row up the zwartkops river. another day mrs. ---drove my brother and me out to her father's country house, "kraggakama," about a fourteen mile drive; a beautiful bungalow house, and such a lovely garden, surrounded by dense, semi-tropical woods, with little paths leading away into the woods; many monkeys and other creatures around. we had lunch out there, and found strawberries just ripe in the garden. from port elizabeth we had meant to go straight back to kimberley, but, after many wires, it was decided that my brother must go to oudtshoorn, a place a long way from the railway, where there had been cases waiting for a long time for trial, as it had not been considered safe for a judge to travel there. to reach oudtshoorn it was necessary to go by steamer to mossel bay, and the mail steamers, as a rule, do not call at mossel bay. moreover, port elizabeth being an infected port (with plague), the mail steamers were not keen on taking passengers from there; so there were many obstacles to be overcome. i packed up my heavy baggage and sent it up to kimberley; then the _norman_ was signalled, and we went down to the jetty, and had to be examined by the medical officer of health for plague symptoms! and then the harbour-master took us off in a special tug. the next morning they put us ashore at mossel bay, and there we had to wait some hours as the commandant was very doubtful as to which was the safest route for us to take; there were still a good many boers in the surrounding country, and, though they probably would not wish to interfere with us, they would certainly be very pleased to annex our provision cart and also our horses and mules; and the c.o. had so weak a garrison that he could spare us only a small escort. after some time spent in wiring, it was decided we should drive to george and sleep there. the baggage and provisions were sent on with a mule cart, and, after an early lunch, we got away in two cape carts with four horses each. the distance was about thirty miles, and we outspanned only once--at brak river, where we had some tea, and there an escort of six cyclists met us from george, and the mossel bay men turned back. the cyclists were very smart fellows; some of them scouted ahead, and the others rode with us very steadily uphill and down. it was getting dark when we neared george, and the commandant and magistrate rode out to meet us, and then stayed and had dinner with us at the hotel. george is a pretty place, with streets lined with fine old oaks, and with big arum lilies growing in the fields around. just in front of the hotel there was a stout little sandbag fort with a small gun, and, of course, there was very strict "martial law" there; pickets on every road, and no one could leave the village or come in without a permit, and even with a permit you must be within the picket lines by sundown. no one might be outside his house after 9 p.m., and lights must be all out by 10 p.m. we were to sleep at george, and the commandant told us that he had already sent out a patrol of men, who were to sleep at the top of the montague pass, and meet us there the next morning; he wished us to slip away quietly in the early morning, and his patrol would soon join us, and ride with us till we met the troop that was being sent out from oudtshoorn to meet us. the commandant has about 300 men under him. they are nearly all local men, in fact many of them boers, but he was quite confident of their loyalty, and said the poor chaps were suffering badly for it, the rebels burning their farms and doing them all the harm they possibly could. just when we were there he was very sad because one of his scouts, quite a young lad belonging to george (and very popular in the place), had been most cruelly shot by them after he had had to surrender. the next day we started in our carts about 6.30 a.m., every one seeming to think it would be a risky drive. after we had gone some way our driver began to pull up and looked scared (he could speak only dutch), and we made out that he could see some horses off-saddled higher up the mountain, and he thought it was boers waiting for us. with some difficulty we explained to him that we expected the george escort to meet us at the beginning of the pass, and then he agreed to go on; but we were all somewhat relieved when we got up to the horses and found they belonged to genuine district mounted troops, and that they had not seen any boers about. that day we travelled between forty and fifty miles, through beautiful mountain scenery, which reminded us of switzerland (minus the snow); lovely ferns and cool, dripping water, and quite high mountains all round. we outspanned only once for a breakfast-lunch at doom river about 10 a.m.; scheeper's commando had honoured them with a visit there, for looting purposes, just before he was caught. at hymen's house, about mid-day, we were met by a captain and twenty-two men from oudtshoorn, and the george men went back. we got safely into oudtshoorn about 3 p.m., and expected to be there about three or four days, but the work was heavier than had been expected, and we were there a whole fortnight. this was rather fortunate for me, as i knocked up with a very sharp touch of dysentery again, and should not have been fit to travel much sooner. the oudtshoorn people were extremely kind, and, when i got better, i had some charming drives to visit farms and other places of interest. it is a rich farming district, and it was the first time i had seen anything of ostrich farming and tobacco growing; so i found a great deal to interest me; they also grow grapes and other fruits, and it is a good corn-growing country. the ostriches do especially well all along the course of the oliphant's river. i got some good photos of the ungainly creatures. martial law was very strict, and (besides the same rules as those which i told you were in force at george) the farmers were not allowed to keep any horses or food supplies on their farms in case the boers should take a fancy to them;--all horses had to be sold to the remount department at a fixed price, and farmers and other residents in the district, who were accustomed to keeping plenty of good horses, might be seen coming into town with oxen in their traps; and as they were not allowed to keep more than a week's supply of food or forage on their farms, and as some lived many miles away, they had to spend a good part of their time on the road in drawing their rations, as, of course, the oxen are very slow travellers. they were reaping the corn when we were there, and it all had to be carted into town and sold to the military people, as they cut it. oudtshoorn, being far from the railway, had been very short of provisions (groceries, &c.) for some time past, and the military authorities would not allow any waggons to go up from the coast without a strong escort (which could not often be spared); but a convoy had been sent through before we got there, so there was plenty of food, and our provision cart had a few luxuries which seemed to be appreciated at the two dinner parties we gave. from oudtshoorn we still had more than a day's journey to join the railway at prince albert road, and horses were so scarce that it was not easy to get decent animals. we sent the baggage cart (with mules) on ahead, and, eventually, my brother and i (and our man) got away in a light cape cart with two fairly good horses, and the other men had four screws in a bigger cart. the scenery, as we crossed the zwartberg, was very _grand_, but not quite so _pretty_ as the montague pass. it was very stiff work for the horses, and we walked a good deal. our first outspan was near the cango caves, where they had recently had a visit from a boer commando; and then we had to give the horses a good rest at the "victoria hotel," high up on the zwartberg. we were rather disturbed to find, when we caught up our baggage cart, that it had no brake on it: the road is tremendously steep, as it zigzags down the mountain; so the sergeant in charge of our escort left a trooper to help the boy bring the mules down. we got in about 7 p.m., but there was no sign of the baggage cart that night, and the commandant (who had ridden out to meet us and then dined with us) was anxious, because only one trooper had been left with it, so he sent some more men out to meet them. we had to go to bed without our baggage, feeling very anxious, as every one seemed to think the boers would much like to get hold of it, and also of the mules. i have seen plenty of barbed wire in south africa, but have never seen so much as at prince albert; they stretch it even across the village street at night, and you can't go many yards without getting tied up in it. the next morning, if we were to catch our train (and there was only the one train a day), we knew we must be away by 7.30 a.m.; but still no sign of our baggage; and then, at last, we heard that it was safe, but the crossbar of the harness had broken, and they had had to spend the night on the top of the mountain; a trooper had ridden in and gone back with new harness; so, after sitting at our gate with the commandant, with a fresh supply of carts, and a fresh escort, until it was too late for it to be _possible_ for us to catch our train, we had to decide to wait till the next day, and various wires had to be despatched about the railway carriage, &c. about two hours later the missing baggage-cart arrived all well, with a very weary driver and troopers in attendance. we had a pleasant day at prince albert, and the next day (having sent the baggage on at an early hour) we had an easy drive of twenty-eight miles with some excellent horses (most kindly lent to us by the commandant), to the rail at prince albert road. we outspanned only once, at boter's kraal, where the final escort met us, the sergeant coming up to salute and to tell us that he and his men "had searched the kopjes thoroughly since 4 a.m., and had seen no boers to-day!" but at boter's kraal they told us of a recent visit from pyper's commando. thus ended our 150 (odd) miles of driving across the colony in this "sort of a war," without once having had the excitement of seeing any armed or hostile boers. about thirty hours in a hot and dusty train brought us into kimberley. the dull old karroo country looked much the same as when i saw it ten years ago, except that every few hundred yards on the line a blockhouse is standing, and a sentry in his shirtsleeves marches up and down with his rifle, while the rest of the garrison (some half-dozen men) come to look at the train, and to sing out "papers." they have a terribly monotonous life, and one throws them every scrap of literature one possesses. xlix kimberley, south africa, _january 1902_. i think it is just about ten years since i was here last; and _how_ the place has changed! many of my old friends have left, and so many have died that i am beginning to be almost afraid to ask after any one in case i should hear of his death. of course they have been through all the horrors of a four months' siege, and there are still many marks of the boer shells to be seen; one of them had made a hole through our backyard wall and buried itself in the kitchen wall: peter (the cat) found this hole very convenient when going out to visit his friends. many people still preserved the bombproof shelters or "dug-outs" in their gardens, where they used to take refuge when the shelling was going on, and then go back into their houses at night to cook the food, &c. there is a big steam hooter at de beers mine, and, during the siege, whenever the lookout men saw the boers preparing to shell the town, the hooter was sounded, and every one scuttled into shelter; and even now, whenever the hooter sounds, people start up and look inclined to run. the civilians here cannot say enough for the way mr. cecil rhodes worked during the siege; and his thoughtfulness and consideration for the women and children were beyond all praise. at one time he had many hundreds of them in safety down one of the mines, 1000 feet below the surface, and he took infinite pains to send them down suitable supplies; they were in fairly airy chambers, and had a good supply of electric light, &c. of course the military people are not so enthusiastic about his assistance, but, naturally, they would not appreciate a man who always liked to have his own way, and do what he thought best--and who did it too! the first thing the boers did was to seize the waterworks, some miles from the town, and cut off the water supply; but the mine-owners came to the rescue by pumping water from a good spring in one of their mines that had caused them years of annoyance by rising and making the working of that mine a great difficulty; so the water question never caused them much trouble, though the boers were constantly trying to damage the pumping machinery. though the water supply was fair the food supplies were very low; and a rich family, whom i know, told me they were intensely grateful to a neighbour who sent them a quarter of a bottle of port wine and half a packet of cornflour as a christmas present. they were at that time drawing half their ration of meat in horseflesh, and, though some people say they could never touch it, i believe it was not at all bad, and one girl told me that a little donkey was "quite nice." a good story is told of a colonel who was then up here. one night at mess he said, "gentlemen, i am sorry to say we were only able to draw half our ration in beef to-day; this joint i am carving is beef, at the other end of the table the joint is horse: if any one would prefer to try it, perhaps he will carve for himself." no one got up, so the colonel had to carve (small helpings) for all the mess. after they had finished an orderly came and whispered to him, and he said, "oh, gentlemen, i am sorry to find i have made a mistake; i find this was the horse, and the cow is still at the other end of the table!" there was so much sickness in the town that the doctors had a terrible time. in most cases it was suitable food rather than medicine that was needed, especially amongst the little children; and, besides the sickness, there were a great many wounded constantly being brought in from the trenches, or from skirmishes, and every available building was turned into a hospital. i have just been reading dr. ashe's book, _besieged by the boers_, and it gives a good idea of the daily life up here, showing how men tried to go on and do their daily round of work in spite of the shells that were falling and killing not only men but women and children around them. the thing that kimberley people are most proud of is the big gun "long cecil," which was most cleverly designed and made in the de beers workshops during the siege, the shells for it also being cast there; until that was built they had _no_ guns of sufficient size to reply to the 100-pounder that the boers were using with so much effect upon the town. it must have been a huge surprise to them when long cecil began to scatter shells amongst them, each one inscribed, "with c. j. r.'s compliments!" the cemetery is sadly full of "siege" graves, and so many little children's graves amongst them. strangely enough one of the de beers engineers (an american) who was chiefly responsible for the building of "long cecil," was killed by a boer shell only a few days after the gun was completed; and, just as an example of how we were surrounded by enemies even inside the town, i will tell you about his funeral. in such a hot climate as south africa it is always necessary that the funeral should take place within about twenty-four hours of the death; so that it is quite possible to be talking to a man in his shop or at his business in the morning, for him to be taken suddenly ill and die that evening, and the next day, before you have heard of his illness, for you to meet his coffin on the way to the cemetery. well, this poor engineer was a very popular man, and the commandant thought that many people would wish to attend his funeral, so he gave directions that it should be at night, for safety from the boer shells. late in the evening, when it was quite dark, the funeral left the hospital; but it had no sooner started than a rocket was seen to go up _in_ the town, evidently a pre-arranged signal--for almost at once the boers began to drop shells around the cemetery, but fortunately no one was killed. perhaps you have heard in england of the little girl who knew so much about martial law that she strayed into the provost's office one day in december and said, "please, sir, may i have a permit for santa claus to come to our house!" all food seems to be frightfully expensive still: we have to pay about 8s. for a single fowl or duck, 4s. a dozen for eggs, and 2s. 6d. a pound for butter. we have a white woman as cook, and our black boy rejoices in the name of "moses." i had not been here many days before "george" came to see me--the boy i used to have ten years ago. it is extraordinary how these natives know when one returns, even years afterwards. of course george wanted to come back, but i found he was in a good place, so i told him i was soon going back to england, and i did not take him on. i have had two offers of rather good posts out here, but i think i must go home for a time at any-rate. there is a huge refugee camp just outside kimberley. i am afraid they have had an awful lot of measles in these camps, and there have been many deaths from it; measles were almost unknown on the scattered boer farms, and now that these people are crowded together in close quarters, with their traditional objection to fresh air or cleanliness, it seems impossible to make them take precautions against infection. as a rule, the people in the refugee camps have rations quite as good, and often much better, than the troops, but they do not thrive on them; still, it was impossible to leave them on the farms, for the only way to prevent the boers from keeping up their supplies was to take or destroy the crops, and, after that was done, it was impossible to leave the women and children on the farms to starve. now they are sending sisters to work in these camps, and they are doing all they can to help the people, but i fancy it must be rather uphill work, as many of the boer women are so very suspicious and bitter. i daresay you have heard of the woman who urged her husband to go and fight, saying, "i can get another husband, but i can't get another free state." i have had some interesting drives round the country with a lady who was here all through the siege, and could show me where the fighting had taken place; and one day some officers gave a very jolly picnic at a place called "the bend," about seventeen miles from here, on the vaal river. it was very hot weather just then, 90° to 95° in the shade, so we started at 5.30 a.m., and had breakfast and lunch out there. a mulecart loaded with provisions--delicious peaches and other fruits which had been sent up from cape town--had been despatched in charge of four orderlies (all armed). we rowed on the river and prowled about under the trees; and altogether it was quite the nicest picnic i have ever enjoyed. one of the officers of our party had the honour of being the youngest colonel in the british army; he has been promoted so rapidly during the war. they had all had a rough time of hardship, but they meant to enjoy themselves that day, and i think they did; but they kept their revolvers handy even when rowing up the river. i had been told that i was entitled to an "indulgence passage" home, as i have served during the war, and that would mean that i should have to pay only about £5 for my mess on a trooper, instead of paying about £35 for a passage on an ordinary mail-boat; so i went to the railway staff officer, and he was most kind in arranging about it for me, and (after communicating with cape town) he told me that if i would see the p.m.o. when i arrived down there, he would probably be glad if i would do duty for the voyage, and then i could travel quite free, and receive pay (instead of having to pay my mess bill). he also gave me a free railway pass down to the cape, which i had not at all expected. now, i must pay some farewell calls; and then, once more, i shall soon be on the move again. it really does seem as though the war will soon be over now. we hear that some troops are still coming out, but there appear to be more than enough sisters for the work that has to be done. l s.s. "orient" (_en route_ for home), _march 1902_. i was very sorry to say good-bye to kimberley, but i was also getting very home-sick, so early one morning i once more joined the train, to stroll across the karroo and down to cape town. i had armed myself with a large stock of literature, kindly given to me by friends, and also by the librarian of the kimberley public library (who gave me a noble stock of back numbers), and this i distributed to the men at the blockhouses on the way. poor fellows, they have a trying time of it, they must be very wide awake and alert, or any night the boers may cross the section of line for which they are responsible, very likely leaving a little dynamite to wreck the next train; and yet for weeks and perhaps months never a boer may come near their particular section. the trains were still not supposed to travel at night, so we tied up about 6 p.m. on the first day at de aar. after dinner i was just thinking it was very slow, not knowing any one in the place, and i thought i would go to bed, when i saw a general strolling along the platform, and with him a young officer whom i soon recognised as an old pinetown patient, and whom i was very glad to meet again. the general soon departed, and then captain ---took me for a jolly moonlight walk round de aar; he was still a little lame from his wound, so was acting as adjutant for some yeomanry there. it was pleasant to hear about many other old friends, and also a little about the course of the war in that part of the country. the next day, as we proceeded down the line, we passed some troop trains going up with men who had just arrived fresh from england--i think some of the scots guards, the manchesters, and the lancashire fusiliers. some of them were tightly packed in open waggons, and appeared to think they were having a rough time already, but, as the weather was warm and dry, they were not so badly off. they seemed very glad of the few papers which i could give them, as they had seen none since they landed. their chief anxiety seemed to be as to whether they would have the chance of firing off a little ammunition before the war is over. that night we tied up at matjesfontein, and i much regretted i could not stay a day there to explore the battlefield; but i did not know which day they wanted me for duty, so i had to hasten on. the next morning i arrived in cape town; and, after a "wash and brush up," i went to see the p.m.o., who was most kind, and said that if i was willing to do light duty on the voyage, i certainly need not pay for a passage. if i was ready, he would like me to go on board the _orient_ on the 12th (it was then the 8th). i had a few very pleasant days with some friends at rondebosch; but i was unable to get about much to see other people, as i was again very seedy with dysentery, and had to doctor myself rather severely in order to get ready for duty on the 12th. i came on board that morning at 10 a.m., but there was such a gale blowing that we did not get away till 5 p.m. the next day. there are about thirty officers and between 500 and 600 men on board, almost all of them invalided home, and it is awfully sad to see so many "wrecks" of the war. the p.m.o. is a major of the r.a.m.c., and he is just as strict with the orderlies as the major i worked with at pinetown; so the men are well cared for, and i am enjoying working for him. i was the first sister to join the ship, and, as i found the cabins would be very full, i asked if i might act as night sister, and thereby i secured a cabin to myself. i have had plenty to do most of the way, as there have been several men and one officer very ill all the time; but we have had no deaths on the voyage, and most of the patients seem to be mending now. on my first night on duty i had been round the hospital, and then i thought i would take a look at the convalescent men in the swinging cots (ninety of them), and i found there a poor colour-sergeant, who had been out only a few months, going back with hopelessly bad heart disease from overstrain; he was unable to lie down, and so breathless and blue, i got him transferred to the hospital, and was able to make him comfortable with pillows, &c. he has been such a good patient and has improved a little, but i fear he can never work again, and he is a married man. there are two quite young lads who have been having epileptic fits frequently on the voyage--i suppose brought on by exposure to the south african sun. a young yorkshire farmer of the yeomanry was invalided home as a "phthisis" case, but he came into hospital the day after we sailed with a temperature of 105°, and he has been desperately ill with enteric all the way (severe hæmorrhage, &c.). he must have had fever for some time before it was diagnosed--the temperature being attributed to his chest condition. he is still very weak, but i think he will pull through. one night i was told that a man in the swinging cots was "rather peculiar," so i went down to see him first thing, and found his cot empty. i flew up on deck, and met some stewards, who had collared him on the upper deck. we made him snug in a safe corner of the hospital with a "special" for that night. then, there was one poor fellow who had lost an arm, and two who had each lost a leg--one of the latter a sergeant-major, who was wounded at the same time that colonel benson was killed at vlakfontein. he was a kimberley man, and the poor man's wife and two little children were all killed by one boer shell during the siege of kimberley. he is going home to get fitted up with a cork leg, and will then return to south africa. perhaps the saddest cases of all were the eleven lunatics we had on board. they had to be very safely kept with special guards and other precautions; and, in case they should try to go overboard, they had a high-railed enclosure on deck as an airing ground. some of them are very mad and violent, but some seemed so nearly sane that it was a question whether they had not pretended to be mad in order to be sent home. i was not supposed to visit these men in the night, because, to get to them, i should have had to go a long way through the troops' sleeping quarters, but the medical officer went to see them on his last round, and, every two or three hours, i used to stay in the hospital while the wardmaster went along, and brought word how they were. one night the medical officer went along, and when he returned he told me he had found their door unlocked and no guard on duty; fortunately they were all asleep. the next day this tale was about the ship, and very soon it was altered to the following version--"last night mr. ---had found that all the lunatics had escaped; he and sister thought it better not to make a fuss. instead, they caught the first eleven men whom they met and locked them up; they were not the _real_ lunatics, but they had been bribed with extra 'skoff' to play the game and say nothing about it: but the real lunatics were still at large!" after that, if any one came up to a man rather quietly, there was a big jump, and "hullo! are you one of them?" and then a great chase round the deck! there were some hard cases, too, amongst the officers; two of them who had thighs broken by boer shells, but were just beginning to walk again--one, however, with a short leg, and the other with a stiff knee. a yeomanry officer, badly shot in both arms, had one hand still quite useless; but i hope an operation may improve matters. he had had a dreadful time in the jolting ambulance waggons, unable to hold on, or to save himself with either hand. then, there was a young doctor who once, when our men were surprised and many of them taken, was going round dressing the wounded, when some boers came up and shot the wounded as he was dressing them, and afterwards led him out several times saying they were going to shoot him, but eventually he got safely away. there were two officers shot through the lungs, but i think they will recover in time; and there was another young fellow shot in the region of the spine, and paralysed all down one side and leg; and yet another (quite a boy) shot in the thigh and paralysed on that side. neither of these two could move without assistance; and, though they were all wonderfully bright and cheerful, i know i often found them lying awake for hours together, and it is hard for a young englishman to face the thought that he may never be able to walk or ride again, even when he _has_ received his wound in defence of his country. as i finish this letter, we are just anchoring for the night in southampton water, off netley hospital; and, curiously enough, it is march 3rd, the very day i sailed for south africa two years ago. to-morrow we hope to land at southampton. after a little time at home, i hope to persuade a sister of mine to pay a visit with me to another brother in the united states, and to some relations in canada and nova scotia; then i must settle down to some steady work in england. i would not have missed nursing through this war for a great deal. we have often had rough times, and anxious times, and of course i have not been able to do much, but i have been able to help a few men to recover their health and strength; 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jefferies. 6. a londoner's log book. rt. hon. g. w. e. russell. 7. the sowers. h. s. merriman. 8. jess. h. rider haggard. 9. vice versâ. f. anstey. 10. woodland, moor, and stream. j. a. owen. 11. the tale of the great mutiny. dr. w. h. fitchett. 12. sixty years in the wilderness. sir henry w. lucy. 13. a vision of india. sidney low. 14. the defence of plevna. capt. f. w. von herbert. with an introduction by general sir john french, k.c.m.g., k.c.b., etc. 15. the memoirs of sherlock holmes. a. conan doyle. 16. nelson and his captains. dr. w. h. fitchett. 17. with edged tools. henry seton merriman. london: smith, elder & co., 15 waterloo place, s.w. generously made available by the internet archive/canadian libraries) the life of florence nightingale macmillan and co., limited london · bombay · calcutta · melbourne the macmillan company new york · boston · chicago · dallas · san francisco the macmillan co. of canada, ltd. toronto * * * * * [illustration: _mrs. nightingale and her daughters 1828 from a water-colour drawing in the possession of mrs. cunliffe_] * * * * * the life of florence nightingale by sir edward cook in two volumes vol. i (1820-1861) macmillan and co., limited st. martin's street, london 1913 copyright * * * * * preface men and women are divided, in relation to their papers, into hoarders and scatterers. miss nightingale was a hoarder, and as she lived to be 90 the accumulation of papers, stored in her house at the time of her death, was very great. the papers referring to years up to 1861 had been neatly done up by herself, and it was evident that not everything had been kept. after that date, time and strength to sort and weed had been wanting, and miss nightingale seems to have thrown little away. even soiled sheets of blotting-paper, on which she had made notes in pencil, were preserved. by a will executed in 1896 she had directed that all her letters, papers, and manuscripts, with some specific exceptions, should be destroyed. by a codicil executed in the following year she revoked this direction, and bequeathed the letters, papers, and manuscripts to her cousin, mr. henry bonham carter. after her death the papers were sorted chronologically by his direction, and they have formed the principal foundation of this memoir. of expressly autobiographical notes, miss nightingale left very few. at the date of the codicil above mentioned she seems to have contemplated the probability of some authoritative record of her life; for in that year she wrote a short summary of what she called "my responsibility to india," detailing her relations with successive secretaries of state, governors-general, and other administrators. her memory in these matters was still accurate, for the summary is fully borne out by letters and other papers of the several dates: it adds some personal details. in private letters she sometimes recounted, at later times, episodes or experiences in her life, but such references are few. nor, except for a few years, did miss nightingale keep any formal diary; and during the crimean episode she was too incessantly busy with her multitudinous duties to find time for many private notes. the principal authority for miss nightingale's life is thus the collection of papers aforesaid, and these are very copious in information. the records, in one sort or another, of her earlier years are full. the papers relating to her work during the crimean war are voluminous, and i have supplemented the study of these by consulting the official documents concerning miss nightingale's mission which are preserved, among war office papers, in the public record office. her papers relating to public affairs during the years 1856 to 1861 are also very voluminous. after the latter date she seems, as already stated, to have kept almost everything, even every advertisement, that she received. she often made notes for important letters that she sent, and sometimes kept copies of them. of official documents, of printed memoranda, pamphlets, reports, and returns, she accumulated an immense collection. and though she was not a regular diarist, she was in the habit of jotting down on sheets of notepaper her engagements, impressions, thoughts, meditations, as also in many cases reports of conversations. * * * * * the collection of letters received by miss nightingale, and of her notes for letters sent by her, has been supplemented, through the kindness of many of her correspondents or their representatives, by letters which were received from her. i am more especially indebted in this respect to the care of the late sir douglas galton, whose docketed collection of letters from miss nightingale, taken in conjunction with a long series of his letters to her, forms a main authority for much of the record of her activity in public affairs. her letters to julius and mary mohl, returned to her after the death of the latter, are, in another way, of peculiar interest. i am particularly indebted, among the lenders of letters addressed to nursing friends, to miss pringle and to the father of the late mrs. daniel morris (miss rachel williams). miss pringle has also favoured me with personal reminiscences. for permission to print letters written to miss nightingale, i am indebted to many of her relations, friends, and correspondents, or their representatives; to so many, indeed, that i ask them to accept here a general acknowledgment. i am especially indebted to the king, who has been pleased to permit the publication of letters from queen victoria and some other members of the royal family. the german emperor has graciously given a like permission in the case of correspondence with the empress frederick. the dowager grand duchess (luise) of baden has allowed me to quote from a long series of letters addressed by her to miss nightingale. * * * * * next to the letters and other papers, above described, the most valuable material for the life of miss nightingale is contained in her own printed writings--many of them published, some (and these, from the biographical point of view, the most important) privately printed. in the case of the crimean war, material under both of these heads is particularly abundant. her published _notes on hospitals_ and _notes on nursing_ and other works relating to those subjects, together with her privately circulated _addresses to probationers_, supplement her private records. for her inner life, her privately printed book, suggestions for thought, is of special importance. a list of miss nightingale's printed writings (whether published or privately circulated) is given at the end of the second volume (_appendix a_). my purpose in compiling this list was biographical illustration, not bibliographical minuteness. i have not included every scrap from miss nightingale's pen which has appeared in print, but have given every piece which is directly or indirectly referred to in the memoir, or which is of any importance. the list will, i hope, serve a double purpose. it enables me to abbreviate in the text the references to my authorities; and it provides, in chronological order, a conspectus of miss nightingale's varied activities, so far as they were reflected in her printed writings. lastly, there is much biographical material, not only in blue-books and official reports, but in writings about miss nightingale. except in the case of the crimean war, where many eye-witnesses recorded their observations or impressions, this material is not all of great value. throughout her subsequent life, miss nightingale was screened from the public gaze; a somewhat legendary figure grew up, and it is that which for the most part appears in books about her. this, however, is a subject fully dealt with in an introductory chapter. in _appendix b_ i give a short list of writings about miss nightingale. here, again, the purpose is not bibliographical. there is a great mass of such writing, and a complete list would have been altogether outside the scope of a biography. i have included only first-hand authorities or such other books, etc., as for one reason or another (explained in the notes upon each item) seemed relevant to the memoir. this second list also serves the purpose of simplifying references in the text. in a third appendix (_c_) i have enumerated the principal portraits of miss nightingale. notes on those reproduced in this book will there be found. i am indebted to the kindness of sir william richmond and sir harry verney for the inclusion of the portrait which forms the frontispiece to the second volume, and to mrs. cunliffe for the frontispiece to the present volume. * * * * * to miss nightingale's executors i am indebted for the confidence which they have shown in entrusting her papers to my discretion. a biography is worth nothing unless it is sincere. the aim of the present book has been to tell the truth about the subject of it, and i have done my work under no conscious temptation to suppress, exaggerate, extenuate, or distort. from miss nightingale's executors, and from other of her friends and relations, i have received help and information which has been of the greatest assistance. more especially i am indebted to her cousin, mrs. vaughan nash, who has been good enough to read my book, both in manuscript and in proof, and who has favoured me throughout with valuable information, corrections, suggestions, and criticisms. this obligation makes it the more incumbent upon me to add that for any faults in the book, whether of commission or of omission, i alone must bear the blame. contents page introductory xxiii part i aspiration (1820-1854) chapter i childhood and education (1820-1839) name, ancestry, and parentage. ii. her father's circumstances --her early homes--lea hurst (derbyshire)--mrs. gaskell's description--embley park (hampshire). iii. early years--country life--domestic interests--a morbid strain. iv. mr. nightingale's education of his daughters--history, the classics, philosophy --anecdotes of florence's supposed early vocation to nursing--the date of her "call to god" (1837). v. the grand tour (1837-9) --interest in social and political conditions--italian refugees at geneva--talks with sismondi--visit to florence--gaieties and music. vi. a winter in paris (1838-9)--friendship with mary clarke (madame mohl)--madame récamier's _salon_. social "temptations" 3 chapter ii home life (1839-1845) a struggle for freedom. life in london--music--the bedchamber plot. ii. country-house life--the charm of embley--contrast between florence and her sister. iii. the family circle--florence's "boy" --florence as "emergency man"--her old nurse--letter to miss clarke on the death of m. fauriel--theatricals at waverley abbey--florence as stage-manager. iv. friends and neighbours--lord palmerston --louisa lady ashburton--mrs. bracebridge. v. florence's conversation--social attractiveness--personal appearance: descriptions by lady lovelace and mrs. gaskell. vi. dissatisfaction in social life--desultoriness of a girl's life at home--the misery of being read aloud to--housekeeping. vii. increasing sense of a vocation--private studies--thoughts of nursing--a first dash for liberty (1845): failure 23 chapter iii the spiritual life dejection. friendship with miss nicholson: religious experiences and speculations--letters to miss nicholson and miss clarke. ii. the reality of the unseen world--the conviction of sin--the pains of hell--hunger after righteousness--"all for the love of god." iii. independent development of miss nightingale's religious thought--the service of god as the service of man--her testing of religious doctrine by practical results--her attitude to roman catholicism--desire for a church of works, not doctrines 46 chapter iv disappointment (1846-1847) "disappointment's dry and bitter root." pursuit of her ideal --obstacles to her adoption of nursing--social prejudices--low esteem of nurses at the time--the kaiserswerth "institution for deaconesses." ii. increasing distaste for the routine of home life. iii. social distractions (1847)--jenny lind--the british association at oxford--marriage of miss clarke--country visits 59 chapter v a winter in rome; and after (1847-1849) a tour that confirmed a vocation. sight-seeing in rome--admiration for michael angelo--the revelation of the sistine chapel--the obsession of rome. ii. italian politics--pio nono as patriot hero. iii. the convent of the trinità de' monti--study of roman doctrine and ritual--friendship with the madre sta. colomba--a retreat in the convent--the secret of devotion. iv. meeting with mr. and mrs. sidney herbert and with manning--the london season--friendship with lord shaftesbury--self-reproaches. v. a projected visit to kaiserswerth (1848): disappointment again--acquaintance with guizot--ragged school work in london 69 chapter vi foreign travel: egypt and greece (1849-1850) another fruitless distraction. a winter in egypt--thebes --condition of the people--impressions of egyptian scenery. ii. athens--doric architecture--greek scenery. iii. political affairs --the "don pacifico" crisis--the ionian islands: a day with the high commissioner. iv. american missionaries at athens--dresden --visit to kaiserswerth. v. the literary "temptation"--her view of literary art--her _letters from egypt_ 84 chapter vii the single life the three paths. why florence nightingale did not marry--her criticism of dorothea in _middlemarch_. ii. offers of marriage--her ideal of marriage--the threefold nature. iii. self-devotion to her vocation--determination to throw open new spheres for women 96 chapter viii apprenticeship at kaiserswerth (1851) the struggle for independence resumed. want of sympathy between her and her parents and sister--unhappiness at home--a "starved" life. ii. growing spirit of revolt--the need of apprenticeship. iii. second visit to kaiserswerth--origin of the institution --account of its work--her life there. iv. craving for sympathy from her relations--their hope that the apprenticeship would be only an episode 104 chapter ix an interlude (1852) the turning-point. patience and serenity: waiting for an opportunity. ii. with her father at umberslade--the water cure --death of her aunt evans--meeting with george eliot and mrs. browning--visits to dublin and to birk hall (sir james clark). iii. literary "works"--converse with her "aunt mai"--a new religion for the artizans. iv. a little piece of diplomacy --florence to be free at some future specified time. v. a last attempt to keep her at home 116 chapter x freedom. paris and harley street (1853-october 1854) visit to paris--study in the hospitals--return to england: death of her grandmother. ii. miss nightingale invited to take charge of an institution in harley street. iii. return to paris--study with the sisters of charity--illness. iv. superintendent of the harley street "hospital for gentlewomen"--the gentle art of managing committees--her vocation found--a last attempt to call her back. v. a holiday at lea hurst--visit from mrs. gaskell--outbreak of cholera: return to london. vi. limited scope at harley street --proposal to miss nightingale to become matron at king's college hospital--lady lovelace's prophecy 127 part ii the crimean war (1854-1856) chapter i the call (october 1854) the battle of the alma--the _times_ special correspondent--state of the hospitals at scutari--popular indignation--an appeal for nurses. ii. answer to the appeal--lady maria forester and miss nightingale--sidney herbert and miss nightingale. iii. letters that crossed--miss nightingale's offer: sidney herbert's suggestion--miss nightingale's official instructions. iv. co-operation of the _times_ fund--selection of nurses for the expedition. v. miss nightingale's demeanour--a pocket-book and some letters 145 chapter ii the expedition--problems ahead start of the expedition--failure to obtain sisters of charity in paris--reception of the expedition in france--departure from marseilles. ii. popular enthusiasm in england--account of miss nightingale in the newspapers--public subscriptions--other nurses volunteering. iii. miss nightingale's plans--importance of her experiment--difficulties ahead--military prejudice: sir anthony sterling's letters--medical jealousy: sir john hall's letters --religious rivalries--miss nightingale's policy 162 chapter iii the hospitals at scutari arrival at the golden horn. the scutari hospitals--the general hospital--the barrack hospital: quarters of miss nightingale and her staff--the palace hospital--the koulali hospitals. ii. state of the hospitals when miss nightingale arrived--report of the roebuck committee--terrible death-rate--the root of the evil: division of responsibility--need of individual initiative 171 chapter iv the expert's touch the battle of balaclava. miss nightingale's reception at scutari: letter from lord raglan--difficulties with the doctors--miss nightingale at work in the wards--difficulties with the nurses. ii. dispatch of a second party of nurses under miss stanley, accompanied by mr. jocelyne percy--miss nightingale's indignant surprise--mr. herbert's promise not to send out more nurses except at her requisition--danger of ruining the experiment--medical opposition--aggravation of the religious difficulty--arrangements for placing the stanley party--significance of the episode in relation to the novelty of the experiment. iii. deficiency of requisites in the hospitals--miss nightingale's appeal to the british ambassador--her washing reforms--her "extra diet" kitchens --alexis soyer--sorry plight of the camp-followers--establishment of a lying-in hospital--dr. andrew smith and the female eye 181 chapter v the administrator miss nightingale's varied functions. purveyor-auxiliary to the hospitals--ignorance of the ambassador as to the true state of things--deficiencies in the stores--miss nightingale's caravanserai in "the sisters' tower"--her supplies issued only on medical requisition--delays in obtaining access to government stores--miss nightingale's resourcefulness in obtaining supplies--her gifts to the french and sardinian hospitals--absurdities of the purveying regulations. ii. clothier to the wounded--cause of the deficiency of shirts: 50,000 issued from miss nightingale's stores. iii. builder--miss nightingale's preparation of new wards for additional patients from the crimea. iv. her shouldering of responsibility --strictness of her administration--almoner of the queen's "free gifts"--rules and exceptions--value of her initiative--sidney herbert's approval--mr. kinglake and "the woman's touch" 199 chapter vi the reformer miss nightingale as an inspirer of reform--sources of her influence --favour of the court--letter from queen victoria: her gifts to the soldiers. ii. miss nightingale's reports to sidney herbert --character of her letters. iii. her urgent appeals for stores --dispatch of an executive sanitary commission--miss nightingale's reforms in the handling of government stores--other reforms due to her. iv. her suggestion for systematic reorganization--suggested improvements in the medical service. v. miss nightingale's demeanour at scutari--description by s. g. o.--range of her influence--the efficacy of "going to miss nightingale" 213 chapter vii the ministering angel dual position of miss nightingale: administrator and nurse. prodigious power of work--her attention to the sick and wounded --her midnight vigils--the famous lamp--the soldiers kissing her shadow--idolization by the men. ii. correspondence with relatives and friends of the wounded soldiers. iii. strain upon miss nightingale's powers--burden of correspondence--her helpers--mr. and mrs. bracebridge. iv. schemes for helping the soldiers--mr. augustus stafford--the orderlies and miss nightingale 233 chapter viii the religious difficulty nature of the religious difficulty. rivalry between the churches --various claims for "representation" among the nursing staff- "anti-puseyite" attacks. ii. miss nightingale's attitude in the squabble. iii. the difficulty increased by the advent of miss stanley's party--charges of proselytism--lord panmure's instructions misinterpreted. iv. aggravation by the religious feuds of the difficulty of obtaining efficient nurses--worry caused to miss nightingale 244 chapter ix to the crimea--illness (may-august 1855) siege of sebastopol. the hospitals in the crimea--miss nightingale's authority there not explicitly defined--her arrival at balaclava. ii. visit to the front--sir john mcneill. iii. work in the hospitals--attacked by "crimean fever"--anxiety in england and in the hospitals--visit from lord raglan. iv. miss nightingale advised to return to england--her refusal--return to scutari- gradual recovery--"the heroic dead" 254 chapter x the popular heroine sympathy in england caused by miss nightingale's illness. the popular heroine: letters from lady verney. ii. the poetry of seven dials, verses, songs, lives, portraits, etc.--miss nightingale's view of it all. iii. public memorial to her--the nightingale fund- speeches at the public meeting--nature of the memorial- subscriptions from the army--medical jealousy--presentation of a jewel by the queen 264 chapter xi the soldiers' friend miss nightingale's ministrations to the moral welfare of the soldiers--her belief in the possibility of reforms. ii. her letter to the queen on drunkenness in the army: considered by the cabinet --miss nightingale's money order office at scutari--government offices opened--the "inkerman café"--sir henry storks--miss nightingale's influence with the soldiers. iii. establishment of reading-rooms and class-rooms 276 chapter xii to the crimea again (september 1855-july 1856) fall of sebastopol: miss nightingale's second and third visits to the crimea. hardships of her work in the crimea--her "carriage"- the hospital huts on the heights above balaclava--her extra diet kitchens. ii. opposition to her in military and medical quarters- sir john hall's opposition--difficulties with the nuns--miss nightingale's authority disputed. iii. her appeals to home for support--correspondence with sidney herbert--dispatch from the secretary of state defining her full authority in the crimea promulgated in general orders--exhausting labours in the crimea: testamentary dispositions. iv. hard work at scutari--letters from the aunt who was with miss nightingale--christmas day at the british embassy--colonel lefroy 283 chapter xiii end of the war--return home (july-august 1856) the peace. return of the nurses--miss nightingale's tribute to her "mainstays." ii. the government's thanks to miss nightingale- gratitude of the soldiers--offer of a man-of-war for her return- lord ellesmere's speech in the house of lords. iii. return of miss nightingale--publicity avoided--her "spoils of war." iv. her crimean work a starting-point 299 part iii for the health of the soldiers (1856-1861) chapter i the queen, miss nightingale, and lord panmure (august-november 1856) "muddling through a war": the favourable moment for reform. advantage taken of the opportunity after the crimean war for the better sanitation of the british army--co-operation of sidney herbert and miss nightingale. ii. her passionate desire to lessen preventable mortality in the future--examination of the figures of mortality in the army during peace--her admiration of the heroism of the british soldier--her opportunity and sense of responsibility. iii. a short holiday at lea hurst--acquaintance with mr. kinglake--invitation from sir james clark to ballater--a visit from queen victoria likely--miss nightingale's preparations: consultation with sir john mcneill and colonel lefroy--miss nightingale's plan of campaign. iv. first visit to balmoral--visit from the queen at sir j. clark's--conversations with the queen and the prince consort--miss nightingale requested to remain to see the secretary for war. v. awaiting lord panmure--advice from sir j. mcneill--"command visit" to balmoral--conversations with lord panmure--appointment of a royal commission promised--establishment of an army medical school favoured--miss nightingale to report on her experiences. vi. conferences of miss nightingale's "cabinet"- provisional selection of royal commissioners: draft of their instructions--interview with lord panmure in london: points won and lost--the _personnel_ of the commission 311 chapter ii sowing the seed (november 1856-august 1857) power of departmental passive resistance: delay in setting up the commission. lord panmure's gout--"the bison is bullyable"--miss nightingale's weapon in reserve: her potential command of the public ear. ii. the "chelsea board": the mcneill-tulloch _affaire_ --parliamentary pressure on the government. iii. miss nightingale's friendship with lord stanley--miss nightingale and the china expedition--the netley hospital--her negotiations with lord panmure --visit to lord palmerston--her "fight for the pavilion." iv. her preparation for the royal commission by writing her own official report--lord panmure's instructions--this report, the most remarkable of her works--account of it. v. the experts and miss nightingale--her inspection of hospitals and barracks--visit to chatham--reform at chelsea--miss nightingale and robert lowe--the proposed army medical school--her suggestions of soldiers' reading-rooms. vi. the royal commission set up--interview with lord panmure--her revision of the instructions--mr. herbert's industry as chairman--miss nightingale's assistance--dr. sutherland--her interviews with witnesses, suggestions for their examination--her own evidence. vii. report of the commission--its salient feature, the high rate of mortality in the barracks--mr. herbert and miss nightingale resolved on securing prompt reforms 334 chapter iii enforcing a report (august-december 1857) frequent futility of royal commissions. mr. herbert's and miss nightingale's plans for averting the danger--proposed series of sub-commissions to settle the details of reform--lord panmure off to scotland--departmental objections--delay in appointing the sub-commissions--miss nightingale's labours. ii. over-work--dr. sutherland's expostulations--her refusal to rest. iii. the indian mutiny--miss nightingale's offer to go out. her life at this period --miss nightingale's daily work with her allies--ill-health- testamentary dispositions 362 chapter iv reaping the fruit (1858-1860) fruits of miss nightingale's labours. publication of the report of the royal commission--her measures for calling attention to the rate of mortality; for securing reviews of the report. ii. resignation of lord palmerston's government--general peel, the new secretary for war--miss nightingale's anxiety about a new director-general of the army medical department--disappointed with general peel--miss nightingale's ill-health--her sister's marriage --mr. herbert overworked. iii. work of the barracks and hospitals commission: miss nightingale and the kitchens--work with mr. herbert and dr. sutherland in connection with other sub-commissions --netley hospital again--miss nightingale's papers on hospital construction (1858). iv. private circulation of her report to lord panmure--miss nightingale and the duke of cambridge--harriet martineau's co-operation with miss nightingale--her _contribution to the sanitary history of the british army_ (1859). v. resignation of lord derby's government--mr. herbert, secretary for war--reforms in the barracks--appointment of a permanent barracks works committee (afterwards called army sanitary committee)--school of cookery--improved army medical statistics--establishment of an army medical school: miss nightingale as its founder: the present college--other reforms due to her. vi. results of mr. herbert's reforms--miss nightingale's tribute to him--their co-operation 375 chapter v the death of sidney herbert (1861) break-down of mr. herbert's health. his interview with miss nightingale (december 1860): decision to give up the house of commons--created lord herbert of lea--her insistence that he should reform the war office--his abandonment of the attempt- establishment of the general military hospital at woolwich- introduction of female nursing--his last letter to miss nightingale --his death (august 2)--"our joint-work unfinished." ii. miss nightingale's grief--obituary notices of him--mr. gladstone's interview with her--her memorandum on lord herbert's reforms--her endeavour to interest mr. gladstone in their completion--his reply --public meeting to promote a herbert memorial. iii. the friendship between sidney herbert and miss nightingale 401 part iv hospitals and nursing (1858-1861) chapter i the hospital reformer (1858-1861) miss nightingale's work with sidney herbert carried on at the same time with other work. her place as a sanitarian--her prestige as an authority on hospitals--her _notes on hospitals_--general condition of hospitals at the time--influence of her book--miss nightingale widely consulted on the construction of hospitals, at home and abroad. ii. the manchester royal infirmary, and mr. joseph adshead --st. thomas's hospital, london: the battle of the sites--miss nightingale and the prince consort 415 chapter ii the passionate statistician (1859-1861) statistics as a passion. miss nightingale's study of the works of quetelet--careless statistical records in the crimean war--her model hospital statistical forms--advantage to be derived from such data--international statistical congress in london (1860)--miss nightingale's alliance with dr. farr--adoption of her forms--her reception of the delegates--circulation of her paper--partial adoption of her scheme by london and other hospitals. ii. her advocacy of the better utilization of government statistics--her efforts to extend the scope of the census of 1861--correspondence with mr. lowe and sir george lewis--an appeal to the lords 428 chapter iii the founder of modern nursing (1860) three great contributions of the 19th century to the relief of human suffering in disease. miss nightingale's place in the history of nursing--the founder not of nursing, but of modern nursing--her peculiar fitness for directing tendencies of the time towards improved nursing. ii. condition of nursing at the time--miss nightingale's influence in raising it from a menial occupation to a trained profession. iii. force of her _example_--enthusiasm excited by her among women. iv. force of her _precept_--_notes on nursing_ (1859-60)--the text-book of the new model in nursing- popularity of the book--reminiscences of the crimea in it--"minding baby." v. some characteristics of the book--general grasp of principles, combined with minuteness of detail--delicacy of observation, and fineness of sympathy--epigrammatic expression. vi. importance of training in the art of nursing--the _notes_ as a prelude to _practice_ 439 chapter iv the nightingale nurses (1860-1861) importance of the nightingale training school--early history of the "nightingale fund"--accumulation of the money during miss nightingale's absorption in other work--appointment of a working committee (1859)--decision to found a training school in connexion with st. thomas's hospital--character of mrs. wardroper, matron of the hospital. ii. essential principles of miss nightingale's scheme: (1) technical, a training school; lectures, examinations, reports, etc.; (2) moral, a home. iii. miss nightingale's supervision--favourable start of the school. iv. further application of the nightingale fund to the training of midwives. v. wide influence of the nightingale school--novelty of the experiment--medical opposition at the start--from paradox to commonplace 456 chapter v the religious sanction: "suggestions for thought" (1860) the religious sanction behind miss nightingale's life of work- resumption of her theological speculations--printing of her _suggestions for thought_--general character of the book. ii. miss nightingale and john stuart mill--her introduction to benjamin jowett--the book submitted to them--mill's advice that it should be published, jowett's that it should not--literary imperfections--her impatience of literary revision. iii. scope of the book--vehemence of style--explanation of mill's and jowett's contrary advice. iv. origin of the book--sketch of her theological system--thoughts on prayer--god as law--influence of quetelet--doctrine of human perfectibility as explaining the existence of evil--freewill and necessity--belief in a future life--the philosophy of history- motive for human conduct. v. miss nightingale's attitude to current creeds, protestant and catholic. vi. spiritual intensity with which she held her creed 468 chapter vi miss nightingale at home (1858-1861) continued ill-health--serious illness and expectation of early death--yet constant work--doctor's opinions--necessity for husbanding her strength. ii. consequent manner of life--a laborious hermit--help from her friends--a. h. clough--her uncle, mr. s. smith, and her private correspondence. iii. her places of residence --highgate and hampstead--the burlington hotel in london--the queen's offer of rooms in kensington palace: why declined--her cats. iv. reading and music--her italian sympathies. v. seclusion from visitors, friends and relations--miss nightingale and her father. vi. correspondence with her friends--associations of the burlington hotel 491 illustrations face page mrs. nightingale and her two daughters: 1828. (_from a water-colour drawing in possession of mrs. cunliffe_) _frontispiece_ florence nightingale about 1845. (_from a pencil drawing by her cousin, miss hilary bonham carter, in possession of miss b. a. clough_) 38 florence nightingale: about 1858. (_from a photograph by goodman_) 394 introductory among miss nightingale's memoranda on books and reading, there is this injunction: "the preface of a book ought to set forth the importance of what it is going to treat of, so that the reader may understand what he is reading for." the saying is typical of the methodical and positive spirit which, as we shall learn, was one of the dominant strains in miss nightingale's work and character. she wanted to know at every stage precisely what a person, or a book, or an institution was driving at. "of all human sounds," she said, "i think the words _i don't know_ are the saddest." unless a book had something of definite importance to say, it had better, she thought, not be written; and in order to save the reader's time and fix his attention, he should be told at once wherein the significance of the book consists. this, though it may be a hard saying, is perhaps not unwholesome even to biographers. at any rate, as miss nightingale's biographer, i am moved to obey her injunction. i propose, therefore, in this introductory chapter to state wherein, as i conceive, the significance and importance of miss nightingale's life consists, and what the work was that she did in the world. i "in the course of a life's experience such as scarcely any one has ever had, i have always found," said miss nightingale,[1] "that no one ever deserves his or her character. be it better or worse than the real one, it is always unlike the real one." of no one is this saying more true than of herself. "it has been your fate," said mr. jowett to her once, "to become a legend in your lifetime." now, nothing is more persistent than a legend; and the legend of florence nightingale became fixed early in her life--at a time, indeed, antecedent to that at which her best work in the world, as she thought, had begun. the popular imagination of miss nightingale is of a girl of high degree who, moved by a wave of pity, forsook the pleasures of fashionable life for the horrors of the crimean war; who went about the hospitals of scutari with a lamp, scattering flowers of comfort and ministration; who retired at the close of the war into private life, and lived thenceforth in the seclusion of an invalid's room--a seclusion varied only by good deeds to hospitals and nurses and by gracious and sentimental pieties. i do not mean, of course, that this was all that anybody knew or wrote about her. any such suggestion would be far from the truth. but the popular idea of florence nightingale's life has been based on some such lines as i have indicated, and the general conception of her character is to this day founded upon them. the legend was fixed by longfellow's poem and miss yonge's _golden deeds_. its growth was favoured by the fact of miss nightingale's seclusion, by the hidden, almost the secretive, manner in which she worked, by her shrinking from publicity, by her extreme reticence about herself. it is only now, when her papers are accessible, that her real life can be known. there are some elements of truth in the popular legend, but it is so remote from the whole truth as to convey in general impression everything but the truth. the real florence nightingale was very different from the legendary, but also greater. her life was built on larger lines, her work had more importance, than belong to the legend. [1] in a letter to madame mohl, december 13, 1871. the crimean war was not the first thing, and still less was it the last, that is significant in miss nightingale's life. the story of her earlier years is that of the building up of a character. it shows us a girl of high natural ability and of considerable attractions feeling her way to an ideal alike in practice and in speculation. having found it, she was thrown into revolt against the environment of her home. we shall see her pursuing her ideal with consistent, though with self-torturing, tenacity against alike the obstacles and the temptations of circumstance. she had already served an apprenticeship when the call to the crimea came. it was a call not to "sacrifice," but to the fulfilment of her dearest wishes for a life of active usefulness. such is the theme of the _first part_, which i have called "aspiration." * * * * * many other women have passed through similar experiences. but there is special significance in them in the case of florence nightingale--a significance both historic and personal. the glamour that surrounded her service in the crimea, the wide-world publicity that was given to her name and deeds, invested with peculiar importance her fight for freedom. to do "as florence nightingale did" became an object of imitation which the well-to-do world was henceforth readier to condone, or even to approve; and thus the story of miss nightingale's earlier years is the history of a pioneer, on one side, in the emancipation of women. for the understanding of her own later life, the earlier years are all-important. they give the clue to her character, and explain much that would otherwise be puzzling or confused. through great difficulties and at a heavy price she had purchased her birthright--her ideal of self-expression in work. on her return from the crimea she was placed, on the one hand, owing to her fame, in a position of special opportunity; on the other hand, owing to illness, in a position of special disability. she shaped her life henceforward so as to make these two factors conform to the continued fulfilment of her ideal. i need not here forestall what subsequent chapters will abundantly illustrate. i will only say that the resultant effect was a manner of life and work, both extraordinary, and, to me at least, of the greatest interest. * * * * * the _second part_ of the memoir is devoted to the crimean war. the popular conception with regard to miss nightingale's work during this episode in her life is not untrue so far as it goes, but it is amazingly short of the whole truth as now ascertainable from her papers. the popular imagination pictures florence nightingale at scutari and in the crimea as "the ministering angel." and such in very truth she was. but the deeper significance of her work in the crimean war lies elsewhere. it was as administrator and reformer, more than as angel, that she showed her peculiar powers. queen victoria, with native shrewdness and a touch of humour, hit off the truth about miss nightingale's services in the crimea in concise words: "such a clear head. i wish we had her at the war office." the influence of miss nightingale's service in the crimea was great. some of it is obvious, and on the moral side longfellow's poem said the first, and the last, word. she may also be accounted, if not the founder, yet the promoter of female nursing in war, and the red cross societies throughout the world are, as we shall hear, the direct outcome of her labours in the crimea. the indirect, and less obvious, results were in many spheres. from a sick-room in the west end of london miss nightingale played a part--and a much larger part than could be known without access to her papers--in reforming the sanitary administration of the british army, in reconstructing hospitals throughout the world, in founding the modern art of nursing, in setting up a sanitary administration in india, and in promoting various other reforms in that country. * * * * * miss nightingale's return from the crimea, it will thus be seen, was not the end of her active life. in a sense it was the beginning. the nursing at scutari and in the crimea was an episode. the fame which she shunned, but which nevertheless came to her, gave her a starting-point for doing work which was destined, as she hoped, and as in large measure was granted, to be of permanent service to her country and the world. the first chapter of the _third part_ shows her laying her plans for the health of the british soldier, and the subsequent chapters tell what followed. this is the period of miss nightingale's close co-operation with sidney herbert. to the writer this later phase of miss nightingale's life--with its ingenious adjustment of means to ends, its masterful resourcefulness, its incessant industry, and then with its perpetual struggle against physical weakness and its extraordinary power of devoted concentration--has seemed not less interesting than the crimean episode. the _fourth part_ describes, as its main themes, the work which miss nightingale did, concurrently with that described in the preceding part, as hospital reformer and the founder of modern nursing. other chapters introduce two topics which might at first sight seem widely separate, but which were yet closely associated in miss nightingale's mind. they deal with her, respectively, as a passionate statistician and as a religious thinker. the nature of her speculations is fully explained in the latter chapters, and elsewhere in the memoir. it will be seen that miss nightingale had thought out a scheme of religious belief which widely differed from the creeds of christian orthodoxy, whether catholic or protestant, but which yet admitted of accommodation to much of their language and formularies. it admitted also, as will appear in due course, of close alliance with mysticism. miss nightingale believed intensely in a personal god and in personal religion. the language which expressed most adequately to her the sense of union with god was the language of the greek and christian mystics. but "law" was to her "the thought of god"; union with god meant co-operation with him towards human perfectibility; and for the discovery of "the thought of god" statistics were to her mind an indispensable means. * * * * * in the _fifth part_ we are introduced to a new interest in miss nightingale's life, a new sphere of her work. for forty years she worked at indian questions. she took up the subject at first through interest in the army. it was a natural supplement to her efforts for the health of the british soldier at home, to make a like attempt on behalf of the army in india. gradually she was drawn into other questions, and she became a keen indian reformer all along the line. her assiduity, her persistence, her ingenuity were as marked in this sphere as in others; it was only her immediate success that was less. in relation to the primary object with which she began her indian campaigns, miss nightingale's life and work have great importance. the royal commission of 1859-63, which was due to her, and the measures taken in consequence of its report, were the starting-point of a new era in sanitary improvement for the army. the results have been most salutary. miss nightingale's friendship with lord stanley and with sir john lawrence here served her somewhat as that with mr. herbert served in the earlier campaign. in the wider sphere of indian sanitation generally miss nightingale's efforts were not so successful. the field was perhaps too vast, the conditions were too adverse, for any great and immediate success to be possible. yet this and her other efforts for india were the part of miss nightingale's life and work to which she attached most importance, and by the record of which she set most store. even in the will (afterwards revoked) directing her papers to be destroyed, she made exception of those relating to india; and, as already stated in the preface, one of her few pieces of autobiographical record related to her indian work. perhaps it was the special affection which a mother often feels for the least robust or least successful child. perhaps it was that she took long views; and that, foreseeing a future time when many of the reforms for which she had toiled might be accomplished, she desired to be remembered as a pioneer. "sanitation," said a high authority in 1894, "is the cinderella of the indian administrative family."[2] the difficulty of finding money and a reluctance to introduce western reforms in advance of eastern opinion are objections with which we shall often meet in the correspondence of indian officials with miss nightingale, and they are still raised in the present day.[3] on the other hand, the under-secretary for india, in his budget statement for 1913, declared that "the service which has the strongest claim after education on the resources of the government is sanitation," and explained that "the budget estimate of expenditure for sanitation comes this year to nearly £2,000,000, showing an increase of 112 per cent over the expenditure of three years ago." so perhaps cinderella is to go to the ball; if ever the glass slipper is found, let it be remembered, as this memoir will show, that miss nightingale was the good fairy. [2] sir auckland colvin in the _journal of the society of arts_, may 11, 1894, p. 515. [3] as, for instance, in some of the speeches in the house of lords on june 9, 1913, and in a leading article in the _times_ of the following day. the speech of lord midleton, in introducing the subject, was, on the other hand, upon miss nightingale's lines, being founded upon the report of her royal commission of 1859-63. some pages (194-197) in mr. george peel's _the future of england_ (1911) are on similar lines. * * * * * her indian work continued as long as she was able to work at all, and from 1862 onwards it forms one of the recurring themes in our story. the _sixth part_, while continuing that subject, introduces another sphere in which miss nightingale's life and work have important significance. from the reform of hospital nursing she turned, in conjunction with the late mr. william rathbone, to the reform of workhouse nursing. and as one thing led to another, it will be seen that miss nightingale deserves to be remembered also as a poor law reformer. * * * * * the _seventh part_ comprises the last thirty-eight years of miss nightingale's life (1872-1910), and a word or two may here be said to explain an apparent alteration of scale. in a biography the scale must be proportionate not to the number of the years, but to their richness in characteristic significance. after 1872, the year in which (as miss nightingale put it) she went "out of office," her life was less full than theretofore in new activities. the germinant seeds had all been sown. but these later years, though they have admitted of more summary treatment, were full of interest. the chapters in which they are recorded deal first with miss nightingale's literary work, and more especially with her studies in plato and the christian mystics. these studies were in part a result of her close friendship of thirty years with mr. jowett. then, too, occasion is found for an endeavour to portray miss nightingale as the mother-chief (for so they called her) of the nurses. it is only by access to her enormous correspondence in this sort that the range and extent of her personal influence can be measured. her ideal of the nursing vocation stands out very clearly from the famous "nurses' battle" which occupied much of her later years. she found an opportunity during the same period to start an important experiment in rural hygiene. at the same time she was preaching indefatigably the need of health missionaries in indian villages. and then came the end. to the time of labour, there succeeds in every life, says ruskin, "the time of death; which in happy lives is very short, but always a _time_." in the case of miss nightingale the time was long. she lived for many years after the power to labour was gone. ii so much, by way of preface, in explanation of the significance of miss nightingale's life and work. but this book endeavours to depict a character, as well as to record a career. there has been much discussion, in our days as in others, of the proper scope and method of biography, and various models are held up, in one sense or another, to practitioners in this difficult art. the questions are propounded, whether biography should describe a person's life or his character? his work or how he did it? if the person did anything worthy of record, a biography should, surely, describe alike the life and the character, the work and the methods. the biographer may fail in his attempt; but in the case of miss nightingale the attempt is peculiarly necessary, because all that she did and the manner in which she did it were, as it has seemed to me, characteristic of a strongly-marked personality behind them. this book is, however, a biography and not a history. it is not a history of the crimean war, nor of nursing, nor of indian administration. something on all these matters will be found in it; but only so much of detail as was necessary to place miss nightingale's work in its true light and to exhibit her characteristic methods. so, also, many other persons will pass across the stage--persons drawn from a great many different classes, occupations, walks in life; but the book does not aim at giving a detailed picture of "miss nightingale's circle." her relations, her friends, her acquaintances, her correspondents only concern us here in so far as their dealings with her affected her work, or illustrate her character. here, again--to revert to what has been said above--it will be found, i think, that this book possesses a certain significance as correcting, or supplementing, a popular legend. a preacher, in an obituary sermon upon miss nightingale, said that all her work was done "by force of simple goodness." assuredly miss nightingale was a good woman, and there was also a certain simplicity about her. but there was much else. a man of affairs, who in the course of a long and varied life had come in contact with many of the acutest intellects and greatest administrators of the time, said of miss nightingale that hers was the clearest brain he had ever known in man or woman. strength of head was quite as marked in her as goodness of heart, and she had at least as much of adroitness as of simplicity. her character was in fact curiously many-sided. a remarkable variety of interests, motives, methods will be found coming into play in the course of this record. the florence nightingale who will be shown in it--by her acts, her methods, her sayings, her ways of looking at things and people--is a very different person from santa filomena. miss nightingale has been given a place among the saints in the popular calendars of many nations; and she deserves the canonisation, but not entirely for the popular reasons. her character, as i have endeavoured to depict it, was stronger, more spacious, and, as i have felt, more lovable than that of the lady with the lamp. part i aspiration (1820-1854) i go to prove my soul! i see my way as birds their trackless way. i shall arrive--what time, what circuit first, i ask not; but unless god send his hail or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow, in some time, his good time, i shall arrive: he guides me and the bird. in his good time. browning: _paracelsus_. chapter i childhood and education (1820-1839) i found her in her chamber reading _phaedon platonis_ in greek, and that with as much pleasure as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in bocace.--roger ascham. to the tender sentiment and popular adoration that gathered around the subject of this memoir, something perhaps was added by the beauty of a name which linked together the city of the flowers and the music of the birds. her surname suggested to longfellow the title of the poem which has carried home to the hearts of thousands in two continents a lesson of her life. the popularity of "florence"--in the middle ages a masculine name--as a christian name for english girls is noted by the historian of that subject as due to association with the heroine of the crimea. * * * * * both of her names were the result of circumstance. her father came of the old derbyshire family of shore of tapton, and changed his name in 1815 from william edward shore to william edward nightingale on succeeding to the property of his mother's uncle, peter nightingale of lea, in the same county. mr. william nightingale was fond of travel, and the close of the french war, shortly before his marriage (1818), had thrown the continent open to the grand tour. mr. and mrs. nightingale's only children, two daughters, were born during a sojourn in italy. the elder was born at naples in 1819, and was named, firstly, frances, after her mother, and, secondly, after the old greek settlement on the site of her birthplace, parthenope. she afterwards became the second wife of sir harry verney.[4] the younger daughter, the subject of this memoir, was also named after her birthplace. she was born at florence on may 12, 1820, in the villa colombaia, near the porta romana, as a memorial-tablet now affixed to the house records; and there on the 4th of july she was baptized by dr. trevor, prebendary of chester. the place-names became in familiar intercourse "parthe" or "pop," and "flo." "the surprises of sainthood," said a speaker at a congress on eugenics, "are no less remarkable than those of genius. st. francis of assisi, st. catherine of siena, and florence nightingale could no more have been predicted from their ancestry than napoleon, beethoven, michael angelo, or shakespeare." but the peculiarities of tissue on which some physical characteristics are held to depend can, at any rate, be inherited. florence nightingale's mother was one of the eleven children of william smith of parndon hall, essex, of whom sir james stephen said: "when he had nearly completed four score years, he could still gratefully acknowledge that he had no remembrance of any bodily pain or illness, and that of the very numerous family of which he was the head every member still lived to support and gladden his old age." this statement is not absolutely correct, for one child did not long survive its birth; but of the other sons and daughters of william smith, none died at an earlier age than 69, two lived to be more than 75, six to be more than 80, and one to be more than 90. this last was frances, mrs. nightingale, who lived to be 92. on the father's side there was longevity also. mr. nightingale himself lived to be 80. his mother lived to be 95; he had an aunt who lived to be 90; and "your uncle," wrote his father, "young at 82, enters into politics of the present moment with all the ardour of 22." of the children of mr. and mrs. william nightingale, parthenope lived to be 75, and florence, though (or, in part, perhaps, because) she lived for 53 years the life of an invalid, attained the age of 90. [4] to avoid confusion, i sometimes refer to her before her marriage as "lady verney," reserving "miss nightingale" throughout for florence. florence nightingale, whether saint or not, was certainly conscious of a "call"; but there was nothing in her descent or inheritance which encouraged her parents to allow it to become readily effectual. because she was a woman, her early life was one long struggle for liberation from circumstance and social prepossessions. yet there were features in her mental equipment and intellectual outlook which may well have been inherited, and which certainly owed much to environment. sir james stephen adds to the remarks quoted above that if william smith "had gone mourning all his days, he could scarcely have acquired a more tender pity for the miserable, or have laboured more habitually for their relief." in politics he was a follower of fox. he was a friend of wilberforce, with whom he co-operated in the house of commons in the abolitionist and other humanitarian movements. of wilberforce, as of thomas clarkson, "he possessed the almost brotherly love, and of all their fellow-labourers there was none who was more devoted to their cause, or whom they more entirely trusted."[5] in religion a unitarian, he was a stout defender of liberty of thought and conscience, a persistent opponent of religious tests and disabilities. the liberal opinions, alike in church and state, which were thus traditional in the family of florence nightingale's mother, were shared by that of her father. her grandfather shore, in a letter to his son in 1818, referred to "one of the finest pieces of eloquence either in ancient or modern times, given by sir samuel romilly in the court of chancery on a motion respecting the right of jews to the benefit of a charity in bedford. it does honour to the man and to human nature." florence nightingale's father was also a unitarian; and in politics he was a whig. "how i hate tories," he wrote to his wife; and in another letter, after the election of 1835, in which the hated ones had gained ground, he explained that they were mighty only "by beer, brandy, and money." the whigs, as is well known, were not all lacking in the latter equipment for political success, and mr. nightingale was a frequent subscriber to electoral funds on the whig side. he was an ardent supporter of parliamentary reform. he held that "bentham has taught great moral truth more effectually than all the christian divines." at a later time he was a follower of lord palmerston, of whom he was also a neighbour in the country. one of the earliest notices which i find of florence nightingale's interest in politics is in a letter from her father describing a meeting at romsey to which he had taken her. "florence," he says, "approved very much palmerston's exposition of his foreign policy." [5] _essays in ecclesiastical biography_, "the clapham sect," pp. 543-544 (ed. 1860). miss nightingale referred to this association of her grandfather with wilberforce and clarkson in one of her _addresses to probationers_ (1875). something else florence nightingale owed to, or shared with, her father. he, like some other members of his family, was of a reflective temperament, interested in speculative problems. there is a letter written by him to his wife from his father's sick-room (sept. 1822) which shows the bent of his thoughts:- i sit by his bedside and look at him as one would at a sleeping man, the idea of death only now and then flashing across my mind. i have been _studying_ mad. de staël on the feeling of conviction, which exists more or less in different people and different nations, on the subject of soul as independent of external ideas. my imagination is a dull one, for it certainly required _study_ with me to feel the full force of conviction that soul does and must exist quite separately from, though influenced by, external circumstances. _you_ will say, i know, with a firm belief in scripture and religion, leave all philosophical speculation to the wild imaginations of the germans. nothing can change _your_ reliance on religion. the perversity of _my_ nature refers me to experience and analogies, though i begin to think that the study of the creation displayed before our faculties will exalt me into a conception of divinity completely pervading the whole, but particularly that part of man which enables him to feel the difference between right and wrong independently of the ideas which he derives from external circumstances. florence nightingale's mother accepted the religious standpoint of the day without question. unitarianism was dropped by her and by her elder daughter; by florence it was, as we shall hear, transcended. the mother's essential bent was practical, though the scope of it was somewhat limited. the mind of her daughter florence found room in equal measure for practice and for contemplation. she inherited her mother's organising capacity, though she turned it to directions of her own. it was from her father that she inherited the taste for speculative inquiry which absorbed a large part of her life. ii from the worldly circumstances of her parents florence came to draw conclusions little sympathetic, in some respects, with existing usages and conventions. she accepted, indeed, the position of worldly wealth into which she was born without any fundamental questioning. in later years a young friend, on being urged to visit the villagers around one of miss nightingale's country homes, explained that she did not like the relation, she could not bring herself to go from a big comfortable house to instruct poor people how to live. miss nightingale laughed, and said, "you surely don't call lea hurst a big house." it had only about fifteen bedrooms. she took for granted the position into which she was born. but she thought that wealth should only be used as a means of work. the easy, comfortable, not very strenuous conditions of her home life as a girl fixed the nature of her earlier years, but her soul did not become rooted in them. they sowed seeds which grew, as the years passed, not into acquiescence, but into revolt. mr. nightingale had inherited his great-uncle's property when nine years old. it accumulated for him, and a lead mine added greatly to its value. by the time of his marriage he was blessed (or, as his younger daughter came to think, afflicted) by the possession of a considerable fortune. whether it were indeed a blessing or an affliction, it involved him in much uncertainty of mind. he and his wife returned from the continent with their infant daughters in 1821, and the question became urgent, where to live? the landed property which he inherited from his great-uncle was a comparatively small estate at and around lea hall in derbyshire. to this property he added largely. the hall, the old residence of his great-uncle, was discarded (it is now used as a farm-house), and mr. nightingale built a new house, called lea hurst. the charm of its situation and prospect is described in a letter by mrs. gaskell:- "high as lea hurst is, one seems on a pinnacle, with the clouds careering round one. down below is a garden with stone terraces and flights of steps--the planes of these terraces being perfectly gorgeous with masses of hollyhocks, dahlias, nasturtiums, geraniums, etc. then a sloping meadow losing itself in a steep wooded descent (such tints over the wood!) to the river derwent, the rocks on the other side of which form the first distance, and are of a red colour streaked with misty purple. beyond this, interlacing hills, forming three ranges of distance; the first, deep brown with decaying heather; the next, in some purple shadow, and the last catching some pale, watery sunlight." "i am left alone," continued mrs. gaskell, "established high up, in two rooms, opening one out of the other--the old nurseries." (the inner one, in which mrs. gaskell slept, was, when parthenope grew up, her bedroom.) "it is curious how simple it is. the old carpet doesn't cover the floor. no easy chair, no sofa, a little curtainless bed, a small glass. in the outer room--the former day nursery--miss florence's room when she is at home, everything is equally simple; now, of course, the bed is reconverted into a sofa; two small tables, a few bookshelves, a drab carpet only partially covering the clean boards, and stone-coloured walls--as cold in colouring as need be, but with one low window on one side, trellised over with virginian creeper as gorgeous as can be; and the opposite one, by which i am writing, looking over such country!"[6] [6] from a letter to catherine winkworth, october 20, 1854, kindly communicated by miss meta gaskell. mrs. gaskell had gone to stay at lea hurst with the understanding that she was to have a quiet time for writing, remaining in the house as long as she might wish after the family had left it. for other passages from the letter, see pp. 39, 41, 139. the sound of the derwent was often in florence's ears. when she was in the hospital at scutari any fretting in the straits recalled it to her. "how i like," she said on a stormy night, "to hear that ceaseless roar; it puts me in mind of the dear derwent; how often i have listened to it from the nursery window." lea hurst became one of florence nightingale's earliest homes in england, but it was not the earliest of all. the house was not built when the family returned from the continent, and mr. nightingale took kynsham court, presteigne, in herefordshire. the place, it seems, was "more picturesque than habitable," and negotiations for the purchase of it, with a view to improvements, fell through. mr. nightingale liked derbyshire, and was fond of his new house; but the rich, as well as the poor, have their perplexities. "the difficulty is," wrote mr. nightingale to his wife, "where is the county that is habitable for twelve successive months?" and, again, "how would you like leicestershire? for my part, i think that, provided i could get about 2000 acres and a house in some neighbouring county where sporting and scenery were in tolerable abundance, and the visit to lea hurst were annually confined to july, august, september, and october, then all would be well." while mrs. nightingale stayed at kynsham, or took the children for change of air to the seaside or tunbridge wells, mr. nightingale divided his time between the management of his property in derbyshire and the search for a second home elsewhere. ultimately he found what he wanted at embley park in the parish of wellow, near romsey. this estate was bought in 1825, and kynsham was given up. embley is on the edge of the new forest, and the rich growth of its woods and gardens is much favoured by sun and moisture. old oaks and beeches, thickets of flowering laurel and rhododendron, and a profusion of flowers and scents, contrast with the bare breezy hills of derbyshire. its new owners had here the variety they wished for, and a full scope for their taste. the most praised of its beauties is a long road almost shut in by masses of rhododendron. one of the occasional pleasures of miss nightingale's later life in london was a drive in the park, in rhododendron-time, "to remind her of embley." iii from her fifth year onwards florence nightingale had, then, for her homes lea hurst in the summer months and embley during the rest of the year. the family usually spent a portion of the season in london. the sisters led, it will thus be seen, a life mainly in the country, and florence as a child became fond of flowers, birds, and beasts. a neatly printed manuscript-book is preserved, in which she made a catalogue of her collection of flowers, describing each with analytical accuracy, and noting the particular spot at which it was picked. her childish letters contain many references to animal companions. she made particular friends with the nuthatch. she had a pet pig, a pet donkey, a pet pony. she was fond of riding, and fond of dogs. "a small pet animal," she said many years afterwards, "is often an excellent companion for the sick, for long chronic cases especially." "the more i see of men," wrote a cynic, "the more i love dogs." florence nightingale, in the same piece from which i have just quoted, drew a like moral from her experience of some nurses. "an invalid," she said, "in giving an account of his nursing by a nurse and a dog, infinitely preferred that of the dog. 'above all,' he said, 'it did not talk.'"[7] there were no babies in the nightingale family after the arrival of florence herself, but most of her mother's many brothers and sisters married and had families; and as mr. and mrs. nightingale's houses were often visited by these relations, there was seldom wanting a succession of babies, and in them and their christenings, and teethings, and illnesses, and lessons, florence took that interest which is often strong in little girls. [7] _notes on nursing_, ed. 1860, p. 147 _n._ sometimes a baby died, and her letters show that florence was as much interested in a death as in a birth. she rejoiced in "the little angels in heaven." one of her favourite poems at this period was _the better land_ of mrs. hemans, which she copied out for a cousin as "so very beautiful." the earliest letter which i have seen, written when she was ten, strikes mingled notes. she is staying with uncle octavius smith at "thames bank" (a house which then adjoined his distillery at millbank), and writes to her sister, who is on a visit with the maid to another set of cousins:- give my love to clémence, and tell her, if you please, that i am not in the room where she established me, but in a very small one; instead of the beautiful view of the thames, a most dismal one of the black distillery, and, whenever i open my window, the nasty smell rushes in like a torrent. but i like it pretty well notwithstanding. there is a hole through the wall close to my door, which communicates with the bath-room, which is next the room where freddy[8] sleeps, and he talks to me by there. tell her also, if you please, that i have washed myself all over and feet in warm water since i came every night. i went up into the distillery to the very tip-top by ladders with uncle oc and fred saturday night. we walked along a great pipe. we have had a good deal of boating which i like very much. we see three steam-boats pass every day, the _diana_, the _fly_, and the _endeavour_. my love to all of them except miss w----. give my love particularly to hilary. your affect and only sister. dear pop, i think of you, pray let us love one another more than we have done. mama wishes it particularly, it is the will of god, and it will comfort us in our trials through life. good-bye. [8] freddy, who was a bright, promising boy, went with sir george grey on his journey of exploration in australia, and there died of starvation. in rees's _life of sir george grey_ a note was made, by sir george's desire, as to his having "met the death of a martyr in the cause of science and discovery, led on by personal friendship and affection for sir george himself." was miss w---an unsympathetic governess? whoever she was, the exception in her disfavour shows an unregenerate impulse which contrasts naïvely with the following good resolve towards her sister. to a year earlier belongs a little note-book, entitled "journal of flo, embley." it begins with the reminder, "the lord is with thee wherever thou art." and then an entry records, "sunday, i obliged to sit still by miss christie till i had the spirit of obedience." as a child, and throughout all the earlier part of her life, florence was much given to dreaming, and in some introspective speculations written in 1851 she recalled the pleasures of naughtiness. "when i was a child and was naughty, it always put an end to my dreaming for the time. i never could tell why. was it because naughtiness was a more interesting state than the little motives which make man's peaceful civilized state, and occupied imagination for the time?" to miss christie, her first governess, florence became greatly attached, and the death of the lady a few years later threw her into deep grief. she was a sensitive, and a somewhat morbid child; and though she presently developed a lively sense of humour, to which she had the capacity of giving trenchant expression, it was the humour of intellect rather than the outcome of a joyous disposition. her early letters contain little note of childish fun. they are for the most part grave and introspective. she was self-absorbed, and had the shyness which attends upon that habit. "my greatest ambition," she wrote in some private reminiscences of her early life, "was not to be remarked. i was always in mortal fear of doing something unlike other people, and i said, 'if i were sure that nobody would remark me i should be quite happy.' i had a morbid terror of not using my knives and forks like other people when i should come out. i was afraid of speaking to children because i was sure i should not please them." meanwhile, she was perhaps at times, even as a child, a little "difficult" at home. "ask flo," wrote her father to his wife in 1832, "if she has lost her intellect. if not, why does she grumble at troubles which she cannot remedy by grumbling?" iv the appeal to his daughter's intellect was characteristic of mr. nightingale. he was himself a well-informed man, educated at edinburgh, and trinity, cambridge; and, like some others of the unitarian circle, he held views much in advance of the average opinion of his time about the intellectual education of women. the home education of his daughters was largely supervised by himself; it included a range of subjects far outside the curriculum current in "young ladies' seminaries"; and perhaps, like hannah more's father, he was sometimes "frightened at his own success." letters and note-books show, it is true, that his daughters were duly instructed in the accomplishments deemed appropriate to young ladies. we hear of them learning the use of the globes, writing books of elegant extracts, working footstools, and doing fancy work. they studied music, grammar, composition, modern languages. "we used to read tasso and ariosto and alfieri with my father," florence said; "he was a good and always interested italian scholar, never pedantic, never a tiresome grammarian, but he spoke italian like an italian and i took care of the verbs." mr. nightingale added constitutional history, latin, greek, and mathematics. by the time florence was sixteen, he was reading homer with his daughters. miss nightingale used to say that at greek her sister was the quicker scholar. their father set them appointed tasks to prepare. parthenope would trust largely to improvisation or lucky shots. florence was more laborious; and sometimes would get up at four in the morning to prepare the lesson. her knowledge of latin was of some practical use in later years. in conversations with abbots and monks whom she met during her travels she sometimes found in latin their only common tongue. among florence's papers were preserved many sheets in her father's handwriting, containing the heads of admirable outlines of the political history of england and of some foreign states. her own note-books show that in her teens she had mastered the elements of latin and greek. she analysed the _tusculan disputations_. she translated portions of the _phaedo_, the _crito_ and the _apology_. she had studied roman, german, italian, and turkish history. she had analysed dugald stewart's _philosophy of the human mind_. her father was in the habit, too, of suggesting themes on which his daughters were to write compositions. it was the system of the college essay. "florence has now taken to mathematics," wrote her sister in 1840, "and, like everything she undertakes, she is deep in them and working very hard." the direction in which florence nightingale was to exercise the faculties thus trained was as yet hidden in the future; but to her father's guidance she was indebted for the mental grasp and power of intellectual concentration which were to distinguish her work in life. it is a natural temptation of biographers to give a formal unity to their subject by representing the child as in all things the father of the man; to date the vocation of their hero or heroine very early in life; to magnify some childish incident as prophetic of what is to come thereafter. material is available for such treatment in the case of florence nightingale. it has been recorded that she used to nurse and bandage the dolls which her elder sister damaged. every book about the heroine of the crimea contains, too, a tale of "first aid to the wounded" which florence administered to cap, the shepherd's collie, whom she found with a broken leg on the downs near embley. "i wonder," wrote her "old pastor"[9] to her in 1858, "whether you remember how, twenty-two years ago, you and i together averted the intended hanging of poor old shepherd smithers's dog, cap. how many times i have told the story since! i well recollect the pleasure which the saving of the life of a poor dog then gave to your young mind. i was delighted to witness it; it was to me not indeed an omen of what you were about to do and be (for of that i never dreamed), but it was an index of that kind and benevolent disposition, of that i cor. xiii. charity, which has been at the root of it." and it is certainly interesting and curious, if nothing more, that the very earliest piece in the handwriting of florence nightingale which has been preserved should be a medical prescription. it is contained in a tiny book, about the size of a postage-stamp, which the little girl stitched together and in which the instruction is written, in very childish letters, "16 grains for an old woman, 11 for a young woman, and 7 for a child." but these things are after all but trifles. florence nightingale is not the only little girl who has been fond of nursing sick dolls or mending them when broken. other children have tended wounded animals and had their pill-boxes and simples. much, too, has been written about florence's kindness as a child to her poorer neighbours. her mother, both at lea hurst and at embley, sometimes occupied herself in good works. she and her husband were particularly interested in a "cheap school" which they supported at their derbyshire home. "large sums of money have been paid," wrote mr. nightingale to his wife in 1832, "to your schoolmistress for many praiseworthy purposes, who works _con amore_ in looking after the whole population, young and old." florence took her place, beside her mother, in visiting poor neighbours, in arranging school-treats, in giving village entertainments. but thousands of other squires' daughters, before and after her, have done the like. and florence herself, as many entries in her diaries show, was not conscious of doing much, but reproachful of herself for doing little. the constant burden of her self-examination, both at this time and for many years to come, was that she was for ever "dreaming" and never "doing." she was dreaming because for a long time she did not clearly feel or see what her work in life was to be; and then for yet another period of time because, when she knew what she was called to do, she could not compass the means to do it. her faculties were not brought outwards, but were left, by the conditions of her life, to devour themselves inwardly. [9] the rev. j. t. giffard. the discovery of her true vocation belongs, then, to a later period of our story; and it was not the result of childish fancy, or the accomplishment of early incident; it was the fruit of long and earnest study. what did come to florence nightingale early in life--perhaps, as one entry in her autobiographical notes suggests, as early as her sixth year--was the sense of a "call"; of some appointed mission in life; of self-dedication to the service of god. "i remember her," wrote fanny allen in 1857 to her niece elizabeth wedgwood, "as a little girl of three or four, then the girl of sixteen of high promise. when i look back on every time i saw her after her sixteenth year, i see that she was ripening constantly for her work, and that her mind was dwelling on the painful differences of man and man in this life, and on the traps that a luxurious life laid for the affluent. a conversation on this subject between the father and daughter made me laugh at the time, the contrast was so striking; but now, as i remember it, it was the divine spirit breathing in her."[10] in an autobiographical fragment written in 1867 florence mentions as one of the crises of her inner life that "god called her to his service" on february 7, 1837, at embley; and there are later notes which still fix that day as the dawn of her true life. but as yet she knew not whither the spirit was to lead. for three months, indeed, as she notes in another passage of retrospect, she "worked very hard among the poor people" under "a strong feeling of religion." [10] _a century of family letters_, vol. ii. p. 174. v presently, however, a new direction was given to her thoughts and interests. she was now seventeen, her sister eighteen. their home education had been far advanced, and might seem to require only such "finishing" as masters and society in france and italy could supply. mr. nightingale had, moreover, decided to carry out extensive alterations at embley. with his wife and daughters, he crossed from southampton to havre on september 8, 1837, and they did not return to england till april 6, 1839. those were days of leisurely travel, such as ruskin describes, in which "distance could not be vanquished without toil, but in which that toil was rewarded, partly by the power of deliberate survey of the countries through which the journey lay, and partly by the happiness of the evening hours, when from the top of the last hill he had surmounted, the traveller beheld the quiet village where he was to rest, scattered among the meadows beside its valley stream; or, from the long-hoped-for turn in the dusty perspective of the causeway, saw, for the first time, the towers of some famed city, faint in the rays of sunset--hours of peaceful and thoughtful pleasure, for which the rush of the arrival in the railway station is perhaps not always, or to all men, an equivalent." there were many such hours during the journeys which the nightingales took with a _vetturino_ through france and italy; and florence, writing at a later date, when all her life was fixed on doing, noted that on this tour there was "too much time for dreaming." yet it is clear from her diaries that she entered heartily, and with a wider range of interest than some english travellers show, into the life of foreign society and sight-seeing. a love of statistical method which became one of her most marked characteristics may already be seen in an itinerary which she compiled; noting, in its several columns, the number of leagues from place to place, with the day and the hour both of arrival and of departure. they went leisurely through france, visiting, besides many other places, chartres, blois, tours, nantes, bordeaux, biarritz, carcassonne, nîmes, avignon, and toulon, and then going by the riviera to nice. there they stayed for nearly a month (dec. 1837-jan. 1838). a month was next spent at genoa, and two months were given to florence. the late spring and summer were devoted to travel in the cities of northern italy, among the lakes, and in switzerland. they spent the month of september in geneva, and reached paris on october 8, 1838. miss nightingale preserved her diary of the greater part of the tour, and it shows her keenly interested alike in scenery and in works of art. it contains also, what records of sentimental pilgrimages often lack, an admixture of notes and statistics upon the laws, the land systems, the social conditions and benevolent institutions of the several states or cantons. her interest in the politics of the day was keen wherever she was; and the society of many refugees into which she was thrown at geneva gave her a particularly ardent sympathy with the cause of italian freedom. the diary contains many biographical notes upon italian patriots, whose adventures she heard related by their own lips. "a stirring day," she wrote on september 12 (1838), "the most stirring which we have ever lived." it was the day on which the news reached geneva that the emperor of austria had declared an amnesty in italy. the nightingales attended an evening party at which the italian refugees assembled and the imperial decree was read out amidst loud jubilation; which, however, was afterwards abated when it turned out that the "general amnesty" contained many conditions and some exceptions. the nightingales had the entrée to all the learned society of geneva. florence records an evening spent with m. de candolle, the famous botanist; and the diary gives many glimpses of sismondi, the historian, who was then living in his native city. he escorted the nightingale party up the salève. they made that not very formidable ascent first on donkeys and then "in a sledge covered with straw and drawn by four oxen." florence was present on another occasion when "all the company gathered round sismondi who, sitting on a table, gave us a lecture on florentine history." the conscientious florence made a full note in her diary of the great man's discourse. "all sismondi's political economy," she also noted, "seems to be founded on the overflowing kindness of his heart. he gives to old beggars on principle, to young from habit. at pescia he had 300 beggars at his door on one morning. he feeds the mice in his room while he is writing his histories." presently there was a new excitement in geneva. "what a stirring time we live in," florence wrote on september 18; "one day to decide the fate of the italians, to-morrow to decide the fate of switzerland." "to-morrow" was the day fixed for the meeting of the conseil représentatif which was to take into consideration the demand of louis philippe for the expulsion of louis napoleon, the future emperor. many pages of miss nightingale's diary are given up to this affair. she analysed all the _pros_ and _cons_, and recorded day by day the course of the debate. sismondi thought that the refugee ought to be surrendered--on principle because he was a pretender, in expediency because geneva would be unable to withstand a french assault. he "spoke for an hour" in this sense. the genevois radicals, on the other hand, while entertaining no great love for the pretender, thought that, cost what it might, "the sacred right of asylum" should be maintained. and so the debate continued. the french government began to move troops from lyons; the genevois, to throw up fortifications. whereupon mr. nightingale, like many other english visitors, thought it time to take his family across the frontier. miss nightingale's diary written _en route_ to paris shows her excitement to obtain news of the crisis. when she learnt that it had been solved by louis napoleon being given a passport for england, she did not see that louis philippe had gained very much; the pretender would be nearer, and not less dangerous, in london than in geneva--a very just prediction. not every girl of eighteen, when taking her first tour abroad, shows so lively an interest in political affairs. politics and social observations mingle in the diary with artistic and architectural notes. the city which seems most to have appealed to her imagination was not florence; though she said that she "would not have missed it for anything," and, curiously, her sojourn in her birthplace was the occasion of a characteristic incident. an english lady, who afterwards became princess reuss köstritz, was staying in the same lodgings and fell ill, and florence nightingale volunteered to nurse her. but the city which she most admired was genoa la superba. she notes indeed the excessive indolence of the nobles and excessive poverty of the people, but the palaces "realized an arabian nights story" for her. mr. and mrs. nightingale had many friends and brought many introductions. in the various towns where they stayed they mixed in the best society, and their daughters were thrown into a lively round of picnics, concerts, soirées, dancing: balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day, when they made up fresh adventures for the morrow-there were court balls at which grand dukes were "exceedingly polite" to florence nightingale and her sister. they went to an evening court at florence, and found "everyone most courteous and agreeable." there was a ball at the casino in genoa, at which, writes florence in her diary, "my partner and i made an _embrouillement_, and a military officer came up with a very angry face to challenge me for having refused him and then not dancing." but the music was not all to the tune of "a toccata of galuppi's." what gave florence the greatest pleasure on this tour was the italian opera. in those days the reigning singers were grisi, lablache, rubini, and tamburini. florence nightingale heard them all. her italian diary is nowhere so elaborate as in descriptions of the operas and in notes on the performers. she kept a separate book in which she wrote tabulated details of all the performances. "i should like to go every night," she said in her diary; and for some time after her return from the continent she was, as she wrote to miss clarke, "music-mad." she took music-lessons at florence, and in london studied under german and italian masters. she played and sang. it was as yet uncertain whether "the call"--to what, as yet also unknown--might not be drowned in the tastes, interests, and pursuits which fill the life of other young ladies in her position. vi the fascination of social life must have been brought vividly before her during the winter (1838-39) which they spent in paris, in apartments in the place vendôme (no. 22). she was now introduced into the brilliant circle of the last of the _salons_. mary clarke, afterwards madame mohl, was by descent half irish, half scottish; by education and residence, almost wholly french. "a charming mixture," said ampère of her, "of french vivacity and english originality." full at once of _esprit_ and of _espièglerie_, well read and artistic yet wholly devoid of pedantry, without regular beauty of feature, but alert and _piquante_, mary clarke had gathered round her what ticknor in 1837 had found the most intellectual circle in paris. for seven years she and her mother lived in apartments in the abbaye-au-bois, adjoining those of madame récamier, and mary was a daily visitor to the famous _salon_ during the reign of chateaubriand, whose closing years she did much to brighten and amuse. at the time when the nightingales arrived in paris, mrs. and miss clarke had left the abbaye-au-bois and established themselves in those apartments in the rue du bac which for nearly forty years were a haunt of all that was brilliant in the intellectual life of paris. mary clarke took most affectionately to the nightingale family, who, with some of their connections, remained for long years among her closest friends. she used to pay a yearly visit to mr. and mrs. nightingale, either at embley or at lea hurst, generally staying three weeks or a month; and to her many of florence's most interesting letters were, as we shall find, addressed. to her other and more superficial qualities, mary clarke added great warmth of lasting affection for her intimate friends, and her sympathetic kindness to the nightingale circle was unfailing. the attraction of paris to florence lay principally in its hospitals and nursing sisterhoods, but partly also in that it was the home of "clarkey," as they called her. and it was the same with other members of the family. there is a letter from lady verney to clarkey which describes how some one asked mr. nightingale, "are you going to paris?" "oh, no," he replied; "madame mohl is ill." "then does paris mean madame mohl?" "yes, certainly," he replied gravely. during the winter of 1838-39 miss clarke, writes lady verney, was "exceedingly kind to florence and me, two young girls full of all kinds of interests, which she took the greatest pains to help. she made us acquainted with all her friends, many and notable, among them madame récamier. i know now, better than then, what her influence must have been thus to introduce an english family (two of them girls who, if french, would not have appeared in society) into that jealously guarded sanctuary, the most exclusive aristocratic and literary _salon_ in paris. we were asked, even, to the reading by chateaubriand, at the abbaye-au-bois, of his _mémoires d'outre-tombe_, which he could not wait to put forth, as he had intended when writing them, until after his death--desiring, it was said, to discount the praises which he expected, but hardly received. this hearing was a favour eagerly sought for by the cream of the cream of paris society at that time."[11] in miss clarke's own apartments, the nightingales met many distinguished men. the intimates who were always there, and who assisted their hostess in making the tea, were mm. fauriel and mohl--claude fauriel, versed in mediæval and provençal lore, a man exceedingly handsome, who had captivated madame de staël and other ladies besides mary clarke in his friendships; and julius mohl, one of the first orientalists in europe, a more ardent lover whom, after a probation of eighteen years, miss clarke married in 1847. m. mohl was once asked by queen victoria why, loving germany so much, he had given up his native country for france. "ma foi, madame," he replied, "j'ètais amoureux." with m. mohl, no less than with his wife, florence nightingale was on terms of affectionate friendship. among the frequent visitors whom she and her sister met at miss clarke's were madame tastu (the poetess), élie de beaumont (the geologist), roulin (the traveller and naturalist), cousin, mignet, guizot, tocqueville, barthélemy st. hilaire, and thiers. the last-named was one of miss clarke's earliest admirers; and many years later, after the franco-german war, when thiers was at the head of affairs, lady verney heard m. mohl say to his wife, "madame, why did you not marry m. thiers instead of me, for now you would have been queen of france?" [11] _julius and mary mohl_, p. 29. in such circles as that which gathered around miss clarke, florence nightingale was well qualified to hold her own and even to play a brilliant part. her life of gaiety on the riviera and in italy must have rubbed away much of the shyness from which she had suffered. if not beautiful, she was elegant and distinguished. she was both widely and deeply read. she had many and varied interests. she had powers of expression, in which clearness was not unmixed with a note of humorous subacidity. these are social advantages, and she was not without the inclination to use them. she chose in the end another path--a path which was beset by many obstacles of circumstance; but there were obstacles in herself also, and one of the last "temptations" to be overcome, before she was free to interpret her call and to act upon it, was (as she wrote in many a page of confession and self-examination) "the desire to shine in society." chapter ii home life (1839-1845) her passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self.--george eliot: _middlemarch_. the home life to which florence nightingale returned in april 1839 was rich in possibilities of social pleasure, and might have seemed to promise every happiness. she was well fitted by nature and by education to be an ornament of any country house; to shine in any cultivated society; to become the wife, as many of her best friends hoped and believed, of some good and clever man. but florence, as she passed from childhood to womanhood, came to form other plans. her life, as she ultimately shaped it, her example, which circumstances were destined to render far-shining, have been potent factors in opening new avenues for women in the modern world. thousands of women in these days are, in consequence of florence nightingale's career, born free; but it was at a great price, and after long and weary struggles, that she herself attained such freedom. during the years with which, in this part, we shall be concerned, she lived in some sort the life of a caged bird. * * * * * the cage, however, was pleasantly gilded. florence was not always insensible of the gilding; there were times when she was tempted to chafe no longer at its bars, and to accept a restricted life within the conventional lines. i do not propose to detail, as might be done from her letters, diaries, and other materials, the precise succession of her goings and comings, her visits, and her home pursuits. she herself gives an excellent reason in one of her diaries. "our movements are so regular," she said; one year was very like another. the setting of florence nightingale's life during this period was such as many women have enjoyed, and many others have envied. the lines of the nightingale family were laid in pleasant places. their summer months were spent, as in preceding years, at lea hurst. a portion of the season was spent in london, and the rest of the year at embley. on their return from the continent in 1839, the nightingales spent some weeks in london, when the two girls were presented at court, and a letter to miss clarke shows florence absorbed in music, but not so completely as to conquer a lively interest in the politics of the bedchamber plot:- carlton hotel, regent street, _june_ 1 [1839].... we are enjoying ourselves much, for the nicholsons, our cousins, came up to town the day after we did, and are living in the same hotel with us in regent street, the best situation in london, i think, but some people call it too noisy. as marianne nicholson is as music-mad as i am, we are revelling in music all day long. schulz, who is a splendid player, and crivelli, her singing master, give us lessons, and the unfortunate piano has been strummed out of tune in a week, not having even its natural rest at nights, as there are other masters as well. we went to pauline garcia's début at the opera in _otello_. she was exceedingly nervous and trembled all over, but her great improvement towards the end promised well. her lower notes are very fine indeed, and two shakes she made low down, though too much like _instrumental_ to be agreeable, were very extraordinary. her voice, however, is excessively unequal, and sometimes her singing is quite commonplace. she makes too much of her execution, which is very uneven. it is very easy to say that she will be another malibran, but if they were side by side the difference would be seen; so say wiser judges than we. even grisi is quite superior to her in desdemona, although p. garcia's voice is the most powerful, but then p. garcia was excessively frightened. we have heard her sing a duet with persiani in which both were perfect, and i heard dohler for the first time at the same concert. i was nowise disappointed, although i had heard so much of him at paris, his execution is extraordinary, but i think one would soon grow tired of it, for both his music and his style are very inferior to thalberg's. have you heard batta on the violoncello at paris? his playing approaches more nearly to the human voice than anything i ever heard. we are going to hear charming persiani to-night in the _lucia di lammermoor_. tamburini, the most good-natured of mortals, has volunteered to come and sing two or three hours with my cousin marianne every season, whenever she thinks herself sufficiently advanced. we are going to hear him at a private concert on monday. now there has been enough and too much of musical news, but political news is scarce.... london was in a perfect whirlwind of excitement for the few days that the melbourne ministry was out, but that is stale already. our little queen, who was sadly unpopular when we first came to england, recovered much of her former favour with the whig party after the firmness she showed in this affair. she was cheered and called forward at the opera, which had not been done for months, and again returning from chapel. and the birthday drawing-room was overflowing, whereas at the two first she gave this season, there were hardly _forty_ people! the story of this last fracas is that on tuesday, the day of lord melbourne's resignation, the queen dined upstairs with her mother, baroness lehzen, and lady f. hastings, which she had never done since her accession, and it is supposed that the _amende honorable_ was then made to lady flora, and that in this _partie carrée_ was also arranged the course which was to be pursued with sir robert peel. the poor little queen was seen in tears by several people who told us in the course of the three days, and struggled for her ladies, as you see, manfully. however matters may turn out now, it is said that she has taken so tremendous a dislike to sir r. peel in this affair, that she will never send for _him_ again. since that, the house has been adjourned for a fortnight and only met last monday when the speaker was elected, abercromby going up to the house of peers. we are rejoicing in the election of shaw lefevre, by a majority of eighteen; rather less than was expected, however, spring rice arriving half an hour too late to vote, which has made rather a commotion. shaw lefevre is a great friend of ours, and a very agreeable man, which is his chief qualification for the chair. macaulay is not likely to come into the ministry; lord melbourne says that it is impossible to get on with a man who talks so fast. so he is now writing history, and saying that it is the only thing worth doing, except, however, standing for edinburgh in abercromby's room against crawford. macaulay has made an admirable speech in favour of ballot there. the queen is vibrating between popularity and unpopularity, and it is not yet known which way the scale will turn between the two parties; she was very much applauded, and lord melbourne too, at ascot yesterday. he is likely to keep the upper hand, as the tories have not such a man as lord john russell in all their party, and the _nine_ obstreperous radicals have had a sop and give in their adhesion for the present. papa is shocked to hear that m. guizot has declared himself so anti-english.... we always talk of you and all that you did for us at paris. i heard yesterday that gonfalonieri was coming to london in a month. is he at paris now? i have just been reading the account of m. mignet's _éloge_ of talleyrand. i hope you were there, for it must have been very interesting, but did not he make rather an extraordinary defence of talleyrand's political tergiversation, and of his conduct while the allies were at paris? extraordinary to our ideas of political integrity. we met "ubiquity" young and mr. babbage yesterday at dinner at the e. strutts', who told all sorts of droll stories about lord brougham, who seems to have fairly lost his wits. he had lord duncannon to dine with him the other day, which is new, he having formerly stipulated when he went out to dinner that he should see none of his former colleagues. he sends his carriage to stand before lord denman's house for hours while he goes and walks in the park, or even while he is out of town, to give the idea that they are very intimate.... in another letter to miss clarke (sept. 18), some further gossip is given. miss nightingale was on her way back to london from lea hurst, and had broken the journey at nottingham:- the next day we went up to town by rail in six and a half hours, notwithstanding that the engine was twice out of order and stopped us. we had very agreeable company on the road, a neighbour of ours and equerry to the queen,[12] who was full of her virtues and condescensions. how much pleasanter it is travelling by these public conveyances than in one's own stupid carriage. he said that lord melbourne called the queen's favourite terrier a frightful little beast, and often contradicted her flat, all which she takes in good part, and lets him go to sleep after dinner, taking care that he shall not be waked.[13] she reads all the newspapers and all the vilifying abuse which the tories give her, and makes up her mind that a queen must be abused, and hates them cordially. [12] general sir frederick stovin, g.c.b. he was groom-in-waiting to queen victoria from 1837 to 1860. [13] many stories of lord melbourne and the "dull dog" are now accessible in the queen's own diaries, but he made friends with the pets in the end. the queen may have forbidden others to wake her minister; but she herself objected sometimes, though with a pretty playfulness, to his snoring. see _the girlhood of queen victoria_, vol. ii. p. 240. ii the nightingales had taken up their residence at embley in september 1839, and remained there, in accordance with their wont, till the early summer following. the charm of the place is vividly described in a letter from florence's sister to her cousin, miss hilary bonham carter:- my love--it is so beautiful in this world! so very beautiful, you really cannot fancy anything so near approaching to eden or fairy-land, or _il paradiso terrestre_ as depicted in the 25th canto, stanza 40 something; so very, very lovely that we cannot resist a very strong desire that you should come down and see it. my dear, i assure you we are worth seeing. i never, though blest with many fair visions (both in my sleeping and my waking hours), conceived anything so exquisite as to-day lying among the flowers, such smells and such sounds hovering round me! flo reading and talking so that my immortal profited too, and she comforted me when i said i must have much of the beast in me to be so _very_ happy in the sunshine and the flowers, by suggesting that god gave us his blessings to enjoy them. so i _am_ comforted, and set to work to enjoy with all my might, and succeed _à merveille_. still the garden is big, there are many clumps of rhododendrons and azaleas, and showers of rosebuds, and i cannot be all round them at once; so we want you to come and help, not so much for your pleasure as to relieve the weight of responsibility, you see.... my love, i am writing perched on a chair on the grass, nightingales all round, blue sky above (_such_ long shadows sleeping on the lawn), and june smells about me. will you not come? the rhododendrons are early this year, and will be much passed in another ten days. will you not come? if you ask learned men they will tell you june at embley is a poetry ready made; and the first thing i shall do when i get to heaven (you'd better set about getting there miss pop directly, you're a _very_ long way off at these presents), where i expect to have the gift of language, is to celebrate the pomps and beauties of the garden in this wicked world, than which i never wish for a better. florence and her sister loved each other, but their characters were widely different, as we shall hear, and their love at this time was not that of perfect sympathy, but rather of wistful admiration on the one side, and half-pitying fondness on the other. parthenope looked upon florence as upon some strange being in another world, whose happiness she passionately longed to see, and whose rejection of it she could but dimly understand. florence, on her side, regarded her elder sister's contentment in the beauties of art and nature, and in the world as she found it, with the tender pity which one may feel for a happy child. "it would be an ill return for all her affection," wrote florence to one of her aunts, "to drag down my white swan from her cool, fresh, blue sea of art into our baby chicken-yard of struggling, scratting[14] life. how cruel it would be, as she is rocked to rest there on her dreamy waves, for anybody to waken her." the difference in temperament between the sisters comes out very clearly in their several descriptions of embley. florence was sensible of its beauties, but they came to her with thoughts of a better world beyond, or with echoes from the still sad music of humanity in the world that now is. "i should have so liked you to see embley in the summer," she wrote,[15] "for everything is such a blaze of beauty. i had such a lovely walk yesterday before breakfast. the voice of the birds is like the angels calling me with their songs, and the fleecy clouds look like the white walls of our home. nothing makes my heart thrill like the voice of the birds; but the living chorus so seldom finds a second voice in the starved and earthly soul, which, like the withered arm, cannot stretch forth its hand till christ bids it." a very different note, it will be observed, from that which parthenope--and pippa--heard from "the lark on the wing." and so, too, with regard to the house at embley. mr. nightingale had found it a plain, substantial building of the georgian period. he enlarged it into an ornate mansion in the elizabethan style. his wife and elder daughter were much occupied with the interest of furnishing it appropriately, and mr. nightingale was greatly pleased with his alterations. "do you know," said florence, as she walked with an american friend on the lawn in front of the drawing-room, "what i always think when i look at that row of windows? i think how i should turn it into a hospital, and just how i should place the beds."[16] [14] an expressive, old english word, which often occurs in miss nightingale's letters. "as we say in derbyshire," she sometimes added. george eliot, also of derbyshire, often uses it. [15] miss nightingale took great pains with most of her letters. she often made a rough draft in a note-book, and then used the same words in letters to different correspondents, or used part of the original passage in a letter to one correspondent, and part in a letter to another. here, as in one or two other cases, i reunite passages from two letters. one of them was addressed to the same cousin to whom parthenope wrote. [16] dr. elizabeth blackwell's _pioneer work_, 1895, p. 185. iii embley was now a large house, with accommodation enough to receive at one time, as florence recorded in a letter, "five able-bodied married females, with their husbands and belongings." the large number of mr. nightingale's brothers and sisters, some of whom had many sons and daughters, made the family circle of the nightingales a very wide one. between four of the families the intercourse was particularly close--the nightingales, the nicholsons, the bonham carters, and the samuel smiths. one of mrs. nightingale's sisters married mr. george thomas nicholson, of waverley abbey, near farnham, surrey.[17] among their children, marianne was as a girl a great friend of her cousin florence. in 1851 miss nicholson married captain (afterwards sir) douglas galton, who, some few years later, became closely and helpfully connected with miss nightingale's work. to mr. nicholson's sister, "aunt hannah," florence was greatly attached. another of mrs. nightingale's sisters married mr. john bonham carter, of ditcham, near petersfield, for many years m.p. for portsmouth. his eldest daughter, joanna hilary, was a particular friend of florence nightingale, who said that of all her contemporaries within her circle, her cousin hilary was the most gifted. one of the sons, mr. henry bonham carter, was, and is, secretary of the nightingale fund, and miss nightingale appointed him one of her executors. between the nightingales and the samuel smiths the relationship was double. mrs. nightingale's brother, mr. samuel smith, of combe hurst, surrey, married mary shore, sister of mr. nightingale; moreover, their son, mr. william shore smith, was the heir (after his mother) to the entailed land at embley and lea hurst, in default of a son to mr. nightingale. the eldest child of mr. and mrs. samuel smith, blanche, married arthur hugh clough, the poet, who, as we shall hear, was closely associated with miss nightingale. there were many other relations; but without being troubled to go into further details, which might tax severely even the authoress of the _pillars of the house_, the reader will perceive that florence nightingale was well provided with uncles, aunts, and cousins. [17] the annals of the cistercian abbey (of which ruins remain) are said to have suggested to sir walter scott the name of his first novel. the fact is of some significance in understanding the circumstances of her life at this time, and the nature of her struggle for independence. emancipated or revolting daughters are sometimes pardoned or condoned if they can aver that they have few home ties. to mrs. nightingale it may have seemed that in the domestic intercourse within so large a family circle, any comfortable daughter might find abundance of outlet and interest. and so, in one respect at least, her daughter florence did. the maternal instinct in her, for which she was not in her own person to find fruition, went out in almost passionate fullness to the young cousin, william shore smith, mentioned above. he was "her boy," she used to say, from the day on which he was put as a baby into her arms when she was eleven years old. up to the time of his going up to cambridge, he spent a portion of his holidays in every year at lea hurst or embley. florence's letters at such times were full of him. she was successively his nurse, playfellow, and tutor. "the son of my heart," she called him; "while he is with me all that is mine is his, my head and hands and time." it generally happens in any large family circle that there is one woman to whom all its members instinctively turn when trouble comes or help is needed. florence was the one in the nightingale circle who filled this rôle of sister of mercy or emergency man--taking charge of one household when an aunt was away, or being dispatched to another when illness was prevalent. in 1845 she spent some time with her father's mother, who was threatened with paralysis, and whom she nursed into partial recovery. "i am very glad sometimes," she wrote from her grandmother's sick-room to her cousin hilary, "to walk in the valley of the shadow of death as i do here; there is something in the stillness and silence of it which levels all earthly troubles. god tempers our wings in the waters of that valley, and i have not been so happy or so thankful for a long time. and yet it is curious, in the last years of life, that we should go down-hill in order to climb up the other side; that in the struggle of the spiritual with the material part of the universe, the material should get the better, and the soul, just at the moment of becoming spiritualised for ever, should seem to become more materialised." she made a similar reflection a little later in the same year (1845), when tending her old nurse, gale, in her last illness. "the old lady's spirit," she wrote, "was in her pillow-cases, and one night when she thought she was dying, and i was sitting up with her, she said, 'now, miss florence, mind you have two new cases made for this bed, for i think whoever sleeps here next year will find them comfortable.'" the death-bed of the nurse of the queen of nurses deserves some note. the last words of mrs. gale, as reported in other letters, were, "don't wake the cook," "hannah, go to your work," and "miss florence, be careful in going down those stairs." if the spirit of this old servant was materialised at the moment of passing, the materialising took the form at any rate of faithful service and of consideration for others. florence's sympathy with those in distress is shown in the letter of condolence which she wrote to miss clarke upon the death of m. fauriel:- embley, _july_ 1844. i cannot help writing one word, my dear miss clarke, after having just received your note, though i know i cannot say anything which can be of any comfort. for there are few sorrows i do believe like your sorrow, and few people so necessary to another's happiness of every instant, as he was to yours.... how sorry i am, dear miss clarke, that you will not think of coming to us here. oh, do not say that you "will not cloud young people's spirits." do you think young people are so afraid of sorrow, or that if they have lively spirits, which i often doubt, they think these are worth anything, except in so far as they can be put at the service of sorrow, not to relieve it, which i believe can very seldom be done, but to sympathise with it? i am sure this is the only thing worth living for, and i do so believe that every tear one sheds waters some good thing into life.... dear miss clarke, i wish we had you here, or at least could see you and pour out something of what our hearts are full of. that clever man of thebes, one cadmus, need never have existed, for any good that that cold pen and ink of his ever did, in the way of expressing oneself. the iron pen seems to make the words iron, but words are what always takes the dust off the butterfly's wings.... what nights we have had this last month, though when one thinks that there are hundreds and thousands of people suffering in the same way, and when one sees in every cottage some trouble which defies sympathy--and there is all the world putting on its shoes and stockings every morning all the same--and the wandering earth going its inexorable tread-mill through those cold-hearted stars in the eternal silence, as if nothing were the matter;--death seems less dreary than life at that rate. but i did not mean to say that, for who would know the peace of night, if it were not for the troubles of the day, "the welcome, the thrice-prayed-for, the most fair, the best beloved night," when one feels, what at other times one only repeats to oneself, that the coffin of every hope is the cradle of a good experience, and that nobody suffers in vain. it is odd what want of faith one has for one's friends. _we_ know what soft lots we would have made for them if we could; and that we should believe ourselves so infinitely more good-natured than god, that we cannot trust their lots with him! it must not be supposed, however, that florence was in request among the family circle only at times of sad emergency. she sometimes took her place no less effectually on festive occasions. waverley abbey, the house of uncle nicholson aforesaid, was the scene of family reunions at christmas-time; and in letters to miss clarke from both mrs. nightingale and her daughter parthe, there is a lively account of private theatricals there in 1841. the _merchant of venice_ was chosen, and macready volunteered some assistance. parthe's artistic gifts were requisitioned, and she was "scene-painter, milliner, and cap-and-fur maker." the powers of command and organization, which florence was afterwards to exhibit in another field, seem to have been divined by her cousins, for she was unanimously appointed stage-manager. miss joanna horner, who was one of the party, remembers that the usual little jealousies about parts and costumes used to disappear in presence of florence. "flo very blooming," reported mrs. nightingale. "the actors were not very obstinate, and were tolerably good-tempered," wrote parthe, "but it was hard work for flo. there was a captain elliot, fresh from china, who could by no means be brought to obey. he was antonio, and _would_ burst out laughing in the midst of his most pathetic bits, to the horror of shylock, who was very earnest and hard-working." the lady-in-chief in later years in the crimea had a rather peremptory way with obstructive military gentlemen. on this occasion, however, she was perhaps satisfied with the assurance given at a well-known pantomime rehearsal, that it would "be all right on the night." but it was not. "your flame, uncle adams,"[18] continues the letter to miss clarke, "was very fine in lancelot! but, oh, desperation, forgot his duke's part in the most flagrant way, tho' flo had been putting it into him with a sledge-hammer all the week." in the intervals of rehearsing, the girls and their cousins danced and sang, and took large walks, sixteen together. after the performance, dancing was kept up till five in the morning. "next day," continues lady verney, "we were debating whether 'sing a song of sixpence' went on with a _bag_ or a _pocket_ full of rye; and warming on this interesting subject, we young ones dragged in all the old people, sought recruits high and low, and had a regular election scene. uncle adams made a hustings speech, giving both parties hopes of his vote; then the boys slunk out after the counting, and came in with large outcries to be counted a second time, with many other corrupt practices much used at such times; then we bribed a little boy to go and make disturbances in the other faction; but you will be happy to hear the _pockets_ had it by a large majority, and we beat the base _baggites_ out of the field. after the holloaing was over, and the alarming rushings and screamings we had made, m. kroff (a bohemian), who had listened and assisted, came to mama, and said, 'this do give me the great idea of the liberty of your land, your young people are brought up so to understand it in your domestic life; if _we_ were to make such a noise we should have the police in with swords and cutlasses to divide us!'" [18] william adams smith, an unmarried brother of mrs. nightingale. iv the nightingales had as many friends without as within the family circle. their two homes brought them in touch with county society alike in derbyshire and in hampshire, and acquaintanceships made in london were often ripened in the country, or _vice versa_. in derbyshire their friends included the strutts, and richard monckton milnes, who afterwards took a cordial interest in the nightingale fund. in london, florence and her sister went out a great deal, and saw all that was interesting to well-educated young persons. a letter from florence to one of her aunts shows her occupied in politics, in literature, in astronomy, with something, perhaps, of the note of a blue; yet with her mind already set on a purpose in life:- (_miss f. nightingale to miss julia smith._) _june_ 20 [1843]. a cold east wind, _forty_-one days of rain in the last month! as our newspaper informs us to prove that '43 is worse than any preceding year. _du reste_, the world very pleasant--people looking up in the prospect of peel's giving them free trade and all radical measures in the course of one or two years. carlyle's new _past and present_, a beautiful book. there are bits about "work," which how i should like to read with you! "blessed is he who has found his work: let him ask no other blessedness. he has a work, a life-purpose: he has found it and will follow it...." sir j. graham is going to be obliged to give up his factories education bill for this year; o ye bigoted dissenters! but i am going to hold my tongue and not "meddle with politics" or "talk about things which i don't understand," for i tremble already in anticipation, and proceed at once to facts.... the two things we have done in london this year--the most striking things--are seeing bouffé in clermont, the blind painter (you have seen him, so i need not descant on his entire difference from anybody else); and going under mr. bethune to sir james south's at kensington,[19] where we were from ten o'clock till three the next morning. mr. bethune is certainly the most good-natured man in ancient or modern history. you will fancy the first going out upon the lawn on that most beautiful of nights, with the immense fellow slung in his frame like a great steam-engine, and working as easily; and the mountains of the moon striking out like bright points in the sky, and the little stars resolving themselves into double and even quadruple stars.... those dialogues of galileo are so beautiful. mr. bethune lent them us to read in the real old _first_ edition. [19] sir james south, astronomer (1785-1867), had a famous observatory on campden hill. at embley the nightingales saw something of the palmerstons and the ashburtons. with miss louisa stewart mackenzie, who afterwards became the second wife of the second lord ashburton, florence formed a friendship which was one of the solaces and supports of her life at this time. other friends who played a yet larger part in her life were mr. and mrs. bracebridge[20] of atherstone, near coventry. florence sketches the character of some of her friends in a letter to her cousin hilary (april 1846):- mrs. keith, miss dutton, and louisa mackenzie, may be shortly described as the respective representatives of the soul, the mind, and the heart. the first has one's whole _worship_, the second one's greatest _admiration_, and the third one's most lively _interest_. mrs. bracebridge may be described as all three; the human trinity in one; and never do i see her, without feeling that she is eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. many a plan, which disappointment has thinned off into a phantom in my mind, takes form and shape and fair reality when touched by her ithuriel's spear (for there is an ithuriel's spear for good as well as for evil). [20] _née_ mills, cousin of mr. arthur mills, m.p. dr. richard dawes, dean of hereford, who was an educational reformer, and dr. fowler of salisbury, who anticipated the open-air treatment, and was otherwise a man of marked originality, were among those whose friendship she valued. if florence nightingale was to find her home life empty and unprofitable, it was not for lack of congenial friends. she saw much, too, of general society, and embley was often the scene of entertaining. we get a glimpse of its parties from an invitation which mr. nightingale sent to miss clarke (oct. 1843) to bring her friend leopold von ranke with her on a visit:- pray send him a sly line to the effect that he will find _notabilities_ here on the 24th--to wit, the speaker (shaw lefevre), the ex-foreign secretary (palmerston), the catholic weld (future owner of lulworth and nephew of the cardinal of that ilk), and mayhap a queen's equerry or two, a baron of the exchequer (rolfe), an inspector, or rather engineering architect, of the new prisons,[21] and a couple of baronets. he should think well on this. yours, quizzically, but faithfully, w. e. n. [21] sir joshua jebb, surveyor-general of prisons, designed the "model prison" at pentonville. miss nightingale valued his friendship greatly, and appointed him a member of the council of the nightingale fund. "papa is quizzing the baronets," added florence, "who are not wise ones. provided you come, i care for nobody, no not i, and shall be quite satisfied. as m. de something said to the staël, 'nous aurons à nous deux de l'esprit pour quarante; vous pour quatre et moi pour zéro.'" there were return invitations to great houses, and occasionally florence retails their gossip, or her own reflections, for the benefit of cousins or aunts:- (_to miss hilary bonham carter._) 1845 (or early '46). what is the secret of lady jocelyn's sublime placidity? i never saw anything so lovely as she is, and she has lived four-and-twenty years of more excitement, i suppose, than ever fell to anybody's lot but an actress, all the young peerage having proposed to her. what gives her such a fullness of life now and makes her find enough in herself? it is not that she talks to lord palmerston or lord jocelyn, for she never does; and though she is very fond of her baby, she told me herself she did not care to play with it. perhaps you will say it is want of earnestness, but, good gracious, my dear, if earnestness breaks one heart, who is fulfilling most the creation's end--she who is breaking her heart, or this woman who has kept her serenity in the midst of excitement and her simplicity in unbounded admiration? the palmerstons are certainly the most good-natured people under the stars to their guests. we have been since to sir william heathcote's to meet the ashburtons. i wish you had been there for the sake of the pictures, and also for the sake of the artistical dinner which, even i became aware, was such a dinner and such plate as has seldom blessed my housekeeping eyes. the palmerstons, too, have had down all their pictures from london--such a rembrandt, pilate washing his hands. lord ashburton does not look much like a settler of a boundary question.[22] she is an american, and we swore eternal friendship upon boston; i having, you know, much curious information to give _her_ upon that city and its inhabitants. she had a raspberry-tart of diamonds upon her forehead worth seeing. then mesmerism, and when we parted, we had got up so high into _vestiges_[23] that i could not get down again, and was obliged to go off as an angel. the ashburtons were the only people asked to meet the queen at strathfieldsaye (of her society). it was the most entire crash ever heard of, and the not asking the palmerstons considered almost a personal insult; but they say the old duke now cares for nothing but flattery, and asks nobody but masters of hounds. he almost ill-treated the speaker. after dinner, they all stood at ease about the drawing-room, and behaved like so many soldiers on parade. the queen did her very best to enliven the gloom, but was at last over-powered by numbers, gagged, and her hands tied. the only amusement was seeing albert taught to miss at billiards. [22] a reference to the "ashburton treaty" concluded at washington in 1842. alexander baring, first baron ashburton, was the english commissioner. [23] _vestiges of creation_, by robert chambers, had been published in the preceding year (1844). v florence's remark that she would only provide the _zéro_ of _esprit_ to miss clarke's _quatre_, is by no means to be taken literally. she was attractive, and she attracted both men and women. she talked well, and often laid herself out to interest her companions, and sometimes confounded them with learning. in 1844 julia ward howe was in england with her husband, dr. howe, and they visited the nightingales at embley. "florence," writes mrs. howe in her reminiscences, "was rather elegant than beautiful; she was tall and graceful of figure, her countenance mobile and expressive, her conversation most interesting."[24] a reminiscence of a later date records an encounter with sir henry de la bèche, the pioneer of the geological map of england. warrenton smythe and sir henry dined at mr. nightingale's, and florence sat between them. "she began by drawing sir henry out on geology, and charmed him by the boldness and breadth of her views, which were not common then. she accidentally proceeded into regions of latin and greek, and then our geologist had to get out of it. she was fresh from egypt, and began talking with w. smythe about the inscriptions, etc., where he thought he could do pretty well; but when she began quoting lepsius, which she had been studying in the original, he was in the same case as sir henry. when the ladies left the room, sir henry said to smythe, 'a capital young lady that, if she hadn't floored me with her latin and greek.'"[25] "i have been dowagering out with papa," wrote florence to miss clarke (march 1843), "in the big coach to a formal dinner-party, where, however, mr. gerard noel and i were very thick, he inquiring tenderly after you and your whereabouts." [24] _reminiscences, 1819-1899_, by julia ward howe, 1900, p. 138. [25] caroline fox, _memories of old friends_, 1882, pp. 311-312. of miss nightingale's personal appearance in early womanhood, there are pen-pictures by very competent hands. lady lovelace, in her verses entitled _a portrait, taken from life_, emphasises a certain spiritual aloofness in her friend:- i saw her pass, and paused to think! she moves as one on whom to gaze with calm and holy thoughts, that link the soul to god in prayer and praise. she walks as if on heaven's brink, unscathed thro' life's entangled maze. i heard her soft and silver voice take part in songs of harmony, well framed to gladden and rejoice; whilst her ethereal melody still kept my soul in wav'ring choice, 'twixt smiles and tears of ecstasy.... i deem her fair,--yes, very fair! yet some there are who pass her by, unmoved by all the graces there. her face doth raise no burning sigh, nor hath her slender form the glare which strikes and rivets every eye. her grave, but large and lucid eye, unites a boundless depth of feeling with truth's own bright transparency, her singleness of heart revealing; but still her spirit's history from light and curious gaze concealing.... [illustration: _florence nightingale as a girl: about 1845_ _from a drawing by miss hilary bonham carter_] mrs. gaskell's picture in prose gives some lighter touches. "she is tall; very straight and willowy in figure; thick and shortish rich brown hair; very delicate complexion; grey eyes, which are generally pensive and drooping, but when they choose can be the merriest eyes i ever saw; and perfect teeth, making her smile the sweetest i ever saw. put a long piece of soft net, and tie it round this beautifully shaped head, so as to form a soft white framework for the full oval of her face (for she had the toothache, and so wore this little piece of drapery), and dress her up in black silk, high up to the long, white round throat, and with a black shawl on, and you may get _near_ an idea of her perfect grace and lovely appearance. she is so like a saint."[26] she dressed becomingly; but had a saint's carelessness in such things, somewhat to her elder sister's despair. "_make_ flo wear her white silk frock to-night," she wrote on one occasion to her mother. many years later, when stores and comforts were being sent out to the east under cover to the lady-in-chief, lady verney insinuated "one little gown for flo," and who will not love her for it? "when in 1849 she started to winter in the east, her mother says"--i quote again from mrs. gaskell--"they equipped her _en princesse_, and when she came back she had little besides the clothes she had on; she had given away her linen, etc., right and left to those who wanted it." [26] from a letter to catherine winkworth, written in 1854; for other passages in the letter, see pp. 8, 41, 139. vi those who have social gifts often find sufficient happiness in their exercise; but florence, though she sometimes enjoyed the intercourse of intellectual society, reproached herself all the while for doing so. she felt increasingly that she had other gifts which were more properly hers, and that the life of society was a distraction into the wrong path. she found even the london season more congenial than the life of the hospitable country-house. "people talk of london gaieties," she wrote to miss nicholson ("aunt hannah"); "but there you can at least have your mornings to yourself. to me the country is the place of 'row.' since we came home in september, how long do you think we have been alone? not one fortnight. a country-house is the real place for dissipation. sometimes i think that everybody is hard upon me, that to be for ever expected to be looking merry and saying something lively is more than can be asked mornings, noons, and nights." when she was alone with her parents and her sister, she hardly found the life at home more satisfying. this was partly, as she confessed in many a page of self-examination, the result of her own shortcomings. "ask me," she wrote to "aunt hannah," "to do something for your sake, something difficult, and you will see that i shall do it _regularly_, which is for me the most difficult thing of all." let those who reproach themselves for a desultoriness, seemingly incurable, take heart again from the example of florence nightingale! no self-reproach recurs more often in her private outpourings at this time than that of irregularity and even sloth. she found it difficult to rise early in the morning; she prayed and wrestled to be delivered from desultory thoughts, from idle dreaming, from scrappiness in unselfish work. she wrestled, and she won. when her capacities had found full scope in congenial work, nothing was more fixed and noteworthy in her life and work than regularity, precision, method, persistence. but in part, the failings with which she reproached herself were the fault of her circumstances. the fact of the two country homes militated against steady work in either. her parents were not, indeed, careless or thoughtless beyond others in their station, but rather the reverse. mr. nightingale was a careful landlord and zealous in county business, and his wife took some interest, as i have already said, in village schools and charities. but to florence's parents, these things were rather graces rightly incidental to their station, than the main business of life. florence's more eager temperament and larger capacity craved for greater consistency in the energies of life. she was expected to play the part of lady bountiful one day, and to be equally ready to play that of lady graceful the next. a friend who visited at lea hurst recalls how florence would often be missing in the evening, and on search being made she would be found in the village, sitting by the bedside of some sick person, and saying she could not sit down to a grand seven o'clock dinner while this was going on.[27] but by the time she had schooled herself to any regularity of work at lea hurst, the hour had come for moving to embley. by the time she had settled down to work amongst her poor at embley, the hour of the london season had struck. "i should be very glad," she wrote to her aunt from embley, "if i could have been left here when they went to london, as there is so much to be done, but as that would not be heard of, london is really my place of rest." [27] letter of mrs. gaskell to catherine winkworth, oct. 20, 1854. the companionship which florence had at home was sometimes wearisome to her. the sisters, as we have already seen, were not in full sympathy. the parents were not unintellectual persons, but, again, much the reverse. mrs. nightingale was a woman of bright intelligence, and of much social charm. mr. nightingale was a highly intellectual man, sensitive, too, and refined. he shot and hunted, but he was not ardently devoted to either sport, and was interested in many things. perhaps in too many, and yet not enough in any. florence nightingale in her later years used sometimes to describe with a twinkle of affectionate humour the routine of a morning in her home life as a girl. mama, we may suppose, was busy with housekeeping cares. papa was very fond of reading aloud, and in order to interest his daughters, would take them through the whole of _the times_, with many a comment, no doubt, by the way. "now, for parthe," miss nightingale used to say, "the morning's reading did not matter; she went on with her drawing; but for me, who had no such cover, the thing was boring to desperation." "to be read aloud to," she wrote, "is the most miserable exercise of the human intellect. or rather, is it any exercise at all? it is like lying on one's back, with one's hands tied, and having liquid poured down one's throat. worse than that, because suffocation would immediately ensue, and put a stop to this operation. but no suffocation would stop the other."[28] as the younger daughter of a busily efficient mother, florence was not often entrusted with household duties; but on one occasion at any rate, she was left in command, and that, during the important season of jam-making. "my reign is now over," she wrote to her cousin hilary, who was an art-student (dec. 1845); "angels and ministers of grace defend me from another! though i cannot but view my fifty-six pots with the proud satisfaction of an artist, my head a little on one side, inspecting the happy effect of my works with more feeling of the beautiful than parthe ever had in hers." and even housekeeping brought obstinate questionings with it to florence. she describes a bout of it on another occasion in a letter to madame mohl (july 1847):- i am up to my chin in linen and glass, and i am very fond of housekeeping. in this too-highly-educated, too-little-active age it, at least, is a practical application of our theories to something--and yet, in the middle of my lists, my green lists, brown lists, red lists, of all my instruments of the ornamental in culinary accomplishments which i cannot even divine the use of, i cannot help asking in my head, can reasonable people want all this? is all that china, linen, glass necessary to make man a progressive animal? is it even good political economy (query, for "good," read "atheistical" pol. econ.?) to invent wants in order to supply employment? or ought not, in these times, all expenditure to be reproductive? "and a proper stupid answer you'll get," says the best versailles service; "so go and do your accounts; there is one of us cracked." [28] _suggestions for thought_, vol. ii. p. 385. vii florence was an affectionate and dutiful daughter. she obeyed and yielded for many years. she strove hard to think that her duty lay at home, and that the trivial round and common task would furnish all that she had any right, before god or man, to ask. but as the sense of a vocation elsewhere strengthened and deepened in her mind, she may well have thought that, as her elder sister was contented to stay at home, a life of activity outside might for the other daughter not be inconsistent with affection for her parents. she had, indeed, intellectual interests of her own. she read a great deal in english, french, german; in devotional works, in poetry, history, philosophy. and what she read she marked, and inwardly digested. a copy (unfortunately not complete) is preserved of the first edition of browning's _paracelsus_, which she annotated with remarks, paraphrases, and illustrative cases as she read. the first scene of the poem--"paracelsus aspires"--contains many a passage which aroused a sympathetic echo in her heart. the key-note is struck early. "pursuing an aim not to be found in life," is her comment, "is its true misery." then she kept commonplace-books, in which, under heads alphabetically arranged--such as age of reason, bigotry, creeds, death, education, and so forth--she copied out passages which struck her. she was accumulating stores of information and reflection. in some remarks upon lacordaire in one of her note-books i find this passage copied out:- i desire for a considerable time only to lead a life of obscurity and toil, for the purpose of allowing whatever i may have received of god to ripen, and turning it some day to the glory of his name. nowadays people are too much in a hurry both to produce and consume themselves. it is only in retirement, in silence, in meditation, that are formed the men who are called to exercise an influence on society. for her own part, as her powers of reflection were strengthened, so did her sense of a vocation become more insistent with every year. in some autobiographical notes, miss nightingale records may 7, 1852, as the date at which she was conscious of "a call from god to be a saviour"; but the thought of devoting herself to be a nurse came much earlier. mrs. julia ward howe, in the reminiscences quoted above, describes how during the visit of herself and her husband to embley in 1844, florence had taken dr. howe aside and asked him this question: "if i should determine to study nursing, and to devote my life to that profession, do you think it would be a dreadful thing?" dr. howe, it will be remembered, was of wide repute as a philanthropist, and miss nightingale thought much of his opinion. it was favourable to her wish. "not a dreadful thing at all," he replied; "i think it would be a very good thing." "my idea of heaven," she wrote a little time afterwards, "is when my dear aunt hannah and i and my boy shore and all of us shall be together, nursing the sick people who are left behind, and giving each other sympathies beside, and our saviour in the midst of us, giving us strength." but, meanwhile, she hoped to realize some little piece of the heaven on earth. she pursued other inquiries, laid her plans, kept her own counsel, and then made a first bid for freedom. the nature of her plans, the nipping of them in the bud by maternal frost, and her following dejection are told in a letter to her cousin hilary (dec. 11, 1845):- well, my dearest, i am not yet come to the great thing i wanted to say. i have always found that there was so much truth in the suggestion that you must dig for hidden treasures _in silence_ or you will not find it; and so i dug after my poor little plan in silence, even from you. it was to go to be a nurse at salisbury hospital for these few months to learn the "prax."; and then to come home and make such wondrous intimacies at west wellow, under the shelter of a rhubarb powder and a dressed leg; let alone that no one could ever say to me again, your health will not stand this or that. i saw a poor woman die before my eyes this summer because there was no one but fools to sit up with her, who poisoned her as much as if they had given her arsenic. and then i had such a fine plan for those dreaded latter days (which i have never dreaded), if i should outlive my immediate ties, of taking a small house in west wellow.--well, i do not like much talking about it, but i thought something like a protestant sisterhood, without vows, for women of educated feelings, might be established. but there have been difficulties about my very first step, which terrified mama. i do not mean the physically revolting parts of a hospital, but things about the surgeons and nurses which you may guess. even mrs. fowler[29] threw cold water upon it; and nothing will be done this year at all events, and i do not believe--ever; and no advantage that i see comes of my living on, excepting that one becomes less and less of a young lady every year, which is only a negative one. you will laugh, dear, at the whole plan, i daresay; but no one but the mother of it knows how precious an infant idea becomes; nor how the soul dies between the destruction of one and the taking up of another. i shall never do anything, and am worse than dust and nothing. i wonder if our saviour were to walk the earth again, and i were to go to him and ask, whether he would send me back to live this life again, which crushes me into vanity and deceit. oh for some strong thing to sweep this loathsome life into the past. [29] the wife of dr. richard fowler, physician to the salisbury infirmary, mentioned above, p. 35. and so ended for the time the dash of the caged bird for liberty. chapter iii the spiritual life though the outward man may perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.--st. paul. the failure of her plan left florence in a state of great dejection. "the day of personal hopes and fears," she wrote, "is over for me. now i dread and desire no more." this was but a passing mood; and very soon, as we shall hear in the next chapter, she resumed, with increased determination, her struggle for freedom and self-expression in a life of action. but for the moment, and at many recurring moments in later years, the dejection was intense. it was not merely the disappointment of an eager mind denied its appropriate energy; it was the exceeding bitter cry of an intensely religious soul, tempted in its perplexity to ask, "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" in some autobiographical notes miss nightingale recorded under the year 1843 "an illness and an acquaintance i made with a woman to whom all unseen things seemed real, and eternal things near, awakened me" [from dreaming]. the woman to whom she referred was, it may safely be conjectured, miss hannah nicholson. they met once or twice a year--when miss nicholson visited embley or miss nightingale stayed with miss nicholson's brother at waverley. at other times they exchanged a voluminous correspondence, and this was almost entirely devoted to religious experiences and speculations. "aunt hannah" had inexhaustible sympathy with her self-torturing young friend. she did not chide or discourage florence; but the burden of her message was the claim of the spiritual life, the message of paul to the corinthians. "your whole life," wrote florence in one of many bursts of affectionate gratitude to miss nicholson, "seems to be love, and you always find words in your heart which, without the pretension of enlightening, yet are like a clearing up to me. you always seem to rest on the heart of the divine teacher, and to participate in his mysteries." "your letters," she said on another occasion, "stay by me and warm me when the dreams of life come one after another, clouding and covering the realities of the unseen." to this sympathetic and (in some limited respects) kindred soul, florence poured out unreservedly the experiences of her spiritual life; as also, sometimes, though with more conscious art of literary expression, to miss clarke in paris. ii a few letters, selected from a great number, will serve to trace the course of her religious thoughts. they resumed, it will be seen, the spiritual experiences and convictions of the saints who have served mankind. the _reality of the unseen world_ is the subject of a letter to miss clarke (august 1846), in which, after a page of family news, she continues:- but i think you must be tired of all this, for i fancy that you live much more in the supernatural than the natural world. i always believe in homer; and in st. paul's "cloud of witnesses"; and in the old italian pictures, which have a first story, where the unseen live _au premier_, with a two-pair back, where the père eternel's shadow is half seen peeping out, and a ground floor where poor mortals live, but still have a connexion with the establishment above stairs. i like those books, where the invisible communicates freely with the visible kingdom; not that they ever come up to one's idea, which is always so much brighter than the execution (for the word is only the shadow cast by the light of the thought); but they are suggestive. i always believe in a multitude of spirits inhabiting the same house with ourselves; we are only the entresol, quite the most insignificant of its lodgers, and too busy with our pursuit of daily bread, too much confined with hard work, and too full of the struggle with the material world, to visit the glorious beings immediately about us--whom we shall see, when the present candle of our earthly reason is put out, which blinds us just as the candle end, left burning after one is in bed, long prevents us from seeing the world without, lit up by the full moon. it trembles and flickers and sinks into its socket, and then we catch a bright stripe of moonlight shining on the floor; but it flares up again, and the silvery stream is gone "as if it could not be, as if it had not been," and we can see nothing but the candle, and hardly imagine any other light--till at last it goes quite out, and the flood of moonlight rushes into the room, and every pane of the casement window, and every ivy leaf without, are stamped, as it were, upon the floor, and a whole world revealed to us, which that flickering candle was the means of concealing from us. this is what jesus christ meant, i suppose, when he said that he must go away in order to be _with_ his friends in his spirit, that he would be much nearer to them after death than in the flesh. in the flesh, we were separated from our friends by their going into the next room only--a door, a partition divided us; but what can separate two souls? often i fancy that we can perceive the presence of a good spirit communicating thoughts to us: are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto us? when jesus christ warns us not to despise any one, because that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of his father, perhaps he thought that our beloved ones, who are gone, might be these our "angels," who must therefore have communion with men. it is here, where a cold and false life of conventionalism and prejudices and frivolity is often all that reaches our outward senses, that we are sometimes baffled in seeing into the life which lies beneath; it is here, amidst the tempers and little vexations, which are the shadows that dim the brightest intercourse, it is here that we fail sometimes in having intimate communion with souls, and we stop short at the dead coverings; but between the soul which is free, and our soul, what barrier, what restraint can there be? human sympathy is indeed necessary to our happiness of every moment, and the absence of it makes an awful void in our life. every room becomes a grave, and every book we used to read together a monument to the one we love. but some one says, that we need an _idée merveilleuse_ to preserve us from the busy devils, which imagination here is always conjuring up. this _idée merveilleuse_, i think, is the idea of the loving presence of spirits. those dear ones are safe, and yet with us still, for truly do i believe that these senses of ours are what veil from us, not discover to us, the world around (which is sometimes revealed to us in dreams, or in moments of excitement, as at the point of death, either our own or a friend's, or by mesmerism, or by faith). faith is the real eye and ear of the soul, and as it would be impossible to describe the harmony and melody of music to one who was born deaf, or to make a blind man perceive the beauty of the effects of colour, so without faith the spiritual world is as much a hidden one to the soul as the art of painting to the blind man. on a dark night the moon, when at last she rises, reveals to us, just at our feet, a world of objects, of the presence of which we were not aware before. we see the river sparkling in the moonbeams close beside us, and the tall shadows sleeping quietly on the grass, and the sharp relief of the architectural cornices, and the strong outline of the lights and shades, so well defined that we can scarcely believe that a moment ago, and we did not see them. what shall we say if, one day, the moon rises upon our spiritual world, and we see close at hand, ready to hold the most intimate communion with us, those spirits, whom we had loved and mourned as lost to us? we are like the blind men by the wayside, and ought to sit and cry, lord that we may receive our sight! and, when we _do_ receive it, we shall perhaps find that we require no transporting into another world, to become aware of the immediate presence of an infinite spirit, and of other lesser ones whom we thought gone. what we require is sight, not change of place, i believe. the struggle which absorbed florence's mind and heart was to establish some harmony between her dealings in the world of sense and her communion with the unseen world. she reproached herself for impatience, for selfishness, for lack of confidence in the good time of god. happy are they who have no more occasion than she to deem themselves unprofitable servants! but the condition of attainment to comparative sinlessness is, i suppose, the _conviction of sin_; and this was intensely present to florence nightingale. "i have read over your letters many times again and again since i have been here," she wrote from tapton (her grandmother shore's house) in 1845. "ah, my dear aunt hannah, you are like the white swan on your cool, fresh, blue lake, rocked to peace and rest by the sweet winds of your faith and love, and you cannot be dragged down into our busy chicken-yard of struggling, _scratting_ life.[30] you do not know what it is, when one has sinned with such aggravation as i have. no one has had such advantages, and i have sinned with all these, and after having been made to know what sin was, and what my obligations were. no one has so grieved the holy spirit. i have sinned against my conviction, and, as it were, standing before god's judgment-seat." in many of miss nightingale's religious outpourings, both in letters and in private diaries, there is a note which borders on the morbid; but the danger-point is averted, sometimes by practical good sense, and sometimes by a saving sense of humour. the letter, just given, was soon followed by another (from embley, oct. 1845), containing this account of a scene at the bedside of her favourite little cousin:--"one night when i was reading to shore the verse about the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and we were agreeing that the temptations of the flesh were liking a great deal of play and no work, and lying long bed, and the temptations of the world liking to be praised and admired, and be a general favourite, and so on, more than anything else, and we were both very much affected, he said before i left him, 'now i may lie in bed to-morrow, and you won't call me at six, will you?' and i too went away to dream about a great many things which i had much better not think about. oh, how i did laugh at the results of all our feelings! to think and to be are two such different things!" [30] the reader will note the recurrence here of some phrases already used in another letter. it is an instance of a point there noted (p. 28). to bring thought and action into harmony, to make the presence of the unseen a guide through the path of this present world: that is the problem of the practically religious life. to florence nightingale, communion with the unseen meant something deeper, richer, fuller, more positive than the fear of god. the fear of god is the beginning, but not the end, of wisdom, for perfect love casteth out fear. it was for the love of god as an active principle in her mind, constraining all her deeds, that she strove. when she was conscious of falling away from this grace, she knew _the pains of hell_, here and now, as the state of a soul in estrangement from the eternal goodness:- (_to miss nicholson._) embley, _christmas eve_ [undated]. think of me to-morrow at the sacrament. i have not taken it since i last took it with you, except once, with a poor woman on her death-bed. time has sped wearily with me since then, aunt hannah. if, when the plough goes over the soul, there were always the hand of the sower there to scatter the seed after it, who would regret? but how often the seed-time has passed, it is too late, the harrow has gone over, the time of harvest has come and the harvest is not.... give me your thoughts to-morrow, my dear aunt hannah; i want them sadly; and take me with you to the throne of grace. bless me too, as poor esau said. i have so felt with him, and cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, bless me, even me also, o my father; but he never has yet, and i have not deserved that he should. (_to miss nicholson, may 1846._) "the sorrows of hell compassed me about." we learn to know what these are beforehand, when we cannot command our thoughts to pray, when all our omissions give themselves form and life, and shut us up within a wall over which there is no looking, no return: when they hold us down with a resistless power, and we are hemmed in with our remembrances, like a cell compassing us about. what can the future hell be other than this? the unspeakable presence may be joy and peace unspeakable, but it may be a horror, a dweller on our threshold, a spirit of fear to the stricken conscience. jesus christ prayed on the cross not for life or safety, but only for the light of his countenance: why hast thou forsaken me? and all sorrows disappear before that one. let those who have felt it say if it is not so, and if there is any sorrow like unto that sorrow. how willingly would we exchange it for pain, which we almost welcome as a proof of his care and attention. grief in itself is no evil; as making the unseen, the eternal, and the infinite present to our consciousness, it is rather a good. but when all one's imaginations are wandering out of one's reach, then one realizes the future state of punishment even in this world. pray that he will not leave my soul in hell. how little can be done under the spirit of fear; it is the very sentence pronounced upon the serpent, "upon thy belly shalt thou go all the days of thy life." oh, if any one thinks that, in the repentance of fear, this is the time for the soul to open to the infinite goodness, to the spirit of love and of power and of a sound mind, in the heart's death to live and love,--let him try how hard it is to collect oneself out of distraction--let him feel the woes of saying _to-morrow_, when god has said _to-day_; and then when he has found how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem all the uses of the world, let him try with a dead heart to live unto god, to love with all his strength when all energy to love is gone. the state of perfect love, expressing itself in perfect rightness of thought and deed, may be unattainable on earth, but nothing lower than the search for this ideal can satisfy the yearnings of a soul such as was florence nightingale's. she had the _hunger for righteousness_. "the crown of _righteousness_!" she wrote to miss nicholson (may 1846). "that word always strikes me more than anything in the bible. strange that not happiness, not rest, not forgiveness, not glory, should have been the thought of that glorious man's mind, when at the eve of the last and greatest of his labours; all desires so swallowed up in the one great craving after _righteousness_ that, at the end of all his struggles, it was mightier within him than ever, mightier even than the desire of peace. how can people tell one to dwell within a good conscience, when the chief of all the apostles so panted after righteousness that he considered it the last best gift, unattainable on earth, to be bestowed in heaven?" to do _all for the love of god_ was the ideal which she sought to attain. "the foundation of all must be the love of god. that the sufferings of christ's life were intense, who doubts? but the happiness must also have been intense. only think of the happiness of working, and working successfully too, and with no doubts as to his path, and with no alloy of vanity or love of display or glory, but with the ecstasy of single-heartedness! all that i do is always poisoned by the fear that i am not doing it in simplicity and godly sincerity." this was one of the constant dreads throughout her life. when she had become famous, and was praised and courted by the popular breath, she shrank, with an abhorrence which some may have considered almost morbid and which was certainly foreign to the fashion of the world, from any avoidable publicity. this was no pose or affectation; it was part of her religion. it was a counsel dictated by her earnest striving to dissociate her work for god from any taint of worldliness. iii the world which came to owe much to the life and example of florence nightingale, owes something to miss nicholson, whose gentle sympathy brought to her young friend much strength and peace. but the world may also be glad, i think, that miss nightingale's religious thought worked itself out in the end on lines of her own. florence nightingale has been enrolled by the popular voice among the saints; but there are saints and saints--saints contemplative or mystic, and saints active and ministering. in all ages of the world there have been godly women whose passion of religious spirit has led them to lives of professional pieties, rather than of practical service; who have spent in ecstasies of pity, or in tortures of self-abasement at the foot of the cross, powers which might have gone to redeem and save the world. florence nightingale had, as we have sufficiently seen, a profound sense of personal religion. she felt, as all the saints must feel, that a religious life means a state of the soul; but she attained also to the conviction, which became ever stronger within her, that a state of the soul can only be approved by its fruits, and that thus _the service of god is the service of man_:- (_to miss nicholson._) embley, _sept._ 24, [1846]. i am almost heart-broken to leave lea hurst. there are so many duties there which lie near at hand, and i could be well content to do them there all the days of my life. i have left so many poor friends there whom i shall never see again, and so much might have been done for them.... i feel my sympathies are with ignorance and poverty. the things which interest me interest them; we are alike in expecting little from life, much from god; we are taken up with the same objects.... my imagination is so filled with the misery of this world that the only thing in which to labour brings any return, seems to me helping and sympathizing _there_; and all that poets sing of the glories of this world appears to me untrue: all the people i see are eaten up with care or poverty or disease. i know that it was god who created the good, and man the evil, which was not the will of god, but the necessary consequence of his leaving free-will to man. i know that misery is the alphabet of fire, in which history, with its warning hand, writes in flaming letters the consequences of evil (the kingdom of _man_), and that without its glaring light, we should never see the path back into the kingdom of god, or heed the directing guide-posts. but the judgments of nature (the law of god), as she goes her mighty, solemn, inflexible march, sweeps sometimes so fearfully over man that though it is the triumph, not the defeat of god's truth and of his laws, that falsehood against them must work misery, and misery is perhaps _here_ the strongest proof that his loving hand is present,--yet all our powers, hopes, and fears must, it seems to me, be engrossed by doing his work for its relief. life is no holiday game, nor is it a clever book, nor is it a school of instruction, nor a valley of tears; but it is a hard fight, a struggle, a wrestling with the principle of evil, hand to hand, foot to foot. every inch of the way must be disputed. the night is given us to take breath, to pray, to drink deep at the fountain of power. the day, to use the strength which has been given us, to go forth to work with it till the evening. the kingdom of god is coming; and "_thy kingdom_ come" does not mean only "_my salvation_ come." "to find out what we can do," she wrote as an annotation in browning's _paracelsus_, "one's individual place, as well as the general end, is man's task. to serve man for god's sake, not man's, will prevent failure from being disappointment." florence nightingale sought then to save her soul by serving others. it was by this same test of practical service that she came to try and to weigh the various forms of religious doctrine. her father was, as i have said, a unitarian, and several other members of her family circle were of the same persuasion. but she and some others of that circle conformed in practice to the services of the english church. and so, in some degree, miss nightingale continued to conform to the end of her life; though, as we shall find later on, she departed widely from the doctrines of the church as ordinarily received, did not care about "going to church," and framed a creed of her own. but she always had a tolerant mind for any faith that issued in good works, and an impatience with any that did not. it is for this reason that she seemed to be all things to all men in religious matters. her mission to the crimea involved, as we shall learn, some religious bickerings. protestants thought her too indulgent to roman catholics, and catholics were sore that she did not go further with them. but her real attitude is perfectly clear, and was entirely consistent. if she looked with a favouring eye on roman catholics, it was on account, not of their dogmas, but of their deeds. two letters to madame mohl, ten years apart in date, suggest what was always miss nightingale's point of view:- lea hurst, _sept._ [1841]. we are very anxious to hear, dearest miss clarke, how you are going on, and how mrs. clarke is, some day when you are able to write. we are just returned from the leeds consecration, and a more curious or interesting sight i never saw. imagine a procession of 400 clergymen, all in their white robes, with scarfs of blue and black and fur and even scarlet, so that i thought some of them were cardinals, headed by the archbishop of york,[31] the bishop of ripon, &c., and most curious of all the bishop of _new jersey_ to whom dr. hook (who is,--you know, perhaps,--the _puseyite_ vicar of leeds) had written to ask him to come over from america, expressly to preach the consecration sermon. imagine all this procession, entering the church, repeating the 24th ps.--and then filling the space before the altar and the transept--and _all_ responding aloud through the service, so that the roll and echo of their responses through the transept, without being able to see _them_, was the most striking thing i ever heard. it was quite a gathering-place for puseyites from all parts of england. papa heard them debating, whether they should have lighted candles before the altar, but they decided no, because the bishop of ripon would not like it--however they had them in the evening and the next morning when he was gone--and dr. hook has the regular catholic jerk in making the genuflexion every time he approaches the altar. the church is a most magnificent one, and every one has contributed their best to it, with a true catholic spirit; one gave the beautiful painted window, another the correggio for the altar piece, the queen dowager the altar-cloth, another the bells, &c., &c. dr. hook gives a service every morning and evening at 1/2 p. 7, and the sacrament every sunday; and the aisle is all occupied by _open_ seats. during the consecration i wished to have been a clergyman, but when mrs. gaskell[32] (whom i was with, she is a good tory and half a puseyite and withal the most general favourite and generally _lenient_ person in england)--when she and i came down afterwards for the sacrament, i could not help looking in the faces of the clergymen, for the impression i expected to see, as they walked down the aisle, and wandered about, (this immense crowd) after the sacrament--and oh! i was woefully disappointed--they looked so stupid; and i could not help thinking, if you had been catholics, you would all have been on your knees during the service, without minding your fine gowns and the cold stones. [31] edward vernon harcourt. [32] _née_ brandreth (not mrs. gaskell, the authoress). embley, _feb._ 7 [1851].... i suppose you know how the two churches have been convulsing themselves in england in a manner discreditable to themselves and ridiculous to others. the anglican ch. screamed and struggled as if they were taking away something of _hers_, the catholic ch. sang and shouted as if she had conquered england--neither the one nor the other has happened. only a good many people (in our church) found out they were catholics and went to rome, and a good many other people found out they were protestants, which they never knew before, and left the puseyite pen, which has now lost half its sheep. at oxford the puseyite volcano is extinct.... you know what a row there will be this session in parliament about it. the most moderate wish for a concordat, but even these say that we must strip the r.c. bishops of their new titles. many think the present gov. will go out upon it, because they won't do enough to satisfy the awakened prejudices of dear john bull. i used to think it was a mere selfish quarrel between red stockings and lawn sleeves; but not a bit of it; it's a real popular feeling. one would think that all our religion was political by the way we talk, and so i believe it is. from the rising of the sun until the going down of the same, you hear our clergy talking of nothing but bishops _versus_ vicars general--never a word of different plans of education, prisons, penitentiaries, and so on. one would think we were born ready made as to education, but that art made a church. i feel little zeal in pulling down one church or building up another, in making bishops or unmaking them. if they would _make_ us, our faith would spring up of itself, and then we shouldn't want either anglican ch. or r.c. church to make it for us. but, bless my soul, people are just as ignorant now of any law in the human mind as they were in socrates' time. we have learnt the physical laws since then; but mental laws--why, people don't even acknowledge their existence. they talk of grace and divine influence,--why, if it's an arbitrary gift from god, how unkind of him not to give it before! and if it comes by certain laws, why don't we find them out? but people in england think it quite profane to talk of finding them out, and they pray "that it may please thee to have mercy upon all men," when i should knock you down if you were to say to _me_ "that it should please you to have mercy upon your boy." i never had any training; and training to be called "training," (as we train the fingers to play scales and shakes)--i doubt whether anybody ever gets from other people, because they don't know how to give it according to any certain laws. i wish everybody would write as far as they can a short account of god's dealings with them, like the old puritans, and then perhaps we should find out at last what are god's ways in his goings on and what are not. arthur stanley (afterwards the dean) once asked her to use her influence in preventing a friend of his and of hers from taking the step, supposed to be imminent, of joining the roman communion. in a long reply which miss nightingale wrote with great care (nov. 26, 1852), she promised to do what she could, but explained that this might not be much. she herself remained in the anglican communion "because she was born there," and because the roman church offered some things which she personally did not want. she feared their friend might consider that such arguments as she could urge against the roman church applied equally against the anglican. and, on the other hand, she had never concealed her opinion that the roman communion offered advantages to women which the church of england (at that time) did not. "the catholic orders," she wrote, "offered me work, training for that work, sympathy and help in it, such as i had in vain sought in the church of england. the church of england has for men bishoprics, archbishoprics, and a little work (good men make a great deal for themselves). for women she has--what? i had no taste for theological discoveries. i would have given her my head, my heart, my hand. she would not have them. she did not know what to do with them. she told me to go back and do crochet in my mother's drawing-room; or, if i were tired of that, to marry and look well at the head of my husband's table. you may go to the sunday school, if you like it, she said. but she gave me no training even for that. she gave me neither work to do for her, nor education for it." the latter part of the second letter to miss clarke shows miss nightingale's interest in speculations about the basis of moral law; but so far as the rivalry of churches was concerned, it was by works that she tried them. "in all the dens of disgrace and disease," she wrote in one of her note-books (1849), "the only clergy who deserve the name of _pastors_ are the roman catholic. the rest, of all denominations--church of england, church of scotland, dissenters--are only theology or tea mongers." "it will never do," she once said to a friend, "unless we have a church of which the terms of membership shall be works, not doctrines."[33] [33] _life of lord houghton_, by t. wemyss reid, vol. i. p. 524. she was interested, however, in doctrines also. if she was resolved to dedicate her life to the service of man, she was no less convinced that such service could only be rendered, at the best and highest, in the light, and with the sanction, of service to god. herein may be found an underlying unity and harmony through the many and diverse interests of her life. we shall see that she who opened new careers and standards of practical benevolence in the modern world, spent also years of thought upon the less manageable task, if not of providing the world with a new religion, at any rate of giving to old doctrines a new application, and, as she hoped, a more acceptable sanction. chapter iv disappointment (1846-1847) there are private martyrs as well as burnt or drowned ones. society of course does not know them; and family cannot, because our position to one another in our families is, and must be, like that of the moon to the earth. the moon revolves round her, moves with her, never leaves her. yet the earth never sees but one side of her; the other side remains for ever unknown.--florence nightingale (in a note-book of 1847-49). a poet of our time has counted "disappointment's dry and bitter root" among the ingredients of "the right mother-milk to the tough hearts that pioneer their kind." if it indeed be so, florence nightingale was well nurtured. the spiritual experiences and speculations, recorded in the last chapter, worked round to a justification, as we have seen, of her chosen plan of life. religion thus brought no consolation for the failure of her scheme to escape in december 1845. "my misery and vacuity afterwards," she wrote in an autobiographical retrospect, "were indescribable." "all my plans have been wrecked," she wrote at the time, "and my hopes destroyed, and yet without any visible, any material change." she faced the new year and its life on the old lines in a mood of depression which, with some happier intervals, was to grow deeper and more intense during the next few years. * * * * * she did not, however, abandon her ideal. we shall see in subsequent chapters that neither foreign travel distracted her from it, nor did opportunities for another kind of life allure her from the chosen path. the way was dark before her; the goal might never be reached, she often thought, in this present sphere; but she felt increasingly that only in a life of nursing or other service to the afflicted could her being find its end and scope. "the longer i live," she wrote in her diary (june 22, 1846), "the more i feel as if all my being was gradually drawing to one point, and if i could be permitted to return and accomplish that in another being, if i may not in this, i should need no other heaven. i could give up the hope of meeting and living with those i have loved (and nobody knows how i love) and been separated from here, if it would please god to give me, with a nearer consciousness of his presence, the task of doing this in the real life." meanwhile she pursued her inquiries. now that the fruits of florence nightingale's pioneer work have been gathered, and that nursing is one of the recognized occupations for gentlewomen, it is not altogether easy to realize the difficulties which stood in her way. the objections were moral and social, rooted to large measure in conventional ideas. gentlewomen, it was felt, would be exposed, if not to danger and temptations, at least to undesirable and unfitting conditions. "it was as if i had wanted to be a kitchen-maid," she said in later years. nothing is more tenacious than a social prejudice. but the prejudice was in part founded on very intelligible reasons, and in part was justified by the level of the nursing profession at the time. these are considerations to which full weight must be allowed, both in justice to those who opposed miss nightingale's plans, and in order to understand her own courage and persistence. the idea was widely prevalent at the time that for certain cases in hospital practice a modest woman was, from the nature of things, unsuited to act as a nurse. mr. nightingale, who desired to do what was right by his daughter, made many inquiries, and consulted many friends. there is a letter to him from a brighton doctor arguing against the prevalent belief, and maintaining stoutly that "women of a proper age and character are not unfit for such cases. age, habit, and office give the mind a different turn." but the whole of this letter shows a degree of broad-mindedness with regard to the education and sphere of women which was in advance of the average opinion at the time. and in any case, whether women were fit or unfit by nature, it was certain that many, perhaps most, of the women actually engaged in nursing were unfit by character, and that a refined gentlewoman, who joined the profession, might thus find herself in unpleasant surroundings. we shall have to consider this matter more fully in a subsequent chapter. here it will suffice to say that though there were better-managed hospitals and worse-managed, yet there was a strong body of evidence to show that hospital nurses had opportunities, which they freely used, for putting the bottle to their lips "when so disposed," and that other evils were more or less prevalent also.[34] reports from paris and its famous schools of medicine and surgery were no better. one who had been through it said that life at the "maternité" was very coarse. in the _clinique obstétricale_ at the école de médecin, "the élèves have the reputation of being pretty generally the students' mistresses." the difficulties in the way of a refined woman, who sought to obtain access to the best training, were very great. dr. elizabeth blackwell, a pioneer among woman-doctors in america, told miss nightingale of a young girl who had planned, as the only feasible way of studying surgery in paris, to don male attire. "pantaloons will be accepted as a token she is in earnest, while a petticoat is always a flag for intrigue. she has a deep voice, and i think will pass muster exceedingly well among a set of young students, but i shall be quite sorry for her to sacrifice a mass of beautiful dark auburn hair! what a strange age we live in! what singular sacrifices and extraordinary actions are required of us in the service of truth! an age of reform is a stirring, exciting one, but it is not the most beautiful." the more she heard of the worst, the more was florence nightingale resolved to make things better; but the more her parents heard, the greater and the more natural was their repugnance. somebody must do the rough pioneer work of the world; but one can understand how the parents of an attractive daughter, for whom their own life at home seemed to them to open many possibilities of comfortable happiness, came to desire that in this case the somebody should be somebody else. [34] see miss nightingale's letter, printed below (p. 117). similarly she wrote to her father in 1854 (feb. 22), that the head nurse in a certain london hospital told her that "in the course of her large experience she had never known a nurse who was not drunken, and that there was immoral conduct practised in the very wards, of which she gave me some awful examples." miss nightingale herself was so much impressed by the difficulties and dangers in the way of women nurses, that she was inclined at first to the idea that the admission of gentlewomen into the calling could best be secured, either in special hospitals connected with some religious institution, or in general hospitals under cover of some religious bond. "i think," wrote monckton milnes to his wife, "that florence always much distrusted the sisterhood matter,"[35] and such was the case. her inner thought was that no vow was needed other than the nurse's own fitness for the calling and devotion to it. but she was engaged in the crusade of a pioneer, and had to consider what was practically expedient and immediately feasible, as well as what was theoretically reasonable. dr. blackwell was of the same opinion. she did not like religious orders in themselves; they only "become beautiful," she said, "as an expedient, a temporary condition, an antidote to present evils." miss nightingale was therefore intensely interested in the institution for deaconesses, with its hospital, school, and penitentiary, which a protestant minister, pastor theodor fliedner, had established some years before at kaiserswerth. her family were great friends with the bunsens, and the baron had sent florence one of pastor fliedner's annual reports.[36] her interest in it was twofold. it was the kind of institution to which protestant mothers might not object to send their daughters. it was also in some sort a school of nursing where, whatever wider scope might afterwards be attainable, gentlewomen could serve an apprenticeship to the calling. "flo," wrote her sister to a friend in 1848, "is exceedingly full of the hospital institutions of germany, which she thinks so much better than ours. do you know anything of the great establishment at kaiserswerth, where the schools, the reform place for the wicked, and a great hospital are all under the guidance of the deaconesses?" two years before (june 1846) florence herself had written to miss hilary bonham carter, begging her to ask mrs. jameson about "the german lady she knew, who, not being a catholic, could not take upon herself the vows of a sister of charity, but who obtained permission from the physician of the hospital of her town to attend the sick there, and perform all the duties which the s[oe]urs do at dublin and the hôtel dieu, and who had been there fifteen years when mrs. jameson knew her. i do not want to know her name, if it is a secret; but only if she has extended it further into anything like a protestant sisterhood, if she had any plans of that sort which should embrace women of an educated class, and not, as in england, merely women who would be servants if they were not nurses. how she disposed of the difficulties of surgeons making love to her, and of living with the women of indifferent character who generally make the nurses of hospitals, as it appears she was quite a young woman when she began, and these are the difficulties which vows remove which one sees nothing else can." perhaps it was as a result of these inquiries that florence nightingale became acquainted, through baron von bunsen, with the institution at kaiserswerth; though, as appears from a letter given below, madame mohl had also sent her some information about it. it is certain that by the autumn of 1846 she was in possession of its reports, and that the place had become the home of her heart. during these years she was also quietly pursuing studies on medical and sanitary subjects. [35] _life of lord houghton_, vol. i. p. 524. [36] in many accounts of kaiserswerth and of florence nightingale, it is stated that her knowledge of the institution came from elizabeth fry. it was a pleasant temptation to establish such a link between these two famous women, but mrs. fry was dead (1845) before miss nightingale had ever heard, so far as her papers show, of kaiserswerth. ii with such thoughts in her mind, the routine of home life became more than ever empty and distasteful. here are two typical extracts from her diary of 1846:- lea hurst, _july_ 7. what is my business in this world and what have i done this last fortnight? i have read the _daughter at home_[37] to father and two chapters of mackintosh; a volume of _sybil_ to mama. learnt seven tunes by heart. written various letters. ridden with papa. paid eight visits. done company. and that is all. [37] see below, p. 94. embley, _oct._ 7. what have i done the last three months? o happy, happy six weeks at the hurst, where (from july 15 to sept. 1) i had found my business in this world. my heart was filled. my soul was at home. i wanted no other heaven. may god be thanked as he never yet has been thanked for that glimpse of what it is to _live_. now for the last five weeks my business has been much harder. they don't know how weary this way of life is to me--this _table d'hôte_ of people.... when i want _erfrischung_ i read a little of the _jahresberichte über die diakonissen-anstalt in kaiserswerth_. there is my home; there are my brothers and sisters all at work. there my heart is, and there i trust one day will be my body; whether in this state or in the next, in germany or in england, i do not care. the "happy six weeks at lea hurst" were a time, as appears from the letter to miss nicholson already given (p. 53), when she found opportunity to do much sick-visiting. "one's days pass away," she added in the same letter, "like a shadow, and leave not a trace behind. how we spend hours that are sacred in things that are profane, which we choose to call necessities, and then say 'we cannot' to our father's business." at embley the opportunities for work among the poor were less favourable. the distances were greater. florence interested herself, so far as she was able, in the school at wellow; and amongst her papers of 1846 there is an able discussion of the defects of elementary education as she had there observed them. but the distractions were many. there was a constant round of company at home; and, as has been said before, the migrations of the family between london, lea hurst, and embley were fatal to concentration of effort. iii the year 1847 was one of much social movement in miss nightingale's life. in the spring she was in london "doing the exhibitions and hearing jenny lind; but it really requires a new language to define her." then she went with her parents to the meeting of the british association at oxford, where adams and leverrier, the twin discoverers of neptune, were the lions of the day. she wrote many lively accounts of the meeting to her friends, from which a passage or two may be given:- here we are in the midst of loveliness and learning; for never anything so beautiful as this place is looking now, my dearest, have i seen abroad or at home, with its flowering acacias in the midst of its streets of palaces. i saunter about the churchyards and gardens by myself before breakfast, and wish i were a college man. i wish you could see the astronomical section--leverrier and adams sitting on either side of the president, like a pair of turtle-doves cooing at their joint star and holding it between them.... we work hard. chapel at 8, to that glorious service at new college; such an anthem yesterday morning! and that quiet cloister where no one goes. i brought home a white rose to-day to dry in remembrance. sections from 11 to 3. then colleges or blenheim till dinner time. then lecture at 8 in the radcliffe library. and philosophical tea and muffins at somebody's afterwards. the fowlers, hamilton grays, barlows and selves are the muffins; wheatstone, hallam, chevalier, monckton milnes and some of the great guns occasionally are the philosophy.... and so forth, and so forth; with particulars of "church every two hours" on sunday, and of a luncheon with buckland and his famous menagerie at christ church, when florence petted a little bear, and her father drew her away, but mr. milnes mesmerised it. "and one thing more," she adds; "mr. hallam's discovery that gladstone is the beast 666 (in the revelations) came to him one day by inspiration in the athenæum, after he had tried pusey and newman, and found that they wouldn't do." miss nightingale paid many visits during the same year with her father. they went, for instance, to lord sherborne, whose daughter, mrs. plunkett, became a great friend of hers; and they spent a couple of days with lord lovelace. lady lovelace, byron's daughter, conceived a great admiration for florence nightingale, which found expression in the verses already quoted. it was in this year that miss clarke married her old admirer, m. mohl. florence's letter of congratulation was not without significance upon the state of her own feelings, as will be seen in a later chapter:- embley, _october_ 13 [1847]. dearest friend--to think that you are now a two months' wife, and i have never written to tell you that your piece of news gave me more joy than i ever felt in all my life, except once, no, not even excepting that once, because _that_ was a game of blind-man's-buff,--and in _your_ case you knew even as you were known. i had the news on a sunday from dear ju, and it was indeed a sunday joy and i kept it holy, though not like the city, which was to be in cotton to be looked at _only_ on sundays. as has often been said, we must all take sappho's leap, one way or other, before we attain to her repose--though some take it to death, and some to marriage, and some again to a new life even in this world. which of them to the better part, god only knows. popular prejudice gives it in favour of marriage. should we not look upon marriage, less as an absolute blessing, than as a remove into another and higher class of this great school-room--a promotion--for it is a promotion, which creates new duties, before which the coward sometimes shrinks, and gives new lessons, of more advanced knowledge, with more advanced powers to meet them, and a much clearer power of vision to read them. in your new development of life, i take, dearest friend, a right fervent interest, and bless you with a right heartfelt and earnest love. we are only just returned to embley, after having passed through london, on our way from derbyshire. news have i none, excepting financial, for no one could talk of anything in london excepting the horrid quantity of failures in the city, by which all england has suffered more or less. why didn't i write before? because i thought you would rather be let alone at first and that you were on your travels. and now for my confessions. i utterly abjure, i entirely renounce and abhor, all that i may have said about m. robert mohl, not because he is now your brother-in-law, but because i was so moved and touched by the letters which he wrote after your marriage to mama; so anxious they were to know more about you, so absorbed in the subject, so eager to prove to us that his brother was _such_ a man, he was quite sure to make you happy. and i have not said half enough either upon that score, not anything that i feel; how "to marry" is no impersonal verb, upon which i am to congratulate you, but depends entirely upon the accusative case which it governs, upon which i do wish you heartfelt and trusting joy. in single life the stage of the present and the outward world is so filled with phantoms, the phantoms, not unreal tho' intangible, of vague remorse, tears, dwelling on the threshold of every thing we undertake alone, dissatisfaction with what is, and restless yearnings for what is not, cravings after a world of wonders (which _is_, but is like the chariot and horses of fire, which elisha's frightened servant could not see, till his eyes were opened)--the stage of actual life gets so filled with these that we are almost pushed off the boards and are conscious of only just holding on to the foot lights by our chins, yet even in that very inconvenient position love still precedes joy, as in st. paul's list, for love laying to sleep these phantoms (by assuring us of a love so great that we may lay aside all care for our own happiness, not because it is of _no_ consequence to us, whether we are happy or not, as carlyle says, but because it is of so much consequence to another) gives that leisure frame to our mind, which opens it at once to joy. but how impertinently i ramble on--"you see a penitent before you," don't say "i see an impudent scoundrel before me"--but when thou seest, and what's more, when thou readest, forgive.--you will not let another year pass without our seeing you. m. mohl gives us hopes, in his letter to ju, that you won't, that you will come to england next year for many months, then, dearest friend, we will have a long talk out. if not, we really must come to paris--and then i shall see you, and see the deaconesses too, whom you so kindly wrote to me about, but of whom i have never heard half enough.... the bracebridges are at home--she rejoiced as much as we did over your event--parthe is going at the end of november to do officiating verger to a friend of ours on a like event.--her prospects are likewise so satisfactory, that i can rejoice and sympathize under any form she may choose to marry in. otherwise i think that the day will come, when it will surprise us as much, to see people dressing up for a marriage, as it would to see them put on a fine coat for the sacrament. why should the sacrament or oath of marriage be less sacred than any other? the letter goes on to speak of a visit recently paid to mrs. archer clive, well known in her day as the authoress of _poems by v._ and of _paul ferroll_, a sensational novel of some force,--a lady whose powers of heart and mind were housed in an infirm body. miss nightingale admired her talents and her character, and valued her friendship. but new friendships and varied interests did not bring satisfaction to miss nightingale. she was still constantly bent on pursuing a vocation of her own. her parents caught eagerly at an opportunity which offered itself at the end of this year (1847), for giving, as they hoped, a new turn to her thoughts. chapter v a winter in rome; and after (1847-1849) six months of rome and happiness.--florence nightingale (1848). it was an event of some importance in the nightingale family when florence set out with mr. and mrs. bracebridge, in the autumn of 1847, to spend the winter at rome. the attraction to her was the society of mrs. bracebridge, the friend of whom she spoke as "her ithuriel." moreover the mental unrest from which florence constantly suffered at home was beginning to tell upon her health. "all that i want to do in life," she wrote to her cousin hilary, in explaining the motive of the tour, "depends upon my health, which, i am told, a winter in rome will establish for ever." she took the foreign tour as a tonic to enable her the better to fulfil her vocation. by her parents and her sister the tour was regarded as a tonic which might divert her from it. they hoped that foreign travel would distract her thoughts, and dispel what they perhaps considered morbid fancies. she would enjoy pleasant companionship. she would see famous and beautiful things. she might return converted to the more comfortable belief that her duty lay in accepting life as she found it. the point of view comes out clearly enough in a letter from her sister to miss bonham carter:- embley, _october_ [1847]. it is a very great pleasure to think of her with such a companion, one who, she says, lives always with the best part of her; one who has all the sense and discretion and the warm-hearted sympathy and the quick enjoyment and the taste and the affection which will most give her happiness; who will value her and take care of her, and do her all the good mentally and bodily one can fancy. yes, dear, god is very good to provide such a pleasant time, and it will rest her mind, i think, entirely from wearing thoughts that all men have at home when their duties weigh much on their consciences, while she will feel she is wasting nothing; for mrs. bracebridge has not been at all well and flo will _feel_ herself a comfort and a help to her, i hope, for i know she _is_ a great one.... though it is but for so short a time, yet it seems to me a great event, the solemn first launching her into life, and my heart is very full of many feelings, but yet the joy is greatest by an incalculable deal, for one does not see how harm can come to her. yet when one loves a great deal, one cannot but be a little anxious.... it is so pretty to see papa wandering over the big map of rome remembering every corner, and mama over piranesi, and both over all the fair things that dwell there as tho' they had just left them. and florence herself did find comfort and pleasure in the tour; but it was destined not to divert, but to strengthen, her purpose, as also to lay a train of circumstances which was to lead her to the crimea. * * * * * florence and her companions reached paris on october 27, took ship at marseilles for civita vecchia, and stayed in rome--in the via s. bastinello (no. 8)--from the beginning of november till march 29, 1848. florence entered heartily into all the pursuits and occupations of elegant tourists in rome. she studied the ruins; explored the catacombs; copied inscriptions; visited the churches and galleries; spent a morning in gibson's studio and another in overbeck's; collected plants in the colosseum; rode in the campagna, and bought brooches, mosaics, and roman pearls. her father had drawn out a programme of famous sights and pretty walks and drives; and the methodical florence duly ticked them off on the list. she read her own thoughts and aspirations into many of the works of art. she greatly admired the apollo belvedere, seeing in it the type of triumphant free will. "we can never lose the recollection of our poor selves while we still do things with difficulty, while we are still uncertain whether we shall succeed or not. the triumph of success may be great and delightful, but the divine life--eternal life--is when to will is to do, when the will is the same thing as the act, and therefore the act is unconscious." of the jupiter of the capitol, again, she says: "jupiter is that perfect grace in power where the divine _will_, pure from exertion, speaks, and it is done." but what chiefly interested her, what really impressed her mind and stimulated her imagination, was the genius of michael angelo:- (_to her sister._) _december_ 17 [1847]. oh, my dearest, i have had such a day--my red dominical, my golden letter, the 15th of december is its name, and of all my days in rome this has been the most happy and glorious. think of a day alone in the sistine chapel with [greek: s] [selina, mrs. bracebridge], quite alone, without custode, without visitors, looking up into that heaven of angels and prophets.... i did not think that i was looking at pictures, but straight into heaven itself, and that the faults of the representation and the blackening of the colours were the dimness of my own earthly vision, which would only allow me to see obscurely, indistinctly, what was there in all its glory to be known even as i was known, if mortal eyes and understandings were cleared from the mists which we have wilfully thrown around them. there is daniel, opening his windows and praying to the god of his fathers three times a day in defiance of fear. you see that young and noble head like an eagle's, disdaining danger, those glorious eyes undazzled by all the honours of babylon. then comes isaiah, but he is so divine that there is nothing but his own 53rd chapter will describe him. he is the isaiah, the "_grosse unbekannte_" of the comfort ye, comfort ye my people. i was rather startled at first by finding him so young, which was not my idea of him at all, while the others are old. but m. angelo knew him better; it is the perpetual youth of inspiration, the vigour and freshness, ever new, ever living, of that eternal spring of thought which is typed under that youthful face. genius has no age, while mind (zechariah) has no youth. next to isaiah comes the delphic sibyl, the most beautiful, the most inspired of all the sibyls here; but the distinction which m. angelo has drawn even between _her_ and the _prophets_ is so interesting. there is a security of inspiration about isaiah; he is listening and he is speaking; "that which we _hear_ we declare unto you." there is an anxiety, an effort to hear even, about the delphian; she is not quite sure; there is an uncertainty, a wistfulness in her eyes; she expects to be rewarded rather in another stage than this for her struggle to gain the prize of her high calling, to reach to the unknown that isaiah knows already. there is no uncertainty as to her feeling of being called to hear the voice, but she fears that her earthly ears are heavy and gross, and corrupt the meaning of the heavenly words. i cannot tell you how affecting this anxious look of her far-reaching eyes is to the poor mortals standing on the pavement below, while the prophets ride secure on the storm of inspiration.... i feel these things to be part of the word of god, of the ladder to heaven. the word of god is all by which he reveals his thought, all by which he makes a manifestation of himself to men. it is not to be narrowed and confined to one book, or one nation; and no one can have seen the sistine without feeling that he has been very near to god, that he will understand some of his words better for ever after; and that michael angelo, one of the greatest of the sons of men, when one looks at the dome of st. peter's on the one hand and the prophets and martyrs on the other, has received as much of the breath of god, and has done as much to communicate it to men, as any seer of old. he has performed that wonderful miracle of giving form to the breath of god, wonderful whether it is done by words, colours, or hard stones.... the thoughts and emotions which have been suggested by the contemplation of the vault of the sistine chapel are countless. none are more enthusiastic than those which it inspired in florence nightingale, and few have been so discriminating. it is at once the privilege and a mark of consummate works of art to be capable of as many meanings as they may find of competent spectators. each man brings to the study of them the insight of which he is capable; and each, perchance, finds in them some image of himself or of his own experience. "there are few moments, most probably," florence nightingale went on to say, "which we shall carry with us through the gate of death, few recollections which will stand the eternal light." she felt as she came out of the sistine chapel that her first sight of michael angelo's stupendous work would be one of those few for her. we may surmise that the wistful uncertainty which she found in the face of the delphic sibyl had especially appealed to her in its truth to life as she had experienced it; conscious as she was of a call from god, conscious also as she could not but have been of great powers, and yet doubtful whether on this side of the gate of death it would be given to her to interpret the divine voice aright. she retained to the end of her life the same reverential feeling for michael angelo. she had photographs and engravings of the sistine ceiling hanging in her rooms, and she sent some framed and inscribed photographs of the symbolical figures on the medici tombs to hang at embley on the little private staircase, where her father fell and died. those at her home were bequeathed specifically in her will. the afternoon of the day on which the revelation of the sistine chapel came to her was spent by florence and her friend in walking up the monte mario, to enjoy the famous view from the villa mellini, not then, as now, included within a fort:- "we spent an exquisite half-hour," she wrote, "mooning, or rather sunning about; the whole campagna and city lying at our feet, the sea on one side like a golden laver below the declining sun, the windings of the tiber and the hills of lucretilis on the other, with frascati, tivoli, tusculum on their cypress sides, for in that clear atmosphere you could see the very cypresses of maecenas' villa at tivoli; with long stripes of violet and pomegranate coloured light sweeping over the plain like waves; one stone pine upon the edge of our mellini hill; and rome, the fallen babylon, like a dead city beneath, no sound of multitudes ascending, but the only life these great crimson lights and shadows (for here the shadow of a red light is violet) like the carnation-coloured wings of angels, themselves invisible, flapping over the plain and leaving this place behind them. we rushed down as fast as we could for the sun was setting, and we reached st. peter's just as the doors were going to close. we had the great church all to ourselves, the tomb of st. peter wreathed with lights. it felt like the times when a christian knight watched by his arms before some great enterprise at the holy sepulchre; and one shadowy white angel we could see through the windows over the great door; and do you know he quite made us startle as he stood there in the gloaming. of course it was the marble statue on the facade; and there were workmen still laughing and talking at the extreme end, and their sounds, as they were repeated under the long vaults, were like the gibbering of devils, and their lanthorns, as they wavered along close to the ground, were like corpse-lights. i thought of st. anthony and holy knights and their temptations. and at last the sacristan took us out of that vast solemn dome through a _tomb_! and we glided into the silvery moonlight, and walked home over ponte st. angelo, where i made a little invocation to st. michael to help me to thank; for why the protestants should shut themselves out, in solitary pride, from the communion of saints in heaven and in earth, i never could understand. and so ended this glorious day." the obsession of rome, which sooner or later comes upon every intelligent visitor to the eternal city, dated in the case of florence nightingale from this golden-letter day. she surmounted the sense of confusion which sometimes oppresses the traveller. "i do not feel," she wrote, "though pagan in the morning, jew in the afternoon, and christian in the evening, anything but a unity of interest in all these representations. to know god we must study him as much in the pagan and jewish dispensations as in the christian (though that is the last and most perfect manifestation), and this gives unity to the whole--one continuous thread of interest to all these pearls." ii the politics of modern italy interested her no less than the ruins of ancient rome or the monuments of mediæval art. she had met many italian refugees, both at geneva and in the _salon_ of madame mohl in paris, and was a whole-hearted enthusiast in the cause of italian freedom. her present visit to rome synchronized with that curious and short-lived episode in the struggle during which pio nono was playing "the ineffectual tragedy of liberal catholicism." all rome seemed seized with sympathy for the cities beyond the papal states, which were fighting for liberty, and within the states themselves pio nono's offerings of mild benevolence sufficed to call forth "floods of ecstatic, demonstrative italian humanity, torchlight processions, and crowds kneeling at his feet."[38] miss nightingale saw the roman nobles, prince corsini, prince gaetano, and others, presiding at "patriotic altars," which had been set up in the public squares for the receipt of gifts in money and in jewellery. she heard the famous father gavazzi preach the crusade in the colosseum. she cheered as the tricolor of italy was hoisted on the capitol. "i certainly was born," she wrote to her cousin hilary, "to be a tag-rag-and-bob-tail, for when i hear of a popular demonstration, i am nothing better than a ragamuffin." she heard the rumble of a distant drum, and rushed up for mr. bracebridge, and he and she broke their own windows because they were not illuminated; stayed to see the torchlight procession of patriots singing the hymn to pio nono, and were rewarded by the crowd crying "god save the queen," as they passed the english "milord" and his companion. "very touching," she said; "though royalty was the very last thing i was thinking of"; for at this time, as she often avowed in her letters, her sympathies were republican. "when this memorable year began with all its revolutions," she wrote later to madame mohl, after disillusion had come (june 27), "i thought that it was the kingdom of heaven coming under the fate of a republic. but alas! things have shown that more of us must slowly ripen to angels here, before the régime of the angels, _i.e._ the kingdom of heaven, will begin." but for the moment everything seemed radiant. she recorded with pleasure in february that a deputation of romans had gone up to the pope to express their "complete confidence in him." in her note-books she collected particulars of his life and character; and when in march he granted what can only be called a sort of a constitution, she wrote to madame mohl: "my dear santo padre seems doing very well. he has given up his temporal power. no man took it from him; he laid it down of himself. i think that he will reign in history as the only prince who ever did, and that his character is nearer christ's than any i ever heard of." history will hardly confirm this saying; but if miss nightingale's words seem ill-balanced in the light of subsequent events, let it be remembered that, as mr. trevelyan says, "the cult of pio nono was for some months the religion of italy, and of liberals and exiles all over the world. even garibaldi in monte video, and mazzini in london, shared the enthusiasm of the hour." a year later, when the roman republic had been declared and the pope had fled, and the french troops besieged rome on his behalf, miss nightingale had only pity for pio nono; her anger she reserved for the french "cannibals," for the one republic that was devouring another. "i must exhale my rage and indignation," she wrote in a diary (june 30, 1849), "before i have lost all notions of absolute right and wrong. it makes my heart bleed that the french nation, the nation above all others capable of an ideal, of aspiring after the abstract right, should have lent itself to such a brutal crime against its own brother--one may say its own offspring, for the roman republic sprang from the french; it is purest cannibalism; this breaks my heart. when i think of that afternoon at villa mellini (now occupied by a french general), of rome, bathed in her crimson and purple shadows, lying at our feet, and st. michael spreading his wings over all--the angel of regeneration as we thought him then--my eyes fill with tears. but he will be the angel of regeneration yet." the french, she said, might reduce the city and occupy it; but the heroic defence of the republic "will have raised the romans in the moral scale, and in their own esteem." they would never sink back to what they had been. sooner or later, rome would be free. she was especially indignant at the talk which she heard on all sides in cultivated society at home about the "vandalism" of the romans in exposing their precious monuments of art to assault. she loved those monuments, as we have seen; but if the defence of rome against the french required it, she would have been ready to see them all levelled to the ground. "they must carry out their defence to the last," she cried. "i should like to see them fight the streets, inch by inch, till the last man dies at his barricade, till st. peter's is level with the ground, till the vatican is blown into the air. then would this be the last of such brutal, not house-breakings, but city-breakings; then, and not till then, would europe do justice to france as a thief and a murderer, and a similar crime be rendered impossible for all ages. if i were in rome, i should be the first to fire the sistine, turning my head aside, and michael angelo would cry, 'well done,' as he saw his work destroyed." it was not only in relation to the restraints of conventional domesticity that florence nightingale was a rebel. [38] g. m. trevelyan, _garibaldi's defence of the roman republic_, p. 65. iii during her own stay in rome, however, there was something which interested her more than roman politics or roman monuments. it was the philanthropic work of a convent school. every visitor to rome knows the trinità de' monti. the flight of steps between the church and the piazza di spagna is celebrated alike for its own beauty and for the flower-girls and women in peasant-costume who frequent it. the church itself contains many fine works of art, and the choral service is one of the attractions of ecclesiastical rome. the neighbourhood is rich in artistic and literary associations. florence nightingale had sympathetic eyes and ears for all these things; but what attracted her most was the convent attached to the church, with its school for girls, and (in another part of the city) its orphanage. she was broad-minded, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, in relation to church creeds. it was by works, not faith, or at any rate by faith issuing in works, that she weighed the churches. it was characteristic of the thoroughness of her mental character that during this sojourn in rome she made a methodical study of roman doctrine and ritual. among her papers and note-books belonging to this time, there are careful analyses of the theory of indulgence, of the real presence, of the rosary, and so forth. she made, too, a careful collation of the latin breviary with the english prayer-book. she summed up her comparative study of the churches in this generalization: "the great merit of the _catholic church_: its assertion of the truth that god still inspires mankind as much as ever. its great fault: its limiting this inspiration to itself. the great merit of _protestantism_: its proclamation of freedom of conscience within the limits of the scriptures. its great fault: its erection of the bible into a master of the soul." her deep sense of the self-responsibility of every human soul kept her free from any inclination to roman doctrine; but she was profoundly impressed by the practical beneficence of roman sisterhoods. an example of such beneficence she found in the school and orphanage of the dames du sacré c[oe]ur. she had picked up a poor girl called felicetta sensi, and procured her admission as a free boarder, paying for her care and education for many years. she formed a warm attachment to the lady superior, the madre sta. colomba. she studied the organization, rules, and methods of the large school, and for ten days she went into retreat in the convent.[39] her intercourse with the madre sta. colomba, of whose talk and spiritual experiences she made full and detailed notes, made a very deep impression on her mind. she studied rules and organization, but, as in all her studies, she was seeking a motive, as well as, and indeed more than, a method. many years later, a friend wrote to her: "it seems to me that the greatest want among nurses is _devotion_. i use the word in a very wide sense, meaning that state of mind in which the current of desire is flowing towards one high end. this does not presuppose knowledge, but it very soon attains it."[40] this was a profound conviction of her own, often expressed, as we shall hear, in her addresses and letters of exhortation in later years. what she set herself to study at the trinità de' monti was the secret of _devotion_. she made notes of the lady superior's exhortations; of the spiritual exercises which were enjoined upon novices; of the forms and discipline of self-examination. she sought to extract the secret, and to apply it to the inculcation of the highest kind of service to man as the service of god. for many years the thought in her mind was to be the foundation of some distinctive order or sisterhood; and though in the end she came to be glad that she had not done this, she never abandoned the high ideal which was behind her thought. nor, though in some ways and in some cases she came to be disillusioned about nursing sisterhoods, did she ever cease to speak with admiration of what she had seen and learnt in some of them. she thought more often, and with more affectionate remembrance, about the spirit of the best catholic sisterhoods than of kaiserswerth, or indeed of anything else in her professional experience. [39] the convent was giving hospitality at this time to the abbess of minsk (in lithuania), whose persecution by the russian government formed the subject of much debate. miss nightingale wrote a long account of the extraordinary adventures which the abbess related to her. she was advised in 1853 to print this, but i cannot find that she did so. [40] letter from r. angus smith, july 7, 1859. in such studies upon the trinità de' monti in the winter of 1847-48, she was taken, as she said in a note of self-examination, out of all interests that fostered her "vanity"; it was her "happiest new year." "the most entire and unbroken freedom from dreaming i ever had," she wrote at a later time. "oh, how happy i was!" and so again, looking back after twenty years, she wrote: "i never enjoyed any time in my life so much as my time at rome."[41] [41] letter to m. mohl, nov. 21, 1869. iv another incident of miss nightingale's sojourn in rome was destined, though she knew it not at the time, to have a far-reaching influence upon her career. among the english visitors who spent the winter of 1847-48 in rome were mr. and mrs. sidney herbert. mr. herbert had already been secretary at war under peel, a post to which he was afterwards to return under aberdeen. the resignation of peel's cabinet in 1846 released mr. herbert from official work. later in the year he married a lady with whom he had been long acquainted, elizabeth à court, daughter of general charles ashe à court; and in the following year he and his wife set out for a long continental tour. mr. and mrs. bracebridge were friends of the herberts, and thus florence nightingale made their acquaintance in rome. in her retrospect she specially recalled the beginning there of her friendship with sidney herbert "under the dear bracebridges' wing." compatriots who meet in this way in any foreign resort are apt to see a good deal of each other, and from this winter dates the beginning of a friendship which was to be a governing factor in the life of florence nightingale. sidney herbert, when they met in galleries or at soirées, or rode together in the campagna, must have been struck by miss nightingale's marked abilities, and for mrs. herbert she formed an affectionate attachment. she noted "the great kindness, the desire of love, the magnanimous generosity" of her new friend. mr. and mrs. herbert saw much of archdeacon manning (the future cardinal), who was also spending the winter in rome, and miss nightingale was on friendly terms with him.[42] this also was an acquaintance which had some influence on her future career. sidney herbert, aided by the ready sympathy of his wife, was devoting much thought, now liberated from official duties, to schemes of benevolence among the poor on his estates. "he felt strongly the disadvantage at which the poor were placed in being compelled after illness, and perhaps after undergoing painful operations, to return in the earliest stage of convalescence, without rest or change, to their accustomed labour."[43] he was full of a scheme for a convalescent home and cottage hospital (such as is now no rarity, but was then almost unknown), and it can be imagined with what zest miss nightingale shared his thoughts. one of the first things which she records in her diary after return from the continent is "an expedition with mrs. sidney herbert to set up her convalescent home at charmouth"; but this was only a passing incident, and return to the habitual home life, after the distraction of foreign travel, left her no more contented than before. [42] purcell's _life of manning_, vol. i. p. 362. [43] _sidney herbert_: _a memoir_, by lord stanmore, vol. i. pp. 97-98. on her return to london in the early summer of 1848 she sent her friends occasionally the talk of the town:- (_to madame mohl._) _july_ 26 [1848]. in london there have been the usual amount of charity balls, charity concerts, charity bazaars, whereby people bamboozle their consciences and shut their eyes. nevertheless there does not seem the slightest prospect of a revolution here. why, would be hard to say, as england is surely the country where luxury has reached its height and poverty its depth. perhaps it is our poor law, perhaps the strength of our middle class, perhaps a greater degree of sympathy between the rich and poor, which is the conservative principle. lord ashley had a chartist deputation with him the other day, who stayed to tea and talked with him for five hours. "that a man should ride in a carriage and have twenty thousand a year is contrary to the laws of nature," said their leader, and slapped his leg. "i could show you, if you would go with me to-night," said lord ashley, "people who would say to _you_, that a man should go in broadcloth and wear a shirt-pin (pointing to the chartist's shirt) is contrary to the laws of nature." the chartist was silent. "and it was the only thing i said," says lord ashley, "after arguing with them for five hours which made the least impression." her acquaintance with lord ashley (afterwards lord shaftesbury) brought her in touch with ragged school work. but society grew more and more distasteful to miss nightingale. she explained the reasons in a letter to her "aunt hannah." why could she not smile and be gay, while yet biding her time and not forsaking her ultimate ideals? it was, she said, because she "hated god to hear her laugh, as if she had not repented of her sin." there is something obviously morbid in such words, and they might be multiplied indefinitely, if there were good reason for doing so, from her letters, diaries, and note-books. the sins of which she most often convicted herself were "hypocrisy" and "vanity." she prayed to be delivered from "the desire of producing an effect." that was the "vanity"; and it was "hypocrisy," because she was playing a part, responding to friends' conception of her, though all the while her heart was really set on other things, and her true life was being lived elsewhere. the morbidness was a symptom of a mind at war with its surroundings. then again the kind "aunt" reminded her, in the spirit of george herbert, that anything and everything may be done "to the glory of god." but miss nightingale at this time was deep in the study of political economy; and "can it be to the glory of god," she asked, "when there is so much misery among the poor, which we might be curing instead of living in luxury?" v in the autumn of 1848 an opportunity occurred which promised the realization of the dearest wish of her heart, but once more she was doomed to disappointment. her mother and sister had been advised to go to carlsbad for the cure. m. and madame mohl were to be at frankfurt, and they were all to meet in that city. frankfurt is near to kaiserswerth, and florence was to be allowed to go there. but at the very moment disturbances broke out in frankfurt, and the whole plan was abandoned. "i am not going to consign to paper for your benefit," she wrote to madame mohl (october 1848), "all the cursings and swearings which relieved my disappointed feelings; for oh! what a plan of plans i had made out for myself! all that i most wanted to do at kaiserswerth, brussels, and co., lay for the first time within reach of my mouth, and the ripe plum has dropped." florence accompanied her mother to the cure at malvern instead, where, with many prayers for humility under the will of god, she lived for several weeks upon the dry and bitter fruit of disappointment. during the winter of 1848-49 miss nightingale saw something of m. guizot and his family. the minister had escaped to london after the fall of louis philippe, and was living in a modest house in brompton. he found in miss nightingale "a brave and sympathetic soul, for whom great thoughts and great devotions had a serious attraction."[44] [44] see the "lettre de m. guizot" prefixed to the french translation of _notes on nursing_ (1862). during the next year she found some congenial work in london. she inspected hospitals. she worked in ragged schools. she spoke of her "little thieves at westminster" as her "greatest joy in london." but these unconventional attractions of the london season set her all the more against the life of country houses. "ought not one's externals," she wrote in her diary (july 2, 1849), "to be as nearly as possible an incarnation of what life really is? life is _not_ a green pasture and a still water, as our homes make it. life is to some a forty days' fasting, moral or physical, in the wilderness; to some it is a fainting under the carrying of the crop; to some it is a crucifixion; to all, a struggle for truth, for safety. life is seen in a much truer form in london than in the country. in an english country place everything that is painful is so carefully removed out of sight, behind those fine trees, to a village three miles off. in london, at all events if you open your eyes, you cannot help seeing in the next street that life is not as it has been made to you. you cannot get out of a carriage at a party without seeing what is in the faces making the lane on either side, and without feeling tempted to rush back and say, 'those are my brothers and sisters.'" she longed to rush back, to be able to go out freely into the slums, to comfort some old woman who was dying unattended, or rescue some child who was going astray untaught. but the proprieties prevented. "it would never do," she was told, "for a young woman in her station in life to go out in london without a servant." in the autumn of 1849 the distraction of another foreign tour was offered. her parents and her sister hoped once more that florence would return a different and a more comfortable woman. those with whom we are cast into the nearest intimacy sometimes understand us least. chapter vi foreign travel: egypt and greece (1849-1850) when o'er the world we range 'tis but our climate, not our mind, we change. horace. in the autumn of 1849 mr. and mrs. bracebridge, who were to spend some months in the east, again proposed that miss nightingale should travel with them, and again the offer was gladly accepted. her sister was delighted. the expedition to rome had not done what was hoped, but here was a second chance. the sister reported to her friends that "flo had taken tea with the bunsens to receive the _dernier mot_ on egyptology," and that she was going out "laden with learned books." perhaps florence would become absorbed in such studies, and adopt a life of gracefully learned leisure. the literary temptation did, it is true, assail florence, but she put it behind her. * * * * * the party started in october, bound for egypt, where the winter was to be spent. thence they were to proceed to athens, where mr. bracebridge had property. the return journey in the summer of 1850 was to be made through germany, and kaiserswerth was to be visited. florence, we may surmise, looked forward most to the last stage in the journey. on november 18 the travellers landed at alexandria. on the 27th they reached cairo. on december 4 they started in a dahabiah for the nile voyage. the boat was christened in honour of florence's sister. "my work," she wrote, "is making the pennant, blue bunting with swallow tail, a latin red cross upon it, and [greek: parthenopê] in white tape. it has taken all my tape, and a vast amount of stitches, but it will be the finest pennant on the river, and my petticoats will joyfully acknowledge the tribute to sisterly affection, for sisterly affection in tape in lower egypt, let me observe, is worth having." they went up the river as far as ipsambul (abu-simbel), a little below wady halfy; on the return journey they spent several days at thebes. the letters which florence sent home show that egypt appealed strongly to her imagination. what struck her most was the solemnity of the country. "nothing ever laughs or plays. everything is grown up and grown old." the letters are full too of egyptology; for she had made tables of dynasties, copied plans of temples, and analysed the leading ideas in egyptian mythology as expounded by the best writers of the time:- abu-simbel, _january_ 17 [1850].... i passed through other halls, till at last i found myself in a chamber in the rock, where sat, in the silence of an eternal night, four figures against the further end. i could see nothing more; yet i did not feel afraid as i did at karnak, though i was quite alone in these subterranean halls; for the sublime expression of that judge of the dead had looked down on me, the incarnation of the goodness of the deity, as osiris is; and i thought how beautiful the idea which placed him in the foremost hall, and then led the worshipper gradually on to the more awful attributes of the deity; for here, as i could dimly see through the darkness, sat the creative power of the mind--neph, "the intellect"; amun, "the concealed god"; phthah, "the creator of the visible world"; and ra, "the sustainer," ra, "the sun" to whom the temple is dedicated.... i turned to go out, and saw at the further end the golden sand glittering in the sunshine outside the top of the door; and the long sand-hill, sloping down from it to the feet of the innermost osirides, which are left quite free, all but their pedestals, looked like the waves of time, gradually flowing in and covering up these imperishable genii, who have seen three thousand years pass over their heads and heed them not. in the holiest place, there where no sound ever reaches, it is as if you felt the sensible progress of time, not by the tick of a clock, as we measure time, but by some spiritual pulse which marks to you its onward march, not by its second, nor its minute, nor its hour-hand, but by its century hand. i thought of the worshippers of three thousand years ago; how they by this time have reached the goal of spiritual ambition, have brought all their thoughts to serve god or the ideal of goodness; how we stand there with the same goal before us, only as distant as the star, which, a little later, i saw rising exactly over that same sand-hill in the centre of the top of the doorway, but as sure and fixed; how to them all other thoughts are now as nothing, and the ideal we all pursue of happiness is won; not because they have not probably sufferings, like ours, but because they no longer suggest any other thought but of doing god's will, which is happiness. i thought, too, three thousand years hence, we might perhaps have attained--and others would stand here, and still those old gods would be sitting in the eternal twilight.... thebes, _february_ 10 [1850].... the valley of the kings seems, though within a mile of thebes, as if one had arrived at the mountains of kaf, beyond which are only "creatures unknown to any but god,"--so deep are the ravines, so high and blue the sky, so absolutely solitary and unearthly, so utterly uninhabitable the place. one look at that valley would give you more idea of the supernatural, the gate of hades, than all the descriptions, sacred or profane. what a moment it is, the entering that valley, where in those rocky caverns, the vastness and the gloomy darkness of which are equally awful, the kings of the earth lie, each in his huge sarcophagus, with the bodies of his chiefs, each in their chamber, about him; and where, about this time, they are to return, to find their bodies and resume their abode on earth,--if purified by their three thousand years of probation, in a higher and better state; if degraded, in a lower. i thought i met them at every turn in those long subterraneous galleries,--saw their shades rising from their shattered sarcophagi, and advancing once more towards the light of day, which shone like a star, so distant and so faint, at the end of that opening; the dead were stirred up, the chief ones of the earth.... well, these pharaohs are perhaps now here, again in the body, their three thousand years having just elapsed to some of them,--that is, if they have philosophized sincerely, or, together with philosophy, have "loved beautiful forms." ... and if i were a pharaoh now, i would choose the arab form, and come back to help these poor people; and i am going to-morrow to a tomb of rameses, b.c. 1150, to meet him and tell him so.... it was no wonder that miss nightingale pitied the poor people; for the egypt in which she travelled was as mehemet ali, the lion of the levant, had left it. she saw girls sold in the open slave market "at from £2 to £9 a head." she heard how justice was sold to the highest bidder; and "everybody," she noted, "seems to bastinado everybody else." "every man," she noted further, "is a conscript for the army, and mothers put out their children's right eye to save them from conscription, till mehemet ali, who was too clever for them, had a one-eyed regiment, who carried the musket on the left shoulder." miss nightingale was fond of escaping from the dahabiah in order to wander about the desert, "poking my own nose," as she wrote home, "into all the villages," and seeing for herself how "these poor people" lived. "they call me 'the wild ass of the wilderness, snuffing up the wind,' because i am so fond of getting away." egyptian impressions stayed long in her memory, and they recurred to her thirty years later in connection with her indian studies.[45] as on her earlier visit to rome, so now in egypt she utilized all such opportunities as came in her way for studying the work of religious sisterhoods. at alexandria she passed her days, she wrote, "much to my satisfaction, as i had travelled with two sisters of st. vincent de paul from paris to auxerre, who gave me an introduction to the sisters here; and i have spent a great deal of time with them in their beautiful schools and _miséricorde_. there are only 19 of them, but they seem to do the work of 90." [45] _e.g._ in an article in _good words_, august 1879: "whoever in the glorious light of an egyptian sunset--where all glows with colour, not like that of birds and flowers, but like transparent emeralds and sapphires and rubies and amethysts, the gold and jewels and precious stones of the revelations--has seen the herds wending their way home on the plain of thebes by the colossal pair of sitting statues, followed by the stately woman in her one draped garment, plying her distaff, a naked, lovely little brown child riding on her shoulder, and another on a buffalo, can conjure up something of the ideal of the ryot's family life in india." ii in april 1850 miss nightingale went with her friends to athens. their house was in eucharis street, and florence "slept in the library, which opens on to a terrace looking upon the back of the acropolis." she had little taste for the topographical research and nice distinctions between different masters of sculpture which absorb the interest of many modern travellers and students. she was interested in broader speculations. the soul of a people, as expressed in their art, was the object to which she directed her observation, and around which she loved to let her imagination play. in her note-books and letters she discusses the spiritual conceptions embodied in the worship of the several greek gods; she traces the symbols of greek mythology to their sources in greek scenery; she pictures the genius of aeschylus (her favourite tragedian, preferred by her even to shakespeare) or of sophocles developing in relation to local conditions and surroundings. of the statues, the pensive beauty of the sepulchral bas-reliefs most arrested her attention; and in architecture, she loved most the doric, for its severity, its simplicity, its perfection of proportion, its image of the ideal republic:- only a republican could have conceived it, and it is sin for any other government to imitate it. look at each column--man, i mean--rearing its noble head; yet none has a separate base. each man stands upon the common base of his country. look at the simplicity of the fluting of the capital. no man thinks of his own adornment, but only of the glory of the whole. the fluting does not look like its ornament, but its drapery. i do love the old _doric_ as if it was a person. then comes the _ionic_, light and elegant and airy, it is true, like the attic wit, but somewhat luscious to the taste; it soon palls; the fluting is too laboured, too semicircular, like the people sitting in a semi-circle to hear the wit of aristophanes; it does not look as if it _belonged_ to the column; and that ridge between the flutes, what is it doing there? it looks like the interval while the next interlocutor is thinking of a repartee. then that rich beading round the base, like one of euripides' choruses which have nothing to do with the piece. give me the ionic to amuse me, but the doric to interest me. the _corinthian_ is like the worship of dionysus, like the illustration of nature by art--a bad conjunction, i think, which in any other hands would become art run mad, but modified by the exquisite artistic perceptions of the greeks is exquisitely beautiful, but it is not architecture. the doric, the ionic, and the corinthian are the ethical, the poetical, and the aesthetic views of life. but look at the workmanship of these things. how mathematically exact it is--the very poetry of number. it was characteristic of the philosophical bent of her mind that she sought to refer the charm of the scenery to some general law:- athens, _june_ 8. i have been taking some lovely rides with mr. hill on hymettus, along the daphne road, and to karà. how lovely the scenery is, would be difficult to describe, and why it is so lovely. i begin to think that it is the proportion, and that there must be proportion in the things of nature as of art. i am talking nonsense, i believe, but nobody minds me, you know. in the valleys of switzerland the height is too great for the width, and it looks like a bottle. in the valleys of egypt the width is too great for the height, and it looks like a tray. for this reason clouds are provided in switzerland and scotland; the height would become intolerably out of proportion unless it were covered in at the top. for this reason clear sky is in egypt, or you would feel in a shelf. but here, where the clear sky is meant, they say, to be perpetual (tho' i cannot say i have seen much of it since i came), the proportion observed has been perfect, the exact curve is always there, the exact slope which you want; and if a line were to change its place, you feel the effect would be spoilt. you feel towards it as to an architectural building. i believe that in this lies the great peculiarity of the athenian views. otherwise, for colouring, i must declare i have seen nothing like the evenings of the campagna. of the parthenon by moonlight she wrote that it was "impossible that earth or heaven could produce anything more beautiful." in other letters she dwells on the beauty of the view from lycabettus, and the glory of the sunset from hymettus. one day upon the acropolis she found some boys with a baby owl that had just fallen from its nest in the parthenon. she bought it from them and kept it. it used to travel in her pocket, and lived at embley. iii public affairs in greece interested her also. she had arrived in greek waters at the height of the "pacifico crisis." there had been a rupture between england and greece, which threatened also the relations between england and france, and which convulsed political parties at westminster, over the claims of mr. finlay, the historian of modern greece, and don pacifico, a native of gibraltar. lord palmerston had ordered the mediterranean fleet to the peiraeus to enforce the british claims, and miss nightingale was sitting beside mr. wyse, the british minister at athens, at dinner on board h.m.s. _howe_, when the submission of the greek government was brought to him. her home letters throw much light on the ins and outs of this affair, which, however, is now only remembered as the occasion of lord palmerston's vindication in the house of commons with its famous peroration about _civis romanus sum_. miss nightingale now, as earlier, was a strong palmerstonian. "the friends of broadlands," she wrote to her parents, "need never have been less uneasy for his reputation"; and if parliamentary success be a sufficient test, she was entirely right. she found herself again in the thick of political discussion on leaving greek waters. her party sailed from athens on june 17, and went to trieste by corfu--"that fairy island," she wrote, "where every flower grows twice as big as it does anywhere else, and where no frost can touch the olive and the pomegranate." she and her parents were acquainted with sir henry ward, then lord high commissioner of the ionian islands. sir henry, who had been an active liberal at home, had felt himself obliged to adopt sternly repressive measures in the islands. miss nightingale was opposed to his policy, as also to the british occupation. he invited her and her friends to the palace. she went to proffer excuses. "he came out, said that i had often called him 'tyrant,' and took me in his arms like a father, and stood over me in the character of tyrant (he said) till i had written a letter compelling them all to come, which he then sealed and i sent. so the whole _posse comitatus_ of us spent the day there, they sending the carriage for us, and i am really glad to have seen what is my idea of eastern luxury." the tyrant placed his accuser next to him at dinner, deplored his "false position," and so forth, and they made some sort of peace; though not perhaps till miss nightingale had sought to bring him to a conviction of sin for his executions and arbitrary arrests, for she was armed, as her letters show, now as ever, with all the facts and figures marshalled in blue-book precision. iv her mind was interested in all these things, but her heart was elsewhere. "wherever thou art," said a famous statesman, "it is with the poor that thou should'st live." it was so with florence nightingale's inmost thoughts. her greatest pleasure in athens was found in the society of the american missionaries, mr. and mrs. hill, who conducted a school and orphanage. of mrs. hill she wrote, "from heaven she comes, in heaven she lives." in charge of the mission school was a greek refugee from crete, elizabeth kontaxaki, and with her too florence nightingale formed a warm friendship. elizabeth had lived an adventurous life before she found security at athens. her father had fallen by a turkish bullet. her mother had made an heroic escape from a turkish captor, and the first years of the child's life were spent in the fastnesses of mount ida. "alas," wrote miss nightingale, "how worthless my life seems to me by the side of these women." a mood of great dejection appears in her diary of this time, to which an attack of low-fever no doubt contributed. she could not find satisfaction in the interests of foreign travel. she was tortured by unsatisfied longings which could find outlet only in a world of dreams. an entry in her diary for june 7 is in these words: "grotto of the eumenides. will this fury go on increasing till by degrees my mind is more and more taken off the outer world with all its claims, and i am no longer able to command my attention at all?" miss nightingale and her friends landed at trieste at the end of june, and thence made their way to dresden and berlin. the pictures which most impressed her were raphael's "sistine madonna" and the "reading magdalen," then attributed to correggio. a year later her mother and sister were at dresden, and she enjoined them, above all things, to see "the magdalen, the queen of pictures." "how i feel that picture now," she wrote to them (august 26, 1851), "dark wood behind, sharp stones in front, nothing to look back upon, nothing to look forward to, clinging to the present as she does to the book, which beams bright light upon me. oh what a history that picture contains in its little canvass; and how well it hangs near that glorious sistine virgin. all that woman _might_ be, all that she will be, near what she _is_; for it is not a magdalen, in the common sense of the word, or rather it is in the common sense of what woman commonly is--not what we mean by a magdalen." at dresden miss nightingale was still in much dejection. "i have never felt so bad," she wrote (july 7); "the habit of living not in the present but in a future of dreams is gradually spreading over my whole existence. it is rapidly approaching the state of madness when dreams become realities." and now when the goal of kaiserswerth was near, she felt almost unmanned; almost inclined to turn back and follow another path. "it seemed to me now (july 10) as if quiet, with somebody to look for my coming back, was all i wanted." but this was only a moment of passing weakness. at berlin her spirits revived; for her vital interests were satisfied, and she spent some days in inspecting the hospitals and other benevolent institutions. on july 31 she reached kaiserswerth. "i could hardly believe i was there," she wrote in her diary. "with the feeling with which a pilgrim first looks on the kedron, i saw the rhine, dearer to me than the nile." she stayed a fortnight with the pastor and his wife and the deaconesses, studying their institutions. "left kaiserswerth," says the diary (august 13), "feeling so brave as if nothing could ever vex me again."[46] she rejoined her friends at düsseldorf. "they stayed at ghent actually for me to finish my ms." (august 17). "finished my ms. they read it. mr. bracebridge corrected it and sent it off" (august 19). next day they returned to england. the manuscript was of the pamphlet describing "the institution of kaiserswerth on the rhine," which was issued anonymously soon after miss nightingale's return.[47] some notice of the pamphlet will be found in a later chapter in connection with her longer sojourn at kaiserswerth in 1851. it was printed by the inmates of the ragged school at westminster in which she was interested. she described in it the work of the deaconesses, and ended with an appeal to englishwomen to go and do likewise. the fire burnt within her, and she returned home more than ever resolved to consecrate her life to the service of the sick and sorrowful. [46] in the album of the pastor's eldest daughter, miss nightingale left this inscription:- "vier dinge, gott, habe ich dir zu bieten, die sich in all deinen schatzkammern nicht finden: meine nichtigkeit, meine traurige armut, meine verderbliche sünde, meine ernste reue. nimm diese gaben an und nimm den geber hin. kaiserswerth, den 13 august 1850. fl. n., die mit überfließendem herzen sich immer der güte all ihrer freunde in lieben kaiserswerth erinnern wird. ich bin ein gast gewesen, und ihr habt mir beherbergt" (_eine heldin unter helden_, 1912, p. 45). [47] bibliography a, no. 1. v foreign travel, it will thus be seen, had worked no such cure, had created no such diversion, as her family desired. their hope, even their expectation, was not unreasonable. florence nightingale was a woman of learning, and her foreign travels had stimulated her alike to research and to imaginative thought. at home, too, during all the years of restless and unsatisfied yearning for some other life, she had been a diligent reader and student. she had a real gift for literary expression, as her letters may already have indicated, and as her later writings were to prove more decisively. she had, moreover, the instinct for self-expression. she was a constant letter-writer and note-taker. she communed with herself not only in speechless thought, but in written memoranda. had another impulse not been stronger within her, she might easily have become a literary woman of some distinction. but though she was fond of writing for her own satisfaction, she had a profound distrust of it as a substitute for action. like one of george eliot's heroines, "she did not want to deck herself with knowledge--to wear it loose from the nerves and blood that fed her action." "you ask me," she had written to miss clarke in 1844, "why i do not write something. i think what is not of the first class had better not exist at all; and besides i had so much rather live than write; writing is only a supplement for living. would you have one go away and 'give utterance to one's feelings' in a poem to appear (price 2 guineas) in the _belle assemblée_? i think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions, and into actions which bring results. do you think a babe would _ever_ learn to walk if it were to talk about its living in such 'strange times,' 'i _must_ learn to use my legs,' and so on? or do you think anybody ever did anything, who did not go to it with a directness of purpose, which prevented him from frittering away his impressions in words?" she was of ibsen's persuasion:- what is life? a fighting in heart and in brain with trolls. poetry? that means writing doomsday-accounts of our souls.[48] [48] _lyrics and poems from ibsen_, translated by f. e. garrett. she held in great suspicion and dislike what she called the "artist-like way of looking upon life." it reduces all religions, she said, and most inward and spiritual feelings "into a sort of magic-lantern, with which to make play for the amusement of the company." her mother used to praise her "beautiful letters," was proud of the "european reputation" she had won among learned men, and wanted to know why she could not be happy in cultivating at home the gifts which god had given her. to florence nightingale these things were not gifts to be cultivated, but rather temptations to be subdued. she read with some attention in 1846 a book called _passages from the life of a daughter at home_, a religious work containing counsels of submission for women dissatisfied with their home life. "piling up miscellaneous instruction for oneself," she wrote in one place in the margin; "the most unsatisfactory of all pursuits!" she strove to say to god, as she wrote in another place, "behold the handmaid of the lord! _not_ behold the handmaid of correspondence, or of music, or of metaphysics!" "that power of always writing a good letter whenever one likes," she said in one of her pages of self-examination, "is a great temptation"--a temptation, if such it be, to which, it must be confessed, she continually succumbed. but she wished to win no repute from her fall. in 1854 her sister printed the "beautiful letters" from egypt,[49] and issued a few copies for private circulation. florence was not pleased, but acquiesced, and corrected the proofs. [49] bibliography a, no. 2. any dreams, then, which she may have harboured of literary distinction, she had put resolutely away from her. "oh god," she had written in her diary at cairo, "thou puttest into my heart this great desire to devote myself to the sick and sorrowful. i offer it to thee. do with it what is for thy service." but there was still one other temptation to be subdued. chapter vii the single life the craving for sympathy, which exists between two who are to form one indivisible and perfect whole, is in most cases between man and woman, in some between man and god. this the roman catholics have understood and expressed under the simile, christ the bridegroom, the nun married to him, the monk married to the church; or as st. francis to poverty, or as st. ignatius loyola to the divine mistress of his thoughts, the virgin. this sort of tie between man and god seems alone able to fill the want of the other, the permanent exclusive tie between the one man and the one woman.--florence nightingale: _suggestions for thought_. "i had three paths among which to choose," wrote miss nightingale in a diary of 1850: "i might have been a literary woman, or a married woman, or a hospital sister." we have seen how she turned away from the first path. why did she reject the second? * * * * * "our dear flo," wrote mrs. bracebridge to miss clarke in 1844, "has just recovered from a severe cold, but i hear nothing of what i long for, _i.e._ some noble-hearted, true man, one who can love her as she deserves to be loved, prepared to take her to a house of her own." and three years later another friend, fanny allen, in describing a visit to embley, said of florence: "what a wife she would make for a man worthy of her! but i am not sure i yet know the mate fit for her." the two nightingale girls, she surmised, would experience a "difficulty in finding any one they would like well enough to forsake such a home."[50] in the case of florence, the position was ill understood by outsiders. to her the home was not a happy garden which she would be very reluctant to forsake, but rather a gilded cage from which she eagerly sought a way of escape. to us who have the means of knowing her inmost thoughts and feelings, the question thus presents itself in another light than that in which it appeared to her friends at the time. she craved for a larger, fuller life than she could find at home. why could she not, or why did she not, seek it in marriage? it is love that sometimes "frees the imprisoned spirit," that enables it to find and to express itself. that miss nightingale remained single was not the result of lack of opportunity to marry. the reason is to be found elsewhere--in feelings, thoughts, and ideals, in reasoned convictions and aspirations, which, if i can present them aright, will illuminate her character and her career. [50] _a century of family letters_, vol. ii. pp. 106, 107. in 1873 miss nightingale, like the rest of the world, was reading _middlemarch_, and a paper which she wrote in that year contained some notice of george eliot's heroine.[51] "a novel of genius has appeared. its writer once put before the world (in a work of fiction too), certainly the most living, probably the most historically truthful, presentment of the great idealist, savonarola of florence. this author now can find no better outlet for the heroine--also an idealist--_because_ she cannot be a 'st. teresa' or an 'antigone,' than to marry an elderly sort of literary impostor, and, quick after him, his relation, a baby sort of itinerant cluricaune (see _irish fairies_) or inferior faun (see hawthorne's matchless _transformation_). yet close at hand, in actual life, was a woman--an idealist too--and if we mistake not, a connection of the author's, who has managed to make her ideal very real indeed. by taking charge of blocks of buildings in poorest london, while making herself the rent-collector, she found work for those who could not find work for themselves; she organized a system of visitors; ... she brought sympathy and education to bear from individual to individual, ... so that one might be tempted to say, 'were there one such woman with power to direct the flow of volunteer help, nearly everywhere running to waste, in every street of london's east end, almost might the east end be persuaded to become christian.' could not the heroine, the 'sweet sad enthusiast,' have been set to some such work as this? indeed it is past telling the mischief that is done in thus putting down youthful ideals. there are not too many to begin with. there are few indeed to end with--even without such a gratuitous impulse as this to end them." in this passage, as in much that florence nightingale wrote, there is an autobiographical note. she did not marry because she held fast to an ideal--an ideal nearer to that of octavia hill than to that of dorothea brooke. [51] _fraser's magazine_, may 1873. ii for two or three years florence nightingale was in much trouble of mind from an attachment which one of her cousins had formed for her. in no case would she have thought it right to marry him. "accident or relationship," she wrote some years later,[52] "throw people together in their childhood, and acquaintance has grown up naturally and unconsciously. accordingly in novels it is generally cousins who marry; and now it seems the only natural thing, the only possible way of making an intimacy. and yet we know that intermarriage between relations is in direct contravention of the laws of nature for the well-being of the race." it was supposed by some of the family circle at the time that this was the only objection to an engagement; but there were others. florence was in no mood, then or afterwards, to marry for the sake of marrying. marriage, she had written to miss clarke (p. 66), was not an absolute blessing; and though she liked her cousin, she was in no sense in love with him. she felt relief, intense and unmixed, as she recorded in her private meditations, when she learnt that the young man had at last forgotten her. but though this episode left her heart-whole, it had a great and painful influence upon her mind. "cleanse all my love from the desire of creating an interest in another's heart" is the burden of many of her meditations. [52] _suggestions for thought_, vol. ii. p. 401. among other attachments of which florence nightingale was the object, there was one which had a deeper effect and called for a more difficult and searching choice in life. she was asked in marriage by one who continued for some years to press his suit. it was a proposal which seemed to those about her to promise every happiness. the match would by all have been deemed suitable, and by many might have been called brilliant. and florence herself was strongly drawn to her admirer. she had not come to this state of mind in hasty inclination. she was on her guard against any such temptation. many years before, in a letter to her "brother jonathan," as she called miss hilary bonham carter, she had written:- it strikes me that in all the most unworldly poetry (both prose and verse) _la passion qu'on appelle inclination_ is treated in a very extraordinary way. when one finds a comparative stranger becoming all of a sudden more essential to one than one's family (via flattery, in general, of one sort or another), one is content with saying to oneself, "oh! that's love," instead of saying, "how unjust and how blind this feeling is." i wonder whether if people were to examine--for, as socrates says, the life unexamined is not a living life--they would not find that (whatever it may ripen to afterwards) this feeling at first is generally begun by vanity or jealousy or self-love; and that what is very much to be guarded against, instead of submitted to, is the stranger's admiration (and i suppose everybody has been susceptible at one time of their lives) having more effect upon one than one's own family's. in this case, however, the stranger's admiration had stood the test. she felt drawn to him, not by vanity or self-love; but because she admired his talents, and because the more she saw of him the greater pleasure did she find in his society. she leaned more and more upon his sympathy. yet when the proposal first came, she refused it; and when it was renewed, she persisted. then, it may be said, she cannot have been "in love" with him. and in one sense that is, i suppose, quite true; for love, as the poets tell us, does not reason, and florence nightingale reasoned deeply over her case. but it is certain that she felt at least as much affection as suffices to make half the marriages in the world. she turned away from a path to which she was strongly drawn in order to pursue her ideal. in one of the many pages of autobiographical notes which she preserved in relation to this episode in her life, miss nightingale thus explained her refusal to marry. "i have an intellectual nature which requires satisfaction, and that would find it in him. i have a passional nature which requires satisfaction, and that would find it in him. i have a moral, an active nature which requires satisfaction, and that would not find it in his life. i can hardly find satisfaction for any of my natures. sometimes i think that i will satisfy my passional nature at all events, because that will at least secure me from the evil of dreaming. but would it? i could be satisfied to spend a life with him combining our different powers in some great object. i could not satisfy this nature by spending a life with him in making society and arranging domestic things.... to be nailed to a continuation and exaggeration of my present life, without hope of another, would be intolerable to me. voluntarily to put it out of my power ever to be able to seize the chance of forming for myself a true and rich life would seem to me like suicide." florence nightingale was no vestal ascetic. a true and perfect marriage was, she thought, the perfect state. "marrying a man of high and good purpose, and following out that purpose with him is the happiest" lot. "the highest, the only true love, is when two persons, a man and a woman, who have an attraction for one another, unite together in some true purpose for mankind and god."[53] the thought of god in instituting marriage was "that these two, when the right two are united, shall throw themselves fearlessly into the universe, and do its work, secure of companionship and sympathy." miss nightingale recognized also that for many women marriage, even though it may fall short of this ideal state, is the proper lot in life. but she held, on the other hand, that there are some women who may be marked out for single life. "i don't agree at all (she wrote in 1846) that a woman has no reason (if she does not care for any one else) for not marrying a good man who asks her, and i don't think providence does either. i think he has as clearly marked out some to be single women as he has others to be wives, and has organized them accordingly for their vocation. i think some have every reason for not marrying, and that for these it is much better to educate the children who are already in the world and can't be got out of it, than to bring more into it. the primitive church clearly thought so too, and provided accordingly; and though no doubt the primitive church was in many matters an old woman, yet i think the experience of ages has proved her right in this." and again: "ours is a system of christianity without the cross"; the single life was the life of christ. "has heaven bestowed everlasting souls on men, and sent them upon earth for no better purpose than to marry and be given in marriage? true, there is in this world much more waiting to be done; but is it the man leading a secular life who will do it? he is apt to see nothing beyond himself and the fair creature he has chosen for his bride." and, as with men, so with women. there are women of intellectual or actively moral natures for whom marriage (unless it realizes the perfect ideal) means the sacrifice of their higher capacities to the satisfaction of their lower. "death," she wrote (again in a note-book of 1846), "is often the gateway to the garden where we shall no longer hunger and thirst after real satisfaction. marriage, on the contrary, is often an initiation into the meaning of that inexorable word never; which does not deprive us, it is true, of what 'at their festivals the idle and inconsiderate call life,' but which brings in reality the end of our lives, and the chill of death with it." [53] _suggestions for thought_, vol. ii. pp. 229, 231. in her own case, miss nightingale was conscious of capacities within her for "high purposes for mankind and for god." she could not feel sure that the marriage which was offered to her would enable her to employ those capacities to their best and fullest power. and so she sacrificed her "passional" nature to her moral ideal. "i am 30," she wrote on her birthday in her diary of 1850; "the age at which christ began his mission. now no more childish things, no more vain things, no more love, no more marriage. now, lord, let me only think of thy will." and amongst her sayings in another book, i find this: "strong passions to teach the secrets of the human heart, and a strong will to hold them in subjection, these are the keys of the kingdom in this world and the next." florence nightingale turned away from marriage in order that she might remain entirely free to fulfil her vocation. iii it was not a sacrifice which cost her little. if, as some may hold, she was not in love, yet she confessed to herself many of a lover's pangs, and there were moments when, as she met her admirer again, or as she thought of him, she was half inclined to repent of her choice of the single life. and the sacrifice, moreover, was of an immediate satisfaction to an ideal which after all she might never be able to realize. the legends of the saints tell of many virgins and martyrs who have crucified the flesh and sacrificed worldly happiness for the love of christ. but when the sacrifice was made, the love which seemed to them far better was already theirs. in the ears of st. agnes the divine voice had sounded with sweet assurance, and she had tasted of the milk and honey of his lips. st. dorothea was already espoused in a garden where celestial fruits and roses that never fade surrounded her. and to florence nightingale also happiness was to be given, filling all her life for some years, so that she "sought no better heaven"; but at the time when she made her choice, and renounced all else to follow her ideal, the way before her was still dark and uncertain. she was conscious of a call, but she had no assurance of appointed work. to have entered into a marriage which gave no sure promise of her ideal, would have been, she felt, the suicide of a soul; yet, when she was called to choose between the two paths, her present life was starvation. perhaps it was the price which she had paid for her ideal that led to what, in later years, some considered a certain hardness in her. when once a woman had devoted her life to the work of nursing, miss nightingale had little sympathy with any turning back. she seemed sometimes in such cases to regard marriage as the unpardonable sin. but another and a loftier train of thought was prompted by her experience. at the end of one of her meditations upon marriage, and her refusal of it, i find these significant words: "i must strive after a better life for woman." she did not mean a better life than marriage; she meant also a life that should make the conditions of marriage better. in the world in which she lived, daughters, she wrote, "can only have a choice among those people whom their parents like, and who like their parents well enough to come to their house." one may doubt whether in the mid-victorian or in any age, young men paid calls only because they liked the parents; but unquestionably restriction in the employments of women involves also limitation in the opportunities for choice in marriage. and at the same time the lack of interest and variety in the lives of girls at home makes many of them inclined to marriage as a mere means of escape. by throwing open new spheres of usefulness to women, miss nightingale hoped at one and the same time to improve the lot of those who were marked out to be wives, and to find satisfaction for those marked out for the single life. chapter viii apprenticeship at kaiserswerth (1851) the only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much about was, happiness enough to get his work done. it is, after all, the one unhappiness of a man, that he cannot work; that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled.--carlyle. foreign travel had, as we have seen, in no way changed florence nightingale's resolve to devote herself to a life of nursing. she had turned away deliberately from marriage, and was bent upon finding a new field of usefulness for unmarried women. but ways and means of doing this were not yet apparent. she had no independent fortune of her own. she returned to a family circle which understood her cravings no better than before. the call of domestic duties was the same as before. there were aunts and a grandmother to be visited, company at home to be entertained, a sister to be humoured, a father and mother to be pleased. * * * * * but she could not please them, because she herself could find no pleasure in their life. she did not say to herself that she was better than they. still less did she thank god that she was not as they were. but she felt with piteous keenness the gulf that separated her alike from her parents and from her sister. she loved her father, and admired his good impulses and amiable character. but she perceived that his contentment in a life of busy idleness made him constitutionally unable to enter fully into her state of mind. she loved her mother, and considered that she was, within her range, a woman of genius. "she has the genius of order," she wrote in a character-sketch of her mother, "the genius to organize a parish, to form society. she has obtained by her own exertions the best society in england." what pained the daughter was the inability to please the mother. "when i feel her disappointment in me, it is as if i was becoming insane." she loved her sister also, and, i think, yet more tenderly. but as the sister once wrote: "the natures god has given us differ as widely as different races." florence was deeply sensible of the attractive side of her sister's character. lady verney had indeed a most attractive mind; she was very vivacious, inquiring, and highly gifted, both as an artist and as a writer. she was a perfect hostess, and her memory is pleasant to all who knew her. if she lacked some of her sister's stronger english characteristics, she had a light touch which florence did not possess. and florence felt the charm of all this. "no one less than i," she wrote, "wants her to do one single thing different from what she does. she wants no other religion, no other occupation, no other training than what she has. she has never had a difficulty except with me; she knows nothing of struggle in her own unselfish nature." but for that very reason she could not sympathize with, because she could not understand, her sister's difficulties. in a passage which is doubtless autobiographical, florence wrote: "very few people can sympathise with each other in any pursuit or thought of any importance. if people do not give you thought for thought, receive yours, digest it, and give it back with the impression of their own character upon it, then give you one for you to do likewise, it is best to know what one is about, and not to attempt more than kindly, cheerful outward intercourse. some find amusement in the outward, do not suffer inwardly, because the attention is turned elsewhere."[54] meanwhile florence felt that everything she said or did was a subject of vexation to her sister, a disappointment to her mother, a worry to her father. "i have never known a happy time," she exclaimed to herself, "except at rome and that fortnight at kaiserswerth. it is not the unhappiness i mind, it is not indeed; but people can't be unhappy without making those about them so." [54] _suggestions for thought_, vol. ii. pp. 236, 237. she strove to attain happiness. she tried to submit her will to what her spiritual confidantes told her must be taken to be the will of god; to trust that in his own good time he would make her vocation sure; in such confidence to find relief, and to throw herself meanwhile into the round of immediate duties. but the more she struggled, the more she failed. she could not subdue the imperious longing to be up and doing which surged within her. "the thoughts and feelings that i have now," she wrote, "i can remember since i was six years old. it was not that i made them. a profession, a trade, a necessary occupation, something to fill and employ all my faculties, i have always felt essential to me, i have always longed for, consciously or not. during a middle part of my life, college education, acquirement, i longed for, but that was temporary. the first thought i can remember, and the last, was nursing work; and in the absence of this, education work, but more the education of the bad than of the young. but for this i had had no education myself." finding no outlet in active reality, she lived more than ever in a land of dreams. "everything has been tried," she exclaimed to herself; "foreign travel, kind friends, everything." and again, "my god! what is to become of me?" eighteen months before she had resolved on a great effort to crucify her old self, "to break through the habits, entailed upon me by an idle life, of living, not in the present world of action, but in a future one of dreams. since then nations have passed before me, but have brought no new life to me. in my 31st year i see nothing desirable but death." she was perishing, as she put it, for want of food; and she could find no impulse to activity. her habit of late rising grew upon her; for what had she to wake for? "starvation does not lead a man to exertion, it only weakens him. o weary days, o evenings that seem never to end! for how many long years, i have watched that drawing-room clock and thought it would never reach the ten! and for 20 or 30 more years to do this!" and again, "oh, how i am to get through this day, to talk through all this day, is the thought of every morning.... this is the sting of death. why do i wish to leave this world? god knows i do not expect a heaven beyond, but that he would set me down in st. giles's, at a kaiserswerth, there to find my work and my salvation in my work." ii such cries from the heart, cries for the food for which she was hungering and which her parents could or would not let her take, filled many a sheet of florence nightingale's diaries, letters, and memoranda. "mountains of difficulties," as she says in one place, were "piled up" around her. looking forward to a new year (1851) she could see nothing in front of her but the same unsatisfying routine. "the next three weeks," she said, in one of her written colloquies with herself, "you will have company; then a fortnight alone; then a few weeks of london, then embley; then perhaps go abroad; then three months of company at lea hurst; next the same round of embley company." and then, with a humorous transition not infrequent in her musings, she asks, "but why can't you get up in the morning? i have nothing i like so much as unconsciousness, but i will try." as the year advanced a more decided spirit of revolt begins to appear in her diaries. one of her perplexities hitherto had been a doubt whether the "mountains of difficulties" were to be taken as occasions for submission to god's will, or whether they were piled up in order to try her patience and her resolve, and were to be surmounted by some initiative of her own. she now began to interpret god's will in the latter sense. "i must _take_ some things," she wrote on whitsunday (june 8, 1851), "as few as i can, to enable me to live. i must _take_ them, they will not be given me; take them in a true spirit of doing thy will, not of snatching them for my own will. i must do without some things, as many as i can, which i could not have without causing more suffering than i am obliged to cause any way." she would cease looking for the sympathy and understanding of her mother and sister. "i have been so long treated as a child and have so long allowed myself to be treated as a child." she would submit to such tutelage no longer. various plans had at different times found place in her dreams. she would collect funds for founding a sisterhood, an institution, a hospital; but one thing she saw clearly and consistently. if she were ever to have an opportunity of doing good work in nursing or otherwise in service to the poor, she must first learn her business. there is a long letter of 1850 from her to her father in which she argues the point, not specifically with reference to herself, but as a general proposition. something more than good intention is necessary in order to do good. philanthropy is a matter of skill, and an apprenticeship in it is necessary. an opportunity occurred sooner than she had dared to hope which enabled her to serve such an apprenticeship. her sister was still in bad health, and a visit to carlsbad was again proposed. she insisted on being allowed to start with her mother and her sister, and to spend at kaiserswerth the time that they would spend upon the cure and subsequent travels. she reached kaiserswerth early in july and stayed there as an inmate of the institution until october 8. iii kaiserswerth is an ancient town on the rhine, on the right bank, six miles below düsseldorf. in its church of the twelfth century a reliquary is shown, in which are preserved the bones of st. suitbertus, who came there from ireland to preach the gospel in 710. eleven centuries later, a protestant pastor of kaiserswerth repaid the debt to the british isles by founding the famous institution for deaconesses which was now to give florence nightingale an important part of her training. the order of deaconesses, as she was careful to point out in her account of kaiserswerth, was known in the primitive church; and long before st. vincent de paul established the sisters of mercy in 1633, protestant communities had in 1457 organized "presbyterae," since "many women chose a single state, not because they expected thereby to reach a super-eminent degree of holiness, but that they might be better able to care for the sick and young." it was in 1823-24 that the young pastor of kaiserswerth, theodor fliedner, set out on a journey to holland and england to beg for funds to relieve his parish, which had been ruined by the failure of a silk-mill. in england, the little princess victoria headed his list of subscribers. in london he met mrs. elizabeth fry and was greatly impressed with her work in newgate. shortly after his return he founded (1826) the rhenish-westphalian prison association. presently he met a kindred spirit in friederike münster, a woman in comparatively easy circumstances who was devoting herself to reformatory work. they married, and in 1833--in a tiny summer-house in the pastor's garden--a refuge was opened for the reception of a single discharged prisoner. three years later, they added, on an equally modest scale at first, an infant school, and a hospital in which to train volunteer-nurses as deaconesses. from these humble beginnings has grown a great congeries of institutions, the fame of which has spread throughout the philanthropic world. there are thirty branch or daughter houses in various parts of germany. they are to be found also at jerusalem, alexandria, cairo, beirut, smyrna, and bucharest. "not only its own daughter houses, but all independent institutions for deaconesses, owe their existence to kaiserswerth, for all subsequent work wrought by deaconesses whether in france, switzerland, or america, whether lutheran, methodist, or episcopalian, has been the fruit of the kaiserswerth tree."[55] [55] _history of nursing_, vol. ii. p. 4. but the forest began as a tiny acorn. pastor fliedner started his work not with grandiose schemes or full-fledged programmes, but with individual cases and personal devotion. this was a point to which miss nightingale called particular attention in her account of the place. "it is impossible not to observe," she said, "how different was the beginning from the way in which institutions are generally founded--a list of subscribers with some royal and noble names at the head--a double column of rules and regulations--a collection of great names begin (and end) most new enterprises. the regulations are made without experience. honorary members abound, but where are the working ones? the scheme is excellent, but what are the results?" miss nightingale's intensely practical genius had ever a holy horror of prospectuses. in some notes written on june 15, 1848, i find this passage:- eschew prospectuses; they're the devil, and make one sick. it is like making out a bill of fare when you have not a single pound of meat. what do the cookery books say? first catch your hare. all the instances on the continent have begun in one of two ways. at kaiserswerth, a clergyman and his wife have begun, not with a prospectus, but with a couple of hospital beds, and have offered, not an advertisement, but a home to young women willing to come. at berne, a mdlle. würstenberger, a woman of rank and education, goes to kaiserswerth to learn, and her friend to strassburg. they return and open a hospital with two rooms, increase their funds, others join them and are taught by them.... to publish first is as bad a practical bull as is the name of the _prospective review_. a few years were to pass, and florence nightingale herself was to begin her work in the world not with a programme, but with a deed. the institutions of kaiserswerth, when she was there in 1851, were still on a comparatively modest scale. they comprised, as she enumerates them, a hospital (with 100 beds), an infant school, a penitentiary (with 12 inmates), an orphan asylum, and a normal school for schoolmistresses. there were in all 116 deaconesses, of whom 94 were "consecrated," the remainder being still on probation. the "consecration" consisted only of "a solemn blessing in the church, without vows of any kind." of the 116 deaconesses, 67 were on service in other parts of germany, or abroad; the rest were engaged in working the various institutions at kaiserswerth itself. after six months' trial they received a modest salary, just enough to provide their clothes. there was no other reward, except that the mother house stood open to receive those who might fall ill or become infirm in its service. everything was clean and well ordered, but there was no luxury; the board was simple to the verge of roughness. the place was pervaded by two notes. it was a place of training, and a place of consecrated service. the training was both in practice and by precept. every week the pastor gave a conversational lecture to the deaconesses, finding out from each the difficulties she might have experienced in her work, and suggesting how they could best be met. the education of the young, the ministration of the sick, the art of district visiting, the yet more difficult work of rescue and reformation, all were taught. in such a place as this, florence nightingale found by actual experience, as already she had learnt to expect from reading the reports, the realization in some degree of her most earnest desires. the training in nursing was, it is true, not particularly good; it fell far short of the professional standard which the nightingale school was afterwards to set up. she objected strongly in later years to current statements that her own training was confined to kaiserswerth. "the nursing there," she wrote, "was _nil_. the hygiene horrible. the hospital was certainly the worst part of kaiserswerth. i took all the training that was to be had--there was none to be had in england, but kaiserswerth was far from having trained me." on the other hand "the tone was excellent, admirable. and pastor fliedner's addresses were the very best i ever heard. the penitentiary out-door work and vegetable gardening under a very capable sister were excellently adapted to the case. and pastor fliedner's solemn and reverential teaching to us of the sad events of hospital life was what i have never heard in england."[56] but here, at kaiserswerth, miss nightingale found "a better life for women," a scope for the exercise of "morally active" powers. and here, though the field was limited, was provided in some sort the training which alone could fit women for larger responsibilities elsewhere. here was "the service of man" organized as "the service of god"; here was opportunity for the dedicated life, as she had found it also in the trinità de' monti. [56] letter to mrs. c. s. roundell, august 4, 1896. her manner of life at kaiserswerth and her joy in it were told in letters to her mother:- on sunday i took the sick boys a long walk along the rhine; two sisters were with me to help me to keep order. they were all in ecstasies with the beauty of the scenery, and really i thought it very fine too in its way--the broad mass of waters flowing ever on slowly and calmly to their destination, and all that unvarying horizon--so like the slow, calm, earnest, meditative german character. the world here fills my life with interest, and strengthens me in body and mind. i succeeded directly to an office, and am now in another, so that until yesterday i never had time even to send my things to the wash. we have ten minutes for each of our meals, of which we have four. we get up at 5; breakfast 1/4 before 6. the patients dine at 11; the sisters at 12. we drink tea (_i.e._ a drink made of ground rye) between 2 and 3, and sup at 7. we have two ryes and two broths--ryes at 6 and 3, broths at 12 and 7; bread at the two former, vegetables at 12. several evenings in the week we collect in the great hall for a bible lesson. the pastor sent for me once to give me some of his unexampled instructions; the man's wisdom and knowledge of human nature is wonderful; he has an instinctive acquaintance with every character in his place. except that once i have only seen him in his rounds. the operation to which mrs. bracebridge alludes was an amputation at which i was present, but which i did not mention to----, knowing that she would see no more in my interest in it than the pleasure dirty boys have in playing in the puddles about a butcher's shop. i find the deepest interest in everything here, and am so well in body and mind. this is life. now i know what it is to live and to love life, and really i should be sorry now to leave life. i know you will be glad to hear this, dearest mum. god has indeed made life rich in interests and blessings, and i wish for no other earth, no other world but this. the room in which miss nightingale slept during her residence at kaiserswerth was in the orphan asylum. she took her meals with the deaconesses. the spartan severity, but no less the beautiful spirit of the place, were clear in her recollection nearly half a century later. in 1897 the authorities of the british museum applied to her for a copy of the pamphlet on kaiserswerth which she had printed in 1851. the pencilled note which she sent with a torn copy of the pamphlet, the only one she could find, is preserved in the museum library. "i was twice in training there myself," she wrote (september 24, 1897). "of course since then, hospital and district nursing have made giant strides. indeed district nursing has been invented. but never have i met with a higher tone, 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." pastor fliedner told a visitor to kaiserswerth that "no person had ever passed so distinguished an examination, or shown herself so thoroughly mistress of all she had to learn, as miss nightingale."[57] [57] mr. sidney herbert's speech at the nightingale fund meeting, nov. 29, 1855. iv happy as miss nightingale was at kaiserswerth, there was yet one thing lacking. she wished, it is true, for no other earth; she had found her pictured heaven; her life was full and rich. yet with all her self-reliance, and even in the moment of first victory in her long struggle for self-expression, she yearned, woman-like, for sympathy. nay, and not only woman-like. "not till we can think," said carlyle, "that here and there one is thinking of us, one is loving us, does this waste earth become a peopled garden." it was not enough to florence that she should have had her way and that her parents should have acquiesced. her loving heart craved for their positive sympathy; her mind, half leaning for all its masterfulness, demanded that what she had decided should be accepted by those dear to her as their choice also. "i should be as happy here," she wrote to her mother (august 31), "as the day is long, if i could hope that i had your smile, your blessing, your sympathy upon it; without which i cannot be quite happy. my beloved people, i cannot bear to grieve you. life and everything in it that charms you, you would sacrifice for me; but unknown to you is my thirst, unseen by you are waters which would save me. to save me, i know would be to bless yourselves, whose love for me passes the love of women. oh how shall i show you love and gratitude in return, yet not so perish that you chiefly would mourn! give me time, give me faith. trust me, help me. i feel within me that i could gladden your loving hearts which now i wound. say to me, 'follow the dictates of that spirit within thee.' oh my beloved people, that spirit shall never lead me to anything unworthy of one who is yours in love."[58] but her mother and her sister, though they loved and admired her, or perhaps from their point of view because they did so, were unable to give any such active sympathy as that for which she craved. her sister hoped that the visit to kaiserswerth would be only an episode. it was a good thing, she had written to her mother, for florence to go there, "as we can get her back sooner to lea hurst." to florence herself she wrote affectionately, but yet with gentle irony. she sent a lively letter describing in detail the birth of a friend's twins: "i tell you, as you are going to be a _sage femme_, i suppose." mrs. nightingale, for her part, had acquiesced in the visit to kaiserswerth, but was already wondering what people would think of her daughter's escapade. "i have not mentioned to any one," wrote florence (july 16), "where i am, and should also be very sorry that the old ladies should know. with regard, however, to your fear of what people will say, the people whose opinion you most care about, it has been their earnest wish for years that i should come here. the bunsens (i know he wishes one of his own daughters would come), the bracebridges, the sam smiths, lady inglis, the sidney herberts, the plunketts, all wish it; and i know that others--lady byron, caroline bathurst, mr. tremenheere, mr. rich (whose opinions however i have not asked)--would think it a very desirable thing for everybody.... with regard to telling people the fact (afterwards) of my having been here, i can see no difficulty. the herberts, as you know, even commissioned me to do something for them here. the fact itself will pain none of them." mr. and mrs. herbert, who were at homburg, presently paid her a visit at kaiserswerth. [58] much of this appeal was suggested to florence, in almost identical words (as an extant letter shows), by her aunt mai. mrs. nightingale and her elder daughter reached cologne on their way home in october 1851, and there florence rejoined them. "our dear child florence," wrote the mother to madame mohl (october 9), "came to us yesterday, and is gone this morning to visit certain deaconesses and others. i long to be at home and among our people. daily and hourly i congratulate myself that our home is where it is. oh what a land of justice and freedom and all good things it is, compared to what we have seen, and how surprising that with all our advantages and our freedom won we should not be so much better than other people. well, i hope florence will be able to apply all the fine things she has been learning, to do a little to make us better. parthe and i are much too idle to help and too apt to be satisfied with things as they are." chapter ix an interlude (1852) who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.--byron. the three months which miss nightingale spent at kaiserswerth in 1851 were a turning-point in her career, but they were not immediately effectual in altering the tenor of her life. the battle for freedom was not yet completely won; but the "mountains of difficulty" in her way had been turned, and henceforth the resistance offered to her was but a rear-guard action. * * * * * a note of serenity, in marked contrast to the storm and distress of earlier years, now appears in some of her letters. she had firmly resolved on taking her life into her own hands; and at kaiserswerth she had already served some apprenticeship. she was resolved no less firmly to follow up the advantage; and, though there were still to be some difficulties ahead, she could afford to be patient for a while:- (_to miss h. bonham carter._) umberslade, _jan. 8._ brussels sprouts is at it already, i mean at correspondence. i mention it to show how little women's occupations are respected, when people can think that a woman has time to spin out long theories with every young fool who visits at her house. this place is grand--inigo jones, and papa is content.... i like dr. johnson; but i can always talk better to a medical man than to any one else. they have not that detestable nationality which makes it so difficult to talk with an englishman. i suppose the habit of examining organisations gives them this.... poor cassandra has found an unexpected ally in a young surgeon of a london hospital, a son of dr. johnson who sits next papa at the _table d'hôte_. the account he gives of the nurses beats everything that even i know of. this young prophet says that they are all drunkards, without exception, sisters and all, and that there are but two nurses whom the surgeon can trust to give the patients their medicines. i thought you would be pleased to hear how bad they are, so i tell you. johnson is extraordinarily careful, but he does not strike me as having genius like gully. the company is of a nature which would give mama some hopes of me that i should learn "the value of good society" by the contrast.... (_to her father._) _may_ 12 [1852]. on my 32nd birthday i think i must write a word of acknowledgment to you. i am glad to think that my youth is past, and rejoice that it never, never can return--that time of follies and bondage, of unfulfilled hopes and disappointed _in_experience, when a man possesses nothing, not even himself. i am glad to have lived; though it has been a life which, except as the necessary preparation for another, few would accept. i hope now that i have come into possession of myself. i hope that i have escaped from that bondage which knows not how to distinguish between "bad habits" and "duties"--terms often used synonymously by all the world. it is too soon to holloa before you are out of the wood; and like the magdalen in correggio's picture, i see the dark wood behind, the sharp stones in front only with too much clearness. of clearness, however, there cannot be _too_ much. but, as in the picture, there is light. i hope that i may live; a thing which i have not often been able to say, because i think i have learnt something which it would be a pity to waste. and i am ever yours, dear father, in struggle as in peace, with thanks for all your kind care, f. n. when i speak of the disappointed inexperience of youth, of course i accept that, not only as inevitable, but as the beautiful arrangement of infinite wisdom, which cannot create us gods, but which will not create us animals, and therefore wills mankind to create mankind by their own experience--a disposition of perfect goodness which no one can quarrel with. i shall be very ready to read you, when i come home, any of my "works," in your own room before breakfast, if you have any desire to hear them.--au revoir, dear papa. ii there were various reasons for the comparative serenity of miss nightingale's mind during this period of pause. one was the obvious call of filial duty for the moment. her father was in poor health, and had been advised to take the water-cure under dr. johnson at umberslade park, in worcestershire. florence, being herself convalescent at the time from an attack of the measles, was the more ready to companion her father. she was at umberslade with him for some weeks at the beginning, and again at the end, of the year. her observation of some of the patients there, as in a former year at malvern, was the origin of an epigrammatic definition which i find in one of her note-books: "the water-cure: a highly popular amusement within the last few years amongst athletic invalids who have felt the _tedium vitae_, and those indefinite diseases which a large income and unbounded leisure are so well calculated to produce." then, again, towards the end of the year, her kinswoman, "aunt evans," was smitten down. she was the sister of her father's mother, and died at the age of ninety. florence attended her in her last illness, and as emergency-man made all the arrangements for her funeral. george eliot was, i believe, distantly connected with "aunt evans's" family; and it was in this year that she and florence met. "i had a note from miss florence nightingale yesterday," wrote george eliot in july 1852; "i was much pleased with her. there is a loftiness of mind about her which is well expressed by her form and manner."[59] florence also at this time called upon mrs. browning, who in a letter to a friend, three years later, said: "i remember her face and her graceful manner and the flowers she sent me afterwards. she is an earnest, noble woman."[60] in august 1852 miss nightingale visited ireland, and inspected the dublin hospitals, somewhat, it seems, to her disappointment. she went in september with her father to stay with sir james clark, queen victoria's physician, at birk hall, near ballater. she always got on well, as we have just heard, with medical men, and the opportunity of discussing her plans and thoughts with so eminent a physician must have pleased her greatly. [59] _george eliot's life as related in her letters and journals_, edited by j. w. cross, vol. i. p. 285. [60] _letters of elizabeth barrett browning_, vol. i. p. 188. iii the letter to her father, given above, refers to miss nightingale's "works"; and herein is to be found a second explanation of this peaceful interlude in her life. she had, as i have said, renounced a literary career; but she drew a sharp distinction between what she called literature for its own sake, and writing as subservient to action. she was intensely anxious to find some theological sanction, less assailable than she deemed the popular creeds to be, for her religion of practical service. again, as i have also said, she was determined to open up a new sphere of usefulness for women. these were the subjects of her "works," which comprised "a novel" and a book on "religion." of the novel, no manuscript has been found among her papers. but in one of three volumes of _suggestions for thought_, which she printed privately in 1860, there is a section entitled "cassandra," dealing with the life at home of an ordinary english gentlewoman. it may be conjectured that the form of the novel was abandoned after 1852, and the theme treated instead in the pages of "cassandra." the manuscript book on "religion" was doubtless enlarged between 1852 and 1860 into the main portion of the _suggestions for thought_, of which the first volume was dedicated "to the artizans of england." already in 1851, in a sheet of good resolutions, miss nightingale had planned to devote some portion of her life at home to giving "a new religion to the tailors." the hero of _alton locke_, published in 1850, was, it will be remembered, a tailor. miss nightingale herself had some acquaintance with operatives in the north of england and in london, "among those of what are called 'holyoake's party.'"[61] she met these latter through mr. edward truelove, whom some readers of earlier generations may still remember as a publisher and vendor of radical and "free-thinking" literature. "the literary and scientific institution" in john street, fitzroy square, was in the 'forties the headquarters of owenite socialists, the secularists (whose chief prophet was george jacob holyoake) and other "advanced" persons. in 1846 mr. truelove had come up from "harmony hall," the owenite community at tytherley in hampshire, to act as secretary of the institution in john street; and in a small house next door he set up his shop--afterwards removed, successively, to the strand and high holborn. a west-end lady, who did not at first give her name, used to pay occasional visits to the shop in john street, and have long conversations with the wife of the proprietor. the lady was miss nightingale, and the acquaintance developed into a friendship with mrs. truelove, which extended over many years. mr. truelove was an unworldly man, conducting his affairs with entire disregard for "business principles," conventional opinions, and constituted authorities. his shop, as mr. holyoake said, was one of the "fortresses of prohibited thought, not garrisoned without daring"; and provisioned, it may be added, scantily enough. miss nightingale continued to see mrs. truelove from time to time in later years; wrote to her occasionally; sent her books and various presents regularly; and in times of her husband's difficulties and (literally) trials, never withheld sympathy. [61] letter to sir john mcneill, may 17, 1860. miss nightingale's object, in her first expeditions to john street, had been to discover and discuss the kind of literature affected by the more intelligent working-men. the conclusion at which she arrived was that "the most thinking and conscientious of the artizans have no religion at all."[62] she set to work, accordingly, to find a new religion for them. in this undertaking she took much counsel with one of her aunts. this was "aunt mai," her father's sister, mary shore, married to mr. samuel smith, her mother's brother. a large number of her letters on religious subjects was preserved by miss nightingale. they show spiritual insight, and a considerable talent in speculative thought. the postscript of miss nightingale's letter to her father, given above, contains one of the fundamental ideas in her scheme of theology--the idea of perfect goodness, willing that mankind shall create mankind by man's own experience. the same idea was suggested by aunt mai when she wrote to her niece: "the purpose of god is to accomplish the welfare of man, not as a gift from him, but as to be attained for each individual and for the whole race by the right exercise of the capabilities of each." [62] letter to sir john mcneill, may 17, 1860. during 1851 and 1852 aunt and niece corresponded at great length on these high matters, and by the end of the latter year miss nightingale had her new religion ready for the criticism of her friends. "many thanks," she wrote (nov. 19) to her cousin hilary, "for your letter of corrections and annotations, all of which i have adopted. i should much like to have a regular talk with you about the novel. i have not the least idea whether i shall have to remodel the novel and 'religion' entirely; for i am so sick of it that i lose all discrimination about the ensemble and the form." her object is explained in a letter of about the same date to another friend:- (_to r. monckton milnes._) i am going abroad soon. before i go, i am thinking of asking you whether you would look over certain things which i have written for the working-men on the subject of belief in a god. all the moral and intellectual among them seem going over to atheism, or at least to a vague kind of theism. i have read them to one or two, and they have liked them. i should have liked to have asked you if you think them likely to be read by more; but you are perhaps not interested in the subject, or you have no time, which is fully taken up with other things. if you tell me this, it will be no surprise or disappointment.[63] [63] _life of lord houghton_, vol. i. p. 475. lord houghton read the manuscript attentively, and did not forget it. several years later, when miss nightingale was ill, and thought likely to die, he wrote to her suggesting that if she had made no other arrangements for the preservation and possible publication of her essay, she might think of entrusting it to him. "i have often thought," he said (march 11, '61), "of asking you what you meant to do with the papers you have written on social and speculative subjects. they surely should not be destroyed; and yet i hardly know to whom you will entrust them, who would not misunderstand, misinterpret, and misuse them. if you were to leave them in my hands, they would be, at any rate, safe from irreverent handling or crude exposure, and could be used in any way more or less future that you might think fit." by that time, however, the work had been submitted to the judgment of other men of letters; and to that later period further reference to the subject had better be postponed. iv the formulating of a religion, whether for the tailors or others, is no short task, and miss nightingale's "works" must have well filled her mind during otherwise unoccupied hours in 1852. but the "works" were only bye-work. her main concern was to continue her apprenticeship in nursing. some vexatious delays and difficulties were still to be encountered, but she faced them with a brighter confidence than before, and the last stage of the struggle wears an aspect more of comedy than of tragedy. she had successfully asserted her independence once in going to kaiserswerth. in an imaginary dialogue with her mother, she makes herself say, "why, my dear, you don't suppose that with my 'talents' and my 'european reputation' and my 'beautiful letters,' and all that, i'm going to stay dangling about my mother's drawing-room all my life! i shall go and look out for work, to be sure. you must look upon me as your son. i should have cost you a great deal more if i had married or been a son. you must now consider me married or a son. you were willing to part with me to be married." in presenting the case in this light to her parents, florence had now a valuable ally in her aunt mai. something of a diplomatist, as well as of a philosopher, was within the powers of that excellent woman. without any interference which could be resented, by insinuating a word here, suggesting a phrase there, and pouring oil upon troubled waters everywhere, aunt mai did a good deal to smooth the last stages in her niece's struggle for independence. like all good diplomatists, the aunt sought first for a basis of compromise. she was able to sympathize with both sides. she was wholly favourable to her niece's aspirations and claims. but as a mother herself, she could enter into the case of her brother and his wife. it was not that they were selfishly obstructive; it was that, finding so much interest and enjoyment themselves in their own way of life, they desired in all love that the daughter should not deprive herself of the same privileges. but could not a compromise be arranged? let it be agreed that florence should spend part of each year in pursuit of what the mother considered her daughter's fancies, and spend another part at home. this was the arrangement which was in fact now in force. the compromise served well enough for a while, but florence wanted something more; and here, again, aunt mai's diplomacy prepared the way. with a good strategic eye, she saw that mrs. nightingale held the key of the position. mr. nightingale in his heart was at one with florence. he admired her and believed in her; he was quite willing that she should go her own way, and was not reluctant to make her some independent allowance, such as would enable her to conduct a mission or an institution. but, as he said to his sister, whenever he broached anything of the kind to his wife and elder daughter, he found them united against him. mr. nightingale was one of those amiable men who are inclined to take the line of least resistance. it was mrs. nightingale's opposition, therefore, that had to be overcome. "your mother," reported the aunt, "would, i believe, be most willing that you undertake a mission like mrs. fry or mrs. chisholm,[64] but she thinks it necessary for your peace and well-being that there should be a mr. fry or captain chisholm to protect you, and in conscience she thinks it right to defend you from doing anything which _she thinks_ would be an impediment to the existence of mr. f. or captain c." a good many mothers, even in these days, will, i doubt not, be on mrs. nightingale's side. but aunt mai, having made her sister-in-law define the position, pressed the advantage in an ingenious way. florence was already thirty-two; and a time comes soon after that age when even the most sanguine mother begins to despair. it was agreed, accordingly, that "at some future specified age" florence should be free to do the work of a mrs. fry or a mrs. chisholm without the protection of a mr. f. or a captain c. there was even some talk of obtaining a written agreement to that effect, specifying the age; but aunt mai thought better of such a plan, and contented herself with calling in another witness to the verbal understanding. this was the lady--mrs. bracebridge--who two years later was to accompany miss nightingale on a mission more renowned even than that of mrs. fry or mrs. chisholm. but from the point gained by aunt mai's diplomacy and florence's own persistence, a logical consequence followed. presently, at some future unspecified age, florence was to be free to control some philanthropic institution; but what would be the use of being free to do so, unless she were also trained and qualified? [64] caroline jones (1808-77) married captain chisholm, 1830; opened orphan schools in madras, 1832; befriended female emigrants to australia, 1841-66. miss nightingale had correspondence with her in 1862. v having lived and learnt among the protestant deaconesses in germany, miss nightingale was next determined to do the like among the catholic sisters in france. she sought the good offices of manning, whose acquaintance she had made in rome five years before, and who had now lately been received into the roman communion. manning put himself into communication with his friend, the abbé des genettes, in paris. the abbé obtained leave from the council of the sisters of charity for the english lady to study their institutions. it had been explained to him that miss nightingale was also desirous of studying the hospitals in paris. the abbé accordingly selected a house belonging to the sisters which would offer every advantage in this respect. her cousin, miss hilary bonham carter, who was intent on the study of art and had been invited to stay with m. and madame mohl, was to accompany her to paris; and lady augusta bruce was also to be of the party. it was in the salon of madame mohl that lady augusta met her future husband, dean stanley. thus, then, it had been arranged. the necessary authorization from the sisters had been obtained in september. the start was to be made in november. but as the time approached, mrs. nightingale drew back. she wrote of the plan, not as something agreed upon, but as a new proposition. "i am afraid," she said to aunt mai, "that flo is thinking of some new expedition, perhaps to paris. i cannot make up my mind to it." florence was staying at a friend's house in london. her father came in, and reported that her mother was greatly distressed. there was company coming to embley, and could florence have the heart to leave her mother? "parthe would be in hysterics." every one would be in despair. could she not delay? an aged kinswoman, moreover, was ill, as already related. florence yielded, perhaps more to this last consideration than to the others, and the start was postponed. there was a lingering hope that the expedition to paris might be abandoned, and a suggestion was made to that end. why must florence go to the sisters, and roman catholic sisters, too--abroad? why should she not stay at home, and conduct some small institution on her own account? there was a house available for such a purpose at cromford bridge, close to their own lea hurst, and mr. nightingale would provide the necessary funds. in this way the best might be made of both worlds--of theirs, and of hers. florence was touched, but remained of her own mind:- (_to her sister._) _january_ 3. oh, my dearest pop, i wish i could tell you how i love you and thank you for your kind thoughts as received in your letter to-day. if you did but know how genial it is to me, when my dear people give me a hope of their blessing and that they would speed me on my way! as the kind thought of cromford seems to say they are ready to do. i will write to mama about paris and cromford. my pop, whether at one or the other, my heart will be with thee. now if these seem mere words, because bodily i shall be leaving you, have patience with me, my dearest. i hope that you and i shall live to prove a true love to each other. i cannot, during the year's round, go the way which (for my sake, i know) you have wished. there have been times when, for your dear sake, i have tried to stifle the thoughts which i feel ingrained in my nature. but, if that may not be, i hope that something better shall be. if i ask your blessing on a part of my time for my absence, i hope to be all the happier with you for that absence when we are together. miss nightingale refused cromford bridge house: it was most unsuitable for the purpose; the only more unsuitable place was the "forest lodge" at embley, which her sister parthe had suggested. in the following year, florence joined the sisters of charity in paris. and thus, after many struggles and delays, was she launched upon her true work in the world. chapter x freedom. paris and harley street (1853-october 1854) lo, as some venturer from his stars receiving promise and presage of sublime emprise, wears evermore the seal of his believing deep in the dark of solitary eyes. f. w. h. myers. the institution in which florence nightingale was to serve her apprenticeship in paris was the maison de la providence, belonging to the s[oe]urs de la charité in the rue oudinot (no. 5), faubourg st. germain. the abbé des genettes described in a letter to manning the attractions which it would offer to his protegée. the principal house, managed by twenty sisters, received nearly two hundred poor orphans, and also conducted a _crêche_. a hospital was attached to it, next door, for aged and sick women. within ten minutes' walk miss nightingale would find two other hospitals, one a general hospital, the other a children's hospital. the english _demoiselle_ would conform, in accordance with her desire, to the rules of the house as a _postulante_, rendering all necessary service to the sick. the only restrictions were that she would not be able to enter the refectory or the dormitory of the sisters. she would have to sleep and take her meals in her own room. but she would be free to visit the poor in company with the sisters, to serve the sick under their direction in various hospitals and infirmaries, and to assist in the care of the orphans alike in class and at play. such was the life in paris to which miss nightingale was looking forward eagerly. she left london for paris on february 3, 1853, with her cousin, miss bonham carter, and they stayed with m. and madame mohl in the rue du bac. before entering the maison de la providence, miss nightingale desired to visit and study other institutions in paris. she was armed with a comprehensive permit from the administration générale de l'assistance publique to study in all the hospitals of the city. she availed herself indefatigably of this permission, spending her days in inspecting hospitals, infirmaries, and religious houses, and having the advantage of seeing the famous paris surgeons at their work. now, as at all times, she was a diligent collector and student of reports, returns, statistics, pamphlets. among her papers of this date are elaborately tabulated analyses of hospital organization and nursing arrangements both in france and in germany, and a circular of questions bearing on the same subjects which she seems to have addressed to the principal institutions in the united kingdom. her evenings were spent in company with her host and hostess. there were _soirées dansantes_ in the rue du bac. she went once or twice with madame mohl to balls elsewhere, and also to the opera. she met many english visitors and distinguished parisians. having completed her general inquiries into the paris hospitals, she presented herself to the reverend mother of the maison de la providence, and had arranged a day for her admission, when she was suddenly recalled to england by the illness of her grandmother, who died at the age of ninety-five. "great has been the occasion for flo's usefulness," wrote mr. nightingale to his wife. and "i shall never be thankful enough," wrote florence herself to her cousin in paris, "that i came. i was able to make her be moved and changed, and to do other little things which perhaps smoothed the awful passage, and which perhaps would not have been done as well without me." a family event of a different kind interested miss nightingale at this time. her cousin blanche shore smith had become engaged to arthur hugh clough. miss nightingale greatly liked him. as a long engagement seemed likely, miss nightingale interested herself in the future of the young couple; discussing the proper limits of parental allowances in such matters; drawing up elaborately detailed estimates of household expenditure, not forgetting to include future charges for a young family, as by the statistics of the average birth-rate they might be calculated. statistics were already almost a passion with her. ii negotiations were now on foot for miss nightingale to take charge of a benevolent institution in london, and madame mohl advised her to keep in their places the great ladies who were concerned in it. neither now, nor at any time, was she much in love with committees, but not every word in the following account of the negotiations need be taken very seriously:- (_to madame mohl._) lea hurst, _april_ 8. in all that you say i cordially agree, and if you knew what the "fashionable asses" have been doing, their "offs" and their "ons," poor fools! you would say so ten times more. i shall be truly grateful if you will write to pop--my people know as much of the affair now as i do--which is not much. you see the f.a.s. (or a.f.s., which will stand for "ancient fathers" and be more respectful, as they are all puseyites), the f.a.s. want me to come up to london now and look at them, and if we suit to come very soon into the sanatorium, which, i am afraid, will preclude my coming back to paris, especially if you are coming away soon, for going there without you would unveil all my iniquities, as the f.a.s. are quite as much afraid of the r.c.'s as my people are. it is no use telling you the history of the negotiations, which are enough to make a comedy in 50 acts. they may be summed up as i once heard an irish shoeless boy translate virgil: _obstupui_, "i was althegither bothered"--_steteruntque comae_, "and my hair stood up like the bristles of a pig"--_vox faucibus haesit_, "and divil a word could i say." well, divil a bit of a word can i say except that you are very good, dear friend, to take so much interest, and that i shall be truly glad if you will write to pop, ... _dans le sens du muscle_. all your advice, which i sent to mrs. bracebridge, i give my profoundest adhesion to--i would gladly point the finger of scorn in the liveliest manner at the f.a.s. and ride them roughshod round grosvenor sq. i will even do my very best--but i am afraid it is not in me to do it as i should wish. it would be only a poor feint--a mean caricature. but i will practise and you shall see me. my people are now at 30 old burlington street, where i shall be in another week. please write to them there, and if you can do a little quacking for me to them, the same will be thankfully received, in order that i may come in, when i arrive, not with my tail between my legs, but gracefully curved round me, in the old way in which perugino's devil wears it, in folds round the waist. i am afraid i _must_ live at the place. if i don't, it will be a half and half measure which will satisfy no one. however, i shall take care to be perfectly free to clear off, without its being considered a failure, at my own time. i can give you no particulars, dearest friend, because i don't know any. i can only say that, unless i am left a free agent and am to organize the thing myself and not they, i will have nothing to do with it. but as the thing is yet to be organized, i cannot lay a plan either before you or my people. and that rather perplexes them, as they want to make conditions that i shan't do this or that. if you would "well present" my plans, as you say, to them, it would be an inestimable benefit both to them and to me.... hillie will tell you all i know--that it is a sanatorium for sick governesses managed by a committee of fine ladies. but there are no surgeon-students nor improper patients there at all, which is, of course, a great recommendation in the eyes of the proper. the patients, or rather the impatients, for i know what it is to nurse sick ladies, are all pay patients, poor friendless folk in london. i am to have the choosing of the house, the appointment of the chaplain and the management of the funds, as the f.a.s. are _at present_ minded. but isaiah himself could not prophesy how they will be minded at 8 o'clock this evening. what specially annoyed miss nightingale was that some of the fashionable ladies in the course of gossip had begun to wonder whether her appointment would have the approval of her family. some officious friend had suggested that "it would be cruel to take her away from her home." this difficulty was disposed of by miss nightingale's assurance that the appointment would be submitted to the approval of her mother and father. her father now agreed to make her an independent allowance, paid quarterly in advance. it was on a scale sufficiently liberal to enable her to offer her services to the institution entirely gratuitously. she also agreed to pay all the charges (board and lodging included) of the matron (mrs. clarke), whom she was to bring with her. another difficulty was then raised. the superintendent of a nursing-home ought to be present when the doctors went their rounds and when operations were performed. but would it be seemly for a gentlewoman to do this? miss nightingale insisted, and an agreement was arrived at in april. she was to enter upon her duties as superintendent as soon as new premises had been secured, and meanwhile she was free to resume her studies in paris. iii she returned to paris on may 30, and after a week spent with m. and madame mohl, during which she again inspected various hospitals, she entered the maison de la providence in the rue oudinot on june 8. from paris she kept up correspondence with regard to the new premises for the institution in london. "the indispensable conditions of a suitable house are," she wrote to lady canning (june 5), "_first_, that the nurse should never be obliged to quit her floor, except for her own dinner and supper, and her patients' dinner and supper (and even the latter might be avoided by the windlass we have talked about). without a system of this kind, the nurse is converted into a pair of legs. _secondly_, that the bells of the patients should all ring in the passage outside the nurse's own door _on that story_, and should have a valve which flies open when its bell rings, and _remains_ open in order that the nurse may see who has rung." the letter continues for some pages to describe other requirements--about a hot-water supply and the like; points which are now in the a b c of hospitals or nursing-homes, but which then were novel counsels of perfection. the idea of a lift, in particular, was new; inquiries were made by the ladies in various parts of the country, and there were many hitches before a suitable apparatus was installed. the correspondence is significant of the attention to practical detail which characterized all miss nightingale's work. meanwhile her work with the sisters of charity among the poor came to a tiresome pause. the nurse had herself to be nursed. the nature of the calamity is described in a letter to madame mohl, who was paying visits in england at the time:- back drawing-room at madame mohl's, rue du bac 120, _june_ 28. my dearest frient--do you see where i am? here's a "go"! has m. mohl told you? here am i in bed in your back drawing-room. poor m. mohl appears to bear it with wonderful equanimity and recueillement, like his danseuse. not so i. it is the most impertinent, the most surprising, the most inopportune thing i have ever done--me established in a lady's house in her absence, to be ill. if m. mohl had any sins, i should think i was the avenging phooka appointed to castigate him--as he has none, i am obliged to arrest myself at the other supposition that it is for my own. it was not my fault though really. here is how the things have happened.... i have had the measles at the s[oe]urs. and, of all my adventures, of which i have had many and queer, as will be (never) recorded in the book of my wanderings, the dirtiest and the queerest i have ever had has been a measles in the cell of a s[oe]ur de la charité. they were very kind to me--and dear m. mohl wrote to me almost every day, and sent me tea (which, however, they would not let me have), and he lastly, in his paternity, would have me back (where i came yesterday), and established me in the back drawing-room, to my infinite horror, and now i am getting better very fast, and mean to be out again in a day or two. i had got rid of the eruption and all that before i came. m. mohl is _so_ kind and comes to see me and talk, which i suppose is very improper, but i can't help it, and he has been like a father to me and never was _such_ a father! i really am so ashamed of all his kindness, and the trouble i give them, that my brazen old face blushes crimson, and i assure you this paper ought to be red. julie [the servant] is very kind to me. but i hope not to be long on their hands. as to my calamity itself, it is like the mariage de mademoiselle: who could have foreseen it? it really was not my fault. there was no measles at any of my posts, and i had had them not eighteen months ago, so that, erect in the consciousness of that dignity, i should not have kept out of their way, if i had seen them. the dr. would not believe i could have had them before. well, i'm so ashamed of myself that i shall lock myself up for the rest of my life, and never go nowhere no more. for you see, it's evident that providence, who was always in my way, and who, as the supérieure said, is _très admirable_ (meaning wonderful) in having done this, does not mean me to come to paris nor to the s[oe]urs, having twice made me ill when i was doing so--and given you all this trouble. for me to come to paris to have the measles a second time, is like going to the grand desert to die of getting one's feet wet, or anything most unexpected.... please write to m. mohl, and comfort him for his disaster. i am so repentant that i can say nothing--which, the catholics tell me, is the "marque" of a true "humiliation." thank you a thousand times for all your kindness. i come to england next week. f. n. m. mohl required no comfort. miss nightingale's father wrote to thank him for his kindness to her. the kindness, he gallantly replied, was on her side in giving him the advantage of her society and conversation. "her gentle manner," he wrote (july 25), "covers such a depth and strength of mind and thought, that i am afraid of nothing for her, but that her health should fail her." iv convalescence was rapid. on july 13 she returned to london, and a month later, on august 12, 1853, miss nightingale went into residence in her first "situation." the place in question, already briefly described in one of her letters to madame mohl, was that of superintendent of an "establishment for gentlewomen during illness." this institution had been founded a few years before, at 8 chandos street, cavendish square, to give medical assistance and a home to sick governesses and other gentlewomen of narrow means. it was managed by a council, which in its turn appointed a "committee of ladies" and a "committee of gentlemen." we need not trouble ourselves with the relations between the two committees, though they much troubled miss nightingale; but it is characteristic of the ideas of the time that the ladies made over to the gentlemen "all payments, contracts, and financial arrangements," as also "the selection of medical officers and male servants." some years later kinglake devoted several pages of his most elaborate satire to a comparison of the male pretensions and the female performances in their respective spheres in the hospitals of the crimea; but on the present occasion miss nightingale found the ladies more difficult than the gentlemen. the institution had languished in chandos street. she was called in to give it new life. suitable new premises had been found at no. 1 upper harley street, and there miss nightingale lived, with a few brief intervals, until october 1854. she had also a _pied-à-terre_ in some lodgings taken for her by her aunt in pall mall, where she occasionally saw her friends, and whither she resorted on sunday mornings, in order not to scandalize the patients in harley street by being known not to go to church. she had stipulated for extensive powers of control, and she was not one to let any agreed powers suffer diminution from desuetude. the ladies on the council and the committee included (besides lady canning already mentioned) lady ellesmere, lady cranworth, lady monteagle, lady caroline murray, and others well known in the worlds of society and philanthropy. miss nightingale had her special friends and allies among them, such as lady canning and lady inglis, and mrs. sidney herbert presently joined the committee in order to lend her support. since their meeting in rome, mrs. herbert and miss nightingale had seen much of each other, for wilton house was within calling distance of embley. miss nightingale had assisted at the birth of one of mrs. herbert's children; and amongst miss nightingale's papers belonging to this period is a "syllabus of religious teaching for a girls' school," which they had adapted from the madre s. colomba's lessons to girls. mrs. herbert now wrote from wilton, offering to come up to a committee meeting: "i thought some wicked cats might be there who would set up their backs; and if so, i should like to have mine up too." and, again: "i hope you will write to me, dearest flo, should any little difficulties arise whilst we are out of town." difficulties did arise in plenty, but miss nightingale was sometimes peremptory, and at other times showed herself a master in the gentle art of managing committees:- (_to madame mohl._) 1 upper harley st., _august_ 20.... clarkey dear, i would write, but i can't. i have had to prepare this immense house for patients in ten days--without a bit of help but only hindrance from my committee. if m. mohl would write a book upon english societies, i would supply him with such statistics as would astonish even him. but it's no use talking about these things, and i've no time. i have been "in service" ten days, and have had to furnish an entirely empty house in that time. we take in patients this monday, and have not got our workmen out yet. my committee refused me to take in _catholic_ patients--whereupon i wished them good-morning, unless i might take in jews and their rabbis to attend them. so now it is settled, and _in print_, that we are to take in all denominations whatever, and allow them to be visited by their respective priests and muftis, provided _i_ will receive (in any case _whatsoever_ that is _not_ of the church of england) the obnoxious animal at the door, take him upstairs myself, remain while he is conferring with his patient, make myself _responsible_ that he does not speak to, or look at, _any one else_, and bring him downstairs again in a noose, and out into the street. and to this i have agreed! and this is in print! amen. from committees, charity, and schism--from the church of england and all other deadly sin--from philanthropy and all the deceits of the devil, good lord, deliver us. in great haste, ever yours overflowingly. it will do me so much good to see a good man again. (_to her father._) 1 upper harley st., _december_ 3 [1853]. dear papa--you ask for my observations upon _my_ line of statesmanship. i have been so very busy that i have scarcely made any résumé in my own mind, but upon doing so now for your benefit, i perceive:- when i entered into service here, i determined that, happen what would, i _never_ would intrigue among the committee. now i perceive that i do all my business by intrigue. i propose in private to a, b, or c the resolution i think a, b, or c most capable of carrying in committee, and then leave it to them, and i always win. i am now in the hey-day of my power. at the last general committee they proposed and carried (without my knowing anything about it) a resolution that i should have £50 per month to spend for the house, and wrote to the treasurer to advance it me. whereupon i wrote to the treasurer to refuse it me. lady----, who was my greatest enemy, is now, i understand, trumpeting my fame through london. and all because i have reduced their expenditure from 1s. 10d. per head per day to 1s. the opinions of others concerning you depend, not at all, or very little, upon what _you_ are, but upon what _they_ are. praise and blame are alike indifferent to me, as constituting an indication of what myself is, though very precious as the indication of the other's feeling.... last general committee i executed a series of resolutions on five subjects, and presented them as coming from the medical men:- 1. that the successor to our house surgeon (resigned) should be a dispenser, and dispense the medicines in the house, saving our bill at the druggist's of £150 per annum. 2. a series of house rules, of which i send you the rough copy. 3. a series of resolutions about not _keeping_ patients, of which i send you the foul copy. 4. a complete revolution as to diet, which is shamefully abused at present. 5. an advertisement for the institution, of which i send the foul copy. all these i proposed and carried in committee, without telling them that they came from _me_ and not from the medical men; and then, and not till then, i showed them to the medical men, without telling _them_ that they were already passed _in committee_. it was a bold stroke, but success is said to make an insurrection into a revolution. the medical men have had two meetings upon them, and approved them all _nem. con._, and thought they were their own. and i came off with flying colours, no one suspecting my intrigue, which of course would ruin me were it known, as there is as much jealousy in the committee of one another, and among the medical men of one another, as ever what's his name had of marlborough. i have also carried my point of having good, harmless mr.----as chaplain; and no young curate to have spiritual flirtations with my young ladies. and so much for the earthquakes in this little mole-hill of ours. (_to her father._) ... i send you some more documentary evidence--the tail of my quarterly report. my committee are such children in administration that i am obliged to tell them such obvious truths as are contained in what _i make the medical men say_. this place is exactly like the administering of the poor law. we have cases of purely lazy fits and cases deserted by their families. and my committee have not the courage to discharge a single case. _they_ say the medical men must do it. the medical men say _they_ won't, although the cases, they say, _must_ be discharged. and i always have to do it, as the stop-gap on all occasions. by such arts, and by such readiness to shoulder responsibility, miss nightingale reduced chaos to order, and her management of the institution won praise in all quarters. it was hard work, for the lady superintendent was here, there, and everywhere, shepherding those who had cure of souls, managing the nurses, assisting at operations, checking waste in the coal-cellar or the larder. when a thing wanted to be done, she did it herself. mrs. herbert heard with anxiety that her friend had strained her back by lifting a patient, though she was suffering from lumbago at the time. there were smaller worries too. the british workman, and the british tradesman also, tried her sorely. "the chemists," she wrote to her father, "sent me a bottle of ether labelled s. spirits of nitre, which, if i had not smelt it, i should certainly have administered, and should have had an inquiry into poisoning. and the whole flue of a new gas-stove came down the second time of using it, which, if i had not caught it in my arms, would certainly have killed a patient." then there were the anxieties necessarily incident to a nursing home. "we have had an awful disappointment," she wrote to her father (1854), "in a couching for a cataract, which has failed. the eye is lost (through _no_ fault of bowman's), and i am left, after a most anxious watching, with a poor blind woman on my hands, whom we have blinded, and with a prospect of insanity. i had rather ten times have killed her. these are the cases, not those like the poor german who died, which make _our_ lives so anxious." what was afterwards to characterize her work in a larger field was already observed in harley street. it was the combination of masterful powers of organization with womanly gentleness and sympathy. letters of gratitude, which she received from patients after their discharge from harley street, speak of her "unwearied and affectionate attention." they were often addressed to her as "my good, dear, and faithful friend," or "my darling mother." and a friend and mother she was indeed to many of the young women who came under her care. she had a large and influential circle of friends and acquaintances, and she was indefatigable in finding convalescent homes or sympathetic care, or openings in the colonies, for those who stood in need of such assistance. she was much interested in the scheme for female emigration, which sidney herbert had started in 1849, and in which he and his wife superintended every detail.[65] [65] see _stanmore_, vol. i. pp. 111-120. though the work was hard and the anxieties many, miss nightingale did not lose heart. "our vocation is a difficult one," she wrote to miss nicholson (jan. 10, 1854), "as you, i am sure, know; and though there are many consolations, and very high ones, the disappointments are so numerous that we require all our faith and trust. but that is enough. i have never repented nor looked back, not for one moment. and i begin the new year with more true feeling of a happy new year than ever i had in my life." she had found her vocation. but her family had not yet quite fully accepted it. on their side there was still some looking back. her father, indeed, took pride in his daughter's success, and the correspondence between them at this time is very pleasant. he was himself a county magistrate, concerned in the administration of hospitals and asylums; and he followed every move in his daughter's strategy with lively interest. he admired her masterfulness, but was not quite sure that she might not carry it too far. "you will have," he wrote, "to govern by a representative system after all. in england we go this way to work, and a good way it is, for a good autocrat is only to be found at intervals. despots do nothing in teaching others. republicans keep teaching each other all day long." he was most sympathetic in her difficulties, but he was not sure that those about him would be so. there is a postscript in one of his letters which tells a good deal between the lines: "better write to me at the athenæum so as not to excite inquiry." her mother and sister seem to have thought that while they were in london florence might have lived at home, or, at any rate, have often been with them. why should she be wearing herself out away from them? their point of view was put by madame mohl, who was the affectionate friend of both sisters:- (_to madame mohl._) harley street, _august_ 27 [1853].... i have not taken this step, clarkey dear, without years of anxious consideration. it is the result of the experience of years and of the fullest and deepest thought; it has not been done without advice, and it is a step, which, being the growth of so long, is not likely to be repented of or reconsidered. i mean the step of leaving them. i do not wish to talk about it--and this is the last time i shall ever do so, but as you ask me a plain question, clarkey dear, i will give you a plain answer. i _have_ talked matters over ("made a clean breast," as you express it) with parthe, _not once but thousands of times_. years and years have been spent in doing so. it has been, therefore, with the deepest consideration and with the fullest advice that i have taken the step of leaving home, and it is a _fait accompli_. with regard to "_my_ sacrificing my peace and comfort," it is true that i am _here_ entirely for their sakes. but to serve my country in this _way_ has been also the object of my life, though i should not have done it in this time or manner. but it is not a sacrifice any more than that i have done a thing in a bad way, which i should fain have done in a good one. for _this_ is sure to fail. so farewell, clarkey dear, don't let us talk any more about this. it is, as i said before, a _fait accompli_. having at so great difficulty won her freedom, florence clearly felt that any policy of half-and-half now might necessitate in the future a renewal of the struggle. her sister was still in very delicate health, and florence was advised, by the family doctor himself, that her visits involved much disturbing excitement. besides, the work at harley street, if it was to be done efficiently, required constant residence and unremitting attention. and it was written: "he that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." v in august 1854 miss nightingale took a few days' holiday at lea hurst, where mrs. gaskell, the authoress, was on a visit to mr. and mrs. nightingale. it was then that mrs. gaskell wrote the description of florence's personal appearance, which has already been given (p. 39). mrs. gaskell was struck no less by the beauty of her character. she gave a sketch of miss nightingale's career, and then continued: "is it not like st. elizabeth of hungary? the efforts of her family to interest her in other occupations by allowing her to travel, etc.--but the clinging to one object! she must be a creature of another race, so high and angelic, doing things by impulse or some divine inspiration, not by effort and struggle of will. but she seems almost too holy to be talked about as a mere wonder. mrs. nightingale says with tears in her eyes (alluding to andersen's _fairy tales_), that they are ducks, and have hatched a wild swan. she seems as completely led by god as joan of arc. i never heard of any one like her. it makes me feel the _livingness_ of god more than ever to think how straight he is sending his spirit down into her as into the prophets and saints of old...." and in another letter:[66] "i am glad that miss----likes _north and south_. i did not think margaret _was_ so _over_ good. what would she say to florence nightingale? i can't imagine! for _there_ is intellect such as i never came in contact with before in woman!--only twice in man--great beauty, and of her holy goodness who is fit to speak?" a famous writer has said of the saints, that the greatest and most helpful of them have always shown some wit or humour;[67] and of florence nightingale mrs. gaskell noted further: "she has a great deal of fun, and is carried along by that, i think. she mimics most capitally." [66] to catherine winkworth, jan. 1, 1855. [67] see ruskin's _works_, vol. xxxi. p. 386, vol. xxxii. p. 72. miss nightingale cut short her holiday on hearing that an epidemic of cholera had broken out in london. she volunteered to give help with the cholera patients in the middlesex hospital. she was up day and night receiving the women patients--chiefly, it seems, outcasts in the district of soho--undressing them, and ministering to them. the epidemic, however, subsided, and she returned to her normal work in harley street. vi the work there did not fail within its appointed scope, but in another way the failure which miss nightingale had predicted in her letter to madame mohl soon became apparent. the scale of the undertaking was more restricted than florence had desired, and she saw no means of widening it. she had wanted to receive patients of all classes, to enrol many volunteer nurses, to have opportunities for training them. among a wide circle, both at home and abroad, her knowledge and her talents were well understood; and already, in her correspondence for a year or two past, she appears as a woman to whom reference was made as to one speaking with authority. a missionary in paris applied to her for two well-qualified matrons. "alas," she had to reply, "i have no fish of that kind." she was making the most of her present opportunity, but it was narrow. some of her friends had thought from the first that she was wasting her powers on unsuitable soil in harley street. monckton milnes, who paid a visit to embley in december 1853, wrote to his wife: "they talk quite easily about florence, but her position does not seem very suitable. i wish we could put her at the head of a juvenile reformatory."[68] her own primary object was to train nurses; and other friends--mrs. bracebridge among the number--advised her to leave harley street, since there she found no scope for so doing. king's college hospital had just been rebuilt, and another friend, miss louisa twining, opened negotiations in august 1854 for securing miss nightingale's appointment as superintendent of nurses there. some of the medical men, who had been impressed at harley street with her rare combination of gifts, were most anxious that she should consent to take up such a post. dr. william bowman in particular strongly pressed her, and was confident that, if she agreed, he could get the appointment _en train_ in the autumn. miss nightingale's mother and sister sought as strongly to dissuade her. the sister laid stress on florence's "doubtful health." the mother added objections on the score of the medical students. they both urged that, if she must do something of the kind, great ormond street and work among children were more suitable and convenient. florence herself was greatly drawn to king's college hospital, and began devising plans, on the model of kaiserswerth, for enrolling a staff of nurses among farmers' daughters. [68] _life of lord houghton_, vol. i. p. 491. but the immediate future hid in it another fate for florence nightingale. "thy lot or portion in life," said the caliph ali, "is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it." so miss nightingale may have read in emerson; and in homelier phrase her good aunt mai had said to her, "if you will but be ready for _it_, something is getting ready for you, and will be sure to turn up in time." which things florence, i doubt not, laid up in her heart. when news began to arrive from the east, did she recall a prophecy which had been made about her by a friend long before the crimean war was dreamt of? lady lovelace, the daughter of lord byron, the "ada sole daughter of my home and heart," had, before her death in 1852, written a poem in honour of her friend, florence nightingale. i have quoted some of it already. the piece ends with a presage:- in future years, in distant climes, should war's dread strife its victims claim, should pestilence, unchecked betimes, strike more than sword, than cannon maim, he who then reads these truthful rhymes will trace her progress to undying fame. part ii the crimean war (1854-1856) who is the happy warrior? who is he that every man in arms should wish to be? --it is the generous spirit, who, when brought among the tasks of real life, hath wrought upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought... or if an unexpected call succeed, come when it will, is equal to the need. wordsworth. chapter i the call (october 1854) not for delectations sweet, not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious, not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, pioneers! o pioneers! walt whitman. on september 20 the battle of the alma was fought, and the country, as greville noted, was "in a fever of excitement." the disembarkation of the allied british and french forces for the invasion of the crimea had begun on the 14th. their advance was not resisted until they reached the bank of the alma, where the russian commander was awaiting attack, in so strong a position that he was confident of victory. in less than three hours the allied troops had driven the enemy from every part of the ground. lord raglan, the commander of the forces, congratulated the troops on "the brilliant success that attended their unrivalled efforts in the battle, on which occasion they carried a most formidable position, defended by large masses of russian infantry, and a most powerful and numerous artillery." the river which the russian commander had hoped to make the grave of the invaders became famous in the annals of british valour:- thou, on england's banners blazoned with the famous fields of old, shalt, where other fields are winning, wave above the brave and bold; and our sons unborn shall nerve them for some great deed to be done, by that twentieth of september, when the alma's heights were won. o thou river! dear for ever to the gallant, to the free, alma! roll thy waters proudly, proudly roll them to the sea! nearly forty years had passed since the british army had been engaged in european warfare. the battle of the alma, though it disclosed little tactical skill, and though it was not followed up as it might have been, had at any rate shown the desperate courage of the british soldier. the note of exultation which inspired the verses of archbishop trench expressed the popular mood. presently there was a change. the number of killed and wounded was very large; but though many homes were thrown into mourning, it was felt, in the words of the official bulletin, that such a victory "could not be achieved without a considerable sacrifice." the country did not at the time grudge the sacrifice; but lord raglan's dispatch was followed by another. the crimean war was the first in which the "special correspondent" played a conspicuous part, and the dispatches sent to the _times_ by mr. william howard russell availed even to overthrow a ministry. in the _times_ of october 9, attention was drawn to the futility of the nursing arrangements on the british side. the old pensioners, who had been sent out for such service, were "not of the slightest use"; the soldiers had to "attend upon each other." on the 12th a long letter from "our special correspondent," dated "constantinople, september 30," ended with the following passage:- it is with feelings of surprise and anger that the public will learn that no sufficient preparations have been made for the proper care of the wounded. not only are there not sufficient surgeons--that, it might be urged, was unavoidable; not only are there no dressers and nurses--that might be a defect of system for which no one is to blame; but what will be said when it is known that there is not even linen to make bandages for the wounded? the greatest commiseration prevails for the sufferings of the unhappy inmates of scutari, and every family is giving sheets and old garments to supply their wants. but why could not this clearly foreseen want have been supplied? can it be said that the battle of the alma has been an event to take the world by surprise? has not the expedition to the crimea been the talk of the last four months? and when the turks gave up to our use the vast barracks to form a hospital and depot, was it not on the ground that the loss of the english troops was sure to be considerable when engaged in so dangerous an enterprise? and yet, after the troops have been six months in the country, there is no preparation for the commonest surgical operations! not only are the men kept, in some cases, for a week without the hand of a medical man coming near their wounds; not only are they left to expire in agony, unheeded and shaken off, though catching desperately at the surgeon whenever he makes his rounds through the fetid ship; but now, when they are placed in the spacious building, where we were led to believe that everything was ready which could ease their pain or facilitate their recovery, it is found that the commonest appliances of a workhouse sick-ward are wanting, and that the men must die through the medical staff of the british army having forgotten that old rags are necessary for the dressing of wounds. if parliament were sitting, some notice would probably be taken of these facts, which are notorious and have excited much concern; as it is, it rests with the government to make inquiries into the conduct of those who have so greatly neglected their duty. on the following day a further letter from the "special correspondent" was published. "it is impossible," he wrote, "for any one to see the melancholy sights of the last few days without feelings of surprise and indignation at the deficiencies of our medical system. the manner in which the sick and wounded are treated is worthy only of the savages of dahomey.... the worn-out pensioners who were brought as an ambulance corps are totally useless, and not only are surgeons not to be had, but there are no dressers or nurses to carry out the surgeon's directions, and to attend on the sick during the intervals between his visits. here the french are greatly our superiors. their medical arrangements are extremely good, their surgeons more numerous, and they have also the help of the sisters of charity, who have accompanied the expedition in incredible numbers.[69] these devoted women are excellent nurses." these scathing attacks changed the mood of the country. there was still exultation in victory, and still readiness to pay its price; but the "special correspondent's" charges of neglect towards the sick and wounded raised a feeling of bitter resentment--of resentment against the authorities, but also of pity for the victims. the _times_ accompanied the "special correspondent's" letter on october 12 by a leading article, making appeal to its readers, who were sitting comfortably at home, to bestir themselves, and render such help as might be possible to the soldiers in the east. a letter was published next day from sir robert peel, who had enclosed £200 to start a fund for supplying the sick and wounded with comforts. other contributions were quickly forthcoming, and on october 14 a letter was published asking: "why have we no sisters of charity? there are numbers of able-bodied and tender-hearted english women who would joyfully and with alacrity go out to devote themselves to nursing the sick and wounded, if they could be associated for that purpose, and placed under proper protection." [69] for the actual number, see below, p. 149. ii there were those among the ladies of england who had not waited to be stung into action by such appeals. on the first news of the failure of the british nursing arrangements, they had asked themselves whether they might not help, not merely by money, but by personal service. one of the first to move was lady maria forester. she must have read and marked the letter in the _times_ on october 9, for already by october 11 she had placed herself in communication with miss nightingale, offering money to send out some trained nurses. "i was so anxious something should be done," she said to lady verney, "that i would have gone myself, only i knew that i should not have been the slightest use." happily the minds of those who could be of the greatest use were moving in the same direction. if a party of women nurses were to be sent out to the east with any prospect of success, there were two persons in england whose co-operation was essential, and by fortunate chance they were personal friends. one was mr. sidney herbert, the secretary _at_ war. the preposition which i have placed in italics must be noted. the reader would not thank me for entering at length into all the intricacies of war office organization, disorganization, and reorganization, which went on during the crimean war, and have continued to our own day. but this much it is necessary to remember, that in 1854 there was a secretary _for_ war (the duke of newcastle) and a secretary _at_ war (mr. sidney herbert). the curious part of the arrangement was that the secretary _at_ war had nothing to do with war, as such; he was, technically, only a financial and accounting official. but mr. sidney herbert, in the emergency created by the crimean war, stepped courageously beyond the strict bounds of his office. he had already shown himself by many beneficent measures of practical reform to be the soldiers' friend. he was deeply interested, as we have heard (p. 80), in the care of the sick. he knew how over-worked was his colleague, the duke of newcastle, and in this matter of hospitals he assumed the position of volunteer delegate of the secretary of state. "i wish," wrote mr. gladstone to monckton milnes (oct. 15, 1855), "that some one of the thousand who in prose justly celebrate miss nightingale would say a single word for the man of 'routine' who devised and projected her going."[70] lord stanmore has said not a word, but a volume, in that sense; what was truly admirable was "the man of routine's" bold departure from routine. the employment of female nurses in the army was in this country entirely novel. it would probably excite some jealousy in the medical profession; it was sure to be criticized by the military men. the cabinet had much else to think of. the duke of newcastle had more on his hands than any one human being could properly accomplish. mr. herbert, from his influence in the cabinet, from his winning manner and general popularity, was the man to carry through the new departure. he had pondered long over the problems of nursing, both in military hospitals and in civil life. he could see no reason why a task, which in civil life was entrusted almost exclusively to women, should in the case of military hospitals be confined to men. the french government had sent out fifty sisters of mercy. mr. herbert could see no reason why england should not do something of a like kind. he determined to make the experiment. [70] _life of lord houghton_, vol. i. p. 521. he was strengthened in his resolve by the fact that he was intimately acquainted with the character and the powers of the second indispensable person. he knew miss florence nightingale. the preceding part of this volume has shown by "what circuit first" her life had been one long preparation for precisely such work as was now wanted. she and the minister had read the dispatch in the _times_ with equal, if different, interest. to mr. herbert it came as a call for something to be done, if the ministry were to avoid dangerous criticism; and to this motive, which must rightly actuate every minister, there was added the conscience of a high-minded man, sincerely and eagerly anxious to do all that was possible to improve the treatment of the sick and wounded soldiers. to miss nightingale, as she read the dispatch, and the stirring appeal which accompanied it, the words came with something of the force of a call from above. for nearly ten years of her life she had consciously yearned, and half-consciously for a much larger period, after ample scope in which to exercise her power of organization, and her desire to serve the sick and suffering. during many of those years she had been training herself so as to be ready to use her opportunity when it should occur. and here was the opportunity at hand, in which patriotism confirmed her personal aspirations. "god's good time" had come. the minds of the minister and of miss nightingale were kindled together. they reached the flash-point of action at almost an identical moment. private initiative forestalled official overtures only by a few hours. working in harmony, they carried the scheme into operation with an unparalleled rapidity. iii within two days of the publication of the dispatch from constantinople, miss nightingale and her friends had made their plans. she submitted them to the minister in the following letter addressed to his wife:- (_miss nightingale to mrs. herbert_.) 1 upper harley street, _october_ 14 [1854]. my dearest--i went to belgrave square this morning for the chance of catching you or mr. herbert even, had he been in town. a small private expedition of nurses has been organized for scutari, and i have been asked to command it. i take myself out and one nurse. lady maria forester has given £200 to take out three others. we feed and lodge ourselves there, and are to be no expense whatever to the country. lord clarendon has been asked by lord palmerston to write to lord stratford for us, and has consented. dr. andrew smith of the army medical board, whom i have seen, authorizes us, and gives us letters to the chief medical officer at scutari. i do not mean to say that i believe the _times_ accounts, but i do believe that we may be of use to the wounded wretches. now to business. (1) unless my ladies' committee feel that this is a thing which appeals to the sympathies of all, and urge me, rather than barely consent, i cannot honourably break my engagement here. and i write to you as one of my mistresses. (2) what does mr. herbert say to the scheme itself? does he think it will be objected to by the authorities? would he give us any advice or letters of recommendation? and are there any stores for the hospital he would advise us to take out? dr. smith says that nothing is needed. i enclose a letter from e. do you think it any use to apply to miss burdett coutts? we start on tuesday if we go, to catch the marseilles boat of the 21st for constantinople, where i leave my nurses, thinking the medical staff at scutari will be more frightened than amused at being bombarded by a parcel of women, and i cross over to scutari with some one from the embassy to present my credentials from dr. smith, and put ourselves at the disposal of the drs. (3) would you or some one of my committee write to lady stratford to say, "this is not a lady but a real hospital nurse," of me? "and she has had experience." my uncle went down this morning to ask my father and mother's consent. would there be any use in my applying to the duke of newcastle for his authority? believe me, dearest, in haste, ever yours, f. nightingale. perhaps it is better to keep it quite a private thing, and not apply to gov^t. _qua_ gov^t. this letter was posted on saturday. mr. herbert had left london to spend sunday at bournemouth, and thence, unaware of the communication which was on its way to him from miss nightingale, he addressed the following letter to her:- (_sidney herbert to miss nightingale._) bournemouth, _october_ 15 [1854]. dear miss nightingale--you will have seen in the papers that there is a great deficiency of nurses at the hospital at scutari. the other alleged deficiencies, namely of medical men, lint, sheets, etc., must, if they have really ever existed, have been remedied ere this, as the number of medical officers with the army amounted to one to every 95 men in the whole force, being nearly double what we have ever had before, and 30 more surgeons went out 3 weeks ago, and would by this time, therefore, be at constantinople. a further supply went on thursday, and a fresh batch sail next week. as to medical stores, they have been sent out in profusion; lint by the _ton_ weight, 15,000 pairs 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 stores went to varna, and was not sent back when the army left for the crimea; but four days would have remedied this. in the meanwhile fresh stores are arriving. but the deficiency of female nurses is undoubted, none but male nurses having ever been admitted to military hospitals. it would be impossible to carry about a large staff of female nurses with the army in the field. but at scutari, having now a fixed hospital, no military reason exists against their 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 an 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 ever understand the necessity, especially in a military hospital, of strict obedience to rule. lady m. forester (lord roden's daughter) has made some proposal to dr. smith, the head of the army medical department, either to go with or to send out trained nurses. i apprehend she means from fitzroy square, john street, or some such establishment. the rev. mr. hume, once chaplain to the general hospital at birmingham (and better known as author of the scheme for transferring the city churches to the suburbs), has offered to go out himself as chaplain with two daughters and twelve nurses. he was in the army seven years, and has been used to hospitals, and i like the tone of his letters very much. i think from both of these offers practical effects may be drawn. but the difficulty of finding nurses who are at all versed in their business is probably not known to mr. hume, and lady m. forester probably has not tested the willingness of the trained nurses to go, and is incapable of directing or ruling them. 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 will be very difficult: no one knows it better than yourself. the difficulty of finding women equal to a task, after all, full of horrors, and requiring, besides knowledge and goodwill, great energy 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 it is which makes it so important that the experiment should be carried out by one with a capacity for administration and experience. a number of sentimental enthusiastic ladies turned loose into the hospital at scutari would probably, after a few days, be _mises à 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 and superintend 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 government for whatever you thought 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 must not conceal from you that i think upon your decision will depend the ultimate success or failure of the plan. your own personal qualities, your knowledge and your power of administration, and among greater things your rank and position in society give you advantages in such a work which no other person possesses. if this succeeds, an enormous amount of good will be done now, and to persons deserving everything at our hands; and a prejudice will have been broken through, and a precedent established, which will multiply the good to all time. i hardly like to be sanguine as to your answer. if it were "yes," i am certain the bracebridges would go with you and give you all the comfort you would require, and which their society and sympathy only could give you. i have written very long, for the subject is very near my heart. liz [mrs. herbert] is writing to mrs. bracebridge to tell her what i am doing. i go back to town to-morrow morning. shall i come to you between 3 and 5? 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 know you will pardon me. if you were inclined to undertake this great work, would mr. and mrs. nightingale give their consent? the work would be so national, and the request made to you proceeding from the government who represent the nation comes at such a moment, that i do not despair of their consent. deriving your authority from the government, your position would secure the respect and consideration of every one, especially in a service where official rank carries so much weight. this would secure to you every attention and comfort on your way and 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 objects you 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 wise decision. god grant it may be in accordance with my hopes! believe me, dear miss nightingale, ever yours, sidney herbert.[71] [71] this famous letter--obviously private at the time--was printed _in extenso_, for a controversial purpose (see below, p. 245), in the _daily news_ of october 28, 1854. miss nightingale was much distressed when she heard of the publication, and her family could not think how it had "got into the papers"; but they had shown it, and copies of it, too widely. there was no hitch, such as sidney herbert half feared, from reluctance on the part of miss nightingale's parents. her uncle, mr. samuel smith (husband of her aunt mai, of whose helpfulness we have heard), had already half obtained their consent to her going as a volunteer. all hesitation was removed when the news came that she was asked to go by and for the government itself:- "my love," wrote miss nightingale's sister to a friend (oct. 18), "government has asked, i should say entreated, flo to go out and help in the hospital at scutari. i am sure you will feel that it is a great and noble work, and that it is a real duty; for there is no one, as they tell her, and i believe truly, who has the knowledge and the zeal necessary to make such a step succeed." and to the same friend a day or two later:- before, in harley street, i did not feel sure that she was right, there seemed so much to be done at home; but now there is no doubt that she is fitted to do this work, and that no one else is, and that it _is_ a work. i must say the way in which all things have tended to and fitted her for this is so very remarkable that one cannot but believe she was intended for it. none of her previous life has been wasted, her experience all tells, all the gathered stores of so many years, her kaiserswerth, her sympathy with the r. catholic system of work, her travels, her search into the hospital question, her knowledge of so many different minds and different classes, all are serving so curiously--and much more than i have time for. yes, and perhaps even the difficulties which affectionate solicitude had placed in florence nightingale's way might have been counted among her preparations for a task involving great power of will and determination. miss nightingale saw mr. herbert on monday, october 16, and the matter was arranged between them. mrs. sidney herbert and the other ladies of the harley street committee readily released their superintendent. her faithful friends, mr. and mrs. bracebridge, agreed to accompany her. mr. herbert had assured miss nightingale of their willingness, without any previous consultation--a fine instance, surely, of friendly confidence. the duke of newcastle, who had some slight personal acquaintance with miss nightingale, and the other members of the cabinet cordially approved the initiative of their colleague, and three days later miss nightingale received her official appointment and instructions:- (_the secretary-at-war to miss nightingale._) war office, _october_ 19 [1854]. madam--having consented at the pressing instance of the government to accept the office of superintendent of the female nursing establishment in the english general military hospitals in turkey, you will, on your arrival there, place yourself at once in communication with the chief army medical officer of the hospital at scutari, under whose orders and direction you will carry on the duties of your appointment. everything relating to the distribution of the nurses, the hours of their attendance, their allotment to particular duties, is placed in your hands, subject, of course, to the sanction and approval of the chief medical officer; but the selection of the nurses in the first instance is placed solely under your control, or under that of persons to be agreed upon between yourself and the director-general of the army and ordnance medical department, and the persons so selected will receive certificates from the director-general or the principal medical officer of one of the general hospitals, without which certificate no one will be permitted to enter the hospital in order to attend the sick. in like manner the power of discharge on account of illness or of dismissal for misconduct, inaptitude, or other cause, is vested entirely in yourself; but in cases of such discharge or dismissal the cost of the return passage of such person home will, if you think it advisable and if they proceed at once or so soon as their health enables them, be defrayed by the government. directions will be given by the mail of this day to engage one or two houses in a situation as convenient as can be found for attendance at the hospital, or to provide accommodation in the barracks if thought more advisable. and instructions will be given to lord stratford de redcliffe to afford you every facility and assistance on landing at constantinople, as also to dr. menzies, the chief medical officer of the hospital at scutari, who will give you all the aid in his power and every support in the execution of your arduous duties. the cost of the passage both out and home of yourself and the nurses who may accompany you, or who may follow you, will be defrayed by the government, as also the cost of house rent, subsistence, &c., &c.; and i leave to your discretion the rate of pay which you may think it advisable to give to the different persons acting under your authority. in the meanwhile sir john kirkland, the army agent, has received orders to honor your drafts to the amount of one thousand pounds for the necessary expense of outfit, travelling expenses, &c., &c., of which sum you will render an account to the purveyor of the forces at scutari. you will, for your current expenses, payment of wages, &c., &c., apply to the purveyor through the chief medical officer, in charge of the hospital, who will provide you with the necessary funds. i feel confident that, with a view to the fulfilment of the arduous task you have undertaken, you will impress upon those acting under your orders the necessity of the strictest attention to the regulations of the hospital, and the preservation of that subordination which is indispensable in every military establishment. and i rely on your discretion and vigilance carefully to guard against any attempt being made among those under your authority, selected as they are with a view to fitness and without any reference to religious creed, to make use of their position in the hospitals to tamper with or disturb the religious opinions of the patients of any denomination whatever, and at once to check any such tendency and to take, if necessary, severe measures to prevent its repetition. i have the honor to be, madam, your most obedient servant, sidney herbert. the instructions promised in this letter were duly sent to the commander of the forces, the purveyor-in-chief, and the principal medical officer;[72] and the way was smoothed for miss nightingale, as they thought in downing street, by supplementary letters to some of the officials. a letter was sent to the purveyor-general (oct. 19), in which "mr. sidney herbert trusts that you will use every endeavour to assist miss nightingale in the performance of the arduous duties she has voluntarily undertaken, the success of which must necessarily depend upon the assistance and co-operation of others, and cannot fail to be of great benefit to those gallant men who have suffered in the service of their country." similarly sir charles trevelyan, assistant-secretary to the treasury, remarking that the commissariat officers are the bankers and stewards of the army, wrote, as he told miss nightingale (oct. 20), "to commissary-general filder and deputy-commissary-general smith, the senior officer at scutari, to request that they will from the first give you all the support they are able, and instruct their officers of every grade to do the same." any difficulties which might confront her would not be caused, it seemed, by lack of support at home. [72] the text of the instructions may be found in the _journal of the royal army medical corps_, october 1910. iv private support was forthcoming as readily as official. mr. henry reeve, an old friend of miss nightingale and her family, rejoicing that she had now "an opportunity of action worthy of her," spoke to the great delane, and requested him to direct mr. macdonald--who was being sent out to administer the _times_ fund--to co-operate with miss nightingale. mr. macdonald was a man, as mr. reeve testified, and as miss nightingale was to discover--to the great advantage of their common cause,--"of remarkable intelligence and activity." two days after the receipt of her official instructions, five days after her interview with mr. herbert, miss nightingale and her party left london (oct. 21). the amount of work which fell upon miss nightingale during the ten days (oct. 12-21) was enormous, and some of the details she was obliged to delegate to others. the headquarters of the expedition during its outfit were established at mr. sidney herbert's house in belgrave square, and there miss mary stanley and mrs. bracebridge interviewed applicants. miss nightingale, foreseeing (only too truly, as the event was to show) the difficulty both of finding suitable women and of supervising them, was inclined to limit the number to twenty. mr. herbert, thinking that such a new departure should be made on a considerable scale, proposed a larger number, and miss nightingale gave way. forty was the number agreed upon; but the material which offered itself was not promising. "here we sit all day," wrote miss stanley; "i wish people who may hereafter complain of the women selected could have seen the set we had to choose from. all london was scoured for them. we sent emissaries in every direction to every likely place.... we felt ashamed to have in the house such women as came. one alone expressed a wish to go from a good motive. money was the only inducement."[73] ultimately thirty-eight nurses were obtained. [73] _stanmore_, vol. i. p. 342. mr. herbert, in the concluding passage of his instructions, relied on miss nightingale's vigilance to prevent religious "tampering." this was an instruction which she had discussed with him, for she foresaw (again only too well) the _odium theologicum_ that might confront her. she was primarily concerned to get the best nurses as such, but she was anxious also that the different churches or shades should be represented. in this desire she was in large measure disappointed. application was made both to st. john's house, an institution inclined towards tractarianism, and to the protestant institution for nurses in devonshire square. in each case the answer was returned that nurses could only be supplied if they were to be subject to their own committees; the government's condition of subjection to miss nightingale's control was rejected. the authorities of st. john's house proposed that their nurses should be accompanied by the master of the house, to act as "their guardian." it will readily be imagined how impossible miss nightingale's position would have been on such terms. the proposal shows incidentally how little some people understood of the conditions of discipline necessary in a military hospital. mr. sidney herbert, the chaplain-general of the forces, and miss nightingale met the council of st. john's house; the point of miss nightingale's exclusive control was conceded, and the master stayed at home. the lady superior of st. john's house at this time was miss mary jones, who to the end of her life remained one of the most valued and tenderly devoted of miss nightingale's friends.[74] the authorities in devonshire square, on the other hand, would not surrender the point of separate control, and accordingly no nurses were supplied by the distinctively protestant institution. "we are only vexed," wrote lady verney, "because flo so earnestly desired to include all shades of opinion, to prove that all, however they differed, might work together in a common brotherhood of love to god and man." [74] miss jones resigned her appointment at st. john's house in 1868, owing to differences of opinion with the council, and set up a private nursing establishment. she died in 1887. the party, as ultimately recruited, was composed of ten roman catholic sisters (five from bermondsey and five from norwood), eight anglican sisters (from miss sellon's home at devonport), six nurses from st. john's house, and fourteen from various english hospitals. it has often been supposed that the nurses who accompanied miss nightingale were ladies of gentle birth, but, with a few exceptions, this was not the case. on the eve of their departure, the nurses were addressed by mr. herbert in his dining-room. he told them that if any desired to turn back, now was the time of decision, and he impressed upon them that all who went were bound implicitly to obey miss nightingale in all things. "all started on their ways," we are told,[75] "strengthened by his heart-stirring words, and cheered no less by the sunny brightness of his presence than by his kindly and unfailing sympathy." unhappily the effect was not in all cases permanent, as we shall hear. [75] _stanmore_, vol. i. p. 342. v "do not answer this," wrote a minister to miss nightingale; "for i am sure you must have more on your hands now than a secretary of state." but what struck those about her was her perfect calm. "no one is so well fitted as she to do such work," wrote lady canning to lady stuart de rothesay (oct. 17); "she has such nerve and skill, and is so wise and quiet. even now she is in no bustle and hurry, though so much is on her hands, and such numbers of people volunteer services." she had only one worry. her pet owl had died. when her family were leaving embley to see her off, the feeding of the owl was forgotten in the hurry and flurry. it was embalmed, and "the only tear its mistress shed through that tremendous week," says her sister, "was when i put the little body into her hands. 'poor little beastie, it was odd how much i loved you.'"[76] for the rest, she was "as calm and composed in this furious haste," wrote her sister (oct. 19), "with the war office, the military medical board, half the nurses in london to speak to, her own committee and institution, as if she were going out for a walk." she was quiet because, like wordsworth's happy warrior, in the heat of excitement, she "kept the law in calmness made, and saw what she foresaw." like the character drawn by another master-hand, "in the tumult she was tranquil," because she had pondered when at rest. [76] from the _life and death of athena, an owlet from the parthenon_, a manuscript book charmingly written and illustrated by lady verney. she wrote it in 1855, and sent it to scutari "to try and make flo and mrs. bracebridge laugh when f. was recovering from her fever." a small black pocket-book is preserved in which were found, at miss nightingale's death, a few of the many letters received just before she left england for the east. perhaps they were the very last letters received; perhaps they were there for other reasons. one spoke of a mother's love:- monday morning. god speed you on your errand of mercy, my own dearest child. i know he will, for he has given you such loving friends, and they will be always at your side to help in all your difficulties. they came just when i felt that you must fail for want of strength, and more mercies will come in your hour of need. they are so wise and good, they will be to you what no one else could. they will write to us, and save you in that and in all ways. they are to us an earnest of blessings to come. i do not ask you to spare yourself for your own sake, but for the sake of the cause.--ever thine. another letter reminded her of the love of god:- god will keep you. and my prayer for you will be that your one object of worship, pattern of imitation, and source of consolation and strength may be the sacred heart of our divine lord. always yours for our lord's sake, henry e. manning. and a third among them was from the friend whose life she had declined to share, but whose sympathy was still precious to her:- "my dear friend," he wrote (oct. 18), "i hear you are going to the east. i am happy it is so, for the good you will do there, and the hope that you may find some satisfaction in it yourself. i cannot forget how you went to the east once before, and here am i writing quietly to you about what you are going to do now. you can undertake _that_, when you could not undertake me. god bless you, dear friend, wherever you go." chapter ii the expedition--problems ahead on the ocean no post brings us letters which we are compelled to answer. no newspaper tempts us into reading the last night's debate in parliament. the absence of distracting incidents, the sameness of the scene, and the uniformity of life on board ship, leave us leisure for reflection; we are thrown in upon our own thoughts, and can make up our accounts with our consciences.--froude. miss nightingale and her party left london on saturday, october 21. among those who saw them off was her cousin, arthur hugh clough. the principal halts were made in paris and marseilles. at paris, miss nightingale had hoped to recruit some sisters for nursing service. she went to the headquarters of the order of st. vincent de paul, furnished with letters from the british government and the french military authorities, and accompanied by the british ambassador's private secretary in order to strengthen her application; but it was refused.[77] at marseilles, with what turned out to be admirable forethought, she laid in a large store of miscellaneous provisions. her uncle, mr. sam smith, accompanied the party to marseilles, and from his letters we obtain vivid glimpses of the expedition _en route_:- "kindly received everywhere," he wrote (oct. 26), "by french and english. still it was very hard work for flo to keep 40 in good humour; arranging the rooms of 5 different sects each night, before sitting down to supper, took a long time; then calling all to be down at 6 ready to start. she bears all wonderfully--so calm, winning everybody, french and english." [77] letter to captain galton, may 5, 1863. a correspondent wrote to the _times_ from boulogne, describing how the arrival of the party there caused so much enthusiasm, that the sturdy fisherwomen seized their bags and carried them to the hotel, refusing to accept the slightest gratuity; how the landlord of the hotel gave them dinner, and told them to order what they liked, adding that they would not be allowed to pay for anything; and how waiters and chambermaids were equally firm in refusing any acknowledgment for their attentions. lady verney, in a letter to a friend, acutely noted a yet more remarkable thing, "the railroad would not be paid for her boxes." at marseilles the expedition excited lively interest, and its chief was overwhelmed with attentions:- "where she was seen or heard," wrote the proud uncle, "there was nothing but admiration from high and low. her calm dignity influenced everybody. i am sure the nurses quite love her already. some cried when she exhorted them at the last, and all promised well. blessings on her! she makes everybody who joins with her feel the good and like it (instead of disposing them against it, as some well-meaning oppositious spirits do)." and again in another letter:- words cannot tell mrs. bracebridge's devotion to flo, nor flo's to the cause. neither sat down but for a hurried meal. shopkeepers, visitors, nurses, servants, every single instant. flo never crossed the threshold. there she was, receiving in her little bedroom (not at bedtime) the inspector-general, the consul and agent, a queen's messenger, _times_ correspondent, and two or three shopkeepers with the same serenity as if in a drawing-room quite _dés[oe]uvrée_. her influence on all (to captain and steward of boat) was wonderful. the rough hospital nurses, on the third day after breakfasting and dining with us each day, and receiving all her attentions, were quite humanized and civilized, their very manners at table softened. "we never had so much care taken of our comforts before; it is not people's way with _us_; we had no notion miss n. would slave herself so for us." she looked so calm and noble in it all, whether waiting on the nurses at dinner in the station (because no one else would), or carrying parcels, or receiving functionaries. the bracebridges are fuller than ever of admiration of her, as i am. she looked better and handsomer than even the day she sailed. i went back with the literary public of marseilles, all full of admiration. it was very doleful sitting in flo's deserted room. she sailed from marseilles on board the _vectis_ on friday, october 27, loudly cheered from an english vessel in the harbour, carrying with her, as a friend had written, "the deep prayers and gratitude of the english people." ii from the moment when public announcement of her mission was made, she had, indeed, become a popular heroine. though well known in society, she had been as yet a stranger to public fame; so much so that the _times_ itself, in printing the announcement (oct. 19), said: "we are authorised to state that mrs. nightingale," etc. delane cannot have kept his eye on the news-columns, for not until some days had elapsed was it discovered to the public that "mrs." nightingale was in fact "miss." "who is 'mrs.' nightingale?" was a heading in the _examiner_ (oct. 28), and the question was answered in a biographical article. some passages of it deserve record here, for it went the round of the press throughout the world, and was the source from which, from that day to this, the popular idea of florence nightingale has been derived. the article stated succinctly, and with substantial accuracy, the course of her life; dwelt upon the facts that she was "young, graceful, feminine, rich, and popular"; enlarged, with less accuracy, upon her delight in the "palpable and heart-felt attractions" of her home; described her forsaking the "assemblies, lectures, concerts, exhibitions, and all the entertainments for taste and intellect with which london in its season abounds," in order to sit beside the sick and dying; and concluded thus: she had set out for the scene of war ... at the risk of her own life, at the pang of separation from all her friends and family, and at the certainty of encountering hardship, dangers, toils, and the constantly renewing scene of human suffering, amid all the worst horrors of war. there are few who would not recoil from such realities, but miss nightingale shrank not, and at once accepted the request that was made her to form and control the entire nursing establishment for all sick and wounded soldiers and sailors in the levant. while we write, this deliberate, sensitive, and highly-endowed young lady is already at her post, rendering the holiest of women's charities to the sick, the dying, and the convalescent. there is a heroism in dashing up the heights of alma in defiance of death and all mortal opposition, and let all praise and honour be, as they are, bestowed upon it; but there is a quiet forecasting heroism and largeness of heart in this lady's resolute accumulation of the powers of consolation, and her devoted application of them, which rank as high and are at least as pure. a sage few will no doubt condemn, sneer at, or pity an enthusiasm which to them seems eccentric, or at best misplaced; but to the true heart of the country it will speak home, and be there felt that there is not one of england's proudest and purest daughters who at this moment stands on so high a pinnacle as florence nightingale. the discovery by the public that the head of the nursing expedition was not "mrs." nightingale, a matron, but a young lady, "graceful, rich, and popular," added to the enthusiasm which her devotion called forth. her services were rendered gratuitously; her necessary expenses were to be defrayed by the government, and officialdom opined that no voluntary contributions, either in money or in kind, were needed. happily for the comfort of our soldiers in the east, private individuals took a different view, and--in addition to the _times_ fund--donations were sent to miss nightingale personally, both by her friends and by the general public. an account rendered after her return[78] from the east shows that from the general public she received nearly £7000 in money. this fund, added to the help which she obtained from the _times_, and supplemented by expenditure out of her private purse, enabled miss nightingale greatly to extend the scope of her work. the statement that she was rich requires some qualification. her father was rich, but the personal allowance which he had made to her, when she declared her independence in 1853, was £500 a year, and it remained at this figure for several years. during her mission to the east she devoted the whole of it to her work. [78] the _statement_ (see bibliography a, no. 5). gifts in kind and offers of personal service also poured in. now that miss nightingale was at sea, the task of dealing with such matters was undertaken by her sister and a friend. the nightingale family had taken a house for the time in cavendish square (no. 4), which became the headquarters of a charitable bureau. "i am well nigh writ out," wrote lady verney to madame mohl (nov. 6), "170 letters to answer in the last fortnight, and very difficult ones, some of them. i should like you to hear a batch of the offers of all kinds we receive, some so pretty, some so queer. old linen is abating, i am happy to say; even knitted socks are slacker; but nurses, rabble and respectable, ladies, and _very much_ the reverse, continue to rain. it is tremendous; however, having reached no. 276, we are going to shut the door. mary stanley and i sit daily at the receipt of custom, and funny things do we see and hear! human nature is a wondrous work, whether of god almighty i sometimes begin to doubt." it is worth noting, in view of an unfortunate dispute that presently arose, that both lady verney and miss stanley distinctly understood that additional nurses would only be sent "if flo asks." all applicants were so informed; but so keen was the desire to serve, that "many ladies," so lady verney wrote, "are undergoing hospital training on chance." iii miss nightingale, meanwhile, was at sea on her way to constantinople, revolving many things in her mind. she had been called to a mission upon which issues very near to her heart depended. if it succeeded, then, as mr. herbert had written to her, not only would an enormous amount of good be done now to the sick and wounded, but "a prejudice would have been broken through, and a precedent established, which would multiply the good to all time." and so, as we all know, it was destined to be. but at the time the fate of the experiment was doubtful. it was mr. herbert's conviction that no one except florence nightingale could make it succeed, but it was by no means certain that even she could do so. she took in her hands the reputation of the minister who trusted her, and her own; and not her reputation only, but the hopes, the aspirations, the ambitions which had ruled her life. she determined to succeed, and she counted the difficulties which would confront her. writing two years later and giving account of her stewardship, she paid her tribute of thanks to those "among the officials, medical as well as military, to whose benevolence, ability, and unselfish devotion to duty she was indebted for facilities, without which, in a position such as hers, new to the service, and exposed to much criticism and difficulty, she would have been utterly unable to perform the work entrusted to her."[79] she saw from the start that she would be exposed, in the very nature of the case, to some medical jealousy and much military prejudice. [79] _statement_, pp. 3-4. the idea of employing female nurses at scutari had been mooted before the army left for the east, but was abandoned, as the duke of newcastle explained, because "it was not liked by the military authorities."[80] of the military prejudice against the intrusion of women, even for the gentle office of nursing, into the rough work of war, some entertaining illustrations are happily on record. lieutenant-colonel sterling, afterwards sir anthony sterling, k.c.b., was on active service during the crimean campaign, first as brigade-major, and afterwards as assistant adjutant-general to the highland division. he was an elder brother of carlyle's john sterling, and himself possessed of some literary skill. "a solid, substantial man," carlyle calls him; he was also a man who loved to stand by the ancient ways. he wrote a series of lively letters during the campaign, and in his will directed that they should be published. nowhere, so clearly as in sterling's _highland brigade in the crimea_, have i found contemporary evidence of the prejudices against which the experiment of mr. herbert and miss nightingale had to contend. during miss nightingale's visit to balaclava in 1855, some dispute arose among the nurses. "miss---has added herself," wrote colonel sterling, "to the hospital of the 42nd; and will not acknowledge the voice of the nightingale, who has written an official letter to lord raglan on the subject. i suppose he will order a court-martial composed of nurses, who will administer queer justice." our colonel is something of a wag. he cannot help laughing at "the nightingale," because, as he explains, he has such "a keen sense of the ridiculous." he is so pleased with his quip about the female court-martial that he returns to it in another letter. he is tickled, too, by a saying of the mess-room, that "miss nightingale has shaved her head to keep out vermin." one can almost hear the honest colonel's guffaw as he wonders whether "she will wear a wig or a helmet?" women, he supposes, imagine that "war can be made without wounds"; they will be teaching us how to fight next; and as for their ideas of nursing, why some of the ladies actually took to "scrubbing floors"! it amused him, but angered him no less. he has to admit that he believes "the nightingale" has been of some use; but he bitterly resents her "capture" of orderlies for mere purposes of nursing, and when he is asked, "when will she go home?" answers with christopher sly, "would it were done." "however," he writes, "---(presumably sidney herbert) is gone; and i hope there is not to be found another minister who will allow these absurdities." miss nightingale read sir anthony's book when it came out in 1895, and made some severe _marginalia_ upon it; remarking upon his "absolute ignorance of sanitary things," noting the "misprints as a fair index to the whole," and finally dismissing the book as "one long string of seniority complaints." but i protest that she need not have been so angry. and, indeed, perhaps she was not so angry as she seemed, for her caustic pen was not always a true index of her mind. for my part i take my hat off to sir anthony absolute. his honest, old-fashioned outbursts let in a flood of light upon one side of the difficulties which were to confront miss nightingale upon landing at scutari. [80] _roebuck committee, q_. 14625. she pondered much also upon the possibilities of friction with the medical officers; and here, too, our colonel has some light to give us. "the chief medical officer out here," he wrote, "ought to have been intrusted with nightingale powers." the service in all its branches stuck together, it will be seen, and no blame to it for that! but if a fighting colonel smarted under what he deemed a slight upon an army medical officer, how much more might the medical service itself be expected to resent any encroachment upon its appointed province! how keenly it did resent such encroachment may be gathered from the _life and letters of sir john hall, m.d._, by mr. mitra, whose book supplies us with the same kind of illustration in regard to the army doctors that we may gather from colonel sterling's in regard to the soldiers. sir john, like sir anthony, thought the whole thing "very droll." he was stationed in the crimea, and we shall hear something of the strained relations between him and miss nightingale, when we follow her thither. but at scutari also, there were some few medical officers who retained even to the last a ridiculous jealousy of any "meddling" by miss nightingale and her staff.[81] she foresaw this danger, and made up her mind to avert it by every means in her power. [81] _pincoffs_, p. 79. and there was a third danger which she foresaw also. not only had she to overcome military prejudice and to avert medical jealousy, but she had also to prevent religious disputation. this last task was beyond her powers, as it has ever proved beyond those of men, women, and angels; for by this cause even the angels fell. no work, however beneficent, has ever yet been found beyond the capacity of the _odium theologicum_ to mar and embitter. miss nightingale's mission did not escape the common lot, as we shall hear; but she was keenly sensible of the danger. miss nightingale pondered over all these things as the ship sped on its way to the golden horn; and the more she pondered, the more she was driven to decide upon a course of action, very different from what many people supposed that she would adopt, but entirely consonant with the bent of her own mind. she saw quite clearly that, if she was to avoid the rocks ahead of her, what was needed was not so much genial, impulsive kindness, reckless of rules and defiant of constituted authority, but rather strict method, stern discipline, and rigid subordination. the criticisms to which she exposed herself in the superintendence of her nurses were based, not upon laxity, but upon her alleged severity.[82] as for her own conduct, she supposed that her work, when she landed, would be that of the matron of a hospital. if, as it turned out, she became rather (as she put it) mistress of a barrack, it was because she found herself in the midst of conditions which the constituted authorities at home had not foreseen, and before which those on the spot stood powerless. miss nightingale was happily possessed of an original mind and a resolute will. she saw evils which cried out for remedies; and new occasions taught new duties. [82] see on this point the references given below, p. 210 _n._ chapter iii the hospitals at scutari dearth of creative brain-power showed itself in our levantine hospitals, for there industrious functionaries worked hard at their accustomed tasks, and doggedly omitted to innovate at times when not to be innovating was surrendering, as it were, at discretion to want and misery. but 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.--kinglake. miss nightingale reported the arrival of her expedition at constantinople in a short note to her parents:- constantinople, _november_ 4, on board _vectis_.--dearest people- anchored off the seraglio point, waiting for our fate whether we can disembark direct into the hospital, which, with our heterogeneous mass, we should prefer. at six o'clock yesterday morn i staggered on deck to look at the plains of troy, the tomb of achilles, the mouths of the scamander, the little harbour of tenedos, between which and the mainshore our _vectis_, with steward's cabins and galley torn away, blustering, creaking, shrieking, storming, rushed on her way. it was in a dense mist that the ghosts of the trojans answered my cordial hail, through which the old gods, nevertheless, peered down from the hill of ida upon their old plain. my enthusiasm for the heroes though was undiminished by wind and wave. we made the castles of europe and asia (dardanelles) by eleven, but also reached constantinople this morn in a thick and heavy rain, through which the sophia, sulieman, the seven towers, the walls, and the golden horn looked like a bad daguerrotype washed out. we have not yet heard what the embassy or military hospital have done for us, nor received our orders. bad news from balaclava. you will hear the awful wreck of our poor cavalry, 400 wounded, arriving _at this moment_ for us to nurse. we have just built another hospital at the dardanelles. you will want to know about our crew. one has turned out ill, others will do. (_later_) just starting for scutari. we are to be housed in the hospital this very afternoon. everybody is most kind. the fresh wounded are, i believe, to be placed under our care. they are landing them now. the hospital, to which miss nightingale refers, was to be the chief scene of her labours for the next six months, and a few particulars about it and other hospitals, in which the nursing was under her superintendence, must be given in order to make future proceedings intelligible. the principal hospitals of the british army during the crimean war--four in number--were at scutari (or in its immediate neighbourhood), the suburb of mournful beauty which looks across to constantinople from the asiatic side of the bosphorus. the first hospital to be established was in the turkish military hospital. this was made over to the british in may 1854, and was called by them _the general hospital_. having been originally designed for a hospital, and being given up to the english partially fitted, it was, wrote miss nightingale, "reduced to good order early, by the unwearied efforts of the first-class staff surgeon in introducing a good working system. it was then maintained in excellent condition till the close of the war."[83] it had accommodation for 1000 patients, but the battle of the alma showed that much larger accommodation would be wanted. [83] _statement_, p. 13 _n._ north of the general hospital, and near to the famous turkish cemetery of scutari, are the selimiyeh barracks--a great yellow building with square towers at each angle. this building was made over to the british for use as a hospital after the battle of the alma, and by them was always called _the barrack hospital_. this is the hospital in which miss nightingale and her band of female nurses were first established, and in which she herself had her headquarters throughout her stay at scutari. it is built on rising ground, in a beautiful situation, looking over the sea of marmora on one side, towards the princes' islands on another, and towards constantinople and up the bosphorus on a third. "i have not been out of the hospital walls yet," wrote miss nightingale ten days after her arrival, "but the most beautiful view in all the world, i believe, lies outside." her quarters were in the north-west tower, on the left of the main guard (or principal entrance). there was a large kitchen or storeroom, of which we shall hear more presently, and out of it on either side various other rooms opened. mr. bracebridge and the courier slept in one small room; miss nightingale and mrs. bracebridge in another. the nurses slept in other rooms. the whole space occupied by miss nightingale and her nurses was about equal to that allotted to three medical officers and their servants, or to that occupied by the commandant. "this was done," she explained, "in order to make no pressure for room on an already overcrowded hospital. it could not have been done with justice to the women's health, had not miss nightingale later taken a house in scutari at private expense, to which every nurse attacked with fever was removed."[84] the quarters were as uncomfortable as they were cramped. "occasionally," wrote miss nightingale, "our roof is torn off, or the windows are blown in, and we are under water for the night." the hospital was infested also with rodents and vermin; and, among other new accomplishments acquired under the stress of new occasions, miss nightingale became an expert rat-killer. this skill was afterwards called into use at balaclava. in the spring of 1856, one of the nuns whom she had taken with her to the crimea--sister mary martha--had a dangerous attack of fever. miss nightingale nursed the case; and one night, while watching by the sick-bed, she saw a large rat upon the rafters over the sister's head; she succeeded in knocking it down and killing it, without disturbing the patient.[85] the condition of physical discomfort in which, surrounded by terrible scenes of suffering, she had to do her work, should be remembered in taking the measure of her fortitude and devotion.[86] [84] _notes_ (bibliography a, no. 8), sec. iii. p. xxxiii. [85] _grant_, p. 174. [86] for a lively description of like discomforts endured by her staff, see _eastern hospitals_, vol. i. pp. 91-94. the maximum number of patients accommodated at any one time (dec. 23, 1854) in the barrack hospital was 2434. it was half-an-hour's walk from the general hospital, and an invalided soldier records that he used to accompany miss nightingale from one hospital to another in order to light her home on wet stormy nights, across the barren common which lay between them. farther south of the general hospital, in the quarter of haidar pasha, was what was known as _the palace hospital_, consisting of various buildings belonging to the sultan's summer palace. these were occupied as a hospital in january 1855. miss nightingale had no responsibility here; but in the summer of 1855, the female nursing of sick officers, quartered in one of these buildings, was placed under the superintendence of mrs. willoughby moore, the widow of an officer who had died a noble death in the war, and four female nurses, sent out specially from england. finally, there were hospitals at _koulali_, four or five miles farther north, upon the same asiatic shore of the bosphorus. these hospitals were opened in december 1854. the nursing in them was originally under miss nightingale's supervision, but she was presently relieved of it (p. 193 _n._). the hospitals were broken up in november 1855, when, of the female nursing establishment, a portion went home, and the rest passed under miss nightingale into the hospitals at scutari. there were also five hospitals in the crimea, but particulars of these may be deferred till the time comes for following miss nightingale upon her expeditions to the front. for the nursing in the civil military hospitals (_i.e._ hospitals controlled by a civilian medical staff) at renkioi (on the dardanelles) and at smyrna, and for the naval hospital at therapia, miss nightingale had no responsibility, though there is voluminous correspondence among her papers showing that she was constantly consulted upon the site and arrangements of these hospitals. the medical superintendent of the hospital at renkioi was dr. e. a. parkes, with whom miss nightingale formed a friendship which endured to the end of his life. ii the state of the hospitals when miss nightingale arrived requires some description, which, however, need not be long. the treatment of the sick and wounded during the crimean war was the subject of departmental inquiries, select committees, and royal commissions, which, when they had finished sitting upon the hospitals, began sitting upon each other. enormous piles of blue-books were accumulated, and in the course of my work i have disturbed much dust upon them. the conduct of every department and every individual concerned was the subject of charge, answer, and countercharge innumerable. each generation deserves, no doubt, the records of mal-administration which it gets; but one generation need not be punished by having to examine in detail the records of another. some of the details of the crimean muddle will indeed necessarily be disinterred in the course of our story; but all that need here be collected from the heaps aforesaid are three general conclusions. the reader must remember, in the first place, that, apart from controverted particulars, it was made abundantly manifest that there was gross neglect in the service of the sick and wounded. the conflict of testimony is readily intelligible. it was easy to give an account based upon the facts of one hospital or of one time which was not applicable to another. at scutari, for instance, the general hospital was from the first better ordered than the barrack hospital. then, again, different witnesses had different standards of what was "good" in war hospitals; to some, anything was good if it was no worse than the standard of the peninsular war. of sir george brown, who commanded the light division in the crimea, it was said: "as he was thrown into a cart on some straw when shot through the legs in spain, he thinks the same conveyances admirable now, and hates ambulances as the invention of the evil one."[87] miss nightingale had much indignant sarcasm for those who seemed content that the soldier in hospital should be placed in the condition of "former wars," instead of perceiving that he "should be treated with that degree of decency and humanity which the improved feeling of the nineteenth century demands." but the principal reason for the conflict of testimony was that the very facts of protest and inquiry put all the officials concerned upon the defensive. any suggestion of default or defect was resented as a personal imputation. there is a curious illustration in the letter which the head of the army medical department wrote to his principal medical officer in view of the roebuck committee. "i beg you to supply me, and that immediately"--with what? with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? no--"with every kind of information which you may deem likely to enable me to establish a character for it [the department], which the public appear desirous to prove that it does not possess."[88] but though there was much conflict of evidence, the final verdict was decisive. what greville wrote in his journal--"the accounts published in the _times_ turn out to be true"--was established by official inquiry and admitted by ministers. in consequence of the indictment in the _times_, a commission of inquiry was dispatched to the east by the secretary of state. the commission arrived at constantinople simultaneously with miss nightingale, and four months later it reported to the duke of newcastle.[89] i need not trouble the reader here with many particulars of its report; for they were adopted and confirmed by a select committee of the house of commons a few months later (the famous "roebuck committee"), which pronounced succinct sentence that "the state of the hospitals was disgraceful." the ships which brought the sick and wounded from the crimea were painfully ill-equipped. the voyage from balaclava to scutari usually took eight days and a half. during the first four months of the war, there died on a voyage, no longer than from tynemouth to london, 74 out of every 1000 embarked. the landing arrangements added to the men's sufferings. to an unpractised eye the buildings used as hospitals at scutari were imposing and convenient; and this fact accounts for some of the rose-coloured descriptions by which persons in high places were for a time misled. even the principal medical officer on the spot was naïvely content with whitewash as a preparation to fit the barrack for use as a hospital. in fact, however, the buildings were pest-houses. underneath the great structures "were sewers of the worst possible construction, loaded with filth, mere cesspools, in fact, through which the wind blew sewer air up the pipes of numerous open privies into the corridors and wards where the sick were lying."[90] there was also frightful overcrowding. for many months the space for each patient was one-fourth of what it ought to have been. and there was no proper ventilation. "it is impossible," miss nightingale told the royal commission of 1857, "to describe the state of the atmosphere of the barrack hospital at night. i have been well acquainted with the dwellings of the worst parts of most of the great cities in europe, but have never been in any atmosphere which i could compare with it." lastly, hospital comforts, and even many hospital necessaries, were deficient.[91] the supply of bedsteads was inadequate. the commonest utensils, for decency as well as for comfort, were lacking. the sheets, said miss nightingale, "were of canvas, and so coarse that the wounded men begged to be left in their blankets. it was indeed impossible to put men in such a state of emaciation into those sheets. there was no bedroom furniture of any kind, and only empty beer or wine bottles for candlesticks." necessary surgical and medical appliances were often either wanting or not forthcoming. there was no machinery, until miss nightingale came, for providing any hospital delicacies. the result of this state of things upon patients arriving after a painful voyage in an extreme state of weakness and emaciation, from wounds, from frost-bite, from dysentery, may be imagined, and it is no wonder that cholera and typhus were rife. in february 1855 the mortality per cent of the cases treated was forty-two. no words are necessary to emphasize so terrible a figure. [87] j. b. atkins, _life of sir w. h. russell_, vol. i. p. 143. [88] _notes_, sec. i. p. xxii. [89] this commission is referred to on later pages as "the duke of newcastle's." [90] _notes_, sec. iii. pp. iii., ix. [91] if any reader desires to be sickened, i recommend to him the report on the hospitals by the sanitary commissioners of 1855. and if any one desires to find painful details under some of these heads detailed above, without recourse to blue-books, he may be referred to the report in hansard of the speech made by mr. augustus stafford (an eye-witness of what he described) in the house of commons, jan. 29, 1855. mr. herbert had not waited for the reports of commission and committee to reach the conclusion that things were wrong:- "i have for some time," he wrote on december 14, 1854, to the commandant at scutari, "been very anxious and very much dissatisfied as to the state of the hospital. i believe that every effort has been made by the medical men, and i hear that you have been indefatigable in the conduct of the immediate business of your department. but there has been evidently a want of co-operation between departments, and a fear of responsibility or timidity, arising from an entire misconception of the wishes of the government. no expense has been spared at home, and immense stores are sent out, but they are not forthcoming. some are at varna, and for some inexplicable reason they are not brought down to scutari. when stores are in the hospital, they are not issued without forms so cumbrous as to make the issue unavailing through delay. the purveyor's staff is said to be insufficient. the commissariat staff is said to be insufficient, your own staff is said to be insufficient," etc. by admission, then, and by official sentence, there were things amiss at scutari which urgently called for amendment. this is the first general conclusion which has to be remembered in relation to miss nightingale's work. to what individuals the disgrace of "a disgraceful state of things" attached, it is happily no concern of ours here to inquire. but as i have called mr. sidney herbert as a witness to the fact of the disgrace, i must add my conviction that his own part in the business was wholly beneficent. some research among the documents entitles me, perhaps, to express entire agreement with mr. kinglake's remark upon "what might have been if the government, instead of appointing a commission of _enquiry_ on the 23rd of october, had then delegated mr. sidney herbert to go out for a month to the bosphorus, and there _dictate_ immediate action." at home, mr. herbert was a good man struggling in the toils. the fact is that, though there were some individuals palpably to blame, the real fault was everybody's or nobody's. it was the fault of a vicious system, or rather the vice was that there was no system at all, no co-ordination, but only division of responsibility. the remarks of mr. herbert, just quoted, point to the evil, and on every page of the blue-books it is written large. there were at least eight authorities, working independently of each other, whose co-operation was yet necessary to get anything well done. there was the secretary of state; there was the war office (under the secretary-_at_-war); there were the horse guards, the ordnance, the victualling office, the transport office, the army medical department, and the treasury. the director-general of the medical department in london told the roebuck committee that he was under five distinct masters--the commander-in-chief, the secretary of state, the secretary-_at_-war, the master-general of ordnance, and the board of ordnance. the secretary of state said that he had issued no instructions as to the hospitals; he had left that to the medical board. but the medical director-general said that it would have been impertinent for him to take the first step.[92] if i were writing the history of the crimean war, or of the government offices, other fundamental reasons for the disgraceful state of things in the hospitals--notably the miscalculated plan of military campaign--would have to be taken into account; but i am writing only the life of miss nightingale, and all that under this head the reader need be asked to bear in mind is this: that the root of the evils which had to be dealt with was division of responsibility, and reluctance to assume it. [92] _roebuck committee_, fifth report, pp. 17, 19. the third conclusion of the official inquiries, which i want to emphasize, is contained in a passage in the roebuck committee's report, which prefaced a reference to miss nightingale's mission: "your committee in conclusion cannot but remark that the first real improvements in the lamentable condition of the hospitals at scutari are to be attributed to private suggestions, private exertions, and private benevolence." so, then, we see that there were disgraceful evils at scutari needing amendment, and that in order to amend them what was needed was bold initiative. this it was that miss nightingale supplied. the popular voice thought of her only or mainly as the gentle nurse. that, too, she was; and to her self-devotion in applying a woman's insight to a new sphere, a portion of her fame must ever be ascribed. but when men who knew all the facts spoke of her "commanding genius,"[93] it was rather of her work as an administrator that they were thinking. "they could scarcely realize without personally seeing it," mr. stafford told the house of commons, "the heartfelt gratitude of the soldiers, or the amount of misery which had been relieved" by miss nightingale and her nurses; and, he added, "it was impossible to do justice, not only to the kindness of heart, but to the clever judgment, the ready intelligence, and the experience displayed by the distinguished lady to whom this difficult mission had been entrusted." these were the qualities which enabled her to reform, or to be the inspirer and instigator of reforms in, the british system of military hospitals. she began her work, where it lay immediately to her hand, in the barrack hospital at scutari. she did the work in three ways. she applied an expert's touch and a woman's insight to a hospital hitherto managed exclusively by men. she boldly assumed responsibility, and did things herself which she could find no one else ready to do. and, thirdly, she was instant and persistent in suggestion, exhortation, reproaches, addressed to the authorities at home. it will not be possible to keep these three branches of our subject entirely distinct; but in the main they will form the topics successively of the next three chapters. [93] dean stanley, _memorials of edward and catherine stanley_, 2nd ed., p. 335. so, too, mr. sidney herbert, in his speech at willis's rooms on nov. 29, 1855, referred to her as "a woman of genius." chapter iv the expert's touch write that, when pride of human skill fell prostrate with the weight of care, and men pray'd out for some strong will, some reason 'mid the wild despair,- the loving heart of woman rose to guide the hand and clear the eye, gave hope amid the sternest woes, and saved what man had left to die. r. m. m.: "a monument for scutari," _times_, sept. 10, 1855. miss nightingale arrived at scutari, as we have seen, on november 4, and was immediately in the midst of heavy work in nursing. the battle of balaclava was fought on october 25; and on the day after her arrival, the battle of inkerman. * * * * * "miss n. is decidedly well received," reported mr. bracebridge to mr. herbert (nov. 8). a few days later, the commander of the forces, in a letter dated "before sevastopol, nov. 13th, 1854," bade her a hearty welcome, tendering to her a "grateful acknowledgment for thus charitably devoting yourself to those who have suffered in the service of their country, regardless of the painful scenes you may have to witness." with some of the military officers she had difficulties; from the commander she received nothing but courtesy, sympathy, and support. "miss nightingale cannot but here recall," she wrote after the war, "with deep gratitude and respect, the letters of support and encouragement which she received from the late lord raglan, who invariably acknowledged all that was attempted, for the good of his men, with the deepest feeling, as well as with the high courtesy and true manliness of his character. no tinge of petty jealousy against those entrusted with any commission, public or private, connected with the army under his command, ever alloyed his generous benevolence."[94] [94] _statement to subscribers_, p. vii. the behaviour of some (but not all) of the military officers, and of the men who caught their manners from the officers, was at first different. there was sometimes ill-disguised jealousy, and consequent sulkiness. outwardly, there was politeness; but difficulties were put into the way of "the bird," as some of them called her behind her back, and she was left to shift for herself, when a little help might have eased the burden. "it is the bird's duty," they would say. miss nightingale, however, kept perfect command of her temper. "she was always calm and self-possessed," says one of the roman catholic sisters; "she was a perfect lady through everything--never overbearing. i never heard her raise her voice." upon most of the medical men on the spot she made a good impression at once, because she proved herself to be efficient and helpful. she applied the expert's touch. but there were doctors and doctors. some welcomed her and her staff, and made as much use of them as possible. others resented their presence, and threw obstacles in their way. there was one ward in which the junior medical officers had been advised by their superior to have as little to do with miss nightingale as possible. she showed exemplary patience under this kind of opposition, and gradually won her way into the confidence of most of the doctors.[95] "miss nightingale told us," says one of her staff, "only to attend to patients in the wards of those surgeons who wished for our services, and she charged us never to do anything for the patients without the leave of the doctors."[96] "the number of nurses admitted into each division of a hospital depended," miss nightingale herself explained, "upon the medical officer of that division, who sometimes accepted them, sometimes refused them, sometimes accepted them after they had been refused; while the duties they were permitted to perform varied according to the will of each individual medical officer."[97] that this ill-defined state of things called constantly for tact and diplomacy on the part of the lady superintendent, and often for severe self-restraint, will readily be perceived. [95] see _pincoffs_, p. 79. [96] _eastern hospitals_, vol. i. p. 71. [97] _notes_, p. 152. on the first arrival of miss nightingale and her staff, the wounded were pouring in fast, and the nurses were told off to the worst surgical cases:- "comfort yourselves," wrote mr. bracebridge to her parents (nov. 20), "that what the good flo has done and is doing is priceless, and is felt to be so by the medical men--the cleanliness of the wounds, which were horribly dirty, the general order and arrangement. there has not been half the jealousy i expected from them towards her." "as to miss nightingale and her companions," wrote mr. osborne to mr. herbert (nov. 15), "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 20 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 the 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."[98] [98] _stanmore_, vol. i. p. 349. a letter from miss nightingale herself to her friend of harley street, dr. bowman, the ophthalmic surgeon, gives a lively account of some of her difficulties, and a vivid picture of the horrors amid which her work was done (nov. 14):- "_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 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. lawfield_.--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 1715 sick and wounded in this hospital (among whom 120 cholera patients), 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 dreadful affair of the 5th november from balaklava, in which battle were 1763 wounded and 442 killed, besides 96 officers wounded and 38 killed. i always expected to end my days as hospital matron, but i never expected to be barrack mistress. we had but half an hour's notice before they began landing the wounded. between one and 9 o'clock we had the mattresses stuffed, sewn up, laid down--alas! only upon matting on the floor--the men washed and put to bed, and all their wounds dressed. i wish i had time. i would write you a letter dear to a surgeon's heart. i am as good as a _medical times_! but oh! you gentlemen of england who sit at home in all the well-earned satisfaction of your successful cases, can have little idea from reading the newspapers of the horror and misery (in a military hospital) of operating upon these dying, exhausted men. a london hospital is a garden of flowers to it. we have had such a sea in the bosphorus, and the turks, the very men for whom we are fighting, carry in our wounded so cruelly, that they arrive in a state of agony. one amputated stump died 2 hours after we received him, one compound fracture just as we were getting him into bed--in all, twenty-four cases died on the day of landing. the dysentery cases have died at the rate of one in two. then the day of operations which follows.... 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, tho' 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 barrack, 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. peter, "it is good for us to be here"--though i doubt whether if st. peter had been here, he would have said so. as i went my night-rounds among the newly wounded that first night, there was not one murmur, not one groan, the strictest discipline--the most absolute silence and quiet prevailed--only the steps of the sentry--and i heard one man say, "i was dreaming of my friends at home," and another said, "i was thinking of them." these poor fellows bear pain and mutilation with an unshrinking heroism which is really superhuman, and die, or are cut up without a complaint. the wounded are now lying up to our very door, and we are landing 540 more from the _andes_. i take rank in the army as brigadier general, because 40 british females, whom i have with me, are more difficult to manage than 4000 men. let no lady come out here who is not used to fatigue and privation.... every ten minutes an orderly runs, and we have to go and cram lint into the wound till a surgeon can be sent for, and stop the bleeding as well as we can. in all our corridor, i think we have not an average of three limbs per man. and there are two ships more "loading" at the crimea with wounded--(this is our phraseology). then come the operations, and a melancholy, not an encouraging list is this. they are all performed in the wards--no time to move them; one poor fellow exhausted with hæmorrhage, has his leg amputated as a last hope, and dies ten minutes after the surgeon has left him. almost before the breath has left his body it is sewn up in its blanket, and carried away and buried the same day. we have no room for corpses in the wards. the surgeons pass on to the next, an excision of the shoulder-joint, beautifully performed and going on well. ball lodged just in the head of the joint and fracture starred all round. the next poor fellow has two stumps for arms, and the next has lost an arm and a leg. as for the balls they go in where they like and come out where they like and do as much harm as they can in passing. that is the only rule they have.... i am getting a screen now for the amputations, for when one poor fellow, who is to be amputated to-morrow sees his comrade to-day die under the knife, it makes impression and diminishes his chance. but, anyway, among these exhausted frames, the mortality of the operations is frightful. we have erysipelas, fever and gangrene, and the russian wounded are the worst. we are getting on nicely though in many ways. they were so glad to see us. the senior chaplain is a sensible man, which is a remarkable providence.... if you ever see mr. whitfield, the house apothecary of st. thomas', will you tell him that the nurse he sent me, mrs. roberts, is worth her weight in gold.... mrs. drake is a treasure. the four others are not fit to take care of themselves, but they may do better by and bye if i can convince them of the absolute necessity of discipline. we hear there was another engagement on the 8th and more wounded, who are coming down to us. this is only the beginning of things. the senior chaplain had the sense, among other things, to appreciate miss nightingale. "the chaplain says," wrote mr. nightingale to a friend (dec. 12), "'miss nightingale is an admirable person; none of us can sufficiently admire her. a perfect lady, she wins and rules every one, the most rugged official melts before her gentle voice, and all seem glad to do her bidding.'" florence nightingale had that "excellent thing in woman": lady lovelace, in the poem already quoted, spoke of her friend's "soft, silvery voice"; but it could command, as well as charm, unless indeed it were the charm that commanded. "she scolds sergeants and orderlies all day long," wrote mr. bracebridge to her parents (nov. 20); "you would be astonished to see how fierce she is grown." that was written, of course, in fun; but there was always a note of calm authority in her voice. a crimean veteran recalled her passing his bed with some doctors, who were saying, "it can't be done," and her replying quietly, "it _must_ be done." "i seem to hear her saying it," writes one who knew her well; "there seemed to be no appeal from her quiet conclusive manner." with regard to the nurses, miss nightingale, as may be gathered from the letter to dr. bowman, found them rather a difficult team to drive, and this fact should be remembered in considering an episode presently to be related (ii.). she had to send one nurse back to england at once, filling the vacancy by a german sister from the kaiserswerth colony at constantinople. of the six nurses supplied by st. john's house, "four, alas! returned shortly from scutari, not being prepared to accept the discipline and privations of the life out there."[99] we need not be too impatient with mrs. lawfield (who turned out an excellent nurse) for her objection to the cap. the uniform, devised on the spur of the moment, seems to have been very much less becoming than that of the "staff nurse, new style," with her "gown of silver gray, bright steel chain, and chignon's elegant array."[100] the nightingale nurses in the east wore "grey tweed wrappers, worsted jackets, with caps and short woollen cloaks, and a frightful scarf of brown holland, embroidered in red with the words, 'scutari hospital.'"[101] such is the description of the costume worn by the seculars which is given by one of the roman catholic sisters, not without some pity as she thought of her own religious habit. but the short cloak should not be so contemptuously dismissed. "the red uniform cape worn by the ladies of the queen alexandra's imperial military nursing service is modelled on that originally introduced by florence nightingale for the nurses whom she took with her to scutari. this cape may therefore be regarded as a memorial to the great founder of military nursing."[102] as for the "frightful scarf" some such distinctive badge was a very necessary precaution amid the rough-and-tumble of a military depot and its camp-followers. a raw new-comer was seen to approach one of the nurses in the street. "you leave her alone," said his mate, "don't you see she's one of miss nightingale's women?" their cloth was respected throughout the camps; but miss nightingale had to dismiss two or three for levity of conduct. on arriving at scutari, she had placed ten in the general hospital and twenty-eight in the barrack hospital, and in neither did she find it easy to maintain discipline. from time to time she transferred nurses, sending the best to other hospitals, keeping the less trustworthy under her own eye; and sending some home, who were unwilling to stay or found incompetent, as other recruits arrived. of the thirty-eight in the first party, she considered that not more than sixteen were really efficient, whilst five or six were in a class of excellence by themselves. [99] _st. john's house: a record_, p. 8. [100] w. e. henley, _in hospital_. [101] _memories of the crimea_, by sister mary aloysius, p. 17. the "frightful scarf" was a plain band worn, i suppose, over one arm and under the other. [102] _journal of the royal army medical corps_ (bibliography b, no. 52), p. 393. the difficulties--including the great dress question--which miss nightingale had with her staff, appear clearly enough in the "rules and regulations for the nurses attached to the military hospitals in the east," which miss nightingale presently sent home to mr. herbert, who had them printed, and handed to every candidate for appointment as nurse. "as it has been stated," says the preamble, "that the nurses who have gone to the hospitals in the east, have in some instances complained of being subject to hardships and to rules for which they were not previously prepared, and of having to do work differing from what they expected, it has been thought desirable to state distinctly the regulations relative to the outfit, clothing, duties, and position of nurses in military hospitals." the nurses, it is then set forth, "are required to appear at all times in the regulation dress with the badge, and never to wear flowers in their bonnet-caps, or ribbons, other than such as are provided for them, or are sanctioned by the superintendent." another rule defines the precise quantities of spirituous liquor which a nurse will be allowed; a third states that "no nurse will be allowed to walk out except with the housekeeper, or with a party of at least three nurses together, and never without leave previously obtained." the whole code shows the necessity which miss nightingale had found for enforcing strict discipline.[103] and even with these new regulations to back her, she still found discipline hard to enforce. her official letters to the war office complain of unsuitable recruits being sent out to her, and of the greater number of them as being "wholly undisciplined." [103] the manuscript of this document is preserved among the archives of the war office. the text of these, "the earliest rules defining the position and duties of a female nurse in any military hospital," has been printed elsewhere (bibliography b, no. 52). ii in december 1854 miss nightingale was astonished to receive an announcement that a party of forty-seven more nurses, under the care of her friend, miss mary stanley, were on their way to join her. she remonstrated, and threatened to resign:- "you have sacrificed the cause so near my heart," she wrote to mr. sidney herbert (dec. 15); "you have sacrificed me, a matter of small importance now; you have sacrificed your own written word to a popular cry. you must feel that i ought to resign, where conditions are imposed upon me which render the object for which i am employed unattainable, and i only remain at my post till i have provided in some measure for these poor wanderers." mr. herbert replied, as his biographer states, in terms of courtesy and kindliness, and without any trace of the bitterness which miss nightingale's vehemence might have evoked in a smaller-minded man. there is a letter to mrs. bracebridge (dec. 27) in which mrs. herbert says: "i am heart-broken about the nurses, but i do assure you, if you send them all home without a trial, you will lose some really valuable women." the minister had authorized miss nightingale, if on full consideration she thought fit, to return miss stanley's party to england at his own private expense. her good sense soon showed her that such a course would be, as she wrote, "a moral impossibility"; and in the end she made the best she could of what she considered a bad job--to the great advantage, as it was to turn out, of the wounded soldiers, though at a great increase to her own responsibilities and difficulties. much has been made in some quarters[104] of this episode, and it may be well here to explain miss nightingale's position clearly; for the affair throws strong light upon the difficulties of her task. it is essential to know, in the first place, that mr. herbert had distinctly stated that the selection of nurses was to be exclusively in miss nightingale's hands. this is implied in his official instructions (p. 156), and was stated with the utmost emphasis in a letter "to a correspondent," which he had caused to be inserted in the newspapers of october 24. already the cry had been raised that more nurses should be sent, and volunteers were clamouring for enlistment. mr. herbert thereupon wrote:- war office, _october_ 21 [1854].... the duties of a hospital nurse, if they are properly performed, require great skill as well as strength and courage, especially where the cases are surgical cases and the majority of them are from gunshot wounds. persons who have no experience or skill in such matters would be of no use whatever; and in moments of great pressure, such as must of necessity at intervals occur in a military hospital, any person who is not of use is an impediment. many ladies, whose generous enthusiasm prompts them to offer their services as nurses, are little aware of the hardships they would have to encounter, and the horrors they would have to witness, which would try the firmest nerves. were all accepted who offer, i fear we should have not only many inefficient nurses, but many hysterical patients themselves requiring treatment instead of assisting others.... no additional nurses will be sent out to miss nightingale until she shall have written home from scutari and reported how far her labours have been successful, and what number and description of persons, if any, she requires in addition.... no one can be sent out until we hear from miss nightingale that they are required. [104] especially by lord stanmore in his _memoir of sidney herbert_. he handles it, i think, with some needless asperity, and he might have mentioned mr. herbert's letter which is here quoted. miss nightingale had not written home in that sense at all, but mr. herbert had sent the nurses. that was what she meant when she said that he had "sacrificed his own written word." "had i had the enormous folly," she wrote to mr. herbert (dec. 15), "at the end of eleven days' experience, to require more women, would it not seem that you, as a statesman, should have said, 'wait till you can see your way better.' but i made no such request." she was an expert, and did not wish to be inundated with amateurs. moreover, everybody at scutari knew, as she wrote, the terms of mr. herbert's letter to the newspapers, and the medical men knew that she had not asked for any more nurses. yet here was a new party sent out; and, to make the encroachment on her domain the more marked, miss stanley had received instructions to, and reported herself to, not the superintendent of the nurses, but other officials. miss nightingale felt that her authority had been flouted, her position undermined. but personal considerations were not the cause of her vexation. it was not a case of "pique," as some people in england imagined. mr. herbert and she were engaged in making a new experiment. it was full of difficulties, and the only chance of success lay in the maintenance of undivided responsibility and clearly established authority. miss nightingale could not quietly have accepted the new situation without sacrificing the key of the position. had she acquiesced, she would have admitted that mr. herbert might henceforth send out nurses without consulting her, and without placing them expressly under her orders. she would have left herself at the mercy of any well-meaning person in england who thought that this or that might be helpful to her. her judgment would no longer have been the governing factor; while yet for any confusion or failure that might follow, she would be held responsible. mr. herbert thought, no doubt, that already the experiment had been a great success, as indeed it was, and he was eager to increase the scale of it. he might not unreasonably think that, as the number of the wounded increased, so should the number of female nurses be increased also. mr. osborne's remark, cited above (p. 183), must have confirmed him in such an opinion. but to miss nightingale on the spot the case wore a very different aspect. we must remember the severe mental strain of her position; the high pressure of work and emotion at which she was living, all the higher to one of her intensely sensitive conscientiousness; the continual failure (to her critical mind) of attempts to reform cruel abuses; the danger of real, acknowledged failure always present. in such a position, the arrival of a fresh batch of nurses, unexpected and unsolicited, must have seemed to her the break-up of all her plans, the destruction of the standard of nursing which she was painfully creating, the gravest peril to an experiment, still on its trial, and ever subject to hostile criticism. immediate and practical difficulties were also great. there was no accommodation in the hospitals at scutari available for additional female nurses. "the 46," wrote mr. bracebridge to mr. smith (dec. 18), "have fallen on us like a cloud of locusts. where to house them, feed them, place them, is difficult; how to care for them, not to be imagined." the principal medical officer flatly refused to have any more, and miss nightingale herself felt that she could not manage any more:- "i have toiled my way," she wrote (dec. 15), "into the confidence of the medical men. i have, by incessant vigilance, day and night, introduced something like system into the disorderly operations of these women. and the plan may be said to have succeeded in some measure, _as it stands_.... but to have women scampering about the wards of a military hospital all day long, which they would do, did an increased number relax the discipline and increase their leisure, would be as improper as absurd." and there was a further objection. a considerable number of the second party were roman catholics, and miss stanley herself (as miss nightingale well knew) was on the verge of joining the roman communion. how much this factor in the case added to the force of miss nightingale's objections, we shall learn in a later chapter. mr. herbert thought, i suppose, that the additional nurses would be welcome to her because they came under the escort of a friend. but so strongly did miss nightingale feel on the subject, that miss stanley's part in the affair rankled the more. it was in the house of her friends, she felt, that she had been wounded. their personal relations were further embittered by the case of a nurse whom miss nightingale (with the concurrence of the other authorities) felt obliged to dismiss, but whom miss stanley believed to be ill-used. miss nightingale's friendship with mr. and mrs. herbert was in no way impaired. they had confessed themselves in the wrong; and so she was deeply touched, as she wrote, by their kindness and generosity. but between her and miss stanley the breach was never healed. their later lives took different directions, and they did not meet again. miss nightingale's resentment was perfectly justified. her remonstrances to mr. herbert were necessary. his well-intentioned action was calculated to undermine her authority, and to aggravate her difficulties; and, in both of these ways, to imperil the success of their joint experiment. her handling of the crisis which had burst upon her was, perhaps, in relation to the subordinates unfortunate. miss stanley was accompanied by dr. meyer, a medical man, and mr. jocelyne percy, who had gone out (as mrs. herbert wrote to mrs. bracebridge) devoted to miss nightingale, "saying he would be her footman, etc."[105] "we picked out," added mrs. herbert plaintively, "the two men in england who, we thought, would help flo most," and they returned sad and sore at their cold reception. miss nightingale, acting on advice she received on the spot, asked them to sign notes of their conversation with her;[106] this rankled with them, and mr. percy made a grievance of it in england. mrs. herbert, in reporting all this to mrs. bracebridge (jan. 7, 1855), made the final reflection: "perhaps it is wholesome for us to be reminded that flo is _still a mortal_, which we were beginning to doubt." mortals have to deal with entanglements as best they may on the spur of the moment; and those at a distance hardly made enough allowance for the difficulties with which miss nightingale was suddenly confronted, for the danger which mr. herbert's dispatch of unsolicited reinforcements involved, and, therefore, for the importance which she attached to having all the conditions defined in black and white. [105] see below, p. 241. [106] it was mr. bracebridge who took the notes of the interview. her practical genius and good sense speedily triumphed, however, over the difficulties of the case. in agreement with the medical authorities, the number of female nurses at scutari was raised to 50, and miss nightingale weeded out some of her original staff in favour of new-comers. others of them were sent to the hospitals at balaclava (p. 254); and others to those at koulali (p. 174). miss stanley, whose intention it had been to return to england as soon as she had deposited her party, remained for several months in charge at the latter place, not administering the nursing service altogether according to miss nightingale's ideas,[107] but rendering aid to the afflicted of which her brother, the dean, has left us so charming and sympathetic a memorial.[108] [107] miss nightingale made some criticisms in an official letter to the war office, may 1, 1855; printed at pp. 389, 390 of the pamphlet no. 52 in bibliography b. and in another letter (march 5) she begged lord panmure to relieve her of responsibility for the hospitals at koulali. [108] in an appendix to the _second_ edition (1880) of his _memorials of edward and catherine stanley_. in the end, then, the scope of miss nightingale's experiment was considerably enlarged; and the deeper significance of the episode is to be found in the emphasis which it throws upon the novelty and difficulties of miss nightingale's enterprise. in these days, nurses, trained and distinctively attired, are so much part of everyday life, women-nurses serving under the red cross are so normal a feature of war, and territorial nurses, smartly uniformed, are so familiar a unit of auxiliary forces, that some effort of imagination is required to realize the conditions which existed sixty years ago. we remember that a staff of nearly 800 female nurses was maintained for service in the south african war, and may be tempted to smile at the question between 20 and 40, or 40 and 90 for the crimea. but it was miss nightingale who showed the way, and the way of the pioneer is rough. no one who reads this volume will suspect her of timidity, or think her wanting in self-confidence; yet so conscious was she of the difficulties that in this instance she under-rated her power, and was anxious to keep the experiment within much narrower limits than it assumed. her original idea had been to limit the number of female nurses to 20, but at various dates after miss stanley's arrival she sent home for more nurses, and, before the war was over, she had had control of 125. iii miss nightingale's reluctance to assume the superintendence of additional nurses will be the more readily understood when we pass to the multifarious duties which circumstances led her to discharge. "having understood," she wrote to lord stratford de redcliffe (nov. 7), "that your excellency has the power of drawing upon government for the uses of the sick and wounded, i beg to state that there is at present a great deficiency of linen among the men in the hospitals until the government stores can arrive and be appropriated to them. a hundred pairs of sheets and 200 shirts might be applied to such a temporary purpose, and would never be _de trop_. also a few american stoves, upon which we might prepare delicate food for the worst cases, who require to be fed every two or three hours, which is of course impossible for the medical officers and orderlies to attend to; many deaths are necessarily the consequence." this suggestion to the ambassador, made on the third day after miss nightingale's arrival, serves to introduce two main directions in which she applied a woman's insight to the condition of things at scutari. efficient nursing requires, she well knew, cleanliness and delicately cooked food. she set herself with characteristic energy to supply these necessities. she found "not a basin, nor a towel, nor a bit of soap, nor a broom," and instantly requisitioned 300 scrubbing brushes. "the first improvements took place," said mr. macdonald, "after miss nightingale's arrival--greater cleanliness and greater order. i recollect one of the first things she asked me to supply was 200 hard scrubbers and sacking for washing the floors, for which no means existed at that time."[109] miss nightingale had foreseen that washing would be one of the first things necessary. during the voyage out, as the ship was approaching constantinople, one of the party went up to her and said earnestly, "oh, miss nightingale, when we land, don't let there be any red-tape delays, let us get straight to nursing the poor fellows!" "the strongest will be wanted at the wash-tub," was the reply. until miss nightingale arrived, the number of shirts washed during a month was six.[110] up to the date of her arrival, the purveyor-general had contracted for the washing of the hospital bedding, and of the linen of the patients. simultaneously, however, with the arrival of the wounded from inkerman, it was found that the contractor had broken down in the latter part of his contract. and even with regard to the former part, the bedding was washed, miss nightingale discovered, in cold water. she insisted upon hot; the more since it was found, as the duke of newcastle's commissioners reported, that many of the articles sent back from the wash as clean, had to be destroyed as being in fact verminous. miss nightingale accordingly took a turkish house, had boilers supplied in it by the engineer's office, employed soldiers' wives to do the washing, and thus gave the sick and wounded the comfort of clean linen. all this was paid for partly out of her private funds and partly by the _times_ fund. [109] _roebuck committee, q_. 6140. [110] this fact, reported by the roebuck committee, barbed one of mr. kinglake's sarcasms against the males (vi. 427 _n._). it also greatly impressed john bright. see mr. g. m. trevelyan's _life_ of him, 1913, p. 242. yet more important, perhaps, to the comfort and recovery of the sick, were miss nightingale's "extra diet kitchens." when she came to the barrack hospital she found that all the cooking was done in thirteen large coppers, situated at one end of the vast building. the patients' beds extended over a space of from three to four miles (including, of course, both wards and corridors); it took three or four hours to serve the ordinary dinners, and there were no facilities whatever for preparing delicacies between times. within ten days of her arrival, miss nightingale had remedied this defect. she opened two "extra diet kitchens" in different parts of the building, and had three supplementary boilers fixed on one of the staircases for the preparation of arrowroot and the like. as explained more fully below (p. 201), nothing was supplied except in accordance with medical directions; and she met the doctors' requisitions out of her private stores only when the government stores failed. "it is obvious," she explained, "that miss nightingale would have shielded herself from heavy responsibility by adhering, and by obtaining the adherence of the medical officers, to the strict precedents of military hospital regulations, according to which the materials for the extra diets would have been sent in to her by the purveyor without requisition, in the same manner as is practised in the case of the ordinary diets; but she felt that in doing so she would most frequently be defeating the object she was sent to carry out, for in the majority of cases the purveyor had either no supply, or a supply of a very indifferent quality of the articles required."[111] it is safe to say that many lives were saved by the application by miss nightingale of the good housewife's care to the kitchen of the hospitals. the woman's eye was not above distinguishing between bone and gristle and meat in the men's dinner, and she wanted to have the meat issued from the stores boned, so that one patient should not get all bone, another all gristle, and another all meat. but on this point she was beaten. the inspector-general informed her that it would require a new "regulation of the service" to "bone the meat"!! the notes of exclamation are hers.[112] in the culinary department an invaluable volunteer arrived in 1855 in the person of alexis soyer, once famous as the _chef_ of the reform club, and still alive as m. mirobolant in thackeray's _pendennis_. m. soyer rearranged and partly superseded miss nightingale's kitchens at scutari. we shall meet with him and his good work again when we accompany her to the crimea. [111] _statement_, p. 26 _n._ [112] letter to mr. herbert, feb. 5, 1855. miss nightingale was not long at scutari without being touched by the pitiable condition of the women camp-followers, separated often from their regiments, and in a very forlorn state. miss nightingale deputed the care of them in large measure to mrs. bracebridge, who, with her husband, collected and administered a separate fund for giving assistance to the wives, women, and children of soldiers at scutari. a lying-in hospital was organized; and miss nightingale found employment for many of the women, both in washing as aforesaid, and in making up old linen into various hospital requisites. here, too, helpful volunteers presently arrived. the rev. dr. and lady alicia blackwood were moved after the battle of inkerman to go out to scutari and see if they could be of use. dr. blackwood asked and obtained an appointment as a military chaplain; and, on their arrival, lady alicia went straight to miss nightingale and asked what she could do to help:- "the reply she gave me," wrote lady alicia, "or rather the question she put me in reply, after a few seconds of silence, with a peculiar expression of countenance, made an indelible impression. 'do you mean what you say?' 'yes, certainly; why do you ask me?' 'because i have had several such applications before, and when i have suggested work, i found it could not be done, or some excuse was made; it was not exactly the sort of thing intended, it required special suitability, &c.' 'well,' i replied, 'i am in earnest; we came out here with no other wish than to help where we could.' 'very well, then, you really can help me if you will. in this barrack are now located some two hundred poor women in the most abject misery. a great number have been sent down from varna; they are in rags, and covered with vermin. my heart bleeds for them; but my work is with the soldiers, not with their wives. now, will you undertake to look after them? if you will take them as your charge, i will send an orderly who will show you their haunts.'"[113] [113] _narrative of a residence on the bosphorus_, p. 49. any reader who wishes to be harrowed should read the following pages in lady alicia's journal. she died in july 1913 in her 95th year. lady alicia went, and with her husband was of great assistance. miss nightingale was mindful also of the families of her nurses. some of them were wives and widows who had left children at home. "many things turn up," wrote lady verney to a friend, "for us to do for florence; as in looking after the children of her nurses." and mrs. nightingale wrote similarly (april 1855):- flo has been writing incessantly lately about her nurses' families, for whom the best seem getting very anxious, and she scarcely mentions anything else. we have seen and heard much in visiting them which is a great pleasure to us. before the roebuck committee, dr. andrew smith, the head of the army medical department in london, was asked, "what do you think was the result of miss nightingale's mission?" "i daresay," he answered, apparently with some reluctance, "it was very advantageous"; and then, pulling himself together like a man and seeking to be just, he added: "there is no doubt about it; because females are able to discover many deficiencies that a man would not think of, and they will look at things that a man will have no idea of looking to." a very true statement; and perhaps as much as could reasonably be expected from an official on the defensive. but i think we shall find in the next chapter that some of the things which miss nightingale saw and did were not unworthy of the more comprehensive sweep claimed by dr. smith for the male faculty of vision. chapter v the administrator i have no hesitation in saying that miss nightingale has exhibited greater power of organization, a greater familiarity with details, while at the same time taking a comprehensive view of the general bearing of the subject, than has marked the conduct of any one connected with the hospitals during the present war.--_sidney herbert_ (speech at willis's rooms, nov. 29, 1855). ostensibly, and by the strict letter of her original instructions, miss nightingale was only superintendent of the female nursing establishment. in fact, and by force of circumstances, she became a purveyor to the hospitals, a clothier to the british army, and in many emergencies a _dea ex machina_. * * * * * she became, first, purveyor-auxiliary to the hospitals at scutari. my statements under this head might seem to be the inventions of a satirist if i did not disclaim credit for such ingenuity by adding that they are in every case extracted from official sources. of the ignorance existing in high places of the true state of things at scutari, the best illustration is the answer which the british ambassador gave when he was asked by the commissioner of the _times_ fund what things were most needed in the hospitals. "nothing is needed," said lord stratford, and the only suggestion he could make to the _times_ was that it should devote its fund to building an english church at pera. miss nightingale thought that the service of god included the service of man, and mr. macdonald, the _times_ commissioner, agreed with her. between them, they established not a church, but a store. the ambassador of course formed his conclusions from what he was told; and the principal medical officer at scutari "stated that he wanted nothing in the shape of stores or medical comforts at a time when his patients were destitute of the commonest necessaries. assistance which had been discouraged as superfluous was eventually found essential for the lives of the patients."[114] "i am a kind of general dealer," wrote miss nightingale to mr. herbert (jan. 4, 1855), "in socks, shirts, knives and forks, wooden spoons, tin baths, tables and forms, cabbage and carrots, operating tables, towels and soap, small tooth combs, precipitate for destroying lice, scissors, bedpans and stump pillows. i will send you a picture of my caravanserai, into which beasts come in and out. indeed the vermin might, if they had but 'unity of purpose,' carry off the four miles of beds on their backs, and march with them into the war office, horse guards, s.w." [114] _roebuck committee_, fifth report, pp. 20, 21. the caravanserai was the large kitchen aforesaid (p. 173). "from this room," wrote one of the lady volunteers, "were distributed quantities of arrowroot, sago, rice puddings, jelly, beef-tea, and lemonade upon requisitions made by the surgeons. this caused great comings to and fro; numbers of orderlies were waiting at the door with requisitions. one of the nuns or a lady received them, and saw they were signed and countersigned before serving. we used, among ourselves, to call this kitchen the tower of babel. in the middle of the day everything and everybody seemed to be there: boxes, parcels, bundles of sheets, shirts, and old linen and flannels, tubs of butter, sugar, bread, kettles, saucepans, heaps of books, and of all kinds of rubbish, besides the diets which were being dispensed; then the people, ladies, nuns, nurses, orderlies, turks, greeks, french and italian servants, officers and others waiting to see miss nightingale; all passing to and fro, all intent upon their own business, and all speaking their own language."[115] [115] _eastern hospitals_, vol. i. p. 68. there was also in "the sisters' tower," as this part of the barrack hospital came to be called, a small sitting-room; and in it "were held those councils over which miss nightingale so ably presided, at which were discussed the measures necessary to meet the daily-varying exigencies of the hospital. from hence were given the orders which regulated the female staff. this, too, was the office from which were sent those many letters to the government, to friends and supporters at home, telling of the sufferings of the sick and wounded."[116] in the report of the duke of newcastle's commission, as also in miss nightingale's _statement to subscribers_, the full list of articles supplied by her may be found, tabulated with a precision and amplitude of detail characteristic of her. it included the miscellaneous utensils, etc., enumerated above, and also various articles of food required for the "extra diets" mentioned in the preceding chapter. the supplies were furnished partly by the _times_ fund, partly out of moneys sent to her by benevolent persons, and partly out of the private purse of herself and her immediate friends. much of the expenditure was ultimately refunded to her by the government. the sick and wounded soldiers at scutari would, i fear, have felt ill requited for the lack of linen, sheets, utensils, and extra diet by hearing that a beautiful new church was being built at pera. [116] _scutari and its hospitals_, by s. g. o., p. 24. but, it may be asked, were the things which miss nightingale procured and issued really wanted? may they not have been her fads? and was not hers perhaps a work of supererogation, for could not the official purveyor have supplied them? such statements were widely made at the time, and one can readily understand the reason. by drawing upon her own stores, miss nightingale not only furnished the soldiery with the things they were needing, but "administered to the defaulting administrators 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 the males wanted), and that the moment a want declared itself, she made haste to supply it herself."[117] but such complaints were entirely unfounded; for it was shown by the duke of newcastle's commission that she never issued anything from her stores, nor did she allow any one else to do so, except upon the demand of the medical officers, and after inquiry of the purveyor if he could supply them. i find among miss nightingale's papers a few of the original requisitions from medical officers. here is one of them:- palace hospital, 18_th january_ 1855. madam--i have the honor to forward a requisition for 50 shirts and 50 warm flannels. the purveyor has none. knowing the extensive demand, i have limited my request to meet the urgent requirements of the most serious cases in my charge. i have the honor to be, madam, your most obedient humble servant, edward menzies, staff surgeon in charge. [117] kinglake, p. 430. he cites an example of the complaints in a private letter from sir john burgoyne to lord raglan (march 27, 1855). the complaint of the "groove-going men" has been revived in our own day by lord stanmore, who complains of miss nightingale (_memoir of sidney herbert_, vol. i. p. 381) that she got things (which the purveyor had failed to get) instead of informing him where they could be got. she acted on what is a golden rule in cases of emergency. when she wanted a thing done without delay, she did it herself. the list, said the commissioners drily, "must not be regarded as conclusive proof that the articles mentioned in it were invariably wanting in the [government] stores." goods, they explained, "have been refused, although they were, to our personal knowledge, lying in abundance in the store of the purveyor." why refused? because the purveyor took it upon himself to override the requisition of the medical officers? not at all. "this was done because they had not been examined by the board of survey. on one occasion, in the month of december last [1854], we found that this was the case with respect to hospital rugs, and it is probable that this has not been the only instance of such an occurrence." miss nightingale's letters to mr. herbert show that it was a frequent occurrence. for instance, in february 1855, she received a requisition from the medical officers at balaclava for shirts. she knew that 27,000 shirts had at her instance been sent by government from home, and they were already landed. but the purveyor would not let them be used; "he could not unpack them without a board." three weeks elapsed before the board released the shirts. the sick and wounded, lying shivering for want of rugs and shirts, would have expressed themselves forcibly, i fear, if it had been explained that they must shiver still until the board of survey's good time had arrived. miss nightingale's impatience at such delays was the origin, doubtless, of a story which had wide currency at the time that on one occasion she ordered a government consignment to be opened forcibly, while the officials wrung their hands at the thought of what the board of survey might presently say. the story was mentioned in the roebuck committee; and, though it was not confirmed, i think that miss nightingale was quite capable of the dreadful deed. certainly she often insisted on obtaining first-hand evidence for herself, instead of trusting to the report of others; for in one of her letters to mr. herbert (dec. 21, 1854), i find this passage: "this morning i foraged in the purveyor's store--a cruise i make almost daily, as the only way of getting things. no mops, no plates, no wooden trays (the engineer is having these made), no slippers, no shoe-brushes, no blacking, no knives and forks, no spoons, no scissors (for cutting the men's hair, which is literally alive), no basins, no towelling, no chloride of zinc." then she enumerates the things which mr. herbert should send from london, adding, "the other articles mentioned above as not now in store can be had at constantinople" or marseilles; whence, i imagine, she proceeded to get them. shopping at scutari was not an afternoon's easy amusement:- "english people," she wrote to mr. herbert (dec. 10), "look upon scutari as a place with inns and hackney-coaches, and houses to let furnished. it required yesterday, to land 25 casks of sugar, four oxen and two men for six hours, plus two passes, two requisitions, mr. bracebridge's two interferences, and one apology from a quarter-master for seizing the _araba_, received with a smile and a kind word, because he did his duty; for every _araba_ is required on military store or commissariat duty. there are no pack-horses and no asses, except those used by the peasantry to attend the market 1-1/4 miles off. an _araba_ consists of loose poles and planks, extended between two axle-trees, placed on four small wheels, and drawn by a yoke of weak oxen.... four days in the week we cannot communicate with constantinople, except by the other harbour, 1-1/4 miles off, to which the road is almost impassable." but, somehow or other, miss nightingale was able to supply from her stores in hand, or to obtain from constantinople or smyrna or elsewhere, many things which the purveyor-general could not, or would not, obtain. she had the forethought, as already related, to lay in at marseilles on her way out a large supply of articles which she deemed likely to be useful; and at scutari mr. macdonald of the _times_ was untiring and resourceful. in the course of time, as funds continued to pour in, and the government purveying became more efficient, miss nightingale was able on emergency to supply, not only the british, but their allies. in the spring of 1856, when the scourge of typhus committed sad ravages among the french, and the _amour propre_ of the _intendance_ prevented the acceptance of the humane offer of medical comforts as a loan from the british government, miss nightingale paved the way in overcoming this scruple by sending, as a present to the french sisters and medical officers, large quantities of wine, arrowroot, and meat-essence. the sardinian sisters of mercy also experienced much kindness at her hands when the destruction of a supply-ship by fire had left them without many things needed by their patients. she sent supplies also to the prussian civil hospital, where many britishers were treated; for this good office she received a letter of thanks from the king of prussia (sept. 1856). to her quarters at scutari, the turks, too, often resorted for medicine and advice. in her, says an eye-witness, the sickly and needy of all nations found an active friend.[118] "she embraced in her solicitude," said a french historian of the crimean war, "the sick of three armies."[119] [118] _pincoffs_, pp. 82-83; and see _hall_, p. 378. [119] _la guerre de crimée_, by m. l. baudens, p. 104. miss nightingale paid a tribute to the "wise and enlightened sanitary views" of m. baudens. see her _subsidiary notes_, p. 133 _n._ miss nightingale's initiative was further useful in extracting needed articles which were contained in the government store, but yet had not been forthcoming, either because nobody else had asked for them, or because somebody had not been lucky enough to hit upon the right moment for asking. the system in force was most ingeniously contrived to bring about such a state of things. articles were only supplied to the hospitals by the purveyor on the requisition of a medical officer. the medical officers were overburdened with work, and perhaps omitted to send in a requisition. or they sent in a requisition, and the form was returned, marked "none in store." the articles may subsequently have been obtained or have arrived from england, but no note was kept in the purveying department of unfulfilled requisitions, and unless the medical officers requisitioned again, the articles were not supplied. the commissioners found that from this cause patients were sometimes left without beds, though there were bedsteads in store at the time. happily miss nightingale had laid in a good many at marseilles. ii there was another sphere in which miss nightingale came to the rescue of the sick and wounded from the blunders of official administration. she clothed them, 50,000 shirts in all having been issued from her store. the history of this private clothing department is curious. the regulations of the war office assumed that every soldier brought with him into hospital an adequate kit, and it was no part of the purveyor's duty to supply such a thing as a shirt. but three of the four generals of division in the crimea had decided not to disembark the men's knapsacks. sebastopol, it was confidently expected, would fall in a few days' time, and the men were to march light. in most cases they never saw their knapsacks again.[120] hence the sick and wounded who arrived at scutari immediately after the battle of the alma were destitute of all clothing except what was on their persons, and that was in many cases fit only for the furnace. no regulation existed whereby, if the soldier had for military reasons been deprived of his kit, the deficiency could be made good. the supply of a change of linen for the sick and wounded while in hospital, and of clean shirts to wear when invalided home or returned to the front, was perhaps a better allocation of benevolent funds than a supply of altar-cloths for a new church at pera. at any rate miss nightingale thought so; and thus she and her coadjutors were in some measure the clothiers as well as the purveyors of the wounded soldiers. [120] for a reference to this matter by miss nightingale, see below, p. 224. iii miss nightingale assumed responsibility on one occasion as a builder, and this was at the time the usurpation which was most condemned in some quarters and the most commended in others. some wards in the barrack hospital were in so dilapidated a condition as to be unfit for the reception of patients. the commander-in-chief had warned the hospital authorities that additional sick and wounded might shortly be upon their hands. the uninhabited wards might by prompt expenditure be made capable of accommodating 800 cases. the expenditure, however, would be considerable, and no one seemed willing to incur it without superior authority. miss nightingale stepped into the breach. with the concurrence of dr. mcgrigor, a senior medical officer of the hospital, she represented the urgency of the case to lady stratford de redcliffe. the ambassador had been empowered, as we have seen, to incur expenditure; and his wife, as she had given miss nightingale to understand, was the authorized intermediary between the ambassador and the authorities of the hospitals. lady stratford saw the urgent necessity of the work, and mr. gordon, the chief of the engineering staff, was instructed to put it immediately in hand. the workmen, 125 in number, presently struck, whereupon miss nightingale, on her own authority, succeeded in engaging 200 other workmen, and the work was rapidly completed. lord stratford subsequently disclaimed any responsibility,[121] and miss nightingale paid the bill out of her own private resources. the war department, when the affair came to their knowledge, approved her action, and reimbursed her. this instance of "the nightingale power" made a great impression, and she herself regarded it as the most beneficent thing she did in the east. the fame of the affair was noised abroad, and reached the british camp at balaclava, where our unfailing friend, colonel sterling, heard of it with hot indignation. miss nightingale, he wrote, "coolly draws a cheque. is this the way to manage the finances of a great nation? _vox populi_? a divine afflatus. priestess, miss n. magnetic impetus drawing cash out of my pocket!" in normal times it would certainly not be the way to manage the finances of a great nation. and even in times of emergency the way which would of course have occurred to any well-regulated slave of routine was that miss nightingale should have spoken to some officer on the spot, that he should have represented the case to the director-general of the army medical department in london, that the director-general should have moved the horse guards, and the horse guards the ordnance, that the ordnance should then have approached the treasury, and that after process of minuting and countersigning, the work should in due course have been officially ordered. but meanwhile lord raglan's wounded would have arrived at the hospital, and there would have been no wards ready to receive them. as it was, "the wards were ready," as miss nightingale reported to mr. herbert (dec. 21), "to receive 500 men on the 19th from the ships _ripon_ and _golden fleece_. they were received in the wards by dr. mcgrigor and myself, and were generally in the last stage of exhaustion. i supplied all the utensils, including knives and forks, spoons, cans, towels, etc., clearing our quarters of these." [121] my statements are based on a letter from miss nightingale to mr. sidney herbert of dec. 5, 1854. iv in all these things miss nightingale may be warmly commended, but the officials need not be too hotly condemned. they were but doing their duty, as they had learnt it; and for the rest, it was the system, or want of system, that was at fault. just as in london there was no co-ordination among the departments, so at scutari there was no unity of action, and no clear personal responsibility. "it is a current joke here," wrote miss nightingale from scutari, "to offer a prize for the discovery of any one willing to take responsibility." it was never awarded, for miss nightingale herself was, i suppose, "barred." in writing to mr. herbert, she called many of the officials at scutari by very hard names, but in other letters she admitted that the ultimate fault lay elsewhere. "the grand administrative evil," she said (dec. 10), "emanates from home--in the existence of a number of departments here, each with its centrifugal and independent action, uncounteracted by any centripetal attraction, viz. a central authority capable of supervising and compelling combined effort for each object at each particular time." mr. herbert might write, but the officials would not act. the force of custom was too strong. miss nightingale showed the purveyor a letter from the minister. "this is the first time," he said, "i have had it in writing that i was not to spare expense. i never knew that i might not be thrown overboard." "your name," she had told mr. herbert (nov. 25), "is continually used as a bug-bear. they make a deity of cheapness, and the secretary at war stands as synonymous here with jupiter tonans, whose shafts end only in a _brutum fulmen_. the cheese-paring system, which sounds unmusical in british ears, is here identified with you by the officers who carry it out. it is in vain to tell the purveyors that they will get no _kudos_ by this at home." it should not be supposed, however, that miss nightingale was a spurner of rules, and a despiser of discipline, routine, and subordination. the very reverse is the case. her whole career makes it probable, the character of her mind suggests it, and the administration of the funds placed at her disposal, with which the present chapter has mainly been concerned, proves it. if she shocked and staggered some official minds by her daring innovations, it was her strictness and insistence upon rules and regulations that was most criticized in unofficial quarters. she explained the matter very clearly in her final _statement to subscribers_. she had been placed by the government in two positions of trust, each independent of the other. she had been appointed superintendent of the nursing establishment; and she further had received authority, as almoner of the "free gifts" (as the royal bounty was called), to apply them, and any other gifts derived from private sources, in the war hospitals. in the second of these capacities, she could, if she had chosen, have administered her stores solely at her personal discretion, and have delegated a like discretion to other superintendents, sisters, or nurses appointed by her. but, except in a few special cases, which it were superfluous to enumerate, she rejected the liberty of personal discretion, and administered her funds only upon the requisition of medical officers. (she lays repeated stress on this fact, but i daresay that she herself was often the originating source of the requisitions. we have seen that in harley street she had learnt the art of managing overworked doctors.) her statement of the reasons which governed her action is characteristic of her good sense. the exercise of personal discretion alone would have been the easier course; but the objections to it were "the abrogation of ordinary rule; the impossibility of preventing irregular issues, or at least of disproving the charge, and the unfitness of a large proportion of the women, who efficiently discharge the duty of the nurses, to be the judges of the wants of soldiers and distribution of supplies to them; and, farther, the abuse which some would undoubtedly make of the power. to those to whom the charge of dishonesty would not apply, religious partiality either would, or, what in matters of this kind is only less mischievous, would be believed to, apply." next, there was the danger of patients being given other food than what the medical officers ordered. "it is needless to state to any sensible person, even without hospital experience, the manifold dangers of issuing to nurses, whether 'ladies, sisters, or nurses,' stores or facilities for procuring stores, to be distributed at their own discretion through the wards. it is to be remembered that the employment of women in army hospitals is recent, that many experienced and able surgeons are opposed to it, that, among these, some are honestly, and some are unscrupulously prone to find objections to it, and to exaggerate mischiefs arising from it; that the surgeon can, to a considerable extent, allow the nurse to be useful, or force her to be comparatively useless, in his wards; that the war hospitals are a bad field for investing the nurse with powers and offices which she never exercises in civil hospitals. on these grounds, as strict an adherence to existing rules as was possible appeared to be the only course.... miss nightingale exacted and she rendered adherence to rules to a large extent, and she strictly reverted to them when any emergency, during which, at the instance of authorities, she had departed from them, had ceased. a position such as hers necessarily exposes the holder to attacks from different quarters upon opposite grounds. while previously existing authorities are disposed to complain of all novel expenditure as lavish, and tending to the relaxation of discipline by over-indulgence, others, who feel themselves checked or restrained by regulations in the distribution of comforts according to their ideas of benevolence, will naturally object to the obstruction, in their view unnecessarily, interposed to the current of public liberality. while the experience of all who have conducted the operations of any extensive charity proves that the application of the ordinary axioms of business is the only road to success, it also sufficiently shows that such application is surely attended by no small measure of unpopularity."[122] [122] _statement_, pp. 19, 26. how greatly miss nightingale's strict rules were resented is shown by attacks upon her administration printed by certain of miss stanley's nurses. the most bitter of these is to be found in the text and appendix of _the autobiography of a balaclava nurse_, 1857 (no. 13, bibliography b). see also _eastern hospitals_, 3rd ed., pp. 44-5, 52-3. she saw the value of rules, and respected them, sometimes even when they were ridiculous. on a cold night in january 1856, she was by the bedside of a dying patient; whose feet she found to be stone cold. she requested an orderly to fetch a hot-water bottle immediately. he refused, on the ground that his instructions were to do nothing for a patient without directions from a medical officer. miss nightingale stood corrected, and trudged off to find a doctor and make requisition for the bottle in due form. on a night in the following month, there was an unusually cold east wind, with a heavy snowfall. the patients in the ward attended by a civilian doctor were exposed to the wind and complained bitterly of the cold, but the regulation supply of fuel had given out. as the government store was closed, miss nightingale waived the rule about applying first to the purveyor, and gave the doctor fuel from her private stores. next day the civilian doctor requisitioned in due form for an extra supply of fuel. he was refused. he carried his case to the inspector-general. that official pleaded that he could not depart from the regulations which allowed only a certain quantity of wood for each stove. but, urged the civilian, exceptional cold calls for an extra allowance. possibly, replied the inspector-general with exemplary gravity, but "a board must first sit" upon the question. the civilian smiled good-humouredly, and begged the great man to supply the wood first, and let the board sit upon it when the weather was milder. the inspector-general consented. these little incidents[123] throw a flood of light upon the difficulties through which miss nightingale had to thread her way. she was a firm believer in rules; but she was one of those able administrators who have the sense to know, and the courage to act upon the knowledge, that rules sometimes exist only to be broken. [123] i take them from _pincoffs_, pp. 58, 79. and this was precisely the kind of initiative that the state of things in the hospitals at scutari demanded. miss nightingale's adherence to rules may have brought unpopularity upon her from some of her subordinates or subscribers; but her departure from rules, on due cause of emergency, and her cutting of knots--perhaps even her breaking open of consignments--brought from her official superior, mr. sidney herbert, nothing but commendation and support. one sees this sometimes in his letters to herself, sometimes in those which he addressed to others, and which reflect the impression made upon him by her vigour and resource. "pray recollect," he wrote to the senior medical officer (dec. 1, 1854), "in your demands upon us here, whether for more men, more comforts, or more necessaries, that there is no question of pounds, shillings and pence in such matters, but that whatever can be got _must_ be got." and to the purveyor-general he wrote: "this is not a moment for sticking at forms, but for facilitating the rapid and easy transaction of business. there is much mischief done to the public service by the stickling for precedence and dignity between departments." thus he wrote to many others also; but he confessed to mr. bracebridge that he had "small hopes of these men. i have been writing in this sense before, and in vain; but i trust there is some improvement. they are so saturated with the cheese-paring economy of forty years' peace, that there is no getting them to act up to a great occasion."[124] miss nightingale's initiative alone saved the situation. [124] _memoir of sidney herbert_, vol. i. pp. 357, 360. it will be noticed that he adopts some of miss nightingale's expressions. i have in this chapter separated various illustrations of that initiative from others which, in the preceding chapter, were attributed to "the woman's insight." but perhaps the separation, though convenient, is imaginary, and all the cases of miss nightingale's administrative energy are ascribable to the same cause. such was mr. kinglake's opinion; yet i have always suspected that the exceeding prominence given by him to the woman's touch in miss nightingale's work may in part have been caused by a desire to heighten the contrasts, and to barb with deadlier point his brilliant satire upon incompetence in official places. let those who believe that it is possible to make a sharp delimitation between the "masculine" and the "feminine mind" settle this matter as they may. it seems to me that as there are old women of both sexes, so in both sexes there are men of business. my object in this chapter has been to show that miss nightingale brought to bear upon the task which confronted her at scutari those high powers of the administrative mind, be they masculine or feminine, which, in moments of emergency, are capable of resource, initiative, decision. chapter vi the reformer we have made miss nightingale's acquaintance, and are delighted and very much struck by her great gentleness and simplicity, and wonderful, clear, and comprehensive head. i wish we had her at the war office.--queen victoria (letter to the duke of cambridge, 1856). "when one reads such twaddling nonsense," wrote dr. hall in november 1855 from the crimea to dr. andrew smith in london, "as that uttered by mr. bracebridge, and which was so much lauded in the _times_ because the garrulous old gentleman talked about miss nightingale putting hospitals, containing three or four thousand patients, in order in a couple of days by means of the _times_ funds, one cannot suppress a feeling of contempt for the man who indulges in such exaggerations, and pity for the ignorant multitude who are deluded by these fairy tales."[125] the contempt and pity of the inspector-general of the hospitals in the east were not unmixed, i think we may surmise, with a good deal of anger, which, we may also surmise, was shared by his friend, the director-general of the medical department in london. such feelings were in the course of human nature, and the exaggeration in the statements cited by dr. hall is palpable. miss nightingale was not a magician. it would be an idle fairy tale to represent that by her exertions, either in a couple of days, or a couple of months, she effected a complete transformation scene. and it would be unfair to attribute solely to miss nightingale the gradual improvements which, though largely due to her initiative and resource (as described in preceding chapters), were in fact the result of the exertions of many persons both at home and in the east. "i have an unbounded admiration of miss nightingale's qualifications," said a deputy medical inspector, "and of the manner she applies them, but i see dozens of things placed to her credit which i happen to know she had nothing to do with."[126] such was doubtless the case. yet though in one sense dr. hall was perfectly right, in another he was profoundly wrong. neither he, however, nor any of the other medical men who shared his views, need be blamed for their misapprehension. the facts of the case can only be fully understood now that access is obtainable to the private correspondence of miss nightingale and other actors in the drama. [125] _life and letters of sir john hall_, p. 403, where "bracebridge" is misprinted "bainbridge." [126] _roebuck committee_, second report, p. 723. she did many things herself, but she was also the inspirer and instigator of more things which were done by others. she was able of her own initiative to institute considerable reforms; but she was a reformer on a larger scale through the influence which she exercised. though she was in truth no magician, there were men on the spot who, not being able to understand the secret and sources of her power, seemed to find something uncanny in it. our good friend, colonel sterling, who hated the intrusion of petticoats into a campaign, was very much puzzled. the thing seemed to him "ludicrous," as we have heard, but he had to admit that "miss nightingale queens it with absolute power"; and elsewhere he speaks of "the nightingale power" as something mysterious and "fabulous." the secret, however, is simple. "the nightingale power" was due to causes of which some were inherent in herself and others were adventitious. the inherent strength of her influence lay in the masterful will and practical good sense which gave her dominion over the minds of men. the adventitious sources of her power were that she had both the ear and the confidence of ministers, and the interest and sympathy of the court. i have called this accession of influence "adventitious," but it also accrued to her, in a secondary degree, from the inherent force of her character. the influence of the court in strengthening, in speeding up, and sometimes in chiding ministers, especially in military matters, was, during the reign of victoria, very great, as all readers of memoirs of the time are aware.[127] and from an early period of miss nightingale's mission the court had expressed a lively interest in it, and had intimated a wish that full consideration should be paid to her experiences and impressions. "would you tell mrs. herbert," wrote the queen to mr. sidney herbert (dec. 6, 1854), "that i beg she would let me see frequently the accounts she receives from miss nightingale or mrs. bracebridge, 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 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_ sympathy is much valued by these noble fellows." upon the receipt of the queen's message, the chaplain went through the wards reading it to the men, and copies of it were also posted on the walls of the several hospitals. "the men were touched," miss nightingale reported to mr. herbert (dec. 25). "'it is a very feeling letter,' they said. 'she thinks of us' (said with tears). 'each man of us ought to have a copy which we will keep till our dying day.' 'to think of her thinking of us,' said another; 'i only wish i could go and fight for her again.'" the queen's message was followed by more substantial proof of her majesty's interest, and here again miss nightingale was made the intermediary between the throne and the soldiers. through mr. sidney herbert, the queen had ascertained from miss nightingale the kind of comforts which would be useful to the wounded, and the following letter was sent to her by the keeper of the queen's purse:- windsor castle, _december_ 14 [1854]. madam--i have received the commands of her majesty the queen to forward by the ship _eagle_ some packages containing some comforts and useful articles which her majesty wishes to be placed in your hands for distribution, as you may think fit, amongst the wounded and sick at scutari. her majesty has wished to mark by some private contribution from herself her deep personal sympathy for the sufferings of these noble soldiers, and her admiration of the patience and fortitude with which they have suffered both wounds and hardships. the queen has directed me to ask you to undertake the distribution and application of these articles, partly because her majesty wished you to be made aware that your goodness and self-devotion in giving yourself up to the soothing attendance upon these wounded and sick soldiers had been observed by the queen with sentiments of the highest approval and admiration; and partly because, as the articles sent did not come within the description of medical or government stores, usually furnished, they could not be better entrusted than to one who, by constant personal observation, would form a correct judgment where they would be most usefully employed. [127] the classical passage in this sense is in the _life and correspondence of the rt. hon. hugh c. e. childers_, 1901, vol. ii. p. 104, where it is said, in relation to the egyptian expedition of 1882: "the queen with her well-known solicitude for the welfare of her army, wrote many letters at this time to mr. childers to satisfy herself that all precautions were being taken for the health and comfort of the troops: one day alone brought seventeen letters from her majesty, or her private secretary, sir henry ponsonby." the queen sent presents of warm scarves and the like to miss nightingale's nurses. the position of almoner of the free gifts and the confidence thus shown by the sovereign greatly extended the prestige of miss nightingale, who was already known to command influence with the government, to have the favour of the press, and to be the darling of popular opinion. officials might feel sore, and old fogeys might grumble, but the fact became palpable that "the nightingale power" had to be reckoned with. ii it was, however, behind the scenes that miss nightingale's activity as a reformer was most powerfully exercised. in accordance with her majesty's command, reports from miss nightingale were forwarded to the queen, and by her were sent on to the duke of newcastle. the duke, writing to the queen on december 22, 1854, assured her majesty that the condition of the hospitals at scutari, and the entire want of all method and arrangement in everything which concerns the comfort of the army, were subjects of constant and most painful anxiety to him. "nothing can be more just," he added, "than all your majesty's comments upon the state of facts exhibited by these letters, and the duke of newcastle has repeatedly, during the last two months, written in the strongest terms respecting them--but hitherto without avail, and with little other result than a denial of charges, the truth of which must now be considered to be substantiated."[128] it remained for ministers to do what was possible to remedy the evils. [128] _the letters of queen victoria_, vol. iii. p. 79. mr. sidney herbert, who (as already stated) had relieved the duke of newcastle of hospital matters, needed no compulsion to zeal, and miss nightingale's letters to him showed in what directions his zeal could most usefully be employed. the government of lord aberdeen, defeated on the motion appointing the roebuck committee, resigned in january 1855, and lord palmerston became prime minister. the offices of secretary _for_ war and secretary _at_ war were amalgamated, and lord panmure became secretary of state in place of the duke of newcastle. mr. herbert became for a short time secretary of state for the colonies, and then resigned. but mr. herbert begged miss nightingale to continue writing to him, promising to forward her representations to the proper quarters. lord palmerston knew her personally, and lord panmure paid deference to her wishes and opinions, so that the change of government did not weaken her position. i have before me copies of a long series of letters addressed by miss nightingale to mr. herbert between november 1854 and may 1855. he had given her private instructions that she was to act as eye and ear for him in the east. of her letters a few were printed by lord stanmore in his _memoir of sidney herbert_, where also a series of mr. herbert's letters, both to her and to various officials concerned, is given. a comparison of the one set with the other shows very clearly how much of the improvements which the government of lord aberdeen and its successor were able to effect was due to the suggestions, the remonstrances, the entreaties of miss nightingale. her letters are written with complete freedom and often in great haste. it would be possible to make isolated extracts from them which would suggest that the writer was a censorious and uncharitable scold. but such a selection would convey a misleading impression. miss nightingale wrote unreservedly about individuals, because she saw, as mr. herbert himself saw also, that the _personnel_ was at fault, and that the most admirable instructions from home would be useless unless there were men of some initiative and vigour to carry them out on the spot. she wrote in anger, because she saw, what mr. herbert soon came to know, that such men were not forthcoming. "i write all this savagery," she said (march 5, 1855), "because of the non-success of your unwearied efforts for the good of these poor hospitals." and then something must be allowed to the caustic humour which, when miss nightingale had a pen in her hand, could not be denied. "i shall make no further remark about him," she writes of a certain individual, "than that he is a fossil of the pure old red sandstone." "some newspaper has said of me," she writes on another occasion, "that i am the fourth woman (query, old woman) that has had to do with the war. who are the other three?" and she goes on for mr. herbert's amusement to nominate three of his principal subordinates for the distinction. it would argue a lack of humour to take such epistolary diversions with no grain of salt. but i do not propose to follow the example of a previous writer, who has had access to these letters, in recording miss nightingale's remarks on individuals. i desire rather to illustrate from the letters, and from other sources, first, the practical contributions to reform which miss nightingale made in some matters of detail, and then her firm grasp of the large principles of sound administration. iii miss nightingale performed the duties, as we have seen, of a purveyor to the sick and wounded portion of the british army. the duty was assumed by her only because the home authorities had been deficient in foresight, or the authorities on the spot were inefficient and hampered by official restrictions. hence her earlier letters to mr. herbert were largely filled with urgent suggestions for the sending of government stores. she begs for "hair mattresses, or even flock, as cheaper." the french hospitals were furnished throughout with hair mattresses; the british soldier was suffering terribly from bed-sores. she pleads for knives and forks: "the men have to tear their meat like wild beasts." she suggests mops, plates, dishes, towelling, disinfectants, and so forth,--obvious requirements, no doubt, but, as mr. herbert said, the responsible authorities seem to have shrunk sometimes from making requisitions lest they should thereby confess the inadequacy of their preparations. it was miss nightingale, again, who suggested the need of carpenters to do odd jobs in the vast and imperfectly equipped turkish buildings which served for the british hospitals. she expressed herself most gratefully for an "invaluable reinforcement" of them which mr. herbert had sent out; but their arrival necessitated a depletion in one department of her private stores. "these men," she wrote (feb. 19, 1855), "i had to find with knives, forks, and spoons, in default of the purveyor, who besides would not provide them with rations unless the officer of engineers wrote 'urgent' and asked it 'as a favour.'" some building operations, miss nightingale, as we have seen, took it upon herself to carry out; and some sanitary reforms she was able, by her personal influence with the orderlies, to effect.[129] "the instruction of the orderlies in their business was," she said,[130] "one of the main uses of us in the war hospitals." other sanitary engineering works, on a larger scale, were ultimately carried out, thanks in part to her urgent and detailed representations to the authorities at home. she had pointed out repeatedly to them that the mere issuing of orders was insufficient; it was essential that executive powers should be placed in the hands of officials directly responsible for immediate action. when the government was reconstituted after the fall of lord aberdeen, with lord panmure as secretary for war, this lesson was taken faithfully to heart, and a commission of three--dr. john sutherland, dr. hector gavin, and mr. robert rawlinson, c.e.--was sent out to the east with full executive powers. they received their instructions on february 19, 1855, and within three days they sailed. "the tone of the instructions," says kinglake, "is peculiar, and such as to make one believe that they owed much to feminine impulsion. the diction of the orders is such that, in housekeeper's language, it may be said to have 'bustled the servants.'" the credit for the bustling at home belongs, however, to lord shaftesbury, who had pressed the appointment of the commissioners upon lord panmure, and who was employed to draft their instructions.[131] the duties of these sanitary commissioners were laid down with a minuteness of detail which miss nightingale herself could not have excelled; and they were then told that "the utmost expedition must be used in the execution of all that is necessary at the place of your destination. it is important that you be deeply impressed with the necessity of not resting content with an order, but that you see instantly, by yourselves or your agents, to the commencement of the work and to its superintendence day by day until it is finished."[132] it is from the report of the sanitary commissioners that i drew many of the statements about the condition of the hospitals given in an earlier chapter. they set about the work of sanitary engineering with great dispatch, and the death-rate in the hospitals fell, as the result of their reforms, with remarkable rapidity.[133] "the sanitary conditions of the hospitals of scutari," miss nightingale told the royal commission of 1857, "were inferior in point of crowding, ventilation, drainage, and cleanliness, up to the middle of march 1855, to any civil hospital, or to the poorest homes of the worst parts of the civil population of any large town that i have ever seen. after the sanitary works undertaken at that date were executed (june), i know no buildings in the world which i could compare with them in these points, the original defects of construction of course excepted." it was this commission, as miss nightingale said afterwards to lord shaftesbury, that "saved the british army." in dr. sutherland, the head of the sanitary commission, miss nightingale found a warm admirer and a stout supporter. during his stay at scutari he acted as her physician. on her return to england she was on terms of intimate friendship with him and his wife; and dr. sutherland was, as we shall hear, one of her close allies in the battle for reform in army hygiene. with mr. (afterwards sir robert) rawlinson she also formed a friendship which lasted to the end of his life. dr. gavin died in the crimea during the work of the commission. [129] see, on these two points, above, p. 206, and below, p. 242. [130] in a letter to colonel lefroy, aug. 25, 1856. [131] hodder's _life of lord shaftesbury_, pp. 503 _seq_. [132] _report of the sanitary commission_, march 1857. [133] for the figures, see below, pp. 254, 314. in the matter of stores, whatever suggestions or requisitions miss nightingale sent home were complied with by government. but it was one thing to send stores out, and quite another to secure that they should arrive when and where they were wanted. "sidney," wrote mrs. herbert to mrs. bracebridge (nov. 17, '54), "has sent heaps of armchairs, etnas, and other comforts, but is in terrible fear that they may have been carried on with the troops to balaclava from some blunder." miss nightingale's unerring eye for detail and perception of the point saw where the evil lay. first, there was no co-ordination among the departments at home in packing the things. the _prince_ (the wreck of which in the famous hurricane of november 14 was disastrous to the welfare of the soldiers) "had on board," she wrote, "a quantity of medical comforts for us, which were so packed under shot and shell as that it was found impossible to disembark them here, and they went to balaclava and were lost." but there was a second obstacle. the army had encamped at scutari as early as may 1854, but it had occurred to nobody to establish either there or at constantinople an office for the reception and delivery of goods. packages, intended for the army or the hospitals, if they arrived in merchant vessels, were detained in the turkish custom house, from which they were never extracted without much delay, difficulty, and confusion; many were partially or entirely destroyed; and many abstracted and totally lost. "the custom house," said miss nightingale, "was a bottomless pit, whence nothing ever issued of all that was thrown in." in the case of ships chartered by the government, great masses of goods were necessarily landed together and stowed away promiscuously for want of time and space for sorting, and were often delayed by an unnecessary trip to balaclava and back again. there were occasions in which vessels containing hospital stores, as well as munitions of war, made three voyages to and fro before the former were landed at scutari. sometimes when miss nightingale happened to hear of an incoming vessel betimes, she was able, by special petition to the military authorities, to intercept hospital stores; but she saw (what no one else seems to have done) that the whole system was at fault. "it is absolutely necessary," she wrote, "that there should be a government store house, in the shape of a hulk, where stores for the british, from whatever ships, could be received at once from them, and be delivered on the ship-store-keeper's receipt. there are no store-houses to be had by the water's-edge, and porterage is very expensive and slow." in march 1855 miss nightingale's solution was adopted.[134] [134] _statement to subscribers_, pp. 9-10, and letter to sidney herbert, january 22, 1855. as purveyor, miss nightingale was directly concerned only with the sick and wounded; but the condition in which the men arrived at scutari enabled her to learn the state of things at the front, and she urged upon mr. herbert the necessity of sending out warm clothing to the army in the crimea. "the state of the troops who return here, particularly those 500 who were admitted on the 19th, is frost-bitten, demi-nude, starved, ragged. if the troops who work in the trenches are not supplied with warm clothing, napoleon's russian campaign will be repeated here." the terrible experiences of the british army before sebastopol during the winter of 1854-55 were some fulfilment of her prediction. when opportunity offered she similarly sent suggestions to lord panmure; then, in reply to a letter of kind inquiries from him about her health (aug. 1855), she called attention to the disproportionate number of patients which came from the artillery, and threw out hints for economizing the men's labour.[135] on a matter of the soldiers' pay, she was the means of remedying a hardship which had struck her at scutari. she pressed earnestly upon mr. herbert that hospital stoppages against the daily pay of the _sick_ soldier (9d.) should be made equal to the hospital stoppage against the _wounded_ soldier (4-1/2.), provided that the sickness be incurred while on duty before the enemy. she made this representation in december 1854, not only to mr. herbert, but to the queen. on february 1, 1855, she heard with great satisfaction that her suggestion had been adopted, and that the soldiers' accounts were to be rectified in that sense as from the battle of the alma. [135] see _panmure_, vol. i. p. 356. iv the queen had asked miss nightingale to make suggestions as to what her majesty could do "to testify her sense of the courage and endurance so abundantly shown by her sick soldiers." one of the suggestions submitted was the rectification just mentioned. another suggestion was that a firman should be immediately asked of the sultan granting the military cemetery at scutari to the british, and that her majesty should have it enclosed by a stone wall. "there are already, alas!" wrote miss nightingale, "about a thousand lying in this cemetery. nine hundred were reported last week. we have buried one hundred in the last two days only. the spot is beautiful, overlooking the sea of marmora, and occupies the space between the general hospital wall and the edge of the sea-cliff." the suggestion must have gone straight to the queen's heart, for miss nightingale was informed that her majesty had written on the subject both to lord clarendon, the secretary of state for foreign affairs, and to the british ambassador to the porte. the firman was obtained in due course, and the well-kept british enclosure attracts the attention of travellers to this day by contrast with the oriental burial-places. it was again at miss nightingale's suggestion that a memorial obelisk, far seen in lonely splendour, was erected "by queen victoria and her people."[136] [136] in 1865 miss nightingale, after an energetic correspondence with the war office, secured payment, long before promised, to an english custode. but i must not linger further over points of detail. miss nightingale's eye for detail did not prevent her from taking comprehensive views, and from time to time she sent to mr. herbert schemes of reorganization. in the following letter, of january 8, 1855, she exposed the extent and nature of the evil in the hospitals, and the kind of reform which was needed to remedy them:- as the larger proportion of the army (in which we are told that there are not two thousand sound men) is coming into hospital--as there are therefore thousands of lives at stake--as, in a service where the future of the official servants is dependent upon the personal interest of one man, these cannot be expected to peril that future by getting themselves shelved as innovators. i feel that this is no time for compliments or false shame; and that you will never hear the whole truth, troublesome as it is, except from one independent of promotion.... i subjoin a rough estimate of what has been given out by me during one month--_the whole at the "requisition" of the medical men_--all of which i have by me (merely in order to substantiate the facts of the destitution of these hospitals). since the 17th december, we have received 3400 sick, and i have made no sum total as yet of what has been done for these new-comers by us--excepting for one corridor, which i enclose. (1) thus the purveying is _nil_--that is the whole truth, beyond bedding, bread, meat, cold water, fuel. beyond the boiling _en masse_ in the great coppers of the general kitchen the meat is not cooked, the water is not boiled except what is done in my subsidiary kitchens. my schedule will show what i have purveyed. i have refused to go on purveying for the third hospital, the sultan's serail[137]--the demands upon me there having been begun with twelve hundred articles, including shirts, the first night of our occupying it. i refer you to a list of what was _not_ in store, and to a copy of one requisition upon me sent last letter. [137] this is the "palace hospital." see above, p. 174. (2) the extraordinary circumstance of a whole army having been ordered to abandon its kits, as was done when we landed our men before alma, has been overlooked entirely in all our system. the fact is, that i am now clothing the british army. the sick were re-embarked at balaclava for these hospitals, without resuming their kits, also half-naked besides. and when discharged from here, they carry off, small blame to them, even my knives and forks--shirts, of course, and hospital clothing also. the men who were sent to abydos as convalescents were sent _in their hospital dresses_, or they must have gone naked. the consequence is that not one single hospital dress is now left in store, and i have substituted turkish dressing-gowns from stamboul (three bales in the passage are marked hospital gowns, but have not yet been "_sat upon_"). to purvey this hospital is like pouring water into a sieve; and will be, till regimental stores have been sent out from england enough to clothe the naked and refill the kit. i have requisitions for _uniform trousers_, for each and all of the articles of a kit, sent in to me. we have not yet heard of boots being sent out; the men come into hospital half-shod. in a time of such calamity, unparalleled in the history, i believe, of calamity, i have a little compassion left even for the wretched purveyor, swamped amid demands he never expected. but i have no compassion for the men who would rather see hundreds of lives lost than waive one scruple of the official conscience. (3) the hospital and army stores come out in the same vessels--and up go our stores to balaclava, and down they never come again, or have not yet. (4) the total inefficiency of the hospital orderly system as now is. the french have a permanent system of orderlies, trained for the purpose, who do not re-enter the ranks. it is too late for us to organize this. but if the convalescents, being good orderlies, were not sent away to the crimea as soon as they have learnt their work--if the commander-in-chief would call upon the commanding officer of each regiment to select ten men from each as hospital orderlies to form a depot here (not young soldiers, but men of good character), this would give some hope of organizing an efficient corps. above all, that the class of ward-master i shall mention should be sent out from england. we require:- (1) an effective staff of purveyors out from england--but beyond this, (2) _a head_, some one with _authority_ to mash up the departments into uniform and rapid action. he may as well stay at home unless he have power to modify the arrangements of departments made expressly by sir c. trevelyan with mr. wreford before he came away in may. (3) we want medical officers. (4) three deputy inspectors-general (whereas we have only one).... it is obvious from what has been said in former letters _who_, if there are two deputy inspector-generals made to these hospitals, should be made deputy inspector-general of this barrack hospital, past and present efficiency being considered. (5) we want discharged non-commissioned officers, not past the meridian of life--not the ambulance corps, who all died of delirium tremens or cholera--but the class of men employed as ward-masters of military prisons, or as barrack sergeants, or hospital sergeants of the guards who can be highly recommended. we want these men as ward-masters and assistant ward-masters as stewards. they must be under the orders of the senior medical officer, removable by him; they must be well paid so as to make it worth their while,--say 5s. per day, 1st class, 2s. 6d. per day 2nd class--for they must be superior men, not the rabble we have now. (_n.b._--there are three ward-masters to each division of this hospital--of which there are three--containing 800 and odd sick in each.) the book of hospital regulations, admirable in time of peace, contains nothing for a time of war, much less a time of war like this, unexampled for calamity. the hospital sergeants are, of course, up in the crimea with their regiments,--and we have nothing but such raw corporals and sergeants as can be spared, new to their work, to place in charge of the divisions and wards. and these lord raglan complains of our keeping. we must have hospital sergeants if there is to be the remotest hope of efficiency among the orderlies here. (6) the orderlies ought to be well paid, well fed, well housed. they are now overworked, ill fed, and underpaid. the sickness and mortality among them is extraordinary--ten took sick in one division to-night.... i had written a plan for the systematic organization of these hospitals upon a principle of centralization, under which the component parts might be worked in unison. but, on reconsideration, deeming so great a change impracticable during the present heavy pressure of calamities here, i refrain from forwarding it, and substitute a sketch of a plan, by which great improvement might be made from within, without abandoning the forms under which the service is carried on.... this further scheme may, however, be given more shortly from a later letter (jan. 28):- as the purveying seems likely to come to an end of itself, perhaps i shall not be guilty of the murder of the innocents if i venture to suggest what may take the place of the venerable wreford. cornelius agrippa had a broom-stick which used to fetch water for his use. when the broom-stick was cut in two by the axe of an unwary student, each end of the severed broom, catching up a pitcher, began fetching water with all its might. were the purveyor here cut in three, we might conceive some hope of having not only water, but food also, and clothing fetched us. let there be three distinct offices instead of one indistinct one:- (1) to provide us with food. (2) with hospital furniture and clothing. (3) to keep the daily routine going. these are now the three offices of the unfortunate purveyor; and none of them are performed. but the purveyor is _supposed_ to be only the channel through which the commissariat stores _pass_. theoretically, but not practically, it is so. (for practically wreford gets nothing through the commissary, but employs a contractor.) now, why should not the _commissariat purvey_ the hospital with food? perform the whole of purveyor's office, no. 1? the practice of drawing _raw_ rations, as here seen, seems invented on purpose to waste the time of as many orderlies as possible, who stand at the purveyor's office from 4 to 9 a.m. drawing the patients' breakfast, from 10 to 12, drawing their dinner--and to make the patients' meals as late as possible--because it is impossible to get the diets, thus drawn, cooked before 3 or 4 o'clock. the scene of confusion, delay, and disappointment where all these raw diets are being weighed out by twos, and threes, and fours, is impossible to conceive, unless one has seen it, as i have, day after day. and one must have been, as i have, at all hours of the day and night in this hospital to conceive the abuses of this want of system--raw meat, drawn too late to be cooked, standing all night in the wards, etc., etc., etc. why should not the commissariat send _at once_ the amount of beef and mutton, etc., etc., required into the kitchens, without passing through this intermediate stage of drawing by orderlies? let a commissariat officer reside here--let the ward-masters make a total from the diet rolls of the medical men--so many hundred full diets--so many hundred half-diets--so many hundred spoon diets, and give it over to the commissariat officer the day before. the next day the _whole_ quantity, the _total_ of all the ward-masters' totals, is given into the kitchens direct. it should be all carved in the kitchens on hot plates, and at meal-times the orderlies come to fetch it for the patients--carry it through the wards, where an officer tells it off to every bed, according to the bed-ticket, on which he reads the diet, hung up at every bed. the time and confusion thus saved would be incalculable. punctuality is now impossible; the food is half-raw, and often many hours after time. some of the portions are all bone, whereas the meat should be boned in the kitchen, according to the plan now proposed, and the portions there carved contain meat only. pray consider this. there might be, _besides_, an extra diet kitchen to each division; a teapot, issue of tea, sugar, etc., to every mess, for which stores make the ward-master responsible; arrow-root, beef-tea, etc., to be issued from the extra diet kitchens. but into these details it is needless to enter to you. (2) the second office of the purveyor now is to furnish, _upon requisition_, the hospital with utensils and clothing. but let the hospital be furnished at once, as has been already described in former letters. if 2000 beds exist, let these 2000 beds have their appropriate complement of furniture and clothing, stationary and fixed. whether these be originally provided by a commissary or a storekeeper, let those who are competent decide. the french appear to give as much too much power to their commissariat, who are the real chiefs of their hospitals, while the medical men are only their slaves, as we give too little. but the hospital being once furnished, and a store-keeper appointed to each division to supply wear and tear, let the ward-masters be responsible. let an inventory hang on the door of each ward of what _ought_ to be found there. let the ward-masters give up the dirty linen every night and receive the same quantity in clean linen every morning. let the patient shed his hospital clothing like a snake when he goes out of hospital, be inspected by the quarter-master, and receive, if necessary, from quarter-master's store what is requisite for his becoming a soldier again. while the next patient succeeds to his bed and its furniture. (3) the daily routine of the hospital. this is now performed, or rather _not_ performed by the purveyor. i am really cook, housekeeper, scavenger (i go about making the orderlies empty huge tubs), washer-woman, general dealer, store-keeper. the purveyor is supposed to do all this, but it is physically impossible. and the filth, and the disorder, and the neglect, let those describe who saw it when we first came.... let us have a hotel-keeper, a house-steward, who shall take the daily routine in charge--the cooking, washing and cleaning us--the superintending the housekeeping, in short, be responsible for the cleanliness of the wards, now done by one medical officer, dr. m'grigor, by me, or by no one--inspect the kitchens, the wash-houses, be what a housekeeper ought to be in a private asylum. with the french the _chef d'administration_, the commissary, as we should call him, is the master of the orderlies. and the medical men just come in and prescribe, as london physicians do, and go away again. with us the medical officers are everything, and have to do everything, however heterogeneous. the french system is bad, because, though there may be twenty things down on the carte for the medical man to choose his patient's diet from, _nominally_, the chef d'administration may have provided only two, and the patient has no redress. whether, in any new plan, the house stewards have the command of the orderlies, or the medical man, which i am incompetent to determine, whichever it be let us have a governor of the hospital. as it is a military hospital, a military head is probably necessary as governor. on september 20, 1855, a royal warrant was issued, reorganizing the medical staff corps, "for the better care of the sick and wounded," revising the duties of the several officers, and improving their pay. any one who cares to refer to this warrant, and to compare it with miss nightingale's letters just given, will see that in large measure her suggestions were adopted by the war department. miss nightingale was careful, as we have seen, not to interfere with the doctors, and, though she thought that as administrators some of them were ineffective, she bore willing testimony to their skill and devotion (with some few exceptions) in their proper work. but she could not abstain from deploring one great omission, and she offered to subscribe largely towards repairing it:- "one thing which we much require," she wrote to mr. herbert (feb. 22, 1855), "might easily be done. this is the formation of a medical school at scutari. we have lost the finest opportunity for advancing the cause of medicine and erecting it into a science which will probably ever be afforded. there is here no operating room, no dissecting room; post-mortem examinations are seldom made, and then in the dead-house (the ablest staff surgeon here told me that he considered that he had killed hundreds of men owing to the absence of these) no statistics are kept as to between what ages most deaths occur, as to modes of treatment, appearances of the body after death, etc., etc., etc., and all the innumerable and most important points which contribute to making therapeutics a means of saving life, and not, as it is here, a formal duty. our registration generally is so lamentably defective that often the only record kept is--_a man died_ on such a day. there is a kiosk on the esplanade before the barrack hospital, rejected by the quarter-master for his stores, which i have asked for and obtained as a school of medicine. it is not used now for any purpose--£300 or £400 (which i would willingly give) would put it in a state of repair. it is not overlooked and is in every way calculated for the purpose i have named. the medical teaching duties could not be carried on efficiently with a less staff than two lecturers on physiology and pathology, and one lecturer on anatomy, who will be employed in preparing the subject for demonstration, and performing operations for the information of the juniors." this suggestion also was in part adopted. an excellent dissecting-room was built, provided with numerous instruments, microscopes and other apparatus.[138] [138] see _pincoffs_, p. 55. v and so this woman of ideas went on, week by week, month by month, pouring in requisitions, hints, plans, to the government at home; sometimes getting things done as she wanted, at others making suggestions which, had they been adopted, would still more have conduced to efficiency. something of that calm and clear sagacity, which impressed queen victoria and prince albert when they made her personal acquaintance,[139] was reflected in her appearance and demeanour as observed by eye-witnesses at scutari. "in appearance," wrote mr. osborne, "miss nightingale is just what you would expect in any other well-bred woman, who may have seen perhaps rather more than thirty years of life; her manner and countenance are prepossessing, and this without the possession of positive beauty; it is a face not easily forgotten, pleasing in its smile, with an eye betokening great self-possession, and giving, when she wishes, a quiet look of firm determination to every feature. her general demeanour is quiet and rather reserved; still, i am much mistaken if she is not gifted with a very lively sense of the ridiculous. in conversation, she speaks on matters of business with a grave earnestness one would not expect from her appearance. she has evidently a mind disciplined to restrain under the principles of the action of the moment every feeling which would interfere with it. she has trained herself to command, and learned the value of conciliation towards others and constraint over herself. i can conceive her to be a strict disciplinarian; she throws herself into a work as its head. as such she knows well how much success must depend upon literal obedience to her every order."[140] [139] see the words cited at the head of this chapter, and below, pp. 324, 325. [140] _scutari and its hospitals_, p. 25. it was soon perceived at scutari that miss nightingale was a power. she mentioned incidentally at a later period a curious fact, which shows the way in which officers appealed to her as a kind of emergency-man. in 1862 she was pressing the war office to separate the function of banker from that of purveyor, and she illustrated the confusion caused by the amalgamation from her own experience. among the instances was this: "i had at scutari thousands of sovereigns at a time in my bedroom, entrusted to me by officers who preferred making me their banker because of the perpetual discord. 'offend the commissary or purveyor, and you won't be able to get your money.'"[141] it was soon perceived also that miss nightingale was the person who, if any one, could get things done, and any official who had an idea took it to her. in the letters to sidney herbert she sometimes bids him know that what she says does not merely come from "poor me," but represents the views "of all the best men here." but she, i think, was the best man of them all.[142] such was the opinion, at any rate, of a man among men, the redoubtable sydney godolphin osborne. "every day," he wrote in describing his experience at scutari, "brought some new complication of misery to be somehow unravelled. every day had its peculiar trial to one who had taken such a load of responsibility, in an untried field, and with a staff of her own sex, all new to it. hers was a post requiring the courage of a cardigan, the tact and diplomacy of a palmerston, the endurance of a howard, the cheerful philanthropy of a mrs. fry. miss nightingale fills that post; and, in my opinion, is the one individual who in this whole unhappy war has shown more than any other what real energy guided by good sense can do to meet the calls of sudden emergency."[143] and hence it was, too, that any official who felt the urgency of some particular need in his own department carried his case to the lady-in-chief. did a surgeon want some point represented with special urgency to the authorities at home? he went to miss nightingale. did a purveyor want some special authority from the military to facilitate his task? he went to miss nightingale. the centre of initiative at scutari was in the sisters' tower; and going to miss nightingale had something of the magic that in earlier days was found in "going to mr. pitt."[144] [141] letter to captain galton, june 28, 1862. on the general question, see vol. ii. p. 64. [142] it was a _mot_ of mr. stafford's that he had only met two men in the east, omar pacha (the turkish commander) and florence nightingale. [143] _scutari and its hospitals_, p. 27. [144] see _kinglake_, vol. vi. pp. 43, 436. chapter vii the ministering angel then in such hour of need ... ye, like angels, appear, radiant with ardour divine!... order, courage, return ... ye move through the ranks, recall the stragglers, refresh the outworn, praise, reinspire the brave! eyes rekindling, and prayers, follow your steps as ye go. matthew arnold. in the preceding chapters we have seen at work the impelling power of a brain and a will; but, with these, florence nightingale brought to her mission the tenderness of a woman's heart. she was the matron of a hospital no less than the mistress of a barrack. she was a resolute administrator; but also, as was said at the time in a hundred speeches, letters, articles: when pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel thou. upon those behind the scenes, upon ministers and officials, it was the former side of her activity that made the profounder impression. some of them applauded what she did, recognizing that only the advent of a new force could have driven a way through the quagmire; others complained that in her methods there was something too imperious and masterful; all alike perceived her power and strength of will. but to the sick and wounded among whom she lived and moved, and to the great public at home which heard of her work, it was the softer side of her character that made the more instant appeal. by them she was known and honoured not as the rigid disciplinarian or creative organizer, but as the compassionate and tender nurse. those who had no means of knowing what other work she had to do supposed that ministration to the sick, in the narrower sense, comprised it all. but, in fact, as she wrote to mr. herbert (jan. 14, 1855), nursing was "the least important of the functions into which she had been forced"; and those on the spot, who watched the arduousness of these other duties, wished that she could be persuaded to spare herself more of one kind of work or of the other. the marvel is that in unstinted measure she combined them both. her devotion and her power of work were prodigious. "i work in the wards all day," she said, "and write all night"; and this was hardly exaggeration. a letter from miss stanley (dec. 21, 1854) gives an interesting glimpse of florence nightingale at work in the barrack hospital:- we turned up the stone stairs; on the second floor we came to the corridors of sick, on low wooden stands, raised about a foot from the floor, placed about 2 feet apart, and leaving 2 or 3 feet down the middle, along which we walked. the atmosphere worsened as we advanced. we 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[145]; i went through a door, and there sat dear flo writing on a small unpainted deal table. i never saw her looking 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, looking so nice too. i was quite satisfied with my welcome.... 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 is there any jelly to-day; try him with some eggs." "please, mr. gordon [the chief engineer] wishes to see miss nightingale about the orders she gave him." mr. sabin comes in for something else. mr. bracebridge in and out about general adams,[146] and orders of various kinds.[147] [145] miss nightingale's camp bedstead was at this time behind a screen in the kitchen, for she had given up her room to the widow of an officer. [146] he had died in hospital from his wounds, and his body was to be sent to england. [147] _stanmore_, vol. i. p. 373. the occasion described by miss stanley was post-day. still busier were the awful days on which fresh consignments of sick and wounded arrived from the crimea. miss nightingale has been known, said general bentinck, to pass eight hours on her knees dressing wounds and administering comfort. there were times when she stood for twenty hours at a stretch, apportioning quarters, distributing stores, directing the labours of her staff, or assisting at the painful operations where her presence might soothe or support. she had, said mr. osborne, "an utter disregard of contagion. i have known her spend hours over men dying of cholera or fever. the more awful to every sense, any particular case, especially if it was that of a dying man, the more certainly might her slight form be seen bending over him, administering to his ease by every means in her power, and seldom quitting his side till death released him."[148] "we cannot," wrote mr. bracebridge to her uncle, mr. smith (dec. 18, 1854), "prevent her self-sacrifice for the dying. she cannot delegate as we could wish; but the cases are so interesting and painful; who could leave them when once taken up?--boys and brave men dying who can be saved by nursing and proper diet." it is recorded that on one occasion she saw five soldiers set aside as hopeless cases. the first duty of the overworked surgeons was with those whom there seemed to be more hope of saving. she asked to be given the care of the five men, and the surgeons consented. assisted by one of her nurses, she tended the cases throughout the night, administering nourishment from her stores, and in the morning they were found to be in a fit condition for surgical treatment.[149] "miss nightingale," said a chelsea pensioner, in recalling his experiences at scutari, "was always coming in and out. she used to attend to all the worst cases herself. some of the new men were a bit shy at first, but many a time i've heard her say, 'never be ashamed of your wounds, my friend.'"[150] "i believe," wrote a civilian doctor who saw her at work, "that there was never a severe case of any kind that escaped her notice, and sometimes it was wonderful to see her at the bedside of a patient who had been admitted perhaps but an hour before, and of whose arrival one would hardly have supposed it possible she could be already cognisant."[151] [148] _scutari and its hospitals_, p. 26. [149] _daily news_, june 2, 1855. [150] _wintle_, p. 113. [151] _pincoffs_, p. 78, where a particular case in point is recorded. sometimes when exhausted nature could not be denied repose, she would depute the last sad office to another lady. "selina [mrs. bracebridge] is sitting up with a dying man. florence at last asleep, 1 a.m." her days were always long; for she deemed it well not to allow any of her nurses to be in the wards after eight at night. and often, when all else was quiet, and she had been sitting up to finish her heavy correspondence, she would make a final tour of the wards. a lady volunteer, who two days after her arrival was sent for to accompany miss nightingale on such a tour, recalled the scene. "we went round the whole of the second story, into many of the wards and into one of the upper corridors. it seemed an endless walk, and it was one not easily forgotten. as we slowly passed along, the silence was profound; very seldom did a moan or cry from those deeply suffering ones fall on our ears. a dim light burned here and there. miss nightingale carried her lantern, which she would set down before she bent over any of the patients. i much admired her manner to the men--it was so tender and kind."[152] the description of these midnight vigils, given by mr. macdonald, the commissioner of the _times_ fund, became famous, by adaptation, throughout the world:- wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form and the hand of the despoiler distressingly nigh, there is that incomparable woman sure to be seen. her benignant presence is an influence for good comfort, even amid 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,[153] making her solitary rounds. [152] _eastern hospitals_, vol. i. pp. 69-70. [153] the lamp of famous memory was a camp lamp, and was taken possession of by mrs. bracebridge. famous, too, became the words which one poor fellow sent home. "what a comfort it was to see her pass even. she would speak to one and nod and smile to as many more; but she could not do it to all, you know. we lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again, content." "before she came," said another soldier's letter, "there was cussin' and swearin', but after that it was holy as a church." mr. sidney herbert read out these letters at a public meeting in november 1855.[154] lord ellesmere used mr. macdonald's description in the house of lords in may 1856.[155] and longfellow, in the following year, made a poem of it all, one of the most widely known poems, i suppose, that have ever been written:- [154] below, p. 270. [155] below, p. 303. lo! in that hour 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. the men idolized her. they kissed her shadow, and they saluted her as she passed down their wounded ranks. "if the queen came for to die," said a soldier who lost a leg at the alma, "they ought to make _her_ queen, and i think they would." her lively sense of humour, which mr. osborne had discerned in talks with her in the hospital, was appreciated also by the patients. "she was wonderful," said one, "at cheering up any one who was a bit low," "she was all full of life and fun," said another, "when she talked to us, especially if a man was a bit down-hearted."[156] who can tell what comfort was brought by the sound of a woman's gentle voice, the touch of a woman's gentle hand, to many a poor fellow racked by fever, or smarting from sores? and who can say how often her presence may have been as "a cup of strength in some great agony"? "the magic of her power over men was felt," as kinglake has described, "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."[157] and when the hour of death came, how often must the passing have been soothed by a presence which, with words of womanly comfort, may have carried the soldier's last thoughts back to home and wife, or child? a member of parliament, well known in london society, mr. augustus stafford, went out during the recess of 1854 to scutari, and made himself very useful to miss nightingale. "he says," wrote monckton milnes (jan. 1855), "that florence in the hospital makes intelligible to him the saints of the middle ages. if the soldiers were told that the roof had opened, and she had gone up palpably to heaven, they would not be the least surprised. they quite believe she is in several places at once."[158] they were impressed by her power, no less than they were touched by her tenderness, and ascribed to the lady-in-chief the gifts of leadership in the field. "if she were at their head, they would be in sebastopol in a week;" was a saying often heard in the hospital wards. [156] _wintle_, pp. 106, 108. [157] _invasion of the crimea_, vol. vi. p. 425. [158] _life of lord houghton_, vol. i. p. 505. ii of all the documents that have passed under my eyes in writing this memoir, none have touched me more than a bundle of letters to and from friends and relatives of crimean soldiers. miss nightingale was careful to take note of any dying man's last wishes or messages, and the letters in which she forwarded these, to wife or mother, must, by their touch of womanly sympathy, have brought balm to many a stricken heart. "my dear miss," writes one mother, "i feel the loss of my poor son's death very keenly, but if anything could help my grief it is the thought that he was looked to and cared for by kind friends when so many miles away from his native land." "i beg," writes a sister, "to return you my grateful thanks for all your kindness to my poor dear brother and for writing to tell me of his death. it is great consolation to know that both his soul and body were so kindly cared for." "i can assure you," writes another, "that you are beloved by every poor soldier i have seen." correspondence of this kind continued in the same manner when miss nightingale passed on from scutari to the crimea. one letter to a bereaved mother may be given as a representative of many:- ... the first time i saw your son was in going round the wards in the general hospital at balaklava. he had been brought in, in the morning.... he was always conscious, and remained so till the very last. he prayed aloud so beautifully that, as the nurse in charge said, "it was like a sermon to hear him." he asked "to see miss nightingale." he knew me, and expressed himself to me as entirely resigned to die. he pressed my hand when he could not speak. he died in the night.... he was decently interred in a burial-ground we have about a mile from balaklava. one of my own sisters lies in the same ground, to whom i have erected a monument. should you wish anything similar to be done over the grave of your lost son, i will endeavour to gratify you, if you will inform me of your wishes. with true sympathy for your loss, i remain, dear madam, yours sincerely, florence nightingale. there is another bundle, hardly less touching, which contains letters of anxious inquiry addressed to miss nightingale from all parts of the united kingdom, begging her to send, if she can, particulars of the whereabouts or of the illness or of the last hours of husband, brother, father, or son. "in order that you may know him," writes one fond mother, "he is a straight, nice, clean-looking, light-complexioned youth." "died in hospital, in good frame of mind," was miss nightingale's docket for the reply. every letter was carefully answered, and every message was, i doubt not, given whenever it was in her power to do so. many are the blessings invoked on miss nightingale's head. often the writer begins by explaining that the newspapers have told of her great kindness and so she will forgive the intrusion. others show that they take all that for granted by beginning, "dear friend," or ending, "yours affectionately." many wives beg her to let the soldier know that the children are well and happy. and one letter sends a message to a wounded lancer from the girl he left behind him, "if alive, please mention my name to him." iii the strain upon miss nightingale's physical and mental powers was incessant. her health, as it proved in the end, was seriously impaired; but during all her work at scutari, she was never absent from her post. "you had the best opportunities," she was asked by the royal commission of 1857, "for observing the condition of the soldier when he entered the hospitals, while he resided in them, when he died and was sent to the cemeteries, when he was sent home as an invalid, and when he rejoined the army?" "yes," she answered; "i was never out of the hospitals." during the worst time of cholera and typhus, three of her nurses died, and seven of the army doctors. miss nightingale tended two of the doctors in their last moments, and the thinning, for a while, of the medical ranks increased her labours. the amount of clerical work which devolved on her was, it may be well imagined, enormous. lady alicia blackwood records that when she was starting a school in the women's and children's quarters at scutari, miss nightingale said laughingly, "oh, are you really going to do that unkind thing--to teach children to write? i am so tired of writing, i sometimes wish i could not write!" the laugh must have had a certain grimness in it, i fear. the extent of the correspondence which miss nightingale kept up with ministers at home, with military and medical officers at the seat of war and at scutari, may be gathered from the foregoing chapters. her superintendence of the nurses entailed in account-keeping and in letters to complainants among them, and to their relatives, another mass of correspondence. then i find next, amongst her papers, piles of store-keeping accounts (mostly in her own handwriting), and other bundles of correspondence referring to offers of help in money or in kind. that miss nightingale ultimately broke down under the strain was natural; the marvel is that she bore up against it so long. she could not have coped with the mass of detail involved in her multifarious labours without a good deal of help. to mr. macdonald's assistance i have already referred; and like assistance was rendered for a time by the rev. and hon. sydney godolphin osborne, the famous s.g.o. of letters to the _times_. mr. kinglake devotes a charming page to "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." the reference is probably to mr. percy, mentioned in a previous chapter, or possibly to mr. william shore, a distant relative of miss nightingale's father; he was put in charge of a soldiers' library. but it was miss nightingale's old friends, mr. and mrs. bracebridge, who rendered the longest and the most helpful aid. mrs. bracebridge shared alike her room and her labours, and with mr. bracebridge cared, as we have heard, for the soldiers' wives. but mr. bracebridge did much else. his knowledge of the east, and his persevering good humour, determined to help everybody about everything, were invaluable. faithful, cheery, and indefatigable, no less now among the arduous labours of scutari than in former days of sight-seeing at rome and in egypt, he fetched and carried for miss nightingale, wrote letters or orders for her, and kept minutes of her interviews; and, at times of less strain, relieved her of visitors or callers by taking them for excursions in the straits or to constantinople. iv miss nightingale's thoughtfulness devised many practical ways of helping the men who were not too ill to think of their worldly affairs. in order to encourage them as much as possible to occupy themselves and to keep up a communication with home, she supplied stationery and postage stamps to those in hospital. if a soldier was illiterate or too ill to write, she or one of her nurses, or some other volunteer, would write at the sick man's dictation. mr. augustus stafford, as mentioned above, spent some portion of the autumn recess (nov.-dec. 1854) at scutari, and he gave his experiences to the roebuck committee. he described the pitiable condition of the wounded on their arrival, "their thigh and shoulder bones perfectly red from rubbing against the deck" of the vessel which had brought them from the crimea; but then miss nightingale's nurses came round, "and with a precision and rapidity which you would scarcely believe, would bring the soldiers arrowroot mixed with port wine, which was the greatest comfort; the men expressed themselves very thankfully, and said that they felt themselves in heaven." but it was in writing letters for the soldiers that this "cherished, yet unspoilt, favourite of english society"[159] spent most of his time at scutari. of miss nightingale's reading-rooms some account will be found in another chapter (xi.). [159] _kinglake_, p. 436. she was much touched by the men's appreciation of these attentions, and she was no less impressed by the conduct of the orderlies in the hospitals. in describing to the secretary of state certain sanitary reforms which she carried out in the hospitals of scutari, she wrote: "i must pay my tribute to the instinctive delicacy, the ready attention of orderlies and patients during all that dreadful period; for my sake they performed offices of this kind (which they neither would for the sake of discipline, nor for that of the importance to their own health, which they did not know), and never was there 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 expression which could distress a gentlewoman."[160] [160] _notes_, p. 94. even in the lowest sinks of human misery there are chords which will respond to a sympathetic touch. it was the innate dignity of her bearing that struck every one who saw florence nightingale; and, amidst those scenes of loathsome disease and death, she was herself "the sweet presence of a good diffused." chapter viii the religious difficulty your sectarians of every species, small and great, catholic or protestant, of high church or low, ... these are the true fog children.--ruskin. whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings.--st. paul. every generation has its own "religious difficulty," by which phrase is meant, not the difficulty which the individual soul or the collective soul of a nation may find in its religious beliefs themselves, but a difficulty which intrudes itself into allied or alien matters from the sphere of religious disputation. in the present day, the religious difficulty with which we are most familiar concerns questions of education. in the days of miss nightingale's mission to the east there was a religious difficulty in questions of nursing. * * * * * it was not enough that such a mission as hers was conceived in the very spirit of the founder of christianity: "i was sick, and ye visited me." the question was eagerly and angrily canvassed under which of the rival christian banners the visitation of the sick soldiers should be, and was being, carried on. the country had at the time hardly recovered its mental equilibrium after the shock administered to it by the tractarian movement, and echoes of the "no popery" cry of 1850 were still resonant in many quarters. the religious difficulty appeared at the very start of miss nightingale's crimean work, and dogged her footsteps to the end of it. i have dealt already with the difficulties which her experiment encountered from social ideas, military prejudices, official routine; but i am not sure that of all her difficulties the religious one was not the most wearing and worrying, as it was also assuredly the most unnecessary and the least excusable. it enveloped a noble undertaking in a fog of envy, strife, and futile railing. mr. sidney herbert, who was supposed to be of the high church persuasion, had scented the difficulty from the first, as we have heard, and miss nightingale was keenly alive to it. they had desired to make the first party of nurses representative of all the leading sects; but owing to the abstention of a protestant institution, the roman catholics and the high church party were in a considerable majority among the thirty-eight nurses. this fact gave the alarm, and a sectarian hue-and-cry was immediately raised. it began, as i am sorry to have to say, in the _daily news_; it was taken up, as goes without saying, in the so-called "religious press." on october 28, 1854, when miss nightingale was on her way to scutari, an attack upon her was given great prominence in the first-named paper. it was signed "anti-puseyite," and it included the text of mr. herbert's letter which had somehow or other been obtained.[161] "miss nightingale recruited her staff of nurses from miss sellon's house [a high church one] and from a romanist establishment." this awful fact explained "the party spirit which actuated the choice of miss nightingale for this important and responsible office, and which set aside lady maria forester"--a lady, it seems, of evangelical principles. it was not yet too late to remedy the offence "if the feeling of the nation be at once aroused and expressed." "a reader of the bible" and other correspondents followed, and the controversy raged furiously. mrs. sidney herbert's intervention, with an assurance that miss nightingale was somewhat low church, did not stop it. s. g. o. referred to it in his book. "i have heard and read," he wrote, "with indignation the remarks hazarded upon her religious character. her works ought to answer for her faith. if there is blame in looking for a roman catholic priest to attend a dying romanist, let me share it with her--i did it again and again."[162] an admirable avowal, but not calculated, i fear, to allay the anger of "no popery" fanatics. the publication of queen victoria's letter of december 6 (p. 215), showing the confidence which her majesty placed in miss nightingale, did something to stem the tide, but for many months the feud flowed on in the press. [161] see above, p. 154 _n._ [162] _scutari and its hospitals_, p. 26. ii miss nightingale's comment, when echoes of the storm reached her on the bosphorus, was characteristic. "they tell me," she wrote to mr. herbert (jan. 28, 1855), "that there is a religious war about poor me in the _times_, and that mrs. herbert has generously defended me. i do not know what i have done to be so dragged before the public. but i am so glad that my god is not the god of the high church or of the low, that he is not a romanist or an anglican--or a unitarian. i don't believe he is even a russian, though his events go strangely against us. (_n.b._--a greek once said to me at salamis, 'i do believe god almighty is an englishman.')" excellent, too, was the answer given by an irish clergyman when asked to what sect miss nightingale belonged. "she belongs to a sect which, unfortunately, is a very rare one--the sect of the good samaritan." miss nightingale was by descent a unitarian, by practice a communicant of the church of england; but she was addicted neither to high church nor to low. her god was the god of moral law, a god of infinite pity and benevolence, but also one who worked out his purpose by the free will of human instruments. her service of god was the service of man, and her service of man mingled efficiency with tenderness. she applied only one kind of test to a nurse: was she a good woman, and did she know her business? to be a good woman, a religious woman, a noble woman was not in itself sufficient. "excellent, gentle, self-devoted women," miss nightingale said in a note upon some of her staff, "fit more for heaven than for a hospital, they flit about like angels without hands among the patients, and soothe their souls, while they leave their bodies dirty and neglected. they never complain, they are eager for self-mortification. but i came not to mortify the nurses, but to nurse the wounded." therefore if a nurse was a good woman and knew her business, it was nothing that she was romanist, anglican, high church, low church, or unitarian. if she was not a good nurse, the fact that she belonged, or did not belong, to this or that persuasion was no recommendation. miss nightingale was, it is true, desirous from the first to include roman catholics in her staff, and she did so, in spite of many difficulties, to the end. but her reasons therein were practical, not sectarian. in the first place, many of the soldiers were roman catholics; and, secondly, her apprenticeship in nursing had shown her the excellent qualities, as nurses, of many catholic sisters. but here efficiency was the test, and a protestant deaconess from kaiserswerth was all one to her with a sister from "a romanist establishment." and one practical advantage of vowed sisters was that she did not lose them from marriage. one morning six nurses came in to miss nightingale, declaring that they one and all wished to be married. they were followed by six soldiers--sergeants and corporals--declaring their desire to claim the nurses as brides. this matrimonial deluge carried off six of her best nurses.[163] [163] _blackwood_, p. 232. iii such, then, was miss nightingale's position; and one can understand the amused contempt with which she heard of the picture drawn of her in certain quarters as a conspirator in a tractarian or romanist plot. but she was a practical person, and, though herself broad-minded, took stock of a narrower world as she found it. she was intensely desirous of making her experiment of woman nurses a success, and she felt acutely the danger of wrecking it by even the suspicion of sectarian prejudice. this fact supplies a further explanation of the alarm with which she received the coming of the second party of nurses under miss stanley.[164] it included a batch of fifteen nuns. "the proportion of r. catholics," she wrote to mr. herbert, "which is already making an outcry, you have increased to 25 in 84. mr. menzies [the principal medical officer] has declared that he will have two only at the general hospital, and i cannot place them here [in the barrack hospital] in a greater proportion than i have done, without exciting the suspicion of the medical men and others." the difficulty was ultimately adjusted, but only at the cost of infinite trouble and worry to miss nightingale. her letters to mr. herbert are full of references to the subject, some of them very amusing, and perhaps it was her lively sense of humour that helped to carry her through this religious difficulty. "such a tempest," she wrote (dec. 25, 1854), "has been brewed in this little pint pot as you could have no idea of. but i, like the ass, have put on the lion's skin, and when once i have done that (poor me, who never affronted any one before), i can bray so loud that i shall be heard, i am afraid, as far as england. however, this is no place for lions; and as for asses, we have enough." one proposition made to her was that, as the doctors did not want many more woman nurses, "ten of the protestants should be appropriated as clerical females by the chaplains, and ten of the nuns by the priests, _not as nurses_, but as female ecclesiastics. with this of course i have nothing to do. it being directly at variance with my instructions, i cannot of course appropriate the government money to such a purpose." miss nightingale's own proposition was to allocate the party in various proportions to various hospitals; but the superior of the new set of nuns objected that "it would be uncanonical" for any of her party to be separated from her. then miss nightingale proposed sending some of the nuns, either of the first or of the second batch, back to england; but father cuffe said that to send them away would be "like the driving of the blessed virgin through the desert by herod." "i believe it may be proved as a logical proposition," wrote miss nightingale in the midst of her religious difficulty, "that it is impossible for me to ride through all this; my caique is upset, but i am sticking on the bottom still." three days later she still despaired. "the fifteen new nuns are leading me the devil of a life, trying to get in _vi et armis_, and will upset the coach; there is little doubt of that." however, she held her ground. she had started with a protestant howl at her; she was now prepared to face "a roman catholic storm." happily the reverend mother of the first party of nuns was on her side, and strove to compose the canonical difficulty. to another reverend mother, who was less peaceably minded, miss nightingale often referred in her letters as "the reverend brickbat." in any case, miss nightingale was resolved, as she wrote, "not to let our little society become a hot-bed of roman catholic intriguettes." ultimately it was arranged that five of the second party of nuns should go to the general hospital, and ten to the newly opened hospital at koulali. miss nightingale suspected some of the second party of a desire to proselytize; and presently she had to inform mr. herbert (feb. 15, 1855) of "a charge of converting and rebaptizing before death, reported to me by the senior chaplain, by him to the commandant, by him to the commander-in-chief." she promptly exchanged the suspected nun. the ingenuity of theological rancour was infinite. having caught wind of the fact that there was some difference of view among the roman catholic sisters, an evangelical writer sought to fan the flame by denouncing the absurdity of "catholic nuns transferring their allegiance from the pope of rome to a protestant lady." one of the sisters, on hearing of this diatribe, playfully addressed miss nightingale as "your holiness," who in turn dubbed the sister "her cardinal."[165] i hereby give notice, in case crimean letters from miss nightingale should chance to be printed (such as i have seen) in which she says, "i do so want my cardinal," that the expression signifies no dark and secret adhesion to any prince of the roman church, but only a desire for the services of a particularly efficient nursing sister. if a nurse was efficient, miss nightingale was on the friendliest terms with her, equally whether the nurse were catholic or protestant. miss nightingale herself was accused successively, and with equal absurdity in each case, of being prejudiced for, or against, catholics and protestants, and of being inimical to religious ministrations altogether.[166] the protestant charges of proselytizing by catholic nurses were of course met by counter-charges of attempts by protestant nurses to convert roman catholic patients; and finally a chaplain solemnly appealed to the war department in london to remove one of miss nightingale's staff on the ground that the nurse had been heard to avow herself a socinian. miss nightingale protested successfully against any such disciplinary measure, urging that the lady, whether socinian or not, was an excellent nurse. much of all this perverse disputing was born of sheer ignorance and intolerance. one of miss stanley's ladies was accused by a certain chaplain of "circulating improper books in the wards." particulars were asked, and it was found that the offending book was keble's _christian year_.[167] [164] see above, p. 192. [165] _grant_, p. 165. [166] see the _autobiography of a balaclava nurse_ (a welshwoman), vol. ii. p. 146. [167] _life and letters of dean stanley_, vol. i. p. 492. there is a curious echo of "the religious difficulty" in purcell's _life of manning_ (vol. ii. p. 53, 1st ed.), where a letter of feb. 13, 1856, will be found from manning to cardinal wiseman, discussing whether roman catholic chaplains should or should not encourage collections for the nightingale fund. the solution suggested was "to let the collection be _passively_ made without any ecclesiastical recognition of it." no sooner was any one phase of the religious difficulty adjusted than another appeared. there were anglicans and roman catholics among the nightingale nurses, and there were others selected from english hospitals, who, so far as their religious views were concerned, might be anything or nothing. but why, it was asked, were there no presbyterians? representations were made to the war office. "i object," wrote miss nightingale (feb. 19, 1855), "to the principle of sending out any one, _qua_ sectarian, not _qua_ nurse. but this having already been done in the case of the r.c.'s, etc., i do not see how the presbyterians can be refused. and therefore let six trained nurses be sent out, if you think fit, of whom let two-thirds be presbyterians. but i must bar these fat drunken old dames. above 14 stone we will not have; the provision of bedsteads is not strong enough. three were nearly swamped in a caique, whom mr. bracebridge was conducting to the ship, and, had he not walked with the fear of the police before his eyes, he might easily have swamped them whole." the stout old dames were not presbyterians; but, sad to relate, two of the presbyterian party did turn out to be over-fond of drink, and miss nightingale had to return them to england. i regret to say that there were similar cases, not amongst the presbyterians. the charges and counter-charges of proselytism were referred by the chaplains to the secretary of state. lord panmure, in reply (april 27, 1855), had "to say in the first place, that he has perused the correspondence with great regret, and that he deeply laments to find that religious differences have arisen to such an extent as to mar the united energies and labours of those who are devoting themselves with such disinterestedness and heroic courage and success to the relief of the sick and wounded." the minister then proceeded to promulgate instructions designed to prevent any proselytism by the nurses and sisters. unfortunately, his dispatch was so worded as to make things, from miss nightingale's point of view, no better, but rather worse. "the instructions," she wrote to lady canning (sept. 9, 1855), "have been so completely misunderstood that they have been my principal difficulty. the r.c.'s who before were quite amenable have chosen to construe the rule that they 'are not to enter upon the discussion of religious subjects with any patients other than those of their own faith,' to mean therefore with _all_ of their own faith, and the second party of nuns who came out now wander over the whole hospital out of nursing hours, not confining themselves to their own wards, nor even to patients, but 'instructing' (it is their own word) groups of orderlies and convalescents in the corridors, doing the work each of ten chaplains, and bringing ridicule upon the whole thing, while they quote the words of the war office." lady canning, who was at this time acting as miss nightingale's agent for the enlistment of nurses, had proposed to embody lord panmure's instructions in the printed rules and regulations. miss nightingale begged her to do no such thing. i doubt not that miss nightingale's own verbal instructions were less ambiguous. she was one who never failed to say exactly what she meant. iv a great obstacle with which miss nightingale's work in the east had to contend throughout was the scarcity at the time of properly trained nurses. she had long ago formed a resolve to remedy this defect; the seriousness of it was still further enforced upon her mind by painful experience in the crimean war; and her resolve was the more strengthened. the religious difficulty--demanding that nurses should be selected, to some extent, not _qua_ nurses, but _qua_ sectarians--accentuated the obstacle of inadequate training, which, however, would in any case have existed. the case is excellently put, in terms which doubtless reflect miss nightingale's own views, in a letter from lady verney to mrs. gaskell (may 17, 1855):- until women have gone through a _real_ training, it is vain to hope that four or five weeks in a hospital can fit them for one of the most difficult works that any one can be called on to undertake. i cannot tell you the details, you can guess many of them; but when i hear estimable people talking as if you could turn 40 women of all ranks, degrees of virtue, and intelligence, into a military hospital, with drunken orderlies, unmarried chaplains, young surgeons, &c., &c., and expect that they are not more likely to be unwise or tempted astray than the r.c. sisters of charity, who are bound by well-considered vows, love of their kind and the fear of hell fire, then we feel that the "estimable people" have very little knowledge of human nature. f.'s form of sisterhood is infinitely higher, i believe, than the r.c. and _will be carried out_, i doubt no more than in her own existence, but as it must exist without the checks and safeguards of the other and inferior form, so it requires higher elements in the actors and a more severe training and examination. instead of which the loosest possible choice takes place by people most excellent but not in the least qualified to choose; goodwill and a "love of nursing" is enough for the lady class. it is the fact, though it is not popularly known, that miss nightingale was at this time strongly opposed to "lady" nurses. she objected to them, not because they were ladies, but because they were unlikely to be well trained. pious and benevolent ladies were more given, she said, to "spiritual flirtations with the patients," than apt at the proper business of surgical nursing. it was the trained hospital nurses that she preferred. there were among the 125 women who passed through her hands in the east more efficient and less, and in so large a flock there were some black sheep. but amongst the band, in all classes and of all denominations, there were devoted and competent women, whose services deserve to be held in grateful remembrance beside those of their lady-in-chief. and as i have had to record miss nightingale's criticism upon some of the roman catholics among her flock, it should be added that of others she wrote to mr. herbert: "they are the truest christians i ever met with--invaluable in their work--devoted, heart and head, to serve god and mankind--not to intrigue for their church." to the reverend superior, who came out from bermondsey with the first party of nuns, miss nightingale was particularly attached. "she writes," said cardinal wiseman, "that great part of her success is due to rev. mother of bermondsey, without whom it would have been a failure."[168] [168] wilfred ward's _life of wiseman_, vol. ii. p. 191. and see miss nightingale's own words given below, p. 299. the aspect of miss nightingale's work, touched upon in this chapter, adds another to the accumulation of difficulties with which she had to deal. it was the one which troubled her most. "in this sink of misery, in this tussle of life or death," she felt the bitter futility of personal grievances and religious differences. it is worry, more than work, that kills; and the religious difficulty was perhaps the last straw which caused the lady-in-chief to break down, as we shall hear in the next chapter, under her heavy load of responsibility and care. chapter ix to the crimea--illness (may-august 1855) for myself, i have done my duty. i have identified my fate with that of the heroic dead.--florence nightingale (private notes, 1855). in the spring of 1855 miss nightingale decided to leave scutari for a while in order to visit the hospitals in the crimea. the conditions at scutari were now greatly improved. sanitary works had been executed. the hospitals were better supplied. the pressure in the wards, caused by the terrible winter before sebastopol, was relieved. there were only 1100 cases in the barrack hospital, and of those only 100 were in bed. the rate of mortality had fallen from 42 per _cent_ to 22 per _thousand_ of the cases treated. the siege was likely soon to be accompanied by assaults, and the pressure might rather be in the hospitals at balaclava, where the sick and wounded were if possible to remain, in order to avoid the sufferings of the sea passage to scutari. * * * * * in the crimea, besides the regimental hospitals, there were four general hospitals. there was the _general hospital_ at balaclava, established after the british occupation in september 1854. there was the _castle hospital_, consisting of huts on the "genoese heights" above balaclava, opened in april 1855. there was the _hospital of st. george's monastery_, also consisting of huts, intended for convalescent and ophthalmic cases; and, lastly, there were the _hospitals of the land transport corps_, again consisting of huts, near karani. all these hospitals had a complement of female nurses, though the monastery hospital not until december 1855, and the land transport hospitals not until 1856. in the spring of 1855, then, there were already female nurses at the general hospital and the castle hospital, under their own superintendents, but all ultimately responsible to miss nightingale--as she apprehended, and as the war office intended. she was now anxious to inspect these hospitals; to increase the efficiency of the female nursing establishments; and, in particular, to introduce those washing and cooking arrangements which had been productive of so much benefit at scutari. her visit of inspection was approved by the war office; and, by instructions dated april 27, she was invested with full authority as almoner of the free gifts in all the british hospitals in the crimea. but in other respects her position was somewhat ambiguous. the original instructions, issued by mr. herbert, had named her as superintendent of the female nurses in all the british military hospitals _in turkey_; and these words gave a standing-ground to her opponents in the crimea. the intention of the war office was to give her general superintendence, but to relieve her of direct responsibility for the nurses in the crimea so long as she was at scutari. the matter was not, however, cleared up till a later date,[169] and the indefiniteness of her position in the crimea exposed her to infinite worry and intrigues. [169] see below, p. 292. on may 2, miss nightingale set forth from scutari, where mrs. bracebridge was left in charge:- "poor old flo," miss nightingale wrote from the black sea, may 5, 1855, "steaming up the bosphorus and across the black sea with four nurses, two cooks, and a boy to crim tartary (to overhaul the regimental hospitals) in the _robert lowe_ or _robert slow_ (for an exceedingly slow boat she is), taking back 420 of her patients, a draught of convalescents returning to their regiments to be shot at again. 'a mother in israel,' pastor fliedner called me; a mother in the coldstreams, is the more appropriate appellation. what suggestions do the above ideas make to you in embley drawing-room? stranger ones perhaps than to me, who, on the 5th may, year of disgrace 1855, having been at scutari six months to-day, am in sympathy with god, fulfilling the purpose i came into the world for. what the disappointments of the conclusion of these six months are no one can tell. but i am not dead, but alive." miss nightingale was accompanied to the crimea by the faithful mr. bracebridge, willing as ever to serve her. among the nurses was mrs. roberts, whose exceptional efficiency and personal devotion to the lady-in-chief were soon to be called in need. of the cooks, the chief was soyer the great, from whose cheerfully gossiping and pleasantly egotistical pages[170] some details are drawn in this chapter. the "boy" mentioned in miss nightingale's letter was thomas, a drummer, who, though only twelve years of age, used to call himself "miss nightingale's man." he was a regular _enfant de troupe_, says m. soyer, full of activity, wit, intelligence, and glee. he would draw himself up to his full height, and explain that he had "forsaken his instruments in order to devote his civil and military career to miss nightingale." she was attended also by a soldier invalided from the 68th light infantry, whom mr. bracebridge had picked out to serve as messenger. in 1860 he wrote a manuscript account of his experiences in the crimea,[171] and this is another first-hand source from which particulars are drawn in the present chapter. the party arrived at balaclava on may 5, and the decks of vessels in the harbour were crowded with spectators anxious to catch a glimpse of the famous lady-in-chief. there was no accommodation for her ashore; so her headquarters were on board the _robert lowe_, and when that vessel left, on the sailing transport _london_. [170] see bibliography b, no. 15. [171] robert robinson, on his return to england, was sent to school and an agricultural college by miss nightingale, and obtained employment on lord berners's estate in scotland. miss nightingale was constantly befriending him, _e.g._ in paying his expenses for a visit to london to see the exhibition of 1862, and in sending him illustrated newspapers, and even the _times_. there was another crimean lad, besides tommy, one william jones, with a wooden leg. see below, p. 304, where account is also given of another protégé, peter. ii miss nightingale set to work immediately, and with characteristic energy. one of her first duties was a visit of ceremony to lord raglan. she was a good horsewoman, and as a girl had been fond of riding. she was now mounted "upon a very pretty mare, which, by its gambols and caracoling, seemed proud to carry its noble charge, and 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." was not the great soyer himself among the escort? the commander of the forces was away, but miss nightingale was taken to the three mortar battery, and the soldiers, as she passed, gave her three times three. this visit to the front made a profound and indelible impression upon her.[172] it is first recorded in a letter of may 10, which was forwarded to windsor castle.[173] "fancy," she wrote, "working five nights out of seven in the trenches! fancy being 36 hours in them at a stretch, as they were all december, lying down, or half lying down, often 48 hours with no food but _raw_ salt pork, sprinkled with sugar, rum, and biscuit; nothing hot, because the exhausted soldier could not collect his own fuel, as he was expected to do, to cook his own ration; and fancy through all this the army preserving their courage and patience as they have done, and being now eager (the old ones more than the young ones) to be led even into the trenches. there was something sublime in the spectacle." "when i see the camp," she wrote to lady canning (may 10), "i wonder not that the army suffered so much, but that there is any army left at all; but now all is looking up. sir john m'neill has done wonders." with sir john m'neill, a doctor who afterwards entered the political service in the east, miss nightingale formed a great friendship. he, with colonel tulloch, had been sent out to the crimea by lord palmerston's government to report upon the commissariat system. [172] see, _e.g._, below, pp. 317, 488, and vol. ii. p. 411. [173] found among the prince consort's papers, and printed in sir theodore martin's _life_ of him, vol. iii. p. 214. miss nightingale, on this and her later visits to the crimea, saw and heard of many deeds of heroism which she loved to tell. "i remember," she wrote, "a sergeant, who was on picket, the rest of the picket killed, and himself battered about the head, stumbled back to camp, and on his way picked up a wounded man, and brought him in on his shoulders to the lines, where he fell down insensible. when, after many hours, he recovered his senses, i believe after trepanning, his first words were to ask after his comrade, 'is he alive?' 'comrade, indeed! yes, he's alive, it is the general.' at that moment the general, though badly wounded, appeared at the bedside. 'oh, general, it's you, is it, i brought in, i'm so glad. i didn't know your honour, but if i'd known it was you, i'd have saved you all the same.' this is the true soldier's spirit."[174] [174] letter on the volunteers, 1861. see bibliography a, no. 25. iii during the few days immediately after her arrival at balaclava, miss nightingale carried on an active investigation of the hospitals, regimental and general; arranged various affairs in connection with the sisters and nurses; discussed the building of new huts; and, in conjunction with m. soyer, planned the erection of several kitchens for extra diet. here, as at scutari, she was fearless of contagion, and tended patients stricken with fever. on return to her ship one evening she complained of great fatigue; and on the following morning, feeling no better, she sent for dr. anderson, chief medical officer at the general hospital. he called others of the medical staff into consultation, and a joint bulletin was issued to the effect that miss nightingale was suffering from crimean fever. they advised that she should be removed from the ship, and she was carried on a stretcher by relays of soldiers to the castle hospital on the genoese heights. the hut in which she lay was immediately behind those of the wounded soldiers. the attack of fever was sharp, and she was, as she afterwards admitted to her friends, "very near to death." there are scraps of manuscript among her papers (for even in illness she could not be kept from the use of her pen) which show a wandering mind. the news of miss nightingale's illness was received with consternation in england, and the anxiety of her friends was intense, though lord raglan had thoughtfully arranged that a telegraphic dispatch from him should not reach them till, after two or three days of the fever, the doctors were able to hold out hopes of recovery. "sitting to-day," wrote her sister to a friend, from embley (may 27), "in the little vicarage woodhouse, waiting for the people to come out from church (for we were not up to the whole service), in order to go in to the communion which she loves so well, and which we always take with her and god, and which she is taking in spirit or reality to-day if she is alive, and if not is taking in a higher and happier sense--mama said, 'i thank god she is ready for life or for death'; and in that, dear, we truly strive to rest, though the spirit would quail, i am afraid, if there were not hope at the bottom." the anxiety in the war hospitals was scarcely less. "the soldiers turned their faces to the wall," said one, "and cried." the crisis passed, and on may 24 lord raglan was able to telegraph home that the patient was out of danger, and three days later that she was going on favourably. the bulletins were forwarded to the queen, and on may 28 her majesty, in writing to lord panmure, was "truly thankful to learn that excellent and valuable person, miss nightingale, is safe."[175] at this time a horseman rode up to her hut, and the nurse, mrs. roberts, who had been enjoined to keep the patient quiet, refused to let him in. he said that he most particularly desired to see miss nightingale. "and pray," said mrs. roberts, "who are you?" "ah, only a soldier," replied the visitor, "but i have ridden a long way, and your patient knows me very well." he was admitted, and a month later was himself laid low and died. it was lord raglan. [175] _panmure papers_, vol. i. p. 215. iv miss nightingale, on becoming convalescent, was strongly advised by the doctors to take a voyage to england. she would not listen to such advice. her work at the front had but just begun, and she was resolved to return to it after the shortest possible delay. the voyage to the bosphorus was the longest that she could be induced to take. her good mrs. bracebridge had arrived from scutari just in time to accompany her friend on the return voyage. lord ward, whose steam-yacht was in harbour at the time, pressed the use of it upon her, and in it she was taken to scutari. when the yacht reached scutari, all the high officials were present to meet it. one of the large barges, used to remove the sick and wounded, was brought alongside, and miss nightingale, in a state of extreme weakness and exhaustion, was lowered into it. at the pier soldiers were in readiness, who carried her on a stretcher to the chaplain's house, followed by a large and sympathetic crowd. "i do not remember anything during the campaign," wrote the good-hearted soyer, "so gratifying to the feelings as that simple though grand procession." "ah," said a soldier, "there was no sadder sight than to see that dear lady carried up from the pier on a stretcher just like we men, and perhaps by some of the fellows she nursed herself."[176] it was the same when she was presently moved from scutari to the shore in order to go to therapia, where the ambassador had placed his summer residence at her disposal. she was carried in a litter by four guardsmen, but, though it was only five minutes' walk to the shore, there were two relays, and her baggage was divided among twelve soldiers, though two could easily have carried the whole,[177] so great was the desire of the men to share in the honour of helping the lady-in-chief. [176] _blackwood_, p. 115. [177] _memoirs of lady eastlake_, vol. ii. p. 44. her recovery was gradual, and her weakness great. mrs. bracebridge described her as unable to feed herself or speak above a whisper. the extreme exhaustion was more from the previous overstrain on mind and body than from the fever, the doctors said, and they recommended complete change and rest. mr. sidney herbert wrote, imploring her to come home for two months: "we are delighted," wrote her mother (july 9), "to think of you at therapia. oh, my love, how i trust that you will, among the numerous lessons which your life has been spent in learning, be able to perfect that most difficult one of standing and waiting." she was to be lessoned in that form of service, but not till after many more years of arduous labour, and for the present she would not hear of any return to england. the feeling of the soldiers for her touched her so deeply that she could not bear, she said, to leave them. gradually she recovered strength. "we have a charming account," wrote her sister (aug. 21), "from lothian nicholson just ordered out to crimea, who is quite enthusiastic, dear old boy, about her good looks, which, as all her hair has been cut off, is good testimony--'her own smile,' he talks of, and says he can hardly believe she has gone through such a winter. the dear bracebridges say that her improvement in the last week was delightful and wonderful." already, in july, her business letters were resumed. in august she was in the full rush of work again. the doctors and her friends still besought her to take rest. but her indomitable spirit would listen to no counsels of retreat. the end of the war was not yet in sight. even sebastopol had not yet fallen. so long as there remained sick and wounded in the levant to be cared for, she was resolved to remain also. a soldier was told that the lady-in-chief would probably be sent home. "but how will they _pairt_ with her," he said, "what'll they do without her? they set all their hopes on she." there were nurses, too, naturally anxious to rejoin their families or friends at home, who said that, if she went, they would go. the presence of miss nightingale, with her lofty ideals and inspiring self-devotion, was the attraction which kept many of these women at their posts. some had already died. mrs. elizabeth drake, one of the nurses whom miss nightingale had taken with her to the crimea, died on august 9 of low fever at balaclava. "i cannot tell you," wrote miss nightingale to the master of st. john's house (aug. 16, 1855), "what i felt when i heard of her death, unexpected alike by all. her two physicians thought her going on well, and i expected her in every convoy that came down from balaclava, as she was coming to me to recruit. i have lost in her the best of all the women here. once i proposed to her to go home, but she scouted the idea entirely and said her health was better here than in england. i feel like a criminal in having robbed you of one so truly to be loved and honoured. it seemed as if it pleased god to remove from the work those who have been most useful to it. his will be done!" nurse drake's body was brought to scutari, and miss nightingale erected a small marble cross over it in the cemetery. it was no time, when members of the rank-and-file were falling at the post of duty, for the chief to listen to counsels of medical prudence. nor, indeed, at any time did miss nightingale harbour even a passing thought of what would have seemed to her an act of military desertion. she remained till the end of the war came, and till the last transport had sailed; working indefatigably as ever, and in some respects in new spheres of usefulness, both in the crimea and at scutari; to what good effect we shall hear in later chapters, but at great cost to her own comfort and bodily strength. she had been appointed, as she used to say, to a subsidiary post in the queen's army[178]; the humblest post, it might be, but still a post of duty. the men had dared and suffered; and florence nightingale was resolved to show that a woman too had strength to suffer and endure. [178] she was especially pleased when in march 1856 her name appeared for the first time in general orders; see below, p. 293. during the weeks of convalescence at scutari, miss nightingale used sometimes to walk at evening on the shore, in full sight of that view which, when she had first come there, they told her was the finest in the world, but which, in the crush of work, she had no time to enjoy.[179] she sent a letter to her people at home describing one such evening walk, and it was read out in the family circle. lady byron, who was staying with them at the time, heard it read, and said that it was "like a hymn--simple and deep-toned." she described how, on the opposite side, the city of constantinople was defined against the burning sky of the setting sun, but the outline was changed by the fall of some mounds in an earthquake. near her were the graves of the heroic dead, the thousands with whom, she said, she felt identified. "it went into my heart," wrote lady byron, "as the poetry of fact--for she has made poetry fact." the letter went on to speak of the british burying-ground at scutari, and miss nightingale added these lines:- "they are not here!" no, not beneath that sod, and yet not far away, for they can mingle their new life from god with living souls, not clay. and they, "the heroic dead," will softly pour into thy spirit's ear a music human still, but sad no more, to tell thee they are near- near thee with higher ministering aid thy heart-work to return, so that each sacrifice that love has made a victory shall earn![180] [179] above, p. 173. [180] the words in inverted commas were quotations from miss nightingale's letters. these had been shown to a friend, who thereupon wrote the lines, above quoted, and sent them to her. chapter x the popular heroine miss nightingale looks to her reward from this country in having a fresh field for her labours, and means of extending the good that she has already begun. a compliment cannot be paid dearer to her heart than in giving her work to do.--sidney herbert. the news of miss nightingale's illness spread sympathetic anxiety throughout great britain. even more than when her mission of mercy was first announced, she became the popular heroine; and more than ever men and women of all classes sought means of showing their sympathy. lady verney, whose depth of feeling is not concealed by the play of humour which sparkles pleasantly upon the surface, described, successively, the penalties and the pleasures of being the sister of a heroine:- (_miss f. p. nightingale to miss ellen tollet._) embley, _friday_ [_summer of 1855_]. i am quite _done_ with writing, a second blast of linen and knitted socks was nearly the death of me, and 'hints,' my dear!--oh, my horror of being asked for hints,--such as "can newspapers be put into the post free?" and such like _niaiseries_. how grateful i am to you for never once having inquired whether socks or muffetees are most required, and whether you are safe in sending 6 towels and an old tablecloth to london, or whether they had better come to us. it sounds very ungrateful, i am afraid, but when one's wrist aches over the two hundredth repetition of the matter, i do wish the public would apply to the nearest post office, or read that scarce and erudite work the _times_, and use their sense not their pens. however, these words are only when i am cross at having been prevented from writing to the folk i love, such as thee, of the progress of scutari. else generally the feeling in every soul, so wide and so deep, touches us more than i can tell, and helps us over the inevitable weight of the anxiety more than i thought possible--heavy, redfaced, old fox-hunting squires, who never had a "sentiment" in their lives, come with their eyes full of tears; narrow-minded farmers with _both_ eyes on the main chance are melted; young ladies who never got beyond balls and concerts are warmed. dearest, i do feel of the feeling she has raised, it blesseth "him here who gives and those out there who take," and will do good wider than one hoped. i can't so much as write for a dispatch box for her (thinking an official of her scale must want one for her papers) without its coming back full of pretty little match boxes as an offering, and wrapped in a large contribution of old sheets.... i must give you the cream of this last three or four days' letters. firstly, mr. hookham, the bookseller, sending down a parcel, says he "trusts to hear of the return of miss n., as he does not think, though convalescent, she can get well on the shores of bosphorus or black sea; that a general or admiral can be replaced, but there can be no successor to miss n., her skill, her fortitude, her courage cannot be replaced. i speak of courage in the most exalted sense that it is possible to characterise the bravery and devotion of woman." then comes a letter from a shipowner in the north of scotland going to launch a vessel, and wanting to call it after her, sends to have her name quite "correct." next, lady dunsany saying that "joan of arc was not more a creation of the moment and _for_ the moment than f. joan's was the same unearthly influence carrying all before its spirit might--joan's was the same strange and sexless identity, which, belonging as it were neither to man nor woman, seemed to disembody and combine the _choicest results_ of both, and then to sweep down conventionalities, prejudices, and pruderies, with the clear, cold, crystal sceptre of its _majestic purity_. joan's mission, too, was the condensation of her country's moral and intellectual power in the person of a young and single woman when the men of that country were so many of them imbecile and effete! i think my parallel runs pretty close." lord dunsany adds that he has no time to write, so he says, "ditto to mrs. burke," and that i know he is "fanatico for joan of arc rediviva, god bless her." then a bit from lady byron, saying, "even her illness will advance her work as all things must for those who do all with his aid," and more that is most beautiful. then 2 copies of the _history of women_, with portrait of miss n. to be sent to her "from the author," and a flaming extract from a county paper in a pamphlet, _stroll to lea hurst_, 20 copies ditto, ditto, and a majestic effusion from the family grocer about "heroic conduct," "brave and noble miss n.," "identified with crimean success and sad disasters," "posterity," "arm of civilisation," "rampant barbarism," &c. &c., and so on. (_to florence nightingale._) _dec._ 8 [1855]. it has been curious (as your representative) how our burlington street room has seen manning and maurice, mr. best and the chancellor, lady amelia jebb and mrs. herbert, lady byron and lady canning, the extremes of all kinds crowding in to help you in every way that they could devise. then come in tradespeople, all so intent on you; and working folk, your stoutest supporters, and those you will care most for. and we are tenderly treated and affectionately welcomed by one and all of all classes and opinions for your sake, my dear, and very sweet to me is kindliness for your dear sake; it seems as if it were part of you coming to meet me. ii but miss nightingale's popularity was not limited to such circles as those in which her family moved. letters from soldiers in the crimea had made her known in thousands of humble homes, and she became the heroine of the cottage, the workshop, and the alleys. old soldiers dropped into poetry about her, and rhymed broadsheets, with rough woodcuts of the lady with the lamp, issued from printers in seven dials and soho. one of these songs, entitled "the nightingale in the east," and intended to go to the tune of "the cottage and water mill," was especially popular with its refrain:- so forward, my lads, may your hearts never fail, you are cheer'd by the presence of a sweet nightingale.[181] [181] for the text see bibliography b, no. 7. an article in the _quarterly review_ of april 1867, entitled "the nightingale in the east," is "a study of the poetry of seven dials." the popular ditty about miss nightingale has been sung under many skies and to many audiences; never to greater effect than on christmas day 1870 in st. thomas's hospital (then in the surrey gardens). the nurses had arranged a christmas treat; the children had sung hymns, and older patients had given popular songs of the day. a patient in the accident ward, a coal-heaver with a broken leg, then volunteered; when the words of the refrain caught the ears of the nightingale nurses, "we dropped all work" (says one of them), "and listened intently till the song was over, all enthusiasm for our chief." the singer told them that he was an old soldier, and had been nursed by miss nightingale in the general hospital at balaclava. then from the same class of printing-offices there issued "price one penny, the only and unabridged edition of the life of miss nightingale, detailing her christian heroic deeds in the land of tumult and death, which has made her name most deservedly immortal, not only in england, but in all civilized parts of the world, winning the prayers of the soldier, the widow, and the orphan." the poets and biographers were not only in seven dials. the poet's corner of every newspaper, from _punch_ and the _spectator_ to the smallest country journal, was devoted to the praise of the heroine. ingenious triflers were at work, and it was found that her anagram was indeed, as an old definition has it, poesie transferred, and florence nightingale became "flit on, cheering angel." prize poems at the universities pictured her, in the manner of such compositions, walking fearlessly where strong men tremble and where brave hearts fail. then the musicians took up the popular heroine, and both now, and after her return from the crimea, sentimental songs, set to music, were inscribed to her: "angels with sweet approving smiles," "the shadow on the pillow," "the soldier's widow," "the woman's smile," "the soldier's cheer"--this latter "played by the band of the 97th regiment,"--"die soldaten lebewohl," "the star of the east," and so forth. the stationers followed in the wake of the printers, and brought out note-paper with a picture of florence nightingale as the water-mark, or with lithographed views of "lea hurst, her home." portraits of her were eagerly sought; and as the family were unwilling to supply them, likenesses had to be invented to adorn sentimental prints. life-boats and emigrant-ships were christened _the florence nightingale_. children, streets, valses, and race-horses were named after her. "the forest plate handicap was won by miss nightingale, beating barbarity and nine others." tradesmen printed portraits and short lives of her on their paper bags. at fairs there were "grand exhibitions of miss florence nightingale administering to the sick and wounded." china figures, with no recognizable likeness to her, but inscribed "florence nightingale," were put on sale. the public would not be denied. "yes, indeed," wrote lady verney to her sister, "the people love you with a sort of passionate tenderness that goes to my heart." miss nightingale did not relish all this. they had sent her various supplies for the sick, and also a packet of "lives," "portraits," and the like to scutari. "my effigies and praises," she wrote in reply, "were less welcome. i do not affect indifference to real sympathy, but i have felt painfully, the more painfully since i have had time to hear of it, the éclat which has been given to this adventure. the small still beginning, the simple hardship, the silent and _gradual_ struggle upwards, these are the climate in which an enterprise really thrives and grows. time has not altered our saviour's lesson on that point, which has been learnt successively by all reformers from their own experience. the vanity and frivolity which the éclat thrown upon this affair has called forth has done us unmitigated harm, and has brought mischief on (perhaps) one of the most promising enterprises that ever set sail from england. our own old party which began its work in hardship, toil, struggle, and obscurity has done better than any other." iii when it became known in england that miss nightingale had recovered from her illness, and had resolved to remain at her post until the end of the war, a movement at once sprang up for marking in some public manner the nation's appreciation of her services and her devotion. there was at first some idea, as lady verney wrote, of a personal testimonial in the "teapot and bracelet" kind. mrs. herbert, who was consulted in the matter, knew her friend well enough to be certain that miss nightingale would decline to accept any such proposal. the only form of testimonial to which she would ever listen was something to enable her the better to carry on her work for others. miss nightingale was written to, and replied, in accordance with mrs. herbert's expectation, that she must absolutely decline any testimonial of a personal character. her friends knew well that what she would best like was the establishment in one form or another of "an english kaiserswerth." this suggestion was accordingly put before her, and she was asked to submit a plan. her reply was, again, very characteristic. immersed in the crowded work of the moment, she was in no mood to make future plans; but she took the earliest opportunity of intimating that, whatever the plan might be, she must be the autocrat of it. "dr. bence-jones has written to me," she said (sept. 27), "for a plan. people seem to think that i have nothing to do but to sit here and form plans. if the public choose to recognize my services and my judgment in this manner, they must leave those services and that judgment unfettered." she was experiencing enough of fetters in the east to last her for a lifetime. an influential committee was formed, on which mr. sidney herbert and mr. s. c. hall served as honorary secretaries, and it was decided to raise a fund for the establishment of some school for nurses, under a council, to be nominated by miss nightingale. a public meeting was called for november 29, 1855, at willis's rooms, "to give expression to a general feeling that the services of miss nightingale in the hospitals of the east demand the grateful recognition of the british people." the room proved far too small. it was crowded to suffocation; and never, said the _times_, in reporting the meeting, had a more brilliant, enthusiastic, and unanimous gathering been held in london. "burlington st., this 29th of november," wrote mrs. nightingale to florence, "the most interesting day of thy mother's life. it is very late, my child, but i cannot go to bed without telling you that your meeting has been a glorious one. i believe that you will be more indifferent than any of us to your fame, but be glad that we feel this is a proud day for us; for the like has never happened before, but will, i trust, from your example, gladden the hearts of many future mothers. one thing will rejoice you. we were all as anxious as you were there that the good bracebridges' devoted love should be publicly recognized, and sidney herbert has taken this occasion to do it most gracefully. the duke of cambridge was in the chair and made a simple, manly speech. sidney herbert's delighted every one. lord stanley, the duke of argyll, and sir j. pakington spoke capitally. monckton milnes was very touching. lord lansdowne as good as in his best days. all seemed inspired by their subject. parthe and i, though we could not take courage to go ourselves, staid it over; our informants came flocking in, and we were rewarded." "fancy if you can," wrote mr. nightingale to his sister, "our joy at the universal oneness of the meeting which has honoured flo with its absolute fiat of 'well done' and well to do. i am not apt to be easily satisfied with the things which i see and feel or hear or think, but all people seem to agree that there was _there_ nothing wanting." the speeches deserve, i think, all that the proud mother said of them. mr. sidney herbert's was, perhaps, the best, if one can judge from the reports; and certainly it is the best remembered, for in the course of it he read out the soldier's letter, which, as mentioned already (p. 237), became famous throughout the world. but "the truest thing," as lady verney wrote to her sister, "was said by monckton milnes. he said that too much had been made of the sacrifice of position and luxury in your case." how true that was is known to all who have read the first part of this volume. "god knows," said mr. milnes, "that the luxury of one good action must to a mind such as hers be more than equivalent for the loss of all the pomps and vanities of life." and mr. milnes, with the touch of a poet and the feeling of a friend, said another very true thing. he drew a contrast between the crowded and brilliant scene before him, and "the scene which met the gaze of that noble woman, who was now devoting herself to the service of her suffering fellow-creatures on the black shores of crim tartary, overlooking the waters of the inhospitable sea." she was grateful for sympathy; but the glitter of praise and reputation was as nothing, or less than nothing, to her. she was wrestling by those bleak shores with disease and death, wrestling, too, with jealousies and intrigues and other difficulties. she cared for no recognition, except in so far as it could help her in her work. a contribution of £1000 to her private fund, sent by the people of new zealand in november, greatly pleased her. "if my name," she wrote to her parents, "and my having done what i could for god and mankind has given you pleasure, that is real pleasure to me. my reputation has not been a boon to me in my work; but if you have been pleased, that is enough. i shall love my name now, and shall feel that it is the greatest return that you can find satisfaction in hearing your child named, and in feeling that her work draws sympathies together--some return for what you have done for me. life is sweet after all." the form taken by the memorial, inaugurated at the public meeting in willis's rooms, was the establishment of a "nightingale fund," to enable her to establish and control an institute for the training, sustenance, and protection of nurses, paid and unpaid. a copy of the resolution was sent to miss nightingale, who acknowledged it in a letter from scutari (jan. 6, 1856): "dear mr. herbert--in answer to your letter (which followed me to the crimea and back to scutari) proposing to me the undertaking of a training school for nurses, i will first beg to say that it is impossible for me to express what i have felt in regard to the sympathy and the confidence shown to me by the originators and supporters of this scheme. exposed as i am to be misinterpreted and misunderstood, in a field of action in which the work is new, complicated, and distant from many who sit in judgment upon it,--it is indeed an abiding support to have such sympathy and such appreciation brought home to me in the midst of labour and difficulties all but overpowering. i must add, however, that my present work is such as i would never desert for any other, so long as i see room to believe that what i may do here is unfinished. may i, then, beg you to express to the committee that i accept their proposal, provided i may do so on their understanding of this great uncertainty as to when it will be possible for me to carry it out?"[182] [182] _report of the nightingale fund_, "addenda," pp. 1-2. public meetings in support of the fund were held throughout england and in the british dominions.[183] among the speeches made at these meetings, one of the most notable was lord stanley's at manchester. "there is no part of england," he said, "no city or county, scarcely a considerable village, where some cottage household has not been comforted amidst its mourning for the loss of one who had fallen in the war, by the assurance that his last moments were watched, and his worst sufferings soothed, by that care, at once tender and skilful, which no man, and few women, could have shown. true heroism is not so plentiful that we can afford to let it pass unrecognized--if not for the honour of those who show it, yet very much for our own. the best test of a nation's moral state is the kind of claim which it selects for honour. and with the exception of howard, the prison reformer, i know no person besides miss nightingale, who, within the last hundred years, within this island, or perhaps in europe, has voluntarily encountered dangers so imminent, and undertaken offices so repulsive, working for a large and worthy object, in a pure spirit of duty towards god and compassion for man." lord stanley showed a true appreciation, too, of the facts in pointing out the strength of character which miss nightingale had shown as a pioneer. "it is not easy everywhere, especially in england, to set about doing what no one has done before. many persons will undergo considerable risks, even that of death itself, when they know that they are engaged in a cause which, besides approving itself to their consciences, commands sympathy and approval, when they know that their motives are appreciated and their conduct applauded. but in this case custom was to be violated, precedent broken through, the surprise, sometimes the censure of the world to be braved. and do not underrate that obstacle. we hardly know the strength of those social ties that bind us until the moment when we attempt to break them."[184] the nightingale fund was taken up heartily, but there was some carping criticism, and the jealousies which attended miss nightingale's work found expression against the fund in her honour. there were great ladies who, strange as it may now seem, regarded the attempt to raise the _status_ of the nursing profession as a silly fad. "lady pam," wrote lord granville, "thinks the nightingale fund great humbug. 'the nurses are very good now; perhaps they do drink a little, but so do the ladies' monthly nurses, and nothing can be better than them; poor people, it must be so tiresome sitting up all night.'"[185] the existence of the fund was notified in general orders to the army in the east. "i hear," wrote dr. robertson at scutari to dr. hall in the crimea, "that you have not (any more than myself) subscribed your day's pay to the nightingale fund. i certainly said, the moment it appeared in orders, i would not do so, and thereby countenance what i disapproved. others may do as they please, but though linton, cruikshanks, and lawson have all subscribed, i believe the subscriptions _in the hospital_ are not many or large."[186] but this disgruntlement of the doctors was not shared by the troops, who subscribed nearly £9000 to the fund. the commander of the forces, in sending to the secretary of the fund a first remittance of £4000 from "headquarters, crimea," wrote (february 5, 1856) that this amount, "the result of voluntary individual offerings, plainly indicates the universal feeling of gratitude which exists among the troops engaged in the crimea for the care bestowed upon, and the relief administered to, themselves and their comrades, at the period of their greatest sufferings, by the skilful arrangements, and the unwearying, constant personal attention, of miss nightingale and the other ladies associated with her." the navy and the coastguard service subscribed also. nor was "society" all on the side of lady palmerston. a concert given by madame goldschmidt (jenny lind) brought in nearly £2000. the ultimate application of the fund did not follow precisely the lines originally proposed, but it was the means of enabling miss nightingale to do one of the most useful pieces of her life's work.[187] [183] reports of some of the meetings are collected in the _report of the nightingale fund_. at manchester (jan. 17, 1856), in addition to lord stanley, mr. herbert and mr. milnes spoke; at oxford (jan. 23), mr. herbert again spoke; at brighton (jan. 14), mr. milnes. [184] _speeches of the 15th earl of derby_, 1894, vol. i. pp. 16, 18. [185] fitzmaurice, _life of the second earl granville_, vol. i. p. 136. [186] _hall_, p. 449. [187] see below, p. 456. the sympathy and interest of the royal family in miss nightingale's work had been shown by the presence of the duke of cambridge in the chair at willis's rooms; but the queen desired to associate herself in some more direct and signal measure with "the grateful recognition" by her people. a few weeks after the public meeting the following letter was sent:- windsor castle [_november_ 1855].[188] dear miss nightingale--you are, i know, well aware of the high sense i entertain of the christian devotion which you have displayed during this great and bloody war, and i need hardly repeat to you how warm my admiration is for your services, which are fully equal to those of my dear and brave soldiers, whose sufferings you have had the _privilege_ of alleviating in so merciful a manner. i am, however, anxious of marking my feelings in a manner which i trust will be agreeable to you, and therefore send you with this letter a brooch, the form and emblems of which commemorate your great and blessed work, and which, i hope, you will wear as a mark of the high approbation of your sovereign! it will be a very great satisfaction to me, when you return at last to these shores, to make the acquaintance of one who has set so bright an example to our sex. and with every prayer for the preservation of your valuable health, believe me, always, yours sincerely, victoria r. [188] wrongly dated "january 1856" in _letters of queen victoria_, vol. iii. p. 215. the gift was announced in the _morning post_ of december 20, 1855; the brooch reached miss nightingale in november, and her reply had been received by dec. 21 (see below, p. 278). an illustrated account of the gift appeared in the _illustrated london news_, feb. 2, 1856. it may now be seen in the museum of the united service institution. the jewel, which was designed by the prince consort, resembles a badge rather than a brooch, bearing a st. george's cross in red enamel, and the royal cypher surmounted by a crown in diamonds. the inscription, "blessed are the merciful," encircles the badge, which also bears the word "crimea." on the reverse is the inscription: "to miss florence nightingale, as a mark of esteem and gratitude for her devotion towards the queen's brave soldiers.--from victoria r., 1855." "i hope," wrote lady verney (dec. 27, 1855), "you will wear your star to please the soldiers on sundays and holidays; because, judging from those at home, it will be such a pleasure to them to know that the queen has done her best to do you honour." at home, miss nightingale never wore the decoration. she wore it in the east, on one occasion certainly (p. 296); and possibly on other occasions. if so, it would have been for the reason suggested by her sister. she loved the soldiers. honours and reputation, so far as they were valued by her at all (and that was little), were valued only as a means to the end of further service. with what zeal, and to what good purpose, she was now devoting herself to serve the best interests of the common soldier, we shall learn in the next chapter. chapter xi the soldiers' friend human nature is a noble and beautiful thing; not a foul nor a base thing. all the sin of men i esteem as their disease, not their nature; as a folly which can be prevented, not a necessity which must be accepted. and my wonder, even when things are at their worst, is always at the height which this human nature can attain.--ruskin. "what the horrors of war are," wrote miss nightingale on her way to the crimea in may 1855,[189] "no one can imagine. they are not wounds, and blood, and fever, spotted and low, and dysentery, chronic and acute, and cold and heat and famine. they are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior; jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior." then she goes on to deplore the drunkenness she had witnessed at the depot, and the seeming indifference of the staff to it. and yet, as her experience had shown, the men were quickly susceptible to better influences. "we have established a reading-room for convalescents, which is well attended; and the conduct of the soldiers is uniformly good. i believe that we have been the most efficient means of restoring discipline instead of destroying it, as i have been accused of. they are much more respectful to me than they are to their own officers. but it makes me cry to think that all these 6 months we might have had a trained schoolmaster, and that i was told it was quite impossible; that in the indian army effectual and successful measures are taken to prevent intoxication and disorganization, and that here the convalescents are brought in emphatically _dead_ drunk (for they die of it), and officers look on with composure and say to me, 'you are spoiling the brutes.' the men are so glad to read, so glad to give their money." this passage serves to introduce us to a side of miss nightingale's work which occupied much of her thoughts and activities during the latter portion of her sojourn in the east. her work in tending the sick bodies of the soldiers is that which is best known, but her work in appealing to their moral and mental nature was not less admirable, and hardly less novel. a high authority, who had been through the war, said of her at the time, "she has taught officers and officials to treat the soldiers as christian men." not every officer needed thus to be lessoned, but miss nightingale's example, and the practical experiments which directly or indirectly she set on foot during the crimean war, did much to humanize the british army. she deserves to be remembered as the soldiers' friend no less than as the ministering angel. [189] in continuation of the letter quoted above, p. 255. miss nightingale, like all moral and social reformers, believed in the nobility of human nature. she had seen in the hospital wards at scutari, and in the trenches before sebastopol, the heroism of which the common soldier was capable. she refused to believe that the vices to which he was prone were inherent in his nature. "i have never been able to join," she wrote to lady verney from scutari (march 1856), "in the popular cry about the recklessness, sensuality, and helplessness of the soldiers. on the contrary i should say (and perhaps few women have ever seen more of the manufacturing and agricultural classes of england than i have before i came out here) that i have never seen so teachable and helpful a class as the army generally. give them opportunity promptly and securely to send money home and they will use it. give them schools and lectures and they will come to them. give them books and games and amusements and they will leave off drinking. give them suffering and they will bear it. give them work and they will do it. i had rather have to do with the army generally than with any other class i have ever attempted to serve." it was a common belief of the time that it was in the nature of the british soldier to be drunken. the same idea was entertained of the british nurse.[190] she utterly refused to believe it, and she set herself, in her determined and resourceful way, to put measures of reform into practice. [190] see above, p. 273. ii miss nightingale, as i have already explained (p. 215), had the ear of the court, and she took an opportunity of laying her views before the queen. the immediate sequel is told in a letter from lord granville to lord canning:- _dec._ 21 [1855]. in the cabinet an interesting letter was read from miss nightingale thanking the queen for a handsome present, and discussing the causes and remedies for the drunkenness in the army. pam thought it excellent. clarendon said it was full of real stuff, but mars said it only showed that she knew nothing of the british soldier.[191] [191] lord fitzmaurice's _life of the second earl granville_, vol. i. p. 133. but lord panmure, though a believer in the original sin of the soldier, was moved none the less by the forces thus set in motion to sanction some useful measures of reform. miss nightingale, however, had not waited for official action. that was never her way. when she wanted a thing done, she showed on such scale as was possible to her how to do it. her first endeavour was to help and encourage the soldiers in sending home a portion at least of their pay. she formed an extempore money order office, in which, on four afternoons in each month, she received the money of any soldier who desired to send it home to his family. about £1000 was thus received monthly in small sums, which, by post-office orders obtained in england, were transmitted to their several recipients. her uncle, mr. samuel smith, undertook the english agency for her. after the cabinet council, just described, lord panmure wrote to the commander of the forces in the crimea, adverting to miss nightingale's "cry," and remarking that if a soldier wanted to send money home he could do so through the paymaster, but adding that it had been decided to increase the facilities. in the following month (january 1856) the government accepted the hint of miss nightingale's private initiative and established offices for money orders at constantinople, scutari, balaclava, and "headquarters, crimea." "it will do no good," wrote "mars," convinced against his will; "the soldier is not a remitting animal."[192] but in fact, during the following six months, a sum of £71,000 was sent home.[193] miss nightingale felt much satisfaction in having been the means of "rescuing this money from the canteen." she was instrumental also in establishing a rival house, named, after a soldiers' battle, the "inkerman café." this was pleasantly situated close to the shore of the bosphorus, midway between the main hospitals at scutari. miss nightingale devoted much attention to the details of this coffee-house, and framed the list of prices. in all such work for the good of the soldiers, she found a cordial supporter in sir henry storks, who had succeeded lord william paulet in the command at scutari in the latter part of 1855. sir henry agreed with her, as he wrote, "that drunkenness can be made the exception, not the rule, in the army"; and in later years he referred in grateful recollection to the time when "we served together at scutari." [192] _panmure_, vol. ii. p. 28. [193] _statement_, p. v. her personal influence with the men was great. "i promised _her_ i would not drink," or "i promised _her_ to send my money home," they would say, "in such a tone," as mr. stafford recorded, "as if it were ingrained in the very stuff of them." a curious and, as i think the reader will agree with me, a pretty illustration of this side of miss nightingale's work, was brought under my notice during the preparation of this memoir. on january 23, 1856, miss nightingale wrote the following letter from scutari to the rev. r. glover, then chaplain to the forces at maidstone:- in reply to yours of jan. 10--i have the pleasure to inform you that i have just seen thomas whybron, 12th lancers, and that he has promised me that he will not only write to his wife, but transmit money to her through me after 1st of next month, when he will receive his pay. i trust he will keep his word. she had better also write to him herself, and send her letter through me. he tells me that he has had _one_ letter from her. however he is well, but he has been in debt. however he sends his wife a kind message of love, which he begs me to give her through you, and to beg that she will not come out here. i am myself of this opinion. independently of the fact that, at this moment, i could not possibly receive any more nurses, there are many reasons against bringing out more soldiers' wives here, which you will readily apprehend. with regard to the regiment, i consider the 12th lancers the most "respectable" regiment we have. they send home more money and put it to better uses than all the other regiments here put together. and i hope that whybron will improve in it. in january 1912 lieutenant-colonel clifton brown, commanding the 12th royal lancers, then quartered at potchefstroom in the transvaal, bought the original of this letter, "beautifully written, not a blot or a scratch in it," framed it with glass on both sides, and presented it to his regiment. thus may an echo of miss nightingale's care for the british soldier and pride in his good name roll from soul to soul, and grow for ever and for ever. iii then miss nightingale set herself to establish and equip reading-rooms and class-rooms. she took measures to let her schemes be made known in england, and the popularity of the heroine led to a speedy and generous response from all classes--from the royal family to the humblest printer's boy. miss nightingale's relations at home received, and transmitted to her, the gifts. her cousin, mr. henry bonham carter, was especially useful. "harry carter," she wrote (jan. 6, 1856), "must be a man of business; for i can assure you that the boxes he sent me are the only ones which have not lost me hours of unnecessary labour, because he has given me invoices of the contents of each box and bills of lading." her sister was receiver-general, and from lady verney's letters we obtain a lively account of the work:- (_to miss ellen tollet._) [_nov._ 1855.] i don't know whether mrs. milnes told you how hard we worked to send off boxes for f.'s education of the army! let me tell you, ma'am, to instruct 50,000 men is no joke. seriously tho', my love, it is small things any one can do amid such a mass, which made one the more anxious to enable her to do what she could, and we have sent a dose of 1000 copybooks, writing materials in proportion, diagrams, maps, books illustrated and other. _macbeth_ (6) to read 6 at a time, and the music in the interludes, which mr. best (a pattern man whom i love more even than the dean of h.) recommended as having been successful in his village. chess, footballs, other games, a magic lanthern for dissolving views, a stereoscope (very fine!), plays for acting, music, &c. &c. finally i thought a little art would be advisable, and had a number of prints stretched and varnished which are to be my subscription towards the improvement of the british army! but, my dear, you can't conceive how pretty the sort of help is that everybody poured in; the p. & o. says, nothing is to be paid, miss n.'s things all go free. (_to florence nightingale._) [_nov._ 16, 1855.] please, my dear, acknowledge a print which the queen sends you for the soldiers. she heard thro' lady augusta bruce that you had asked for one of her for the "inkerman café "; and she accordingly sends you the one of the duke of wellington presenting may flowers to the little prince arthur his godson; which is very pretty of her, for it combines so many things. it is sent to you to do what you like with, so i have said you most likely will wish to have it at balaclava for your reading room plans. we have been racking our brains to get together amusing things for your men.... to mitigate the science i have slipped in the madonna of the sedia; which, my love, is domestic, if you please, not popish. the duchess of kent sends a capital lot of books; she has been so pleased to be of use. both in the crimea and at scutari miss nightingale carried on, as opportunity offered, what her sister laughingly called "the education of the british army." but it was at scutari, where she principally stayed, that the effort took the largest scope. outside the barrack hospital a building was bought by sir henry storks, on behalf of the government, to provide a reading-room and a school-room. the reading-room, opened in january 1856, was supplied by miss nightingale with books, prints, maps, games, and newspapers. the other room was used as a garrison school; two schoolmasters were sent out; and evening lectures and classes were given. a second school was conducted in a hut between the two large hospitals at scutari.[194] for the convalescents, miss nightingale had at an earlier date established reading-huts in the barrack hospital, furnishing them with books, newspapers, writing materials, prints, and games. in all the reading-huts the men attended numerously and constantly, their behaviour when there being, miss nightingale added, uniformly quiet and well-bred. the good manners, no less than the uncomplaining heroism of the common soldier, made an indelible impression upon the lady-in-chief. [194] i take these particulars from a memorandum, found among miss nightingale's papers, by the rev. j. e. sabin, senior chaplain at scutari. it was out of her experiences in the crimean war that grew her love for the british soldier, to whose health, care, and comfort, at home and in india, she was to devote many years of her long life. in extreme old age, when failing powers were not equally alert to every call, she would sometimes, i have been told, show listlessness if her companion talked of nurses or nursing, but the old light would ever come into her eye, and the faltering mind would instantly stand at attention, upon the slightest reference to the british soldier. chapter xii to the crimea again (september 1855-july 1856) i am ready to stand out the war with any man.--florence nightingale (nov. 4, 1855). on september 8, 1855, sebastopol fell, after assaults, as every one remembers, which had filled the british cemeteries and hospitals. miss nightingale's time from this date to the end of the war was divided between the crimea and scutari. on october 9, 1855, she left scutari for balaclava, and she remained in the crimea till the end of november, when she hurried back to scutari on hearing of a serious outbreak of cholera in the barrack hospital at that place. on good friday, 1856 (march 21), she again left scutari for balaclava, in consequence of an urgent appeal from the hospitals of the land transport corps, and she remained there till the beginning of july. she left scutari for england on july 28. * * * * * miss nightingale's work during her second and third visits to the crimea (of two months in 1855, and of three in 1856) was the most arduous, and in some respects the most worrying, of all her labours in the east. the distances between the several crimean hospitals, enumerated in an earlier chapter (p. 254), were great; how bad were the roads is known to every one who has read anything about the crimean war; and miss nightingale experienced much of the rigour of a crimean winter. "the extraordinary exertions she imposed upon herself would have been perfectly incredible," wrote m. soyer, "if they had not been witnessed by many. i can vouch for the fact, having frequently accompanied her to the [castle] hospital as well as to the monastery. the return from these places at night was a very dangerous experience, as the road led across a very uneven country. it was still more perilous when snow was upon the ground. i have seen her stand for hours at the top of a bleak rocky mountain near the hospital, giving her instructions while the snow was falling heavily." she had for some years been somewhat subject to rheumatism, and in the crimea she was at times tortured by sciatica. but she was "acclimatised," she said, and was strong to endure. sometimes she spent long days in the saddle. at other times she drove in a rough cart. her first conveyance was a cart--drawn by a mule and driven, adds the lively soyer, by a donkey; and she suffered a nasty upset in it. colonel mcmurdo, commandant of the land transport corps,[195] then kindly gave her the best vehicle procurable. it has been dignified by the name of "miss nightingale's carriage," but was, in fact, a hooded baggage-car without springs.[196] some time later m. soyer identified the vehicle among other "crimean effects" which were on sale at southampton. it was shown at the victorian era exhibition forty years later,[197] and is still preserved at lea hurst. [195] sir william montagu scott mcmurdo (1819-94); k.c.b. 1881. miss nightingale had a very high opinion of his services in the crimea, and sidney herbert appointed him inspector-general of the volunteers (see miss nightingale's letter on the volunteers, 1861). [196] a woodcut of it appeared in the _illustrated london news_, august 30, 1856. [197] see vol. ii. p. 409. in this hooded vehicle, or on horseback, or if the roads were very bad on foot, miss nightingale made her rounds in all weathers, her headquarters being sometimes at the general and sometimes at the castle hospital. she never presumed on her sex to save herself trouble or fatigue at the expense of others. she was now without mr. bracebridge's assistance, but she found that the absence of a civilian go-between was no disadvantage. "a woman," she said, "obtains from military courtesy (if she does not shock either their habits of business or their caste prejudices) what a man who pitted the civilian against the military effectually hindered." she superintended the nursing in all the hospitals under her orders. of the hospital huts on the genoese heights, there is a vivid picture in lady hornby's _travels_. "the first day of our arrival," she wrote, may 1856, "we took a long ramble on the heights of balaclava, by the old genoese castle. on one side is a solitary and magnificent view of sea and cliffs; but pass a sharp and lofty turning, and the crowded port beneath, and all the active military movements, are instantly before your eyes. higher up we came to miss nightingale's hospital huts, built of long planks, and adorned with neatly bordering flowers. the sea was glistening before us, and as we lingered to admire the fine view, one of the nurses, a kind, motherly-looking woman, came into the little porch, and invited us to enter and rest. a wooden stool was kindly offered to us by another and younger sister. on the large deal table was a simple pot of wild flowers, so beautifully arranged, they instantly struck my eye. how charming the little deal house appeared to me, with its perfect cleanliness, its glorious view, and the health, contentment, and usefulness of its inmates! how respectable their few wants seemed; how suited their simple dress to the stern realities, as well as to the charities of life, and how fearlessly they reposed on the care and love of god in that lonely place, far away from all their friends; how earnestly they admired and tended the few spring flowers of a strange land,[198] these brave, quiet women, who had witnessed and helped to relieve so much suffering! this was the pleasantest visit i ever made. miss nightingale had been there but a few days before, and this deal room and stool were hers."[199] miss nightingale established reading-rooms, bored for water to improve the supply near the hospitals, had the huts covered with felt for protection against the winter, and brought her extra-diet kitchens, with m. soyer's good help, into full efficiency. in her absence the work had met with many difficulties from the supineness or hostility of officials towards what some regarded as her fads, and others as her interference. "in april," she wrote to mrs. herbert from the castle hospital (nov. 17, 1855), "i undertook this hospital, and from that time to this we cooked all the extra diet for 500 to 600 patients, and the _whole_ diet for all the wounded officers by ourselves in a shed; and though i sent up a french cook in july to whom i gave £100 a year, i could not get an extra diet kitchen built, promised me in may, till i came up this time to do it myself in october. during the whole of this time, every egg, every bit of butter, jelly, ale, and eau de cologne which the sick officers have had has been provided out of mrs. samuel smith's or my private pocket. on nov. 4 i opened my extra diet kitchen." [198] for another reference to the crimean flowers, see below, p. 450. [199] _hornby_, pp. 306-7. ii miss nightingale's work in the crimea was attended by ceaseless worry. she had to fight her way into full authority. she knew that she would win, but her enemies were active, and were for the moment in possession of the field. "there is not an official," she said, "who would not burn me like joan of arc if he could, but they know that the war office cannot turn me out because the country is with me." she was beset with jealousies in the crimea, both in military and in medical quarters; and to make matters worse, religious, and even racial animosities mixed themselves up in the disputes. lord raglan, who believed in her and always supported her, was now dead; and by some strange omission, the instructions which had been sent to him from london at the time of her original appointment were unknown to his successors in the command. the words in the _published_ instructions--"in turkey"--gave a sort of technical excuse (as already mentioned) to jealous officials for regarding miss nightingale as an interloper in the crimea. the point, however, had no substance; for there was a female nursing establishment already in the crimea, which had received no separate or independent instructions, and which was yet supported by government. by what authority could it be there, except as delegated from the lady superintendent in chief? but the intrusion of miss nightingale was, i suppose, resented by some military officers the more at balaclava than at scutari, in proportion as the scene was nearer to the front; how keen the resentment was, we have heard from colonel sterling. and as headquarters were unsympathetic also, miss nightingale had an uphill task. "we get things done all the same," she wrote to mrs. herbert, "only a little more slowly. when we have support at headquarters matters advance faster, that is all. the real grievance against us is that, though subordinate to the medical chiefs in office, we are superior to them in influence and in the chance of being heard at home. it is an anomaly, but so is war in england." there had been in england no due provision for all the needs of the war. miss nightingale, seeing things that needed to be done, preferred to get them done by anomalous means rather than that by rule they should not be done at all. that her analysis of the situation correctly explains the jealousy and opposition of the medical chiefs in office may be gathered from their correspondence. the personal situation in the crimea had not been eased by the statements of mr. bracebridge, already mentioned (p. 213). on his return home, he had not only extolled miss nightingale, but had made severe strictures upon the whole medical service in the east. his speech, delivered at a public meeting, was reported very fully in the _times_ (oct. 16, 1855). miss nightingale was doubtless suspected of complicity in this attack; but in fact she was innocent, and she was quite as angry as were the doctors when she saw the report. mr. bracebridge was her friend, but truth and expediency were greater friends; and she proceeded to give mr. bracebridge a trenchant piece of her mind (nov. 4). she objected to his speech: "_first_, because it is not our business, and i have expressly denied being a medical officer, and rejected all applications both of medical men and quacks to have their systems examined[200]; _secondly_, because it justifies all the attacks made against us for unwarrantable interference and criticism; and, _thirdly_, because i believe it to be utterly unfair." and she proceeded in much detail to defend the doctors against mr. bracebridge's aspersions. his indiscretion doubtless raised prejudice in medical quarters against miss nightingale; but there were other and deeper causes at work. dr. hall, the principal medical officer in the crimea, was, in some sort, the person most responsible, individually, for the state of things which had stirred so much outcry in england; and mr. sidney herbert at a very early stage had put his finger on dr. hall's touchy spot. "i cannot help feeling," he had written to lord raglan in december 1854, "that dr. hall resents offers of assistance as being slurs on his preparations."[201] dr. hall wrote fiercely about "a system of detraction against our establishments kept up by interested parties under the garb of philanthropy." some became detractors, he went on, "to make their mission of importance, and they wish the world to believe that all the ameliorations in our institutions are entirely owing to their own exertions or those of a few nurses; and i am sorry to say some of our own department have pandered to this, and have been rewarded for it." miss nightingale's remark upon this tirade was characteristic: "one is tempted to ask, have no others been rewarded who have nothing to show for the result of this same boasted hospital system, but the wreck of an army, which they did not advise even the most ordinary precautions (as to diet and clothing) to prevent, and the graves at scutari."[202] to me, after much reading of the documents, it seems that dr. hall was the victim of a false position. he had been appointed medical inspector-general in the crimea when he was still in india, and he did not arrive on the scene in time to think out the preparations properly. miss nightingale never allowed personal feeling to affect the impartiality of her judgments. dr. hall disputed her authority and resented her interference. she fought him, and in the end she beat him; but there are passages in her letters which bear testimony to his good services and high capacity in many respects. nor were their personal relations unfriendly; but she saw in him throughout an antagonist influence. the deputy purveyor-in-chief, mr. david fitz-gerald, regarded her coming to the crimea with equal, or greater, suspicion and dislike, and he sent home to the war office a confidential report, criticizing the female nursing establishment, and making out an argumentative case against the desirability of sanctioning miss nightingale's claim to be the lady superior of the crimean nurses. miss nightingale had been shown these reports by a friend, and she was angry at what she considered a campaign of secret hostility against her. [200] there are applications of the kind among miss nightingale's papers. [201] _stanmore_, vol. i. p. 369. [202] _notes_, vol. i. sec. i. pp. xxiv.-v. in a private letter miss nightingale's irony was more bitter. "k.c.b." meant, she supposed, knight of the crimean burial-grounds." to add to the mischief, the professional difficulty (as i may call it) became entangled with the religious difficulty. some of the nuns who had previously been assigned to the hospitals at koulali, proceeded in october 1855, at dr. hall's instance, to the general hospital at balaclava. this was naturally regarded by miss nightingale as an act of usurpation upon her authority; it gave an undue proportion of roman catholics to a particular hospital; and, moreover, she did not consider these particular ladies, or their reverend mother, mrs. bridgeman, wholly efficient. they were most devoted and self-sacrificing, and their spiritual ministrations were admirable, but as nurses and administrators she thought less highly of them. mr. fitz-gerald, on the other hand, was strongly prepossessed, as independent observers thought, in their favour. as ill-luck would have it, these ladies were for the most part irish, and the matter was made to assume the aspect of a racial-religious feud. people who could not understand miss nightingale's single-minded devotion to efficient and business-like administration supposed that she was actuated by prejudice. dr. hall was not moved by any such suspicion; but the ladies, whom miss nightingale regarded as not among the more efficient of her staff of nurses, were his nominees, and he strongly backed them. there was a somewhat similar dispute about another transference of nurses in the crimea made without miss nightingale's sanction; and some of the women, taking their cue from their superiors, were inclined to question and flout her authority. "i don't know what she wants here," said one, when the lady superintendent appeared on the scene.[203] [203] _the autobiography of a balaclava nurse_, vol. ii. p. 163. iii all this controversy raised miss nightingale's vexation to white heat. on january 7, 1856, she wrote an official letter to the war office, complaining of the encroachment on her department by the medical officer. in semi-private letters to mr. sidney herbert (feb. 20, 21, 1856) she formulated her grievances. dr. hall was "attempting to root her out of the crimea." other officials were traducing her behind her back. the war office was not adequately supporting her. "it is profuse," she said, "in tinsel and empty praise which i do not want, and does not give me the real business-like efficient standing which i do want." she begged mr. herbert to move in the house of commons for the production of correspondence, so that the public might be able to judge between her and those who were traducing her, and striving to thwart her work. mr. herbert, in a reply[204] marked alike by good sense and good feeling, ventured "to criticize and to scold" his friend. "you have been overdone," he said, "with your long, anxious, harassing work. you see jealousies and meannesses all round you. you hear of one-sided, unfair, and unjust reports made of your proceedings and of those under you. but you over-rate their importance, you attribute too much motive to them, and you write upon them with an irritation and vehemence which detracts very much from the weight which would attach to what you say." there are letters to show that this was the opinion also of the more sagacious among miss nightingale's nearest friends. to move for papers would, mr. herbert added, be very injudicious. there was no public attack, and the publication of papers would call needless attention to disputes. the answers to her critics, which she had sent home, appeared to mr. herbert to be complete, and he understood that the war office so considered them. moreover the secretary of state was about to issue orders which would clear up miss nightingale's position once and for all. and her own letters, though conclusive as to the facts, had in their tone done herself "less than justice." [204] printed _in extenso_ in _stanmore_, vol. i. pp. 416-420. all this was excellent advice, and miss nightingale took it in good part, but not, in a phrase now sanctioned in high politics, "lying down." she replied at great length and with full vigour. the gist of her letter was that it was easy to be calm and "statesmanlike" at a distance, but difficult not to be angry and downright when you were on the spot finding your work for the sick and wounded hampered at every turn. she had been criticized, among other things, for interference in the purveyor's sphere. her reply to mr. herbert on this point is decidedly effective, and incidentally throws light on the hardness of her life in the crimea. happily, she said, she had brought with her adequate supplies for herself and her staff. if she had not, they would have been in danger of starvation:- (_miss nightingale to sidney herbert._) crimea, _april_ 4 [1856]. i arrived here march 24 with nurses for the two land transport hospitals required by dr. hall in writing on march 10.[205] we have now been ten days without rations. lord cardigan was surprised to find his horses die at the end of a fortnight because they were without rations, and said that they "chose" to do it, obstinate brutes! the inspector-general and purveyors wish to see whether women can live as long as horses without rations. i thank god my charge has felt neither cold nor hunger (and is in efficient working order, having cooked and administered in both hospitals the whole of the extras for 260 bad cases ever since the first day of their arrival). i have, however, felt both. i do not wish to make a martyr of myself; within sight of the graves of the crimean army of last winter (too soon forgotten in england), it would be difficult to do so. i am glad to have had the experience. for cold and hunger wonderfully sharpen the wits.... during these ten days i have fed and warmed these women at my own private expense by my own private exertions. i have never been off my horse till 9 or 10 at night, except when it was too dark to walk home over these crags even with a lantern, when i have gone on foot. during the greater part of the day i have been without food necessarily, except a little brandy and water (you see i am taking to drinking like my comrades of the army). but the object of my coming has been attained, and my women have neither starved nor suffered. [205] the letter is printed in _hall_, p. 451. the memory of the petty persecution to which she was subjected by hostile and jealous officials in the crimea never faded from miss nightingale's mind. a reference to it will be found in a much later chapter,[206] and she often mentioned it in her notes and letters. but, though she fought the officials hard, she never showed temper in public, and she did not allow either the obstruction itself or her vexation at it to impede her work. she had come to the crimea prepared, and her private stores sufficed to feed her staff till official obstruction was removed; whilst as for her vexation, she was careful not to show it lest her work should suffer. [206] vol. ii. p. 195. meanwhile a dispatch was already on its way from the war department, which gave to miss nightingale the full support for which she had asked. the dispatch was not settled, however, without a stiff fight against it by subordinates at the war office, who sided with sir john hall and mr. fitz-gerald. the curious in such matters may consult the minutes and counter-minutes upon miss nightingale's letter of protest preserved in the archives of the war office. lord panmure, however, took her view. even when the lines of the dispatch were settled in accordance with his instructions, protests were still made against a policy which, in supporting miss nightingale, would censure dr. hall, but the minister was not moved. he had already, on november 5, 1855, written to miss nightingale herself, stating that mrs. bridgeman was not justified in acting as she had done.[207] he now, on february 25, 1856, wrote to the commander of the forces directing that dr. hall's attention should be called to the irregularity of his proceeding in introducing nurses into a hospital without previous communication with miss nightingale, and that the following statement should be issued:- the secretary of state for war has addressed the following dispatch to the commander of the forces, with a desire that it should be promulgated in general orders: "it appears to me that the medical authorities of the army do not correctly comprehend miss nightingale's position as it has been officially recognized by me. i therefore think it right to state to you briefly for their guidance, as well as for the information of the army, what the position of that excellent lady is. miss nightingale is recognized by her majesty's government as the general superintendent of the female nursing establishment of the military hospitals of the army. no lady, or sister, or nurse is to be transferred from one hospital to another, or introduced into any hospital, without consultation with her. her instructions, however, require to have the approval of the principal medical officer in the exercise of the responsibility thus vested in her. the principal medical officer will communicate with miss nightingale upon all subjects connected with the female nursing establishment, and will give his directions through that lady."[208] [207] see _hall_, p. 438. [208] _hall_, p. 450. the text of the general order as issued on march 16 was printed in the _times_ of april 1, 1856. miss nightingale's strong feeling in this matter was not caused, as a hasty, prejudiced, or uncharitable judgment might suggest, by wounded _amour propre_. it was based on the conviction which experience had given her, that only by the strictest discipline exercised through properly constituted authority, could the experiment of female nursing in military hospitals be made successful. in the confidential reports which were sent to the war office criticizing the experiment, advantage was taken of mistakes and misdeeds which miss nightingale felt that she might have prevented had she been armed earlier with explicit and plenary authority.[209] [209] see on this subject her report to the secretary of state, _subsidiary notes_, pp. 1, 2. armed with this full authority, miss nightingale proceeded to make such transferences among the nurses as she deemed necessary in the cause of efficiency. she had no desire to remove mrs. bridgeman and the nuns; she was anxious only to make some reforms in their administration, as she would now have express authority to do; and she begged mrs. bridgeman to remain. sir john hall and the deputy purveyor-in-chief, smarting under the war office's edict, seem to have laid their heads together, and advised mrs. bridgeman to resign.[210] "it must rest with you to decide," wrote sir john, "whether you wish to remain subservient to the control of miss nightingale or not." she and her sisterhood, resigning forthwith (march 28), returned to england, and miss nightingale filled their places by others of the staff. in her retrospect of the whole campaign, she regarded the spring of 1856 in the crimea as one of the three periods when her nurses gave the greatest proof of their utility.[211] there was then great sickness among the land transport corps. the other two periods were on the arrival of the wounded from inkerman at scutari (p. 181), and "during the heavy summer work of nursing the wounded at balaclava in 1855." there is, i think, no memorial of miss nightingale in the crimea. but on the heights above balaclava, visible from a great distance at sea, is a tall marble cross, erected to the memory of the heroic dead, "and to those sisters of charity who had fallen in their service." the words engraved upon it are, "lord, have mercy upon us."[212] [210] see the letters printed in _hall_, p. 457. [211] _notes_, p. 158. [212] it has often been stated that the cross was erected by miss nightingale, but this is not the case. the inscription was suggested by mrs. shaw stewart. in 1863 a maternity charity was established at constantinople "in honour of florence nightingale." miss nightingale was much exhausted by her labours in the crimea, and, a few weeks before she left it for the last time, she wrote some testamentary dispositions which, in the event of her death, were to be handed to general storks, in command at scutari: "as you," she wrote to him (balaclava, may 3, 1856), "are of all those in office, whether at home or abroad, the officer who has given the most steady and consistent support to the work entrusted to me by her majesty's government, i venture to appeal to you to continue that support after my death, and to carry out as far as possible my last requests." she expressed an "earnest desire" that mrs. shaw stewart should be appointed to succeed her. she left messages of commendation and pecuniary gifts to the reverend mother of the bermondsey nuns, sister bertha turnbull, and mrs. roberts: "to the queen i beg humbly to restore the 'order' with which her majesty was pleased to decorate me. if she sees fit to return it to my family, it will be prized the more by them. i cannot express the support which the approbation of my sovereign has been to me in all my trials. but i would assure her that neither by word or thought or deed have i ever for one moment been unworthy of her service or of the charge entrusted to me by her. i would wish the commander of the forces in the east, in restoring to her this jewel, to assure her of this." there were other requests, but her last thought was of the army: "i would wish that i could have done something more to prove to the noble army, whom i have so cared for, my respect and esteem. if the commander of the forces would put into general orders a message of farewell from me, of remembrance of the time when we lived and suffered and worked together, i should be grateful to him." she was to be spared to render services to the british army greater than any she had been able to render in the crimea. iv at scutari, during the last months of miss nightingale's sojourn (nov. 1855--march 1856, and july 1856), her work was as continuous as in the crimea. her companions, mr. and mrs. bracebridge, had returned to england in august 1855, and their place was taken by mrs. samuel smith. from her letters we get a glimpse of florence's daily toil at scutari. "mine," wrote the aunt (dec. 31, 1855), "is mere copying; hers is perplexing brain-work. i go to bed at 11; she habitually writes till 1 or 2, sometimes till 3 or 4; has in the last pressure given up 3 whole nights to it. we seldom get through even our little dinner (after it has been put off one, two, or three hours on account of her visitors), without her being called away from it. i never saw a greater picture of exhaustion than flo last night at ten (jan. 7). 'oh, do go to bed,' i said. 'how can i; i have all those letters to write,' pointing to the divan covered with papers. 'write them to-morrow.' 'to-morrow will bring its own work.' and she sat up the greater part of the night." but with all this pressure, there was no flurry. "such questions as food, rest, temperature," wrote her aunt in another letter (jan. 25, 1856), "never interfere with her during her work; i suppose she has gained some advantage over other people in her entire absence of thought about these things; that is, her mind overtasked with great things has not these little questions to entertain. she is extremely quick and clear too, as you know, in her work. this i suppose has increased upon her, and she can turn from one thing or one person to another, when in the midst of business, in a most extraordinary manner. she has attained a most wonderful calm and presence of mind. she is, i think, often deeply impressed, and depressed, though she does not show it outwardly, but no irritation of temper, no hurry or confusion of manner, ever appears for a moment." mrs. smith's work was not only copying. mrs. bracebridge had called herself "boots," because she did all florence's odd jobs, and to this part mrs. smith had succeeded. "aunt mai," who had helped so greatly in florence's struggle for independence, must have felt rewarded for her self-sacrifice in leaving husband, home, and children, by being able to stand at her niece's side through some part of the life of action. for christmas day (1855) miss nightingale accepted an invitation to the british embassy, and another guest has drawn a picture of her on this occasion:- by the side of the ambassadress was a tall, fashionable, haughty beauty. but the next instant my eye wandered to a lady modestly standing on the other side of lady stratford. at first i thought she was a nun, from her black dress and close cap. she was not introduced, and yet edmund and i looked at each other at the same moment to whisper _miss nightingale_. yes, it was florence nightingale, greatest of all now in name and honour among women. i assure you that i was glad not to be obliged to speak just then, for i felt quite dumb as i looked at her wasted figure and the short brown hair combed over her forehead like a child's, cut so when her life was despaired of from a fever but a short time ago. her dress, as i have said, was black, made high to the throat, its only ornament being a large enamelled brooch, which looked to me like the colours of a regiment surmounted with a wreath of laurel, no doubt some graceful offering from our men. to hide the close white cap a little, she had tied a white crape handkerchief over the back of it, only allowing the border of lace to be seen; and this gave the nun-like appearance which first struck me on her entering the room; otherwise miss nightingale is by no means striking in appearance. only her plain black dress, quiet manner and great renown told so powerfully altogether in that assembly of brilliant dress and uniforms. she is very slight, rather above the middle height; her face is long and thin, but this may be from recent illness and great fatigue. she has a very prominent nose, slightly roman; and small dark eyes, kind, yet penetrating; but her face does not give you at all the idea of great talent. she looks a quiet, persevering, orderly, lady-like woman.... she was still very weak, and could not join in the games, but she sat on a sofa, and looked on, laughing until the tears came into her eyes.[213] [213] letter from lady hornby to her sister mrs. vaillant, jan. 5, 1856; _hornby_, pp. 150, 152. the enamelled brooch was the queen's jewel. it was during this latter portion of miss nightingale's sojourn at scutari that she made a new friendship, which was of some importance to her work. in october 1855 colonel lefroy,[214] confidential adviser on scientific matters to the secretary for war, was sent out by lord panmure to report privately on the state of the hospitals. he formed a high opinion of miss nightingale's work and abilities, and a friendship with her then began which continued to the end of his life. lord panmure's confidence in her, and the full authority with which, as already related (p. 292), he invested her, were partly due to colonel lefroy's reports.[215] at the time when the matter was under discussion, he had returned to his post at the war office, and the papers were sent to him. his view of the case was the same as miss nightingale's, and he expressed it with a force inspired by his personal observation, alike of her services and of her difficulties. the medical men, he wrote in one minute, are jealous of her mission. "dr. hall would gladly upset it to-morrow." "a general order," he wrote in another minute, "recognizing and defining her position would save her much annoyance and harassing correspondence. it is due, i think, to all she has done and has sacrificed. among other reasons for it, it will put a stop to any spirit of growing independence among these ladies and nurses who are still under her, a spirit encouraged with no friendly intention in more than one quarter." for many years colonel lefroy was one of miss nightingale's most constant correspondents on subjects connected with military hospitals and nurses, and they often co-operated in schemes for the welfare of the soldiers. colonel lefroy's services to the army, both in scientific matters and in philanthropic directions, were long and distinguished. miss nightingale had detractors and opponents in the service; but the more progressive an officer was, the more probably may he be included among her admirers and supporters. [214] john henry lefroy (1817-90), lieut. r.a., 1837; engaged in a magnetical survey, 1839-42; f.r.s., 1848; at the war office, 1854-57; inspector-general of army schools, 1857; afterwards governor successively of the bermudas and tasmania; k.c.m.g., 1877. [215] see a letter of sidney herbert printed in _stanmore_, vol. i. p. 417. chapter xiii end of the war--return home (july-august 1856) i love the people, but do not like to stage me to their eyes. though it do well, i do not relish well their loud applause and _aves_ vehement. shakespeare. peace was signed at paris on march 30, 1856; but there was still work to be done in the crimean hospitals, and miss nightingale remained at balaclava, as we have seen, till the beginning of july. on her return to scutari she was occupied in winding up the affairs of her mission. meanwhile the nurses were already beginning to go home. the reverend mother (moore), who had come out from bermondsey with the first party, left the east at the end of april. she had been throughout one of the mainstays of miss nightingale, who wrote to her thus from balaclava (april 29): "god's blessing and my love and gratitude with you, as you well know. you know well too that i shall do everything i can for the sisters whom you have left me. but it will not be like you. your wishes will be our law. and i shall try and remain in the crimea for their sakes as long as we are any of us there. i do not presume to express praise or gratitude to you, revd. mother, because it would look as if i thought you had done the work not unto god but unto me. you were far above me in fitness for the general superintendency, both in worldly talent of administration, and far more in the spiritual qualifications which god values in a superior. my being placed over you in an unenviable reign in the east was my misfortune and not my fault." another of those whom miss nightingale described as her mainstays was mrs. shaw stewart, who served in the crimea as superintendent of the nurses, successively in the "general" and in the "castle" hospital, and of her miss nightingale wrote in terms of similarly grateful fervour. i quote a few of these appreciations (and many more might be added), because it has been supposed, on the strength of isolated expressions penned in moments of vexation or despondency, that miss nightingale was ungenerous in recognition of the work of others.[216] nothing could be further from the fact. she was, it is true, unsparing in blame wherever she saw, or thought she saw, incompetence, or unfaithfulness, or a lack of single-mindedness; she was also impatient of opposition; and hers was not one of those soft natures which readily forget and forgive. but wherever efficiency and faithful zeal were to be found, she was quick to recognize them, and she was as unstinted in praise as in blame. of mrs. shaw stewart, she wrote to lady cranworth (who had succeeded lady canning in good offices towards the nurses): "without her our crimean work would have come to grief--without her judgment, her devotion, her unselfish, consistent looking to the one great end, viz. the carrying out the work as a whole--without her untiring zeal, her watchful care of the nurses, her accuracy in all trusts and accounts, her truth, her faithfulness. her praise and her reward are in higher hands than mine." of the same "noble, brave" lady, miss nightingale had written to mrs. bracebridge (nov. 4, 1855): "faithfulness is so eminently _her_, that i hear her master saying, thou hast been faithful over a few things, i will make thee ruler over many things." i could multiply miss nightingale's praises of her fellow-workers, for of every one of them she sent home to lady cranworth a terse character-sketch. this was done mainly for the sake of the professional nurses, in order that they might be helped to find suitable situations on their return. the sketches show how close a touch the lady-in-chief kept upon her staff, and they reveal no reluctance either to criticize or to praise. it would be invidious to particularize further than to cite miss nightingale's appreciation of her third mainstay, mrs. roberts, who came out as a paid nurse with her in october 1854, and served throughout the war: "having been 23 years sister in st. thomas's hospital, her qualifications as a _nurse_ were, of course, infinitely superior to any other of those with me. she is indeed a surgical nurse of the first order. her valuable services have been recognized even and most of all by the surgeons (of scutari, where she has principally been and where, after inkerman, her exertions were unremitting). her total superiority to all the vices of a hospital nurse, her faithfulness to the work, her disinterested love of duty and vigilant care of her patients, her power of work equal to that of _ten_, have made her one of the most important persons of the expedition." [216] _stanmore_, vol. i. pp. 404-5. ii on june 3 the secretary of state wrote to miss nightingale, "as the period is now fast approaching when your generous and disinterested labours will cease, with the occasion which called them forth," to inquire what arrangements should be made for her return. "in thus contemplating," he continued, "the close of those anxious and trying duties, which you imposed upon yourself solely with a view to alleviate the sufferings of her majesty's army in the east, and which you have accomplished with a singleness of purpose beyond all praise, it is not necessary for me to inform you how highly her majesty appreciates the services you have rendered to her army; as her majesty has already conveyed to you a signal proof of her gracious approbation. but i desire now, on behalf of my colleagues and myself, to offer you our most cordial thanks for your humane and generous exertions. in doing so, i feel confident that i simply express the unanimous feelings of the people of this country." there were things which miss nightingale valued more highly than the approbation of the people. one of them was correctly surmised by sir henry storks. writing to her from headquarters at scutari, on july 25, he said:- i have received your kind note with mingled feelings of extreme pleasure and regret--the former, because i appreciate your good opinion very highly; the latter, because your note is a farewell. it will ever be to me a source of pride and gratification to have been associated with you in the work which you have performed with so much devotion and with so much courage. amidst the acknowledgments you have received from all classes, and from many quarters, i feel persuaded there are none more pleasing to yourself than the grateful recognition of the poor men you came to succour and to save. you will ever live in their remembrance, be assured of that; for amongst the faults and vices, which ignorance has produced, and a bad system has fostered and matured, ingratitude is not one of the defects of the british soldier. i indulge the hope that you will permit me hereafter to continue an acquaintance (may i say friendship?) which i highly value and appreciate. the gratitude of the british soldier was very dear to miss nightingale, and the disposition which she ultimately made of her crimean decorations was characteristic. before she left the east, the sultan had presented her with a diamond bracelet and a sum of money for the nurses and hospitals, both of which presents the queen permitted her to accept.[217] the bracelet, with the badge given by the queen, may be seen to-day in the museum of the united service institution, placed there in accordance with her desire that they should be deposited "where the soldiers could see them." [217] _panmure_, vol. i. p. 278. at length it was time for miss nightingale, having seen off the last of her nurses, and filed the last of her inventories and accounts, to leave also. the government had offered her a british man-of-war for the voyage home. the view she was likely to take of such a proposal had been correctly surmised in the house of lords some weeks before. on may 5 lord ellesmere moved the address on the conclusion of peace. he was something of a poet, as well as a statesman, and this was his last appearance in the house. in a speech, which was much admired at the time, and which may still be read with pleasure as a specimen of the more ornate kind of parliamentary eloquence, he paid a tribute to the memory of lord raglan, and then passed by a happy transition to the heroine of the war: "my lords, the agony of that time has become matter of history. the vegetation of two successive springs has obscured the vestiges of balaclava and inkerman. 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 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 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 nightingale." iii the offer of the man-of-war was declined; and miss nightingale, with her aunt, sailed in the _danube_ for athens, messina, and marseilles. a queen's messenger was in attendance to help the travellers with passports. they stayed a night in a humble hotel in paris (august 4), and travelling thence, as miss smith, she reached london next day. the "return of florence nightingale is on every one's lips," said a letter of the time, and all the newspaper-world was alert to discover her movements. "weary and worn as she is," wrote her aunt, "i cannot tell you the dread she has of the receptions with which she is threatened." it became known that on her arrival in england she would proceed at once to her country-home. triumphal arches, addresses from mayors and corporations, and a carriage drawn by her neighbours were at once suggested; but miss nightingale had prudently withheld information of her time-table even from her family, and the public reception was avoided. it had been proposed, too, that the reception should be military. "the whole regiments" of the coldstreams, the grenadiers, and the fusiliers "would like to come, but as that was impossible, they desired to send down their three bands to meet her at the station and play her home, whenever she might arrive, whether by day or by night, if only they could find out when." but the attention even of her soldiers was eluded. she lay lost for a night in london, and at eight o'clock next morning she presented herself, according to a promise given to the bermondsey nuns, at their convent door. it was the first day of their annual retreat, and she rested with them for a few hours. then, taking the train, she reached her home on august 7, 1856, after nearly two years' absence in the east, arriving at an unexpected hour, having walked up from the little country station. "a little tinkle of the small church bell on the hills, and a thanksgiving prayer at the little chapel next day, were," wrote her sister, "all the innocent greeting." florence's spoils of war, as lady verney wrote to mrs. gaskell, arrived in advance, and were characteristic. there was, first, william, a one-legged sailor boy, who was ten months in her hospitals. occupation was found for him. next there was peter,[218] a little russian prisoner who came into hospital, and of whom, as he was an orphan, she took charge. "one of the lady nurses was his theological instructor, and asked him where he would go when he died if he were a good boy? he answered, 'to miss nightingale.' thirdly, there was a big crimean puppy, given her by the soldiers. he was found in a hole in the rocks near balaclava, and was called 'rousch,' which is supposed to be 'soldier' in russian. a little russian cat, a similar gift, died on the road; but the three remaining are the happiest things i have seen for some time, careering about in the intervals of school, where they are made much of, and 'glory' is more agreeable to them than to their mistress!" but florence had another crimean spoil, unknown, perhaps, to her sister, which she accounted one of the most sacred of her possessions. it was a bunch of grass which she had "picked out of the ground watered by our men's blood at inkerman." [218] peter grillage afterwards became man-servant at embley. see vol. ii. p. 302. iv "if ever i live to see england again," she had written in november 1855, "the western breezes of my hill-top home will be my first longing, though olympus with its snowy cap looks fair over our blue eastern sea." it was to lea hurst, then, that she went on her return. it was there, ten years before, that she had found a fortnight's happiness in the humble work of parish nursing and visiting, and had thought to herself that with a continuation of such life she would be content.[219] the aspirations of her youth were to receive, as this second part of the volume has shown, a larger, a fuller, and a more conspicuous attainment. yet it would be a mistake to regard miss nightingale's mission in the crimean war either as the summit of her attainment or the fulfilment of her life. rather was it a starting-point. [219] above, pp. 53, 64. her work in the east did, it is true, attain some great ends, and satisfy in some measure the aspiration of her mind and heart. "she has done a great deed," wrote a friend in december 1854, "not less than that of those who stood at inkerman or advanced at the alma; and she has made the first move towards wiping away a reproach from this country--that our women could not do what others do, irreproachably, and with advantage to their fellow-creatures." she had proved that there was room for nurses in british military hospitals. she had shown the way to a new and high calling for women. "what florence has done," wrote lady verney to a friend (april 1856), "towards raising the standard of women's capabilities and work is most important. it is quite curious every day how questions arise regarding them which are answered quite differently, even when she is not alluded to, from what they would have been 18 months ago." lord stanley, in the speech at manchester already mentioned, had made the same point. "mark," he said, "what, by breaking through customs and prejudices, miss nightingale has effected for her sex. she has opened to them a new profession, a new sphere of usefulness. i do not suppose that, in undertaking her mission, she thought much of the effect which it might have on the social position of women. yet probably no one of those who made that question a special study has done half as much as she towards its settlement. a claim for more extended freedom of action, based on proved public usefulness in the highest sense of the word, with the whole nation to look on and bear witness, is one which must be listened to, and cannot be easily refused." lord stanley was mistaken in supposing that miss nightingale thought little of the effect of her mission upon the position of women; for, though she had misgivings about "woman's missionaries," yet to make "a better life for woman"[220] was an object very near her heart. when she was in the crimea, working as hard as any of the men, confronting disease and death with the bravest of them, administering, reforming, counselling as energetically as the best of them, this resolute woman felt that she and her companions had raised their sex to the height of a great occasion. "war," she wrote to her friend, mr. bracebridge (nov. 4, 1855), "makes deborahs and absaloms and achitophels; and when, if ever the magnificat has been true, has it been more true than now, every word of it? my soul doth magnify the lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in god my saviour. for he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden." the words, which had often been in her mouth in moments of despondency and thwarted yearning,[221] came to her with the sense of happy fulfilment when she had been able to act as the handmaiden of god in the service of the sick and wounded soldiers. her sister, understanding her better in the years of attainment than in those of aspiration, wrote to her (nov. 15, 1855): "what anxious work you have upon you, my greatheart, and yet in spite of it all have you not found your true home--the home of your spirit?" [220] see below, p. 385, and above, p. 102. [221] above, p. 94. all this was true. yet miss nightingale's crimean mission was, in the scheme of her life as she had planned it, and in the facts of her life so far as failing health permitted, not so much a climax, as an episode. it was an episode remarkable in itself, and it had given her a world-wide reputation; but in reputation she saw nothing except an opportunity for further work. "the abilities which she has displayed," said mr. sidney herbert in willis's rooms, "cannot be allowed to slumber. so long as she lives, her labours are marked out for her. the diamond has shown itself, and it must not be allowed to return to the mine." her friend well knew that he was only expressing the feelings of her own mind. what she sought on her return to england was to utilize her reputation and her experience for the furtherance of her ideals. her experiences during the crimean war had enlarged the scope of her work. she had gained an insight into military administration, and had shown a grasp of the subject, which had caused the queen and prince to "wish we had her at the war office." her first duty, then, was to use her experience, so far as opportunity offered, to improve the medical administration of the army. but the main desire of her life had been to raise nursing to the rank of a trained calling. her mission to the east had not accomplished this object. it had only advertised it, and for the rest had shown how urgently the thing needed to be done. the world praised her achievement. she was rather conscious of its shortcoming, and of the obstacles and difficulties with which it had been attended. she came back from the east more resolved than ever to be a pioneer in the reform of nursing. but first she needed rest and seclusion. rest, in which to recuperate from the long strain of labours, hardships, and anxieties. seclusion, in which to hide herself from publicity and applause. the world praised her self-sacrifice. she felt that she had made none. rather had she been privileged to attain that harmony between the soul of a human being and its appointed work, in which, according to her philosophy, lay the union of man with the divine spirit. she shrank from glory in dread of vain-glory. "'paid by the world, what dost thou owe me?' god might question." "i believe," she had written to her father in 1854, shortly before her call to the crimea came, "that there is, within and without human nature, a revelation of eternal existence, eternal progress for human nature. at the same time i believe that to do that part of this world's work which harmonizes, accords with the idiosyncrasy of each of us, is the means by which we may at once render this world the habitation of the divine spirit in man, and prepare for other such work in other of the worlds which surround us. the kingdom of heaven is within us. those words seem to me the most of a revelation, of a new testament, of a gospel--of any that are recorded to have been spoken by our saviour." her period of rest was to be very short, as we shall learn; but let us leave her communing silently in her chamber with such thoughts, till another part opens a new chapter of activity in her life. part iii for the health of the soldiers (1856-1861) we can do no more for those who have suffered and died in their country's service; they need our help no longer; their spirits are with god who gave them. it remains for us to strive that their sufferings may not have been endured in vain--to endeavour so to learn from experience as to lessen such sufferings in future by forethought and wise management.--florence nightingale (reply to address from the parishioners of east wellow, dec. 1856). chapter i the queen, miss nightingale, and lord panmure (august-november 1856) to shape the whisper of a throne.--tennyson. whenever the british people have muddled through a war, there is a time of repentance and heart-searching. england the unready turns round uneasily and thinks that she must now mend her ways. the lessons of the war must be learnt. the word "efficiency" is blessed in every mouth. radical reforms, with a view to ensuring a better state of preparedness next time, are canvassed, and a few of them are sometimes carried out. and then to the hot fit, a cold fit succeeds. war and its lessons fade into the past. economy displaces efficiency as the favourite word. peace seems to be more likely than another war, and, if war should unhappily come, it is cheerily hoped that england will again "muddle through somehow." the spasm of reform is over, leaving the permanent _vis inertiae_ of ministers and departments once more in undisturbed possession. reformers, familiar with this succession of flow and ebb, know that they must seize the favourable moment, and more or less is done, according as they are more or less prompt and energetic. in the field of the army medical service, where the crimean war had exposed deficiencies both glaring and terrible, large and far-reaching reforms were set in motion during the years immediately following the crimean peace. indeed it may be said that from this period dates the first serious and sustained movement for the application of sanitary science to the british army. that effective use was thus made of the spasm of repentance which followed the crimean war was due primarily and mainly to the zealous co-operation of two individuals, the same two whose alliance formed a principal subject of the preceding part of this memoir--sidney herbert and florence nightingale. when her friend died in 1861, worn out prematurely by unceasing labours for the british army, miss nightingale devoted to his memory an account of his work during the years 1856-1861. in that pamphlet[222]--a model of lucidity and concision--while yet informed with comprehensive insight, and not untouched by emotion--she made no reference of any kind to her own share in the work. she described the reforms, and said that in all that was done "sidney herbert was head and centre." and so in many respects he was. he was the chairman of the royal commission and the sub-commissions. he was afterwards minister for war. he was from first to last the official head of the reform movement. and he was much more than the official head. he worked with unfailing zeal, and threw his heart and soul into the work. yet if sidney herbert had written the account, he might have said that florence nightingale was the head and centre of it all. if she could have done little without him, so also might he have done little without her. he was in the foreground, she in the background. his was the public voice; the words which he spoke or wrote were often the words of florence nightingale. he was the practical politician who carried out their common schemes. the initiating, the inspiring, the impelling force was hers. and she did much more than give general impetus. her mastery of detail was ever at mr. herbert's elbow. "i never intend to tell you," he wrote to her when the first of the royal commissions in which they co-operated was nearing its end (august 7, 1857), "how much i owe you for all your help during the last three months, for i should never be able to make you understand how helpless my ignorance would have been among the medical philistines. god bless you!" but between two such loyal allies and understanding friends, it were needless to apportion the relative shares. they spoke and wrote of their working together as "our cabinet," "our cabal," or "our mess." it is the story of this comradeship, rich in human interest, and fraught with lasting benefit to the british army, that is to form the main subject of this and the following four chapters. [222] an expansion, issued in 1862, of a memorandum, privately printed in 1861. see below, p. 408. ii what miss nightingale needed on her return from the east, and what, had she thought only of herself, she would have taken, was a long spell of rest. she had been through a campaign of labour and anxiety, under conditions of strain and distress, such as might have undermined the strongest constitution. mr. herbert, who was in ireland when she returned to england, surmised from her letters that she was overwrought, and sent her the prescription of his carlsbad doctor--_ni lire_, _ni écrire_, _ni réfléchir_. after such severe tension of mind and body, a reaction was inevitable. he sent the prescription, but he did not expect her entirely to adopt it. "i should doubt," he wrote to her uncle, "with a mind constituted as hers is, whether _entire_ rest, with a total cessation from all active business, would not be a greater trial and less effective for her restoration to health than a life of some, though very limited and moderate, occupation." he seems to have hoped that she might be persuaded to take up comparatively quiet nursing work in a london hospital. presently they met (sept.) in the country-house of their mutual friends, the bracebridges, and mr. bracebridge thought that mr. herbert was "lukewarm" on the subject of army reform. perhaps it was that he wished to consider miss nightingale's health and keep her free from exciting activity. but nothing was further from her thoughts than neutrality or passive spectatorship. she was burning for the fray, and flung all consideration of health aside in order to devote herself to rousing the lukewarm and organizing the resolute. to understand the passionate devotion, the self-sacrificing ardour, with which miss nightingale set to work immediately upon her return, we must remember what she had seen in the east. she had "identified herself," as we have heard, "with the heroic dead," and she knew that many of her "children," as she called them, had died, not of necessity, but from neglect. "no one," she wrote,[223] "can feel for the army as i do. these people who talk to us have all fed their children on the fat of the land and dressed them in velvet and silk, while we have been away. i have had to see my children dressed in a dirty blanket and an old pair of regimental trousers, and to see them fed on raw salt meat, and nine thousand of my children are lying, from causes which might have been prevented, in their forgotten graves. but i can never forget. people must have seen that long, long dreadful winter to know what it was." others might know the facts, but she _felt_ them. the strength of her character and powers lay, however, in the combination of intense feeling with intellectual grasp. she not only felt the neglect which had sacrificed her children's lives, but she tabulated the causes. the facts which had come under her eye, the figures in which she summarized and analysed them, filled her with a passion of resentment. during her residence in the eastern hospitals she had seen 4600 soldiers die. and as she studied the figures, the conclusion was irresistibly borne in upon her that the greater number need not have died at all. many of the diseases to which they had succumbed were induced, and others were aggravated, in the hospitals themselves. her personal observation told her that it was so; statistical inquiry proved it. "we had," she pointed out, "during the first seven months of the crimean campaign, a mortality among the troops at the rate of 60 per cent per annum from _disease_ alone, a rate of mortality which exceeds that of the great plague in london, and a higher ratio than the mortality in cholera to the attacks." by a series of reforms, largely the result of miss nightingale's own untiring efforts and vehement expostulations, this terrible rate of mortality was reduced. "we had, during the last six months of the war, a mortality among our _sick_ not much more than among our _healthy_ guards at home, and a mortality among our troops, in the last five months, two-thirds only of what it is among our troops at home." it was obvious from this comparison that the mortality during the first period was largely preventable. here was "a complete example--history does not afford its equal--of an army, after a great disaster arising from neglects, having been brought into the highest state of health and efficiency." it was the most complete experiment ever made in army hygiene. and miss nightingale was filled with a passionate desire that the lessons of the experiment should be taken to heart by the nation; that such radical reforms should be made as would render a repetition of the disaster and the neglects impossible in the future. she knew that nothing short of radical reform would suffice. "there is nothing," she wrote in summarizing the neglect of sanitary precautions at scutari, "in the education of the medical officer--nothing in the organization or powers of the army medical department--nothing in the whole hospital procedure--nothing in the army regulations which would have met the case of these hospitals. and were a similar necessity to arise again, especially after the lapse of a few years of peace, the whole thing would occur over again. this is the frightful consideration which ought to make us recall over and over again this experience--otherwise, let bygones be bygones."[224] [223] in a letter, dated feb. 9, 1857, of which she kept a copy. to whom addressed does not appear. [224] _notes_, sec. iii. p. viii. but this was not the whole case. miss nightingale carried further the principle, which in these days is perhaps at last coming to be understood, that success in war depends upon preparation in peace. "you cannot improvise an army," says lord roberts. "you cannot improvise the sanitary care of an army in the field," said miss nightingale. if the medical service in the field were deficient, if the lessons of sanitary science were neglected in war hospitals, it was probable, she perceived, that there were like defects at home. she put her thesis to the test of figures, and was appalled at the verification which they supplied. the idea had first occurred to her on meeting dr. farr, the statistician in the registrar-general's office, at dinner with her friends colonel and mrs. tulloch. dr. farr had talked of mortality tables in civil life, and miss nightingale resolved to compare them with the death-rate in british barracks. she found that in the army, from the age of twenty to thirty-five, the mortality was nearly double that which it was in civil life. this was the case even in the guards, who yet were select lives, the pick of the recruits. "with our present amount of sanitary knowledge," she wrote to sir john mcneill (march 1, 1857), "it is as criminal to have a mortality of 17, 19, and 20 per 1000 in the line, artillery, and guards in england, when that of civil life is only 11 per 1000, as it would be to take 1100 men per annum out upon salisbury plain and shoot them--no body of men being so much under control, none so dependent upon their employers for health, life, and morality as the army." and again (march 28): "this disgraceful state of our chatham hospitals, which i have been visiting lately,[225] is only one more symptom of a system which, in the crimea, put to death 16,000 men--the finest experiment modern history has seen upon a large scale, viz. as to what given number may be put to death at will by the sole agency of bad food and bad air." she saw the facts and figures with piercing clearness, and personal recollections gave intensity to her convictions. she had deep pity for the victims of preventable disease, and still deeper admiration for the uncomplaining heroism with which such sufferings were borne. nothing ever effaced from her mind what she had witnessed in this sort at scutari and in the crimea. "we hear with horror," she wrote, "of the loss of 400 men on board the _birkenhead_ by carelessness at sea; but what should we feel if we were told that 1100 men are annually doomed to death in our army at home by causes which might be prevented? the men in the _birkenhead_ went down with a cheer. so will our men fight for us to the last with a cheer. the more reason why all the means of health which sanitary science has put at our command, all the means of morality which educational science has given us, should be given them." then she turned to the crimea, described in the words of sir john mcneill and colonel tulloch[226] the sufferings and the endurance of the troops, and drew her moral: "upon those who watched, week after week and month after month, this enduring courage, this unalterable patience, simplicity, and good strength, this voiceless strength to suffer and be still, it has made an impression never to be forgotten. the anglo-saxon on the crimean heights has won for himself a greater name than the spartan at thermopylae, as the six months' struggle to endure was a greater proof of what man can do than the six hours' struggle to fight. the traces of the name and sacrifice of iphigeneia may still be seen in taurus; but a greater sacrifice has been there accomplished by a 'handful' of brave men who defended that fatal position, even to the death. and if inkerman now bears a name like that of thermopylae, so is the story of those terrible trenches, through which these men patiently and deliberately, and week after week, went, till they returned no more, greater than that of inkerman. truly were the sebastopol trenches, to our men, like the gate of the infernal regions--_lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate_. and yet these men would refuse to report themselves sick, lest they should throw more labour on their comrades. they would draw their blankets over their heads and die without a word. well may it be said that there is hardly an example in history to compare with this long and silent fortitude. but surely the blood of such men is calling to us from the ground, not to avenge them, but to have mercy on their survivors![227] to that cry, florence nightingale, at least, responded through every fibre of her being. she was resolved to be "a saviour," and to press home every lesson of the crimean campaign. [225] see below, p. 349. [226] _report of the commission of inquiry into the supplies of the british army_, pp. 2, 3. [227] _notes on the army_, pp. 249-50, 507-8. the latter passage continues with some words which miss nightingale had previously written, and which i have quoted as a motto for the present part (p. 309). the strength of her resolve was heightened by a sense of the responsibility which her opportunities laid upon her. she had enjoyed peculiar facilities for observing the whole medical history of the campaign. she had been able to take the measure of many of the military and medical officials; she knew which were the men from whom help might be expected in the work of reform, and of most of such men she had the ear and the respect. her popular fame added to the authority with which her experience and her services invested her. there were others who knew, or might have known, the facts as well as she. there were few who could exercise the same influence, and perhaps there was not one who could judge the facts with the same disinterestedness. she was not a politician. she had no party to defend, no officials to shield, no susceptibilities to consider. she had nothing to gain, nothing to lose, nothing to fear. she stood only for a cause; and, come what might, she was resolved to fling every power of mind and body into it. among her private notes of 1856 i find this: "i stand at the altar of the murdered men, and, while i live, i fight their cause." iii the opportunity was not long in coming. for a week or two at lea hurst she was engaged in such laborious, but unexciting, tasks as settling accounts and claims with the nurses; distributing the sultan's gift among them; answering congratulatory addresses and the like; escaping from public appearances;[228] and dealing with hailstorms, as her sister called them, of miscellaneous letters. she was besieged by vegetarians, spiritualists, sectaries, and other birds of the feather that swoop down upon conspicuous personages. with distressed gentlewomen she was a favourite prey. "can you find soldiers' orphans for me to educate," wrote one, "because i don't like leaving my sisters?" "please find a place for me," wrote another, "where there will be something to do not derogatory. i am an irish lady of family." the begging-letters were innumerable, and the answering of these was taken over by her sister. "i think i can now repeat the formula to perfection," she said, "and i could write a begging-letter at the shortest notice in the character of every individual, from a staff-officer to a costermonger, and a widow with six children." but here lady verney's lively pen suggests some little injustice. officers did occasionally write to miss nightingale, i find, to beg her "vote and interest," as it were; but of begging-letters proper, she told mr. kinglake that there had never come one to her from a soldier.[229] mr. kinglake, i may here say, made her acquaintance in the spring of 1857, when her mind was full of the mcneill-tulloch _affaire_. she failed to make him take her view of that controversy,[230] and her first impression of the historian-to-be of the crimean war was that he would write a book more brilliant than judicial. "though i have no doubt he is a good counsel," she wrote,[231] "he strikes me as a very bad historian." three years later, she wrote in a similar strain:- i had two hours' good conversation with mr. kinglake. i found him exceedingly courteous and agreeable; looking upon the whole idea as a work of art and emotion, and upon me as one of the colours in the picture; upon the chelsea board as a safe (or rather an infallible) authority; upon mcneill and tulloch as interlopers; upon figures (arithmetical) as worthless; upon assertion as proof. he was utterly and _self-sufficiently_ in the dark as to all the real causes of the crimean mortality. and you might as well try to enlighten sir g. brown himself. for lord raglan he has an enthusiasm which _i fully share_ but which entirely blinds mr. kinglake, who besides came home long before the real distress, to the causes of that distress. i put him in possession of some of the materials. but i do not hope that he will, i am quite sure that he will not, make use of them.[232] [228] her sister used to describe the disappointment of herself and her mother when florence refused to accompany them to a garden-party at chatsworth. the duke of devonshire was a great admirer of miss nightingale's work, and formed a collection of newspaper cuttings about it, which he presented to the derby free library. he presented miss nightingale with a silver owl, in recognition of her wisdom, and in memory of her pet (see above, p. 160). [229] _invasion of the crimea_, vol. vi. p. 426 _n._ [230] see below, p. 336. [231] in a letter to sir john mcneill, may 3, 1857. [232] letter to edwin chadwick, oct. 17, 1860. he had urged her to see mr. kinglake with a view to indoctrinating him with the true moral of the crimean muddles. miss nightingale here was wrong. mr. kinglake made considerable use of her materials, and drew from them and from his personal impressions an excellent picture of the lady-in-chief; though on the point about which she was concerned, the mcneill-tulloch _affaire_, he remained of the same opinion still. of miss nightingale's demeanour during her short holiday at home in august 1856, there is a pleasant account in a letter from her sister[233]:- she is better, i think, but i quite hate the sight of the post with its long official envelopes. she will go on as long as she has strength doing everything which cannot be left without detriment to the work to which she has devoted her life. i cannot conceive anything more beautiful than her frame of mind. it is so calm, so cheerful, so simple. the physical hardships one does not wonder at her forgetting to speak of; but the marvel to me is how the mental ones,--the indifference, the ignorance, the cruelty, the falsehood she has had to encounter--never seem to ruffle her for an instant (and never have done, aunt mai says). it is as if she dwelt in another atmosphere of peace and trust in him which nothing wicked can dim. she speaks of these things sadly and quietly as some one from another world might do, seeing so plainly the excuses for the wrong-doers, while the personal part never seems to come in, and there is such a charm about her perfect simplicity. there is not the smallest particle of the martyr about her; she is as merry about little things as ever, in the intervals of her great thought, and with as much interest about the little things of home as if she had not been wielding the management and organization of the material and spiritual comfort of the 50,000 men passing through hospital and out. if you heard all the evidence we have had lately from doctors, chaplains and officers, you would not think i am exaggerating in saying that these depended mainly upon her during the whole of these 21 months. as to her indifference to praise, it is most extraordinary; she just passes on and does not heed it, as it comes in every morning in its flood--papers, music, poetry, friends, letters, addresses. [233] to miss ellen tollet from lea hurst. the addresses and presentations which she most valued came from working-men. a case of sheffield cutlery, presented by artisans in that city, was always treasured, and was the subject of a specific bequest in her will. she was much touched by an address from 1800 working-men at newcastle-on-tyne. "my dear friends," she wrote in the course of her reply (august 1856), "the things that are deepest in our hearts are perhaps what it is most difficult 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." presently there came to lea hurst a letter of much importance in miss nightingale's life. her friend, sir james clark, the queen's physician, wrote from osborne (august 23, 1856) begging her to stay during the following month at his home, birk hall, near ballater. the air of scotland would be beneficial, he said, to her health; and there were other reasons. the court would shortly be moved to balmoral. the queen would doubtless invite miss nightingale there. meanwhile her majesty knew of the present invitation; and there would be opportunity at birk hall for quiet and informal talk in addition to any "command" visit at balmoral. miss nightingale heard in this letter a call hardly less important than that to the crimea, two years before. she had served with the queen's army in the east. her services had received sympathetic support and approbation from the queen and the prince. she was now to have full opportunities for bringing to their knowledge, in personal intercourse, what she had seen of the soldiers' sufferings, and for enlisting their support, if she could, in what she knew to be necessary for the prevention of such sufferings in the future. she succeeded, as will presently appear; and she deserved her success by the thoroughness with which she prepared herself to make the best use of her opportunity. the two men who had thrown light most searchingly on the defects of the campaign, in the matter of supply and transport, were sir john mcneill and colonel tulloch. miss nightingale arranged to see and confer with the former at edinburgh on her way to ballater. colonel tulloch, though he was far distant at the time, agreed to join the conclave, and, meanwhile, he wrote (from killin, sept. 6): "if h.m. should afford you an opportunity of telling the whole truth, as i think it likely she wishes to do from her desire to see you under another roof, without her enquiries being noticed, perhaps you might bring to her knowledge," etc., etc. [various points which he deemed of special importance]. mr. herbert's advice was more general. "i hope," he wrote (sept. 9), "that your highland foray will do you good. i am sure it will, if you find help and encouragement for your plans. i hope you will talk fully, and illustrate by facts and details. they explain best. men and women require picture-books, just as much as children, when they are to learn something of which they know nothing previously." she armed herself, by study of statistics, by collection of her notes and memoranda, by inquiries on all sides, for every occasion which the sympathetic interest of the queen or the prince might give her. she felt, and others felt, that great things might turn on her use of such occasions. the fullest and most suggestive letter which she received was from colonel lefroy. he was employed at the war office. he knew the weaknesses of his chief. he knew also the strength of the department to resist. he had been employed, as we have heard already,[234] on a confidential mission to the crimea, and had formed the highest opinion of "the glorious fidelity, the self-sacrifice, the heroic courage, and single-minded devotion" with which miss nightingale had performed her duties in the east. he looked for great results from her visit to scotland:- (_colonel lefroy to miss nightingale._) _august_ 28.... i never had the good fortune to have an interview with the queen, but i have had several with prince albert. the prince exhibited such a remarkable knowledge of the subjects he was enquiring about, so strong and clear and business-like a capacity that you will, i think, find it both expedient and necessary, or rather unavoidable, to enter into a full and unreserved communication of your observations, and be tempted irresistibly to let fall such suggestions as are most likely to germinate in that high latitude. if i am correct in this impression, a similar frankness with lord panmure follows. i was once amused by the prince remarking on a point of military education, "i have urged it over and over again; they do not mind what i say," showing that even he cannot always overcome the _vis inertiae_ of departmental indifference or prevail on people to move. it may be so in any question of medical reform. lord panmure hates detail, and does not appreciate system. he can reform but not organise. it is organisation we want, but which arouses every instinct of resistance in the british bosom, and it is this which can be least influenced by h.m.'s personal interest in it. like a rickety clumsy machine, with a pin loose here and a tooth broken there, and a makeshift somewhere else, in which the force of hercules may be exhausted in a needless friction and obscure hitches before the hands are got to move, so is our executive, with the treasury, the horse guards, the war department, the medical department all out of gear, but all required to move together before a result can be attained. he will be stronger than hercules, who gets out of it the movement we require. i think i would recommend ... [a long statement of suggested reforms, including "a commission to enquire into the existing regulations for hospital administration"]. in some form or other we have almost a right to ask at your hands an account of the trials you have gone through, the difficulties you have encountered, and the evils you have observed--not only because no other person ever was or can be in such a position to give it, but because, permit me to say, no one else is so gifted. it will be no ordinary task; and no ordinary powers of reasoning, illustrating, grouping facts will be requisite. another might repeat what you told him, but the burning conviction, the _vis viva_ of the soul cannot be imparted.... it appears to me that either a confidential report addressed to lord panmure _upon a formal request_, or evidence before such a commission as i have proposed above would be suitable means--the latter the most so, as i fear that more publicity than attends confidential reports will be necessary. i earnestly hope that your interviews with the queen and lord panmure may be the means of leading both to interest themselves effectually in the vital reforms required. the axe has to be laid to the root of the tree yet. [234] see above, p. 297. various friends tendered advice as to what miss nightingale should say if she were to be asked what the queen could "do for her." she might petition to be placed in charge of the new hospital about to be built at netley, or to be appointed lady superintendent of nurses in all military hospitals, and so forth. her own ideas were on the lines of colonel lefroy's letter. she would, first, tell the whole truth of the campaign, so far as it had come under her personal observation. if given any encouragement to proceed, she would explain in general terms the kind of remedies which she deemed essential. she would offer, if the conversation took a suitable turn, to embody her observations and suggestions in a written report. if further honoured by any suggestion of royal favour, she would ask--for herself, nothing but for the sake of the soldiers, a royal commission to inquire into the whole condition of barracks, hospitals, and the army medical department. iv thus armed, and thus resolved, miss nightingale set out for scotland, under her father's escort. between father and daughter there was genuine affection; but mr. nightingale was in indifferent health, and was constitutionally of a retiring disposition. after a few days he beat a retreat. it had been supposed that the "foray" would be short. in fact it lasted for a month. miss nightingale reached edinburgh on september 15, and, staying there a few days, took occasion to inspect the barracks and hospitals. she left for birk hall on september 19, and two days later she was introduced to the queen and the prince at balmoral by sir james clark. "she put before us," wrote the prince in his diary, "all the defects of our present military hospital system, and the reforms that are needed. we are much pleased with her; she is extremely modest."[235] a few days later (sept. 26) the queen drove over from balmoral to birk hall, and miss nightingale had "tea and a great talk" with her majesty. the impression made on the queen has been already recorded in her letter to the duke of cambridge: "i wish we had her at the war office." the duke, who was not exactly a red-hot reformer, must have been thankful that the wish of his august relative for a new broom did not extend to the horse guards. "my hopes were somewhat raised," wrote miss nightingale to sir john mcneill (sept. 27), "by the great willingness of the queen, prince albert, and sir george grey, all of whom i have seen together and separately, to listen and to ask questions." "i have had most satisfactory interviews," she wrote to her uncle sam (sept. 25), "with the queen, the prince, and sir george grey. satisfactory, that is, as far as their _will_, not as their _power_ is concerned." miss nightingale is not the only impatient reformer who has been tempted to wish that knots of red tape could be cut by a direct exercise of the royal prerogative. the prince knew "in what limits" he and the queen moved. nothing could be done except through ministers, and the minister for war would shortly be in attendance at balmoral. "the queen," continued miss nightingale, "wished me to remain to see lord panmure here rather than in london, because she thinks it more likely that something might be done with him here with her to back me. i don't. but i am obliged to succumb." so she stayed on at birk hall, her "command" visit to balmoral being postponed till lord panmure should arrive. the queen sent a good character of miss nightingale to the minister in advance. "lord panmure," she wrote, "will be much gratified and struck with miss nightingale--her powerful, clear head, and simple, modest manner."[236] the queen had "accepted with great grace" the suggestion that any letter of recommendations sent by miss nightingale to lord panmure should be sent also to her majesty direct. [235] _life of the prince consort_, vol. iii. p. 503. [236] _panmure_, vol. ii. p. 306. v the point of interest among miss nightingale's reform "cabinet" now shifted from the queen to her ministers. the court had been won. "lord auckland says," wrote lady verney to her sister, "that he hears from lord clarendon that the queen was enchanted with you." but what impression would she make upon the less susceptible "bison" (for so the burly scot, lord panmure, was called by miss nightingale and her friends)? she had reported herself to him immediately on her return from the east, and he had replied politely, but postponed the pleasure of an interview. mr. herbert was not sure that much would come of it even in the sympathetic air of balmoral. "i gather," he wrote (oct. 3), "that upon the whole you are pleased with the result of your conversations with the queen and prince albert. i hope you will do equally well with panmure, tho' i am not sanguine; for, tho' he has plenty of shrewd sense, there is a _vis inertiae_ in his resistance which is very difficult to overcome." sir john mcneill was more hopeful. he attached great importance to the personal factor in miss nightingale's favour:- "i anticipate considerable advantage," he wrote (sept. 29), "from your interview with lord panmure. he has seen your name in every newspaper, and probably has no very accurate, or perhaps a very inaccurate notion, of what sort of person miss florence nightingale is. he may perhaps think that a lady whose name is so frequently mentioned can hardly be indifferent to popular applause and that with so strong a hold upon the feelings of the nation, she is not unlikely to use it for the gratification of personal ambition. if he has such notions, he will be undeceived. he will find that influenced by higher motives you have no desire to employ your influence for any other purpose than to do all the good you can in the work which you have chosen, and that the absence of personal motive it is which gives you the courage and the right to speak fearlessly the whole truth, and to persevere in the direct line of duty whatever may be the difficulties or the obstacles. he will see that you have no desire to become in any sense a rival, and that it rests with him to make you a co-adjutor or an opponent, as he may be willing or unwilling to promote the good which you consider it your plain duty as far as in you lies to carry out." sir john's attitude to miss nightingale was always a little paternal, and i think that we may perhaps read between the lines of his well-turned sentences a hint and a caution, under the guise of an encomium. the hint was not needed. she was entirely free from any temptation to use her popularity for purposes of personal ambition; but she was to show considerable skill in the use of it, as a weapon in reserve, for furthering her public objects. mr. herbert and sir john mcneill were both right. the personal factor prevailed, as sir john hoped; and miss nightingale won the minister, even as she had won the court--or seemed to win him. he promised all she asked; but it was also as mr. herbert feared, and the force of passive resistance was long maintained. when lord panmure reached balmoral, miss nightingale was commanded thither. the court circular (oct. 6) chronicled her attendance at church with the queen, and at the ball given to the gillies it was noticed that she was seated with the royal family. she had an opportunity to "tell the prince the whole story" of her experiences in the east. another side of her interests also came into play on this occasion. she had talks with prince albert "on metaphysics and religion." then lord panmure, following in the steps of his sovereign, went to see miss nightingale at birk hall, and they had long conversations. "you may like to know," wrote mr. john clark[237] (oct. 13), "that you fairly overcame pan. we found him with his mane absolutely silky, and a loving sadness pervading his whole being." "i forget whether i told you," wrote sidney herbert (nov. 2), "that the bison wrote to me very much pleased with his interview with you. he says that he was very much surprised at your physical appearance, as i think you must have been with his. god bless you!" lord panmure, i suspect, was one of those men who presume that any strong-minded woman will be physically ill-favoured. at any rate miss nightingale greatly impressed the minister, even as the queen had predicted. in general terms, lord panmure seemed very favourable to miss nightingale's suggestions. it was agreed that she should presently write out her experiences with notes on necessary reforms for the information of the government, and in this request the prime minister, lord palmerston, associated himself with lord panmure. the minister for war seemed well disposed towards a scheme to which she attached great importance--the establishment of an army medical school. he agreed in principle to the appointment of a royal commission. so she had gained, it seemed, all she wanted, and the minister threw in an additional point of his own.[238] the plans for the hospital at netley--the first general military hospital--were at this time far advanced. lord panmure would send the plans to miss nightingale, and would be much obliged for her remarks upon them. conversation on this and all the other subjects just mentioned was to be resumed when they would both be in london in november. [237] son of sir james, whom he succeeded in the baronetcy; married to charlotte coltman. there was afterwards a family connection with the nightingales, as lady clark's nephew, mr. william coltman, married miss nightingale's cousin, bertha smith. [238] which, however, may not improbably have been suggested to him by the queen. for her majesty's initiative and keen interest in the matter of the netley hospital, see _life of the prince consort_, vol. iii. pp. 227, 491. vi when news of the spoils, which miss nightingale had brought back from her highland "foray," reached her little "cabinet" of reformers, their hopes ran high, and arrangements were promptly made for meetings and consultations. the lady-in-chief broke her journey southwards at edinburgh, in order to confer again with sir john mcneill. on october 15 she was back at lea hurst, and entered into correspondence with other of the confederates. on november 2, she came to london, making her headquarters at the burlington in old burlington street, the favourite hostelry at this time of her family: a house which came to be known among those behind the scenes as "the little war office." she drew up lists of an ideal royal commission, and circulated it among her allies for their suggestions, and, in the case of those whom she proposed to nominate, for their consent. one of these latter was her friend and physician at scutari, dr. sutherland. "i have just received your letter," he wrote (nov. 12), "and am led to believe that there must be a foundation of truth under the old myth about the amazon women somewhere to the east of scutari. all i can say is that if you had been queen of that respectable body in old days, alexander the great would have had rather a bad chance. your project has developed itself far better than i expected, and i think i see a way of doing good and therefore i shall serve on the commission. _get alexander_. nobody else if you cannot. he is our man. i am to meet you to-night at sir james clark's to dinner, and shall be very glad to talk over the subject further." dr. sutherland assumed, it will be seen, that the amazon would carry him in; and she did. over dr. alexander there was a stiff fight. miss nightingale had been greatly impressed in the crimea by his skill, fearlessness, and activity. he had now received an appointment in canada, and lord panmure objected to recalling him; but mr. herbert made his own acceptance of the chairmanship conditional on the appointment of dr. alexander, "the ablest and most effective man with our army."[239] sir james clark's consent to serve was doubtless secured at the dinner just mentioned. sir james ranald martin was also willing, and he had a candidate of his own. "farr," he wrote to colonel tulloch (nov. 11), "ought to be a member. i wish you would take an early opportunity of bringing the question before miss nightingale with all the force of which you are capable." she was already in correspondence with dr. william farr; they had a link in their common passion for statistics. she did not succeed in carrying him on to the commission, but they collaborated in the preparation of statistical evidence for it. then she approached sir henry storks, who was willing to serve. she hoped to be able to include her friend colonel lefroy also, but there she failed. that sidney herbert was the chairman of her choice goes without saying. the other appointment to which she naturally attached vital importance was that of a secretary, and her choice fell upon dr. graham balfour.[240] having settled the commissioners, miss nightingale proceeded to draft their instructions, and this draft also she circulated for criticism and advice. [239] _stanmore_, vol. ii. p. 121. [240] thomas graham balfour (1813-1891), m.d. of edinburgh; compiler of the first four volumes of _statistics of the british army_; assistant-surgeon to the grenadier guards. she was now ready for the promised interview with lord panmure. on the morning of the fateful day, sir james clark wrote to her: "i think it would be well when you see lord panmure to make him understand that the enquiry is intended as, and must comprehend, an investigation into the whole medical department of the army, and everything regarding the health of the army." a needless reminder to her who had everything cut and dried in that sense long before! "i long to hear," wrote mr. herbert, "what results you obtain from the bison." miss nightingale preserved her note of the results written at the time, and it is so characteristic of her humour that i print it very nearly _in extenso_:- [_nov._ 16.] my "pan" here for three hours. wrote down- _president_--mr. herbert } general storks } jury. colonel lefroy } dr. a. smith } dr. mclachlan } army doctors. dr. brown } dr. sutherland } dr. martin } civil doctors. dr. farr } _secretary_--dr. balfour army doctor. will have drs. balanced. not fair: two soldiers reckon as against civil element. whenever i represented it (i did not know old "pan" was so sharp), he offered to take off col. lefroy! so i had to knock under. won't bring back alexander from canada. will have three army doctors. so, like a sensible general in retreat, i named [dr. joseph] brown, surgeon major, grenadier guards, therefore not wedded to dr. smith, an old peninsular and reformer. left lord p. his mclachlan, who will do less harm than a better man. he has generously struck out milton.[241] seeing him in such a "coming on disposition," i was so good as to leave him dr. smith, the more so as i could not help it. have a tough fight of it: dr. balfour as secretary. pan amazed at my condescension in naming a military doctor; so i concealed the fact of the man being a dangerous animal and obstinate innovator. failed in one point. unfairly. pan told sir j. clark he was to be on. won't have him now. sir j. clark has become interested. agreeable to the queen to have him--just as well to have her on our side.... besides things ld. p. finds convenient to forget, has really an inconveniently bad memory as to names, facts, dates, and numbers. hope i know what discipline is too well, having had the honour of holding h.m.'s commission, to have a better memory than my chief. pan has four army doctors really, therefore according to his principle i have _a right to_ four civilians. * * * * * _instructions_: general and comprehensive, comprising the whole army medical department, and the health of the army, at home and abroad. semi-official letter from secretary of state on memorandum from president giving details. smith, equal parts lachrymose and threatening, will say, "i did not understand that we were to inquire into this." my master jealous. does not wish it to be supposed he takes suggestions from me, which crime indeed very unjust to impute to him. you must drag it through. if not you, no one else. * * * * * (1) col. lefroy to be instructed by lord p. to draw up scheme and estimate for army medical school, appendix to his own military education.--_i won._ (2) netley hospital plans to be privately reported on by sutherland and me to lord p.--_i won._ (3) commissariat to be put on same footing as indian.--_i lost_. (4) camp at aldershot to "do for" themselves--kill cattle, bake bread, build, drain, shoe-make, tailor, &c.--_lord p. will consider_: quite agrees; means "will do nothing." (5) sir j. hall not to be made director-general while lord p. in office.--_i won._ (6) colonel tulloch to be knighted.--_i lost_ (unless i can make col. t. accept an agreement, which i shan't).[242] (7) about statistics, lord p. said (i.) the strength of these regiments averaged only 200, (ii.) denied the mortality, (iii.) said that statistics prove anything.--and i, a soldier, must not know better than my chief. (8) lord p. contradicted everything--so that i retain the most sanguine expectations of success. [241] mr. milton had been sent out to scutari by the war office to assist the purveyor-in-chief, and miss nightingale considered that he had dealt only in official "whitewash." [242] on this subject, see below, p. 338. a good three hours' work! but many months were to elapse before lord panmure's promise to appoint a commission was fulfilled. it will be convenient, however, to anticipate the course of events in one respect, and to finish here the story of the _personnel_ of the commission. lord panmure at once wrote to mr. herbert, asking him to accept the chairmanship: "i wrote to panmure," he sent word to miss nightingale from wilton (nov. 25), "as agreed between us, as _suaviter_ as i could as to the _modo_, but _in re_ trying to name the commission and define the instructions. i hope i shall hear to-morrow from him, and i will let you know how the land lies the moment i get any sign from him. supposing that he yields, it will be a task of great labour and difficulty, but one well worth undertaking with a fair prospect of attaining an immense good, even if we do not get all we want. if he stands out, we must hold another council for which i will run up." the text of mr. herbert's letter to lord panmure has been printed elsewhere.[243] on the matter of _personnel_, he suggested general storks and colonel lefroy; two army doctors, one of whom he insisted should be dr. alexander; two civil doctors, one of whom should be sir james clark; a sanitary authority, dr. sutherland; and, lastly, a good examining lawyer. the commission, as ultimately appointed, consisted of mr. herbert (_chairman_), mr. augustus stafford, m.p., general storks, dr. a. smith, dr. t. alexander, sir t. phillips, sir j. ranald martin, sir james clark, and dr. j. sutherland, with dr. graham balfour as secretary. if the reader will compare the ten names resulting from miss nightingale's bargaining with lord panmure, it will be seen that there were four changes. she lost one friend, colonel lefroy, but gained another, mr. stafford. she gained dr. alexander in place of dr. mclachlan, and sir james clark in place of dr. brown. dr. farr was struck off in favour of mr. herbert's "good examining lawyer," sir t. phillips. he was the one dark horse; and, before the commission sat, miss nightingale was asked to meet him. "we propose an irregular _mess_," wrote mrs. herbert to her (may 12, '57), "as sidney thinks sir t. phillips wants cramming." there was on the commission only one upholder of the old régime, dr. andrew smith. [243] _stanmore_, vol. ii. pp. 119-122. had the facts recited in this chapter been known at the time, miss nightingale's opponents might have found some warrant for a suggestion that she had packed the commission. but she and mr. herbert packed it only in the public interest. in discussions about women's rights it is sometimes said that women need no other opportunities for influence than such as have always been within their reach. miss nightingale, who was in favour of female suffrage, would hardly have gained more influence by the possession of a vote. but then very few women, and not many men, have the opportunities, the industry, the mental grasp, and the strength of will which in combination were the secret of "the nightingale power." lord panmure delayed his formal reply to mr. herbert's letter of conditions, but sent a short note meanwhile of a friendly character. mr. herbert at once forwarded it to miss nightingale (nov. 30, '56), and said: "i hope the note augurs well.... all i can promise is to do my best, and to postpone all other business to this one object till it is achieved. i shall require great assistance from and thro' you. i shall like to see all that you are writing as it goes on, if you see no objection. it would probably tell me much, and lead me to question, and so learn more." thus, then, three months after her return from the crimean war, broken in bodily health, was this indomitable woman thrown into the maelstrom of work which will be described in the next chapter. but it was work for the salvation of the british army. she "stood at the altar of the murdered men"; and she shrank from no self-sacrifice. chapter ii sowing the seed (nov. 1856-aug. 1857) you have sown the seed, and the harvest will come. god will give the increase.--sir john mcneill (_letter to florence nightingale_, on her "notes affecting the health of the british army"). the power of passive resistance wielded by a department, and the reluctance or the inability of an easy-going minister to withstand it, are unintelligible to those who are not themselves part of an administrative machine, and they are exasperating to those who are possessed of an impetuous temper and a resolute will. the royal commission on the health of the army had been settled "in principle" between lord panmure and miss nightingale at their interview on nov. 16, 1856, and a week later the minister had received mr. herbert's conditional acceptance of the chairmanship. it was not till may 5, 1857, that the royal warrant actually setting up the commission was issued. throughout the six months of delay, mr. herbert and miss nightingale were busily employed in endeavours to persuade or coerce the secretary of state into granting the commission effective powers; the war office and the army medical department were as busily counter-working in the hope of so restricting its scope that any recommendations it might make would be of a "harmless" character.[244] there is no reason, i think, to suspect lord panmure of insincerity, but he was not the man to force the pace. [244] see _stanmore_, vol. ii. p. 124. * * * * * there were moments during the months of delay when miss nightingale's patience was exhausted, and there was one moment when her spirit for the fight quailed and she thought of taking service in a civil hospital. lord panmure from time to time was afflicted by the gout--"in the hands," mr. herbert said to miss nightingale, "and this explains his not writing." "his gout is always _handy_," she retorted. then there was the call of the birds to be shot and the stags to be stalked. "but the bison himself is bullyable, remember that." this was the word which she constantly passed round among her allies. at one time she pressed mr. herbert to issue an ultimatum. let him renounce the chairmanship forthwith, unless lord panmure put an end peremptorily to the delays and gave a pledge that the recommendations of the commission should be acted upon. mr. herbert and her other friends were for a more cautious policy, and she was overborne. "if you can get us out of the old, miry rut," wrote sir john mcneill (dec. 19, 1856), "and put us fairly on the rail, though the plant may be defective and the speed small, we shall go on improving. do not allow yourself to be discouraged by delays." she was not in the end discouraged, but she was not the woman to sit still under the delays. she remembered her own _mot d'ordre_; and if she did not "bully the bison," i imagine that she sometimes administered a feline stroke or two. in december lord panmure asked leave to come to her quiet room in burlington street for a talk. and the talk was quiet, too, i doubt not, for miss nightingale, sometimes biting in private letters, was never vehement in conversation. but she could be quietly emphatic. she was fully conscious of the strength of a weapon which she held in reserve. that weapon was her popularity, and the command, which she could use, if she chose, of the ear of the press and the public. lord panmure must have been conscious of this factor in the case also. it had been settled at balmoral, again "in principle," that miss nightingale was to prepare a report embodying the results of her experience and thought. if she and the minister remained on good terms, if she felt assured that the army in medical and sanitary matters would be reformed from within, her report would remain confidential. but if she were not so persuaded, there was nothing to prevent her from heading a popular agitation for reform from without. this was her weapon for "bullying the bison." in a note of self-communing, written during some moment of disappointment, she reproaches herself with having been "a bad mother" to the heroic dead, but pledges herself to continue the fight to the end. she had "begun at the highest, my sovereign," and had proceeded to work through the politicians. if all else failed, she would make a last appeal, "like cobden with the corn law," to the country. "three months from this day," she wrote in one of her letters of incitement to mr. herbert, "i publish my experience of the crimean campaign, and my suggestions for improvement, unless there has been a fair and tangible pledge by that time for reform." ii miss nightingale's exasperation was increased by the attitude of the government towards the report of the "chelsea board." the mcneill-tulloch _affaire_, which filled a large space in public attention at the time, requires only a brief notice here; the dramatic aspect of the now forgotten scene at chelsea is admirably presented by kinglake who, however, is not to be accepted as an unbiased authority on the merits of the dispute.[245] sir john mcneill and colonel tulloch, it will be remembered,[246] had been sent out to the east in 1855 to inquire into the transport and commissariat arrangements of the campaign. their report, issued in january 1856, was the one official document among the pile produced by the crimean war which brought responsibility directly home to specified individuals. every one remembers the story of lord melbourne's protest when he had accidentally heard a rousing evangelical sermon with a direct "application": "things have come to a pretty pass," he said, "when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life." something of the same indignant remonstrance was rife when a report on the crimean muddle presumed to invade the sphere of personal responsibility. the impugned officers raised an outcry, and the government appointed an examining board of other officers to report on the report which had reported them. this board--called after the "chelsea" hospital where it sat--removed all blame from individuals, and found in july 1856 that the true cause of the crimean muddle was the failure of the treasury to send out, at the proper moment, a particular consignment of pressed hay. miss nightingale had many a gibe at this ridiculous mouse; and, many years later, sir john mcneill rebuked "the levity" which referred "the fatal privations so heroically endured by the troops to so ludicrously inadequate a cause."[247] some months were next occupied in the drafting, by the treasury officials, of an explanation of the regrettable incident of the hay. the government acquiesced, and the affair seemed to be over. and so it would have been, but for two factors--the press and public opinion. the _times_ led a spirited attack upon the chelsea board, and public opinion espoused the cause of sir john mcneill and colonel tulloch. their report had been set aside, and lord panmure had omitted even to thank them for their labours. sir john remained contemptuously silent, but colonel tulloch, who was of a warmer temper, was vigorous in self-defence and rejoinder. in several large towns sympathy was expressed with the slighted commissioners--a movement which miss nightingale and her family, through friends in various places, did something to advance. complimentary addresses were sent to the commissioners from the mayor and citizens of bath, of birmingham, of liverpool, of manchester and of preston, as also from the company of merchants of the city of edinburgh.[248] noting this movement of public opinion, which was beginning to be reflected in the house of commons, lord panmure bethought himself of doing something. his expedient was signally ill-judged. he had "the honour to acquaint" the commissioners "that her majesty's government have decided to mark the services rendered by you in the discharge of your duties in the crimea, by tendering to each of you the sum of £1000." this pecuniary estimate of their services was promptly refused by each of them. "to accept it," wrote mrs. tulloch, "is almost the only thing i could not pardon in my husband, but, thank god, he feels as i do on the subject." miss nightingale was equally indignant, but her political instinct was not at fault. "i am _glad_," she wrote in reply to mrs. tulloch (feb. 20), "that they have been such _fools_! i am sure the british lion will sympathise in this insult, and if it does not, then it is a degraded beast." she proceeded to rouse the beast. she told mr. herbert about the government's offer, and he concurred in her view. it was decided to raise the whole subject in the house of commons. on march 12, 1857, mr. herbert moved a humble address to the crown praying that her majesty might be pleased to confer some signal mark of favour upon sir john mcneill and colonel tulloch. the prime minister, noting the course of the debate, accepted the motion, which was agreed to without a division. "victory!" wrote miss nightingale in her diary; "milnes came in to tell us." she thought she had lost in her round with lord panmure about colonel tulloch (above, p. 331); but she won after all. he was created k.c.b., and sir john, who was already g.c.b., was sworn of the privy council. this episode, which in its initial stages exasperated miss nightingale so much that she was half inclined to throw up the fight, ended by giving her fresh spirit and encouragement. her _mot d'ordre_ had come true: the "bison" had proved bullyable--by parliamentary pressure. "i direct my letter," she wrote to the now right honourable sir john mcneill (may 12), "with a great deal of pleasure. i consider that you and sir alexander tulloch have been borne on the arms of the people--a much higher triumph than a mere gift of honours by the crown. the poor crown has been worsted. i am sorry for it. but it was not our fault."[249] [245] in chap. ix. of vol. vi. kinglake accepts the finding of the chelsea, board as the last word on the dispute. for the other side, see sir alexander tulloch's _crimean commission and the chelsea board_, 2nd ed., with preface by sir john mcneill (1880). [246] see above, p. 257. [247] preface to tulloch's _crimean commission_, etc., 1880, p. xiii. [248] for these addresses, see a pamphlet printed at edinburgh in 1857, entitled _addresses presented to sir john mcneill, g.c.b., and colonel tulloch, with their answers_. [249] twenty years later another reparation was made. sir theodore martin, in his _life of the prince consort_, had taken an unfavourable view of the mcneill-tulloch report. in the fifth edition he revised the passage. "it is almost more than we could have hoped," wrote lady tulloch, in telling miss nightingale of the revision; "i say _we_, knowing how much interest you took in the matter." "i give you joy," replied miss nightingale (feb. 23, 1878); "i give you both joy, for this crowning 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 mcneill and sir a. tulloch's reporting was the salvation of the army in the crimea. without them everything that happened would have been considered 'all right.' ... i look back upon those twenty years as if they were yesterday, but also as if they were a thousand years. success be with us and the noble dead." a copy of this letter was sent to sir john mcneill, who replied (march 25): "it was kind of you to copy it for me. there is no one, dead or alive, whose testimony i could value so highly with regard to the matters in question as i do miss florence nightingale's. her favourable opinion is very precious to me, not only because she knew more, and was intellectually more capable of forming a correct judgment than any one else who visited that strange scene, but because my regard and affection for her is such as would make it very painful to me to find that she had reason to think in any degree less favourably of our services than she did formerly. her letter is very characteristic, and therefore to me very precious." iii it was her friend mr. milnes who had suggested that miss nightingale should go a little outside her "cabinet" and increase her influence by extending the range of her parliamentary acquaintances. "before the estimates come on," he had written (feb. 1857), "you should surely have some people in the house who know what you want." and again: "you should know lord stanley; he is the best man you could get in the house in whatever you wish to be done. come and dine with him here on sunday." mr. milnes was right about lord stanley.[250] his public appreciation of miss nightingale has been mentioned already. he was not enthusiastic about many persons or things, but miss nightingale and her work were among the number. on now making her personal acquaintance, he sat, as it were, at her feet; he told her that he lived in hopes of being allowed to receive "future instructions" from her; he sent her early copies of papers and bills likely to interest her, and asked questions in the house of commons which she suggested. when presently he became a secretary for state they were to be associated in important work. [250] better known to the world as the 15th earl of derby; secretary of state for india (1858-9); foreign secretary (1867-8); foreign secretary under disraeli (1874-8); colonial secretary under gladstone (1882-5). miss nightingale, for all her impetuosity of spirit, had plenty of tact, and knew how to adjust the means to her several ends. in the spring of 1857, an expeditionary force was being dispatched to china, and she was very anxious that the health of her "children," the british troops, should be better cared for than it was, at sea or on land, in the crimean campaign. her ally, sir james clark, was on friendly terms with her opponent, dr. andrew smith. so she used her ally to coax her enemy. "i had a very satisfactory conversation with dr. smith," reported sir james. "i find he has attended to almost everything i suggested--the ventilation of the ships, the diet of the troops; and they are to have fresh meat and vegetables during the whole voyage and while on the station when it is possible. nothing seems to be forgotten or neglected on smith's part, and the duke of cambridge backed our recommendations. so that the disasters of the crimea are already telling for the benefit of the soldiers." in the fight over the netley hospital, miss nightingale was defeated by lord panmure on the main issue; but she had some success in minor matters; and, though on the main issue she lost in the particular case, she won the day for the future. she was a pioneer in this country in advocating the "pavilion" system of hospital construction, which she had studied in france. well-known examples of it are the herbert hospital at woolwich, and st. thomas's at westminster. the plans for the netley hospital, which lord panmure sent her, were laid on the old "corridor" lines, and she instantly condemned the plans on that and other grounds. into this cause, as into everything that she took up, she flung herself with full energy. she consulted all the best authorities, she collected information at home and abroad, she drew up memoranda, she prepared alternative plans. lord panmure did not dispute that her alternative might, in the abstract, be better, but pleaded that in this case the cost of alteration, now that the foundations were already laid, would be too great. besides, there were susceptibilities--his own and other people's--to be considered. miss nightingale thereupon appealed to the prime minister. "if miss nightingale's suggestions are good," he wrote to lord panmure (nov. 30, 1856), "it will be worth while to alter our intended arrangement of the building rather than have an imperfect hospital."[251] determining to press her advantage, miss nightingale went down to embley in the christmas vacation, and dined and slept at broadlands. how great was the impression she made upon lord palmerston is shown by the peremptory letter which he next addressed to lord panmure (jan. 17). it has been printed _in extenso_ elsewhere[252]; and a sentence or two will here suffice. "i am bound to say she has left on my mind at present a conviction that the plan is fundamentally wrong, and that it would be better to pull down and rebuild all that has been built. she brought hither the ground-plan and elevation of the proposed netley hospital, and the ground-plan of the last new military hospital at paris, which she says has been adopted as the model for the hospital at aldershot." (the reader will note, i doubt not, miss nightingale's diplomatic touch; she only asked lord panmure to do at netley what he himself was doing at aldershot.) "it seems to me," continued lord palmerston most characteristically, "that at netley all consideration of what would best tend to the comfort and recovery of the patients has been sacrificed to the vanity of the architect, whose sole object has been to make a building which should cut a dash when looked at from the southampton river.... pray, therefore, for the present, stop all further progress in the work till the matter can be duly considered." but even the most peremptory of prime ministers are not all-powerful. lord panmure immediately replied that the step ordered by his chief "would involve us in great difficulties, as it would entail a rupture of all our extensive contracts, not to mention the reflections which it must cast on all concerned in the planning of those designs on which we have worked.... many of miss nightingale's suggestions in the report signed by herself and dr. sutherland can be carried out by alterations, but the total abandonment of the plan will be a most serious affair."[253] it appears from miss nightingale's papers that the war office's estimate of the cost was £70,000; and these 70,000 reasons, combined with the argument from _amour propre_, caused lord panmure to win. though ever reluctant to acknowledge defeat till she had fired her last shot, miss nightingale knew when she was finally beaten on one ground and she then made a stand on another. foiled in her attempt to improve the hospital root and branch, she used in good part the opportunities which lord panmure gave her of patching up "the patient," as she called it, so far as was still possible. the corridor was thrown more open; more window-space was given to the wards; borrowed lights and odd corners were abolished; the appurtenances were separated; and the ventilation was improved.[254] with regard to the future, miss nightingale in her private report, and in almost identical words the royal commission in its public report, recommended "that all plans for the original construction of hospitals be submitted to competent sanitary authorities before such plans are finally approved," and "that all new hospitals be constructed in separate pavilions, in order to prevent a large number of sick from being agglomerated under one roof." this recommendation was stoutly opposed by medical officers of the old school. "poor andrew smith," wrote mr. herbert during a sitting of the royal commission, "swallowed some bitter pills to-day, including pavilions." the bitter pill, administered by miss nightingale, is now the recognized prescription in the building of hospitals. [251] _panmure papers_, vol. ii. p. 321. [252] _ibid_. vol. ii. pp. 332-4. [253] _ibid_. vol. ii. p. 338. [254] _panmure papers_, vol. ii. pp. 401, 405. iv this fight for the pavilion was only an incident in miss nightingale's work during the latter part of 1856 and earlier part of 1857. her main work was preparation for the royal commission. this involved heavy correspondence, many travels, and close application. until august 1857, she resided principally in london, at the burlington hotel; but in the spring she had spent some weeks, within easy distance of london, at combe hurst, the home of her uncle and aunt, mr. and mrs. samuel smith; and in april, a fortnight in edinburgh, in order to confer with sir john mcneill. she prepared for the royal commission by writing her own report. the suggestion had been made at balmoral in october 1856; but lord panmure, who seldom did to-day what could be put off till to-morrow, did not write his official instructions until february 1857. in asking her "further assistance and advice," he said: "your personal experience and observation, during the late war, must have furnished you with much important information relating not only to the medical care and treatment of the sick and wounded, but also to the sanatory requirements of the army generally." she had, it will be observed, carried her point, that the report was to be of general scope. "i now have the honour to ask you," continued the letter, "to favour me with the results of that experience, on matters of so much importance to her majesty's army. i need hardly add that, should you do so, they will meet with the most attentive consideration, and that i shall endeavour to further, so far as it lies in my power, the large and generous views which you entertain on this important subject." the report which miss nightingale wrote in response to this request--entitled _notes affecting the health, efficiency, and hospital administration of the british army_--is, i suppose, the least known, but it is the most remarkable, of her works. it is little known because it was never published. as in the end she extracted a royal commission from lord panmure, and as the commission was followed by practical measures, she did not feel the necessity of appealing to the public. the war office itself did not print her report, and thus it never became generally known how much of the report of the subsequent royal commission, and how many of the administrative reforms consequent upon it, were in fact the work of miss nightingale. but at her own expense she printed the _notes_ for private circulation among influential people, and upon all who read it the work created, as well it might, a profound impression. kinglake describes it as "a treasury of authentic statement and wise disquisition, affording a complete elucidation of the causes which had brought about failure, whilst also showing the means by which, in the wars of the future, our country might best hope to compass the truly sacred task of providing for the health of its troops."[255] sir john mcneill, who read the proofs of the _notes_ as they passed through the press, was impressed equally with the vigour of the style and the cogency of the reasoning. "be assured," he wrote, "that the report will detract nothing from your reputation but, on the contrary, that it will greatly add to it, and make it very plain why you have been placed where you stand in the estimation of the country. no other person could have written it." of another batch of the proofs, he said: "it flows on so naturally, it gives so clearly the impression of being the genuine expression of earnest conviction, it has so much the character of good, sincere enlightened conversation on a subject which is thoroughly understood and appreciated, and so little the appearance of having been 'got up' or of pretension of any kind, literary or artistic, that you ought to be very cautious how you alter it in any respect that would at all detract from the unambitious and perfectly natural, but, at the same time, clear and vigorous, enunciation of important truths and wise propositions." and again: "it does not signify much what lord panmure thinks or proposes or objects to. you have set up a landmark which neither he nor any other man or body of men can remove. permanent progress has been made, though but small, and your ideas and plans will be pirated and claimed as their own by men who now disparage them." when the book was finally printed, and a copy of the volume sent to him, sir john mcneill thought the same. "a few days ago," he wrote (nov. 18, 1858), "i read a passage to one of the most admired essayists of our time[256] without telling him what i was reading from. when i had done he said, 'that is perfect, whose is that?' i bade him guess. he said, 'there are not many men in england who could have done it. i think i know them all, but i cannot quite bring it home with confidence to any of them. it may be some new writer.' i said it was, and then i told him who it was. so much for the manner of the thing, which you care little about. but for the matter: after a very careful study of the whole, i am fully satisfied that it is a mine of facts and inferences which will furnish materials for every scheme that is likely to be built up on that ground for several generations. no man or woman can henceforth pretend to deal with the subject without mastering these volumes and, if honest, without referring to them.... regarded as a whole, i think it contains a body of information and instruction, such as no one else so far as i know has ever brought to bear upon any similar subject. i regard it as a gift to the army, and to the country altogether priceless." [255] vol. vi. p. 367. [256] perhaps abraham hayward; see his opinion of miss nightingale's writing, quoted below, p. 408. the passage read out by sir j. mcneill may have been that cited above, p. 242; or perhaps that cited on p. 317. these estimates, given respectively by the literary historian of the crimean war and by the man of affairs who had probed most deeply into the crimean muddle, will be confirmed, i am confident, by any competent reader of miss nightingale's _notes_.[257] the wide range of the book, and its mastery of detail on a great variety of subjects, are as remarkable as its firm and consistent grasp of general principles. the key-note is struck in the preface. the question of army hospitals is shown to be part of wider questions involving the health and efficiency of the army at large. defects, similar to those which occasioned so high a rate of mortality among the sick in hospital during the war, were the cause why so many healthy men came into hospital at all. those who fell before sebastopol by disease were above seven times the number of those who fell by the enemy. a large number fell from preventable causes; but the causes could only be prevented in the future by the adoption of new systems. the bad health of the british army in peace was shown to be hardly less appalling than was the mortality during the crimean war. the only way to prevent a recurrence of such disasters was to improve the sanitary conditions of the soldier's life during peace, and during peace to organize and maintain general hospitals in practical efficiency. the necessity of reorganization, and the application of sanitary science to the army generally, are the two principles of which miss nightingale never loses sight in any of the branches of her subject. there is an introductory chapter giving the history of the health of the british armies in previous campaigns, and the book then contains twenty sections. the first six of these deal under different heads with the medical history of the crimean war. then come three sections dealing with the organization of regimental and general hospitals. the remainder of the book takes wider scope, discussing, in succession, the need of sanitary officials in connection with the army; the necessity of a statistical department; the education, employment and promotion of medical officers; soldiers' pay and stoppages; the dieting and cooking of the army; the commissariat; washing and canteens; soldiers' wives; the construction of army hospitals; and the mortality of armies in peace and war. a twentieth section gives, after the manner of royal commissions, a summary of defects and suggestions. there are also various appendices, supplementary notes, diagrams and illustrations. the first volume of the book consists of 830 octavo pages, some numbered in roman numerals. the pages thus numbered were an after-thought. the main body of the book was ready for press in august 1857, but it was not desirable that the nightingale report should forestall, even in private circulation, the publication of the royal commission's report. a final appendix to the latter report contained a mass of official correspondence on the care of the sick and wounded during the crimean war. miss nightingale pounced upon this, and prefixed to several of her sections a classified abstract of the principal documents. "a masterly analysis," wrote sir john mcneill, when she sent him the proofs; "it is conclusive, because it is quite fair, and nothing could be more fatal to false pretension." sometimes miss nightingale could not deny herself an ironical comment[258]; but the mere collocation of facts and utterances, as she arranged them, in deadly parallel, is more effective even than her sarcasm. [257] this opinion is supported by an estimate of the _notes_ in a paper which came into my hands as this book was going to press. "this work (the _notes_) constitutes in my opinion one of the most valuable contributions ever made to hospital organization and administration in time of war. had the conclusions which she reached been heeded in the civil war in america or in the boer war in south africa, or in the spanish-american war, hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved" (_hurd_, as cited in bibliography b, no. 47, p. 76). [258] see the passage quoted above, p. 288. lord panmure's instructions to miss nightingale of february 1857 were afterwards supplemented by a request that she would submit a confidential report on "the introduction of female nursing into military hospitals in peace and in war." the request had an amusing sequel. "you directed me last week," she wrote to lord panmure (may 3), "to make suggestions to yourself as to the organization of female nursing in army hospitals. the director-general, army medical department, directed, last week, the expulsion of all female nurses but two from the woolwich artillery hospitals.... i have a little pencil composition, to be 'dedicated, with permission, to your lordship,' exhibiting the order emanating from the secretary of state to introduce nurses, and a simultaneous order from the army medical board to turn them out. i enclose a memorandum (merely tentative and experimental) as to the duties of nurses. i cannot expect the secretary of state to enter into the details. perhaps i may ask to hear his decision as to the ultimate steps to be taken."[259] the tentative memorandum was afterwards expanded into a treatise, forming the second volume (pp. 184) of the _notes_. its title--_subsidiary notes as to the introduction of female nursing into military hospitals in peace and war_--hardly describes the scope of the volume, which is, in fact almost a treatise on nursing at large. "i read the _subsidiary notes_ first," wrote mrs. gaskell (dec. 31, 1858). "it was so interesting i could not leave it. i finished it at one long morning sitting--hardly stirring between breakfast and dinner. i cannot tell you how much i like it, and for such numbers of reasons. first, because you know of a varnish which is as good or better than black-lead for grates[260] (only i wonder what it is). next because of the little sentences of real deep wisdom which from their depth and true foundation may be real helps in every direction and to every person; and for the quiet continual devout references to god which make the book a holy one." [259] _panmure_, vol. ii. p. 381, where, in following pages, the memorandum is also printed. [260] "even black-lead is unnecessary, as a varnish now obtainable looks better," _subsidiary notes_, p. 22. as the work of a single hand, and that the hand of a woman in delicate health, the writing of miss nightingale's _notes on the british army_, in the space of six months, is an astonishing _tour de force_. only the most intense application, assisted by great power of brain and will, could have accomplished it. she had no staff of secretaries. mr. arthur hugh clough, then employed in the education office, gave her some help, out of office hours, with the proofs; and her faithful aunt mai did some copying and correspondence. but for the most part everything was written in her own hand, and not for one moment did she allow herself any relaxation. nor were the _notes_ the only work of the same months. she prepared also (with some assistance from mr. bracebridge), and issued, in 1857, the masterly _statement to subscribers_ which has been quoted frequently in the foregoing part of this memoir. "why do you do all this," wrote mr. herbert (jan. 16), "with your own hands? i wish you could be turned into a cross-country squire like me for a few weeks." v one peculiar advantage miss nightingale enjoyed in the preparation of her _notes_, which, however, added as greatly to her labour as to their effectiveness and authority. experts of many kinds were willing and eager to help her. there were in all branches of the public service broad-minded men who knew alike the needs and the difficulties of reform, and who recognized in her an invaluable ally. just as in the east, reformers in difficulty "went to miss nightingale," so now officials and officers--some openly, others with careful secrecy--approached her with hints and offers of assistance, or sometimes with petition that she would come and help them. thus sir john liddell, director-general of the navy medical department, hearing what was on foot, begged her "to take up the sailors," and to "introduce female nurses into naval hospitals." she inspected haslar hospital at his request (jan. 1857), and he consulted her on the plans for a naval hospital at woolwich. "i return with many thanks," he wrote (feb. 17), "your very clever report on the construction of hospitals [a section of her _notes_], from which i mean to profit largely in both our new and old buildings; but as you have only allowed me the privilege of reading your report privately, i trust that when you see your notions carried out in our hospitals you will not reproach me with being a plagiarist without conscience." sir john in return supplied her with facts which she needed about naval stores, dietaries, and statistics. he also escorted her on a visit of inspection to chatham, a military, as well as a naval, station. she was received on all sides with the utmost consideration, and a military medical officer gave her free access to everything. dr. andrew smith was exceeding wrath when he learnt that she had been prying into his domain there. the medical officer wrote to her explaining that he had misunderstood the case, imagining that her visit had official sanction on the military, as well as on the naval side, and begging her, in fear and trembling, to treat everything he had said and shown as strictly secret. the main object of her inspection of barracks and hospitals was to collect data for her report, but sometimes she was able to effect a stroke of reform by the way and at once. she was invited to inspect chelsea military hospital by dr. mclachlan, the principal medical officer. she went, marked many defects, and wrote to him on the subject. he concurred in what she said, explained that "reform moves slowly in old establishments, obstruction coming from sources least expected," and hoped that she might be able to exercise "a little pressure from without." the chairman of the board was mr. robert lowe, at that time vice-president of the board of trade and paymaster-general. she sought an introduction to mr. lowe, who "had much pleasure in calling upon her." the sequel is told in a letter from dr. mclachlan: "if you have not already been made acquainted with it, i am sure you will be glad to learn that all the really important points mentioned in your letter to me some time ago have been conceded. mr. lowe's perseverance carried the treasury. the men are to have flannel vests and drawers, knives, forks, spoons, plates, &c., &c." and mr. lowe himself, who could be soft sometimes, wrote to her with regard to "the improvements which you were good enough to suggest," that he was "happy to believe that the flannel is a very great comfort to the poor old men." many crimean veterans were afterwards chelsea pensioners, and i have given some of their recollections of miss nightingale in an earlier chapter. they probably did not know that they owed their hospital comforts at home to the same woman's touch that had tended them at scutari or in the crimea. miss nightingale, during these months, inspected also the leading civil hospitals in london. many of them had appointed her an honorary life governor in recognition of her services during the war. military officers also tendered their assistance. "ask questions," says a letter from wellington barracks addressed to a friend of miss nightingale, "until you arrive at what you want. it is a pleasure to assist that excellent lady in her noble work": "i was quite charmed," wrote an officer from aldershot, "with the opportunity of again communicating with miss nightingale. she is the most single-minded and benevolent person i ever met, and is truly the wonder of her sex. do, pray, convey to her my desire to place my humble services and experience at her disposal whenever and however she may desire." within the war office itself, she had influential friends. sir henry storks was in frequent correspondence with her, and sent for her criticism drafts of new regulations. colonel lefroy had, in accordance with her suggestion,[261] been instructed by lord panmure to draft a scheme for a school of military medicine and surgery. miss nightingale's notes on this draft (nov. 1856) include suggestions which might have come from some royal commission of our own day. she urges that the board of examiners should consist of the teachers. she suggests that the teachers in hospitals should not be doctors of eminence; "a man with an eminent practice rarely becomes an eminent teacher; many good men may be found to take the position of teachers at a moderate salary." she forestalled the idea of imperial inter-change, of which the war office of to-day says much. "a most important part of this school," she writes, would be to afford opportunities for study and comparison to medical officers from the colonies. like dr. mclachlan at chelsea, colonel lefroy at the war office sometimes "came to miss nightingale." he told her of a certain military hospital which was very much overcrowded. the principal medical officer had represented the case to headquarters and demanded extra accommodation, but in vain: "a letter from miss nightingale might lead to better things." colonel lefroy was helpful in another matter. miss nightingale was a pioneer, as we have heard during the account of her work in the east, in devising means for encouraging the better employment of the private soldier's leisure, and for promoting his intelligent recreation. and this effort, commenced by her among the soldiers on service during the crimean war, was continued upon her return to england. to the initiative and generosity of florence nightingale, the establishment of soldiers' reading-rooms is due. her friend, mr. sabin, who had been the principal chaplain at scutari, was now stationed at aldershot, and miss nightingale concerted measures with him for continuing there the experiment which they had made in the east.[262] after much negotiation, permission was obtained from the military authorities to use one of the canteens as a reading-room, and on june 17, 1857, "divisional reading-room, h canteen, aldershot camp" was opened. the funds were provided by miss nightingale. the experiment was so much appreciated by the soldiers that she determined to enlarge it. she invoked the good offices of colonel lefroy, who wrote to her on august 19 as follows: "a propitious moment offered itself yesterday, and i asked the chief whether i was at liberty to accept the offer of 'a private person' to contribute to the amusement of the soldiers, and the improvement of their reading-rooms. he laughed, having probably a shrewd suspicion of the identity of the unknown, and gave leave. i am now therefore quite at your service.... there will be no difficulty in finding means of applying any funds you will supply, and i have but one regret in the matter, viz. that a duty so essential to the moral improvement of the soldier should be left to private benevolence. i should like to print milton's ixth sonnet[263] on everything you give us." miss nightingale herself had no taste for publicity or praise. she loved to do good by stealth, and most of her influence was exerted behind the scenes. [261] see above, p. 330. [262] see above, p. 281. [263] _to a virtuous young lady_:- lady, that in the prime of earliest youth wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green, and with those few art eminently seen that labour up the hill of heavenly truth, the better part with mary and with ruth chosen thou hast, etc. etc. statisticians, sanitary engineers, architects, and other experts were all in correspondence or personal communication with miss nightingale during the preparation of her report. dr. william farr, the first authority on the former subject, was at work with her in january and february 1857 upon comparisons of the mortality in the army and in civil life. "it will always give me the greatest pleasure," he wrote, "to render you any assistance i can in promoting the health of the army. we shall ask your assistance in return in the attempts that are now being made to improve the health of the civil population. it is in the house and the home that sound principles will work most salutarily." later chapters will show how readily miss nightingale lent assistance in that field. when she had finished the statistical section of her report, she sent the proofs with her illustrative diagrams for dr. farr's revision. he found nothing to alter. "this _speech_," he wrote, "is the best that ever was written on diagrams or on the army. i can only express my opinion briefly in 'demosthenes himself with the facts before him could not have written or thundered better.' the details appear to me to be quite correct." he specially commended her diagrams for the clearness with which they explained themselves. she was something of a pioneer in the graphic method of statistical presentation. in every branch of her inquiry she was equally thorough; consulting the best authorities, collecting the essential facts. she was in communication with sir robert rawlinson and sir edwin chadwick, and with sir john jebb, the architect of model prisons. she collected plans of all the best hospitals and infirmaries in great britain and on the continent. she consulted professor christison on dietetics, and procured dietaries from foreign hospitals. she corresponded with army surgeons whom she had met in the east, and with army chaplains and missionaries. the feeling which fellow-workers had for miss nightingale appears characteristically in a note from sir robert rawlinson to her aunt (1858). "to have earned the good word of miss n. is most gratifying. i trust i may deserve a continuance of it. i learn with sorrow that her health is so doubtful, but i have a full and abiding faith in the providence of god. she has sown seed that will give a full harvest, and mankind will be better for her practical labours to the end of time. hospitals will be constructed according to her wise arrangements, and they will be managed in conformity with her humane rules. one man in the army will be more useful than two formerly, and reason will preside over comfort and health. so far as my weak means extend i will strive to work in the same field, and do that which in me lies to embody the lessons i have received." "it is very pretty," wrote her sister to madame mohl (may 2, '57), "to see these wise old men so profoundly convinced of her knowledge as well as of her disinterestedness, and looking up at her with such a mixture of reverence and tenderness, of desire that she should not overwork herself, and of desire that she should do the work which she alone can do so well." "you cannot think what it is," wrote her sister to another friend, "to watch a great mind like hers fully at work and fully equal to that great work. to see each emergency as it arises met and conquered, to see in her great plans for reform and improvement, how even each hindrance only seems to give a fresh impetus of power to overcome (if my heart was not in each move of the game it would be like watching a gigantic game of chess, whereof the pawns were men and the result the lives of thousands); how she collects the honey out of each man's information and binds it up into the whole that is to carry on the work." miss nightingale's _notes_ were her own work in a peculiar degree and, as sir john mcneill said, no one else could have done it. but it is also true that the book collects from many quarters the best that was known and thought at the time on the subjects with which it deals. vi miss nightingale's own report was more than half finished when the long-promised and long-delayed royal commission on the same subject was appointed. the importunity of mr. herbert and miss nightingale had at last "brought the bison to bay." on april 26 she received the welcome intimation that lord panmure would call at the burlington hotel on the following day with the official draft of the instructions for the commission. she suggested a few alterations, and these were accepted, and the documents were sent for the royal approval. miss nightingale kept a copy of the manuscript, and sent it to her friend, dr. graham balfour, the secretary of the commission. "every one of the members of the commission," she explained to him (april 27), "was carried by force of will against dr. andrew smith, and poor pan has been the shuttlecock"; and with regard to the instructions, "you will see curious traces of the struggle to exclude and to include all reform in the progress of the ms. i think i am not without merit for labouring at bullying pan--a petty kind of warfare, very unpleasant." it throws an interesting side-light on the relation of ministers to their subordinates to know, as appears from miss nightingale's papers, that lord panmure was careful to have the documents initialled by the queen before submitting them to dr. smith. to those who have delved into the history of the crimean muddle, few things are more curious at first sight than the long ascendancy of dr. smith. perhaps no one was to blame, but only the system; but if any individuals were to blame for the medical defects, then surely the medical director-general must have been one. lord grey sent to miss nightingale a very long and elaborate memorandum on her _notes_. he admired the skill with which she marshalled the facts; but maintained that the true conclusion to be drawn from them was not that radical reform was needed, but that several persons (including dr. smith) should have been court-martialled. i doubt if miss nightingale differed from the latter proposition. but in fact dr. smith was decorated, and when the war was over he was allowed for many months to obstruct the course of reform. the explanation, however, is simple. the permanent head of a department is a master of its detail, and if he be a man of any ability, this fact often gives him an ascendancy over his political chief. if the minister be indolent, or incapable of detail, or for any other reason disposed to the line of least resistance, he becomes as clay in the hands of his permanent subordinate, whenever a matter comes down from generals to particulars. so lord panmure, at the final stage of this affair, took the precaution of barring out details. dr. smith, who was a pertinacious man, had, i dare say, many criticisms to offer when the instructions for the commission were shown to him. but, if so, lord panmure had a general and a conclusive answer. what the queen had signed must not be altered. the royal warrant, instructing the commission, was in very wide and comprehensive terms, and mr. herbert and his colleagues set to work without a day's delay. six months had elapsed between his acceptance of the chairmanship and the issue of the royal warrant. the report of the commission was prepared in precisely three months. to appreciate fully the industry which such a result involved, one must have looked into the mountainous mass of detail which the commission accumulated and sifted. no praise can be too high for the unremitting attention, the incessant hard work which mr. herbert, as chairman, threw into the task. but even so, such speed in the preparation of the commission's report would have been impossible, but that much of the ground had been already explored, and most of it exhaustively covered, by miss nightingale. in all royal commissions, as also in more august bodies, there is an inner cabinet, and sometimes an innermost cabinet as well. in the present case there was an innermost cabinet of three, and one of the three was not a member of the commission--mr. herbert, dr. sutherland, and miss nightingale. there was no man so closely associated with miss nightingale's work for so many years, and in so many different directions, as dr. john sutherland. he was recognized as one of the leading sanitarians of the day. he had been an inspector under the first board of health (1848), and had been employed by the government in many special inquiries. as head of the sanitary commission sent to the crimea in 1855, he had, as already stated, made miss nightingale's acquaintance, and from that time forth they were close colleagues. he served on almost every commission, sub-commission, and committee with which she had anything to do. if he was not nominated in the first list, she always insisted on his inclusion. he sometimes exasperated her, as we shall hear in later chapters, but they worked together in constant comradeship. he was, as it were, her chief-of-the-staff; and also in large measure her private secretary for official matters. upon dr. sutherland and miss nightingale the chairman of the royal commission mainly relied. i have already quoted mr. herbert's general tribute to her assistance (p. 312). it is fully borne out by the evidence contained in her papers. throughout the proceedings of the commission, miss nightingale was in daily communication--personal, or by letter--with mr. herbert or dr. sutherland, or with both. i have before me, of this date, fifty letters from each of them to her. she was an unremitting task-master. "my dear lady," wrote dr. sutherland one friday (may 22), "do not be unreasonable. i fear your sex is much given to being so. i would have been with you yesterday, had i been able, but alas! my will was stronger than my legs. i have been at the commission to-day, and as yet there is nothing to fear. i was too much fatigued and too stupid to see you afterwards, but i intend coming to-morrow about 12 o'clock, and we can then prepare for the campaign of the coming week. there won't be much to do, as the commission is going to the derby, except your humble servant and alexander, who, for the sake of example, are going to see portsmouth and haslar to give evidence on both. we shall meet on monday and friday only. the sanitary arguing goes on on both these days, and i hope to-morrow to be able to perform the coaching operation you desiderate, and as you don't go to church you can coach mr. herbert on sunday. i have now sent you a roland for your oliver, and am ever yours faithfully." of the letters from mr. herbert, written after the commission was appointed, the first defines the position: "we must meet and agree our course." a few other brief extracts will fill in the sketch. "i am getting up the examinations; does anything occur to you?" "i send you hall's correspondence. you know the matters treated with all the dates which i do not, and will see in them what i should not." he consults her about the order in which to call the witnesses, "or we shall seem to be always examining one another." he asks her to look into a comparison of the mortality among marines and sailors respectively. she secured on another subject some damning documents. "i return your stolen goods," he writes. "pray keep them carefully. if ever we have to besiege the army medical department, no lancaster gun could be more formidable than this document; it is really almost unbelievable." "i should very much like to have a cabinet council with you to-day. shall i come to you at 5 o'c., or would you come here?" and so forth, and so forth, almost daily. but i can perhaps best convey an idea of the co-operation in terms of legal procedure. miss nightingale was the solicitor who gave instructions in the case to mr. herbert. as each branch of the inquiry came up, she sent him a memorandum upon it; often, no doubt, a copy of her own report on the same subject. she suggested the witnesses, and often saw them before they gave their evidence, in order, as it were, to take their proof. in the case of some important witnesses, she prepared the briefs for cross-examination, as well as examination. in june, sir john hall, whom the reader will remember as principal medical officer in the crimea, was to be in the box. "i have been asked," she wrote to sir john mcneill (june 12), "to request you to give us some hints as to his examination, founded upon what you saw of him when in your hands. my own belief is that hall is a much cleverer fellow than they take him for, almost as clever as airey,[264] and that he will consult his reputation in like manner, and perhaps give us very useful evidence, no thanks to him.... i would only recall to your memory the long series of proofs of his incredible apathy, beginning with the fatal letter approving of scutari, oct. '54,[265] continuing with all the negative errors of non-obtaining of lime juice, fresh bread, quinine, etc., up to his _not_ denouncing the effects of salt meat before you.... we do not want to badger the old man in his examination, which would do us no good and him harm. but we want to make the best out of him for our case. please help us. i understand that dr. smith says he was much afraid of 'the commission' at first, and 'thought it would do harm.' but now 'thinks it is taking a good turn.' is this for us or against us?" sir john mcneill thought "for us," and advised that dr. hall should "not be put too much on the defensive," but should be led in examination "to slip quietly into the current of reform as dr. a. smith seems from what you say to have done." still, if he proved obdurate he must of course "be put in a corner"; and so sir john mcneill assisted the lady-solicitor to prepare posers for a possibly refractory witness. it was difficult, however, to be refractory with mr. herbert. "he was a man of the quickest and most accurate perception," she wrote of him in later years, "that i have ever known. also he was the most sympathetic. his very manner engaged the most sulky and the most recalcitrant of witnesses. he never made an enemy or a quarrel in the commission. he used to say, 'there takes two to be a quarrel, and i won't be one.'" then, again, miss nightingale was always at mr. herbert's call to supply details, missing dates, and references. every one familiar with the courts knows how even the ablest counsel will sometimes stumble over a date or fumble among his papers for a particular document, till a junior behind him or the solicitor in front of him comes to his rescue. that was another rôle played by miss nightingale, though behind the scenes. "sidney is again in despair for you," wrote mrs. herbert; "can you come? you will say, _bless_ that man, why can't he leave me in peace? but i am only obeying orders in begging for you." [264] richard, lord airey, quartermaster-general to crimean army, 1854-5, one of the officers vindicated by the chelsea board; quarter-master-general, 1855-65. [265] dr. hall had reported to dr. smith from scutari (oct. 20, 1854), with "much satisfaction," that "the whole hospital establishment has now been put on a very creditable footing," etc. see _notes_, p. 52. a difficulty arose upon the question whether miss nightingale should or should not give evidence herself. she was averse from doing so, and sir john mcneill strongly supported her. in his paternal way he did not like the idea of her exposing herself to such a strain, and indeed her physical weakness at the time was great. in the present day she would of course, in like circumstances, have been made a member of the royal commission. in those days the idea of calling a woman as a witness caused some qualms. her own objection was founded rather on regard for mr. herbert's susceptibilities. she could not tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth without going into the past, and such evidence might seem to cast reflections on the conduct of her friend as minister during the earlier part of the war. mr. herbert, however, brushed this point aside, and urged her to come and tell the whole truth. her friend mr. stafford was yet more emphatic. "let me entreat you," he wrote (june 11), "to reconsider your determination. you have done so much, you ought to do all. this is our last effort for the soldier. no one can aid us so well as you, and you can aid us so well in no other manner; even if your opinions should offend some few individuals, the fault is theirs, not yours. the absence of your name from our list of witnesses will diminish the weight of our report, and will give rise to unfounded rumours; it will be said either that we were afraid of your evidence, and did not invite you to tender it, or that you made suggestions, the responsibility of which you were reluctant to incur in public." there was obvious force in mr. stafford's arguments, and it was decided that miss nightingale should give evidence in the form of written answers to written questions. her evidence, which occupies thirty-three pages of the blue-book, is in effect a condensed summary of her confidential report. none of the evidence given to the commission was more direct and cogent. "it may surprise many persons," wrote an army doctor at the time, "to find, from miss nightingale's evidence that, added to feminine graces, she possesses, not only the gift of acute perception, but that, on all the points submitted to her, she reasons with a strong, acute, most logical, and, if we may say so, masculine intellect, that may well shame some of the other witnesses. they maunder through their subjects as if they had by no means made up their minds on any one point--they would and they would not; and they seem almost to think that two parallel roads may sometimes be made to meet, by dint of courtesy and good feeling, amiable motives that should never be trusted to in matters of duty. when you have to encounter uncouth, hydra-headed monsters of officialism and ineptitude, straight hitting is the best mode of attack. miss nightingale shows that she not only knows her subject, but feels it thoroughly. there is, in all that she says, a clearness, a logical coherence, a pungency and abruptness, a ring as of true metal, that is altogether admirable."[266] "i have perused with the greatest interest," wrote a member of the commission (sir j. r. martin) to her, "your most conclusive evidence now in circulation for the perusal of the commissioners. it contains an assemblage of facts and circumstances which, taken throughout their entire extent, must prove of the most vital importance to the british soldier for ages to come." [266] _the army in its medico-sanitary relations_, p. 26. edinburgh, 1859. reprinted from the _edinburgh medical journal_. the writer was dr. combe, r.a. vii the report of the commission was written by mr. herbert in august 1857, with much assistance from miss nightingale. "a thousand thanks," he wrote to her (aug. 5). "the list of recommendations and defects is very clear and good. i have noted one or two additions." a comparison of the recommendations at the end of miss nightingale's report with those at the end of the royal commission's report shows how closely the latter document followed the earlier. the report was not issued to the public until january 1858. the reason for the delay is intimately connected with the story of miss nightingale's life during the latter half of 1857. the salient feature of the report was its adoption and confirmation of the appalling figures which she had first tabulated many months before. "it is of infinite importance to the success of all you have still to accomplish," wrote sir john mcneill (nov. 9) when she sent him a proof of mr. herbert's report, "that the accuracy of your statements as to the condition of the barracks has been established beyond question. it deprives interested cavillers of all right to be listened to when they desire to question your other propositions." it was shown conclusively by the royal commission that, as miss nightingale had said, the rate of mortality in the army at home in time of peace was double that of the civil population. a comparison of the civil and military mortality in certain london parishes was yet more startling. in st. pancras the civil rate was 2·2; the rate in the barracks of the 2nd life guards was 10·4. in kensington the civil rate was 3·3; the rate in the knightsbridge barracks was 17·5. every one who knew the contents of the report perceived that this was the point which would cause a sensation. the crimean war and its muddles were beginning to fade into the past, especially in view of the indian mutiny; and reorganization of a department of the army would never be likely to arrest popular attention. but the case was different with facts and figures showing that the health of the army, even when at home and in peace, was shamefully sacrificed by official neglect. there was to be a sitting of parliament in december, and nasty questions would assuredly be asked unless something were done. there was a masterful and importunate woman behind the scenes who was firmly resolved that something should be done. without a moment's rest, without thought of recess or relaxation, miss nightingale flung herself into a new campaign. chapter iii enforcing a report (august-december 1857) the nation is grateful to you for what you did at scutari, but all that it was possible for you to do there was a trifle compared with the good you are doing now.--sir john mcneill (_letter to florence nightingale_, dec. 1857). reformers, who are familiar with the ways of the political world, more often sigh than rejoice when they hear that a subject in which they are interested has been "referred to a royal commission." they know that the chances are many to one that the subject, like the report, will be placed on a shelf and stay there. sometimes the reference is a well-understood euphemism for such an intention; and even when it is not, there are many things which may bring about the same result. the commission will perhaps produce a litter of reports from whose discordant voices no definite conclusion can be drawn. in any case the report, or reports, will have to "engage the earnest attention" of his or her majesty's government, and the attention, earnest or otherwise, is sure to be prolonged. before the process has come to an end, many things may have happened to overlay the subject in question. every generation of reformers sees a certain number of subjects on which its heart has been set deeply interred under a pile of blue-books. this was the danger with which mr. herbert and miss nightingale were confronted in august 1857 in the case of their royal commission on the sanitary condition of the british army. against the risk of an equivocal report they had, indeed, guarded themselves in advance; but the danger of a definite report leading to no immediate action had still to be met. mr. herbert was no less anxious than miss nightingale to meet it. he had devoted unsparing toil to the commission; his toil would be reduced to futility if the report were merely to be pigeon-holed. they laid their plans on the consideration mentioned at the end of the last chapter--namely, the effect which the disclosures of the royal commission was likely to have on public opinion. mr. herbert communicated the gist of the report privately to lord panmure. it could be officially presented and published sooner or later as the negotiations with ministers might go. mr. herbert pointed out to lord panmure that the report was "likely to arrest a good deal of general attention"; that there was time to take measures towards reform before the report became known to the public; that the simultaneous publication both of its recommendations and of orders and regulations founded upon them would "give the prestige which promptitude always carries with it." mr. herbert would gladly give every assistance in his power towards that end. he put the case with his usual suavity. but there was iron within the velvet. the publication of the report could properly be postponed for a while, but not indefinitely. lord panmure had to choose between committing himself to instant reform, so as to whitewash the government beforehand, and postponing reform, in which case he would have to reckon with a public opinion inflamed by the disclosures of the report. and meanwhile miss nightingale still held _her_ report in reserve, for use in an appeal to public opinion, should the negotiations fail to secure any guarantee for prompt reform. the plan of active reform agreed upon between her and mr. herbert was that four sub-commissions should be appointed, with mr. herbert himself as chairman of each, to settle the details of reform, and in some measure to execute it, in accordance with the general recommendations of the report. these sub-commissions were severally (1) to put the barracks in sanitary order, (2) to organize a statistical department, (3) to institute a medical school, and (4) to reconstruct the army medical department, to revise the hospital regulations, and draw up a warrant for the promotion of medical officers. this last, from its comprehensive and cleansing scope, was called by miss nightingale "the wiping commission." mr. herbert sent these proposals to lord panmure on august 7,[267] and two days later he wrote to miss nightingale: "panmure writes fairly enough, but he has gone to shoot grouse. i have asked alexander to meet me at the burlington on wednesday at 3, to discuss and settle things. so i have disposed of your time and rooms." the grouse, however, were not quite ready, and on the 14th mr. herbert caught lord panmure on the wing. mr. herbert seemed to carry his point, the four sub-commissions were agreed to in general terms, and, as he sent word to miss nightingale on the same day, he was "able to leave for ireland with a lighter heart after seeing pan. but i am not easy about you. here am i going to lead an animal life for a month, get up early, pursue your animal, catch him, eat him, and go to sleep. why can't you, who do men's work, take man's exercise in some shape?... this is my parting sermon. i use, for the purpose of scolding you, a liberty which nothing gives me but my hearty regard and affection for you." [267] the letter is printed in _stanmore_, vol. ii. p. 133. mr. herbert had well earned his month's fishing. but as dr. sutherland presently wrote to her, "one thing is quite clear, that women can do what men would not do, and that women will dare suffering knowingly where men would shrink." miss nightingale would not, and could not, take man's rest because she felt her cause too intensely; she could not be of so light a heart as her friend, because she knew "her pan" a little better than he did. dr. andrew smith, she heard, was putting up a stiff fight against reform. lord panmure stayed on in the highlands late into the autumn, paying only a flying visit or two to london. his subordinates were as laborious as ever in piling up objections. he became frightened at his own acts, and at one time revoked (but afterwards, under pressure, reinstated) the authority he had given for the wiping sub-commission. mr. herbert returned to england in september, and came up to london to see miss nightingale before the first meeting of the first sub-commission. many weeks elapsed before all of them were set on foot. she meanwhile was incessantly at work, and dr. sutherland, who lived at highgate, was constantly with her. she wrote reminders to lord panmure, "although i hear you saying, there is that bothering woman again," and she begged mr. herbert to do the like. she drafted instructions and schemes for each of the sub-commissions. as each of them set to work, there were meetings in her rooms to settle the procedure. there were periods, as miss nightingale afterwards recalled, "when sidney herbert would meet the cabal, as he used to call it, which consists of 'you and me and alexander and sutherland, and sometimes martin and farr,' every day either at burlington street, or at belgrave square, and sometimes as often as twice or even three times a day." a few extracts from her correspondence will show the extent of her work and the eagerness of her temper:- _august_ 7 (_miss nightingale to sir j. mcneill_). the reconstitution of the army medical department as to its government has been carried by the commission almost in the form which you recommended. i have been requested by mr. herbert, who went out of town last night for a few days, to draw up a scheme as to what these new men are to do. and i now venture to enclose it to you, earnestly begging you to consider it and send it me back with your remarks in as short a time as you possibly can. we have carried the barracks sub-commission with panmure, dr. sutherland to be the sanitary head. _sept._ 29 (_mr. herbert to miss nightingale_). pan is still shooting. it is to me unconscionable. in future you must defend the bison, for i won't. _oct._ 10 (_miss nightingale to sir j. mcneill_). i will not say a word about india. you know so much more about it than anybody here. we have seen terrible things in the last 3 years, but nothing to my mind so terrible as panmure's unmanly and stupid indifference on this occasion! i have been three years "serving in" the war department. when i began, there was incapacity, but not indifference. now there is incapacity and indifference.... panmure's coming up to town last thursday week was the consequence of reiterated remonstrance.... and he is going away again after the next indian mail. that india will have to be occupied by british troops for several years, i suppose there is no question. and so far from the all-absorbing interest of this indian subject diminishing the necessity of immediately carrying out the reforms suggested by our commission, i am sure you will agree that they are now the more vitally important to the very existence of an army. i came up to town [from malvern] on thursday week and met mr. herbert for this purpose. panmure had not done a thing. it was extracted from him then and there that the four sub-commissions ... should be issued _immediately_. the instructions had been approved by p. seven weeks ago. a week, however, has elapsed, and we have heard nothing. i shall not, however, leave p. alone till this is done. mr. herbert's honour is at stake, which gives us a hold upon him. without him, of course, i could do nothing. _nov._ 9 (_sir j. mcneill to miss nightingale_). we may now reckon on something being done to rescue the country from the sin and shame of having so culpably neglected our soldiers. i rejoice that you are to see the fruits of your labours in their behalf. _nov._ 15 (_miss nightingale to sir j. mcneill_). here i come again. panmure has granted the _wiping_ "commission" with such ample instructions for "preparing draft instructions and regulations," defining the duties of etc., etc., and revising the "queen's q.m.g's., barracks', purveyor's and hospital regulations," as you may guess them to be, when i tell you they were written by me.... mr. herbert is, besides, to send panmure a "constitution" for the army medical board, and a warrant for "promotion" himself. all that is necessary now is to keep mr. herbert up to the point. the strength of his character is its simplicity and candour, with extreme quickness of perception; its fault is its excessive eclecticism. ten years have i been endeavouring to obtain an expression of opinion from him and have never succeeded yet.... this new sub-commission entails upon me a labour i most gladly undertake of putting together draft regulations to be submitted to mr. herbert, as suggestions for the draft he will propose to the sub-commission. these regulations must, of course, _rhyme_ with the report. i think you would recommend, etc., etc. _dec._ 1 (_miss nightingale to sir j. mcneill_). this is the first rough proof of the regulations chiefly written by myself, which mr. herbert will submit to the regulations committee on monday. i send them to you with his sanction, begging you to cut them up severely, and to send them back as soon as possible. i, in my own name, direct your particular attention to criticize the regulations for nurses. you will of course understand that my name does not appear. we are so sorry to give you this trouble, but feel the necessity of having your advice. _dec._ 14 (_mrs. herbert to miss nightingale_). dearest--sidney wishes me to send you these, if you will be so kind as to look over them. i know it's wrong. ii a later letter from sir john mcneill is quoted at the head of this chapter. he considered that compared with the work which she was doing now, what she had done at scutari was "a trifle"--"mere child's play" was the phrase which she herself used in making the comparison. preceding pages will, i think, have inclined the reader to the same conclusion, or, at any rate, have enabled him to understand what miss nightingale and sir john meant. and this large and difficult work was being done by a woman who had already taxed her physical strength dangerously in the east, and who was now threatened, in the opinion of competent observers, by a complete breakdown. of the members of what was called her "cabinet," sir john mcneill was the one for whose intellectual power and judgment she had the highest respect, to mr. herbert she was personally the most attached, but to dr. sutherland also she sometimes opened her inner thoughts and feelings. he was of a somewhat wayward disposition, which alternately pleased and vexed the business-like lady-in-chief, but he was an indispensable helper, whilst in his wife miss nightingale inspired deep affection, and the two women interchanged intimate religious experiences. all miss nightingale's friends, and dr. sutherland as a medical man more especially, saw that she was over-working. change of air and seclusion she herself felt compelled to seek; and she found them at malvern, in the establishment of dr. johnson, who had moved thither from umberslade[268]; but rest from work she would not, and could not, take. she was at malvern in august and september, and again in december. her faithful aunt mai--her "true mother," as the niece at this time called her--kept watch over her alike at malvern and in london. the society of her own mother and sister, with their many and lively interests, she found distracting. whether at the burlington or at malvern, she desired to use every hour of strength for her work and for nothing else. and when dr. sutherland joined the others in begging her to desist, her heart was heavy within her. she was sore that her friend should understand her so little. she surmised that he had been prompted by her sister. she was morbidly anxious at this time that no member of the family except aunt mai should know how ill she was. she had attained her freedom for the life of independent work, at a great price, as the first part of this memoir has shown. perhaps in her present over-wrought condition she was haunted by a dread lest the galling solicitude of her family might lure her back into the cage. dr. sutherland had written two letters at the end of august begging her to put all work aside. she was thinking of everybody's "sanitary improvement," he said, except her own. "pray leave us all to ourselves, soldiers and all, for a while. we shall all be the better for a rest. even your 'divine pan' will be more musical for not being beaten quite so much. as for mr. sidney herbert, he must be in the seventh heaven. please don't gull dr. gully, but do eat and drink and don't think. we'll make such a precious row when you come back. the day you left town it appeared as if all your blood wanted renewing, and that cannot be done in a week. you must have new blood, or you can't work, and new blood can't be made out of tea, at least so far as i know. there is a paper of dr. christison's about 28 ounces of solid food per diem. you know where _that_ is, and depend on it the dr. is right.... and now i have done my duty as confessor, and hope i shall find you an obedient penitent." to this letter she replied as follows:- (_miss nightingale to dr. sutherland._) and what shall i say in answer to your letter? some one said once, he that would save his life shall lose it; and what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? he meant, i suppose, that "life" is a means and not an end, and that "soul," or the object of life, is the end. perhaps he was right. now in what one respect could i have done other than i have done? or what exertion have i made that i could have left unmade?... had i "lost" the report, what would the health i should have saved have "profited" me? or what would ten years of life have advantaged me, exchanged for the ten weeks this summer? yes, but, you say, you might have walked or driven or eaten meat. well, since we must come to _sentir della spezieria_, let me tell you, o doctor, that after any walk or drive i sat up all night with palpitation. and the sight of animal food increased the sickness. the man here put me, as soon as i arrived, on a sofa and told me not to move and to take no solid food at all till my pulse came down. i remind myself of a little dog, a friend of mine, who barked himself out of an apoplectic fit, when the dog-doctor did something he had always manifested an objection to. now i have written myself into a palpitation. do you think me one of byron's young ladies? he, it was, i think, who made a small appetite the fashion. or do you think me an ascetic? asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last. or, since i am speaking to an artist and must illustrate and not define, the "cristo della moneta" of titian at dresden is an ascetic. the "er ist vollbracht" of albert dürer at nuremberg is a christ--he whom we call an example, though little we make of it. for our church has daubed that tender, beautiful image with coarse bloody colours till it looks like the sign of a road-side inn. and another has mysticized him out of all human reach till he is the god and god is the devil. but are we not really to do as christ did? and when he said the "son of man," did he not mean the sons of men? he was no ascetic. but shall i tell you what made you write to me? i have no second sight, i do not see visions nor dream dreams. it was my sister. or rather i will tell you that i have second sight. i have been greatly harassed by seeing my poor owl[269] lately, without her head, without her life, without her talons, lying in the cage of your canary (like the statue of rameses ii. in the pool at memphis[270]), and the little villain pecking at her. now, that's me. i am lying without my head, without my claws, and you all peck at me. it is _de rigueur, d'obligation_, like the saying something to one's hat, when one goes into church, to say to me all that has been said to me 110 times a day during the last three months. it is the _obbligato_ on the violin, and the twelve violins all practise it together, like the clocks striking 12 o'clock at night all over london, till i say like xavier de maistre, _assez, je le sais, je ne le sais que trop_. i am not a penitent; but you are like the r.c. confessor, who says what is _de rigueur_, what is in his formulary to say, and never comes to the life of the thing,--the root of the matter. (_dr. sutherland to miss nightingale._) highgate, _sept._ 7. what can i say, my dear friend, to your long scold of a letter?...you are decidedly wrong in passing yourself off for a dead owl, and in thinking that i have joined with other equally charitable people in pecking at you. it is _i_ that have got all the pecking, altho' i hope that i am neither an owl, nor dead; and your little beak is one of the sharpest. but like a good, live hero, i bear it all joyfully because it is got in doing my duty to you. i want you to live, i want you to work. you want to work and die, and that is not at all fair. i admire your heroism and self-devotion with all my heart, but alas! i cannot forget that it is all within the compass of a weak, perishing body; and am i to encourage you to wear yourself in the vain attempt to beat not only men, but _time_? you little know what daily anxiety it has cost me to see you dying by inches in doing work fit only for the strongest constitution.... [268] see above, p. 118. [269] for this pet owl, see above, pp. 89, 160. [270] "in a grassy hollow, by the side of a bright pool of water, lies a statue of the great rameses, the most beautiful sculpture we have yet seen. there he lies upon his face, as if he had just laid down weary," etc. florence nightingale's _letters from egypt_, 1854, p. 258. dr. sutherland urged her to take at any rate a week's complete rest. but she would not. her cause was her life, and she could not for the sake of life lose what alone made life worth living. while they were delaying, the soldiers were dying. her work would not wait. she begged him to come down to malvern and work with her in order that they might have everything ready to put before mr. herbert in london by the time he returned from his fishing. dr. sutherland wrote pretty excuses. mrs. sutherland made counter-suggestions. why should not miss nightingale stay on at malvern altogether? "would not mr. herbert," she wrote (sept. 11), "go to you for a few days, settle all the points, and then communicate daily by letter? you have so much tact that you would be able to maintain your influence. do think if this be possible. it is quite against my own interest to desire it, for if you come to london, i may get a glimpse of your dear face." but miss nightingale persisted, and dr. sutherland surrendered. he went down to malvern, was himself ill there, and miss nightingale reported progress of "the sick baby" to his wife. but the two invalids, we may be sure, talked of other things than their ailments. iii so little was miss nightingale in a mood to succumb to her physical weakness, that she had offered to go out to india, where her friend lady canning was at the viceroy's side during the mutiny. "miss nightingale has written to me," wrote lady canning to her mother (nov. 14); "she is out of health and at malvern, but says she would come at twenty-four hours' notice if i think there is anything for her to do in her 'line of business.' i think there is not anything here, for there are few wounded men in want of actual nursing, and there are plenty of native servants and assistants who can do the dressings. only one man, who was very ill of dysentery, has died since we went to the hospital a fortnight ago. the up-country hospitals are too scattered for a nursing establishment, and one could hardly yet send women up."[271] miss nightingale was very serious in the offer, for she had made it twice; first through mr. herbert, and then in a personal letter, carried by her cousin, major nicholson, who had been ordered to india at this time. she thought of herself as a soldier in the ranks; and absorbed intently though she was in her work for the army at home, she would have considered active service in the field a superior call. had the viceroy felt the need of accepting miss nightingale's offer, it is possible that her power of will and the excitement of activity might have carried her through the ordeal; but she had barely strength for the work on which she was already engaged. [271] augustus hare's _story of two noble lives_, vol. ii. p. 350. of her daily life during this period, at malvern and in london successively, her sister's letters give a vivid description:- (_lady verney to madame mohl._) [_september_ 1857.] the accounts of f. have been very anxious. aunt mai says she does not sleep above two hours in the night, and continues most feverish and feeble, and cannot eat. she never left that room where you saw her, was scarcely off her sofa for a month. now she goes down for half an hour into a parlour, to do business with a commissioner who has been there to see her. aunt mai says it throws her back more to put off work for "the cause" she lives for than to do a little every day--so we reconcile ourselves. tuesday, she says, was a very uneasy day, and f. said she felt as she had done when recovering from the fever at balaclava. still both doctors say there is no disease, that it is only entire exhaustion of every organ from overwork, and that rest will alone restore her--rest for much longer than she will give herself, i fear. she has two "packs" a day; this is all the water-curing; it seems to bring down the pulse, and she lies at that open window the chief part of the day, not reading or writing, only just still. she cannot be better anywhere, no one can get at her; aunt mai is a dragon, and the commissioner is the only person who has seen her. aunt m. says, "i cannot disguise to myself that she is in a very precarious state." (_lady verney to m. mohl._) [_dec._ 5, 1857.] aunt mai's bulletin is generally the same: "mr. herbert for 3 hours in the morning, dr. sutherland for 4 hours in the afternoon, dr. balfour, dr. farr, dr. alexander interspersed." they are drawing up the new regulations (but this you must not tell. f. is as nervous of being known to have anything to do with it as other people are of getting honour).... dr. sutherland burst out to aunt mai the other day that f.'s "clearness and strength of mind, her extraordinary powers, her grasp of intellect and benevolence of heart struck him more and more as he worked with her--that no one who did not see her proved and tried as he did could conceive the extent of both." "the most gifted of god's creatures," he called her. and the determined way in which she will not let any one know what she is about is so curious. she will not even tell us; we only hear it from these men. she is killing herself with work (which they all say no one else can do, no one else has the threads of it, or the perseverance for it), and yet no one will ever know it. others will have all the credit of the very things she suggested and introduced, at the cost one may say of life and comfort of all kinds, for it is an intolerable life she is leading--lying down between whiles to enable her just to go on, not seeing her nearest and dearest, because, with her breath so hurried, all talking must be spared except what is necessary, and all excitement, that she may devote every energy to the work.... aunt mai says again to-day how mr. herbert is in sometimes twice a day and dr. sutherland the whole day (but please don't tell any one), because she alone can give facts which no one else hardly possesses, because she knows the bearings of the whole which no one else has followed, has both the smallest details at her fingers' ends and the great general views of the whole--what is to be gained and what avoided. while miss nightingale was lying ill at malvern, she was being courted in counterfeit at manchester. her parents and sister were visiting manchester to see the "art treasures exhibition," and the newspapers had included florence in the party. the sightseers, wrote lady verney, took lady newport, "a very sweetlooking woman in black," for florence and "treated her like a saint of the middle ages. 'let me touch your shawl only,' they said as they crowded round, or 'let me stroke your arm.' mrs. gaskell told me we could have no idea how deep the feeling is for you in the hearts of the people." the feeling would perhaps have been yet deeper if the people had known the work which miss nightingale was still doing, and the delicate health from which she was suffering. at the end of 1857 she thought that death might overtake her in the middle of her work with sidney herbert, and she wrote this letter to him "to be sent when i am dead":- 30 old burlington street, _november_ 26, 1857. dear mr. herbert- (1) i hope you will not regret the manner of my death. i know that you will be kind enough to regret the fact of it. you have sometimes said that you were sorry you had employed me. i assure you that it has kept me alive. i am sorry not to stay alive to do the "nurses." but i can't help it. "lord, here i am, send me" has always been religion to me. i must be willing to go now as i was to go to the east. you know i always thought it the greatest of your kindnesses sending me there. perhaps he wants a "sanitary officer" now for my crimeans in some other world where they are gone.--(2) i have no fears for the army now. you have always been our "cid"--the true chivalrous sort--which is to be the defender of what is weak and ugly and dirty and undefended, rather than of what is beautiful and artistic. you are so now more than ever for us. "us" means in my language the troops and me.--(3) i hope you will have no chivalrous ideas about what is "due" to my "memory." the only thing that can be "due" to me is what is good for the troops. i always thought thus while i was alive. and i am not likely to think otherwise now that i am dead. whatever your own judgment has accepted from me will come with far greater force from yourself. whatever your own judgment has rejected would come with no force at all.--(4) what remains to be done has, however, already been sanctioned by your judgment:--(i.) as to army medical council, army medical school, general hospital scheme, gymnastics; (ii.) as to what dr. sutherland must needs do for the sanitary branch; (iii.) as to colonial barracks,--canadian, mediterranean, w. and e. indian.--(5) i am very sorry about the nursing scheme. it seems like leaving it in the lurch. mrs. shaw stewart is the only woman i know who will do for superintendent of army nurses.--believe me ever, while i can say god bless you, yours gratefully, f. nightingale. then she asked her uncle to assist her in making a will. she was anxious about the nightingale fund, to the management of which she had not as yet been able to devote attention. she proposed to leave it to st. thomas's hospital. the property to which she would ultimately be entitled upon the death of her father and mother she proposed to apply to the building of a model barrack according to her ideas; "that is, with day-rooms for the men, separate places to sleep in (like jebb's asylum at fulham), lavatories, gymnastic-places, reading-rooms, etc., not forgetting the wives, but having a kind of model lodging-house for the married men." in a letter of instructions to her uncle, she named sir john mcneill, mr. herbert, and dr. sutherland as the men who would best carry out such a plan. she included a few family bequests; but what was nearest to her heart at this time was to leave personal keepsakes to mrs. herbert and other friends who had "worked for her long and faithfully." for this purpose, in order that there might be no question about possession, she begged her sister to send up to london from embley various goods and chattels which had personal association with herself. and she had one other wish; it related to her "children." "the associations with our men," she wrote to her sister (dec. 11), "amount to me to what i never should have expected to feel--a superstition, which makes me wish to be buried in the crimea, absurd as i know it to be. _for they are not there._" chapter iv reaping the fruit (1858-1860) with aching hands, and bleeding feet we dig and heap, lay stone on stone; we bear the burden and the heat of the long day, and wish 'twere done. not till the hours of light return, all we have built do we discern. matthew arnold. "you must now feel," wrote sir john mcneill to miss nightingale (may 13, 1858), when her work for the health of the british soldier at home was beginning to bear fruit, "that you have not laboured in vain, that you have made your talent ten talents, and that to you more than to any other man or woman alive, will henceforth be due the welfare and efficiency of the british army. napoleon said that in military affairs the moral are to the physical forces as four to one, but you have shown that he greatly underrated their value. the rapidity with which you have obtained unanimous consent to your principles much exceeds my expectations. i never dared to doubt that truth and justice and mercy would prevail, but i did not hope to live long enough to see their triumph when we first communed here of such things.[272] i thank god that i have lived to see your success." sir john's thanksgiving was caused by the tone and the result of a debate which had taken place in the house of commons upon may 11, 1858. lord ebrington, prompted by mr. herbert and miss nightingale, had moved a series of resolutions with regard to the health of the army, founded upon the report of the royal commission. he had laid special stress upon the figures, due to miss nightingale's insight and industry, comparing the mortality in the army and in civil life respectively; he called attention to the horrible state of the barracks, and his resolutions concluded thus: "that in the opinion of this house, improvements are imperatively called for not less by good policy and true economy, than by justice and humanity." the government accepted the resolutions, and miss nightingale's campaign had thus obtained the unanimous approval of the house of commons. [272] at edinburgh in the autumn of 1856; see above, pp. 321, 328. * * * * * she had worked indefatigably, and through many channels, and she continued so to work, in order to focus and stimulate public opinion in the sense of lord ebrington's resolutions. by the end of 1857 the sub-commissions on army medical reform were making good progress, and the report of the royal commission was about to be published. she devised an effective means of forcing its salient feature upon the attention of every person most concerned in the evils or most influential towards securing the necessary remedies. i have referred already (p. 352) to her diagrams illustrative of the mortality in the british army. as finally prepared with dr. farr's assistance, they showed most effectively at a glance, by means of shaded or coloured squares, circles and wedges, (1) the deaths due to preventable causes in the hospitals during the crimean war, and (2) the rate of mortality in the british army at home: "our soldiers enlist," as she put it, "to death in the barracks." she now wrote a memorandum, explaining the diagrams and pointing their moral, and had 2000 copies printed. this anonymous publication--entitled _mortality of the british army_--is called in her correspondence _coxcombs_, primarily from the shape and colours of her diagrams. she had proposed, and mr. herbert agreed, that the memorandum and diagrams should be included as an appendix in his report, in order that her pamphlet might appear as "reprinted from the report of the royal commission," and thus be given the greater authority. so soon as the report was issued, she distributed her _coxcombs_ to the queen and other members of the royal family, to ministers, to leading members of both houses of parliament, and to medical and commanding officers throughout the country, in india and in the colonies. she had a few copies of the diagrams glazed and framed, and three of these she sent to the war office, the horse guards, and the army medical department. i do not know whether these departments hung up the present. "it is our flank march upon the enemy," she wrote in sending an early copy to sir john mcneill, "and we might give it the old name of _god's revenge upon murder_." the report of the royal commission appeared at the beginning of february (1858), and the secretary sent one of the earliest copies to miss nightingale. "i like him very much," she replied (feb. 5); "i think he looks very handsome. lady tulloch says i make my pillow of blue-books. it certainly has been the case with this." she did not sleep over it, however. she was immediately up and doing. among her papers there is a curious collection of letters and memoranda, partly in her handwriting, partly in that of mr. and mrs. herbert, showing how industriously they set to work to pull wires in the press. the monthly and quarterly reviews were in those days deemed of great importance in influencing public opinion, and miss nightingale drew up and sent for mr. herbert's criticism a list of the principal among them, entering against each magazine or review the name of the writer whom she designated as the ideal contributor of an article upon the report. they had as much trouble in adjusting the parts as a theatrical manager finds in settling his cast. lord stanley, for example, promised to write, but he was particular about his place of appearance. it must be the _westminster review_ or nowhere, and miss nightingale had already allotted that place to the principal star, mr. herbert himself.[273] and, moreover, the managers in this instance were drawing up a cast for other people's houses, and the editors did not in all cases prove amenable. mr. elwin, the editor of the _quarterly_, rejected the article submitted to him. but mr. reeve, of the _edinburgh_, was an old friend of miss nightingale, and he accepted her nominee, though he displeased her by mangling the article in the ministerial interest. however, in the dailies, the monthlies and the quarterlies, the report had, on the whole, "a good press," and, what is no less important for influencing public opinion, a prompt press. [273] his article appeared in the _westminster_ for january 1859, and long extracts are given in _stanmore_, vol. ii. pp. 141-8. miss nightingale read it in manuscript and contributed much material. ii these things had hardly been arranged when there was a political crisis, and this involved miss nightingale and her allies in additional work. lord palmerston's government was defeated on the conspiracy bill, and resigned. lord derby came in (feb. 25), with general peel as secretary for war. here, then, we say good-bye, for the present, to "the bison." he had been dilatory to the last. mr. herbert had hoped to see the army medical school established in january, and had written to miss nightingale to nominate suitable men for the various chairs--"not," he added despairingly, "that panmure would appoint any one even if the angel gabriel had offered himself, st. michael and all angels to fill the different chairs. he is very slow to move." miss nightingale took formal leave of lord panmure later in the year, in sending him a copy of one of her books. "you shock me," he replied from the highlands (nov.), "by telling me i once called you 'a turbulent fellow.' had any one else said so, i should have denied it, but i must have been vilely rude. accept my apology now; and to bribe you to do so, i send you a box of grouse." mr. herbert at first cherished high hopes of lord panmure's successor. miss nightingale and mr. herbert were particularly anxious upon a personal point. the army medical department had not yet been reformed, and it was known that sir andrew smith would shortly retire. by seniority sir john hall would have claims to the post, and his appointment would, the allies considered, be disastrous to the cause of reform; it would be useless, they felt, to frame new regulations without an infusion of new blood. this, therefore, was the first point on which representations were made to lord panmure's successor. "i have seen general peel," wrote mr. herbert to miss nightingale (feb. 27), "and he promised to make no appointment nor to take any step in regard to the medical department or sanitary measures till he has conferred with me. i think peel may do well if we can put him well in possession of the case." general peel duly did what they wanted on this personal issue. "i hope we may assume," wrote mr. herbert to miss nightingale (may 25), "that smith is really gone. it is no use trying to realize the enormous importance of such a fact." they must now, he continued, "fix the appointment of alexander." three days later he wrote to dr. sutherland: "please tell miss n. that i warned peel against the expected recommendation of sir j. hall, and he will, i think, be prepared to turn a deaf ear to it. i wrote yesterday to him on another subject and threw in some praise of alexander." such is the gentle art of influencing ministers. on june 11 dr. t. alexander was appointed to succeed sir andrew smith. dr. alexander unhappily died suddenly at the beginning of 1860, but it was a great thing for the reformers, at a time when the army medical department was being recast, to have one of themselves at the head of it, instead of a supporter of the _ancien régime_. "i cannot say," wrote mr. herbert to miss nightingale (sept. 16, 1858), "how glad i am to have your account of alexander. everything _in futuro_ must depend on him. you cannot maintain a commission sitting permanently _in terrorem_ over the director-general, and alexander seems able and willing to be his own commission." so the allies had done at least one good stroke of business with general peel. another of the new ministers--lord stanley, the colonial secretary--was also helpful. "he will send the _coxcombs_ out to the colonial governors," wrote mr. herbert (march 16); "he offered any service his position can enable him to give to assist our cause, and suggests that a commission should inspect colonial barracks, and he proposes to discuss the matter with you." presently, however, lord stanley was moved from the colonial to the india office; where miss nightingale enlisted his interest in another sanitary campaign, which was thenceforward to fill a large space in her working life, as will appear in a later part. so, then, the new government seemed promising; but it soon began to appear that at the war office the cobwebs were beyond the power of the new broom to sweep away. some reforms were carried out, but the permanent officials were as obstructive under general peel as under lord panmure. "these war office subs.," wrote mr. herbert to miss nightingale (june 29), "are intolerable--half a dozen fellows sitting down to compose minutes just for the fun of the thing on a subject which they cannot possibly know anything about! peel ought not to let these subs. interfere, spoil and delay as they do. that office wants a thorough recasting, but i doubt whether peel is the man to do it. he has a clear head and good sense, but i think he is over-powered by the amount of work which panmure by the simple process of never attempting to do it found so easy." but alike amid hope and care, amid fear and anger, mr. herbert and miss nightingale worked away at their reforms unceasingly. throughout the year 1858 she was in a very weak state of health. she divided her time, as before, between malvern and old burlington street, travelling backwards and forwards in an invalid carriage, and escorted by mr. clough, now sworn to her service. her aunt, mrs. smith, was still in frequent attendance upon her. her father was with her for a while at malvern, and, like every one else, enjoined the desirability of rest. "well, my dear child," he wrote afterwards from lea hurst (sept. 25), "it's no small matter to see your handwriting again, and to make believe that you are a good deal more than half alive. but the worst of it is, that there's no depending upon you for any persistence in curing yourself, while you have so many others to cure. i often wonder how it is that you who care so little for your own life should have such wonderful love for the lives of others." she seldom saw her mother and sister. in june 1858 her sister married. "thank you very much," wrote miss nightingale to lady mcneill (july 17), "for your congratulations on my sister's marriage, which took place last month. _she_ likes it, which is the main thing. and my father is very fond of sir harry verney, which is the next best thing. he is old and rich, which is a disadvantage. he is active, has a will of his own and four children ready-made, which is an advantage. unmarried life, at least in our class, takes everything and gives nothing back to this poor earth. it runs no risk, it gives no pledge to life. so, on the whole, i think these reflections tend to approbation." for herself she "thinks," wrote her aunt, "that each day may be the last on which she will have power to work." and her ally, mr. herbert, was also feeling the strain. he had all the four sub-commissions at work, and from time to time during this year (1858) he broke down--on one occasion under a sharp attack of pleurisy. it was now miss nightingale's turn to lecture him. she wrote to mrs. herbert, begging her not to let sidney call. "i really am not ill," he wrote (march 18), "only washy and weak, while i always recover wonderfully, and paying you a visit to-morrow will do me no harm but the contrary." she wrote to mr. herbert himself, suggesting a cure at malvern. "i should like to come," he said (sept. 16), "and look at the place which i have a notion i shall some day go to, and see you episodically, unless you had rather not be seen." but i do not think that either of the allies expected, or desired, the other to take the advice which they interchanged. well or ill, each of them worked unrestingly. iii upon the matter of barracks, mr. herbert did the harder work.[274] he inspected barracks and hospitals throughout the kingdom; he wrote or revised each report upon them. but he or dr. sutherland, or captain galton, or all of them, reported the results of each inspection to their "chief," as they sometimes called her, and she was unfailing in suggestions and criticisms. when the london barracks were being overhauled (for general peel had obtained a substantial grant from the treasury for immediate improvements), the "woman's touch" came into play. she called into counsel her crimean colleague, mr. soyer, and took the improvement of the kitchens in hand. the work was only just begun when mr. soyer died suddenly. "his death," she wrote to captain galton (aug. 28), "is a great disaster. others have studied cookery for the purposes of gormandizing, some for show, but none but he for the purpose of cooking large quantities of food in the most nutritious manner for great numbers of men. he has no successor. my only comfort is that you were imbued before his death with his doctrines, and that the barracks commission will now take up the matter for itself." in the work of the other three sub-commissions miss nightingale had a large share. mr. herbert, dr. sutherland, dr. farr (statistics) were in constant consultation with her, personally or by correspondence. there are hundreds of letters to her at this period, full of technical detail. "i give in," writes mr. herbert; "your arguments are not to be answered." "i want your help very much." "i send a disagreeable letter i have received from sir j. hall. i will call on you to-morrow and talk it over." "i send you a copy of the instructions." "i want help and advice." at every stage of each transaction the allies were in close co-operation. the correspondence with dr. sutherland is sometimes in a lighter vein, and mrs. sutherland's letters to miss nightingale are deeply affectionate. but the doctor, who was not always very business-like, sometimes tried the patience of the exacting lady-in-chief. her aunt records a day when a tiff with dr. sutherland caused her niece a serious attack of palpitation of the heart. mr. herbert was ill at the time and was waiting for a draft, which dr. sutherland was to prepare, for submission to the secretary of state. miss nightingale was requested to put pressure upon the doctor. at last the draft came, and mr. herbert did not like it. he begged miss nightingale to use her influence in obtaining some revisions. dr. sutherland did not take this move kindly, and declined to call upon her. the quarrel, however, was speedily composed. at a later date, miss nightingale spent some weeks in the house of william and mary howitt at highgate. "it is not a mere phrase," wrote mary howitt, "when i say that we shall feel as if she had left a blessing behind." i suspect that this visit was in order to enable miss nightingale to keep a firmer touch upon the "big baby," as she and mrs. sutherland sometimes called the doctor. "this is the first day of grouse shooting, caratina," wrote he, when the barracks commissioners were in the north; "but as you will allow none of your 'wives' to go to the moors, the festival has passed off without observance." [274] the original members of the barracks and hospitals commission were mr. herbert, dr. sutherland (miss nightingale's constant colleague), and captain galton (married to her cousin). it was appointed october 1857. its general report (presented to parliament, 1861) was dated april 1861 (see below, p. 388). it had previously issued many interim reports. reconstituted, it ultimately became a permanent body (vol. ii. p. 64). thus, then, the reformers worked during 1858. their main labours were interrupted in the middle of the year by a last fight over the netley hospital. lord panmure had gone ahead with the building in spite of miss nightingale's objections and of her conversion of lord palmerston to her views (p. 341). but since then, the report of the royal commission had appeared, the hospitals and barracks sub-commission had presented an _interim_ report against netley, and there was a new secretary of state. mr. herbert and miss nightingale made a hard fight, and she wrote a series of newspaper articles[275] in the hope of stirring up public opinion. but general peel was actuated by the same motives that governed lord panmure. he appointed another committee to report on the adverse report, and proceeded with the building. "unhappily, the country which has led the van in sanitary science," says an impartial authority, "has as its chief military hospital a building far from satisfactory."[276] [275] see bibliography a, no. 10. [276] professor f. de chaumont in the 9th ed. of the _encyclopædia britannica_. netley is, however, no longer the chief military hospital. miss nightingale's final defeat on this particular issue suggested to her the importance of instructing public opinion upon the whole question of hospital construction. she accordingly contributed two papers on the subject to the social science congress at liverpool in october 1858. her friend, dr. farr, who was present, reported the marked attention which the reading of the papers attracted, and at the request of lord shaftesbury, the president of the congress, miss nightingale presented her manuscript to the city of liverpool as a memento of the occasion. these papers were the germ of her famous _notes on hospitals_, to which we shall come in the next part of this memoir. iv on the main issue of army medical reform, miss nightingale sought to influence public opinion by the distribution among carefully selected persons of her _notes on matters affecting the health, efficiency and hospital administration of the british army_. the _notes_ were written, and for the most part printed, in the preceding year, and i have already described them. the distribution of them at this time brought her letters of encouragement from many of the most illustrious and influential personages in the land. the prince consort, in an autograph letter of thanks, took occasion to assure her once more of "the queen's high appreciation of her services." the princess royal, then crown princess of prussia, begged for a copy; and miss nightingale, in reply (nov. 9), asked sir james clark to express for her how "very gratifying the princess royal's kind message was. i cannot tell you the deep interest i feel in that young heart so full of all that is true and good, or with what pleasure i anticipate the benefit to her country and ours from her being what she is." these two women, between whom there were many points of sympathy, were often to correspond and to meet in later years. the duke of cambridge, in a particularly cordial letter, assured miss nightingale "that the whole army is most sensible of the devotion with which you may be said to have sacrificed yourself to its work on a recent memorable occasion, and i cannot but add my personal admiration of your noble conduct on that as on all other occasions." the duke added the hope that from time to time he might have it in his power to carry out her "valuable suggestions for the comfort and welfare of the troops." miss nightingale often trounced the commander-in-chief in her correspondence. he had so little sympathy with any radical reform that she could not consider his popular title of "the soldier's friend" to be really well deserved. yet she had a certain fondness for him, and was alive to his better qualities. she had seen him first during the crimean war, and she recalled a characteristic incident. "what makes 'george' popular," she wrote, "is this kind of thing. in going round the scutari hospitals at their worst time with me, he recognized a sergeant of the guards (he has a royal memory, always a great passport to popularity) who had had at least one-third of his body shot away, and said to him with a great oath, calling him by his christian and surname, 'aren't you dead yet?' the man said to me afterwards, 'sa feelin' o' is royal ighness, wasn't it, m'm?' with tears in his eyes. george's manner is very popular, his oaths are popular, with the army. and he is certainly the best man, both of business and of nature, at the horse guards: that, even i admit. and there is no man i should like to see in his place."[277] [277] letter to harriet martineau, october 8, 1861. large as were miss nightingale's schemes for army reorganization, she never dared to suggest the abolition of the horse guards and the retirement of its chief. miss nightingale was careful to send copies of her _notes_ to those who, by their pens, could influence public opinion. among these was harriet martineau, to whom miss nightingale wrote (nov. 30): "the report is in no sense public property. and i have a great horror of its being made use of after my death by _women's missionaries_ and those kinds of people. i am brutally indifferent to the wrongs or the rights of my sex. and i should have been equally so to any controversy as to whether women ought or ought not to do what i have done for the army; though a woman, having the opportunity and _not_ doing it, ought, i think, to be burnt alive." miss martineau, promising to be discreet, asked if she might make use of miss nightingale's facts and suggestions. the offer was promptly accepted, and miss martineau was supplied with copious powder and shot. miss nightingale was probably the more attracted by miss martineau's offer to popularise her _notes_ owing to a very earnest letter from dean milman. he had read the _notes_ "with serious attention and profound interest," and asked (dec. 18): "is all this important knowledge, this strong practical good sense, this result of much toil, thought, experience to be confined to half-averted official ears, to be forced only on the reluctant attention of a few, and most of these too busy and perhaps too opinionated to profit by it? is it to be buried in that most undisturbed grave of wise thought and useful information, a blue book? that most repulsive, unapproached, unapproachable place of sepulture? surely you have not lived and laboured your life of devotion, your labour of love, to leave public opinion untouched and unenlightened but by what may creep out, as the general result of your views, or what may be adopted by government, perhaps imperfectly and parsimoniously? are the many, who alone by the expression of their judgment and feelings can keep the few up to their work, and encourage them by their approval and co-operation, to remain ignorant of what is of such vital import to the army, to the country, to mankind?" a series of articles by miss martineau in _the daily news_, and afterwards a popular volume,[278] carried miss nightingale's suggestions, at second-hand, into a large circle. between these two women there was a marked attraction. the correspondence about the illness and death of miss martineau's niece, and her reliance upon miss nightingale's sympathy, are particularly touching. each of them had sorrows, each was seriously ill, and each alike at once turned to her public work. [278] _england and her soldiers_, by harriet martineau, 1859. miss nightingale's "coxcomb" diagrams were reproduced in this volume. she revised miss martineau's ms., supplemented the publisher's fee to the author, and bought £20 worth of the book for presentation to reading-rooms. at the end of 1858 miss nightingale put out one of the most effective of her controversial pieces. her facts and figures about the mortality of the army in the east, as printed in her _notes_ and in the royal commission's report, had not passed unchallenged, and a pamphlet had appeared calling them in question. mr. herbert and miss nightingale suspected in it the hand of sir john hall, and she immediately prepared a reply. this is entitled _a contribution to the sanitary history of the british army during the late war with russia_. it was published, early in 1859, anonymously, but all her friends detected her "roman hand." the pamphlet which provoked it is dismissed in a contemptuous footnote: "an obscure pamphlet, circulated without a printer's name, reproduces nearly every possible statistical blunder on this and other points. it purports to be a defence of the defunct army medical department, 'by a non-commissioner,' but it is more like a _jeu d'esprit_." the answer contained in the body of miss nightingale's brochure is conclusive, and the "coxcombs" were repeated in a yet more telling and attractive form than before. it is the most concise, the most scathing, and the most eloquent of all her accounts of the preventable mortality which she had witnessed in the east. "in a few truthful words," wrote sir john mcneill, in acknowledging an early copy (dec. 26), "you have told the whole dreadful story, and i do not think that we shall hear any more of controversial medical statistics. 'facts are chiels that winna ding and downa be disputed.' so sang burns, and he was seldom mistaken in his opinions. i have read every word of the _contribution_, and pondered every column and diagram, and i come to the conclusion that it is complete and unanswerable, but that it would be disparaging to such a work to regard it as controversial. i wish with all my heart that every young officer in the british army had a copy of it. the old i have little hope of." miss nightingale's mastery of the art of marshalling facts to logical conclusions was recognized by her election in 1858 as a member of the statistical society. v the new year (1859) brought an event of great importance to the cause of army reform. in march, lord derby's stop-gap government was defeated on mr. disraeli's reform bill, and after a general election lord palmerston returned to power. mr. sidney herbert, who for some years had been working at army reform as an outsider, now became secretary for war. "i must send you a line," he wrote to miss nightingale (june 13), "to tell you that i have undertaken the ministry of war. i have undertaken it because in certain branches of administration i believe that i can be of use, but i do not disguise from myself the severity of the task nor the probability of my proving unequal to it. but i know that you will be pleased to hear of my being there.... i will try to ride down to you to-morrow afternoon. god bless you!" mr. herbert's task was not rendered less severe by the appointment of mr. gladstone as chancellor of the exchequer. they were close and affectionate friends, but public economy was with mr. gladstone the greater friend. much of mr. herbert's strength was exhausted in disputes with the chancellor of the exchequer over the question of the national defences. mrs. herbert sent to miss nightingale the current riddle: "why is gladstone like a lobster?" "because he is so good, but he disagrees with everybody." mr. herbert could by no means always count upon the treasury for consent in all his schemes for improving the sanitary and moral condition of the army. still he was able, as secretary of state, to accomplish a great deal; and it will be convenient here,--with some slight anticipation, in certain cases, of chronological order--to summarize shortly the fruits of the long collaboration between mr. herbert and miss nightingale for the health of the british soldier. she herself wrote such a summary in 1861, in a paper to which reference has been made already (p. 312), and i often use her own words. the barracks and hospitals improvement commission had already done a good deal when he came into office, and he continued the work. buildings were ventilated and warmed. drainage was introduced or improved. the water-supply was extended. the kitchens were remodelled. gas was introduced in place of the couple of "dips," by the light of which it was impossible for the men to read or pursue any occupation except smoking. structural improvements were made in many cases, and mr. herbert, so far as he could extract money from the treasury, reconstructed buildings which had been condemned by his commission. this policy was abandoned for many years after his death, and later generations heard in consequence of sanitary scandals in barracks at windsor and dublin and elsewhere. the general report of the barracks and hospitals commission, dated april 1861, was presented to parliament in that year, and many of miss nightingale's friends, on reading it, referred to it as "her book." they were not far wrong, for much of the report, and especially the long section dealing with the proper principles of hospital and barrack construction, was in large measure her work. miss nightingale, in order to ensure that such principles should be better understood and carried out in the future, induced mr. herbert to appoint a special barracks works committee, "to report as to measures to simplify and improve the system under which all works and buildings, other than fortifications, are constructed, repaired, and maintained, in order to give a more direct responsibility to the persons employed in those duties." of this committee captain galton was a member, and the draft report was submitted to miss nightingale for criticism and suggestion.[279] there are many causes to which the improved health of the army in our own time may be attributed, but the chief of them has probably been the improvement of barrack accommodation, and for this the name of florence nightingale deserves to be held in grateful remembrance by the army and by the nation. [279] for its appointment, see below, p. 405; and for the successive committees, etc., in connection with barracks, see the index, vol. ii. (_under_ barrack). as a supplement to the improvements in barrack kitchens, mr. herbert introduced a reform in a direction which miss nightingale had pressed upon lord panmure's attention[280]; he established a school of practical cookery at aldershot, for the training of regimental and hospital cooks in the art of giving men a wholesome meal. miss nightingale had been painfully impressed in the crimea by the importance of this reform. [280] see above, p. 331. the school of cookery at aldershot is mentioned in the _general report_ of the barracks commission, 1861, p. 114 _n._ the second sub-commission was charged with the duty of reorganizing the army medical statistics. this was one of the requirements of rational reform which had most forcibly struck miss nightingale in the east. the emphasis which she laid upon this side of her experience, the persistence with which she pressed the matter, the statistical skill with which she showed the way to a better system, are amongst the most valuable of her services to the cause of army reform. when the suggestions of the sub-commission were carried out, the british army statistics became the best and most useful then obtainable in europe.[281] [281] the committee on army medical statistics (mr. herbert, sir a. tulloch, and dr. farr) reported in june 1858, and its report was printed in 1861. in the same year the _first annual statistical report on the health of the army_ (issued in march) was printed; it was compiled by dr. t. graham balfour, who was appointed head of the statistical branch of the army medical department. the third sub-commission was to carry out another of miss nightingale's favourite ideas: the establishment of an army medical school. there were here the most wearisome delays and obstructions,[282] and it was not until mr. herbert himself became secretary of state that he was able to give effect to his sub-commission's report. and even then, as soon as the minister's personal oversight was averted, the war office "subs." set to work to defeat their chief. mr. herbert had appointed the staff in 1859, but it was not till september 1860 that the first students arrived at fort pitt, chatham. they promptly came to the conclusion "that the school was a hoax." as well they might, for the school was without fittings or instruments of any kind! the explanation, which may be read elsewhere,[283] is remarkable even in the annals of departmental muddles. there was, apparently, no method known to the red-tape of the routine-men whereby the school could be fitted, and it might have remained empty indefinitely, but that a trenchant letter from miss nightingale secured the personal intervention of the secretary of state. "there! at last!" wrote mr. herbert to her, in forwarding the official order at the end of its long travels through departments and sub-departments. the army medical school was peculiarly miss nightingale's child, and she watched over its early stages with constant solicitude. mr. herbert had commissioned her, in consultation with sir james clark, to make the regulations. she had the nomination of the professors. for the chair of hygiene she nominated dr. e. a. parkes, whose acquaintance she had made during the crimean war. it would be difficult to exaggerate the services which the stimulating teaching of this great sanitarian rendered to the cause of military hygiene. he had much correspondence with miss nightingale in connection with the syllabus of his first course of lectures. in every administrative difficulty the professors went to her for help. the correspondence between her and dr. aitken[284] is especially voluminous. she had made a successful fight, against much opposition, to have pathology included in the professoriate, and dr. aitken was ultimately appointed to the chair. he it was who set miss nightingale in motion about the fittings of the school. he often asked her to "give us another push." "kind thanks," he wrote (march 1861) when a further hitch had arisen, "for placing our train on the proper line." her intervention at headquarters was necessary even to extract pay for the professors. "i have just received an intimation from the war office," dr. aitken wrote to her (aug. 7, 1860), "that sir john kirkland has been authorised to issue my pay; so i presume the numerous officials concerned have been able to satisfy each other that i am in existence. the 'at once' in this instance is equal to six days--an activity i am inclined to believe is due to your exertions on sunday." sunday was the day of the week on which, if on no other, she always saw mr. herbert. dr. aitken was sarcastic, and not without cause, about the circumlocution office; but it is possible that the fault was not always only on one side. professors are said to be sometimes "children" in matters of business; and on one tale of woe addressed to miss nightingale, the docket (in dr. sutherland's handwriting, but doubtless at her dictation) is this: "i hope the present difficulty has been got over, but it will be well to bear in mind that the school is so nearly connected with the administrative part of the war office, that all your future proceedings, whether by minute or otherwise, should be concise and practical." the school survived the perils of its infancy, and introduced a most beneficent reform by affording means of instruction in military hygiene and practice to candidates for the army medical service. "formerly," as miss nightingale wrote, "young men were sent to attend sick and wounded soldiers, who _perhaps_ had never dressed a serious wound, or never attended a bedside, except in the midst of a crowd of students, following in the wake of some eminent lecturer, who _certainly_ had never been instructed in the most ordinary sanitary knowledge, although one of their most important functions was hereafter to be the prevention of disease in climates and under circumstances where _prevention_ is everything, and medical treatment often little or nothing." miss nightingale's services as the true founder of the school were publicly acknowledged at the time. dr. longmore, the professor of military surgery, told the students that it was she "whose opinion, derived from large experience and remarkable sagacity in observation, exerted an especial influence in originating and establishing this school."[285] "in the army medical school just instituted," wrote sir james clark, "hygiene will form the most important branch of the young medical officer's instruction. for originating this school we have to thank miss nightingale, who, had her long and persevering efforts effected no other improvement in the army, would have conferred by this alone an inestimable boon upon the british soldier."[286] [282] the story of them may be read in _stanmore_, vol. ii. pp. 364-8. [283] _stanmore_, vol. ii. p. 367. [284] sir william aitken (1825-1892), m.d. of edinburgh; assistant-pathologist to a medical commission during the crimean war; f.r.s. 1873; knighted, 1887. he held the professorship from 1860 till the year of his death. [285] _introductory address at fort pitt_, _chatham_, october 2, 1860, by deputy-inspector-general t. longmore, p. 7. [286] introduction, p. 20, to a new edition (1860) of andrew combe's _management of infancy_. the school was afterwards moved to netley. it is now in london, is one of the medical schools in the university, and is placed in convenient proximity to a military hospital. the tate gallery, on the embankment at millbank, stands between two buildings which are of peculiar interest to any one concerned in the life and work of florence nightingale. to the east of the gallery is the royal alexandra hospital, a general military hospital for the london district. it is built, of course, on the "pavilion" plan, and in every other respect conforms to miss nightingale's ideas of what a hospital should be--with many additions to its resources, which the progress of science has suggested since her day. a complete apparatus for x-ray treatment, capable of being packed into five cases for service in the field, is likely to attract the special attention of a visitor. but in connection with miss nightingale there was something else which struck me more. as i went through the surgical wards with the commandant, the smart "orderlies" (old style, now the trained men of the army medical corps) stood at attention. the colonel entered into conversation with the sergeant of a ward. he was awaiting promotion until he had qualified in the hospital, under the matron, sisters, and staff nurses. promotion in the corps is now dependent on an examination _plus_ a certificate from the nursing authorities. into how great a thing has the introduction of female nursing for the army, due to miss nightingale, grown, and how ironical are some of time's revenges which the development has brought with it! originally the female nurses occupied the lowest place; sometimes they were little more than superior domestics, often they were amateurs, and their position was always a little nondescript. now they represent the most highly-trained and professional element, and without a certificate from them no male hospital attendant can win full promotion! and there was another thing that struck me. after a tour of the surgical wards, i inquired about the medical wards; but time was pressing, "and you would find little to see there," said the colonel, "for the army is so healthy in these days that there are few medical cases."[287] [287] it should perhaps be explained that venereal cases are treated in a separate hospital. on the west of the tate gallery stands another, and a larger, pile of buildings. these are occupied by the royal army medical college, through which every army medical officer has now to pass both a preliminary and a post-graduate course. shortly before i visited the college, i had been reading the large mass of miss nightingale's papers which contain her first suggestions for the foundation of the school, with her drafts for its rules and regulations; and which describe the struggles and difficulties of its humble infancy. and then i was taken through the noble institution into which it has developed; equipped with large laboratories which are, i believe, among the best in the country, with smaller laboratories for private research; with a department for those "cultures" which are said to have done so much to preserve the health of the army in india[288]; with a spacious lecture-theatre, a fine library, a large museum; and with handsome mess-rooms for the comfort and convenience of studious youth. the transition was like a transformation-scene in a pantomime. the fairy godmother of the college would have rejoiced to see it. only one thing seemed to me to be wanting. there are portraits or other memorials of many of the men whose acquaintance we have made in these pages. in the entrance lobby there is a bust of dr. thomas alexander, whose appointment as director-general miss nightingale procured. in the smoking-room there are portraits of the first professors whom she nominated. i noticed no memorial of the two founders to whom the original institution of the college was due--sidney herbert and florence nightingale. [288] this is a department of the college which would not have appealed to miss nightingale. she loathed and mocked at inoculation. "oh, yes, i know," she once said; "they will give you smallpox or diphtheria or plague or anything you like. you pays your money, and you takes your choice." the last of the four sub-commissions--the "wiping" sub-commission--had very varied duties assigned to it, and there was no branch of the reform bill which encountered more stubborn opposition from the permanent officials. one of mr. herbert's many letters to miss nightingale on the subject speaks of the "gross ignorance, and darkness beyond all hope" of the principal obstructive, who maintained that the idea of a sanitary official was all fudge. some of the work of this sub-commission need not be detailed here. it framed a new army medical officers' warrant (issued by general peel in 1858), and reorganized the army medical department (1859). these were useful steps at the time, but there have been so many new warrants and so many war office reorganizations since then that this part of the reforms of mr. herbert and miss nightingale belongs in any detail only to ancient history. the case is different with the general work of the wiping sub-commission. here also there have been new developments, and some of the forms have been changed; but in substance, these have all been built upon the foundations laid in the years 1859-60. to miss nightingale primarily, and to her more than to any other individual, is due the recognition of a principle which may seem self-evident at the present time, but which was entirely novel in her day--the principle that the army medical department should care for the soldier's _health_ as well as for his _sickness_. the sub-commission--or to go behind the form to the reality, miss nightingale and mr. herbert--drew up a code for introducing the sanitary element in the army, defining the positions of commanding and medical officers and their relative duties regarding the soldier's health, and constituting the regimental surgeon the sanitary adviser of his commanding officer. the same code contained regulations for organizing general hospitals, and for improving the administration of regimental hospitals, both in peace and during war. formerly, general hospitals in the field had to be improvised, on no defined principles and on no defined personal responsibility. the wonder is, not that they broke down, as they did in all our wars, but that they could be made to stand at all. in all our wars, again, the general hospitals had been signal failures--examples, as during the earlier months at scutari, of how to kill, not to cure. the general hospital system, devised in the code--including its governor, principal medical officer, captain of orderlies, female nurses, and their superintendent (mrs. shaw stewart)--was realized in 1861 in the hospital at woolwich. [illustration: _florence nightingale about 1858 from a photograph by goodman_] there were some other reforms introduced by mr. herbert, as secretary of state, which owed their origin to miss nightingale's experiences, observation, and suggestions. in january 1861 mr. herbert issued a new purveyor's warrant and regulations. hitherto "the purveying department, like many others, had no well-defined position, duties, or responsibilities. it was efficient or inefficient almost by chance. like other departments, it broke down when tried by war; and all its defects were visited on the sick and wounded men, for whose special benefit it professed to exist." the new code "defined with precision the duties of each class of purveying officers, together with their relation to the army medical department. they provided all necessaries and comforts for men in hospital (both in the field and at home) on fixed scales, instead of requiring sick and wounded men (even in the field) to bring with them into hospital articles for their own use, which they had lost before reaching it." the reader will remember how largely purveying defects entered into miss nightingale's difficulties in the east, and a reference to her letters from scutari will show that mr. herbert's code was based on the broad lines of her suggestions. as is hardly surprising, since she drafted the code in consultation with sir john mcneill. mr. herbert also appointed a committee to reorganize the army hospital corps (1860). "in former times there were no proper attendants on the sick. for regimental hospitals a steady man was appointed hospital sergeant, and two or three soldiers, fit for nothing else, were sent into the hospital to be under the orders of the medical officer, who, if he were fortunate enough to find one man fit to nurse a patient, was sure to lose him by his being recalled 'to duty'; sometimes, indeed, men were nominated in rotation over the sick in hospital as they would mount guard over a store. no special training was considered necessary; no one, except the medical officer, who was helpless, had the least idea that attendance on the sick is as much a special business as medical treatment. unsuccessful attempts had been made to organize a corps of orderlies, unconnected with regiments; the result was most unsatisfactory. mr. herbert's committee proposed to constitute a corps--the members of which, for regimental purposes, were to be carefully selected by the commanding and medical officers--specially trained for their duties, and then attached permanently to the regimental hospital." this reform, which owed much to miss nightingale's suggestions, was carried into effect shortly after mr. herbert's death. mr. herbert also took up those questions of the soldier's moral health in which miss nightingale had been a pioneer.[289] in 1861 he appointed a committee[290] to consider how best to provide soldiers' day-rooms and institutes, in order to counteract the moral evils supposed to be inseparable from garrisons and camps. the committee, of which miss nightingale's friends, colonel lefroy, captain galton, and dr. sutherland were members, showed that "the men's barracks can be made more of a home, can be better provided with libraries and reading-rooms; that separate rooms can be attached to barracks, where men can meet their comrades, sit with them, talk with them, have their newspaper and their coffee, if they want it, play innocent games, and write letters; that every barrack, in short, may easily be provided with a kind of soldiers' club, to which the men can resort when off duty, instead of to the everlasting barrack-room or the demoralizing dram-shop; and that in large camps or garrisons, such as aldershot and portsmouth, the men may easily have a club of their own out of barracks. the committee also recommended increased means of occupation, in the way of soldiers' workshops, out-door games and amusements, and rational recreation by lectures and other means. the plan was tried with great success at gibraltar, chatham, and montreal. mr. herbert's latest act was to direct an inquiry at aldershot as to the best means of introducing the system there." miss nightingale, in thus summarizing the case, did not state, what her correspondence shows to have been the fact, that she had been the prime mover in the appointment of the committee; that, as already related (p. 351), she had worked hard to obtain a reading-room, etc., at aldershot; and that, in the case of gibraltar, the equipment of the room owed much to gifts from her own private purse and to the contributions of personal friends (mrs. gaskell among them) whom she had interested in the scheme. here, as in so many other directions, miss nightingale's work as a pioneer has been greatly developed; and no modern barrack is deemed complete without its regimental institute, with recreation room, reading-room, coffee-room, and lecture-room, while means of out-door recreation and shops for various trades are also provided. [289] see above, p. 281. [290] this committee received its instructions on feb. 17, and reported on aug. 24, 1861. the report (1861) is no. 2867 in the parliamentary papers. vi in recounting mr. herbert's reforms, miss nightingale brought the results of them, after her usual manner, to the statistical test. she prefixed to her memoir some coloured diagrams showing how mr. herbert found the army and how he left it. in the three years 1859-60-61, just one-half of the englishmen who entered the army died (at home stations) per annum as formerly died. the total mortality at home stations from _all diseases_ had become less than was formerly the mortality from consumption and chest diseases _alone_. the results of comparisons of british armies in the field were equally striking. the china expedition put the reforms to the test. "an expeditionary force was sent to the opposite side of the world, into a hostile country, notorious for its epidemic diseases. every required arrangement for the preservation of health was made, with the result that the mortality of this force, including wounded, was little more than 3 per cent per annum, while the 'constantly sick' in hospital were about the same as at home. during the first months of the crimean war the mortality was at the rate of 60 per cent, and the 'constantly sick' in the hospitals were sevenfold those in the war hospitals in china." the improvement in the health of the army has, in peace at any rate, been progressive. in 1857 the annual rate of mortality in the army at home was 17·5 per 1000. forty years later it had fallen to 3·42. in 1911 it was 2·47. besides all this, mr. herbert undertook in 1859 the chairmanship of the royal commission on the sanitary state of the indian army. other work of his in connection with the army is well known; and some of it--such as his fortification scheme--did not endure, but these matters do not concern us here. his measures for the health and well-being of the soldiers were what miss nightingale was interested in; and this joint work of theirs has been of lasting benefit. after sidney herbert's death there was an arrest in reform; but the main lines laid down by him have been followed to our own day. in 1896 a friend in the war office went through miss nightingale's memoir of sidney herbert for her, and noted the present state of things in relation to it. the army sanitary committee was still in existence. the school of cookery at aldershot was in the queen's regulations. the general military hospitals were maintained. the army medical school had been moved to netley. the army medical statistics were still published annually. the position of army medical officers had been further improved. there was a regularly organized medical staff corps. the recommendations of the barracks works committee of 1861 had been carried out, with the result that the engineer officers had more individual responsibility, and were better acquainted than formerly with the details of healthy barrack and hospital construction. soldiers' institutes had been put up on war office land at several stations. recreation and reading-rooms were to be found in most barracks, and no new barrack was erected without them. such changes as have taken place since 1896 have been for the better, as i have indicated in preceding pages; for the better, and more in line with miss nightingale's ideas. her great work, _notes on the army_, contained, as events were to prove, not only the scheme of all sidney herbert's reforms (except those relating to defence), but the germ, and often the details, of further reforms (within the same sphere) which have continued to our own day. during the years of her co-operation with mr. herbert, miss nightingale chafed at obstruction and delay, and after his death she cried out bitterly at the cessation of further progress. but in the end it was as her wise mentor, sir john mcneill, wrote (march 26, 1859):--"it vexes me greatly to find that you are thwarted and annoyed by such things as you tell me of, but i am not in the least surprised. i did not expect you to accomplish so much in so short a time. be assured that the progress from a worse to a better system is in almost every department of human affairs a progress slow and interrupted. do not then be discouraged. if you have not done all that you desired--and who ever did?--you have done more than any one else ever did or could have done, and the good you have done will live after you, growing from generation to generation. i do not remember any instance in which new ideas have made more rapid progress." the bearing of the new ideas in relation to the army was pointed out in miss nightingale's summary of mr. herbert's services. "he will be remembered chiefly," she wrote, "as the first war minister who ever seriously set himself to the task of saving life, who ever took the trouble to master a difficult subject so wisely and so well as to be able to husband the resources of this country, in which human life is more expensive than in any other, more expensive than anything else, and to preserve the efficiency of its defenders." in this work, during mr. herbert's term of office, as in the preceding years, miss nightingale was his constant assistant, and often the originator. they conferred personally or by letter almost every day. no move in the sphere of sanitary reform was made by the minister for war until he had taken her opinion. every draft was submitted to her criticism and suggestion. when mr. herbert took office, his wife wrote (june 16, 1859) to thank miss nightingale for her "dear note of congratulations," adding, "he entirely agrees with your suggestions of this morning, and i am copying your circular note for the four pundits." in the following month (july 26), he sends her the proposed sanitary regulations: "i shall be very much obliged if you will go over the papers with sutherland." "sidney is coming to see you to-day (aug. 13) to talk about the regulations." four days later: "can miss nightingale give me the names of some governors for our new general hospitals?" in later months, the scheme for the medical school and the new regulations for purveyors were discussed between them. on one occasion a dispatch from miss nightingale, enclosed under cover to mrs. herbert, followed the minister to windsor: "i gave your letter to your 'sovereign'; it's lucky the real one did not see your cover." the correspondence of 1860 is to like effect. "here is a dispute which is hebrew to me; would you look it over with sutherland?" "i have written in our joint sense," and so forth. miss nightingale supplied, however, more than detail--for one thing, persistent stimulus. at the end it was stimulus to a dying man. chapter v the death of sidney herbert (1861) cavour's last words: _la cosa va_. that is the life i should like to have lived. that is the death i should like to die.--sidney herbert (_as recorded by florence nightingale_). the progress of the reforms, sketched in the foregoing chapter, was somewhat impeded, and an extension of them to a further point was altogether arrested, by a cause against which neither mr. herbert's courageous spirit nor miss nightingale's resolute will could avail. the minister's health broke down under the long strain; he was stricken by disease; and, with failing health, his grasp of affairs was necessarily relaxed. the beginning of the end came early in december 1860. "a sad change," wrote miss nightingale from hampstead (dec. 6) to her uncle, "has come over the spirit of my (not dreams, but) too strong realities. mr. herbert is said to have a fatal disease. you know i don't believe in fatal diseases, but fatal to his work i believe this _will be_. he came over himself to tell me and to discuss what part of the work had better be given up. i shall always respect the man for having seen him so. he was not low, but awe-struck. it was settled that he should give up the house of commons, but keep on office at least till some of the things are done which want doing. it is another reason for my wishing to go to town soon, as he is particularly forbidden damp, and to see him here always entails a night-ride." to their meeting on this occasion, early in december, miss nightingale often referred in letters of a later date. mr. herbert had put before her the three alternatives between which he had to choose. he might retire from public life altogether. he might retire from office, retaining his seat in the house of commons. or he might retain his office, and leave the house of commons for the house of lords. the first alternative, though it might seem to promise the best hope of recovery, was soon put away: it offered small temptation to a man of herbert's buoyancy of spirit and high sense of public duty. the second alternative was that to which he at first inclined. he was essentially a politician, and a "house of commons man." he had sat for twenty-eight years in that house, where his fine appearance, his personal charm, and his considerable gift of eloquence made him a commanding and popular figure. to go to the house of lords was, as he thought and said, to be "shelved."[291] miss nightingale urged him with all her formidable powers of persuasion, to make the sacrifice for the sake of their unfinished work. and so it was agreed; at the cost of many a pang on his part, as he confessed, but to the relief of his wife. "a thousand thanks," she wrote to miss nightingale, "for all you have said and done," and "god bless you for all your love and sympathy." mr. herbert retained office, resigned his seat in the commons, and was created lord herbert of lea. [291] it was lord herbert, who, on sitting down after his first speech in the house of lords, and on being asked by a friend beside him whether he had found it difficult, replied, "difficult! it was like addressing sheeted tombstones by torchlight." miss nightingale did not fully realize how ill lord herbert was. she did not remember that a life entirely laid out, as hers was, for work, and freed from all distraction, involves less strain than one in which social ties, general conversation, family responsibilities and journeyings to and fro fill up the time between hours of work. and she was passionately set upon the accomplishment of the work in which they were engaged; she longed to see it crowned and made secure. every step already taken by mr. herbert in the war office had been an administrative improvement. "the great principle involved in his reforms" was, she wrote, "to simplify procedure, to abolish divided responsibility, to define clearly the duties of each head of a department, and of each class of office; to hold heads responsible for their respective departments, with direct communication with the secretary of state."[292] the cause of army reform would not be completed, the permanence of the improvements already made would not be secured, unless every department of the war office was similarly reorganized under a general and coherent scheme. so miss nightingale urged her friend forward to "one fight more, the best and the last." the war office, she had written to him (nov. 18, 1859), "is a very slow office, an enormously expensive office, and one in which the minister's intentions can be entirely negatived by all his sub-departments and those of each of the sub-departments by every other." mr. herbert had agreed. a departmental committee had been appointed to report upon reorganization, and lord de grey[293] (who was under-secretary until mr. herbert went to the lords) had drafted a scheme. this was the scheme which in substance miss nightingale now urged lord herbert to carry through. but the horse guards was on the alert to mark the least infringement of its privileges, and sir benjamin hawes, the permanent under-secretary at the war office, was copious with objections. there are amongst miss nightingale's papers many drafts in which she and dr. sutherland reorganized the war office from top to bottom. sir benjamin might have smiled rather grimly, and then set himself with the greater determination to keep things as they were, had he seen how near the bottom was the place into which miss nightingale proposed to reorganize _him_. she was quite frank about it. "the scheme will probably result in hawes's resignation," she wrote; "that is another of its advantages." to reorganize the war office on paper is an occupation which, during fifty following years, was to beguile the leisure of amateurs, and to fill with disappointed hopes the laborious days of many a minister. to carry out any such scheme into practice is a task which only a minister, in full fighting force, could hope to accomplish. it was beyond the power of a dying man. [292] _army reform under lord herbert_, pp. 4-5. [293] better known as the marquis of ripon, to which rank he was promoted in 1871. miss nightingale had her fears from the first. "our scheme of reorganization," she wrote to sir john mcneill (jan. 17, 1861), "is at last launched at the war office; but i feel that hawes may make it fail: there is no strong hand over him." lord herbert struggled on manfully with his many tasks (including, it should be remembered, constant dispute with mr. gladstone over the army estimates), but his strength grew constantly less. at last he had to confess that, on the matter which miss nightingale had urged him to carry through, he was beaten:- (_lord herbert to miss nightingale._) _june_ 7 [1861].... as to the organization i am at my wits' end. the real truth is that i do not understand it. i have not the bump of system in me. i believe more in good men than in good systems. de grey understands it much better.... [he then describes certain minor reforms in personnel, including a definite sphere of responsibility for captain galton.] this i should like to do before i go. and now comes the question, when is that to be and what had i best do and what leave to be done by others. i feel that i am not now doing justice to the war office or myself. on days when the morning is spent on a sofa drinking gulps of brandy till i am fit to crawl down to the office, i am not very energetic when i get there. i have still two or three matters which i should like to settle and finish, but i am by no means clear that the organization of the office is one of them.... [further official details.] i cannot end even this long letter without a word on a subject of which my mind is full and yours will be too--cavour. what a life! what a life! and what a death! i know of no fifty lives which could be put in competition with his. it casts a shade over all europe. while he lived, one felt so confident for italy, that he could hold his own against austria, against the _wild_ italians, against the pope, and above all against l. napoleon. but what a glorious career! and what a work done in one life! i don't know where to look for anything to compare with it. cavour had died the day before, and his last recorded words were of his cause: _la cosa va_. the pathos with which the events of the next few weeks were to invest this letter from sidney herbert made a deep impression upon miss nightingale. among some pencilled jottings of hers, written thirty or forty years after, she recalled phrases in the letter and in conversations of the same date. but, at the immediate moment, lord herbert's confession of failure filled her with despairing vexation. sir john mcneill, to whom she poured out her soul, took the truer view of the case. it was sad, he admitted (june 18), that lord herbert should have been "beaten on his own chosen ground by ben hawes. but," he added, "the truth, i suspect, is that he has been beaten by disease, and not by ben." "what strikes me in this great defeat," she replied (june 21), "more painfully even than the loss to the army is the triumph of the bureaucracy over the leaders--the political aristocracy who at least advocate higher principles. a sidney herbert beaten by a ben hawes is a greater humiliation really (as a matter of principle) than the disaster of scutari." disease held lord herbert in its grasp, but with indomitable spirit he worked on at matters, other than reorganization, in which he and miss nightingale were specially interested. one of these matters was the establishment of a general military hospital at woolwich. "among the few practical things," wrote miss nightingale to sir john mcneill (june 21), "which i hope to succeed in saving from the general wreck of the war office is the organization of one general hospital on your plan. colonel wilbraham has consented to be governor. last week we made a list of the staff, and the names were approved by lord herbert. there has been an immense uproar, perhaps no more than you anticipated, from the army medical department and the horse guards." lord herbert was to send her the draft of the governor's commission, and she asked sir john mcneill's assistance in revising it. then she was requested to name a superintendent of nurses. her choice fell upon one of her crimean colleagues, mrs. shaw stewart, an admirable, though a somewhat "difficult" lady, who had now quarrelled with miss nightingale, but whose efficiency marked her out for the post. two other of lord herbert's last official acts referred also to the health of the british soldier, and each was suggested by miss nightingale. one was the appointment of the barracks works committee (june 6) already mentioned (p. 389); the other, the appointment of captain galton and dr. sutherland as commissioners, with mr. j. j. frederick as secretary, to improve the barracks and hospitals on the mediterranean station. by the end of june, lord herbert's health had become worse, and he was ordered abroad to spa. on july 9 he called at the burlington hotel to say good-bye to miss nightingale. they never met again. a week later, he wrote to her from spa:- i enclose a letter from mrs. shaw stewart. to cut matters short and start the thing, i have begged her to select the nurses on their own terms. i mean as to qualifications, as the regulations define salary, etc. so i hope we shall at any rate start the thing now. i have written an undated letter of resignation to palmerston to be used whenever convenient to him. i have not written it without a pang, but i believe it to be the right and best course. i believe lewis, with de grey for under-secretary, is to be my successor. i can fancy no fish more out of water than lewis amidst armstrong guns and general officers, but he is a gentleman, an honest man, and de grey will be invaluable for the office and for many of the especial interests to which i specially looked. i have a letter from codrington proposing another site for the new branch institute. i have sent it to galton. i wish i had any confidence that you are as much better as i am. lord herbert's buoyancy of spirit remained to him when physical strength was quickly ebbing. he became worse, and, on july 25, left spa for home. he died at wilton on august 2. "to the last," wrote his sister to miss nightingale, "he had the same charm, that dear winning smile, that almost playful, pretty way of saying everything." but among his last articulate words were these: "poor florence! poor florence! our joint work unfinished." ii the death of sidney herbert was a heavy blow to miss nightingale--the heaviest, perhaps, which she ever had to suffer. it meant not only the loss of an old friend and companion, in whose society she had constantly lived and moved for five years. it meant also the interruption of their joint work, which was more to her than life itself. she felt in the severance of their alliance the true bitterness of death:- (_miss nightingale to her father._) hampstead, _aug._ 21 [1861]. dear papa--indeed your sympathy is very dear to me. so few people know in the least what i have lost in my dear master. indeed i know no one but myself who had it to lose. for no two people pursue together the same object, as i did with him. and when they lose their companion by death, they have in fact lost no companionship. now he takes my life with him. my work, the object of my life, the means to do it, all in one, depart with him. "grief fills the room up of my absent" master. i cannot say it "walks up and down" with me. for i don't walk up and down. but it "eats" and sleeps and wakes with me. yet i can truly say that i see it is better that god should not work a miracle to save sidney herbert, altho' his death involves the misfortune, moral and physical, of five hundred thousand men, and altho' it would have been but to set aside a few trifling physical laws to save him.... "the righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart." the scripture goes on to say "none considering that he is taken away from the evil to come." _i_ say "none considering that he is taken away from the good he might have done." now not one man remains (that i can call a man) of all those whom i began work with, five years ago. and i alone, of all men "most deject and wretched," survive them all. i am sure i meant to have died.... ever, dear papa, your loving child, f. her grief was accompanied and intensified by some remorse:- (_miss nightingale to harriet martineau._) hampstead, _sept._ 24 [1861].... and i, too, was hard upon him. i told him that cavour's death was a blow to european liberty, but that a greater blow was that sidney herbert should be beaten on his own ground by a bureaucracy. i told him that no man in my day had thrown away so noble a game with all the winning cards in his hands. and his angelic temper with me, at the same time that he felt what i said was true, i shall never forget. i wish people to know that what was done was done by a man struggling with death--to know that he thought so much more of what he had not done than of what he had done--to know that all his latter suffering years were filled not by a selfish desire for his own salvation--far less for his own ambition (he hated office, his was the purest ambition i have ever known), but by the struggle of exertion for our benefit. happily for her peace of mind there came to her an almost immediate call to be up and doing in the service of her "dear master," as in her letters of this time she constantly named sidney herbert. the newspapers had at first been somewhat grudging in their obituary notices of him. he had been thought of in connection more with the defects of the war office during the early months of the crimean war, than with his services as a reformer. his family and his friends were pained, and on their behalf mr. gladstone applied to miss nightingale. she did not feel well enough to see him, and, on august 6, he wrote explaining the case, "taking the liberty of intruding upon her for aid and counsel," and asking "the assistance of her superior knowledge and judgment in a matter which so much interests our feelings." miss nightingale instantly set to work and wrote a memorandum on sidney herbert's work as an army reformer. she wrote quickly, but with her usual care in giving chapter and verse for every statement. the memorandum was anonymous, and was marked "private and confidential"; but she had it printed, and circulated it among lord herbert's friends and various publicists. among those who saw it was abraham hayward who, when a memorial to lord herbert was being mooted a few weeks later, strongly urged that she should be asked to publish the paper. "no one," he wrote, "could or would misconstrue her motives. nothing has been more remarkable in her beneficent and self-sacrificing career than its unobtrusiveness. it has only become famous because its results were too great and good to be shrouded in silence and retirement. admirably as she writes, she is obviously never thinking about her style; which, for that very reason, is most impressive; and i feel quite sure that the paper in question would suggest no thought or feeling beyond conviction and sympathy."[294] [294] letter (nov. 20) to count strzelechi, for whom see below, p. 410. the memorandum, in so far as it relates to what sidney herbert did, has been described and quoted above; but at the end of it, miss nightingale was careful to touch upon what he had meant to do and what remained for others to do. "he died before his work was done." the work on which his heart was set was the preservation of the health, physical and moral, of the british soldiers. "this is the work of his which ought to bear fruit in all future time, and which his death has committed to the guardianship of his country." having finished her memorandum, miss nightingale sent it to mr. gladstone. she knew how warm had been the friendship between him and sidney herbert. she thought that in the friend who remained the saying might perchance come true: _uno avulso non deficit alter_. at any rate it was her duty to throw out the hint. so she underlined, as it were, the closing words of her paper by offering to talk with mr. gladstone about the unfinished work which, as she knew, was nearest to sidney herbert's heart. to this overture, mr. gladstone replied in a letter, giving account of his friend's funeral: (_w. e. gladstone to florence nightingale._) 11 carlton house terrace, _aug._ 10 [1861]. the funeral was very sad but very soothing. simplicity itself in point of form, it was most remarkable from the number of people gathered together, and especially from their demeanour. many _men_ were weeping: not one unconcerned face among several thousands could be seen. but it all brings home more and more the immense void that he has left for all who loved, that is for all who knew, him.... i read last night with profound interest your important paper. i see at once that the matter is too high for me to handle. like you i know that too much would distress him, too little would not. i am in truth ignorant of military administration: and my impressions are distant and vague. it is your knowledge and authority more than that of any living creature that can do him justice, at the proper time, whenever that may be--do him justice, as he would like it, without exaggeration, without defrauding others. i shall return the paper to you: but of it i venture to keep a copy.... with respect to your making known to me the "three subjects" i will beg you to exercise your own discretion after simply saying this much; my duty is to watch and control on the part of the treasury rather than to promote officially departmental reforms. to him i could personally suggest: i am not sure that i should be justified in taking the same liberty with sir g. lewis, especially new to his work. on the other hand, my desire to promote herbert's wishes, as his wishes, was not stronger than my confidence in his judgment as an administrator. (if i now seem reluctant to touch that subject it is for fear i should spoil it.) in the conduct of a department he seemed to me very nearly if not quite the first of his generation.--i remain, dear miss nightingale, very sincerely yours, w. e. gladstone. on the afternoon of november 28, in willis's rooms--in the same place where, in the same month six years before, mr. herbert had spoken in support of a memorial to miss nightingale's honour, a public meeting was held to promote a memorial to him. "i think you would have been satisfied," wrote mr. gladstone to her on the same evening, "even if a fastidious judge, with the tone and feeling of the meeting to-day. i mean as regards herbert. as respects yourself, you might have cared little, but could not have been otherwise than pleased. i made no allusion to you in connection with the paper you kindly sent me, although i made some use of the materials. i acted thus after conference with count strzelechi,[295] and with his approval. i thought that if i mentioned you along with that paper, i should seem guilty of the assumption to constitute myself your organ." miss nightingale's paper, summarizing lord herbert's services to the health and comfort of the british army, formed, indeed, the staple of more than one of the speeches,[296] and the long alliance between them in that cause, which has been the subject of preceding chapters in this memoir, was frequently referred to at the meeting. general sir john burgoyne said breezily that lord herbert's "hobby was to promote the health and comfort of the soldier, and his pet was miss nightingale, who had for many years devoted herself to the same pursuit." mr. gladstone mentioned as lord herbert's "fellow-labourer" the "name of miss nightingale, a name that had become a talisman to all her fellow-countrymen." and lord palmerston, the prime minister, in associating the commander-in-chief with the late minister for war, added that "they did not labour alone. they were not the only two; there was a third engaged in those honourable exertions, and miss nightingale, though a volunteer in the service, acted with all the zeal of a volunteer, and was greatly assistant, as i am sure your royal highness will bear witness, to the labours of your royal highness and lord herbert." [295] sir paul edmund de strzelechi, k.c.m.g., c.b., known as count strzelechi, australian explorer, of polish descent, though a naturalized englishman, was a great friend of lord and lady herbert, whom he had accompanied on their last journey abroad. he took a prominent part in organizing the herbert memorial. [296] they are collected in a pamphlet (august 1867) entitled _memorial to the late lord herbert_. iii the alliance which was dissolved by lord herbert's death is probably unique in the history of politics and of friendship. "as for his friendship and mine," said miss nightingale, "i doubt whether the same could ever occur again."[297] for five years the politician in the public eye, and this woman behind the scenes, were in active co-operation; often seeing each other daily, at all times in uninterrupted communication. there have been other instances in which the same thing has happened, but happened with many differences. there have been statesmen who have made confidantes of their wives, and who have found in them wise counsellors and helpful supporters. sidney herbert himself received much help in his public work from his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached. in some pencilled jottings about her friends, miss nightingale records a beautiful trait; sidney herbert made it a rule, she says, to mark each anniversary of his wedding-day by beginning some new work of kindness towards others. yet there was room in the ordering of his life, during the five years following the crimean war, for taking constant counsel from another woman--so constant as, perhaps, in the days of his illness and over-work to cause his wife some anxiety. yet miss nightingale was as dear to the wife as she was helpful to the husband, and affectionate friendship between her and mrs. herbert was not impaired. there have been many statesmen, again, and many other eminent men, who have found inspiration or support, no less than solace or pleasure, in the friendship of women. but sidney herbert's attraction to miss nightingale, and hers to him, were on a plane by themselves. she, indeed, was susceptible, as was every man and every woman who knew him, to sidney herbert's singular charm and courtesy; she admired the brilliance of his conversation; she felt pleasure in his presence. and he, with his quick perception, must have enjoyed the ready humour which played around miss nightingale's wisdom. but they were also comrades or colleagues even as men are. "a woman once told me," miss nightingale said to an old friend, "that my character would be more sympathized with by men than by women. in one sense i don't choose to have that said. sidney herbert and i were together exactly like two men--exactly like him and gladstone."[298] [297] letter to harriet martineau, september 24, 1861. [298] letter to madame mohl, dec. 13, 1861. the secret of this rare friendship between sidney herbert and miss nightingale is to be found, first, in the fact that the character and gifts of the one were precisely complementary to those of the other. though of a sanguine temperament, sidney herbert had the politician's caution. miss nightingale, though of an eminently practical genius, was eager and full of impelling force. she supplied inspiration which he had the means of translating into political action. sidney herbert had the political mind; miss nightingale, the administrative. not indeed that he was deficient in some of the administrative gifts, or she in political instinct. but what was peculiarly characteristic of her was the combination of a firm grasp of general principles with a complete command of detail; and in the particular work in which they were engaged, her experience supplied what he lacked. "i supplied the detail," she said herself; "the knowledge of the actual working of an army, in which official men are so deficient; he supplied the political weight."[299] each was thus indispensable to the other. and they were united by perfect sympathy in the service of high ideals. "he," wrote miss nightingale of sidney herbert, "with every possession which god could bestow to make him idly enjoy life, yet ran like a race-horse his noble course, till he fell--and up to the very day fortnight of his death struggled on doing good, not for the love of power or place (he did not care for it), but for the love of mankind and of god."[300] he was, "in the best sense," she wrote elsewhere, "a saver of men."[301] in that honourable record miss nightingale deserves an equal place with her friend. [299] letter to harriet martineau, sept. 24, 1861. [300] _dublin_ (bibliography a., no. 28), p. 8. [301] _herbert_ (bibliography a., no. 29), p. 3. part iv hospitals and nursing (1858-1861) the everyday management of a large ward, let alone of a hospital, the knowing what are the laws of life and death for men, and what the laws of health for wards (and wards are healthy or unhealthy 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?--florence nightingale: _notes on nursing_. chapter i the hospital reformer (1858-1861) it may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm. it is quite necessary, nevertheless, to lay down such a principle, because the actual mortality _in_ hospitals, especially in those of large crowded cities, is very much higher than any calculation founded on the mortality of the same class of diseases among patients treated _out of_ hospitals would lead us to expect.--florence nightingale (1863). the work for the health of the soldiers, which has been described in the preceding part, filled the larger part of miss nightingale's life during the five years after her return from the crimean war; and in 1856, 1857, 1858 it occupied nearly the whole of her time. the work lasted for almost exactly five years, from the day of her return from scutari (august 1856) to the day of lord herbert's death (august 1861). but into those strenuous years miss nightingale had crowded much other work besides. it has been necessary, for the sake of clearness and coherence, to treat the subject of army sanitary reform consecutively in a single part. in the present part the other main occupations of miss nightingale's life during the same period, and more especially during the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, will be described. the story of her life and work may be divided for convenience into separate parts; but in her own mind each of the branches of effort into which successively she threw herself were connected parts of a larger whole. her experiences in the crimean war, and the emotions which grew out of them, had caused her to throw her first efforts into the cause of reform in the interest of her "children," the british soldiers. but all the time she saw with entire clearness that the health of the army was only part of a larger question; namely, the health of the whole population from which the soldiers are drawn. she had made her reputation by work in military hospitals, and her first effort was to improve them, but she saw that the condition of civil hospitals was the larger and the more important matter. and she saw further still that hospitals are at best only a necessary evil; a necessity, as some one has said, in an intermediate stage of civilization. the secret of national health is to be found in the homes of the people. if in a particular town or quarter, for instance, there was excessive infant mortality, the remedy, as she said, was not to be found in building more children's hospitals there. she was famous throughout the world as a war-nurse; but she knew that the difficulties which she had encountered in that sphere were due to the fact that the art of nursing was so ill understood at home. her vision took wider scope, and her efforts to improve the well-being of the people embraced, as we shall hear, both india and the colonies. mr. disraeli, in a famous speech[302] delivered the saying _sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas_, but that was in 1864; it was miss nightingale's motto many years before. when the extent of her range and the depth of her influence are considered, the claim made for her by an american writer will not seem exaggerated: she was "the foremost sanitarian of her age."[303] our immediate concern is with her life and work, first, as a hospital reformer (chaps. i., ii.), and then as the founder of modern nursing (chaps. iii., iv.). [302] at aylesbury, sept. 21, 1864. [303] _nutting_, vol. ii. pp. 207-8. * * * * * miss nightingale's authority on the subject of hospitals ruled paramount in the years following the crimean war--as the reference of the netley plans to her has already indicated. popularity and prestige were confirmed by a practical experience which at the time was probably unique. "have you," she was asked by the royal commission of 1857, "devoted attention to the organization of civil and military hospitals?" "yes," she replied, "for thirteen years. i have visited all the hospitals in london, dublin, and edinburgh, many county hospitals, some of the naval and military hospitals in england; all the hospitals in paris, and studied with the 's[oe]urs de charité'; the institution of protestant deaconesses at kaiserswerth, on the rhine, where i was twice in training as a nurse; the hospitals at berlin, and many others in germany, at lyons, rome, alexandria, constantinople, brussels; also the war hospitals of the french and sardinians." her authority on the subject was strengthened yet more when her papers, already mentioned,[304] which were read at liverpool in october 1858, were, early in the following year, published, with additional matter, as a book. "it appears to me," wrote sir james paget, in acknowledging a copy of the book, _notes on hospitals_, "to be the most valuable contribution to sanitary science in application to medical institutions that i have ever read." the book has not been reprinted since 1863, and is now, perhaps, forgotten; but, if so, that is the necessary fate of many a notable book. the pioneers of one generation are forgotten when their work has passed into the accepted doctrine and practice of another. in its day miss nightingale's _notes on hospitals_ revolutionized many ideas, and gave a new direction to hospital construction. [304] above, p. 383. sir james paget's words accurately suggest the nature of miss nightingale's work in this field. before she wrote, there was sad need of the application of sanitary science to many of our hospitals. the rate of mortality in them was terribly high. hospitals created almost as many diseases as they cured; there was hospital gangrene, hospital pyæmia, hospital erysipelas, hospital fever, and so forth. it was even questioned whether great hospitals were not, and must not necessarily be, producers of disease. miss nightingale showed that there was no such necessity. by the light of sanitary science, she traced back the excessive mortality in hospitals to its true causes, in original defects in the site, in the agglomeration of a large number of sick under the same roof, in deficiency of space, deficiency of ventilation, deficiency of light. in a second section of her book, going more into detail, she enumerated "sixteen sanitary defects in the construction of hospital wards," adding to the statement of each defect precise suggestions of a remedy. she added a series of equally detailed hints on hospital construction, illustrating them by careful plans, exterior and interior, of some of the best modern hospitals and of the worst old ones. some of my readers may be acquainted only with modern hospitals, and it will be well perhaps to describe the defects in the old style of hospital. many of the hospitals and infirmaries, as they existed when miss nightingale started her crusade, had been built with no consideration for the sub-soil, and the drainage of them was very imperfect. the wards were sadly overcrowded, often as much as three or four times over, tried by the present standard of the number of cubic feet desirable per bed. ventilation was defective. the wards were often low. there were frequently more than two beds between the windows. little attention had been given to the supreme importance of having floors, walls, and ceilings which were non-absorbent. the furniture of the wards, and the utensils, were such as would be condemned to-day as hopelessly insanitary. miss nightingale found it necessary to enter in some detail upon the desirability of _iron_ bedsteads, _hair_ mattresses, and _glass_ or _earthenware_ cups, etc. (instead of tin); as also upon that of sanitary forethought in the construction of sinks and other places. hospital kitchens and laundries at home were not quite so bad as at scutari; but many of the kitchens were still very primitive, and many of the laundries inspected by miss nightingale were "small, dark, wet, unventilated, overcrowded, so full of steam loaded with organic matter that it is hardly possible to see across the room." all this is now, for the most part, a thing of the past; and the passing of it is due, in large measure, to miss nightingale. coinciding, as her book did, with a movement for increased hospital accommodation, and coming with the prestige of a popular heroine, her _notes on hospitals_ opened a new era in hospital reform. there had, it is true, been improvement before her time; and she was not the one and only discoverer of the simple principles which she enunciated, and which are now the a b c of the subject. but the general level of thought or practice does not always rise to the height of the better opinion; it depends too often upon the average opinion of the day. moreover, in some matters, there was, at the time when she wrote, a conflict of principles, in which the victory was generally given to the wrong side. the beneficial effect of fresh air was not always denied; but the advantage of securing warmth by shutting the windows, and relying upon artificial methods of ventilation, was in practice considered paramount. miss nightingale was a pioneer in the consistent emphasis which she gave to the supreme necessity of fresh air, and to the importance of "direct sunlight, not only daylight, except perhaps in certain ophthalmic and a small number of other cases." she based her contention in these matters on scientific principles; she supported it from her experience and observation in the crimean war and in foreign hospitals. in many quarters her ideas were new and revolutionary. we have heard already what "a bitter pill" it was to one eminent medical official of her day to swallow the idea of "pavilions" in hospital construction.[305] lord palmerston explained in the house of commons in 1858 that, "strange as it might appear, considering the progress of science in every department, it was only within a few years that mankind has found out that oxygen and pure air were conducive to the well-being of the body."[306] and in the matter of the curative effect of light, miss nightingale cited from an official publication the case of a well-known london physician, who "whenever he enters a sick-room, takes care that the bed shall be turned away from the light." "an acquaintance of ours," she added, "passing a barrack one day, saw the windows on the sunny side boarded up in a fashion peculiar to prisons and penitentiaries. he said to a friend who accompanied him, 'i was not aware that you had a penitentiary in this neighbourhood.' 'oh,' said he, 'it is not a penitentiary, it is a military hospital.'"[307] miss nightingale's general principles commanded the hearty support of the better medical opinion, and to many medical men her details, drawn from observation in the best foreign hospitals, afforded new and useful hints; while at the same time she commanded in a singular degree the ear of the general public, including town councillors, guardians, and benevolent persons. it was in this way that her book did so much to improve the level of hospital construction and hospital arrangement in this country. [305] above, p. 342. [306] speech on lord ebrington's resolutions, may 11, 1858. [307] _notes on hospitals_, 1859, pp. 100, 108. upon the construction of military hospitals--whether general or attached to particular barracks--miss nightingale was consulted constantly and as a matter of course. in 1859, it will be remembered, mr. herbert became secretary for war; and in 1860 captain galton was appointed temporary assistant inspector-general of "fortifications"--a department which included works for barracks and hospitals. she respected captain galton's abilities, and liked him personally very much. he and mr. herbert took her advice upon all works within her province, and the plans of the new general hospital at woolwich in particular owed much to her suggestive ingenuity. she even drew up the heads of the specifications for it. even where she was not directly consulted or concerned, her influence and the standard she had set up in her book had an effect. medical officers and military governors sought leave to be able to quote her approval of hospitals under their charge. it would, as one naïvely wrote to her, improve their chances of promotion. a more direct result of the publication of _notes on hospitals_ was to bring in upon miss nightingale copious requests for advice from the committees or officials of civic hospitals and infirmaries throughout the country. to all such requests she readily responded. writing was with her a means to action; and when she was given any chance of translating "notes" into deeds, no trouble was too great for her. she had decided views of her own, but in particular cases she often consulted other experts. dr. sutherland, one of the leading authorities in such matters, was, as we have seen, constantly with her. to her kinsman by marriage, captain galton, she frequently referred; and she sometimes engaged sir robert rawlinson professionally to prepare plans and specifications for her to submit to those who asked her advice. he on his part often consulted her in regard to hospitals and infirmaries on which he had been called in to advise. her advice was sought both by those who were actually projecting new hospital buildings and by those who were leading crusades for the reconstruction of their local institutions. among her papers there is a mass of correspondence, specifications, plans, memoranda of all sorts, referring to such matters. technical details are often relieved by touches of miss nightingale's humour. here are two examples from her letters to captain galton--(march 24, 1861): "i understand that baring[308] won't ventilate the barracks in summer because the grates are not hot enough in winter. why are the men to die of foul air in august because they are too cold at christmas? i think baring must be an army doctor." (june 20, 1861): "is the architect's ideal the profile of a revolver pistol? if you look at the block plan in this point of view, it is very good. but as he asks my opinion, it is that i would much rather be shot outside than in. as hospital principles are beginning to be well known, it would be quite enough to engrave this plan on the card of solicitation to stop all subscriptions. no patient will ever get well there. and as i don't approve of the principle of lock hospitals, i had much better let it go on." the correspondence about hospital plans ranges in place and scale from glasgow, from which city she was asked to advise upon cement for the walls of the infirmary wards, to lisbon, where a new institution was to be built according to her ideas. in 1859 the king of portugal asked miss nightingale through the prince consort to advise and report upon the plans for a hospital which he desired to build in memory of his wife, the princess stephanie of hohenzollern. this affair occupied some of her attention during two years, and caused her not a little impatience. with dr. sutherland's help, she went laboriously through the plans submitted by the king's architect on the assumption that the hospital was intended for adults. it then appeared that what the king wanted was a children's hospital. the prince consort, through colonel phipps, was deeply grieved at "the waste of miss nightingale's time and of her strength, so precious." dom pedro v., taking an easier view, did not see that it mattered. a hospital, constructed for adults, but intended for children, would, his majesty pleasantly suggested, "only give the children more room and more air." the king had to be given a lesson in the niceties of hospital construction. the architect and miss nightingale set to work again on amended plans. her suggestions were warmly approved, on the prince consort's behalf, by sir james clark, and dom pedro sent her a cordial letter of thanks. [308] under-secretary for war, when mr. herbert was made a peer. at home she took similar pains with plans for the bucks county infirmary at aylesbury; but here it was easier sailing, for the chairman of the committee was her brother-in-law, sir harry verney, and it was promptly decided (1860) to rebuild the infirmary "in accordance with the requirements specified in miss nightingale's _notes on hospitals_." in another county hospital, that at winchester, she took the more interest, because one of her father's properties (embley) was in the county. there is a specially voluminous correspondence on the subject, largely with sir william heathcote (chairman of the governors),[309] extending over several years. the old hospital was admittedly bad, but the first idea was to patch it up. miss nightingale took infinite pains in working up the case against this course. she studied the report which sir robert rawlinson, the sanitary engineer, had sent in; and she tabulated the statistics of mortality, comparing them with those of well-appointed hospitals on healthy sites. thus armed, she told the committee roundly that they were proposing to sink money in patching up a "pest-house, where a number of people are exposed to the risk of fatal illness from a special hospital disease." was hampshire eager, she asked, to emulate the evil fame of scutari? then she tackled the financial problem. she compared the estimated cost of "adaptation" with that of building a new hospital on a better site. she submitted plans and details of her estimate. she promised the advice of dr. sutherland in the choice of a new site. "i understand," she wrote, "that lord ashburton will give £1000 towards a new hospital, if built upon a new site; if not, nothing." as lady ashburton was one of her dearest friends, this condition was probably not unprompted. on the same condition, she promised contributions from herself and her father. she collected and sent in the opinions of eminent experts--civil engineers and medical officers--on the question. she prodded friends possessing local influence: "would you please," she wrote to captain galton (feb. 10, 1861), "devote the first day of every week until further notice in driving nails into jack bonham carter,[310] m.p., about the winchester infirmary?" in the end she carried her point, and a new hospital was built by mr. butterfield on a higher and healthier site. "it is the greatest pleasure," the architect wrote to her (dec. 1863), "to try and work out the views of one who is ably and earnestly endeavouring to make a reformation." among other institutions upon which she advised, in this (1860) or immediately ensuing years, were the birkenhead hospital, the chorlton union infirmary, the coventry hospital, the guildford (surrey county) hospital, the leeds infirmary, the malta (incurables) hospital, the putney royal hospital for incurables, the north staffordshire infirmary, and the swansea infirmary. correspondence from foreign countries, and a collection of tracts upon hospital construction (1863) sent to her from france and belgium, show that the "reformation" was widespread. in india also her book was found useful. "it arrived in the nick of time," wrote sir charles trevelyan, the governor of madras (aug. 10, 1859), "as you will see by the accompanying note from major horsley, the engineer entrusted with the preparation of the plan of the addition to our general hospital." [309] mr. nightingale bought embley from the heathcote family. [310] eldest son of the john bonham carter mentioned above (p. 29); m.p. for winchester; first cousin of miss nightingale and of mrs. galton. ii like other reformers, miss nightingale encountered an occasional defeat. one was at manchester in a cause wherein she was enlisted by a friend of cobden, mr. joseph adshead. he saw something of miss nightingale during these years, and corresponded voluminously with her. he is the subject of one of her clever and vivid character-sketches--a sketch which throws interesting side-lights on her own character too:- (_miss nightingale to samuel smith._) burlington, _feb._ 25, [1861]. dear uncle sam--adshead of manchester is dead--my best pupil.... how often i have called him my "dear old addle-head," and now he is dead. he was a man who could hardly write or speak the queen's english; i believe he raised himself, and was now a kind of manufacturer's agent in manchester. he was a man of very ordinary abilities and commonplace appearance--vulgar, but never unbusiness-like, which is, i think, the worst kind of vulgarity. having made "a competency," he did not give up business, but devoted himself to good works for manchester. and there is scarcely a good thing in manchester, of which he has not been the main-stay or the source--schools, infirmary, paving and draining, water-supply, etc., etc. at 60, he takes up an entirely new subject, hospital construction, fired by my book, and determines to master it. this is what i think is peculiarly anglo-saxon. he writes to me whether i will teach him (this is about 18 months ago), and composes some plans for a convalescent hospital _out of_ manchester, to become their main hospital if the wind is favourable. he comes up to london to see me about these. the working plans passed eight times thro' my hands and gave me more trouble than anything i ever did. because adshead would not employ a proper builder, but would do them himself- which is part of the same character, i believe. the plans are now quite ready, but nothing more. he meant to _beg in person_ all over lancashire, and had already some promises of large sums. he had been asking for about a year, but never intermitted anything. i don't know whether you remember that i had a three-months' correspondence with him (and oh! the immense trouble he took) about the transplantation of the spitalfields and coventry weavers to manchester, preston, burnley, etc.[311] ... it never came to anything.... he was 61 when he died. this is the character which i believe is quite peculiar to our race--a man, a common tradesman, who--instead of "retiring from the world" to "make his salvation," or giving himself up to science or to his family in his old age, or founding an order, or building a housewill patiently (at 60) learn new dodges and new-fangled ideas in order to benefit his native city.... how i do feel that it is the strength of our country and worth all the r. catholic "orders" put together. i hate an "order," and am so glad i was never "let in" to form one.... [311] miss sellon had called her attention to the sad plight through unemployment of the spitalfields weavers, as had mr. and mrs. bracebridge to that of those at coventry. miss nightingale, with help from mr. bracebridge, enlisted mr. adshead in a scheme for migrating them to lancashire. he and she took infinite pains in the matter, but the scheme came to little. when it reached the point, miss sellon's friends were not ready to go. mr. adshead had taken a prominent part in a movement to get the manchester royal infirmary condemned as insanitary, and to rebuild it in better air outside the city boundaries. miss nightingale, though she did not join publicly in the controversy, plied mr. adshead with powder and shot. but they were defeated. manchester decided to patch and not to rebuild. in the case of st. thomas's hospital in london, which was confronted from a different cause with the same choice, she was successful. hospital officials, when in difficulty, not infrequently "went to miss nightingale." this was the case with mr. whitfield, the resident medical officer of st. thomas's (then on its ancient site in the borough), when the future of the hospital was threatened by the projected extension of the south-eastern railway from london bridge to charing cross. the railway company sought powers to take some of the hospital's land, and the opinion of the governors was likely to be divided on the policy to be pursued. mr. whitfield was from the first in favour of the course which ultimately prevailed; the railway company should be compelled to buy all the hospital's land or none, and in the former event the hospital should be rebuilt on a healthier site and on an improved plan. but there were others who were disposed to take the line of least resistance, and to be content with rebuilding on the old or an adjacent site so much as the railway works made necessary. mr. whitfield opened the case to miss nightingale in february 1859, and besought her aid; she entirely agreed with him, and threw herself whole-heartedly into the matter. among the governors of the hospital was the prince consort, to whom she sent a careful memorandum. the prince went into the case with his usual thoroughness, and ultimately concurred in miss nightingale's views. he was scrupulous, as the correspondence shows, to avoid any interference with the parliamentary side of the case, but he let it be known, among his colleagues on the board of governors, what his opinion was upon the best policy for the hospital to pursue, in the event of parliament leaving it any option. "your intervention with prince albert," wrote mr. whitfield presently to miss nightingale, "has wrought wonders." but there were still two opinions. there was a strong party which attached more importance to retaining the hospital on its old site, "in the midst of the people whom it served," than to removing it to one which might be more salubrious, but must be more distant. this is a controversy which continually recurs. miss nightingale took immense pains in working up the case for removal. she resorted, as usual, to a statistical method. she analysed the place of origin of all the cases received; tabulated the percentages in various radii; and showed that the removal of the hospital to such and such distances would affect a far smaller percentage of patients than was commonly supposed. then she made out sums in proportion, setting, on the one side, so much inconvenience and conceivable danger in making a smaller number of patients take a little longer time in reaching the hospital; and, on the other, the greater convenience and larger chance of recovery which all the patients alike would have in better surroundings. at the end of 1860 the critical moment arrived. the railway company had served the hospital with notice to decide within twenty-one days. mr. whitfield wrote to miss nightingale in a state of considerable flurry. he was by no means certain how the voting would go; every vote and every influence were important; could she not whisper once more in the prince consort's ear? she wrote to the palace forthwith; and the prince communicated his views to the court of governors on her side. and not only on her side. "you will find in the prince's letter," she was told by one of those behind the scenes, "your own arguments and sometimes even your own words embodied." ultimately the governors decided as miss nightingale wished. the railway company was required to take all or none of the hospital's land. it took all and, as usually happens in railway cases, the price was not suffered to err on the side of moderation. st. thomas's hospital was removed to temporary buildings on the old surrey gardens, and there remained till the present hospital was completed in 1871. a fair american visitor, taking tea upon the terrace of the houses of parliament, and looking across the river to the sevenfold splendours opposite, is said to have inquired, "are those the mansions of your aristocracy?" they are only instances of the reform which miss nightingale introduced in hospital construction, being the "pavilions" of st. thomas's. but miss nightingale was never consulted, i feel sure, upon the architectural ornament of the parapets. her sense of humour would have made short work of the urns which, as some one has suggested, seem waiting for the ashes of the patients inside. chapter ii the passionate statistician (1859-1861) full and minute statistical details are to the lawgiver, as the chart, the compass, and the lead to the navigator.--lord brougham. i remember hearing the first lord goschen make a speech in whitechapel many years ago, in which he avowed that for his part he was "a passionate statistician." "go with me," he said, "into the study of statistics, and i will make you all enthusiasts in statistics." mr. _punch_ parodied marlowe thereupon, and invited his readers to "all the pleasures prove that facts and figures can supply unto the statist's ravished eye." i do not know whether any large response to the invitation was forthcoming from lord goschen's hearers or mr. _punch's_ readers; though, since the day when lord goschen spoke, social reformers have more and more guided their schemes by the chart and compass of statistics. if miss nightingale saw the speech, it fell upon eyes long ago opened. a fondness for statistical method, a belief in its almost illimitable efficacy, was one of her marked characteristics. * * * * * few books made a greater impression on miss nightingale than those of adolphe quetelet, the belgian astronomer, meteorologist, and statistician; and she had few friends whom she valued more highly than dr. william farr, the leading statistician of her day in this country. from his meteorological studies, quetelet deduced a law of the flowering of plants. one of his cases was the lilac. the common lilac flowers, according to quetelet's law, when the sum of the squares of the mean daily temperatures, counted from the end of the frosts, equals 4264° _centigrade_. miss nightingale was greatly interested in such calculations, and the lilac had a special place in her year. lady verney's birthday was april 19, and a branch of flowering lilac was florence's regular birthday present to her sister. miss nightingale used to talk of quetelet's law with great delight, and commended it to gardening friends for verification in their naturalist's diaries. but this is a lighter example of quetelet's researches. what fascinated miss nightingale most was his _essai de physique sociale_ (first published in 1835), in which he showed the possibility of applying the statistical method to social dynamics, and deduced from such method various conclusions with regard to the physical and intellectual qualities of man. in regard to sanitation, we have heard already of the reforms which miss nightingale was instrumental in carrying out in army medical statistics. she turned next to the question of hospital statistics, where improvement seemed desirable both for the surer advance of medical knowledge and in the interests of good administration. miss nightingale had been painfully impressed during the crimean war with the statistical carelessness which prevailed in the military hospitals. even the number of deaths was not accurately recorded. "at scutari," she said, "three separate registers were kept. first, the adjutant's daily head-roll of soldiers' burials, on which it may be presumed no one was entered who was not buried, although it is possible that some may have been buried who were not entered. second, the medical officers' return, in regard to which it is quite certain that hundreds of men were buried who never appeared upon it. third, the return made in the orderly room, which is only remarkable as giving a totally different account of the deaths from either of the others."[312] when miss nightingale came home, and began examining hospital statistics in london, she found, not indeed such glaring carelessness as this, but a complete lack of scientific co-ordination. the statistics of hospitals were kept on no uniform plan. each hospital followed its own nomenclature and classification of diseases. there had been no reduction on any uniform model of the vast amount of observations which had been made. "so far as relates," she said, "either to medical or to sanitary science, these observations in their present state bear exactly the same relation as an indefinite number of astronomical observations made without concert, and reduced to no common standard, would bear to the progress of astronomy."[313] [312] _a contribution_, p. 3 (bibliography a, no. 14). [313] _hospital statistics_ (bibliography a, no. 28). miss nightingale set herself to remedy this defect. with assistance from friendly doctors on the medical side, and of dr. farr, of the registrar-general's office, on the statistical, she prepared (1) a standard list, under various classes and orders, of diseases, and (2) model hospital statistical forms. the general adoption of her forms would, as she wrote, "enable us to ascertain the relative mortality in different hospitals, as well as of different diseases and injuries at the same and at different ages, the relative frequency of different diseases and injuries among the classes which enter hospitals in different countries, and in different districts of the same countries." then, again, the relation of the duration of cases to the general utility of a hospital had never been shown. miss nightingale's proposed forms "would enable the mortality in hospitals, and also the mortality from particular diseases, injuries, and operations, to be ascertained with accuracy; and these facts, together with the duration of cases, would enable the value of particular methods of treatment and of special operations to be brought to statistical proof. the sanitary state of the hospital itself could likewise be ascertained."[314] having formed her plan, miss nightingale proceeded with her usual resourcefulness to action. she had her model forms printed (1859), and she persuaded some of the london hospitals to adopt them experimentally. sir james paget at st. bartholomew's was particularly helpful; st. mary's, st. thomas's, and university college also agreed to use the forms. she and dr. farr studied the results, which were sufficient to show how large a field for statistical analysis and inquiry would be opened by the general adoption of her forms. [314] _hospital statistics_. of course the statistics would have to be interpreted. the case was now ready for a further move. dr. farr was one of the general secretaries of the international statistical congress which was to meet in london in the summer of 1860. he and miss nightingale drew up the programme for the second section of the congress (sanitary statistics), and her scheme for uniform hospital statistics was the principal subject of discussion. her model forms were printed, with an explanatory memorandum; the section discussed and approved them, and a resolution was passed that her proposals should be communicated to all the governments represented at the congress. she took a keen interest in all the proceedings, and gave a series of breakfast-parties, presided over by her cousin hilary, to the delegates, some of whom were afterwards admitted to the presence of their hostess upstairs. the foreign delegates much appreciated this courtesy, as their spokesman said at the closing meeting of the congress; "all the world knows the name of miss nightingale," and it was an honour to be received by "the illustrious invalid, the providence of the english army." the written instructions sent by "the providence" to her cousin for the entertainment of the guests show her care for little things and her knowledge of the weaknesses of great men: "take care that the cream for breakfast is not turned." "put back dr. x.'s big book where he can see it when drinking his tea." miss nightingale also induced her friend mrs. herbert to invite the statisticians to an evening party. the feast of statistics acted upon her as a tonic. "she has been more than usually ill for the last four or five weeks," wrote her cousin hilary (july 12); "now i cannot help thinking that her strength is rallying a little; she is much interested in the statistical congress." congresses, like wars, are sometimes "muddled through" by our country, and miss nightingale was able here and there to smooth ruffled plumes. a distinguished friend of hers, though his name had been printed as one of the secretaries of a section, had not received so much as an intimation of the place of meeting; he was disgusted at so unbusiness-like an omission, and was half inclined to sulk in his tents. miss nightingale's letter on the subject is characteristic:- (_miss nightingale to dr. t. graham balfour._) 30 old burlington st., _july_ 12 [1860]. you are quite right in what you say. we are all of us in the same boat. and, if it were not that england _would not be_ the mercantile nation she _is_, if she had not business habits somewhere, i should wonder from my experience where they are. certain of us, who were asked to do business for the statistical congress, had it all ready since december last--and were not able to get it out of the registrar-general's office till this week. certain of us were asked to do business this morning, and to have it ready by to-night, which, if _not_ done, would arrest the proceedings of the congress, and, _if_ done, must be the fruit of only five hours' consideration, when five months might just as well have been granted for it. i don't say that this is so bad as the treatment of you who are secretary. but still it is provoking to see a great international business worked in this way. what i want now is to put a good face upon it before the foreigners. let _them_ not see our short-comings and disunions. many countries, far behind us in political business, are far before us in organization-power. if any one has ever been behind the scenes, living in the interior, of the maison mère of the "sisters of charity" at paris, as i have--and seen their counting house and office, all worked by women,--an office which has twelve thousand officials (all women) scattered all over the known world--an office to compare with which, in business habits, i have never seen any, either government or private, in england--they will think, like me, that it is this mere business-power which keeps these enormous religious "orders" going. i hope that you will try to impress these foreign delegates, then, with a sense of _our_ "enormous business-power" (in which i don't believe one bit), and to keep the congress going. many thanks for all your papers. i trust you will settle some sectional business with the delegates here to-morrow morning. and i trust i shall be able to see you, if not to-morrow morning, soon. mind, i don't mean anything against _your_ office by this tirade. on the contrary, i believe it is one of the few efficient ones now in existence. having received the _imprimatur_ of an international congress, miss nightingale circulated her paper on hospital statistics widely among medical men and hospital officials. thereby she produced immediate effect. she printed large quantities of her model forms, and supplied them, on request, to hospitals in various parts of the country. through the good offices of m. mohl, she also worked upon public opinion in france. "some months ago," she wrote to dr. farr (oct. 20, 1860), "i got inserted into the leading medical journals of paris an article on the proposed hospital registers; and you see they are at work." the london hospitals took the matter up. guy's printed a statistical analysis of its cases from 1854 to 1861; st. thomas's, of its from 1857 to 1860; st. bartholomew's, a table of its cases for 1860. with regard to the future, a meeting was held at guy's hospital on june 21, 1861, and it was unanimously agreed--by delegates from guy's, st. bartholomew's, st. thomas's, the london, st. george's, king's college, the middlesex, and st. mary's--that the metropolitan hospitals should adopt one uniform system of registration of patients; that each hospital should publish its statistics annually, and that miss nightingale's model forms should as far as possible be adopted. she called further attention to her scheme in a paper sent to the social science congress at dublin in august 1861,[315] and incorporated it in a later edition of her _notes on hospitals_. the statistics of the various hospitals which had accepted her forms were published in the _journal of the statistical society_ for september 1862, but i do not find that the experiment has been continued. so far from there being any uniform hospital statistics, of the kind contemplated by miss nightingale, even in london some of the hospitals do not keep, or at any rate do not publish, any at all. the laboriousness, and therefore the costliness, of the work of compilation, the difficulty of securing actual, as well as apparent, uniformity, and a consequent doubt as to the value of conclusions deduced from the figures are presumably among the causes which have defeated miss nightingale's scheme. some limited portion of her object is perhaps attained by the statistical data which the administration of king's hospital fund demands, but even here there are possibilities of misleading comparison. there is probably no department of human inquiry in which the art of cooking statistics is unknown, and there are sceptics who have substituted "statistics" for "expert witnesses" in the well-known saying about classes of false statements. miss nightingale's scheme for uniform hospital statistics seems to require for its realization a more diffused passion for statistics and a greater delicacy of statistical conscience than a voluntary and competitive system of hospitals is likely to create. [315] see bibliography a, no. 28. at the time she was full of hope, and, having obtained a start with medical statistics, she next pursued the subject in relation to surgical operations. sir james paget had been in communication with her on this point. "we want," he had written (feb. 18, 1861), "a much more exact account and a more particular record of each case. thus in some returns we have about 40 per cent of the deaths ascribed to 'exhaustion,' in others, referring to the same [kind of] operations, about 3 per cent or less; the truth being that in nearly all cases of 'exhaustion' there was some cause of death which more accurate inquiry would have ascertained." miss nightingale (may 1, 1861) congratulated him on "st. bartholomew's having the credit of the first statistical report worth having," but the table of operations was still, she thought, most unsatisfactory. "it would be most desirable that an uniform table should be adopted in all hospitals, including all the elements of age, sex, accident, habit of body, nature of operation, after-accidents, etc., etc. could you come in to-morrow between 2 and 4, and bring your list of the causes of death after operations? it would be invaluable, coming from such an authority, for constructing a form." she consulted other surgeons, civil and military, and wrote a paper, with model forms, for the international statistical congress held at berlin in september 1863. these also were included in a revised edition of _notes on hospitals_. the royal college of surgeons referred the subject to a committee, which, however, reported adversely upon miss nightingale's forms. ii before the international congress at london in 1860 separated, miss nightingale addressed a letter to lord shaftesbury (president of the second section), which was read to the whole congress, and adopted by it as a resolution. the point of it was to impress upon governments the importance of publishing more numerous abstracts of the large amount of statistical information in their possession. she gave various instances in which useful lessons might thus be enforced upon the public mind, and cited guizot's words: "valuable reports, replete with facts and suggestions drawn up by committees, inspectors, directors, and prefects, remain unknown to the public. government ought to take care to make itself acquainted with, and promote the diffusion of all good methods, to watch all endeavours, to encourage every improvement. with our habits and institutions, there is but one instrument endowed with energy and power sufficient to secure this salutary influence--that instrument is the press." with miss nightingale statistics were a passion and not merely a hobby. they did, indeed, please her, as congenial to the nature of her mind. her correspondence with dr. balfour and dr. farr shows how she revelled in them. "i have a new year's gift for you," wrote dr. farr (jan. 1860); "it is in the shape of tables, as you will conjecture." "i am exceedingly anxious," she replied, "as you may suppose, to see your charming gift, especially those returns showing the deaths, admissions, diseases," etc., etc. but she loved statistics, not for their own sake, but for their practical uses. it was by the statistical method that she had driven home the lessons of the crimean hospitals. it was the study of statistics that had opened her eyes to the preventable mortality among the army at home, and that had thus enabled her to work for the health of the british soldier. she was already engaged on similar studies in relation to india. she was in very serious, and even in bitter, earnest a "passionate statistician." and the passion, as will appear in a later chapter,[316] was even a religious passion. [316] see below, p. 480. miss nightingale made a valiant attempt to extend the scope of the census of 1861 in the interest of collecting statistical data for sanitary improvements. there were two directions in which she desired to extend the questions. one was to enumerate the numbers of sick and infirm on the census day. for sanitary purposes it would be extremely useful to determine the proportion of sick in the different parts of the country. to those who said that it could not be done, because the people would not give the information, the answer was that it had been done in ireland. the other point was to obtain full information about house accommodation; facts which, as would now be considered obvious, have a vital bearing on the sanitary and social conditions of the people. this point also had been covered in the irish census. dr. farr entirely agreed with miss nightingale, but he could not persuade sir george lewis, the home secretary, to include these provisions in the census bill (1860). miss nightingale thereupon drew up a memorandum on the subject, and, through mr. lowe (vice-president of the council), submitted it to the home secretary. mr. lowe may have agreed with her, but he failed to persuade his colleague. "whenever i have power," wrote mr. lowe (may 9), "you can always command me, but official omnipotence is circumscribed in the narrow limits of its own department." sir george lewis replied that "both of miss nightingale's points had been duly considered before the census bill was introduced. it was thought that the question of health or sickness was too indeterminate." "with regard to an enumeration of houses, it was thought that this is not a proper subject to be included in a census of population." a very official answer! but sir george added that he did not see how the result of such enumeration could be "peculiarly instructive"--an avowal which he also made in the house of commons. the cleverest of men are sometimes dense; and this remark of sir george lewis, added to his subsequent conduct of the war office, earned for him, in miss nightingale's familiar correspondence, the sobriquet of "the muff." in communicating the result of her first attempt to dr. farr, she said, "if you think that anything more can be done, pray say so. i'm your man." but she had not waited to be spurred on. she had already bethought herself of a second string in the house of lords. lord shaftesbury, to whom she had appealed, promised to do all he could. lord grey did the same, and asked her to send dr. farr to coach him. she began to "thank god we have a house of lords":- (_miss nightingale to robert lowe._) old burlington st., _may_ 10 [1860]. i cannot forbear thanking you for your letter and for your exertions in our favour. sir george lewis's letter, _being interpreted_, means: "mr. waddington does not choose to take the trouble." it is a letter such as i have scores of in my possession, from airey, filder, and alas! from lord raglan, from sir john hall (the doctor) and from andrew smith. it is a true "horse guards" letter. they are the very same arguments that lord john used against the feasibility of registering the "cause of death" in '37--which has now been the law of the land for 23 years. he was beaten in the lords. and we are now going to fight sir george lewis in the lords. and we hope to beat him too. it is mere child's play to tell us that what every man of the millions who belong to friendly societies does every day of his life, as to registering himself sick or well, cannot be done in the census. it is mere childishness to tell us that it is not important to know what houses the people live in. the french census does it. the irish census tells us of the great diminution of mud cabins between '41 and '51. the connection between the _health_ and the _dwellings_ of the population is one of the most important that exists. the "diseases" can be obtained approximately also. in all the more important--such as smallpox, fevers, measles, heart-disease, etc.--all those which affect the _national_ health, there will be very little error. (about ladies' nervous diseases there will be a great deal.) where there is error in these things, the error is uniform, as is proved by the friendly societies; and corrects itself.... the passionate statisticians were, however, hopelessly out-voted in the house of commons. mr. caird moved in her sense on the subject of fuller detail about house-accommodation, and in sending her the printed notice of his amendment, said that "his position would be greatly strengthened with the house if he could obtain miss nightingale's permission to quote her name in favour of the usefulness of such an inquiry." i do not know whether she gave permission; the debate is reported very briefly in hansard. but in any case mr. caird's amendment was promptly negatived. as for the house of lords, miss nightingale's reliance upon a better love of statistics in that assembly was cruelly falsified. the census bill came up late in the session, and i do not find that either lord grey or lord shaftesbury said a word upon the subject. the only critical contribution made to the debate proceeded from lord ellenborough, who, so far from wanting the census bill to include provision for more statistical data, proposed to exclude most of those that were already in. he could not for the life of him see what was the use of asking people so many questions.[317] here, then, miss nightingale was in advance of the time; in one case, by a generation, in the other, by two generations. recent censuses have included more particulars of the housing of the people, though still not so many as she wanted. official statistics of the local distribution of sickness will presently be obtained, i suppose, in a different way, through the machinery of the national health insurance act. [317] lords' debate, july 24; principal commons' debate, july 12, 1860. * * * * * deprived by the recalcitrance of the home secretary and parliament of a fuller feast of statistics at home, miss nightingale turned to the colonies and dependencies. the secretary for the colonies gave her facilities for collecting much curious and instructive information; and the secretary for india accepted her aid in collecting and tabulating facts and figures which were the foundation of some of the most notable and beneficent of her labours. but, though she was already (1860-1) engaged in these inquiries, they belong in the main to a later period; and we must now turn to another side of miss nightingale's work for the improvement of the national health. chapter iii the founder of modern nursing (1860) where is the woman who shall be the clara or the teresa of protestant england, labouring for the certain benefit of her sex with their ardour, but without their delusion?--southey's _colloquies_ (1829). the nineteenth century produced three famous persons in this country who contributed more than any of their contemporaries to the relief of human suffering in disease: simpson, the introducer of chloroform; lister, the inventor of antiseptic surgery; and florence nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. the second of the great discoveries completed the beneficent work of the first. the third development--the creation of nursing as a trained profession--has co-operated powerfully with the other two, and would have been beneficent even if the use of anæsthetics and antiseptics had not been discovered. the contribution of florence nightingale to the healing art was less original than that of either simpson or lister; but perhaps, from its wider range, it has saved as many lives, and relieved as much, if not so acute, suffering as either of the other two. * * * * * the profession of nursing is at once very old and very new; and the place of miss nightingale in the history of it has not always been rightly understood. nursing--and even nursing by educated women--is very old. "she herself nursed the unhappy, emaciated victims of hunger and disease. how often have i seen her wash wounds whose fetid odour prevented every one else from even looking at them! she fed the sick with her own hands, and revived the dying with small and frequent portions of nourishment. i know that many wealthy persons cannot overcome the repugnance caused by such works of charity. i do not judge them; but, if i had a hundred tongues and a clarion voice, i could not enumerate the number of patients for whom she provided solace and care." this passage, which is not unlike some of the panegyrics showered upon florence nightingale's work during the crimean war, was written, nearly fifteen centuries earlier, by st. jerome in describing the work of fabiola, a lady of patrician rank, who in 390 a.d. built a hospital at rome, where she devoted herself to the care of the sick. female nursing is as old as christianity, and for centuries the religious orders had sent cultivated women into the hospitals. the very name of "sister," now applied to a rank in the nursing profession in general, recalls its historical origin in religious enthusiasm. nor was there anything novel in the mere fact, though there was much that was novel in the method, of miss nightingale's service as a war-nurse. it was novel in the case of the british army, but in that of other countries sisters had already accompanied armies to the field. and, again, it was not an original conception on miss nightingale's part that nurses should be trained for their work. her master, theodor fliedner, had shown the way in germany; and in our own country mrs. fry's institute of nursing was established in 1840, and the st. john's house in 1848, miss nightingale's, at st. thomas's, not till 1860. nevertheless, though not the founder of nursing, florence nightingale was the founder of modern nursing. it is not always realized how modern is the institution of nursing, on any large scale as a distinct and trained calling. i have indicated above the three lines of influence--religion, war, and science--along which the development of sick-nursing has proceeded. miss nightingale came at the psychological moment to give it a vast impetus upon each of those lines. religion was tending to become less abstract, and more closely allied to the service of man. miss nightingale was the st. clara or the st. teresa of the new order, for whom southey had called. she was prepared, by her experience, by the character of her mind, by the drift of her philosophical speculations, not to imitate old forms, but to create a new order, an order of nurses who should, indeed, be devoted to their calling, but should be organized on a secular basis. the deeply religious bent of miss nightingale's character, the single-mindedness of her purpose, and her constant appeal to high ideals, enabled her to give to (or at any rate to require from) the seculars of the new order something of the devotion possessed by the religious regulars. the crimean war, in which miss nightingale was one of the central figures, gave further force to a movement for increasing the number and improving the qualification of nurses. it enlisted sentiment in the cause. the american civil war (in which, as we shall hear presently, miss nightingale's example played a great part) extended the movement to the united states, and the red cross organization may also be considered as an outcome of her work in the crimea. the progress of science was tending in a like direction. medicine and surgery were on the eve of receiving great developments. sanitary science was already making advance. at the time when florence nightingale was in training at kaiserswerth, joseph lister was a medical student at university college. cohn, the founder of bacteriology, was only eight years her junior. parkes, one of the founders of modern hygiene, was almost exactly her contemporary. it was inevitable that nursing also should be developed in a scientific spirit, and no one was better qualified than miss nightingale to take the lead in such a movement. her experience in the east had filled her with a passionate conviction of the importance of sanitary science. she was the centre of a circle of earnest and devoted men who were devoting themselves to it. she was personally acquainted with many of the leading physicians and surgeons of the day. and there was yet a fourth line upon which miss nightingale might seem to be predestined for this special work. what is called the "woman's movement" was beginning. "there is an old legend," wrote miss nightingale, at the beginning of her pamphlet on kaiserswerth, "that the nineteenth century is to be the 'century of women.'" at the time when she wrote (1851), the century, she added, had not yet been theirs. but there was a spirit stirring the waters. other notable women were at work, claiming for their sex a place in the sun of the world's work. miss nightingale was not wholly sympathetic to what she called "woman's missionariness." but the circumstances of her own life, as the first part of this memoir has shown, made her intensely interested in claiming that a woman should not be debarred from entering a walk of life to which she is fitted simply because she is a woman; and of such walks of life, nursing is obviously one. controversy is perennial between those who ascribe the course of political or social history mainly to great men, and those who ascribe it rather to streams of tendency. it is less open to controversy to say that the great men who leave the more permanent mark upon history are those whose genius conforms to the spirit of their time, but who are yet a little in advance of their age. among such "great men" the founder of modern nursing is to be reckoned. ii in what precise respect, it may be asked, did florence nightingale "found" modern nursing? the answer to this question may, i think, be disentangled without much difficulty from a good deal of conflicting statement. i have referred already, in connection with the fettering scruples of miss nightingale's parents,[318] to a conflict of evidence upon the morals of hospitals and hospital nurses in the middle of the nineteenth century. her own opinion at that time (and she did not express it without much inquiry and observation) is given in the pamphlet, above mentioned, where she says that hospitals were "a school, it may almost be said, for immorality and impropriety--inevitable where women of bad character are admitted as nurses, to become worse by their contact with male patients and young surgeons.... we see the nurses drinking, we see the neglect at night owing to their falling asleep."[319] such statements were indignantly denied by other authorities, equally well qualified to form a correct judgment. controversy broke out upon the subject a few years later in connection with the nightingale memorial fund. a correspondent of the _times_, who signed himself "one who has walked a good many hospitals," gave in 1857[320] the same kind of account that miss nightingale had given in 1851. he was answered, and his statements were hotly denied.[321] obviously there were hospitals and hospitals, and still more there were nurses and nurses, and no _general_ indictment was just on the point of morals. upon the question of drinking among nurses, both in hospitals and in private service, there is less room for doubt. dickens was a caricaturist, but he was an effective caricaturist; and no caricature is effective in its day unless it bears considerable resemblance to the truth. in his preface he spoke of mrs. gamp as a fair representation, at the time _martin chuzzlewit_ was published, of the hired attendant on the poor; and he might have added, says his biographer, that the rich were no better off, for the original of mrs. gamp "was in reality a person hired by a most distinguished friend of his own a lady, to take charge of an invalid very dear to her."[322] this one can the more readily understand in the light of a remark by lady palmerston quoted above.[323] "'mrs. gamp,' said mrs. harris, 'if ever there was a sober creetur to be got at eighteen pence a day for working people, and three and six for gentlefolks, you are that inwallable person.'" great ladies clearly thought that such persons existed only, and could only be expected to exist, in the world of imagination and of mrs. harris. in 1854, miss mary stanley, or a friend of hers, sent out a circular, very possibly with the knowledge of miss nightingale, to various persons connected with hospitals and infirmaries, of which the object was to suggest that nurses should be instructed, on the kaiserswerth plan, in the art of administering religious comfort to patients. the replies which were subsequently printed[324] throw much light upon the position of nurses at the time. "if i can but obtain a sober set," wrote a doctor in the north, "it is as much as i can hope for." "i enquired for dr. x.," said another reply, "about the character of the nurses, and he says they always engage them without any character, as no respectable person would undertake so disagreeable an office. he says the duties they have to perform are most unpleasant, and that it is little wonder that many of them drink, as they require something to keep up the stimulus." the ordinary wages were £14 to £16 a year. it should be remembered, further, that hospital nurses had, as a rule, in the middle of the last century no uniform dress, and cooked their own food (which they bought for themselves), eating their meals in the ward kitchens or scullery: "if the sister happened to be partial to red herrings for breakfast, or onion-stew for dinner, or toasted cheese for supper, the consequent state of the ward may be imagined. the assistant nurses had to do all the scrubbing and cleaning of the wards, and to cook for the other nurses and themselves."[325] a side-light is thrown on the slovenliness of the arrangements by the account of what happened at king's college hospital when the nursing was taken over in 1856 by trained nurses from st. john's house under miss mary jones. "by the end of the day the new-comers, who had arrived in clean and dainty uniforms, were like a set of sweeps or char-women, in such an appalling state of disorder had they found their wards."[326] there were some excellent nurses under the old régime (apart from those trained at st. john's house), as sir james paget testified[327]; though it may be noted that even amongst his model sisters, one was "not seldom rather tipsy." but "the greater part of them," he says, "were rough, dull, unobservant, untaught." the stoutest defender of the old system, the most stubborn opponent of miss nightingale's reforms, gives unconsciously equal support to sir james paget's statement that "in the department of nursing there is the greatest and happiest contrast of all." mr. south was of opinion that all was for the best, before miss nightingale began to interfere, in the best of all possible nursing worlds. but his conception of the ideal nurse is this: "as regards the nurses or ward-maids, these are in much the same position as housemaids, and require little teaching beyond that of poultice-making."[328] [318] above, p. 60. [319] _kaiserswerth_, p. 15. [320] _times_, april 15, 1857. [321] in a pamphlet by mr. j. f. south, referred to below, p. 445. [322] forster's _life of dickens_, vol. ii. p. 30. [323] above, pp. 272-3. [324] _hospitals and sisterhoods_. london, john murray, 1854 (2nd ed., 1855). anonymous, but known to be the work of miss mary stanley. [325] "report on the nursing arrangements of the london hospitals" (at the time and twenty years before) in the _british medical journal_, feb. 28, 1874. [326] _st. john's house: a record_, p. 10. [327] see his address to the abernethian society in 1885 given in his _memoir and letters_, 1901, p. 351. [328] _facts relating to hospital nurses.... also observations on training establishments for hospitals_, 1857, pp. 11, 16. from all this, facts emerge which will clearly explain wherein miss nightingale's work as the founder of modern nursing consisted. she was not entirely alone, nor was she in point of time the first, in the field; and there were exceptional cases to which the following statements do not apply. but she was able to do on a larger scale, and on a scale and in a form which attracted general imitation, what others had attempted. and speaking generally, we may say that before miss nightingale appeared on the scene, nursing was, and was regarded as, a menial occupation which did not attract women of character; that it was ill-paid and little respected; that no high standard of efficiency was expected; and that no training was organized: the women picked up their knowledge in the wards. they were, as the correspondent of the _times_ said, "meek, pious, saucy, careless, drunken, or unchaste, according to circumstances or temperament, mostly attentive, and rarely unkind"; but, with very few exceptions, they were untrained. "a poor woman is left a widow with two or three children. what is she to do? she would starve on needlework; she is unfit for domestic service; she knows nobody to give her charring, and has no money to buy a mangle. so she gets a recommendation from a clergyman, and is engaged as a hospital nurse." the change which has come about since miss nightingale's work took effect is strikingly illustrated in the census. in 1861 there were 27,618 nurses "in hospitals, or nurses not apparently domestic servants," and they were enumerated, in the tables of occupations of the people, under the head of "domestic." in 1901 there were 64,214 nurses, and they were enumerated under the head of "medicine." miss nightingale was the founder of modern nursing because she made public opinion perceive, and act upon the perception, that nursing was an art, and must be raised to the status of a trained profession. that was the essence of the matter. other things, such as the opening of nursing to higher social strata, the better payment of nurses, etc., though important and interesting, were only results. iii the means by which miss nightingale achieved this great work were three. she brought to bear upon it the force, successively, of her example, her precept, and her practice. the first two of these aspects of her work will be considered in the remainder of the present chapter; the third is the subject of the next chapter. no woman, i suppose, who was not canonized or who had not worn (or been deprived of) a crown, has ever excited among her sex so much passionate and affectionate admiration, and set to so many an example, as florence nightingale. i have tried in an earlier chapter, entitled "the popular heroine," to describe the effect which her work in the crimean war produced upon the minds of her contemporaries. to get first-hand impressions, the younger readers of to-day must go to their grandmothers or great-aunts. it is they who can help us best to some imagination of the thrill which the stories of her nursing in the crimea excited throughout the land, of the intensity of sympathetic admiration which went out towards her, of the impulse towards a fuller and worthier life which proceeded from her example. but old letters are of some assistance too. from a packet of family letters here is one, from an aunt to a niece: "_april_ 15, 1857. i fear from a line in one of the newspapers that florence nightingale's life is approaching an end. i have been deeply impressed by her life these last few days, which in respect of mine forms but a fragment in regard of time, and what she has accomplished! a high mission has been given her which has cost her her life to fulfil."[329] in how many other minds, young and old alike, must florence nightingale's example have stirred similar thoughts! a lady who had attained high distinction as a nightingale nurse was asked after miss nightingale's death to record her recollections: "my first thoughts of miss nightingale date back to that winter of frozen rivers, when children, catching up the rumours of the street, ran about shouting _sebastopol's taken_; or danced, listening around the old weaver's wife who had come to the door of her cottage to catch the last light, and read aloud to her husband what 'lord raiglan' was doing and saying; or later, in the hour before bed-time, sat at their father's feet while he told of the frozen trenches, of the 'dreary corridors of pain,' and of that 'ministering angel,' whose devotion was lightening a nation's distress; or perhaps later still in sleep, dreamed children's dreams of creeping amid sleeping russians, stealing the golden crown from the czar's head, and escaping with it to florence nightingale! such experiences left indelibly impressed on the minds of the children of my generation the gentle and heroic figure of miss nightingale." often, no doubt, the impulse was fleeting, and the broken purpose wasted in air. and often, too, the impulse was vague, and resulted in no definite action; yet not on that account, perhaps, to be cast aside as valueless. "i have a belief of my own," says one of george eliot's characters, "and it comforts me--that by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is, and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil." but often the force of florence nightingale's example was direct and practical. among those whom it influenced in this way was luise, the grand duchess of baden, who in 1859 founded a ladies' society in baden for the training of nurses. she had never seen miss nightingale, but a letter filled the grand duchess with enthusiastic gratitude. "i felt," she wrote (sept. 1861), "that both joy and strength had come to me from your dear letter. i may try indeed to thank you for it, but i shall never succeed in expressing how deeply and how highly i felt your kindness. if there is any progress in the work i have so much at heart, it is greatly to your encouraging support i owe it." those who saw miss nightingale, and who were sympathetic, felt thrilled in her presence. "she is so far more delightful in herself," wrote clara novello, "than in one's imagination." to nurses already engaged in work, miss nightingale's personal influence was an inspiration. miss mary jones, of king's college hospital, addressed her as "my beloved friend and mistress." "i value your nosegay too much to part with any one flower even." "i look on a visit to you as my one indulgence and greatest pleasure." but those who never saw miss nightingale, nor even heard from her, felt the force of her example. in what was publicly known of her career, there was, as it were, a call and a challenge to women. here was a woman, of high ability and of social standing, who had forsaken all to be a nurse. she sought to raise nursing to the rank of a high art. she had already in some measure done it by her example. [329] _a century of family letters_, vol. ii. p. 174. iv in every walk of life, however, there are those who seek the palm without the dust. miss nightingale had seen already in the crimea many women who had followed her example, indeed, in desiring to nurse the sick, but into whose heads it had never entered that nursing required special gifts and careful training. example had to be supplemented by precept. miss nightingale's precepts upon the art of nursing were first given to the world in 1859-60. her _notes on nursing_--the best known, and in some ways the best, of her books--was published in december 1859. it was instantly recognized by the leaders in medical and sanitary science as a work of first-rate importance; as one of those rare books to which, within their range, the term epoch-making may rightly be applied. "i am ashamed to find," wrote sir james paget, "how much i have learnt from the _notes_, more, i think, than from any other book of the same size that i have ever read." "i am delighted with them," wrote sir james clark. "they will do more to call attention to household hygiene than anything that has ever been written." "this," wrote harriet martineau, "is a work of genius if ever i saw one; and it will operate accordingly. it is so real and so intense, that it will, i doubt not, create an order of nurses before it has finished its work." this was a true prediction. miss nightingale was the founder of a new model, and the _notes on nursing_ was its gospel. the anticipations of her friends that the _notes_ would be popular were abundantly fulfilled. here was a book by florence nightingale on the very subject to which her fame was attached. the effect produced upon many minds by _notes upon nursing_ was the greater because it came, as it were, as a kind of resurrection of the popular heroine. the years which had passed since miss nightingale's return from the crimea were, as we now know, years of ceaseless activity; years during which she had done some of her greatest work. but it must be remembered that all this was entirely unknown to most people at the time. the common belief was that miss nightingale had retired into private life upon her return from the crimea; but now after a long interval she came before the public again. and, though, as in all that she wrote for the public eye, there was a conspicuous absence of self-advertisement, there was enough in the book to connect many of its pages with scenes and episodes of the crimean war. an enthusiastic review in a paper not generally given to enthusiasm pointed out the connection: "hundreds of brave men attested with their dying breath how nobly miss nightingale's self-imposed task was fulfilled, and this little book would be almost enough to explain her success. its tone seems to tell of the solemn scenes from which experience in such matters has to be gained. its language is grave, earnest, and impetuous, like that of a person who has lived among sad realities, and has been face to face with almost every form of human suffering."[330] nor was it only the general tone of the book that was suggestive of the heroine of the crimean war. here and there little touches of personal experience were introduced, in which every one could read the occasion between the lines. when the author talked of her "sadly large experience of death-beds," the reader thought of the lady with the lamp at scutari; and when in her chapter on "variety" she recalled "the acute suffering produced from the patient (in a hut) not being able to see out of window," the reader's mind went back to the pictures of miss nightingale at balaclava. "i shall never forget," she wrote, "the rapture of fever patients over a bunch of bright-coloured flowers." she was thinking again of the crimea. the wild flowers there are many and brilliant; and the nurses used to gather them in the early morning walk which each took in turn.[331] [330] _saturday review_, jan. 21, 1860. [331] _hornby_, p. 306. the book was not cheap at first; the price was 5s. but 15,000 copies were sold in a month, and a cheaper edition at 2s. quickly followed. it was read, sooner or later, by all sorts and conditions of people; in palaces, in cottages, in factories. queen victoria "thanked miss nightingale _very much_ for the book," and sent in return a print of herself and the prince consort. from the grand duchess of baden the book called forth an overflowing tribute. "i will not attempt to describe to you," she wrote (oct. 9, 1860), "with how much interest and admiration i read these pages, so beautiful in their simplicity, so admirable in their true christian spirit. rarely has a book made so deep an impression on me. i cannot refrain from expressing the real admiration i feel for the noble english lady who has devoted so much of her life to suffering mankind, and who has given to all her sisters an example never to be forgotten." with further expressions of personal admiration, the grand duchess added a very just characterization of the book: "the gentle feelings of the woman are joined to experience, reflexion, and science." miss nightingale was urged to prepare a popular sevenpenny edition, and this appeared early in 1861 with the title _notes on nursing for the labouring classes_, and with a new chapter called "minding baby." "and now, girls," this chapter begins, "i have a word for you. you and i have all had a great deal to do with 'minding baby,' though 'baby' was not our own baby.[332] and we would all of us do a great deal for baby, which we would not do for ourselves." "did i tell you," wrote miss nightingale to madame mohl (may 7, 1861), "what prompted my little chapter on _minding baby_? a peckham schoolmaster asked me, saying he could always make the school-girls mind my book by telling them it was 'for baby's sake.' and several opened their parents' windows at night (greatly to the indignation of the parents, i am thinking), and removed dung-hills before the doors in consequence." in its cheap form, the book had a very large circulation. mr. chadwick interested himself in getting it recommended for school-reading. benevolent persons distributed it gratuitously in villages and cities. edition after edition was rapidly called for. among miss nightingale's papers i find letters from correspondents reporting cases in which office clerks and factory hands, after reading the book, voted the windows open. [332] "the chapter on minding the baby," wrote mr. jowett (aug. 24, 1868), "is excellent. i particularly like the parenthesis ('though he's not our baby') in which a world of morality is contained." the book was read, not only by all sorts and conditions of people at home, but also in many countries and in many tongues abroad. it had instantly been reprinted in america. it was translated into german, into french (with a preface by miss nightingale's old acquaintance, m. guizot),[333] and into most of the other european languages. if the book be out of print, it ought to be included in one of the cheaper series of the day. it can never be out of date, and no one who has read it has ever found it dull. [333] bibliography a, no. 32. v miss nightingale was essentially a "man of action," not a writer. yet her writings are very characteristic of her work, and none is more pleasantly so than _notes on nursing_. not the whole of her nature "breaks through language and escapes" into it, but this little book alone would be enough to explain to an understanding reader several characteristics of her mind and work. it is an incomparable treatise on the art of nursing; but, as sir james paget indicated, it is more than that: it is an alphabet of household hygiene. miss nightingale's treatment of the subject reveals at the outset her philosophical grasp. "shall we begin," she says, "by taking it as a general principle that all disease, at some period or other of its course, is more or less a reparative process, not necessarily accompanied with suffering: an effort of nature to remedy a process of poisoning or decay, which has taken place weeks, months, sometimes years beforehand, unnoticed, the termination of the disease being then, while the antecedent process was going on, determined? if we are asked, is such or such a disease a reparative process? can such an illness be unaccompanied by suffering? will any care prevent such a patient from suffering this or that?--i humbly say, i do not know. but when you have done away with all that pain and suffering, which in patients are the symptoms, not of their disease, but of the absence of one or all of the essentials to the success of nature's reparative processes, we shall then know what are the symptoms of, and the sufferings inseparable from, the disease." this is, surely, sound philosophy; not overthrown by any later discoveries about germs and microbes. it is the philosophy of eliminating the known as a preliminary to investigating the unknown. it leads miss nightingale to insist on the importance, as she calls it, of "nursing the well" before they become the sick; or in other words, to the principles of domestic hygiene--ventilation, warming, drains, light, cleanliness. in all this her book had more originality than the younger readers of to-day will realize without some effort of retrospective imagination. the homes of the poor were in her day those that were not very much caricatured by dickens and cruickshank. the schools of the poor, which have taught some of the principles of hygiene directly, and have had a yet wider influence indirectly by setting an example of airy rooms and cleanliness, were still in the future. working people in those days could, moreover, hardly be reached by writings. it was the popular fame of florence nightingale that won for her _notes on nursing_ an audience from "the labouring classes." nor is it only among those classes that great changes in current ideas and practice about domestic hygiene have been effected. at the time when miss nightingale wrote, stuffiness characterized the most genteel interiors. she was a pioneer in establishing the principles of modern hygiene; and perhaps even to-day there is still room for a wider acceptance of her doctrine that "nursing the well" is even more important than nursing the sick--preventive hygiene, than curative medicine. a characteristic of miss nightingale's mind, and of her methods in action is, as has been noticed already, her combination of general grasp with minute attention to detail, and this is particularly remarkable in her _notes on nursing_. in the chapter dealing with nursing, in the more common acceptance of the term, one is struck on almost every page with this rare combination of gifts. nothing is too minute for her touch, but everything is referred to a general principle. her philosophy of "noises," with the detailed injunctions which she bases upon it, is alone enough to entitle her to the eternal gratitude of invalids. the book is no less remarkable for delicacy of observation and fineness of sympathy. "apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion. remember, he is face to face with his enemy all the time, internally wrestling with him, having long imaginary conversations with him. you are thinking of something else. rid him of his adversary quickly is a first rule with the sick." "people who think outside their heads, who tell everything that led them towards this conclusion and away from that, ought never to be with the sick." "a sick person intensely enjoys hearing of any _material_ good, any positive or practical success of the right. do, instead of advising him with advice he has heard at least fifty times before, tell him of one benevolent act which has really succeeded practically--it is like a day's health to him. you have no idea what the craving of the sick, with undiminished power of thinking but little power of doing, is to hear of good practical action, when they can no longer partake in it." the whole chapter, entitled "chattering hopes and advices," from which this last extract is taken, is full of wit and wisdom. it could only have been written as the expression of an understanding mind and a sympathetic heart; just as the following chapter, "observation of the sick," with its directions in the finer technique of nursing, could only have come from one of long and varied experience in the practice of it. another of miss nightingale's characteristics--her taste for epigrammatic and often pungent expression--is conspicuous in _notes on nursing_. "feverishness is generally supposed to be a symptom of fever; in nine cases out of ten, it is a symptom of bedding." "no _man_, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this--'devoted and obedient.' this definition would do just as well for a porter. it might even do for a horse. it would not do for a policeman." "some 'obedient' nurses know no medium between 'now no fire,' 'now fire,' as if they were volunteer riflemen." "it seems a commonly received idea among men, and even among women themselves, that it requires nothing but a disappointment in love, or incapacity in other things, to turn a woman into a good nurse. this reminds one of the parish where a stupid old man was set to be schoolmaster because he was 'past keeping the pigs.'" there is lively humour, too, in many of the personal descriptions. miss nightingale quotes lord melbourne's saying: "i would rather have men about me when i am ill; i think it requires very strong health to put up with women."[334] "i am quite of his opinion," she adds, and she gives some little word-pictures of the female nurse (old style). "compelled by her dress, every woman now either shuffles or waddles--only a man can cross the floor of a sick room without shaking it." she was writing in the days of crinolines, and draws a picture of "respectable elderly women stooping forward," when invested therein. another picture is of the nurse who is supposed, "like port-wine," to improve with age. we are not told the circumstances, but we are assured that it was a "fact" that a nurse, when ordered to administer brandy-and-water to a fainting patient, supplied the last week's _punch_. then there is a description of the mincing nurse, with "an affectedly sympathizing voice, like an undertaker's at a funeral." all miss nightingale's pictures were drawn from life. "i wonder," wrote one of her friends, "if the originals will recognise themselves." [334] the saying is recorded in c. r. leslie's _autobiographical recollections_, vol. i. p. 169, as made to lady holland. "oh!" said the lady, tapping him with her fan, "you have lived among such a rantipole set." "i happen to know," wrote monckton milnes to miss nightingale, "who lord melbourne's nurse was." no one, then, could read the _notes on nursing_ without perceiving that the author was a woman of marked ability, of wisdom, and of true goodness. the book does not of itself prove miss nightingale's power of administration or resolute will; for a woman, or a man, may be decisive of speech without being masterful in action; but with this exception the reviewer was right who said that the book was "enough to explain the success" which miss nightingale had attained. the book points even more clearly to one of the main lines on which she was to work in the future. no one could read it without perceiving that nursing, as explained and taught by miss nightingale, must be a very delicate, and a very difficult, art. it required a sound mastery of the laws of household hygiene, some knowledge of medicine or surgery, and, above all, an acute and sympathetic faculty of observation. "merely looking at the sick is not observing." it was obvious that if miss nightingale's ideal of nursing was to be realized, the nurse required both training and inspiration. nursing was an art, and like any other art, "from a shoemaker's to a sculptor's, needed in its votaries the sense of a 'calling,' and then a diligent apprenticeship." the way in which miss nightingale translated her precepts into practice is the subject of the next chapter. in _notes on nursing_, as in nearly everything that came from her pen, what she wrote had direct reference to action. in a characteristic appendix to her _notes on nursing_, miss nightingale discusses "some errors in novels," pointing out, among other things, the untruth of death-bed scenes in works of fiction. "shakespeare," she says, "is the only author who has ever touched the subject with truth, and his truth is only on the side of art." "the best definition of a nurse," she wrote elsewhere,[335] "can be found, as always, in shakespeare." it is in _cymbeline_ that the ideal of a nightingale nurse was prefigured:- so kind, so duteous, diligent, so tender over his occasions, true, so feat, so nurse-like. [335] reprint from quain's _dictionary_, p. 12. chapter iv the nightingale nurses (1860-1861) life is short and the art of healing is long.--hippocrates. "the value of hospitals as schools of surgery and medicine is hardly greater than is their usefulness as a training for nurses, and the field is no less large. it is an employment suited to women. there has been an astonishing change in this matter since miss nightingale volunteered. this change is perhaps the best fruit the past half century has to show."[336] so writes one who has devoted laborious years to the "condition of england question." if it be as mr. charles booth says, then june 24, 1860, is a memorable day in the history of the nineteenth century[337]; for it is the day on which the nightingale training school for nurses was opened at st. thomas's hospital. [336] _life and labour of the people in london._ final volume, 1903, p. 154. [337] the 50th anniversary of the event, not noticed, i think, in england, was celebrated in america: see vol. ii. p. 421. this school was a direct outcome of miss nightingale's services in the crimean war. the nightingale fund, amounting to £44,000, was a tribute from the british empire to the popular heroine. the capital sum, after defrayment of some expenses, was invested in the name of trustees, and a council[338] was nominated by miss nightingale for the administration of the trusts to enable her to establish "an institution for the training, sustenance, and protection of nurses and hospital attendants." she intended, as we have heard,[339] to found or conduct such an institution on her own lines, and her first idea had been to become the superintendent of it herself. [338] the council consisted of mr. herbert, mr. bracebridge, lord ellesmere, sir joshua jebb, sir james clark, dr. bowman, the dean of hereford, sir john mcneill, and dr. bence jones. [339] above, p. 269. on returning from the east, however, miss nightingale was in weak health, and she became absorbed in the large and manifold labours for the british army which have already been described. she saw no early prospect of strength or time available for the superintendence of a new institution; she was unwilling that money subscribed for a public purpose should longer lie idle. in march 1858 she wrote in this sense to mr. sidney herbert,[340] the chairman of the council, begging to be relieved from further responsibility in the matter, and asking that the council should proceed to apply the fund to such objects as it might deem best. the council, however, pointed out that the fund was well invested; that further delay would be partly compensated for by accumulation of resources, and that the contributors were anxious that miss nightingale's "mind and intention should animate the work." they, therefore, begged her to postpone a final decision, and to this suggestion she acceded. but miss nightingale's labours for the army continued, and her health did not improve. her life indeed seemed to her medical advisers to hang upon a slender thread; they thought that she could only live for a few months. she became apprehensive lest death should overtake her before she had impressed her mind and intention upon any application of the nightingale fund. in 1859 she set on foot preparations for doing something. a sub-committee of the council was appointed, consisting of mr. herbert, sir john mcneill, sir james clark, dr. bowman, and sir joshua jebb, with mr. a. h. clough as secretary. [340] "your letter strikes me," wrote mr. herbert (march 22), "as a little too curt for the occasion." he suggested another form of words to her which she adopted. it was obvious to miss nightingale that it would be impossible for her, in view of the state of her health, to found an entirely new institution under her own superintendence. she saw that she must work through existing hospitals and the agency of other persons. it was this latter consideration that settled her choice of the place at which to found her training school. she had naturally been besieged by suggestions from officials of this hospital and of that, of this charity and the other, each urging that his or hers was the one pre-eminently suited to benefactions from the nightingale fund. her choice fell, for the main application of the fund, upon st. thomas's hospital. the resident medical officer, mr. r. g. whitfield, was sympathetic. the hospital was large, rich, and well managed. but, above all, the matron was a woman after miss nightingale's own heart, strong, devoted to her work, devoid of all self-seeking, full of decision and administrative ability. of this remarkable woman, mrs. wardroper, who for twenty-seven years was superintendent of the nightingale school, miss nightingale has left a character-sketch:- i saw her first in october 1854, when the expedition of nurses was sent to the crimean war. she had been then nine months matron of the great hospital in london, of which for 33 years she remained head and reformer of the nursing. training was then unknown; the only nurse worthy of the name that could be given to that expedition, though several were supplied, was a "sister" who had been pensioned some time before, and who proved invaluable.[341] i saw her next after the conclusion of the crimean war. she had already made her mark; she had weeded out the inefficient, morally and technically; she had obtained better women as nurses; she had put her finger on some of the most flagrant blots, such as the night nursing, and where she laid her finger the blot was diminished as far as possible, but no training had yet been thought of.... her power of organization or administration, her courage, and discrimination in character, were alike remarkable. she was straight-forward, true, upright. she was decided. her judgment of character came by intuition, at a flash, not the result of much weighing and consideration; yet she rarely made a mistake, and she would take the greatest pains in her written delineations of character required for record, writing them again and again in order to be perfectly just, not smart or clever, but they were in excellent language. she was free from self-consciousness; nothing artificial about her. she did nothing, and abstained from nothing, because she was being looked at. her whole heart and mind, her whole life and strength were in the work she had undertaken. she never went a-pleasuring, seldom into society. yet she was one of the wittiest people one could hear on a summer's day, and had gone a great deal into society in her young unmarried life. she was left a widow at 42 with a young family. she had never had any training in hospital life, there was none to be had. her force of character was extraordinary. her word was law. for her thoughts, words and acts were all the same. she moved in one piece. she talked a great deal, but she never wasted herself in talking; she did what she said. some people substitute words for acts: _she_ never. she knew what she wanted, and she did it. she was a strict disciplinarian; very kind, often affectionate, rather than loving. she took such an intense interest in everything, even in things matrons do not generally consider their business, that she never tired. she had great taste and spent her own money for the hospital. she was a thorough gentlewoman, nothing mean or low about her; magnanimous and generous, rather than courteous. and all this was done quietly.... she had a hard life, but never proclaimed it. what she did was done silently.[342] [341] this was mrs. roberts: see above, pp. 185, 301. [342] _british medical journal_, dec. 31, 1892. mrs. wardroper retired in 1887, and died in 1892. every artist, it has been said, in painting the portrait of a sitter, paints also something of his own portrait. miss nightingale's vigorous character-sketch of her "dear matron" is, i think, a case in point. after much consultation with mrs. wardroper and mr. whitfield of st. thomas's hospital, and with sir john mcneill and others outside, miss nightingale formulated a scheme. the committee of her council met the governors of the hospital, and an agreement was arrived at for the foundation of the nightingale school. the basis of the agreement was that the hospital was to provide facilities for the training, and the nightingale fund to pay the cost, including the payment of the nurses themselves. in may 1860, advertisements were inserted in the public press inviting candidates for admission, and on june 24 fifteen probationers were admitted for a year's training. thus on a modest scale, but with a vast amount of forethought, was launched the scheme which was destined to found the modern art and practice of nursing. ii the essential principles of the scheme were stated by miss nightingale to be two: "(1) that nurses should have their technical training in hospitals specially organized for the purpose; (2) that they should live in a home fit to form their moral life and discipline."[343] the scheme was carefully adjusted to these two ends. the pupils served as assistant nurses in the wards of the hospital. they received instruction from the sisters and the resident medical officer. other members of the medical staff--namely, dr. bernays, dr. brinton, and mr. le gros clark--gave lectures. how seriously the pupils were expected to undertake their studies, how strictly their superiors would watch their progress, is shown by the formidable "monthly sheet of personal character and acquirements of each nurse" which miss nightingale drew up for the matron to fill in. the moral record was under five heads: punctuality, quietness, trustworthiness, personal neatness and cleanliness, and ward management (or order). the technical record was under fourteen main heads, some of them with as many as ten or twelve sub-heads: "observation of the sick" was especially detailed in this manner. against each item of personal character or technical acquirement, the nurse's record was to be marked as excellent, good, moderate, imperfect, or 0. those who "passed the examiners," as it were, at the end of their year's course, were placed on the hospital register as certificated nurses. as rewards for good conduct and efficiency, the council offered gratuities of £5 and £3, according to two classes of efficiency, to all their certificated nurses, on receiving evidence of their having served satisfactorily in a hospital during one entire year succeeding that of their training. decidedly miss nightingale emphasized the educational side of her new experiment. no public school, university, or other institution ever had so elaborate and exhaustive a system of marks. equally thorough and scientific are the "general directions" which the resident medical officer presently drew up at miss nightingale's earnest request, "for the training of the probationer nurses in taking notes of the medical and surgical cases in hospitals." [343] _british medical journal_, dec. 31, 1892. equal care was taken to ensure miss nightingale's second principle. the hospital was to be a home as well as a school. the upper floor of a new wing of st. thomas's hospital was fitted up for the accommodation of the pupils, so as to provide a separate bedroom for each, a common sitting-room, and two rooms for the sister in charge of them. no pupil was admitted without a testimonial of good character. their board, lodging, washing, and uniform were provided by the fund. they were given £10 for their personal expenses. the chaplain addressed them twice a week. they were placed under the direct authority of the matron, whose discipline (as will have been gathered from miss nightingale's character-sketch) was strict. the least flightiness was reprimanded, and any pronounced flirtation was visited with the last penalty. "although," wrote the matron to miss nightingale, with regard to one probationer, "i have not the smallest reason to doubt the correctness of her moral character, her manner, nevertheless, is objectionable, and she uses her eyes unpleasantly; as her years increase, this failing--an unfortunate one--may possibly decrease." a girl who was detected in daily correspondence, and in "walking out," with a medical student was dismissed. the nurses were only allowed to go out two together. "of course we part as soon as we get to the corner," said one of them at a later time. when the probationers had finished their training, they were expected to enter into service as hospital nurses, or in such other situations in public institutions as through the council or otherwise might be offered to them. it was not intended that they should enter upon private nursing. this was an important point in miss nightingale's scheme. she had it in her mind from the first that her training school should in its turn be the means of training elsewhere. she wanted to sow an acorn which might in course of time produce a forest. iii such, then, was the scheme which was started on june 24, 1860. miss nightingale, confined to her room, was unable to visit the hospital; but every detail was thought out by her. she took constant counsel from her friend miss mary jones, at king's college hospital, who gave her valuable suggestions, and she had eyes and ears to serve her everywhere. her friend mrs. bracebridge visited the dormitory, and pronounced it excellent. on the day after the opening, mrs. wardroper reported that dr. whitfield was as hearty in the cause as herself. they both felt it to be an honour that st. thomas's had been selected for the experiment, though it was an honour which "would subject them to rather harsh criticism." outside opinion, however, was favourable. "i must send a few lines," wrote sir william bowman (aug. 25, 1860), "to say how much satisfied i was yesterday with all i saw of your nurses at st. thomas's. as far as a cursory inspection could go, everything seemed perfect as to order, cleanliness, and propriety of demeanour. your costume i particularly liked,--i suppose i must not say, admired. two or three of your probationers whom i spoke to impressed me favourably. they seemed earnest and simple-minded, intelligent and nice-mannered. altogether the experiment seemed to be working well, considering the difficulties it is being tried under. the 'sisters' i could judge nothing about. mrs. wardroper i was much pleased with, and wish she had sole charge without 'mediums.' the dormitory i liked much." a writer in a popular magazine gave a glowing account of the nightingale school. "the nurses wore a brown dress, and their snowy caps and aprons looked like bits of extra light as they moved cheerfully and noiselessly from bed to bed."[344] miss nightingale sent books, prints, maps, and flowers for the nurses' quarters. "i do not for one moment think," wrote mrs. wardroper, "that you wish to spoil them by over indulgence, but i very much fear they will sadly miss your considerate kindness when they go from us." already (jan. 1861), the matron was receiving applications from country hospitals for nurses to be sent after the year's training. miss nightingale's demand for detailed information was almost insatiable. even the monthly report, with all its amplitude of heads and sub-heads, was not enough. mrs. wardroper supplemented it by private reports. miss nightingale suggested to her that she should encourage the nurses to keep diaries which might afterwards be inspected. "i am very pleased," wrote mrs. wardroper, after two or three years' trial (jan. 11, 1863), "that you approve of the diaries, and i am sure your approbation will stimulate them to increased perseverance." when miss nightingale detected bad spelling, a probationer was given dictation lessons. miss terrot, a friend of miss nightingale, obtained admission to the hospital as a supernumerary, and supplemented the matron's reports. "i am sorry," she wrote in one of many letters, "that the probationers have lately been disposed to quarrel among themselves; i suppose where women live together, there will be jealousies and dislikes." are sets and cliques and dislikes unknown where men live together? the first year's working of the experiment augured well, however, for the success of the scheme. all the probationers who completed their course (13 out of the 15) expressed their gratitude for the benefits they had received. six were admitted as full nurses in st. thomas's hospital. two were appointed nurses in poor law infirmaries, and applications were under consideration for the placing of others.[345] the seed had been sown on good ground. [344] _st. james's magazine_, april 1861. the writer was mrs. s. c. hall. [345] _report of the committee of the council of the nightingale fund for the year ending june 24, 1861._ iv a little later, miss nightingale applied a portion of the fund to another purpose, which she had much at heart. this was the training of midwives for service among the poor. here, again, she worked through an existing institution, and by the agency of a woman already known to her. the hospital selected for this experiment was that of king's college, where miss nightingale herself, before her call to the crimea, had been inclined to serve. the nursing at king's college hospital was undertaken by nurses trained at the st. john's house--an institution which had furnished a contingent to miss nightingale's crimean expedition. the nature of the experiment was explained by miss nightingale in a letter to miss harriet martineau (sept. 24, 1861):- they are to be persons selected by country parishes between 26 and 35 years of age, of good health and good character, to follow a course of _not less_ than 6 months' practical training, and to conform to all the rules of st. john's house which nurses at king's college hospital. no further obligation is imposed upon them by us. they are supposed to return to their parishes and continue their avocation there. i am sorry that we shall be obliged to require a weekly sum for the board which will be merely the cost price--not less than 8s. or more than 9s. a week. our funds do not permit us, at least at first, to do this cost free. for (the hospital being very poor) we have had to furnish the maternity ward and are to maintain the lying-in beds. in fact, we establish this branch of the hospital which did not exist before. the women will be taught their business by the physician-accoucheurs themselves, who have most generously entered, heart and soul, into the plan, at the bed-side of the lying-in patients in this ward, the entrance to which is forbidden to the men-students. and they will also deliver poor women at their own homes, out-patients of the hospital. the head nurse of the ward, who is paid by us, will be an experienced midwife, so that the pupil-nurses will never be left to their own devices. they will be entirely under the lady superintendent--certainly the best moral trainer of women i know. they will be lodged in the hospital, close to her. if i had a young sister, i should gladly send her to this school--so sure am i of its moral goodness; which i mention, because i know poor mothers are quite as particular as rich ones, not merely as to the morality but as to the prosperity of their daughters. in nearly every country but our own there is a government school for midwives. i trust that our school may lead the way towards supplying a want long felt in england. here we experiment; and if we succeed, we aresure of getting candidates. i am not sure this is not the best way. the quiet beginning and the principle that nothing second-best is good enough for the people are very characteristic. v the experiment at king's college hospital, which began in october 1861, had to be abandoned after six years' successful working owing to an epidemic of puerperal fever in the wards; but that at st. thomas's flourishes to this day on an enlarged scale, and throughout miss nightingale's active years occupied a constant share of her thoughts and personal attention. from 1872 onwards she wrote, as we shall hear later, a new year's address, whenever health and time permitted, to the nightingale nurses, constantly inculcating high ideals, and giving personal inspiration to the order which bore her name. every year as it passed carried into wider circles her scheme of affording to women desirous of working as hospital nurses the means of obtaining a practical and scientific training, and of raising by degrees the standard of education and character among nurses as a class. from year to year the other hospitals were assisted from the mother school with trained superintendents and staff, and new centres were formed with the same objects,[346] and it may well be said that the seed thus sown by miss nightingale through the means of the fund has been mainly instrumental in raising the calling of nurses to the position it now holds. so said the council of the fund in their report for the year in which miss nightingale died; and the facts collected in histories of modern nursing fully bear out their statement. in many cases nightingale nurses were sent out in groups, as we shall hear in a later chapter, to initiate reform in other institutions. in the british colonies and the united states the "nightingale power" worked in a similar way. colonial hospitals went to the nightingale school for their superintendents. "miss alice fisher, who regenerated blockley hospital (philadelphia), was a nightingale nurse, and miss linda richards, the pioneer nurse of the united states, enjoyed the advantage of post-graduate work in st. thomas's, and of miss nightingale's personal kindly interest and encouragement."[347] nor was the influence of her scheme confined to the anglo-saxon world. in germany, in france, in austria, and in other countries, the training of nurses similarly followed miss nightingale's lead. thus did the seed which florence nightingale transplanted from kaiserswerth grow up in other soil and with different development into a mighty tree with many branches. [346] on april 11, 1861, sir james paget wrote to miss nightingale begging her to send him a scheme as "bartholomew's is beginning to consider the training of nurses." [347] _history of nursing_, vol. ii. p. 184. in these days, when all our great hospitals have their training schools for nurses, when the tendency is towards increasing the requirements beyond the standard described in this chapter, and when nursing has become a highly organized profession, it requires some effort to realize how novel, and even how daring, was the work of the founder of modern nursing. just as a colonel of the old school helped us to understand the difficulties of miss nightingale's experiment in the crimean war, so a surgeon of the old school wrote a little book which is invaluable in helping us to realize the novelty of her experiment in st. thomas's hospital. this is the book by mr. south, to which i have already referred. he was of the highest distinction in his profession; hunterian orator and twice president of the college of surgeons. he was also senior surgeon at st. thomas's hospital, a fact which perhaps explains mrs. wardroper's anticipation of "rather harsh criticism"; for mr. south was strongly, and even bitterly, opposed to the whole idea of the nightingale fund, and of any new provision for the training of nurses. he was "not at all disposed to allow that the nursing establishments of our hospitals are inefficient, or that they are likely to be improved by any special institution for training." he believed that the nursing at st. thomas's was good (as indeed in many respects it was), and he did not perceive that what the nightingale fund had in view was to raise the general level, and to send out from st. thomas's trained nurses, who in their turn would train other nurses elsewhere. perhaps, if he had perceived this, he would have regarded it as superfluous. his point of view was that of the man who finds the world very well as it is. i have cited the pleasure with which certain army doctors in the east found in the fact that few of their colleagues had subscribed to the nightingale fund. mr. south found similar satisfaction in scanning the subscription list at home. "that this proposed hospital nurse-training scheme has not met with the approbation or support of the medical profession is," he wrote, "beyond doubt. the very small number of medical men whose names appear in the enormous list of subscribers to the fund cannot have passed unnoticed. only three physicians and one surgeon from one (london) hospital, and one physician from a second, are found among the supporters." miss nightingale's nursing work had the support of some leading doctors, but i suppose we must take mr. south's word for it that the medical profession as a whole was unsympathetic or hostile towards reforms which in a later generation received general approbation. the doctors do not stand alone among the professions in a tendency to oppose reforms. the hostility of lawyers to legal reform is almost proverbial; and as for the politicians, one-half of them is professionally engaged in predicting dire results from reforms introduced by the other half. and so it continues until the paradoxes of one generation become the commonplaces of the next. but if the course of political and social progress is strewn with the wrecks of predictions of ruin, neither is it free from the disillusionments of reformers. fears may be liars, but hopes are sometimes dupes. miss nightingale, as the founder of modern nursing, achieved great and beneficent results, but she lived to experience some disappointments. her standard was so high that she was more conscious of shortcoming than of achievement. we shall perhaps better understand her mind when we pass, in the next chapter, to consider the religious sanction and the ideal of human perfectibility which she had worked out for herself in the world of thought, and which inspired her efforts in the world of action. chapter v the religious sanction: "suggestions for thought" (1860) it fortifies my soul to know that, though i perish, truth is so: that, howsoe'er i stray and range, whate'er i do, thou dost not change. i steadier step when i recall that, if i slip, thou dost not fall. a. h. clough. the life and work of miss nightingale, as described in the foregoing chapters of this memoir, were such as were unlikely to have proceeded from any one who was not possessed by some strong spiritual impulse. it was a life devoted to work, and in that work she sought and found herself. yet from what is ordinarily called "self-seeking" her work was conspicuously free. the body was so weak that the wonder is how a woman in delicate health was able to perform so much of what sidney herbert called "a man's work" in the world. she was supported, sustained, inspired by great spiritual force and energy, which drove her to seek self-satisfaction in a dedicated life of work, and which in its turn found expression in a form of religion, independently attained and intensely held. in a previous chapter i have traced the development of miss nightingale's religious views during her earlier years, and have shown how they broadened out into a tolerance which took more account of deeds than of creeds. but, as was there said, she was interested in creeds also.[348] her nature was profoundly religious, and she had a mind as apt for speculative as for practical thought. her critical spirit had detected weak places, as she deemed them, in the creed alike of protestants and of catholics. the precise and practical bent of her mind could not be satisfied until she had found for the feelings of her heart some more logical basis. she was thus driven forward to that reconstruction of her religious creed, to which passing reference has already been made. at the beginning of her diary for 1853, on a page placed opposite january for "memoranda from 1852," there is this entry: "the last day of the old year. i am so glad this year is over. nevertheless it has not been wasted, i trust. i have remodelled my whole religious belief from beginning to end. i have learnt to know god. i have recast my social belief; have them both written for use, when my hour is come." this entry refers to the manuscripts called respectively "religion" and "novel" in a letter of 1852, already cited.[349] the manuscripts, after being read by one or two friends, remained for some years in miss nightingale's desk, though during that period of strenuous activity in the world of deeds the subject-matter, we may be sure, often occupied her thoughts. in 1858 and 1859 she took up the manuscripts again. the companionship of arthur hugh clough, who at this time was much with her, was doubtless one of the causes which led to an active resumption of her theological speculations. she was rereading mill's _logic_ and reading edgar quinet's _histoire de mes idées_. mr. clough's notes of conversation with her show how much she was indebted in her speculations to mill. "quinet and j. s. mill," wrote mr. clough (march 2, 1859), "seemed, she said, the two men who had the true belief about god's laws. she referred in particular to two chapters in mill's _logic_ about free will and necessity, which seemed to her to be the beginning of the true religious belief. the excellence of god, she said, is that he is inexorable. if he were to be changed by people's praying, we should be at the mercy of who prayed to him. it reminded her, she said, of what old james martin said some years ago when she saw him--that he didn't like having dissenters praying--he liked to have the prayers all set down and arranged: he didn't know what people mightn't be praying, perhaps that the money might be taken out of _his_ pocket and put into _theirs_." she rewrote some of what had been written six or seven years before; and she added a great deal more. towards the end of 1859 she began printing it. in the following year the whole was in type, and a very few copies were struck off. this book, entitled _suggestions for thought_, is in three volumes, comprising in all 829 large octavo pages. it was never published by her. it has with conspicuous merits equally conspicuous defects. the merits are of the substance; the defects are of form and arrangement; but miss nightingale never found time or strength or inclination--i know not which or how many of the three were wanting--to remove the defects by recasting the book. unpublished, therefore, it is likely, i suppose, to remain. but as it stands it is a remarkable work. no one, indeed, could read it without being impressed by the powerful mind, the spiritual force, and (with some qualifications) the literary ability of the writer. if she had not during her more active years been absorbed in practical affairs, or if at a later time her energy or inclination had not been impaired by ill-health, miss nightingale might have attained a place among the philosophical writers of the nineteenth century. [348] above, p. 57. [349] above, p. 119. ii in 1860, at the time when miss nightingale put her _suggestions for thought_ into type, she was half-inclined to publish the work. she consulted some of her intimate friends on the point. she also submitted the manuscript to two famous men, than whom none were better qualified to give a just opinion--john stuart mill and benjamin jowett. with mr. mill she was not personally acquainted, and she sought an introduction through her friend mr. chadwick. by way of breaking the ground, he sent to mill a copy of _notes on nursing_. mill promised to read the book immediately, though (he added) "i do not need it to enable me to share the admiration which is felt towards miss nightingale more universally i should imagine than towards any other living person." this expression must have pleased her, for she was a diligent reader and (with some differences of opinion) a warm admirer of mill's books. being thus assured of his good will, and being further informed through mr. chadwick that no formal introduction was necessary if miss nightingale conceived that mr. mill could be of any service to her, she sent him a copy of the _suggestions_, or rather, of a portion of them. he read it, and was greatly interested; so much so that, in addition to sending her a letter of general criticism, he was at the pains to annotate it in the margin. he hoped that he might be allowed to see the remainder. a perusal of this increased his high opinion. "i have seldom felt less inclined to criticize," he said, "than in reading this book." but one or two criticisms he did offer--"for your consideration," he said, "and not as pretending to lay down the law on the subject to any one, much less to you";[350] and he invited further correspondence. miss nightingale's essays remained in his mind, for in a famous book, published nine years later, he introduced an allusion to them.[351] to mr. jowett, miss nightingale was introduced by mr. clough, who had asked him to read some of the _suggestions_. "it seemed to me," he said to mr. clough, after reading it, "as if i had received the impress of a new mind."[352] his interest in such philanthropic efforts as those connected with the name of florence nightingale is reflected in a passage in the famous "essay on interpretation,"[353] and he must have been the more interested in the _suggestions_ when mr. clough told him that she was the author, and asked him to write to her about them. her name for the book in familiar letters was the "stuff," by which name also it is spoken of in her will. "i write to thank you," said mr. jowett in one of the earlier letters of a long series (april 6, 1861), "for the 'stuff,' to which i shall venture to add the epithet 'precious.'" he thought as highly of the book as did mr. mill, though in a different way. and he, too, in addition to long letters of general discussion suggested by the book, annotated it in detail. his annotations are most voluminous and careful. they are admirable in criticism, and from them alone a reader, not otherwise acquainted with mr. jowett's work, might form a tolerably accurate idea of his character and modes of thought. the proof copy of "the stuff," with mr. jowett's annotations, was one of miss nightingale's most cherished possessions. i shall refer to some of the detailed criticisms later. "i have ventured," he said, "to put down the criticisms which occur to me quite baldly; they must not be supposed to be inconsistent with the greatest respect for the mind and genius of the writer." the criticisms were many, and often far-reaching; but no less frequent are expressions such as "very good," "very fine and noble." [350] mill's two letters on _suggestions for thought_ are those printed, as "to a correspondent," at vol. i. pp. 238-242 of the _letters of john stuart mill_ (1910). [351] _the subjection of women_, chap. iii. p. 144: "a celebrated woman, in a work which i hope will some day be published, remarks truly that everything a woman does is done at odd times." a good deal of mill's treatment of this branch of his subject recalls miss nightingale's _suggestions_. [352] _life and letters of benjamin jowett_, by abbott and campbell, vol. i. p. 270. [353] "and there may be some tender and delicate woman among us, who feels that she has a divine vocation to fulfil the most repulsive offices towards the dying inmates of a hospital, or the soldier perishing in a foreign land" (_essays and reviews_, 1860). on the immediate question, to publish or not to publish? mr. mill and mr. jowett gave what might at first sight appear to be very different advice. mr. mill, after reading the first instalment of the book, said: "if any part of your object in sending it was to know my opinion as to the desirableness of its being published, i have no difficulty in giving it strongly in the affirmative"; and in his next letter he said: "if when i had only read the first volume i was very desirous that it should be published, i am much more so after reading the second." mr. jowett, on the other hand, was against publication. it is presumptuous, i fear, to pose as a court of appeal between two such judges, but i will hazard the opinion that mr. jowett's was the better advice. and this is not quite so presumptuous as it may seem, for the fact is that, though mr. mill wanted to see the book published, he would also have been glad to see it recast. and, similarly, mr. jowett, though he urged that the book must be recast, was very anxious that it should ultimately be published. "i should be very sorry," he wrote at the end, "if the greater part of this book did not in some form see the light. i have been greatly struck by reading it, and i am sure it would similarly affect others. many sparks will blaze up in people's minds from it." "in point of arrangement, indeed," wrote mr. mill, "of condensation, and of giving, as it were, a keen edge to the argument, it would have much benefited by the recasting which you have been prevented from giving it by a cause on all other accounts so much to be lamented. this, however, applies more to the general mode of laying out the argument than to the details." mr. mill put admirably in these two sentences points which mr. jowett over and over again explained and illustrated, with the utmost care, in his detailed annotations, and they are points which must strike every reader of miss nightingale's book. the repetitions are tiresome, nay almost intolerable, to any one who reads a considerable portion of it consecutively, and miss nightingale, in a later letter to madame mohl, says that she could not read the book herself. the argument in isolated passages, and sometimes in particular chapters, is closely knit, but in the book taken as a whole it often loses itself in digressions, and there is a lack of any consistent _ordo concatenatioque rerum_. the book is as remarkable for literary felicities in detail as it is deficient in the art of literary arrangement. some consideration of this point will serve to illustrate an aspect of miss nightingale's character. the defect which mr. mill and mr. jowett saw in her _suggestions for thought_ might seem to be among the last to be expected in her. her mind was singularly methodical and orderly; this was one of the essential characteristics of her work as an administrator and a reformer. in this very book the characteristic appears, though in a somewhat superficial form. each volume is prefaced by an elaborate "digest," with many divisions and subdivisions. yet the fact remains that the appearance of close method does not correspond with any similarly close arrangement of the material. it may be said that the subject-matter is less tractable by methodic heads and sub-heads than the organization of a department or the arrangement of a hospital. and that is true; but it is worth noting that something of the same criticism that was made by mr. mill and mr. jowett upon miss nightingale's _suggestions for thought_ was made by another able man upon her _notes on the army_. "i consider them deficient," wrote sir john mcneill (nov. 18, 1858), "in a certain form of artistical skill or art, and chargeable with frequent repetitions, but i confess that these deficiencies constitute to my mind some of their greatest charms. they give to the whole the most unmistakable stamp of earnestness and truth--such as no reader of ordinary perception can doubt. they must, i think, in every class of mind produce the conviction that you were exclusively occupied with the good you might do, and not at all with your reputation as an artist." this apology is perfectly valid in relation to the particular work in question, and sir john might have added another. the _notes on the army_ were a series of reports, of which indeed the whole should have been read consecutively by the secretary of state, but each of which referred to a different branch of the war department. but the case is different when we pass to a philosophic treatise which is addressed to thinkers. some of the lack of sustained coherence in miss nightingale's _suggestions for thought_, and many of its repetitions, may be referred to the method of composition. different chapters were written at different times. but when she thought of publishing it, she did not care to correct those defects. why was this? the explanation is to be found, i think, partly in a view which she had come to hold of the literary art, and partly in a certain impetuosity of temper. she had put literary pursuits away from her as a vain temptation. she cared for writing only as a means to action, and she could not see that literary form is of the essence of the matter if writing is to influence current thought on difficult subjects. infinitely laborious, again, when action was in sight, and capable of infinite patience when she saw the need, she was content to throw out her thoughts careless of the form. there is a complete and consistent scheme underlying her _suggestions_; it was ever present in her own mind; and she could not be troubled to pare and prune, to revise and recast, in the interests of what she despised as mere artistry. _non omnia possumus_. those who are capable of completion in one field are often impatient of it in another. ruskin, so careful of finish in his literary craftsmanship, was asked why he so seldom finished his drawings "to the edges." "oh," he replied, "i can't be bothered to do the tailoring." mr. jowett urged miss nightingale in one of his letters (nov. 17, 1861) to devote time and trouble to improving the form of her _suggestions_: "no one can get the form in which it is necessary to put forth new ideas without great labour and thought and tact. it takes years after ideas are clear in your own mind to mould them into a shape intelligible to others." miss nightingale's answer to mr. jowett is not in existence; but i imagine that it was to the effect that she had no time for the tailoring. iii the difference in the advice given by mr. mill and mr. jowett respectively went deeper, however, than to the question of form. and here again a consideration of the point will throw light on miss nightingale's character. the book was ostensibly one of reconstruction; it was in fact very largely one of revolt. the first and the third volumes are a philosophical exposition of her creed--"law, as the basis of a new theology." the second, devoted to "practical deductions," is a criticism of the religion and social life of her day. the criticism, under both heads, is scathing and full of touches of her characteristically caustic humour. this second volume includes a full discussion of the position of women, and a plea for their emancipation from many of the restrictions of the time. it is easy to see how much of this appealed strongly to mr. mill, and why he deemed its publication desirable. and it is equally easy to understand that much of it offended mr. jowett, and why he deemed revision essential. i shall not presume on this point to decide between her counsellors. as her biographer, i content myself with recording that the plea for moderation, for conciliation, for suavity which mr. jowett urged in scores of marginalia and in dozens of letters seems to have prevailed. the essence of the plea was that the new should as far as possible be grafted upon the old; it was a plea for accommodation. miss nightingale had ideas which were of real value, but they would not avail to modify and purify religious thought if they were presented in too combative and revolutionary a form. one passage, though not among those to which mr. jowett more particularly objected, will serve to illustrate his point of view. i select it because it is characteristic of the writer's humour. it is from a section entitled "john bull and his church":--"john bull will have plenty for his money. he will have his services long, till he is quite tired, that he may have his money's worth; like his concerts, plenty in them; no cheating; till he goes home yawning. so he has his confession, lumping all his sins together, and then his absolution, and then his praise, and then his litany, asking for every imaginable thing, and ending with asking god for 'mercy on _all_ men,' lest he should have left out anything, till there does not remain to god the smallest choice or judgment; and then his sermon--a long one--three services in one,--that he may not have put on his best clothes nor paid all his tithes for nothing." no person blessed with any sense of humour is likely to find this passage offensive; but mr. jowett objected to it because it is not historically true. "j. b. had a church and liturgy made for him by henry viii. and queen elizabeth, and human nature in churches is conservative." and generally mr. jowett asked miss nightingale "not to find fault with the times or with anybody, but to endeavour out of the elements that exist to reconstruct religion." theology is a progressive science. each age adds something to the idea of god. let miss nightingale seek to win converts by leading them gently by the hand, not, as it were, by knocking them upon the head. she had peculiar advantages for doing this. let her be very careful not to throw them away. so did mr. jowett reason with her. the point is put in innumerable forms; but this paragraph from a letter already mentioned (nov. 17, 1861) will serve as a type: "i should not much care if only a comparatively small part of your work is finished. its greatest value will be that it comes from you who worked in the crimea. shall i say one odd and perhaps rather impertinent thing? you have a great advantage in writing on these subjects as a woman. do not throw it away, but use the advantage to the utmost. in writing against the world ('athanasia contra mundum'), every feeling, every sympathy should be made an ally, so that with the clearest statement of the meaning there is the least friction and drawback possible." whether it was mr. jowett's criticism that alone or mainly caused miss nightingale to abandon the idea of publishing her _suggestions for thought_, i do not know.[354] but two things may be said. only once, so far as i have traced, did she take the world at all into her confidence on the subject of her religious beliefs. it was twelve years later, in some articles in _fraser's magazine_, to which we shall come in due course. in those articles the fundamental doctrines of the _suggestions for thought_ are contained, but they are stated in a manner and a temper which show that she had given heed to the "mild wisdom" of mr. jowett. the other thing that may be said is that for mr. jowett personally miss nightingale felt from the first a high regard. at the time with which we are now concerned, they knew each other by correspondence only, though, of course, mr. clough would have had much to tell her of his friend. "i do so like mr. jowett," she wrote at this time to a friend. and at the same time mr. jowett wrote to her: "i reckon you (if i may do so) among unseen friends." presently they met; the friendship ripened, and remained firm to the end. iv miss nightingale, then, in addition to her other activities, is to be reckoned among the strenuous seekers after truth in religion and philosophy. the _suggestions_ had their immediate origin, as i have explained already,[355] in a desire to meet by some positive reconstruction the negative "free-thinking" among the working-classes, and the first volume was addressed, on the title-page and by a dedication, to "the artizans of england." mr. jowett criticized this restricted appeal. "a book cannot be written," he said, "for the artizans separated from the educated classes; it must embrace them both. there is one intellectual world with common ideas, and the more permanent part of that is the world of the higher classes. therefore i would urge you not to write for the artizans, but to write for everybody." and mr. mill had written: "there is much in the work which is calculated to do great good to many persons besides the artizans to whom it is more especially addressed." there was some force too (especially in regard to the more abstract argument of the first and third volumes) in what m. mohl said, "that she had set out to give the working classes a religion, and that she gave them a philosophy instead." the address of the book to artizans became palpably untenable when miss nightingale passed in the second, and longest, volume to "practical deductions," and to a criticism of life as lived among "the upper ten." her sense of humour perceived the incongruity, and the second and third volumes were addressed generally "to searchers after religious truth." the address "to artizans" is only significant as illustrating a phase of miss nightingale's interests. the essential significance of the book in the story of her life is the revelation which it gives of her own mind in its search after truth, and of the conclusions in which she ultimately found support. [354] in some testamentary instructions, made early in 1862, she expressed a desire that the "stuff" should be "revised and arranged according to the hints of mr. jowett and mr. mill, but without altering the spirit according to their principles with which i entirely disagree. but he who would have done this is gone"--doubtless a reference to mr. clough. in 1865 she asked mr. jowett himself if he would edit the "stuff" for her. but he remained of his former opinion that it required to be recast entirely: it was, he said (april 24), "rather the preparation or materials of a book than a book itself." [355] above, p. 119. i have been much struck in reading the book by the number of illustrations which miss nightingale draws from nursing, medicine, and administration. it may be said, i think, that the line of speculation followed in her _suggestions for thought_ was the result of reflection upon those data by a mind which was at once intensely spiritual and severely logical. we come very near to the root of the thing in her mind in this passage of tender and yet humorous autobiography:- when i was young, i could not understand what people meant by "their thoughts wandering in prayer." i asked for what i really wished, and really wished for what i asked. and my thoughts wandered no more than those of a mother would wander, who was supplicating her sovereign for her son's reprieve from execution.... i liked the morning service much better than the afternoon, because we asked for more things.... i was always miserable if i was not at church when the litany was said. how ill-natured it is, if you believe in prayer, not to ask for everybody what they want.... i well remember when an uncle died, the care i took, on behalf of my aunt and cousins, to be always present in spirit at the petition for "the fatherless children and widows"; and when gonfalonieri was in the austrian prison of spielberg, at that for "prisoners and captives." my conscience pricked me a little whether this should extend to those who were in prison for murder and debt, but i supposed that i might pray for them spiritually. i could not pray for george iv. i thought the people very good who prayed for him, and wondered whether he could have been much worse if he had not been prayed for. william iv. i prayed for a little. but when victoria came to the throne, i prayed for her in a rapture of feeling and my thoughts never wandered. to this simple faith of youth, experience succeeded. a patient might pray for sleep, but laudanum was more efficacious. what was the use of praying to be delivered from "plague and pestilence" so long as the common sewers were still allowed to run into the thames? if god sent a visitation of cholera, which was the more probable reading of his mind--that he sent it in order that men might pray to him for relief from it, or in order that they should themselves set about removing the predisposing causes? miss nightingale's conclusion was that if there be a plan in the universe, the plan must be other than what the popular religion of the day, logically interpreted, implies. "god's scheme for us," she inferred, "was not that he should give us what we asked for, but that mankind should obtain it for mankind." this was the germ from which miss nightingale's philosophy of religion was developed. she had read much in metaphysics and in theology; she had reasoned long with herself of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute. she reasoned long, but did not feel herself "in wandering mazes lost." she began with considering the nature of belief, and showed that any true explanation of the term throws us back on the nature of the object of belief. the supreme object of belief we call god. but in different ages men have meant very different things by god. there is the savage idea of god, the hindoo, the greek, the israelite, and so forth; and there is the christian idea, which again is widely different according to the patristic or theological notions, and according to the popular one. this last required to be exalted and purified. the true idea of god, which is alone reconcilable with the deepest morality and with the widest contemplation of nature and history and the world is the idea, not of an individual swayed by likings and personalities, but of an universal being who is law. the laws of god were, she held, discoverable by experience, research, and analysis; or, as she sometimes put it, the _character_ of god was ascertainable, though his _essence_ might remain a mystery. the laws of god were the laws of life, and these were ascertainable by careful, and especially by statistical, inquiry. this is what i meant by saying in an earlier chapter that miss nightingale regarded the study of statistics with something of religious reverence. statistics compiled by meteorologists have shown, she says in the _suggestions_, that storms can be foreseen. when a ship goes down in an "unforeseen" gale, "do we say, 'how could god permit such a dreadful calamity as the loss of all hands on board? the devil must have done it.' no. we say, 'study the signs of approaching gales, and you will _not_ be lost.' is it not the same with moral evil, the laws of which are just as _calculable_?" a copy of quetelet's book, already mentioned, had been presented to her "with the author's homage, respect, and affection." she often spoke of the belgian statistician in similar terms. his book was in her eyes a religious work--a revelation of the will of god. in her annotated copy she enlarged the title. the book was not merely an _essai de physique sociale_. it exhibited "the sense of infinite power, the assurances of solid certainty, and the endless vista of improvement from the principles of _physique sociale_, if only found possible to apply on occasions when it is so much wanted." a very large "if," many will say; as in effect her father constantly said in written discussions with her on these subjects. but her reply was always the same. the greater the difficulty, the more the need for serious study. with the concentrated study of mankind upon the problem, the answer would be found. "truth is _so_," said her friend. "truth is not what one troweth," said she, and there was no phrase oftener on her lips in serious conversation. she went on to develop this idea of god as law in relation to human fate, and to those problems of "free will and necessity," which milton thought to be inscrutable mysteries, and around which metaphysicians and logicians have for ages disputed. she found her ultimate solution in a hypothesis which mr. mill told her that he had at one time tried but abandoned--the hypothesis of "a being who, willing only good, leaves evil in the world solely in order to stimulate human faculties by an unremitting struggle against every form of it"; a perfect being who created a perfectible one, and so ordered the world that its course should be a constant struggle towards perfection. miss nightingale did not blink the fact that her hypothesis left mysteries unexplained. the finite cannot apprehend the infinite. "we cannot," she wrote, "understand the existence of god willing laws. we cannot understand the perfect being. all this appears to me exactly what we ought to allow to be a mystery."[356] but she held with bossuet that _il ne faut pas confondre la question de la nature de dieu avec celle des rapports de dieu et du monde_. "we ought," she continued, "with all our mights to learn the perfections, not to understand the perfect--to study his character and his laws, not his essence, or how he lives willing his laws. it is evident that creation is a mystery, but god's end and object (in creating) need not be a mystery. everybody tells us that the existence of evil is incomprehensible, whereas i believe it is much more difficult--it is impossible--to conceive the existence of god (or even of a good man) _without_ evil." good and evil are relative terms, and neither is intelligible without the other. [356] from a letter to her father. without supposing, then, that she had solved the ultimate riddle of the universe, miss nightingale had hold of an hypothesis which solved for her many of the mediate riddles. it seemed to her to contain a lofty conception of god; to justify his ways to men; to explain the supposed war between free will and necessity. her views on some of these high matters will perhaps be made clearer by the letter of explanation which she wrote to her father in sending him a copy of some of her "stuff":- old burlington street, _july_ 6 [1859]. dear papa--i shall be so pleased to send you some of my "works," as you are so good as to wish to read them. i have asked aunt mai to send you the shortest [a portion of vol. i.]. i think the subject is this: granted that we see signs of _universal_ law all over this world, _i.e._ law or plan or constant sequences in the moral and intellectual as well as physical phenomena of the world--granted this, we must, in this universal law, find the traces of _a_ being who made it, and what is more of the _character_ of the being who made it. if we stop at the superficial signs, the being is something so bad as no human character can be found to equal in badness, and certainly all the beings he has made are better than himself. but go deeper and see wider, and it appears as if this plan of _universal_ law were the only one by which a good being could teach his creatures to teach themselves and one another what the road is to universal perfection. and this we shall acknowledge is the only way for any educator, whether human or divine, to act--viz. to teach men to teach themselves and each other. if we could not _depend_ upon god, _i.e._ if this sequence were not _always_ to be calculated upon in moral as well as in physical things--if he were to have caprices (by some called _grace_, by others _answers to prayer_, etc.), there would be no order in creation to depend upon. there would be chaos. and the only way by which man can have free will, _i.e._ can learn to govern his own will, to have what will he thinks _right_ (which is having his will free), is to have universal order or law (by some miscalled necessity). i put this thus brusquely because philosophers have generally said that necessity and free will are incompatible. it seems to have appeared to god that law is the only way, on the contrary, to _give_ man his free will. and this i have attempted to prove. and further that this is the only plan a perfectly good omnipotent being could pursue.... ever, dear papa, your loving child, f. n. i need not enter into the fundamental difficulty which mr. mill found in this last assumption, nor into the difficulties which mr. jowett pointed out, in a series of letters, in miss nightingale's reconciliation of free will and necessity. our concern here is with what she thought, and the hypothesis satisfied her judgment. it had the further result of giving her a rational basis for belief in a future life. the chapter in which she discussed this subject seemed to mr. jowett "the most responsible and serious in the whole book." he made some critical objections to details in the argument, but her general line was in accordance with what we know to have been his own conviction on the subject, namely, that the evidence for a future life must be found in moral ideas.[357] and in a letter to miss nightingale he says: "i shall never give up the faith in immortality, though i cannot determine or conceive the manner of another state of being. that christ became a mass of clay again seems to me of all incredible things the most incredible." to miss nightingale the belief followed logically from her general hypothesis. the theory of perfectibility required a future state of infinite progress for each and all; the theory of a good god required it. the purpose of god, as she conceived it, is that in the end "each and all shall in accordance with law desire and obtain to will right, all sin and sorrow being but one of the processes through which mankind is learning and teaching. hence it is that belief in a future in connexion with human existence is essential to the belief that we are under righteous government." "how plain," wrote mr. nightingale to his daughter, after reading the chapter, "are the steps of your argument! the senses, the reason, the feelings appreciate the laws of goodness, benevolence, and righteousness in the thought of god; but circumstances indicate a want of benevolence unless there is reason to believe in a future development. therefore a continued existence is according to law." mr. jowett in his marginalia suggested that she might have made more of the opposite alternative: "if there is no future state, then what of god, what of human nature? not only would there be an awful deception, but a deception of all the best feelings and of those in which we most trust. work out the supposition, and look it full in the face, and (whether right or wrong) it is hardly possible to suppress the temper of a demon towards the supreme being." so miss nightingale intensely thought; and, therefore, the idea of god as universal law, willing human perfection, gave her even greater security than is put forward in the lines from clough which i have placed at the head of this chapter. she quoted them herself, but added, "yes; but truth is so that 'i' shall _not_ perish." [357] _letters of benjamin jowett_, 1899, p. 245. her speculations gave her a basis, further, for understanding what is meant by a philosophy of history:- (_miss nightingale to her father._) hampstead, _oct._ 24 [1861]. (seven years this very day since i began "the fight" for the army.) i think dicey's cavour and monckton milnes's tocqueville in the _quarterly_, the two most masterly sketches of a true statesman i have read for some time.[358] cavour's death was heroic--in the prime of his glory and success--working to the last. but i am not sure that there is not something more heroic and more pathetic in tocqueville's, broken-hearted, but not in despair, faithful to the end of the "good fight"--_lost_, although fought so well. people call him narrow--_i.e._ people who are so wide that they can do nothing themselves. the unheroic tone of the teachers of the present day is bad; as when excellent jowett says that in these days, only "exceptional" cases can fight the good fight. is not this the reason why these cases _are_ exceptional? and was there ever an age in so much need of heroism? most just is the praise to tocqueville of imitating god in his statesmanship--in reconciling man's free will and god's law--the only mode in which god or statesman can govern. but he is unfair to himself when he says he will not "play the part of providence." he _did_, as far as he could. he is untrue to himself in saying how little we can ever find out of the laws of history. undoubtedly we have as yet found out hardly anything. (i suppose buckle has some of the crudest generalizations extant.) but, did we study history as much as physical science, would this be so? is it not like the children who say, i'm too little (when told to do a difficult sum), to attribute this to the "inability of our reason." surely god says just the contrary. tocqueville tells us not to call events "mysterious." he calls upon governments to comprehend the mysterious influences--"mysterious" only to our ignorance. and i would drop the word altogether. perhaps tocqueville was the first statesman who united an acknowledgment of the fact that, according to the laws of god, all human history could not have been other than it has been, with the conviction that this, instead of stimulating us to do nothing, stimulates us to do everything. [358] the article on cavour was in july; that on tocqueville, in october. above all, her religious belief satisfied her as giving high motive to human conduct. it linked, in logical connection, the service of man to the service of god. it inspired with religious enthusiasm her conviction that each individual--woman as well as man--should be given the freedom to make the best of himself. the doing of god's will--that is, according to her philosophy, the discovery of causes and effects, the rectification of errors, the education of men to profit by their mistakes--was the way to communion with god. the reader may remember from previous chapters that florence nightingale was conscious of "a call from god to be a saviour," and that the tribute which she paid to her "dear master," sidney herbert, was to call him "a saver." there are passages in the _suggestions for thought_ which show with what significance she used those terms. "god's plan is that we should make mistakes, that the consequences should be definite and invariable; then comes some saviour, christ or another, not one saviour, but many an one, who learns for all the world _by_ the consequences of those errors, and 'saves' us from them.... there must be saviours from social, from moral, error. most people have not learnt any lesson from life at all--suffer as they may, they learn nothing, they would alter nothing.... we sometimes hear of men 'having given a colour to their age.' now, if the colour is a right colour, those men are saviours." miss nightingale's own work in the world--at scutari, for the health of the british soldier at home, for hospitals, for nursing, and presently for india--received from her philosophy a religious sanction.[359] [359] for an application of her religious views to the care of india, see the passage quoted in vol. ii. p. 1. v how, if at all, it may be asked, did she adjust her innermost beliefs to the current creeds of the day? i shall not attempt to define what she did not define; but a few remarks may be made. was she unitarian or trinitarian? i think that we may answer as we will. she was "very sure of god," but very chary, as we have seen, of attempting to define his essence. sometimes she seemed to think of god in a unitarian sense; but there is a passage in the _suggestions_ in which she philosophizes the trinity. "the perfect exists in three relations to other existence: (1) as the creator of all other existence, of its purpose, and of the means of fulfilling its purpose. this is the father. (2) as partaken in these other modes of existence. this is the son. (3) as manifested to these other modes of existence. this is the holy ghost." then, again, was she "protestant" or "catholic"? she used language at different times which might be interpreted in either direction; but she used it at all times with some inner meaning of her own. here is a letter which philosophizes an "evangelical" doctrine:- (_miss nightingale to her father._) hampstead, _sept._ 26 [1863]. dear papa--i am sure that if any one finds nourishment in renan or in any book i should be very sorry to "depreciate" it. there is not so much solid food in books nowadays, especially in religious books, that we can afford to do so. i always think of mad. mohl's, "i don't want any book-writer to chew my food for me." now nearly all books are chewed food--especially religious books.... what i dislike in renan is not that it is fine writing, but that it is _all_ fine writing. his christ is the hero of a novel; he himself, a successful novel-writer. i am revolted by such expressions as _charmant_, _délicieux_, _religion du pur sentiment_, in such a subject.... as for the "religion of sentiment," i really don't know what he means. it is an expression of balzac's. if he means the "religion of love," i agree and do not agree. we _must love_ something _loveable_. and a religion of love must certainly include the explaining of god's character to be something loveable--of god's "providence," which is the self-same thing as god's laws, as something loving and loveable. on the other hand i go along with christ, not with renan's christ, far more than most christians do. i do think that "christ on the cross" is the highest expression hitherto of god--not in the vulgar meaning of the atonement--but _god_ does hang on the cross _every day_ in _every one_ of us; the whole meaning of god's "providence," _i.e._ his laws, is the cross. when christ preaches the cross, when all mystical theology preaches the cross, i go along with them entirely. it is the self-same thing as what i mean when i say that god educates the world by his laws, _i.e._ _by sin_--that man must create mankind--that all this _evil_, _i.e._ the cross, is the proof of god's goodness, is the _only_ way by which god could work out man's salvation without a contradiction. you say, but there is too much evil. i say, there is just enough (not a millionth part of a grain more than is _necessary_) to teach man by his own mistakes,--by his _sins_, if you will--to show man the way to _perfection in eternity_--to perfection which is the only happiness.... there were many points, on the other hand, at which roman catholicism strongly appealed to her. so marked is this attitude in the _suggestions_--in passages sometimes ironical, sometimes serious--that at one of the latter places mr. jowett's note in the margin is: "the enemy will say, this book is written by an infidel who has been a papist. but _i_ wish that there were more of these sort of reflections showing the true relation of superstitious ideas to moral and spiritual religion." i can well believe that her friend cardinal manning, for whom she entertained a high respect (though she waged a battle-royal against him on occasion[360]), may sometimes have regarded her as a likely convert; but towards acceptance of roman doctrines, i find no ground for thinking that she was at any time inclined. yet the spirit of catholic saintliness--and especially that of the saints whose contemplative piety was joined to active benevolence--appealed strongly to her. she read books of catholic devotion constantly, and made innumerable annotations in them and from them. she was greatly attracted by the writings of the port royalists, on which subject there is a long correspondence with her father. she admired intensely the aid which catholic piety had given, and was to many of her own friends giving--to the bermondsey nuns, especially, and to the mother and sisters of the trinità de' monti--towards purity of heart and the doing of everything from a right motive. then, again, to be "business-like" was with miss nightingale almost the highest commendation; and in this character also the roman church appealed to her. its acceptance of doctrines in all their logical conclusions seemed to her business-like; its organization was business-like; its recognition of women-workers was business-like. [360] in 1867 he proposed to close the hospital which her friends the nuns of bermondsey had opened in great ormond street. they of course "went to miss nightingale." she persuaded lady herbert to intercede for the nuns, but manning would not yield further than to refer the case to rome. miss nightingale then organized a party at rome on the side of the nuns. there is an extensive correspondence amongst her papers on this subject. she defeated manning in this matter. so, then, miss nightingale was broad-minded in her attitude towards creeds and churches. for her own part she believed that religious truth was positive, and could be discovered; but in her outlook upon the beliefs of others, she judged them by their fruits. she asked not so much what was a man's or a woman's religious formula, but whether it renewed a right spirit within them. with religiosity, if it was centred on self, she had no sympathy. "is there anything higher," she asked, "in thinking of one's own salvation than in thinking of one's own dinner? i have always felt that the soldier who gives his life for something which is certainly not himself or his shilling a day--whether he call it his queen or his country or his colours--is higher in the scale than the saints or the faquirs or the evangelicals who (some of them don't) believe that the end of religion is to secure one's own salvation." within the limits indicated by these remarks, she would have agreed a good deal with what mrs. carlyle said to john sterling: "i confess that i care almost nothing about _what_ a man believes in comparison with _how_ he believes. if his belief be correct, it is much the better for himself; but its intensity, its efficacy, is the ground on which i love and trust him."[361] [361] _letters and memorials of jane welsh carlyle_, 1883, vol. i. p. 19. vi there is a school of philosophy, much current in our day, which carries this point of view further. the meaning of a conception, it tells us, expresses itself in practical consequences, if the conception be true; religious truth is relative to the individual; the way to test a religion is to live it. if the philosophy of the pragmatists be right, then few forms of religious creed can claim better witness to their truth than that wherein florence nightingale lived and moved and had her being. she had "remodelled her whole religious belief from beginning to end," and had "learnt to know god" in the years immediately preceding her active work in the world. her belief helped to sustain her natural courage amidst the horrors of scutari, and the fever and the cold of balaclava. it inspired the life of arduous labour to which she devoted herself on returning from the east. it informed her unceasing efforts for the health of the army and the people, for the reformation of hospitals, for the creation of an art of nursing. does some one, echoing the words of m. mohl which i have quoted above, doubt whether any vital force can have proceeded from a belief in law as the thought of god, and suggest that to herself as to others she was offering a stone instead of bread? it was not so. to her the religion which she found was as the body and blood of the most high. it is impossible to doubt the spiritual intensity, the religious fervour, of passages such as these from the pages in _suggestions for thought_ in which she describes "communion with god":- if it is said "we cannot love a _law_,"--the mode in which god reveals himself--the answer is, we _can_ love the spirit which originates, which is manifested in, the law. it is not the material presence only that we love in our fellow-creatures. it is the spirit, which bespeaks the material presence, that we love. shall we then not love the spirit of all that is loveable, which _all_ material presence bespeaks to us?... how penetrated must those have been who first, genuinely, had the conception, who felt, who thought, whose imaginations helped them to conceive, that the divine verity manifests itself in the human, partakes itself, becomes one with the human, descends into the hell of sin and suffering with the human, by being "verily and indeed taken and received" by the human!... we will seek continually (and stimulate mankind to seek with us) to prepare the eye and the ear of the great human existence that seeing it _shall_ perceive, and hearing it _shall_ understand.... "whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of god." to do it "to the glory of god" must be to fulfil the lord's purpose. that purpose is man's increase in truth, increase in right being. the history of mankind should be, _will_ be one day, the history of man's endeavour after increase of truth, and after a right nature.... what does ignorant finite man want? how great, how suffering, yet how sublime are his wants! think of his wounded aching heart, as compared with the bird and beast! his longing eye, his speaking countenance, compared with these! _they_ show something of such difference, but nothing, nothing compared with what is within, where no eye can read. what then, poor sufferer, dost thou want? i want a wise and loving counsellor, whose love and wisdom should come home to the whole of my nature. i would work, oh! how gladly, but i want direction how to work. i would suffer, oh! how willingly, but for a purpose.... god always speaks plain in his laws--his everlasting voice.... my poor child, he says, dost thou complain that i do not prematurely give thee food which thou couldst not digest? my son, i am always one with thee, though thou art not always one with me. that spirit racked or blighted by sin, my child, it is thy father's spirit. whence comes it, why does it suffer, or why is it blighted, but that it is incipient love, and truth, and wisdom, tortured or suppressed? but law (that is, the will of the perfect) is now, was without beginning, and ever shall be, as the inducement and the means by which that blight or suffering which is god within man, shall become man one with god. first find the infinite, said a wise man, then name him as thou wilt. "it is not hard to know god," said joubert, "provided one will not force oneself to define him." and another, of old time, said:- lead thou me, god, law, reason, duty, life! all names for thee alike are vain and hollow.[362] [362] cleanthes, freely rendered by j. a. symonds. there is a section of miss nightingale's _suggestions for thought_ called "cassandra." it is the story of a girl's imprisoned life; it is in part autobiographical, and i have quoted from it several times in the course of this work. it ends with the death of the heroine. "let neither name nor date be placed on her grave, still less the expression of regret or of admiration; but simply the words, _i believe in god_." chapter vi miss nightingale at home (1858-1861) few women, and not many men, have lived a fuller and busier life than was miss nightingale's during the five years which followed her return from the crimean war. they were years of public work, but of work done in quiet. and what is more remarkable, they were years to her of constant physical weakness. at the turn of the year 1857-8 she was thought like to die. there were many times during the year 1859 when she and her friends expected her death at any moment. "thank you," wrote george eliot to miss hennell in february, "for sending me that authentic word about miss nightingale. i wonder if she would rather rest from her blessed labours, or live to go on working. sometimes when i read of the death of some great sensitive human being, i have a triumph in the sense that they are at rest; and yet, along with that, deep sadness at the thought that the rare nature is gone for ever into the darkness."[363] in the same year miss nightingale gave mr. clough full instructions for her funeral. to her friend, colonel lefroy, she had written as if the end were very near. "what a crown yours will be," he answered (march 20), "when you rest from your labours and your works follow you!" a year later she wrote to mr. manning (feb. 25): "dear sir, or dear friend (whichever i may call you), i am in the land of the living still, as you see, contrary to everybody's expectation, but so much weaker than when you were so kind as to come here, that i do not sit up at all now." "_nunc dimittis_," she added, "is the only prayer i can make now as far as regards myself." yet during all the time she was full of energy and fire, and lived laborious days in writing and in talking. if the reader will turn to the bibliography (1858-1861), he will see at a glance how numerous were her printed works, and preceding chapters have enabled him to estimate the amount of toil and thought that lay behind them. her unprinted memoranda are on a like scale, and her correspondence was enormous. then, too, hardly a day passed upon which she did not transact business personally with one or other, or with several, of her "cabinet." [363] _george eliot's life as related in her letters_, vol. ii. p. 84. among persons whom miss nightingale declined, on the ground of failing health, to receive (and the number included old friends and colleagues as well as strangers), there were some who would not believe that she was as ill as she said; they thought that she was cloaking hardness of heart or perversity of temper. but they were wrong. among occasional visitors, again, whom she did receive, there were those to whom the evidence of their senses, derived from her animated and vigorous conversation, seemed to negative the idea that she was a serious invalid. but they did not understand. sir john lawrence, for instance, was received in march 1861, to discuss indian questions. "he found her much better than he expected," so her cousin hilary reported, "and said so to dr. sutherland as he went downstairs. dr. sutherland replied, 'you cannot know; but when i go back i shall find her quite _abattue_, and shall not speak another word to her.'" and so it was. dr. sutherland found her "trembling all over," and had to administer medical aid. for any interview with a stranger, and for many interviews with her familiar colleagues, she had to save up strength very carefully in advance, and the transaction of any critical business, or the strain of any excitement in conversation, left her prostrate and palpitating afterwards. the doctors now told her that her heart was seriously affected. mr. chadwick doubted this. her father, writing to his wife from london, and describing an evening spent with florence, said (1861): "chadwick and sutherland at dinner; the former persisting that flo's voice alone is sufficient to show that her (so called) heart complaint is doubtful. in truth she still seems to work like a hercules in spite of all weakness." she worked without pause, but there were times when for weeks she did not leave her sofa or her bed, and for months did not go out of doors. it may be, as mr. chadwick thought, that the diagnosis of the physicians was wrong, or at any rate that it exaggerated the seriousness of the case. as she lived to be ninety, the truth must be, i suppose, that none of her vital organs or functions were at this time diseased. the history of her case points, i am told, to dilatation of the heart and neurasthenia. the former of these states, though often distressing in its symptoms, yields, i understand, to drugs and rest; and for the atonic condition of the nervous system, which is called neurasthenia, and which is often the product of excessive stress upon the functions of the mind, complete rest is also often a remedy. if upon her return to england miss nightingale had taken a long period of rest, it is probable that she would have regained normal health of body; but, as we have seen, she allowed herself no rest at all. she taxed exhausted powers of body to the uttermost. even now complete rest would probably have cured her; but as she could not or would not put work aside, she was only able to carry it on by careful husbandry of her strength. ii this state of the case led to a way of life which during the years now under consideration seemed a matter of necessity, and which in later and less strenuous years had become, perhaps, in some degree a matter of habit. miss nightingale, during the busy years 1856-61, lived the life of a laborious hermit--a life which may in some respects be likened to that of queen victoria in the years following the death of the prince consort. in her own secluded court she worked indefatigably, but she screened herself closely from the world. after the year 1858, miss nightingale abandoned malvern, and for change of air went instead to one or other of the northern heights of london. for the rest of the time she lived in london itself; and sometimes, when she was living at hampstead, she would drive daily to her london quarters for the transaction of business. whether in london or at hampstead or highgate, she did most of her work reclining on a sofa. she must have been touched when an upholsterer, hearing of her illness, volunteered (march 1860) to make a reclining couch to her order; he offered it "as some slight token of the esteem she is held in by the working-classes for her kindness to our soldiers, many of whom are related to my workmen who would gladly work in her behalf without pay." the screen from the outside world was provided by the devotion of relations and a few intimate friends. in official business, connected with the war office and hospitals, her most constant helper was dr. sutherland. when not engaged on official business elsewhere, he was with her nearly every day, and a large number of her drafts, copies, and memoranda of this date are in his handwriting. captain galton also rendered some assistance of a like sort. among her kinsfolk, the most helpful to her was mr. clough, who, besides being the secretary of the nightingale fund, was devoted in many ways to her service. a little note from him (feb. 16, 1859), one of many, will show the kind of thing:--"willy-nilly, you must stay till saturday. the railway carriage is ordered. at euston station they do not admit that saturday is a later day for the express than any other; let us hope they are right. the arrangements are therefore made for saturday. i think you must allow me to see them carried out myself. i enclose a yellow and maladive-looking letter, apparently from whom shall we hang at pulo-penang. there was also a brown paper parcel with, i think, two blue books inside it, from mr. alexander, which i left lying at the burlington. the rooms will all be ready, as before. i send a _daily news_ with h[arriet] m[artineau]'s latest on the eternal laws.--farewell, a. h. clough." her uncle and aunt, mr. and mrs. samuel smith, also played helpful parts at this time in miss nightingale's life. of her aunt mai and herself, miss nightingale wrote that they were "as two lovers," and the aunt played a lover's part both in affectionate solicitude and in keeping the rest of the world away. mr. smith, who was an examiner of private bills, had rooms conveniently situated in whitehall, and placed his business-like habits entirely at his niece's service. much of her correspondence, in the case of outsiders, was undertaken by him, and he also acted as her banker and accountant. he found some reward, perhaps, for the drudgery in the pungency of the dockets in which miss nightingale conveyed her instructions. on the letter from a lady working at clewer, who "loved and honoured" miss nightingale, and looked forward to seeing her some day, the docket is: "dear uncle sam, please choke off this woman and tell her that i shall _never_ be well enough to see her, either here or _hereafter_." to the secretary of a certain sanitary association: "i will give 21s. for mrs. s.'s sake, _provided_ they don't send me any more of their stupid books, and don't let this unbusiness-like woman write any more of these unbusiness-like letters." to be unbusiness-like was, in miss nightingale's eyes, an unpardonable sin, whether in woman or in man; in a woman, it was almost as bad as another which is touched upon in one of the dockets: "choke her off; my private belief is that she merely wants a chance of getting married." on a letter of a very rambling kind from a would-be nurse, uncle sam's attention is called to "the curious thing that she does not seem to know whether it is a parent or a child that she has lost." to a reverend gentleman who had "a secret cure": "these miserable ecclesiastical quacks! could you give them a lesson? what would they think of me did i possess such a discovery and keep it secret?" to the inventor of a patent bed-quilt: "this man's letter reminds me of the pills which, when taken by a gentleman with a wooden leg, made it grow again." to the british army scripture readers she will send a subscription, though with some misgiving: "i am like paul ferroll, who never would engage in anything, knowing that he was a murderer, and might be found out any day. so _i_ think." her uncle had read her religious speculations, and would have caught the allusion to her heterodox opinions. to a pious lady who sent a tract: "please answer this fool, but don't give her my address." miss nightingale disliked tracts. she received great bundles of them for distribution at scutari. "i said i distributed them," she once confessed, "whether to the fire or not, i did not say." like all female celebrities, miss nightingale received many offers of marriage. a letter, which she wrote in the papers in support of the volunteer movement, produced several. one was from "a poor engineer" who was profoundly touched by her "noble sentiments," and feared that only in heaven would her holy work be truly appreciated, but meanwhile offered his "hand and heart, which are free, only you are so much above me." "it is gratifying to observe," uncle sam is told, "that this is not the first fruits, but the one-and-fortieth of my volunteer letter; and that i could have as many husbands as mahomet's mother. alas! it is i who am the grey donkey." to a petitioner who sent copies of verses to accompany accounts of his evangelical principles and pecuniary embarrassments: "this is the _third_ time the man has written. i think it is time you put a stop to him and his 'poetry.'" miss nightingale detested gush almost as much as unbusiness-like habits (if indeed the two things need be distinguished). she kept everything she received; but in looking through the presentation copies of poems in her library, i was struck, and i fear that the donors would have been pained, by the fact that she seldom had the curiosity even to cut the leaves where her praises are sung. to a very long-winded appeal from a lady who claimed "the thrilling honour of miss nightingale's sympathy": "i believe all this, though i don't know the woman from adam. send her £2 for me, at the same time giving her a hint to look at _bleak house_." but mr. smith, though not a member of parliament, was an old parliamentary hand, and i have seen copies of some of the admirable letters in which he carried out, more or less, his niece's instructions. i feel confident that he did not wound this petitioner's feelings by allusion to mrs. jellyby or borrioboola-gha. nor was it supposed that he would. miss nightingale seldom denied herself a joke; but though she had a keen scent for palpable humbug, and was instantly offended by it, her heart was easily touched, and i am not sure that all her pecuniary benefactions, which were constant, numerous, and manifold, would have passed the test of a strict charity organization committee. often, however, she took great pains in following up "cases," and in relieving them in the best way. she was particularly open to appeals from the widows or other relations of soldiers and sailors. her intimate knowledge of hospitals and other charitable institutions, and the favour of queen victoria in placing many beds at her disposal, increased her means of helpfulness. many of her petitioners, especially if they were autograph-hunters in disguise, were disappointed, no doubt, at not receiving an answer from miss nightingale herself, but pecuniarily they were sometimes the gainers. on many of their letters i find this supplementary docket from kind-hearted uncle sam: "sent also something on my own account." and sometimes he sent something when she had said send nothing, and she got the credit for it: "dear uncle sam, i am so glad to think that i am laying up such a store in heaven upon _your_ £2 sent without my permission to this woman." the uncle's tongue was almost as sharp and witty, i have been told, as the niece's pen, and he must have found her comments very congenial. iii the places at which miss nightingale lay _perdue_ during these years were west hill lodge, highgate--the house of the howitts (may-june 1859); montague grove, hampstead; oak hill house, frognal (sept. 1859 to jan. 1860); and upper terrace lodge (no. 3), hampstead (end of 1860). at one time, when mr. clough was abroad in search of health, his young children stayed with their aunt at hampstead, and her letters show that she took pleasure in their pleasures on the heath. a letter to mrs. clough (hampstead, sept. 1, 1860) contains as pretty a description of a young child as may anywhere be found: "'it' came in its flannel coat to see me. no one had ever prepared me for its royalty. it sat quite upright, but would not say a word, good or bad. the cats jumped up upon it. it put out its hand with a kind of gracious dignity and caressed them, as if they were presenting addresses, and they responded in a humble, grateful way, quite cowed by infant majesty. then it put out its little bare cold feet for me to warm, which when i did, it smiled. in about twenty minutes, it waved its hand to go away, still without speaking a word. i think it is the most beautifully organized little piece of humanity i ever saw." the scene of miss nightingale's london "court" was the burlington hotel. in april 1861 colonel phipps wrote to sir harry verney: "it has been arranged that an 'apartment' at kensington palace shall be put into proper repair with a view to its being offered by the queen to miss nightingale as a residence. i need not tell you how grateful it will be to the queen's feelings, even in this slight degree, to be able to mark her respect for this most excellent lady of whom everybody in this country must be proud." but the queen's offer was respectfully declined. those were days when there were no motor-cars or underground railways; and miss nightingale, immersed in daily business with men of affairs, felt that a residence so remote from official london as kensington palace would deprive her of many opportunities for useful work. she remained, accordingly, at the burlington, where she had a small suite of apartments in a house attached to the hotel. it comprised on an upper floor a bedroom, a dressing-room, a room for her maid, and a spare bedroom, and on a lower floor a sitting-room. the spare bedroom enabled her to send "dine-and-sleep" invitations to busy men who were working with her. on such occasions she would invite other members of her "cabinet" to dinner or to breakfast, but she seldom was able to sit down to table with them. hired rooms, in hotels or lodgings, gave miss nightingale for many years of her life all that she wanted in such sort. the smaller the home, the greater the quiet. she was entirely free from dependence upon, or affection for, "things." she simplified life by reducing her impedimenta to the smallest compass. her father in an incautious moment, once wrote of sending some things for her "drawing-room" at the burlington. she replied indignantly that she had no drawing-room; a thing which was "the destruction of so many women's lives." "there are always flowers in her rooms," wrote her cousin beatrice to mr. nightingale "but so many blue-books that i should think she could not complain of their looking like drawing-rooms." "i saw her," wrote her sister to madame mohl (feb. 1861), "just before we came here [embley], and found the table covered, among her beautiful flowers sent her by all sorts of people, with indian reports and plans of new hospitals." she was always fond of flowers. she believed, too, in their curative, or at any rate consolatory, effect upon the sick, and had made some study of their several colours in this respect.[364] with flowers and fruit and game she was abundantly supplied, by her friend lady ashburton, among others, and by her admirer, lady burdett-coutts. she forwarded many of such gifts to friends, nurses, and hospitals. she asked her mother to send greenery and flowers from the country for the london hospitals: "it gives such pleasure to people who never see anything but four walls." she was particularly thoughtful of the bermondsey nuns who had served with her in the crimean war. she was constantly solicitous about the reverend mother's health, as were the sisters about _hers_. "i am always praying for you," wrote one of them (her "cardinal," sister gonzaga), "and your health is no credit to my piety." her little household always included some cats, of which she was very fond. madame mohl had given her a family of fine persians, some of them yellow and striped, almost like tigers, and very wild. in a letter to sir james paget, she seems to have complained that st. bartholomew's hospital did not quite reciprocate her admiration; yet she had a cat named barts as well as one named tom. sir james would communicate this evidence of affection to his colleagues; but the fact was, he added, that "thomas is a very boastful fellow, and says sometimes that the lady thinks meanly of every one but him." miss nightingale's fondness for cats was shared by her father, and many of her letters to him, and of his to her, pass from problems of metaphysics to the less riddling antics of kittens. [364] _notes on nursing_, ed. 1860, p. 88. iv a diet of blue-books has been likened by lord rosebery to one of cracknel biscuits. but miss nightingale hungered and thirsted after facts, and only complained of blue-books when they did not give so many facts and figures as were reasonably containable in the given cubic space. "it may seem a strange recreation," wrote mr. jowett to her (may 11, 1861), "to offer to a lady who is ill a discussion on metaphysics or theology. but i hear that you still feel interested in such subjects, and therefore may i venture to try and entertain you?" there follows a long disquisition upon freedom and necessity and other high matters. mr. jowett was correctly informed. there was nothing which miss nightingale more enjoyed than metaphysical discussion. it was not so much that she found in it an intellectual contrast to the problems of practical administration in which she was at other times engaged, but rather, as i have suggested in the preceding chapter, that she believed it possible to attain in the region of philosophy and religion the same positive results that are deducible in sanitary science. for recreation, she turned occasionally to fiction. she corresponded with mrs. archer clive on the plot of _paul ferroll_. in a different sort, the novels of another friend pleased her. "she said of your _ruth_ this morning," wrote her cousin hilary to mrs. gaskell (sept. 6, 1859), "'it is a beautiful novel, and i think i like it better still than when i first read it six years ago.' we had sent for _ruth_ to lie on her table and tempt her, and she bids me ask now for _north and south_, which also she read of old." miss nightingale, who as a girl was music-mad, found occasional solace in hearing it. she says in _notes on nursing_ that "wind instruments, including the human voice, and stringed instruments, capable of continuous sound," have generally a soothing effect upon invalids, "while the pianoforte, with such instruments as have _no_ continuity of sound, has just the reverse." there was an evening in october 1860 when miss nightingale had a great treat. clara novello (contessa gigliucci) was one of many women in whom the heroine of the crimea inspired a passionate admiration, and she begged to be allowed to come and sing to the invalid. "i shall never in my life forget the evening," she wrote to miss nightingale's cousin (oct. 26); "the agitation i experienced made me unable to leave my bed all next day. i never remember to have felt such emotions. as i had the delight of kissing those lovely and blessed hands, blessed in their deeds and blessed by so many, and looked into that dear tender face, i could not restrain my tears, just such tears as rise when one hears a lovely melody or is told of an heroic deed!" miss nightingale presently wrote a letter of thanks, saying that the singing had "restored" her, and the contessa replied: "i can say with entire truth that god's gift to me of voice has never given me so much delight as when i was able to sing to you, tho' probably i never sang so ill." the contessa was a garibaldian, and this was a further link between her and miss nightingale, whose enthusiasm in the cause of italian unity and liberation was of long standing. she sent several subscriptions in 1860 to funds which were collected in this country for the garibaldian cause. her cheques were made payable to "garibaldi," and she expressed a hope that they would be used in the purchase of arms. "i quite agree," she wrote (june), "with the patriots who say, better give money for arms than to heal the holes the arms have made." she was often more of a soldier than of a nurse. v miss nightingale's fame was great in italy, owing to the sardinian contingent in the crimea, and indirectly it was the cause of one of the few occasions upon which her barriers were broken through. an excellent lady, full of breathless activity and of enthusiasm for italy, had been asked during her visit to that country by persons anxious for its regeneration, to "send them a florence nightingale." the lady was more particularly interested in "educating the south," and garibaldi himself had given his name to an appeal to englishwomen for co-operation in that large undertaking. she was staying at the burlington hotel and, chancing to learn that miss nightingale was there also, she burst in upon her. "she wanted me," wrote miss nightingale in describing the incursion, "to write to half the people in london, and to set up a whole system of education at naples. 'you are to write all the statutes,' she said, 'for ragged schools, infant schools, industrial schools, provident societies, as you do for the army.'" miss nightingale suggested that there might be practical difficulties; "but though i really talked as loud and as fast as i possibly could, i doubt if she took in a word." the interview left miss nightingale much exhausted, and uncle sam was called in to prevent any repetition of it. she had, however, a real respect for the earnestness of her visitor, and wrote letters to some italian friends about the scheme. incursions by casual callers and visits from friendly entertainers were, however, alike very rare; the greater part of her days during the years 1858-61 was spent in transacting the business which has been described in preceding chapters. her voluminous correspondence, her literary work, the daily interviews with mr. herbert or dr. sutherland or others on matters of business, left her with little time or strength for seeing other friends and relations, and not very much for correspondence with them. she occasionally saw lady ashburton, to whom she was greatly attached; more frequently another of her dearest friends, mrs. bracebridge, but she was so helpful that her visits may be reckoned amongst business calls. sometimes she saw dr. manning, but the same may almost be said of his visits, since religious speculation and philanthropic enterprises were amongst the business of her life. she saw miss mary jones, the superintendent of st. john's house, from time to time; but for the rest she lived in seclusion from her friends and admirers. she was secluded hardly less from her relations. her cousin, miss hilary bonham carter, or her aunt mai, or her cousin beatrice often stayed in the house; but this did not mean that they saw very much of her. "i communicate with her every day," wrote mrs. smith (jan. 1861); "but i have not seen her to speak to for nearly four years." "indeed we know," wrote miss beatrice to mr. nightingale, "how hard it is for you to hear nothing of her, but no one can know anything now that the isolation of work has set in." when miss nightingale decided upon making the burlington her headquarters, aunt mai had undertaken the difficult commission from her niece of intimating to her parents that it might be better if they henceforth, when staying in london, were to go somewhere else. it was essential, said aunt mai, to florence's health, on which depended her work, that she should live a life of seclusion; it would be difficult to ward off stray callers, if it were known that her parents were with her. visitors would come to see them, and break in upon her. they went elsewhere accordingly, and had to take their chance, with others, of being admitted or refused. "dear papa," wrote miss nightingale (june 13), "i shall always be well enough to see _you_ as long as this mortal coil is on me at all. mr. herbert goes to spa the first week in july. after that, there will be less pressure on me--the pressure of disappointment in his (more than excusable) administrative indifference. but july will be later than your ordinary transit. please tell mama that the jug and nosegay were beautiful." and again, a few days later: "dear papa, i will keep all sunday vacant for you. i should like to have you twice, please, say at 11-1/2and 3-1/2." hours thus spent with his daughter were among the keenest pleasures of mr. nightingale's life. in a letter of 1861 he writes to her: "'quidquid ex agricola amavimus, quidquid mirati sumus manet mansurumque est in animis.'[365] i say it not in vain praise, but whatever i have heard at your bedside and from your sofa _manet mansurumque est in animis_. and so would i fain hear whatever words i might catch from your lips when your active work ceases and your prophecy begins." when the father returned to his pleasant country-houses, he would renew the intercourse with his daughter by turning to her _suggestions for thought_:- (_to miss nightingale from her father._) _july_ 21 [1861].... i could realize you, while i turned the pages on the progress of man towards that perfection so sure tho' so slow to come, creating for himself that better world which he had so foolishly thought was to be given him for the asking. was ever faith in the "perfect law of love and goodness", like yours?--the more of disappointment, the more suffering, the stronger faith. i also can rely on the invisible power; but can i give a more reasonable account of my faith than he who believes in atonements, incarnations, revelations, and so forth? was ever sentence truer than yours?--"god's plan is that we make mistakes; in them i will try to learn god's purpose."[366] i also feel myself mistaken all day long in thought, feeling, or doing--but what help do i find? do i _learn_ therefrom? do my three score years and more give me the repose of a life spent in helping others or even in helping myself?... [then he turns from such reflections as if too hard for him, describes to her the doings of her favourite cats, and talks of the hills and streams of her old home--hoping against hope, it may be, to lure her back, and jotting down his wandering thoughts the while.] but you will say, "tell me no more of my idle cats; i have cares enough, and thoughts enough elsewhere. my other belongings, where are they? i relied on a secretary of state, where is he? where, my hospitals? where all my many friends on whom i placed my work? where is my strength? my mind still strains over the immeasurable wants of the army i have served, and i am left alone, with my physical powers confining me to my chamber." how vain then is my thought that here, if you had wings, you might be at rest--at this calm peaceful window where the hills keep creeping down into the far-receding valley and multiply my thoughts as it were into eternity. you will (in your mind's eye at least) rejoice with me, while i recount a day too soon gone, too full perhaps of erring reflection, too short of inspiration. [365] tacitus, _agricola_. [366] _suggestions for thought_, vol. ii. p. 90. the relations between father and daughter had been made more intimate by her book of religious and philosophical speculation. mr. nightingale, it may be added, had enlarged florence's allowance at the time of the marriage of his other daughter. henceforth he undertook to pay, without question, all her bills for board and lodging, and to allow her £500 a year besides. she had made, too, a considerable sum by her _notes on nursing_, and was able to enlarge the scale of her benefactions. among the first uses which she made of her enlarged means was to give £500 for the improvement of the school near lea hurst, in which her cousin beatrice (who during these years often lived there with mr. and mrs. nightingale) was greatly interested, especially for the sanitary improvement, for which purpose she asked her friend mr. chadwick to go on a visit to her parents and inspect the school buildings. she was careless of her own sanitary improvement, dr. sutherland had said; but she was very particular about that of her relations. when mr. william shore smith--"her boy" of earlier days--was about to be married, and was house-hunting, she obtained from him a written promise, signed, sealed, and attested, that he would enter into no covenant until dr. sutherland had reported to her on the drains. when another of her cousins was to be married, miss nightingale's last good wishes, before the event, took the form of strict orders that the bride should put on "thick-soled fur slippers over her shoes in walking to the church. tell her nothing depresses the spirits so much as a damp chill to the feet. she will wonder why she is so low." i suspect some _double entendre_. miss nightingale, as we know, was not an enthusiast on marriage in the abstract. when at a later time one of her younger cousins wrote to announce her engagement, aunt florence's answer (by telegram) was strictly non-committal: "a thousand, thousand thanks for your letter." vi miss nightingale's correspondence during these years was mostly upon business, but she sometimes found time for the kind of letters which connoisseurs in that pleasant art account the best--letters about nothing in particular. in this kind, her old friend, madame mohl continued to be favoured, and these letters seldom lacked the caustic touch which their recipient relished, as in this:- (_miss nightingale to madame mohl._) _june_ 6 [1859].... balzac somewhere says how all the world, friends and enemies, _se fait complice de nos défauts_. and i have heard you observe that english mothers act greek chorus to their children. do, you philosophers (i am _passée_ and off the philosophizing stage), come over and explain to us english society now--where everybody has some little moral reason for doing everything that he likes, where health is made the excuse for neglecting every duty and at the same time the not being able to perform said duty is deplored as the "only cross"--how much more dangerous are our moralities than our immoralities. everybody has everything _both ways_ here. when i lived in society (english) it seemed to me that, in conversation, people, but more especially women, were always doing one or more of three things:--(1) addressing themselves: as when they adduce those little moral reasons for doing whatever they like. (2) saying something to mean something else. since i began what m. mohl calls my war against red tape, the commonest argument brought against me both by men and women, the best and cleverest, and within the last week too, is that i am led by "dishonest flatterers" and that they trust i may "awaken to a sense of my duty as a woman." now they don't really believe that i am led by "dishonest flattery." but they think i shall not like it to be _supposed_ that i am. this is only an anecdote (i hate anecdotes, don't you?). but it is a very fair illustration of my no. 2. (3) acting an amiable or humble idea: as when people tell an ill-natured story and then its palliation, and then say "_we_ might have been worse." and all the while all they mean to be in your mind is, how amiable _they_ are and how humble _they_ are, and they mean you to believe the story and not the palliation.... i have done with being amiable. it is the mother of mischief. miss nightingale may have "done with being amiable"; but she had certainly not done with a lively sense of humour. at the burlington one day, or rather one night, there was a domestic catastrophe. miss nightingale's dressing-room was flooded. she sent a characteristic account of the subsequent proceedings to her cousin:- (_miss nightingale to miss h. bonham carter._) [1861.] ... i have just re-enacted the crimea on a small scale. everybody "did their duty," and i was drowned. but so distrustful was i of the results of their duty that i extorted from mr. x. a weekly inspection of the cistern. i acted myself and no one has yet been drowned again. mr. x. convinced four men--sir harry verney, papa, uncle sam, uncle octavius--whom i brought under weigh, that it was the frost and that he had done all that was possible. then _i_ had up mr. x., and he admitted at once that it was nothing to do with the frost, and that what the workmen had done, viz. not altering the waste-pipe, was "rascally." i said he came off with an excuse. and i came off with a "severe internal congestion," _vide_ medical certificate. i have had a larger responsibility of human lives than ever man or woman had before. and i attribute my success to this:--_i never gave or took an excuse_. yes, i do see the difference now between me and other men. when a disaster happens, _i_ act and _they_ make excuses. landlords might be brow-beaten; servants had to be bribed. the prophetess had no honour in her own hotel. the maids at the burlington had not mastered the elements of household hygiene as set out in _notes on nursing_. amongst miss nightingale's papers there is this document: "_august_ 16, 1860. if for one fortnight from this time i find all the doors shut and all the windows open, and if ... i will give the servants a doctor's fee, viz. one guinea.--signed, f. nightingale." the burlington hotel continued to be miss nightingale's principal home till august 1861. the house, no. 30 in old burlington street, still stands, and a memorial tablet might well be affixed by the london county council or the society of arts. no other spot, in this country, has associations with so much of miss nightingale's public work. it was there that she wrote the famous report on her experiences in the crimea, and there that she had the historic interview with lord panmure--the starting-point for the great and manifold reforms which she and mr. herbert carried out for the health of the british army. it was there, too, that she wrote her _notes on hospitals_ and _notes on nursing_--the books which helped to make a new epoch in hospital reform and to found the art of modern nursing; and there that she thought out the scheme for professional training which has made "nightingale nurses" known throughout the world. soon after lord herbert's death in august 1861, miss nightingale left old burlington street. she was fond of the house. she had found no other place in london so convenient for her work. she had preferred to stay there rather than to accept the royal invitation to kensington palace. but the associations of the burlington, as she said to many friends at the time, had now become too painful. after the loss of her "dear master," she never visited it again. the death of sidney herbert closed a chapter in the life of florence nightingale. end of vol. 1 * * * * * works by sir edward cook a popular handbook to the national gallery. two vols. crown 8vo. leather binding. vol. i. foreign schools. eighth edition. 10s. net. vol. ii. british schools (including the tate gallery). seventh edition. 10s. net. a popular handbook to the tate gallery. crown 8vo. 5s. popular handbook to the greek and roman antiquities in the british museum. crown 8vo. leather binding. 10s. net. new illustrated books the art of botticelli. an essay in interpretation. by laurence binyon. with 23 colour collotypes, and an original etching by muirhead bone, signed by the artist. limited to 275 copies. royal 4to. £12:12s. net. just so stories. by rudyard kipling. with illustrations by the author, and 12 additional illustrations in colour by joseph m. gleeson. 4to. 6s. net. the fairy book. the best popular fairy stories, selected and rendered anew by the author of _john halifax, gentleman_. with 32 illustrations in colour by warwick goble. crown 4to. 15s. net. new volumes of history the history of england from the accession of james ii. by lord macaulay. edited by charles harding firth, m.a., regius professor of modern history in the university of oxford. with 900 illustrations, including 44 in colour. uniform with the illustrated edition of green's _short history of the english people_. in 6 vols. super royal 8vo. 10s. 6d. net each. lollardy and the reformation in england. by dr. james gairdner, c.b. vol. iv. edited by william hunt, m.a., d.litt. 8vo. 1os. 6d. net. hungary's fight for national existence: or, the history of the great uprising led by francis rakoczi ii., 1703-1711. by ladislas baron hengelmüller. with an introduction by theodore roosevelt. 8vo. recollections. by george henschel, mus.doc. 8vo. piccadilly. by arthur irwin dasent, author of _the history of st. james's square_. with portraits and other illustrations. 8vo. new volumes of biography the life of edward bulwer, first lord lytton. by his grandson. with photogravure portrait and other illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. fifty years of my life. by theodore roosevelt. illustrated. 8vo. a father in god: the episcopate of william west jones, d.d., archbishop of capetown and metropolitan of south africa, 1874-1908. by michael h. m. wood, m.a., late scholar of trinity college, oxford, diocesan librarian of the diocese of capetown. with introduction by the ven. w. h. hutton, b.d., and portraits and other illustrations. 8vo. autobiography of maharshi devendrenath tagore [grandfather of rabindranath tagore, author of _gitanjali_.] with introduction by evelyn underhill. 8vo. jane austen. by f. warre cornish, late fellow of king's college, cambridge, vice-provost of eton college. crown 8vo. 2s. net. [_english men of letters_.] new volumes of poetry the works of tennyson. with notes by the author. edited, with memoir, by hallam, lord tennyson. with portrait. extra crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. songs from books. by rudyard kipling. uniform with poetical works. crown 8vo. 6s. pocket edition. fcap. 8vo. cloth, 4s. 6d. net. limp leather, 5s. net. _edition de luxe_, 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. the crescent moon. child-poems. by rabindranath tagore. translated by the author from the original bengali. with 8 illustrations in colour. pott 4to. 4s. 6d. net. the gardener: poems. by rabindranath tagore. translated by the author from the original bengali. crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net. the shorter poems of frederick tennyson. edited, with an introduction, by charles tennyson. with portrait. crown 8vo. 5s. net. collected poems. by a. e. crown 8vo. the collected poems of newman howard. crown 8vo. poems of arthur hugh clough. with an introduction by charles whibley, and a portrait. crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. tristram and isoult. by martha kinross. crown 8vo. the ballads of théodore de banville. translated into english verse by archibald t. strong. crown 8vo. * * * * * transcriber's notes: the original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained. inconsistent hyphenation is as in the original. the ligature oe and has been marked as [oe]. text in italics has been marked with underscores (_text_). the 3 dots in a triangle have been converted into "therefore" on page 330. the sign ^ has been used as a superscript. the table below lists all corrections applied to the original text. p xxvi: reforms in that country -> country. p 11: hilary. your affecte -> affect p 30: almost passionate fulness -> fullness p 36: her such a fulness -> fullness p 38: and tears of ectasy -> ecstasy p 73: quite made us start -> startle p 92: they staid -> stayed p 92: die mit überfliezendem -> überfließendem p 92: beherbergt" _eine -> (_eine p 132: i came. mr. -> m. p 132: f. n -> f. n. p 156: solely under your controul -> control p 187: mary aloysius, p. 17 -> p. 17. p 239: " ... the first time -> ... the first time p 259: to learn that that -> to learn that p 367: by a complete breakdown -> breakdown. p 367: and could not, take -> take. p 416: children's hospitals there -> there. p 432: men and hospital officials -> officials. p 437: old burlington st. -> st. p 491: 1858-1861 -> (1858-1861) p 514: [_english men of letters_. -> letters_.] generously made available by the internet archive/canadian libraries) the life of florence nightingale macmillan and co., limited london · bombay · calcutta · melbourne the macmillan company new york · boston · chicago · dallas · san francisco the macmillan co. of canada, ltd. toronto * * * * * [illustration: _florence nightingale 1887 from the picture by sir william richmond at claydon_] * * * * * the life of florence nightingale by sir edward cook in two volumes vol. ii (1862-1910) macmillan and co., limited st. martin's street, london 1913 copyright * * * * * contents part v for the health of the army in india (1862-1865) chapter i preliminary. the loss of friends (august-december 1861) page despondency after the death of sidney herbert--sir george lewis and the war office--lord de grey reappointed under-secretary. ii. "saving things from the wreck"--the herbert hospital at woolwich- captain galton at the war office--barracks inquiry extended to the mediterranean--miss nightingale and the volunteers. iii. the american civil war--miss nightingale and the nursing--british reinforcements to canada--miss nightingale "working as in the times of sidney herbert." iv. miss nightingale and arthur hugh clough- his assistance to her--his death (nov. 1861)--her grief--letters of condolence--her yearning for sympathy--illness 3 chapter ii the providence of the indian army (1862, 1863) high rate of mortality among the british army in india: miss nightingale as a "saviour" of the army. her determination to obtain a royal commission for india on the lines of the commission of 1857 for the home army--lord stanley approves the idea: sidney herbert, chairman, succeeded by lord stanley--selection of commissioners. ii. miss nightingale's work for the commission (1859-1862)- collection of evidence from india: her circular of inquiry- preparation of statistical evidence at home: miss nightingale and dr. farr--miss nightingale and the witnesses. iii. her analysis of the written reports from india: "observations by miss nightingale" thereon (1862)--circulation of the "observations"--account of them --abstract of the evidence by miss nightingale and dr. sutherland. iv. death of sir george lewis--her desire to see lord de grey appointed to the war office--press notices: letter to lord palmerston. v. preparation of the report of the commission--miss nightingale's part in it--the recommendations--her suggested machinery: (1) sanitary commissions in india, (2) supervision in england--adoption of her policy--the report signed (may 1863). vi. miss nightingale's "publicity campaign"--distribution of early copies--press notices--omission of her "observations" and indian evidence from the cheaper official issue of the report--separate publication by her--re-issue of the report with her "observations": circulation of the re-issue by the war office. vii. physical disabilities under which miss nightingale worked 18 chapter iii setting reformers to work (1863-1865) "reports not self-executive": miss nightingale's determination to put the indian report into execution. correspondence with lord stanley--his interview with sir charles wood--miss nightingale asked to draft "suggestions" to be sent out to india--departmental criticism of the report: delay. ii. death of lord elgin, the viceroy--question of his successor--miss nightingale's admiration for sir john lawrence--his appointment--her interview with him. iii. sir john lawrence announces the appointment of sanitary commissions in india and begs her to expedite the dispatch of the "suggestions."--more departmental delay--miss nightingale's impatience--lord stanley's intervention--the "suggestions" approved and printed--delay in sending them: circumvented by miss nightingale. iv. sir john lawrence's prompt action in india- correspondence with miss nightingale--reforms by sir hugh rose (lord strathnairn)--miss nightingale's paper, _how people may live and not die in india_--criticism of the royal commission's report from india--miss nightingale's reply--progress of sanitary reform in the army in india. v. miss nightingale as consultant and inspirer in indian sanitary reform--sir john lawrence's difficulties--lord stanley's tribute to her--importance of the co-operation between her and sir john lawrence 40 chapter iv advisory council to the war office (1862-1866) miss nightingale and the war office: her position as consultant. explanation of the position--her expert authority on certain questions--official legatee of sidney herbert--correspondence with sir george lewis--her friends at the war office. ii. death of the permanent under-secretary--miss nightingale and captain galton's appointment--her hopes of re-organization in the war office. iii. the army sanitary commission--miss nightingale and improvements in barracks--nursing in military hospitals. iv. the army medical school, and position of army doctors--miss nightingale as the doctors' champion--lord panmure's attack on the herbert hospital--miss nightingale's case for the defence. v. wide range of subjects referred to her advice--the geneva convention (1864)- suggestions about soldiers' and sailors' pay--miss nightingale's methods. vi. the state regulation of vice--miss nightingale's efforts on behalf of soldiers' clubs, recreation-rooms, etc. vii. her researches into the disappearance of aboriginal races. viii. spiritual comfort--memories of heroism in the crimea 59 chapter v helpers, visitors, and friends (1862-1866) the years of miss nightingale's most trying work. her helpers--the indispensable dr. sutherland--his constant service--miss nightingale as task-mistress--her method of "conversation" by written notes. ii. seclusion from her friends--her strict rule of life--letters to madame mohl--visit from garibaldi (1864)--her account of the interview--appreciation of abraham lincoln--death of lord palmerston. iii. miss nightingale's scheme for investments by the working-classes in small freeholds--correspondence with mr. villiers and mr. gladstone. iv. sympathetic letters to friends --literary correspondence with m. mohl. v. friendship with mr. jowett--their correspondence--miss nightingale's work for the army and for india an accidental "call"--her yearnings for hospital work 84 chapter vi new masters (1866) public events in 1866 in relation to miss nightingale's work. letters on those events. ii. the story of a lost dispatch. sir john lawrence's scheme for sanitary organization in india--miss nightingale's anxiety to have it revised before the liberal government fell--the dispatch lost at the india office: found by lord ripon--his reply to it drafted, when the government fell. iii. miss nightingale's vexation--dr. sutherland's absence--visit from lord napier on his appointment to the governorship of madras. iv. the conservative government--miss nightingale's desire to come in touch with the new ministers--correspondence with lord cranborne (india office) and mr. gathorne hardy (poor law board). v. the austro-prussian war--miss nightingale and war-nursing- correspondence with the princess alice and the crown princess of prussia. vi. a holiday at embley with her mother--private meditations 104 part vi many threads (1867-1872) chapter i workhouse reform (1864-1867) state of the workhouse infirmaries--report on the metropolitan workhouses in 1866--miss nightingale a prime mover in the remedial legislation of 1867. ii. her friendship with mr. william rathbone--his scheme for introducing trained nurses into the workhouse infirmary at liverpool--negotiations with miss nightingale--her friend, miss agnes jones, appointed lady superintendent--reforms effected by her (1865). iii. miss nightingale's resolve to use the liverpool experiment as a lever for reform in london--workhouse scandals in london--correspondence and interviews with mr. villiers--friendship with mr. farnall, poor law inspector--miss nightingale's scheme of poor law reform (1865)--approved by mr. villiers--articles in the _times_--defeat of the government. iv. mr. gathorne hardy succeeds mr. villiers--removal of mr. farnall from london--miss nightingale's communications with mr. villiers--committee appointed by mr. hardy--miss nightingale invited to express her views: outlines her scheme in a memorandum. v. mr. hardy's bill (1867)--various views of it--miss nightingale's efforts for its extension--importance of the reforms included in the bill: the starting-point of workhouse reform. vi. success of miss agnes jones's pioneer work--her death (1868)--miss nightingale's account of her in _good words_--selection of a successor--effect of the article 123 chapter ii alliance with sir bartle frere (1867-1868) miss nightingale's concern for a better organization of the public health service in india. approaching retirement of sir john lawrence: her anxiety to insert "the main-spring"--points for which she contended. ii. lord cranborne succeeded at the india office by sir stafford northcote--miss nightingale's friendship with sir bartle frere--she determines to advance--the "doors _versus_ windows" controversy. iii. her communications with sir s. northcote --interviews with him--her scheme of organization adopted--dispatch and other sanitary papers drafted by her. iv. attitude of the government of india--letters from sir john lawrence--abandonment of a female nursing scheme--miss nightingale's vexation. v. continued correspondence with sir john lawrence--his return to england--visit to miss nightingale 144 chapter iii public health missionary for india (1868-1872) miss nightingale's "little indian department all to herself," a main pre-occupation. rest-cure at malvern (dec. 1867)--visit to her mother at lea hurst (july-oct. 1868)--miss nightingale's movements in following years. ii. mr. jowett's plea for less official drudgery, and more literary work--her "note on pauperism" in _fraser's magazine_--interest in colonization--interview with mr. goschen. iii. health work for india: (1) correspondence and interviews with indian officials--interviews with lord mayo- correspondence with lord napier (madras)--"special cholera inquiry." iv. an episode: miss nightingale's intervention to save the army sanitary commission and the army medical school from being retrenched out of existence--statistical evidence of sanitary reform. v. interviews with lord napier of magdala--further correspondence with lord mayo--other interviews and correspondence. vi. health work for india: (2) acquaintance and correspondence with native indian gentlemen--sanitary appeal to village elders. vii. health work for india: (3) work in connection with the sanitary department at the india office--contributions to and revision of the indian health annual. viii. ten years' progress: _how some people have lived, not died, in india_--how much, and yet how little! 161 chapter iv adviser-general on hospitals and nursing (1868-1872) miss nightingale as a central department relating to hospitals and nurses. criticism of hospital plans--"suggestions" for nursing organization in public institutions. ii. visits on such subjects from great personages--interviews and correspondence with the crown princess of prussia. iii. supervision of the nightingale training school--personal influence--miss nightingale's reception of lady superintendents and nurses going out from the school to other posts. iv. closing of the midwifery school at king's college hospital--miss nightingale's _notes on lying-in institutions_. v. the franco-german war--miss nightingale and the "national society for aid to the sick and wounded"--communications with the crown princess of germany--red cross societies. vi. miss nightingale's continued ill-health--dr. sutherland's constant help 185 part vii work of later years (1872-1910) chapter i "out of office." literary work (1872-1874) miss nightingale's thought of entering st. thomas's hospital (1872) --dissuaded by mr. jowett--"this year i go out of office"--meaning of her statement--her connection with the war office closed--lord northbrook did not come to her. ii. unsettlement and depression- mr. jowett's plea for literary work--mr. mill's plea that she should speak out recalled. iii. articles in _fraser's magazine_ (1873): embodying some of her _suggestions for thought_--froude's and carlyle's opinions of the articles--miss nightingale and her critics. iv. death of mr. mill--appreciation of him by miss nightingale. v. theological essays written at mr. jowett's suggestion--discussions with him--contributions to the revised edition of his _plato_--suggestions for his sermons--collaboration in _the children's bible_--remarks on such literary work 211 chapter ii the mystical way miss nightingale's fondness for catholic books of devotion--idea of making a selection--mr. jowett's views of mysticism. ii. miss nightingale's preface to her _notes from devotional authors of the middle ages_. iii. interruption of work by the death of her father (1874)--his character--death of mrs. bracebridge: miss nightingale's tributes to her and her husband--family worries. iv. her book on the _mystics_ never finished--her own mystical life --her private meditations--the path to perfection 231 chapter iii miss nightingale's school (1872-1879) miss nightingale's increased attention to the nightingale training school. opening of the new buildings of st. thomas's hospital- appointment of a new medical instructor of the probationers, and of a "home sister." ii. miss nightingale's interviews with the probationers--her character-sketches and other records--her sense of humour. iii. district nursing in london--miss florence lees- selections and promotions--some favourite pupils--wide influence of the nightingale nurses--miss nightingale's close relations with her old pupils in their new posts--her affectionate solicitude for them --typical letters--extent of her correspondence. iv. her "addresses to probationers"--leading ideas in them--style of address, reminiscent of school sermons. v. her ideal of the nurse's calling --her belief in individual influence, not in organization--miss nightingale as a "founder" 246 chapter iv an indian reformer (1874-1879) miss nightingale's work on indian questions. her sources of information and industrious study: her opportunities of effective action less than in earlier years. ii. continued interest in army sanitation--letter from lord napier of magdala--correspondence with lord salisbury and lord northbrook. iii. correspondence with lord salisbury and the duke of buckingham on the drainage of madras. iv. indian famines and an extension of miss nightingale's interests --correspondence with sir arthur cotton. v. an irrigation campaign --miss nightingale's appeal to lord salisbury for a return of irrigation-results--lord salisbury on the experts--miss nightingale's continued advocacy of irrigation--her article in the _nineteenth century_ on "the people of india" (1878)- correspondence with lord cranbrook. vi. correspondence and interview with mr. gladstone--the death of lord lawrence. vii. miss nightingale's unpublished book on indian land tenures and irrigation--her irrigation maps. viii. her impatience at the slow rate of indian reforms--lord salisbury's philosophic defence of the policy of draft 273 chapter v home life in south street and the country miss nightingale's house in south street--sir harry verney's house in the same street. ii. her servants--housekeeping. iii. miss nightingale as a hostess--reminiscences by a nursing friend. iv. miss nightingale's room--personal appearance--rarely out of doors--love of birds--note on london sky-effects. v. sojourns out of london--a "lobster-like villa" at norwood (1875)--annual visits with her mother at lea hurst--miss nightingale's interest in her poorer neighbours--mother and daughter--impression made by miss nightingale on her friends--mr. jowett--the grand duchess of baden --lady ashburton. vi. letters to m. and mme. mohl--death of m. mohl (1876)--death of dr. parkes--miss nightingale's intervention once more to save the army medical school--the eastern question--miss paulina irby. vii. was miss nightingale's a happy life?--letters from mr. jowett 300 chapter vi lord ripon and general gordon (1880-1885) death of miss nightingale's mother--illness--visits to the seaside and claydon. ii. the elections of 1880--her special preoccupations and general work at this period--visit to st. thomas's hospital. iii. friendship with general gordon and his cousin, mrs. hawthorn--inquiry into nursing by orderlies in military hospitals--letters from general gordon. iv. lord ripon's indian policy--miss nightingale's enthusiasm--her efforts to support lord ripon--interviews with indian officials and politicians--her interest in indian agriculture and education--the indian civil servants at oxford: suggestions to arnold toynbee--her paper on lord ripon's bengal land tenure bill. v. the egyptian campaign of 1882--miss nightingale and the return of the guards--her appearances in public--defects in hospital arrangements in south africa and egypt (1880-82)--miss nightingale's representations--committee of inquiry--miss nightingale and lord wantage. vi. royal red cross conferred on her (1883)--correspondence with the queen--the ilbert bill--the hospital corps--reforms in accordance with the committee's recommendations--lord wolseley and the female nurses. vii. progress of lord ripon's reforms--his resignation--miss nightingale's interview with his successor, lord dufferin--mr. gladstone and india--lord ripon's return. viii. the soudan expedition--miss nightingale and the war nurses--reminiscences of sister philippa--letters to miss williams--miss nightingale's meditations--death of old friends 323 chapter vii "the nurses' battle"; and health in the village (1885-1893) miss nightingale's "jubilee year"--a retrospect (1837-1887). selection of a new matron at st. thomas's hospital. ii. queen victoria's "jubilee institute for nurses"--misgivings--"the nurses' battle": for and against registration--therival forces--miss nightingale's leadership of the "anti's"--course of the battle--the hearing by the privy council--the result--miss nightingale's standpoint. iii. her work for indian sanitation--political unsettlement at home--miss nightingale's interviews with lord roberts and others--lord roberts's introduction of female nurses into indian military hospitals--lady dufferin's association. iv. "the sutherland succession"--threatened dissolution of the army sanitary committee--proposed abolition of the sanitary commissioners in india--miss nightingale's campaign in defence--appeal to lord dufferin--communications with lord cross and mr. w. h. smith--resignation of lord randolph churchill--mr. smith succeeded at the war office by mr. stanhope--resignation of dr. sutherland--reconstitution of the army sanitary committee. v. draft dispatch at the india office advocating a "forward" sanitary policy--the indian government's resolution for the appointment of provincial sanitary boards--lord lansdowne succeeds lord dufferin. vi. miss nightingale and village sanitation in india--scheme for providing funds submitted to lord cross--her letter circulated to the local governments in india--final reply from the government of india (1894)--her retrospect of her indian work. vii. miss nightingale and village sanitation in england- death of her sister--sir harry verney and miss nightingale--her visits to claydon--her scheme of health missioners adopted by the bucks county council 353 chapter viii mr. jowett and other friends miss nightingale's public acquaintances and private friends. her sympathetic nature--acquaintances made on public business passing into friendships--sir henry yule. ii. affectionate sympathy with her relations--death of her "aunt mai" (1889)--letters to her younger relations--a burglary in south street. iii. last years with mr. jowett--his illness in south street (1887)--their scheme for a "nightingale professorship of statistics"--mr. jowett's illnesses and death (1892)--death of sir harry verney and of mr. shore smith (1894). iv. miss nightingale on mr. jowett's death--correspondence with lord lansdowne--mr. jowett's precepts on old age 385 chapter ix old age. death (1894-1910) the spirit of rabbi ben ezra. the latter years to be the best--miss nightingale's letters in this sense--her own fullness of work. ii. continual interest in india--lord elgin's village sanitary inspection. iii. interest in army affairs--letter to the duke of cambridge (1895)--the hongkong barracks (1896)--indian cantonments (1896-97)--the victorian era exhibition (1897): crimean "relics"--note on waterloo day (1898)--the south african war (1899). iv. interest in nursing--the "nurses' battle" again--the true "angels"--correspondence with the grand duchess of baden and mr. rathbone--death of old friends and fellow-workers. v. gradual failure of miss nightingale's powers--loss of sight--her companions--her favourite reading--visitors. vi. honours--the order of merit (1907)--freedom of the city (1908)--her fame--renewed cult of "the popular heroine." vii. death and funeral--memorials 402 conclusion 424 appendices a. chronological list of writings by miss nightingale 437 b. list of some writings about miss nightingale 459 c. list of portraits 467 index 471 illustrations face page florence nightingale: 1887. (_from the portrait by sir william richmond, k.c.b., r.a._) _frontispiece_ florence nightingale in her room at south street. (_from a photograph by miss e. f. bosanquet, 1906_) 306 florence nightingale: 1907. (_from a water-colour drawing by miss f. amicia de biden footner_) 418 * * * * * florence nightingale's handwriting: _facsimile_ of part of a letter to john stuart mill, august 11, 1867 216 part v for the health of the army in india (1862-1865) the question is no less an one than this: how to create a public health department for india; how to bring a higher civilization into india. what a work, what a noble task for a government--no "inglorious period of our dominion" that, but a most glorious one! that would be creating india anew. for god places his own power, his own life-giving laws in the hands of man. he permits man to create mankind by those laws, even as he permits man to destroy mankind by neglect of those laws.--florence nightingale: _how people may live and not die in india_, 1864. chapter i preliminary--the loss of friends but tasks in hours of insight will'd can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd. matthew arnold. the years immediately after sidney herbert's death were among the busiest and most useful in miss nightingale's life. she was engaged during them in carrying their "joint work unfinished" into a new field. in the previous volume we saw miss nightingale using her position as the heroine of the crimean war in order to become the founder of modern nursing, and to initiate reforms for the welfare of the british soldier. among those who know, it is recognized that the services which she rendered to the british army at home were hardly greater than those which she was able to render to british india, and it was this indian work which after sidney herbert's death became one of the main interests of her life. she threw herself into it, as we shall hear, with full fire, and brought to it abundant energy and resource. but first she had the memory of her friend to honour and protect; and then the hours of gloom were to be deepened by the loss of another friend hardly less dear to her. * * * * * having finished her paper upon sidney herbert, miss nightingale left the burlington hotel, never to return, and took lodgings in hampstead (aug.-oct. 1861). her mood was of deep despondency. she was inclined to shut herself off from most of her former fellow-workers. against the outside world she double-barred her shutters. her uncle was strictly enjoined to give no one her address; she asked that all her letters might be addressed to and from his care in london. the formula was to be that "a great and overwhelming affliction entirely precludes miss nightingale" from seeing or writing to anybody. "for her sake it is most earnestly to be wished," wrote her cousin beatrice to mr. chadwick (sept. 18), "that you may come into some immediate communication with her. it is your faith that her working days are not yet over, that she may work in another field, her own being now closed against her. i cannot find that any of those who have been with her lately would share this hope, less on account of her health, than of her state of extreme discouragement." it was a case not only, perhaps not chiefly, of personal loss, but also of public vexation; it was not only that the minister had died, it was that his work seemed like to die also. the point of view appears in her letters to dr. farr:- _sept._ 10. we are grateful to you for the memorial of my dear master which you have raised to him in the hearts of the nation.[1] indeed it is in the hearts of the nation that he will live--not in the hearts of ministers. there he is dead already, if indeed they have any. and before he was cold in his grave, gladstone attends his funeral and then writes to me that he cannot pledge himself to give any assistance in carrying out his friend's reforms. the reign of intelligence at the war office is over. the reign of muffs has begun. the only rule of conduct in the bureaucracy there and in the horse guards is to reverse _his_ decision, _his_ judgment, and (if they can do nothing more) _his_ words. [1] an eloquent address delivered to the british association at manchester (_times_, sept. 9, 1861). _october_ 2.... my poor master has been dead two months to-day, too long a time for him not to be forgotten.... the dogs have trampled on his dead body. alas! seven years this month i have fought the good fight with the war office _and lost it_! _november_ 2. my dear master has been dead three months to-day. poor lady herbert goes abroad this next week with the children and shuts up wilton, the eldest boy going to school. it is as if the earth had opened and swallowed up even the name which filled my whole life these five years. but there were things to be done in her friend's name, and she turned to do them. the power of the bureaucracy to resist was strong, because the new secretary of state was a novice at his task, and lord herbert, by failing to carry through any radical reorganization of the war office, had as she said, failed to put in "the mainspring to his works." "the commander-in-chief rides over the learned secretary of state as if he were straw." but there was one hopeful and helpful factor in the case. now that the secretary for war was in the commons, lord de grey was reappointed under-secretary. he was a genuine reformer. he knew the mind of his former chief. he was most sympathetic to lady herbert. he was acquainted with miss nightingale. the power of an under-secretary is very small, but what he could do, he would. a letter which she received from a friend, both of lord de grey and of herself, gave her encouragement:- (_r. monckton milnes to miss nightingale._) _october_ 21. i knew how irreparable a loss you and your objects in life had in herbert's death, but i should like you to know how you will find ld. de grey willing to do all in his power to forward your great and wise designs. i say "in his power," for that, you know, is extremely limited, but he may do something for you in an indirect way and, without much originality, he has considerable tact and adroitness. you won't like sir g. lewis, but somewhere or other you ought to do so; for in his sincere way of looking at things and in his critical and curious spirit he is by no means unlike yourself. he makes up his mind, no doubt, far better to the damnabilities of the work than you would do,--tho' one does not know what you would have been if you had been corrupted by public life. i write this about de grey because i was staying with him not long ago, and he expressed himself on the subject with much earnestness. ii so, then, there were some things perhaps which might yet, as she put it, be "saved from the wreck." lord de grey had already given earnest both of his good will and of his courage. he had seen lady herbert and asked about her husband's intentions. she knew them generally, but referred for details to miss nightingale, who was thus able to be of some use in carrying through lord herbert's scheme for a soldiers' home at aldershot. then there was the question of the general hospital to be built at woolwich. the commander-in-chief was opposed to the scheme, and asked sir george lewis to cancel it. economy was, perhaps, behind the minister tempting him. but lord de grey, who was present at the interview, stood firm. "sir," he said, "it is impossible. lord herbert decided it, and the house of commons voted it."[2] in the end, the horse guards and the war office accepted the inevitable with a good grace; the order was given for the building to proceed, and miss nightingale's suggestion was adopted that it should be christened "the herbert hospital." [2] miss nightingale related this incident in two letters--to dr. farr (sept. 10), and to harriet martineau (sept. 24). lord de grey was also influential in securing a redefinition of captain galton's duties at the war office. lady herbert told lord de grey that this was one of the last official matters on which she had heard her husband speak. miss nightingale again supplied the details, and to her ally was committed responsibility (under the secretary of state) for new barrack works. on some other questions miss nightingale had the bitterness of seeing projects abandoned which she and lord herbert had almost matured. "it is really melancholy now," wrote captain galton to her (aug. 19), "to see the attempts made on all hands to pull down all that sidney herbert laboured to build up." she recounted some of the disappointments in a letter to harriet martineau, and that lady, whose genuine sympathy in the cause was perhaps heightened by a journalist's scent for "copy," was eager to go on the war-path. "no harm can come," she wrote to miss nightingale (oct. 4), "of an attempt to shame the horse guards. i have consulted my editor [of the _daily news_], and if i can obtain a sufficiency of clear facts, i will gladly harass the commander-in-chief as he was never harassed before--that is, i will write a leader against him every saturday for as many weeks as there are heads of accusation against him and his department. we don't want to mince matters." miss nightingale was to supply the powder and shot; miss martineau was to fire the guns. the partnership was declined by miss nightingale. the reason she gave was that she was no longer in the way of obtaining much inside information. but she doubtless had other reasons. there were things which she had just managed to carry through. there were other possibilities of usefulness before her. she was playing a difficult game. she did not think that her hand would be strengthened by newspaper polemics, for the form of which she would not be responsible, but the information in which would be traced back to her. among the points which she had just managed to score was the appointment of the commission already mentioned,[3] for extending the barracks inquiry to the mediterranean stations. headquarters tried to stop it. "and i defeated them," she had told miss martineau (sept. 24), "by a trick which they were too stupid to find out." her papers do not disclose the nature of the "trick" by which this excellent piece of work was carried through. [3] see vol. i. p. 405. and there was another thing which she did in order to forward sidney herbert's work, though in a field outside that of their collaboration: she wrote a stirring letter (oct. 8) on the volunteer movement, which he had organized in 1859. it brought her several "offers," as we have heard already[4]; and, displayed in large print on a card, must have attracted many recruits. she wrote it as one who had experience of war and its lessons; as one, too, who had worked for the army, "seven years this very month, without the intermission of one single waking hour." she made eloquent appeal to the patriotic spirit of the british people; and she included this piece of personal feeling: "on the saddest night of all my life, two months ago, when my dear chief sidney herbert lay dying, and i knew that with him died much of the welfare of the british army--he was, too, so proud, so justly proud, of his volunteers--on that night i lay listening to the bands of the volunteers as they came marching in successively--it had been a review-day--and i said to myself, 'the nation can never go back which is capable of such a movement as this; not the spirit of an hour; these are men who have all something to give up; all men whose time is valuable for money, which is not their god, as other nations say of us.'" i do not know if the name of florence nightingale be still--as it ought to be--a name of power with the people. if it is, then her letter of 1861 might well be reprinted in connection with recruiting for the territorial force. she laid stress upon the voluntary spirit, as opposed to compulsion. but she laid stress also on the supreme importance of efficient training: "garibaldi's volunteers did excellently in guerilla movements; they failed before a fourth-rate regular army." [4] vol. i. p. 496. iii presently some old work in a new form came in miss nightingale's way. she had returned to london in november, chiefly in order to be on the spot for consultation and suggestion in connection with the memorial to sidney herbert. it was her suggestion, for one thing, that the memorial should include a prize medal at the army medical school. for this sojourn in london, sir harry verney lent his house in south street[5] to miss nightingale. the american civil war now kept her busy. "did i tell you," she wrote to dr. farr (oct. 8), "that i had forwarded to the war secretary at washington, upon application, all our war office forms and reports, statistical and other, taking the occasion to tell them that, as the u.s. had adopted our registrar-general's nomenclature, it would be easier for them to adopt our army statistics forms. it appears that they, the northern states, are quite puzzled by their own want of any army organization. i also took occasion to tell them of our chinese success in reducing the army mortality to one-tenth of what it was, and the constantly sick to one-seventh of what they were during the first winter of the crimean war, due to my dear master." when the civil war broke out, miss nightingale's example in the crimea had produced an immediate effect. a "woman's central association of relief" was formed in new york. in co-operation with other bodies they petitioned the secretary of war to appoint a sanitary commission, and after some delay this was done. camps were inspected; female nurses were sent to the hospitals; contrivances for improved cooking were supplied, and in short, much of miss nightingale's crimean work was reproduced.[6] presently she became more directly concerned. at the end of the year (1861) england was on the verge of being embroiled in the conflict, and, whilst the agitation over the _trent_ affair was at its height, the british government decided to send reinforcements to canada. lord de grey was charged with many of the preparations. he asked miss nightingale (dec. 3) if he might consult her personally "as to sanitary arrangements generally." he wished to profit by her experience and judgment in relation to transports, hospitals, clothing of the troops, supplies, comforts for the sick, and generally upon "the defects and dangers to be feared," and how best to prevent them. he also asked for the names of suitable men for the position of principal medical officer, and he consulted her again before making the appointment. without a moment's loss of time, she set to work in conjunction with dr. sutherland, and sent in her suggestions. the draft instructions to the officers in charge of the expedition were sent to her on december 8. on december 10 lord de grey wrote: "i have got all your suggestions inserted in the instructions, and am greatly obliged to you for them." "we are shipping off the expedition to canada as fast as we can," she wrote to madame mohl (dec. 13). "i have been working just as i did in the times of sidney herbert. alas! he left no organization, my dear master! but the horse guards were so terrified at the idea of the national indignation if they lost another army, that they have consented to everything." a few days later another draft of instructions was sent to her through captain galton. "we have gone over your draft very carefully," she wrote (dec. 18), "and find that although it includes almost everything necessary, it does not define with sufficient precision the manner in which the meat is to get from the commissariat into the soldier's kettle, or the clothing from the army medical general store on to the soldier's back. you must define all this. otherwise you will have men, as you had in the crimea, shirking the responsibility." memoranda among miss nightingale's papers show the grasp of detail with which she worked out the problems. her mind envisaged the scene of operations. she calculated the distances which might have to be covered by sledges; she counted the relays and depots; she compared the relative weights and warming capacities of blankets and buffalo robes. a great commander was lost to her country when florence nightingale was born a woman. her suggestions in the case of the canadian reinforcements were happily not put to the test of war. the _trent_ affair was smoothed over, largely, as is now well known, owing to the moderating counsels of the prince consort. it was his last service to his adopted country. miss nightingale felt his death to be a national loss. "he neither liked," she said of him, "nor was liked. but what he has done for our country no one knows." [5] no. 32 at that time; now renumbered, no. 4. [6] see on this subject bibliography b, no. 23. the secretary of another body, the united states christian communion, in sending reports and papers to miss nightingale (july 26, 1865) wrote: "your influence and our indebtedness to you can never be known. only this is true that everywhere throughout our broad country during these years of inventive and earnest benevolence in the constant endeavour to succour and sustain our heroic defenders, the name and work of florence nightingale have been an encouragement and inspiration." in the same year the plans of an emigrant hospital on ward island were sent to her. in return she sent engravings of the departure and the arrival of the pilgrim fathers: "presented to the commissioners of emigration of new york for the new emigrant hospital on ward island by florence nightingale as a slight sign of her deepest reverence and her warmest sympathy for the noble act by which they have so magnificently provided for--not their own sick, but--those of the old country." iv miss nightingale's work in connection with the canadian expedition was done in the midst of a personal sorrow of her own, second only in poignancy, if second at all, to that caused by the death of sidney herbert. this was the death of arthur hugh clough. he had broken down in health and been ordered abroad in april 1861, and she had urged him to go. he died, however, at florence on november 12. they had been close friends since her return to england from the crimea. his sweetness of disposition, his humour, his lofty moral feeling, alike attracted her. he on his side had deep admiration for her, and he devoted such strength--alas! but little--as remained to him from work in the privy council office to her service. he fetched and carried for her. he made arrangements for her journeys, as we have heard, and escorted her. he saw her printers, he corrected her proofs. he became, at a modest salary, secretary to the nightingale fund. it was poor work to set a poet to, but he did it with cheerful modesty. he was intent, he told miss nightingale, upon "doing plain work"; he had "studied and taught," he said, "too much for a man's own moral good." in 1860 his health began to fail. miss nightingale was sometimes a little impatient. his loyalty and zeal she could never have doubted; but she was inclined to think him lacking in initiative and energy. she was always inclined to drive willing horses a little hardly. in the case of clough, as in that of sidney herbert, she sometimes attributed to infirmity of will what was in fact due to infirmity of body. and in each case her grief, when the end came, was not free, i think, from some element of self-reproach. "i have always felt," she had written to her uncle (dec. 7, 1860), "that i have been a great drag on arthur's health and spirits, a much greater one than i should have chosen to be, if i had not promised him to die sooner." "she saw my father," wrote her cousin beatrice to mr. nightingale (dec. 4), "to speak only of arthur, as only she can speak. she was quite natural, very affectionate, very, very much moved." but in her state of loneliness and nervous exhaustion her feeling for lost friends was sometimes morbid. she said that for months after the death of sidney herbert, and again after that of clough, she could not bear to open a newspaper for dread of seeing some mention of a beloved name. some years later she was sent a book by mrs. clough. "i like very much," she replied (nov. 13, 1865)--"how much i cannot say--to receive that book from you. but it would be impossible to me to read it or look at it, not from want of time or strength, but from too much of both spent on his memory, from thinking, not too little, but too much on him. but i don't say this for others. i believe it is a morbid peculiarity of long illness, of the loss of power of resistance to morbid thoughts. i cannot bear to see a portrait of those who are gone." the depth of her grief at the death of mr. clough is expressed or reflected in letters which she wrote or received at the time:- (_benjamin jowett to miss nightingale._) balliol, _nov._ 19 [1861]. thank you for writing to me. i am very much grieved at the tidings which your letter brought me. i agree entirely in your estimate of our dear friend's character. it was in 1836 (the anniversary is next week) that i first saw him when he was elected to the balliol scholarship. no one who only knew him in later life would imagine what a noble, striking-looking youth he was before he got worried with false views of religion and the world. i never met with any one who was more thoroughly high-minded: i believe he acted all through life simply from the feeling of what was right. he certainly had great genius, but some want of will or some want of harmony with things around him prevented his creating anything worthy of himself. i am glad he was married: life was dark to him, and his wife and children made him as happy as he was capable of being made. he was naturally very religious, and i think that he never recovered the rude shock which his religion received during his first years at oxford. he did not see and yet he believed in the great belief of all--to do rightly. did i quote to you ever an expression which neander used to me of blanco white: _einer christ mehr in unbewusstseyn als in bewusstseyn_? it grieves me that you should have lost so invaluable a friend. no earthly trial can be greater than to pursue without friends the work that you began with them. and yet it is the more needed because it rests on one only. if there be any way in this world to be like christ it must be by pursuing in solitude and illness, without the support of sympathy or public opinion, works for the good of mankind. i hope you will sometimes let me hear from you. let me assure you that i shall never cease to take an interest in your objects and writings.--ever yours sincerely, b. jowett. (_miss nightingale to sir john mcneill._) south street, _nov._ 18.... he was a man of rare mind and temper. the more so because he would gladly do "plain work." to me, seeing the blundering harasses which were the uses to which we put him, he seemed like a race-horse harnessed to a coal truck. this not because he did "plain work" and did it so well. for the best of us can be put to no better use than that. he helped me immensely, though not officially, by his sound judgment and constant sympathy. "oh, jonathan, my brother jonathan, my love to thee was very great, passing the love of woman." now, not one man remains (that i can call a man) of all those whom these five years i have worked with. but, as you say, "we are all dying." (_sir john mcneill to miss nightingale._) edinburgh, _november_ 19. i should find it difficult to tell you how much your letter has distressed me. i do not know that i have ever cared so much for any man of whom i had seen so little as i did for clough. perhaps it may not have been all on his own account, for to know that he was near you was a comfort, but if he had not been altogether estimable in head and heart this mixed feeling could not have arisen. his death leaves you dreadfully alone in the midst of your work, but that work is your life and you can do it alone. there is no feeling more sustaining than that of being alone--at least i have ever found it so. to mount my horse and ride over the desert alone with the sky closing the circle in which my horse and i were the only living things, i have always found intensely elating. to work out views in which no one helped me has all my life been to me a source of vitality and strength. so i doubt not it will be to you, for you have a strength and a power for good to which i never could pretend. it is a small matter to die a few days sooner than usual. it is a great matter to work while it is day, and so to husband one's power as to make the most of the days that are given us. this you will do. herbert and clough and many more may fall around you, but you are destined to do a great work and you cannot die till it is substantially, if not apparently, done. you are leaving your impress on the age in which you live, and the print of your foot will be traced by generations yet unborn. go on--to you the accidents of mortality ought to be as the falling of the leaves in autumn. ever respectfully and sincerely yours, john mcneill. miss nightingale was able, as her friends predicted, to pursue in hours of gloom the tasks which in hours of insight she had willed; and to continue, without the same sympathy from close friends as before, the kind of work which she had once done with sidney herbert's co-operation or with clough's advice. but she yearned for sympathy none the less; in a noble, though an exacting, way. for by "sympathy" she understood not such feeling as would be expressed merely in affectionate behaviour or personal consideration for herself, but a fellow-feeling for her objects expressed in readiness to follow her in serving them with something of her own practical devotion. she did not think of herself apart from her mission. (_miss nightingale to madame mohl._) 32 south street, london, _dec_. 13 [1861]. i have read half your book thro' [_madame récamier_], and am immensely charmed by it. but some things i disagree with and more i do not understand. this does not apply to the characters, but to your conclusions, _e.g._ you say "women are more sympathetic than men." now if i were to write a book out of my experience, i should begin _women have no sympathy_. yours is the tradition. mine is the conviction of experience. i have never found one woman who has altered her life by one iota for me or my opinions. now look at my experience of men. a statesman, past middle age, absorbed in politics for a quarter of a century, out of sympathy with me, remodels his whole life and policy--learns a science the driest, the most technical, the most difficult, that of administration, as far as it concerns the lives of men,--not, as i learnt it, in the field from stirring experience, but by writing dry regulations in a london room by my sofa with me. this is what i call real sympathy. another (alexander, whom i made director-general) does very nearly the same thing. he is dead too. clough, a poet born if ever there was one, takes to nursing-administration in the same way, for me. i only mention three whose whole lives were remodelled by sympathy for me. but i could mention very many others--farr, mcneill, tulloch, storks, martin, who in a lesser degree have altered their work by my opinions. and, the most wonderful of all, a man born without a soul, like undine--all these elderly men. now just look at the degree in which women have sympathy--as far as my experience is concerned. and my experience of women is almost as large as europe. and it is so intimate too. i have lived and slept in the same bed with english countesses and prussian bäuerinnen. no roman catholic supérieure has ever had charge of women of the different creeds that i have had. no woman has excited "passions" among women more than i have. yet i leave no school behind me. my doctrines have taken no hold among women. not one of my crimean following learnt anything from me, or gave herself for one moment after she came home to carry out the lesson of that war or of those hospitals.... no woman that i know has ever _appris à apprendre_. and i attribute this to want of sympathy. you say somewhere that women have no attention. yes. and i attribute this to want of sympathy. nothing makes me so impatient as people complaining of their want of memory. how can you remember what you have never heard?... it makes me mad, the women's rights talk about "the want of a field" for them--when i know that i would gladly give £500 a year for a woman secretary. and two english lady superintendents have told me the same thing. and we can't get _one_.... they don't know the names of the cabinet ministers. they don't know the offices at the horse guards. they don't know who of the men of the day is dead and who is alive. they don't know which of the churches has bishops and which not. now i'm sure i did not know these things. when i went to the crimea i did not know a colonel from a corporal. but there are such things as army lists and almanacs. yet i never could find a woman who, out of sympathy, would consult one--for my work. the only woman i ever influenced by sympathy was one of those lady superintendents i have named. yet she is like me, overwhelmed with her own business.... in one sense, i do believe i am "like a man," as parthe says. but how? _in having sympathy._ i am sure i have nothing else. i am sure i have no genius. i am sure that my contemporaries, parthe, hilary, marianne, lady dunsany, were all cleverer than i was, and several of them more unselfish. but not one had a bit of sympathy. now sidney herbert's wife just did the secretary's work for her husband (which i have had to do without) out of pure sympathy. she did not understand his policy. yet she could write his letters for him "like a man." i should think m^{me} récamier was another specimen of pure sympathy.... women crave _for being loved_, not for loving. they scream out at you for sympathy all day long, they are incapable of giving any in return, for they cannot remember your affairs long enough to do so.... they cannot state a fact accurately to another, nor can that other attend to it accurately enough for it to become information. now is not all this the result of want of sympathy?... you say of m^{me} récamier that her existence was "empty but brilliant." and you attribute it to want of family. oh, dear friend, don't give in to that sort of tradition. people often say to me, you don't know what a wife and mother feels. no, i say, i don't and i'm very glad i don't. and _they_ don't know what i _feel_.... i am sick with indignation at what wives and mothers will do of the most egregious selfishness. and people call it all maternal or conjugal affection, and think it pretty to say so. no, no, let each person tell the truth from his own experience. ezekiel went running about naked, "for a sign." i can't run about naked because it is not the custom of the country. but i would mount three widows' caps on my head, "for a sign." and i would cry, this is for sidney herbert, this is for arthur clough, and this, the biggest widow's cap of all, is for the loss of all sympathy on the part of my dearest and nearest.[7] ... i cannot understand how m^{me} récamier could give "advice and sympathy" to such opposite people as, _e.g._ m^{me} salvage and chateaubriand. neither can i understand how she could give "support" without recommending a distinct line of policy,--by merely keeping up the tone to a high one. it is as if i had said to sidney herbert, be a statesman, be a statesman--instead of indicating to him a definite course of statesmanship to follow. also i am sure i never could have given "advice and sympathy" to gladstone and s. herbert--men pursuing opposite lines of policy. also i am sure i never could have been the friend and adviser of sidney herbert, of alexander, and of others, by simply keeping up the tone of general conversation on promiscuous matters. we debated and settled _measures_ together. that is the way we did it. adieu, dear friend.... i have had two consultations. they say that all this worry has brought on congestion of the spine which leads straight to paralysis.... [7] the reference here is to the aunt who, in earlier years, had been in close companionship with her. at this time there was some misunderstanding between them. mrs. smith's advancing age and home claims brought a cessation of her constant activity in miss nightingale's service; but in later years aunt and niece took much counsel together in a resumed study of the religious subjects upon which they had formerly held intimate converse: see below, pp. 353, 387. (_miss nightingale to her mother._) 9 chesterfield st., w., _march_ 7 [1862]. dearest mother--so far from your letters being a "bore," you are the only person who tells me any news. i have never been able to get over the morbid feeling at seeing my lost two's names in the paper, so that i see no paper. i did not know of the deaths you mention.... but they and others do not know how much they are spared by having no bitterness mingled with their grief. such unspeakable bitterness has been connected with each one of my losses--far, far greater than the grief.... sometimes i wonder that i should be so impatient for death. had i only to stand and wait, i think it would be nothing, though the pain is so great that i wonder how anybody can dread an operation.... i think what i have felt most (during my last three months of extreme weakness) is the not having one single person to give me one inspiring word or even one correct fact. i am glad to end a day which never can come back, gladder to end a night, gladdest to end a month. i have felt this much more in setting up (for the first time in my life) a fashionable old maid's house in a fashionable quarter (tho' grateful to papa's liberality for enabling me to do so), because it is, as it were, deciding upon a new and independent course in my broken old age.... thank you very much for the weekly box. i could not help sending the game, chicken, vegetables and flowers to king's college hospital. i never see the spring without thinking of my clough. he used to tell me how the leaves were coming out--always remembering that, without his eyes, i should never see the spring again. thank god! my lost two are in brighter springs than ours. poor mrs. herbert told me that her chief comfort was in a little chinese dog of his, which he was not very fond of either (he always said he liked christians better than beasts), but which used to come and kiss her eyelids and lick the tears from her cheeks. i remember thinking this childish. but now i don't. my cat does just the same to me. dumb beasts observe you so much more than talking beings; and know so much better what you are thinking of.... ever, dear mama, your loving child, f. at the turn of the year, 1861-62, miss nightingale had been very ill; and two physicians, dr. williams and dr. sutherland, were in daily attendance. happily, however, the case was by no means so serious as she had reported to madame mohl, and in 1862 she was able to devote unremitting labour to one of the heaviest, and most useful, pieces of work which she ever did. chapter ii the providence of the indian army (1862, 1863) in this case you are doing much more than providing for the health of the troops; for, to be effectual, the improvement must extend to the civil population, and thus another great element of civilization will be introduced.--sir charles trevelyan (_letter to florence nightingale_, aug. 11, 1862). it is a commonplace that the british empire in india was won and is held by british arms. and this, though not the whole truth of the tenure by which the empire is held, is true. what is also true, but less generally known, is that there have been heavier sacrifices than those demanded in war and rendered glorious by british valour. the greater part of the british lives that were shed in india were lost, not in battle, but by disease. burke said of british rule in india in his time: "england has built no bridges, made no high roads, cut no navigations. were we driven out of india this day, nothing would remain to tell that it had been possessed, during the inglorious period of our dominion, by anything better than the ourang-outang or the tiger."[8] that was no longer true at the time with which we are here concerned. the era had begun in which it has been a song of the english to "drive the road and bridge the ford." but the land was not yet "cleared of evil." the british soldier was still sent out to india to die ingloriously by the neglect of sanitary laws. in 1859 it was found that the average annual death-rate among the british soldiers in india since the year 1817 had been 69 per 1000. to-day it is little over 5 per 1000. the changes in barracks and military sanitation in india, which are primarily accountable for this great saving of life, are directly traceable to the recommendations of the royal commission which was appointed by lord stanley in 1859, and which reported in 1863. thus much the reader may find stated in any trustworthy book of reference or other standard authority. what he will not find generally stated is that the appointment of the royal commission is directly traceable to miss nightingale, that by her the greater part of its report was written, and that the suggestions for reform founded upon it were also her work. at an international congress held in london in 1860 a french delegate, as already related, spoke of florence nightingale as "the providence of the english army." she was no less the providence of the indian army. to the british soldier in india, as at home, she was "a saviour." in introducing this subject, we must go back a little in point of time, for the indian work had begun a few years before the death of sidney herbert. [8] speech on fox's east india bill, dec. 1, 1783 (_burke's speeches_, 1816, vol. ii. p. 430). * * * * * "i must tell you a secret," wrote miss nightingale to harriet martineau in 1859 (may 19), "because i think it will please you. for eight long months i have been 'importunate-widowing' my 'unjust judge,' viz. lord stanley, to give us a royal sanitary commission to do exactly the same thing for the armies in india which the last did for the army at home. we have just won it. the queen has signed the warrant. so it is safe. mr. sidney herbert is chairman of course. drs. sutherland, martin, farr, and alexander, whose names will be known to you, and sir r. vivian and sir p. cautley, of the india council, are on it." miss nightingale had made up her mind two years before to do this thing. the indian mutiny, which filled some minds only with thoughts of vengeance and repression against the native soldiers, filled hers rather with thoughts of pity and reform on behalf of the british soldiers. she had gone into the figures of mortality in the indian army at the time when she was analysing those in the army at home. there was "murder" committed not only by the sepoys. it was murder also to doom british soldiers to death by neglect of sanitary precautions. at the end of her _notes on the army_ (1857), she inserted a fly-leaf, which foreshadowed her indian campaign:- while the sheets were passing through the press, those lamentable occurrences took place in india which have led to an universal conviction that this vast empire must henceforth be held by british troops. if we were to be led by past experience of the presumed effect of indian climates on european constitutions, our country might almost despair of being able to supply men enough.... the british race has carried with it into those regions of the sun its habits, its customs, and its vices, without considering that under a low temperature man may do with impunity what under a higher one is death. our vast indian empire consists of many zones, of many regions, of many climates. on the mere question of climate, it is surely within human possibility, even in the great majority of instances, so to arrange the stations, and so to connect them, by railroads and telegraphs, that the troops would hardly be required to occupy unhealthy districts. even with regard to such districts the question arises to what extent the unhealthiness is inevitable, and to what extent it would be remediable.... as an illustration of the necessity of government interference in this matter, it may be stated, on the very first authority, that, after a campaign perhaps one of the most arduous and successful on record, and when the smallness of the british force and the season of the year required every sanitary precaution to be taken for the preservation of the force, a certain earnest, energetic officer appointed a sanitary inspector to attend to the cleansing of a captured city, and to the burial of some thousand dead bodies of men, horses, asses, bullocks, camels, and elephants, which were poisoning the air. the bombay government, to which the appointment was referred, "would not sanction it," "_because there was no precedent for it_"! in future, it ought to be the duty of the indian government to require no precedents for such procedure. the observance of sanitary laws should be as much part of the future _régime_ of india as the holding of military positions or as civil government itself. it would be a noble beginning of the new order of things to use hygiene as the handmaid of civilization. everything that miss nightingale thus said should be done, was done; and to the doing of it, she supplied, first, the propelling force, and, then, much of the detailed direction. first came the movement for getting the appointment of a royal commission agreed to in principle. miss nightingale's reference to lord stanley as her "unjust judge" need not be taken too seriously. he was her very good friend, as we know;[9] and it was when he was transferred from the colonial to the india office (1858) that she felt her time to have come. and lord stanley agreed at once to her suggestion of appointing _a_ commission. it was when the consideration of _the_ commission was reached that the delay began. who should approach lord stanley on the details? and how should it be done? miss nightingale and what i have called her cabinet of reformers were equally interested in the sub-commissions still sitting on army sanitation at home. lord stanley wanted mr. herbert to undertake the chairmanship of the india commission. should he accept it, at risk of diverting some of his attention from these other reforms? miss nightingale and her friends hit upon a plan, as she hoped, for killing two birds with one stone. it was intimated to lord stanley that mr. herbert would accept the chairmanship on condition that the pending reforms at home were hastened. i do not know if the indian secretary came to terms with the war secretary in that sense; if he did, i fear that general peel interpreted "haste" as _festina lente_. anyhow, mr. herbert accepted the chairmanship, and then some months were spent in arranging the membership and the terms of reference. there were to be three sanitary experts, a statistician, and two members of the india council. of the two latter, one (sir r. vivian) was a friend of miss nightingale's uncle, mr. smith; and of sir proby cautley she had heard good reports. the sanitarians--drs. sutherland, martin, and alexander--and dr. farr, the statistician, were all of her inner circle. at the last moment there was a fresh delay. the list was submitted for the royal approval, and her majesty required that "a queen's officer of acknowledged experience in india" should be added to the commission. mr. herbert asked miss nightingale to supply a suitable man, by which he meant a man whose acknowledged experience included some belief in sanitary science. she took great pains, and employed some wile in obtaining the best opinions. she wrote, for one thing, to her uncle, telling him (may 19, 1859) to get at sir john lawrence, through his friend sir r. vivian, and ask for suggestions. "vivian must be soaped," she added, "so as not to let him think that we undervalue _his_ opinion." sir john lawrence did not, however, on this occasion prove very resourceful; miss nightingale sent in the name of an officer, colonel e. h. greathed, who had been commended to her through another channel, and he was duly added to the commission. at an earlier stage she had thrown out the interesting suggestion that john stuart mill, lately retired from the east india house, should be asked to serve, but this did not meet with favour. "our business," wrote one of her circle, "is with spades and wheelbarrows," and he doubted whether "compte" [sic] could be put to such purposes. miss nightingale always thought that this ally of hers, though invaluable in many ways, was a little wanting in soul. so then the commission was appointed. the warrant was issued on may 31, 1859. the commission reported on may 19, 1863. there were some changes in its personnel from death and other causes. on the overthrow of the derby government, mr. herbert went to the war office, and he presently resigned the chairmanship. lord stanley succeeded him. the members of the commission on whom both mr. herbert and lord stanley most relied were dr. sutherland and dr. farr, and a third, who was yet not a member--miss nightingale. and among these three the lion's share of the work was done by her. [9] see vol. i. p. 339. ii she had not waited for the actual appointment of the commission to begin collecting, preparing, and digesting evidence for it. her first concern was to draft a circular of inquiry which should be sent to all the stations in india. it lacked nothing, as will be supposed, in requiring fulness of statistical detail. when she had prepared it, she sent it in proof to sir john mcneill for his suggestions, asking him also (may 9, 1859) "kindly to give an opinion as to the general direction which the enquiry should take." in cases where she was personally acquainted with governors or high military or medical officers in india, she wrote soliciting their good offices. sir charles trevelyan, then governor of madras, promised cordial co-operation. then she and dr. farr set to work on such statistical records as were obtainable from the east india house. there is a bundle of correspondence amongst her papers relating to the difficulties she encountered, and surmounted, in obtaining official sanction for clerical work in this regard. dr. farr's appetite for statistics was as insatiable as hers, and she had taken means to lay in ample supplies:- (_miss nightingale to dr. farr._) highgate, _june_ 2, [1859]. your commission was gazetted on may 31 and mr. herbert is in town. as it will be necessary to obtain the statistics of sickness, mortality, and invaliding of the indian army from the medical boards there, would not some of the proposed forms for the army medical dep. be better than any other, filled up for each station with the diseases annually for a period say of 10 years? or would it be necessary to provide others? we must, of course, have the most minute statistics--both for soldiers and officers in the queen's, company's and native troops. and these we should get by this method for 10 years. i suppose the medical boards have the presidency medical book records. would it be necessary to get the returns for each corps separately? would it not be important to get the ages--age and time of service at death or invaliding? hampstead, _dec._ 6 [1859]. in consequence of your intemperate desire to have the indian medical service regulations, we have applied at the great house for copies. and the answer is that they have only one office copy, and if we want any we must send to india. knowing their weakness, we had (in our "queries") previously sent to two hundred stations in india for copies of all "regulations," and we hope the result will satisfy your literary appetite. dr. farr, then, was being fed with statistics. officials in india were being kept busy with forms to be filled up, and with the preparation of other written evidence. in november 1859 the commission began taking oral evidence in london, but this was a comparatively minor part of its labours, and during 1860 no public sittings were held. they were resumed in 1861. lord stanley had then succeeded mr. herbert in the chair, but miss nightingale's grip upon the commission was not relaxed. two of the commissioners, dr. sutherland and dr. farr, were in close touch with her. the former was with her almost every day; the latter asked her to send him questions which he should put to witnesses. as in the case of the former royal commission, so now miss nightingale saw some of the witnesses before they gave their evidence. among her visitors in this sort was sir john lawrence, as already mentioned, and a friendship began which had important consequences. seeing that everything was thus in good train, miss nightingale was able during the years 1859-60-61 to devote her main work to those other matters with which we have been concerned in preceding parts. in 1862, her main interest was in the indian commission, and the amount of work which she gave to it during 1862-1863 was enormous. her manner of life during these years was similar to that described in a previous chapter. work for the commission required her constant attendance in london or within easy distance of it. in 1862 she lived either in a hotel (peary's, 31 dover street), a hired house (9 chesterfield street), or sir harry verney's house in south street. during august and september she took a house in oak hill park, hampstead. in 1863 she divided her time between hampstead, hired houses in cleveland row, and sir harry verney's. her affectionate friend, mrs. sutherland, did all the house-hunting for her. cleveland row was selected for its nearness to the war office; and the convenience of the site so far constrained dr. sutherland's sanitary conscience that he declared cleveland row to be "the airiest place in london." iii few of my readers have come to close quarters, i suppose, with the _indian sanitary commission's report_. it is a very formidable thing, consisting of two bulky volumes, containing respectively 1069 and 959 pages--in all 2028 pages, mostly in small print. of this mountainous mass, the greater part bears in one way or another the impress of miss nightingale. it was she, in the first place, as already stated, who drafted the questions which were sent to every military station in india. the replies, signed in each case by the commanding officer, the engineer officer, and the medical officer, occupy the whole of the second volume. the replies, as they came in from india, were sent to her to analyse. there were van-loads of them, she said, which cost her £4:10s. to move whenever she changed houses. with the analysis made by her and dr. sutherland, these replies anticipated, as she afterwards noted,[10] the statistical survey of india which lord mayo ordered ten years later. it was said at the time that such a complete picture of life in india, both british and native, was contained in no other book in existence. in october 1861 she was formally requested by the commission to submit remarks on these stational reports. she had completed the task by august 1862. the "observations by miss nightingale," which occupy twenty-three pages of the report, are among the most remarkable of her works, and in their results among the most beneficent. they are also extremely readable; and to make them more instructive, she included a number of woodcuts illustrating, not only indian hospitals and barracks, but native customs in connection with water-supply and drainage.[11] the treasury--horrified perhaps at the idea of popularizing a blue-book--made some demur to the cost, but miss nightingale was allowed to solve the difficulty by paying for the printing, as well as for the illustrations, out of her private purse. [10] in her _marginalia_ to sir william hunter's _earl of mayo_ (1891). [11] indian officers (and especially colonel young) supplied her with sketches, some of which were touched up by her cousin, miss hilary bonham carter. she made full use of the opening which the niggardliness of the treasury gave her. she hurried the printers, and had a large number of her "observations" struck off for private use. "i have looked once more," wrote lord stanley (nov. 21), "through your remarks, and like them better the oftener i read them. the style alone (apart from the authority which your name carries with it) will ensure their being studied by many who know nothing of the subject. they will admirably relieve the dryness of our official report. i hope every indian and english newspaper will reprint them, in extracts at least. they must be circulated with our report, separately from the too voluminous mass of evidence which we can't help appending. you have added one more to your many and invaluable services in the cause." "miss nightingale's paper," wrote dr. farr to dr. sutherland (dec. 1), "is a masterpiece, in her best style; and will rile the enemy very considerable--all for his good, poor creature."[12] but it was not only among the commissioners that she circulated her paper. she sent it confidentially to many of her influential friends. "the picture is terrible," wrote sir john mcneill (aug. 9), "but it is all true. there is no one statement from beginning to end that i feel disposed to question, and there are many which my own observation and experience enable me to confirm." a copy went to john stuart mill, who was much pleased with the "observations," and was certain that "the publication of them would do vast good." miss nightingale had a copy bound for the queen, and sent it--as also a copy of her paper on sidney herbert--through sir james clark, who marked passages for the queen to read. her majesty, he found from conversation, had not confined her reading to those passages. the queen in return sent a copy of her collection of prince albert's speeches. "the queen," wrote miss nightingale to m. mohl (feb. 14, 1863), "has sent me her book with such a touching inscription. she always reminds me of the greek chorus with her hands clasped above her head wailing out her irrepressible despair."[13] miss nightingale sent her "observations" also to sir john lawrence, who studied them closely, and corresponded with her on the subject. another copy went to sir charles trevelyan.[14] "having," he wrote (oct. 31, 1862), "undertaken the duties of financial member of the council of india, i may now be able to give some help in carrying the recommendations of your commission into practical effect. you must not expect from me as much as sidney herbert did, for my power will not be the same. the governor-general and the local governors will alone be in that position. but i shall do _what i can_. perhaps you will send me a copy of your abstract of the evidence, and direct my attention to the points of more immediate importance. i shall be obliged for any hints." miss nightingale responded by sending him papers enough to occupy all his time on the voyage. she seems at this time to have entertained some hope that her health would permit her, when the report was out, to visit india in person; for one of sir charles's letters refers to such a visit, and expresses the pleasure which it would give to lady trevelyan and himself to receive her as their guest, and in every way to assist her mission. but this was not to be. her knowledge of india and indian questions was already great, and presently it became so minute as to encourage a legend that she herself had once been there.[15] but she never saw the country. it is not always either the "life-long resident," or, on the other hand, "padgett, m.p.," who is better qualified than the student to perceive and serve a country's need. [12] a true prediction: see sir bartle frere's saying, below, p. 158. [13] the inscription is: "to miss florence nightingale in recollection of the greatest and best of princes from the beloved prince's broken-hearted widow, victoria r. osborne, jan. 13, 1863." [14] he had been recalled from madras in 1860. [15] "it will be remembered that miss florence nightingale came to this country and was impressed with the idea that if india needed anything it was village sanitation. she collected a mass of facts and has since been agitating in england": _amrita bazar patrika_ (calcutta), june 29, 1892, reprinted in the _indian spectator_, july 10. miss nightingale's "observations" form a synopsis of the whole subject. giving chapter and verse from the stational reports for each of her statements, she shows, first, that the prevailing diseases were camp diseases such as she had seen in the crimean war--largely due to the selection of unsuitable sites. among the causes were bad water, bad drainage, filthy bazaars, want of ventilation, and surface overcrowding in barrack-huts and sick-wards. her remarks under these several heads are often characteristically racy. "where tests have been used, the composition of the water reads like a very intricate prescription, containing nearly all the chlorides, sulphates, nitrates, and carbonates in the pharmacopoeia, besides silica and quantities of animal and vegetable matter, which the reports apparently consider nutritive." "if the facilities for washing were as great as those for drink, our indian army would be the cleanest body of men in the world." "there is no drainage, in any sense in which we understand the word. the reports speak of cesspits as if they were dressingrooms." "except where the two lawrences have been--there one can always recognize their traces--the bazaars are simply in the first savage stage of social savage life." under the head of "overcrowding," she brings together various instances with figures and woodcuts; she quotes one report which said that the men (300 men per room!) "are generally accommodated in the barrack without inconvenient overcrowding," and she asks, "what is _convenient_ overcrowding?" "at some stations the floors are of earth, varnished over periodically with cow-dung: a practice borrowed from the natives. like mahomet and the mountain, if men won't go to the dunghill, the dunghill, it appears, comes to them." her next section, on "intemperance," is scathing. in india, as at home,[16] it was a current opinion of the time that the soldier is by nature a drunken animal; the only question seemed to be as to how he had better get drunk. at one station, though the men were reported as "mostly temperate," she found that on a ten years' average one man in three was admitted into hospital directly from drink. "the men are killed by liver disease on canteen spirits to save them from being killed by liver disease on bazaar spirits. may there not be some middle course whereby the men may be killed by neither?" under "diet," she notes the absurdity of a uniform ration, in amount and quality, in all seasons and climates; and ventures to doubt whether cesspits are desirable adjuncts of kitchens. her next head is "want of occupation and exercise"--a fruitful source of vice and disease. it is a most interesting chapter, full of valuable hints and illustrated by an amusing drawing, sent to her by colonel young, of "daily means of occupation and amusement _passim_." here, as in much else of miss nightingale's work, she collected all the better opinions; she picked out from the returns before her any hopeful experiments; enlarged upon them, and drove the moral home. her chapter on "indian hospitals" is naturally very full and detailed. she discusses the prevalent structural defects; suggests improvements in the internal arrangements; and notes that there were "neither trained orderlies nor female nurses." on the subject of "hill stations," miss nightingale's "observations" show a fear lest too much reliance should be placed upon their superior salubrity. she quotes instances of terrible sanitary defects on hill stations, and enforces the moral that "the salvation of the indian army must be brought about by sanitary measures everywhere." after discussing "native towns," "soldiers' wives," and "statistics," miss nightingale insisted generally on the importance of instituting a proper system of sanitary service in india. henceforth, to the end almost of her long life, she regarded herself, and in large measure was able to act, as a sanitary servant to the army and peoples of india. [16] see vol. i. p. 277. miss nightingale's "observations" were only part of her share in the labours of the commission. they were followed in the report by an abstract, arranged under presidencies, of the returns on which the "observations" were founded. this analysis, occupying nearly a hundred pages, was drawn up, as already stated, by miss nightingale and dr. sutherland. the manuscript of it, preserved amongst her papers, is mainly in her handwriting. and she did much more, as will presently be related. iv when the commission of the army in india was nearing the end of its labours, an event happened which seemed to miss nightingale of crucial importance. on april 14, 1863, she heard from sir harry verney that sir george lewis, the secretary for war, had died suddenly on the previous day. sir harry added that at the service clubs, lord de grey was talked of as a probable successor, but that lord panmure's name was also mentioned. from another and a better-informed source she heard that lord de grey hoped to get the appointment, but that there were believed to be two difficulties in the way. the queen might object to the war office being given to a minister who had not yet been in the cabinet, and pressure might be put upon lord palmerston from other quarters not to appoint a peer. should either or both of these factors prevail, mr. cardwell was believed to be the most probable successor. now it seemed to miss nightingale all-important that, when the report on the health of the army in india came out, the secretary of state for war should be a proved sanitarian. she did not want to have once more to "bully the bison," and she did not know much of mr. cardwell. she did know lord de grey, and she knew him as a sympathiser in her cause. without a moment's delay she set herself to bring to bear in his favour such influence as she might possess, either on her own account or as the public legatee, as it were, of sidney herbert. a telegram written _en clair_ and preserved by the recipient shows how a good press was secured for lord de grey's appointment:- _from_ florence nightingale to harriet martineau.--agitate, agitate, for lord de grey to succeed sir george lewis. the world was duly informed next day (april 17) through the columns of the _daily news_ that public opinion expected the appointment of lord de grey. but miss nightingale took other measures. she wrote a letter to lord palmerston, and to his principal colleague, mr. gladstone, she sent a copy of it. mr. gladstone, in reply, did not doubt that lord palmerston had a very high opinion of lord de grey, but added on his own part that he saw great difficulty in not having the head of the war office, with its vast expenditure, in the house of commons. the letter to lord palmerston, meanwhile, was delivered by a special messenger, who had been strictly charged to make sure that the minister read it at once. the sequel, describing a somewhat curious scene, had better be given in sir harry verney's own words:- cleveland row, _ap._ 15 [2.30]. from hampstead i returned to south street, and found your letter. thence to cambridge house. lord palmerston was so good as to admit me. i said that i had seen you this morning, and that by your desire i requested him to allow me to read a letter to him from you. he said, "certainly"; and i read it to him rather slowly. having read it, i said that you had mentioned this morning that within a fortnight of lord herbert's death, he had said to you more than once that he hoped lord de grey might be his successor. i then added, "i have not to request any reply or observations on miss nightingale's letter. i have only to thank you for your kindness in allowing me to read it." he took the letter and put it in his pocket. he then asked how you are, and where, and i told him. there is a cabinet at 5.30 this afternoon. i think that if gladstone has your note before going to it, it might be well. she had anticipated sir harry's suggestion, as we have seen. the prime minister put her letter into his pocket, but it did not stay there. he took it with him to windsor and read it to the queen. on april 22 it was announced that her majesty had been pleased to approve the appointment of lord de grey as secretary of state for war. v miss nightingale thus felt assured that when the indian report came out she would have a sympathetic chief at the war office, and she turned with the greater zest to the next stage in her labours; namely, the preparation of the report by the commissioners. the manuscript of the first page or two (explaining the delay in issuing the report and the procedure of the commission) is in lord stanley's handwriting (preserved among miss nightingale's papers). he entrusted the preparation of the first draft of the rest of the report, for statistics to dr. farr, and for the rest to miss nightingale and dr. sutherland. she had written a first draft of the greater part of her sections of the report as early as april 1862. by august it was in type and corrected by lord stanley, who "pledged himself to carry it through the commission next month."[17] but dr. farr's section was not so far advanced, and there were other delays at which miss nightingale chafed not a little. in may 1863 the last stage was reached. "i have done and shall do all in my power," lord stanley wrote to her (july 10), "to make it public that to dr. sutherland and you we mainly owe it that the report has assumed its present shape." among her papers is a collection of proofs of the report in various stages; some corrected by dr. farr and dr. sutherland, others corrected and re-corrected by her. the descriptive portion of the report is in substance a repetition of her "observations," in the colder language which is held to add weight and dignity to such documents; though here and there miss nightingale's touch may be felt. the magnitude of the evils which needed to be remedied is put in an arresting way. "besides deaths from natural causes [9 per 1000], 60 head per 1000 of our troops perish annually in india. it is at that expense that we have held dominion there for a century; a company out of every regiment has been sacrificed every twenty months. these companies fade away in the prime of life; leave few children; and have to be replaced, at great cost, by successive shiploads of recruits." the cost of preventable sickness in the indian army was calculated at £388,000 a year. the list of recommendations with which the report concludes may be described as a sanitary charter for the army in india--a charter which during many successive years was gradually put into force. [17] letter to sir j. mcneill, aug. 8, 1862. last of all came what miss nightingale considered the most vital point of all--namely, the suggestion of practical machinery by which, if the government adopted it, the recommendations of the commission might be carried out. at this crucial point, she had a very stiff fight. the machinery, as she had devised it, was to be twofold. first, there were to be sanitary commissions appointed for each presidency in india. on this point, all the commissioners seem to have been agreed; but it was different with miss nightingale's second point. the reports which she had read and marked from the indian stations filled her with a fear that if the whole of the initiative were left to india the work would in some cases be negligently or unintelligently done. there had not yet been in that country the same education of public opinion amongst the governing class in the science of sanitation that had been in progress in england. she deemed it essential that the machinery recommended by the commission should in one way or another include provision to secure for india the experience already obtained in dealing with all kinds of sanitary questions in england. she had formulated her own plans to this end at an early stage of the commission. what she first suggested was a sanitary department at the india office, and this, as we shall hear in a later chapter (p. 153), was ultimately established. it had been well if the suggestion had been accepted from the beginning, for the compromise which was substituted led to some confused friction between the war office and the india office. as the second-best plan, miss nightingale wanted the standing sanitary committee at the war office,[18] reinforced by one or two representatives of india, to be invested with authority over indian sanitation, and she wanted, secondly, a sanitary code to be issued for india by the home government. she had named the two indian officials, and had urged the addition of mr. rawlinson, at that time the leading sanitary engineer in england.[19] but on all this there was some difference of opinion. she was kept informed from day to day of the currents of thought among the commissioners, and of the course of the discussions. the letters, minutes, memoranda in which she urged her views are many. she had first to persuade lord stanley, and this in personal interviews she succeeded in doing. she begged him to open the subject to sir charles wood, the secretary for india, who did not take the suggestion amiss. there were still, however, some contrary opinions, but ultimately her policy prevailed. "i cannot help telling you, in the joy of my heart," she wrote to harriet martineau (may 19), "that the final meeting of the indian sanitary commission was held to-day--that the report was signed--and that after a very tough battle, lasting three days, to convince these people that a report was not self-executive, our working commission was carried, not quite in the original form proposed, but in what may prove a better working form because grafted on what exists. this is the dawn of a new day for india in sanitary things, not only as regards our army, but as regards the native population." but miss nightingale was never content to let the light steal in gradually; she wanted to secure for the report of the commission the fullest possible glare of publicity. [18] the barrack and hospital commission, re-named the army sanitary committee in 1865; see p. 65. [19] her nominations were, in the end, all approved. the indian representatives were sir proby cautley and sir james ranald martin. her first concern was to get early notices of the report in the newspapers. the daring, the celerity, the energy of her moves might excite the admiration even of the greatest experts in this sort of our own day. the gist of the report, so far as its statement of the facts was concerned, was contained in her own "observations"; and, as explained above, she had already circulated these both in india and at home. having thus, as it were, salted the ground, she prepared for the official publication. as one of the principal authors of the report, she was obviously entitled to some copies. she obtained a note from lord stanley, the chairman, to that effect. the queen's printer, mr. spottiswoode, was her very good friend, having been associated with her in more than one philanthropic enterprise, and, after seeing lord stanley's note, he promised to use every expedition and to let miss nightingale have some of the very earliest copies. she sent them off immediately; to various influential friends (sir john lawrence among the number), but principally to writers for the press; and with regard to these latter, there was no reason why she should tell each recipient of the special early copy that he was not the only individual so favoured. a blue-book of 2028 pages is not mastered in a minute, and people wondered how so many of the newspapers and magazines were able to notice the report so fully on the instant. "mr. baker [the clerk to the commission] has regained his equanimity," wrote the printer (july 23); "but for three days he could not recover the shock of your rapid action." miss nightingale's celerity may well have seemed indecent to the leisurely official mind; for six months were allowed to pass before the government of india was officially provided with copies of the report! this delay may seem incredible to those not well versed in such affairs, but it is recorded in a government dispatch,[20] and an investigation made by miss nightingale into another delay of a like kind may perhaps afford an explanation.[21] meanwhile, in july 1863, she had, for some days previous to the issue of the report, been arranging for reviews in newspapers and magazines, in edinburgh and dublin as well as in london. mr. w. r. greg was especially helpful; he contributed notices to three important periodicals--the _economist_, the _national review_, and the _spectator_. miss nightingale was diligent also in coaching harriet martineau, writing at great length to explain the points on which public opinion might most usefully declare itself. miss martineau wrote on the report in the _daily news_, _macmillan's magazine_, and _once a week_; and on her own part she had a contribution to make to the cause. she was an old friend of lord and lady elgin. should she write to them? the indefatigable miss nightingale at once sent her the heads of a letter on the subject which should go immediately to the viceroy. [20] "on the 5th february 1864, the government of india informed the secretary of state that, in consequence of the non-arrival of the report of the royal commission, it had not been possible to carry out the measures indicated in the despatch of the 15th august, but that having just received a few copies, &c., &c." (_memorandum on measures adopted for sanitary improvements in india up to the end of 1867_, p. 2). [21] see below, p. 49 _n._ though miss nightingale attached importance to notices in the press, she was equally eager that the report itself should attract the attention of influential individuals in and out of parliament. and here at the outset she met with a severe check which, however, by her energy and resource was turned to the greater advantage of the cause. the blue-books were of enormous bulk, and a smaller edition had been prepared, apparently by the clerk. owing to what was officially described as "a mistake," it was this smaller edition that was "presented to both houses of parliament by command." it alone was placed on sale to the public; the 1000 copies of the complete work (of which the printer had been ordered to break up the type) were reserved for the press and for official purposes. they could be obtained (on application) by members of parliament, but were not accessible to the public. the smaller edition, which the officials designed for public use, did not contain miss nightingale's "observations" (though these were referred to in the report) and did not contain the evidence from the indian stations. it gave instead a "précis of evidence" made by the clerk. this, as miss nightingale thought, was badly done, and, moreover, referred in the margin to passages which again were not accessible to the public. miss nightingale was naturally and justly indignant at a proceeding which thus left the recommendations of the commission unsupported, so far as the public were concerned, by the essential facts. she set herself with characteristic energy to rectify the official "mistake," or, as she suspected, to circumvent the design. if indeed there were any intention to withhold from the public eye the full extent of the terrible state of things in india, the authors of the design had counted without the formidable lady-in-chief. as for the partial suppression of her own "observations," that was easily rectified. dr. sutherland and dr. farr, incensed at the treatment which she had received, promptly made arrangements with a publisher for the separate issue of her "observations."[22] this little "red book" had a large sale, and was widely reviewed in the press. thereby the subject received a second series of notices. "it is not a book," said one of the reviewers, "but a great action." but miss nightingale herself was more concerned with the wide circulation of the blue-books themselves. first, she wrote round to every member of parliament whom she knew, informing them of the facts and begging them to apply for the unmutilated edition. one of the answers she received was from lord shaftesbury (aug. 22): "i will immediately apply for the copy of evidence you mention, but ought we not to insist when parliament meets that it be fully circulated like any other document? sir c. wood may have made a 'mistake,' but a far greater mistake would be to bury this important matter in the 'tomb of all the capulets.' ... you have achieved very grand things; and you must thank god that he has called you to such a work, and has so blessed it. i have much to talk to you about."[23] secondly, she extracted a promise that inquirers at hansard's office should be informed that copies of the unmutilated edition could be obtained by the public on application at the burial board office.[24] she took very good care that they should not be buried there. she prompted all sorts and conditions of persons among her acquaintances to apply, and there was a run on the book. next, and chiefly, she was anxious that the essential parts of the report should come under the notice of every officer and every official in india who was in any degree responsible for the health of the army and who might be brought by a knowledge of the facts to further the cause of sanitary reform. the way in which she achieved her purpose was characteristic. miss nightingale had a personal grievance in this matter; and she used it, as on a previous occasion she had used her personal prestige, to gain a public end. to an intimate friend in the war office, she was downright: "done in some way or other, i am determined it shall be." but to the great men above him, she was suave--insidiously and dangerously suave. she entirely agreed that it would be expensive to reprint, and absurd to circulate widely, two enormous blue-books of 2028 pages. nobody would read them. but on the other hand was it not a little unfair to her to circulate an abridged edition, from which was excluded all the material upon which, at the request of the commission, she had spent years of labour? but what was to be done? she knew how busy all government officials were; but she would willingly undertake the task of putting together an amended edition of the smaller issue. would the treasury object to the cost? if so, she would bear it. in one way and another, she said, she had spent £700 in connection with the former report on the british army; the cost of similar work in connection with india would be less, and she would gladly defray it. lord de grey authorized her to proceed on august 26, and for the next three months she was busy in preparing the report in the form in which it was to be circulated among military and medical officers.[25] but she was not quite satisfied yet. she had provided means for bringing her horses to water, but who was to make them drink? her amended report was to be circulated amongst the army in india, but would it be read? she was afraid not, unless the secretary of state specially commended it to the attention of his subordinates. did the war office shrink from taking initiative in a matter which also concerned the india office? "but surely sir charles wood will be very grateful to you for remedying his mistake." the minister assented, and a preface was added to miss nightingale's edition of the report, in which the secretary for war explained that it was circulated "with a view of affording information on the subject to commanding, engineering, and medical officers." of course there were official delays, and this edition of the report was not issued till august 1864, but it gave miss nightingale opportunity of organizing yet another press crusade. through sidney herbert's friend, count strzelechi, who was also a friend of delane, she was able to secure a series of articles in the _times_ on the sanitary needs of india.[26] the count was very proud of what he had been able to do for her. none of miss nightingale's official works obtained a wider circulation than the "observations"; nor, i suppose, did any blue-book on such a subject ever attain a greater amount of publicity. [22] bibliography a, no. 34. [23] miss nightingale's letter to lord shaftesbury is printed in his _life_, p. 581. [24] this was not designedly a practical joke. the clerk to the commission held a post in the board. [25] see bibliography a, no, 33 (3). [26] a leading article appeared on august 23, introducing a series of "special articles" which began on the following day. vi but all this was only a preliminary. public attention had been aroused, and every one said vaguely that something must be done. it remained for government to do it. the steps which miss nightingale took to this end, the obstacles which she encountered, the measure of success which she attained, will be described in the next chapter. the work, which has been described in foregoing pages and which miss nightingale continued during the following year, was very heavy, and it was all done under grievous physical disability. in 1857-58, when she was doing like work in connection with the royal commission on the home army, though she was in very delicate health, she had yet been able to move about. when sidney herbert could not come to see her, she could go to see him. but now in 1863, when work for the commission on the indian army was at its height, she was bedridden. when she invited a nursing friend to her house, the formula was "will you come and spend saturday to monday in bed with me?" she could only receive her visitors, if at all, in her own room, and all her writing was done in bed. she was sustained through these disabilities partly, it may be, by the consciousness of power and by satisfaction in its exercise, but principally by passionate devotion to her cause. and there was another feeling which gave her strength, as appears from many a passage in her private letters. she was carrying out, as best she could alone, the "joint work" which had been left "unfinished" at sidney herbert's death. "there is no feeling more sustaining," sir john mcneill had said to her, when arthur clough was also taken from her, "than that of being alone." so, in some sort, i think, she found it. and sometimes, as to one who stretches out his hands in yearning for the further shore, there seemed to come to her voices of encouragement. "i heard the other day," she said in 1863, "of two englishmen who were nearly lost by being caught by the tide on the coast of france, and a little french fisher-girl ran all along the wet sands to show them the only rock, half a mile from the shore, which the tide did not cover, where of course she was obliged to stay with them. it got quite dark, the water rose above their knees, but presently they heard a sound, faint and far off, and the little girl said, 'they think the tide is turning, they are shouting to cheer us!' i often think i hear those on the far-off shore who are shouting to cheer me." chapter iii setting reformers to work (1863-1865) i am more hopeful than you appear to be in regard to the good likely to be effected by the report. although our indian administration has great difficulties to contend with owing to the nature of the country and the people, it is both honest and able; and i never knew a public measure, the advantage of which was generally admitted, which ultimately was not properly taken in hand.--sir charles trevelyan (_letter to florence nightingale_, aug. 24, 1862). in the last chapter we traced miss nightingale's hand throughout the famous report of the indian sanitary commission. we saw how she worked for the inclusion, in the commissioners' recommendations, of machinery for getting the other recommendations adopted; we saw, too, how cleverly she man[oe]uvred to obtain wide publicity and discussion for the whole subject. but this was not enough for her. she had created a favourable atmosphere; she had provided suitable machinery; it remained to set the wheels going round. "reports are not self-executive": she applied her words in this fresh direction; and, as in the case of the home commission five years before, so now she gave not a moment's rest to herself or to anybody else whom she could influence until reforms, recommended by the report, were set on foot. miss nightingale was as eager, in as great a hurry to begin, as determined to have her way, as before; but the difficulties were now greater. in the case of the home army, only one department (though that, to be sure, was a dual one) was concerned; in the case of sanitary measures for the army in india, there were the india office and the government of india to be considered as well as the war office. and everybody, who knows anything about public affairs, knows what it means to the cause of prompt efficiency if departments begin wrangling with each other. and then miss nightingale had no longer her "dear master." lord stanley, the chairman of the indian commission, was friendly, and sincerely desirous to see things done; but he was not an enthusiast. his temperament was cool; his judgment, critical. but, as i have already said, he had a great belief in miss nightingale, and though she did not always find him an easy man to drive, she did it. the moment the report was signed she was up and at him. he must do as sidney herbert did; that is, go at once to ministers and insist on immediate steps being taken to put the recommendations of the report into operation. otherwise, all their labour might dissolve in air. lord stanley proposed to wait and see:- (_lord stanley to miss nightingale._) _july_ 10, 1863. ... do not fear that lord herbert's work will be left unfinished: sanitary ideas have taken root in the public mind, and they cannot be treated as visionary. the test of experience is conclusive. the ground that has been gained cannot be lost again.----_july_ 12.... the first step is to ask what the war and india departments will do. if on consideration they consent to the appointment of the commissions recommended with or without modification of our plan, the thing is fairly started. i am inclined to believe that they will be found willing. but we must give them time to read the report. if they object to do anything, other methods may be tried. we have friends in the indian council, and lord de grey is a sanitarist. i quite agree in what you say as to its being a duty to help the ministry of the day in working out their plans. practically i have acted on this rule. few matters pass in the india office that do not come before me. but such help cannot be offered by an outsider--it must be asked by those who are responsible. if sir c. wood desires assistance in giving effect to the sanitary projects, i will not refuse it. there is ample time to consider all this. so lord stanley was waiting to be asked. then it became miss nightingale's business to contrive that he should be asked. she saw lord de grey, begged him to go forthwith to the india office, and to suggest to sir charles wood that he should talk matters over with lord stanley. the thing was done:- (_lord stanley to miss nightingale._) _july_ 24. i have had several conversations with sir c. wood, and from the language he now holds, i consider it settled that the report of the commissioners will be acted upon--the w.o. commission being enlarged for the purpose of dealing with indian questions. i have also arranged with him for the settlement of all personal claims arising out of our enquiry.[27] i hope, therefore, that we may look on our work as done for the present. it is probable that difficulties will arise out of the conflicting claims of the indian and home authorities: but these we must be prepared for, and deal with as they come up. so far, all has gone well. [27] mr. herbert had promised, but apparently only by word of mouth, that the services rendered by dr. farr and dr. sutherland to the commission should be paid. miss nightingale was able to confirm the promise. the duke of newcastle wrote to her to like effect (aug. 31): "the report on the indian army is attracting much attention, and i have no doubt it will do a great deal of good, tho' there is supposed to be still a very strong obstructive power in the india office." for a time, it seemed as if official measures would be taken with reasonable celerity. two members, to represent india, were added to the barrack and hospital improvement commission. the secretary for india sent a dispatch (aug. 15) suggesting the formation of sanitary commissions as recommended in the report. miss nightingale was asked to draft a code of suggestions which might be sent out to india. but soon there was a hitch. the military element in the india office quarrelled with the report, and it was intimated that there might be similar criticism from the military element in the government of india. the accuracy of dr. farr's statistics was to be impugned; and it was to be objected that miss nightingale's "observations" did not in all cases reflect the present state of the indian stations. as if reports, which had taken and must have taken months and months to collect, could possibly have been brought up to the last moment! and as if the mere fact that such reports had been called for was not likely to lead to some improvement! these things need not detain us. they were, as miss nightingale put it, "the crimea over again," "these and those" protesting that things were not so bad as they had been painted, and that in any case it was not a who was to blame, but b. but meanwhile everything was hung up. lord stanley, the chairman of the commission, whose report was impugned, was in the country. miss nightingale "urged and baited him" (so she described it) to come up to london and return to the charge. he came in november, and had an interview with her before seeing sir charles wood. ii and now an event occurred which was followed by results of consequence to her cause. lord elgin, the viceroy, while travelling in the himalayas, was stricken down by a heart complaint from which he was not expected to recover. the question of a successor became urgent. the minds of many turned to sir john lawrence, but, with one exception, no indian civilian since warren hastings had permanently held the office of viceroy. miss nightingale had unbounded admiration for him. the soldier's heart in her loved his heroic deeds. "what would homer have been," she once said, "if he had had such heroes as the lawrences to sing?"[28] personal intercourse had filled her with closer admiration for what lord stanley called "a certain heroic simplicity" in the man, for his unaffected piety, his rugged honesty, his deep sympathy with human suffering. in later years a photograph of watts's portrait of lawrence always hung in miss nightingale's room. at the moment with which we are now concerned, she regarded him as the indispensable man for india, not more on account of the threatening border war on the north-west frontier (the consideration which doubtless most moved lord palmerston), than on account of his sympathy with the cause of sanitary reform. an opportunity came for putting in her word. sir charles wood consulted his predecessor at the india office, and lord stanley in turn talked matters over with miss nightingale. she urged him with fervent eagerness to do everything in his power to promote the appointment of sir john lawrence. lord elgin died on november 20. lawrence was appointed on november 30, and was to start for india immediately:- (_lord stanley to miss nightingale._) _dec._ 1. i saw sir c. wood yesterday. the sanitary question was gone into, tho' not so fully as i could have wished. sir j. lawrence's appointment is a great step gained. he knows what is wanted, and has no prejudices in favour of the existing military administration. i shall see him to-night and shall probably be able to have some talk with him on the subject. but why should not he see you? the plans are in the main yours; no one can explain them better: you have been in frequent correspondence with him. i believe there will now be but little difficulty in india.... let me repeat--you must manage to see sir john lawrence. he does not go till the 10th. your position in respect of this whole subject is so peculiar that advice from you will come with greater weight than from anyone else. [28] letter to harriet martineau (feb. 2, 1865). miss nightingale was among the first to offer congratulations to the new viceroy; the terms in which she addressed him expressed what she sincerely and intensely believed:- (_miss nightingale to sir john lawrence._) among the multitude of affairs and congratulations which will be pouring in upon you, there is no more fervent joy, there are no stronger good wishes, than those of one of the humblest of your servants. for there is no greater position for usefulness under heaven than that of the government of the vast empire you saved for us. and you are the only man to fill it. so thought a statesman with whom i worked not daily, but hourly, for five years, sidney herbert--when the last appointment was made. in the midst of your pressure pray think of us, and of our sanitary things on which such millions of lives and health depend.[29] [29] from the _life of lord lawrence_, by r. bosworth smith, 1885, vol. ii. p. 278. prompted by lord stanley, miss nightingale asked the new viceroy to call. he was the first of a succession of high indian officials who made a point of coming to miss nightingale before leaving for their posts. the interview took place on december 4. miss nightingale never forgot either the interview itself or lord stanley's kindly anxiety that it should take place. thirty years later (feb. 17, 1893), in sending aitchison's memoir of lord lawrence to sir harry verney, she wrote: "how many touches--short but sweet--i could add to the book! the real tale of sir j. lawrence's appointment as viceroy will never be told. during the only ten days left to lawrence before he started, he came to see me. how kind it was of lord stanley. he came like a footman to my door, and, without giving his name, sent up to ask whether sir john lawrence was coming. the interview was one never to be forgotten." sir john lawrence discussed the sanitary question with miss nightingale in all its bearings, and they exchanged views further by correspondence before he left london:- (_miss nightingale to dr. farr._) _dec._ 10. i have had the great joy of being in constant communication with sir john lawrence, and of receiving his commands to do what i had almost lost the hope of being allowed to do--viz. of sending out full statements and schemes of what we want the presidency commissions to do. i should be glad to submit to you copies of papers of mine which he desired me to write and which he took out with him, as to the constitution of the presidency commissions, if you care to see them. they are, of course, confidential. i have also seen lord stanley more than once during these busy days. and with sir john lawrence's command, we feel ourselves empowered to begin the home commission,[30] and to further our plans upon it. sir john lawrence, so far from considering our report exaggerated, considers it under the mark. [30] that is the barrack and hospital improvement commission (army sanitary committee), reinforced by india office representatives, which was to issue sanitary suggestions for the government of india. thus was preparation made for putting the report into execution in india. during lawrence's viceroyalty, sir bartle frere was governor of bombay. "men used to say," he told miss nightingale, "that they always knew when the viceroy had received a letter from florence nightingale: it was like the ringing of a bell to call for sanitary progress." iii within a month of his arrival in india, sir john lawrence had set the sanitary commissions on foot, and nothing was wanting except hints and instructions from home:- (_sir john lawrence to miss nightingale._) calcutta, _feb._ 5 [1864]. i write a line to say that we have commenced work by establishing our sanitary committees for calcutta, madras, and bombay. they are composed of five members. a civilian is at their head, and a medical officer as secretary. i hope that you will expedite the transmission to india of the codes and rules and plans which have been approved of for home and the colonies. we shall then have an idea in a practical shape of the main features of the sanitary system, and can readily adapt it to the peculiar circumstances of the country. without such a guide we shall often be perhaps working in direct opposition to your views. where we differ, it will become our duty to set forth the grounds for so doing, in sending our plans and reports home. pray excuse this hurried scrawl, and believe me, sincerely yours, john lawrence. it was not miss nightingale's fault that this plea for expedition was necessary. in december 1863 lord de grey had again asked her to draft a letter to the india office, as from the war office, on the measures recommended by the royal commission, and she had done it. but days, weeks, months passed, and nothing happened. in january 1864 her "suggestions in regard to sanitary works required for the improvement of indian stations,"[31] written at the urgent request of the governor-general, were ready, dr. sutherland, dr. farr, and mr. rawlinson collaborating with her. again months passed and nothing happened. the barrack and hospital improvement committee had been officially informed in december of the appointment of the indian members, and requested to report on any matters which might be referred to it by the secretary for india or the secretary for war; but as yet no indian reference had been made. miss nightingale chafed sorely at the needless delay. the governor-general wrote to her again and again pressing for the suggestions. she had done her part long ago; the war office had been in possession of her draft for months. she tried plain pressure, and pressure barbed with sarcasm. "poor man!" she wrote in forwarding to the war office one of the governor-general's letters (march 10); "he really expects despatch. he thinks we can write a letter in three months! he must be more fit for a lunatic asylum than for a governor-generalship." or, when the government had been having a close division in the house,[32] she tried to play the india office against the war office. "you will all be 'out' this session," she wrote to the war office (march 7, 1864); "after which i shall be able to get what i like from lord stanley [i.o.], but _you_ will not be able to get what you like from gen. peel [w.o.]. it is therefore very desirable that this letter should be written now at once while you are still 'in.'" it turned out that the reason of the delay was this: the war office _had_ sent a preliminary letter to the india office, and the india office resented it. sir charles wood, it was explained to miss nightingale, had "snubbed" lord de grey. the war office was sulking in its tents accordingly. the india office, on its part, was standing on its dignity, and was not going to place itself in the humiliating position of taking action proposed to it by the war office. and this was the reason why miss nightingale's suggestions, for which the governor-general was asking, were still pigeon-holed. as for minor recommendations in the royal commission's report, it was quite true that many of them could be carried out by administrative order, and some of them were; but the difficulty in the case of others was that it had hitherto passed the wit of man to discover with whom the power, or the responsibility, of making the order lay. well may miss nightingale have written, as she did in more than one letter of this time (jan. 1864): "no impression in all my life was ever 'borne in upon me' more strongly than this, that the ministers have never considered the respective jurisdictions of the w.o. and the i.o., and that i.o., w.o., horse guards at home, commander-in-chief in india, governor-general in india are as little defined as to the respective powers and duties as if india were the sandwich islands." [31] bibliography a, no. 24. [32] on march 1, on a debate on the yeomanry, the majority had been 1. on the major matter, the dispatch of sanitary suggestions to guide the indian authorities, miss nightingale now resolved that the delay should come to an end. she had drafted an ultimatum to the war office, threatening an attack in the house of commons, when lord stanley, a prominent member of the opposition, appeared on the scene. he had forewarned miss nightingale, as we have heard, that departmental jealousies would cause some delay; but seven months had now passed since the report of his commission had been issued, and he seems to have thought that this was time enough to allow for the two offices to let off steam between themselves. he wrote to miss nightingale suggesting that he should come to see her, and offering, if she approved, to put pressure either upon lord de grey or upon sir charles wood. miss nightingale loyally gave her friends at the war office a last chance, but they did not care to take it. lord stanley saw sir charles wood accordingly, promised him parliamentary support in any action which he might take, and matters were at last arranged. miss nightingale's draft "suggestions" were submitted to the barrack and hospital improvement commission, and with slight alterations were adopted by that body. it was a war office commission, but the dignity of the india office was consulted by the statement on the title-page of the blue-book, that the suggestions had been prepared by the said commission "in accordance with letters from the secretary of state for india in council." the fact was that they were prepared by miss nightingale in accordance with the wishes of sir john lawrence. when once the "suggestions" had been passed officially, it was within her power, by the simple expedient of laying in a stock of early copies, to prevent a moment's further delay. she used the power; and could not deny herself a few genial taunts at her official friends. "i beg to inform you," she wrote to captain galton at the war office (aug. 8), "that by the first mail after signature i sent off by h.m.'s book-post, at an enormous expense (i have a good mind to charge it to you!), to sir john lawrence direct no end of copies of _suggestions_ (also to the presidency commissions); and that, as he is always more ready to hear than you are to pray (you sinners!), i have not the least doubt that they will have been _put in execution_ long before the india office has even begun to send them."[33] she was not far wrong; six or seven weeks elapsed before the official copies were sent,[34] and meanwhile miss nightingale was able to get in another gibe. she heard from sir john lawrence that he had ordered the _suggestions_ to be reprinted in india. "it might be as well," she wrote to the war office, "to hurry your copies for the india office, who will otherwise receive them first from india." [33] this was no idle taunt. the government of india had already put in force some of the recommendations of the royal commission before it had officially received copies of the report: see above, p. 34 and _n._ [34] miss nightingale conducted a secret inquiry, which would have done credit to a detective-inspector, into the causes of this delay. according to "information received," the first cause was that the final printing order was delayed while communications went to and fro between the war office and the india office upon the number of copies required. then the supply ultimately ordered by the latter passed leisurely from one sub-department to another. finally, the stock reposed a while at a warehouse across the water, until there were sufficient official papers to fill certain regulation cases of a regulation size. iv in india itself, advance, with sir john lawrence at the helm, was rapid. the president and the secretary of each sanitary commission were required to devote their whole attention to the work. they were charged to "consider and afford advice and assistance in all matters relative to the health of the army, and to supervise the gradual introduction of sanitary improvements in barracks, hospitals, and stations, as well as in towns in proximity to military stations." of every step taken, miss nightingale was kept informed. sir john wrote to her frequently to report progress; he described to her the condition of all the stations he had inspected on his way up to simla; he applied to her for information on special points. his private secretary, dr. hathaway, who also had seen miss nightingale before he left england, wrote yet more fully and frequently. the president of the bengal commission was mr. strachey.[35] he, too, had made miss nightingale's acquaintance, and they corresponded at great length. dr. j. p. walker, a surgeon in the indian army, was in england in december 1863. he wrote to miss nightingale, as a devoted follower of her school. he went out to india, was appointed secretary of the bengal commission, and at every stage consulted her and reported to her. mr. r. j. ellis, president of the madras commission, and dr. leith, president of the bombay one, also corresponded with her. to any official in india, from the governor-general downwards, who was ready to listen, miss nightingale had much to say. the correspondence with sir john lawrence is the most interesting:- (_sir john lawrence to miss nightingale._) simleh, _june_ 12 [1864]. it was truly kind of you to write and give me so nice an account of my children.... what an exciting time must garibaldi's visit to england have been. he is indeed a noble fellow, and fully worthy of all our sympathies. i only trust that he will be persuaded to keep quiet and bide his time. a good day for his country, if the people only deserve it, must surely come. i am doing what i can to put things in order out here; but it is a very uphill work, and many influences have to be managed and overcome. i often think of the last visit i paid you before leaving england and of your conversation on that occasion. you will recollect how much i dwelt on the difficulties which meet one on every side. these have been exemplified in a way i could scarcely understand or anticipate, by the good folks of england really believing that i had sanctioned an attack on the religion of the hindoos, because i desired to improve the health of the people in calcutta! [35] john strachey (1823-1907); afterwards chief commissioner of oudh, lieut.-governor of the n.w. provinces, financial member of the governor-general's council; knighted, 1872; g.c.s.i., 1878; and member of the secretary of state's council. (_miss nightingale to sir john lawrence._) 32 south street, _sept._ 26 [1864]. my dear sir john lawrence--i always feel it a kind of presumption in me to write to you--and a kind of wonder at your permitting it. i always feel that you are the greatest figure in history, and yours the greatest work in history, in modern times. but that is my very reason. we have but one sir john lawrence. your bengal sanitary commission is doing its work, like men--like martyrs, in fact,--and what a work it is! all we have in europe is mere child's play to it. health is the product of civilization, _i.e._ of real civilization. in europe we have a kind of civilization to proceed upon. in india your work represents, not only diminished mortality as with us, but increase of energy, increase of power of the populations. i always feel, as if god had said: mankind is to create mankind. in this sense you are the greatest creator of mankind in modern history.... would there be any impropriety in your sanitary commissions sending copies of their printed minutes to the barrack and hospital improvement commission here, through the india office--merely for information? as far as your bengal commission goes: these men don't want urging: they have not now to be taught. anything which might even appear to interfere with the responsibilities of your commissions, unless at their own request, is not only undesirable: but, as far as the bengal comm^n. is concerned, useless. but, if you saw no objection to sending the minutes for information to the war office commission here, i am sure they would very much like it. or, if that would be too formal and official (as regards the india office here), if they, the minutes, might be sent to me, with permission to shew them to one or two, such as lord stanley (our late chairman of the royal commission), dr. sutherland, and capt. galton, of the war office, &c., it would answer the same purpose. the india office here does not shew _now_ the least jealousy of the barrack and hosp^l. (war office) commission. on the contrary, one can scarcely help smiling at the small things it is glad to throw off its responsibility for upon said commission. there are three glaring (tho' lesser) evils in calcutta about which i know you have been employed--lesser tho' they are--and your attention and dr. hathaway's have been aroused by them. these are: (1) the police hospitals (or state of hosp^l. accommodation) for sick poor at calcutta. the police establishments seem about as bad as possible. indeed the poor wretches are brought in mostly to die. the parisian system of relief is very good: every police station at paris has means of temporary help in cases of emergency until the sufferers can be removed to hospital. some such arrangement with a thorough reform of the hospitals, and such additional accommodation as may be wanted, might meet calcutta's case. (2) the condition of jails and lunatic asylums in india. certainly it is not for me to draw your attention or dr. hathaway's to this. probably he knows more about them than any man living. the reports and recommendations of one or two of the jail inspectors shew that they want experience: as i am sure dr. hathaway will agree with me. perhaps we might help you by sending out such reports on the subject as may be useful. (3) the seamen at the great ports. you have already done so much. but rome can't be built in a day. bad water, bad food bought in bazaars, and bad drinks cause a vast amount of disease and death. self-supporting institutions, such as our sailors' homes (of which, indeed, i believe you have already founded more than one), would give the men wholesome food and drink, and lodgings and day-rooms at little cost. so many men perish for want of this kind of accommodation at calcutta, where the evil seems greatest. it seems to me so base to be writing while you are doing. oh that i could come out to calcutta and organize at least the hospital accommodation for the poor wretches in the streets. there is nothing i should like so much. but it is nonsense to wish for what is an impossibility. i am sure you will be glad to hear that one of my life-long wishes, viz. the nursing of workhouse infirmaries by proper nurses, is about to be fulfilled. by the munificence of a liverpool man (who actually gives £1200 a year for the object, but desires not to be named), we undertake next month the liverpool workhouse infirmary (of 1000 beds)--the first workhouse that ever has been nursed--with 15 head nurses, trained by ourselves, and a lady (volunteer) matron (who underwent a most serious course of training at our nurses' school at st. thomas' hospital), 15 assistants, and 52 ex-pauper women, whom we are to train as nurses.[36] i am sure it is not for us to talk of civilization. for i have seen, in our english workhouse infirmaries, neglect, cruelty, and malversation such as can scarcely be surpassed in semi-barbarous countries. and it was then i felt i must found a school for nurses for workhouses, &c. the opportunity has come too late for me to do the workhouse nursing myself. but, so it is well done, we care not how. i think with the greatest satisfaction upon your re-union with lady lawrence and (some of) your children. god bless you.--i am yours devotedly, florence nightingale. _p.s._--the calcutta municipality does not seem yet to have wakened up to a sense of its existence. it does not know that it exists: much less, what it exists for. still, you are conquering india anew by civilization, taking possession of the empire for the first time by knowledge instead of by the sword.--f. n. [36] on this subject, see below, p. 128. the commander-in-chief in india, sir hugh rose (lord strathnairn) was hardly less helpful in the cause than the governor-general. the war office had sent to him, through the horse guards, a letter inviting his attention to the regimental recommendations in the royal commission's report. his reply was most sympathetic, and his period of command was marked, amongst other things, by two reforms specially near to miss nightingale's desires: he introduced regimental workshops and soldiers' gardens in cantonments. the war office forwarded his letter to miss nightingale. "it is quite worth while," she wrote in reply (aug. 11, 1864), "all that has been suffered,--to have this letter from sir hugh rose. and i forgive everybody everything." "i sing for joy every day," she had written previously (june 6), "at sir john lawrence's government." she made public thanksgiving. to the social science congress at edinburgh in october 1863, she had contributed a paper, entitled, "how people may live and not die in india," in which she gave, in concise and popular form, a _résumé_ of the royal commission's report. the reading of her paper had been followed by "three cheers for florence nightingale." she now (aug. 1864) republished the paper, with a preface, in which, as it were, she gave "three cheers for sir john lawrence." she described how the commissions of health had been appointed in india, and how they had now been put in possession of all the more recent results of sanitary works and measures which had been of use at home. then she turned to the military authorities, and described how "several of the worst personal causes of ill-health to which the soldier was in former times exposed have been, or are being, removed." "the men," she wrote, "have begun to find out that it is better to work than to sleep and drink, even during the heat of the day. one regiment marching into a station, where cholera had been raging for two years, were chaffed by the regiments marching out, and told they would never come out of it alive. the men of the entering battalion answered, they would see; we _won't_ have cholera, they think. and they made gardens with such good effect that they had the pleasure, not only of eating their own vegetables, but of being paid for them too by the commissariat. and this in a soil which no regiment had been able to cultivate before. and not a man had cholera. these good soldiers fought against disease, too, by workshops and gymnasia."[37] she gave account of trades, savings' banks, games, libraries; noting what had been done and what yet remained to be done. "in the meantime the regulation two drams have been reduced to one. a legislative act imposes a heavy fine or imprisonment on the illicit sale of spirits near cantonments. where there _are_ recreation rooms, refreshments (prices all marked) are spread on a nice clean table." all these things, which in 1864 were new or exceptional, became in later years well-established and the rule. the main causes of disease among the army in india were, however, as miss nightingale went on to say, want of drainage, want of proper water-supply, want of proper barracks and hospitals. but in these respects she had set the reformers to a work which has continued from that day to this. [37] this incident was told in sir hugh rose's letter. there was, indeed, some criticism at the start, but this touched only the past, and did not seriously affect the future. indian officials felt aggrieved, as i have already said, at the strictures contained in the report of the royal commission, and this movement came to a head in two documents--one, a counter-report by dr. leith, the chairman of the bombay sanitary commission (oct. 1864); the other, a dispatch (dec. 8) from the government of india (sir john lawrence on an important point dissenting). lord stanley thought that dr. leith ought to be answered at once, and wrote to miss nightingale (oct. 25) for her advice on the subject. she suggested that the answer should be sent in the form of a report on dr. leith's letter by the barrack and hospital improvement commission--an ingenious plan, as it gave opportunity to that expert body for giving further advice to one of the presidency commissions. miss nightingale and dr. sutherland drafted the report, which was adopted by the commission on january 6, 1865. "i have pleasure," wrote lord stanley to her (dec. 26), "in sending back the draft reply to dr. leith with only one or two verbal amendments suggested. it seems to me well done, moderate in tone, and conclusive in argument." a reply to the indian government's dispatch, signed by lord stanley, dr. farr, and dr. sutherland, was sent on may 20. miss nightingale in her eagerness was much annoyed by these criticisms,[38] and lord stanley often told her that she made too much of what were only temporary ebullitions. "don't be discouraged, dear miss nightingale," he wrote (jan. 22) when the government of india's dispatch arrived; "the practical work may go on while the controversy is proceeding. my idea of the matter is that the indian authorities only want time to set things a little in order--that they are willing to mend, but not inclined to give us the credit of having first put them in the right way. that is human nature." lord stanley was a true prophet. the indian authorities did mend; and so successfully has the work been carried out by a long line of commanders, administrators, and engineers that the death-rate from preventable disease among the british army in india has fallen far below the figure which the royal commission named as a counsel of perfection.[39] [38] if any reader should desire to follow up the criticisms and the replies, he will find the reply to dr. leith in parliamentary papers, 1865, no. 329; and the government of india's dispatch with the reply, in nos. 108 and 324. dr. leith's report does not appear to have been reprinted as a parliamentary paper. a copy of it, printed at bombay, 1864, is among miss nightingale's papers. [39] the commission looked forward to a rate of not more than 10 per 1000. the rate in 1911 was, as already stated, 5.04. v in this work of "salvation" miss nightingale was for many years to play a part as consultant, and sometimes as inspirer. in november 1864 the governor-general in council intimated his readiness to consider a scheme for the employment of nurses in military hospitals, and thereupon the bengal sanitary commission requested miss nightingale to aid them by her advice. she wrote in collaboration with sir john mcneill a comprehensive series of suggestions in the following february.[40] throughout the year (1865) miss nightingale was engaged from time to time in indian sanitary business; and her house served as headquarters for the sanitary reformers. mr. ellis, the president of the madras commission, came home in the middle of the year in order to study sanitary reforms in this country. miss nightingale invited him to use her rooms; sent dr. sutherland to accompany him on visits of inspection to hospitals and barracks; arranged meetings between him and lord stanley; conferred with him on changes which sir john lawrence was proposing to make in the constitution of the presidency commissions. the governor-general himself communicated with her freely on the same subject. the secretary of the bengal commission applied to her for information on trustworthy tests for the discovery of organic matter in water. being unable to obtain what was wanted from dr. parkes, she applied to dr. angus smith (inventor of an air-test also), who wrote a pamphlet for her on the subject. it was printed at her expense. she had it approved by the war office sanitary committee, and a large number of copies was distributed throughout india. she had impressed upon the governor-general the importance of stirring up the indian municipalities. the indian towns municipal improvement bill (1865) was submitted for her criticism, and she wrote a "note on the relations which should exist between the powers of raising and spending taxes proposed to be granted to local authorities, and the proper execution of sanitary works and measures in india." her friend, sir charles trevelyan, retired from the post of financial minister in india in 1865, and she made the acquaintance of his successor, mr. w. n. massey. she was very jubilant when she "got a vote of seven millions for my indian barracks." she was depressed when the governor-general wrote to her from time to time saying that the great obstacle in the way of speedier reform was want of money; but she made excuses for her hero. "sir john lawrence," she wrote to madame mohl (march 20, 1865), "is just as much hampered with the horse guards out there as i am here. he is always writing to me to apologize for the little progress he makes. by the very last mail he says i shall think him 'timid and perhaps even time-serving.' i could not help laughing. certainly sir j. lawrence is the only man who ever called sir j. lawrence a time-server,--except in the highest possible sense, of serving his country at her greatest time of need in the highest possible way." she was constantly corresponding with lord stanley, urging him to win points for her from the indian secretary. "i have just seen sir charles wood," wrote lord stanley (feb. 10). "he agrees as to the expediency of sending home a yearly report of the sanitary stations in each presidency." "pray never speak of being troublesome," he wrote again (may 15): "it is a real pleasure to me to help you a little in the great work: i know no other way in which my time can be made equally useful." he frequently saw sir charles wood on matters which she urged, and he won what was almost her highest praise. "lord stanley," she said, "is a splendid worker." his cool common sense was perhaps a wholesome antidote sometimes to her almost feverish eagerness. "publicity," he said (aug. 17), "will in the long-run do what we want. people won't stand being poisoned when they know it." the annual reports from the presidencies, obtained by miss nightingale some years later (p. 155), were submitted for her "observations"; and in many other ways, as we shall hear, it was remarkable how close a touch upon the course of sanitary reform in india was maintained by this lady from a bedroom in mayfair. but essentially miss nightingale's work was that of inspirer and pioneer. these chapters will have shown, i think, that a compliment paid to her by the chairman of the indian sanitary commission was no less true than graceful:- (_lord stanley to miss nightingale._) st. james's square, _july_ 25 [1864]. i don't wonder that the delays of the "savage tribe" should try your patience; and i admire the more the care and success with which you keep outward show of annoyance to yourself. i had rather be criticised by any one rather than you! i am only passing through town to-day, there being nothing left to do; but shall be again in this place on thursday, and ready to wait upon you if any matters want settling. if not, i can only wish you health--success is sure to come--and beg that you will remember the value of your own public service, and not by overwork endanger its continuance. pray excuse a caution which i am sure i am not the first to give. every day convinces me more of two things: first, the vast influence on the public mind of the sanitary commissions of the last few years--i mean in the way of speeding ideas which otherwise would have been confined to a few persons; and next, that all this has been due to you, and to you almost alone. [40] bibliography a, no. 44. for the subsequent fate of this scheme, see below, p. 157. in one of many moments of vexation at the delays of the "savages" in their red-tape, miss nightingale wrote thus to captain galton (june 23, 1864): "the horse guards say that they were quite aware of sir john lawrence's application and of the delay, but that 'it is sir j. lawrence's one and only object of interest, while it is _one out of a thousand_ of the war office's.' they ought to have the v.c. for their cool intrepidity in the face of truth. i have told sir j. lawrence of the opinion of these dining-out _freliquets_ as to his hard work. and i think i shall publish it after my death." but "unlicked cubs," as she said at scutari, "grow up into good old bears"[41]; and it is not in order to pay off a score against the "puppies" that i quote this letter. behind the remark which excited miss nightingale's righteous anger there was an element of unconscious truth, and it is one which sums up this and the preceding chapter. it was, indeed, an ignorant untruth to say that sir john lawrence had no other work or interest than the promotion of sanitary improvements for the army in india; and it would be untrue also, as later chapters will show, to say the same thing of miss nightingale. yet it made all the difference for the promotion of that work in india that there was at the head of affairs a man whose heart and soul were in it. and at home, it made all the difference that there was one resolute will, combined with a clear head, determined to give impetus and direction to the work. it was probably quite true to say that to many, perhaps to most, of the men at the war office and the horse guards this question of army sanitation in india appeared as only "one out of a thousand" questions. to miss nightingale it was, in a very literal and instant sense, a matter of life and death; and it was her passionate conviction that supplied the initiating and driving force which compelled reform. if the governor-general of the time had been hostile or apathetic, even her persistence might yet have been foiled. but, as things were, the co-operation between sir john lawrence and florence nightingale was as beneficent in its results upon the welfare of the british army in india, as the co-operation between her and sidney herbert had been in the case of the army at home. [41] see vol. i. p. 184. chapter iv advisory council to the war office (1862-1866) we are trying to reduce chaos into shape. it is three years to-day since i first felt what an awful wreck i had got myself into. i interfering with government affairs; and the captain of my ship, without whom i should never have done it, dying and leaving me, a woman, in charge. what nonsense people do talk, to be sure, about people finding themselves in suitable positions and looking out for congenial work! i am sure if any body in all the world is most unsuited for writing and official work, it is i. and yet i have done nothing else for seven years but write regulations.--florence nightingale (_letter to julius mohl_, jan 1. 1864). though miss nightingale's main work during these years was connected with the army in india, she was also continuously engaged in work for the war office in relation to the army at home. indeed in some respects the work was as constant, and it was quite as varied, if not as far-reaching in range, as in the days when sidney herbert was secretary of state. she was a kind of advisory council to the war office on all subjects within her sphere, and on some outside it; but the references to her were far more frequent than is commonly the case with those somewhat shadowy bodies; and besides she was a privileged person, with the right of initiating suggestions. the picture of her relations to the war office as it is disclosed in her papers is remarkable. there are scores of letters from the ministers. there are hundreds from one of the (non-political) under-secretaries. her own letters in reply are equally numerous. there is a large collection of drafts, minutes, warrants, regulations. her private letters tell of frequent interviews with one of the ministers. was there ever another case in which nearly every vexed question in war office administration (other than of a purely military kind) was referred almost as a matter of course to a private lady, and that lady an invalid in her bed? it is not likely that the situation will ever exist again; and it becomes of interest to trace "the nightingale power" in this matter to its sources. * * * * * the primary explanation is simple. in a large class of questions which were occupying the attention of the war office at this time miss nightingale was regarded as the first expert of the day. one sees this in the fact that she was consulted in connection with work, within her sphere, for other departments than the war office. thus in 1865 mr. r. s. wright (afterwards the judge) was appointed by the colonial office to prepare a report on the condition of colonial prisons. he went to miss nightingale, asking (april 27) "to be allowed to submit to you for your criticism the conclusions at which i may arrive. supposing them to be approved by you, it will be a great advantage if i may state that you approve them."[42] then, in the second place,--to repeat a phrase which i have already applied to her, she was the official legatee of sidney herbert. everyone who was behind the scenes knew that his work had also been her work, and sidney herbert's repute as a reformer stood very high. the official army world at this time was divided into two camps--those who desired to complete herbert's work, and those who tried to undo it. miss nightingale, as the repository of the herbert tradition, was the indispensable ally of the former party against the latter. her friend, lady herbert, put the case from her point of view, when she wrote (march 7, 1862), in reply to a letter telling of much weakness and weariness, "if you never wish to live for your own sake, yet bear to live, dearest, for a time to carry out his work, and to keep his memory fresh in the hearts of men." some questions of reform arose to which sir benjamin hawes had raised copious objections. "would miss nightingale oblige the political under-secretary by suggesting an answer to hawes's points?" sometimes she was the only person who possessed the necessary documents. "have you got a copy of the report of the committee on the organization of a medical school? the war office actually have _no_ copy, and the army medical department only a proof not signed and supposed to have been altered?" [42] miss nightingale must have enjoyed the correspondence that ensued; for not only was mr. wright sound on sanitary matters ("it is no part of a prisoner's sentence that he should be black-holed"), but he wrote to her in a racy style. "i send you (oct. 23) a specimen of the materials sent home by colonial prison authorities with the endorsement of a colonial governor:--_question_: what is the mode of treating lunatic or maniacal prisoners? _answer_: maniacles is not nor ever has been in use in this prison." but besides all this there were personal factors in the case. miss nightingale had no longer, it is true, an intimate friend at the head of the war office, and with lord herbert's successor, sir george lewis, she was not otherwise than by correspondence acquainted. early in 1862 he had made overtures through sir harry verney, desiring to be given the honour of making miss nightingale's personal acquaintance. she was, however, too ill to receive him, and knowing perhaps her proficiency in the classics he sent her some of his _jeux d'esprit_. the offering had anything but a propitiatory effect. many of her letters express indignation that the secretary for war should be writing trifles in latin instead of reforming the war office. she was equally indignant when he presently published learned works on ancient astronomy and egyptology. mr. jowett was somewhat of the same mind: "i agree with you about sir g. lewis and his book. i felt the same disgust at gladstone for writing nonsense about homer while the east india bill was passing through the house." it does not seem to follow, however, that mr. gladstone would have been the more interested in the east india bill if he had not been engaged in finding the trinity on mount olympus, or that sir george lewis would have been any more in the mood to reorganize the war office if he had not been applying the egyptological method to modern history, or turning "hey diddle diddle" into latin verse. there is a keener point in another of miss nightingale's reflections on the minister (feb. 19, 1863): "if sir george lewis, instead of writing a 'dialogue on the best forms of government' would write (or rather silently act) a _monologue_ on the dual form being the worst form of government, the war office would be much the gainer." but during his term of office the under-secretary was lord de grey; and with him she was on very friendly terms, and he, as is obvious from the correspondence, had the highest opinion of her knowledge, her ability, and her influence. the part she played in lord de grey's appointment as secretary of state, after the death of sir g. lewis, has already been described. then in captain galton she had throughout these years a standing ally within the war office, and her daily attendant, dr. sutherland, was a member of the army sanitary committee. and in the last resort, if a difficulty worthy of such adjustment arose, she had the ear of the prime minister. ii such occasion did arise when, on may 15, 1862, death removed from the war office miss nightingale's old opponent sir benjamin hawes, the permanent under-secretary. she had tried to reorganize him into insignificance in 1861, but "ben had beaten sidney herbert."[43] now was a chance of carrying out the plan which mr. herbert and she had often discussed--of breaking the bureaucracy, and of dividing up the office. hitherto the departments had reported through the permanent under-secretary; the reform scheme was that they should report direct to the secretary of state. sir e. lugard, military under-secretary, was already in part-possession. let captain galton resign his commission, and take the other half, as a civilian (and, what was equally in her mind, a convinced and professional sanitarian). she carried the case to the prime minister, and convinced him. lord palmerston told her afterwards that when the appointment was first mentioned to the horse guards they said it was "simply impossible." but the prime minister advised sir george lewis to make the appointment nevertheless:- (_miss nightingale to her father._) 9 chesterfield street, _poor queen's birthday_, 1862. i must tell you the first joy i have had since poor sidney herbert's death. lord palmerston has forced sir g. lewis to carry out mr. herbert's and my plan for the reorganization of the war office _in some measure_. hawes's place is not to be filled up. galton is to do his work as assistant under-secretary. this brings with it some other reforms. lord de grey says that he can reorganize the war office with captain galton, because sir g. lewis will know nothing about it and never inquires. sir g. lewis wrote it (innocently) to the queen yesterday, and captain galton was appointed to-day, resigning the army of course. no, sir charles trevelyan would not have done at all [in hawes's place]. it would have been perpetuating the principle (which i have been fighting against in all my official life, _i.e._, for eight years) of having a dictator, an autocrat, irresponsible to parliament, quite unassailable from any quarter, immovable in the middle of a (so-called) constitutional government, and under a secretary of state who is responsible to parliament. and, inasmuch as trevelyan is a better and abler man than hawes, it would have been _worse_ for any reform of principle. i don't mean to say that i am the first person who has laid down this. but i do believe i am the first person who has felt it so bitterly, keenly, constantly as to give up life, health, joy, congenial occupation for a thankless work like this.... it has come too late to give happiness to galton, as it has come too late for me. he seems more depressed than pleased. and i do believe, if he feels any pleasure, it is that now he can carry out sidney herbert's plans in some measure. and it may seem to you some compensation for the enormous expense i cause you that, if i had not been here, it would not have been done. would that sidney herbert could have lived to do it himself! would that poor clough could have lived to see it! he wished for it so much--for my sake.... [43] see vol. i. p. 405. the high hopes which miss nightingale entertained from this slight reorganization were doomed to disappointment. neither as under-secretary, nor after april 1863, when he became secretary of state, did lord de grey manage, and i do not know that he seriously attempted, to reform the war office root and branch.[44] he and captain galton had, according to miss nightingale, "miscalculated their power." she preached the necessity of reform to them unceasingly--in season and, as they may sometimes have thought, out of season too, for she was a very persistent person; and, with dr. sutherland's assistance, she provided them with detailed schemes. her principles were as admirable, as was her criticism scathing when any breach of them came under her notice. there must in all things, she said, be a clear definition of responsibility, with a logical differentiation of functions; and the business of the war office was to prepare for war--not to jog along with an organization which might hold together in peace, but would break down in the field. some papers were submitted to her criticism (june 1862). "what strikes me in them," she wrote, "is the black ignorance, the total want of imagination, as to a state of _war_ in which the _war_ office seems to be. really if it was a joint stock company for the manufacture of skins, it could not, as far as appears, be less accustomed to contemplate or to imagine or to remember a state of war." i am afraid that most of us have lived through times when the same criticism could have been made. let us hope that it is all a matter of ancient history now. papers were sent to her dealing with the questions of purveying and commissariat. the commissariat had hitherto been the bankers of the army, and some of the permanent officials saw no reason for a change. from her experience in the crimea she gave them the reason. the confusion of functions worked badly in the field.[45] as it was bound to do, for it was absurd. "is a man who buys bullocks the best man to be a banker? would it not be better to have a separate treasurer for the army to receive all moneys and issue them to all departments? in private life nobody makes his steward or butler his banker. it would not be economical. finance is as much a specialty as marketing, and as much so, to say the least of it, in the army as in private life." [44] there is a succinct account of organizations and reorganizations between 1854 and 1868 in a _memorandum on the organization of the war office_ by captain galton, dated november 1868. [45] see vol. i. p. 231. iii complete reform of the war office was, then, to remain a task for the future; but miss nightingale thought that lord de grey and captain galton did the administrative work well. much of it was done with her assistance. from miss nightingale's point of view, the most important thing done under the lewis-de grey régime was the placing on a permanent footing of the barrack and hospital improvement commission. it was important, first, as keeping sound sanitary principles to the forefront in the execution of new works at home. it also, as already explained, provided machinery for promoting sanitary improvements in india. the point, next to its permanence, on which she most insisted was that the commission should not be under the army medical department, but should be directly responsible to the secretary of state. "lord de grey said," wrote captain galton (june 25, 1862), "that he had adopted exactly your minute about the instructions to the commission." with its secretary, mr. j. j. frederick, miss nightingale was on very friendly terms, and dr. sutherland was its most active member. most of the plans for new barracks or hospitals were submitted to her, and her inspection and criticism of them were searching. then in 1862 the government was about to build a new military general hospital at malta. with dr. sutherland's aid, she went into every detail, and her report on the plans occupies twenty-four pages of manuscript. in 1865 sir hope grant succeeded sir richard airey as quarter-master general, and in that capacity as chairman of the barrack commission, the name of which was now changed to the army sanitary committee. he went to see miss nightingale, "proud to think that she remembered him"; and the conversation must have been satisfactory; for "our new president is a trump," reported dr. sutherland to her. in examining plans, she always had a thought for the horses. when the plans for some cavalry barracks were sent for her criticism she put in a plea (june 4, 1863) for windows in the loose-boxes out of which the horses could see. "i do not speak from hearsay," she wrote to captain galton, "but from actual personal acquaintance with horses of an intimate kind. and i assure you they tell me it is of the utmost importance to their health and spirits when in the loose-box to have a window to look out at. a small bull's-eye will do. i have told dr. sutherland but he has no feeling." to which dr. sutherland added: "we have provided such a window and every horse can see out if he chooses to stand on his hind legs with his fore-feet against the wall. it is the least exertion he can put himself to, and if your doctrine is right, he will no doubt do it." miss nightingale had learnt to love the army horse in the crimea. many years later, some very bad barracks were closed in ireland, and men and horses were moved to the curragh. it was the horses, she wrote, who had done it. "if we are not moved, they said, we shall mutiny. _military_ horses are quite capable of organizing movements. did you ever hear of jack? jack was a riderless horse (his master having been killed) at the charge of balaclava. and he was seen collecting about 30 riderless horses, and at the head of his troop leading them back to, i suppose, cavalry headquarters. i have failed to discover whether jack allowed horseless men to mount some of his horses. these men certainly returned on horseback--but when they found that a comrade, or an officer, was missing, they rode back, one and another, mounted the wounded man, and fought their way out of the russian melée, but many died in the attempt--a glorious death. and when i see in the hansom-cabs horses who by their beautiful legs must have been hunters or even racers, galloping up park lane as long as they can stand, i say too 'a glorious death'; and horses should teach _us_, not we them, duty--do you think."[46] [46] letter of april 12, 1896, to mrs. henry bonham carter. all regulations for military hospitals and for their nursing staff were similarly submitted to miss nightingale. she had a poor opinion of the capacity of the male mind to frame rules for female nurses. "by the united skill," she wrote (feb. 16, 1863), of "mess^{rs.} ---and ----, the following regulations for female hospitals were put together:--(1) kennel your nurses and chain them up till wanted; (2) when the number of patients does not exceed----, chain up the nurses without food; (3) let the number of nurses vary every day as the number of patients varies. i send you an _amended_ copy which, if you approve, might be put into type." she was constantly appealed to in connection with disputes caused at netley by the difficult temper of mrs. shaw stewart, the superintendent of the female nursing staff. she and miss nightingale were no longer close friends, but miss nightingale's sense of justice was strong, and she continuously supported mrs. stewart's authority. iv another large batch of the semi-official correspondence is concerned with miss nightingale's favourite child, the army medical school, and with the position of the army doctors generally. the troubles of the professors were still many; the relation of the school to the secretary of state on the one hand, and to the army medical department on the other, was much vexed; and, when the school was moved to netley (1863), a fresh set of difficulties cropped up. miss nightingale was constantly appealed to, sometimes by the staff, sometimes by the war office, to smooth over difficulties, to suggest ways out, to settle disputed questions. she was recognized by the war office as a kind of super-professor. one of the staff sought official sanction for a book on the work of the school: "lord de grey wants to know whether he is capable; also whether his proposed syllabus is good. also to have any critical suggestions upon it which miss nightingale could kindly communicate." her verdict was favourable. i have been told that some army doctors of to-day, knowing little about miss nightingale except that she found fault with medical arrangements in the crimea, suppose her not to have been their friend. nothing could be further from the truth. what she blamed was not the doctors (for most of whom she had the greatest admiration), but the system. from first to last, she was the most efficient friend that the army medical service ever had. in 1862-63 there is a long series of letters from her to the war office, in which she persistently pleaded for improvement in their status and emoluments. it was in connection with this matter that she wrote to captain galton (dec. 24, 1863): "_in re_ medical warrant, i am meek and humble, but 'i cut up rough.' i am the animal of whom buffon spoke, _cet animal féroce mord tous ceux qui veulent le tuer_. you must do something for these doctors; or they will do for you, simply by not coming to you." a series of letters to sir james clark in the following year shows with what pertinacity she fought the battle of the army doctors, and how indignant she was at any slights cast upon them:- _april_ 6 [1864]. i have written threatening letters both to lord de grey and to captain galton about the [medical officers'] warrant; and after pointing out that both restoration of warrant and increase of pay are now necessary, i have shown how, when we are exacting duties from the medical officer, such as sanitary recommendations to his commanding officer, which essentially require him to have the standing of a gentleman with his commanding officer,--we are doing things, such as dismounting him at parade, depriving him of presidency at boards, etc., which in military life, to a degree we have no idea of in civil life, deprive him of the weight of a gentleman among gentlemen. _april_ 7. the w.o. seem now willing to listen to some kind of terms. they are frightened. they sent me your letter. it was very good, very firm. don't be conciliatory. _april_ 9. i wrote _for the tenth time_ a statement of eight pages, with permission to make any use of it they pleased, with my signature, as to lord herbert's intentions. but i positively refused to write to mr. gladstone, who certainly ought not to grant me what the secretary of state of war does not urge. _april_ 11. what is wanted is to put a muzzle on the duke of cambridge, and to tell him that he _must not_ alter a royal warrant. _april_ 15. you may think i am not wise in being so angry. but i assure you, when i write civilly, i have a civil answer--_and nothing is done_. when i write furiously, i have a rude letter--_and something is done_ (not even then always, _but only then_). in the following year there was a debate in the house of lords upon the military hospitals which greatly interested, and personally affected, miss nightingale. early in march lord dalhousie (the lord panmure of earlier days)[47] gave notice of a motion to call attention to the expenditure on the netley hospital and the herbert hospital respectively, and it was rumoured that the ex-minister intended to deliver a set attack upon two of his successors, the late lord herbert and lord de grey. the war office, in order to be fully prepared, sent to miss nightingale for a brief. she gladly supplied it, and she entered into the fray with great spirit. she was very angry that the memory of her "dear master" should be assailed, but i think that she enjoyed not a little the prospect of yet another encounter with "the bison." she had beaten him before, and was determined that he should be beaten now. she advised lord de grey to avoid giving an advantage to the enemy by withholding any credit to which he was justly entitled. she recalled that at the last time they met, lord panmure had complained to her that she ascribed every sanitary reform in the army to sidney herbert, though some of the reforms had been started by himself. she admitted, and advised lord de grey to admit, that lord panmure had deserved well of the army by the measures which he took in the crimea, and by initiating some steps for reducing the mortality at home. these things being admitted, the defence of lord herbert would carry the more weight. having armed the secretary of state with materials to meet any attack that might be made, miss nightingale turned to organize a second line of defence. sir harry verney was dispatched to ask mr. gladstone's advice. mr. gladstone thought that lord harrowby should be retained for the defence, and he was approached. miss nightingale sent watching briefs also to her own friends, lord shaftesbury and lord houghton.[48] when lord dalhousie's motion was taken, the rumours turned out to be well founded. he extolled his netley (the non-"pavilion" hospital) as perfect, and criticized the herbert hospital ("pavilion") as a costly toy in the "glass-and-glare" style, and in a long speech attacked the "wasteful" system which lord herbert had introduced by paying attention to "hygienists who had carried their opinions too far." he had, i suppose, "that turbulent fellow," miss nightingale, in his mind when "he could not help thinking that all these unnecessary knick-knacks in hospitals were introduced partly from the habit, which prevailed at the war office, of consulting hygienists not connected with the army." the personal animus in the attack was thought so obvious that the speech fell very flat. and lord de grey's reply--"quite admirable" according to miss nightingale--was so courteous, yet so conclusive, that her "counsel" were unanimously of opinion that not another word was necessary. apart from any personal question, lord dalhousie's speech[49] has a certain historical interest as embodying some of the prejudices against which miss nightingale as a hospital reformer had to contend. a little later in the year a military attack on the sanitarians was threatened in the house of commons, but this only took the form of questions about the vote under which payment by the war office to dr. sutherland appeared.[50] miss nightingale sent a note to the war office, setting forth the facts and emphasizing the value of his services in the cause of sanitary improvement. [47] he had succeeded to the earldom of dalhousie on the death of his cousin, the 10th earl and first marquis, in dec. 1860. [48] mr. r. monckton milnes had been created baron houghton in 1863. [49] it is in _hansard_ on march 6, 1865. [50] _hansard_, june 19 and 30, 1865. v these were subjects in which miss nightingale was directly concerned, but questions of many other kinds were referred to her. i find in the correspondence with the war office during these years that, in addition to matters otherwise mentioned in this chapter, her advice was asked upon such subjects as an apothecaries' warrant, barracks for ceylon, "fever tinctures," instructions for cholera, fittings for military hospitals, the proposed amalgamation of the home and indian medical services, the organization of hospitals for soldiers' wives, sanitary instructions for new zealand, revision of soldiers' rations, staff appointments at netley, appointment of west indian staff surgeons, an outbreak of yellow fever in bermuda, the relation of commissariat barracks and purveying at foreign stations, victualling on transports and the mhow court-martial.[51] on one occasion she was asked to send hints for a speech in the house of commons. lord hartington, then under-secretary for war, would have to defend a large increase in the votes for hospital and medical service. the crimean war and miss nightingale's crusade had raised the expenditure from £97,000 in 1853-54 to £295,000 in 1864-65. "could you send me a paragraph for lord hartington's speech," she was asked, "to show the salient points of what the nation gets for its money? something pithy, put in your best manner." "there is nothing in the world i should like so much," she replied (feb. 29, 1864), "as to have to do lord hartington's speech and stand in his shoes on such an occasion." she sent some pithy comparisons; and, in case the minister wanted something heavier, a detailed memorandum. i suppose lord hartington chose the heaviness and rejected the pith; for when miss nightingale read the parliamentary report, she thought the speech a poor performance.[52] the same kind of references to miss nightingale went on when in 1866, on lord de grey's transference to the india office,[53] lord hartington became secretary of state for war. "can you throw light," she was asked (june 21, 1866), "on the position of the medical officers of the _guards_? this is very pressing. the whole matter is an awful mess, and lord hartington is anxious to leave it in some way of settlement." on the following day a lucid and exhaustive memorandum on the subject went in from her. [51] the history of this affair, which excited a prodigious interest in parliament and the press, may be read by the curious in vol. xxxiii. of the parliamentary papers of 1863, and vol. xxxv. of those of 1864. miss nightingale's good offices were asked by the war office to parry an attack by "jacob omnium," for whose part in the affair see _essays on social subjects_, by matthew john higgins, 1875, pp. lvi.-lx. [52] it certainly was dull: see _hansard_, march 3, 1864. [53] see below, p. 108. in july 1864 miss nightingale was engaged on a piece of work for the war office which was closely associated with her crimean experiences and with her european repute. it was in august of that year that the international congress was held which framed the famous geneva convention. the british delegates were miss nightingale's friend, dr. longmore, and dr. rutherford, and she drafted their instructions. the principle of the convention was the neutralization of the wounded under the red cross. societies formed under the red cross were soon organized throughout europe, and the movement led to a great development of volunteer-nursing in war time. sometimes miss nightingale sent in suggestions on her own account. she was in close touch with soldiers and sailors, and a woman's sympathetic insight appears in this letter:- (_miss nightingale to captain galton._) _sept._ 21 [1863]. people are complaining that when a regiment sails, many of their wives and children are left behind, and the soldiers are unable to make any provision for their support until they have reached their destination, say china or calcutta (after a four months' voyage round the cape), and have been able to send money through their captains to their families at home. meanwhile the families have gone through five or six months of distress. for sailors leaving a port in england or ireland, the admiralty provides power to leave a standing order that a certain amount of pay is to be sent regularly to their families. the w.o. objects that a similar arrangement would "involve a change in their book-keeping." it would involve no change. it would involve a small addition. i am willing to go the length of 6d. to furnish an account-book to the w.o., which would enable them to keep these additional accounts. the w.o. also objects that it would deprive the captain of the chance of fining the soldiers for any military offence. but they can learn the admiralty system; and whilst there are other ways of "doing" the soldiers, their pay is the only means of providing bread for their families starving (or doing worse) at home. surely the soldiers might be allowed to leave, for the probable duration of their voyage, and for a month or two beyond it, a sum to be paid weekly to their representatives at home. sir e. lugard has been tried and failed. pray set this right. but the w.o. would not be the w.o., if such things as these were not. and when they have ceased to be, the war office will have ceased to be. satire was not the only weapon which miss nightingale employed in order to get things done. sometimes she appealed to the motive of rivalry. was the minister hanging back? well, all she could say was that sidney herbert would have done the thing in a moment. there were difficulties in the way, were there? the subordinate officials were piling up what they were pleased to call "reasons" to the contrary, were they? well, "on this day many years ago," she wrote (june 18, 1862), "the french guns kept coming up again and again to get us out of the yard at hougomont, and we answered in strong language, often repeated, till we kept the ground that we had won. i never heard the french guns called reasons. and i advise you to answer in the same way, because there is no other way of answering. lord de grey's minute is the gun which just has to be fired over again." and sometimes she resorted, as of old, to a little bullying. "i send you," she wrote (march 26, 1863), "my protest about the medical school. make what use of it you like. but, if we fail, i shall refer it to lord palmerston who, as you know, befriended us on a former occasion (after hawes's death)"--a home thrust, this, as it was by a personal reference to lord palmerston that she had secured captain galton's appointment. there was one occasion when, for a wonder, the pressure to be prompt and decided came not from her, but from the war office. the governorship of the woolwich hospital fell vacant; she had been sent a list of names with a request to advise upon them, and she had not immediately replied. "i wrote," she explained (feb. 11, 1863), "to various authorities the very moment your and lord de grey's letters were put into my hands. the answers cannot be long delayed. but what would you think of my opinion if i volunteered it about men whom i know only by name? had you asked me about lord william paulet or colonel storks or sir richard airey, i could have given you an opinion off-hand with the utmost want of modesty. the very moment i have any reliable information you shall have it. but it takes some time to make such an inquiry, or what would it be worth? and woolwich, i suppose, is not on fire, or with the enemy at the gates?" but for some reason or other, the war office was in a hurry, and the appointment was made before her inquiries were completed. her conscientiousness thus lost her the chance of deciding a piece of patronage. not, indeed, that she felt any loss in such a case. she was nothing of a jobber. she pulled wires, as i have told, in some special appointments where she believed that a high public cause was at stake; but she was never actuated by personal favouritism, or by the love of personal influence on behalf of individuals. for this very post, she had received fifty letters of application, she said, but she had taken no action upon them. only once, she said on another occasion, had she solicited anything as a personal favour from the war office. it was an appointment for a presbyterian chaplain, who was not personally known to her, but whose hard and deserving case (as she thought it) had been brought to her notice. she was once sent a list of the army medical service, and asked by a minister to mark the names, for his private and confidential use, with her approbation or otherwise. this she respectfully declined to do. when she was asked a specific question about an officer whom she had known in the crimea or elsewhere, she gave an opinion freely, and generally managed to put it pointedly; as of a certain commandant: "as you often see in those round-headed, red-faced men, he has a great deal of conscience and very little judgment." vi a subject, in which miss nightingale took great and painful interest during these years, was the state regulation of vice. the legislation of 1864, 1866, and 1869 was already being promoted and considered in 1862. the subject was odious to miss nightingale, but her experiences in foreign hospitals and at scutari had made her peculiarly familiar with it. her private correspondence with doctors and military officers shows that for some years before 1862 she had given much thought and study to the question, and had carefully tested conclusions drawn from her personal observations by statistics and by the opinions of other persons. she hated the system of regulation on moral grounds, but she was equally convinced that the case for it had not been satisfactorily established by statistical evidence on hygienic grounds. on this point, two of the medical men, upon whose judgment she placed most reliance--dr. sutherland and dr. graham balfour (the head of the army statistical department)--agreed with her. with their assistance she worked up the case against the continental system, and at the request of sir george lewis, who was considering the matter in 1862, she wrote a private paper, which was circulated among some members of the government and others. "your facts," wrote captain galton to her (april 29, 1862), "have shaken lord de grey's views on the subject of police inspection." with mr. gladstone, she was less successful. he found her paper "of deep interest and full of important fact and argument," and said that, as a result of reading it and her letters, he should approach the subject "with much of circumspection as well as of anxiety"; but he "doubted the possibility of making a standing army a moral institution." therein she profoundly differed, and she urged, in rejoinder, that nothing should be done on his assumption, at least until the other had been given a fair trial--by increasing the soldiers' facilities for marriage, by giving them better opportunities for instruction and recreation, by encouraging physical exercise and manual handicrafts. official opinion steadily hardened, however, in the direction of regulation; and presently public opinion was tested by a series of articles in the _times_ in favour of the continental system. miss nightingale thereupon supplied harriet martineau with facts and figures, and the _times_ was answered by the _daily news_. miss nightingale also printed her own paper for a more extended, though still "private and confidential," circulation. dr. sutherland chivalrously assumed the sole authorship, and was acrimoniously attacked by some of his professional brethren. the army medical department was working hard for regulation, and some person therein, suspecting miss nightingale as the real leader of the opposition, disgraced himself by sending her an anonymous letter of vulgar abuse. this of course did not deter her, and, when legislation was proposed, she lobbied indefatigably (through correspondence) against it. the opinion of the house of commons was, however, overwhelmingly in its favour. when the legislation was passed, the war office invited her assistance in the selection of medical officers under the act; but she refused to touch what she regarded as an accursed thing. it was left to another of the remarkable women of the nineteenth century, to secure, after a struggle of sixteen years, the repeal of the acts; but though miss nightingale shrank from taking a public part in that crusade, she gave support privately to mrs. josephine butler. at a later time, however, miss nightingale somewhat modified her views.[54] [54] below, p. 408. miss nightingale's failure during the years 1862-64 to arrest the movement of public opinion in the direction which she detested, increased her eagerness to promote what she considered the more excellent way. she was the life and soul at headquarters of the movement for increasing the supply of reading-rooms, soldiers' clubs, recreation-rooms, and facilities for useful employment. "i will tell you," she wrote to the reverend mother of the bermondsey convent (jan. 3, 1864), "how i spent my christmas day and the sunday after, those being two holidays: in preparing a scheme, by desire of lord de grey, for employing soldiers in trades." she wrote a memorandum on "methods of starting an exhibition (soldiers' trades)," and such an exhibition was held at aldershot in the summer of 1864.[55] whenever there was a difficulty to be overcome, or an opportunity to be seized, miss nightingale was appealed to. for instance, there was a fight for a certain disused iron house at aldershot. miss nightingale's party (supported at the war office) wanted it for a men's recreation room; the horse guards wanted it for an officers' club. a promise had already been given in favour of the former, but sir george lewis was wavering. "lord de grey thinks," wrote captain galton (april 29, 1862), "that the best course for the iron house is for sir h. verney to ask sir g. l. in the house about it, alluding to his former promise, and if it could be arranged that monckton milnes, gen. lindsay, or any other persons could cheer or support the proposals, it would pledge sir g. l. to act at once." miss nightingale set her parliamentary friends to work, and the fight for the iron house was won. lord de grey succeeded in getting a vote on the estimates for the encouragement of such places. miss nightingale revised for him a set of regulations for reading-rooms. she also, at his request, drew up (in concert with captain pilkington jackson) an inventory of the appropriate furniture and other fitments. her zeal in this matter was known abroad; at montreal and halifax and gibraltar commanding-officers who were trying to start or develop instructions of the kind applied to her. she often succeeded in obtaining war office grants for them, and these she supplemented by gifts of her own. no inconsiderable portion of her resources at this time went in subscriptions of this sort, either in money or in kind (carpentering equipment, bagatelle boards, books, prints, and the like). it is pleasant to read the letters in which the non-commissioned officers and men of regiments, which had been served by miss nightingale in the crimea, sent thanks, through their commanding officers, to "that noble lady for her continued interest in the welfare of the british soldiers." [55] attention was called to it, and the moral was pointed, by a leading article in the _daily news_ (july 8), doubtless written by harriet martineau. it was a cause of great pleasure to miss nightingale that in 1864 her old friend of the scutari days, general storks, who had encouraged her there in work of this kind,[56] was appointed to the command at malta. "i am very grateful to you," he wrote (nov. 10), "for seeing me the other day, and can only express the great gratification i experienced on that occasion. i can never forget the time when i was associated with you in the great work which has produced such satisfactory results, and for which the whole army will ever thank you. when one reflects on the condition of the soldier ten years ago and what it is now, there is cause for wonder at the difficulties you have overcome, and the results you have achieved.... (nov. 18.) all the arrangements contemplated at malta, both legislative (if necessary) and administrative, shall be submitted for your consideration and approval in draft before they are acted upon, and i need not say how grateful i shall be for your kind assistance." in later years miss nightingale took a friendly interest in the soldiers' institute at portsmouth, founded by miss sarah robinson. a meeting was held in its support at the mansion house in 1877, at which lord wolseley presided, and a letter from miss nightingale was read. "if you knew," she said, "as i do (or once did), the difference between our soldiers cared for in body, mind, and morals, and our soldiers uncared for--the last, 'hell's carnival' (the words are not my own), the first, the finest fellows of god's making; if you knew how troops immediately on landing are beset with invitations to bad of all kinds, you would hasten to supply them with invitations to, and means for, good of all kinds: remembering that the soldier is of all men the man whose life is made for him by the necessities of his service. we may not hope to make 'saints' of all, but we can make men of them instead of brutes. if you knew these things as i do, you would forgive me for asking you, if my poor name may still be that of the soldiers' ever faithful servant, to support miss robinson's work in making men of them at portsmouth, the place of all others of temptation to be brutes." [56] see vol. i. p. 279. vii even the multifarious interest described in preceding pages and chapters do not tell the whole tale of miss nightingale's labours during this time. it was not only the british soldiers at home and in india whom she took under her protection; nor only the war office and the india office with which she had some connection. she was open to any human appeal for help, and her acquaintance with sir george grey led her, through a friendly minister at the colonial office, to make an attempt for the protection of the aboriginal races in the british dominions. she had met sir george grey in 1859 and 1860, and he had talked to her about the gradual disappearance of those races when brought into touch with civilization. this was a subject which appealed strongly to miss nightingale. her mission in life was to be a "saviour" of men. it shamed her to think that her country in colonizing so large a part of the world should so often come into contact with inferior races only to destroy them. in the course of conversation with sir george grey, the question was raised whether the disappearance of the aboriginal races was in any degree due to the effect of european school usages and school education. miss nightingale determined to investigate the matter. she drew up schedules of inquiry, and the duke of newcastle (then colonial secretary) officially circulated them to colonial schools and colonial hospitals (1860). as each return came in during following years, it was forwarded from the colonial office to miss nightingale. her inquiries were far more searching and detailed, i notice on looking through the papers, than were the answers. there were not many passionate statisticians in those days among the schoolmasters or doctors attached to native schools or hospitals in distant colonies, and the results of miss nightingale's researches in this obscure field were somewhat disappointing. she summarized the information in a paper which she contributed to the social science congress at edinburgh in 1863, and which she printed as a pamphlet.[57] the duke of newcastle sent the pamphlet to colonial governors and other officials, and invited their remarks. to the congress in 1864 miss nightingale contributed a further paper (also printed as a pamphlet[58]), embodying the substance of some of the later information thus obtained. the documents which she received from the colonial office during several years are preserved amongst her papers, and form what is, i suppose, a unique collection of information on a curious subject. though her researches did not lead to any positive conclusions in relation to the effect of education as such upon the deterioration of the wild races, they disclosed much neglect of sanitary precautions. she pointed out mistakes that were made in the kind of clothing into which in the name of decency the native children were put. she applied in a wider way the principle that their open-air habits should be remembered, insisting especially on the importance of physical and manual training. the returns from colonial hospitals showed again that preventable causes--bad drainage, bad water, and so forth--were to blame for much of the mortality. "incivilization with its inherent diseases, when brought into contact with civilization without adopting specific precautions for preserving health, will always carry with it a large increase of mortality on account of the greater susceptibility of its subjects to those causes of disease which can, to a certain extent, be endured without as great a risk by civilized communities born among them." but principally miss nightingale based upon the results of her inquiries a moral appeal to the conscience of popular opinion and governments in the colonies and in downing street. "the decaying races are chiefly in australia, new zealand, canada, and perhaps in certain parts of south africa. they appear to consist chiefly of tribes which have never been civilized enough, or had force of character enough, to form fixed settlements or to build towns. such tribes have few fixed habits or none. but the papers show that they are naturally, in their uncivilized condition, possessed of far stronger stamina, and that they resist the effects of frightful wounds and injuries far better than civilized men. this latter fact tells strongly against any natural proclivity to diseased action." the course of history does not show that such appeals as miss nightingale's have been wholly successful. it seems to be, as mr. froude said, that with men, as with orders of creation, only those wild races will survive who can domesticate themselves into servants of the newer forms. where there is such ability, where the labour of the coloured races is required by the white men, the aboriginal races survive, and even thrive and multiply; where those conditions do not exist, they do not survive. so far, however, as the extinction of native races has been arrested, miss nightingale was among the pioneers in pointing out the way. her clear intelligence, acting upon the mass of evidence which she had collected, perceived certain principles which have guided all practical statesmen who sought to protect aborigines, and to free civilization from one of its disgraces. she urged that "provision of land should be made for the exclusive use of existing tribes." she pleaded passionately for the suppression of the liquor traffic.[59] she argued that in the formal education, and in all other means of endeavouring to improve the natives, "there should be as little interference as possible with their born habits and conditions," that interference should be wise and gradual, and that above all "physical training and a large amount of out-door work are essentially necessary to success." she did not succeed in arresting the decline of the aboriginal races; but she contributed something to their protection. [57] bibliography a, nos. 39 and 40. [58] _ibid._ no. 47. [59] a letter to her on this subject (dec. 6, 1864) from the permanent under-secretary at the colonial office is printed in _letters of frederick lord blachford_, 1896, p. 251. viii thus, then, in all the various ways described in this chapter did miss nightingale labour, but especially in the cause of the british army. the rôle of the soldiers' friend which she had filled in the crimea was enacted on a conspicuous stage. her work was now all done behind the scenes; and done, as i have already described, under heavy physical disability. much of the work was, moreover, dull and even uncongenial; but she fed her soul on higher things:- (_miss nightingale to mrs. moore._) 32 south street, _dec._ 15 [1863]. dearest revd. mother--i am here, as you see--(my brother-in-law's house--where you were so good as to see me last year--to think of that being more than a year ago) and have been here a good bit. but i have had all your dear letters. and you cannot think how much they have encouraged me. they are almost the only earthly encouragement i have. i have been so very ill--and even the little change of moving here knocks me down for a month. but god is so good as to let me still struggle on with my business. but with so much difficulty that it was quite impossible to me to write even to you. and i only write now, because i hear you are ill. i have felt so horribly ungrateful for never having thanked you for your books. s. jean de la croix's life i keep thankfully. i am never tired of reading that part where he prays for the return for all his services, _domine, pati et contemni pro te_. i am afraid i never could ask that. but in return for very little service, i get it. it is quite impossible to describe how harassing, how heart-breaking my work has been since the beginning of july. i have always, with all my heart and soul, offered myself to god for the greatest bitterness on my own part, if his (war office) work could be done. but lately nothing was done, and always because there was not one man like sidney herbert to do it.... i don't think s. jean de la croix need have prayed to be dismissed from superiorships before he died. for as the mère de bréchard says, there are more opportunities to humble oneself, to mortify oneself, to throw oneself entirely on god, in them than in anything else. i return the life of s. catherine of genoa. i like it so much. it is a very singular and suggestive life. i am so glad she accepted the being directress of the hospital. for i think it was much better for her to make the hospital servants go right than to receive their "injures"--however submissively--much better for the poor patients, i mean. i am quite ashamed to keep ste. thérése so long. but there is a good deal of reading in her. and i am only able to read at night--and then not always a large, close-printed book. pray say if i shall send her back. and i will borrow her again from you perhaps some day. i am so sorry about poor s. gonzaga's troubles. i know what those committees are. i have had to deal with them almost all my life. my strength has failed more than usually of late. and i don't think i have much more work in me--not, at least, if it is to continue of this harassing sort. god called me to hospital work (as i fondly thought, for life)--but since then to army work--but with a promise that i should go back to hospital--as i thought as a nurse, but as i now think, as a patient. but st. catherine of siena says: "et toutesfois je permets cela luy advenir, afin qu'il soit plus soigneux de fuyr soi mesme, & de venir & recourir à moy ... et qu'il considère que par amour je luy donne le moyen de tirer hors le chef de la vraye humilité, se reputant indigne de la paix & repos de pensée, comme mes autres serviteurs--& au contraire se reputant digne des peines qu'il souffre," etc. my sister and her family come to spend here two or three nights occasionally to see friends. but i was only able to see her for ten minutes, and my good brother-in-law, who is one of the best and kindest of men, not at all--nor his children.... i sent you back st. francis de sales, with many thanks. i liked him in his old dress. i like that story where the man loses his crown of martyrdom, because he will not be reconciled with his enemy. it is a sound lesson. i am going to send you back s. francis xavier. his is a life i always like to study as well as those of all the early jesuit fathers. but how much they did--and how little i do.... ever my dearest revd. mother's loving and grateful, f. n. miss nightingale never lost sight of the end in the means. she was doing "god's work" in the "war office." she thought it was "little" that she did, for it is often the hardest workers who thus deem themselves the most unprofitable servants. and the work was often drudgery; yet through it all she had inspiration from her memories of heroism in the army, for whose "salvation" she was working. "i have seen to-day [from my window]," she wrote to her mother in 1863, "the first levée, since all are dead whom i wished to please. a melancholy sight to me. yet i like the pomp and pageant of the old veterans covered with well-earned crosses. to me who saw them earned, no vain pageant. it is like the dead march in _saul_--to me, who heard it on the battle-field, no vain sound, but full of deep and glorious sadness." chapter v helpers, visitors, and friends (1862-1866) to be alone is nothing; but to be without sympathy in a crowd, this is to be confined in solitude. where there is want of sympathy, of attraction, given and returned, must it not be a feeling of starvation?--florence nightingale: _suggestions for thought_ (1860). friendship should help the friends to work out better the work of life.--benjamin jowett (1866). the years of miss nightingale's life, described in this part, were perhaps those of her hardest and most unremitting work. throughout these years, until august 1866, she lived entirely in london or immediately near to it.[60] her quarters were in lodgings or in hired houses, until november 1865, when her father took a house for her for a term of years in south street (no. 35), near her married sister. this house (no. 10 when the street was renumbered) was the one that she occupied till her death. i think that there was not a single day during the period from 1862 to 1866 upon which she was not engaged in one part or another of the manifold work described in preceding chapters. and there was much other work as well, begun in these years, but brought to completion later, which will be described in a subsequent part. she gave account of her days to madame mohl (jan. 24, 1865), and recalled what "a poor woman with 13 children, who took in washing, once said to me--her idea of heaven was to have one hour a day in which she could do nothing." yet all that miss nightingale did was done forcefully. "i am completely reassured as to the state of your health," wrote her old friend mr. reeve (jan. 21, 1865), in reply to some communication on indian affairs, "by the homeric frame of mind you are in. you will live an hundred years. you will write a sanitariad or a lawrentiad in 24 books, and lord derby will translate you into all known languages. stanley will be lord derby then, but this will only make the thing more appropriate." but her work, though very vigorous, was very hard. it was done, not as in the crimean war, in the excitement of immediate action, nor, as in the years succeeding her return, with the daily aid and sympathy of her "dear master." it was her hardest work for another reason, already mentioned: she was for a large part of this later period, almost bedridden. she would get up and dress in order to receive the more important of her men-visitors, but the effort tired her greatly. [60] her places of residence in 1862 and 1863 have been given above, p. 24. in 1864 she lived at 32 (now no. 4) south street, the verneys' house (jan.); at 115 park street (feb.-july); at 7 oak hill park, hampstead (aug.-oct.). she was at 27 norfolk street from nov. 1864 to may 1, 1865. during may and june 1865 and again in oct., she was at 34 (now no. 8) south street; in july-sept., she was at hampstead. the amount of work which she did under these conditions is extraordinary, and the question arises how she did it. a principal explanation is to be found in dr. sutherland. the reader may have noticed once or twice in letters written by miss nightingale such expressions as "we are doing" so and so, or "can such and such be sent to us." the plural was not royal; it signified she had explained at an earlier time to sidney herbert, "the troops and me;" but it also signified, during the years with which this part is concerned, herself and dr. sutherland. she wrote incessantly, but even so she could hardly have accomplished her daily tasks without some clerical assistance. she knew an immense deal about the subjects with which she dealt, and her memory was both precise and tenacious; but there were limits to her powers of acquisition, and cases often arose in which personal inspection or personal moving about in search of information were essential. in all these ways dr. sutherland's help was constant. he wielded a ready pen. he was one of the leading sanitary experts of the day. his professional and official connections gave him access to various sources of information. his regular work was on the army sanitary commission; and for the rest, he placed himself at miss nightingale's beck and call. mrs. sutherland was her private secretary at this time for household affairs, such as searching for lodgings and engaging servants; her accounts were still kept, and much of her miscellaneous correspondence conducted by her uncle, mr. sam smith;[61] but in all official business, her factotum was dr. sutherland. a large proportion of the notes, drafts, and memoranda, belonging to these years, among her papers, is in dr. sutherland's handwriting, and sometimes it is impossible to determine how much of the work is hers and how much his. often he took down heads from her conversation, and put the matter into shape; at other times he submitted drafts for her approval or correction, and took copies of the letters ultimately dispatched. [61] she was still so beset by begging letters, that mr. smith had a notice inserted in the _times_ of april 29, 1864, to the effect that she could not answer them or return any papers enclosed to her. how indispensable to her was dr. sutherland's help comes out from some correspondence of 1865. captain galton had sent private word that there was talk at the war office of appointing dr. sutherland commissioner to inquire into an outbreak of cholera at some of the mediterranean stations. miss nightingale was greatly perturbed. "we are full of indian business," she wrote (nov. 1), "which must be settled before parliament meets. lord stanley has consented to take it up. and i have pledged myself to have it all ready--a thing i should never have done if i had thought dr. sutherland would be sent abroad. you are yourself aware that calcutta water-supply has been sent home to us (at my request), and dr. s. told me this morning that _he and i_ should have to write the report." and again (dec. 15): "for god's sake, if you can, prevent dr. sutherland going." she had begged that at any rate nothing should be said to dr. sutherland himself about it unless the mission were irrevocably decided upon: "he is so childish that if he heard of this malta and gibraltar business he would instantly declare there was nothing to keep him in england." the "child"--the "baby" of some earlier correspondence[62]--only liked a little change sometimes. indispensable though he was to his task-mistress, he yet, as in former days, vexed her. she thought him lacking in method, and with her this was one of the unpardonable sins. he sometimes forgot what he had done with, or had promised to do with, a particular paper; he was even capable of mislaying a blue-book. he was often behind hand with tasks imposed upon him. his temperament was a little volatile, and in one impeachment he is accused of "incurable looseness of thought." if this were so (which i take leave to doubt), the defect must have been congenital, or long service under miss nightingale would have cured it. [62] see vol. i. pp. 370, 383. partly because dr. sutherland's manner sometimes teased her, partly because he was deaf, and partly owing to her own physical disabilities, miss nightingale developed at this time a method of communicating with him which, during later years, became familiar to all but her most privileged friends. the visitor on being admitted was ushered into a sitting-room on the ground-floor, and given pencil and paper. it were well for him that what he wrote should be lucid and concise. the message was carried upstairs into the presence, and an answer, similarly written, was brought down. and to such interchange would the interview be confined. with dr. sutherland, miss nightingale had many personal interviews; their business was often too detailed, too intricate, too confidential, to be conducted otherwise; but there are hundreds of letters, received from other people, upon which (in blank spaces or on spare sheets) there are pencilled notes conveying answers or messages to dr. sutherland. "well, you know i have already said that to lord stanley. i can't do more." "yes, you _must_." "oh, lord bless you, _no_." "you want me to decide in order that you may do the reverse." "can you answer a plain question?" "you have forgotten all we talked about." "i cannot flatter you on your lucidity." "i do not shake hands till the abstract is done; and i do not leave london till it is done." "you told me positively there was nothing to be done. there is everything to be done." "why did you tell me that tremendous _banger_? was it to prevent my worrying you?" "nothing has been done. i have been so anxious; but the more zeal i feel, the more indifferent you." sometimes he strikes work, or refuses to answer, signing his name by a drawing of a dry pump with a handle marked "f.n.": "your pump is dry. india to stand over." sometimes he makes fun of her business-like methods, and heads his notes "ref.000000/000." sometimes he pleads illness. "i am very sorry, but i was too ill to know anything except that i was ill." often he received visitors for her, or entertained them on her behalf at luncheon or dinner. "these two people have come. will you see them for me? i have explained who you are." "was the luncheon good? did he eat?" "did he walk?" "yes." "then he's a liar; he told me he couldn't move." in 1865-66 dr. and mrs. sutherland had moved house from finchley to norwood. miss nightingale complained of this remoteness. dr. sutherland dated his letters from "the gulf." he stayed there sometimes, complaining of indisposition, instead of coming up to south street where business was pressing. miss nightingale did not take the reason kindly, and his letters begin, "respected enemy" or "dear howling epileptic friend." one morning (june 23, 1865) dr. sutherland went to the private view of the herbert hospital--a great occasion to miss nightingale. in the afternoon he called and sent up to her a short note of what he had seen. "and that is all you condescend to tell me. and i get it at 4 o'clock." of course, they understood each other; they were old and intimate friends. but i think that the man who thus served with miss nightingale must have had a great and disinterested zeal for the causes in which they were engaged; and that there must have been something at once formidable and fascinating in the lady-in-chief. ii the pressure of work during these years caused miss nightingale to close her doors resolutely. she did indeed see her father often; her mother and sister occasionally, though she did not press them to come. other relations and many of her friends felt aggrieved that she would not accept help which they would have liked to give. but she had a rule of life to which she adhered firmly. there was so much strength available, likely enough (as she still supposed) to be ended by early death; there was so much public work to be done; there was no strength to spare for family or friends, except in so far as they helped, and did not hinder, the public work. she saw nurses and matrons from time to time: they were parts of her life-work. she saw lady herbert and mrs. bracebridge: they were parts of her work in the past. she never omitted to write to lady herbert on the anniversary of lord herbert's death, though their friendship lost something of its former intimacy when in 1865 lady herbert joined the church of rome. other friends were seldom admitted. letters to an old friend, who was sometimes received and sometimes turned away, explain miss nightingale's point of view:- (_to madame mohl._) 115 park street, _july_ 30 [1864]. you will be doing me a favour if you come to me. august 2 is a terrible anniversary to me. and i shall not have my usual solace, for mrs. bracebridge has always come to spend that day with me, and i am sure she would have come this year, but i could not tell whether i should be able to get sir john lawrence's things off by that time. it does me good to be with you, as with mrs. clive, because it reduces individual struggles to general formulæ. it does me harm, intensely alone as i am, to be with people who do the reverse. but it is incorrect to say, as mrs. clive does, that "i will not let people help me," or, as others do, that "no one can help me." any body could have helped me who knew how to read and write and what o'clock it is. _june_ 23 [1865], south street. clarkey mohl darling--how i should like to see you now. but it is quite, quite, quite impossible. i am sure no one ever gave up so much to live, who longed so much to die, as i do and give up daily. it is the only credit i claim. i will live if i can. i shall be so glad if i can't. i am overwhelmed with business. and i have an indian functionary now in london, whose work is cut out for him every day at my house. i scarcely even have half an hour's ease. would you tell m. mohl this, if you are writing, about the queen of holland's proposed visit to me? i really feel it a great honour that she wishes to see me. she is a queen of queens. but it is quite, quite, quite impossible.... (_oct_. 4 [1865]). i am so weak, no one knows how weak i am. yesterday because i saw dr. sutherland for a few minutes in the afternoon, after the morning's work, and my good mrs. sutherland for a few minutes after him, i was with a spasm of the heart till 7 o'clock this morning and nearly unfit for work all to-day. in the case of one distinguished visitor to london, miss nightingale made an exception. this was garibaldi. she was a sworn garibaldian, as we have heard. he wished to see her; she was famous in italy, and she had subscribed to his funds. friends told her that she might be able to influence the hero in the direction of her own interests, and with some trepidation she prepared herself to receive him. "i think," wrote mr. jowett, "that we may trust god to give us his own calmness and clearness on any great occasion such as this is. i hope you will inspire garibaldi for the future and not pain him too much about the past. ten years more of such a life as his might accomplish almost anything for italy in the way of military organization and sanitary and moral improvement--if he could only see that his duty is not to break the yet immature strength of italy against austrian fortresses." miss nightingale prepared for the "great occasion" by jotting down in french what she would try to say. "eh bien! in five years you have made italy--the work of five centuries. you have worked a miracle. but even you, mon général, could not make a steam-engine in five minutes. and italy has to be consolidated into a strong machine, like those which you have been seeing at bedford," and so forth, and so forth. she tried to keep the fact of the interview secret, but it was chronicled in the newspapers[63]:- (_miss nightingale to harriet martineau._) 115 park st., _april 28_ [1864]. you may have heard that i have seen garibaldi. i resisted it with all my might, but i was obliged to do it. i asked no one to look at him--told no one--and he came in my brother-in-law's carriage, hoping that no one would know. but it all failed. we had a long interview by ourselves. i was more struck with the greatness of that noble heart--full of bitterness, yet not bitter--and with the smallness of the administrative capacity, than even i expected. he raves for a government "like the english." but he knows no more what it is than his king bomba did. (it was for this that i was to speak to him.) one year of such a life, as i have led for ten years, would tell him more of how one has to give and take with a "representative government" than all his utopia and his "ideal." you will smile. but he reminds me of plato. he talks about the "ideal good" and the "ideal bad"; about his not caring for "repubblica" or for "monarchia": he only wants "the right." alas! alas! what a pity--that utter impracticability! i pity _me_ very much. and of all my years, this last has been the hardest. but now i see that no _man_ would have put up with what i have put up with for ten years, to do even the little i have done--which is about a hundredth part of what i have tried for. garibaldi looks flushed and very ill, worn and depressed--not excited. he looks as if he stood and went thro' all this as he stood under the bullets of aspromonte--a duty which he was here to perform. the madness of the italians here in urging him is inconceivable. [63] see the _times_, april 18, 1864. the interview took place on sunday afternoon april 17. on the day before, garibaldi had been at bedford. miss nightingale, we may safely infer, did not inspire garibaldi with divine fervour for sanitary reform or any merely administrative progress. administration in any sort was foreign to his genius. but she felt, after the interview no less than before, that it was a great occasion to her. the interview took place at 115 park street, a house belonging to the grosvenor hotel, and she presented the hotel with a bust of garibaldi as a memento of the occasion. another of her heroes was abraham lincoln, of whom she wrote this appreciation[64]:- 34 south street, _june_ 20 [1865]. dear sir--i have not dared to press in with my feeble word of sympathy upon your over-taxed time and energy, when all europe was pouring in upon you with its heartfelt sympathy. my experience has been infinitesimally small. still, small as it is, it has been of historical events. and i can never remember the time--not even when the colossal calamity of the crimea was first made known to us,--not even when we lost our own albert (and our albert was no common hero--remember that it was no sovereign, but it was washington, whom he held up as an example to himself and his)--i can never remember the time when so deep and strong a cry of feeling has gone up from the world, in all its length and breadth, and in all its classes, as has gone up for you and yours--in your great trial: mr. lincoln's death. as some one said of him, he will hold "the purest and the greatest place in history." i trust and believe that the deed which will spring up from that noble grave will be worthy of it. i will not take up your time with weak expression of a deep sympathy. sincerely yours, florence nightingale. [64] in a letter to mr. dennis r. alward. at home, the political event which most moved her was the death of lord palmerston:- (_miss nightingale to dr. farr._) 34 south street, _oct._ 19 [1865] ld. palmerston is a great loss. i speak for the country and myself. he was a powerful protector to me--especially since sidney herbert's death. i never asked him to do anything--you may be sure i did not ask him often--but he did it--for the last nine years. he did not do himself justice. if the right thing was to be done, he made a joke, but he did it. he will not leave his impress on the age--but he did the country good service. except l. napoleon, whose death might be the greatest good _or_ the greatest evil, i doubt whether there is any man's loss which will so affect europe.... he was at heart the most liberal man we had left. i have lost, in him, a powerful friend. i hear spoken of as his successors--clarendon, russell, granville. ld. clarendon it is said the queen wishes--and she has been corresponding with him privately--perhaps by ld. palmerston's own desire. but i believe the real question is, under which (if any) of these, your mr. gladstone will consent to remain in office and be leader of the ho. of c. not one of these men will manage the cabinet as ld. palmerston did. but i daresay you have more trustworthy information than i have. i would ld. palmerston had lived another session. we should have got something done at the poor law board, which we shall not now.[65] ld. russell is so queer-tempered. i quite dread his premiership, if it comes. [65] on this subject, see below, p. 133. iii miss nightingale's interest in the working classes led her in 1865 to draft a scheme which, in some aspects of it, forestalled ideas of a later generation of social reformers. mr. gladstone had recently passed an act enabling a depositor's accumulations in the post office savings bank to be invested in the purchase either of an annuity or an insurance. it would be very advisable, she suggested, to add to these methods of saving facilities for the purchase of small freeholds. there was nothing that the working men more coveted than the ownership of a house or a piece of land. an extension of small ownership would satisfy a legitimate craving, increase the motives to thrift, and raise the social position and independence of the working classes. if the adoption of the scheme would necessitate the enfranchisement of leaseholds, so much the better. such were miss nightingale's ideas, and under different forms and by different methods they have occupied the attention of social reformers to this day. she submitted her scheme to mr. villiers, president of the poor law board, who seems to have been somewhat favourable to it. then she tackled the chancellor of the exchequer, artfully suggesting that her scheme was merely, on the one hand, a slight development of his "most successful savings bank measures," and, on the other, an indirect means of meeting his earnest desire to extend the suffrage. but mr. gladstone was not to be cajoled. "it would not do," he told her, "for government to become land-jobbers"--an opinion which has not been shared, it would seem, by some of mr. gladstone's successors. he had further suggested that the scheme should be submitted, in its legal aspects, to his friend mr. roundell palmer, and mr. palmer, after reading it, opined that the law already gave adequate facilities for the purchase of freeholds by working men and others. miss nightingale then took other legal opinions with a view to meeting objections; but she presently gave up this addition to her schemes. "it was certainly," she said, "the wildest of ideas for me to undertake it just now when i can scarcely do what i have already undertaken." iv though miss nightingale saw little of her friends or relations at this time, she constantly corresponded with them. there are many letters which tell of her grief at the death of her cousin, miss hilary bonham carter: "the golden bowl is broken," she wrote to madame mohl (sept. 8, 1865), "and it was the very purest gold i have ever known." there are letters from many correspondents--lady augusta bruce, for instance, and mrs. william cowper--which show how deeply they had been touched by miss nightingale's letters of condolence. her own griefs left room for sympathy with those of others:- (_to dr. farr._) hampstead, _august_ 5 [1864].... i am sorry to hear of your griefs. i do not find that mine close my heart to those of others--and i should be more than anxious to hear of _yours_--you who have been our faithful friend for so many years. i had heard of your father's death, but not of any other loss. sidney herbert has been dead three years on the 2nd. and these three years have been nothing but a slow undermining of all he has done (at the w.o.). this is the bitterest grief. the mere personal craving after a beloved presence i feel as nothing. a few years at most, and that will be over. but the other is never over. for me, i look forward to pursuing god's work soon in another of his worlds. i do not look forward with any craving to seeing again those i have lost (in the _very_ next world)--sure that that will all come in his own good time--and sure of my willingness to work in whichever of his worlds i am most wanted, with or without those dear fellow-workers, as he pleases. but this does not at all soothe the pain of seeing men wantonly deface the work _here_ of some of his best workers. but i shall bear your faith in mind--that good works never really die. alas! good tulloch. but i think his work was done. pray, if you speak of him, remember--had it not been for him, where would our two army sanitary enquiries have been? miss nightingale's large circle of correspondents kept her in touch with the literary, as well as with the political, world. she suffered greatly from sleeplessness and read much at night. she seldom read a book without finding something original or characteristic to say about it. "lately," she wrote to m. mohl (jan. 24, 1865), "i have read an english translation of the rubáiyát of omar khayyám. the way it interests me is theologically. otherwise he seems a poor weak mixture of mahomet and a mephistopheles. but the arguments which he despises seem to me just the real arguments, the only arguments, if only we believe in a perfect god, for eternal existence. do tell me a little about this, and about the sufis and firdausi--as regards their belief in a god, and whether the god was good or bad, if any." omar was new to m. mohl. miss nightingale lent him fitz-gerald's version,[66] and m. mohl read the original. "the tidings," she wrote (april 21), "that you may perhaps print al khayyám's quatrains is diffusing joy among a (not large but) select circle, i having communicated it in the 'proper quarter' (see how we are all tarred with the same official stick). if you send me a copy, i shall immediately become a personage of importance." "i read some of madame roland's _memoires_," she wrote to madame mohl (may 20, 1865): "but, do you know, i was so disappointed to find out that her patriotism was inspired by a lover. not that i care much about virtue: i do think 'virtue' by itself a very second-rate virtue. but because i did hope that here was one woman who cared for _respublica_ as alone, or as chief, among her cares." "do" (to madame mohl, sept. 8, 1865), "read if you have not read swinburne's _atalanta in calydon_. forgive it its being an imitation of a greek play. that is its worst fault. as you said of macaulay's _lays_, they are like an old man in a pinafore; or as i should say of this, it is like a puritan togged out as a priest going to say mass. but read it. the atalanta herself, though she is only a sort of ginn and not a woman at all, has more reality, more character, more individuality (to use a bad word) than all the jeunes premières in all the men novelists i ever have read--walter scott, lytton bulwer, and all of them. but then atalanta is not a sound incarnation of any 'social or economic principle'--is she? so men will say." [66] the copy in question was lent by tennyson to jowett, and by him to miss nightingale. v on higher themes the correspondent to whom miss nightingale wrote most fully from her heart was from this time forth mr. jowett. their acquaintance, at first confined to paper, had begun, as described in an earlier chapter, with correspondence about her _suggestions for thought_. the work had greatly interested him, and from time to time he continued to write to her about it. he wished her to do something with her "suggestions," but to rewrite them in a more connected form and a gentler mood, and he sometimes gave hints for an irony less bitter than hers. her letters to him are no longer in existence, except in the case of a few of which she preserved copies; but it is clear from the tenor of the correspondence on the other side that she was already (1862) giving to him much of her intimate confidence. she had now met a new friend who was capable of entering into her inmost and highest thoughts, not indeed always with agreement, but always with a sympathetic understanding. "as you have shown me so much confidence," he presently wrote, "i feel the strongest wish to help you in any way that i can without intruding." and again: "i cannot but wish you (as sincerely as i ever desired anything) unabated hope and trust and resolve to continue your work to the end, and many rays of light to cheer the way." a little later, drawing a bow at a venture, mr. jowett wondered whether she was engaged about indian sanitary matters? he had "a reason for being interested about them which is that i lost my two brothers in india." miss nightingale, as we have heard, was interested in nothing else so intently at this time, and here was a fresh bond of sympathy. she asked whether, knowing what he did of her religious views, he would come and administer the sacrament to her, as she was entirely unable to leave her room. "i shall be very glad," he wrote (oct. 3), "to give you the sacrament. i am sure that many other clergymen would be equally glad. would you like mr. and mrs. smith, or any of their family, to join you?" the sacrament was often thus administered, and miss nightingale's most intimate friends--such as mrs. bracebridge--or some of her family, generally partook of the rite with her. on one of the earlier of these occasions, mr. jowett met her parents, and in 1862 paid the first of his visits, which afterwards became frequent, to them in the country. he often figures in their letters as "that great and good man," or "that true saint, mr. jowett." and from this date also began his frequent visits--usually many times a year--to miss nightingale herself; indeed he was seldom, if ever, in london without spending an afternoon with her. if she had friends staying in her house--such as m. and madame mohl--he would sometimes come in to dine with them. "dear miss nightingale," wrote mr. jowett (oct. 28), "i shall always regard the circumstance of having given you the communion as a solemn event in my life which is a call to devote myself to the service of god and men (if he will give me the power to do so). your example will often come before me, especially if i have occasion to continue my work under bodily suffering. there is something that i want to say to you which i hardly know how to express." and then followed the first of what became a long series of spiritual admonitions. mr. jowett had, it is clear, a very high opinion of miss nightingale's genius, the most sincere admiration for her self-devotion, and a deep affection for her. but he thought that she was in some ways not using her life to the best advantage, and that her state of physical and mental suffering was in some measure the result of a too impetuous temper. in letter after letter, full of a beautiful and delicate sympathy, he whispered into her ears counsels of calm, of trust, of moderation. she seems to have kept him informed of every move in her crusades, and he was constantly afraid that she would fight too fiercely or even (in this case a quite needless fear) come out into the open. "the gift of being invisible," he wrote (april 22, 1863), "is much to be desired by any one who exercises a good influence over others. though deborah and barak work together, sisera the captain of the host must not suspect that he has been delivered into the hands of a woman." "i hope" (march 1865) "that you won't leave your incognito. it would seriously injure your influence if you were known to have influence. (did you know the baron stockmar whom sir robert peel called one of the most influential persons in europe? hardly any one in england excepting kings and queens knew of his existence. that was a model for that sort of life.) if you answer (anonymously, as i hope, if at all), may i beg you to answer with facts only and without a trace of feeling?" when he applauds some stroke, he urges her to find rest and comfort in the victory. "all this," he wrote (feb. 26, 1865), "i firmly believe would not have been accomplished but for your clearness of sight and intensity of purpose. is not this a thing to thank god about? i was reading in grote an account of an attempted spartan revolution in the times of agesilaus. one of the great objects of the ephori was to keep the spartan youth from getting under the influence of a woman (name unknown) who was stirring the rebellion. do you not think that woman may have been you in some former state of existence?" miss nightingale, perhaps in some justification for her eagerness in action, opened her heart fully to mr. jowett about her sense of loss in sidney herbert's death; explaining her loneliness in work, and yet her overmastering desire to complete, while strength was still granted to her, the "joint work" of her friend and herself. "i have often felt," he replied (aug. 7, 1865), "what a wreck and ruin lord herbert's death must have been to you. you had done so much for him and he had grown so rapidly in himself and in public estimation that there seemed no limits to what he might have effected. he might have been one of the most popular and powerful prime ministers in this country--the man to carry us through the social and ecclesiastical questions that are springing up. and you would have had a great part in his work and filled him with every noble and useful ambition. do not suppose that i don't feel and understand all this. (and you might have made me dean of christ church: the only preferment that i would like to have, and i would have reformed the university and bullied the canons.) but it has pleased god that all this should not be, and it must please us too, and we must carry on the struggle under greater difficulties, with more of hard and painful labour and less of success, still never flinching while life lasts." never flinching, but never fretting or fuming: that was the burden of mr. jowett's exhortations. "i sometimes think," he had written (july 9, 1865), "that you ought seriously to consider how your work may be carried on, not with less energy, but in a calmer spirit. think that the work of god neither hastes nor rests, and that we should go about it in the spirit of order which prevails in the world. i am not blaming the past (who would blame you who devote your life to the good of others?). but i want the peace of god to settle on the future. perhaps you will feel that in urging this i really can form no notion of your sufferings. alas, dear friend, i am afraid that this is true. still i must beg you to keep your mind above them. is that motive vain of being made perfect through suffering?" it is an idle speculation to wonder whether persons who have done great things in the world would have done as much or more or better if they had been other than they were. calm is well; but it is not always the spring of action. if miss nightingale had been less eager and impetuous, she might, after her return from the crimea, have done nothing at all. but perhaps already, in moments of weariness during the battle, and increasingly as the shadows lengthened into the pensive evening of her days, she may have felt that there was some truth in the soothing counsels of mr. jowett's friendship. that miss nightingale reciprocated his feelings of affectionate esteem is shown very clearly by the way in which she received his admonitions. she was not usually meek under even the gentlest reproaches of her friends; but, so far as mr. jowett's letters tell the story, she never resented anything he said; she expressed nothing but gratitude. i do not suppose that she never retorted. he advised her, as he advised everybody, to read boswell. i gather from one of his letters that she may have reminded him of dr. johnson's love of a good hater, for mr. jowett promises to try and satisfy her a little better in that respect in the future. and, as far as it was in him to do so, he seems to have kept his word. "hang the hebdomadal council," he wrote; or, of a certain meeting of another body, "i was opposed by two fools and a knave." there are passages about "rascals" and "rogue elephants" and "beasts," which are almost as downright as was miss nightingale herself in this sort. she returned to the full the sympathy which he gave to her. she was solicitous about his health. he promised to cut down his hours of reading, and never to work any more after midnight. "i cannot resist such a remonstrance as yours. i think that you would batter the gates of heaven or hell. seriously, i shall think of your letter as long as i live, dear friend." she asked to be kept informed of every move in the academical disputes which concerned him, the judgment in the case of _essays and reviews_, the dispute about the greek professorship, and so forth. he told her even of stupidities at college meetings--"not to be beaten," he said of one, "even by your war office." "i think you are the only person," he wrote (1865), "who encourages me about my work at oxford. i cannot be too grateful for your words." "i am delighted," he wrote again (oct. 27, 1866), "to have a friend who cares two straws whether i succeeded in a matter at oxford." she, as is clear from his letters, wrote to him, not only about her struggles and interests, but also about his; and he, on his side, discussed all her problems. he wanted her to spend herself no longer "on conflicts with government offices," but to devote her mind to some literary work in which successful effect would depend only on herself. in such work, moreover, he could perhaps help her. she, on her side, would like to help him with a sermon, the preparation of which was teasing him, and there is a long draft amongst her papers of the heads of a discourse, suggested by her, on the relation of religion to politics. "i sometimes use _your_ hints," he had written earlier. "a pupil of mine has a passion for public life, and having the means, is likely to get into parliament. i said to him, 'you are a fanatic, that cannot be helped, but you must try to be a "rational fanatic."'" each of the friends thought very highly of the powers and services of the other. "there is nothing you might not accomplish," he says to her. he turns off what she must have said of him with playful deprecation: "about elijah--you must mean the honble. elijah pogram. there is no other elijah to whom i bear the least resemblance." and each valued the friendship as a means of enabling them both to serve god more truly. "the spirit of the twenty-third psalm and the spirit of the ninetieth psalm should be united in our lives." her friendship with mr. jowett was, i cannot doubt, miss nightingale's greatest consolation in these strenuous years. she was immersed in official drudgery, never forgetful, it is true, of the end in the means, but sorely vexed and harassed by the difficulties and disappointments of circumstance. her friend's letters and conversation raised her above the conflict into a purer and calmer atmosphere. not indeed that mr. jowett was a quietist; she would little have respected him had he been so; but though in the world, he was not of it; he was unsoiled by the dust of the great road. she had, it is true, other and yet more unworldly friends--nuns in convents and matrons or nurses in hospitals. with them, too, she exchanged intimate confidences in spiritual matters; but their standpoint was not hers, and the exchange could only be with mental reservations on her part. to mr. jowett she was able to open unreservedly her truest thoughts. and then, too, the dearest of her other friends paid her an almost adoring worship, whilst some who were estranged offered only unsympathetic criticism. it was from mr. jowett alone that she heard the language of affectionate and understanding remonstrance. she heard it gladly, because she knew that it was sympathetic, and because she felt that her friend's character was attuned to her own highest ideals. thirty years after the date at which we have now arrived (1866), miss nightingale read through the hundreds of letters she had received and kept from mr. jowett. she made copious extracts from them in pencil, and sent several to his biographers. many of his letters to her were included in his _life_, though the name of the recipient was not disclosed. she was jealous in her life-time of the privacy of her life. she rebuked mr. jowett once for accepting a copy of her cousin's statuette of her. he explained that he had placed it where it would not be observed. "i consider you," he had already written, "a sort of royal personage, not to be gossiped about with any one." the letters to her, hitherto published, were selected to throw light upon his views. in this memoir, in which it has been decided to give (if it may be) a truthful picture of her life and character, i select rather those letters which show the influence of his character upon hers. the following was noted by miss nightingale as "one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, of the whole collection":- askrigg, _july_ [1864]. i am afraid that hard-working persons are very bad correspondents, at least i know that i am, or i should have written to you long ago, which i have always a pleasure in doing. but plato, who is either my greatest friend or my greatest enemy, and has finally swelled into three large volumes (you will observe that i am proud of the size of my baby), is to blame for preventing me. this place, at which i shall be staying for about five weeks longer, is at the head of wensleydale, high among mountains in a most beautiful country, and what, i think, adds greatly to the charm of the country, very pleasing for the simplicity and intelligence of the people. among the enjoyments which i have here, which notwithstanding plato are really very great, i cannot help remembering you at 115 park street. i wish you would venture to see something more of the sights and sounds of nature. you will never persuade me that your way of life is altogether the best for health any more than i could persuade you into mr. gladstone's doctrine of the salubrity of living over a churchyard. as to the rest, i have no doubt that you could not be better than you are. i don't wish to exaggerate (for you are the last person to whom i should think of offering compliments), but i certainly believe that it has been a great national good that you have taken up the whole question of the sanitary condition of the soldier and not confined yourself to hospitals. the difficulties and stupidities would have been as great in the case of the hospitals, and the object really far inferior in importance. besides you could never have gained the influence over medical men with their professional jealousies that you have had over the war office and the indian government. also, if your life is spared a few years longer, a great deal more may be done. there are many resources that are not yet exhausted. therefore never listen to the voice that tells you in a moment of weariness or pain that you ought to have adhered to your old vocation. i suppose there have been persons who have had so strong _a sense of the identity of their own action with the will of god as to exclude every other feeling, who have never wished to live nor wished to die except as they fulfil his will_? can we acquire this? i don't know. but _such a sense of things would no doubt give infinite rest and almost infinite power_. perhaps quietists have been most successful in gaining this sort of feeling, but the quietists are not the people who have passed all their lives rubbing and fighting against the world. but _i don't see why active life might not become a sort of passive life too, passive in the hands of god and in the fulfilment of the laws of nature. i sometimes fancy that there are possibilities of human character much greater than have been realized_, mysteries, as they may be called, of character and manner and style which remain to be called forth and explained. one great field for thought on this subject is the manner in which character may grow and change quite late in life.... [the rest of the letter is about the politics of the day.] the passages which i have printed in italics are those which miss nightingale had specially marked. "can we help one another," he wrote in the following year (march 5, 1865), "to make life a higher and nobler sort of thing--more of a calm and peaceful and never-ending service of god? perhaps--a little." the marked passages show in what way miss nightingale found in mr. jowett's friendship a source of comfort, and a fresh inspiration towards her own spiritual ideals. in her meditations of later years, a greater "passivity in action" was the state of perfection which she constantly sought to attain. * * * * * mr. jowett, as will have been noted, sought to reassure her about her concentration for the most part upon work for the army and for india. and indeed she was herself intensely devoted to it, nor was it ever deposed from a principal place in her thoughts and interests. yet there were times, as shown in a letter already quoted (p. 82), when she felt that this work, insistently though it appealed to her, though it was bound up with some of her fondest memories, was all the while, if not a kind of desertion, yet at best only a temporary call. her first "call from god" had been to service in another sort, and she was anxious to make peace with "those first affections." in january 1864 she sent these instructions to mrs. bracebridge, who directed that if miss nightingale should survive her they were to be handed on to mrs. sutherland:- you know that i always believed it to be god's will for me that i should live and die in hospitals. when this call he has made upon me for other work stops, and i am no longer able to work, i should wish to be taken to st. thomas's hospital and to be placed _in a general ward_ (which is what i should have desired had i come to my end as a hospital matron). and i beg you to be so very good as to see that this my wish is accomplished, whenever the time comes, if you will take the trouble as a true friend, which you always have been, are, and will be. and this will make me die in peace because i believe it to be god's will. it was not so to be. but we shall find, on opening the next part in the story of miss nightingale's long life, that she was presently to have time for helping forward the movement, which she had promoted as a reformer of hospitals and as the founder of modern nursing, into a new and a wider field. chapter vi new masters (1866) among new men, strange faces, other minds. tennyson. the year 1866 was one of stirring events both at home and abroad. it saw the downfall of the whig administration which, with a brief interval (1858-59), had held office under different chiefs since december 1852. in march mr. gladstone, now leader of the house of commons, introduced a reform bill, of which the fortunes were uncertain owing to the dissent of the adullamites under mr. lowe. on april 27 the second reading was carried by a majority of five only. on june 18 the government was defeated in committee on lord dunkellin's amendment, and resigned. on the day before lord russell's government was defeated war was declared between austria and her allies on the one side, and prussia and italy on the other. prussia, armed with her new breech-loading gun, quickly defeated austria. the foundation of the future german empire under the hegemony of prussia was laid, and italy, as part of the price of a victory not hers, received from austria the province of venetia. of these great events, some brought consequences with them to causes in which miss nightingale was deeply interested, whilst others made direct demands on her exertions. the earlier months of the year were thus a period of continuous and almost feverish activity on her part. two of her letters--the former written when the fate of the government was still trembling in the balance, the latter written when the new government had been installed and when the war was raging on the continent--will serve to introduce the subjects of this chapter:- (_miss nightingale to harriet martineau._) 35 south street, _may_ 2 [1866].... we have been rather in a fever lately because ministers were hovering between in and out. mr. villiers promised us a bill quite early in the year for a london uniform poor rate for the _sick_ and consolidated hospitals under a central management. (this was before we got our earls and archbishops and m.p.'s together to storm him in his den.) we shall not get our bill this session, for mr. villiers is afraid of losing the government one vote. but we shall certainly get it in time. "in 1860 the consolations of the future never failed me for a moment. and i find them now an equally secure resource." can you guess who wrote those words? they are in a note from mr. gladstone written the morning of his speech on the franchise bill. could you have believed he was so much in earnest? i could not. and yet i knew him once very well. his speech (he was ill) impressed the house very much. "and e'en the ranks of tuscany could scarce forbear to cheer." ... (_miss nightingale to julius mohl._) 35 south street, _july_ 12 [1866]. i have been in the thick of all these changes of government. i should like, if you had been in england, to have shown you the notes i have had from those going out, and those coming in--especially from my own peculiar masters, lord de grey and lord stanley. they are so much more serious and anxious than the world gives them credit for. i used to think public opinion was higher than private opinion. i now think just the reverse. as for the _times_ and about all these german affairs--i believe the _times_ to be a faithful reflection of the public opinion of our upper classes: see what it is. last week prussia and bismarck were the greatest criminals in europe. this week the needle-gun (i mean prussia and bismarck--no, i mean the needle-gun) is a constitutional protestant--or a protestant constitution, i am not sure which.... but i was going to tell you: lord stanley has taken the foreign office (how he or anybody could take willingly the foreign office, england having now so little weight in european councils, in preference to the india office which lord stanley created[67] and where we _create_ the future of 150 millions of men, one can't understand). lord stanley accepted the foreign office solely because he could not help it--lord clarendon (which i saw under his own hand) having "unhesitatingly declined" it, although lord derby made the most vehement love to him, even to offering to him the nomination of half the places in the cabinet. this i heard from lord clarendon himself.... like you, i can't sleep or eat for thinking of this war. i can't distract my thoughts from it--because, you know, it is my business. i am consulted on both sides as to their hospital and sanitary arrangements.... and then those stupid italians publish parts of my letter--just the froth at the end, you know, while i had given them a solid pudding of advice at their own request--publish it cruelly, without my leave, with my address--since which my doors have been besieged by all exiles of all nations asking to be sent to italy, and women threatening to "_accoucher_" (_sic_) in my passage. i sometimes think i must give up business, _i.e._ work, or life. it would take two strong policemen to keep my beggars in check. no one could believe the stories i should have to tell--people who beg of me whom i might just as well beg of ... [a sheet missing]. of course now i have to begin again at the very beginning with mr. gathorne hardy at the poor law board, to get our metropolitan workhouse infirmary bill. it was a cruel disappointment to me to see the bill go just as i had it in my grasp. also: a public health service organization for sir john lawrence in india which i lost by 24 hours!! owing to lord de grey's going out. however, i am well nigh done for. life is too hard for me. i have suffered so very much all the winter and spring, for which nothing did me any good but a curious new-fangled little operation of putting opium in under the skin, which relieves one for 24 hours, but does not improve the vivacity or serenity of one's intellect. when ministers went out, i had hopes for a time from a committee of the house of commons (on which serves john stuart mill) "on the special local government of the metropolis." at their request i wrote them a long letter. then because it is july and they are rather hot, they give it up for this year. the change of ministers, which brings hard work to us drudges, releases the house of commons men. alas! (there is a pathetic story of balzac's, in which a poor woman who had followed the russian campaign, was never able to articulate any word except _adieu, adieu, adieu!_ i am afraid of going mad like her and not being able to articulate any word but _alas! alas! alas!_)--f. n. [67] lord stanley had been president of the board of control in 1858, in which capacity he conducted the india bill through the house of commons, and on its passage he became the first secretary of state for india. ii of the events over which miss nightingale cried alas! in this letter, the one which came first was the loss of mr. villiers's poor law bill. the loss, however, as she rightly surmised in writing to miss martineau, was only temporary. the whole subject is connected with a distinct branch of miss nightingale's work, of which a description must be reserved for the next chapter. she was in large measure, as we shall hear, the founder of sick nursing among the indigent poor, and a pioneer in poor law reform. the next event is connected with a subject with which we have already made acquaintance. miss nightingale "lost by 24 hours the opportunity of organizing a public health service in india for sir john lawrence." the story of this lost opportunity and its retrieval illustrate the truth of something said already;[68] namely, the difference it made that there was in london, in the person of miss nightingale, a resolute enthusiast, to whom the question of indian sanitation was not "one of a thousand questions," but the one question of absorbing interest. that the opportunity of which she spoke was lost, was not, as by this time the reader will hardly need to be told, in any way whatever the fault of miss nightingale. it is a curious story, and is the subject of a great mass of correspondence amongst her papers--a mass eloquent of the eager interest and infinite trouble which she devoted to the matter; but the story itself admits of being told succinctly. a few words, however, are first necessary on the essential issues; it was not a case of much ado about nothing. the whole future of sanitary progress in india was, or might reasonably be thought to be, at stake. under the energetic rule of sir john lawrence, a good start had been made. the governor-general continued to report progress to miss nightingale, and suggestions which she sent were communicated by him to his officers. but the larger questions of organization had still to be settled. sir john's eagerness as a sanitary reformer was in some measure held in check by shortage of money. "sanitary works," as lord salisbury remarked at a later stage of the affair, "are uniformly costly works." miss nightingale's view was that whether advance was to be slower or quicker, the organization should be on lines which would ensure the importance of advance being constantly kept in mind. she insisted that the public health service in india should be a separate service, responsible to the governor-general in council, not a subordinate branch tucked away under some other department. this is the burden of many letters and memoranda from her hand. [68] above, p. 58. early in 1866 a double opportunity seemed to offer itself to miss nightingale for advancing her cause. at the beginning of february sir charles wood resigned office, and her friend, lord de grey, became secretary of state for india in his place. at the same time she had received an important letter from the governor-general (dated calcutta, jan. 19). her friend, mr. ellis, who had been in conclave (as we have heard) with her and her circle, had shortly before submitted proposals to him. sir john lawrence wrote to her: "as regards the reconstruction of our sanitary organizations, we are sending home to the secretary of state a copy of mr. ellis's note which he sent me, and are proposing a further change somewhat in accordance with his plan. i have no doubt that you will see the dispatch, and therefore i had better not send it to you." he then went on to give a summary of its contents. the summary was brief, and allowed of different opinions as to the ultimate bearing of the governor-general's proposals. he had assumed as a matter of course that she would be shown his dispatch, and she applied to her official friends for a sight of it. they would be delighted if they had it, but they had received no such dispatch; perhaps it would come by the next mail. but it did not, nor by the next, nor the next, for a very simple reason, as will presently appear. miss nightingale put on her friend mr. ellis, who as the head of a presidency health commission had a direct _locus standi_, to inquire and even to search at the india office. "they swear by their gods," he reported, "that they have no such dispatch." miss nightingale was becoming desperate. she was perfectly certain that sir john lawrence must have sent it. meanwhile the home government was tottering to its fall; the new secretary of state might be one who knew not miss nightingale. she entreated that a further search should be made. on may 5 she was told that "at last the sanitary minute had been found, and a copy of it was sent for her consideration. it had been attached to some papers connected with the financial department and thus had escaped attention. lord de grey begged miss nightingale to let him have the benefit of her opinion upon it as soon as possible." she afterwards learnt that it was the secretary of state himself who, with his own hands, had searched for and found the governor-general's minute. it had "escaped attention" for nearly four months. the incident did not raise miss nightingale's opinion of government offices, or lessen her sense of responsibility in the duty of keeping the sanitary question to the fore. she was ill when the minister's message arrived; but she at once set to work, and on may 7 she sent in a memorandum giving a summary of her views, and pointing out wherein the governor-general's proposals seemed to require revision if the recommendations of the royal commission were to be carried out effectually. the minister was busy with many things. his own fate and that of his colleagues were in peril every day. a month intervened before the next move was taken. on june 11 miss nightingale was asked by lord de grey, through captain galton, to develop her views further and to draw up, in consultation with dr. sutherland, "a draft letter which he could submit to the indian council as his reply to sir john lawrence." the letter was to take the form either of "a practical scheme to propose to sir john lawrence for the sanitary administration of india" or of "such a description of the requirements as would draw from sir j. l. a practical scheme." it was suggested that perhaps it would be best if the letter (1) shadowed out the requirements and (2) sketched a scheme of administration for carrying them out. this was a large order and took time. on june 19 miss nightingale sent in her draft. she was "24 hours" too late, for on june 18 the government had been defeated. there was, however, a short period of grace owing to the absence of the queen at balmoral and to her unwillingness to accept lord russell's resignation.[69] lord de grey had no time to pass the letter through the secretary of state's council, but he did what he could. he left on record at the india office, he told miss nightingale, a minute[70] closely following the lines of her memorandum. if his successor let the matter go to sleep again, lord de grey would be ready to call attention to it in parliament. he assured miss nightingale that his interest in such questions would remain as warm as ever, and as she was now more likely than he to know what was going on, he begged her to keep him informed. [69] in one of mr. jowett's letters to miss nightingale (june 1866) there is this story of lord russell. "on the evening of the crisis he was not to be found. he had gone down to richmond to hear the nightingales (your cousins)! 'and the provoking thing,' as he wrote to a friend, 'was that they did not sing that night.'" [70] the substance of it may be found at p. 11 of the _memorandum_ (as cited above, p. 34 _n._). iii so, then, she had been too late. "i am furious to that degree," she wrote to captain galton (june 23), "at having lost lord de grey's five months at the india office that i am fit to blow you all to pieces with an infernal machine of my own invention." she threw some of the blame upon dr. sutherland, whose mission to the mediterranean she had not been able to cancel, and who, for weeks at a time during this year, was absent at malta and gibraltar or in algiers. algiers, indeed, she wrote tauntingly, "why not astley's?" that would be quite as good a change for him. sometimes she varied the figure, and dr. sutherland and his party figured in her letters as wombwell's menagerie. "the menagerie, i hear," she wrote (jan. 26), "including three ladies, h.m. commissioners, and two ladies' maids, has gone after a column in the interior." had he stayed at home, he might have been able to find the missing dispatch; and in any case they could have written at leisure, from the hints in sir john lawrence's letter to her, the memorandum which they ultimately had to write in haste. the truant seems to have foreseen what a rod in pickle was awaiting him on his return. "i have been thinking," he wrote to her from algiers (jan. 28), "will she be glad to hear from me? or will she swear? i don't know, but nevertheless i will tell her a bit of my mind about our visit to astley's." and he goes on to write an admirable account of his experiences, in which he ingeniously emphasizes the vast importance of his inquiries in connection with their indian work. nor was this only an excuse; dr. sutherland's report on algeria, and the french sanitary service there, was a most valuable piece of work. it is impossible to read his writings--whether in published reports or in his manuscripts among miss nightingale's papers--without perceiving how well based was the reliance which she placed upon his collaboration. his wife stayed at home and saw much of miss nightingale. mrs. sutherland must have reported the state of things in south street; for a month later dr. sutherland wrote thus to miss nightingale (feb. 20): "the mail which ought to have arrived yesterday came in to-day, and i am trying to save the out mail, which leaves the harbour at 12, without much prospect of success. i have had a letter to-day from home about you, and if it had come yesterday, ellis and i would certainly have been embarking to-day for england. after the account of your suffering, and of the pressure of business under which you are sinking, i feel wild to get away from this. to-night we leave algeria, and by the time you get this we will be on our way home. god bless you and keep you to us. amen." well, i can only hope that dr. sutherland enjoyed his trip while it lasted; for i fear that he may have had a bad quarter-of-an-hour when he reported himself at south street on his return. she had complained of his absence to another of her close allies, dr. farr. "i have all dr. sutherland's business to do," she wrote (jan. 19), "besides my own. if it could be done, i should not mind. i had just as soon wear out in two months as in two years, so the work be done. but it can't. it is just like two men going into business with a million each. the one suddenly withdraws. the other may wear himself to the bone, but he can't meet the engagements with one million which he made with two. add to this, i have been so ill since the beginning of the year as to be often unable to have my position moved from pain for 48 hours at a time. but to business...." one good stroke of business, however, miss nightingale had been able to do during dr. sutherland's absence. she reported it to dr. farr: "the compensation to my disturbed state of mind has been a convert to the sanitary cause i have made for madras--no less a person than lord napier. i managed to scramble up to see him before he sailed." the "conversion" means not necessarily that lord napier needed to find salvation, but refers rather to the fact that his predecessor in the governorship of madras had been unsympathetic. lord napier, on receiving the appointment, had expressed a desire to learn miss nightingale's views. he had been secretary to the british embassy at constantinople during the crimean war, and had there formed a high opinion of her ability and devotion. she now wrote to him about indian sanitary reform, and he at once replied:- (_lord napier to miss nightingale._) 24 princes gate, _feb._ 16 [1866]. i beg you to believe that i am far from being impatient of your communication or indifferent to your wishes. i have read your letter with great interest, and i regret that you had not time and strength to make it longer. you will confer a great favour on me by sending me the 8vo volume of which you speak, and i would not stumble at the two folio blue books.... the sanitary question like the railway question or the irrigation question will probably remain subordinated in some degree to financial requirements, to the necessity of shewing a surplus at the end of the year; but within the limits of my available resources i promise you a zealous intervention on behalf of the cause you have so much at heart. you say that you do not know me well; but you cannot deprive me of the happiness and honor of having seen you at the greatest moment of your life in the little parlour of the hospital at scutari. i was a spectator, and i would have been a fellow-labourer if any one would have employed my services. i remain at your orders for any day and hour.--very sincerely yours, napier. their interview took place three days later. lord napier, during his governorship of madras, which lasted six years, tried hard to fulfil his promise. to other matters he attended also; but it was to questions connected with the public health that he devoted his most particular attention, and throughout his residence in india he kept up a correspondence with miss nightingale about them. iv meanwhile on the immediate question of the moment she had been too late, and her political friends were out. she was a whig and a keen reformer; but she was a sanitarian before she was a politician, and as soon as the whigs fell she was on the alert to make friends for her causes with the mammon of unrighteousness. she was eager to hear the earliest political news:- (_miss nightingale to captain galton._) _june_ 27.... now do write to a wretched female, f. n., about _who_ is to come in _where_. does gen. peel come to the war office? if so, will he annihilate our civil sanitary element? is sutherland to go all the same to malta and gibraltar this autumn? will gen. peel imperil the army sanitary commission? i _must_ know: ye infernal powers! is mr. lowe to come in to the india office? it is all unmitigated disaster to me. for, as lord stanley is to be foreign office (the only place where he can be of _no_ use to us), i shall not have a friend in the world. if i were to say more, i should fall to swearing, i am so indignant.--ever yours furiously, f. n. captain galton replied that he had it from mr. lowe himself that he would not join the tories; that of the actual appointments he had not as yet heard; but that as the secretary of state's was an impersonal office, dr. sutherland's commission to visit the mediterranean would still hold good--or bad. "you say the s. of s. is an impersonal creature," replied miss nightingale (july 3); "i wish he wuz!" when the names of the new ministers were announced, captain galton threw out a suggestion tentatively that lord cranborne[71] (india office) might be approachable through lady cranborne. "i have a much better recommendation to him than that," wrote miss nightingale in some triumph (july 7), "and have already been put into 'direct communication' with him, _not_ at my own request." the letters tell the story of her introduction to new masters at the india office and the poor law board:- (_lord stanley to miss nightingale._) st. james's square, _july_ 6. i shall see lord cranborne to-day (we go down to be sworn in) and will tell him the whole sanitary story, and also say that i have advised you to write to him as you have always done to me to my great advantage. you will find him shrewd, industrious, and a good man of business. [71] better known as the marquis of salisbury, to which title he succeeded in 1868. (_miss nightingale to lord cranborne._) 35 south street, _july_ 17. lord stanley had the kindness to advise me to write to you, and to tell _me_ that he would tell _you_ that he had "advised" me "to write to" you as i "have done to" him. this is my only excuse for what would otherwise be a very great impertinence and what i fear may seem to you such even now, viz. my present application to you on the india public health question. i know i ought to begin, "miss nightingale presents her compliments to lord cranborne." but the "third person" always becomes confused. lord stanley has probably scarcely had the time to tell you my long story. i fear, therefore, i must introduce myself, by saying that my apology for what you may (justly) consider an unwarrantable interference must be--the part i have taken in the public health of the army in india for the last 8 years, having been in communication with lord stanley, sir c. wood, and lord de grey about it, and being now in constant communication with sir john lawrence and others in india on the same subject. when lord de grey left office, lord stanley, of his own accord, kindly asked whether he should "put" me "in direct communication" with you. this is my general apology. my particular one is: that by last mail i received some very pressing letters from india on the subject of the introduction of an efficient public health administration into india, which is after this wise:--the spirit of the very general recommendations made by the r. commission which reported in 1863 (presided over by lord stanley) had never been completely acted up to--there have been difficulties and clashings in consequence. a minute (of january 9, 1866) was sent home by sir john lawrence proposing to connect the public health service with the inspectorship of prisons. the proposal appears to have been made without due consideration of the importance and greatness of the duties; if it were carried out, it would put an end, we believe, to any prospect of efficient progress. (i think i am correct in saying that lord stanley concurs in this view.) lord de grey was deeply impressed with this defect in the scheme; he drew up a minute (just before he left office) in order to leave his views on record for you, setting forth generally the duties, and asking for a reconsideration of the subject in india, before the organisation was finally decided on--of the public health service. i would now venture to ask your favourable consideration for this proposal, because, on the organisation of a service adequate for the object, depends the entire future of the public health in india. we commit ourselves into your hands. (_lord cranborne to miss nightingale._) india office, _july 17_. i am much obliged to you for your letter; and especially for your kindness in relieving me from the literary effort of composing a letter or series of letters in the third person. lord stanley spoke to me about the sanitary question some days ago, and told me i should probably hear from you. i have made enquiries as to the despatch you mention, and find that it is in the office still awaiting decision. no confirmation of it shall take place until i have communicated further with you upon the subject. i shall not be able to go into the sanitary question until i have disposed of the claims of the indian officers, which, according to all the best authorities, are very urgently in need of immediate settlement. but as soon as that is done with, i hope that the sanitary question may be taken up without delay. (_mr. gathorne hardy to miss nightingale._) poor law board, _july_ 25. you owe me no apology for calling my attention to material points connected with the subject in the consideration of which you are so much engaged. i should say this to any one who wrote in the same spirit as yourself, but i am really indebted to you who have earned no common title to advise and suggest upon anything which affects the treatment of the sick. your note arrived at the very instant when a gentleman was urging me to lay before you questions relating to workhouse infirmaries, and i should not have hesitated to do so if needful even without the cordial invitation which you give me to ask your assistance. at present i have not advanced very far from want of time, as while parliament is sitting i am necessarily very much occupied with other business, and i am anxious to remedy, if possible, present and urgent grievances before i enter thoroughly upon legislation for the future. i shall bear in mind the offer which you have made and in all probability avail myself of it to the full. so, then, perhaps miss nightingale would not be left wholly friendless after all. she was to have new masters. would they, or would they not, accept her service? we shall hear in due course. v meanwhile miss nightingale had been very busily engaged with the correspondence and other tasks thrown upon her by the outbreak of war in europe. "saw florence for half an hour this morning," reported her father (june); "over-fatigued certainly, but speaking with a voice only too loud and strong. princess [alice of] hesse writes to her to ask for instructions for the hospitals there, and sutherland's joke is 'there's nothing left for _you_, all is gone to garibaldi.'" she had been applied to by representatives of all three combatants. prussia, as usual, was the better prepared, and the crown princess had written to miss nightingale in march (three months before hostilities actually began) asking for her assistance and advice about hospital and nursing arrangements. a prussian manufacturer communicated with her about the best form of hospital tents for field-service. the two sisters of the british royal house were on opposite sides in this war, for hesse-darmstadt had thrown in its lot with austria; but it was not till after the outbreak of hostilities that the princess alice wrote to miss nightingale through lady ely[72] for advice about war hospitals. miss nightingale at once sent it. her memorandum, she was told (july 3), had been forwarded to prince louis for use at headquarters, and the princess begged her to send further information for use by the hospital authorities in darmstadt. the italians had been earlier in "going to miss nightingale." the secretary of the "florence committee for helping the sick and wounded" had written to her for advice in may. her reply caused great delight, as an english correspondent at florence recorded. "i have read the letter," he wrote, "which will be translated and inserted in the _nazione_. miss nightingale gives, with her accustomed clearness and precision, excellent advice to the committee, which some of them very much need. at the same time she expresses her cordial sympathy with the italian cause. she recalls the admirable condition in which the sardinian army was landed in the crimea, and the praise which its appearance extorted from lord clyde. and she concludes her letter by saying that if the sacrifice of her poor life would hasten their cause by one half-hour, she would gladly give it them. but she is a miserable invalid."[73] the committee had asked whether she would not come to italy "were it but for one day" in order to inspire them by her presence. her piece of "froth" (as she called it) was widely printed in the italian press. she had deplored the outbreak of the war, but when it resulted in an extension of the boundaries of free italy she felt that there were compensations. miss nightingale also joined the committee of the "ladies' association" formed in this country "for the relief of the sick and wounded of all nations engaged." she advised the committee on the form of aid most requisite, and at the end of the war, in thanking the crown princess of prussia for a letter, she gave her royal highness an account of what had been done by the english committee. the correspondence with the princess was long, and it formed a new tie between miss nightingale and mr. jowett, who was a great favourite with the crown princess and who entertained a very high opinion of her abilities. the answering letter from the princess covers eighteen pages, containing (as dr. sutherland said of it) "just the kind of practical information which a person who has had experience in these matters desires to obtain." a characteristic extract or two from the correspondence on each side must here suffice:- (_miss nightingale to the crown princess of prussia._) 35 south street, _sept._ 22 [1866].... i think your royal highness may be pleased to hear even the humble opinion of an old campaigner like myself about how well the army hospital service was managed in the late terrible war. information reached me through my old friends and trainers of kaiserswerth. the knights of st. john of jerusalem took charge of all the deaconesses and all the offers of houses and rooms made to them. the system seems to me to have been admirably managed--especially the sending away the wounded in hundreds to towns where rooms and houses and nursing were offered. the overcrowding and massing together of large numbers of wounded is always more disastrous than battle itself. from many different quarters i have heard of the great devotion, skill and generous kindness of the prussian surgeons--to all sides alike.... on this, the day of manin's death nine years ago, the exiled dictator of venice and one of the purest and most far-seeing of statesmen, who fought so good a battle for the freedom of venice, but who did not live to see its accomplishment, i cannot but congratulate your royal highness, at the risk of impertinence, at seeing the fulfilment of that liberation brought about by prussian arms. [72] lady ely as lady-in-waiting on queen victoria had made miss nightingale's acquaintance at balmoral in 1856. [73] _daily telegraph_ (foreign intelligence), june 12, 1866. (_the crown princess of prussia to miss nightingale._) new palace, potsdam, _sept._ 29. i was delighted to receive your long and interesting letter yesterday, and hasten to express my warmest thanks for it. every appreciation of prussia in england can but give me the greatest pleasure.... as you are such an advocate for fresh air, i cannot refrain from telling you what i have myself _seen_ in confirmation of your opinion on the subject, and what i am sure would interest dear sir james clark, who is your great ally on this point. in a small well-kept hospital, where wounded soldiers had been taken care of for some time, the wounds in several cases did not seem to improve, the general state of health of the patients did not show any progress. they were feverish, and the appearance of the wounds was that of the beginning of mortification. in the garden of the hospital there was a shed or summer-house of rough boards, with a wooden roof; the little building was quite open in front and on the other sides closed up with boards but with an aperture of two feet all the way under the roof--so that it was like being out of doors. six patients were moved down into this shed (sorely against their will, they were afraid of catching cold). the very next day they got better; the fever left them, the condition of the wounds became healthy; they enjoyed their summer-house--in spite of two violent storms which knocked down the tables; and all quickly recovered! i had seen them every day upstairs and saw them every day in the garden; the difference was incredible.... the crown prince wishes me to say what pleasure it gives him to hear you speak in praise of our prussian army surgeons.... i remain ever, dear miss nightingale, yours sincerely, princess royal. among other details, a particular kind of field-ambulance was mentioned by the crown princess as having proved very useful. miss nightingale at once put dr. longmore, of our own hospital service, in possession of the facts. it will have been seen that miss nightingale's experience was much requisitioned in the war of 1866; but the organization of war-nursing under the red cross had not then attained full development owing to the fact that the austrian government had not ratified the geneva convention of 1864. in 1867 a gold medal was awarded to miss nightingale by the conference of red cross societies at paris. in 1870 (march 31) the austrian patriotic society for the relief of wounded soldiers elected her an honorary member. vi the year 1866 was, then, one of great activity with miss nightingale; but by the middle of august her work was not at such high pressure as in the preceding months. parliament was up, and the new ministers, with whom she had established friendly relations, were turning round. at this time a home call came to miss nightingale. her mother was reported to be ailing. she was disinclined to make the usual move with her husband from hampshire to derbyshire; so, while the father went to lea hurst, miss nightingale decided to stay with her mother at embley. it was an event in the family circle, for florence had not been to either of the homes for ten years. there was much correspondence and many preparations. father and mother were equally delighted, and the journey in an invalid carriage did the daughter no serious harm. she stayed at embley from the middle of august till the end of november. it was the first holiday she had taken, for ten years also; but it was not much of a holiday either. she set to work on the health of romsey, the nearest town, and of winchester, the county town. she wrote up to her friend dr. farr at the registrar-general's office for the mortality tables, found the figures for those towns above the average, and bade the citizens look to their drains. then she commanded dr. sutherland to embley for the transaction of business in view of next year's session. she found her mother happy and cheerful. "i don't think my dear mother was ever more touching or interesting to me," she wrote to madame mohl (aug. 21), "than she is now in her state of dilapidation. she is so much gentler, calmer, more thoughtful." she was a little critical, however, of her mother still, and thought her habits self-indulgent. poor lady! she was 78; she had been shaken and bruised in a carriage accident, and was threatened with the loss of her eye-sight. certainly, florence was not always able to make due allowances for other people. but if she was critical of others, she was yet more severe with herself. during this holiday at embley, she resumed those written self-examinations and meditations for which, frequent in her earlier years, she seems to have found little time during the strenuous decade 1856-66. "i never failed in energy," she said once in later years; "but to do everything from the best motive--that is quite another thing." in reviewing her past life on october 21, 1866, the anniversary of her departure for the crimea, and on subsequent days, she seems to have had a like thought. her meditations were not so much of what she had done as of what she had done amiss; her resolutions were of greater purity of motive, and greater peace, through a more entire trust in god: "called to be the 'handmaid of the lord,' and i have complained of my suffering life! what return does god expect from me--with what _purity of heart_ and _intention_ should i make an offering of myself to him! the word of the lord unto thee: he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.... but, when we are ill, how can we be like god? i look up and see the drops of dew, blue, golden, green, and red, glittering in the sun on the top of the deciduous cypress--_that_ is like god. we see him for a moment--we perceive his beauty. it lights us, even when we lie here prostrate.... blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see god--in all temptation, trials, and aridities, in the agony and bloody sweat, in the cross and passion: this is not the prerogative of the future life, but of the present." part vi many threads (1867-1872) i beg of you and pray you to look back upon the past with thankfulness and upon the future with hope--when there has been so much done and there is so much to do ... many beginnings and ravelled threads to be woven in and completed.--benjamin jowett (_letter to miss nightingale_, 1867). chapter i workhouse reform (1864-1867) from the first i had a sort of fixed faith that florence nightingale could do anything, and that faith is still fresh in me; and so it came to pass that the instant that name entered the lists i felt the fight was virtually won, and i feel this still.- h. b. farnell, poor law inspector (dec. 1866). fifty years ago the state of things which miss nightingale had seen, and cured, in the military hospitals during the crimean war was almost equalled, and was in some respects surpassed in scandal, by the condition of the peace hospitals for the sick poor at home. those hospitals were the sick wards or infirmaries of workhouses, for the hospitals usually so-called skim only the surface of sickness in any great town. the state of the metropolitan workhouses, as reported upon by the poor law board in 1866, showed that the sick wards were for the most part insanitary and overcrowded; that the beds were insufficient and admirably contrived to induce sores; that the eating and drinking vessels were unclean; that there was a deficiency of basins, towels, brushes and combs; that the food for the patients was cooked by paupers and frequently served cold; that although the medical officers did their duty to the best of their ability, the attendance given and the salaries paid were inadequate to the needs of the sick. as for the nursing, it was done by paupers, many of whom could neither read nor write, whose love of drink often drove them to rob the sick of stimulants, and whose treatment of the poor was characterized neither by judgment nor by gentleness. this is the restrained euphemism of an official report.[74] sometimes a patient would miss the ministration of a nurse for days because the pauper charged to give it was herself bed-ridden. the rule of one nurse was to give medicine three times a day to the very ill and once to the rather ill. it was administered in a gallipot; the nurse "poured out the medicine and judged according." cases were reported in which a patient's bed was not made for five days and nights; in which patients had no food from 4 o'clock in the afternoon of one day to 8 o'clock in the morning of the next; in which patients died, or, to speak more correctly, were killed, by the most wanton neglect. [74] mr. farnall's report, 1866, summarized in the majority report of the poor law commission, 1909, p. 239. the statements which follow above are from _an account of the condition of the infirmaries of london workhouses, printed for the association for the improvement of infirmaries_, 1866. the dawn of a better day came with the passing of the metropolitan poor act of 1867, an act which figures in histories of the poor law in this country as "the starting-point of the modern development of poor law medical relief." many persons contributed to this reform. in the case of london, a "commission," instituted by the _lancet_, under mr. ernest hart, which afterwards developed into the "association for the improvement of the infirmaries of london workhouses," should especially be mentioned. but the person who inspired the proper nursing of the sick poor, and who, behind the scenes, was a prime mover in the legislation of 1867, was florence nightingale. ii the reform began in liverpool, and the initiative was due to a philanthropist of that city, mr. william rathbone. he used to speak of miss nightingale as his "beloved chief"; and she, when he died, sent a wreath inscribed "in remembrance and humblest love of one of god's best and greatest sons." his voluminous correspondence with her began in 1861 when he was desirous of introducing a system of district nursing among the poor of liverpool. there were no trained nurses anywhere to be had, and he consulted miss nightingale. she suggested to him that liverpool had better train nurses for itself in its own principal hospital, the royal infirmary. mr. rathbone took up the idea, and built a training school and home for nurses. this institution provided nurses both for the royal infirmary and for poor patients in their own homes. miss nightingale gave to all mr. rathbone's plans as close and constant consideration "as if she were going to be herself the matron."[75] the scheme was started in 1862, and it proved so great a success that mr. rathbone was encouraged to attempt an extension of his benevolent enterprise. the workhouse infirmary at liverpool was believed to be better than most places of its kind; but there, as elsewhere, the nursing--if so it could be called--was done by able-bodied pauper women. able-bodied women who enter workhouses are never among the mentally and morally efficient; and in a seaport like liverpool they were of an especially low and vicious kind. the work of the nurses, selected from this unpromising material, "was superintended by a very small number of paid but untrained parish officers, who were in the habit, it was said, of wearing kid gloves in the wards to protect their hands. all night a policeman patrolled some of the wards to keep order, while others, in which the inmates were too sick or infirm to make disturbance, were locked up and left unvisited all night."[76] on jan. 31, 1864, mr. rathbone wrote to miss nightingale, propounding a plan for introducing a staff of trained nurses and promising to guarantee the cost for a term of years if she would help with counsel and by finding a suitable lady superintendent. he asked for two letters--"one for influence," to be shown to the vestry, the other for his private advice.[77] she and dr. sutherland drew up the required documents; she arranged that twelve "nightingale nurses" should be sent from st. thomas's hospital; and she selected a lady superintendent--a choice on which, as both she and mr. rathbone felt, everything would depend. the vestry agreed in may to accept mr. rathbone's scheme, but many months passed before it was actually launched. "there has been as much diplomacy," wrote miss nightingale to the mother of the bermondsey convent (sept. 3, 1864), "and as many treaties, and as much of people working against each other, as if we had been going to occupy a kingdom instead of a workhouse." the correspondence forms one of the bulkiest bundles among miss nightingale's papers. [75] rathbone's _organization of nursing in a large town_, p. 30. [76] _william rathbone: a memoir_, p. 166. [77] the public letter (feb. 5, 1864) is printed in mr. rathbone's _workhouse nursing: the story of a successful experiment_ (macmillan, 1867). the lady superintendent--the pioneer of workhouse nursing--was miss agnes jones, an irish girl, daughter of colonel jones, of fahan, londonderry, and niece of sir john lawrence. she was attractive and rich, young and witty, but intensely religious and devoted to her work.[78] "ideal in her beauty," miss nightingale said of her;[79] "like a louis xiv. shepherdess." she was one of the many girls who had been thrilled by miss nightingale's volunteering for the crimea. "perhaps it is well," she wrote, when entering st. thomas's hospital, "that i shall bear the name of a 'nightingale probationer,' for that honoured name is associated with my first thought of hospital life. in the winter of 1854, when i had those first longings for work and had for months so little to satisfy them, how i wished i were competent to join the nightingale band when they started for the crimea! i listened to the animadversions of many, but i almost worshipped her who braved them all." in 1860 miss jones followed in her heroine's steps to kaiserswerth. in 1862 she introduced herself to miss nightingale, who advised her to complete her apprenticeship by a year's training at st. thomas's. "hitherto," the matron reported to miss nightingale (feb. 25, 1863), "i have had no lady probationer equal on all points to miss jones." after completing her year's training at st. thomas's she took service as a nurse in the great northern hospital, and she was there when the invitation came to liverpool. miss jones was at first diffident, but after an interview with miss nightingale "the conviction was borne in upon her," as she wrote, that it was god's call and therefore must be obeyed in trust and with good hope. [78] see "una and the lion," in _good words_, june 1868 (bibliography a, no. 51). [79] letter to madame mohl, june 13, 1868. in the history of modern nursing in this country the sixteenth of may 1865 is a date only less memorable than the twenty-fourth of june 1860. on the earlier day the nightingale training school was opened at st. thomas's; on the latter twelve trained nightingale nurses began work in the liverpool infirmary, and the reform of workhouse nursing was therein inaugurated. miss jones herself had arrived a few weeks earlier. mr. rathbone felt the importance of the occasion, and marked it by a pretty attention to miss nightingale. "i beg," he wrote (may 12, miss nightingale's birthday), "to be allowed to constitute myself your gardener to the extent of doing what i have long wished--providing a flower-stand for your room and keeping it supplied with plants. i hope you will not be offended with my presumption or refuse me the great pleasure of thinking that in your daily work you may have with you a reminder of my affectionate gratitude for all you have done for our town and for me. if the plants will only flourish, as the good seed you have planted here is doing, they will be bright enough; and as for my personal obligations, you can never know how great they are to you for guiding me to and in this work." mr. rathbone and other kindly liverpool men (among whom mr. j. w. cropper should be remembered) were equally thoughtful of miss jones. at their own expense they furnished rooms for her in the workhouse, and made them bright with flowers and pictures. but it was a formidable task to which she was called, and the pleasantness of her rooms made the workhouse wards look yet more terrible, she said, by contrast. a young woman, well-bred, sensitive, and refined, accustomed as yet only to well-appointed hospitals, was thrown into the rough-and-tumble of great pauper wards, where the officials, though well-intentioned, had necessarily caught something of the surrounding atmosphere. "your kind letter," she had written to miss nightingale, after a preliminary visit (aug. 1864), "came in answer to earnest prayer, and gave me courage so that even now while waiting for the committee i do not feel nervous. the governor has promised me every co-operation and told me 'not to be down-hearted if the undertaking seemed formidable at first, as he would pull me through everything.' you will laugh when i tell you how at first his want of refinement prejudiced me, but his earnest hearty initiative in the whole work has quite won me." their relations afterwards were only indifferently good. miss jones's standard was too strict, he thought, for rough workhouse ways. the greatest shock to miss jones, however, was the nature of the human beings whom she was sent to nurse. sin and wickedness, she said, had hitherto been only names to her. now she was plunged into a sink of human corruption. the foul language, the drunkenness, the vicious habits, the bodily and mental degradation on all sides appalled her. the wards, she said in her first letter from the workhouse, are "like dante's _inferno_." "una and the lion"[80] was the title given by miss nightingale to her account of agnes jones and her paupers, "far more untamable than lions." she had, it is true, the help of twelve trained nurses, devoted alike to her and to their work; but there were 1200 inmates, and of the other "nurses" some were probationers of an indifferent class, and the rest "pauper nurses," of whom miss jones had to dismiss 35 in the first few months for drunkenness. then, the standard of workhouse cleanliness was sadly low. she found that the men wore the same shirts for seven weeks. bed-clothes were sometimes not washed for months. the diet was hopelessly meagre compared to a hospital standard. it is "scutari over again," wrote miss nightingale, and miss jones was strengthened by the thought that the disciple was experiencing some of the difficulties which had beset the mistress. by way of smoothing things over, miss nightingale had written to the governor of the workhouse saying, in effect, that the eyes of the world were upon him as the leader in a great reform; and he "seemed so gratified and flattered by your letter," reported miss jones. miss nightingale was constant in advice and encouragement to her disciple. "no one ever helps and encourages me as you do." "i could never pull through without you." "god bless you for all your kindness." such expressions show how welcome and how unfailing was miss nightingale's help. and in every detail she was consulted. there was all the friction which usually accompanies a new experiment. there were disputes of every kind, and all were referred to miss nightingale--sometimes by mr. rathbone, sometimes by miss jones, sometimes by both. when things seemed critical, mr. rathbone would come up to see miss nightingale in person; on less serious occasions he would write. miss nightingale and dr. sutherland would then sit as a kind of conciliation board, and see how matters could be adjusted. in one of dr. sutherland's draft judgments submitted for miss nightingale's concurrence there is a blank left for her to fill, as the note explains, with "soft sawder." his breezy manner may sometimes have been of comfort to his friend. on one occasion, when everything at liverpool seemed to be at sixes and sevens, his note to miss nightingale was: "i don't despair by any means. the entire proceeding has in it the elements of an irish row, for they are all more or less hibernian there, and they will cool down." and so they did. miss jones, who was at first a little too stiff-necked, soon found out a more excellent way, and there is "the nightingale touch" in many of her later reports. "to-day they were a little cross, but i got my way all the same." she is "much amused at the manner in which she now gets all she asks for." she suggests things. she is laughed at. she persists. a decent interval is allowed to elapse; and then the things are suggested to her by the officials; she says the suggestions are excellent, and the things are done. it is obvious to miss nightingale and dr. sutherland that sooner or later the powers of the lady superintendent must be better defined; obvious, too, that the worthless probationers and drunken pauper "nurses" must be cleared out; but that is just one of the things that the experiment is meant to prove, and meanwhile it is enough to drive in the thin end of the wedge. so well does miss jones do her work that opinion, in the workhouse and outside, begins even to be impatient for the thicker end. the experiment has so far been limited to the male wards. the doctors go to miss jones and ask eagerly when she and more nightingale nurses are to be given charge of the female wards also. old women who go in to see their husbands or brothers report wonderful changes in the house since "the london nurses" came. visiting ladies report to the same effect. the experiment is becoming popular; and the liverpool vestry begins to wonder whether the cost hitherto borne by mr. rathbone's private purse should not be thrown upon the rates. miss nightingale has good cause to be pleased. she has been throwing herself into the work, not only in order to make the particular experiment a success, but also because she wants to use it as a lever for promoting larger reforms. [80] see book i. chap. iii. stanzas 4 _seq._ of _the faerie queene_:- "her angel's face as the great eye of heaven shyned bright, and made a sunshine in the shady place, etc." iii liverpool had shown the way, and miss nightingale resolved in her own mind that the way should be followed in london. the struggle was long and arduous; the fortune of political war went at a critical moment against her; the victory of 1867 was only partial, and indeed there are other parts of her designs which even to this day await fruition. but the insight with which from the very first, as her papers show, she seized the essential positions was masterly. i can understand how it was that mr. charles villiers, not usually given to such outbursts of admiration, exclaimed to a friend: "i delight to read the nightingale's song about it all. if any of them had the tenth part of her vigour of mind we might expect something." the opening move in her campaign was made in december 1864. there had been an inquest on the death of one timothy daly, which had figured in the newspapers as "horrible treatment of a pauper." the facts, as ultimately sifted, were not in this particular case as bad as they were painted in the press, but the circumstances were distressing and public opinion was excited. the situation was in that favourable condition for moving ministers when there is a feeling in the air that "something must be done." miss nightingale seized the opportunity to open communications with the president of the poor law board, mr. villiers. she did not in this first letter disclose her whole scheme, though she said just enough to show that she had considered the subject in its larger bearings. she knew the art of beginning on a moderate, and even a humble, note. she presumed to write because the case involved a question of nursing, in which matter she had had some practical experience; she had, moreover, been "put in trust by her fellow-countrymen with the means of training nurses." she described what was to be done in the liverpool infirmary by a matron who had been trained under the "nightingale fund," and she invited the minister's attention to the possibility of preventing the scandals, with which the newspapers were ringing, by starting some scheme of a like kind in london. this letter, in the composition of which dr. sutherland had a hand, went straight to its mark. mr. villiers at once replied (dec. 31, 1864) that he would like to communicate with miss nightingale personally on the subject. in january the interview took place, and this was the beginning of a long series of personal and written communications between them during the next few years. on one occasion early in 1865 mr. villiers, being prevented by official business from keeping an appointment with miss nightingale, begged her to receive in his place his right-hand man, mr. h. b. farnall, poor law inspector for the metropolitan district. mr. farnall called, and he and miss nightingale became as thick as conspirators in no time. for poor law purposes he soon became the chief of her staff. mr. farnall was a man after her own heart. he not only knew the facts with which he had to deal, but he felt them, with something of her "divine impatience." "it's intolerable to me," he said, "to know that there are some 12,000 gasping and miserable sick poor whom we might solace and perhaps in some 5000 cases save, and yet that we have to let them wait while the world gets ready to get out of bed and think about it all." he was a keen and broad-minded reformer, and miss nightingale's ideas were upon lines which he too had considered. he was an old official hand, but he hated official obstruction: "all this is treason to king red tape, but i know that the old king is always happy _after_ a change, though he gets very red while the change progresses." miss nightingale instantly set her new ally to work. here, as in all that she undertook, she knew that the first thing needful was to collect the facts. she drew up a schedule of inquiries, to be filled up with regard to all the sick-wards and infirmaries in london. "i will immediately issue your forms," wrote mr. farnall (feb. 16, 1865). he required them to be filled up in duplicate, and miss nightingale's set of them is preserved amongst her papers. throughout the year she and mr. farnall were engaged in the work of inspiring and incensing mr. villiers in the direction of radical reform. he was throughout very willing, but he was becoming an old man, he had many other things to think about, and he was apt to see lions in the path. moreover, not all the officials at the poor law board were reformers; there were those, more highly placed than mr. farnall, who were of a very different opinion; and some of the medical officers were inclined to dispute the necessity of any radical changes. however, on the subject of workhouse nursing, mr. villiers promptly authorized mr. farnall to press upon the guardians the importance of employing competent nurses, and he told the house of commons (may 5) that "in consequence of communications lately received at the poor law board from miss nightingale, who was now taking much interest in the matter," he was hopeful that great reforms in nursing might come about. she, however, knew perfectly well that the only way to such reform was by reform also in administration and finance. in the following month mr. farnall persuaded his chief to insinuate into an innocent little "poor law board continuation bill," a clause which would enable the board to _compel_ guardians to improve their workhouses; but the clause was struck out, mr. farnall was disappointed, and miss nightingale wrote to reassure him. they must work all the harder to secure, not by a side-wind, but by a direct move in the next session of parliament, a full and far-reaching measure of reform. "your kind note," said mr. farnall (july 3), "has done me a world of good; there is not a single expression or hope in it which i cannot make my own. so we hope together for next year's ripened fruit. i hope, too, that we may really taste it. i pledge myself to you to relax in nothing till the task is done. it is something to live for, and something to have heard you say that such a victory will some day be claimed by me. it is a pleasant thing to think of, and i shall think of it as a soldier thinks of his flag." so, then, miss nightingale set to work, with the help of mr. farnall and dr. sutherland, in elaborating a scheme for 1866. there are several drafts in her handwriting for the memorandum finally submitted to mr. villiers, and many notes and emendations by dr. sutherland. the scheme was sent also (at a later date) to mr. chadwick (one of the few survivors of the famous poor law commission of 1834) in order that he might submit it to john stuart mill, whom miss nightingale sought to enlist in the cause.[81] the essential points and considerations were these:- a. to insist on the great principle of separating the sick, insane, "incurable," and, above all, the children, from the usual population of the metropolis. b. to advocate a single central administration. c. to place the sick, insane, etc., under a distinct administration, supported by a "general hospital rate" to be levied for this purpose over the whole metropolitan area. these are the abc of the reform required. (a) so long as a sick man, woman, or child is considered _administratively_ to be a pauper to be repressed, and not a fellow-creature to be nursed into health, so long will these most shameful disclosures have to be made. the care and government of the _sick_ poor is a thing totally different from the government of paupers. why do we have hospitals in order to cure, and workhouse infirmaries in order _not_ to cure? taken solely from the point of view of preventing pauperism, what a stupidity and anomaly this is!... the past system of mixing up all kinds of poor in workhouses will never be submitted to in future. the very first thing wanted is classification and separation. (b) uniformity of system is absolutely necessary, both for efficiency and for economy. (c) for the purpose of providing suitable establishments for the care and treatment of the sick, insane, etc., consolidation and a general rate are essential. to provide suitable treatment in each workhouse would involve an expenditure which even london could not bear. the entire medical relief of london should be under one central management which would know where vacant beds were to be found, and be able so to distribute the sick, etc., as to use all the establishments in the most economical way. [81] mill was at the time a member of a select committee on the local government and local taxation of the metropolis; see above, p. 106. the committee did not, however, touch poor law administration. miss nightingale elaborated her views in detail, going into the questions of hospitals, nursing, workhouse schools, etc. the cardinal point was what mr. farnall spoke of to her as "your hospital and asylum rate." the minister was favourable to the idea. "i have conferred with mr. villiers," wrote mr. farnall (dec. 12), "and he has decided on adopting your scheme. he thinks it will be popular and just, and i think so also, but i think too that it will be the means of my carrying out a further reform some of these days. that is my hope and belief. if your plans are carried my struggle is half over. under these circumstances i shall to-morrow commence a list of facts for you on which those who are to support your plan in print will be able to hang a considerable amount of flesh, for i shall furnish a very nice skeleton." miss nightingale had already, through an intermediary, interested the editor of the _times_ in the matter, and he had been to see mr. villiers. further public support came from the association above mentioned (p. 124), which sent a deputation to the poor law board. mr. villiers in reply (april 14, 1866) foreshadowed legislation on miss nightingale's lines, and he appointed mr. farnall and another of her friends, dr. angus smith, to inspect all the infirmaries. their report has already been cited. public opinion was ripe for radical reform; but the whig ministry was tottering, no fresh contentious legislation was deemed advisable, and in june 1866 mr. villiers was out. the opportunity had passed, and miss nightingale was left crying, "alas! alas! alas!" iv she was not one, however, to waste much time in empty lamentations. she had to begin over again, that was all; and she wrote at once, as we have heard,[82] to the new minister. she also procured an introduction for mr. farnall to lord derby, and the prime minister seemed sympathetic. mr. hardy had answered politely, but did not follow up his letter, and his first move seemed sinister. he dismissed mr. farnall from whitehall and sent him to the yorkshire poor law district. the anti-reform party was believed to have gained the ascendant. but now a fortunate thing happened. mr. hardy made a speech in which he implied that the existing laws were adequate, if properly enforced, to meet the case. technically there was a measure of truth in this statement, but in practice it was fallacious;[83] and in any case mr. hardy's remark was a reflection on his predecessor's administration. this nettled mr. villiers greatly; he was "not going to sit down under it," he said; he became red-hot for reform; very much on the alert, too, to trip his successor up. miss nightingale did not fail to add fuel to the flame. mr. villiers corresponded with her at great length; saw her repeatedly; reported all he was able to learn of how things were going at whitehall, and begged her to do the like for him. "the public are led to infer," he said to her, "that nothing was needed but a touch from mr. hardy's wand to set all things straight." the public, thought miss nightingale also, would soon discover his mistake. mr. hardy would find that he had either to do nothing, or to legislate; unless indeed the tory ministry were overthrown first. [82] above, p. 115. [83] previous legislation had _empowered_ guardians to separate the sick, etc., but had set up no administrative or financial machinery. now, miss nightingale was a whig, and she, too, would have been glad enough to see the tories out and mr. villiers in again at the poor law board. but there was something that she cared about a great deal more, namely, that the neglect of the sick poor should be remedied at the earliest possible moment; and as the tories might after all weather the storm, she must see what she could do to get a poor law bill out of them. in the autumn mr. hardy appointed a committee, mainly composed of doctors, to report "upon the requisite amount of space, and other matters, in relation to workhouses and workhouse infirmaries." one of the "other matters" was nursing, and the committee, instead of expressing an opinion on the subject themselves, asked miss nightingale to send them a paper. in this memorandum, dated jan. 19, 1867, she made full use of her opportunity; for she pointed out that the question of nursing could not, either in logic or in effective practice, be separated from that of administration. "in the recent inquiries," she wrote, "the point which strikes an experienced hospital manager is not the individual cases which have been made so much of (though these are striking enough), but the view which the best matrons, the best masters, and other officials of the workhouses give from their own lips (in evidence) of what they considered their duties. these bore as little reference to what are usually considered (not by me alone, but by all christendom) the duties of hospital superintendents as they bear to the duties of railway superintendents. your committee is probably well acquainted with the administration of the _assistance publique_ at paris. no great stretch of imagination is required to conceive what they think of the system or no system reigning here.[84] i allude to the heaping up aged, infirm, sick, able-bodied, lunatics, and sometimes children in the same building instead of having, as in every other christian country, your asylum for aged, your hospital for sick, your lunatic asylum, your union school, &c., &c., &c., each under its proper administration, and your able-bodied quite apart from any of these categories. this point is of such vital importance to the introduction and successful working of an efficient nursing system that i shall illustrate it...." and she went on to outline her general scheme. in accordance with her usual custom, miss nightingale had copies of her paper struck off separately, and circulated them among influential people. the committee had given her a platform, but its own report was only of subsidiary value. she put her point of view with a touch of exaggeration characteristic of her familiar letters to captain galton, one of the members of the committee. "i look upon the cubic space as the least of the evils--indeed as rather a good, for it is a very good thing to suffocate the pauper sick out of their misery." meanwhile she thought it wholesome that the "ins" should know that the "outs" did not mean to let the subject of poor law reform be shelved. "i have had a great deal of clandestine correspondence," she wrote to a friend who might pass the information on (oct. 28, 1866), "with my old loves at the poor law board these last two months. the belief among the old loves is that the new master is bent on--doing nothing. there is only one thing of which i am quite sure. and that is that mr. villiers will lead mr. gathorne hardy no easy life next february." [84] m. husson, director of the _assistance publique_, had been in london in 1865. miss nightingale had procured him various introductions and facilities, and he had reported his impressions to her. v mr. hardy kept his own counsel and made no sign. as the session drew near, miss nightingale became anxious and she poured in letters and memoranda upon him. in one of these she made what turned out to be an unfortunate mistake. she was too frank. she was pressing upon mr. hardy's attention the importance of the liverpool experiment, and in the course of her exposition she said incidentally that there had been difficulties. mr. hardy misinterpreted the remark and made use of it to explain in the house of commons why he did not propose to take any direct action in the matter of nursing reform. indirectly, however, his proposals did a great deal. on february 8, 1867, mr. hardy introduced his bill. so, legislation had, after all, been found necessary to meet the demand that something must be done. to that extent, then, mr. villiers had no need to make mr. hardy's life a burden to him. the question was, how much did the bill do? and was what it did, good or bad? those who had been working for reform were anxious to know what miss nightingale thought. "i should amazingly like to hear," wrote mr. villiers to her, "what you say to this seven months' child born in the workhouse at whitehall." mr. ernest hart's association, whose attitude was summed up by mr. villiers as "silenced but not satisfied," applied for her opinion. her journalistic friends wanted hints. dr. sutherland was told, in a note requiring his instant attention, that "x. wants to know in what tone he is to write his article in the _daily news_," and that "y. will write an article in the _pall mall_ in any sense we wish." now, whenever a bill is introduced touching a question which demands, or admits of, large reforms, there are two points of view from which it may be regarded. one man compares what is proposed with the existing state of things, and asks himself, is there any decided improvement? another, comparing the proposals with what might exist in the future, asks, does the bill approximate to the ideal? the former is the view which "practical politicians" take; the latter, the view which is apt to be taken by administrative enthusiasts. miss nightingale's administrative mind saw chiefly, and at first saw only, the points at which, and the measure in which, mr. hardy's bill fell short of logical perfection. it was a tentative measure; it was largely permissive; it did something to separate the sick and the children from the ordinary paupers, but it did not do all. moreover, so far as direct and express enactment went, it did nothing to improve workhouse nursing. miss nightingale pronounced the bill, therefore, "a humbug." its principles were "none"; its details, "beastly." she tried hard to get the bill amended and extended. sir harry verney, who might perhaps be described as "member of parliament for miss nightingale," gave every assistance that was possible; and mr. mill, inspired largely by his old friend mr. chadwick (with whom miss nightingale also was in constant correspondence), took a prominent part in the debates to the same end. but he seldom pressed his points to a division, and there was little life in the opposition. mr. villiers was as critical as he could reasonably be, but the real fact was that the bill made a great and a surprising step in the direction which miss nightingale had pressed upon him. these were days in which disraeli was educating his party in the political art of dishing the whigs, and the difficulty was, as mr. jowett wrote to miss nightingale, to discover any clear difference between a tory and a radical. mr. mill, with the candour that became a philosopher, "had no doubt that the bill would effect a vast improvement"; mr. villiers, with the determination of the politician to score a point, admitted that "the bill would set the ball rolling," and reflected that anything might presently come from a party which had been converted "from pure conservatism to household suffrage in 48 hours"; and mr. hardy, in his conduct of the measure, was careful to conciliate the other side. he agreed to all the objections "in principle," pleaded the difficulty of doing everything in a moment, and claimed for his bill that it was "only a beginning." and so, in fact, it turned out; while, even at the time, the reforms made by the bill, which became an act on march 29, 1867, were sufficiently beneficent. the whole of the unions and parishes in london were formed, by an order under the act, into one district, "the metropolitan asylum district," for the treatment of insane, fever, and small-pox cases, which had hitherto been dealt with in the workhouses. separate infirmaries were formed for the non-infectious sick, with a greatly enlarged cubic space per inmate. dispensaries were established throughout the metropolis. above all, the "metropolitan common poor fund" (the "hospital and asylum rate" of miss nightingale's memorandum) was established, and to it were charged the maintenance of the "asylums," medicines, etc., and the maintenance of pauper children in separate schools. when the battle was lost--or won--miss nightingale counted up the gains, and said, "this is a beginning; we shall get more in time."[85] and such has been the case. the act of 1867 was the foundation on which many improvements in medical relief under the poor law have been laid,[86] and the principles implied in the act--the separation of the sick from the paupers, and in the case of london the making medical relief a common charge--are likely to receive yet further recognition. they are the principles for which miss nightingale contended. her influence in forming the public opinion which made the legislation of 1867 possible was referred to in both houses of parliament.[87] [85] letter to the rev. mother of bermondsey, march 1867. [86] the history of the matter is succinctly told in the majority report of the poor law commission, 1909, pp. 235 _seq._ [87] by mr. villiers in the house of commons, february 21; and in the house of lords on march 19 by the earl of devon, who, in moving the second reading of mr. hardy's bill, said: "it would be improper on such an occasion to omit reference to the improved feeling on the subject which had resulted from the admiration the country must feel for the exertions of that excellent and gifted woman, miss nightingale, whose name would always be received with that respect which was due to her christian activity and self-devotion." vi soon after the act of 1867 came into operation, to the improvement of london workhouses, the pioneer of improved workhouse nursing died in liverpool. the work of miss agnes jones, whose early difficulties have been described above, had gone ahead with ever-increasing success. the difficulties indeed continued, and throughout 1867 miss nightingale was still busy in giving encouragement and advice; but the results of the work were so satisfactory that in march 1867 the liverpool vestry decided to extend the trained nursing to the female wards and to throw the whole cost upon the rates. when the strain of the increased work was at its severest point, miss jones was attacked by fever, and she died on february 19, 1868. to _good words_ in the following june miss nightingale contributed a touching paper in memory of her friend and disciple:- she died as she had lived, at her post in one of the largest workhouse infirmaries in the kingdom. she lived the life, and died the death, of the saints and martyrs; though the greatest sinner would not have been more surprised than she to have heard this said of herself. in less than three years she had reduced one of the most disorderly hospital populations in the world to something like christian discipline, such as the police themselves wondered at. she had converted a vestry to the conviction of the economy as well as humanity of nursing pauper sick by trained nurses. she had converted the poor-law board--a body, perhaps, not usually given to much enthusiasm. she had disarmed all opposition, all sectarian zealotism; so that roman catholic and unitarian, high church and low church, all literally rose up and called her "blessed." all, of all shades of religious creed, seemed to have merged their differences in her, seeing in her the one true essential thing, compared with which they acknowledged their differences to be as nothing. and aged paupers made verses in her honour after her death. in less than three years--the time generally given to the ministry on earth of that saviour whom she so earnestly strove closely to follow--she did all this. 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 asceticism, or "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 not, when a girl, of any conspicuous ability, except that she had cultivated in herself to the utmost a power of getting through business in a short time, without slurring it over and without fid-fadding at it;--real business--her father's business. she was always filled with the thought that she must be about her "father's business." how can any undervalue business-habits? as if anything could be done without them. she could do, and she did do, more of her father's business in six hours than ordinary women do in six months, or than most of even the best women do in six days.... what she went through during her workhouse life is scarcely known but to god and to one or two. yet she said that she had "never been so happy in all her life." all the last winter she had under her charge above 50 nurses and probationers, above 150 pauper scourers, from 1290 to 1350 patients, being from two to three hundred more than the number of beds. all this she had to provide for and arrange for, often receiving an influx of patients without a moment's warning. she had to manage and persuade the patients to sleep three and four in two beds; sometimes six, or even eight children had to be put in one bed; and being asked on one occasion whether they did not "kick one another," they answered, "oh, no, ma'am, we're so comfor'ble." poor little things, they scarcely remembered ever to have slept in a bed before. but this is not the usual run of workhouse life. and, if any one would know what are the lowest depths of human vice and misery, would see the festering mass of decay of living human bodies and human souls, and then would try what one loving soul, filled with the spirit of her god, can do to let in the light of god into this hideous well (worse than the well of cawnpore), to bind up the wounds, to heal the broken-hearted, to bring release to the captives--let her study the ways, and follow in the steps of this one young, frail woman, who has died to show us the way--blessed in her death as in her life. the death of miss jones involved miss nightingale in much anxiety and additional responsibility. "the whole work of finding her successor has fallen upon me," she wrote to madame mohl (march 20); "and in addition they expect me to manage the workhouse at liverpool from my bedroom." and again (april 30): "i have seven or eight hours a day additional writing for the last two months about this liverpool workhouse." the bundle of correspondence on the subject makes this statement quite credible. "i believe i have found a successor[88] at last. i don't think anything in the course of my long life ever struck me so much as the deadlock we have been placed in by the death of one pupil--combined, you know, with the enormous _jaw_, the infinite female ink which england pours forth on 'woman's work.' it used to be said that people gave their _blood_ to their country. now they give their _ink_." miss nightingale's first concern was to put heart and strength into the nurses who were now deprived of their chief. writing as their "affectionate friend and fellow-sufferer," she called upon them to fight the good fight without flinching. "many battles which seemed desperate while the general lived have been fought and won by the soldiers who, when they saw their general fall, were determined to save his name and win the ground he had died for. and shall we fight a heavenly battle, a battle to cure the bodies and souls of god's poor, less well than men fight an earthly battle to kill and wound?" "the nurses have been splendid," she was able to report presently. miss nightingale concluded her paper in _good words_ with a stirring appeal to others--poor law officials, on their part, and devoted women, on theirs--to go and do likewise. "the son of god goes forth to war, who follows in his train? oh, daughters of god, are there so few to answer?" the appeal awoke a response in at least one heart. one of the most valued of miss nightingale's disciples ascribed her call to this article in _good words_. "some of us," she says, "who were children in the days of the crimean war when miss nightingale's most famous work was done, were responsible girls at home, nursing as occasion arose in our families, by the light of her _notes_, to the music of longfellow's verse, when once again she came before us, flashing out of her retirement with the trumpet-call of 'una.'" many are now called to such work, but few, i suppose, are chosen--in the sense of being found worthy to do the work in the spirit of agnes jones. the liverpool experiment, rendered successful by her devotion, rapidly made its mark. in ten years' time the system of employing pauper inmates as nurses had been entirely superseded, in all sick asylums and separate infirmaries, by paid nurses. in 1897 the employment of pauper nurses in any workhouse was forbidden, and the training of the paid nurses has been continuously improved.[89] to miss nightingale, here as in all her undertakings, each point gained was only a step on the road to perfectibility. among some communings with herself, written in 1867, there is this entry: "easter sunday. never think that you have done anything effectual in nursing in london till you nurse, not only the sick poor in workhouses, but those at home." [88] miss l. freeman. [89] for details on this subject, see majority report, 1909, pp. 240-242. chapter ii alliance with sir bartle frere (1867-1868) truly these poor people will have cause to bless you long after english viceroys and dynasties are of the past.--sir bartle frere (_letter to miss nightingale_, may 6, 1869). when sidney herbert died, his work as an army reformer was in part arrested because he had never put in what miss nightingale called "the main-spring." he had failed to reform the war office. there had thus been no such effective organization set up as would ensure even the permanent possession of ground already gained and much less a continuous advance. there was now some danger of a like state of things in connection with public health in india, and miss nightingale turned her thoughts to avert it. there had been many improvements; but there was as yet no consistent scheme of organization, and in some respects there had already been backsliding. the sanitary commissions had been reduced on the ground of expense to two officers (a president and a secretary) in each case, and a further retrenchment was now in contemplation. under each local government there was to be one sanitary officer, and it was proposed that this officer should be the inspector-general of prisons. a "sanitary commissioner with the government of india" would remain, who would not combine that duty with an inspectorship of prisons; but such a scheme would assuredly not supply any "mainspring" for sanitary improvement. meanwhile sir john lawrence's term of office was coming to an end; and miss nightingale, regarding him as the indispensable man, looked upon the end of his viceroyalty as an event almost comparable to the death of sidney herbert. the same error must not be made a second time. before sir john lawrence retired, the mainspring of the machinery for sanitary progress in india must be inserted. miss nightingale had a clear policy in her mind, and she secured most of her points with a celerity and a completeness which entitle this episode to rank among her most brilliant campaigns. it will make the moves more easily intelligible if the main points are indicated at once. what miss nightingale sought to attain was an efficient machine which would turn out sanitary improvement in accordance with the best knowledge of the day and of which the working would be subject to the propelling force of public opinion. she, therefore, set herself to secure, if by any means she could, (1) an executive sanitary authority in india, (2) an expert controlling (and, incidentally, an inspiring) authority in london, and (3) the publication of an annual report on the work done, so as to make both parts of the machinery amenable to public inspection. on the first of these points, miss nightingale was doomed to some disappointment. neither at the time with which we are here concerned, nor in her later years, nor yet to the present day, has any supreme and executive sanitary machinery been established in india. "it was true," said the secretary of state during a debate in the house of lords on indian sanitation in 1913 (june 9), "that the present system fell very far short of a great independent sanitary department supreme over the provincial governments and forming one of the main departments of the government of india." that was miss nightingale's ideal at this time, though in later years, as we shall learn,[90] she recognized that sanitary progress in india could not be turned out by clockwork; but at the opposite pole stood the scheme by which she was threatened in 1867 for consigning sanitary administration in the local governments to a sub-head of the prison department. she had the satisfaction before sir john lawrence left india of seeing another scheme adopted, which was at any rate as far removed from the prison as from her ideal. on the other two points, stated above, she was at the time completely successful. she had in all this a valuable ally; and it was her way to see something like special providence in fortunate circumstances. the most logical mind sometimes admits exceptions; yet there was in fact no exception. providence, according to her belief, is law; and it had become a law that men interested in her interests should go to her. hence it was that she made at this time a friendship with one whose disinterested devotion to the cause of sanitary reform in india equalled her own, and whose co-operation was to prove of the greatest value. the new friend was sir bartle frere. [90] see below, p. 405. ii for a year and more the question of the public health service in india had slumbered, so far as organization was concerned. sir john lawrence's dispatch had been lost at the india office for some months (p. 109). then, when it had been found and miss nightingale had drafted the reply, lord de grey had gone out of office before the reply could be sent (p. 110). she had opened communications with his successor, lord cranborne (p. 114); but his stay at the india office was brief, for when disraeli's franchise bill was introduced, he resigned. he was succeeded by sir stafford northcote, with whom as yet miss nightingale had no acquaintance. she had been diligent in writing to sir john lawrence, who continued to ask her advice and send her papers; but she had held her hand on this side. the reason was that all her friends told her that "the tories would be out in a week." dr. sutherland, greatly daring, went further and talked treason against sir john lawrence: "he is our worst enemy," and "we had better wait." miss nightingale ascribed this ribaldry to a desire of dr. sutherland to be off cholera-hunting in the mediterranean, and reproached him in some impromptu rhymes.[91] sir john lawrence was her hero. if he did amiss sometimes (as she had to admit), she put it down, i suppose, to his council, with whom he was notoriously not on good terms; whatever was done aright was his doing. and meanwhile the weeks passed and the tories did not go out; they looked, on the contrary, very much like staying in. miss nightingale determined to wait no longer. she announced her determination in a letter to captain galton (may 28, 1867). he was in touch with indian sanitary business as a member of the war office sanitary committee, to which such business was often referred, and she attached considerable weight to his judgment. "our indian affairs," she wrote, "are getting as drunk as they can be"; she was resolved to have them put straight. she had been "strongly advised to communicate direct with sir stafford northcote"; advised, i imagine, by mr. jowett (for was not sir stafford a balliol man, and therefore specially amenable to reason?) what did captain galton advise? he agreed that things were not going well, and was glad that she meant to move. he would give her an introduction, if she liked, to sir stafford, and he advised her to see sir bartle frere, "as i fancy you could make him useful." he had just returned from the governorship of bombay, and had been given a seat on the india council in london. a fortnight later (june 14) he and miss nightingale met:- (_miss nightingale to captain galton._) 35 south street, _june_ 16 [1867]. i have seen sir bartle frere. he came on friday by his own appointment. and we had a great talk. he impressed me wonderfully--more than any indian i have ever seen except sir john lawrence; and i seemed to learn more in an hour from him upon indian administration and the way it is going than i did from ellis in six months, or from strachey in two days, or from indian councils (secretaries of state and royal commissions and all) in six years. i hope sir b. frere will be of use to us. i have not yet applied to you to put me into communication with sir s. northcote. because why? your committee won't sit. it won't sit on monday because monday is whit monday. and tuesday is whit tuesday. and wednesday is ash wednesday. and thursday is ascension day. and friday is good friday. and saturday is the drawing room. and sunday is sunday. and that's the way that british business is done. now you are come back, you must send for the police and make the committee do something. as for sutherland, i never see him. malta is the world. and gibraltar is the "next world." and india is that little island in the pacific like honolulu. [91] free as air. i don't care. go away to malta-y. i don't care. let sir john hall be director-genera_ll_. i don't care. as for india-y let her have her way. i don't care. free as air. i don't care. miss nightingale must have impressed sir bartle frere as greatly as he had impressed her. he now became one of her constant visitors, and a busy correspondence began between them. he and his family became friends too of mr. and mrs. nightingale, whom they visited at embley. "there are amongst his papers for 1867 and the five following years considerably more than a hundred letters, short or long, from miss nightingale to him, mostly upon sanitary questions affecting india."[92] the letters from him to her are not less numerous. "i will make 35 south street the india office," he said, "while this affair is pending." miss nightingale took note of his conversations, principally for communication to dr. sutherland, but also for her own guidance. but if she had much to learn from him, he also must have found something to learn, and some inspiration to derive, from her. the work which she had done for the royal commission had given her a great knowledge of sanitary, or rather insanitary, details in india; and on the principles of sanitation she was an acknowledged expert. her acquaintance with the official history of the indian public health question was unique, for no other person had so continuously been in intimate touch with it. the clearness of her mind and her breadth of view impressed every one who saw her. and then something must be allowed, in considering her successive "conquests" (as mr. jowett used playfully to call them), to the personal factor. the administrators and ministers who sought or were invited to audience of her would have been more (or less) than men if they had not felt a certain pleased curiosity in meeting this famous woman, who rose from an invalid's bed to receive them. each of them speedily discovered that her enthusiastic devotion to humanitarian causes was equalled by her soundness of judgment, and that remarkable powers of brain were accompanied by all of a woman's graciousness "she is a noble-minded woman," said mr. lowe of her, "and so charming." [92] _life of sir bartle frere_, vol. ii. pp. 38, 39. encouraged by sir bartle frere's sympathy, miss nightingale set to work in earnest. the first thing was to obtain a colourable starting-point. this she found in some indian papers, sent to her by friends on the war office sanitary committee, on the question of "doors _versus_ windows." she determined to attack simultaneously the governor-general and the secretary of state on this question. to the governor-general she wrote immediately; but with regard to the india office there was a preliminary difficulty. "dr. sutherland is so very etiquettish," she wrote to captain galton (june 24, 1867), "that he says, but how are you to have seen these papers? i don't know. it seems to me that the cat has been out of the bag so long that it is no use tying the strings now. i will say, if you like, that broadhead of sheffield gave me £15 to steal them and to blow you up.[93] i am going ahead anyhow." captain galton put aside dr. sutherland's etiquette. it had been an established practice for years, he said, as every official person knew, to send indian sanitary papers to miss nightingale; and in the very improbable event of anybody objecting in this case, he, captain galton, would assume full responsibility. miss nightingale then proceeded to draw up an indictment, and to suggest reform, basing her case upon the "doors _versus_ windows" papers. upon the merits of the controversy i am happily not called upon to offer an opinion. to miss nightingale and the war office sanitary committee the ventilation of barracks or hospitals by open doors was a pestilential heresy; to the government of india it was the ark of the covenant for salvation in hot weather. sir john lawrence in reply to miss nightingale's remonstrance told her bluntly that nothing but an imperative order from home would make him close the doors, and even then that he would first send the most energetic protest. but, though she attached some importance to the matter on its merits, her real object was something different. she objected to the manner in which the case had been handled. the sanitary experts at home had said that new barracks and hospitals should be ventilated by open windows, and their report to that effect had been sent to india. then the matter had been referred in succession to the government of india, the local governments, sanitary commissions, medical authorities, military authorities, district authorities, and then to the government of india again. next it had come back to london, where the experts were still of their original opinion. there seemed no reason why the travels of the "doors and windows" papers should ever come to an end. if every sanitary question were to be treated in the same way, no sanitary progress could be made; and the idea of "sanitary administration by universal suffrage" was impossible. sir john lawrence hardly made proper allowance for her way of putting things when he assured her in reply that she was mistaken in thinking that such matters were referred to a vote in india. the case showed conclusively, it seemed to her, that the time had come for organizing the health service on a business-like footing. she suggested schemes on the basis of the three points already defined--a sanitary department in india to do the work; a sanitary department at the india office to control the work; and annual publication of what work had been done. with regard to the second point, she regarded the war-office-cum-india-office sanitary committee as only a makeshift, as we have seen.[94] she knew whom she wanted at the head of a separate india office sanitary department. "if only," she had written to captain galton (july 24), "we could get a public health department in the india office to ourselves with sir b. frere at the head of it, our fortunes would be made." [93] for william broadhead and the rattening outrages at sheffield, see m^ccarthy's _history of our own times_, vol. iv. p. 156. [94] above, p. 33. iii such was the substance of successive letters which miss nightingale now sent to the secretary of state. the first of them is an admirable document; closely reasoned; with a pleasant pungency of phrasing here and there, such as might occur in a despatch by lord salisbury; with a touch of emotion kept well in reserve. she begged the minister to go back to the point at which the matter had been left when lord de grey went out, and "to put the indian health service once for all on a satisfactory footing. this would indeed be a noble service for a secretary of state to render to india." she submitted her letter to sir bartle frere, who pronounced it excellent. he carried it off, and delivered it to the minister in person. this was on july 27. on july 30 sir stafford northcote answered, promising early attention to the subject, and adding, "i attach great weight to any suggestions from one who is so well qualified to speak with authority as yourself." without going into the question, he made the general remark that "due regard should be had to local information." this criticism was just what she wanted; it afforded an opening for unfolding her schemes in greater detail. sir stafford northcote must have been impressed by the letters; for he gave the matter immediate study, and then, on august 19, wrote to know if he might call for "a little conversation." miss nightingale told mr. jowett of this new opening. "i am delighted to hear," he wrote (aug. 20), "that you are casting your toils about sir stafford northcote. do you know that he was elected a scholar of balliol with a. h. clough? i think that you may do him as well as the cause immense service. may i talk to you as i would to one of our undergraduates? take care not to exaggerate to him (i mention this because it is really difficult to avoid when you are deeply interested). you will make him feel, i have no doubt, that you can really help him. of course he will have heard things said against you by the officials; and you will have to produce just the opposite impression to these reports. but i don't really suppose that the art of influencing others can be reduced to rules. i commend you and your work to god, and am quite sure that 'it will be given you what to say,' because (i am afraid this is very rationalistic) you know what you mean to say." the interview (aug. 20), somewhat dreaded on miss nightingale's side, had already taken place when mr. jowett's letter came. "much more satisfactory to my hopes," she wrote to sir bartle frere (aug. 21) "than i expected. i think you have imbued him with your views on indian administration more than you know. we went as fully into the whole subject as was possible in an hour, seeing that india is rather a big place." her notes of the conversation show that she had found the minister very keen and sympathetic. "i don't know," she told dr. sutherland, "that he saw how afraid i was of him. for he kept his eyes tight shut all the time. and i kept mine wide open." afraid or not, she had done a great stroke of business:- (_miss nightingale to captain galton._) 35 south street, _august_ 22 [1867]. i saw sir s. northcote on tuesday. he came of his own accord--which i think i partly owe to you. the result is (that is, if he does as he says) that there will be a controlling committee at the india office for sanitary things with sir b. frere at the head and sir h. anderson at the tail, and your war office commission as the consulting body. as to the public health service, i told him that we want the executive machinery in india to do it, and the controlling machinery at the i.o. to know that it is being done. the work of the controlling committee will really be introducing the elements of civilization into india. sir s. n. said something about having gen. baker and sir e. perry on as members and an assistant-secretary to sir h. anderson. (i wish i could choose the members as i did in sidney herbert's time.) but i have the greatest faith in sir b. frere, and he asked me to let him bring sir h. anderson here; so we shall have the chairman and the secretary on our side. i liked sir s. northcote; but he appears to me to have much the same calibre of mind as lord de grey. he has none of the rapid, unerring perception of sidney herbert; none of the power of sir j. lawrence; none of the power and keenness of sir b. frere. he talks about "talking it all over with lord clinton." do you know lord clinton, and does he know anything about it? but my principal reason for writing to you now is this: i went as fully as i could with sir s. n. into this, that no time should be lost in sending r. engineers intended for service in india to examine and make themselves acquainted with improvements in sewerage, drainage, water-supply of towns, and in application of sewage to agriculture, and with improvements in barrack and hospital construction, etc., as carried out here. now, there is no one but you who can properly advise sir s. n. in this way. pray do so. sir stafford northcote did all, and more than all, that at this interview he had promised. she was impressed by his sincerity at the time. "i believe," she told dr. sutherland, "he will carry out exactly what he consents to do." but other friends advised her to leave nothing to good intentions, to strike while the iron was hot, and to continue jogging the minister's elbow until the things were actually done. presently an occasion offered itself. the governor-general had written her a long private letter about the ravages of cholera among the troops in the n.w. provinces. she sent the substance of this letter to sir stafford northcote, and invited him to concur in her opinion that such things ought not to be. but could they ever be prevented until the public health service was placed on a proper footing? the minister, in acknowledging her letter (oct. 18), said that, the pressure of other business being relaxed, he was now able to give full attention to sanitary questions, and that he would like to have another conversation. the interview was on october 23. on this occasion the minister came full-handed. he told her, first, as appears from her notes and letters, that he had definitely decided to appoint a sanitary committee at the india office. he read out the list of names; with sir bartle frere, according to promise, as chairman, and sir h. anderson as secretary. he then asked her advice with regard to the relations between this committee and the war office sanitary committee, for there was, as he explained (and as she knew only too well), great jealousy between the two offices. she advised that the india office committee should be the controlling and responsible body, and the war office committee consultative only; "but i shall be much surprised," she wrote in explaining things to captain galton, "if sir bartle frere does not refer many more matters to you than has previously been the case." she had thus won the second of her three points. the minister next handed to miss nightingale a dispatch dated august 16, which he had received from the government of india, and to which an immediate answer was requested. this was not news to her (though she was doubtless too discreet to say so), for the governor-general had also written to her on august 16 to like effect. in this dispatch the appointment of medical officers in each local government for the exclusive duty of principal health officers, paid by the central government, was suggested. the secretary of state left the dispatch with miss nightingale, and requested her to favour him in writing with her views on the whole subject, suggesting, if she cared to do so, what answer should be sent to the government of india. the new proposal of sir john lawrence's government was not all or exactly what she wanted. the local officers of health would be advisory only; and the commissioner with the government of india would remain in a like position. what she had wanted was a distinct executive department, both central and local, for public health. still, the appointment of state officers of health was a step in the right direction, and a great advance on the prisons scheme. she must see to it that the better opinion was made to prevail, while sir john lawrence was still at the helm in india and the secretary of state in london was friendly to her. the new policy would win some part of her first point. it remained to secure annual health reports; and the secretary of state had given her an opening by inviting her to make suggestions at large. she had now a spell of very hard work. at the end of it she had sent to sir stafford northcote (1) a draft for immediate reply to the indian government, approving the appointment of the health officers. this was sent to india on november 29. (2) secondly, a digest of the indian sanitary question from 1859 to 1867. this was printed in a blue-book issued by the secretary of state in 1868. (3) thirdly, a memorandum on the whole subject full of suggestions and advice. this was sent out to the indian government, and printed in the same blue-book. it was printed anonymously, though there are tell-tale phrases (such as "the result will be the civilization of india"); the manuscript of the "review," in miss nightingale's hand, is amongst her papers. (4) fourthly, and principally, the heads of a dispatch on the whole subject which, she suggested, might be sent to the government of india. "of course i cannot say," she wrote, "how far these heads may meet with your concurrence." the heads, in her hand, are also amongst her papers, and a comparison of this manuscript with sir stafford northcote's dispatch of april 23, 1868, shows that they all met with his concurrence; they were adopted for the most part in her own words. the suggestions of this dispatch constitute one of miss nightingale's best services to the cause of public health in india. it begins with calling for a report on sanitary progress. it then reverts to the famous "suggestions in regard to sanitary works" of 1864, which miss nightingale had so large a hand in writing (above, p. 48). "i consider these suggestions," wrote the secretary of state, "to be of very great practical value and to constitute a good foundation for sanitary inquiry and work in india." the dispatch invites particular attention to some of the suggestions seriatim, and calls for a report on any progress that has been made in carrying them out. it also includes miss nightingale's later suggestion (above, p. 152) that engineer officers should be sent to england to study sanitary questions. the whole dispatch, whilst leaving full executive authority to the government of india, was directed to stimulating its zeal in the cause of public health. the adoption by sir stafford northcote of miss nightingale's "heads" for this dispatch secured the last of her three points. the reports for which the minister called were duly forwarded. they were printed in the blue-book above mentioned, together with the other papers, and with the dispatch itself. this blue-book[95] was the first of an annual series of indian sanitary reports. so, then, miss nightingale's intercourse with sir stafford northcote had, with the limitations already explained, secured all her points. [95] for its title, etc., see bibliography a, no. 52. "i hope, in this recourse to sir stafford northcote," she had written three months before,[96] "as a last hope. hope was green, and the donkey ate it (that's me)." "i am inclined to think," mr. jowett had written to her at the same time (july 18), "that you have really made a considerable step. i talked about sir stafford northcote to some people who know him. they say, besides what i told you, that he works really hard at indian affairs. now, you must get hold of him and fuse him and sir bartle frere and sir john lawrence into one by some alchemy or wicked wit of woman, and then something will be accomplished." and this was what had now been made possible; though perhaps the only secret on the woman's part was the combination of singleness of purpose, fulness of knowledge, clearness of insight, and a resolute will. [96] to captain galton (july 16). iv sir stafford northcote's dispatch, and the accompanying memorandum, did not immediately have the effect which miss nightingale hoped so far as the supreme government was concerned. the government of india somewhat resented the process of hustling by the india office at home. miss nightingale had kept her faith in sir john lawrence, but it was put to some severe trials. for some time she had been more ready to praise and pray than he to do her bidding:- (_sir john lawrence to miss nightingale._) calcutta, _feb._ 7 [1867]. many thanks for your very kind note of the 26th of december. i am quite sure that i in no wise deserve your blessings; nevertheless i am grateful to you for them, perhaps the more so when i bear in mind my own demerits. it is not a very pleasant duty talking to the "kings of the east," for though they receive all which one in my position may say with gravity and politeness, it makes but a wretched impression on them. you will be glad to hear that the death-rate among the english troops in india for 1866 was only 20.11, while it was 24.24 in 1865. this seems to me a very satisfactory result.... i have had an envoy down in calcutta for some time, from the king of bokhara, asking for aid against russia. how strange it will be if russia and england meet in central asia! i hope, if it is to be so, that it will be in amity. there is ample verge and room enough for both powers; and if both would only see this we might be a help instead of an injury to each other. (_sir john lawrence to miss nightingale._) simleh, _july_ 9 [1867].... [a passage dwelling on the many difficulties he had to encounter.] i do what i can to further the objects to which you have devoted your life--no doubt with slow and faltering steps, but still as fast as circumstances will permit. then on august 16 the governor-general sent her a letter which must have very seriously shaken her faith. he had asked her (p. 55) to formulate a scheme for female nursing. with her habitual good sense, she had contemplated an experiment in a single hospital and had drawn up a scheme on that basis. instead of accepting her basis, the governor-general referred the matter to his medical advisers, who elaborated a scheme for introducing female nursing into seven hospitals. the cost of this larger scheme was prohibitive; and the government of india, instead of falling back upon miss nightingale's proposals, vetoed the whole thing. sir john mcneill, who had assisted her with her proposals, was very angry, and sent her a hot indictment of the indian officials. "you must wait for a new governor-general. sir john lawrence has greatly disappointed me." then, afraid, i suppose, lest she might adopt some of his scathing phrases in replying to sir john lawrence, he wrote again, suggesting that dignified silence would be the better course. "it would be mere waste of time and hardly consistent with your name and position to argue with men who flounder about in such a hopeless slough of unreason. i would not even point out their inconsistencies. both the governor-general and you are high powers, and your correspondence ought, i think, to be conducted with the reserve that is proper to such persons when your opinions do not coincide. i would merely say, etc. etc." what sir john mcneill suggested she adopted with some slight modifications. in her reply to the governor-general (sept. 26, 1867) she thanked him for his letter and for the documents he enclosed; explained that she had submitted a scheme only because he had asked her to do so; remarked that the scheme which the government of india had vetoed was not hers, nor anything like it; and added that if at any future time the question should be revived, she would again be willing, if desired, to give any advice or assistance in her power. v this incident did not interfere with the continuance of frequent and friendly correspondence between the two "high powers," and miss nightingale's persistence may not have been without some effect. she frequently sent sanitary papers and suggestions to the governor-general, and these he always referred to some appropriate official for report, whose remarks (sometimes in manuscript, sometimes printed for official use) were in turn forwarded to her. there is one long printed paper of the kind, headed "dr. farquhar's notes on miss nightingale's questions relative to sanitation in algeria and india, april 20, 1867."[97] miss nightingale forwarded the "notes" to sir bartle frere, who wrote a long memorandum in rejoinder. he agreed with miss nightingale that there was no reason why india should not be brought up to the algerian standard. the "notes" were a compendium, he thought, of the errors that impede sanitary reform in india. but though sir john lawrence's officials were critical, and her suggestions were not at the moment effectual, they may have had their influence in the end. sir bartle frere was once asked by a member of miss nightingale's family to what her influence in india was due, and what had set the sanitary crusade in motion? not the big blue-book, he replied, which nobody reads, but "a certain little red book of hers on india which made some of us very savage at the time, but did us all immense good."[98] sir bartle frere had by no means lost faith in sir john lawrence, and urged miss nightingale to write to him, telling him in advance of the memorandum which would shortly come to him from the india office. "i have often known," he said, "a scrap of paper on which you had written a few words--or even your words printed--work miraculously." the scrap of paper was sent, urging sir john lawrence once more to appoint an executive sanitary department in the government of india, but it did not prevail:- (_sir john lawrence to miss nightingale._) _october_ 25 [1868]. it may seem to you, with your great earnestness and singleness of mind, that we are doing very little, and yet in truth i already see great improvement, more particularly in our military cantonments, and doubtless we shall from year to year do better. but the extension of sanitation throughout the country and among the people must be a matter of time, especially if we wish to carry them with us ... (_november_ 23). i think that we have done all we can do at present in furtherance of sanitary improvement, and that the best plan is to leave the local governments to themselves to work out their own arrangements. if we take this course we shall keep them in good humour. if we try more we shall have trouble. i don't think we require a commission. mr. john strachey, a member of council, has special charge of the home department under the government of india, and all sanitary matters have been transferred to that department, so that when i am gone there will still be a friend at court to whom you can refer. [97] she had made use, after all, it will be observed, of dr. sutherland's visit to "astley's" (above, p. 110). [98] the "little red book" was the reprint of miss nightingale's _observations_; see above, p. 36. miss nightingale found cold comfort in this promised friend at court, for sir john lawrence forwarded at the same time a letter to himself from mr. strachey, in which the latter expressed himself in indignant terms about the india office's memorandum. it was full, he complained, of things which they were said to have left undone, and gave them no credit for what they had done; and it advocated a forward policy in sanitation which might be attended by grave dangers in forcing sanitary reform upon unwilling people. "well," said miss nightingale to dr. sutherland, "this is the nastiest pill we have had, but we have swallowed a good many and we're not poisoned yet." they replied to mr. strachey's criticisms in a final letter to the governor-general. an "admirable" letter, sir bartle frere thought it; "my letter to sir j. l.," wrote miss nightingale in her diary, "to bless and to curse" (dec. 4, 1868). i hope, and i expect, that the blessing was the larger half. for, in truth, she had obtained during sir john lawrence's term of office at least as much for her cause as could reasonably be expected. when sir john lawrence returned to london, one of the first things he did was to call at south street, and leave, with a little note, "a small shawl of the fine hair of the thibet goat." he did not presume, he said, to ask to see her without an appointment, but would call another day if she cared to give him one. three days later (april 3, 1869), he came, and all miss nightingale's admiration returned on the instant. she made a long note of his conversation, which ranged over the whole field of indian government. on the subject of public health she recorded with pleasure his saying to her: "you initiated the reform which initiated public opinion which made things possible, and now there is not a station in india where there is not something doing." but "in the first place," she wrote, "when i see him again, i see that there is nobody like him. he is rameses ii. of egypt. all the ministers are rats and weasels by his side." and to a friend she afterwards said:[99] "peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew. he has left his mark on india. wherever superstition or ignorance or starvation or dirt or fever or famine, or the wild bold lawlessness of brave races, or the cringing slavishness of clever feeble races was to be found, there he has left his mark. he has set india on a new track which--may his successors follow!- knight of a better era without reproach or fear, said i not well that bayards and sidneys still are here!" [99] letter to madame mohl, march 26, 1869. chapter iii public health missionary for india (1868-1872) there is a vast work going on in india, and the fruits will be reaped in time. not all at once. we must go on working in faith and in hope.--dr. john sutherland (_letter to miss nightingale_, august 16, 1871). "by dint of remaining here for 13 months to dog the minister i have got a little (not tart, but) department all to myself, called 'of public health, civil and military, for india,' with sir b. frere at the head of it. and i had the immense satisfaction 3 or 4 months ago of seeing 'printed despatch no. 1' of said department. (i never, in all my life before, saw any despatch, paper or minute under at least no. 77,981). still you know this is not the meat, but only the smell of the meat. what we want is an executive out there to do it, and a department here to see that it is being done. the latter we now have; the former must still rest with the viceroy and council out there." thus did miss nightingale, in a letter to m. mohl (feb. 16, 1868), sum up the results of the campaign described in the last chapter. her life, for some years to come, was now largely occupied with the affairs of the "little department all to herself." the department may have been little, but she interpreted her duties, as we shall see, in a large sense. her work in connection with the war office, though it did not entirely cease, was no longer absorbing. she had ceased to have direct communications with the secretaries for war. in 1868 there was one of the periodical reorganizations of the war office, followed in the succeeding year by the retirement of captain galton.[100] she had thus no longer a confidential intimate in the department. she could have made one, perhaps, if she had so desired; for her scutari friend, sir henry storks, had now been appointed to the newly organized post of controller-in-chief, and presently became surveyor-general of ordnance. but her indian preoccupations, coupled with the never-ceasing strain of work as adviser-in-general on hospitals and nursing, used all her strength. in the present chapter we shall follow the course of her life during the years 1868-72, with special reference to indian work; in the next, we shall follow the development of her work in connection with hospitals and nursing. [100] he retired at the end of 1869, and was appointed to a post in the office of works. miss nightingale intervened (through representations to lord de grey and mr. cardwell) to secure his continuance as a member of the army sanitary committee. * * * * * the long strain, mentioned in the letter to m. mohl, had told severely upon miss nightingale's strength, and at the end of december 1867 she went, leaving no address behind (except with dr. sutherland), for a month's rest-cure under dr. walter johnson at malvern. upon her return to london she was busily engaged in the preparation of the indian "memorandum" described in the last chapter. the death of miss agnes jones and the anxieties which it entailed (chap. i.) told greatly upon her health and spirits. mr. jowett, after seeing her early in july, was seriously alarmed at her state of physical weakness and mental despondency. she had half promised him that she would go for rest and change to lea hurst; but only if the rest were accompanied by a duty of affection. if her mother were at lea hurst, she would go; if not, she would not. so mr. jowett wrote privately to mrs. nightingale, who arranged her plans accordingly, and begged her daughter to come and be with her. they were together at the old home for three months (july 7-oct. 3), and for a week of the time mr. jowett was with them. the mother and the daughter had seldom been on such affectionate and understanding terms as now. "mama," wrote miss nightingale to madame mohl (july 20), "is more cheerful, more gentle than i ever remember her." the daughter's note of conversations shows that they talked of misunderstandings in the past, and that the mother was ready to blame herself: "you would have done nothing in life, if you had not resisted me." for many years to come, miss nightingale repeated such visits to the country homes of her parents. they were now old; her father was 74 in 1868, her mother 80. the daughter desired to be with them so far as her work allowed. perhaps something was due also to the persistent counsels of mr. jowett. continuous drudgery in london was not good, he pleaded, either for her body or for her soul. they were supposed to have entered into a compact not to overwork. he avowed that he was faithfully keeping his side of the bargain, and put her upon her honour to do her part in return. it was an unhealthy life, he pleaded, to be shut up all the year in a london room. there was still much for her to do, and she would do it all the better for some relaxation of daily effort. perhaps he persuaded her. at any rate, from 1868 for some years onwards there was more of the country in miss nightingale's life--less of incessant drudgery, more leisure for reading, more marge for meditation. in 1869 she was at embley for three months in the summer; in 1870, at embley for one month, and at lea hurst for three; in 1871, there was a similar division of time; in 1872 she was at embley for eight months. ii mr. jowett was often a visitor on these occasions for a few days at a time. he continued in frequent letters to urge her to attempt some sustained writing. she had a talent for it, he insisted, and she was possessed of great influence. he suggested as a subject suitable to her a treatise on the reform of the poor law, and he sent her a memorandum of his own ideas on the subject. there are one or two of mr. jowett's ideas, and occasionally a phrase of his, in what she ultimately wrote. she endeavoured to take his advice, and a resolve is recorded in her diary for 1868 to devote an hour a day to writing. the projected work went to no further length than that of a magazine article entitled "a note on pauperism." nothing that she ever wrote--with one exception[101]--cost her so much worry and trouble. she did what is always trying to an author's equanimity and often prejudicial to the effect of his work: she admitted collaboration. dr. sutherland had a hand in it--that goes without saying, and his assistance was always useful: he knew exactly within what limits he could really help his friend. but her brother-in-law was an authority on the subject and lady verney claimed (and not without justice) to be an authority on the style appropriate to magazine articles. she took much well-meant trouble, and transcribed her sister's first draft in her own hand, with corrections of her own also. the authoress was in despair, and sent again for dr. sutherland: "i have adopted _all_ your corrections, and _all_ parthe's, and _all_ sir harry's; and they have taken out all my _bons mots_ and left unfinished sentences on every page; and this _kind_ of work really takes a year's strength out of me; and now you _must_ help me." so, dr. sutherland patched up the broken sentences and harmonized the corrections, and the article was ready. miss nightingale was as timid and perplexed as any literary beginner about placing her paper. after much consultation she decided to submit it to mr. froude, with whom as yet she had no acquaintance. she was as pleased as any literary beginner when the editor replied immediately that he would be delighted to print the paper in his next number. in _fraser_ for march 1869 it appeared accordingly--the first of several contributions which she made to that magazine. the "note" is somewhat disconnected in style and slight in treatment, but is full of far-reaching suggestions. she begins by insisting on a reform of which we have heard much in a previous chapter: the separation of the sick and incapable from the workhouse. then she goes on to argue that the thing to do is "not to punish the hungry for being hungry, but to teach the hungry to feed themselves." she attacks the _laisser faire_ school of economists, "which being interpreted means let bad alone." political economy speaks of labour as mobile, and she quotes a leading article in the _times_ which had talked about "the convenience in the possession of a vast industrial army, ready for any work, and chargeable on the public when its work is no longer wanted." she stigmatizes such talk as false, in the first case, and wicked, in the second. the state should endeavour to facilitate the organization of labour. "where work is in one place, and labour in another, it should bring them together." education should be more manual, and less literary. pauper children should be boarded out and sent to industrial schools. the condition of the dwellings of the poor is at the root of much pauperism, and the state should remedy it. there should be state-aided colonization, so as to bring the landless man to the manless lands. some of all this was not so familiar in 1869 as it is to-day, and miss nightingale's "note" attracted much attention. among those who read it with hearty approval was carlyle. "last night," wrote mr. rawlinson (march 11), "i spent several hours with mr. carlyle, and amongst talk about lancashire public works, modern modes of government, modern political economy and social morality, he brought to my notice your 'note on pauperism' as in his opinion the best, because the most practical, paper he had read of late on the question. i wish you could have been present to have listened to the great man alternately pouring forth a living stream of information, and then bursting into a rhapsody of passionate denunciation of some thick-headed blundering statesmanship or indignant tirade against commercial rascality." dr. sutherland called to express his pleasure that the article had gone off so well. "well!" she said; "it's not well at all. the whole of london is calling here to tell me they have got a depauperizing experiment, including that horrid woman." a large bundle of correspondence testifies to the interest which her paper aroused. some of it was not disinterested. all the emigration societies read the paper with the gratitude which looks to subscriptions. the article was very expensive to her; for she gave away the editor's fee many times over in such contributions. for some years following, she took great interest in schemes for emigration, and nothing angered her more in the politics of the day than the absence of any colonial policy in the schemes and speeches of liberal ministers. [101] see below, p. 196. miss nightingale had sent some of her correspondence on colonization to an old friend at the colonial office--sir frederick rogers (lord blachford). "see what a thing," he replied (july 26, 1869), "is a bad conscience! you, conscious of a life spent in bullying harmless government offices, think that i must read your (beautiful) handwriting with horror. whereas i, conscious of rectitude, have sincere pleasure in receiving your assaults." this was a preface to an essay in which the under-secretary demonstrated, in the manner habitual to the colonial office in those days, the utter undesirability, impropriety, and impossibility of doing anything at all. lord houghton raised a conversation on the subject in the house of lords, but confessed to miss nightingale that he was half-hearted, and nothing came of it. she formed a large heap of newspaper cuttings, collected facts from foreign countries, made many notes, and intended to follow up the suggestions, thrown out in her paper, into greater detail, and then perhaps to publish a book. she gave much time during 1869 to the subject, and in december mr. goschen, the president of the poor law board, came to see her. they had a long discussion, and her note of it begins with an _aperçu_ of the minister--a little severe, perhaps, but not undiscriminating. "he is a man of considerable mind, great power of getting up statistical information and political economy, but with no practical insight or strength of character. it is an awkward mind--like a pudding in lumps. he is like a man who has been senior wrangler and never anything afterwards." he seemed to miss nightingale to see so many objections to any course as to make him likely to do nothing; and his economic doctrines paid too little regard, she thought, to the actual facts. "you must sometimes trample on the toes of political economists," she said,[102] "just to make them feel whether they are standing on firm ground." that she was deeply interested in the whole subject is shown by a testamentary document, dated september 19, 1869, in which she earnestly begged dr. sutherland to edit and publish her further "notes on pauperism."[103] she lived in full possession of her faculties for at least a quarter of a century after this date, but she never put the notes into printable shape. as i have said before, she lacked inclination to sustained literary composition. besides, her hands were full of other things. [102] in a letter to madame mohl, march 26, 1869. [103] in the same document dr. sutherland is begged to do the like for her (1) _notes on lying-in hospitals_ (published in 1871; see below, p. 196), and (2) "paper on selling lands with houses in towns" (see above, p. 92). at a later time she sent the second batch of pauperism notes to dr. sutherland; but he was of opinion that they required complete rewriting. iii miss nightingale's main work during these years may be described as that of a health missionary for india. she carried on her mission in three ways. she endeavoured by personal interviews and correspondence to incense with a desire for sanitary improvement all indian officials, from governors-general to local officers of health, whom she could contrive to influence. she made acquaintance with natives of india and strove to spread her gospel among them in their own country. and through her "own little department" in co-operation with sir bartle frere she did a large amount of official work in the same direction. on her return to london at the beginning of october 1868, she found work awaiting her under the first of the foregoing heads. sir john lawrence's term of office of governor-general was coming to an end, and disraeli had appointed lord mayo to succeed him. on october 22 he wrote asking to be allowed to see miss nightingale before he sailed for india:- (_sir bartle frere to miss nightingale._) india office, _oct._ 23 [1868]. i think you will hear from lord mayo, who i know is anxious to see you, if you can grant him an interview next week. could you in the meantime note down for him, as you did (when describing what the folk in india should now do) in a note to me a few weeks ago, the points to which he should give attention? i think you will like him very much. in appearance he is a refined likeness of what i remember of o'connell when i went as a boy (with a proper horror of his principles) to hear him before he got into parliament. lord mayo is very pleasing in manner, with no assumption of "knowing all about it," and evidently better informed on many subjects connected with sanitary reform than many men of greater pretension. he has a great sense of humour, too, which is a great help. i wish, when you see him, you would ask to see lady mayo. the interview with lord mayo was on the 28th, and a few days later miss nightingale saw lady mayo also. on the morning of the 28th dr. sutherland was summoned to south street. he was in a hurry and hoped there was "nothing much on to-day." "there is a 'something,'" ran the message sent down to him, "which most people would think a very big thing indeed. and that is seeing the viceroy or sacred animal of india. i made him go to shoeburyness yesterday and come to me this afternoon, because i could not see him unless you give me some kind of general idea what to state." dr. sutherland, thus prettily flattered, stayed, and they discussed what should be said to the sacred animal. next day she reported the conversation to dr. sutherland:- what he said was not unsensible but essentially irish. he said that he should see sir j. lawrence for two days before he (sir j. l.) left. and he said he should ask sir j. l. to call upon me the moment he returned, and to ask _me_ to write out to _him_ (lord mayo) anything that sir j. l. thought "a new broom" could do. that was clever of him. but he asked me (over and over again) that i should now at once before he goes write down for him something (he said) "that would guide me upon the sanitary administration as soon as i arrive." and "especially (he said) about that executive." he asked most sagacious questions about all the men. miss nightingale took counsel with sir bartle frere and dr. sutherland and then wrote a memorandum for the new viceroy. she covered the whole ground of sanitary improvement, dwelling much on questions of irrigation and agricultural development as aids thereto. "a noble and a most complete paper," said sir bartle frere (nov. 1), "and it will be invaluable to india." perhaps it impressed the new viceroy also. at any rate lord mayo's administration was marked by some improvement in sanitary conditions, and by extension of irrigation works.[104] he also initiated two of the indispensable preliminaries to sanitary progress: the census, and a statistical survey of the country. in an autobiographical note detailing her relations with successive viceroys, miss nightingale says that lord mayo's policy in sanitary and agricultural matters was in accord with lines which sir bartle frere and she desired. "i say nothing," she adds, "of his splendid services in foreign policy, in his feudatory states and native chiefs policy, in which doubtless sir b. frere helped him. i saw him more than once before he started, and he corresponded with me all the time of his too brief viceroyalty. i think he was the most open man, except sidney herbert, i ever knew. i think it was lord stanley who said of him, 'he did things not from calculation, but from the nature of his mind.' lord mayo said himself that his irish experience with 'a subject race' was so useful to him in india. he said that he was certainly the only viceroy who had sold his own cattle in the market." "florence the first, empress of scavengers, queen of nurses, reverend mother superior of the british army, governess of the governor of india" was mr. jowett's address when he heard of the interviews with lord mayo. "empress of scavengers" was m. mohl's title for her at this time. "rather," she said, "maid of all (dirty) work; or, the nuisances removal act: that's me." [104] for the former point, see the annual sanitary reports; for a summary of the latter works, see sir william hunter's _earl of mayo_, pp. 177-8. miss nightingale's greatest ally in india at this time was, however, lord napier, governor of madras. "i remember scutari," he wrote (june 24, 1868), "and i am one of the few original faithful left, and i think i am attached to you irrespective of sanitation." he was firm in her cause even where sir john lawrence had seemed unfaithful. the governor-general had abandoned a scheme for female nursing (p. 157); lord napier carried one through in madras, and corresponded at some length with miss nightingale on the subject. sir john lawrence had refused her advice to send some engineer officers home to study sanitary works; he had "none to spare." lord napier adopted the advice, and sent captain h. tulloch, whose visit to england and association with mr. rawlinson resulted in reports on urban drainage and the utilization of sewage. lady napier gave letters of introduction to miss nightingale to other officials from madras, and lord napier reported progress to her constantly:- (_lord napier to miss nightingale._) kodaikanal, _sept._ 22 [1867]. i write to you from one of the arsenals of health in southern india, from the palni hills, the most romantic and least visited of these salubrious and beautiful places.... i have deferred writing to you till i could announce that some sanitary good had really been secured worthy of your attention. i cannot say that such is yet the case, but something has been proposed and designed. we are building central jails to empty the district jails, and we are remodelling the district jails and rebuilding two or three. we are aerating and enlarging the lock-ups. i have stirred up the doctors in the general hospital at madras. i have proposed to take the soldiers out of it and build them a new separate military hospital (not yet sanctioned). i have endeavoured to raise the little native dispensaries and hospitals out of their sordid baseness and poverty. i am trying to get a new female hospital sanctioned for women, both european and native, with respectable diseases, and the others taken out and settled apart. i don't think my action has gone beyond a kind of impulse and movement. but we may effect something more important in the coming year. my wife has taken an active interest in the magdalen hospital, the lying-in hospital, and the orphanages of various kinds. we want money, zeal, belief; and knowledge in many quarters. (_lord napier to miss nightingale._) madras, _sept._ 3 [1868]. i am truly happy to find that i can do something to please you and that you will count me as a humble but devoted member of the sanitary band, of _your_ band i might more properly say! do you know that i was sent by lord stratford to salute and welcome you on your first arrival at scutari and that i found you stretched on the sofa where i believe you never lay down again? i thought _then_ that it would be a great happiness to serve you, and if the elchi would have given me to you i would have done so with all my heart and learned many things that would have been useful to me now. but the elchi would never employ any one on serious work who was at all near himself, so i spent the best years of my life at a momentous crisis doing nothing when there was enough for all! but if i can do something now it will be a late compensation ... [report on various sanitary measures then in hand]. i have read the beautiful account of "una" last evening driving along the melancholy shore. i send it to lady napier, who is in the hills. i will write again soon, as you permit and even desire it, and i am ever your faithful, grateful and devoted servant, napier. (_lord napier to miss nightingale._) madras, _june_ 3 [1869]. ... now i have a good piece of news for you. we are framing a bill for a general scheme of local taxation in this presidency, both in municipalities and in villages, and the open country, to provide for three purposes--local roads, primary education, and sanitation--such as improvement of wells, regulation of pilgrimages and fairs, drainage, &c. it will be very unpopular i fear in the first instance, for the people wish neither to be taught nor cured, but i think it is better on the whole to force their hands. we are driven to it, for i see clearly that we must wait a long time for help from the supreme government.... i was pleased and flattered to be mentioned by you in the same sentence with lord herbert. indeed i am not worthy to tie the latchet of his shoe, but there are weaknesses and illusions which endure to the last, and i suppose i never shall be indifferent to see myself praised by a woman and placed in connection, however remote, with a person of so much virtue and distinction. you shall have the little labour that is left in me.[105] [105] the other day in a bookseller's catalogue of "association books" i found this item: "florence nightingale's _notes on lying-in institutions_. presentation copy, with autograph inscription, 'to his excellency the lord napier, madras, this little book, though on a most unsavoury subject, yet one which, entering into his excellency's plans for the good of those under his enlightened rule, is not foreign to his thoughts--is offered by florence nightingale, london, oct. 10, '71.'" a subject on which miss nightingale wrote both to lord napier and to lord mayo was the inquiry into cholera in india ordered by the secretary of state in april 1869. she had made the proposition many months before. indian medical officers were absorbed in propounding theories; miss nightingale wanted first an exhaustive inquiry into the facts. even if such an inquiry did not establish any of the rival theories, it must lead, she thought, to much sanitary improvement. sir bartle frere strongly supported the idea, and it was arranged that the war office sanitary committee should make the suggestion and elaborate the scheme of procedure to be followed in india. the committee meant for such a purpose dr. sutherland, and dr. sutherland meant in part miss nightingale. sir bartle frere constantly wrote to her to know when the india office might expect the instructions, and miss nightingale as constantly applied the spur to dr. sutherland. on april 3 she delivered an ultimatum: "unless the cholera instructions are sent to me to-day, i renounce work and go away." at last they arrived, and her friend received a withering note: "_april_ 13, 1869. i beg leave to remark that i found a letter of yours this morning dated early in dec., which i mean to show you, in which, with the strongest objurgations of me, you told me that you could not come because you intended to get the cholera instructions through by _december_ 12, 1868. my dear soul, really sir b. frere could not have known the exhausting labour he has put you all to; to produce that in four months must prove fatal to all your constitutions! he is an ogre." dr. sutherland's instructions are admirably exhaustive, and may well have taken some time to prepare. the remaining stages of the affair were quick, and the secretary of state's dispatch went out to the government of india on april 23, followed by private letters from miss nightingale. the sanitary blue-books of successive years contain copious reports and discussions upon this "special cholera inquiry." it furnished much material for scientific discussion, by which miss nightingale sometimes feared that what she regarded as the essence of the matter was in danger of being overlaid. she and the army sanitary committee took occasion more than once to point out that "whatever may be the origin of cholera, or whatever may ultimately be found to be its laws of movement, there is nothing in any of the papers except what strengthens the evidence for the intimate relation which all previous experience has shown to exist between the intensity and fatality of cholera in any locality and the sanitary condition of the population inhabiting it."[106] the origin of cholera is now said to be a micro-organism identified by koch, but the laws of its movement and activity remain inscrutable. meanwhile, all subsequent experience has confirmed the doctrine which miss nightingale continually preached, that the one protection against cholera consists in a standing condition of good sanitation. [106] blue-book, 1870-71, p. 5; and see bibliography a, no. 127. iv at the very time when dr. sutherland was hard at work upon the cholera instructions, miss nightingale heard a report (on good authority) which filled her with anger and consternation. mr. gladstone was engaged in cutting down the army estimates; the army medical service was believed to be marked for retrenchment, and the war office sanitary commission for destruction. when she told this to dr. sutherland, he took the matter with nonchalance and said (as men are sometimes apt to say in such cases, especially if there is a woman to rely upon) that he did not see that anything could be done. very different was the view taken by miss nightingale, when she contemplated, not merely the interruption of dr. sutherland's useful work,[107] but the possibility of all sidney herbert's work being undermined. nothing to be done indeed! there was everything to be done! she could write to the prime minister himself. she could write to lord de grey (lord president). she could get this friend to approach one minister, and that friend to approach another. she could even claim a slight acquaintance, and write to mr. cardwell (secretary for war). she could write to all her friends among the opposition and give them timely notice of the wicked things intended by their adversaries. she ultimately wrote to lord de grey, enclosing a letter which he was to hand or not, at his discretion, to mr. cardwell. the intervention was successful, and lord de grey asked her for memoranda to "post him up" in the work of the army sanitary commission and in the sanitary progress in india. lord de grey interceded with mr. cardwell also on behalf of the army medical school and it was spared. the army sanitary committee was not touched, and for nearly twenty years more (till 1888) dr. sutherland continued his work upon it. miss nightingale's reports submitted to lord de grey are summarized in a letter to m. mohl (nov. 21, 1869):--"i am all in the arithmetical line now. lately i have been making up our returns in a popular form for one of the cabinet ministers (we are obliged to be very 'popular' for them--but hush! my abject respect for cabinet ministers prevails). i find that every year, taken upon the last four years for which we have returns (1864-7), there are, in the home army, 729 men alive every year who would have been dead but for sidney herbert's measures, and 5184 men always on active duty who would have been 'constantly sick' in bed. in india the difference is still more striking. taken on the last two years, the death-rate of bombay (civil, military and native) is lower than that of london, the healthiest city of europe. and the death-rate of calcutta is lower than that of liverpool or manchester![108] but this is not the greatest victory. the municipal commissioner of bombay writes[109] that the 'huddled native masses clamorously invoke the aid of the health department' if but one death from cholera or small-pox occurs; whereas formerly half of them might be swept away and the other half think it all right. now they attribute these deaths to dirty foul water and the like, and openly declare them preventable. no hope for future civilization among the 'masses' like this!" [107] captain galton took occasion in 1876 to render a tribute to dr. sutherland's services. "possessed of high general culture, of remarkably acute perception, of a very wide experience, and of a perfectly balanced judgment, he has been the moving mind in the proceedings of the army sanitary commission since its formation." (_journal of the society of arts_, vol. xxiv. p. 520). [108] according to the sanitary blue-book for 1869-70, the death-rates per 1000 were: bombay 19.2, london 23.3, calcutta 31.9, liverpool 36.4. in 1910 the order was very different: london 12.7, liverpool 17.7, calcutta 23.0, bombay 35.7. in four years (1864-8) the death-rate in bombay had fallen from 31.3 to 19.2; the rise in modern times is due to the industrialization of the town. [109] to miss nightingale; in the blue-book (p. 186) it is similarly stated that "in three years the masses have begun to learn that such scourges as cholera, fever and the like can be prevented by the ordinary processes of sanitation." v in december 1869 miss nightingale made a new friend. lord napier of magdala[110] was passing through london, and wrote to sir bartle frere saying that it "would make him very happy if he could have the privilege of paying his respects to miss nightingale before he left." sir bartle begged miss nightingale to grant the favour, as lord napier was devoted to their cause and was likely to be employed in india again--as quickly came to pass, for in the following month he was appointed commander-in-chief.[111] lord napier called on december 14, in order (as he wrote to her in making the appointment) "to have an opportunity of saying how much i have felt indebted to you for the assistance that your precepts and example gave to all who have been concerned with the care of soldiers and their families." he spent some hours with her, and she was charmed with him. "i felt sure," wrote sir bartle frere (dec. 23), "that you would like lord napier of magdala. he always seemed to me one of the few men fit for the round table." a long note which she recorded of the conversation shows how congenial it must have been to her, for lord napier talked with strong feeling of the importance and the practicability of improving the moral health of the british soldier. the administrators and the men of action always appealed to her more than the politicians, and lord napier of magdala was now added to her list of heroes. "when i look at these three men (tho' strangely different[112])--lord lawrence, lord napier of magdala and sir bartle frere--for practical ability, for statesmanlike perception of where the truth lies and what is to be done and who is to do it, for high aim, for noble disinterestedness, i feel that there is not a minister we have in england fit to tie their shoes--since sidney herbert. there is a simplicity, a largeness of view and character about these three men, as about sidney herbert, that does not exist in the present ministers. they are party men; these three are statesmen. s. herbert made enemies by not being a party man; it gave him such an advantage over them." lord napier of magdala came to see miss nightingale again in the following year (march 18, 1870), spending in conversation with her his last hours before leaving london to take up his appointment in india. she and sir bartle frere attached high importance to this interview. lord napier was a convinced sanitarian. he was bent upon introducing many reforms in the treatment of the soldiers. he believed in the possibility of improving both their moral and physical condition, by means of rational recreation and suitable employment. sir bartle frere suggested to miss nightingale that after seeing the commander-in-chief she should write to the viceroy so as to prepare his mind for what lord napier would propose. lord napier himself begged her to do so. "everything in india," he said to her, "depends on what is thought in england, and it was you who raised public opinion in england on these subjects." preparation of the viceroy's mind was held to be the more necessary because a letter, lately received by miss nightingale from him, seemed to show that his sanitary education was by no means complete. so mr. jowett's "governess of the governors of india" took her pupil again by the hand, and, with dr. sutherland's assistance, drew up a further memorandum on the indian sanitary question at large. referring him to the royal commission's report, she pointed out that the causes of ill-health among the troops were many, and that there was no single panacea; that if other causes were not concurrently removed, the erection of new barracks could not suffice; that fever may lurk beneath and around "costly palaces" (for so lord mayo had called some of the new barracks) even as around hovels; that expense incurred in all-round sanitary improvement can never be costly in the sense of extravagant, because it is essentially saving and reproductive expenditure; and so forth, and so forth.[113] miss nightingale, before sending her letter, submitted it to sir bartle frere (march 25). "i have nothing to suggest," he said, "in the way of alteration, and only wish that its words of wisdom were in print, and that thousands besides lord mayo could profit by them. they are in fact exactly what we want to have said to every one connected with the question from the viceroy down to the village elder." sir bartle begged her to consider whether she could not write something to the same effect which would reach the latter class. mr. jowett had suggested something of the sort a few years before. "did it ever occur to you," he had written (march 1867), "that you might write a short pamphlet or tract for the natives in india and get it translated? that would be a curious and interesting thing to do. when i saw the other day the account of miss carpenter in india, i felt half sorry that it was not you. they would have worshipped you like a divinity. a pretty reason! you will say. but then you might have gently rebuked the adoring natives as st. paul did on a similar occasion, and assured them that you were only a washerwoman and not a divine at all; that would have had an excellent effect." presently she found an opportunity of doing something in the kind that mr. jowett and sir bartle frere had suggested. [110] robert cornelius napier (1810-90), created baron napier of magdala, 1868. miss nightingale's other friend, the governor of madras, baron napier (in the scottish peerage), was created baron ettrick in the united kingdom peerage, 1872. in first signing himself "napier and ettrick" in a letter to miss nightingale, he begged "the high priestess of irrigation" to observe that his new title was "watery." [111] in succession to sir william mansfield (lord sandhurst). on his return from india lord sandhurst came to see miss nightingale (july 8, 1870), and they corresponded afterwards. [112] of lord lawrence and sir bartle frere, miss nightingale wrote to madame mohl (march 26, 1869): "you can ask sir bartle frere about sir john lawrence if you like. but they are so unlike, yet each so roundly perfect in his own way, that they can never understand each other--never touch at any point, not thro' eternity. i love and admire them both with all my mind and with all my heart, but have long since given up the slightest attempt to make either understand the other. but each is too much of a man, too noble, too chivalrous, to denigrate the other." [113] the substance of much of her memorandum to lord mayo was embodied in the "observations" which she contributed to the indian sanitary blue-book, 1869-70; see especially p. 43. meanwhile, lord mayo had introduced dr. j. w. cunningham to miss nightingale, and they became great allies. when he returned to resume his duties as "sanitary commissioner with the government of india," he corresponded with miss nightingale regularly, telling her where things were backward and where a word in season from her would be helpful. in every question she took the keenest interest, sparing no pains to forward, so far as she could, every good scheme that was laid before her. in 1872 mr. w. clark, engineer to the municipality of calcutta, came to see her about great schemes of water-supply and drainage. she obtained an introduction to sir george campbell, the lieutenant-governor of bengal, in order to commend to his notice mr. clark's plans. for many years she was thus engaged in correspondence with sanitary reformers and officials in various parts of india, sending them words of encouragement when they seemed to desire and deserve it, words of advice when, as was frequently the case, they invited it. when such officials came home on furlough, most of them came also to miss nightingale. dr. sutherland, in his official capacity on the war office sanitary committee, would often see them first; he would then pass them on to her, dividing them into two classes: those "whom you must simply lecture" and those "whose education you had better conduct by innocently putting searching questions to them." miss nightingale was never backward in filling the part of governess to those who in sanitary matters governed india. vi sanitary improvement depended, however, on the governed as well as on the governors; and miss nightingale had for some time been extending her influence in india by making the personal acquaintance of indian gentlemen. "i have been quite beset by parsees," she wrote to m. mohl (feb. 16, 1868); "and after all i saw your manochjee cursetjee, that is, the 'byron of the east.' sir b. frere says that few men have done so much for the education of their own race. he talked a good deal of philosophy to me, while my head was entirely in midwifery! he is (by his own proposal), if i can send out the midwives, to take them in at the house of his daughters, of whom one married a cama, and the other is the first parsee lady who ever lived as an english single lady might do." many other indian ladies and gentlemen were introduced to miss nightingale personally or in correspondence by miss carpenter. in 1870 miss nightingale was elected an honorary member of the bengal social science association, the council of which body was mainly composed of indian gentlemen. she wrote a cordial letter of thanks (may 25). "for eleven years," she said, "what little i could do for india, for the conditions on which the eternal has made to depend the lives and healths and social happiness of men, as well native as european, has been the constant object of my thoughts by day and my thoughts by night." she eulogized the work that had been done by many private gentlemen of india; she put before them a vision of vast schemes of drainage and irrigation; she sent a subscription to the funds of the association, and promised a contribution to its proceedings. in this contribution,[114] sent in june 1870, miss nightingale did what sir bartle frere desired: she addressed the village elder. "i think," said dr. sutherland, who had submitted a draft for miss nightingale to rewrite in her own language, "that this is the most important contribution you have made to the question." in simple and terse language, she described the sanitary reforms which might be carried out by the people themselves--pointing out in detail the nature of the evils, and the appropriate remedies for them, and then appealing to simple motives for sanitary improvement. "as we find in all history and true fable that the meanest causes universally multiplied produce the greatest effects, let us not think it other than a fitting sacrifice to the eternal and perfect one to look into the lowest habits of great peoples, in order, if we may, to awaken them to a sense of the injury they are doing themselves and the good they might do themselves. much of the willingness for education is due to the fact, appreciated by them, that education makes money. but would not the same appreciation, if enlightened, show them that loss of health, loss of strength, loss of life, is loss of money, the greatest loss of money we know? and we may truly say that every sanitary improvement which saves health and life is worth its weight in gold." this address to the peoples of india was the most widely distributed of all miss nightingale's missionary efforts. the association translated it into bengali. sir bartle frere had it translated into other indian languages. [114] bibliography a, no. 56. vii miss nightingale's third sphere of missionary work was in the sanitary department at the india office, to which, through her alliance with sir bartle frere, she was a confidential adviser. her action, in making suggestions and in seeking to influence officials in india, has been illustrated already. her constant work was in helping to edit and in contributing to the annual blue-book containing reports of "measures adopted for sanitary improvements in india." the importance which miss nightingale attached to the publication of such an annual has been explained in general terms already (p. 145). she saw in it two useful purposes. first, the fact that reports from india were required and published each year acted as a spur to the authorities in that country; and, secondly, the introductory memorandum, and the inclusion of reports on indian matters by the war office sanitary committee, gave opportunity, year by year, for making suggestions and criticisms. the annual was issued by the sanitary department at the india office and edited by mr. c. c. plowden, a zealous clerk in that office with whom miss nightingale made friends; sir bartle frere, as head of the department, instructed him to submit all the reports to miss nightingale who in fact was assistant-editor, or perhaps rather (for her will seems to have been law) editor-in-chief. it was she who had prepared for the royal commission the analysis of sanitary defects in the several indian stations; who had written the "observations" on them; who had taken a principal part in drafting the "suggestions" for their reform. it was natural that she should be asked to report on the measures actually taken to that end. she was a very critical reporter. "sir bartle frere hesitates a little," she was told on one occasion (1869), "as to the omission of all terms of praise, and says that the indian jupiter is a god of sunshine as well as thunder and should dispense both; he, however, sanctions the omission in the present case." miss nightingale's papers show that during the years 1869-74 she devoted great labour to the annual. she read and criticised the abstracts of the local reports prepared by mr. plowden; she discussed all the points that they suggested with dr. sutherland; she wrote, or suggested, the introductory memorandum. she did this work with the greater zeal because it kept her informed of every detail; and the knowledge thus acquired gave the greater force to her private correspondence with viceroys, governors, commanders-in-chief, and sanitary commissioners. her share in the first number of the annual has been already described (p. 155). in the following year mr. plowden wrote (may 22, 1869): "i forward a sketch of the introductory memorandum to the sanitary volume. you will see that the greater part of it is copied verbatim from a memorandum of your own that sir bartle frere handed over to me for this purpose." "i can never thank you sufficiently," wrote sir bartle himself (july 5), "for all the kind help you have given to mr. plowden's annual, at the cost of an amount of trouble to yourself which i hardly like to think of. but i feel sure it will leave its mark on india." she took good care that it should at any rate have a chance of doing so. she had discovered that the 1868 report, though sent to india in october of that year, had not been distributed in the several presidencies till june 1869. she now saw to it that copies of the 1869 report were sent separately to the various stations by book-post. she continued to contribute in one way or another to successive volumes[115]; and that for 1874 included a long and important paper by her. [115] see bibliography a, nos. 57, 62. viii ten years before miss nightingale had popularized the report of her royal commission in a paper entitled "how people may live and not die in india." the paper was read to the social science congress in 1863. in 1873 she was again requested to contribute a paper to the congress. she chose for her title "how some people have lived, and not died in india." it was a summary in popular form of ten years' progress, and this was the paper which the india office reprinted in its blue-book of 1874. miss nightingale glanced in rapid detail at the improvements in various parts of india; took occasion to give credit to particularly zealous officials; and noticed incidentally some of the common objections. one objection was that caste prejudice must ever be an insuperable obstacle to sanitary improvement. she gave "a curious and cheerful" instance to the contrary. calcutta had "found the fabled virtues of the ganges in the pure water-tap." when the water-supply was first introduced, the high-caste hindoos still desired their water-carriers to bring them the _sacred_ water from the _river_; but these functionaries, finding it much easier to take the water from the new taps, just rubbed in a little (vulgar, not sacred) mud and presented it as ganges water. when at last the healthy fraud was discovered, public opinion, founded on experience, had already gone too far to return to dirty water. and the new water-supply was, at public meetings, adjudged to be "theologically as well as physically safe." then there was the objection of expense, but she analysed the result of sanitary improvements in statistics of the army. the death-rate had been brought down from 69 per 1000 to 18. only 18 men died where 69 died before. a sum of £285,000 was the money saving on recruits in a single year. the course of sanitary improvement, and the results of it, among the civil population cannot be brought to any such definite test; no indian census was taken till 1872, registration of births and deaths was only beginning and was very imperfect; and india is a country as large as the whole of europe (without russia). it was the opinion of a competent authority that the sanitary progress which had been made in india during the years covered by miss nightingale's review "had no parallel in the history of the world";[116] but the progress was relative of course to the almost incredibly insanitary condition of the country when she began her crusade. the progress had been made along many different lines. first, in connection with the health of military stations, the government of india established committees of military, civil, medical and engineering officers, of local magistrates and village authorities to regulate the sanitary arrangements of the neighbourhood. sanitary oases for british troops were thus established in the midst of insanitary deserts. then, sanitary regulations were issued for fairs and pilgrimages--each of these a focus of indian disease. institutions in india--hospitals, jails, asylums--had been greatly improved; and the municipalities of the great cities had made some sanitary progress. ten years before, miss nightingale had reported to the royal commission that no one of the seats of presidencies in india had as yet arrived at the degree of sanitary civilization shown in the worst parts of the worst english towns. now, calcutta had a pure-water supply and the main drainage of most of the town was complete. bombay had done less by municipal action, but thanks to a specially vigorous health officer, dr. hewlett, sanitation had been improved. madras had improved its water-supply and was successfully applying a part of its sewage to agriculture. the condition of the vast regions of rural india showed that the teaching of the sanitary commissioners was beginning to take some effect. hollows and excavations near villages were being filled up; brushwood and jungle, removed; wells, cleaned. surface refuse was being removed; and tanks were being provided for sewage, to prevent it going into the drinking-tanks. from reports of particular places, miss nightingale drew her favourite moral. there was a village in south india which had suffered very badly from cholera and fever. it was in a foul and wretched state, and had polluted water. then wells were dug and properly protected; the surface drainage was improved; cleanliness was enforced; trees were planted. the village escaped the next visitation of the scourge. miss nightingale had many hours of depression, and many occasions of disappointment, as health missionary for india; but in her paper of 1874 she bore "emphatic witness how great are the sanitary deeds already achieved, or in the course of being achieved, by the gallant anglo-indians, as formerly she bore emphatic witness against the then existing neglects." only the fringe of the evil had been touched; but at any rate enough had been done to show that the old bogey, "the hopeless indian climate," might in course of time be laid by wise precautions. "there is a vast work going on in india," said dr. sutherland; and in this work miss nightingale had throughout played a principal, and the inspiring, part. it was the opinion of an unprejudiced expert who, though he admired her devotion, did not always agree with her views or methods, that "of the sanitary improvements in india three-fourths are due to miss nightingale."[117] [116] captain galton, "on sanitary progress in india," 1876 (_journal of the society of arts_, vol. xxiv. pp. 519-534.) this is the best _short_ account of the matter that i have come across. it is more detailed than miss nightingale's paper of 1874. for further particulars, a reader should, of course, refer to the annual sanitary blue-books. [117] so sir bartle frere reported to miss nightingale that sir john strachey had said to him; and sir john wrote in much the same sense to miss nightingale herself. but here, as in all things, her gaze was fixed upon the path to perfection. in her own mind she counted less the past advance than the future way. there was an appendix to her paper in which she preached the supreme importance of irrigation--of irrigation, that is, combined with scientific drainage. only by that means, she held, could yet more people "live and not die in india," and could the country be raised to its full productive power. a letter which sir stafford northcote sent her (april 29, 1874), in acknowledgment of her paper on "life or death in india," exactly expressed her own feelings. "how much," he said, "you have done! and how little you think you have done! after all, the measure of our work depends upon whether we take it by looking backwards or by looking forwards, by looking on what has been accomplished or on what has revealed itself as still to be accomplished. when we have got to the top of the mountain, are we much nearer the stars or not?" chapter iv adviser-general on hospitals and nursing (1868-1872) we are your soldiers, and we look for the approval of our chief.--miss agnes jones (_letter to miss nightingale_). from a correspondent in the north of england: "i have got a colliery proprietor here to co-operate with the workmen to build a hospital for accidents. will you kindly give your opinion on the best kind of building?" from a correspondent in london: "we are proposing to form a british nursing association. may we ask for your advice and suggestions?" these letters are samples of hundreds which miss nightingale received, and to all such applications she readily replied. she constituted herself, or rather she was constituted by her fellow-countrymen, a central department for matters pertaining to hospitals and nurses. from all parts of the country, from british colonies and from some foreign countries, plans of proposed general hospitals, cottage hospitals, convalescent homes were submitted to her. she criticised them carefully. when she was consulted at an earlier stage, she often submitted plans of her own. in all such cases, there were experts among her large circle of friends--architects, sanitary engineers, military engineers, hospital superintendents and matrons--to advise and assist her. and here a curiously interesting thing may be noticed. miss nightingale had begun her work as a reformer with the military hospitals. so high was now their standard that she often went to them for models. many plans for ideal hospitals were drawn for her at this time by lieutenant w. f. ommamney, r.e., at the war office. the improvement of buildings and of nursing went on concurrently, and miss nightingale used her influence in each department to improve the other. if she were consulted only about buildings, she would answer: "these plans are all very well, as far as they go; but your hospital will never be efficient without adequate provision for a supply of properly trained nurses." if she were asked to furnish a supply of nurses, she would say: "by all means; but you must satisfy me first that your buildings are sanitary." thus, when she was asked to send nurses to the sydney infirmary, she stipulated that plans of the buildings should be submitted; and when the war office was negotiating for a supply of nurses for netley, there was a voluminous correspondence about the improvement of the wards and of the nurses' quarters. there was a great extension during these years of societies for the training of nurses, and of the introduction of trained nurses into infirmaries and other institutions. all this involved a large addition to miss nightingale's correspondence. as the nursing system extended, many questions arose with regard to the relation between the medical and the nursing staffs, and she was constantly referred to for suggestions and advice. she printed a code of "suggestions" in 1868 dealing with such matters,[118] and three years later she and dr. sutherland drew up a code for infirmary nursing which was approved by mr. stansfeld, the president of the newly-formed local government board. her correspondence was as extensive with individuals as with institutions. hundreds of girls who thought of becoming nurses applied to her, and she generally answered their letters; but the supply of nurses barely kept pace with the demand. miss nightingale was impressed in particular by the lack of suitable applicants for the higher posts. there were many women anxious to take up nursing as a profession. there were few who possessed the social standing, the high character, trained intelligence, and personal devotion which were necessary to make them successful lady superintendents; and much of miss nightingale's correspondence during these years was to friends in various parts of the country who were begged to enlist promising recruits. [118] bibliography a, no. 49 (note). ii among the women who sought out miss nightingale for advice were queens and princesses. she guarded very jealously, however, the seclusion which was necessary to enable her to do her chosen work, and she did not allow it to be invaded at will even by the most exalted personages. her position as a chronic invalid gave her the advantage. she could pick and choose by feeling a little stronger or a little weaker. she made two rules which she communicated to her influential friends. she would not be well enough to see any queen or princess who did not take a personal and practical interest in hospitals or nursing; and she would never be well enough to receive any who did not come unattended by ladies or lords in waiting. any interview must be entirely devoid of ceremonial; it must be simply between one woman interested in nursing and another. in 1867 the queen of prussia was paying a visit to the english court, and queen victoria asked miss nightingale through sir james clark to see queen augusta. miss nightingale was assured that the queen had given much personal attention to hospitals. miss nightingale saw her (july 6) and found that the assurances were well founded:- (_miss nightingale to julius mohl._) 35 south street, _july_ 28 [1867]. i am a little unhappy because the queen of prussia's secretary told mad. mohl that i had seen the queen. i liked her. i don't think the mixture of pietism and absolutism is much more attractive at the court of prussia than at the court of rome. still, i am always struck, especially with our own royal family, how superior they are in earnestness and education to other women. i know no two girls of any class, of any country, who take so much interest in things that are interesting, as the crown princess of prussia and princess alice of darmstadt--especially in theological matters and administration. the queen of holland, it will be remembered, had not been received; but at a later time miss nightingale saw her, in november 1868 and again in march 1870. "i think of you," wrote queen sophie (march 29, 1870), "as one of the highest and best i have met in this world." the princess alice asked for an interview in 1867 through lady herbert, who was able to inform miss nightingale that "the princess has been to see most of the hospitals in london with a view to learn all about them so as to improve those in darmstadt." miss nightingale saw the princess in june, and in subsequent years there was much correspondence between them. but the royal lady who made the greatest impression on miss nightingale was the crown princess victoria. it had been explained to miss nightingale by one of the princess's ladies that "h.r.h. has always thought a life devoted to the comfort of fellow-beings and the alleviation of their sufferings the one most to be envied," and that "she knows your notes on hospitals and notes on nursing almost by heart." the princess was in england at the end of 1868, and was full at the time of schemes for a new hospital at berlin, for lying-in hospitals, for a training-school for nurses. she showed her practical purpose by sending to miss nightingale in advance her architect's plans. they had two long interviews in december, and miss nightingale had a very busy fortnight with dr. sutherland in collecting statistics about various lying-in hospitals and in preparing plans, with the assistance of the army medical department and war office sanitary committee, on the best model. miss nightingale was delighted with her visitor. "she took every point," she told dr. sutherland, "as quick as lightning." "i have a fresh neophyte," she wrote to sir john mcneill (dec. 25, 1868), "in the person of the crown princess of prussia. she has a quick intelligence, and is cultivating herself in knowledge of sanitary (and female) administration for her future great career. she comes alone like a girl, pulls off her hat and jacket like a five-year-old, drags about a great portfolio of plans, and kneels by my bedside correcting them. she gives a great deal of trouble. but i believe it will bear fruit." that the inquiries of the princess were searching, and her commissions exacting, appears from the correspondence:- (_miss nightingale to the crown princess of prussia._) 35 south street, _dec._ 21 [1868]. madam--in grateful obedience to your royal highness's command, directing me to forward to osborne before the 24th the commissions with which you favoured me, i send (1) the portfolio of plans for the hospital near the plotzen see, and, in this envelope, the criticism upon the plans. also, in another envelope (2) a sketch of the nursing "hierarchy" required to nurse this hospital (with a training school attached), even to ages desirable--as desired by your royal highness. also (3) the methods of continuous examination in use (with full-sized copies of the forms) to test the progress of our probationers (probe-schwestern). also (4) lists of the clothing and underclothing (even to changes of linen) we give to and require from our probationers and nurses, and of the changes of sheets. your royal highness having directed me to send patterns "in paper" of our probationers' dress, i have thought it better to have a complete uniform dress such as our probationers wear, for in-doors and out-doors, made for your royal highness's inspection, even to bonnet, cap, and collar, which will arrive by this messenger in a small box and parcel. i am afraid that the aspect of these papers will be quite alarming from their bulk. but i can only testify my gratitude for your royal highness's great kindness by fulfilling as closely as i can the spirit of your gracious will. i am sorry to say that i have not yet done encumbering your royal highness. the plans for lying-in cottages had to be completed at the war office and are not quite ready. but they shall be forwarded "before the 24th." i think we have succeeded in producing a perfectly healthy and successful lying-in cottage, by means of great _sub-division_ and incessant cleanliness and ventilation, which includes the not having _any_ ward _constantly_ occupied. in one of these huts we have had 600 lyings-in consecutively without a single death or case of puerperal disease or casualty of any kind. (this experience is, i believe, without a fellow, but will, i trust, have many fellows before long.) believe me, your royal highness's enquiry about these things does the greatest good, not only with regard to what is proposed in prussia, but in stirring up the war office, the medical authorities, and other officials _here_ to consider these vital trifles more seriously. and thus thousands of lives of poor women, of poor patients of all kinds, will be saved, even in england, through your royal highness's means. hitherto lying-in hospitals have been not to cure but to kill. as i have again to trouble your royal highness about these subjects, i will not now enter into two or three other little things with which i was commissioned. may i beg always to be considered, madam, the most faithful, ready and devoted of your royal highness's servants. (_the crown princess of prussia to miss nightingale._) osborne, _dec._ 24 [1868]. i don't wish to lose a _minute_ in thanking you for your great kindness and for all the trouble you have taken for me. your letter is so _excellent_, and all the information you give is _most_ valuable, and will be of untold use, not only to _me_ as a guide in my humble endeavours to promote a _serious_, _conscientious_, and _rational_ spirit in the treatment of sanitary matters, but to many others in germany. your precious time has _not_ been wasted while you were writing for me, i assure you. the dress i think _very_ neat and nice, and not clerical looking (which is, in my eyes, an advantage). i was so vexed that i forgot to tell you the other day how much i admired _una and the lion_. i read it this summer in germany, and thought it touching and lovely in the extreme. i "colported" it right and left! after i have arrived at berlin and had leisure thoroughly to go into every detail of the materials you have given me, i will write to you again. these few lines are only to express my earnest thanks. the crown prince wishes me to say how sorry he is never to have seen you. he shares my feelings when your name is mentioned. i trust that the next time i am in this country i shall see you again. i remain, dear miss nightingale, yours gratefully, victoria. negotiations with the nightingale fund were presently opened, and the crown princess sent fräulein fuhrmann, who afterwards superintended the victoria training school for nurses in berlin (p. 204), to receive her own training as a nightingale nurse at st. thomas's. iii the nightingale training school had for many years been extending the area of its influence, and miss nightingale herself, in spite of her incessant work in other fields, never lost general control and supervision of it. year after year, she kept up correspondence, both voluminous and intimate, with mrs. wardroper, the matron. her brother-in-law, sir harry verney, was now chairman of the council of the nightingale fund; her cousin, mr. henry bonham carter, had succeeded mr. clough as secretary--a duty which he continues to discharge to this day. sir harry verney saw miss nightingale frequently with regard to the business of the school. between mr. bonham carter and her there is a great mass of correspondence extending over forty years and more; conducted sometimes by an exchange of letters through the post, sometimes by notes of question and answer at her house, as in the case of dr. sutherland. mr. bonham carter, alike as secretary of the fund and as a cousin devoted to miss nightingale personally, gave his time and zeal without stint to the work; but he had independence of character. he was once asked how he contrived to do other things besides serve miss nightingale. "when it was getting late," he explained, "i used to say, now i must go home to dinner." his devotion, good sense, and business-like habits contributed largely to the success of the undertaking, and saved miss nightingale much trouble in matters both of detail and of general administrative policy; but questions of what may be called the superior direction of the school were always referred to her, and there were many occasions on which her personal influence was felt to be indispensable. it was especially brought to bear whenever a contingent of nightingale nurses was sent from st. thomas's to occupy new ground. the phrase quoted at the head of this chapter, from a letter by miss agnes jones, when she was thus sent to pioneer work in the liverpool workhouse, exactly expresses one side of the relationship between the nurses and miss nightingale. but she was more to them than a chief. she was not a distant and almost impersonal abstraction like "the widow at windsor." the lady in south street was not only the queen of the nightingale nurses, she was also their mother. the principal lieutenants who went out on important service, and many members of the rank and file, maintained constant correspondence with her--sending to her direct reports, consulting her in difficulties, looking to her, and never in vain, for counsel and encouragement. miss nightingale took especial pains to help and to influence the lady superintendents who went from st. thomas's in command of nursing parties. among her earlier papers containing thoughts about her future work, there is more than one reference to "richelieu's 'self-multiplication.'" she strove to extend her work by creating lieutenants in her own image. one of the most important of the missionary voyages of the nightingale nurses during these years was to new south wales. miss nightingale had for some time been in correspondence with sir henry parkes, then colonial secretary in new south wales, about the nursing in the sydney infirmary, and in december 1867 miss osburn sailed with five nurses to take up the position of lady superintendent. the nurses arrived in time to nurse prince alfred, when he was shot during his visit to the colony. there is a letter from sir william jenner to miss nightingale (july 4, 1868) saying, "i have received the queen's commands to tell you how very useful they were. her majesty says, 'she is sure this information will give miss nightingale much pleasure.'" in one respect the nurses were more successful than miss nightingale desired. at first all went well. there were difficulties with the doctors and others, of course, but sir henry parkes was always helpful. there was "no flirting," miss osburn reported (may 20), "and all the nurses cling round me in difficulties like true britons." but they did not cling for long. their services were too much appreciated. in a few years' time all the five had either married or received valuable appointments outside the infirmary, and miss osburn had to recruit her staff from the colony itself. miss nightingale thought that the expedition had thus "failed"; but there was something to be said on the other side, and the diffusion of the nightingale band did much to promote the extension of trained nursing in the colony. another expedition of great importance was an extension of the liverpool experiment to london. in 1868 mr. (afterwards sir) william wyatt, the leader of a reform party in st. pancras, had entered into correspondence with miss nightingale with regard to the new infirmary (built under the act of 1867) at highgate; he submitted the plans of the building, and suggested the introduction of nightingale nurses. she approved the plans, encouraged him in his good work, and in the following year (1869) miss elizabeth torrance was appointed matron, with nine nurses under her. the experiment was presently extended, and a training school for nurses was established at the infirmary. there are about one hundred letters from miss torrance a year, a figure which will give some idea of the close touch which miss nightingale kept with important lieutenants. she considered miss torrance "the most capable superintendent they had yet trained" (1870), and the letters bear out the estimate. they are those of a canny, capable and devoted woman--taking everything quietly as part of the day's work, with no fussiness or needless self-importance. "i have never seen such nurses," wrote the medical superintendent, when miss torrance and her staff had been at work for some months; "they are so thoroughly conversant with disease that one feels quite on one's mettle in practice. what strikes me most is the real interest they take in the work, and this is the secret of their success"--not attainable by the pauper nurses whom they displaced. inspectors, guardians, and other officials would have done well to feel quite on their mettle in miss torrance's presence also; for her letters show her to have been possessed of a humorous shrewdness which took the measure of men, by no means always at their own valuation. miss torrance amongst other reforms introduced useful work into the occupation of the inmates. "the achievement i am most proud of," she wrote (1871), "is getting the men's suits cut out and made. i found a tailor in no. 2 ward who cut out some, and i sent them into nos. 1 and 4 to be made, but there was a tailor in no. 1 who made difficulties, 'you see, ma'am, it's such a very old-fashioned cut.'" once a week at least the matron wrote reporting progress or difficulties to miss nightingale, who replied with advice, books, presents. nurses, of whom the matron reported well, came in batches to see miss nightingale. "they returned," wrote miss torrance, of one occasion of the kind, "beaming with delight, but as they all talked about it at once i did not gather very clearly what passed. sister a., however, feared that sister b. 'must have tried miss nightingale.'" sister b., it seems, had the same fear about sister a. nurses and matron alike regarded their reception by miss nightingale as a high privilege. "i always feel refreshed _for months_," wrote mrs. wardroper (march 1871), "after one of those affectionate receptions you accord me." none of miss nightingale's "soldiers" left her cabinet without feeling a better and a braver woman. miss torrance presently fell from grace in miss nightingale's eyes by becoming engaged to be married. at a critical period of the engagement, she failed to keep some appointments at south street, and miss nightingale did not recover equanimity till she recalled to herself a saying of mr. clough's: "persons in that case should be treated as if they had the scarlet fever." in november 1869 there were receptions in south street such as a sovereign sometimes accords to warriors or statesmen on the eve of a great emprise. a superintendent of nurses (mrs. deeble) and a staff of six ward sisters were setting out from st. thomas's to take charge of the war office hospital at netley. miss nightingale received them all, gave them presents and addressed words of encouragement. "that i have 'seen miss nightingale'" wrote one of them, "will be one of the white mile-stones on my road, to which i shall often look back with feelings of gratitude and pleasure. i trust that i shall never forget some of the things you said to me, and that 'looking up' i may be enabled to show by my future life that your great kindness has not been thrown away." "the netley sisters," wrote mrs. wardroper, "are overflowing with love and gratitude for all the interest and trouble you have so kindly taken for and in them. your reception, pretty presents, and good advice have quite won their hearts. to know you, and to have heard from your own lips, that each one has your best wishes and prayer for success will do much to cheer and help them." "i have been preaching to them four hours a day," wrote miss nightingale to m. mohl (nov. 21), "and expounding regulations. some of them are very nice women. one was out with dr. livingstone and bishop mackenzie on the zambesi mission. one, a woman who would be distinguished in any society, accidentally read my little article on 'una,' and wrote off to us the same night offering to go through our training (which she did) and join us." "expounding regulations" was always a part of miss nightingale's exhortation on such occasions. in this particular case she had a hand in making the regulations. in other cases she often found them very stupid. they were generally made by men, who were incapable, she thought (as we have heard already), of devising suitable regulations for women. "oh, how i wish there were no men," she wrote on one occasion when trying to compose a hospital quarrel. but even bad regulations must be observed, till they can be altered, and women did not always understand that some diplomacy was necessary to obtain the alteration. "women," she said, "are unable to see that it requires wisdom as well as self-denial to establish any new work." as the work which the nightingale nurses had at this time to do was all new, there were many difficulties and most of them came up to miss nightingale for solution or advice. when a very long-winded letter arrived, she would often send it on unread to dr. sutherland, for him to digest and advise upon. it was her comfortable persuasion that he had nothing else to do, and she scolded him if there was any delay; but sooner or later he did the work for her, and his advice in such matters never failed in shrewd common sense. sometimes he would say, "this letter shows a fit of temper on the nurse's part, and is a case for a little homily from you." in such homilies miss nightingale would mingle an appeal to higher motives with a reference to her own example and experience--as in the following letter:- (_to a discontented nurse._) _april_ 22 [1869]. do you think i should have succeeded in doing anything if i had kicked and resisted and resented? is it our master's command? is it even common sense? i have been even shut out of hospitals into which i had been ordered to go by the commander-in-chief--obliged to stand outside the door in the snow till night--been refused rations for as much as 10 days at a time for the nurses i had brought by superior command.[119] and i have been as good friends the day after with the officials who did these things--have resolutely ignored these things _for the sake of the work_. what was i to my master's work? when people offend, they offend the master, before they do me. and who am i that i should not choose to bear what my master chooses to bear? you have many high and noble points of character. else i should not write to you as i do. but the spirit of opposition in which you are working (or rather _were_ at the time you wrote, for i am satisfied it was only an ebullition of the moment), and yet doing your work well and doing good, would, if it really were persisted in, materially increase the difficulties of that work to which, i am sure, you are devoted. [119] see vol. i. p. 291. iv there was one failure in the work of the nightingale fund which led miss nightingale to write a new book, than which none ever cost her more labour. in 1867 the midwifery school established in king's college hospital[120] had to be closed owing to the high rate of mortality in the lying-in wards. as soon as the figures were brought to miss nightingale's notice, she set to work in examining the whole subject of mortality in lying-in wards. she soon found that no trustworthy statistics of mortality in child-bed had yet been collected. she searched for them throughout this country and from foreign hospitals and doctors. she discovered that in lying-in wards everywhere the death-rate was many times the amount of that which took place in home deliveries. this fact showed that public attention should at once be called to the subject, and at the same time it opened up larger questions. there was one school of medical opinion which held that the mortality must in the nature of things be large in lying-in wards; there was another which held that the high rate of mortality therein might be prevented. the inquiries which miss nightingale had made for the crown princess of prussia[121] inclined her to the latter view, and she pursued her researches in all directions, collecting an immense mass of information and calling in the assistance of sanitary engineers and other authorities. it should be remembered in all this that the introduction of antiseptics has much altered the conditions since the time of miss nightingale's work now under consideration. materials for a book accumulated, but time to put them into shape was wanting. dr. sutherland, on whose assistance she mainly relied, was no more able than she herself to give undivided attention to the subject; but at last with his help the book was written. it was published in october 1871, with the title _introductory notes on lying-in institutions_. the book did for this special subject something of the same service which _notes on hospitals_ had done in the general sphere. miss nightingale showed by statistical evidence that many lying-in wards and institutions were pest-houses; she showed the importance of isolation and extreme cleanliness; and furnished model rules, plans and specifications for sanitary lying-in hospitals. in the latter pages, the book was an extension of the _notes on nursing_ to this special branch. she urged the importance of training-schools for midwives; described the ideal of an institution of the kind; and pleaded for "midwifery as a career for educated women." there was much agitation at the time for the admission of women to the medical profession. miss nightingale in a letter addressed "dear sisters," suggested that there was "a better thing for women to be than 'medical men,' and that is to be _medical women_." she was in the country when the book was passing through the press; and dr. sutherland, in sending a last revise with some suggestions of his own, said (july 22), "i return the proof corrected. don't swear, but read the reasons on the accompanying paper. it is a good thing you are at lea hurst or your 'dear sisters' would infallibly break your head. they will probably break your windows. however, you are clearly right, and let them scream and stamp. the book is a very good contribution to the subject, and will excite surprise and some opposition. but the facts are too strong." miss nightingale put out her book tentatively in a questioning spirit, as she explained in this characteristic dedication (which had received mr. jowett's imprimatur, but puzzled some of the reviewers):- if i may dedicate, without permission, these small "notes" to the shade of socrates' mother, may i likewise, without presumption, call to my help the questioning shade of her son, that i who write may have the spirit of questioning aright and that those who read may learn not of me but of themselves? and further, has he not said: "the midwives are respectable women and have a character to lose."[122] [120] vol. i. p. 464. [121] see above, p. 189. [122] _theaetetus_, 150. v the preparation of this book had been delayed by the franco-german war of 1870-71, which brought a great addition to miss nightingale's labours. there is a huge pile of documents on the subject amongst her papers. a letter to an old friend gives an idea of one branch of the correspondence:- (_miss nightingale to harriet martineau._) 35 south street, _feb._ [1871]. oh this year of desolation! the one gleam of comfort through it all was the rush of all english-speaking people, in all climates and in all longitudes,--not the rich and comfortable, but the whole mass of hard-working, honest, frugal, stupid people--who have contributed every penny they could so ill spare. women have given the very shoes off their feet, the very suppers out of their children's mouths--not to those of their own creed, not to those of their own way of thinking at all, but--to those who _suffered most_. in this awful war, all, all have given--every man, woman, and child above pauperism. i have been so touched to receive from places i had never even heard of, but which it would take me a day to enumerate,--from congregations who had "seen my name in a stray london newspaper" as helping in the relief of the war sufferers--sums collected by halfpence (with a long letter to say how they wished the money spent)--from poor hard-working negro congregations in different islands of the west indies--poor congregations of all kinds, puritan chapels in my own dear hills, national schools, factories, london dissenting congregations without a single rich member, london ragged schools who having nothing to give, gave up their only feast in the year that the money might be sent to the orphans in the war "who want it more than we." some of the letters from distant parts of the empire show that florence nightingale had already become somewhat of a legendary figure. it was known that scenes of misery and horror were being enacted in europe. it was assumed that she was ministering in the midst of them. in one of the letters there seems to be a confused idea that she was in two places at once--both directing the movement in london and nursing in some red cross hospital in france or germany. and there is a sense in which this vague and legendary conception was true. miss nightingale played a busy part, though entirely behind the scenes, in the work of aid at the london headquarters; whilst among the devoted women who nursed the wounded or succoured other sufferers from the war, there were probably few who did not derive inspiration from the example of the crimean heroine. the outbreak of the war had found english philanthropy unprepared. the british government had been a party to the geneva convention, but nothing had been done to organize a society under its rules until the alarm was sounded by colonel loyd lindsay (lord wantage). a letter from him in the _times_ of july 22, 1870, led to the formation of the national society for aid to the sick and wounded, which afterwards became the british red cross aid society. one of the first acts of the committee, of which colonel loyd lindsay was chairman, was to consult miss nightingale, and a letter from her was read to the public meeting at which the society was constituted. the words of stirring appeal were received with loud cheers. if she had not been confined to a sick bed, she would have volunteered to go out as a nurse. as it was, she must leave that work to others, and she gave the volunteers a characteristic note of caution: "those who undertake such work must be not sentimental enthusiasts, but downright lovers of hard work. if there is any work which is simple, stern necessity, it is that of waiting upon the sick and wounded after a battle--serving in war-hospitals, attending to and managing the thousand-and-one hard dry practical details which nevertheless mainly determine the question as to whether your sick and wounded shall live or die. if there is any nonsense in people's ideas of what hospital nursing is, one day of real duty will root it out. there are things to be done and seen which at once separate the true metal from the tinkling brass both among men and women."[123] there were those amongst her entourage who wished that she could lay all other work aside and take control of the organization. the state of her health made this impossible, but she was closely connected with the society's work throughout. her brother-in-law, sir harry verney, and her cousin's husband, captain galton, were active members of the executive committee. sir harry's daughter, miss emily verney, was an active member of the ladies' executive committee.[124] captain galton and her cousin, mr. henry bonham carter, were sent early in the war to visit the hospitals of france and germany; and when the war was over, the task of reporting upon the correspondence of the society's agents and of the english doctors was entrusted to dr. sutherland.[125] through all these personal connections, miss nightingale kept close touch with the society's work. she thought that there was a lack of vigour at the start. why, she wanted to know, did not the society advertise itself more? "if it had been in hiding from its creditors instead of being an aid society, it could not have had a more complete success; if it had been sick and wounded itself, what could it have done less?" its advertisement ought to appear every day "immediately above the theatrical announcements--with a list of articles wanted, and an acknowledgement of those received. it makes me mad to see advertisements only of the 'voysey defence fund' and the 'derby memorial fund.' what _does_ it matter whether voysey is defended or not, and whether lord derby has a memorial or not?"[126] the committee in reply hoped to do more presently; as it did--it collected nearly £300,000 and rendered a great deal of aid, both in france and in germany. from the moment that the war was seen to be inevitable, miss nightingale had been deluged with correspondence. the french authorities applied to her for plans of temporary field hospitals. the crown princess of prussia applied for assistance and advice in all sorts. "the dreaded letter has come," she wrote to dr. sutherland; "what _am_ i to answer; how to express sympathy with prussia without alienating france?" miss nightingale's personal sympathies were rather on the french side. "i think," she wrote (dec. 20), "that if the conduct of the french for the last three months had been shown by any other nation it would have been called _as it is_ sublime. the uncomplaining endurance, the sad and severe self-restraint of paris under a siege now of three months would have rendered immortal a city of ancient rome. the army of the loire fighting seven days out of nine barefoot, cold and frozen, yet unsubdued, is worthy of henry v. and agincourt. and all for what? to save alsace and lorraine, of which paris scarcely knows." in writing to the crown princess on hospital matters she put in a plea for clemency in the hour of final victory. "prussia would remember," she was sure, "the future wars and misery always brought about by trampling too violently on a fallen foe, and germany will show to an astonished europe that moderation of which victorious nations have hitherto shown themselves incapable." miss nightingale, here as in other matters, hoped more of human perfectibility than she was to find; the immediate future was to belie her picture alike of the severe self-restraint of paris, and of the unexampled moderation of prussia. in rendering aid to the sick and wounded she was, however, consistently impartial. wherever she heard of good work being done, whether in france or in germany, she was ready to help, and she gave disinterested advice to the nursing service in both armies. throughout the war, she had a large correspondence both at home and with all sorts and conditions of people in france and germany. [123] the letter is printed in the _times_ of august 5, 1870. it was dated august 2, "the day," as miss nightingale noted in the letter, "of sidney herbert's death nine years ago." [124] she died in 1872--"such a genius for working for men," miss nightingale wrote of her, "so lovely, so loving, and so beloved." [125] _report of the british national society for aid to the sick and wounded during the franco-german war, 1871_, pp. 149-177. [126] letters to captain galton, august 1870. at home, she was diligent in collecting money and gifts in kind for the aid society. she wrote constant letters and memoranda to members of the executive society; advising on all matters, from the general administration of field ambulances to the pattern of hospital suits, vetoing (when she could) impracticable suggestions, sending lists of the things most urgently needed. she received and answered a constant stream of applications from persons inquiring what to send, and from doctors and nurses wanting to volunteer for service. abroad, her correspondence was on a similar scale. distributing agents of the society, nurses, workers of all kinds wrote, consulting her in cases of perplexity or giving information on points that they thought likely to interest her. the private reports preserved among miss nightingale's papers contain a mass of information about the treatment of the sick and wounded, of which she expressed the opinion that it far surpassed in horror, as of course it vastly exceeded in scale, anything that she had witnessed in the crimea. self-devotion on the part of volunteers, though it could not remedy the evils, was conspicuous in relieving them, and many letters to miss nightingale are eloquent of the inspiration which was derived from her example in the crimea and from the messages of sympathy, encouragement and advice which she now sent. "tell miss nightingale," said the warm-hearted grand duchess of baden, "that i have endeavoured to follow implicitly everything she has recommended, and that i love and respect her more than any one in the world." there are letters, too, from english and german nurses and workers in which miss nightingale is addressed as "dearest of all friends" or "beloved mistress" and "queen." her services to both of the belligerents were recognized by decorations. the french société de secours aux blessés conferred its bronze cross upon her (july 1871), and from h.m. the emperor and king she received the prussian cross of merit (sept.). but there was more significance in what she gave than in what she received. among the english ladies who rendered most devoted service during the war was the wife of an officer (colonel cox) who had known miss nightingale in the crimea; among the german ladies who had done the like was madame werckner of breslau. when the war was over, both ladies asked the favour of an interview with miss nightingale. madame werckner became her personal friend, and wrote with enthusiastic gratitude when she was asked to visit embley: "the home of your childhood." and mrs. cox wrote (july 15): "how can i ever thank you for the loving reception you gave me? i can only say that never whilst i live can it be forgotten." to mrs. cox's work the english committee referred in their report. of madame werckner miss nightingale told something in an address to the probationers at st. thomas's. "at a large german station, which almost all the prisoners' trains passed through, a lady went every night during all that long, long dreadful winter, and for the whole night, to feed and warm and comfort and often to receive the last dying words of the miserable french prisoners, as they arrived in open trucks, some frozen, some as dead, others to die in the station, all half-clad and starving. night after night, as these long, terrible trainsfull dragged their slow length into the station, she kneeled on its pavement, supporting the dying heads, receiving their last messages to their mothers; pouring wine or hot milk down the throats of the sick; dressing the frost-bitten limbs; and, thank god, saving many. many were carried to the prisoners' hospital in the town, of whom about two-thirds recovered. every bit of linen she had went in this way. she herself contracted incurable ill-health during these fearful nights. but thousands were saved by her means. she is my friend. she came and saw me, and it is from her lips i heard the story." the crown princess of prussia also came to south street, and "she let me tell her," wrote miss nightingale,[127] "a good deal of behind the scenes of prussian ambulance work. i do like her so very much and twice as much now that she is really worn and ripened by genuine hard work and anxiety." this visit was productive of large results. the princess and miss nightingale had been in communication throughout the war--partly by direct correspondence, and partly through an english lady, miss florence lees, who was serving in german hospitals. at the beginning of the war the princess had telegraphed and written to miss nightingale begging her to recommend a thoroughly competent english lady for such duty. miss lees (mrs. dacre craven) had been sent; she was one of the ablest of the ladies who received training at the nightingale school, and was presently to play an important part in the development of trained nursing in london. miss lees was placed by the crown princess in charge of the nursing at a war hospital which she had arranged at homburg; miss lees was also employed to visit and report upon the war hospitals at metz and other places. she was in constant correspondence with miss nightingale, who from this and many other sources of information had formed a very poor opinion of the prussian nursing, medical and ambulance service. after collating various reports with dr. sutherland, miss nightingale said to him that "the abnormally bad among the crimean hospitals were luxurious compared with the normal prussian hospitals." "the only prussian hospitals up to the present standard of sanitary experience," she added, "are those of the princess herself, and in them it was h.r.h. who taught the doctors, and not the doctors who taught her." i do not know whether she communicated to the princess the further opinion that the root of the evil was the bureaucracy; "it shows what it means to be without the free play of public opinion, through parliament and press, which calls every public office, and almost every society, to account." but upon the facts miss nightingale spoke freely, as she was requested to do, and the princess asked her to send documents:- (_the crown princess of germany to miss nightingale._) osborne, _july_ 28 [1871]. i return the deeply interesting and important papers which the crown prince and myself have read _most_ attentively and word for word. the crown prince wishes me to thank you particularly for your having let him see these papers. much was not new to him. you _know_ how much interest he takes in sanitary matters, how anxious he is for reforms wherever needed. every remark offered is therefore always gratefully received by us. let me repeat, dear miss nightingale, how great a happiness it was to me to see you again. ever yours, with sincerest admiration and respect, victoria, crown princess of germany. [127] letter to harriet martineau, sept. 20, 1870. of the great and practical interest which the princess already took in hospitals, we have heard above. the experiences of the franco-prussian war quickened it yet more, and in 1872 she drafted a report on hospital organization. subsequently a home and nursing school, named after her, was established in berlin, and the "victoria sisters," following the lead of the nightingale nurses, undertook the nursing in municipal hospitals. the success of the victoria training school led in its turn to the establishment of similar institutions throughout germany. and thus miss nightingale's words came true, that the trouble which she took to inform and inspire the crown princess "will bear fruit." the experience of the franco-german war bore fruit in the better organization of the red cross movement, especially in this country, and the inspiration here too may be traced back to miss nightingale. the "red cross" owes its inception, as already stated, to a swiss physician, m. henri dunant. he had witnessed the horrors of war on the bloody field of solferino, and he devoted his life thenceforward to the promotion, and then to the extension, of the geneva convention. in 1872 m. dunant read a paper in london upon the movement. his first words were these: "though i am known as the founder of the red cross and the originator of the convention of geneva, it is to an englishwoman that all the honour of that convention is due. what inspired me to go to italy during the war of 1859 was the work of miss florence nightingale in the crimea."[128] [128] m. dunant's paper is reported in the _times_ of august 7, 1872. he sent a copy of it to miss nightingale: see bibliography b, no. 31. vi it will have been seen that during the years treated in the foregoing chapters (1867-1871) miss nightingale did an enormous amount of work. her health during the same period had been no better. country air did not bring any accession of strength; there is evidence of sleepless nights in numbers of her letters dated in the small hours of the morning; and during 1870 and 1871 especially her letters and diaries speak of great weakness. she was able to do as much as she did only by the devotion of the same friend, dr. sutherland, whose relations with his task-mistress have been described in an earlier chapter. more and more, indeed, she seems to have fallen into the habit, which had become almost a necessity, of saying nothing, doing nothing, writing nothing (her letters to mr. jowett and a few other intimate friends alone excepted) without first consulting dr. sutherland. i have illustrated this point incidentally in previous pages, but such occasional references give an inadequate account of the extent to which she relied upon him. "the only way i can work now," she wrote to him in 1870, "is by receiving written notes from you, and working them up into my own language, then printing and showing you the work." her papers, with hundreds upon hundreds of drafts and memoranda in dr. sutherland's hand, show that such was in fact the way in which the work was done, and the process was applied not only to things ultimately printed, but almost to the whole range of her correspondence. he was sometimes called upon to draft even the most delicate family letters. she was asked to suggest an inscription for a memorial to agnes jones at liverpool. dr. sutherland had first to try his hand at it. she was put out by an unwarranted liberty which a publisher had taken with her name. the case was sent to dr. sutherland, with a pressing appeal, "what _shall_ i do? i have no one to act for me." he acted for her. he had artistic tastes, and served as eyes for her at the international exhibition of 1871, when he selected some french bronzes for her to give to mr. jowett. whenever she was asked to join a society, or subscribe to a new institution, dr. sutherland had first to advise and report. sometimes she accompanied her references to him with amusing comments, as to uncle sam in earlier days. did dr. sutherland advise her to join a new "central philanthropic agency"? she was inclined against it, remembering that "when crosse invented a new insect, my grandmother was heard to exclaim, 'are there not enough insects already?'" sometimes a reference may have been made only, or mainly, for the fun of the thing; as when the census paper was left at south street in 1871 and she sent it off by special messenger to dr. sutherland at the war office to know how she was to fill it up. "am i the head of this household?" dr. sutherland forbore to say that no doubt was conceivable about _that_. "occupation column: as i think that _every_ body ought to have a defined occupation, i should like to put what mine is, but i don't know how to define it." "oh," replied dr. sutherland, "say, occupation, none." the last column inquired whether the householder was "deaf-and-dumb, blind, imbecile, or lunatic?" "i shall return," said she, "imbecile and blind, and if everybody did the same now, it would be true." "don't," replied he; "you are the exception." but for the most part her references to him were on matters which either called for some quick application of worldly wisdom or involved considerable drudgery. his shrewd good sense never failed; and the drudgery, though it may have been delayed, was always done in the end. she is asked to express an opinion on some indian health reports, and is tired. off they go to dr. sutherland, who replies: "i have been through them all; you may safely say they are very well done." or, pamphlets, memorials, prospectuses, are sent to her, and she is in no mood to master them. they are consigned to him; and in course of time neat little digests are returned, and she is advised what to do or say. every important letter is similarly sent to him with a note saying, "what am i to answer?" or "what does all this come to?" or "please advise." "you _must_ come to-morrow to see my letter before it goes." "i want to ask you some questions, and you must be good." in years when miss nightingale was much in the country (as in 1870 and 1871), dr. sutherland's daily work for her was the heavier, because all communications were through the post. there was fret and jar between them in personal intercourse, as we have heard, and opportunity for misunderstanding was increased when two busy people were exchanging ideas by letter. this was especially the case when any work was on hand of which the scope had not been precisely defined, and miss nightingale was often impatient. "i could do work," she wrote on one occasion, "if it were real work, done at the least expenditure to myself. but to do a minimum of work at the greatest expenditure to myself (by driving, pumping, etc.) is now physically impossible to me." such complaints and such references to her weakness were frequent. to the latter dr. sutherland always referred in terms of sympathy--"i know you are very ill," "i beg you to let me help as much as i can," and so forth. with regard to the complaints, he sometimes laughed them aside: "thanks for your parting kick, which is always pleasant to receive by them as likes it." "you are a true paddy, you like to trail your coat, but i won't tread on it." sometimes he defended himself--"if you knew what i have had to do, i am quite sure you would not have written about the proof as you have done"; and sometimes he refrained from defence other than simple denial--"i scarcely know how otherwise to reply to your attack than simply to state that it is groundless. am i such a fool, i ask myself, as to do what she says i have done?" but this admirable man never lost his temper, and never made her reproaches an occasion for declining to help her any more. "all i can say is, i am ready to help." "i am at your orders in this as in all things." such is the continual note of his messages. in private meditations often, and in letters occasionally, miss nightingale spoke of herself as a "vampyre." when she wrote in some such sense to mr. jowett, he told her to put such talk aside as idle, for "that way madness lies." yet in a sense there was an element of truth in what she said. she was terribly exacting. she accepted no excuses, made few allowances, and sometimes assumed that those who worked with her had nothing else to do. dr. sutherland was a hard worker, but allowed himself diversions. at norwood he had a garden, and miss nightingale was sarcastic about his fondness for digging ponds. but he had also, besides a strong interest in their common work, an abiding admiration for the gifts, the character, and the self-devotion of his friend. in addition to his own bread-winning work, he gave an immense amount of time and labour to miss nightingale. in any estimate of her services to great public causes, and especially in connection with sanitation in india, an honourable place is due to the collaborator who helped her through many years with unfailing devotion. part vii work of later years (1872-1910) i ask no heaven till earth be thine, nor glory-crown, while work of mine remaineth here. when earth shall shine among the stars, her sins wiped out, her captives free, her voice a music unto thee, for crown, new work give thou to me. lord here am i. i found this in an intensely evangelical baptist american's work--a lecture he had delivered upon me. now these lines appear to me exactly true, and an extraordinary advance in the way of truth on english evangelicalism which banishes work, like sin, from heaven, and has no idea that heaven is to be made out of earth by us.--florence nightingale (from a letter to her father, 1869). chapter i "out of office"--literary work (1872-1874) i am glad that you have given up drudgery for public offices.... the position which you held was always a precarious one, because dependent on "temples of friendship" and the goodwill of the minister. i am glad that you have a straightforward work to do now in which you are dependent on yourself.... i want you to have a new life and interest. the way of influencing mankind by ideas is the more excellent way.--benjamin jowett (_letters to miss nightingale, 1871, 1872_). "something which you said to me on sunday has rather disquieted me, and i hope that you will allow me to remonstrate with you about it. you said that you were going to ask admission as a patient to st. thomas's hospital. do not do this. (1) because it is eccentric and we cannot strengthen our lives by eccentricity. (2) because you will not be a patient but a kind of directress to the institution, viewed with great alarm by the doctors. (3) when a person is engaged in a great work i do not think the expense of living is much to be considered; the only thing is that you should live in such a way that you can do your work best. (4) i would not oppose you living at less expense if you wish, though i think that a matter of no moment; but i would live independently. (5) do you mean really to live as a patient? it will kill you. i do not add the annoyance to your father of a step which he can never be made to understand; i look at the matter solely from the point of view of your own work. i have cared about you for many years; and though i have little hope of prevailing with you, i would ask you not to set aside these reasons without consideration." so mr. jowett wrote to miss nightingale on june 22, 1872. "i am flattered to hear," he wrote a little later (july 11), "that you have disregarded duty and conscience for my sake. i hope that you will never in future obey a conscience which tells you to kill yourself. will you try to hope and be at peace; and just ask of god time to complete your work? you who have done so much for others ought sometimes to reflect that you have had a great blessing and happiness." the intention which miss nightingale had formed and from which mr. jowett dissuaded her was not a passing fancy. it was in accord with a deep-seated conviction, as may be seen from a document already quoted (p. 103). nor, though she listened to mr. jowett's advice, did she entirely abandon her purpose. later in the year, she still thought of giving up her pleasant house in south street, and she set various friends to report upon furnished apartments in the immediate neighbourhood of st. thomas's hospital. they could not find anything that seemed suitable, and she gave up the idea; but as she could not go to st. thomas's, she contrived, as we shall hear in a later chapter, that st. thomas's should come to her. she devoted herself from this time more largely than heretofore to the detailed supervision of the nightingale school. both in what she did, and in what she now left undone, the year 1872 marks a new departure in her life. it is explained by a summary entry in her diary: "this year i go out of office." miss nightingale had been "in office," as she called it, continuously since her departure for scutari in october 1854. she had been closely employed, that is to say, sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially, upon the administrative work of various departments in matters pertaining to her special interests. with the advent of mr. gladstone to power in 1868, her work in this sort had much diminished. her friend, captain galton, had gone from the war office. she occasionally intervened in minor matters, as on one occasion when her friend, mr. lowe, agreed with mr. cardwell to accept her view about a certain pension to the widow of an officer, and there were other cases of the kind: as when she obtained an attentive hearing from mr. bruce (home secretary) for a memorandum which she submitted on the working of the contagious diseases act. but her constant employment in connection with the war office was over. she had argued with herself, in some meditations during 1871, whether she ought to make a bid, as it were, for "office" again. she could still exercise a certain official influence, she thought, if she chose to seek out ministers and ask them to call upon her. but the political times were out of joint, she argued on the other side, so far as her special aptitudes were concerned. the strength of mr. gladstone's government was thrown into political reform, not into administration; the administration of the departments, as she was not alone in thinking, was defective. there are many letters of this period in which she contrasts the days of peel and sidney herbert with those of gladstone or disraeli. "but i must stop," she says in one of them, "or you will say that i am aping southey who said, you know, that the last ministry was so bad that nothing could be worse except the present; but coleridge differed from him, for he thought the present ministry so bad that nothing could be worse except the last."[129] at any rate what miss nightingale cared for and was fitted for, she said to herself, was only administration; in the years when she was "in office" she had not only written reports, she had been able to organize the mechanism for carrying them out. now that administration was going, as she thought, to the dogs, it was time for her to be out of office. that such was the lot appointed to her, was borne in by something that happened early in 1872. in february lord mayo was assassinated--a personal grief to miss nightingale and "a great blow," she said, to her cause; and lord northbrook was appointed to succeed him as governor-general. miss nightingale was personally acquainted with lord northbrook, who had been a friend (as also for a time a colleague) of sidney herbert, but he left for india without coming to see her. "you have worked for eternity," wrote mr. jowett (april 3), to whom she had reported the new viceroy's neglect; "why should you be troubled at the governor-general not coming to see you (as he most certainly ought to have done)? put not your trust in princes or in princesses or in the war office or in the india office; all that sort of thing necessarily rests on a sandy foundation. i wonder that you have been able to carry on so long with them." lord northbrook was friendly nevertheless, as appears from his reply when she wrote and asked him to see mr. clark, the sanitary and civil engineer:- (_lord northbrook to miss nightingale._) calcutta, _jan._ 3 [1873]. i had great pleasure in seeing mr. clark, for i had seen his works at barrachpore and knew of the great results which, so far as the statistics up to the present time can be said to prove them, have followed from the supply of pure water to calcutta. i hope soon to see his drainage works at the salt lakes, and i have got the particulars of his plan for catch-water roofs for military buildings, which i will look at carefully as soon as i can. at present i am a little overwhelmed with business which has been accumulating during my tour. you may be assured of two things, that i fully understand the importance of pure water for the soldiers, and that i shall always receive with pleasure and consider with attention any suggestions, which you may kindly give me, both on your own account and because you were so much associated on these matters with my old master, lord herbert. yours very sincerely, northbrook. [129] letter to sir bartle frere, july 2, 1872. she did not, however, at the time follow up this opening. she had taken lord northbrook's neglect to call upon her as a further indication that she was meant to go out of office. ii the question had become instant thereupon, what was she to do next? mr. jowett's letters to her at this time, as also her own private notes, show that she was in a mood of great depression; due in part to much physical weakness and suffering, but in part also to unsettlement in her plan of life. she knew not exactly what to be at. she saw before her, as she wrote, "no consecutive path growing out of one's own deeds, but only a succession of disjointed lives and unconnected events." "never," she wrote again, "has god let me feel weariness of active life, but only anxiety to get on. now in old age i never wish to be relieved from new work, but only to have it to do." with what zeal she threw herself into fuller work for the nightingale school at st. thomas's, we shall hear; but that was not enough. she could not see nurses and write to nurses all day long--though indeed she devoted to such duties as many hours as some people would consider a sufficient day's work, and besides she was now spending a large part of the year with her father or mother in the country. she needed some recreation, and the only recreation she ever found was in change of work. she sought no "glory-crown" over folded hands. mr. jowett seized the occasion to repeat his advice that she should find recreation in literary work. now that she meant to free herself from official drudgery, let her gain permanent influence by writing books or essays. "i think," he said, "that you seem to me to have more ideas than any one whom i know." and again (dec. 14, 1871): "you have many original thoughts, but you either insert them in blue-books or cast them before swine--that is me, and i sometimes insert them in sermons. you should have a more consecutive way of going on." she recalled, too, advice and remonstrances which she had received from mr. mill. in 1867 the "national society for woman's suffrage" was founded. mill had asked her to join it and she had at first refused:- (_john stuart mill to miss nightingale._) blackheath park, _august_ 9 [1867]. as i know how fully you appreciate a great many of the evil effects produced upon the character of women (and operating to the destruction of their own and others' happiness) by the existing state of opinion, and as you have done me the honour to express some regard for my opinion on these subjects, i should not like to abstain from mentioning the formation of a society aimed in my opinion at the very root of all the evils you deplore and have passed your life in combating. there are a great number of people, particularly women, who, from want of the habit of reflecting on politics, are quite incapable of realizing the enormous power of politics, that is to say, of legislation, to confer happiness and also to influence the opinion and the moral nature of the governed. as i am convinced that this power is by far the greatest that it is possible to wield for human happiness, i can neither approve of women who decline the responsibility of wielding it, nor of men who would shut out women from the right to wield it. until women do wield it to the best of their ability, little or great, and that in a direct open manner, i am convinced that the evils of which i know you to be peculiarly aware can never be satisfactorily dealt with. and this conviction must be my apology for troubling you. [illustration: handwritten notes] (_miss nightingale to john stuart mill._) 35 south street, _august_ 11 [1867]. i can't tell you how much pleased i was nor how grateful i feel that you should take the trouble to write to me. and if i ill-naturedly answer your question by asking one, it is because i have scarcely any one who can give me (as my dear friend, mr. clough, long since dead, said) a "considered opinion." that women should have the suffrage, i think no one can be more deeply convinced than i. it is so important for a woman to be a "person," as you say. and i think i see this most strongly in married life. if the woman is not a "person," it does almost infinite harm even to her husband. and the harm is greatest when the man is a very clever man and the woman a very clever woman. but it will be years before you obtain the suffrage for women. and in the meantime there are evils which press much more hardly on women than the want of the suffrage. and will not this when obtained put women in opposition to those who withhold these rights from them, so as to retard still further the legislation which is necessary to put them in possession of their rights? i ask humbly, and i am afraid you will laugh at me. could not the existing disabilities as to property and influence of women be swept away by the legislature as it stands at present? and equal responsibilities be given, as they ought to be, to both men and women? i do not like to take up your time with giving instances, redressible by legislation, in which my experience tells me that women, and especially poor and married women, are most hardly pressed upon now. no matron, serving on a large scale as i have done, and with the smallest care for her nurses, can be unaware of these. till a married woman can be in possession of her own property, there can be no love or justice. but there are many other evils, as i need not tell you. is it possible that, if woman suffrage is agitated as a means of removing these evils, the effect may be to prolong their existence? is it not the case that at present there is no opposition between the two elements of the nation, but that, if both had equal political power, there is a probability that the social reforms required might become matter of political partizanship, and so the weaker go to the wall? i can scarcely expect that you will have time to answer my humble questions. as to my being on the society you mention, you know there is scarcely anything which, if you were to tell me that it is right politically, i would not do. but i have no time. it is 14 years this very day that i entered upon work which has never left me ten minutes' leisure, not even to be ill. and i am obliged never to give my name where i cannot give my work. if you will not think me egotistical, i will say why i have kept off the stage of these things. in the years that i have passed in government offices, i have never felt the want of a vote--because, if i had been a borough returning two members to parliament, i should have had less administrative influence. and i have thought that i could work better for others off the stage than on it. added to which, i am an incurable invalid, entirely a prisoner to my room. but i entirely agree, if i may be allowed to agree with so great an authority, that women's "political power" should be "direct and open," not indirect. and i ought to ask your pardon for occupying you for one single moment with my own personal situation. as you have had the kindness to let me address you, i cannot help putting in one more word on a subject very near my heart--the india sanitary service. i have worked very hard at this for six years. and during all those years, my great wish has been: would it be possible to ask mr. mill for his help and influence? but you were so busy. pray believe me, dear sir, ever your faithful servant, florence nightingale. mr. mill found time for a "considered opinion," of great elaboration and weight; it has been printed elsewhere.[130] with his reply to miss nightingale's humble but argumentative questions, we are not here concerned. though she never took any prominent part in the movement for female suffrage, she joined the society in 1868, allowed her name to be placed on the general committee in 1871, was an annual subscriber to its funds, and in 1878 sent an expression of her opinion on the subject for publication.[131] it was, however, mr. mill's remarks upon her "personal situation" that now, in 1872, came back to her. "if," he had said, "you prefer to do your work rather by moving the hidden springs than by allowing yourself to be known to the world as doing what you really do, it is not for me to make any observations on this preference (inasmuch as i am bound to presume that you have good reasons for it) other than to say that i much regret that this preference is so very general among women." she ought not, he went on to suggest, to hide her good deeds; and "finally i feel," he wrote, "some hesitation in saying to you what i think of the responsibility that lies upon each one of us to stand steadfastly, and with all the boldness and all the humility that a deep sense of duty can inspire, by what the experience of life and an honest use of our own intelligence has taught us to be the truth." to some of this expostulation she had at the time a conclusive rejoinder. she could not write to the _times_ and say, "be it known that i suggested such and such a dispatch to a secretary of state, and am corresponding in such and such a sense with a governor-general." but if she were out of office, the plea for seclusion behind the scenes failed; nor was it ever perhaps of much cogency in relation to her views on religious and social matters. now that she had "gone out of office," was it not her duty to come into the open with her pen? [130] in the _letters of john stuart mill_, 1910, vol. ii. pp. 100-105. [131] quoted in bibliography a, no. 93. iii the first literary task which miss nightingale set herself under this impulse took the form of a series of magazine articles, in which she hoped to embody the leading ideas contained in the voluminous _suggestions for thought_ already described (vol. i. p. 470). "during the ten years and more that i have known you," wrote mr. jowett (oct. 31, 1872), "you have repeated to me the expression 'character of god' about 1000 times, but i can't say that i have any clear idea of what you mean." why did she not try and explain? in an earlier letter (feb. 28, 1871) mr. jowett had suggested "the form of short papers or essays." she now wrote three of them (of which the first two were published)--entitled respectively "a 'note' of interrogation," "a sub-note of interrogation: what will our religion be in 1999," and "on what government night will mr. lowe bring out our new moral budget? another sub-note of interrogation." in the first paper, miss nightingale in a questioning and allusive style defined her conception of god as a god of law, whose character may be learnt from social and moral science, and defended such a conception against some current ideas of christian churches on the one side, and against the too cold and impersonal creed, as she thought, of positivism on the other. the affinity of her doctrine at some points with the creed of positivism is obvious; but she held as an axiom that the existence of law implied a law-giver; and "it is a very different thing," she wrote elsewhere,[132] "fighting against evil for our own sakes or fighting for the sake of the law-giver who arms us--fighting with or without a commander." the scope of the second paper is harder to describe, for it throws out a large number of criticisms and suggestions on life, morals, and philosophy in no very closely related order. the general idea, however, is that the purification of religion requires not destructive criticism but reconstruction and a re-ordering of modern life on the lines of social service; in which latter connection miss nightingale paid a glowing tribute to the pioneer of east-end "settlers."[133] these two papers, though they attempt to cover too much ground in a small space, abound in happy things by the way. we are told, for instance, that matthew arnold's _literature and dogma_ is "marred by a tendency not to fight like a man but to scratch like a cat." the doctrine of eternal punishment is criticized in the words of the pauper who said to his nurse after seeing the chaplain, "it does seem hard to have suffered so much here, only to go to everlasting torments hereafter." the creed of some contented politicians is hit off by saying that they talk of "the 'masses,' as if they were silurian strata." the third of miss nightingale's papers is the hardest to describe, because it is the most crowded of the series. its practical purpose may be said in the language of later politics to be a plea for "social reform." "there must be a chancellor of the exchequer, and a budget, for morality and crime, as for finance." her conception of social and moral science as an almost statistical study[134] is glanced at, and the controversy between free will and necessity is disposed of by the way. miss nightingale sent her papers successively to mr. froude. he was delighted with the first and with the second. "your second note," he said, "is even more pregnant than the first. i cannot tell how sanitary, with disordered intellects, the effects of such papers will be." they appeared in _fraser's magazine_ for may and july 1873. carlyle was not so favourably impressed. miss nightingale's second paper, he said, was like "a lost lamb bleating on the mountain." mr. froude's criticism on the third was that it lacked focussing: "the whole art of getting culinary fire out of intellectual sunlight depends on that." the third article, accordingly, was not printed. miss nightingale did not relish carlyle's remark, and her equanimity was perhaps not restored by the domestic assurance that florence's mistake had been in not submitting the manuscript to her sister's revision. one of the best things in the paper which was not published was a postscript. the first article had been widely noticed in the pulpit and the press, and had brought to the author many letters--some sympathetic, as from mr. edward maitland,[135] others sorrowfully critical. there were those who promised to pray for her conversion daily, and invited her to join them in that exercise. they had not read the article, it seemed, but only a review of it; and among the printed critiques was one which began: "my knowledge of the scope of this paper is derived from the report of a discourse upon it." in her proposed postscript miss nightingale took "this opportunity of thanking unknown friends for their sympathy and suggestions, and, still more, unknown friend-enemies for their criticisms; but yet more should i have thanked the latter, had their criticisms been on my poor little article in its rough state--the 'original cow and snuffers'--and not on seeing the _extract_ of a _criticism_ of an _extract_ of my article. certainly a new art must have arisen in my elderly age:--out-magazining magazining. and i hereby confidentially inform the shade of mr. fraser that he may, on application to me, see columns, closely-printed columns, of small (but cruel) print upon a paper which the writers state that they have not read.--what! read a paper which we are going to review!--yes, mr. fraser, this is what magazine-ing has come to. articles are not even written on original works, even if that work be only an article, but on a review of an article; and not even upon that, but upon a review of a review of an extract of an article, or sometimes upon an extract of a sermon upon an extract of a review of an article. i ought to feel flattered: i try to feel flattered. but, mr. fraser, is life long enough for this? is this the way to 'human progress'? and ... but as this will not be read by my unknown critics, i come to a stop." the practice which miss nightingale thus satirised has not become less frequent in later days when the newspapers supply their readers not with political speeches but with opinions based on summaries of them, and when what are called "educational handbooks" aim at giving the student the power of passing a critical judgment upon authors without the necessity of reading them. [132] in some marginalia on the _fioretti_ of st. francis. [133] edward denison, who had died in 1870 at the age of 30. [134] see vol. i. p. 480. [135] mystical writer; author of _the pilgrim and the shrine_. iv a few days after the appearance of miss nightingale's first paper in _fraser_, mr. mill died of a "local endemic disease" at his house near avignon. she was profoundly moved:- (_miss nightingale to julius mohl._) _may_ 20 [1873]. john stuart mill's death was a great shock to me. mr. grote used to say of him "talk of mill's logic! why he is thrilling with emotion to the very finger-ends." that is just what he was. now, speaker and subject are both gone. he said at mr. grote's funeral, with an agony of tears, "we might have kept him 10 years longer." and now we say of himself with tears "we might have kept him for 10 years longer." he was only 67. he was always urging me to publish. he used to say, with the passion which he put into everything he did say: "i have no patience with people who will not publish because they think the world is not ripe enough for their ideas: that is only conceit or cowardice. if anybody has thought out any thing which he conceives to be truth, in heaven's name, let him say it!" i did not answer that letter. i thought that this year (i have left much of the india and war office work, and much of it has left me) i would resume with john stuart mill and do as he told me. i put the article in _fraser's magazine_ (which i now send you) to please him. and now he is dead, and will never know that i intended to do what he wished. he used to say, "tell the world what you think--your experience. it will probably strike the world more than anything that could be told it." he quoted my "stuff" in his book, which he ought not to have done.[136] i published my book on socrates' mother[137] partly to please him. it was a very odd thing: it was a subject he had taken up: he was president of a society for _that_. when he was in england (till a fortnight before his death) i could not find his address: i was so overwhelmed with business and illness. i did not know he was going away. and i did not send him this book. and now he is dead, and will never know. but i scarcely regret his death. he was not a happy man. he was a man who was so sure to develop very much in a future life. he had queer religious notions: did not believe in a god or in a future life: but believed in a sort of conflict between two powers of good and evil. i remember showing you one of his letters. and you said it was just like zoroaster. but he was the most _truly_ "liberal" man i ever knew. if it were for the cause of truth that he should be defeated, he would have _liked_ to have been defeated. and now he is dead. and we shall never see his like again. [136] see vol. i. p. 471, _n._ [137] _notes on lying-in institutions_; see above, p. 197. it was characteristic of miss nightingale that she entered into correspondence with mr. chadwick on the sanitary state of mr. mill's house and the climatic conditions of provence in may. mr. chadwick had to put himself right in her eyes by explaining that he had not been consulted by their friend on those subjects and had never been invited by him to avignon. v other literary work which occupied miss nightingale a good deal at this time was undertaken either to help mr. jowett or in accordance with his advice. he had urged her to work out her notion of divine perfection, and her theory of the family in relation to "sisterhoods" and other forms of association. miss nightingale wrote essays accordingly on "what is the evidence that there is a perfect god?" on "what is the character of god?" and on "christian fellowship as a means to progress." the gist of the latter essay may be given in a letter of an earlier date:- (_miss nightingale to benjamin jowett._) _july_ [1870].... i think that faraday's idea of friendship is very high: "one who will serve his companion next to his god." and when one thinks that most, nay almost all people have no idea of friendship at all except pleasant juxtaposition, it strikes one with admiration. yet is faraday's idea not mine. my idea of a friend is one who will and can join you in work the sole purpose of which is to serve god. two in one, and one in god. it almost exactly answers jesus christ's words. and so extraordinarily blessed have i been that i have had three such friends. i can truly say that, during the 5 years that i worked with sidney herbert every day and nearly all day, from the moment he came into the room no other idea came in but that of doing the work with the best of our powers in the service of god. (and this tho' he was a man of the most varied and brilliant conversational genius i have ever known--far beyond macaulay whom i also knew.) this is heaven; and this is what makes me say "i have had my heaven." the two other friends with whom in former time she had been a fellow-worker were arthur clough and her aunt, mrs. smith. miss nightingale's other essays led to much correspondence with mr. jowett, but as they failed to come up to his standard they were laid aside. many of her letters to him were themselves almost essays. extracts from one or two consecutive letters will show the kind of discussions into which miss nightingale loved to involve her oxford friend, and upon which he was nothing loath to enter:- (_benjamin jowett to miss nightingale._) torquay, _sept._ 29 [1871].... i must answer your letter by driblets. when you admit that a part of the witness of the character of god is to be sought for in nature, how do you distinguish between the true and false witness of nature? for we cannot deny that physical good is sometimes at variance with moral--_e.g._ in marriage the sole or chief principle ought to be health and strength in the parents whether with or without a marriage ceremony--in other words plato's republic: i mean on physical principles. or again the laws of physical improvement would require that we should get rid of sickly and deformed infants. and if, as huxley would say, you reconstruct the world on a physical basis, you have to go to war with received principles of morality. i suppose that the answer is you must take man as a whole, and make morality and the mind the limit of physical improvement. but it is not easy to see what this limit is, because men's conceptions of morality vary, and although we may form ideals we have to descend from them in practice. therefore i do not agree with you in thinking that there are no difficulties, although the old difficulties, about origin of evil &c., are generally a hocus of theologians. (_miss nightingale to benjamin jowett._)[138] lea hurst, _oct._ 3 [1871]. i am quite scandalized at your materialism. (i shall shut up you and plato for a hundred years in punishment in another world till you have both obtained clearer views.) is it for an old maid like me to be preaching to you a master in israel that even "on physical principles" there are essential points in marriage (to turn out the best order of children), which, being absent, the perfection of "health and strength" in both parents is of no avail even for the physical part of the children? and might i just ask one small question: whether you consider man has a little soul? if he has ever such a little one, you can scarcely consider him as a simple body, an animal, or even as a twin, the soul being one twin and the body the other, but as all one, the soul and the body making one being (altho' only in this sense). if you _do_, at all events _god_ does not. and consequently he makes a great many more things enter into the "physical" constitution even of the children than the mere "health and strength" of the parents. (my son, really plato talked nonsense about this.) take a much more material thing than the producing of a bad or degenerate family or race. take a railway accident. what are the laws therein concerned? you have by no means only to consider the "physical" laws--the strength of iron, the speed of steam, the smoothness of rails, the friction &c., &c.--but you have to consider the state of mind of directors, whether they care only for their dividends, so that the railway-servants are underpaid or overworked &c., &c. you quote huxley. he is undoubtedly one of the prime educators of the age, but he makes a profound mistake when he says to mankind: objects of sense are more worthy of your attention than your inferences and imaginations. on the contrary, the finest powers man is gifted with are those which enable him to infer from what he sees what he _can't_ see. they lift him into truth of far higher import than that which he learns from the senses alone. i believe that the laws of nature all tend to improve the _whole_ man, moral and physical, that it is absurd to consider man either as a body to be "improved," or as a soul to be "improved," separately. as to the "laws of physical improvement requiring that we should get rid of sickly and deformed infants," they require that we should _prevent_ or improve, not that we should _kill_ them. _that_ would be to get rid of some of the finest intellectual and moral specimens of our human nature that have ever existed. and, even were this not the case, the heroism, the patience, the wisdom of our race have been more called forth by dealing with these and the like forms of evil than by almost anything else. the good of man in its highest sense cannot be attained by neglecting one set of laws or one aspect of man's nature and cultivating another. i entirely therefore agree that "you must take man as a whole." but this seems at variance with a celebrated author's next sentence "and make morality and the mind the _limit_ of physical improvement." if i were writing, i should use a word signifying the exact reverse; not limit, but expansion, enlargement, multiplication, master or informing spirit. as plato says: the mind informs the body, owns the body, the body is the servant of the mind. how can the owner and the master be the limit? we must really pray for your conversion.... (_benjamin jowett to miss nightingale._) torquay, _oct._ 4.... what have i said to deserve such an outburst? i have no wish to shake the foundation of society. what i think about these matters is feebly expressed in a part of essay at the end of the introduction to the _republic_. but when i come to a second edition i will express it better. [138] i have somewhat compressed the argument in this letter. a comparison of the passage in the first and second editions of mr. jowett's introduction respectively[139] shows how largely he profited by the criticisms in the foregoing letter. his _plato_ first appeared in 1871, and at once he began revising it. in this work miss nightingale gave him great help. her greek had now grown a little rusty,[140] but her interest in the substance of plato was intense. she annotated mr. jowett's summaries and introductions very closely, and sent him voluminous suggestions for revision. "you are the best critic," he wrote, "whom i ever had." several of miss nightingale's notes are preserved, in rough copy, amongst her papers, and by means of them her hand may be traced in many a page of mr. jowett's revised work. in the first edition of the introduction to the _republic_ he made some remarks on love as a motive in poetry which excited miss nightingale's strong disapproval. she agreed that "the illusion of the feelings commonly called love" was a motive of which too much had been made; but the poets, she thought, had as yet hardly touched the theme of true love--"two in one, and one in god"--as an incentive to heroic action. "the philosopher may be excused," mr. jowett had written, "if he imagines an age when poetry and sentiment have disappeared, and truth has taken the place of imagination, and the feelings of love are understood and estimated at their proper value." "take out that mean calumny, my son," wrote miss nightingale; "take it out this minute; blaspheme not against love." the offending sentence was expunged in the second edition. mr. jowett had gone on to "blaspheme" a little against art, citing the mahommedans as a case of the state of the human mind in which "all artistic representations are regarded as a false and imperfect expression either of the religious or of the philosophical ideal." miss nightingale objected that the mahommedans had renounced the use of pictures and images, but not of architecture: "mosques are the highest kind of art: the one true representation of the one god: the glory of god in the highest: the most high of the most high: higher than any christian art or architecture--as you would say if you had seen the mosques of cairo." mr. jowett recast his passage, and used miss nightingale's illustration, almost in her words.[141] "i am always stealing from you," he said. on his introduction to the _gorgias_, she made an interesting criticism:- is not socrates more ineffably tiresome, and at the same time does he not speak higher truth, in the _gorgias_ than anywhere else? why call these higher truths "paradoxes"? are not your sermons always a sort of apology for talking to them of god? and why should your introductions be a sort of apology for recognizing that socrates speaks the highest truth and no paradox? have guarded statements, whether about god or any particular moral or truth, ever produced enthusiasm of religion or in morality? is there any dialogue, not even excepting the _phaedo_ and _crito_, where he is so much in earnest? he is so terribly in earnest that towards the end he even throws all his dialectic aside, and makes even polus in earnest. to me, speaking as one of the stupid and ignorant, it seems that your introduction dwells too much on the _form_ of the _gorgias_ and does not bring out in sufficiently striking relief the great truths which socrates labours so strenuously to enforce that he almost seems to lose himself in them. these great moral truths are (are they not?):--(1) _it is a greater evil to do than to suffer injustice._ if you call this a "paradox," why do you not call the 53rd chapter of isaiah a paradox? is it not the highest of truths? (2) _it is a greater evil not to be punished than to be punished for wrong._ i have no idea why you call this a paradox. it follows from all the higher experience of the life of every one of us. in family life i see it every day. i see the "spoilt child" making himself, and oftener herself, and everyone else miserable, down to mature life or extreme old age. (tho' the "punishments" of my life have been somewhat severe, yet i can bless god, even in this world, that never in all my life have i been allowed to "do as i liked.") ... [139] see _first_ edition, vol. ii. p. 145, and _second_ edition, vol. iii. pp. 161-162. [140] on one occasion she forgot the greek for "limitless," and asked mr. jowett to tell her. he replied by quoting homer: "[greek: amoton memauia], raging insatiably or without limit"- adding wickedly "whom did this represent?" [141] see _second_ edition, vol. iii. p. 145. if the reader cares to take this passage to a comparison of the second with the first edition of mr. jowett's introduction,[142] he will discover again how largely, and closely, miss nightingale's criticisms were accepted. she dealt similarly--giving precise references for every statement--with the greater part of the dialogues. "in the _phaedrus_," said mr. jowett (july 22, 1873), "i have put in most of what you suggested and made some additions. you are quite right in thinking that i should get as much modern truth into the introductions as possible. it is a great opportunity; which i have had in view, but not so clearly as since you wrote to me." [142] the references are: _first_ edition, vol. iii. pp. 26 _seq._; _second_ edition, vol. ii. pp. 302 _seq._ miss nightingale continued, as in former years, to send mr. jowett suggestions for sermons. "i have written part of your sermon," he wrote, when she had sent him an outline of what she would like him to preach from the university pulpit. when he became master of balliol he projected a special form for daily service in the college chapel, and miss nightingale suggested a selection of passages from the psalms under the heads of "god the lord," "god the judge," "god the father," "god the friend," "the way of the cross," and so forth. mr. jowett had, however, to abandon the project in deference to superior authority.[143] another scheme was carried out. in 1873 an edition of the bible appeared which has a history of some interest. _the school and children's bible_ it was called; the name of the rev. william rogers, of bishopsgate, appears on the title-page, but the selection was in fact made for the most part by mr. jowett, with the help of some of his friends.[144] that mr. swinburne was one of these friends, we know from the poet's own recollections; it is not generally known that the other principal collaborator with mr. jowett was miss nightingale. mr. swinburne's help was in one respect disappointing. "i wanted you," said mr. jowett to him with a smile, "to help me to make this book smaller, and you have persuaded me to make it much larger." the poet, who was complimented on his thorough familiarity with sundry parts of the sacred text, thought that mr. jowett had excluded too much of the prophetic and poetic elements, not taking into account "the delight that a child may take in things beyond the grasp of his perfect comprehension, though not beyond the touch of his apprehensive or prehensile faculty." miss nightingale, whose familiarity with the bible was probably even closer and more extensive than mr. swinburne's and with whom biblical criticism was a favourite study, also wanted a great deal put in which mr. jowett had left out, but her instinct for edification led her to suggest equivalent omissions. she took great pains with her suggestions, illustrating them in letters to mr. jowett with many characteristic remarks by the way:- it is impossible to keep up acquaintance with a man, however otherwise estimable, who separates the 26 last chapters of isaiah from isaiah merely by a shabby little note and asterisk. surely those chapters belong to the end of the babylonish captivity and should be separated by a distinct division; while the shabby little note and asterisk might go to some isolated chapters (_e.g._ xiii., xiv.) among the first 39 which belong to the same time, the end of the captivity--whereas the first 39 chapters (generally) appear to belong to the "middle ages" of prophecy. but as it may be judged inconvenient to put chaps. xl.-lxvi. of isaiah in a different part of the bible, i will concede that point and simply classify them (i follow ewald's order). but they _must_ be under a separate heading with "end of babylonian captivity" (or words to that effect) printed distinctly _under the heading_ (not in a note). [143] "the bishop has disallowed our 'versicles' and some other things on legal grounds--_i.e._ on the opinion of sir travers twiss (poor man!). we will have them in a particular book of our own. he says 'they are admirably selected'" (_letter from mr. jowett_, march 16, 1872). [144] see abbott and campbell's _life and letters of jowett_, vol. ii. pp. 35-36, and "recollections of professor jowett" in swinburne's _studies in prose and poetry_, p. 33. the full title of the book was _the school and children's bible prepared under the superintendence of the rev. william rogers_. london: longmans, 1873. more generally, she criticized the first selection sent to her as showing some want of proportion. there was no clear plan, she thought, as to the space to be given, respectively, to:- (_a_) matters of _universal_ importance, moral and spiritual (_e.g._ the finest parts of isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel and the new testament); (_b_) matters of _historical_ importance (_e.g._ which embrace the history of great nations, egypt, assyria, babylon. the petty wars of the petty tribes seem to take up a quite disproportionate space); (_c_) matters of _local_ importance, which have acquired a _universal moral_ significance (_e.g._ jonah is entirely left out: yet jonah has a moral and spiritual meaning, while samson, balaam and bathsheba have none); (_d_) matters of _merely local_ importance, with no significance but an _immoral_ one (_e.g._ the stories about abraham, isaac and jacob, almost all joshua and judges, and very much of samuel and kings). the story of achilles and his horses is far more fit for children than that of balaam and his ass, which is only fit to be told to asses. the stories of samson and of jephthah are only fit to be told to bull-dogs; and the story of bathsheba, to be told to bathshebas. yet we give all these stories to children as "holy writ." there are some things in homer we might better call "holy" writ--many, many in sophocles and aeschylus. the stories about andromache and antigone are worth all the women in the old testament put together; nay, almost all the women in the bible. "i have just finished the children's bible," wrote mr. jowett (feb. 10, 1872). "i blessed you every time i took the papers up, especially in the prophets. i have adopted your selection almost entirely, with a slight abridgement, and it is further approved by mr. cheyne's authority." these various literary enterprises, undertaken at mr. jowett's instance, occupied a great deal of miss nightingale's time--more time, as she sometimes said to herself, than could rightly be spared from primary duties; and the time was spent, she added in her self-reproaches, to little purpose. in some respects mr. jowett's suggestions to her were not very happy. one cannot elaborate in a consecutive form a scheme of theology or a social philosophy, even through the medium of essays, in odd hours as a bye-work. so miss nightingale soon found, and the failure weighed heavily on her spirits; but mr. jowett did not realize how great was the strain upon his friend's faculties involved in her nursing work, nor how much time, effort, and emotion she was devoting, though "out of office," to the complicated problems of indian administration. we, who have access to her papers, shall learn the full extent of these preoccupations in later chapters (iii. and iv.). but something must first be said of another literary enterprise. to it miss nightingale's close study of the bible and of plato was entirely relevant. such studies were, as we shall find in the next chapter, part of the food which sustained her inner life. chapter ii the mystical way mysticism: to dwell on the unseen, to withdraw ourselves from the things of sense into communion with god--to endeavour to partake of the divine nature; that is, of holiness. when we ask ourselves only what is right, or what is the will of god (the same question), then we may truly be said to live in his light.--florence nightingale. it has been mentioned incidentally in an earlier chapter that miss nightingale was fond of reading the books of catholic devotion which the reverend mother of the bermondsey convent used to send her. long before, she had studied carefully the writings of the port royalists; and at the trinità de' monti she had seen the ideal of catholic devotion in real life. she used to pass on some of her devotional works to mr. jowett. he began with st. teresa, and, at first repelled, he gradually became interested. miss nightingale was in the habit of copying out passages for her own edification, sometimes in the original, sometimes translating them. the idea of making a selection for publication occurred to her, and mr. jowett encouraged it. "do not give up your idea," he said, "of making a selection of the better mind of the middle ages and the mystics." "you will do a good work," he wrote again (oct. 3, 1872), "if you point out the kind of mysticism which is needed in the present day--not mysticism at all, but as intense a feeling, as the mystics had, of the power of truth and reason and of the will of god that they should take effect in the world. the passion of the reason, the fusion of faith and reason, the reason in religion and the religion in reason--if you can only describe these, you will teach people a new lesson. the new has something still to learn from the old; and i am not certain whether we ought not to retire into mysticism (i thought i should not use the word) when the antagonism with existing opinions becomes too great." miss nightingale's close study of plato and of the bible, described in the last chapter, increased her interest in christian mysticism. the fourth gospel was the work of a mystic. and there were curious analogies, which she pointed out to mr. jowett,[145] between plato and the mediæval mystics. the famous myth of the purified soul, for instance, recalled a passage in the _fioretti_ of st. francis, except that there the purgatorial stage, before the "wings grow," lasts 150 years, instead of 10,000. miss nightingale said of the closing prayer in the _phaedrus_--"give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward and inward man be at one"--a prayer unequalled, she thought, by any collect in the service-book--that it "put in seventeen words the whole, or at least half, of the doctrine of st. john of the cross." plato made her the more interested in the christian mystics; the christian mystics, the more interested in plato. concurrently with her work for mr. jowett's revised _plato_ she gave much time during 1873 and 1874 (with additions in later years) to transcribing or translating and arranging passages from devotional writers of the middle ages. she had sent some of her book in various stages to mr. jowett, who, with other suggestions, said (april 18, 1873) that she ought to add "a preface showing the use of such books. they are apt to appear unreal, and yet thomas à kempis has been one of the most influential books in the world. the subject of the preface should be the use of the ideal and especially the spiritual ideal. i do not say what may be the case with great saints themselves, but for us i think it is clear that this mystic state ought to be an occasional and not a permanent feeling--a taste of heaven in daily life. do you think it would be possible to write a mystical book which would also be the essence of common sense?" [145] he made use of her suggestion in a postscript (in the _second_ edition) to his introduction to the _phaedrus_. ii i construct the preface from various notes and rough drafts in miss nightingale's hand:- it may seem a strange thing to begin a book with:--this book is not for any one who has time to read it--but the meaning of it is: this reading is good only as a preparation for work. if it is not to inspire life and work, it is bad. just as the end of food is to enable us to live and work, and not to live and eat, so the end of--most reading perhaps, but certainly of--mystical reading is not to read but to work. for what is mysticism? is it not the attempt to draw near to god, not by rites or ceremonies, but by inward disposition? is it not merely a hard word for "the kingdom of heaven is within"? heaven is neither a place nor a time. there might be a heaven not only _here_ but _now_. it is true that sometimes we must sacrifice not only health of body, but health of mind (or, peace) in the interest of god; that is, we must sacrifice heaven. but "thou shalt be like god for thou shalt see him as he is": this may be _here_ and _now_, as well as _there_ and _then_. and it may be for a time--then lost--then recovered--both _here_ and _there_, both _now_ and _then_. that religion is not devotion, but work and suffering for the love of god; this is the true doctrine of mystics--as is more particularly set forth in a definition of the 16th century: "true religion is to have no other will but god's." compare this with the definition of religion in johnson's _dictionary_: "virtue founded upon reverence of god and expectation of future rewards and punishments"; in other words on respect and self-interest, not love. imagine the religion which inspired the life of christ "founded" on the motives given by dr. johnson! christ himself was the first true mystic. "my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work." what is this but putting in fervent and the most striking words the foundation of all real mystical religion?--which is that for all our actions, all our words, all our thoughts, the food upon which they are to live and have their being is to be the indwelling presence of god, the union with god; that is, with the spirit of goodness and wisdom. where shall i find god? in myself. that is the true mystical doctrine. but then i myself must be in a state for him to come and dwell in me. this is the whole aim of the mystical life; and all mystical rules in all times and countries have been laid down for putting the soul into such a state. that the soul herself should be heaven, that our father which is in heaven should dwell in her, that there is something within us infinitely more estimable than often comes out, that god enlarges this "palace of our soul" by degrees so as to enable her to receive himself, that thus he gives her liberty but that the soul must give herself up absolutely to him for him to do this, the incalculable benefit of this occasional but frequent intercourse with the perfect: this is the conclusion and sum of the whole matter, put into beautiful language by the mystics. and of this process they describe the steps, and assign periods of months and years during which the steps, they say, are commonly made by those who make them at all. these old mystics whom we call superstitious were far before us in their ideas of god and of prayer (that is of our communion with god). "prayer," says a mystic of the 16th century, "is to ask not what we wish of god, but what god wishes of us." "master who hast made and formed the vessel of the body of thy creature, and hast put within so great a treasure, the soul, which bears the image of thee": so begins a dying prayer of the 14th century. in it and in the other prayers of the mystics there is scarcely a petition. there is never a word of the theory that god's dealings with us are to show his "power"; still less of the theory that "of his own good pleasure" he has "predestined" any souls to eternal damnation. there is little mention of heaven for self; of desire of happiness for self, none. it is singular how little mention there is either of "intercession" or of "atonement by another's merits." true it is that we can only _create_ a heaven for _ourselves and others_ "by the merits of another," since it is only by working in accordance with god's laws that we can do anything. but there is nothing at all in these prayers as if god's anger had to be bought off, as if he had to be bribed into giving us heaven by sufferings merely "to satisfy god's justice." in the dying prayers, there is nothing of the "egotism of death." it is the reformation of god's church--that is, god's children, for whom the self would give itself, that occupies the dying thoughts. there is not often a desire to be released from trouble and suffering. on the contrary, there is often a desire to suffer the greatest suffering, and to offer the greatest offering, with even greater pain, if so any work can be done. and still, this, and all, is ascribed to god's _goodness_. the offering is not to buy anything by suffering, but--if only the suppliant can do anything for god's children! these suppliants did not live to see the "reformation" of god's children. no more will any who now offer these prayers. but at least we can all work towards such practical "reformation." the way to live with god is to live with ideas--not merely to think about ideals, but to do and suffer for them. those who have to work on men and women must above all things have their spiritual ideal, their purpose, ever present. the "mystical" state is the essence of common sense. the authors whom miss nightingale read for the purpose of her selection included st. angela of foligno, madame de chatel, st. francis of assisi, st. francis xavier, st. john of the cross, peter of alcantara, father rigoleuc, st. teresa, and father surin. she arranged her extracts from these and other writers under headings, and supplied marginal summaries. she prepared also a title-page:--_notes from devotional authors of the middle ages, collected, chosen, and freely translated by florence nightingale_. iii this and all other literary work was interrupted, however, at the beginning of 1874 by the death of her father. she was in london; her sister and sir harry verney were with him and mrs. nightingale at embley. he was 80; but, though his strength of body and mind had failed a little, he had been out for his usual ride a few days before. lady verney had wished him good-night. "say not good-night," he said in reply, quoting mrs. barbauld, "but in some brighter clime bid me good-morning." a day or two later, he came down to breakfast as usual, but found that he had forgotten his watch. he went to fetch it, slipped upon the stairs, and died on the spot. miss nightingale felt the loss of her father deeply. "his reverent love for you," wrote lord houghton in a letter of condolence (jan. 13, 1874), "was inexpressibly touching," and her love for him, though of a different kind, was very tender. unlike in many respects, father and daughter were yet kindred spirits in intellectual curiosity, in a taste for speculative inquiry. m. mohl noted among mr. nightingale's engaging characteristics "a modest curiosity about everything, a surprised, innocent, incredulous smile as he listened intently." miss irby spoke of his "exceeding sweetness and childlikeness of wisdom." these qualities were conspicuous in much of his intercourse with his daughter florence, and she was now deprived of the father who had, in things of the mind, sat at her feet and sympathized in her searches after truth. the death of her father was quickly followed, on january 31, 1874, by that of her dearly loved friend, mrs. bracebridge. "she was more than mother to me," wrote florence to m. and madame mohl (feb. 3); "and oh that i could not be a daughter to her in her last sad days! what should i have been without her? and what would many have been without her? to one living with her as i did once, she was unlike any other human being: as unlike as a picture of a sunny scene is to the real light and warmth of sunshine: or as this february lamp we call our sun is to her own sun of living light in greece.... other people live together to make each other worse: she lived with all to make them better. and she was not like a chastened christian saint: no more like that than apollo; but she had qualities which no greek god ever had--real humility (excepting my dear father, i never knew any one so really humble), and with it the most active heart and mind and buoyant soul that could well be conceived." mr. bracebridge had died eighteen months before (july 18, 1872), and miss nightingale had said: "he and she have been the creators of my life. and when i think of him at scutari, the only man in all england who would have lived with willingness such a pigging life, without the interest and responsibility which it had to me, i think that we shall never look upon his like again. and when i think of atherstone, of athens, of all the places i have been in with them, of the immense influence they had in shaping my own life--more than earthly father and mother to me--i cannot doubt that they leave behind them, having shaped many lives as they did mine, their mark on the century--this century which has so little ideal at least in england. they were so immeasurably above any english 'country gentry' i have ever known." miss nightingale's estimate of her friends was shared by others who had enjoyed their hospitality. "the death of mrs. bracebridge," wrote m. mohl (feb. 14), "is a sad blow for you. the breaking of these old associations which nothing new can replace impoverishes one's life, and a part of ourselves dies out with old friends even if they have not been to us what mrs. bracebridge was to you. _und immer stiller wird's und stiller auf unserm pfad_ until the great problem of life opens for ourselves. two better people than the bracebridges, different as they were, i have never seen. madame d'abbadie has a queer expression for a woman she approves of; she says _elle est honnête homme_, and nothing is more appropriate to mrs. bracebridge. i can never think of atherstone without emotion; it is people like these in whom lies the glory of england and the strength of the country. they were so genuine, so ready to help and to impoverish themselves for public purposes, and to do it unostentatiously and without fishing for popularity." to the end of her life miss nightingale cherished the memory of these faithful and helpful friends. "to my beloved and revered friends," she said in her will, "mr. charles bracebridge and his wife, my more than mother, without whom scutari and my life could not have been, and to whom nothing that i could ever say or do would in the least express my thankfulness, i should have left some token of my remembrance had they, as i expected, survived me." the death of her companion at scutari removed one of the few links with miss nightingale's happier past. the death of her father was not only a bereavement which she felt deeply; it also involved her in much distracting business. her father's landed properties, at embley and lea hurst, now passed, under the entail, to his sister, "aunt mai," and her husband. florence did not attend her father's funeral, but soon she went down to embley to look after her mother. there, and afterwards in london, she was immersed in worrying affairs. her only comfort, she wrote repeatedly in private notes, was the "goodness" of mr. shore smith--"her boy" of old days. the letters of mr. coltman, one of her father's executors, were full of humour, but florence was never able to take things lightly. there were questions of property and residence to be discussed; servants to be dismissed and engaged; her mother's immediate movements and future mode of life to be settled. everybody had a different plan, and florence complained that nobody but she had the same plan for two days running. her letters and notes at this period are of a quite tragic intensity. something may be ascribed to a characteristic over-emphasis. "we smiths," she said once of herself, "all exaggerate"; and mr. jowett said of some remarks made by her about him: "you are as nearly right as an habitual spirit of exaggeration will ever allow you to be." "we are a great many too many strong characters," she wrote of herself and her family, "and very different: all pulling different ways. and we are so dreadfully _au sérieux_. oh, how much good it does us to have some one to laugh at us!" but there was no exaggeration in one of her woes. a third of her time was taken up with the nightingale nurses; another third with indian affairs (for in relation to india, as we shall hear, she never quite "went out of office"); the remaining third, which might have been devoted to working out a scheme of social and moral science on the statistical methods of m. quetelet, or on preparing for the press her selections from the mystics, was being wasted in family worries. m. quetelet, with whom she had been corresponding, had recently died. "i cannot say," she wrote to dr. farr (feb. 23, 1874), "how the death of our old friend touches me: he was the founder of the most important science in the whole world. some months ago i prepared the first sketch of an essay i meant to publish and dedicate to him on the application of his discoveries to explain the plan of god in teaching us by these results the laws by which our moral progress is to be attained. i had pleased myself with thinking that this would please him. but painful and indispensable business prevented the finishing of my paper." "o god," she exclaimed in the bitterness of her heart, "let me not sink in these perplexities: but give me a great cause to do and die for." and again: "what makes the difference between man and woman? quetelet did his work, and i am so disturbed by my family that i can't do mine." iv so, then, miss nightingale never finished her book on the mystics; but she did something which, if we take her view of literary work, we may account far better; she lived it. no words of florence nightingale's that have been quoted in the course of this memoir are more intensely autobiographical, none express more truly the spirit in which she lived and moved and had her being, than those which i have put together on a preceding page from her notes on the mystics. her creed may seem cold to some minds, but she invested it with a spiritual fervour which none of the mystics has surpassed. this woman, so practical, so business-like, and in her outward dealings with men and affairs so worldly-wise, was a dreamer, a devotee, a religious enthusiast. the lady-in-chief, who was to others a tower of strength, was to herself a weak vessel, praying continually for support, and conscious, with bitter intensity, of short-coming, of faithlessness, of rebellion to the will of god. self-possessed in the presence of others, she was tortured and agonized, often to the verge of despair, in the solitude of her chamber. "i have done nothing for seven years," she said to a friend, "but write regulations." and that was broadly true of one side of her life. of another side, she might have said with almost equal truth, "i have done nothing all my life but write spiritual meditations." she lived with a pen or pencil ever at her side; and reams of her paper are covered with confessions, self-examinations, communings with god. she suffered much, and especially during these years, from sleeplessness, and in the watches of the night she would turn to read the mystics for comfort, or to write on her tablets for spiritual exercise. though she liked best the books of the catholic saints, her catholicism was wider than theirs, and she could find spiritual kinship also, as in the lines prefixed to the present part, with the hymns of american evangelists. at one and the same time mystic and practical administrator, miss nightingale had two soul-sides; but each was a reflection of the other. her religion was her work; and her work was her religion. she read the mystics, not to lull her active faculties into contemplative ecstasy, but to consecrate them to more perfect service. in one place she makes these notes from st. catherine of siena:--"it is not the occupation but the spirit which makes the difference. the election of a bishop may be a most secular thing. the election of a representative may be a religious thing. it is not the preluding such an election with public prayer that would make it a religious act. it is religious so far as each man discharges his part as a duty and a solemn responsibility. the question is not whether a thing is done for the state or the church, but whether it is done with god or without god." miss nightingale's heading to this passage was "drains." she applied her religion to every aspect of her life; and in her meditations, passages of solemn profundity are sometimes side by side with entries of a quaint, and almost humorous, directness, like a gargoyle above a church porch or a dog in a madonna picture. "o lord i offer him to thee. he is so _heavy_. do thou take care of him. _i_ can't." "i must strive to see only god in my friends, and god in my cats." such passages are thought "profane" by professors of a purely formal religion; but are characteristic of the true mystics in all denominations. the mystical self-abasement of the saints was never more complete than in the private meditations of florence nightingale. once in the middle of the night she started up and saw pictures on the wall by the night-light lamp. "am i she who once stood on that crimean height? 'the lady with a lamp shall stand.' the lamp shows me only my utter shipwreck." from the year 1872 onwards, when she went "out of office," and with increased intensity after her father's death, miss nightingale's mood, in all communings with herself, was of deep dejection and of utter humbleness. the notes are often heart-rending in their impression of loneliness, of craving for sympathy which she could not find, of bitter self-reproach. the loss of friends may account for something of all this, and even her friendship with mr. jowett had now lost somewhat of its consoling power. she felt that she gave more sympathy than she received; she sometimes found her interviews with him exhausting or disturbing; "he talks to me," she said once, "as if i were some one else." the strange manner of her life should be remembered. her habit of seeing only one person at a time, and that at set times, must have made intercourse rather formidable for both parties. nobody, even if staying in the house, ever _happened_ to come into her room, and no outside visitor appeared unexpectedly. she never had the relief of hearing two other people talk, or of witnessing, even for a moment, two other personalities in contact. something too must be accounted to the fact that many of her meditations were written at night or in the early morning hours when she could not sleep. periods of sleepless dejection, which in the lives of most men and women leave little record of themselves behind, were by her spent in writing down their weary tale. no doubt, the self-expression gave relief; and she would often turn at the instant from her tablets of despair to amuse a visitor with humorous conversation, or write a vivacious letter to a friend. these are considerations for which allowance must be made in estimating what was morbid in miss nightingale's moods. but for the most part the despondency and the self-abasement which coloured her meditations, and which sometimes appear in her letters, were the expression of the mystical way of her soul. they are the utterance of a soul which was striving after perfection, and found the path difficult and thorny. miss nightingale was masterful and eager; she had often been able to impress her will upon men and upon events; she found it difficult to bear disappointments and vexations with that entire resignation which the mystics taught her. she was "out of office"; she had been interrupted, suddenly and painfully, in a long career of almost unceasing action. the pause in her public life gave her new occasion for self-criticism and fresh consciousness of the difficulty of sustaining in active life that absolute purity of motive which makes light even of success or failure. she strove to attain, and she taught others to ensue, passivity in action--to do the utmost in their power, but to leave the result to a higher power. in a poem which gave her much comfort in later years she marked this passage:- abstaining from attachment to the work, abstaining from rewardment in the work, while yet one doeth it full faithfully, saying, "'tis right to do!"--that is true act and abstinence! who doeth duties so, unvexed if his work fail, if it succeed unflattered, in his own heart justified, quit of debates and doubts, his is "true" act.[146] [146] sir edwin arnold's _the song celestial_ (translated from the mahâbhârata): see below, p. 401. but the lesson was hard to learn. "there are trying days before us," she wrote to one of her dearest friends (aug. 1873); "however, we cannot change a single 'hair'; we must look to him 'alike who grasps eternity, and numbers every hair.' i don't know that it is ever difficult to me to entrust my 'hair' to him, but to entrust a.'s, and yours, and poor matron's i find very difficult. and i thought he did not take care of b.'s hairs. what a reprobate i am!" and a worse "reprobate" than this letter says; for in fact she did find it very difficult to entrust even her own "hair to him"--as she confessed in another letter to the same friend: "god is displeased when we enquire too anxiously. a soul which has really given itself to god does his will in the present, and trusts to the father for the future. now it is twenty years to-day [aug. 11, 1873] since i entered 'public life'--and i have not learnt that lesson yet--though the greater part of those twenty years have been as completely out of my hands to mould, and in his alone, as if they had been the movements of the planets." the surrender of her will to the keeping of the supreme will was the spiritual perfection at which she most continuously aimed. in consciousness of failure, she reproached herself for censoriousness, rebellion, impatience. she knew that some of all this, and much of her dejection, were morbid, and warned others against the like weakness. "do not depend, darling," she wrote to a friend, "upon 'light' in one sort of mystical way. there are things, as i know by experience, in which he sends us light by the hard good sense of others, not by our going over in sickness and solitude one thought, or rather feeling, over and over again by ourselves, which rather brings darkness. i have felt this so much in my lonely life." but there was another mystical way in which she found strength. in her spiritual life, which was at once the complement and the sustaining source of her outward life, she followed, as she was fond of writing, "the way of the cross." there were moments indeed, but they were rare, in which she was inclined to draw back, and when her faith grew faint. "o my creator, art thou leading every man of us to perfection? or is this only a metaphysical idea for which there is no evidence? is man only a constant repetition of himself? thou knowest that through all these 20 horrible years [1873] i have been supported by the belief (i think i must believe it still or i am sure i could not work) that i was working with thee who wert bringing every one, even our poor nurses, to perfection." yet from every doubt her assurance grew the stronger; and as she followed the way of the cross, she rose triumphant over suffering, finding in each loss of human sympathy a lesson that she should throw herself more entirely into the eternal arms, and in every outbreak of human despondency or rebellion a call to closer union with the eternal goodness. "o father, i submit, i resign myself," she wrote in one of hundreds of similar meditations, "i accept with all my heart this stretching out of thy hand to save me: deal with me as thou seest meet: thy work begin, thy work complete. o how vain it is, the vanity of vanities, to live in men's thoughts, instead of god's." and again: "wretch that i was not to see that god was taking from me all human help in order to compel me to lean on him alone." she had little interest in rites and ceremonies as such, and she interpreted the doctrines of christianity in her own way; but she found great comfort in the communion service, as an expression of the individual believer's participation in the sufferings and the triumph of the greatest of the mystics. for some years she entered in her diary a text from the mystical writers for each day. she took to herself their devotion, their communion with god, their self-surrender; she adjusted their doctrine to her own beliefs. "i believe," she wrote, "in god the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. and in jesus christ, his best son, our master, who was born to show us the way through suffering to be also his sons and his daughters, his handmen and his handmaidens, who lived in the same spirit with the father, that we may also live in that holy spirit whose meat was to do his father's will and to finish his work, who suffered and died saying, 'that the world may love the father.' and i believe in the father almighty's love and friendship, in the service of man being the service of god, the growing into a likeness with him by love, the being one with him in will at last, which is heaven. i believe in the plan of almighty perfection to make us all perfect. and thus i believe in the life everlasting." this was the creed by which miss nightingale guided her life; this, the path to perfection along which she ever moved. there was nothing ecstatic in her mysticism, though she notes occasionally that she heard "the voice," and often that she was conscious of receiving "strong impressions." they were impressions which came in moments of imaginative insight, but yet which followed rationally from self-examination and meditation on her creed. patience and resignation were the states of the purified soul which she found hardest of attainment. she marked for her edification many a passage from devotional writers in which such virtues are enjoined; as in this from thomas à kempis: "oh lord my god, patience is very necessary for me, for i perceive that many things in this life do fall out as we would not.... it is so, my son. but my will is that thou seek not that peace which is void of temptations, or which suffereth nothing contrary; but rather think that thou hast found peace, when thou art exercised with sundry tribulations and tried in many adversities." her tribulations were often caused, she confessed, by her impatience. "o lord, even now i am trying to snatch the management of thy world out of thy hands." the middle path of perfection between the acquiescence of the quietist and the impatience of the worker was hard. "too little have i looked for something higher and better than my own work--the work of supreme wisdom, which uses us whether we know it or not. o god to thy glory not to mine whatever happens, may be all my thought!" miss nightingale's meditations, written in the purgatorial stage, are many and poignant. but there were times also when the mount of illumination was reached, when "the palace of her soul" was enlarged to receive the indwelling presence, and she found the perfect peace of the mystic in the consciousness of union with the supreme wisdom; times when on the wings of the soul she attained with dante to the empyrean:- lume è lassù che visibile face lo creatore a quella creatura, che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace. perfected in weakness, she was strong in moments of illumination "to see god in all things, and all things in god, the eternal shining through the accidents of space and time." [147] [147] letter to mr. jowett, april 17, 1873. chapter iii miss nightingale's school (1872-1879) let each founder train as many in his or her spirit as he or she can. then the pupils will in their turn be founders also.- florence nightingale. miss nightingale did not do as she had planned, and go in her own person to st. thomas's hospital, but in another sense the year 1872 was the year of her descent upon it. not, indeed, as we saw in the preceding part, that she had ever abandoned a personal interest in the training school, but there were now new conditions which called for additional care, and miss nightingale, being out of office, was more free to give it. henceforth she became, in a yet more direct manner than heretofore, the head of the nightingale school, and the chief of the nightingale nurses. the year 1871 had seen the removal of st. thomas's hospital from its temporary quarters in the old surrey gardens to the present building opposite the houses of parliament. the foundation-stone had been laid by queen victoria in 1868. miss nightingale had been requested to ask the queen to do this, and she had preferred the petition through sir james clark. "i never pressed her majesty so hard upon anything before," said he, in announcing the royal pleasure. the queen had again shown her interest in the hospital by opening the new building in june 1871. the number of beds was now greatly increased, and with it the number of nurses and probationers. the control of the nurses was likely to be relaxed as it was spread over a larger number, and miss nightingale resolved to hold a visitation. first, she sent dr. sutherland with the consent of the hospital authorities to inspect the new buildings and to consider all the arrangements from the point of view of an expert sanitarian. she examined and cross-examined sisters and nurses on the same points, and put into print a list of the defects which needed remedy.[148] then miss nightingale took in hand the education, technical and moral, of her own nightingale school. she had already observed that the lady probationers, appointed to responsible posts, were not always adequate to their duties: the overworked matron had perhaps sometimes recommended unsuitable persons. she found on questioning the nurses that their technical education did not reach the high standard which she desired to maintain. she feared that the moral standard similarly fell short of her ideal; nursing was coming to be regarded too much as a business profession, and too little as a sacred calling. miss nightingale determined to throw herself into a sustained effort for the better realization of her ideal. directly or indirectly, she instituted sweeping reforms. the result of them was, as she wrote to mr. bonham carter (aug. 1875), that the training school became "a home--a place of moral, religious and practical training--a place of training of character, habits, intelligence, as well as of acquiring knowledge." those who saw the nightingale nurses in these years were struck by the bright, kindly and pleasant spirit which seemed to pervade the company of them, and could well understand that the institution was really, as its foundress intended, a home as well as a school. [148] see bibliography a, no. 67. mr. whitfield, the resident medical officer, who had acted since the foundation of the nursing school as medical instructor of the probationers, resigned that post, and mr. j. croft, who had lately become one of the surgeons to the hospital, was appointed in his stead. miss nightingale saw and corresponded with mr. croft, and liked him much. "i have always dreaded," he wrote (feb. 24, 1873), "remaining a 'stagnant man.'[149] i hope to become, as you would have me, an active and faithful comrade." he gave clinical instruction to the probationers; delivered courses of lectures--general, medical, and surgical in the several terms--throughout the year, of which he submitted the syllabus to miss nightingale, and at her request drew up a "course of reading for probationers." other members of the medical staff gave courses of lectures also, and examinations were made more regular and searching. the answers written by the probationers, and their notes on the lectures, were from time to time sent in to miss nightingale, so that she might gain an idea of the general standard of instruction, and perhaps administer rebuke or encouragement to individual pupils. "i think," miss nightingale was told on one occasion, "that the ladies are thoroughly ashamed of the appearance they made at mr. croft's last examination, and wish to retrieve themselves." their good resolutions seem to have been successful, for presently one of the medical officers reported that "the answers which i have received this year collectively are much better than in former years, they are indeed exceedingly good." "i read your case-papers," miss nightingale wrote in one of her addresses, "with more interest than if they were novels. some are meagre, especially in the history of the cases. some are good. please remember that, besides your own instruction, you can give me some too, by making these most interesting cases as interesting as possible by making them accurate and entering into the full history." the new hospital had greatly increased the demands upon the time of the matron, mrs. wardroper, and left her less able to supervise the probationers. an assistant-superintendent of the school was appointed with the title of home sister.[150] it was one of her duties to supplement the lectures and bedside demonstration of the medical officers by regular class-teaching. [149] the reference here was to miss nightingale's "address to the probationers" (1872) in which she had written: "to be a good nurse, one must be an improving woman; for stagnant waters sooner or later, and stagnant air, as we know ourselves, always grow corrupt and unfit for use. is any one of us a _stagnant woman_?" [150] the part of home sister was "created," and was most efficiently filled for 21 years, by miss crossland, who retired on a pension in 1895. "nearly 600 nurses completed their probationary course under her care, and subsequently entered upon their vocation as nurses in some general hospital or infirmary, or in training as district nurses for the poor, and a very large number of them became matrons, superintendents, or ward sisters." (_nightingale fund report_ for 1895). miss nightingale, however, attached even more importance to the home sister's influence on the moral and spiritual side of the school. the home sister was to encourage general reading, to arrange bible classes, to give interests to the nurses in order "to keep them above the mere scramble for a remunerative place." the two sides of the school are closely joined in the letters to miss nightingale from the home sister and matron--letters telling on one page of the progress of probationers in antiseptic dressing and so forth, and on another of their bible readings or selected hymns. miss nightingale was especially pleased when canon farrar allotted some seats at st. margaret's to her nurses and took a confirmation class among them. ii miss nightingale relied, however, upon her own influence also. during her residence in london she now made a point of seeing regularly all the sisters, nurses, and probationers attached to her school. she had resolved, when agnes jones died, to "give herself up to finding more agnes joneses." this was the task to which she now devoted a large part of her life. she was still untiring in the attempt to procure promising raw material. she applied to mr. spurgeon, among others, who in reply (july 29, 1877) hoped that from his church "there would come quite a little army of recruits for your holy war. rest assured that to me in common with all my country-men your name is very fragrant." when applications came to her for trained nurses from provincial towns, she used to tell them what pastor fliedner said when similar applications came to him for trained deaconesses from kaiserswerth: "have _you_ sent _me_ any probationers? i can't stamp material out of the ground." from 1872 onwards all the "raw material" passed under miss nightingale's own eye. she was a shrewd judge of character. a collection of extracts from mr. jowett's notes to her about his pupils, and of her pencilled notes upon her pupils, would furnish a gallery of types of young english men and english women. he used to write to her very freely about his undergraduates; and she liked it--teasing him sometimes about his dukes and marquises and inventing humorous nicknames for them. "why do i write to you," he said, "about all these young men? because it pleases me, and because i know that you are a student of human nature." she was indeed. she read her visitors through and through. as soon as a sister or a nurse took leave, miss nightingale wrote down a memorandum of the attainments, knowledge, and character of each. the character-sketches are terse and vivid, expressed sometimes in racy english. "miss a.[151] tittupy, flippant, pretension-y, veil down, ambitious, clever, not much feeling, talk-y, underbred, no religion, may be persevering from ambition to excel, but takes the thing up as an adventure like nap. iii." "nurse b. a good little thing, spirited, too much friends with g., shares in her flirtations." "miss c. seems a woman of good feeling and bad sense; much under the meridian of anybody who will try to persuade her. i think her praises have been sung exaggerated-ly. she wants a very steady hand over her. such long-winded stories 5 points or at least half the compass off the subject in hand. had i not been intent on persuading her i should have been out of all patience." "miss d. as self-comfortable a jackass (or joan-ass) as ever i saw." "nurse e. a most capable little woman, no education, but one can't find it in one's heart to regret it, she seems as good as can be." "miss x. more cleverness than judgment, more activity than order, more hard sense than feeling, never any high view of her calling, always thinking more of appearances than of the truth, more flippant than witty, more petulance than vigour." "nurse y. as poor a two-fisted thing as ever i saw, a mawkin to frighten away good nurses." there were many sisters and nurses so excellent in every respect that they needed nothing but encouragement; she was more careful to mark defects, and sometimes she would write a note of warning or remonstrance immediately after an interview, as to miss z.: "a wise man says that true knowledge of anything whether in heaven or earth can only be gained by a true love of the ideal in it--that is, _of the best that we can do_ in it. forgive me, dear miss z., do you think that you have the true _love_ of the _best_ in nursing? this is a question i ask myself daily in all i do. do not think me governess-ing. it is a question which each one of us can only ask of, and answer to, herself." the notes which miss nightingale took of conversations with probationers did not refer only to those ladies themselves. she questioned them closely of the state of the wards, the kind and extent of instruction they received, and the influence exerted by the several sisters. she came to the conclusion that the probationers were not always adequately taught by the sisters, and she drew up accordingly a "memorandum of instruction to ward sisters on their duties to probationers." in one of her cross-examinations of herself, she wrote, "god meant me for a reformer and i have turned out a detective." but the reformer must needs on occasion play the detective--especially if she cannot herself be on the scene. the close hand which miss nightingale kept upon her school during these years from her room in south street or at lea hurst is extraordinary, but it was done at a prodigious expenditure of labour. she notes the point herself: it was one of the sore trials of her lot that she had to "write 100 letters to do one little thing instead of being able to do it directly." "it takes a great deal out of me," she wrote to a friend. "i have never been used to influence people except by leading in _work_; and to have to influence them by talking and writing is hard. a more dreadful thing than being cut short by death is being cut short by life in a paralysed state." [151] the initials are not the real ones. miss nightingale's sense of the seriousness of the nurse's vocation by no means stifled her appreciation of fun. each nurse had to write once a month a report, for submission to the chief, of a day's work in the wards. "i well remember," says one of her pupils, "coming off duty one evening at 8 p.m. fagged, footsore, and weary. on entering the home, the sister informed me that my report must be written immediately (we never knew beforehand on which day this sword of damocles would fall upon us). so after a hurried supper, i commenced jotting down the day's work. one of the rules was that everything we had done in the wards must be entered. a combination of truthfulness and temper resulted in the following paragraph:--'8.15 a.m. tooth-combed seven heads, had grand sport; mixed bag, measured one teaspoonful; cleanliness is next to godliness!' miss nightingale, when she came to know me, had a hearty laugh at this cheeky probationer's description of sport in hospital coverts." the cheekiness by no means prejudiced miss nightingale against the pupil, who, a few years afterwards, was selected for a very responsible post.[152] to be invited to tea and talk with the chief was regarded as a great honour by her pupils, but, as young people will, they sometimes made fun of it among themselves. "carefully dressed in my best garments i was just starting on my first visit to south street when one of the nurses rushed up to me exclaiming, 'miss nightingale always gives a cake to the probationer who has tea with her, and the size of the cake varies according to the poverty or otherwise of the nurse's dress.' so i hurried upstairs, exchanged my best coat for one that had done country service for many years and came home from my tea-party the proud possessor of a cake so large that it went the round of all the thirty-six probationers." this story also was told presently to miss nightingale, who enjoyed it hugely. she herself often wrote in a playful vein; as in this note to a pupil who was not taking due care of herself: "ah, what a villain you are! _i knowed yer!_ if any one else were to do as you do in nursing yourself, you would discharge her from the face of the earth. and see the results! then, i'll be bound you've eaten none of those victuals yourself." [152] see below, p. 348. iii the _dossiers_ which miss nightingale preserved and, annotated (often picking out special points by black, blue, and red pencil respectively) were of use to her in the important work of selecting particular ladies for particular posts. the most notable appointment during these years was that of a lady superintendent to organize district nursing in london. we have heard already that miss nightingale regarded this development as the proper sequel to the reform of workhouse nursing. that was in 1866, and now she reproached herself: "i had then resolved to give myself to promoting district nursing, and now that district nursing comes it is too late for me to help." this lament, however, was unnecessary. it was miss nightingale's published _suggestions_[153] upon which the promoters of the movement acted. foremost among them was mr. rathbone, who was moved to extend to london the experiment which he had carried out successfully in liverpool.[154] he at once came to consult miss nightingale. it was her letter to the _times_, too, reprinted as a pamphlet,[155] that made the "metropolitan nursing association" well known to the public. in this letter, as in all her writings on the same subject, miss nightingale insisted that nothing second best would be good enough for nursing among the sick poor, that such nurses must be health missionaries, and that to obtain suitable women for the service there must be "a real home, within reach of their work, for the nurses to live in." the system thus inaugurated in london was, she said, "twenty years ago a paradox, but twenty years hence will be a commonplace." but the chief of the direct services which miss nightingale rendered to the movement was in persuading one of the ablest of her pupils--miss florence lees (mrs. dacre craven)--to accept the position of superintendent-general. she filled the post with high efficiency for some years, and throughout her work was in constant consultation with miss nightingale. [153] bibliography a, no. 75. [154] see above, p. 125. [155] bibliography a, no. 80. in april 1878 it looked as if miss nightingale would have to find superintendents and nurses for another purpose. war with russia was believed to be imminent; two army corps were being prepared for immediate embarkation; and sir william muir, director-general of the army medical department, came to a consultation in south street upon the female nursing establishment to be dispatched to the (unknown) seat of war. miss nightingale spent some anxious days and sleepless nights in considering which of her pupils were best fitted and could best be spared for this special service, but the war-cloud passed away. the appointment of miss lees to organize district nursing in london was only one, though it was the most important, of many responsible appointments, over which miss nightingale took infinite pains in order to place the right person in the right place. hospitals and workhouse infirmaries in london and in various parts of the country looked to the nightingale school for superintendents; or sometimes if an important post were thrown open by advertisement, miss nightingale used her influence to secure the election of a nightingale candidate. here, again, her labour was the greater because she was not herself on the spot and had others to consult. there was a triumvirate, she used to say; the triumvirs being mr. henry bonham carter (the secretary of the nightingale fund), mrs. wardroper (the matron) and miss nightingale (here, as in the crimea, the lady-in-chief)--with dr. sutherland, sometimes, in the background as a court of ultimate appeal. whenever an important post fell vacant, the amount of cross-correspondence was prodigious. as soon as a lady was selected by the triumvirate for promotion, miss nightingale would call the chosen pupil more closely to her, make her intimate acquaintance and prepare her for the work. then there was the difficult duty of effecting exchanges. the sisters when they had once left st. thomas's were, after all, free agents; and though the deference which they all paid to miss nightingale's wishes was great, yet the ladies had ambitions, preferences, views of their own, and her influence had often to be exercised by humouring, petting, coaxing:- (_to miss rachel williams._) 35 south street, _jan._ 17 [1874].... we thought that this arrangement was what would approve itself best to your best judgment. but as i am well aware that my dear goddess-baby has--well, a baby-side, i shall not be surprised at any outburst--though i know full well that in the dear pearl's terrible distress, you will do everything and more than everything possible to drag her through and to spare her and to keep _her_ up and the _place_ going. only don't break yourself down, my dear child.... alas, i would so fain relieve you of your "bitterness." you say you are "bitter"; and indeed you _are_.... i would not have written thus much, unless urged by seeing my goddess-baby suffering from delusions. and how can a woman be a superintendent unless she has learnt to superintend herself? (_to the same._) _may 2 [1874]._ i have this moment received your charming letter, which is just like yourself. and i _must_ write and thank you for it at once. it has taken a load off my heart. it is a pure joy to me: because i see _yourself_ (and not another) in it. and life has not many joys for me, my darling. (_to the same._) _dec._ 5 [1874]. after much consideration my suggestion was that you should remain another six months in the same position, not because i had any idea of your remaining indefinitely on and on as you are, but because edinburgh serves as a capital and indispensable preparation. but this is only an old woman's advice: which probably the goddess will not much regard and which is subject any way, of course, to hearing your own wishes, ideas and reasons for one course or another.... if there is such violent haste, telegraph to me any day and come up by the next express or on the wires. and i will turn out india, my mother, and all the queen's horses and all the queen's men together, with one-sixth of the human race, and lay my energies (not many left) at the goddess' feet. miss nightingale had a large heart and an unprejudiced mind; she was open to discern character and efficiency in many different forms; but naturally there were those, among her pupils, by whom she was more particularly attracted. the letters just quoted introduce us to two of these. of one of them miss nightingale noted in her diary, after the first interview: "miss p. came. i have found a pearl of great price." the name was adopted, and she became in familiar correspondence "the pearl." she filled important posts, and became one of miss nightingale's dearest friends. of the other probationer, she wrote: "besides the pleasure of becoming acquainted with miss williams it was quite a pleasure to my bodily eyes to look at her. she is like a queen; and all her postures are so beautiful, without being in the least theatrical." this lady was "the goddess" of the letters already quoted. she was for many years matron of st. mary's hospital in london, with a training school under her, and she was afterwards appointed lady superintendent of nurses during the egyptian campaign of 1884-85. even her marriage shortly afterwards did not break her friendship with miss nightingale. sometimes a pupil on leaving st. thomas's would take a situation against miss nightingale's advice or without consulting her. "i should feel happier," wrote one pupil, "if you saw the matter in the same light as i do." i expect that in such a case the self-willed pupil had to do very well in her post in order to win miss nightingale's approval. there were few important posts in the nursing world which were not filled during these and the following years by pupils of the nightingale school. an appointment which gave special satisfaction to miss nightingale and her council was that of miss machin to be matron of st. bartholomew's (1878).[156] at one and the same time (1882), former nightingale probationers held the post of matron or of superintendent of nurses in the following among other institutions:--cumberland infirmary (carlisle), edinburgh royal infirmary, huntingdon county hospital, leeds infirmary, lincoln county hospital; at liverpool, in the royal infirmary, the southern hospital, and the workhouse infirmary; netley, royal victoria hospital; putney, royal hospital for incurables; salisbury infirmary; sydney (n.s.w.) general hospital; and in london, at marylebone workhouse infirmary, the metropolitan and national nursing association, the north london district nursing association, the paddington association, st. mary's hospital, and the westminster hospital. to many of these institutions a large number of nurses, forming in some cases a complete nursing staff, had been provided from the nightingale school, and the result was the gradual introduction into british hospitals of an organized system of trained nursing.[157] the movement was not confined to great britain. "nightingale nurses" became matrons or superintendents in many colonies (_e.g._ canada and ceylon), in india, in sweden, in germany, and in the united states. moreover, other hospitals and institutions had followed the lead of miss nightingale and established training schools, and several of these were again superintended by her pupils; as, for instance, at edinburgh (under miss pringle), at the marylebone infirmary (miss vincent), at st. mary's (miss williams), and at the westminster (miss pyne). these schools in their turn sent out lady superintendents, matrons, and nurses to other institutions, and thus the movement of the waters, which miss nightingale was able to start after her return from the crimea, extended in an ever-widening circle. "let us hail," she said in an address to her own probationers (1884), "the successes of other training schools, sprung up, thank god, so fast and well in latter years. but the best way we can hail them is not to be left behind ourselves. let us, in the spirit of friendly rivalry, rejoice in their progress, as they do, i am sure, in ours. _all_ can win the prize. one training school is not lowered because others win. on the contrary, all are lowered if others fail." [156] miss machin had in 1875 gone from st. thomas's, with a staff of nurses, to the general hospital at montreal. [157] full particulars may be found in the annual _reports of the nightingale fund_ (now accessible in the library of the british museum). the appointment of a nightingale nurse to a post outside st. thomas's did not mean that she passed out of miss nightingale's ken. on the contrary, it meant, as we have already heard (p. 191), that her cares took further scope. "i am immersed," she wrote to m. mohl (june 21, 1873), "in such a torrent of my trained matrons and nurses, going and coming, to and from edinburgh and dublin, to and from watering-places for their health, dining, tea-ing, sleeping--sleeping by day as well as by night." "her attitude to her lieutenants," says one of them, "was that of a mother to daughters. yet they were not living with her in an enclosure, but were out in the open encountering the experiences of their individual lives, often under very difficult conditions. when they confided their trials to her, she advised them in the spirit of her own high aims, wrestling with them or encouraging them, as the case might be, with fulness of attention, which might lead each one of us in turn to think that she had no other care." miss nightingale's own papers, and letters to nurses which i have seen, bear out all this in the fullest degree and to an amazing point of detail. with an erring sister she took infinite pains. she was firm to save from any discredit the good name of the nightingale school and to maintain the efficiency of its work; but this firmness went hand in hand with infinite pity for the individual, and any pain which her discipline may have caused to others was as nothing compared to the agony which her own tender and self-torturing soul endured. all nightingale sisters were her "daughters," alike in canada or in scotland, as at st. thomas's. she advised them, helped them, planned for them, with an extraordinary thoroughness. was a sister returning to work in the north after a holiday in london? she would remember how careless girls sometimes are of regular meals, and her commissionaire would be dispatched to see the sister off and put a luncheon-basket in the carriage. miss nightingale was an old hand at purveying, and amongst her papers are careful lists of what such baskets were to contain. she heard of a member of a certain nursing staff being run down. "what miss x. wants is to be fed like a baby," she wrote, sending a detailed dietary and adding, "get the things out of my money." she was constant in seeing that her "daughters" took proper holidays; sometimes helping to defray the expense, more often having them to stay with her in south street or in the country. she was constant, too, in sending them presents of books--both of a professional kind likely to be of help to them in their work, and such as would encourage a taste for general literature. to those who were in london hospitals or infirmaries, her notes were often accompanied by "fresh country eggs," game, or flowers. she always remembered them when christmas came round and sent evergreens for the wards. at one or two of the london infirmaries there is a matron's garden, planted with rhododendrons. the plants were sent by miss nightingale from embley. to the nurses serving under her friends she sent presents also. she had a verse of the hospital hymn[158] finely illuminated on a large scale and gave it, suitably framed, to various institutions. she was as curious and as helpful in relation to the nursing arrangements in other hospitals as in st. thomas's itself. her pupils, wherever they might be, referred to their "dear mistress" or "dearest friend" in all their trials, difficulties, perplexities, and she never failed them--sending words of encouragement, advice, and good cheer. "should there be anything in which i can be of the least use, here i am": this was a frequent formula in her messages. in these letters a religious note is seldom absent. never, i imagine, has there been a series of letters in which a high ideal was more continually and persistently presented. but the letters are not less conspicuous for shrewd practical sense and worldly wisdom--as, for instance, when she advises a candidate for a certain post not to frighten the hospital board by starting a suggestion at once "to reform the whole system." miss nightingale put a high value, too, upon _esprit de corps_ as an aid to maintaining a high standard of duty. every pupil of the nightingale school was taught to think of it as an alma mater to which she owed much, even as she had received much; all the sisters who went out into the world from the school were encouraged to regard themselves as members still of a corporate body, however widely separated from one another they might be. miss nightingale's letters often included news of one "old boy," so to speak, passed on to another; each was inspired to take courage from the success of others. the volume of correspondence thus grew from year to year, as the circle widened, and at the time with which we are now concerned it was enormous. the wonder is how miss nightingale was able to do anything else besides. mothers with large families sometimes find the burden of correspondence heavy as the sons and daughters leave home and have families of their own. headmasters, who make a point of keeping in touch with old pupils, find it heavier still, when they are called upon to advise or sympathise with each successive school-generation upon openings, prospects, careers. the secretaries of the appointments boards, which now organize this kind of work in the case of universities, do not find their duties light. combine these functions of mother, headmaster, and appointments board, and an idea will be obtained of miss nightingale's work as the nursing chief. [158] to hands that work and eyes that see give wisdom's heavenly lore, that whole and sick and weak and strong may praise thee ever more. a selection of extracts from particular letters to various correspondents will perhaps convey the impression better than any further attempt at general description. the extracts are only not typical in that i omit details about nursing arrangements and hospital cases:- (_to a matron whose assistant was leaving to undertake a new work._) 35 south street, _sept._ 30 [1876]. 6 a.m. my dearest "little sister"--this comes that you may know (though you cannot know) how much one is thinking of you--here below--in what must be a terrible wrench in our lot: as to the little mother who is left behind _and_ to the daughter who goes to try her fate even in the happiest change of a new and untried future, it must be a terrible wrench. but if i am thinking and feeling and praying for you so much, how must the _one_ above feel for you? a sober view both you and i take of the possible futures of life: veiled in mist and sometimes, nay often, in drizzle: with gleams of the father's love, in bright sunshine: and both of us knowing well that "behind the clouds" he is still shining, brightly shining: the sun of righteousness. though i ought to take a far soberer view than you, my dear "little sister," for i have undergone twice your years. and for the same reason i ought too, though i am afraid faith often fails me, to take a brighter view too. but whether i do or not and whether i write or not, your trials shall always be my trials, dear "little sister," your people shall be my people, as my god is your god. there can be no stronger tie. i think this letter will reach you just as miss williams has started. she will find a letter of welcome from me at st. mary's.[159] i daresay just now she feels dreary enough. but her great spirit will soon buckle to her work: and find a joy in it. i am glad she takes some of your own people. i do earnestly trust that you will find help and comfort in miss pyne, to whom my best love, and miss mitchelson. i am sure you do not feel so stranded as i did when i was left at scutari in the crimea war alone, when mr. and mrs. bracebridge went home: on many, many times since--when sidney herbert, the war minister with whom i had worked five years in the war office died: when sir john lawrence, the indian viceroy, left india: and many other times when the future fell across my life like a great black wall, not (as in other lives) making a change, but completely cutting off the future from the past: and again when my father's death brought upon me a load of cares which would have been too great had i had nothing else to do and had i been in health. i tell you these things, my dear "little sister," or rather my dearest child, because--because--i was going to say something, but i can only pray.... give all our members of our common calling with you who remember me my heart-felt sympathy that they are losing miss williams: and give them joy that they have you. god bless us all: a solemn blessing.--f. n. [159] to another superintendent who was taking up a new post, miss nightingale sent to her room "a wreath of everlastings and corn to be my little messengers to say how you are sowing seed that will grow up and be the bread of life for us, and how the work that you are doing is everlasting. thank god for it." (_to a nurse confronted with a difficult situation._) lea hurst, _august_ 30 [1873].... it is quite useless for either you or me to take upon ourselves the solution of this enormous difficulty: we must leave it to god. but at present the duty is plain. and god always helps those who are obeying his call to duty: often gives them the privilege of saving others. do you remember the great london theatre which was burnt down at a christmas pantomime? who were the heroes then? the poor clown and the poor pantaloon who were at their duty! the audience who were there because they liked it made a selfish stampede, and but for a lucky accident might all have been crushed or burnt. but the clown and the pantaloon, though there was not a moment to save a shawl or a coat to throw over the ballet-dancers--gauze-dressed women who, if a spark had fallen upon them would have been instantly in a blaze--actually carried out every one of these women safely into the snow, gauze and all. and the carpenter collected the poor little ballet-children and dragged them through the snow and slush to his own house, where he kept them in safety. brave clown--brave pantaloon--brave carpenter (while the selfish audience who were there for amusement almost jostled each other to death). so does god always stand by those who are there for duty--though they be only a clown or pantaloon. all our cares arise from one of two things: either we have not taken up our work for his love, in which case we know he has bound himself to take our cares upon him: or we do not sufficiently see his love in calling us to his work. (_to a lady superintendent._) 35 south street, _dec._ 30 [1874]. i wish you and all our nurses "god speed" with all my soul and strength at the beginning of this new year which i hardly expected to see. may it bring every blessing to them; though sometimes, do you know, i am so cowardly that i scarcely dare to say "god bless you" to those i love well: because we know what his blessings are. "blessed are they that mourn: blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake: blessed are the pure in heart." and as we get on in life, we know both how truly those blessings _are_ blessings, and how much there is to go through to win them. you are young, my dear: a thousand years younger than this old black beetle. and i have often a shuddering sort of maternal feeling in wishing you "blessings." ... (_to a matron who was having a dispute with her committee._) ... my thoughts are your thoughts; they are full of your--may i not say our?--sad affair. and i was just sending you a note to ask what was doing when your sad little note came. is not the thing of first importance to lay a statement of the whole case before your president? nay, would it not be breaking faith with him if it were not done? this _is_ now being done. is not the next thing for you to take no step till you know the results of this letter to him--the next action he will take? you will remember that i stated to him at your friend's suggestion and at yours, that you wished for, that you _invited, a full investigation to be made by him and that you wished to abide by his decision_. i thought this so important, in order that i might not appear to be asking for any personal favour but only for justice, that i underlined it. will it not seem as if you were afraid to await his full understanding of the case (how far from the truth!) if you precipitately resigned before he had had time even to consider the statement? the matron must show no fear, else it would indeed be sacrificing the fruit of eight years' most excellent work. surely she should wait quietly--that is the true dignity--with her friends around her till the president's answer is given. the "persecuted for righteousness' sake" never run away. (_to a matron after a visit to south street._) dearest little sister and extraordinary little villainess--you absconded last night just as your dinner was going up, and it would not have taken you longer to eat your dinner here than your supper at hospital. i was a great goose not to make certain of this when you arrived. but i thought it was agreed. to punish you i send your dinner after you. (_to the same._) 10 south street, _april_ 21 [1879]. dearest, very dearest--very precious to me is your note. i almost hope you will not come _to-morrow_: the weather is so cold here. st. mary's expects you: and next do i. be sure that the word "trouble" is not known where you are concerned. make up your dear mind to a long holiday: that's what you have to do now. god bless you. we shall have time to talk. thus day after day and year after year did such correspondence continue--now grave, now gay; filled alike with affection and with counsel. i have counted as many as a hundred letters received in a year from a single superintendent. there were several years in which the total of miss nightingale's nursing correspondence has to be counted in thousands. as the years passed the demand on her affections, her brain-power, and her bodily strength became well-nigh overwhelming. iv miss nightingale did not rely only upon individual intercourse for the exercise of influence. she believed in the pulpit, as well as in the closet, and from time to time addressed the probationer-nurses collectively.[160] of the first of the series, written in 1872, dr. sutherland, to whom miss nightingale submitted her manuscript, said: "it is just what it ought to be, written as the thoughts come up. this is the only writing which goes like an arrow to its mark. it is full of gentle wisdom and does for hospital nursing what your _notes_ did for nursing." it is the best of her addresses, and the medical officers at st. thomas's insisted on every probationer mastering it. there is naturally a good deal of repetition in the discourses as a whole. the gist of them is: that nursing requires a special call; that it needs, more than most occupations, a religious basis; that it is an art, in which constant progress is the law of life; and lastly, that the nurse, whether she wills it or not, has of necessity a moral influence. these ideas appear in almost every address, and are illustrated in various ways. "a woman who takes the sentimental view of nursing (which she calls 'ministering,' as if she were an angel) is of course worse than useless; a woman possessed with the idea that she is making a sacrifice will never do; and a woman who thinks any kind of nursing work 'beneath a nurse' will simply be in the way." the true nurse must have a vocation; and, next, she must follow the call in a religious spirit. "if we have not true religious feeling and purpose, hospital life, the highest of all things _with_ these, becomes _without_ them a mere routine and bustle, and a very hardening routine and bustle." to follow nursing as a religious vocation is, however, not enough; for it is a difficult art, requiring constant study and effort. this is the note which miss nightingale struck in the opening words of her first address and it is the one which most frequently recurs. the besetting sin of the nightingale nurses in the early days was, it seems, self-sufficiency. they knew that their training school was the first of its kind; and they were apt to give themselves airs. mr. henley's character-sketches in verse of the "lady probationer" and "staff-nurse, new style," hint pleasantly at this, and in plain prose men used to write of "the conceited nightingales." the day is gone by, it was said in a medical journal, when a novel would picture a nurse as a mrs. gamp; she would figure, rather, as active, useful, and clever, but also as "a pert and very conceited young woman." self-sufficiency, then, is the failing which the chief of the nurses constantly chastises. she does so by holding up before her pupils the ideal of nursing as a progressive art. "for us who nurse," she says, "our nursing is a thing in which, unless in it we are making _progress_ every year, every month, every week,--take my word for it, we are going _back_. the more experience we gain, the more progress we can make. the progress you make in your year's training with us is as nothing to what you must make every year _after_ your year's training is over. a woman who thinks in herself: 'now i am a full nurse, a skilled nurse, i have learnt all that there is to be learnt'--take my word for it, she does not know what a nurse is, and she never will know; she is gone back already." this rule applies to the technical side of the work, and perhaps yet more to the moral side. nurses cannot avoid exercising a moral influence. they exercise it by their characters, and no point can ever be reached at which a woman can say, "now my character is perfect." "nurses are not chaplains"; "it is what a nurse is in herself, and what comes out of herself, out of what she _is_ (almost without knowing it herself) that exercises a moral or religious influence over her patients. no set form of words is of any use. and patients are so quick to see whether a nurse is consistent always in herself--whether she _is_ what she _says_ to them. and if she is not, it is no use. if she is, of how much use may the simplest word of soothing, of comfort, or even of reproof--especially in the quiet night--be to the roughest patient! but if she wishes to do this, she must keep up a sort of divine calm and high sense of duty in her own mind." and every good nurse ought to wish to do this, because her opportunities are unique. "hospital nurses have charge of their patients in a way that no other woman has charge. no other woman is in charge really of grown-up men. also the hospital nurse is in charge of people when they are singularly alive to impressions. she leaves her stamp upon them whether she will or no." [160] for the dates of these addresses, see bibliography a, no. 63. such are the leading ideas which miss nightingale develops in her series of hospital sermons. i have heard it said that she addressed the nurses in the style and spirit of the sunday school. there are passages to which such a description may be applied; but, taken as a whole, the discourses suggest a different comparison: they recall the style and spirit of the best public school or college sermons. sometimes the likeness is close and explicit. on one occasion miss nightingale thought that the prevailing evil in her school was a spirit of irresponsible and ill-informed criticism. she rebuked it by telling a true story, which perhaps she may have had from mr. jowett:- in a large college, questions, about things which the students could but imperfectly understand in the conduct of the college, had become too warm. the superintendent went into the hall one morning, and after complimenting the young men on their studies, he said: "this morning i heard two of the porters, while at their work, take up a greek book lying on my table; one tried to read it, and the other declared it ought to be held upside down to be read. neither could agree which _was_ upside down, but both thought themselves quite capable of arguing about greek, though neither could read it. they were just coming to fisticuffs when i sent the two on different errands." not a word was added: the students laughed and retired, but they understood the moral well enough, and from that day there were few questions or disputes about the plans and superiors of the college, or about their own obedience to rules and discipline. then, again, what boy has not heard in chapel or in school-song a moral drawn from how things will look "forty years on"? here is miss nightingale's passage on the theme:- most of you here present will be in a few years in charge of others, filling posts of responsibility. _all_ are on the threshold of active life. then our characters will be put to the test, whether in some position of charge or of subordination, or of both. shall we be found wanting? unable to control ourselves, therefore unable to control others? with many good qualities, perhaps, but owing to selfishness, conceit, to some want of purpose, some laxness, carelessness, lightness, vanity, some temper, habits of self-indulgence, or want of disinterestedness, unequal to the struggle of life, the business of life, and ill-adapted to the employment of nursing which we have chosen for ourselves and which, almost above all others, requires earnest purpose and the reverse of all these faults. thirty years hence, if we could suppose us all standing here again passing judgment on ourselves, and telling sincerely why one has succeeded and another has failed--why the life of one has been a blessing to those she has had charge of, and another has gone from one thing to another, pleasing herself and bringing nothing to good--what would we give to be able _now_ to see all this before us? then she exhorted her pupils not to be too nice in the picking and choosing of places. "our brains are pretty nearly useless, if we only think of what we want and should like ourselves; and not of what posts are wanting us, what our posts are wanting _in_ us. what would you think of a soldier who--if he were to be put on duty in the honourable post of difficulty, as sentry may be, in the face of the enemy (and we nurses are always in the face of the enemy, always in the face of life or death for our patients)--were to answer his commanding officer, 'no, he had rather mount guard at barracks or study musketry'; or, if he had to go as pioneer, or on a forlorn hope, were to say, 'no, that don't suit my turn?'" so, again, there are excellent little discourses on the uses and limits of school friendships, on the right use of dress, and on the art of exercising authority, with wise sayings taken direct in some cases from plato. "those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule." "the world, whether of a ward or of an empire, is governed, not by many words, but by few; though some, especially women, seem to expect to govern by talk and nothing else." "she who is the most royal mistress of herself is the only woman fit to be in charge; for she who has no control over herself, who cannot master her own temper, how can she be placed over others, to control them through the better principle, if she has none or little of her own?" her remarks on dress are interesting, and might be applied, _mutatis mutandis_, to young men who sometimes combine a habit of slovenliness with a garish taste in waistcoats. some of the nightingale nurses seem to have grumbled at the uniform, and to have taken their revenge upon it by gorgeous apparel when off duty. miss nightingale avers that to her eye no women's dress was so becoming as that of her nurses, and for the rest she draws a moral from god's "clothing" of the field flowers:- first: their "clothes" are exactly suitable for the kind of place they are in and the kind of work they have to do. so should ours be. second: field flowers are never double: double flowers change their useful stamens for showy petals and so have no seeds. these double flowers are like the useless appendages now worn on the dress, and very much in your way. wild flowers have purpose in all their beauty. so ought dress to have;--nothing purposeless about it. third: the colours of the wild flower are perfect in harmony, and not many of them. fourth: there is not a speck on the freshness with which flowers come out of the dirty earth. even when our clothes are getting rather old we may imitate the flower: for we may make them look as fresh as a daisy.... oh, my dear nurses, whether gentlewomen or not, don't let people say of you that you are like "girls of the period": let them say that you are like "field flowers," and welcome. miss nightingale often sought, as every good school preacher seeks, to arrest the attention of the young by topical allusions, especially to stirring and heroic deeds. she often compared hospital nurses to missionaries, and held up livingstone as an example. he was one of the best of missionaries, not as going about "with a bible in his hand and another in his pack," but by the influence of his own purity, fidelity, and uprightness. she introduced, in similar fashion, stories of rorke's drift, of tel-el-kebir, and of gordon at khartoum. more rarely she referred to incidents in her own career, and such passages, one can understand, must have sent a thrill through an audience in which most of the nurses looked up to florence nightingale as their "honoured chief" or "queen." but when she thus referred to herself, it was only to say that any success or repute she had attained was due to faithful attention to the smallest details. "the greatest compliment," she said, "i ever received as a hospital nurse was this: that i was put to clean and 'do' every day the special ward, with the severest medical or surgical case which i was nursing, because i did it thoroughly and without disturbing the patient. that was at the first hospital i ever served in. i think i could give a lesson in hospital housemaid's work now." "i have had more experience," she said in another discourse, "in all countries and in different ways of hospitals than almost any one ever had before; but if i could recover strength so much as to walk about, i would begin all over again. i would come for a year's training to st. thomas's hospital under your admirable matron (and i venture to add that she would find me the closest in obedience to all our rules), sure that i should learn every day, learn all the more for my past experience, and then i would try to be learning every day to the last hour of my life--'and when his legs were cuttit off, he fought upon his stumps.'" the reading of the "address from miss nightingale" was one of the events of the nursing year. sir harry verney, as chairman of the nightingale fund, often read the addresses to the assembled probationers, but they were also printed, and a copy was given to each nurse. for the most part they were written for the probationers at st. thomas's, but from time to time miss nightingale sent a similar address to the nightingale nurses serving in edinburgh. "the nurses had been asking me only a few days before," wrote the lady superintendent (jan. 6, 1875), "whether you had remembered them this year, and were going to write to them. most of them prize your letters very much. they are trumpet-calls to duty and to greater efforts for a higher standard." in some years there was another "field-day" for the nightingale nurses, when a party of them were invited by sir harry and lady verney to claydon, and a long summer day, passed in sauntering in the grounds or in lawn-tennis, ended with a short service in the church. on one or two of these occasions, miss nightingale was able to be present, and photographs were taken of her seated in the midst of the nurses. v the high ideal of the nurse's calling which miss nightingale cherished throughout her life, and strove to inculcate upon her disciples, explains her dislike of schemes of certification, registration, orders, and other professional organization. she was indeed much interested in, and she did much to promote, the practice of thrift and provident assurance among the nurses.[161] but further than this, in the organization of nursing as a kind of trade union, miss nightingale was never inclined to go, and, as we shall hear in a later chapter, she was altogether opposed to a professional "register." there were those who maintained that the problem of improving nursing was an economic problem; that good pay would attract good nurses; that the market was spoiled by the intrusion of "lady" volunteers. but to miss nightingale nursing was a sacred calling, only to be followed by those who felt the vocation, and only followed to good purpose by those who pursued it as the service of god through the highest kind of service to man. there were those, again, who approached the problem from a point of view the opposite of the economic, and thought that a "religious" motive (in the ordinary sense of the term) was the sure way to good nursing, and who thus attached supreme importance to organization in "orders," "companies," and the like. to this view miss nightingale was equally opposed, because to her nursing was an art, and the essence of success was artistic training. a collection of passages, taken from a mass of correspondence, etc., on the subject,[162] may serve to make her point of view clear. "the supply and demand principle, taken alone, is a fallacy. it leaves out altogether the most important element, viz. the state of public opinion at the time. you have to educate public opinion up to _wanting_ a good article. patent pills are not proved to be good articles because the public pays heavily for them. many matrons are dear at £30 a year. do you suppose that if we were to offer £150 we should get a good article at once? i trow not; and i say this from no theory, but from actual experience. it is very easy to pay. it is very difficult to find good nurses, paid or unpaid. it is _trained_ nurses, not paid nurses, that we want. it is not the payment which makes the doctor, but the education.--it is a question of no importance in regard to any art, whether the painter, sculptor, or poet is a 'lady' or a person working for her bread, a volunteer, or a person of the 'lower middle class.' some thirty years ago i remember reading _rejected addresses_. a gentleman, endeavouring to explain how a certain lady 'became the mother of the pantalowski' observes, 'the fineness of the weather, the blueness of her riding-habit all conspired to interest me' (i quote from memory). we are pleased to hear that the weather was fine and that the habit was blue, but we do not see what they have to do with it. i am neither for nor against 'lady nurses' (what a ridiculous term! what would they say if _we_ were to talk about 'gentlemen doctors'?). i am neither for nor against 'paid nurses.' my principle has always been: that we should give the best training we could to any woman of any class, of any sect, paid or unpaid, who had the requisite qualifications, moral, intellectual, and physical, for the vocation of a nurse. unquestionably, the educated will be more likely to rise to the post of superintendents, _not_ because they are ladies, _but_ because they are educated.--the relation of a nursing staff to the medical officers is that of the building staff to an architect. and neither can know its business if not trained to it. to pit the medical school against the nurse-training school is to pit the hour-hand against the minute-hand. the worst nursing in europe is that of sisterhoods, where no civil administration or medical school is admitted. the worst hospitals in europe are those where no nurse-training schools are admitted, where the doctor is, in fact, the matron.--you ask me whether it is possible to follow out successfully the profession of nursing except from 'higher motives.' what _are_ the 'higher motives'? that is what i want to know. nearly all the christian orders will tell you: the first is to save your soul. the roman catholics will tell you, to serve god's church. but they do not infer that you are to strain mind and soul and strength in finding out the laws of health. the religious motive is not higher, but lower, if the element of religion enters in to impede this search. in the perfect nurse, there ought to be what may be called (1) the physical (or natural) motive, (2) the intellectual (or professional) motive, and (3) the religious motive--_all three_. the _natural motive_ is the love of nursing the sick, which may entirely conquer (as i know by personal experience) a physical loathing and fainting at the sight of operations, etc., and i do not believe that the 'higher motive' (as it is usually called) can so disguise a natural disinclination as to make a nurse acceptable to the patients. the good nurse is a creature much the same all the world over, whether in her coif and cloister, or taking her £20 or £50 a year. the _professional motive_ is the desire and perpetual effort to do the thing as well as it can be done, which exists just as much in the nurse, as in the astronomer in search of a new star, or in the artist completing a picture. these may be thought fine words. i can only say that i have seen this professional ambition in the nurse who could hardly read or write, but who aimed just as much at perfection in her care and dressings as the surgeon did in his operation. the 'professional' who does this has the higher motive; the 'religious' who thinks she can serve god 'anyhow' has not. but i do entirely and constantly believe that the _religious motive_ is essential for the highest kind of nurse. there are such disappointments, such sickenings of the heart, that they can only be borne by the feeling that one is called to the work by god, that it is a part of his work, that one is a fellow-worker with god. 'i do not ask for success,' said dear agnes jones, even while she was taking every human means to ensure success, 'but that the will of god may be done in me and by me.'" [161] already in her _subsidiary notes_, 1858 (bibliography a, no. 9), she had included suggestions for a "nurses' provident fund." [162] the materials here used are (1) a correspondence with dr. farr (1866); (2) a letter written, but not sent, to _macmillan's magazine_ (1867); (3) the draft of a very long letter, to a correspondent unnamed, in 1869; and (4) an article for the _nineteenth century_, 1880 (bibliography a, no. 103). holding these convictions, miss nightingale believed much in individual influence, and little in organized institutions. "for my part," she said, "i think that people should always be founders. and this is the main argument against endowments. while the founder is there, his or her work will be done, not afterwards. the founder cannot foresee the evils which will arise when he is no longer there. therefore let him not try to establish an order. this has been most astonishingly true with the order of the jesuits as founded by s. ignatius loyola, and with s. vincent de paul's s[oe]urs de la charité. it is quite immeasurable the breadth and length which now separates the spirit of those orders from the spirit of their founders. but it is no less true with far less ambitious societies." so, then, miss nightingale had little faith in forms and institutions, and in one of her later addresses (1888) she expressed herself in terms of apprehensive scepticism about the validity of nursing certificates and associations, and of the importance attached to making nursing a "profession." it was the higher motive (as interpreted above) to which she attached supreme importance, and for inculcating it she believed that only individual influence could avail. did she succeed or fail herein? it may be that, in dearth of inspiring individuals, professional organization is the second best thing, and fills a useful place. miss nightingale herself was always more conscious of her failures than of her successes. but it is impossible for anyone who has been privileged to read the correspondence between miss nightingale and her pupils not to feel assured that the spirit of the founder was imparted to other high-minded women who carried the work into many fields. the best of her pupils were the most conscious, like their mistress, of shortcomings. "i have failed," wrote one of them, in pouring out her soul during a holiday retrospect, "failed in the thing you most speak of, failed in carrying on my nurses 'in the path towards perfection.'" "but the master whisper'd, 'follow the gleam.'" of one of her best pupils it was recorded that "she never spoke or cared to be reminded of what she had done; her constant cry was 'how many things still remain to be done.'"[163] this lady was a true disciple of the founder. to the end of her life it was on the path towards perfection that miss nightingale's heart and mind were set. in her last years, when her secretary sought to interest her by talk about hospitals and nurses, she was never greatly pleased by any record of things well done. "tell me," she would say, "of something which might be made better." [163] from an address by samuel benton, resident assistant-medical officer at highgate infirmary in memory of miss annie hill (entered as a probationer at st. thomas's, 1871; appointed matron at highgate, 1872; died 1877). chapter iv an indian reformer (1874-1879) never to know that you are beaten is the way to victory. to be before one's government is an honourable distinction. what greater reward can a good worker desire than that the next generation should forget him, regarding as an obsolete truism work which his own generation called a visionary fanaticism?--florence nightingale (1877). miss nightingale was in one sense never more in office than when she was "out of office." the passion of her later life was the redress of indian sufferings and grievances, and during the years 1874-79, and for many years afterwards, she did an enormous amount of work to that end. it was the kind of work which a minister does, or sets his subordinates to do, when he is getting up a subject for parliamentary debate, or framing a project of legislation. the _milieu_ in which miss nightingale did this work was also in a sense official. her excursions into difficult problems of indian policy and administration were regarded by many people as unsafe and inexpedient, and this view was not confined to such officials as disagreed with her conclusions. mr. jowett was alternately overborne by her enthusiasm into trying to help her indian work, and insistent upon her giving up most of it. the latter attitude predominated. indian land questions were not her special subjects; she could never hope to know the ins and outs of them. her sister was uniformly of the same opinion: "what _can_ you know about such things, my dear?" but, after all, how much does a minister know at first-hand of the business of a department new to him? generally, far less than miss nightingale knew of indian business. a minister either accepts the views of his subordinates, or becomes himself a master of his subject by using access to the best sources of information. miss nightingale, to a considerable extent, had access to the same sources. she corresponded with successive secretaries of state and viceroys. she was in close touch during many years with the permanent under-secretary, sir louis mallet, who, though he did not always agree with her particular conclusions, was entirely sympathetic in her general aims, and, so far as official propriety admitted, gave her every facility for pursuing her researches. indian governors and ex-governors were at her service for information or discussion. there is voluminous correspondence during these years with her old friends, lord napier and ettrick and sir bartle frere, and with new friends, sir george campbell and sir richard temple. with sir george, a frequent visitor at south street, she was especially well pleased. "not for years," she wrote to m. mohl (aug. 10, 1874), "have i seen a man in such heroic passion against oppression." anglo-indians, when in retirement in south kensington, are seldom averse from imparting their views, and miss nightingale had a retinue of them, pleased to give her information. those who had inside experience knew how much she had done for india, and took it as a compliment that she should notice their work and ask them for advice. "accept my most grateful thanks," wrote general baker, on retiring from the india office council (oct. 11, 1875), "not only for your very kind letter[164] and important pamphlet, but also for one of the most complete and agreeable surprises that i have ever met with. it never occurred to me for a moment that my humble efforts for the sanitation of india were so indulgently watched by the high priestess of the science." colonel yule, the member of council who succeeded sir bartle frere in the charge of sanitary affairs, and mr. w. t. thornton, the secretary for public works, were in frequent correspondence with her. on the special subject of irrigation, she was "coached," not only by a leading authority presently to be mentioned, but by general rundall (ex-inspectorgeneral of indian irrigation), colonel j. g. fife, colonel f. t. haig, and many other experts. when she turned to indian education, mr. a. w. croft, the director of public instruction, corresponded freely with her. of her private studies, there is evidence in a great accumulation of indian blue-books, proceedings, minutes, pamphlets, and other papers, of which many are annotated, abstracted, collated. she had, too, a network of correspondents in india. there were in various parts of the country sanitary commissioners, doctors, engineers, irrigation officers, who wrote to her constantly, and sometimes more freely than in official reports. there were occasions--as in a dispute, once hot, now as dead as the unhappy subjects of it[165]--when her friends in the india office had to admit that her information was earlier and better than theirs. so, then, if her friends asked why she meddled in affairs of which she could not really know anything, she only set the harder to work in mastering the voluminous information at her disposal. [164] miss nightingale's letter is given at p. 51 of colonel yule's _memoir of general sir william erskine baker_ (privately printed 1882). [165] there is a reference to this subject--of famine mortality--in a letter from mr. gladstone quoted below, p. 292. yet, all the while, she was "out of office." the conjunction of circumstances which gave her much immediate power at the war office, through sidney herbert, and afterwards in the earlier stages of indian sanitary reform, was no longer operative; and there was now disproportion between her expenditure of effort and the immediate effect which it produced. in this part of her life's work miss nightingale suffered from some confusion of aim. her official connections, though they gave her the advantage of some good information, interfered with the effect of her work as a publicist. her work as a publicist made her distrusted in some official circles. she would perhaps have done better to confine her exertions to the influencing of public opinion by more consistent and sustained writing. the pity of it is, as we shall learn presently, that the book which she designed as a permanent contribution to the indian question was never completed in her life-time. still, in spite of all, miss nightingale's work as an indian reformer, which absorbed many hours of every day in her life for twenty-five years, was not without effect. in various specific matters she exerted some influence at the time; whilst her personal influence and her writings did something to form the public opinion which made later reforms possible. ii miss nightingale's primary interest in india was in connection with sanitation, and i shall give one or two instances of her resumed activity in this field before passing to the larger sphere into which that interest came necessarily to be absorbed. from time to time she still intervened, and not without success, to promote the health of the army in india. thus, on july 21, 1874, the commander-in-chief, lord napier of magdala, wrote to her, enclosing a minute which he had "been obliged to write in defence of the soldiers," as improvements to barracks and in other respects were "delayed year after year." the minute, he explained, was private and confidential, but he wished that the facts which had called it forth could be used in some legitimate way. "i cannot help telling you, dear miss nightingale, as i know you love the soldiers as well as you did in the crimea when you broke down the doors of red tape for them, a scene which i hope to see embodied in marble before i die." on receipt of this letter, miss nightingale called a meeting of _her_ indian council--sir bartle frere and dr. sutherland. sir bartle made inquiries about the minute, and found that the government of india had not yet communicated it to the india office. he prepared the ground by informing the secretary of state of the fact that such a minute had been written. he suggested to miss nightingale that, without using any private and confidential information, it would be possible to draw up a statement upon measures urgently needed for the further improvement of the health of the soldiers in india. with the help of sir bartle frere and dr. sutherland this was done; and miss nightingale in council sent a dispatch to the secretary of state. in disraeli's second administration lord cranborne (now become marquis of salisbury) had resumed his former place at the india office:- (_miss nightingale to lord salisbury._) lea hurst, _oct._ 28 [1874]. dear lord salisbury--as you were so very good, when you were kind enough to acknowledge my paper on "life or death in india," as to _ask_ me (where permission was all that i could have expected as most gracious on your part) to submit any facts or suggestions to you, i venture without troubling you with more apology to lay before you the following:--(1) the grasp of the famine is now relaxed, though to make it relax has cost a vast expenditure with very little return except in lives. other lives seem now to be in jeopardy from the economy consequent upon this noble and never to be regretted expenditure, viz. soldiers' lives. there is no greater extravagance than extravagance in lives. the crown prince of germany said two months ago[166] (a very remarkable doctrine for him) that we could add to the strength and numbers of organized armies by sanitary works, and that money well employed in these will as much contribute to military force as money spent on fortifications and on direct military organizations. a great deal has been done already in india, and great results to our soldiers' health have followed; but does not much more remain to be done before the results of 2 or 3 favourable years (for there was little cholera) can become permanent? does not experience show that, as the greatest saving in outlay is that which can be effected in the cost of the military defences of the country, so it is the truest economy not to stay your hand in improving the military stations and their surroundings until every station in india has been put in the most healthy state practicable? in the meantime, if it is necessary to check outlay, should not the check be exercised on things that can stand over for a few years? (2) for in reality points connected with the soldier's health cannot stand over. the man is dead or invalided--the man, the most costly article we have; and you have to replace him with another costly article. is not every neglect or miscalculation on this point sure to add to the national expenditure a far higher amount than would be the capitalized cost of the improvements? the improvements required now at many stations are the following.... [a detailed list, under various heads of kind and place]. (6) to you it is needless to say that this relates to one half only of the indian army (_i.e._ that under the direct control of lord napier of magdala), and that madras and bombay have (between them) at least an equal proportion of unsupplied wants, for they have not had five years of lord napier's wise and humane advocacy. (7) in india it is always possible to fall into the mistake of spending money uselessly. fortunately, however, there is a way out of it in the appointment of mr. clark, the great calcutta municipality engineer, who has drained and water-supplied calcutta, to go out and do a similar scheme for madras.... [detailed suggestions for further instructions to mr. clark]. [166] the crown princess had seen miss nightingale on august 8, 1874. (_lord salisbury to miss nightingale._) arlington street, _nov._ 4 [1874]. dear miss nightingale--i assure you we are not blind to the importance of the objects which you advocate, nor are we the least inclined to interpose any unnecessary delay in their prosecution. the difficulty, of course, is money. it is perfectly true that, if the remedies were as certain of their effect as the existence of the evils is certain and serious, we might obviate the difficulty of the money by borrowing without stint. but the consideration which withholds the indian government from such a course is the very fact that the remedies are by no means absolutely certain. take the case of peshawur for instance. a great deal of money has been spent there already, and a great deal more will be spent; and yet, if i am to believe the reports which i receive from trustworthy authorities, when all the money is spent, it will still be a very unhealthy station, and a very small improvement upon the death-rate will ultimately be the result. i heard sir george clark the other day state in council that one of the new stations in rajpootana,--i forget which it was,--had become decidedly more unhealthy since remedial measures recommended by the sanitary authorities had been adopted. there may be something of prejudice and something of timidity in these apprehensions. i do not wish to give to them more weight than they deserve. but it is obvious that in sanitary action we are still groping our way, and that we are far from having arrived at that point of certainty at which it would be safe, on account of any particular series of undertakings, very heavily to pledge the future industry of the indian people. you must always bear in mind that at this moment our expenditure treads very closely upon the heels of our revenue, and that we absolutely do not know where to turn in order to obtain any great increase of revenue. but if we borrowed very largely, a great increase of revenue would be absolutely necessary to meet the interest of the new debt. however great the value of the improvements, we cannot afford to be bankrupt, and a new productive indian tax seems as distant as the philosopher's stone. i do not say all this to indicate that we shall slacken in our efforts towards sanitary improvement, or fail to push them forward as fast as we possibly can. but i want you to believe that financial considerations are of some importance; and i feel sure that we should only hinder sanitary improvement, and prevent sanitary truths from being heartily accepted, either by statesmen or by the public at large, if we associated them with a disregard of those financial exigencies upon which such enormous interests depend. we must not let it be said, or even suspected, that sanitary improvement means reckless finance.... but i think the best answer i can give you to the details of your letter is to send it out to the viceroy, and ask him to let me have a confidential and unofficial report of his intentions in each of these cases. i am sure he feels the importance of these matters as strongly as any one; but i repeat that no one can thoroughly appreciate the difficulties of his position in respect to them who does not understand the extreme anxiety that is connected with the management of indian finance. no time was lost, for on january 2, 1875, lord salisbury forwarded to miss nightingale, with a private note, the reply which he had received from the governor-general:- (_lord northbrook to lord salisbury._) calcutta, _dec._ 11 [1874]. i am much obliged to you for sending me miss nightingale's letter to you, and although at the risk of answering it imperfectly, i will not delay putting down what occurred to me till another mail--especially as one never can feel secure of one's time in india. first, i beg you to assure miss nightingale that i am not likely so much to forget my training under sidney herbert at the war office as to feel indifferent about the health of the soldier in india. she knows as well as i do how much has been done of late years and how satisfactory the result has been, as is shown by the death and sickness returns, and admitted by the army sanitary commission and sir william muir (the doctor) in evidence recently given before a parliamentary committee. miss nightingale is evidently more anxious for the future than dissatisfied with the past. the best thing i can say to reassure her is that in the face of the financial difficulties of last year i left the expenditure upon military public works untouched. it stands for the year at something more than a million, which is as much as we can afford and nearly as much as can be properly supervised. the year before, although most anxious to show a budget which would justify me in discontinuing the income tax, i gave an addition of £100,000 to the sum allotted to military public works at the request of lord napier. so much for my personal disposition and what i have done hitherto. as to what remains to be done, i know there is much.... i quite agree in principle with miss nightingale's views as to the relative importance of different sorts of works, and we should be guided by the same considerations as far as possible. but there are practical considerations which must interfere with their universal application. for instance, in many places in india owing to a want of labour we can only go on at a certain rate unless at a very greatly increased cost. again, it is better for many reasons to carry out all the necessary works at one station at the same time, and these works may very probably include some which in themselves may not be so much wanted as other works at other stations. subject to these qualifications, barracks, hospitals, water-supply, and drainage should come first, and recreation-rooms, &c., follow.... miss nightingale has evidently carefully studied some of the details of our requirements, and is not very far out in her list of works. she will be glad to hear that it is not very different from that of the works the commander-in-chief has lately brought to our notice, so that their relative importance is sure to be well weighed. lord napier takes the liveliest interest in all the military public works, and having nothing to do with finding the money, is pretty sure to have no scruple in pressing us hard. some of the works mentioned in the list i know myself, so i will make one or two remarks ... [detailed observations]. i am very glad to hear that mr. clark is well enough to come out to india again. when he has done his work in madras i think we may very probably ask him to advise us as to the water-supply of some stations. i was much taken with the apparent simplicity and economy of a plan which he showed me. as regards miss nightingale's observations on the subject of recreation-rooms and the sale of spirits in canteens: the soldiers are uncommonly well off in india generally for recreation-rooms and take advantage of them largely. the reason for selling spirits at canteens is, i believe, that if not sold men would buy noxious spirits in the bazaars. no head of the army in india has ever recommended that the sale should be prohibited. the temperance movement is spreading widely among the troops in bengal. by the last returns there were between 5 and 6 thousand members of the temperance society in the british army in bengal (including women and children). i have been struck generally with the good conduct and respectable appearance of british soldiers in india, and think we may well be proud of our army. i have written on, as the subject is one in which i have for a long time taken a personal interest, and miss nightingale may be glad to know that i have not neglected it here. i can promise you that, so far as our funds will permit, every attention shall be paid to the health of the british and the native army in india. such intervention, as is disclosed in the foregoing documents, was repeated from time to time in connection with various sanitary measures, and was not without effect in keeping those matters to the front. a parliamentary debate, even sometimes a mere question in parliament, has effect upon bureaucracy. in the times with which we are now dealing, "members of parliament for india" were few. "i could have kissed lord cranborne," exclaimed miss nightingale once, "for saying that in the approaching elections for a parliament which is to decide on the destinies of 180 millions, the future representatives who are to represent india as well as us had only in two instances in their addresses mentioned the existence of india."[167] miss nightingale's private letters and printed articles did something to fill the gap. she had the ear of the great personages; they knew how much she knew, and they respected her devotion and sincerity. they listened to her, and her letters often produced the kind of stimulating result that sometimes follows a parliamentary intervention. she showed the correspondence with lord salisbury and lord northbrook to sir bartle frere. "that caesar," he wrote (jan. 16, 1875), "should at once sit down and write six sheets of quarto letter paper, to show he is taking proper care of his legions is satisfactory; as proving that your letter moved him and that the subject greatly interested him." "the result is just what i expected," wrote another anglo-indian, on the occasion of a later intervention by miss nightingale. "they treat me with contempt, but they don't ignore you. the first thing the governor did on seeing your letter was to sit down and write a full exoneration of himself to the secretary of state. the second, i have no doubt, will be to call for his officials and hurry on the work." [167] letter to madame mohl, oct. 31, 1868. iii as public health missionary for india, miss nightingale made the state of the town of madras a text for constant exhortations. madras ranked at that time second for unhealthiness among the great cities of india (delhi being first[168]). whereas the death-rate in calcutta and in bombay was falling, in madras it was rising.[169] miss nightingale, like every other sanitary expert who had examined the facts, ascribed the high rate of mortality to the deplorable state of the drains; and there were indian officials, both in london and in india, who turned to her in the hope that she might be able to stir up the higher authorities to insist on something being done. her friend, mr. clark, had devised a scheme; either it should be carried out, or a better one should be substituted. on this subject there is a long correspondence amongst her papers; and as her principal correspondent was lord salisbury, it is not devoid of dry humour. lord salisbury confessed that the subject was beyond him; all he could clearly ascertain was that there were as many different opinions as there were persons professing to understand it; but he had good news for his correspondent. the next governor of madras was to be the duke of buckingham, and the duke had a curious passion for details. he might be expected, it seemed to be suggested, to take to drains like a rat. so miss nightingale waited, and presently lord salisbury was sent to the constantinople conference on the eastern question. at madras nothing had come of the duke's love of detail; and as soon as lord salisbury returned to england, miss nightingale returned to the charge. lord salisbury sent her memorandum of suggestions to the duke, and in due course forwarded to her the duke's reply (of july 24, 1877). the governor was studying the question closely, and lord salisbury hoped that miss nightingale would be pleased. true, there was delay; but then, as he had previously written to her, "the period of growth of all projects in india, in point of length, savours much of the periods of indian cosmogony." "i think you will be satisfied," he now wrote (aug. 22), "that the governor of madras is giving his mind very heartily to the question; and that his previous experience, and the kind of observations into which his singular taste for detail has guided him, have given him some special qualifications for coming to a right decision." and then came what in a postscript to the high priestess of sanitation might be thought a "blazing indiscretion," if it were not obviously a piece of teasing: "i was much impressed at constantinople with the advantage of having no drains at all, but keeping dogs instead." i am afraid that from the moment of the receipt of this letter miss nightingale's opinion of lord salisbury fell; but she was not to be shaken off, and, in consultation with dr. sutherland (with hints, too, from an indian official), she sent a reasoned reply to lord salisbury, to his jest about the constantinople dogs (erroneously called scavengers) and all. she had the advantage of knowing all about constantinople, and the merits of its natural drainage. as for madras, she thought that there had been "consideration" enough (it had lasted for more than 20 years), and that the secretary of state ought to insist on action, in which connection she sent various proposals. lord salisbury's reply to miss nightingale did not appear to be promising. "the indecision of the madras government," he said (sept. 19), "is partly due to the fact that various authorities have to be consulted, and no orders from the secretary of state will prevent those authorities from differing. but the real difficulty," he added, "is money." it was all that the madras government could do to find money for "imperious necessities." the implication was that the protection of the public health was not an imperious necessity. a rank heresy, this, in miss nightingale's eyes. in sending on lord salisbury's letter to dr. sutherland, her comment was: "and they call _me_ a dangerous man!" to which dr. sutherland replied: "so you are! they tell you a thing can't be done, and you won't believe them! it is all nonsense that the municipality cannot find money to drain with, and no number of letters can make it sense." lord salisbury's action was, however, more favourable to miss nightingale than his letter, for it was presently announced in the madras papers that the secretary of state had ordered drainage works of some sort to be carried out at once. if this were so, the words "at once" were interpreted with some reference to "the periods of indian cosmogony." the scientific drainage of black town, the most thickly populated quarter of madras, was begun in 1882; that of the remainder of the town was in progress twenty-five years. [168] in view of its selection as the new capital of india, the "sanitary regeneration" of delhi is at last to be taken in hand. (_see_ the _times_, april 22, 1913.) [169] in 1871 it was 28.96 per 1000; in 1874, 37.1. in some parts of the town, the rate was as high as 80 per 1000. iv miss nightingale's interest in details of sanitary reform was gradually merged into larger questions. recurrent indian famines gave a new turn to her thoughts. "i have been doing sanitary work for india for 18 years," she explained in a letter to lord houghton (nov. 27, 1877); "but for the last four have been continually struck by this dreadful fact: what is the good of trying to keep people in health if you can't keep them in life? these ryots are being done to death by floods, by drought, by zemindars, and usurers. you must live in order to be well." this indisputable proposition appealed strongly to her emotions. "my mind," she wrote to mr. chadwick (sept. 14, 1877), "is full of the dying indian children, starved by hundreds of thousands from conditions which have been made for them, in this hideous indian famine.... how i wish that some one would now get up an agitation in the country--as mr. gladstone did as regards bulgaria--which should say to the country, _you shall_, as regards indian famines and the means of preventing them, among which irrigation and water transit must rank foremost; if we had given them water, we should not now have to be giving them bread." miss nightingale had reached this conclusion by herself in 1873, and it was strongly confirmed in the following year. in february 1874 she was moved to write to sir arthur cotton, "the greatest living master," as she truly called him, "of the water question." her letter--the letter of one enthusiast to another--greatly delighted the old anglo-indian. "if," he wrote (feb. 4), "fifty years of hard work and contempt had produced no other return but a letter from you, it would be an honour beyond what i deserve. the plot is now rapidly thickening, and i have not the smallest doubt that your having taken up this great subject will turn the scale. it is impossible for any person not resident in india to conceive the strength of the prejudice in the minds, not only of the civil officials, but of multitudes out of office on both the points of irrigation and navigation in india. i am assured that there is not a single person in high office now in india who is not in his heart opposed to them both. but we have arrived at a most remarkable crisis now, first in the occurrence of this most terrible famine, and, second, in the revolution in the india office. lord salisbury will think for himself in spite of an indian council composed--with only the exception of sir b. frere--of men of incurable old indian bias." sir arthur cotton's inventive genius has left a permanent impress upon india; but he was now _en disponibilité_, and he was one of those enthusiasts who, when out of office and unable to carry on their plans, conceive the world to be in wilful conspiracy against them. moreover, in urging the case for canals, he overstated it by too uncompromising a criticism of railways. during ensuing years sir arthur cotton was one of the most voluminous of miss nightingale's correspondents. she was fully alive to the faults of manner which hindered the acceptance of his ideas, and from time to time she pleaded with him for more moderation and less asperity. she herself was sometimes blamed, by mr. jowett and others, for over-emphasis. she would laughingly wonder in reply what they thought of sir arthur cotton who gave the public "strong alcohol," in comparison with which anything of hers was but "watered milk." she had not far pursued her researches into the irrigation question before she perceived that it was intimately bound up with the land question. who was to pay for irrigation? were the ryots willing to pay a water-rate? could they pay it? were not the zemindars rapacious? was not the cultivator at the mercy of the usurers? sir george campbell was full of such subjects, and miss nightingale proceeded, with his assistance, to master the intricacies of land tenure in various parts of india, and especially of the "permanent settlement" in bengal. one subject led her on to another, and she became deeply interested in the questions of representation, land, education, usury. she became, in short, an indian reformer, or an indian agitator, at large. v her immediate effort, however, was thrown into the advocacy of irrigation. in view alike of the poverty of india, and of the ever present danger of famine, she held that it was the duty of the government to promote irrigation in every way--by great works as well as small, by wells and tanks as much as by great and small canals--by encouraging private capital as well as by making great national grants and loans. the indian tax-payer was poor, it was said to her; the way to make him less poor, she replied, was to irrigate his land. miss nightingale began her irrigation campaign with an appeal to lord salisbury, and she approached him on a point which she thought would be common ground. she knew that he was of a scientific turn of mind, and hoped he would agree with her that the first thing needful was to obtain complete and trustworthy statistics. she sent him some tentative figures as to the cost of irrigation works already carried out, and the financial results accruing therefrom, confessing, however, that she had experienced great difficulty in obtaining the figures. "i have been too long on the search for such returns myself," he replied (may 10, 1875), "not to sympathise with your distress." he proceeded at some length to enumerate "the difficulties in the way of a really rigorous exhibit," and to state the questions which seemed to him still unsolved with regard to irrigation in general; for instance, "is irrigation," he asked, "the creation or merely the anticipation of fertility? does it make vegetable wealth, which but for it would never have existed, or does it crowd into a few years the enjoyment of the whole productive power of the soil?" meanwhile he had her figures submitted to critical annotation at the india office, directed various papers to be sent to her, and promised to see whether fuller returns could be obtained. as nothing definite resulted, miss nightingale suggested the appointment of a committee or commission to investigate and report. the suggestion elicited a characteristic reply from lord salisbury. "as for a commission," he wrote (nov. 1, 1875), "i doubt its efficiency. commissions are very valuable to collect and summarize opinion, and they are often able to decide one or two distinct issues of fact. but they are too unwieldy for the collection and digestion of a great variety of facts and figures. with the best intentions, their work is slow and _routinier_, and in their report they gloss over the weak places with generalities.... as a rule, administrative force is in the inverse proportion of the number of men who exercise it. one man is twice as strong as two; two men are twice as strong as four. boards and commissions are only contrivances for making strong men weak." from time to time she jogged lord salisbury's elbow, asking whether he had yet been able to obtain trustworthy figures, and beseeching him to initiate a great irrigation policy. "do not for a moment imagine," he wrote (feb. 27, 1876), "that i have forgotten the question. the more i go into it, the deeper the mystery appears. every one who has a right to entertain an opinion on it vindicates that right by entertaining a different one from his neighbour. general strachey and sir barrow ellis have been engaged upon the matter for years. both of these assert with confidence that one set of statements is true, while the government of india, backed by mr. thornton, our excellent public works secretary, assert it with no less confidence to be false.... when i am able to get a little light i will let you know; but as long as my oracles flatly contradict each other, i am not likely to get nearer certainty than i am now." as lord salisbury was disinclined to a committee of experts, she begged him to procure returns from india, and she drew up a model form of inquiry, on which particulars might be asked of the extent of cultivated land in each district, the amount of land under irrigation, the cost of annual repairs, and so forth, and so forth. lord salisbury took the suggestion into consideration, and some returns were called for, but nothing came of it for the time. miss nightingale then tried to obtain information in another way. there were, she was told, masses of data in the india office itself, which only needed analysis and tabulation to yield valuable results. lord lawrence had introduced to her mr. edward prinsep (late settlement commissioner, punjab) as a man likely to be helpful in such work. she made friends with him; sir louis mallet gave facilities, and mr. prinsep began making researches on miss nightingale's behalf. unfortunately for her success, she had the correctitude to ask lord salisbury's permission. lord salisbury referred her request to the revenue department, who in a solemn minute represented the serious precedent that would be set by allowing an outsider to delve in official archives, and mr. prinsep had to discontinue his researches. "you are doubtless aware," sir louis mallet told her dryly, "that in the india office opinions diametrically opposed are usually entertained on every subject which is discussed." there was only one certainty, he added, that any decision taken at one time would be reversed at another. ultimately a good deal of information was collected by a select committee of the house of commons on public works in india (1878) and by famine commissions. returns, such as miss nightingale asked for, are now regularly made. some irrigation works were carried out during these years,[170] but no great forward policy in that direction was instituted. the "forward policy" presently adopted was of a very different sort. the thoughts of the politicians were absorbed in other things; the opinions of the bureaucrats were divided, and there was stringency in indian finance. if the experts could not agree on the proper basis of estimating the results of irrigation, still less were they at one on the kind of irrigation work that was desirable. every one was agreed in favour of irrigation "in principle"; but as soon as it became a question of detail, whether in finance or in engineering, there were as many opinions as there were experts. one school said, "borrow the money and the land will be so enriched that the ryot will be able to pay increased taxation." another school retorted, "but he will be squeezed out of existence first; therefore, retrench all round, and wait for better times." or, if the financial difficulty were overcome, engineering difficulties were raised. one school said, "make navigable canals," but that meant fulness of water in them. another said, "make canals primarily for irrigation," but that meant depletion. and so the controversy continued, with no decided impulse from the men in office. famines came and went; some works were carried out as a form of "relief"; no great preventive policy was established. [170] _e.g._ the "buckingham canal," connecting the canals n. and s. of madras (made as a famine relief work, after being "under consideration" for a quarter of a century). miss nightingale celebrated this tardy achievement in an article in the press: see bibliography a, no. 99. miss nightingale was much disheartened, but she persevered. she corresponded with everybody of importance whom she could hope to influence. with lord lytton, who had succeeded lord northbrook as viceroy in 1876, she was not acquainted; and lord beaconsfield she never approached, except on another matter, and then without any encouragement on his part.[171] in april 1878 lord salisbury became foreign secretary, and was succeeded at the india office by mr. gathorne-hardy (lord cranbrook), mr. edward stanhope becoming under-secretary. mr. stanhope came to see her (june 1878); and in the following year she sent him the figures of mortality in the last indian famine, which she had compiled with great labour from various sources of information, and correspondence ensued. she saw and corresponded largely with sir james caird, the english representative on the famine commission. she tried to incense lord houghton on the subject of indian grievances. she saw and corresponded with mr. fawcett. she saw mr. bright. she kept up a large and regular correspondence with officials in india. she supplied materials for lectures in england; and, with skilled assistance, she had some maps drawn and engraved, to show the principal works which might be constructed. these maps did service at lectures; and miss nightingale also wrote repeatedly in newspapers and magazines--heralding "water-arrivals,"[172] pointing out districts which famine had not visited owing to previous irrigation, and others where similar works might be expected to prevent famine in future; comparing the cost of relief and prevention; urging the importance of extending education; calling attention to oppression in forms of land-tenure and by money-lenders; and generally seeking to arouse public interest at home in the life and sufferings of the voiceless millions in india. [171] in 1879 the registrar-general retired, and miss nightingale wrote to lord beaconsfield urging the claims of dr. farr to the post. as the greatest of english statisticians, and as the senior in the registrar-general's office, he would have been the right man, but lord beaconsfield gave the appointment to sir brydges henniker. dr. farr thereupon retired from the public service. in the following year he was made c.b. (at miss nightingale's instance, through sir stafford northcote). [172] the title of an article by miss nightingale in _good words_. for it, and other indian writings, see bibliography a., nos. 82, 84, 90, 92, 97-100. the piece by miss nightingale which attracted most attention was an article on "the people of india" in the _nineteenth century_ for october 1878. sir james knowles's magazine was then in the early days of its influence, and he gave the first place to this article, in which miss nightingale administered a wholesome shock to british complacency. "we do not care for the people of india," she exclaimed. "the saddest sight in the world" was to be seen in the british empire; it was the condition of the indian peasant. she gave pitiable facts and figures of indian famines, and passed on to describe in more detail the evils of usury in the bombay deccan. "i cannot tell you," she wrote to a correspondent in the following year,[173] "the intense interest that i take in the subject: how to raise the indebted poor cultivators of india out of their wretched bondage of poverty, whether by _monts de piété_, by some national bank, such as you propose, by some co-operative system, or by all or any of such means." miss nightingale's article was received as a kind of manifesto by those who sympathized with her point of view, and the publication brought a large accession to her indian correspondence. in official circles it caused some flutter. "i have read your article," wrote a friend in the india office (aug. 8), "with the greatest interest and admiration. the official mind is much disturbed. i overheard a conversation between two magnates (not in the present government) in which the article was described as a shriek, and the question was whether something could not be done to counteract the impression." lord northbrook, after reading the article, sent to miss nightingale an elaborate criticism, not traversing her case in all points, but pleading that she had exaggerated the shadows. with lord salisbury's successor at the india office there was the following correspondence: (_miss nightingale to lord cranbrook._) _august_ 10 [1878]. dear lord cranbrook--very meekly i venture to send you a poor little article of mine on the people of india in the _nineteenth century_. i hope if you read it you will not call it a shriek (i am astonished at my own moderation). i am not so troublesome as to expect that you can find time to read it, but the india office has untold treasures (which it does not know itself) in reports on these subjects which will engage your busy time; and especially the deccan riots commission report, on the relation of the ryots and the extortionate money-lenders in the bombay deccan, will, i am sure, call for your attention. can there be any private enterprise in trade or commerce, in manufacture, or in new interests, when to money-lenders are guaranteed by our own courts the profits, the enormous and easy profits, which no enterprise of the kind that india most wants can rival? what are the practical remedies for extortionate usury in india, and principally in the bombay deccan? the bill now before the legislature at simla does not seem to promise much. does it? the whole subject is, i know, before you. pray believe me (with some wonder at my own audacity), ever your faithful and grateful servant, florence nightingale. (_lord cranbrook to miss nightingale._) india office, _august_ 13 [1878]. dear miss nightingale--having been out of town for two days your note only reached me this morning. i read your article last week with much interest; but, without underrating the griefs of india, i think you generalise too much from one locality. nevertheless there is enough to stir the heart and mind in search of remedies for admitted evils.--yours very sincerely, cranbrook. [173] mr. francis william fox; he had sent to her his pamphlet on _reform in the administration of india_, suggesting _inter alia_ a national agricultural bank. miss nightingale's letter of three sheets (june 18, 1879) is eloquent both of her profound knowledge of indian conditions and of her enthusiastic interest in indian problems. the secretary of state wrote to the viceroy, lord lytton, in much the same sense; calling his attention to miss nightingale's article, saying that she had generalized too much, but adding, "i shall be truly glad if your legislation can afford a remedy."[174] the viceroyalty of lord lytton was more famous, however, for the forward policy in afghanistan than for internal reforms. miss nightingale, as a disciple of lord lawrence, was wholly opposed to an aggressive policy which, moreover, had the effect of causing retrenchment in all departments except the military. [174] the letter to lord lytton is printed in vol. ii. p. 80 of mr. a. e. gathorne-hardy's _memoir of lord cranbrook_ (1910). vi miss nightingale in her propagandist zeal now turned to mr. gladstone. she made an article of his, called "friends and foes of russia," which appeared in the _nineteenth century_ (january 1879), the occasion of a letter to him. in this article he had incidentally referred to the loss of "1,400,000 lives" in the last indian famine. she pointed out to him that his estimate was far below the truth, and she sought to enlist him in a crusade for the indian causes dear to her heart:- (_mr. gladstone to miss nightingale._) hawarden, _jan._ 26 [1879]. how many years have elapsed since your name used to sound daily in my ears, and how many sad events, events of varied sadness, have happened in the very place where i used to hear it! all through this eastern controversy, the most painful of my life, it has been a consolation to know that i was in sympathy with you--especially i remember your most striking declaration about the war against turkey. i am glad that you approve of my article on the friends and foes of russia, glad that the error you notice is one of under-statement. i had not the means of complete reference when i sent off the sheets, and 1,400,000 seemed to me so awful that i trembled lest i should be over-stating. the first correction i received put four millions--and now you raise it higher still.[175] the indian question under most vicious handling is growing gigantic and most perilous. depend on it i will do what i can in it: but i fear this must be little. i fear that--apart from other reasons weighty enough--my taking a leading part in it would at once poison its atmosphere, now that it has come to be a main ground of the controversy between government and opposition. when i dealt with the vernacular press act last year, there was no indian controversy, and i took all the care in my power not to treat it as a contentious question. all this is now changed: and whatever i recommend about india the tories will oppose. you can hardly be aware of the extraordinary degree in which prejudice and passion have gathered round my very name (as well, i am bound to say, as favour and affection) since the eastern question came up. whether by my fault or not, i can hardly say: but such is the fact. in the line i have followed i must steadily persist to the end of the conflict; but i have all along foreseen the likelihood that it would probably disable me, even if age and other circumstances did not, for rendering any other _serious_ public service in the way of acting, which, it must always be remembered, is so different from that of objecting and censuring.... the whole indian question will, however, force itself forward, and there will be plenty of hands to deal with it. mr. bright is coming here in two days, and i hope to have full conversation with him about it. believe me, with warm regard and respect, sincerely yours, w. e. gladstone. [175] the india office gave 1,250,000 as the total of deaths in the famine. mr. caird, after investigating the question in india, gave 4,050,000 as his estimate. miss nightingale's was 5 to 6 millions. "i begin to think now," wrote sir louis mallet (march 10, 1879) when mr. caird's estimate was made, "that your 'shriek' was a better expression of the truth than any other utterance." miss nightingale continued the correspondence, and presently mr. gladstone called upon her to talk over indian affairs, which were now beginning to assume some importance in his general campaign against the policy of lord beaconsfield. mr. gladstone's visit was in may. on june 26 lord lawrence died, and miss nightingale was deeply moved:- (_miss nightingale to mr. gladstone._) _july_ 6 [1879]. i see you were at lord lawrence's funeral yesterday, and you may care to hear the story of his last days from one who has been privileged to know and serve with two such men as sidney herbert and john lawrence--very different, but alike in the "one thing needful"--the serving with all their souls and minds and without a thought of self their high ideal of right. lord lawrence's last years were spent in work: he did not read, he studied; though almost blind, he waded with the help of a private secretary (who was a lady[176]) thro' piles of blue books--chiefly, but not wholly indian--bringing the weight of his unrivalled experience to bear upon them. up to tuesday night, tho' very ill (he died on friday), he worked. on the thursday before, he had spoken in the house of lords on the indian finance question. the disease, tedious and trying, of which he died, was brought on by the london school board work. he used to come home quite exhausted, saying that he could have done the thing himself in half-an-hour; yet having entered, with a patience very foreign, to his nature, into all the niggling crotchets of everybody on the board. he gave the impression, i believe, of sternness in public, but the tenderness and the playfulness of his intercourse in private were beyond a woman's tenderness. he was a man of iron; he had gone thro' 40 years of indian life, in times of danger, toil, and crisis; had been brought seven times to the brink of the grave; and had weathered it all--to die of a school board at last! he had the blue eye, and the expression in it (before his operation), of a girl of 16, and the massive brow and head of a general of nations rather than of armies.... i received a letter from him the day _after_ his death--dictated, but signed by himself, sending me some recent indian reports--private papers--which he had read and wished me to read--all marked and the page turned down where he had left off. this was his legacy. o that i could do something for india for which he lived and died! the simplicity of the man could not be surpassed--the unselfishness, the firmness. it was always, "is it right?" if it was, it was done. it was the same thing: its being right and its being done.... a photograph was taken a few hours after death. if it had been a sketch by carracci, or leonardo, or michael angelo, we should have said, how far art transcends nature. in the holiest pictures of the old masters, i have never seen anything so beautiful or so holy. the lips are slightly parted (like those of a child in a rapture of joy on first awakening), with a child-like joy at entering into the presence of the heavenly father whom he had served so nobly and so humbly. the poor eyes are looking down, but as if they were looking inward into the soul to realize the rapture--like milton's "and joy shall overtake him like a flood." the face is worn. i think sometimes the youth, the physical beauty in the old italian pictures of christ do not give the full meaning of "it behoved him to have _suffered_ these things that he might enter into his glory"; or else, like titian's "moneta," it is the _mere_ ascetic. but here it was the joy arising out of the long trial, the cross out of which came the crown. the expression was that of the winged soul, the child-soul as in the egyptian tomb-paintings, rising somehow without motion (spiritually) out of the worn-out body. (he said on the sunday, "i can't tell you how i feel: i feel worn out.") all india will feel his loss. no one now living knows what he did there--in private, i mean, as well as in public--the raising of the people by individuals as well as by institutions--the letters and messages from sikhs to him, the indian gentlemen who used to come to see him here and treated him as their father. the little curs here have barked and bit round the heels of the old lion. he heard them but he heeded not. and now he is gone to undertake yet greater labours, to bless more worlds in the service of god. lady lawrence wished to give every one something which had belonged to his personal use. but it was found he had nothing. there were some old clothes, and a great many boots, patched; but nothing else, not even a pin, except his watch, 20 years old, and his walking-stick, which she kept. the lady who served as his secretary after his blindness had his old shoe-horn, and told me this story with an infinite relish of its beauty. it was so characteristic of him. pardon me if i have taken up your time with my thoughts of john lawrence. i felt as if i were paying him a last tribute in commending his memory to you. [176] miss gaster. vii "o that i could do something for india!" she had done much, and was yet to do more; but it was a constant regret of her later years that she had failed to carry through one piece of work which she had planned. this was a book on the allied questions of indian irrigation and indian land tenure, to which, in her first draft, she had given the fanciful title _the zemindar, the sun and the watering pot as affecting life or death in india_. miss nightingale had first written the book in 1874, and she had several copies privately printed. the earliest copies are prefaced by the following notes on "dramatis personæ." they introduce, besides the minister on whom at this time she pinned her hopes, her principal informants, and they show the spirit of the book:- the marquis of salisbury: a real workman and born ruler of men. secretary of state for india by the grace of god. sir george campbell: ex-lieutenant governor of bengal. gulliver among the lilliputians. sir arthur cotton, r.e.: the most perfect master of the water question living. colonel rundall, r.e.: head of water department of bengal, then of all india; now at home. colonel haig, r.e.: head of water department of bengal; now at home ill. the zemindar: created landlord out of tax-gatherer. growing rich. the ryot: created slave out of landowner or privileged cultivator. starving. for while "wealth accumulates, men decay." mr. jowett revised the book many times, and among the first things which he cut out was the characteristic "dramatis personæ." his unfavourable opinion of the book as a literary work prevented the publication of it in 1874. "the style," he wrote (aug. 11, 1874), "is too jerky and impulsive, though i think it is logical and effective. you must avoid faults of taste and exaggeration. the more moderate a statement is the stronger it is. but strength lies in paragraphs, in pages, in the whole; not in single sentences. the form should appear to flow irresistibly from the facts and reasonings. 'what does the man mean by talking to me about style when i am thinking only of the sufferings and oppression of 100,000,000 of ryots?' yes, but if you want to make the english people think about the ryots you must be careful of the least indiscretion or exaggeration. you must make style a duty, and then your book will last." and again, "i find myself amid striking expressions, but i do not know where i am." he told her that she must rewrite the whole thing before publishing it. he offered to help her, and drew out a more methodical scheme; but she was impatient of his "passion for making heads"; besides, his heads "do not cover the ground that i must cover, and do cover ground that i don't want to cover." she was disheartened, and laid the book aside for a while; but at various times during the following years she resumed work upon it. the book was in two parts, the first dealing with the land question, and being a plea for a reform of the permanent settlement, with an appendix (largely contributed by m. mohl) "on prussian, austrian, and russian reforms in abolition of servitude." the second part dealt with irrigation as affecting life or death in india, with an appendix of statistical data. for the first part she had prepared a series of illustrations of indian agricultural life and customs. many of the woodcuts were from sketches by the son of her old friend, sir ranald martin. for the second part she had prepared the irrigation maps already mentioned. meanwhile, the tables of statistics which she had compiled had, owing to the delay, become out of date. some of her friends--sir bartle frere and sir george campbell and sir arthur cotton--urged her to revise the book and publish it; and there are in existence a series of proofs, in various stages, and belonging to various years, corrected by the three friends just mentioned and by many others. lord lawrence too had read the book carefully, and one of his last letters to miss nightingale contained a full discussion of many of the points involved in it. clearly the book first written in 1874 required in 1879 large revision, and she could not bring herself to do it. in later years she used some of the material in other ways; it served, indeed, as a quarry for many articles, papers, and private letters; but she never ceased to regret that she had not been able to leave in permanent literary form her views on the questions discussed in the book. in her will, made in 1896, she left special provision for the publication of "such part, if any," as her executors might think fit, of the "books, papers (whether manuscript or printed), and letters relating to my indian work (together with two stones for irrigation maps of india, and also with the woodcut blocks for illustration of those works)." by "those works" i take it that she meant principally the book written in 1874. i do not know whether her suggestion will be carried out. if it were, much revision and editing would be necessary. indian reform moves, it is true, at a rate which "savours much of the periods of indian cosmogony"; but yet it moves. there is a good deal in miss nightingale's published and unpublished writings about india which might be collected and still serve as tracts for the times; but there is at least as much which is now happily out of date. of the reform of the bengal land system, projected by lord ripon, and carried into effect by lord dufferin, we shall hear something in a later chapter (vi.). some of the principal irrigation works which miss nightingale advocated were presently carried out with success, and to the great benefit of the country, notably the swat river canal (1885), the chenab canal (1887), and the jhelum canal (1902). her irrigation map, "brought up to date by statistics at the india office," was published in 1900;[177] and maps brought up to a later date are accessible.[178] twenty years after the date of miss nightingale's paper on "the people of india," the area irrigated by "productive" canals had increased from 5 million acres to 9-1/2 million, and since 1901 a consistent policy of "preventive" irrigation has been adopted.[179] the policy of introducing some element of representation and of admitting the natives of india more largely to administrative and judicial posts has slowly but steadily progressed since the years when miss nightingale turned her attention to such questions. [177] in _general sir arthur cotton: his life and work_, by his daughter, lady hope. [178] see _the irrigation works of india_, by robert burton buckley, c.s.i., chief engineer, indian public works department (retired), second edition, 1905. this is an exhaustive work on the subject, with maps, woodcuts, and statistics (such as miss nightingale had asked lord salisbury to obtain). an account of some later irrigation works may be found in the engineering supplement of the _times_, may 21, 1913. [179] foreshadowed in lord curzon's "statement on famine" in the legislative council, simla, october 19, 1900: see _speeches of lord curzon_ (calcutta, 1900), vol. ii. pp. 25-27. viii on all these matters, miss nightingale suffered much disappointment and felt great impatience. the positive and statistical bent of her mind inclined her to the conviction that for every acknowledged evil there must be a definite remedy. she wanted a positive policy, clearly laid down and immediately carried out. the attitude of successive secretaries of state and governments of india in the years under consideration in this chapter was different. there is a state paper in which lord salisbury, when secretary for india, wrote a philosophic defence of the policy of drift.[180] the immediate reference in the paper was to the land question in madras, but its argument is applicable to larger ground: it is entirely in keeping, as the reader will observe, with lord salisbury's letters to miss nightingale on the subject of irrigation in india. "we must be content to contribute our mite towards a gradual change.... sir george campbell appears to dread this gentle mode of progression which he denounces under the name of drifting. i cannot accept the metaphor in its entirety, for i believe that there is still left some, though not a very important, influence for the helm. but with this reservation, i see no terror in the prospect of 'drifting.' on the contrary, i believe that all the enduring institutions which human societies have attained have been reached, not of the set design and forethought of some group of statesmen, but by that unbidden and unconscious convergence of many thoughts and wills in successive generations, to which, as it obeys no single guiding hand, we may give the name of 'drifting.' it is assuredly only in this way that a permanent solution of these difficult questions will be given to the vast communities of india. the vacillation of purpose, the chaos of opinion we are now deploring, only indicate that the requisite convergence has not yet been attained." [180] india office memorandum, april 26, 1875. when statesmen assume only an unimportant influence on the helm, the need is the greater for independent workers to guide public opinion in a definite direction. in 1879 miss nightingale thought that her work as an indian reformer had failed; but she is entitled to an honourable place among the company of clear thinkers who prepared public opinion for the era of indian reform which was inaugurated during lord ripon's viceroyalty, and whose persistent advocacy helped to produce at last "the requisite convergence" of opinion in favour of irrigation as the best, if not the only or all-sufficient, preventive of famine. the "fanaticism," which she shared with sir arthur cotton, is not now so "visionary" as it once seemed. "lord napier," she wrote,[181] "calls sir arthur cotton a splendid madman. and so he is. but all these must be splendid madmen who initiate any great thing, any great work, which does not recommend itself to the present knowledge, or ignorance, of minds which do not see so far as the splendid madmen of this age, who will be sensible men to the next age and perhaps a little in arrear to the age after that." [181] letter to sir bartle frere, february 16, 1869. the lord napier of this letter was lord napier and ettrick. chapter v home life in south street and the country life made strait on purpose to make sweet the life at large. browning. "you live," said lord napier and ettrick, in calling upon miss nightingale one day, "between a palace and a park, and have one of the best views in london." a pilgrim who makes his way to no. 10 south street and looks up to the tall, unpretentious house, now marked by a tablet recording the residence of florence nightingale in it, will not see the palace, and may wonder how she can have had any view at all. the principal rooms, however, are at the back of the house, and on the upper floors command a view of the park, across the grounds of dorchester house--the finest of london's italian "palaces." miss nightingale was fond of the view, especially in spring mornings, but in the afternoons she moralized her landscape. in a letter to her father from south street she quoted _samson agonistes_: "_eyeless in gaza, at the mill with slaves._ since i have lived looking on the park, and seen those people making their trivial round, or rather their treadmill round, blind slaves to it, i have scarce ever had that line out of my head. it will be a material alleviation to me if i have to spend september in london that the 'mill' is gone. also, tho' my whole life is laid out to secure it against interruptions, no one could believe how much it is interrupted. and september diminishes this. the _beggars_ are out of town." how strict was miss nightingale's rule against interruption, even from her best friends, is shown amusingly in some notes of this date from lady ashburton and her daughter. "i wish," wrote lady ashburton, "that you would let me sit like a poor old rat in the corner, while you are at dinner; it is much wholesomer not to eat in solitude; but i know i shan't get in, so i can only leave this at the door." "mother bids me add a p.s. to my letter and ask with her dear love if you could see her any time to-day; she will talk through the keyhole and not detain you five minutes." "the nicest little house in london," no. 10 was called by lady verney, whose own house was only a few doors off. the proximity did not altogether facilitate florence's measures for security against interruption. there was underlying affection between the sisters, but at times each was acutely conscious of the other's shortcomings. also each thought that the proximity was more valuable to the other than to herself. no. 10 had been taken by mr. nightingale on the advice of sir harry and lady verney, who thought it would be well for florence to be near them. florence, on her part, felt that she was often very useful to her sister. their common friend, madame mohl, was sometimes in perplexity to decide which sister's hospitality to accept. "go to the verneys, if you prefer," wrote florence on one occasion; "but _we_ shall have to do for you all the same. you know what her housekeeping is. _we_ shall have to send in clean sheets, and food, and scrub down the floors." in one respect, the proximity of the two houses was certainly convenient to florence. sir harry and lady verney took a willing share, as we shall hear presently, in the entertainment of florence's nursing friends; and sir harry, the chairman of the council of her training school, was within easy call. she was not, however, accessible at all times in person, either to her sister or to her brother-in-law, any more than to others; much of the communication between them was by letter or message. in later years, however, a morning visit from sir harry was part of the day's routine. when still in full health, he was one of her chief links with the great world, bringing her its news and carrying out her behests with pride and alacrity. he was her senior by nineteen years, and he lived to be ninety-three. in his old age one of his great consolations was a morning call upon his sister-in-law, during which they read together in some religious book of his choosing. he was of the old evangelical school, but in such matters except in opinion they did not disagree. ii miss nightingale's manner of life made her messenger an important member of the south street staff. she had taken a great and liberal interest in the corps of commissionaires established in 1859, and a commissionaire was in her regular service, acting both as cerberus and mercury. miss nightingale's messenger must have been a familiar figure, with his notes for dr. sutherland, at the war office, and, for the matron, at st. thomas's hospital. for the rest, miss nightingale kept a staff of maidservants. her own particular maid for many years was temperance hatcher; but at the time with which we are now concerned she had married one of miss nightingale's crimean protégés, peter grillage,[182] who for some years had been a manservant at embley. miss nightingale was much attached to this exemplary pair, constantly sent presents to them and their children, corresponded with them almost to the end of her life, and remembered them in her will. at an earlier date mr. jowett in letters written after visits to miss nightingale--letters known as "roofers" by "the younger gown"--refers gratefully to the care of neat-handed temperance. miss nightingale took infinite pains in the selection of her maids. kind mrs. sutherland did much of the work in this sort for her, and when she was away in the country mrs. sutherland was often asked to keep an eye on south street. miss nightingale's love of method and precision, her fondness for having everything in black and white, appear in many a formidable schedule of duties and requirements which she drew up for the information of applicants. perhaps these had the effect of weeding out the unfit; for, with some exceptions, miss nightingale was well served: as was meet and right, for good mistresses make good servants, and she was solicitous of their comfort and welfare. she was an excellent housekeeper; and here again she brought into play the methodical and critical habits which she had practised in larger spheres. i have seen a book in which a young cook entered the day's _menu_ and, on the following morning, the mistress wrote comments on each course--for the most part kindly and encouraging, but sometimes trenchant; as in this note upon _stewed cutlets_, "why was the glue-pot used?"; or this upon a dish of _minced veal_, "meat hard, and remember that mincing makes hard meat harder." miss nightingale was a small, though delicate, eater; it was for her visitors that she took most pains. cakes of different kinds, fresh eggs, and coffee used to be sent regularly to st. thomas's hospital, to two wards every week; and meat soufflées and jelly were sent weekly to two invalids at lea hurst and one at liverpool. if a nursing friend was coming to south street, who was likely to want "feeding up," or, suffering from overwork, would require to have her appetite coaxed, miss nightingale would draw up the _menu_ herself, and write out her own _recipes_ for particular dishes. she had not served in the east with the great soyer in vain. her father, after his first visit to south street, pronounced "florence's maids and dinner perfect"; and the crown princess, going down to lunch by herself after seeing miss nightingale, sent word that the luncheon was "a work of art." [182] see vol. i. p. 304. iii of miss nightingale as a hostess, and of the pleasures of south street to her nursing visitors, one of her pupils who was often invited gives this account:--"early tea, if you would accept it, was brought to you; and following close upon the housemaid, came miss nightingale's own maid to inquire how you had slept; and then to ask if you had any plans for the day or would like any visitor invited to lunch or otherwise. when this had been ascertained there came, by note or message, proposals for the vacant time; and an hour was appointed for your visit to her: that is, for the visit in chief, for you might have other glimpses of her during the day. she was always on the look-out to make your visit not only restful and restoring by all manner of material comfort, but to make it interesting and brightening as well. if the verneys were in residence at no. 4, miss nightingale laid them under contribution for our entertainment, and right kindly did they both respond. sometimes the guest went there to dinner, dining alone with sir harry and spending the time before and after with lady verney, then in some degree an invalid, in the drawing-room. the conversation there was amusing, relating to a world not centred in hospitals, for sir harry loved to talk of his early days in france and spain. lady verney would sometimes take you driving with her, and as she was of the great world you were likely to have a peep at its attractions. perhaps the carriage would be stopped while she chatted with dean stanley; or it would pause to allow of cards being left at some great house. then lady verney would turn and tease her guest from the hospital about coming to town in the season and leaving cards at the french embassy. or sir harry would include you in his party, going to visit miss octavia hill in _her_ london courts, and houses not at all resembling the embassy. or he would take you to the house of commons when the irish members were lively, and you would see mr. gladstone, mr. trevelyan and mr. parnell, and have an exciting story to bring home to the chief. or it might be that you were taken to a meeting of the royal geographical society where stanley, surrounded by dr. moffat, sir samuel baker, and other great travellers, was telling a crowded audience amid breathless silence how he crossed the dark continent. but these pleasures which miss nightingale lavished on her workers and in which she shared only by sympathy, were not the event of the day to her visitor. the chief privilege was always the interview with herself. it was usually arranged to begin at half-past four and often lasted through several hours; sometimes with a short interval. at times miss nightingale was well enough to come down to the drawing-room and rest on a couch there while she received her guests. couch or bed was always strewn with letters and papers, and a pencil was ever at hand. it was cheerful to find her on the couch, relieved from the imprisonment of the bed. she was dressed then in soft black silk with a shawl over her feet; always the transparent white kerchief laid over her hair and tied under the chin. [the 'transparent white kerchief' was an exquisite little curtain of fine net, edged with real lace, often very fine; for miss nightingale was of the old-fashioned persuasion that a gentlewoman cannot wear imitation lace. some of her lace was buckinghamshire, made in cottages near claydon.] whether sad or glad, there was a bright smile of welcome. once or twice i found her with her persian kittens about, but they were soon dismissed. if you had come only for the interview on business, that might occupy all the time; though even on such occasions, business might be dispatched in time for other pleasant talk. but if you were staying in the house, though business was discussed and counsel given, a wide range was allowed to other conversation. naturally you gave her an account of the day's doings; she entered into them with zest and was led on to other subjects. sometimes she would speak of india and the ryots; sometimes of egypt and the fellaheen; it was rare for her to touch upon the crimean episode: if she did so, it was generally to speak with affectionate remembrance of mrs. bracebridge. miss nightingale encouraged her pupils to speak at these interviews, and it was a common matter of self-reproach with me that whereas i went desirous and resolved to listen, i had occupied too much of the time talking. however it was perhaps her design and gave her the best opportunities of helping her pupils. she listened to all one said with an open mind and made much of any point of which she approved. but now and again she flashed out a dissent, in a tone of maternal authority, and gave you a forcible exposition from the point of view of her powerful intellect and wide outlook. she was enthusiastic, but she was not a prey to illusions. sometimes when there was not a clear contradiction, there was a quiet questioning. indeed many of her lessons were given in the form of questions. among our happiest subjects of conversation were the children in the hospitals. miss nightingale seemed never to weary of hearing of them; of their sufferings, their home circumstances, their pathetic knowledge of life, their heroic patience, their quaint sayings, their brave fun in intervals of ease, their interest in one another, their thousand sweetnesses. not the less was her sympathy given to the older patients, while the nurses had, if possible, a still larger place in her regard." iv the room in which these treasured interviews took place was either the drawing-room, or miss nightingale's bedroom on the second floor--both at the back of the house. the bedroom had a crescent-shaped outer wall with pleasant french windows and flower-balconies. the bed stood between the windows and the door, with its foot facing the fireplace, and behind the bed was a long shelf conveniently placed for books and papers. there were always flowers in the room. those in pots on a stand were provided by mr. rathbone (as already related) until his death; and a box of cut flowers was sent every week from melchet court by lady ashburton. the walls were white and there were no blinds or curtains; the room seemed full of light and flowers. what impressed visitors was the exquisite cleanliness and daintiness of all the appointments which served as the frame to their mistress. "it always seemed a beautiful room," says one visitor, "but there was very little in it beside the necessary furniture, which was neat, but cheap and simple, except a few pieces which had come from embley and lea hurst. a large arm-chair, in which miss nightingale would sometimes sit, stood between two of the three windows. there were few pictures on the walls--a photograph of lord lawrence's portrait, a water-colour of an egyptian sunset, and one or two other gifts. the two things of most meaning were a long chromolithograph of 'the ground about sebastopol,' as she called it in her will[183]--this was opposite her on the right; and, on the mantelpiece, exactly facing her bed, a framed chromolithographed text, 'it is i. be not afraid.' the drawing-room was loftier and more severe, and on the walls were some fine engravings and photographs of the sistine ceiling. there were many bookcases in the drawing-room, the back drawing-room, and the dining-room, mostly full of blue-books. as a little girl, i spent many hours in the dining-room while my mother was upstairs, and can bear witness that except blue-books the only reading was _the ring and the book_." [183] she directed her executors to place it, with other crimean memorials, "where soldiers may see them." [illustration: _florence nightingale in her room in south street from a photograph by miss bosanquet, 1906_] occasionally miss nightingale would be seen standing or moving about in her room; what was then remarked was the grace and dignity of her bearing, though the "willowy figure" which distinguished her in earlier years had now become large. more often she received her visitors in bed or on her couch. what they then observed was the head, the face, the hands. her head, in girlhood and early womanhood, had been remarked as small. possibly it had grown somewhat, and something must be put down to the increased size of the face as affecting the appearance; but at any rate her head in later years was certainly large. an army surgeon who visited miss nightingale frequently in the 'eighties and 'nineties tells me that he was always struck by the massiveness of the head, comparable, he thought, to mr. gladstone's. there was an unusually fine rounded form of the fore-part of the head just above where the hair begins. the eyes were not specially remarkable, though there was a suggestion of intellectual keenness in them. the nose was fine and rather prominent; the mouth, small and firm. the hands were small and refined. every one who saw her felt that he was in the presence of a woman of personality--of marked character, energy, and capacity. as her visitor entered, miss nightingale would bend forward from her bed or couch with a smile of welcome; the visitor would be invited to an easy chair beside her, and talk would begin. in her youth miss nightingale was a brilliant talker, as witnesses cited in an earlier chapter have told us. in later years, too, she had flashes of brilliance. madame mohl, whose standard was high, wrote to her husband from lea hurst in 1873: "mr. jowett spent three days here. he is a man of mind; i think he would suit you. he is very fond of flo, which also would suit you. she is here, and her conversation is most nourishing. i would give a great deal for you to be here to enjoy it. she is really eloquent. yesterday she quite surprised me."[184] but for the most part miss nightingale's talk was rather earnest, inquiring, sometimes searching, than sparkling or eloquent. "she is worse than a royal commission to answer," said colonel yule; "and, in the most gracious, charming manner possible, immediately finds out all i don't know."[185] younger visitors sometimes felt in awe of her; she could flash out a searching question upon a rash generalization as formidably as mr. gladstone himself. she was interested in everything except what was trivial. her intellectual vitality was remarkable; visitors who knew nothing of her special interests or pursuits were yet delighted by the stimulating freshness of her talk. she liked to keep herself _au courant_ with all that was going on in the political and learned worlds. the letters to her from more than one indian viceroy show that the pleasant gossip from the lobbies or the universities, with which she relieved her discourses on drains, was keenly appreciated. if the visitor talked of matters which appealed to her, she was instantly curious of detail. "yes," she would say, leaning forward, "and what about this or that? and have you thought of doing so and so?" or if some difficulty were propounded, "i wonder if i could help you at all? the person to speak to is mr. a. or mr. b. do you think that he would be so good as to come and see me?" "i am sure he would feel honoured." "then do you think i might write to him? or you will ask him? very well, then we will see what can be done." and so a new network of helpful influence would be made. to younger visitors--a london clergyman, it may be, or a student, or a budding official--she would show something of the maternal solicitude that was conspicuous in her intercourse with nursing "daughters." "but you are not looking well to-day. you have been sitting up too late? yes? then you must promise me to take better care of yourself." or, "are you careful to take regular meals? no? then you must let an old nurse give you some good advice." the humour which was characteristic of miss nightingale came more readily perhaps to her pen than to her tongue; but she always enjoyed a joke in conversation--even, as we have heard already from one of her nursing friends, at her own expense. sometimes she was teasing. a high church young lady once went to south street. she was delighted with her interview, but miss nightingale, she said, "laughed at high church curates a good deal: she said they had no foreheads." she sometimes quizzed even her greatest friends. she used to talk with humorous indignation of mr. jowett's god as a "man-jelly," in contrast with the future life of work which _she_ looked forward to. [184] _julius and mary mohl_, p. 342. [185] memoir of colonel sir henry yule, by his daughter, prefixed to the 3rd ed. (1903) of his translation of _the book of ser marco polo_, p. 65. it was in the bedroom above described, or in the smaller room in front with which it communicated, that the greater part of miss nightingale's life for forty-five years was passed. she seldom went out of doors in london. it was believed that occasionally, at times when her heart and nerves were giving her less than the usual sense of weakness, she went out on foot into the park; but the belief was only whispered: it was a point of honour amongst her circle to respect her house-ridden seclusion. the secret may now be divulged, on the authority of many notes from sir harry verney, that he lured her out now and then for a morning drive and stroll in the park, especially in rhododendron-time, "to remind her of embley," as aforesaid. miss nightingale, except in the few travel-years of her youth, had little enjoyment from nature in its grander or larger aspects, but she knew how to find pleasure in the commoner sights and sounds; in flowers and birds, and in london skies. there was a tree in the garden of dorchester house where the birds used to gather, and from which they flew to be fed at miss nightingale's window. she had studied the dietary of birds as carefully as of hospital patients, and imparted the rudiments of such lore to the "dicky-bird society."[186] in the country she liked to have a view from her bedroom of trees and flowers, and often in the early morning watches she wrote down her observations. her balcony at lea hurst gave her a great deal of pleasure. it is large, being the top of the drawing-room bow; you see a wide stretch of sky from it, and it commands the view described by mrs. gaskell.[187] at claydon she had her pet birds and squirrels, and used to write about them to sir harry's grandchildren. she took a great interest in elementary education, and insisted almost as much upon the importance of simple nature studies as upon that of physical training. "on very fine noondays in london," she wrote (dec. 1888), "when there is nearly as much light as there is in a country dusk, the storm-like effects of the sun peeping out are more like the light streaming from the glory in heaven of the old italian masters than anything i know. and i wonder whether the poor people see it. and in old days when i walked out of doors, the murky effect at the end of the perspective of a long dull street running e. and w. was a real peep into heaven. i should teach these things in board schools to children condemned to live their lives in the streets of london, as i would teach the botany of leaves and trees and flowers to country children." cheap popular books were much wanted giving account of "the habits, structure, and characters (what they are about, not classification) of plants as living beings"; and of birds treated in like fashion, and not from the point of view of ornithological classification. "i had a lovely little popular book with woodcuts, published in calcutta," she wrote,[188] "on the plants of bengal. the author, an englishman, offered me to write one on english plants in the same fashion; but one of the most popular and enterprising of all our publishers refused on the ground that it would not tell in board school examinations and therefore would not pay." [186] bibliography a, no. 136. [187] see vol. i. p. 8. [188] letter to the secretary of the pure literature society, march 30, 1891. v during the years following her father's death (1874), miss nightingale devoted much time to the society of her mother, and this took her for a considerable part of each year out of london. in 1874 she and her mother spent a month at claydon (aug.-sept.), and then two months at lea hurst. in 1875 the experiment was tried of taking a house at upper norwood, and there miss nightingale lived with her mother for some weeks (june-july). "i am out of humanity's reach," wrote florence to madame mohl (june 18): "in a red villa like a monster lobster: a place which has no _raison d'être_ except the _raison d'être_ of lobsters or crabs--viz. to go backward and to feed and be fed upon. stranger vicissitudes than mine in life few men have had--vicissitudes from slavery to power, and from power to slavery again. it does not seem like a vicissitude: a red villa at norwood: yet it is the strangest i yet have had. it is the only time for 22 years that my work has not been the first cause for where i should live and how i should live. here it is the last. it is the caricature of a life." the lobster-like villa was, however, soon given up. mrs. nightingale longed to be taken to her home--though, strictly, hers no longer, and from july to october she and florence were at lea hurst. the year's routine now became fixed. the care of mrs. nightingale in london was undertaken by her nephew, mr. shore smith, and his wife. she lived with them in their house in york place, and from july or august in each year to november or december the shore smith family, with mrs. nightingale and her companion, moved to lea hurst, and there also florence went--sometimes going to lea hurst before the others arrived, and sometimes staying there when they were absent.[189] mr. shore smith was "more than son and daughter to her," mrs. nightingale said; and florence, during her residence at lea hurst, devoted a stated number of hours each day--generally two or three in the morning--to companionship with her mother. in the country, as in south street, miss nightingale constantly had nursing friends to stay with her. "at lea hurst," writes the friend already quoted, "she was as good to us as in london. i remember being there once with another of her pupils, and she told us that the rooms assigned to us had been the nurseries of her childhood. long drives were contrived for us; luncheon was packed in the waggonette, and excursions were mapped out. during our visit mr. jowett came for a few days; he was very pleasant to us and full of kindness. i remember his speaking of a quality in our hostess which always struck us; i mean the thoroughness in all details of her hospitality, even to putting flowers in our rooms, gathered by herself in the garden. miss nightingale thought one of us was tired, and said she was not to get up too early in the morning. mr. jowett reminded us in this connection of the man who made a virtue of always rising very early and who was 'conceited all the morning and cross all the afternoon.'" [189] as on one occasion when a case of smallpox occurred among the servants at lea hurst. miss nightingale went immediately to superintend the nursing of the case, and would let no one else come. see bibliography a, no. 83. at lea hurst, during these years, miss nightingale devoted herself to her poorer neighbours, and threw into the task the thoroughness and system which characterized all her doings. she took a part in establishing a village coffee-room and a village library, and in organizing mothers' meetings. she gave doles to all deserving families. the _dossiers_ which she kept of their characters and circumstances were as careful as those referring to the nightingale probationers. there are sheets and sheets amongst her papers, on which she entered the quantities of each kind of provision supplied to each family, as elaborate as the purveying accounts which she kept at scutari. she was a sort of national health insurance scheme (non-contributory) for the neighbourhood; for she employed a doctor to attend the sick and infirm at her expense, and to report fully to her on all the cases. there are fifty letters from him in this sort during a single year, and as many of a like kind from the village schoolmaster, whom she commissioned to give extra tuition to promising pupils. there were those who thought that miss nightingale wasted on these rustic cares energies that might swell the great wave of the world. among the number was her old friend, madame mohl. "now, my own flo," she wrote (oct. 16, 1879), "you believe me, i am sure, to love you truly; therefore you will bear what i say, and also you believe me to have common sense: you can't help believing it, i defy you! now i declare that if you don't leave that absurd place, lea hurst, immediately, you must be a little insane--partially, not entirely; and that if you saw another person knowingly risking a life that might be useful _dans les grandes choses d'ensemble_ to potter after sick individuals, and if you were in a lucid moment you would say, 'that person is not quite sane or she has not the strength of will to follow her judgment in her actions.'" miss nightingale was not well pleased by this letter. she felt something of the sort herself; but it is one thing to doubt our own wisdom, and quite another to hear it doubted even by our oldest friends. miss nightingale replied that she was doing her duty, which was a duty of affection, to her mother, and madame mohl, with ready tact, explained her letter away by saying that the real reason of it was only a selfish impatience to see her dear "flochen" in london. miss nightingale's mother was now very old; her mind was barely coherent; and it would perhaps have been much the same to her if florence had not been by her side. yet the actual presence was a great comfort; and miss nightingale, whose calls in earlier life had estranged her somewhat from her mother, was the more anxious to be with her now. there were gleams of brightness in the mother's manner which touched the daughter deeply. "her mind," she afterwards wrote, "was like the ceiling of the sistine chapel--darkened, blotted, effaced, and with great gaps; but if you looked and looked and accustomed your eye to the dimness and the broken lights, there were the noble forms transparent through the darkness."[190] mother and daughter had much converse on spiritual things. at other times, pride and pleasure in her famous daughter were mixed in the mother's mind with the regrets of earlier years. "where is florence?" she once asked, in the daughter's absence; "is she still in her hospital? i suppose she will never marry now." she loved to have longfellow's poem read to her; "it is all true," she would say, "all real." when florence came, the mother loved her presence dearly. "who are you? oh, yes, i see you are florence. stay with me. do not leave me. it makes me so happy to see you sitting by me. you come down to teach us to love; but you have so much that is important to do, you must not stay with me." "oh, are you my dearest florence? i ought to kiss your hand, i am sure." the daughter's wit cheered her mother. "you have a right to laugh," she said; "so few of us have. you are so good--so much better than the rest of us. you do me so much good." [190] letter to "aunt mai," feb. 5, 1880. something of the same impression was made by miss nightingale upon all who visited her, whether at lea hurst or in her upper room at south street. she was often lonely and despondent, and accounted herself, as we have heard, the weakest of human vessels, the lowest of god's servants. to those who knew her well, she was a tower of strength. mr. jowett used to say that he never saw miss nightingale or received a letter from her without feeling strengthened for his duties. the thought of her working in solitude was constantly with him. "i think no day passes," he wrote to her, "in which i do not think of you and your work with pride and affection." if men admired miss nightingale, women worshipped her. to many a devoted woman, who had learnt from her example and who was inspired by her friendship, she was "my mistress and queen," or "my hero saint." women of the great world laid at her feet an almost equal adoration, and young girls had something of the same feeling. "i used at first to be shy with her," says one of them, "but when i was older and talked more freely, i found her the most charming person to talk to. she always seemed interested and glad to see one. i always used to come away with a sort of buoyant feeling. she seemed to raise one into a different atmosphere." "i shall ever remember my visit to you," wrote her "ever affectionate luise" (the grand duchess of baden) in 1879, "as one of those moments coming directly out of god's hand and leading men's hearts up to him in thankfulness. it belongs to those things which are in themselves a sanctuary."[191] and lady ashburton, who still came sometimes to see the friend of earlier days, her "beloved zoë," wrote: "i like to think of you in your tower--so high up above us all"; and, again, "i am humbled in the dust when i think of what you say of me--poor, wretched, profitableless me, and yourself the guiding-star to so many of our lives." [191] the grand duchess's knowledge as a nurse proved useful when her father, the emperor william, was wounded in the attempt made upon his life by nobiling in 1878. the empress augusta sent, through miss lees, her kindest remembrances to miss nightingale with one of the bandages made for the emperor by the grand duchess. vi the friends to whom miss nightingale wrote most regularly on matters other than business, and in whose visits she took the greatest intellectual pleasure, were, next to mr. jowett, monsieur and madame mohl. her letters to them show some of her more general interests:- (_to m. mohl._) _feb._ 16 [1868].... i see mad. blanchecotte is publishing her _impressions de femme_--what is that? do men publish their _impressions d'homme_? i think it is a pity that women should always look upon themselves (and men look upon them) as a great curiosity--a peculiar strange race, like the aztecs; or rather like dr. howe's idiots, whom, after the "unremitting exertions of two years," he "actually taught to eat with a spoon." (_to m. mohl._) south st., _nov._ 24 [1872].... insensible, cruel, aggravating man! you break off just where i want to hear. the only thing that amuses me is papal infallibility. the only thing that interests me not painfully (out of my chaos)--always excepting livingstone, east african slave-trade, central african exploration--is prussian politics. not that i suppose you to be very well satisfied with them, but i want to _know_ about the doings--bismarck, old catholics, infallibilists--this extraordinary conflict between the old man at rome and the junker-devil-statesman, bismarck; also about the struggle with the upper house and the de-feudalizing bill. i am athirst to know _your_ mind about these things.... have you seen stanley's _how i found livingstone_? i have desired the publisher to send you a copy. it is, without exception, the very worst book on the very best subject i ever saw in all my life.... still i can't help devouring the book to the end, though it tells little more of livingstone than what livingstone in the despatches has told himself already. but then stanley and his newspaper have discovered and relieved livingstone, when all our government, all our societies, all our subscriptions, all the queen's men could not set livingstone up again!... quetelet has sent me his last books--_anthropométrie_ and _physique sociale_--with a charming letter. i answered by a violent and vehement exhortation to him to prepare his second edition at once--the first (1869) of the _physique sociale_ being entirely exhausted.[192] did i tell you that when mr. jowett was elected chairman for the subjects of final examination at oxford, i insisted on social physics being one? [192] the actually first edition had been issued in 1835, when the title of the book was _sur l'homme et le développement de ses facultés, ou essai de physique sociale_. in 1869 it was much enlarged, and miss nightingale treats it as a new book. (_to madame mohl._) south st., _dec._ 19 [1873].... you asked me what mill's _autobiography_ was like: and as it is a book impossible to describe, i send it to you. i think it almost the most curious and interesting of modern books i ever read; but curious just as much for its nonsense as for its sense. i should think the account he gives of his intellectual and moral growth from the age of three quite unique: quite as singular as if a man were able to describe all his anatomy and physiology in a state of growth from the time he was three. but quite, quite as extraordinary as this is his own stupidity in not seeing that very many of his moral and intellectual, and especially of his religious, opinions were fixed inalterably for him by the process he underwent, so that all his reasoning afterwards upon them was _un_reasoning: fixed as much beyond his power to change, or even to see that a change was desirable or possible, as the eyes of a man who becomes stone-blind in his youth, or the right arm of a man who is paralysed on that side, or &c., &c., &c. he has written me pages and pages, which i never could understand--from a man so able--till i read his _autobiography_: that--there being laws was no proof of there being a law-giver; that--if evil were to produce good, there ought to be _more_ of it! then, you see he says in his book that his wife was to be applauded, because she had thrown aside the "monstrous superstition" that this world _could_ be made on the best possible design for perfecting good thro' evil!... and i still think the _autobiography_, its high tone, its disinterested nobility of feeling and love of mankind, one of the most inspiring (modern) books i know. but then please to remember: when mill left the india office he might most materially have helped all my sanitary commissions, irrigation and civilizing schemes for india. he did nothing. he was quite incapable of understanding anything but schemes on paper, correspondence, the literary office aspect in short, for india. as for that jargon about the "inspiration" coming from "woman," i really am incapable of conceiving its meaning: if it has any at all. i am sure that my part in administration has been the very reverse of "inspiration": it has been the fruit of dogged work, of hard experience and observation, such as few men have undergone: correcting by close detail work the errors of men which came from what i suppose is called their "inspiration": what _i_ should call their theory without practical knowledge or patient personal experience. (_to madame mohl._) south st., _feb._ 27 [1875].... do read pascal's _provinciales_. there is nothing like it in the world; it is as witty as molière; it is as closely reasoned as aristotle; it has a style transparent like plato. you said you had not read it. i have a great mind to send it you. i read it every year (as lord morpeth said he did miss austen's novels) for the pure pleasure it gives my imagination. voltaire said, did he not? that tho' pascal was "fou," he fixed the language. nothing that she read in these years pleased her more than mr. john morley's fine address on "popular culture," now included in his _miscellanies_, which first appeared in the _fortnightly review_ for november 1876. she wrote to him to express her grateful admiration and to ask if she might be allowed to distribute copies of the paper. mr. morley, who had already arranged for a cheap reprint, sent her several copies. in january 1876 came the death of m. mohl--to madame mohl an irreparable loss; she was never the same woman after it; to miss nightingale also a heavy loss. "i am grieved to see," wrote mr. jowett to her (jan. 7), "that you have lost a friend, one of the best and truest you ever had. his death must bring back many old recollections. your father told me of his fetching you away from the convent when you were ill, and, as he thought, saving your life." but it was not only that his death revived affectionate recollections. m. mohl had a great admiration for miss nightingale's intellectual powers. he loved to talk and correspond with her on politics, literature, and philosophy, and she regarded his studies in eastern religion as a real contribution to "theodikë," one of her principal preoccupations. miss nightingale lost another friend a few weeks later, whose death greatly moved her:- (_dr. e. a. parkes to miss nightingale._) southampton, _march 9_ (dictated). your letter reached me on what must be, i believe, my deathbed. perhaps before you receive this i shall be summoned to my account. for what you say i thank and bless you. about two months hence the society for promoting christian knowledge will publish a little book on "the personal care of health." a copy will be sent to you. i had small space, only 26 pages, but i put in as much sanitary information as i could, of a very simple kind. i hope it may be a little useful to you. it is addressed entirely to the poor. and now thank you and bless you for all the support you have always given me. believe me, very gratefully, (signed) e. a. parkes. (_miss nightingale to dr. h. w. acland._) 35 south street, _march 17 [1876]_. the death of our dear friend, dr. parkes, fills me with grief: and also with anxiety for the future of the army medical school at netley. he was a man of most rare modesty: of singular gifts. his influence at the school--there was not a man who did not leave the better for having been under him--is irreplaceable. but the knowledge and instruction he has diffused from the school as a centre has extended and will extend wherever the english language is spoken, and beyond. dr. parkes died like a true christian hero "at his post," and with the simplicity of one. i think i have never known such disinterestedness, such self-abnegation, such forgetfulness of self. his death was like a resurrection. when he was dying, he dictated letters or gave messages to everybody: _all_ about what ought to be done _for the school_, for the spread of hygienic knowledge, for other useful and army purposes: _none_ about himself.... on march 9, when it was evident he could not last many days, he commended _the school_ to sir william jenner and dictated a letter to me about hygienic interests, merely saying of himself that he might be "summoned to his last account" before i received it. on march 13 he rallied. i was allowed to send down a trained nurse. on march 15 he died.... let us, as he went to the sacrifice of himself (he was only 56) with joy and praise--as the heroes of old--so part with him. but let us try to save what he would have saved.... the professors at the army medical school had written to miss nightingale in alarm at a report in the newspapers that the institution was once more threatened. she begged dr. acland, who was a friend of the war secretary (mr. gathorne hardy), to do what he could; and meanwhile she took direct action herself. she drew up for mr. hardy, as she had done years before for mr. cardwell, the case for the defence of the school; she added personal entreaties of her own; and she sent sir harry verney to present the documents to the minister in person. "mr. hardy listened attentively while i read your papers," reported sir harry. "i emphasised passages underlined by you, indeed showing him your marks and initials. he said that he had not decided the matter, and i replied, 'and miss nightingale wants to get hold of you before you do.' i shall congratulate you most earnestly, my dearest florence, if your representations save the school, for i know that such success cheers you more than anything else." three weeks later, the minister returned the papers to sir harry, announced that the school would not be touched, and said he might tell miss nightingale that he would make the appointments she had suggested. some unfinished letters from m. mohl, found in his blotter after his death, were sent to miss nightingale by madame mohl, who leaned much on her "flochen's" sympathy in her loss:- (_to madame mohl._) lea hurst, _august_ 6 [1876]. dearest very dearest friend--indeed i do think i was worthy of him if always thinking of him, rejoicing in his progress in perfection and (formerly) grieving with his troubles and cares (but now he has _none_, now he is _always_ making glorious progress, else this world is a nonsense), made me so. but why do you distress yourself (your loss is great enough, immeasurable, irreparable, for this world) with saying such things about not having made the most of him while you had him? _he_ would not have said so. you found him a melancholy man: you made him a happy one. you gave zest to his life: all that it wanted. he always felt this himself: he could not bear to be without you. o thank god and say (like the lord of ossory about his son): i had rather have my dead son than any one else's living one. who has been so blest as you? where will you find so perfect a man? and you felt it, i know you did. and he felt your feeling it.... for m. mohl's glorious life on earth i thank god: but i thank him yet more, because this was only a beginning of life infinitely more glorious--as milton says: "death, called life, which us _from life_ doth sever." fare you well. may god be with us all. your old flo. it is 20 years to-day since i came back from the crimea. it is 15 since i lost sidney herbert. (_to the same._) south st., _feb._ 7 [1878]. dearest friend, ever dearest--indeed i do: i think daily and nightly of him and of you: the world is darker every year to me, and darker without him: for it seems as if a great light were gone out of it. and the people who survive seem so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable compared with those i knew once, loved once.... no: we shan't give a doit to help the turks. what! crush all those struggling young peoples, sclav and greek, back under the hideous massacres and oppression and corruption of the turk? we could not if we would. i don't feel very hopeful: for the worst eurasian government, we are allowing the worst european government to substitute itself. turkey was falling to pieces anyhow by its own bad weight; and we should not have let russia act alone in the coming freedom. may god give liberty to the christian provinces to work out _their own_ salvation! miss nightingale's interest in the eastern question, moved by the turkish atrocities in bulgaria, had been heightened by her close friendship with miss paulina irby. of the women friends whom miss nightingale saw frequently, and with whom she corresponded regularly, miss irby was one of the few who could in any intellectual and spiritual sense be called her equal. miss irby was a woman of the highest cultivation, an excellent scholar; a woman of most generous kindliness and simplicity of mind who truly thought no evil.[193] there was a sort of innocence in her that seemed to disperse difficulties of itself, and miss nightingale's papers contain references to occasions on which miss irby's friendly offices resolved many worries. she was a friend of mr. and mrs. nightingale, and florence had first met her at embley in 1869. she was one of the many women who revered the name of florence nightingale, and she had spent some months at kaiserswerth. she was enraptured by making the personal acquaintance of her heroine, and was used to say henceforth that any good she was able to do was owing to miss nightingale's example and sympathy. the good that miss irby did was great; in promoting education among the sclavonic christians of bosnia and herzegovina, and in relieving the distress among orphans and refugees. during the years 1874-79 miss irby was often in england, to collect funds and for other purposes connected with her work in the east. miss nightingale helped her much therein, and thus became very familiar with some aspects of the eastern question. this interest, combined with her detestation of the forward policy on the indian frontier, formed a link of sympathy with mr. gladstone. [193] it is unfortunate that no record of this admirable woman exists except a slight article in one of the reviews. her letters were, i am told, destroyed at her death in 1912; those from miss nightingale among the rest. a very large number of letters from miss irby is preserved among miss nightingale's papers. vii was miss nightingale's life happy or unhappy? her sister used to say to her, thinking of her many political acquaintances: "you lead such an interesting life." mr. jowett told her that her life was a blessed one, and that she ought so to think it. he always sent her a new year's letter, and on the last day of 1879 he wrote to her thus:- (_benjamin jowett to miss nightingale._) i cannot let the new year begin without sending my best and kindest wishes for you and for your work: i can only desire that you should go on as you are doing, in your own way. lessening human suffering and speaking for those who cannot make their voices heard, with less of suffering to yourself, if this, as i fear, be not a necessary condition of the life you have chosen. there was a great deal of romantic feeling about you 23 years ago when you came home from the crimea (i really believe that you might have been a duchess if you had played your cards better!). and now you work on in silence, and nobody knows how many lives are saved by your nurses in hospitals (you have introduced a new era in nursing); how many thousand soldiers who would have fallen victims to bad air, bad water, bad drainage and ventilation, are now alive owing to your forethought and diligence; how many natives of india (they might be counted probably by hundreds of thousands) in this generation and in generations to come have been preserved from famine and oppression and the load of debt by the energy of a sick lady who can scarcely rise from her bed. the world does not know all this or think about it. but i know it and often think about it, and i want you to, so that in the later years of your course you may see (with a side of sorrow) what a blessed life yours is and has been. is there anything which you could do, or would wish to do, other than you are doing? though you are overtaxed and have a feeling of oppression at the load which rests upon you. i think that the romance, too, which is with the past, did a great deal of good. like dr. pusey, you are a myth in your own life-time. do you know that there are thousands of girls about the ages of 18 to 23 named after you? as you once said to me "the world has not been unkind." everybody has heard of you and has a sweet association with your name. it is about 17 years since we first became friends. how can i thank you properly for all your kindness and sympathy--never failing--when you had so many other things to occupy your mind? i have not been able to do so much as you expected of me, and probably never shall be, though i do not give up ambition. but i have been too much distracted by many things; and not strong enough for the place. i shall go on as quietly and industriously as i can. if i ever do much more, it will be chiefly owing to you: your friendship has strengthened and helped me, and never been a source of the least pain or regret. farewell. may the later years of your life be clearer and happier and more useful than the earlier! if you will believe it, this may be so. in mr. jowett's example, his friend found strength and help, even as he did in hers. "he offers himself up to oxford," she used to say of him with admiration; and she offered up all her powers to the causes she had espoused. there were still to be many years during which she was able to work unceasingly for them. her life was to be not less useful than before, and perhaps, as increasing years brought greater calm, her life was also clearer. but happiness, as the world accounts it, she neither attained nor desired. she had a friend who was losing his devotion to high ideals, as she thought, in domestic contentment. "o happiness," she said of him, "like the bread-tree fruit, what a corrupter and paralyser of human nature thou art!" chapter vi lord ripon and general gordon (1880-1885) i thank god for all he is doing in india through lord ripon.--florence nightingale (1884). general gordon was the bravest of men where god's cause and that of others was concerned, and his courage rose with loneliness. he was the meekest of men where himself only was concerned. you could not say he was the most unselfish of men: he had no self.--florence nightingale (1886). "south street, _feb._ 2 [1880]. dearest--my dear mother fell asleep just after midnight, after much weariness and painfulness. the last three hours were in beautiful peace and all through she had been able to listen to and to repeat her favourite hymns and prayers, and to smile a smile as if she said, 'i'm dying: it's all right.' then she composed her own self to death at 9 last night: folded her hands: closed her own eyes: laid herself down, and in three hours she was gone to a greater love than ours.... do you remember what ezekiel says: 'and at eve my wife died: and i did in the morning as i was commanded.'"[194] miss nightingale's mother had almost completed her 93rd year. queen victoria sent a message of sympathy to which miss nightingale replied with particulars of the last hours such as her majesty was known to like, and she asked leave to address a letter to the empress of india on the condition of that country. permission was granted, and "doing in the morning as she was commanded" miss nightingale turned from thoughts of her mother's death to the grievances of the indian peoples and composed in general terms a plea for their redress. the queen made no response, but presently she sent a copy of the _life of the prince consort_. the _life_ contains much information about the famous proclamation to the people of india, in which the queen and the prince consort had been personally concerned, and miss nightingale made use of the fact when she next had an opportunity of addressing her sovereign on indian subjects. [194] letter to miss pringle. meanwhile, miss nightingale was suffering from nervous collapse, and the doctors ordered sea air. she went for three weeks to the granville hotel, ramsgate, but the change did her little good. "the doctors tell me," she wrote to miss pringle (march 28), "i must be 'free' for at least a year 'from the responsibilities which have been forced upon me' (and which, they might say, i have so ill fulfilled) and from 'letters.' but when is that year to come? i believe, however, i must go away again for a time, if only to work up the arrears of my indian work, which weigh heavily on my mind." she went in april for a few weeks to seaton, where lady ashburton had placed seaforth lodge at her disposal. she was not to be disturbed, but her hostess came from melchet for a few days, and had, as she wrote, "the deep joy of communion with my beloved." in the following month miss nightingale spent some days at claydon, where in subsequent years she often stayed for a longer time, taking much interest in local affairs there. her sister was now and henceforth an invalid, suffering sadly from rheumatic arthritis. nothing cheered her so much, said sir harry verney, as her sister's society, and now that mrs. nightingale's death made visits to lea hurst less imperative they hoped that florence "would treat claydon more as a home" than heretofore. she did as she was bidden, and for several years paid an annual visit to claydon, where "florence nightingale's room" is still shown. for the rest, miss nightingale's life continued on the old lines,[195] and whether at claydon or in south street the sabbatical year of freedom from responsibilities, letters, interviews, and blue-books did not come. [195] except that in march 1881 she spent ten days at the seaford bay hotel. ii in the spring of 1880, miss nightingale was intensely interested in the elections. her dislike of lord beaconsfield's policy, her recent intercourse with mr. gladstone, her hopes for india, her interest in the verneys, as well as her own sympathy with liberal ideas and the liberalism traditional in her family, made her a stout partisan. "i hope, dearest," she wrote to a nursing friend (march 28), "you care about the elections. you are in the thick of them. sir harry with patriotic pluck is in his 79th year fighting a losing battle at buckingham.[196] but what delights me is that the liberal side find that the labourers and the working man have waked up during the last 6 years to interests entirely new to them. then, 6 years ago, we could hardly get a hearing: now men jam themselves into small hot rooms, struggling for standing-room while for 3 hours they listen to political talk. whether we win or not, such interest will never die." when the liberal victory was complete, she was eager, like the rest of the political world, to know who would be prime minister, and more anxious than other people (except the few personally concerned) to know who would succeed lord lytton as viceroy of india. sir harry verney sent her the latest rumours from the row in the morning and from the clubs in the afternoon. she must have been greatly pleased when lord ripon's appointment to india was announced; but curiously there is no note about it, nor any record of a visit from him, nor at this stage any correspondence. they were, however, old friends; and as soon as lord ripon set to work in india, correspondence, at once cordial and confidential, began. advocacy of lord ripon's indian policy was indeed one of the absorbing interests which occupied miss nightingale during the years covered in the present chapter. her other main preoccupation was the state of the army medical and hospital service--a matter which became urgent in connection with the campaigns in south africa, egypt, and the soudan. [196] sir harry, however, won the battle. these two branches of work now occupied the front; but they did not cause miss nightingale to abandon other responsibilities, and the reader must supply a background of the various kinds of work described in earlier chapters. she was still busy with details of indian sanitation, for the _sanitary annual_ was still submitted to her revision. she was still consulted on questions of nursing administration and hospital construction. "they are in difficulties," wrote sir harry verney (jan. 30, 1881), in forwarding an application of this kind; "so they appeal to you--the family solicitor to whom we all turn when we get into a scrape, but your family is a large one--the whole human race." she still filled the part of lady bountiful, with more than that lady's usual care for detail, to her poorer neighbours in the country. the working-men's institute at holloway (near lea hurst) referred to her the question whether playing-cards should be admitted. she was in favour of the cards, but a majority of the committee were against them, and, before giving her opinion, she conducted an inquiry as elaborate and far-searching as if it were a case of cholera. and more assiduously, rather than less, did she devote herself to the affairs of the nightingale school and its old pupils. there are years at this period during which as many as 400 letters from nurses were preserved in this sort, and there are sisters to each of whom more than fifty letters were written. she introduced the innovation of sending her probationers to the national training school of cookery, and she looked over their notes on the lessons, founding thereon hints to the teachers. the extension of trained nursing in workhouse infirmaries called for more nightingale nurses. "yesterday," she wrote to madame mohl (june 30, 1881), "we opened the new marylebone infirmary (760 beds). we nurse it with our trained nurses, thank god! i have each of these women to see for three or four hours alone before she begins work." it was during this period that miss nightingale paid her first visit to the new st. thomas's hospital. she drove there on january 27, 1882, and inspected the quarters of her training school and one of the hospital wards. "just one week has elapsed," wrote the matron (feb. 4), "since you honoured us with your more than welcome presence, and i cannot go to bed to-night until i have thanked you for all the admiration in which you speak of _your home_ and the pretty alexandra ward. no words of mine can ever express the delight it gave us to welcome you, our dearly loved chief, to the home and school which has for more than 20 years borne 'her honoured name.'" the time was drawing near when pupils of the school were to follow in the footsteps of their chief and do nursing service in the east. iii in april 1880 a notable addition was made to miss nightingale's hero friends. general gordon introduced himself to her in order to introduce his cousin, mrs. hawthorn. she was the wife of a colonel in the engineers, and devoted herself to good work in military hospitals. she had been painfully impressed by the inefficiency of the orderlies, and had begged general gordon to "go to miss nightingale" in the matter. the character of "chinese gordon" was already most sympathetic to miss nightingale, and the personal touch now heightened her admiration. she gained at the same time in his cousin a friend to whom she became warmly attached, and who served as eyes and ears for her in a way which enabled her to forward useful reforms. general gordon's letters appealed strongly to miss nightingale as those of a kindred soul:- (_general gordon to miss nightingale._) _april_ 22 [1880]. in these days when so much is talked of the prestige of england, &c., &c. i cannot help feeling a bitter sentiment when one considers how little we care for those near and how we profess to care for those afar off. you wrote some kind words on your card when i called, and i am much obliged for them, but i do not think that i have done 1/20 part or suffered anything like the nurse of a hospital who, forgotten by the world, drudges on in obscurity. (_april_ 29.) i do not know the details myself. i took up the paper on the entreaties of my cousin, feeling sure that the truest way to gain recruits to our army would be by so remedying the defects and alleviating the sufferings of soldiers that universally should it be acknowledged that the soldier is cared for in every way. decorations may popularise the army to the few, but proper and considerate attention to the many is needed to do so to the public. to my mind it is astonishing how great people, who have all the power to remedy these little defects, who pride themselves on the prestige of our name, whose time must hang so very heavily on their hands, can remain year after year heedless of the sick and afflicted. i speak from experience when i say that both in china and soudan, i gained the hearts of my soldiers (who would do anything for me) not by my justice, &c., but by looking after them when sick and wounded, and by continually visiting the hospitals.... [if you cannot help us] well! i fall back on my verse "if thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perversity of judgment marvel not at it, for he that is higher than the highest regardeth it." miss nightingale took the matter up at once. she put the case into form, and submitted it, through sir harry verney, to the secretary for war, mr. childers, who promised to look into it. presently he called for a report on hospital nursing by orderlies, and in august the departmental answer was forwarded to miss nightingale. "i have seen such answers," she wrote,[197] "at the crimean war time. 'the patient has died of neglect and want of proper attendance; but by regulations should not have died; therefore the allegation that he is dead is disposed of.'" in this case the allegations were not disposed of, as we shall hear presently. [197] to captain galton, august 21, 1880. early in may general gordon left england as private secretary to lord ripon, and before starting he sent one of his "little books of comfort" to miss nightingale. he resigned the incongruous appointment almost as soon as he had reached india, and after a special mission in china returned to england. he saw miss nightingale and announced his intention of going to syria. miss nightingale upbraided him. his past claimed more of his future than a tour of curiosity in the east. why should he not return to india in an unofficial character? she could tell him of much work to do there:- (_general gordon to miss nightingale._) southampton, _april_ 4 [1881]. you have written most kindly and far too highly of me, for i find no responding tone in my heart to make me claim such praise. i will explain exactly how i am situated. i consider my life done, that i can never aspire to or seek employment, when one's voice must be stilled to some particular note; therefore i say _it_ is done, and the only thing now left to me is to drift along to its natural end and in the endeavour to do what little good one may be able to do. syria is, to me, no land of attraction, all lands are indifferent. i go for no desire of curiosity, but simply because it is a quiet land and a land where small means can do much good. that is all my reason for going there. i would have gone to the cape. i would have gone to india as you suggest, but i would never do so if i had to accept the shibboleth of the indian or colonial official classes.... my life is truly to me a straw, but i must live. would that it could go to give you and all others the sense that they are all risen in christ even now, even if it was at the cost of my eternal existence--such is the love i have for my fellow-creatures, but the door is shut. i cannot live in england; for though i have many many millions in my home, i am only put on short allowance here, tho' it is ample for me with my wants. i cannot visit the sick in london: it is too expensive. i can do so in syria, and where the sick are, there is our lord. i would do anything i could for india, but i feel sure my advent there would not be allowed. the time was presently to come when gordon's wish was in a way he knew not to be granted, and his death was to be an inspiration unto many. for the present, miss nightingale hoped for the cape or some other colonial duty rather than syria; and sir harry verney wrote to mr. gladstone on the matter, mentioning her name. this she had not intended. never reluctant to intervene in cases which might be considered within her competence, she had the strongest objection to weakening her influence by any appearance of meddling in matters wherein she had no better right to express an opinion than anybody else. she scolded sir harry severely for his indiscretion; but mr. gladstone sent a friendly answer (april 26): "he will make the circumstances known to lord kimberley who, he is sure, will, like himself, desire to turn colonel gordon's services to account." gordon, meanwhile, whose rapid changes of intention must at this time have been puzzling to his friends, had accepted a military appointment at mauritius, which, however, was soon followed by one at the cape. before leaving england, he again sent miss nightingale some of his little books.[198] she never saw or heard directly from him again; but from brussels, on the day before his fateful interview with the british cabinet in london, he wrote to sir harry verney (jan. 17, 1884): "i daily come and see you in spirit--you and miss nightingale." and from khartoum (feb. 26): "i am among the ruins of a government, and it is not cheerful work. however, many pray for me, and if it is god's will, i shall hope to get all things quieted down ere long. there is not much human hope in my wish, but i force myself to trust him. indeed one ought to be content with his help, and in fact can lean on no other, for i have none. unless he will turn the hearts of men towards peace, i have no hope. i wish i could have called and seen you and miss nightingale, but i had no time." after his death, she took for some years a lively interest in the management of the gordon boys' home. it was at a meeting in connection with it that her words, quoted at the head of this chapter, were read.[199] [198] namely, _short notes_ (bible readings), and thoughts on the holy communion entitled _thou shalt not eat, take eat_. miss nightingale's presentation copies of gordon's privately printed booklets included also his _remarks on expenditure in india_ (1881). [199] letter read at a meeting held at aldershot in support of the gordon boys' home, august 30, 1886. iv during the years 1881 and 1882 miss nightingale was very busy with indian questions, and when lord ripon's policy was disclosed, he became a hero to her almost comparable to general gordon. in forwarding to lord ripon a copy of one of her indian pieces, she sent her "deepest reverence and highest hopes for all the great measures by which the viceroy is bringing peace to the people of india and fulfilling england's pledges. and the love and blessing of india's people be upon him!" readers of the present generation, who do not remember the political controversies of thirty years ago, and who are familiar with experiments in indian reform, more daring in some respects than any which lord ripon attempted, may wonder at miss nightingale's enthusiasm. but it was very natural to one holding her views at the time. the admiration which she felt for lord ripon and his policy was equalled by the passionate detestation felt by the larger, if not the better, part of anglo-indian opinion. the opposition to the "ilbert bill," named after the member of the legislative council who introduced it, was intensely bitter; that to some other branches of lord ripon's policy, hardly less so. miss nightingale was behind the scenes both at calcutta or simla and in london: in india by confidential communications from lord ripon himself, in london through friends in the india office. she knew how uncertain was the support he received in his own council, and how strong was the opposition in the council in downing street. he was a good man fighting against adversity, and she was eager to do what she could to help him. his reforms were also hers. she had spent years of labour in mastering the intricacies of land tenure in india. for years her heart had been full of the grievances of the cultivators. and now lord ripon had prepared land reform bills for bengal and oudh which, if passed, would give the ryot security against oppression. she had thought much and written something on indian education.[200] it was "not enough," she had said, "to read locke and mill." she wanted an education which would teach the peoples of india to be "men," which would encourage them to the better cultivation of agriculture and industries, which would enable every _patel_ (village headman) to understand and enforce the principles of sanitation. and lord ripon had appointed an education commission (1882), from which some useful reforms followed. as for the "ilbert bill," which sought to confer upon duly qualified native judges powers equal to their position, it was in miss nightingale's eyes a measure of simple justice and duty; it was an honest fulfilment, within its scope, of the proclamation of 1858, in which the queen declared her pleasure, that as far as may be "our subjects of whatever race or creed be impartially admitted to our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability, and integrity duly to discharge." lord ripon's measures in the direction of local self-government similarly appealed to miss nightingale. it has been thought by some that lord ripon attempted too much and allowed too little for lord salisbury's "periods of indian cosmogony." but in these matters some one must begin; and if some of the hopes raised by lord ripon's pronouncements have been doomed to disappointment, the fears of his more frantic opponents have been in at least equal measure belied by the event. miss nightingale was among those with whom hope ran highest. her fundamental doctrine of human perfectibility by divine order encouraged her to see in lord ripon the providential instrument of vast changes. she approved whole-heartedly of all that he actually proposed, writing him letters of enthusiastic encouragement, and she also plied him with suggestions of further reforms. in particular, she sent him a scheme--in which captain galton, dr. sutherland, and sir richard temple collaborated with her--for village sanitation in india. she regarded his viceroyalty almost as the beginning of the millennium. [200] see bibliography a, no. 100. miss nightingale, however, was no idle or vague enthusiast. she was one of those who, while they fix their eyes on the stars, keep their feet firmly planted on the ground. she was as indefatigable as ever in mastering every detail, a process in which lord ripon's supply of minutes and other documents provided abundant material, and she continued to see and correspond with every available anglo-indian or indian who could help her, or whom she could hope to influence. there were two main lines on which her activities moved. "india says," she wrote, "'we want all the help you can give us from home.'" so, then, she devoted herself, in the first place, to the support of lord ripon's policy. she was constant in inspiring sympathisers at home to fresh exertions. she suggested meetings and propaganda. she wrote articles and assisted others to write. she was in constant communication with sir william wedderburn. she made the acquaintance of mr. a. o. hume, "the father of the indian national congress." she saw mr. dadabhai naoroji, mr. lalmohun ghose, and other indian gentlemen. but miss nightingale had no fanatical belief in the value of legislative reforms in themselves. they are worth no more than the public opinion and the individual effort which they express or inspire. if lord ripon's policy was indeed to inaugurate a millennium in india, there must be a new zeal alike in anglo-indian administration and among the more educated classes of india. in her interviews with the latter, she was constant in impressing upon them how much each one might do in promoting sanitation and education. she took a lively interest in the zenana mission. she saw mrs. scharlieb when that lady went out to practise medicine in india, corresponded with her, and gave her introductions. lord roberts came to see her (june 1881) before taking up his appointment as commander-in-chief in madras. mr. ilbert had seen her before going out as judicial member of the governor-general's council, and they kept up a correspondence. sir mountstuart grant duff similarly called on his appointment to the governorship of madras (june 1881), and throughout his term of office he wrote reporting progress on all matters likely to interest her. miss nightingale was particularly interested in agricultural development and education. she saw much of sir james caird, and corresponded with mr. w. r. robertson, the principal of the agricultural college in madras. candidates selected for the indian civil service were now given the option of a year's study at the university before going out, and at balliol mr. arnold toynbee was appointed a lecturer to them. miss nightingale made his acquaintance, and corresponded with him. "i know nothing," she wrote (may 30, 1882), "that tells so soon, so widely, so vigorously as indian civil service administration. balliol sends forth her raw missionaries; and in four years from the time he was an undergraduate, see what a man may do!" "could not some instruction be given," she suggested (oct. 20, 1882), "in agriculture and forestry," so as "at least to direct your students' attention to what are the peculiar wants of india, a knowledge often absent in her rulers? in agricultural chemistry, in botany (as regards plants and woods), in geology (as regards soils and water-supply), in forestry (as regards rainfall and fuel), in animal physiology (as regards breeds, fodder, and cattle-diseases), there is much ignorance in india. what if scientific agriculture could be taught at oxford?" these things have of late years been done both at oxford and at cambridge. then miss nightingale discussed with mr. toynbee the importance of familiarizing the students with the agrarian conditions in india, "so as to open the minds of these future administrators and judges to the real significance of their position and its responsibilities." to this end she induced her friend, sir george campbell, to give a course of lectures at oxford. of her own writings during this period[201] the most considerable was an elaborate exposition and defence of lord ripon's bengal land tenure bill, of which, as of his other measures, the fate was hanging in the balance. this paper--entitled in her fanciful way _the dumb shall speak, and the deaf shall hear, or, the ryot, the zemindar, and the government_--was read (by mr. frederick verney) at a meeting of the east india association at exeter hall on june 1, 1883, with sir bartle frere in the chair. it was well reported; there was a full attendance of distinguished anglo-indians, and a lively discussion followed. miss nightingale printed her paper as a pamphlet and distributed it widely. the discussion showed much difference of opinion, but every speaker paid a tribute to miss nightingale's knowledge and devotion. there was one who was able from personal experience to recall the thoughts of the audience to other scenes wherein she had won her first renown. this was surgeon-major vincent ambler. "i was sick in hospital at balaclava," he said, "and she nursed me through a long illness of crimean fever. she was with me, i might almost say, night and day, and it is to her good nursing and energetic attention i owe my recovery. previous to my illness i had had experience of her friendship when at scutari, where the hospitals were crammed with dead and dying, and cholera was carrying off hundreds of victims a day; it was amid such scenes as this that i constantly beheld miss nightingale." scenes not quite so terrible, but yet not entirely different, had been witnessed at this time in other fields of war; and miss nightingale, though no longer able to be in the midst of them herself, played some part, nevertheless, in ministering to the sick through her pupils, and in seeking to remedy defects in administration which the test of war had once more revealed. to these scenes, leaving lord ripon's measures trembling in the balance, we must now turn. [201] for the particulars, see bibliography a, nos. 97-99, 109-111. v the egyptian campaign of 1882 called for female nurses, and miss nightingale worked at high pressure in selecting them, and arranging details of their outfit. "i have been working some days," she told mrs. hawthorn (aug. 3, 1882), "from 4.30 a.m. till 10 p.m." mrs. deeble, of netley, was in command of the female nursing corps, twenty-four strong, in which several old pupils of the nightingale school at st. thomas's were enrolled. they wrote repeatedly to their "chief" at home, and she sent them constant messages of advice and encouragement. "a thousand thanks for your dear kind letter, which seems to have given me fresh vigour to combat against our many difficulties." "how good and kind you are to send me that welcome telegram. a few words now and then from you are so cheering." there are hundreds of such notes. the spirit of an old campaigner revived in miss nightingale as she read of stirring deeds, whether earlier in south africa or now in egypt. nor had her "children" in the army altogether forgotten their old friend. there were four men, wounded at majuba, who were detained for some weeks in hospital at netley. they spent their time of convalescence in making a patchwork quilt, and asked that it should be sent from them "to florence nightingale." in november 1882 the guards began to return from egypt. a regiment of them (grenadiers) was under the command of colonel philip smith, a nephew of sir harry verney, who persuaded miss nightingale to drive to the station to see their arrival. she was deeply moved:- _november_ 13 [1882]. for the first time for 25 years i went out to see a sight--to victoria station to see the return of the foot guards. anybody might have been proud of these men's appearance--like shabby skeletons, or at least half their former size--in worn but well-cleaned campaigning uniform; not spruce or showy, but alert, silent, steady. and not a man of them all, i am sure, but thought he had nothing in what he had done to be proud of; tho' _we_ might well be proud of _them_. royalty was there with its usual noble simplicity to bid them an unobtrusive welcome. the men, not the royalty, were to be all in all on that occasion. a more deeply felt and less showy scene could not have been imagined. so miss nightingale noted at the time, and presently she included her description in one of the letters which she sent every now and then at the commanding officer's request for him to read out to the men of the volunteer corps at romsey, near her old home. she used the incident again in an address to the nightingale probationers (1883). a few days later (nov. 18, 1882) there was a royal review, on the horse guards parade, of the troops returned from the egyptian campaign, and miss nightingale was present, at mr. gladstone's invitation, on a stand erected in the prime minister's garden. she was seated between him and mrs. gladstone, and mrs. gladstone, in recalling the occasion, used to say that "there were tears in miss nightingale's dear eyes as the poor ragged fellows marched past." her presence on this occasion was observed, and she was invited accordingly to attend the opening of the new law courts by the queen (dec. 4). she was given a place on the dais, and the queen, noticing her, sent a message to say "how pleased she was to see miss nightingale there, looking well." lord wolseley's egyptian campaign of 1882 was short and sharp, and from the combative point of view admirably managed, but there was a good deal of sickness among the soldiers. the fighting during these years (1880-82), both in south africa and in egypt, put to the test the re-organizations of the army medical and hospital service which had taken place since miss nightingale was "in office" with sidney herbert. the result of the test was far from satisfactory. there were, indeed, no scandals on the scale of the crimean war, and the death-rate during the egyptian campaign may fairly be cited as proof that great improvements had been effected since that time.[202] but there were grave defects, and miss nightingale played an active part both in bringing them to light and in striving for their prevention in future. she was in close touch with the hospital arrangements both in natal and in egypt through her friends among the lady nurses and lady visitors. from natal, one of the latter, mrs. hawthorn, had sent her many particulars, supported by evidence, of neglect in the hospitals. miss nightingale wrote a memorandum on the subject, which she submitted, again through sir harry verney, to the secretary for war. mr. childers appointed a court of inquiry (june 1882), presided over by sir evelyn wood, to investigate the charges. the committee reported that "improvements in the system of nursing are both practicable and desirable." "this is rather a mild opinion," wrote sir robert loyd lindsay (lord wantage) to miss nightingale (oct. 23, 1882), "considering that all the independent evidence went to show that the orderlies were often drunk and riotous, that they ate the rations of the sick, and left the nursing of the patients to the convalescents." the egyptian campaign followed, and many cases of neglect were alleged. the committee was reconstituted (oct. 1882) on an enlarged basis, under the chairmanship of the earl of morley, with instructions to inquire, with special reference to the egyptian campaign, into the organization of the army hospital corps and the whole question of hospital management and nursing in the field. miss nightingale had a close ally during this inquiry in lord wantage, who was a member of the committee. she suggested witnesses to him; and sent him elaborate briefs for their examination. she was furnished day by day with the minutes of evidence; and when the time came for preparing the report, she wrote successive papers of suggestions, which lord wantage submitted to the chairman. "i think," wrote lord wantage (may 5, 1883), "that the report, although dealing with details, and not going much beyond them, will be of service. and i am bound to say many of the best suggestions come from you, and for these i beg to thank you most sincerely"; and, again, in sending her an early proof of the report (june 12): "i can only repeat once more how valuable your aid was to me during the enquiry. if the secretary of state carries out the report, some of the most useful improvements will have originated with you." [202] the rate was 24.39 per 1000. miss nightingale found in the evidence a justification of her forebodings during past years. it disclosed evils comparable in kind, though not in extent, to those at scutari and in the crimea.[203] supplies procurable had not been procured. hospital equipment was incomplete. the cooking was defective, and so forth. these defects were due, miss nightingale considered, to the undoing of sidney herbert's work. the purveyor's department, reorganized by him and her, had been abolished. for the rest, their whole scheme of reorganization had been based on the regimental system, which had now been abandoned for a unitary system, though in time of war some return to the former was a necessity. miss nightingale did not wholly condemn these changes in themselves. what she complained of was that they had not been thought out in all the details or in terms of war. this was what she meant when she noted the progress of reorganization during previous years, and pronounced it lacking in administrative skill.[204] she now said that the changes must be accepted, and threw herself into the work of lending aid towards improvement. she saw and corresponded with the director-general of the army medical department, dr. t. crawford, than whom, she said, "we have not had such a man of unflagging energy since alexander."[205] she made friends with many other army doctors. among them was surgeon-major g. j. h. evatt, who had seen service in india, and was now at the royal military academy. he assisted miss nightingale in suggestions for the reorganization of the army hospital corps in india, which she sent to lord ripon. she was consulted on revised regulations for various branches of the medical service. she was in constant communication with her old associates, captain galton and dr. sutherland, and she urged the former to keep the question of reform to the front by writing in the papers and magazines. [203] see especially the evidence of lord wolseley himself, summarized at pp. 35-36 of the _report of the army hospital services inquiry committee_, 1883. [204] her points may be followed in detail in the article referred to below, p. 340, _n._ [205] letter to captain galton, nov. 28, 1883. vi in the middle of 1883 miss nightingale was in the thick of her two main preoccupations--the defence of lord ripon's indian policy and the reform of the army hospital service--when an opportunity came to her for putting in a word on behalf of each of these causes in the highest quarter. the decoration of the royal red cross had been instituted by royal warrant on april 23, 1883, and miss nightingale's attendance was requested at windsor on july 5 to receive the decoration for her "special exertions in providing for the nursing of the sick and wounded soldiers and sailors." she was invited to dine and sleep at the castle on the occasion. the queen, whose observant eye had noticed at the opening of the law courts that miss nightingale was attended by sir harry verney, hoped that he would again accompany her. the state of her health compelled miss nightingale to decline the invitation[206]; with the greater reluctance because there were two subjects--india and the army medical service--on which the queen had permitted her to speak on a previous occasion and on which she would now have highly prized the opportunity of speaking again. she begged to be permitted to write to her majesty instead. the permission was given, and miss nightingale sent a letter upon the state of the army medical and hospital services. a second letter contained an expository vindication of lord ripon's indian measures. in this connection it had been intimated to miss nightingale by a friend that she would do well to describe in a few words what the ilbert bill really was. the queen had doubtless read voluminous dispatches "about it and about," and perhaps been addressed on the subject by copious ministers "as if she were a public meeting," and like the greater number of her subjects may have felt little the wiser. miss nightingale condensed into the following words the nature of the bill and the case for it: "the so-called 'ilbert bill' is intended to give limited powers to try europeans, outside of the presidency towns, to native magistrates and judges who, after long trial of their judicial qualification, in corresponding positions, have shown themselves worthy to be entrusted with this duty and have risen to that grade where for their official responsibility such powers are required. it is no new experiment, but has been tried on the bench of the high courts and in the chief magistracies of the presidency towns." miss nightingale then went on to refer to the queen's "noble proclamation" of 1858, and to connect the ilbert bill with it. "the queen has proclaimed that she will admit the natives of india to share in the government of that country without distinction of race and creed. she has invited them to educate themselves to qualify for her service as englishmen do. in face of the greatest difficulties they have in competition with our ablest young men gained honourable place, and by trial in long service have proved themselves efficient and trustworthy." it would be disastrous, miss nightingale went on to argue, if, in deference to clamour, the queen's government were to draw back from giving effect to her majesty's gracious assurances:- (_sir henry ponsonby to miss nightingale._) osborne, _august 13 [1883]_. the queen hopes you will forgive her for not answering your letters herself. her majesty has been so constantly interrupted in writing that she has entrusted to me the duty of conveying to you her thanks for the two very interesting communications you have been good enough to address to her majesty. with regard to the "ilbert bill" which is now being so vehemently discussed, the queen cannot but deplore the acrimony with which the question has been treated; but as it is a matter under the consideration of her majesty's government, the queen is unwilling to express any opinion upon the measure at present. it gave the queen sincere pleasure to confer the decoration of the royal red cross upon you, who have worked so hard and who have effected so much in the sanitary departments of the army, and the queen is very grateful for your observations on the military medical questions, and has read with much interest the paper in the _fortnightly review_[207] to which you called her attention. her majesty considers your remarks of the highest value, and fully concurs in your opinion that the hospital services should be carried out in a manner calculated to relieve the medical officer from the care of details not belonging to his medical work. the abolition of the purveyor's department and the change from the regimental to the general system--which the queen much regrets--were both effected on the recommendation of the medical officers, and the queen observes that those who gave evidence before the late committee of enquiry consider these steps to have improved the efficiency of their department. these matters have been prominently brought to her majesty's notice lately, as the selection of a new commandant to netley hospital is now under consideration, and the comparative advantages of naming a combatant or medical officer are being discussed. the queen was extremely sorry to have missed the opportunity of seeing you at windsor, but trusts that on some future occasion she may be more fortunate. i am to repeat to you her majesty's thanks for your letters, and to assure you that the queen will always be glad to receive any communications from you. [206] the decoration was accordingly sent to her by the secretary of state on july 17. it is now placed, in accordance with directions in miss nightingale's will, in the museum of the united service institution. [207] "the army hospital service," by captain douglas galton, in the _review_ of july 1, 1883. the practical interest which queen victoria took in army matters may have been a factor in the prompt attempt to remedy the evils to which miss nightingale had called attention. in the following year miss nightingale obtained, through lord wantage, a statement from the war office (oct. 17, 1884) "showing how far the recommendations of lord morley's committee had been carried out." there were very few of the evils left unremedied--at any rate on paper. there was one feature of the hospital service upon which the inquiries above mentioned threw nothing but praise, and that was the female nursing. lord wolseley, whose service dated back, like miss nightingale's, to the crimean war, was particularly emphatic on this point. "i have always thought," he said, "that the presence of lady nurses in our military hospitals was a matter of the first consequence. when, as a general, i have inspected hospitals, i always felt i could not really 'get at' the patients; few men would dare to speak against the orderlies of a hospital, no matter how you may question them, but they would tell what they think very freely to a lady nurse who is attendant upon them. apart from the incalculable boon which the care and kindness of such ladies confers upon the sick or wounded soldier, i regard their presence in all our hospitals as a most wholesome check upon the whole personnel in them. i am sure that the patients in a ward where there was a lady nurse would always receive the wine, food, etc., ordered them by the doctor, and the irregularities of the orderlies, such as those complained of by mrs. hawthorn, could not take place. i am therefore of opinion that it was very wrong to have prevented that lady from entering the wards at pietermaritzburg, and i think it would be desirable to call attention in the queen's regulations to the great advantage of procuring the aid of lady nurses at all stations, both in peace and war."[208] all this is precisely the doctrine preached by miss nightingale when she said that the most important function of the female nurse was the education of the male orderly. lord wolseley, in the memorandum just quoted, was speaking from personal experience in south africa. subsequent experience in egypt confirmed his opinions, and in his evidence before the later committee of inquiry he was even more emphatic. "the employment of lady nurses to a very large extent in every hospital on service" was the surest way to efficiency. the female nurses at cairo, ismailia, and alexandria were of the "greatest assistance." "it was delightful to go into a ward where there was a female nurse. their presence made the greatest difference." "if i might so describe them, although it is not perhaps a complimentary way of describing them, they are the best spies in the hospital upon everybody."[209] [208] memorandum by the adjutant-general printed at p. 1 of _proceedings of a court of inquiry into the army hospital corps employed in south africa, war office, june 1882_. [209] see questions 6166, 6214, 6215. vii the nurses were soon to have another opportunity of proving their usefulness; but we must first return, with miss nightingale, to lord ripon's indian reforms, the fate of which was in the middle of 1883 still uncertain. "which way," she wrote to friends likely to know, "do you think the storm is going?" she had urged the viceroy "not to yield to the storm which raged round him," and he had assured her that he had no inclination whatever to do so, though he would not be unwilling to admit reasonable amendments to his proposals. the viceroy's letters showed miss nightingale that his policy would need all the support that those in england who agreed with it could give. the storm-centre was the ilbert bill, and lord ripon's letter had prepared miss nightingale for coming events. "reasonable amendments" were ultimately accepted, and the "ilbert bill" was passed (jan. 1884). the compromise was that europeans tried before native judges should have the right of claiming a jury. "the so-called compromise is, in fact, a surrender," wrote one of miss nightingale's radical friends; but for her part she held that the viceroy had wisely yielded somewhat on a less important point, in order to improve the prospects of his more important measures. with these, from time to time, lord ripon reported satisfactory progress. after some difficulties with the india office, he was allowed to establish an agricultural department in bengal. the prospects of the land tenure bills were favourable.[210] the local self-government bills were passed. educational reforms had been made. then, presently, it was announced in london that lord ripon had resigned and would shortly return to england. miss nightingale was much perturbed, and accused her friend of "deserting the empire." lord ripon in reply sent her a long letter of explanation, the gist of which was that he had exhausted his powers of usefulness in india, and that, by retiring now instead of serving his full term, he would be more likely to obtain a sympathetic successor. the successor was soon appointed, and early in november lord dufferin came to see miss nightingale. "my visit from lord dufferin," she wrote to dr. sutherland (nov. 6), "took place yesterday. we went over many things--sanitation, land tenure, agriculture, civil service, etc. etc. and i am to send him a note of each. but about sanitary things he says he is perfectly ignorant, especially of indian sanitary things. but he says, 'give me your instructions and i will obey them. i will study them on my way out. send me what you think. supply the powder and i will fire the shot.' give me quickly what instructions you think i should send him." this letter reached dr. sutherland on a friday, and she had commanded him to send in his notes "before monday." but, as ill luck had it, the doctor was busy "in working at the cholera bacillus with a beautiful vienna microscope purchased with this object." that would occupy him on friday and saturday, and sunday was sunday; so "the viceroy must wait." the reader who remembers an earlier chapter will be able to imagine miss nightingale's wrath. notes and telegrams, now withering, now pleading, followed fast upon each other. "i did not know the bacillus was of more consequence than a viceroy." "if you did a little on sunday, the recording angel would drop not a tear but a smile." but dr. sutherland was not to be cajoled into abandoning either his science or his sabbatarianism; and on the former point he put in a very good plea in mitigation of judgment. if dr. koch's cholera bacillus turned out well, the discovery would save many more lives than lord dufferin, however carefully instructed, was likely to do. miss nightingale did not believe in the bacillus but allowed herself to be appeased, especially as it turned out that lord dufferin was not leaving london till a day or two later than she had supposed. so, she and dr. sutherland collaborated in indoctrinating their fifth viceroy in the truths of their sanitary gospel. there is a formidable list in her hand of "papers for lord dufferin." as he was as good as his word, he must have had a strenuous voyage. on starting he sent to her one of his pretty little letters:- (_lord dufferin to miss nightingale._) s.s. "tasmania," _nov._ 13 [1884]. my dear miss nightingale--i duly received the papers you were good enough to send me, and you may be quite sure of my studying them with the attention they deserve. i well know how well entitled you are to speak with authority in reference to indian questions, and i can well believe that you have thought out many conclusions which it would be of the greatest benefit to me to ponder over. i hope you will forgive me for adding that one of the pleasantest "sweets of office" i have yet tasted has been the privilege i acquired of coming to pay you that little visit. [210] they were ultimately passed with some amendment by lord ripon's successor. meanwhile, miss nightingale, in the hope of completing the new viceroy's education, had written an account of her interview to lord ripon, so that when they met he might know on what points his successor most needed indoctrinating. lord dufferin had not long been gone when an opportunity offered itself for another effort at evangelization. at the end of november mr. gladstone called upon miss nightingale. he had come without an appointment, and she was unable to see him; but assuming, for her purpose, that he had proposed to discuss indian questions, she sent him a written statement of her views on various matters, and asked leave to write again with more special reference to lord ripon's splendid record. mr. gladstone thanked her (dec. 6) for the valuable letter; said that the best use he could make of it would be to commend it to the attention of lord kimberley[211]; and added that he would be very glad to hear her views about lord ripon's administration. she had wanted to interest mr. gladstone, and was disappointed that he had only passed her letter on to lord kimberley, who, she thought, meant the india council, a body not sympathetic to the ripon policy. but, as she had been given the opening, she made another attempt. mr. gladstone was, of course, in general sympathy with lord ripon, but she wanted the prime minister to give greater prominence and emphasis to indian internal reforms in his speeches. she did not succeed. "i wish i could hope," wrote a friend who knew both india and mr. gladstone well (jan. 4, 1885), "that you could make some real impression on him; but at his age and at this time, when his hands are so full, what can you expect? he has never given his mind to india, and it is too late now." it was not only mr. gladstone who was preoccupied at this time with other things than the welfare of the indian peoples. miss nightingale soon discovered this. lord ripon was nearly due in england. he ought, she said, to receive a popular welcome as enthusiastic as any accorded to a conquering general. as there were no signs of any preparation in that sort, she worked very hard, though with very little success, to organize a welcome in the form of laudatory articles in various newspapers and reviews.[212] she herself wrote an enthusiastic appreciation, but she was unwilling to sign it. the editors were willing to publish anything to which miss florence nightingale would give her name, but for articles in praise of lord ripon's policy without that attraction there was no demand. as soon as it was disclosed that what was offered was only an unsigned article, or an article signed by some nominee of hers, the editors, with one consent, discovered that exigencies of space prevented its insertion. and this was not surprising; for khartoum had fallen, and the government was tottering. miss nightingale was as keenly interested as any one else in those things; but there were few beside herself to whom the standing problems of indian administration were matters of "life and death," no less passionately interesting than the fate of a hero or the fall of a ministry. [211] who had been transferred from the colonial to the india office in december 1882. [212] the only success was with the _pall mall gazette_, which published a welcoming article (by mr. f. verney) on january 22. viii lord wolseley had been appointed to command a gordon relief expedition in august 1884. there were already female nurses in egypt. some had been retained at cairo after the arabi campaign of 1882. others had been sent to suakin during the "military operations" of 1883. more were now sent by the government, and some were ordered up the nile to wady halfa. miss nightingale felt this to be a great event. "luther says," she wrote to miss pringle (claydon, oct. 11, 1884), "that he looks and sees the firmament which god has made without pillars, and we wretched men are always afraid that it will tumble down unless we make our little pillars half a foot high. it is 34 years since i was at wady halfa. how little i could ever have thought that there would be trained nurses now there! o faithless me, that think god cannot make his firmament without pillars." but miss nightingale's religion enjoined, as we know, "working with god." the ultimate issue did not rest upon the little pillars; but they must be set up for what they are worth none the less, and miss nightingale threw herself, heart and soul, into forwarding the egyptian nursing campaign. presently more nurses were sent out on private initiative--some by the national aid society, others by a committee of ladies. on february 20, 1885, lady rosebery called at south street. she and mrs. gladstone and lady salisbury, and other ladies, with the princess of wales, were proposing to establish a committee of their own to send additional comforts for the sick and wounded, as well as additional nurses. in order to secure unity of administration, and in loyalty to lord wantage's society, miss nightingale advised against any separate organization, and the committee, which she then agreed to join, was reconstituted as "the princess of wales's branch of the national aid society." the superintendent of the nurses sent out by the government was one of miss nightingale's dearest pupils, miss rachel williams, whose acquaintance we have made already under her pet-name of "the goddess." she had been in indifferent health and much worried. she stayed in south street while arrangements were pending, and miss nightingale announced the departure to miss pringle (march 4): "our darling has started this morning by the _navarino_ with seven nurses for suez. if you had seen, as i did, how, the moment it was settled that she was to have this work, the cloud and the load were lifted off her, and she became again the goddess and her youth returned, you would have felt, as she said, that providential goodness had opened and guided every step of her way. as soon as her appointment was made she looked as beautiful and bonny as ever." the rapidity of miss nightingale's decision, her memory for matters of detail, her thoughtfulness for others even in trivial things, her kindliness of heart interlacing the practical instinct, the mingled playfulness and gravity of her manner--these things are all illustrated in the reminiscences of another member of the party which sailed for egypt in the _navarino_:- i was then sister of one of the surgical wards at king's college hospital. it was on a saturday in february, about midday, just as i was due to attend the operation cases from my ward, that a one-armed commissionaire appeared at the ward door: "a note for sister philippa from miss nightingale," he said. the request it contained was characteristic of the writer--decisive, yet kindly. would i leave in three days' time for service in the soudan? if so, i must be at her house for instructions on monday at 8.30 a.m., at marlborough house to be interviewed by queen alexandra (then princess of wales) at 11 a.m.; and immediately afterwards at messrs. cappers, gracechurch street, to be fitted for my war uniform. would i also breakfast with her on wednesday, so that she "might check the fit of my uniform, and wish me god-speed." months afterwards, when the war was over, and we were quietly chatting over things at claydon, how she enjoyed hearing the numerous trivial details of that three days' rush! again and again she would refer to that afternoon when i had to stand by the patient's side in the operating theatre, mechanically waiting on the surgeons, outwardly placid, yet inwardly, as i told her, in a fever of excitement, not so much at the thought of going to the front, as at the fact i had been chosen by her to follow in her footsteps. on the monday above referred to, punctually at half-past eight, i arrived at south street, wondering what my reception would be, but before ten minutes had passed all wonder and speculation had given place to unbounded admiration and (even at that early acquaintanceship) affection for the warm-hearted old lady who counselled me as a nurse, mothered me as an out-put from her home, and urged me to spare no point--myself specially--where the soldiers were concerned. "remember;" she said, "when you are far away up-country, possibly the only english woman there, that those men will note and remember your every action, not only as a nurse, but as a woman; your life to them will be as the rings a pebble makes when thrown into a pond--reaching far, reaching wide--each ripple gone beyond your grasp, yet remembered almost to exaggeration by those soldiers lying helpless in their sickness. see that your every word and act is worthy of your profession and your womanhood." then she asked me to accept an india-rubber travelling bath as "her parting gift to a one-time probationer who had once reminded her that cleanliness was next to godliness,"[213] and in spite of the merry twinkle in her eye as she said this, there were tears of anxious kindness as she added, "god guard you in his safe keeping and make you worthy of his trust--our soldiers." i saw nothing more of her till wednesday morning. the troop-ship in which we were to go out left tilbury docks at 11 o'clock, and i was to breakfast with miss nightingale at half-past seven. it was rather a rush to manage it, but it was well worth any amount of inconvenience to have that last hour with her, and it was a picture that will always remain above all others in my memory. propped up in bed, the pillows framing her kindly face with its lace-covered silvery hair, and twinkling eyes. i often think her sense of humour must have been as strong a bond between her and the soldiers as her sympathy was. the coffee, toast, eggs, and honey, "a real english breakfast, dear child," she said, "and it is good to know you will have honestly earned the next one you eat in england." "and suppose i don't return to eat one at all?" i asked. "well! you will have earned that too, dear heart," she answered quietly. who can be surprised that we worshipped our chief? other nurses were going out in the same ship as i, and when we entered our cabins we found a bouquet of flowers for each of us, attached to which was "god-speed from florence nightingale." six months after, in the glare and heat of an august afternoon, when the egyptian campaign was a thing of the past, a shipload of sick and wounded soldiers glided slowly into the docks at southampton. while i was helping to transfer some of the most serious cases to netley, a telegram was handed to me. it was from miss nightingale: "am staying at claydon, cleaners and painters in possession of 10 south street, but two rooms, mrs. neild [the housekeeper], and a warm welcome are awaiting your arrival there. use them as long as you wish." on arriving at south street i found it all just as she had said, and by the first post next day came a letter from claydon, _such_ a home welcome! it was well worth all the heat and glare of a soudan summer, all the absence of water, and presence of insects, and the hundred and one other uncomfortable things that flesh is heir to during similar circumstances, to get such a letter of welcome as that. it ended up with "make south street your headquarters till your work is finished" (there was much detail to complete in connection with the national aid society before i could leave london), "and then come to me at claydon." so after a couple of weeks' work in london, i went to claydon, and there, during a month's rest in one of the most beautiful of england's country homes, i learned to know and understand miss nightingale, to realize what the friendship of a character like hers means. "the essence of friendship," says emerson, "is tenderness and trust." no words better describe our chief than these. [213] the writer--sister philippa hicks (mrs. large)--was the "cheeky probationer" above quoted, p. 252. afterwards matron of the great ormond street children's hospital (1888); founder of the first "co-operation for nurses," at 8 new cavendish street (1892); gave up nursing to be married (1898). sister philippa was only one of the many war-nurses to whom their chief showed this tender friendship. during their service abroad, she was constant in letters of encouragement and advice:- (_to miss williams_, at suez.) 10 south street, _july_ 3.... the orderlies are not hopeless but untrained. government are now doing all they can. in my day they _were_ hopeless. they place them now under the sisters. the great business of the sisters _is_ to train them. it is the more aggravating when there are so few sisters that they _can't_ give time to train these men who are essential in the field. o how i wish i could send you several sisters at once! but i am altogether puzzled. your telegrams, which i suspect were not dictated by you, say "sufficient." would that i could help you to nurse the typhoids! i am sure you _are_ doing great good among the orderlies, even tho' you do not know it. the very fact that they see you think neglect a crime does good. how well i know their fatal neglects with typhoid cases! but 30 years ago women nurses were just as bad. see the difference now. there is a miss williams. cheer up: fight the good fight of faith. i need not say this to my dear, for she _is_ fighting it. god bless her! when i am gone, she will see the fruit of her labours. three cheers for her! a dieu. to god i commend you. would i were his servant as you are. i wonder whether you have had my letters. i have written by every mail.[214] (_to the same._) 10 south street, _july_ 17 [1885]. yesterday the guards camel corps and the heavies marched into london, after having been reviewed by the queen at osborne. sir harry went to see them inspected by the commander-in-chief at wellington barracks. (i would have given anything to have seen the meeting with their comrades if i had been well enough to go.) and he said it was the most affecting thing he ever saw. these were the men who marched across the bayuda desert--a handful of men taking tender care of their handful of wounded, attacked by twelve times their number--and reached the nile below khartoum; but when the steamer reached khartoum, khartoum had fallen and gordon was dead. there is a picture of gordon called "the last watch," where he is watching on the ramparts, the last night. it is very fine. he is unseen and alone; there is the far-off look in his eyes of solemn happiness at his reunion with god, so near, of deep grief for the poor black populations whom he has to leave to their misery, and whom he has failed to extricate; and yet of abiding, faithful trust in god that he will do all things for the best. it was his constant prayer--first for god's glory, then for these people's welfare, and his own humiliation--that is, that he should feel the more, himself being humbled, the indwelling god in himself. have the little _lives of gordon_ reached your men yet?[215] [214] she had indeed, and more. i have counted the letters. there were sixty-five to miss williams during her service in egypt. [215] miss nightingale had obtained leave to make a cheap reprint of mr. c. h. allen's _popular life of general gordon_ for free distribution at her expense among the soldiers. florence nightingale was living her crimean life again in the life of her pupils. many a little incident recalled the old days to her. one of the nurses wrote that in her hospital the supply of soap had given out. "send to cairo," miss nightingale answered, "for any quantity you like, and i'll pay, but only if you can do it without embroiling yourself with the authorities." another of her pupils was nursing in the citadel hospital at cairo. "i am on night duty now," she wrote, "and i don't dislike it at all: in fact i enjoy trotting about this weird old place all by myself in the solemnity of the night! and now and then hearing a low voice saying, 'sister, would you mind doing so and so,' 'sister, can you give me something to ease my face,' etc., etc., and then feeding the hungry enteric patients at stated times who open their mouths in turn like so many little birds!" the picture drawn in this letter, and the zest which it showed, pleased miss nightingale greatly, and she passed it on to old pupils at home. they were thrilled. lucky sybil! they said; she is doing work like the chief's at scutari! another lady with the lamp amid the glimmering gloom! and miss nightingale, who received from the medical authorities of the army most satisfactory reports on the services rendered by her nurses, rejoiced in their successes and usefulness. she would have smiled upon any pupil "at the first stroke which passed what _she_ could do." yet with thankfulness that she had been able to show the way to others, there was mingled something of the wistful regrets of old age. there was much in the administrative conduct of the nursing service at the front which she could have ordered better. there was a paragraph in a newspaper about the attractions of "afternoon tea in the nurses' tent" which pained her (though the reference here was not, i think, to any of her own nightingale nurses). encouraging, cheery, helpful to others, she was in herself sad and almost sombre. it was in vain that mr. jowett still enjoined her to dwell upon all that she had been able to do, upon the many blessings which had attended her work. "you will have felt general gordon's death," he wrote (feb. 22), "as much as any one. what poor creatures most of us seem in comparison with him! but not you, not you!" but the note which she struck in her next address to the probationers was all of humility. old friends and comrades were dying. in 1882 a dear friend of her girlhood--madame mohl--died in paris. in the same year dr. farr died--one of the founders in this country of her favourite science of statistics, and an associate of hers in work with sidney herbert. one of the most valued of her allies in later indian work--sir bartle frere--died in 1884. in the previous year a yet older friend, and one of her wisest counsellors--sir john mcneill--had died. he had sent her a copy of the last piece he wrote; the preface to a new edition of sir alexander tulloch's _reply to the chelsea board_, in which sir john in turn replied to the version of that affair given by mr. kinglake.[216] her letter to him, sent "with the deepest affection and veneration," was in a sombre vein. the correspondence recalled old days, but again "how little permanent progress had been made!" she only, she began to feel, was left; and she so unworthy! what opportunities she had been given! how little use she had been able to make of them! there were "dark nights of the soul" when such self-reproaches were grievous. but some years of life would perhaps still be granted to her. she would consecrate them the more devotedly to higher service. "to-day," she wrote (christmas day, 1885), "let me dedicate this poor old crumbling woman to thee. behold the handmaid of the lord. i was thy handmaid as a girl. how have i back-slidden!" [216] see on this subject, vol. i. p. 337. chapter vii "the nurses' battle"; and health in the village (1885-1893) nursing cannot be formulated like engineering. it cannot be numbered or registered like population.--florence nightingale (1890). what can be done for the health of the home without the woman of the home? in the west, as in the east, women are needed as rural health missioners.--florence nightingale (1893). the period of miss nightingale's life covered in this chapter includes the year of queen victoria's jubilee; which was also what miss nightingale used to consider _her_ jubilee year. she fixed her effectual call at february 7, 1837. in 1887 she had thus completed fifty years vowed to service. in august, a month of many memories to her, she looked back over the past and around her in the present, and was in a despondent mood:- (_miss nightingale to mrs. s. smith._) claydon house, _aug._ 5 [1887]. dearest aunt mai--thinking of you always, grieved for your suffering, hoping that you have still to enjoy. in this month 34 years ago you lodged me in harley st. (aug. 12). and in this month 31 years ago you returned me to england from scutari (aug. 7). and in this month 30 years ago the first royal commission was finished (aug. 7). and since then, 30 years of work often cut to pieces but never destroyed. god bless you! in this month 26 years ago, sidney herbert died, after five years of work for us (aug. 2). in this month 24 years ago, the work of the second royal commission (india) was finished. and in this month this year it seems all to have to be done again. and in this month this year the work at st. thomas's hospital seems all to have to be done again--changing matrons--after 27 years. and in this month this year my powers seem all to have failed and old age set in. may the father almighty, irresistible--for love is irresistible--whose work and none other's this is, conduct it always, as he has done, while i have misconducted it. may he do _in_ us what he would have us do. god bless you, dearest aunt mai. as ever your old loving flo. and in this month, too, florence nightingale was to die; but nearly a quarter of a century of life was first granted to her, and for the greater part of the time she remained in full possession of her faculties. though she might be an "old lady" to young nurses, others remarked that she looked wonderfully fresh and youthful for her years. if old age had set in, her powers had by no means failed, and in many directions her work, though sometimes sore beset, continued to prosper. we will take first in our survey her work in the nursing world. the "change of matrons" at st. thomas's hospital, caused by the retirement of mrs. wardroper, was hardly such a tragedy as it seemed to miss nightingale. mrs. wardroper had done her work, and there were younger women competent to fill the place. mr. jowett often begged miss nightingale to remember that "there is no necessary man--or woman"--"not even," as, greatly daring, he once added, "yourself." but in this case the chief of the nightingale school was not yet retiring, and she would still be able to supervise it--perhaps even more closely under a new matron. for many years miss nightingale continued to maintain the intimate touch with her school that has been described in an earlier chapter: seeing the sisters constantly, making the personal acquaintance of nurses, conferring with their medical instructors, reading their diaries and examination papers. her heart was even more closely in the work when she secured the appointment, as mrs. wardroper's successor, of her dear friend, miss pringle. presently, however, there came what was a heavy blow to miss nightingale. miss pringle joined the roman communion, and it was necessary that she should retire from the matronship of st. thomas's. the months of unsettlement before the conversion was made were full of grief to miss nightingale. indeed her notes and meditations suggest that the "loss" of her favourite pupil was one of the heaviest griefs of her life; but she loved her friend too well for the sorrow to leave any abiding bitterness. over and over again in her meditations she wrote down lines from clough's _qua cursum ventus_. miss pringle was succeeded by miss gordon, an old pupil of the nightingale school; she and miss nightingale speedily became the best of friends, and things went on much as before in the school. all these changes, with the delicate weighing of rival claims and sometimes with the worrying conflict of personal ambitions, caused miss nightingale heavy anxiety. intensely conscientious, acutely sensitive, and seeing in every change a great potentiality of good or evil, she could not treat such things as mere matters of business. there have been prime ministers who could not sleep of nights under the sense of responsibility caused by ecclesiastical preferment; and to miss nightingale the selection of a superintendent or a home sister was even as the appointment of a bishop. ii the movement for district nursing, which was always near to miss nightingale's heart, and which, in conjunction with mr. rathbone and others, she had done much to promote, received considerable extension by the action of queen victoria in 1887. the bulk of the sum presented as the "women's jubilee gift" was devoted by the queen to "the nursing the sick poor in their own homes by means of trained nurses." she appointed the duke of westminster, sir rutherford alcock, and sir james paget to be trustees of the fund, and to advise upon its administration. sir james paget consulted miss nightingale, who, in several conversations, impressed upon him her view that the essential things were the training of nurses for the work, and the association of them in "homes." the lines of the "metropolitan district nursing association," which had for many years been largely supported by nurses trained in the nightingale school and by grants from the nightingale fund, were adopted as the basis of the "jubilee institute for nurses," and the association presently became affiliated to the institute. in an introduction which she contributed in 1890 to a book giving account of these matters,[217] miss nightingale struck a warning note. "the tendency is now to make a formula of nursing; a sort of literary expression. now, no living thing can less lend itself to a formula than nursing. nursing has to nurse living bodies and spirits. it must be sympathetic. it cannot be tested by public examinations, though it may be tested by current supervision." the royal jubilee institute in some ways advanced miss nightingale's cause, but she had misgivings. "_vexilla regis prodeunt_; yes, but of which king?" was the oriflamme, which was now beginning to wave above the nursing sisterhood, "of heavenly fire, or of terrestrial tissue?" "we are becoming the fashion," miss nightingale was fond of saying; "we must be on our guard. royalty is smiling on us; we must have a care." such misgivings were speedily to be justified. [217] see bibliography a, no. 120. the nursing world was for some years rent in twain by a dispute about royal charters and registration. the controversy lasted for seven years (1886-93); miss nightingale was in the thick of it, and during the more critical period of the dispute (1891, 1892) it was her main public preoccupation. in 1886 the hospitals association[218] appointed a committee to inquire into the possibility of establishing a general register of nurses. the committee violently disagreed; in 1887 the majority retired, and the minority founded the british nurses association with a view to carrying forward a scheme of registration. in 1888 the hospitals association appointed a second committee which proceeded to collect opinions from the various nurse training schools. these schools were for the most part opposed to the idea of a general register; but there was difference of opinion among leaders alike in the medical profession and in the nursing world. "i have a terror," wrote miss nightingale to mr. bonham carter (april 20, 1889), "lest the b.n.a.'s and the anti-b.n.a.'s should form two hostile camps, judging one another by that test chiefly or alone. this would be disastrous. the unionists and the home rulers show us an example of what this is. they are two hostile camps, dividing families. it is like a craze. the test, _e.g._ even of a good doctor or of an acquaintance is, to which camp does he belong? even a doctor, canvassing for an appointment, is asked whether he is home ruler or unionist. i can remember nothing so distressing since the reform bill, which i remember very well, when the two sides would not meet each other at dinner." i do not know that feeling between the pro-registrationists and the anti-registrationists went to the length of war-to-the-knife-and-fork; but the "nurses' battle" (as it was called in the newspapers) was hot and prolonged. from a fighting point of view, the two sides were fairly matched. on each side there were eminent doctors. the "anti's" had an advantage in that they included the greater number of those who had the longest and closest knowledge of nurse-training; but the "pro's" had a princess at their head. the princess christian had accepted the presidency of the british nurses association; and when the time came for applying for a charter, it was the princess who petitioned the queen. "this makes it awkward for us," said mr. rathbone to miss nightingale; and undoubtedly it did. there were courtly personages even among miss nightingale's devoted adherents who were inclined to trim; and there were other persons, who, having never perhaps thought out the questions, were predisposed to do as the princess did. let each man in the battle have such credit as is due for his personal loyalty. "in any matter of nursing, miss nightingale is my pope," wrote mr. rathbone, "and i believe in her infallibility." "nothing can save us," he said to miss nightingale herself, "except your intervention." she was not slow to give it. suggestions were made by intimate friends--sir henry acland and sir harry verney--that she should see the princess christian and endeavour to come to terms; and later on, in 1893, when the empress frederick visited miss nightingale, they renewed the suggestion. but the princess christian had made no overtures; she was committed to the particular scheme advocated by the association of which she was president; and, to miss nightingale, opposition to that scheme was a matter of vital principle. she threw herself into the fray with an equipment of argumentative resource derived from her unequalled experience, and with a passionate conviction inspired by long brooding over a fixed ideal. [218] an association founded by sir henry burdett, out of which came the nurses national pension scheme (a scheme which miss nightingale much commended). she took a different view of his directory of nurses. the objects of the british nurses association were "to unite all qualified british nurses in membership of a recognized profession"; "to provide for their registration on terms satisfactory to physicians and surgeons as evidence of their having received systematic training"; "to associate them for mutual help and protection and for the advantage in every way of their professional work"; and "with a view to the attainment of these objects, to obtain a royal charter incorporating the association and authorizing the formation of a register."[219] it was around the second and the fourth of these objects that the principal battle raged. the case of the association was _prima facie_ a strong one. a register of nurses, duly certified as competent, would, it was argued, be a protection against impostors. the certification was to be by a board which would insist on a certain standard of professional proficiency. three years' training in a hospital was suggested as the preliminary test. the case, on the other side, as developed by miss nightingale and her allies, was that the apparent advantages of a register were deceptive. who was to be protected? not the hospitals: they protected themselves, without any general register, by their own methods. if any one was to be protected, it must be the public; but the register would rather mislead than protect them. the placing of a name on a register would, at best, only certify that at a certain date the nurse had satisfied the required tests; but the date might be long ago, and the fact of registration would tell nothing of her subsequent conduct or competence. the registration of midwives stood on a different footing from that of nurses; for in the former case, a certain definite technical skill is of the essence of the matter: in the case of nursing, character is as much of its essence as any technical qualification. as for the three years' training in a hospital, there were hospitals and hospitals, training-schools and training-schools; and who was to guarantee the guarantors? the general register would not raise the profession of nursing; it would do an injury to the better nurses by putting them on a level with the worse, and to the profession by stereotyping a minimum standard. the british nurses association had published a preliminary "register." miss nightingale analysed it, and found that in the case of nurses "trained" at one hospital, the private register of that hospital excluded nearly one-third of those entered on the b.n.a.'s register; and that another hospital's register included, as "duly certificated," only one-third of those entered on the b.n.a.'s register as trained thereat. "you cannot select the good from the inferior by any test or system of examination. but most of all, and first of all, must their moral qualifications be made to stand pre-eminent in estimation. all this can only be secured by the current supervision, tests, or examination which they receive in their training-school or hospital, not by any examination from a foreign body like that proposed by the british nurses association. indeed, those who come best off in such would probably be the ready and forward, not the best nurses."[220] the much vexed question of "internal" or "external" examination was, it will be seen, involved in this dispute. but to miss nightingale a larger and a more vital issue was at stake. it was a conflict between two ideals--or rather, as she would have said, between a high ideal and a material expediency. mr. jowett, though he agreed in her view "that nurses cannot be registered and examined any more than mothers," was distressed that she was so greatly perturbed over what seemed to him so small a matter. "it is a comparative trifle," he wrote (may 26, 1892), "among all the work which you have done, and you must not be over-anxious." to miss nightingale it was not a trifle, but a trial--a possible parting of the ways. it was diverting attention from training-homes to examination-tests; it was sacrificing a high calling to professional advancement. "there comes a crisis," she wrote to mr. jowett (may), "in the lives of all social movements, rough-hew them as you will, when the amateur and outward and certifying or registering spirit comes in on the one side, and the mercantile or buying-and-selling spirit on the other. this has come in the case of nursing in about 30 years; for nursing was born about 30 years ago. the present trial is not persecution but _fashion_; and this brings in all sorts of amateur alloy, and public life instead of the life of a calling, and _registering_ instead of _training_. on the other hand, an extra mercantile spirit has come in--of forcing up wages, regardless of the truism that nursing has been raised from the sink it was, not more by training, than by making the hospital, workhouse infirmary, or district home a place of moral and healthful safe-guards, inspiring a sense of duty and love of the calling." the true way of "protecting the public" was "to extend homes for private nurses on sound lines, aided by the nurses' training schools and hospitals"; not, by means of a chartered register, to encourage nurses "to flock to the institutions which gave the easiest certificate at the least trouble of training." miss nightingale could not, then, regard the dispute as a trifle. it caused her days and nights of grievous anxiety. her meditations are full of despondency and searchings of heart both bitter and self-reproachful. the princess christian, with the best intentions, was giving her name to undermine miss nightingale's ideal. this could not justly be attributed in blame to the princess; the fault must have been with her, florence nightingale, who had misused her opportunities, and had failed to impress her ideal on other minds. she was an unprofitable servant. but here, as in all things, the sensitive reproaches of the night-watches left no trace of themselves on the work of the day; or rather, they left their trace in greater activity and devotion. [219] proceedings of first general meeting, february 24, 1888. [220] letter from miss nightingale to mr. rathbone, read to the privy council: see p. 90 of the book cited below (p. 362 _n._). it was in 1889 that the occasion came for resolute action. the british nurses association announced their intention of applying for a charter, and proceeded to enlist public support. miss nightingale set to work on the other side. she made the acquaintance at this time of miss lückes, then, as now (1913), the matron of the london hospital, who was strongly opposed to the idea of registration. the acquaintance speedily ripened into friendship, and henceforth miss nightingale was looked to for support and sympathy by the matron of the london, hardly less than by her of st. thomas's. other nurse-training schools came into line, and a manifesto was issued announcing their intention to oppose any petition for a charter. there was desultory skirmishing for some time between the registrationists and anti-registrationists. there was a lively polemic in the newspapers. there were as many fly-sheets and pamphlets as if it were a theological dispute in a university.[221] in 1891 the british nurses association applied to the board of trade to be registered as a public company, without the addition of the word "limited" to its name. the memorandum and proposed articles of association were duly filed, and the foremost place was again given, among the declared objects, to a register of trained nurses, and to power to determine from time to time the test for registration. miss nightingale and her allies took up the challenge. through sir harry verney she approached the president of the board of trade (sir michael hicks-beach) with a statement of the case against the association. a counter-petition was presented; and after full consideration the board refused the application. the first engagement had thus resulted in a victory for miss nightingale. in the same year there was a committee of the house of lords to inquire into the london hospitals. mr. rathbone, coached by miss nightingale, gave evidence on the question of the registration of nurses, and the committee reported against it. a second victory! but the registrationists now brought up their most formidable reserves. permission was obtained from the sovereign to use the title "royal." thus strengthened by favour in the highest quarter, the royal british nurses association petitioned the queen for a royal charter. the petition was referred in the usual course to a special committee of the privy council, and the two sides marshalled their forces. a campaign fund was raised by the anti-registrationists. miss nightingale appealed privately to the lord president of the council and wrote various letters, memoranda, statements. she enlisted support from the medical profession. her old pupils, now in charge of nurse-training schools throughout the country, rallied round her. two petitions, of special weight, were presented to the privy council against the charter. one was from the council of the nightingale fund, the body which had been the pioneer in promoting the training of nurses. the other was the "petition of executive officers, matrons, lady superintendents, and principal assistants of the london and provincial hospitals and nurse training schools, and of members of the medical profession and ladies directly connected with nursing and the training of nurses." the list of signatures, which occupies twenty-three folio pages, was headed by "florence nightingale." in the preparation of these documents, miss nightingale had a large share, though much of the work--especially in the instruction of the lawyers, in consultations and so forth--was done by mr. bonham carter. [221] on miss nightingale's side two of the most effective pieces were: _is a general register for nurses desirable?_ by henry bonham carter (blades, 1888), and _what will trained nurses gain by joining the british nurses association?_ by eva lückes (churchill, 1889). the committee of the privy council sat in november 1892 to hear the case.[222] of the first day's proceedings miss nightingale wrote an account in which, as will be seen, she did not let the registrationist dogs have the better of it, but which betrays at the same time serious anxiety about the result:- (_miss nightingale to sir harry verney._) 10 south street, _nov._ 22 [1892]. yesterday was the first day of the privy council trial. we had to change our senior counsel at the last moment, because mr. finlay was engaged on an election committee. and our previous four days were, therefore, as you may suppose, very busy. we were fortunate enough to have sir richard webster. sir horace davey opened the ball on behalf of princess christian. his speech was dull, and contained only the commonplaces we have heard for a year in favour of the royal charter. the judges were: lord ripon (who only stayed half the time), lord monson, and two law lords [lord hannen and lord hobhouse]. they appeared to have been chosen as knowing nothing of the matter and as not having been on the lords committee on hospitals. our side, sir richard webster, followed with a masterly speech--masterly from being that of a shrewd man of sense, without rhetoric, and from his splendid getting up of our case at short notice. he put very strongly our contention that character, _unregistrable_, rather than technical training, makes the nurse, and other of our points. the judges adjourned till monday in the middle of his speech where he was saying as we do--what is the use of saying that a nurse has had 3 years' training at such a hospital? how can you certify the hospital? he will resume this subject and others on monday. the judges asked all the questions--_not_ to the point--that you can fancy men perfectly ignorant of the subject to ask, and which we have answered over and over again. sir richard webster said to bonham carter at the end of yesterday, "the judges are dead against us." the charter pledges itself to admit on the register only nurses of three years' hospital training--which the judges pronounced could do no harm. but it provides for itself what may put into its hands the whole control of what constitutes training. is it not wonderful these men do not see this? well, "we are in god's hands, brother, not in theirs" (the privy council's). in all my strange life through which god has guided me so faithfully (o that i had been as faithful to him as he to me!), this is the strangest episode of all--to see a number of doctors of the highest eminence giving their names to what they know nothing at all about. sir james paget told me himself that the names were asked for at a court ball,--following each other like a flock of sheep; to see their council of registration made up of _sirs_, only one of whom knows anything about nurse-training (sir james paget himself asked me, why can't nurses lodge out as students do!!); to see these able, good, and shrewd men ignoring that such a thing is sure to fall into a clique. they have let princess christian fall into such an one already. she is made a tool of by two or three people. "lift up your heads, ye gates, and the king of glory shall come in. who is the king of glory? the lord strong in battle." o god of battles, steel thy soldiers' hearts against happy-go-luckiness, against courtiership, fashion, and mere money-making on the part of the nurses and their societies! _p.s._ this trial will cost us £700 at least. [222] a verbatim report of the hearing (nov. 21, 28) was published in 1893 entitled _the battle of the nurses_ (scientific press). the committee took time to consider their advice to her majesty. in may 1893 the decision was announced. the committee advised her majesty in council to grant a charter in accordance with a draft revised by them. on june 6 the charter was granted. each side claimed the victory. the _nursing record_ (june 15)--an organ of the registrationists--claimed that they had won all, and even more than all, that they asked, and declared proudly that henceforth "members of the royal chartered association will hold a higher position than any others." the _hospital_, on the other side, argued that all this was ill-founded, but if the "british nurses" wanted to be congratulated on nothing, "we are willing to congratulate them" (june 24). the fight before the privy council now became a fight in the press on the meaning of the verdict. the anti-registrationists, headed by miss nightingale and the duke of westminster, put their interpretation in a quiet letter to the _times_ (july 3), which the royal british nurses association hotly denounced as "untrue in fact and injurious in intention" (july 6). the fact was that the lords of the council had steered a middle course. they granted the charter; but in it for the words "the maintenance of a list or _register_ of nurses, showing as to each nurse registered," etc., they substituted the words "the maintenance of a list of persons who may have applied to have their names entered therein as nurses," etc. there was nothing in the charter which gave any nurse the right to call herself "chartered" or "registered." what the promoters hoped we need not discuss; what the opponents feared was a charter in such terms as would give the corporation an authoritative, and perhaps ultimately, an exclusive right to register nurses, and thereby would give it also indirect control over nurse-training. no such charter was obtained; and in this sense the opposition of miss nightingale and her friends had prevailed. the controversy is not dead; but, so far, her view has continued to prevail,[223] and the official registration of nurses is still a pious hope to its supporters, a heresy to its opponents. miss nightingale greatly deplored the feud, but sought to bring good out of evil. "forty years hence," she wrote to mr. rathbone (feb. 26, 1891), "such a scheme might not be preposterous, _provided_ the intermediate time be diligently and successfully employed in levelling up, that is, in making all nurses at least equal to the best trained nurses of this day, and in levelling up training schools in like manner." "great good may be done," she wrote to mr. jowett (may 1892), "by rousing our side to an increased earnestness about (1) providing homes for nurses while engaged in their work of nursing, and (2) full _private_ hospital registers, tracing the careers of nurses trained by them." there were no years in which miss nightingale herself gave more thought and trouble, than in 1891-3, to personal care for the affairs of the nightingale school. [223] see the report of a deputation to the prime minister in the _times_, april 29, 1913. in a paper which miss nightingale was invited to contribute to a congress on women's work, held at chicago in 1893, she treated the whole subject of nursing.[224] this paper embodies in a methodical form her characteristic views, and in it she takes occasion in several places to touch obliquely upon the controversy described in preceding pages. "a new art, and a new science, has been created since and within the last forty years. and with it a new profession--so they say; we say, _calling_." she dwells on the conditions necessary to make a good training school for nurses. she dilates upon the dangers to which nursing is subject. these are "fashion on the one side, and a consequent want of earnestness; mere money-getting on the other side; and a mechanical view of nursing." "can it be possible that a testimonial or certificate of three years' so-called training or service from a hospital--_any_ hospital with a certain number of beds--can be accepted as sufficient to certify a nurse for a place in a public register? as well might we not take a certificate from any garden of a certain number of acres, that plants are certified valuable if they have been three years in the garden?" then there was "imminent danger of stereotyping instead of progressing. no system can endure that does not march. objects of registration not capable of being gained by a public register!" the whole paper is written with a good deal of gusto. the volume in which it appeared was dedicated to princess christian. [224] bibliography a, no. 131. in the following year miss nightingale had some correspondence with the princess, who, as president of the royal british nurses association, had made a scheme for enrolling a "war nursing reserve" through the hospitals, and had written to consult miss nightingale about it. the hospital sisters were according to this scheme to be placed "in subordination to the army sisters"--nurses with the larger experience under those with the smaller. this seemed to miss nightingale a mistake; and she noted other details in which the scheme appeared to her inadequately considered. she pointed these things out faithfully to the princess, but the correspondence on both sides was cordial. the letters from the princess made miss nightingale exclaim, "how gracefully royalty can do things!" and on her part she desired to be conciliatory. "we should, i think, be earnestly anxious," she wrote, "to do what we can for princess christian as she holds out the flag of truce, in order to put an end as far as we can to all this bickering, which does such harm to the cause." there were thoughts in miss nightingale's mind throughout this controversy still deeper than any which have yet been noticed. she had an esoteric conception of nursing which made her regard the view of it as a registrable business in the light almost of sacrilege. "a profession, so they say; we say, _calling_." and not only a calling, but a form through which religious satisfaction might be found. her view comes out in a letter which she wrote to mr. jowett in 1889 in the course of a discussion with him upon the necessity of external forms for the religious life: "you say that 'mystical or spiritual religion is not enough for most people without outward form.' and i may say i can never remember a time when it was not the question of my life. not so much for myself as for others. for myself the mystical or spiritual religion as laid down by st. john's gospel, however imperfectly i have lived up to it, was and is enough. but the two thoughts which god has given me all my whole life have been--first, to infuse the mystical religion into the forms of others (always thinking they would show it forth much better than i), especially among women, to make them the 'handmaids of the lord.' secondly, to give them an organization for their activity in which they could be trained to be the 'handmaids of the lord.' (training for women was then unknown, unwished for, and is the discovery of the last thirty years. one could have taken up the school education of the poor, but one was specially called then to hospitals and nursing--both sanitation and nursing proper.) this was then the 'organization' which we had to begin with, to attract respectable women and give religious women a 'form' for their activity.... when very many years ago i planned a future, my one idea was not organizing a hospital, but organizing a religion." now, "handmaids of the lord" cannot be certified by external examiners, nor can a religious service be guaranteed by registers. does this view of the matter seem a little transcendental? it was in accord, at any rate, with another of miss nightingale's fundamental doctrines, which in its application to the controversy had a severely practical force. nursing, she held, is a progressive art, in which to stand still is to go back. no note is more often struck in her addresses to nurses. she held, as may already have been gathered from the foregoing summary of her case, that the registrationists, consciously or unconsciously, had lost hold of that essential truth about nursing. it was right that precautions should be taken against impostors, and that the fullest inquiries should be made. miss nightingale's objection was not to the precautions, but to their misleading nature; not to the tests, but to their inadequacy. the only real and sufficient guarantee, in the case of an art in which the training, both technical and moral, is a continuous process, was, she held, that the public should be able to obtain a _recent_ recommendation of the nurse, who was to be passed on from one doctor, hospital, or superintendent to another with something of the same elaborate record of work and character that she herself required in the case of nightingale probationers and nurses. iii the fate of miss nightingale's work in the cause of public health both in india and at home was chequered during these years, even as was that in the cause of trained nursing, but here again substantial advance was made in several directions. there was once a secretary of state who entered the india office possessed by a strong and personal interest in sanitation. there was some excitement in the office. there were one or two men around the minister who heartily approved; there were more who shook their heads. the minister must have been listening, they thought, directly or indirectly, to a certain lady's "beautiful nonsense." he was too impressionable. he was anxious to do things, in spite of the claims of economy. he was too much in a hurry. they took him in hand in order to quiet him down. they thought to have succeeded in making him satisfied to leave things as they were. the other side became conscious of a change. "it is essential," wrote one of them to a certain lady, "that you should see him at once." the lady, who was the hope of one side and the fear of the other, was miss nightingale. the minister need not be identified; for these things, though true also of a particular case and time, are here given as a general allegory. for thirty years and more, through all changes and chances in the political world, miss nightingale was a permanent force, importuning, indoctrinating, inspiring, in the interests of better sanitary administration. for some time after the early months of 1885 the political situation was very unsettled. the government formed by lord salisbury after the defeat of mr. gladstone in june was only a "cabinet of caretakers," and it was not worth miss nightingale's while to approach any of them. besides, she instinctively recognized the secretary of state for india as a hopeless subject. she was right. lord randolph churchill was all against lord ripon, and all for economy. when lord salisbury's government was in turn overthrown, after the general election in december, miss nightingale, through various channels, approached mr. gladstone, and begged him to send lord ripon to the india office. he returned polite but evasive answers, and so controversial an appointment was obviously improbable. lord ripon went to the admiralty. the excitement of the first home rule bill followed; the government was defeated; another general election was necessary, and all was in confusion. dr. sutherland, anxious to retire from the public service (for he was now nearly 80), was pressing miss nightingale to devise measures for safeguarding his department after he was gone. she pressed him to stay on yet a while. "during the political earthquakes of the last 8 months, still continuing, no permanent interest can be expected," she wrote to him (july 20, 1886), "in those who are so little permanent. the subject excruciates me." lord ripon, who came to see her ten days later, thought that the times were unpropitious generally for good causes--an opinion which defeated ministers are apt to hold. "there are waves in these matters," he said. "the thing is to come in upon the crest of the waves. you would have done nothing for the army and sanitation if it had not been for the crash in the crimea. now, the wave is against india." miss nightingale, however, did not allow herself to be tempted into inactivity by this wave-theory. for the moment, indeed, there was nothing to be done with ministers at home; but she had not been neglectful of cultivating relations with anglo-indians and indians in positions of influence. in 1885 she had added sir neville chamberlain and sir peter lumsden to her list of anglo-indian acquaintances. lord reay had called upon her (march 1885) before leaving to take up the governorship of bombay, and she corresponded with him frequently on sanitary subjects. in october, lord roberts came before going out to india as commander-in-chief. miss nightingale took great pains with this interview, dr. sutherland having furnished her in advance with an admirable synopsis of what might still be done to improve the health and welfare of the troops. lord roberts's command was fruitful of some reforms in which miss nightingale had been a pioneer. he established a club or institute in every british regiment and battery in india. he closed canteens. he opened coffee-stalls. he established an army temperance association.[225] no letter which miss nightingale received in her jubilee year can have pleased her more than one which the commander-in-chief in india sent her from simla on august 6. in this letter lord roberts told her that the government of india had sanctioned the employment of female nurses in the military hospitals. a commencement was to be made at the two large military centres of umballa and rawalpindi, and 18 nurses, with lady superintendents in each case, were to be sent out from england at once. the selection of nurses was entrusted to surgeon-general arthur payne, who in the following month had several interviews with miss nightingale. thus, after twenty-two years, was the scheme which she had put before sir john lawrence brought to fruition. miss nightingale saw the superintendents before they went out, and letters from them were now added to the pile of those which she received from hospitals throughout the world, reporting progress or asking advice. miss c. g. loch wrote from rawalpindi (april 12, 1888) describing how she had found that, as miss nightingale always said, the education of the orderlies was the most important thing for the nurses to do. [225] see his _forty-one years in india_, chap. lxvi. the official introduction of female nursing into the indian military hospitals was by no means the only satisfaction which miss nightingale received during lord dufferin's viceroyalty. he had declared himself ignorant of indian sanitary things, but had promised to learn; and not only was he as good as his word, but lady dufferin was keenly interested also. she founded the "national association for supplying medical aid to the women of india." miss nightingale had long been interested in the subject, and lady dufferin consulted her at every stage. one of the first things needful, lady dufferin had written (sept. 19, 1885), was a supply of sanitary tracts. "in using the word tract, i am thinking of some little books in hindustani written by a.l.o.e. which i am obliged to read as part of my studies in the language. they are stories with a moral, and i don't see why something of the kind might not be published with health as a moral." miss nightingale took great pains in collecting suitable raw material, and during the remainder of lord dufferin's viceroyalty wrote to her by almost every mail. iv yet more was to be "fired," during lord dufferin's viceroyalty, of sanitary "shot" supplied, as he had requested, by miss nightingale; but we must now turn back to london, where, partly from circumstances and partly of necessity, miss nightingale was presently engaged in a vigorous campaign. there is a large bundle of correspondence during these years upon a matter which is referred to in some of the letters as "the sutherland succession." now, dr. sutherland was in miss nightingale's eyes the indispensable man. not any longer in the personal sense, as described in an earlier chapter; for he was now a very old man, and was only able to help her on rare occasions. she had already found a successor in this personal sense, or rather she had put dr. sutherland's place into commission. sir william wedderburn was during these later years her most constant collaborator in indian matters, and for the rest she relied upon sir douglas galton.[226] she had often chafed at dr. sutherland's delays, but i expect that when sir douglas succeeded to him she may in one respect have parodied to herself the well-known cambridge epigram, and said, "poor dr. sutherland! we never felt his loss before." for sir douglas galton, though devoted also to miss nightingale's service, was an exceedingly busy and much-travelling man, and she had to be content with the crumbs of his time. "as it was some time in the dark ages," she wrote (may 13, 1887), "since i saw you last--my memory impaired by years cannot fix the date within a decade--i seize the first day you kindly offer." and again (dec. 3, 1889): "i must take your leavings, as beggars must not be choosers. yes, please, your dog will see you to-morrow on your way from euston for as long as you can stop." miss nightingale relied greatly on sir douglas galton's advice; she had a very high opinion, not only of his thorough knowledge of all sanitary subjects, but of his sound judgment generally. from the personal point of view, then, dr. sutherland was gone already; but in his official capacity he was still indispensable. he was the mainspring of the system of sanitary administration, both for the home army and for india, which miss nightingale had built up. he was the one paid working member, and he was also the working brain, of the army sanitary committee, and it was to that committee that indian sanitary reports were referred. but he was impatient to retire. at any moment his health might become worse, and he might send in his resignation before arrangements had been made for the appointment of a successor. so long as he remained at his post, no changes were likely to be made; but if he retired, it was very probable that no successor would be appointed, and that the whole system would collapse. that the heads of the army were ignorant of dr. sutherland's services, had been burnt in upon miss nightingale's mind a few years before. in discussing some matter of army nursing with the minister of the day, she had suggested the reference of it to dr. sutherland. "who is he?" said the minister; "i have never heard of him." at the india office it was much the same. "i don't think," wrote a friend (sept. 8, 1886), "that this office in general appreciates the importance of those reviews of indian sanitary matters of which dr. sutherland has been the real author hitherto." the whole system would lapse, he feared, unless she was able to do something. [226] captain galton was knighted in 1887. nor was this all. the sanitary service in india itself was in danger. the annexation of burma had made retrenchment necessary; a finance committee was at work in recommending economies; and miss nightingale received private information that the sanitary commissioners were marked down by the committee for destruction. the whole edifice thus seemed to be crumbling. this was what she had in her mind when, in the jubilee retrospect quoted at the beginning of the chapter, she said that the work of thirty years had all to be done again. she turned with all her old energy to efforts commensurate to the threatened calamity. in accordance with her usual method, she first consulted many influential friends (lord ripon amongst others), and then acted with great energy. she wrote a long statement to lord dufferin (nov. 5). "i have sent your letter _in extenso_," he replied (jan. 18, 1887), "to the head of the finance committee. you should understand that it does not at all follow, because the committee recommend a thing, that their recommendation will, as a matter of course, be accepted by the government. on the contrary, i will go most carefully into this question in which you naturally take so deep an interest, and will be careful to have it thoroughly discussed in council by my colleagues with the advantage of having had your views placed before them." a few months later came welcome news:- (_lord dufferin to miss nightingale._) simla, _august_ 20 [1887]. i write you a little line to tell you that the indian government have finally determined not to sanction the proposals of the finance commission for the abolition of the sanitary commissioners, about which you were naturally alarmed. there is no doubt that the finance commission was in a position to prove that these officers had been able to do very little, owing to the unwillingness, or rather the inability of the local authorities to supply funds, and in some cases to their own listlessness and want of energy. we are now, however, taking the question up, and the result of the attack upon your protégés will be, not their disappearance, but their being compelled to give us the worth of the money we spend upon them. i am also inviting all the local governments to put the whole subject of sanitation upon a more satisfactory footing, and to establish a system of concerted action and a well-worked-out programme in accordance with which from year to year their operations are to be conducted. i cannot say how grateful i am to sir harry verney for his kindness in writing me such interesting and pleasant letters. in them he tells me from time to time, i am afraid i cannot say of your well-being, but of your unflagging energy in the pursuit of your noble and useful aims. meanwhile miss nightingale had been busy with ministers at home. in the latter half of 1886 lord salisbury's government was firmly seated, and she received visits from the secretaries of state for india and for war (lord cross and mr. w. h. smith). she found lord cross most sympathetic; he saw her from time to time during following years, and they had a good deal of correspondence. to mr. w. h. smith she paid her highest compliment; in some ways he reminded her, she said in her notes, of sidney herbert. superficially, and in several of their real characteristics, no two men could be more unlike; but in certain respects mr. smith resembled her ideal of a war minister. he had a sincere concern for the welfare, alike physical and moral, of the soldiers; and he showed a quick and industrious aptitude for administrative detail. she saw mr. smith several times, and at his request had an interview with the chaplain-general.[227] it seemed as if the work, which she had done with sidney herbert, might be resumed with mr. smith, when there was a thunder-clap from a clear sky. lord randolph churchill resigned. the ministry was for a while in confusion, and miss nightingale in despair. "we _are_ unlucky," she wrote to sir douglas galton (dec. 23). "as soon as we seem to have got hold of two secretaries of state, this randolph goes out! the cabinet will have to be remodelled, and perhaps we shall lose our men. all the more reason for doing something at once." of her two "men," the one was taken, the other left. mr. w. h. smith became first lord of the treasury, but lord cross remained at the india office. "i am very sorry to give up the war office," said mr. smith to miss nightingale, "but i am told it is my duty, and duty leaves no choice." she begged him to indoctrinate his successor, mr. edward stanhope. she was already acquainted with him, and presently he came to see her. it was with peculiar satisfaction that she presently heard of the government's intention to take a loan for four millions for the building of new barracks and the reconstruction of old ones. this was a resumption of the work of sidney herbert, thirty years after.[228] [227] it was a subject of recurring self-reproach to miss nightingale in subsequent years that she had not found time to follow up this latter opening and organize a new crusade for the spiritual and moral welfare of the soldiers. she had already done much in that sort; and mr. jowett's equally recurring comment was to the point: "why complain because you cannot do more than you do, which is already more than any other ten women could do?" [228] a succinct statement of such reforms, up to 1899, was compiled by mr. frederick on his retirement from the war office and was issued as a blue-book: _record of recommendations regarding sanitary improvements in barracks and hospitals together with the actual improvements carried out during the last 50 years_. an early intimation of this policy made miss nightingale the more anxious about the fate of the army sanitary committee. if the sanitary condition of the barracks was to be improved, it was all-important that a strong sanitary committee should be in existence to supervise the work. at first, however, she had been unable to secure any promise about the sutherland succession. the war office would not consider the matter until a vacancy occurred; the india office would do nothing until it knew what the war office meant to do. in 1888 the long threatened thing happened. dr. sutherland resigned. no successor was appointed. the whole subject, she was informed, was under consideration, and then under reconsideration. ultimately mr. stanhope, after interviews with miss nightingale, reconstituted the committee (june 1890). sir douglas galton remained upon it. dr. j. marston was appointed paid member in succession to dr. sutherland, and miss nightingale's friend and ally, surgeon-general j. w. cunningham (formerly sanitary commissioner with the government of india) was appointed as an indian expert. her friend mr. j. j. frederick retained his post as secretary to the committee. the danger was overpast. v sanitary reports from india were still to be referred to the committee, but miss nightingale and some of her friends thought that the time had come for an advance in india. lord cross was so sympathetic that the occasion seemed opportune for reviving her former plea for a sanitary department in india which should be more directly _executive_. sir henry cunningham (married to a niece of sir harry verney) had been in communication with her for some years. he was a judge of the high court of calcutta, and had taken an active part in the cause of sanitation in that city. he now prepared a memorandum advocating a forward policy. miss nightingale's ally on the india council, sir henry yule, prepared another, which was so far approved by the secretary of state that he ordered it to be circulated in the office as the draft of a proposed dispatch to the government of india. this draft was, in fact, the joint production of sir henry cunningham, colonel yule, and miss nightingale. it went the rounds. it was minuted on. it was considered and reconsidered; printed and reprinted. sometimes the report to miss nightingale was that it would be adopted and sent; at other times, that it had been postponed for further revision, recirculation, and reconsideration. ultimately it became in some sort out of date, because the government of india took a step on its own motion, in accordance with the intention which lord dufferin had already communicated to miss nightingale (p. 373). by resolution, dated july 27, 1888, the government of india provided for the constitution of a sanitary board in every province, which would not only advise the government and local authorities upon sanitary measures, but would also be an executive agency. the passages in which the latter point is insisted upon might have been written by miss nightingale herself.[229] lord dufferin's term of office was now drawing to a close. he had proved himself an apt pupil of the "governess of governors-general." as on the voyage out he had promised to do her bidding, so now on the voyage home he gave some account of his stewardship:- (_lord dufferin to miss nightingale._) ss. kaiser-i-hind _at sea, dec._ 26 [1888]. we are now on our way home and are having a beautiful passage, thanks to which we are all picking up wonderfully, and shall arrive in europe quite rejuvenated. this is merely a line to apologise for having sent you the report of a speech i made at calcutta recently. i would not have troubled you with it, were it not that on page 15 i have tried to give a parting lift to sanitation.[230] my ladies go home at once, but i, alas, am compelled to take up my business at rome, so that i shall not get my holiday for another two or three months. amongst the first persons whose hands i hope to come and kiss will be yours. [229] the resolution is printed at pp. 38-42 of vol. xx. of the annual _report of sanitary measures in india_ (1888). it contains on the administrative side a history of the movement which was set on foot by miss nightingale's "second royal commission" (1863). the secretary of state's dispatch (jan. 10, 1889), approving of the resolution, is full of "the nightingale influence" (vol. xxi. p. 173): colonel yule's minute was forwarded as an enclosure with the dispatch (pp. 173-184). [230] "the government has recently given its serious attention to the subject of sanitation, and has laid down the lines upon which, in its opinion, sanitary reform should be applied to our towns and villages. it has given sanitation a local habitation and a name in every great division of the empire; and it has arranged for the establishment of responsible central agencies from one end of the country to the other, who will be in close communication with all the local authorities within their respective jurisdictions" (speech at calcutta, nov. 30, 1888). lord dufferin was succeeded by lord lansdowne, who was introduced to miss nightingale by mr. jowett. she saw lord lansdowne twice before he left for india, and they corresponded frequently on sanitary affairs. "he did much for us in every way" is her comment on his viceroyalty. vi the constitution of the sanitary boards in india proceeded with due regard to "the periods of indian cosmogony," and miss nightingale watched their formation and their proceedings carefully, putting in words of encouragement, expostulation, or reminder, whenever and wherever an opportunity was offered or could be made. it was soon apparent that the great obstacle to sanitary progress among the masses of india lay, where perhaps for many generations it is still likely to lie, in the immobility of immemorial custom, especially in the villages. education was making some slight impression, but the force of passive resistance, combined with lack of funds, prevented the hope of any rapid or signal advance. recognition of these factors now led miss nightingale to concentrate her efforts upon village sanitation, and a scheme for combining the power of education with a financial expedient formed the motive for the last of her indian campaigns. miss nightingale had been watching with the closest attention the bombay village sanitation bill, a measure first projected in 1887. she analysed and criticized it, and sent her views to lord cross at the india office, and to lord lansdowne and lord reay in india. her main objection was to the exclusion from the scope of the bill of the smaller villages, an exclusion which did not figure in the revised draft of 1889. she wrote letters for circulation in india to native associations in explanation and support of village sanitation.[231] there was some slight stirring of indian opinion, and miss nightingale's next concern was to give to it articulate expression in london. the holding of an international congress of hygiene and demography in the autumn of 1891 furnished an opportunity. sir douglas galton was chairman of the organizing committee of the congress, so that there was no difficulty in arranging for an indian section. miss nightingale then circularized the native association in bombay, begging that representatives might be sent to the congress, and papers be contributed by indian gentlemen. this was done, and miss nightingale interested herself greatly in the congress. "sir harry verney," she wrote to sir douglas galton (aug. 1, 1891), "renews his invitations to claydon to the native indian delegates, 'three or four at a time.' i have seen mr. bhownaggree, who seems to be acting for the other native gentlemen, not yet come, and asked him to manage this, as is most suitable to these gentlemen. i may hope to see them one by one, if i am able to be there. i have also seen (of delegates) sir william moore and dr. payne and sir w. wedderburn. mr. digby seems to be doing a great work.[232] do you remember that it is 30 years to-morrow since sidney herbert died?" the congress was opened by the prince of wales (aug. 10), whose speech on the occasion formed the text of many leading articles in the press. people talked, he said, of "preventable diseases"; but "if preventable, why not prevented?" it was, however, in the indian section that miss nightingale was most interested, and she used it to promote her schemes. the bombay village sanitation act was failing to produce the desired results because there were no funds definitely allocated to sanitation. sanitary education was making some little progress, but not enough, in view of the poverty of indian villages, to make it likely that _additional_ taxation would be borne. in these circumstances might not some portion of the _existing_ taxation (the village "cesses") be appropriated to sanitation as a first charge? "until the minimum of sanitation is completed, until the cess of a particular village has been appropriated to it, while typhoidal or choleraic disease is still prevalent, should not the claims for any general purposes be postponed?" such was miss nightingale's case. she had a memorandum drawn up embodying it in short form, and canvassed for signatures to it among members of the indian section of the congress. sir douglas galton, sir george birdwood, sir william guyer hunter, sir william wedderburn, dr. corfield, and dr. poore were among those who signed it. miss nightingale then forwarded the memorandum, with a covering letter going more fully into the case, to the secretary of state. she wrote at the same time to the governor-general and to the governor of bombay. lord cross received the communication very sympathetically, and forwarded it at once (april 1892) to the government of india. lord lansdowne then circulated miss nightingale's dispatch among the local governments, and during following years a formidable mass of printed papers accumulated, "reporting on the proposals made by miss nightingale, relative to the better application of the proceeds of village cesses to the purposes of sanitation." the official view, though not unsympathetic to miss nightingale's object, was opposed to her financial expedient; it was thought that other purposes, especially the improvement of roads, etc., had a claim prior to sanitation. "it seems clear," wrote sir william wedderburn to her (july 7, 1893), "that you have most effectively drawn attention to the subject. the official replies are what we might naturally expect, but reading between the lines i think they admit the justice of our contention, and have been impressed by your action." perhaps this was to some extent the case. "you have most effectively drawn attention to the subject"; that was, perhaps, the main service which during these years miss nightingale rendered to the cause of indian sanitation. certainly she was importunate in asking successive governors-general for reports of progress; her importunity often caused them to jog the elbows of local governments; and she may thus not unjustly be credited with such gradual progress as was made. the final reply to miss nightingale's immediate suggestion was sent in a dispatch to the secretary of state (mr. fowler) from the government of india in 1894 (march 28), enclosing letters on her memorandum from the several local governments. the government of india declined for various reasons to adopt her suggestion; but admitting that something ought to be done, considered that "sanitation in its simplest form of a pure water-supply and simple latrine arrangements should be regarded as having to some extent a claim on provincial revenues," and it promised "to press this claim upon local governments and administrations as opportunity offers." a covering letter to miss nightingale from the secretary of state (may 9, 1894), while informing her that mr. fowler "is disposed to accept the view taken by the government of india," expressed the belief "that india will benefit by the renewed attention which your action has caused to be given to the important subject of rural sanitary reform." there are passages in some of the replies from local governments, enclosed in the dispatch, which bear out this belief. [231] see bibliography a, nos. 115, 118, 119, 122, 123. [232] mr. s. digby was acting as hon. secretary to the indian section of the international conference. miss nightingale, on her own part, was diligent in appeals to indian gentlemen to bestir themselves. she had an ally at this time in sir william wilson hunter, who, in his fortnightly summary of "indian affairs" in the _times_, sometimes enforced her points or called attention to her writings. she had urged her friend to write a detailed description of the actual working of indian administration, and this he did in 1892.[233] the preface to his book was a dedicatory letter to miss nightingale. in it he says that the book was written at her request, describes its scope, and thus concludes: "now that the work is done, to whom can i more fitly dedicate it than to you, dear miss nightingale--to you whose life has been a long devotion to the stricken ones of the earth--to you whose deep sympathy with the peoples of india no years of suffering or of sickness are able to abate?" in her own pieces written at this date, miss nightingale preached more especially the gospel of health missionaries for rural india.[234] some reference to progress made in this respect will be found in a later chapter (p. 406). she believed in state action, but no less in self-help, and this point of view is emphasized in a retrospect of her work for india which she wrote, or partly wrote, probably as hints for some vernacular publication, in 1889.[235] some passages from the document, here rearranged, may fitly close this account of her later indian work. [233] _bombay, 1885-1890: a study in indian administration._ [234] bibliography a, nos. 132, 135. [235] the document, unfortunately not complete, is in part typewritten (with a few pencilled notes in miss nightingale's hand) and in part in the handwriting of a lady who at this time rendered her some secretarial assistance. "miss nightingale saw in the queen's proclamation of 1858 a text and a living principle to fulfil. every englishman and englishwoman interested in india were bound in duty and in honour to do their utmost to help british subjects to understand the principle and to practise the life. to this she has adhered through illness and overwork for thirty-one years. first attracted to india by the vital necessity of health for 200 or 250 millions, imperilled by sanitary ignorance, apathy, or neglect, she believed it to be a fact that since the world began, criminals have not destroyed more life and property than do epidemic diseases (the result of well-known insanitary conditions) every year in india. the protection of life and property from preventable epidemics ranks next to protection from criminals, as a responsibility of government, if indeed it is not even higher in importance. the first thing was to awaken the government. this was done by the royal commission upon the sanitary state of the army in india, which was the origin of practical action for the vast native population. but the difficulties were enormous. you must have the people on your side. and the people, alas, did not care. you cannot give health to the people against their wills, as you can lock up people against their wills. impressed by these facts, miss nightingale saw the necessity of sanitary missionaries among the people--of sanitary manuals and primers in the schools ('give me the--schools--of a country and i care not who makes its laws'); of sanitary publications of all kinds, for man, woman, and child. the sanitary commissioner, in one instance at least,[236] has been a sanitary missionary, crying out, 'bestir yourselves, gentlemen, don't you see we are all dying?' the people must be awakened, not to call on the goddess of epidemics, but to call upon the sirkar to do its part, and also to bestir themselves to do theirs in the matter of cleanliness and pure water. miss nightingale found in local government the only remedy; in local government combined with education." the paper touches also upon miss nightingale's interest in irrigation, land-tenure, usury, agriculture, and in all these matters connects state action with self-help. "to the native gentlemen it is that miss nightingale appeals. she appeals to them also on the sanitary point. and first of all it is for them to influence their ladies. let them lead in their own families in domestic sanitation. then, doubtless, the lady will lead in general sanitation in india as she does in england." another passage gives incidentally an autobiographical summary. "miss nightingale has deeply sympathized with the honourable efforts of the national congress which has now held three sessions, in which its temperate support of political reforms has been no less remarkable for wisdom than for loyalty. but her whole life has been given deliberately, _not_ for political, _but_ for social and administrative progress." [236] she refers no doubt to dr. hewlett. vii at the time when miss nightingale's indian work was thus largely concentrated upon village sanitation, she was no less busily employed, though in a different way, upon work of a like kind at home. her interest in local affairs at claydon has already been touched upon, and this was much increased after the death of her sister in 1890. lady verney had been a sufferer for many years, but had borne her illness with unflagging spirit. in may 1890 she was in london, very ill, and was counting the hours to her removal to claydon, but she would not give up a sunday in town--a day which florence now kept sacred for her sister. on sunday may 4 lady verney was carried into florence's room, and the sisters did not see each other again. on monday lady verney was moved to claydon, and there, a week later, on florence's birthday, she died. "you contributed more than anyone," wrote sir harry (may 15), "to what enjoyment of life was hers. i have no comfort so great as to hold intercourse with you. you and i were the objects of her tender love, and her love for you was intense. it was delightful to me to hear her speak of you, and to see her face, perhaps distorted with pain, look happy when she thought of you." miss nightingale at once went to claydon, where she remained for several months. sir harry, now in his 90th year, relied greatly upon his sister-in-law, and for the remainder of his life she devoted herself to him with constant solicitude. he was never happy if many days passed without sight of her or hearing from her. the butler always put miss nightingale's letter on the top of his master's morning pile, and no mouthful of breakfast was eaten till he had read it through. when he was in the country and she in london, he was always wanting to run up to town for the day--to buy a new waistcoat, or to consult his solicitor: any excuse would serve so that he could see his sister-in-law in south street. they used to say at claydon that there was a sure way of discovering whether sir harry found a new guest sympathetic or not: if he did, the conversation was invariably turned to miss nightingale. upon the death of her sister, claydon became miss nightingale's country-home, and she brought her managerial thoroughness into play there. she looked into sir harry's affairs, interested herself greatly in the estate, inquired into the conditions of surrounding village life, made acquaintance with local doctors. these interests brought home to her the conviction that village sanitation was necessary to civilize england hardly less than india, and she saw that as in india, so in england, education must be one at least of the civilizing agencies. she set herself to make a beginning where her lot now happened to be cast, in buckinghamshire. the time was favourable to a new experiment. county councils had been established by the act of 1888. in 1889 they were empowered to levy and expend money upon technical education. by the local taxation act of 1890 they received a windfall for the same purpose from what was known as the "whisky money." funds were thus available, and the definition of "technical" education was wide. why should not some of it be used for education in the science of "health at home"? mr. frederick verney was chairman of the technical education committee of north bucks, and with miss nightingale, as he said, "to inspire, advise, and guide," the thing was done. she was already, as we have heard, possessed by the idea of the district nurse as health missioner. it now occurred to her to institute an order of health-missioners as such. the health officer for the district (dr. de'ath) was first employed to train ladies for the work by means of lectures and classes. the instruction was practical as well as theoretical, for the doctor took his pupils with him to some of the villages, introduced the ladies to the village mothers, and pointed out particular matters in which knowledge sympathetically given might be invaluable to the cottagers. an independent examination followed, and the ladies who passed it satisfactorily were, after a period of probation in practical work, granted certificates as health missioners, in which capacity some of them were engaged by the technical education committee to visit and lecture in the country villages. the scheme, started in the spring of 1892, was a simple one, but it involved miss nightingale, as huge bundles of documents attest, in much labour for two or three years. she enlisted recruits; collected the best that was known and thought about simple sanitary instruction; considered syllabuses and examination papers; corresponded with other technical education committees; wrote memoranda and letters on the subject.[237] to the women workers' conference, held at leeds in november 1893, she sent a paper dealing exhaustively with the whole subject of rural hygiene--a paper which is unhappily by no means out of date to-day, though the work, in which miss nightingale was a pioneer, has branched out in many directions. "we want duly qualified sanitary inspectors," she wrote, and she was delighted when she heard a few years later of the good work done by some women sanitary inspectors in the north. full qualification, practical training, she insisted upon; and then something else was wanted also. her last word to the health missioner was the same as to the nurse. "the work that tells is the work of the skilful hand, directed by the cool head, and inspired by the loving heart." [237] see bibliography a, nos. 126, 133, 134. chapter viii mr. jowett and other friends let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close--then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others.--ruskin. the last chapter was largely concerned with miss nightingale's activity in public affairs and with acquaintanceships which she formed in connection with them. in such affairs she was forcible, clear-sighted, methodical. sir bartle frere, on first making her acquaintance, had said to a friend that it was "a great pleasure to meet such a good man of business as miss nightingale." but she was many-sided, and even in her converse with men or women on public affairs she was generally something more than a good "man of business." much of her influence was due to the fact that so many of those who first saw her as a matter of affairs became her friends, and that to the qualities of a good man of business she added those of a richly sympathetic nature. this aspect of miss nightingale's life and character has already been illustrated sufficiently in the case of her relations with matrons, superintendents, and nurses. it may be discerned clearly enough, too, in the account of her official work with sidney herbert and other of her earlier allies. but it was as marked in her later as in her earlier years, and in relation to the men as to the women with whom she was brought into touch. in reading her collection of letters from various doctors and officials of all sorts, i have been struck many times with a quick change of atmosphere. the correspondence begins on a formal note. her correspondent will be "pleased to make the acquaintance of a lady so justly esteemed," etc., etc. the interview has taken place, or a few letters have passed, and then the note alters. wives or sons or daughters have been to see her, or kindly inquiries and messages have been sent, and the correspondence becomes as between old family friends. young and old alike felt the sympathetic touch of miss nightingale's manner. the name of mr. j. j. frederick has been mentioned in earlier pages. he was a junior clerk in the war office when miss nightingale first made his acquaintance. not many months had passed before she was helpfully interested both in his family and in various good works to which he devoted his spare time. there is much correspondence, during the years with which we were concerned in the last chapter, with mr. (now sir robert) morant, at that time tutor in the royal family of siam. miss nightingale had made his acquaintance before he left for siam; and he came to see her when he was on leave in england, "leave apparently meaning," she wrote (sept. 24, 1891), "working on his siamese subjects 23 hours out of the 24." she became almost as much interested in siamese affairs as in those of india itself; but the letters show that the public interest was combined with a personal, and almost motherly, affection. mr. j. croft, on the staff at st. thomas's, who had for many years been medical instructor to the nightingale probationers, resigned that post in 1892, and in returning thanks for a testimonial described the pleasure he had found in working under "so lovable and adorable a leader as miss nightingale." colonel yule had first made miss nightingale's acquaintance in an official capacity as the member of the india council charged with sanitary affairs, but he soon came to love her as a friend. in 1889 he was ill, and wrote her a valedictory letter (may 2), in which, after giving advice about some official matters, he said: "as long as i live, but i am not counting on that as a long period, it will be a happiness to think that i was brought into communication with you--useless as i fear i have been in your great task: in fact my strength had already begun to fail. and so, dear miss nightingale, i take my leave: let it be with the words of the 4th book of moses, ch. vi., and those that come after us will put in your mouth those of job, xxix."[238] his strength failed more rapidly; and in his last illness he craved to know that miss nightingale had not forgotten him. she sent him a message of fervent gratitude. "i will look at it not as misapplied to myself," he answered (dec. 17, a few days before his death), "but as part of the large and generous nature which you are ready to apply to others who little deserve it. i praise god for the privilege of having known you. i am sunk very low in strength, and cannot write with my own hand, so use that of one of my oldest and dearest friends. god bless and keep you to the end, as you have been for so many years, a pillar in christ's kingdom of love and of this state of england. ever, with the deepest affection and veneration, your faithful servant, h. yule." the strength of her older friend and fellow-worker, dr. sutherland, ebbed rapidly, and he did not long survive his retirement. he died in july 1891. he was in great weakness at the end, and was hardly able to read or to speak; but his wife said that she had received a letter from miss nightingale with messages for him. to her surprise he roused himself once more, read the letter through, and said, "give her my love and blessing." they were almost his last words. [238] numbers vi. 24-26: "the lord bless thee, and keep thee," etc. job xxxi. 11-16: "when the ear heard me, then it blessed me," etc. ii the affectionate sympathy which miss nightingale gave to her friends was not lacking to her relations. in 1889 one of the dearest of them, her "aunt mai," had died at the age of 91. her husband, the "uncle sam" of earlier chapters, had died eight years before; and the widow's bereavement seems to have done away with such estrangement as there had been between her and her niece. they resumed their former affectionate correspondence on religious matters, and miss nightingale was again the "loving flo" of earlier years. "dearest friend," she wrote on the card sent with flowers when her aunt died; "lovely, loving soul; humble mind of high and holy thought." miss nightingale was not one of those persons who keep their tact and kindly consideration for the outside world and think indolent indifference or rough candour good enough for the family circle. i have been told a little anecdote which is instructive in this connection. miss irby came into the garden hall at lea hurst one day, fresh from an interview with miss nightingale. "i must tell you," she said, laughing, to one of miss nightingale's younger cousins, "what florence has just said; it's so like her. she said to me, 'i wonder whether r. remembered to have that branch taken away that fell across the south drive.' i said, 'i will ask her.' 'oh, no,' said florence, 'don't ask her that. ask her _whom_ she asked to take the branch away.'" this is only a trifle; but the method of the thing was very characteristic. miss nightingale was a diplomatist in small affairs as in great. she was careful not to run a risk of making mischief through intermediaries. she took real trouble to that end, and never seemed to find anything in this sort too much to do. her influence with every member of her family was used to make relations between them better and more affectionate. with many of the younger generation of her cousins and other kinsfolk she maintained affectionate relations. she regulated her hours very strictly, as we have heard, but she found time, especially in her later years, to see some of these young friends repeatedly. when she did not see them, she liked to be informed of their comings and goings, their doings and prospects, their marriages and belongings. she held in deep affection the memory of arthur hugh clough, and she loved tenderly her cousin, mr. shore smith. she entertained a generous solicitude for mr. clough's family; and the family of her cousin, shore, were especially close to her. a little note to mrs. shore smith--one of hundreds--illustrates incidentally miss nightingale's love of flowers and their insect friends:- 10 south street, _april_ 24, 1894. dearest, i feel so anxious to know how you are. thank you so much for your beautiful azaleas which have come out splendidly, and the yellow tulips. the smell of the azaleas reminds me so of embley. on a tulip sat a poor little tiny, tiny, pretty little snail of a sort unknown to me. he said: "i was so happy in my garden on my tulip, and i was kidnapped into that horrid box. and whatever am i to do?" so we carried him out and carefully put him among the shrubs in the boxes on the leads (lilacs). but my opinion is that he is very particular about his diet and that his opinion was that he could find nothing worthy of his acceptance there. he must either have been drowned in the water-spout, or dree'd the penalty of being particular. now i return to our brutality in letting you go without even partaking of "baby's bottle." my kindest regards to baby and its mama. ever your loving f. n. miss nightingale was godmother to mr. and mrs. hugh bonham carter's son, malcolm. with norman, an indian civilian, a younger son of mr. henry bonham carter, she kept up a correspondence. she was much attached to miss edith bonham carter,[239] who had taken up nursing, and there were several other relations who saw her and in whom she was much interested. the number of family letters which she preserved is very large; and among them those relating to the family into which her sister had married are almost as numerous as those relating to her own kith and kin. for margaret lady verney, in particular, miss nightingale entertained a deep admiration and a most tender affection. she was attached also to sir harry's younger son, mr. frederick verney, who in these later years helped her in many of her undertakings, and whom she in turn helped greatly in his. a few of her own family letters, covering a large space of time, will best show the pleasantly affectionate terms, now grave, now gay, on which she placed herself with her relations:- (_to mrs. clough._) 35 south street, _jan._ 2 [1873]. i lit upon the edition of byron (without _don juan_) which we wished for. there are two vols. more than in our edition, which may be trash. but _childe harold_,--the descriptions of greece in the tale: poems,--chillon,--but above all _manfred_: there is nothing like it in the world, especially the last scene. the spirit there is really a spirit--the only spirit out of job and saul. the ghost in _hamlet_ is surely a very gross unpleasant dead-alive unburied man, with the most vulgar full-bodied sentiments, clamouring for vengeance on his murderer (not even so spirit-like as a dying man), quite unlike what his son describes him--a thief and impostor, i am sure, going to take the spoons. _manfred_, to my mind, stands alone, and is the most spiritual view of immortality, of what hell and heaven really are, of any poetry in the world. one only wonders how byron ever wrote it. (_to a niece_,[240] _who was going to college._) 10 south street, _august_ 22 [1881]. my very dearest r.--aunt florence is filled with you and your going to girton. i can say nothing i would and, saying nothing, i would ask those greatest of the "heathens"--plato, aeschylus, thucydides--to say much to you. aeschylus, whose _prometheus_ is evidently a foreshadowing of, or, if you like it better, the same type (with osiris of egypt) as, christ: the one who brought "gifts to men," who defied "the powers that be" (the "principalities" and "powers" of evil), who suffered for men in bringing them the "best gifts" (the "fire from heaven"), who _could_ only give by suffering himself, and who finally "led captivity captive." it seems to me that i see in nothing so much the _history of god_--in the religions of the world which m. mohl learnt oriental languages to write--as in these great "heathens"--persian, chinese, indian, greek also, and latin too, but specially aeschylus and plato; and perhaps, too, in physiology--the _greatness_ of his work, the silence of his work, what spirit he is of. his "glory" and poorness of spirit--and that to be "poor of spirit" constitutes his glory, if to be poor of spirit means utter unselfishness, perfect freedom from self and from the very thought of self, and from affectations and from "_vain_ glory." my very dearest child, fare you very well--very, very well is the deepest prayer of aunt florence. (_to a niece who had taken up vegetarianism._) 10 south street, _nov._ 8 [1887]. dearest--i send you two "vegetables" in their shells. we shall have some more fresh ones to-morrow. a new potato is, i assure you, _not_ a vegetable. it is a mare's egg, laid by her, you know, in a "mare's nest." no vegetarian would eat it. i send you some egyptian lentils. i have them every night for supper, done in milk, which i am not very fond of. the delicious thing is lentil soup, as made every day by an arab cook in egypt, over a handful of fire not big enough to roast a mosquito.... ever your loving aunt florence. (_to a niece, who was full of the co-operative movement._) 10 south street, _july_ 14 [1888]. dearest--your co-operative usefulness is delightful. if it is not in the lowest degree vulgar, i should ask if i might give them some books. but i suppose this is contrary to all co-operative principle. lady ashburton is gone to marienbad, to distribute bibles and tracts in czech-ish. there is a very large co-operative estate about 20 miles distant on the borders of the forest, which she has seen and believes to be entirely successful. and i have charged her to send me home (for you) details--and of course to prove its success. you see how my manners and principles have been corrupted by you, the youthful prophet. if you observe aberration, do not lay it at my door. it is sad how youth corrupts old age. your faithful and loving old (co-operative) aunt, florence nightingale. (_to mrs. vaughan nash._) claydon house, _jan._ 3 [1895]. i have never thanked you, except in my heart, which is always, for my beautiful book--villari's _history of florence_: its first two centuries. it does look so interesting, and i have always been interested in florentine history above all others. i think it was from studying sismondi's _républiques italiennes_ when i was a young girl (book now despised--you rascal!) and from knowing sismondi himself afterwards at geneva. the end of this villari does look so very enthralling, where he traces the causes of the decline and fall of the florentine republic--its very wealth and commerce assisting its ruin, and shows how its "commune" could not develop into a "state" (that may help some reflections on indian village communities). but i do not see that he shows--tho' as i am reading backwards, like the devil, i may come to it--how different were the florentine ideas of liberty from ours. with them it was that everybody should have a share in governing everybody else; with us, that everybody should have the power of self-development without hurting anybody else. i remember villari's _savonarola_ well: it must have been published 30 or 40 years ago. (i always had an enthusiasm for savonarola.) it was heavy, learned, impartial, exhaustive. it was my father's book: he read it much. i think i told you that i possess copies of the last things that savonarola ever wrote--commentaries on two psalms--not a word against his enemies and persecutions, or any mention of them, or indeed any lamentation at all, but all one long and fervent aspiration after a perfect re-union with the father of light and love. good fenzi, evelina galton's husband, had these copies made for me from the originals in the palazzo vecchio. (_to norman bonham carter._) 10 south street, _august_ 2 [1895].... you will see by the accounts of the general election how the conservatives have got in by an enormous majority, and the liberals are discomfited. but i am an old fogey, and have been at this work for 40 years. and i have always found that the man who has the genius to know how to find details, and the still greater genius of knowing how to apply them will win, and party does not signify at all. my masters[241]--that is, sir robert peel's school, never cared for place, but always worked for both sides alike. i learn the lesson of life from a little kitten of mine, one of two. the old cat comes in and says, very cross, "i didn't ask you in here, i like to have my missis to myself!" and he runs at them. the bigger and handsomer kitten runs away, but the littler one _stands her ground_, and when the old enemy comes near enough kisses his nose, and makes the peace. that is the lesson of life, to kiss one's enemy's nose, always standing one's ground. i am rather sorry for lord salisbury. a majority is always in the wrong. (_to louis shore nightingale._[242]) 10 south street, _dec._ 21 [1896]. i have been thinking a great deal of what you said on both sides about a church at lea. i wish you could consult some one, not church-y, like harry b. c., upon it. what you say that, if the church is to be done, the proprietors and trustees of lea hurst should not set themselves against it is true. the church is like the wesleyans, another christian sect--not to be put down. on the other hand, the church is now more like the scribes and pharisees than like christ. the bishops and the high church look upon work among dissenters as work among the heathen. they would upset all the present work in lea and holloway if they could. christ would have laughed at the "validity of orders" difficulty of the present day. he would have no dogma. his dogmas were, he tells us distinctly, unselfishness, love to god and our neighbour. he takes the ten commandments to pieces and shows us the spirit of them (without which they are nothing) in the sermon on the mount. he even ridicules sabbath observance. what are now called the "essential doctrines" of the christian religion he does not even mention. a high churchman and especially a h. ch.'s wife would upset everything.... ever your loving aunt f. (_to norman bonham carter._) _august_ 27 [1897].... i wish you god-speed, my dear friend. india is a glorious field, provided you keep out of "little wars." as you are not a military man, there is just a chance that you may not have perverse views on this subject. i see charlie sometimes. he is a very good fellow, tho' a military man. but then his mind is not warped by "frontier wars." and i know at dublin he did a good deal for the men. one of our nurses, sister snodgrass, who died just after she had gone out to foreign service, was some years in dublin military fever wards. she did so much for them, and got many of her orderlies to reform their lives. when they heard of her death, they cried like children. i know how hard worked you are. so am i. but your father helps me with his excellent judgment. god bless you. (_to louis shore nightingale._) 10 south st., _dec._ 23 [1898]. i send a small contribution to your journey. i approve of switzerland, but wish you could prick on to italy. i always do. if you make a bother about this bit of paper, you will find that, in the words of the immortal shakespeare, "ravens shall pick out your eyes and eagles eat the same." i have the doctor coming this afternoon, whom i dare not put off, from considerations of the same nature. if you are so good as to come, please come at 5--for only half an hour, that is till 5.30. [239] daughter of mr. john bonham carter (see vol. i. p. 29). [240] not really a niece, but miss nightingale was "aunt florence" to all her cousins in the second generation; as also to the children of some old friends. [241] she was writing, it will be observed, on the anniversary of sidney herbert's death. [242] younger son of mr. shore smith, who had assumed the name of nightingale in 1893. multiply such letters largely; add to them letters of a like kind, _mutatis mutandis_, addressed to her "children" in the nursing world; bring further into count her solicitude for servants and dependents: and it will be seen how faithfully miss nightingale followed the words placed at the head of this chapter--words which she had copied out as "a new year's greeting" for 1889. she had a soft place in her heart even for criminals who despitefully used her. in july 1892 burglary was committed in her house in south street. it was in the early morning, and she espied the burglar resting for a moment with his spoils (some of her plate and her maid's money) in a hiding-place behind the house. if her maids or the police or both had been more alert, the malefactor would have been arrested. her sense for efficiency was outraged, but she relented when the inspector came to see her. "perhaps it was just as well that you didn't catch the man," she said with a twinkle, "for i am afraid you don't do them much good when you lock them up." she was fond of the police, and during the jubilee year admired from her window their handling of the crowds. she noted the long hours; made friends with the inspector at grosvenor gate, and sent supplies of hot tea and cakes for his men. iii there was a time, as we have heard, when miss nightingale's friendship with mr. jowett, though it did not diminish, yet became sensible, on her side at least, of a certain discomfort;[243] but that time was short. later years brought occasion for a renewal of more effective sympathy; and as old age began to steal upon them, the friends held closer together. mr. jowett was deeply interested in many of miss nightingale's later indian interests--especially in those that related to education, whether in india itself or of indians and indian civil servants in this country. he introduced to her miss cornelia sorabji, whom he befriended at oxford. he talked and corresponded much with miss nightingale about university courses in relation to india. "i want to prove to you," he wrote (oct. 14, 1887), "that your words do sometimes affect my flighty or stony heart and are not altogether cast to the winds. therefore i send you the last report of the indian students, in which you will perceive that agricultural chemistry has become a reality; and that, owing to you (though i fear that, like so many other of your good deeds, this will never be known to men), indian students are reading about agriculture, and that therefore indian ryots may have a chance of being somewhat better fed than hitherto." when lord lansdowne had settled down in india, mr. jowett thought that he might without impertinence write to his friend and tell him what he should do to become "a really great viceroy." what should be suggested? perhaps miss nightingale would consider? she took the hint most seriously: the education of viceroys was a favourite occupation with her. without disclosing the particular occasion, she took many advisers into council, and discussed with them what reforms might most usefully be introduced. she forwarded her views to oxford, and they filtered through mr. jowett to simla. mr. jowett continued throughout these years to see miss nightingale frequently, and generally stayed with her once or twice a year--either in london or at claydon. in 1887 he was staying in south street when he was taken ill. miss nightingale found him "a very wilful patient"; he would not take the complete rest which she and the doctor considered essential; and she had to enter into a secret plot with robert browning to keep him from the excitement of seeing friends. "i am greatly ashamed," he wrote on his return to oxford (oct. 13), "at the trouble and interference to your work which i caused. the recollection of your infinite kindness will never fade from my mind." she sent him elaborate instructions for the better care of his "brother ass," the body. "how can i thank you enough for your never ending kindness to me? may god bless you 1000 times in your life and in your work. i sometimes think i gossip to you too much. it is due to your kindness and sympathy, and you know that i have no one else to gossip to." from this time forward miss nightingale was constantly solicitous about her friend's health, and entered into regular correspondence with his housekeeper, miss knight, who was grateful for being allowed to share her anxieties with so high an authority on matters of health. during mr. jowett's illnesses, miss nightingale had daily letters or telegrams sent to her reporting the patient's condition in much detail. this was her regular practice in the case of relations or friends for whom she was solicitous. such bulletins were especially numerous during the fatal illness of her cousin, miss hilary bonham carter. miss nightingale thought, no doubt, that her request for daily particulars would keep the nurses up to the mark; and sometimes it was that she had herself recommended the nurse. there were bulletins of the kind sent to her about lady rosebery, whose acquaintance she had made, as already related, in 1882. lord rosebery was during some years an occasional caller at south street. [243] see above, p. 240. the friendship of miss nightingale and mr. jowett was to have been commemorated between themselves in an interesting way, for mr. jowett desired to contribute towards a scheme which occupied much of miss nightingale's time during 1890 and 1891. it was connected with one of the ruling thoughts of her life. she was, as i have said, a passionate statistician. statistics were to her almost a religious exercise. the true function of theology was to ascertain "the character of god." law was "the thought of god." it was by the aid of statistics that law in the social sphere might be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects of "the character of god" thereby revealed. the study of statistics was thus a religious service. in the sphere of immediate application, she had pointed out thirty years before[244] that there were enormous masses of statistical data, already pigeon-holed in government offices or easily procurable by government action, of which little or no use was made. statistics, said lord brougham, in a passage already quoted, were to the legislator as the compass or the lead to the navigator; but the actual course of legislation was too often conducted without any such compass or lead at all. "the cabinet ministers," she now wrote,[245] "the army of their subordinates, the houses of parliament have for the most part received a university education, but no education in statistical method." the result was that legislation is "not progressive, but see-saw-y." "we legislate without knowing what we are doing. the war office has on some subjects the finest statistics in the world. what comes of them? little or nothing. why? because the heads don't know how to make anything of them (with the two exceptions of sidney herbert and w. h. smith). our indian statistics are really better on some subjects than those of england. of these no use is made in administration. what we want is not so much (or at least not at present) an accumulation of facts as to teach the men who are to govern the country the use of statistical facts." she gave particular instances of the kind of questions which she desired to see thoroughly explored by the statistical method. what had been the result of twenty years of compulsory education? what proportion of children forget all that they learnt at school? what result has the school-teaching on the life and conduct of those who do not forget it? or, again, what is the effect of town life on offspring, in number and in health? what are the contributions of the several classes (as to social position and residence) to the population of the next generation? some of the questions which she hoped to see solved by the statistical method came near to those with which a later generation is familiar under the name of eugenics. her friend m. quetelet had made a beginning in the science of "social physics." both he and dr. farr had hoped that she would carry on the work. she had often talked with mr. jowett on the subject, and now a scheme was suggested. she would give a sum of money, and he a like amount, and between them they would found at oxford a professorship or lectureship in applied statistics. they agreed first to consult various friends and experts. mr. jowett seems to have discussed the matter with mr. arthur balfour and professor alfred marshall. of mr. balfour, he wrote (dec. 4, 1890) that "he has more head and power of thinking than any statesman whom i have ever known." miss nightingale on her side called into council mr. francis galton, who took up the idea warmly and elaborated a detailed scheme. he raised, however, a preliminary objection. a professor at oxford or cambridge of any subject which is not a principal element in an examination "school" is a professor without a class, and often sinks into somnolence. he suggested that the professorship would be more useful if attached to the royal institution. mr. jowett, who had perhaps entered into the scheme from interest rather in miss nightingale than in the subject, was not very helpful in matters of detail, but he was ready to acquiesce in any scheme which miss nightingale adopted. he made only two conditions; first, that he should be allowed to contribute; and next, that the professorship should be called by her name. mr. galton went on with his plans which, as they were developed, were found to require a very large sum of money. miss nightingale, whose resources were in great part tied up by settlements, consulted her trustees. they did not deny that she could put down £4000,--the sum which mr. galton's scheme seemed to require as her contribution,--but they were not passionate statisticians and did not underrate the objections to such a gift. meanwhile time was passing; mr. galton was busy with other things, and miss nightingale herself, being much occupied during this year (1891) with other affairs, laid the scheme aside. [244] see vol. i. p. 435. [245] in a letter of 1891 to mr. jowett. mr. jowett, moreover, was very ill in the same year--having a serious heart attack, from which he barely recovered and which was premonitory of the end. at the beginning of october he spent a few days at claydon with sir harry verney and miss nightingale. on returning to oxford he was worse. "you will be tired of hearing from me," he said to her in a dictated letter of farewell (oct. 16), "and i begin to think that i may as well cease. many interesting things have been revealed to me in my illness, of which i should like to talk to you. i never had an idea of what death was, or of what the human body was before, and am very far from knowing now. i am always thankful for having known you. i try to go on to the end as i was. i hope you will do so too; it is best. i hope that you may continue many years, and that you may do endless kindnesses to others. will you cast a look sometimes on my old friends, miss knight and mrs. [t. h.] green, and my two young friends, f. and j.? it would please me if you could say a word to them from time to time. but perhaps it is rather drivelling to try and make things permanent which are already passing away. ever yours affectionately, b. j." he thought that he was on the point of death, and in a will made at this time he bequeathed "£2000 to miss nightingale for certain purposes." it was the sum which he had meant to contribute to the "nightingale professorship of statistics." he rallied, however, and begged her to do as she had offered, and come over from claydon to see him. "i am delighted to hear," he wrote (nov. 18), "that you will do me the honour to come to balliol to see me. acland will send his carriage for you to the station. it will be a great event for me to have a visit from you." mr. jowett was spared for nearly two years, and he still came from time to time to see her. "i want to hold fast to you, dear friend," he wrote (may 26, 1892), "as i go down the hill. you and i are agreed that the last years of life are in a sense the best, and that the most may be made of them even at a time when health and strength may seem to be failing." in august 1893 mr. jowett was again very ill. he dictated a letter to miss nightingale, commending some of his friends to her once more. he rallied a little and came up to london to stay with mr. and mrs. lewis campbell. on september 18 he dictated his last letter to miss nightingale: "we called upon you yesterday in south street, but finding no one at home supposed you had migrated to claydon. fare you well! how greatly am i indebted to you for all your affection. how large a part has your life been of my life. there is only time i think for a few words." on october 1 he died at the house of mr. justice wright in hampshire, to which he had gone a few days before. "do you know," wrote miss nightingale to mrs. clough (nov. 7), "that he sometimes felt glad in the society of 'clough' during his last illness? he was in london at the house of those dear lewis campbells for doctoring and nursing from september 16 to 23rd. he was lying in the way he liked--silent, with mr. lewis campbell sitting beside him--when suddenly he opened his eyes and said, 'oh, is it you? i thought it was clough.'" pinned to miss nightingale's letter, there is one which mr. jowett had written, thirty-two years before, to mrs. clough on the death of his friend, her husband. in it he had said: "i loved him and think of him daily. i should like to have the memory of him, and also of miss nightingale, present with me in death, as of the two persons whose example i value most, as having 'walked by faith.'" miss nightingale had other bereavements at this time. "i have lost," she wrote, "the three nearest to me in twelve months" (1893-94). in february 1894, sir harry verney died, and she felt the loss of "his courage, his courtesy, his kindness." in august, her cousin, mr. shore smith, died--"her boy" of the old days, whom throughout his life she had regarded with something of a mother's love; nor had she ever forgotten the fond and dutiful affection which he had shown towards her own mother. miss nightingale felt the three losses deeply, but a note of serenity marked her old age. "this is a sad birthday, dearest," she wrote a little later; "but let me send a few roses to say what words cannot say. there is so much to live for. i have lost much in failures and disappointment, as well as in grief; but, do you know, life is more precious to me now in my old age." the place left vacant by mr. jowett's death was in some respects filled henceforth by the rev. thory gage gardiner, who from time to time administered the sacrament to miss nightingale in her room, and in whose work in south london she came to take a lively interest. the professorship which mr. jowett and miss nightingale were to have founded was never realized. miss nightingale had laid the scheme aside at the end of 1891--"with a sore heart," she said, for it had been "an object of a lifetime." mr. jowett, knowing that she had abandoned the scheme, had omitted his bequest in a new will made during his last illness. but when three years later she in turn came to make her will she still had the scheme in mind. it was a trust, she used to say, committed to her by m. quetelet and dr. farr, and it was connected with memories of mr. jowett. she gave accordingly "to francis galton £2000 for certain purposes," and declared that "the same shall be paid in priority to all other bequests given by her will for charitable and other purposes." her hope was that the £2000 would suffice for some _educational_ work in the use of statistics, but mr. galton differed, and in the following year she revoked the bequest by codicil. a pencilled note found among her papers gives the reason: "i recall or revoke the legacy of £2000 to mr. francis galton because he does not think it sufficient for the purpose i wished and proposes a small endowment for _research_, which i believe will only end in endowing some bacillus or microbe, and i do not wish that." iv miss nightingale's life, said mr. jowett, had been a large part of his. that his life had also been a large part of hers, this memoir will have shown. few men or women had known him so well, and into the inscription which she sent with her flowers she distilled her memories: "in loving remembrance of professor jowett, the genius of friendship, above all the friend of god." among the many letters which she received about his death none touched or interested her so much as those of lord lansdowne:- simla, _october_ 11. our dear old friend is, as far as his bodily presence in our midst is concerned, lost to us. it is a real sorrow to me. i had no more constant friend, and i cannot express the gratitude with which i look back to his unfailing interest in all that befell me and to his help and guidance at times when they were most needed. his saying that he meant to get better "because he had yet so much to do" is touching and characteristic. he was one who would never have sate down and said that his task was done, or that he was entitled to rest from toil for the remainder of his days. it would, however, be very far from the truth to think that his work was at an end because he is no longer here to carry it on with his own hands. simla, _october_ 25. of all the true and appreciative words which you have written of him, none seem to me truer than those in which you speak almost impatiently of the shallow fools who thought that he had "no religion." his religion always seemed to me nearer to that which _the_ master taught his followers than that of any other man or woman whom i have met, and i doubt whether any one of our time has done so much to spread true religion and christianity in the best sense of the word. all this was precisely and profoundly what miss nightingale felt about her friend. of all men whom she had known, none seemed to her to have led a christian life more consistently than mr. jowett. in her thoughts about him she had only one regret. it was that their friendship had never resulted in any formal re-statement of religious doctrine. she had not been able to put into any such form as satisfied him the scheme of theodicy which they had discussed during thirty years, and he had devoted too much time, she thought, to criticism and too little to reconstruction. but in religious practice, how rich was his legacy--both in precept and in example! in letters of his later years, no thought had been more often expressed by mr. jowett than that of browning's _rabbi ben ezra_--a poem which he was constantly recommending to miss nightingale. and there was another poem which he sent her: _the song celestial_, translated from the mahâbhârata by sir edwin arnold. "i think," he wrote (nov. 6, 1886), "it expresses some of the deepest thoughts of the human heart." these two poems which miss nightingale read, marked, and learnt, were to set the note of her last years. chapter ix old age--death (1894-1910) the truer, the safer, the better years of life are the later ones. we must find new ways of using them, doing not so much, but in a better manner--economising because economy has become necessary, for bodily strength obviously grows less: that is the will of god and cannot be escaped or denied.--benjamin jowett (_letter to miss nightingale_, dec. 30, 1887). let fruits of labour go, renouncing hope for me, with lowliest heart, so shalt thou come; for tho' to know is more than diligence, yet worship better is than knowing, and renouncing better still. near to renunciation--very near- dwelleth eternal peace. sir edwin arnold: _the song celestial_. it was in the spirit of rabbi ben ezra that miss nightingale faced old age, and for a few years after she had passed her 75th birthday she was able to enjoy "the last of life" with full zest. something of her former vigour was lost, but something of tenderness and acquiescence was gained. then her powers gradually failed; she was still in this world, but hardly any longer of it. the time for renunciation was come. there were several years of pensive evening; and then, the end--or, as miss nightingale believed with passionate intensity, the beginning of new work in another world. in her later years, a young cousin, in speaking to her of the death of a relation whom they both loved, said that now at any rate he was at rest and in peace. miss nightingale, who had been lying back on her pillows, sat up on the instant and said with full fire and vigour, "oh _no_, i am _sure_ it is an immense activity." miss nightingale's fervour in preaching the gospel that a man's latter years should be his best appears in a series of letters which touch successively on three of the main interests of her life. the first is to the cousin who now for thirty-five years had been her right-hand man in all that concerned the nightingale school; the second is to a politician with whose aspirations for a new era in india she had sympathized; and the third, to her old comrades in the british army:- (_to henry bonham carter._) 10 south street, _march_ 4 [1894]. my dear harry--f. n. did not know or did not remember--more abominable me!--that your birthday, a day we must all bless--was on feb. 15. and don't say "alas!" when you say "it completes my 67th year." your sun is still in the meridian, thank god! mr. jowett always said that the last years of life were and ought to be the best--and of himself he said (tho' he had, i fear, plenty of suffering in the last two years, and some ingratitude among those whom he had really created), that these years were his happiest--his energy never flagged. sir harry, an extraordinarily different man, has often told me that the last two or three were the happiest. and his energy, fitful as it always was, never flagged till the very last week of his life. sidney herbert worked till his last fortnight. and mr. gladstone--for this is like his death[246]--will be lamented not because he worked at home rule to his last moment, but because to his last moment he maintained the house of commons at what it was in the years i so well remember, its palmy days under the school of sir robert peel, of whom he is the last. now, haven't we cause to rejoice in your life ever more and more every year, and to thank you more and more, and to sing not the dies iræ but the te deum for your life. and a great many more besides us. hoot, hoot, laddie! you are one of those who "open the kingdom of heaven"--that which is "within" and here--"to all believers"; and _not_ one of those who leap from a pinnacle of the temple knowing nothing, but just thinking that the "angels will bear them up"--like some i could name but refrain. and one at least of the "angels" is always a vulgar wretch. and the real "angels" who are working hard, and in detail entirely repudiate the "bearing up" of the leaper from the pinnacle.... believe me, ever yours gratefully and affectionately, f. n. (_to sir william wedderburn._) 10 south street, _august_ 13 [1896].... you have no business to be low-spirited about the future. there is providence still. it is 40 years this month since i came back from the crimea. see how poor i have been helped, though i have lost all my friends among ministers. when i am low-spirited i read about the duke of wellington in the battle of waterloo or the peninsular war. and i see how he held on. alone he did it. and what was the end? he saved europe. so it will be with you. you will save india. [246] he had resigned the prime ministership on march 3, and made his last speech in the house of commons on march 1. he was then 85. (_to the crimean veterans._) _october_ 25 [1897]. my dear old comrades--i think of you on balaclava day and many days besides. in peace as in war, i wish you the best wish: quit ye like men! god, from whom the soldiers take their orders, has as much work for us to do for him in peace as in war--thank his love and wisdom!--and to the last years of our lives which ought to be the best years of our lives. never say "_poor_ lives." life is a splendid gift if we will but let him make it so, here and hereafter, for himself. god bless you all. a few weeks before the date of her letter to the crimean veterans, she had thanked god in her meditations for all he had given her--"work, constant work, work with sidney herbert, work with lord lawrence, and never out of work still." "i am soaked in work," she wrote to sir douglas galton (jan. 1897). "you see," she said to mr. bonham carter (sept. 1895), "i have my hands full, and am not idle, though people naturally think that i have gone to sleep or am dead." once or twice, her death had been reported. on another occasion, a paragraph went the round of the religious press stating that miss nightingale having contracted a spinal complaint from her long hours of standing in the crimea, had "now for some years been an in-patient at st. thomas's hospital." the paragraph brought a sheaf of letters from persons with "sure remedies" for spinal disease, from faith-healers, from mothers who had daughters similarly affected; and to the hospital, many flowers and letters of consolation. "they know nothing," she wrote to mr. bonham carter (july 6, 1897), "of what a press my life is, and often a hopeless press but for you." it was a busy life, and, until near its end, it was less subject to ill-health than in earlier years. she had outgrown the weakness of heart and nerves which had often been distressing in middle life, and though she still kept to her room, the impression which she now made upon all who saw her was of robust and vigorous old age. ii all the active interests of her life still occupied her. she interested herself closely in the progress of sanitary reform in india, and it was not till 1906 that her secretary had to inform the india office that sanitary papers could no longer usefully be forwarded to her. lord elgin, who succeeded lord lansdowne as viceroy in 1894, had sent his private secretary, sir henry babington smith, to call upon her, and through him she had still corresponded with the governor-general. her days of vigorous campaigning were over; she became more reconciled, as she grew older, to those "periods of indian cosmogony" of which lord salisbury, in the years of her impatience, had reminded her. she realized more fully than before that in india the progress of sanitary education must be slow. in 1898 she received the aga khan. "a most interesting man," she said in her note of the interview; "but you could never teach him sanitation. i never understood before how really impossible it is for an eastern to care for material things. i told him as well as i could all the differences both in town and in country during my life. do you think you are improving? he asked. by improving he meant believing more in god. to him sanitation is unreal and superstitious; religion, spirituality, is the only real thing." and, besides, miss nightingale had now to accept limitations in what she could any longer hope to effect. these limitations, and the work within them which she still was able to do, are touched upon in a piece from her pen in 1896.[247] "i am painfully aware how difficult, how almost impossible, it is for any one at a great distance to do anything to help forward a movement requiring unremitting labour and supervision on the spot. but it is my privilege to meet in england from time to time indian friends who are heartily desirous of obtaining for their poorer fellow-countrymen the benefits which, through sanitary science, are gradually being extended to the masses here, both in town and country, and which are doing so much to promote their health and happiness. so i never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself." and she went on to describe the steps which her friend mr. malabari was taking to promote sanitary education, and even to institute health missionaries, in selected districts of rural india. the government of india was co-operating to some extent in such work. in a paper written in 1894[248] she tendered "cordial acknowledgments to lord cross, lord kimberley, and mr. fowler, the successive secretaries of state for india, also to lord lansdowne and lord elgin, the viceroys, for the personal interest they have shown" in the matter of village sanitation. she especially commended the practical and helpful spirit shown in the government of india's dispatch of march 1895 instituting "village sanitary inspection books." [247] bibliography a, no. 138. [248] bibliography a, no. 135. iii in the army, too, miss nightingale continued to take a lively interest, and sir douglas galton was still within--not always instant--call to give her information or advice:- (_miss nightingale to sir douglas galton._) 10 south street, _nov._ 24 [1895]. oh you turk, oh you rascal, sir douglas, not to tell me that you were in london, not to reward me for my good resolution in not troubling you. i would have asked but few questions, but these called for haste. (i.) most important: how the troops for kumassi are to be supplied with water, day and night, fit to drink? spirit ration only as medicine? are they to have salt pork and beef? then about their shoes, stockings, and boots? are these things now recognized at head quarters? probably i am disquieting myself in vain. lord lansdowne is so overwhelmed with amateur schemes for w. o. reform--not that i am in that line of business now at all; but i do not like to write to him just now. (ii.) barracks at newcastle-on-tyne, depot where 5th fusiliers are quartered, said to be in an awful state of bad drainage: not denied, but remedy "would cost too much." i know nothing of it personally. "ladies sanitary association" dying to interfere. sir thomas crawford dead, or i should have asked _his_ advice. (iii.) we have another nurse (a sister of st. thomas's) going out to india to join the army nursing staff. three are going out in three ships--they don't know where--each goes alone. (the i.o. sends them out like the famous _pair_ of painted marmots who came over in _three_ ships, on the crust of a twopenny loaf which served them for provisions during the voyage.) mine asks me for an army medical book. don't misunderstand: the nurses must not know anything about anything, to be looked well on by the doctors, whose treatment is, i believe, what it was 40 years ago. but if there is a book which could put her up to things, not excepting the terrible increase of the vicious disease, do recommend it me if you can. in 1895 came the reluctant retirement of the duke of cambridge from the post of commander-in-chief which he had held for nearly fifty years, and sir douglas suggested to miss nightingale that the old soldier might be pleased by a letter from her. "i should never have thought that myself," she said; but she had a soft place in her heart for the duke, as we have seen,[249] and she took kindly to the suggestion. she sent a sympathetic letter in which, as an old servant of the soldiers herself, she ventured to thank the duke for his many services to the british army. "i have had such a very nice answer," she told sir douglas. the terms in which the duke replied (oct. 1) show that miss nightingale's kindly compliments had brought some balm to him in his "great grief and sorrow." [249] vol. i. p. 385. one of miss nightingale's latest interventions in administrative affairs was an urgent plea for improvement in the barracks at hong-kong, about which she had received private information in connection with the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1896. she prepared a careful summary of the case, and through sir douglas galton made representations both to the war office (sir evelyn wood) and to the colonial office (mr. chamberlain). sir evelyn wood, i feel sure, must at any rate have listened attentively to what she had to say. in 1898 he gave an appointment to a godson of hers[250] and told her with what pleasure he had done so "as a patient of yours in 1856." as for the colonial office, she noted a wise saw which some one told her: "if you get a private reply, the thing is done; if an official reply, all is up." her reply was official, but nevertheless something was done; though not, i think, all that she wanted. another matter which much occupied miss nightingale's mind at this time was the effect of the repeal of the contagious diseases act, especially in connection with india. in 1896-97 a departmental committee was appointed to report upon the facts, and there was much discussion. miss nightingale was besieged by both sides for her opinion. she had found reason in the facts for some modification of her former opinions.[251] she was still opposed to the complete reintroduction of the old system, but she thought, on close examination of the facts, that the balance of advantage, moral and physical, lay with some amount of sanitary precaution. she signed, with a reservation,[252] a memorial promoted by princess christian, lady jeune, and others, "expressing our anxious hope that effectual measures will be taken to check the spread of contagious diseases among our soldiers, especially in india." there was much abuse of miss nightingale, and some praying over her for such "backsliding." it was in connection with this matter that she wrote a characteristic comment upon one of her friends: "she does not want to hear facts; she wants to be enthusiastic." [250] in later years miss nightingale was not quite so strict as formerly (see above, p. 73) in abstaining from asking such favours. [251] see above, p. 75. [252] miss nightingale's signature was "subject to the addition of a request that an independent inquiry be at the same time set on foot at the several stations in india as recommended by the governor-general in council on nov. 4, 1896." study of the facts, forethought, good administration: these were the things which constantly occupied miss nightingale's mind in relation to military, as to other, affairs. they were the things which had been indelibly impressed upon her by the crimean war. in the year of the diamond jubilee, the enterprising mr. kiralfy bethought himself of a victorian era exhibition, in which one section should be devoted to nursing. great ladies took up the idea, and miss nightingale was besieged from many quarters to let herself be "represented" by photographs, busts, autographs, and "relics of the crimean war." miss nightingale at the first attack was in her most withering vein. "oh the absurdity of people," she wrote, "and the vulgarity! the 'relics,' the 'representations' of the crimean war! what are they? they are, first, the tremendous lessons we have had to learn from its tremendous blunders and ignorances. and next they are trained nurses and the progress of hygiene. these are the 'representations' of the crimean war. and i will not give my foolish portrait (which i have not got) or anything else as 'relics' of the crimea. it is too ridiculous. you don't judge even of the victuals inside a public-house by the sign outside. i won't be made a _sign_ at an exhibition. think of sidney herbert's splendid royal commissions which struck the keynote of progress in the british army! think of the unwearied toil of the sanitarians! and you ask me for the photograph of a rat! and at the moment too when there is the plague at bombay!" but having delivered her mind in some letters to this effect, miss nightingale let her heart be persuaded. lady wantage, whom she held in affectionate admiration, climbed the stairs in south street to press the suit in person, and miss nightingale surrendered. "lady wantage was so charming," she wrote, half-ashamed of the surrender, "and she wouldn't 'take' when i went off upon royal commissions _et id genus omne_, and she stuck to her point and she was so gracious and she is such a very good woman." so the "bust of florence nightingale" was lent, and her old "crimean carriage," brought down from a loft in the country, was patched up to serve as a "relic." a distinguished writer (but he was a humorist) has averred that he once saw an italian organ-grinder on his knees before a shop-window in st. martin's lane, having taken a dentist's showcase for relics of the saints. that was perhaps pushing things a little far; but "hope in the hem of the garment" is deeply rooted in men's hearts. "we want something to love," said one of miss nightingale's friends in supporting lady wantage's petition, "and one cannot love royal commissions." the crimean relic served. at the exhibition an old soldier was seen to go up to the carriage and kiss it. the bust was also bedecked. "now i must ask you," wrote miss nightingale to her cousin louis (oct. 16, 1897), when the exhibition was to be closed, "about my bust. (here i stop to utter a great many bad words, not fit to put on paper. i also utter a pious wish that the bust may be smashed.) i should not have remembered it, but that i am told somebody came every day to dress it with fresh flowers. i utter a pious wish that that person may be saved. you (for i know not what sins), it appears, are my 'man of business.' what _is_ to be done about that bust?" miss nightingale's private meditations were the more earnest for her compliance in what she regarded as a mere triviality. the exhibition was to her an occasion for giving thanks to god. "how inefficient i was in the crimea! yet he has raised up trained nursing from it!" memories of the crimea were much in miss nightingale's mind during these years. on waterloo day, 1898, she made an interesting note:- what an administrator was the duke! he chose the ground for the battle--he, not the enemy. by his constructive arrangements, having forced them to accept the ground _he_ chose, he, who had no staff fit to help him, supervised everything himself. he made each corps lie down on the ground he had chosen for it the next day; the ammunition each would require was conveyed to it under _his own_ orders (how many a battle has been lost from want of ammunition!); he provided for every possible contingency. nothing was neglected, nothing lost, nothing failed. and so he delivered europe from the greatest military genius the world has seen. how different was the duke from lord raglan, excepting that both were honourable gentlemen! lord raglan was told in a letter by a chance doctor, a volunteer, a civilian, a man whom nobody had ever heard of, that if the men were not better hutted, better fed, better clothed, in a few weeks he would have no army at all. lord raglan rode down at once alone with the exception of a single orderly, and got off his horse and went into his informant's tent and said, "you know i could try you by court martial for this letter." he answered, "my lord, that is just what i want. then the truth will come out. what signifies what becomes of me? but will you ride round first alone just as you are now at once and see whether what i have said is true?" lord raglan did so, and found that it was within the truth. and so the army was saved. the men were dying of scurvy from salt meat; but the shores of the euxine were crowded with cattle. the outbreak of war in south africa led her thoughts to another interest which had much occupied her at scutari--the better employment of the soldier in peace:- "london is full," she noted (october 1899), "of rumours of war with the boers. i cannot say these rumours are frightful in my ears. few men and fewer women have seen so much of the horrors of war as i have. yet i cannot say that war seems to me an unmitigated evil. the soldier in war is a _man_: devoted to his duty, giving his life for his comrade, his country, his god. i cannot bear to say: compare him with the soldier in peace in barracks; for you will say, then would you always have war? well, i have nothing to do with the making of war or peace. i can only say that you must see the man in war to know what he is capable of. if you drive past a barrack, you will see two heads idling and lolling out of every window. and the only creature who is doing anything is the dog who is carrying victuals to his wife who has puppies. and the moral is: provide the soldier with active employment." iv she was unable to take any active part in connection with sending out nurses to south africa; though many inquiries were addressed to her, and many nurses wrote to her from the scene of war. to the "scottish hospital in south africa," she contributed £100--a gift which was partly inspired by affection for her "grateful and loving child," miss spencer, matron of the edinburgh infirmary, who was much interested in the scheme. miss nightingale's interest in the work of her old pupils all over the country, in the education of her probationers at st. thomas's, and in the affairs of the nursing world in general, was unabated during the closing years of the century. the "nurses' battle" about registration was still active, and from time to time she was appealed to for aid. in 1895 certain overtures were made. "shall i royally discard it," she asked, "or give them a buster?" she chose the latter course. a little later, one of her allies was thought to be weakening. "i did my 'spiriting,'" she reported, "with that gentleness for which i am so remarkable! he gives in. he is a very striking man, and of great presence of mind; masterful too, but he is staggered by princesses." she was hard at work, too, with advising on appointments. there was one part of the world, however--buenos ayres--of which miss nightingale began to wash her hands. "of the last party, all were married within a year; what is the use of sending out any more?" at home there were "four successors wanted," she wrote (1896), "and four staffs howling." a matron in a country hospital was about to resign: "i had two letters and four telegrams from her on tuesday and other days in proportion." the volume of her nursing correspondence during 1896-97 is, indeed, as great as at any previous time, and she still received regular visits from matrons, sisters, and nurses. "after looking over a mass of sisters' records, probationers' examination-papers, case-books, and diaries, and having had the pleasure of many afternoons with probationers and ex-probationers," she found "much cause for thankfulness" in her school; but "as we are always trying to make progress," she went on to propose to her council a series of detailed suggestions for reform. for some years, too, she was much occupied in advising lord and lady monteagle in a matter which they were promoting--the training of nurses for irish workhouses. her affectionate concern in her nursing friends was constant. in the year of the jubilee (1897) queen victoria invited her to come in a bath-chair to the forecourt of buckingham palace to witness the procession. she was unable to leave her room, but she remembered the nurses and purchased a number of seats for distribution among them. she was deeply interested in a nurse who volunteered for plague-service in india: "the deepest, quietest, most striking person i have seen from our present staff, and so pretty. not enthusiastic except in the good old original sense: god in us. she is firmly and cautiously determined to go to the plague." after a series of interviews with nurses and letters from them (1898), miss nightingale noted some impressions of types. she valued efficiency, but she deplored a tendency which she detected to substitute professionalism for heart. who are the "ministering angels"? she asked. "the angels are _not_ they who go about scattering flowers: any naughty child would like to do that, even any rascal. the angels are they who, like nurse or ward-maid or scavenger, do disgusting work, removing injury to health or obstacles to recovery, emptying slops, washing patients, etc., for all of which they receive no thanks. these are the angels. they speak kind words too, and give sympathy. the drabby nurse, crying as if her heart would break, with apron over her head, because a poor little peevish thing who has never given her anything but trouble is dead--is an angel; while the nurse who coolly walks down a ward noting how many children are dead who were alive when she last made her round, is by no means an angel." in such thoughts miss nightingale had a constant sympathizer in the grand duchess of baden, who wrote to her year by year, in terms of warm affection, reporting progress in german nursing--reports which told of professional improvement, but also, as the grand duchess thought, of some lack of high ideal. the empress frederick, too, continued to see miss nightingale from year to year, and their talk was very sympathetic. of her allies at home, mr. bonham carter was helpful, not only in the conduct of the nightingale school but in the management of her private affairs. mr. rathbone retained to the last his devotion to her as the founder of modern nursing. "to have been allowed," he wrote (dec. 27, 1897), "to work with your inspiration and wise counsels for more than 35 years as one of your agents in your great work is a thing i am deeply grateful for. i remain while life lasts your devoted friend, and in effort at least your faithful servant." "from the confinement of your room," he added, "you have done more to spread reform than you could have done with the most perfect health and strength." that was not the opinion of miss nightingale; she could only direct or advise; she had for many years been forced to leave action to others. the sense of this disability did not grow less, but as years passed, it was felt to be the common lot of the old. she was not well pleased with all that she saw, but she was, of necessity and by discipline of character, less impatient. she could now regard with affectionate tolerance a wedding in her family of nurses. to one "child" she sent a present "with the very best marriage wishes of f. n., though sorry to lose you. come and see me." she even forgave an old friend whose marriage many years before she had resented as "desertion." she saw much around her to criticize, but she was content to uphold her own ideals and her criticisms became less censorious. "remember," she said to herself in her meditations, "god is not my private secretary." as old friends disappeared, she looked the more earnestly to the younger generation. sir robert rawlinson, who for more than forty years had corresponded with her on sanitary affairs, died in 1898; sir douglas galton, in 1899; mr. rathbone, in 1902.[253] she was anxious that sir douglas galton's services should be rightly appreciated in the press, and took some measures to that end. "the man whom we have lost," she wrote privately (march 12, 1899), "sir douglas galton, was the first royal engineer who put any _sanitary_ work into r. engineering. the head of these men at the war office, the r. engineers, himself said to me: 'our business is to make roads and to build bridges--we have nothing to do with health and that kind of doctor's work,' or words to that effect. sir d. g. opened his own ears and his heart and his mind, and put all his powers into saving life while working in his profession." "one does feel," she had written on all souls' day, 1896, "the passing away of so many who seemed essential to the world. i have no one now to whom i could speak of those who are gone. but all the more i am eager to see successors. what is that verse--that the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons (and daughters) of god. and i am thankful for the many noble souls i have known." [253] for miss nightingale's tribute to his memory, see above, p. 124. v gradually miss nightingale's powers failed. for the last fifteen years of her life she seldom left her room in south street. her last visit to embley had been in august 1891. the property there was sold in 1896, "and i don't like being turned out of hampshire," she said. her last visit to claydon was in 1894-95. to lea hurst, which had been let for 10 years in 1883, she never went after her mother's death, though she retained her interest in local affairs there to the end. already in 1887 she had talked of herself as "almost blind"; and in 1895, in a note of symptoms about which to ask her doctor, she had included "want of memory." the loss at first was only of dates and names, but after a few years it became more general. her eyesight, which had troubled her for some time, now failed. the long series of pencilled meditations ceased. in the later years of them though there was still much self-condemnation, there was more of peace and hope. "november 3-4, 1893. thirty-nine years ago arrival at scutari. the immense blessings i have had--the longings of my heart accomplished--and now drawn to thee by difficulties and disappointments." "homeward bound." "i have entered in." owing to her eyesight being the first among her powers to fail, there is one exception to the general statement that the failure was gradual. her power of writing failed all at once. miss nightingale's handwriting, of which a facsimile has already been given, was very characteristic: clear, bold, and careful. she was possessed with the idea of doing everything that she undertook as perfectly as pains could enable her. in her handwriting every letter is well formed, every word has its clear space: paragraphs, insets, and intervals are arranged carefully to help the reader to the sense; yet all is done with an air of freedom and distinction. there is artistic feeling about the script; the distinctive formation of the _f_ in her signature may be instanced. few persons, i imagine, have ever written so much as miss nightingale did with her own hand, and the writing never deteriorated. some of her best friends and helpers--sidney herbert, for instance, and douglas galton--wrote, when hurried, the worst hands; and she would often pencil, over their almost indecipherable scrawls, a fair copy of what she conjectured the words to be. many of her own letters were in pencil, for she wrote much in bed; but she used a particular brand--procured by her friend mr. frederick, of the war office--hard, and not easily delible, and her handwriting is as good in pencil as with the pen. there were some variations in its manner. in middle life, as some one said of it, her writing "galloped across the page tossing its mane." in youth and in age, it was extremely careful. the very latest examples which i have seen show only a slight quaver in the lines; the formation of the letters and the spacing are as exact as ever. then the sight failed, and the writing almost ceased. from about 1901 or 1902 onwards she could neither read nor write except with the greatest difficulty. there were no longer papers on the bed. the hands were quiet. her eyes rested on her friends with even more than the old kindness, but not with the old penetrating clearness. in 1902 miss nightingale was persuaded to accept the services of a companion, miss cochrane; who, on leaving to be married, was succeeded in 1904 by miss elizabeth bosanquet. some diplomacy was necessary, and at first it was agreed that the post should be called that of "lady housekeeper." in reality it was that of private secretary, with large initiative. miss nightingale did not easily yield to her infirmities; she concealed them, too, so cleverly as sometimes to mislead visitors, who took a kindly "yes, dear" to express more intellectual apprehension and assent than really lay behind it. lord kitchener, who paid her a visit, remarked to miss cochrane after the interview how closely miss nightingale in her old age followed what was going on; but she had known that lord kitchener was coming and had prepared herself by questioning miss cochrane fully and impressing on her own memory what her visitor had lately been doing. for some years she liked to feel that she was still in the movement of the world, and to have the daily newspaper read to her--thus submitting in old age to an exercise which had caused her much impatient disgust in youth. her _notes on nursing_, written nearly half a century before, proved true in some respects of her own case, though not in others. she was indifferent to some of her maxims, and in the last years paid little attention to the gospel of the open window. but what she had observed in sickrooms about the tastes of others was recognized as true by those in attendance upon her. so long as she could see at all, she greatly loved to have flowers about her. then, again, she had written that what those like who are past the power of action themselves is "to hear of good practical action by others." and that was what she found in her old age. she liked to have biographies read to her, and essays which recounted or commended vigorous doing. she was never tired of some pages in mr. roosevelt's _strenuous life_, and would signify approval by rapping energetically on the table beside her. for several years her bodily strength was well maintained, and she suffered little, except from occasional rheumatism. she was rather a difficult patient, for she could not bring herself to believe that she needed care. she did not take kindly to the introduction of a nurse. the ruling passion of her life was strong; and when the nurse had tucked her up for the night, she would often reverse the parts, get out of bed and go into the adjoining room to tuck up the nurse. she could not realize that her secretary lived with her night and day; and when good-night was said, she would reply, "and now, my dear, how are you going home? do let me send for a cab." her voice still retained its quality. in extreme old age she used to recite milton and shelley and pieces of italian and french in rich, full tones. sometimes she would sing, still in a sweet and gay voice, a snatch of an italian song. her voice seemed, says one who was much with her, to fill the room. "one day," says a cousin, "she was objecting to being helped in dressing, and i was summoned from the bottom to the top of the house by splendid easy shouts." but there was only occasional revolt. the abiding impression made upon all who served her was of an unfailing kindness and consideration. she still received many visitors, in addition to her cousins and other kinsfolk. among old friends, miss paulina irby saw her the most frequently. sometimes the visit was from a stranger, to whom the occasion had almost an hieratic impressiveness. miss nightingale liked best those visitors who had an abundant flow of vigorous talk. a pause in the conversation, which she might be expected to fill by starting a new topic, was a strain to her. the visits which tired her least were those of matrons and nursing sisters. she loved to hear of their work, their patients, and especially of suggestions they made for improvements. one of her nursing friends paused in the talk to ask, "but am i not tiring you?" "oh, no," replied miss nightingale quickly, "you give me new life." to dictate any message on her own part was now beyond her. of the messages sent to her, those which she longest retained the power of apprehending were from crimean veterans. vi memory, sight, and mental apprehension were rapidly failing when the crowning honours of her life (as the world counts them) were conferred upon her. on november 28, 1907, king edward wrote with "much pleasure," to offer the order of merit "in recognition of invaluable services to the country and to humanity." a suitable reply was framed for her, and on december 5, sir douglas dawson, on the king's behalf, brought the order--then for the first time bestowed upon a woman--to south street. miss nightingale understood that some kindness had been done to her, but hardly more. "too kind, too kind," she said. on march 16, 1908, the freedom of the city of london was conferred upon her--hitherto conferred on only one woman, lady burdett-coutts. miss nightingale was able with great difficulty to sign from her bed her initials upon the city's roll of honour, but it is doubtful if she understood what she was being asked to sign. perhaps it was better so. in the years of her strength she had ever a dread and a misgiving of the world's praises. in the days of her weakness, when power of work in this world had gone from her, she would have regarded such honours, had she understood them, as coming too late. she sought no glory-crown but the opportunity of doing new work. [illustration: florence nightingale 1907 from a water-colour drawing by miss f. alicia de biden footner] but the prizes of the world may be of real value to others than those who receive them. the signal honour conferred by the crown upon miss nightingale had the effect of calling fresh attention to her work and her example. not, indeed, that these depended on adventitious aids to remembrance. to some men and women whose years are many it is fated that they should outlive their fame. it was not so with miss nightingale. to her it was given to become in her lifetime a tradition and almost an institution; and the longer she lived, the greater, the more widespread was her fame. already on her 80th birthday (1900), miss nightingale had been the recipient of congratulations from queens and royal highnesses, from schools and societies, and from nurses and nursing associations in all parts of the world. in the united states the name of florence nightingale was even more widely known and loved than in great britain, and already in 1895 the american ambassador (mr. bayard) had begged the honour of an interview in order to tell her "how much revered she is in the united states." perhaps the congratulations which might have pleased miss nightingale most--for she loved efficiency and had read _the soul of a people_--were those which came from the far east. from tokio, on november 28, 1900, the princess imperial sent this letter: "the committee of the ladies of the red cross society of japan have the pleasure of presenting to you their hearty congratulation on the occasion of your 80th birthday. that the address reaches you late in time is due to the great distance which separates your land from ours. but far as our country is from yours, the example of your noble efforts, now become historic, has not affected its inhabitants the less; for it is due to the impulse you have given to the humane work of nursing sick and wounded soldiers that the trained nurses of our society, amounting to more than 1500 in number, as well as the members of our committee, are applying themselves with eager zeal to the study and practice necessary for complete efficiency in the hour of need. may your day still be long that you may see the lasting influence of your work expand by its own virtue more and more in all the lands of the earth." miss nightingale had thus not been forgotten when the sovereign bestowed the order of merit; but the public honour set up a fresh cult of her name and work. among the private congratulations sent to her, there was one which if she were able to realize it, must have warmed the soldier's heart in her. it was from lord roberts: "allow me to offer you on behalf of lady roberts and myself sincerest congratulations on the honour the king has been graciously pleased to confer upon you. it is indeed an honour conferred upon the order of merit; all the members of which must feel proud to have the name of florence nightingale added to the list." the german emperor, a little later, had a kindly thought. he had been staying in the new forest. "his majesty," wrote the german ambassador (dec. 10), "having just brought to a close a most enjoyable stay in the beautiful neighbourhood of your old home near romsey, has commanded me to present you with some flowers as a token of his esteem." the mayor of her native city, florence, sent congratulations; the patriotic society of bologna made her a companion of honour. from all parts of great britain, from the dominions, from the united states, messages poured in. it was the story of "the popular heroine" repeated after fifty years. the beggars and autograph-hunters were insistent; the poetasters, industrious. a great tribe of florences, named after the heroine of the crimea, sent messages. flowers, needlework, illuminated cards were offered. companies of girl-scouts called themselves "the nightingales." there were "florence nightingale societies" in america. "birthday letters to florence nightingale" became a favourite school-exercise. there were crimean veterans who sent flowers or messages recalling stirring times in which they had "served with her," or who "in old age and suffering" desired to let miss florence nightingale know that they held her "in lively and grateful remembrance." in june 1907 there was an international conference of red cross societies in london. queen alexandra sent a message referring to "the pioneer of the first red cross movement, miss florence nightingale, whose heroic efforts on behalf of suffering humanity will be recognized and admired by all ages as long as the world shall last." the conference, on the initiative of the hungarian delegates, resolved unanimously that "the great and incomparable name of miss florence nightingale, whose merits in the field of humanity are never to be forgotten, and who raised the care of the sick to the position of a charitable art, imposes on the eighth international conference of red cross societies the noble duty of rendering homage to her merits by expressing warmly its high veneration." in may 1910 there was a large gathering in the carnegie hall in new york, at which the public orator of america, mr. choate, delivered an eulogium, "testifying to the admiration of the entire american people for florence nightingale's great record and noble life." the meeting, assembled in honour of the jubilee of the nightingale training school, was eloquent of the spread of her work, being representative of a thousand nurse training schools in that country. vii the subject of these friendly manifestations was already passing beyond reach of the hubbub. her sight was gone. her understanding had grown more feeble. her regular medical attendant was now dr. may thorne, whose skill and unremitting care did much to alleviate the last bed-ridden years. sir thomas barlow was called in for consultations periodically. visitors had now been restricted to two or three a week. visits were found tiring, for she could not realize when the visitors were gone that they were no longer in the room. nor did she always remember which of her old friends were still alive. she did not realize that sir harry verney was dead, she would sometimes ask for him, and wonder why he did not come. besides her own "nieces," she still saw sisters from st thomas's or other nursing friends, and occasionally was able by a question or two to show interest in what they said. one of the last to see her outside the immediate circle was miss pringle, her dear friend, the pearl of an earlier chapter. "she was sitting up by the fire in the familiar room, her mind evidently busy with happy thoughts, and once or twice she spoke in a tone of satisfaction." this was in february 1910. she could no longer follow sustained reading, but still liked to hear familiar hymns. a favourite, if one may judge by the frequency with which verses from it appear in her latest written meditations, was "o lord, how happy should we be, if we could cast our care on thee, if we from self could rest." once, the expression of an aspiration; now perhaps, of attainment. the end came very peacefully. at the beginning of august, 1910, she had some ailment, but there seemed no cause for immediate apprehension. on august 13, she fell asleep at noon, and did not wake again. she died at about half-past two in the afternoon. she had lived 90 years and three months. * * * * * the offer of burial in westminster abbey was declined by her relatives. she had left directions that her funeral should be of the simplest possible kind, and that her body should be accompanied to the grave by not more than two persons. she was buried beside her father and mother in the churchyard of east wellow, near her old home in hampshire. the body was borne to the grave by six of her "children" of the british army--sergeants drawn from the several regiments of the guards. her desire that only two persons should follow the coffin could not be fulfilled. the funeral arrangements were kept as private as was possible; but there was a wealth of flowers from people of every kind, age, and degree, and the lane and churchyard were filled with a great crowd of men, women, and children, most of them poorly dressed. the family grave is marked by a four-sided stone monument. on two of the sides are inscriptions, composed by miss nightingale, recording the burial there of her father and mother; on the third, is an inscription in memorial of their elder daughter, lady verney, who is buried at claydon. on the fourth side is a small cross with the letters "f. n.," and the words "born 1820. died 1910." the family, as she desired, set up no other memorial.[254] the hymn sung over her grave was bishop heber's. she had never tired of quoting it in messages to her nurses and her soldiers, and those who had been about her in the closing years were often thrilled by the fire which she still put into her recital of the lines: the son of god goes forth to _war_, a kingly crown to gain, his blood-red banner streams afar: _who follows in his train?_ [254] memorial services were held in st. paul's cathedral, in liverpool cathedral, and in many other places of worship. the english community in florence have set up a symbolical memorial--designed by mr. w. sargant--in the cloisters of santa croce. in this country there are to be several memorials. the army nurses have put up a memorial window in the chapel of the military hospital at millbank. in derby a statue (by countess feodora gleichen) is to be set up; any balance that there may be from the memorial fund is to be given to district nursing in the county. a "national memorial fund" is to be devoted, in the first instance, to a statue (by mr. arthur g. walker) in some public place in london and, then, to the nurses' pension fund. conclusion the character and the life described in this book had many sides; and though the essential truth consists in the blending of them all, it is necessary in the medium of recital in prose to depict first one side and then another. the artist on canvas exhibits the blended tints at one time. that is why the portrait by a great painter sometimes tells us more of a character at a glance than is gathered from volumes of written biography. but no artist painted a portrait of miss nightingale in her prime, and i must do as best i may with my blotching prose in an endeavour to collect into some general impression what has been told in these volumes. i begin with recalling some of the stronger traits; they will presently be softened when i turn to other sides of the character which has been illustrated in this memoir. florence nightingale was by no means a plaster saint. she was a woman of strong passions--not over-given to praise, not quick to forgive; somewhat prone to be censorious, not apt to forget. she was not only a gentle angel of compassion; she was more of a logician than a sentimentalist; she knew that to do good work requires a hard head as well as a soft heart. it was said by miss nightingale of a certain great lady that "with the utmost kindness and benevolent intentions she is in consequence of want of practical habits of business nothing but good and bustling, a time-waster and an impediment." miss nightingale knew hardly any fault which seemed worse to her in a man than to be unbusiness-like; in a woman, than to be "only enthusiastic." she found no use for "angels without hands." she was essentially a "man of facts" and a "man of action." she had an equal contempt for those who act without knowledge, and for those whose knowledge leads to no useful action. she was herself laborious of detail and scrupulously careful of her premises. "though i write positively," she once said, "i do not think positively." she weighed every consideration; she sought much competent advice; but when once her decision was taken, she was resolute and masterful--not lightly turned from her course, impatient of delay, not very tolerant of opposition. something of this spirit appears in her view of friendship and in the conduct of her affections. men and women are placed in the world in order, she thought, to work for the betterment of the human race, and their work should be the supreme consideration. mr. jowett said of miss nightingale that she was the only woman he had ever known who put public duty before private. whosoever did the will of the father, the same was her brother, and sister, and mother. "_the_ thing wanted in england," she wrote to madame mohl (april 30, 1868), "to raise women (and to raise men too) is: these friendships without love between men and women. and if between married men and married women all the better.... i think a woman who cares for a man because of his convictions, and who ceases to care for him if he alters those convictions, is worthy of the highest reverence. the novels--all novels, the best--which represent women as in love with men without any reason at all, and ready to leave their highest occupations for love--are to me utterly wearisome--as wearisome as a juggler's trick--or table-turning--or spiritual rapping, when the spirit says aw! and that is so sublime that all the women are subjugated. madame récamier's going to rome when m. de chateaubriand was made minister is exactly to me as a soldier deserting on the eve of a battle." the occasion of this letter was some gossip of the day about a great lady whose friendship with a politician was supposed to have cooled owing to some intellectual or political disagreement. "i have the greatest reverence for----; and i think hers was one of the best friendships that ever was--and for the oddest reason--what do you think?--because she has broken it." what she said about chateaubriand reflected, from a different point of view, something that mr. jowett had written to her in the previous year. "i am not at all tired," he had said (sept. 1867), "of hearing about lord herbert. that was one of the best friendships which there ever was upon earth. shall i tell you why i say this? because you were willing to have gone to india in 1857." devotion to a common purpose in active life and equal zeal in the co-operative prosecution of it: these were the conditions which miss nightingale required in friendship. they were realized the most fully in the case of five years of her friendship with sidney herbert--a period of which she used to speak, accordingly, as her "heaven upon earth." it was the work with him, more than the charm of his conversation and manner (though he had both and though she was susceptible to both), that was the essence of her pleasure. she had as little taste for conversation as for knowledge that led nowhither. "there is nothing so fatiguing," she said, "as a companion who is always _effleurant_ the deepest subjects--never going below the surface; as a person who is always inquiring and never coming to any solution or decision. i don't know whether hamlet was mad. but certainly he would have driven me mad." the same positive and purposeful spirit, attuned rather to the intellectual and active sides of human nature than to the emotional, coloured miss nightingale's preferences in literature--as in this letter to madame mohl (may 20, 1868): "'what does it pruv?' said the old scotchwoman of _paradise lost_, and was abused for saying it. i say the same thing. _paradise lost_ pruvs nothing. _samson agonistes_ pruvs a great deal. tennyson never pruvs anything. browning's _paracelsus_ pruvs something. shakespeare, in whatever he writes--in the deepest, highest tragedies, like 'king lear' or 'hamlet'--pruvs everything and does most explain the ordinary life of every one of us." she was a great reader, but she preferred the literature of fact to that of imagination. "wondering," she said, "is like yawning, and leaves the same sensation behind it, and should never be allowed except when people are very much exhausted." there followed from all this a certain severity in miss nightingale's dealings with her friends; a certain inability to show tolerance or understanding for other points of view than her own. there was a lady, once a fellow-worker, who accused miss nightingale roundly of having "no idea of friendship." the accusation was not true, but one can see what the lady meant. miss nightingale was apt to be a little over-exacting, and to drive her friends rather hard. also she did not relish independence or opposition. "i like being under obedience to you," wrote one of her nursing friends, always very dear to her. not indeed that miss nightingale had any weakness for gush--no one had less; but if a friend was otherwise admirable to her--by good sense and zeal, and so forth, the fact of the "obedience" was not other than an additional recommendation. she was inclined to resent any diversion on the part of her friends to other interests as desertion. all this will, i think, sometimes be felt to be true by those who read the present memoir. yet it is only part of the truth; and because the final truth resides in the whole it is in a sense not true at all. the greatness of miss nightingale's character, and the secret of her life's work, consist in the union of qualities not often found in the same man or woman. she was not a sentimentalist; yet she was possessed by an infinite compassion. pity for the sick and sorrowful,--a passionate desire to serve them,--devotion to her "children," the common soldiers--sympathy with the voiceless peasants of india: these were ruling motives of her life. she scorned those who were "only enthusiasts"; but there was no height of devotion to which a considered enthusiasm would not lead her. she had in equal measure cleverness and charm. she had a pungent wit, but also a loving heart. the sharpness often prominent in her letters was not always the expression of her real mind or manner. she shunned "the broad way and the green"; but colonel lefroy applied to her no less the later words: "they that overween, no anger find in thee, but pity and truth." she combined in a rare degree strength and tenderness. masterful in action, she was humble, even to the verge of morbid abasement, in thought. she was at once positive and mystic. all this also will, as i hope, be found proven in the memoir. a curious, and a larger, question is raised by some of the apparent contradictions in miss nightingale's aim, thoughts, and character. she was intensely spiritual; she sought continually for the kingdom of heaven, and she conceived of it as a kingdom of the soul. yet her aim may seem material; what she sought was a kingdom of more airy hospitals, more scientific nursing, brighter barracks, cleaner homes, better laid drains. it was after all a searching question which aga khan put to her, as he listened to the tale of sanitary improvement during the fifty years of her active life. "but are your people better?" are there more of them, we may conceive him as saying, who have attained to the kingdom of heaven in their souls? and unless you can show me that such has been the case, why have you, with your great influence and powers, devoted your life to this service of tables? what reply she made to the prince i do not know. the answer in her mind may be gathered from the course of her life, the nature of her speculations, and the bent of her character. at recurrent intervals she had formed thoughts for the main purposes of her life other than those which in fact she fulfilled. we have heard of her desire "to find a new religion for the artizans," and there are letters to mr. jowett in which she speaks of this desire--of the hope to establish on some sure foundation an organized creed and church--as the longing of her life. she had to abandon it, but never, in the most prosaic or material of her undertakings did she forget her spiritual ideals. she held, as her ideal of nursing shows, that "it takes a soul to raise a body even to a cleaner sty." she held also that the cleaner sty, though it might be the first thing needful, was not the end, but a means. "we must beware," she wrote, "both of thinking that we can maintain the 'kingdom of heaven within' under all circumstances,--because there are circumstances under which the human being cannot be good,--and also of thinking that the kingdom of heaven _without_ will produce the kingdom of heaven within."[255] [255] _suggestions for thought_, vol. ii. p. 205. miss nightingale's own peculiar genius was for administration and order; and she had to employ her genius within the fields of opportunity which her sex and her circumstances offered. she was fond of quoting a passage which she found in one of sir samuel baker's books of travel. "i, being unfortunately dependent on their movements, am more like a donkey than an explorer--that is, saddled and ridden away at a moment's notice." "i never did anything," she once said to a young friend, "except when i was asked." it will be agreed by all who have read this memoir that miss nightingale interpreted her mandates in a spacious sense admitting of much initiative. yet it is true in large measure that her work was the creation of circumstances, and was, in some fields, dependent on what she and mr. jowett used to call "temples of friendship" with political administrators. miss nightingale's scope of action was thus limited; but the limits did not prevent the application of her fundamental ideas. "perhaps," she wrote in one of her meditations (1868), "it is what i have seen of the misery and worthlessness of human life (few have seen more), together with the extraordinary power which god has put into the hands of quite ordinary people (if they would but use it) for raising mankind out of this misery and worthlessness, which has given me this intense and ever present feeling of an eternal life leading to perfection for each and for every one of us, by god's laws." miss nightingale did not suppose that human perfectibility, that the final union of man with god, was to be attained only by better sanitation. but she saw that this was the field open to her, and that it admitted of tilling by methods, which if applied to all departments of life would, as she conceived, lead to the one far-off divine event. "christianity," she wrote, "is to see god in everything, to find him out in everything, in the order or laws as of his moral or spiritual, so of his political or social, and so of his physical worlds.... to christ god was everything--to us he seems nothing, almost if not quite nothing, or if he is anything, he is only the god of sundays, and only the god of sundays as far as going to what we call our prayers, not the god of our week-days, our business, and our play, our politics and our science, our home life and our social life; our house of commons, our government, our post-office and correspondence--such an enormous item in these days--our foreign office, and our indian office.... the kingdom of heaven is within, but we must also make it so without. there is no public opinion yet, it has to be created, as to not committing blunders for want of knowledge; good intentions are supposed enough; yet blunders--organized blunders--do more mischief than crimes.... to study how to do good work, as a matter of life or death; to 'agonise' so as to obtain practical wisdom to do it, there is little or no public opinion enforcing this--condemning the want of it. until you can create such a public opinion little good will be done, except by accident or by accidental individuals. but when we have such a public opinion, we shall not be far from having a kingdom of heaven externally, even here."[256] "i never despair," she had written some years before, "that, in god's good time, every one of us will reap the common benefit of obeying all the laws which he has given us for our well-being." and towards that end, it was the duty of each and all, according to their several opportunities, to "work, work, work."[257] [256] _the mythe of life: four sermons on the social mission of the church._ by c. w. stubbs, 1880, pp. 86, 98. mr. stubbs (afterwards bishop of truro) quoted these passages from a letter written by miss nightingale to her sister. [257] letter to sir bartle frere, june 27, 1868. having found her appointed corner in the vineyard, miss nightingale devoted her life to it; in equal measure, with careful adjustment of means to ends, and with intense devotion. "to make an art of _life_!" she wrote to madame mohl (may 20, 1868). "that is the finest art of all the fine arts. and few there be that find it. it was the 'one thing wanting' to dear----. she had the finest moral nature i ever knew. yet she never did any good to herself or to any one else. because she never could make life an art. i used sometimes to say to her:--_do_ you mean to go on in that way for twenty years?--packing everybody's carpet-bag. she always said she didn't. but she always did. and if she did not go on for twenty years, it was only because death came. i am _obliged_ (by my ill-health) to make life an art--to be always thinking of it. because otherwise i should do _nothing_. (i have so little life and strength.)" miss nightingale had come back from the crimea full of honour. but she returned also seriously injured in health. how naturally might a woman of less resolute character have rested on her laurels, and sunk into a life of gracious repose or valetudinarian indolence! she chose, however, the better and the rougher path. she framed a regimen which shut her off from many of the common enjoyments of life, which to some degree impaired the flow of her domestic affections, but which enabled her, through nearly fifty years of recurrent weakness, to follow her highest ideals and to devote herself to work of public beneficence. the circumstances of her life as they were ordered for her, the manner of her life as she framed it to meet them, led to some other traits of character which, again, present at first sight a curious contrariety. "she is extremely modest," said the prince consort and queen victoria when they met her, and she made the same impression on all who came in contact with her whether in the region of public affairs or in that of nursing. she had a consistent and a perfectly sincere shrinking from every form of popular glare and glory. there are passages, however, in letters to her intimate friends which leave, on a first reading, a somewhat different impression. she craved for a full and understanding sympathy with her mission and her work. she was fully conscious, it would seem, of her great powers; she did not always care, in private letters, to hide or to under-rate the extent of her influence upon men and affairs. she objected, in one letter to a friend, that kinglake's chapter was intolerable because it posed her as "a tragedy queen"; but there are other letters in which she dramatizes herself somewhat; there is self-pity in them, and there is other self-consciousness. all this, which on a superficial glance may seem to present some difficult inconsistency, admits, i think, of easy explanation when the conditions of her life are remembered. she was intensely conscious of a special destiny, and the tenacity with which in the face of many obstacles she clung to her sense of a vocation enabled her to fulfil it. the sphere of women's work and opportunities has been so much widened in the present day, that readers of a generation later than florence nightingale's may require, perhaps, to make some effort of sympathetic imagination in order to realize how much of a pioneer she was.[258] in her earlier years it was a daring novelty for a young woman to put her hand to any solid work in political administration or other organizing business. she knew all this by hard experience, and it emphasized her sense of special destiny. the manner of her life threw her at the same time, at each stage, though in different ways, in upon herself. during the thwarted years of her youth, she found little outlet except, as she said, in "dreaming"; in dreaming, that is, of the things she might do, in imagining herself in this position of influence or in that. when the opportunity came to her of doing great things, not dreaming them, her youth and early womanhood were already past. miss nightingale was thirty-four when she went out to the crimean war. in the later years, the conditions in which she lived again encouraged, almost of necessity, a habit of introspection: a habit which was also confirmed by her mystical view of the duty of living an inner life of conscious self-realization. returning from the east in a state of nervous exhaustion, she was absorbed in work which could not wait. she was haunted for many years by threats of early death. there were such things to be, such things to do. but she did them for the most part in loneliness and without any habitual companionship. except during the five years of almost daily converse with sidney herbert, she enjoyed none of that influence, at once sobering and fortifying, which comes from the equal clash of mind with mind. the result was a strain of morbidness which found occasional expression in notes of excessive self-consciousness. [258] some passages which i have quoted from lord derby's _speeches_ may assist in such an effort. see vol. i. pp. 272, 305. there was, however, a more constant note. the nobility of miss nightingale's character and the worth of her life as an example are to be found, not least in the fundamental humility of temper and sanity of self-judgment which caused her to aim with consistent purpose, not only at great deeds, but at the doing of them from the highest motives. she never felt that she had done anything which might not have been done better; and, though she must have been conscious that she had done great things, she was for ever examining her motives and finding them fall short of her highest ideals. there is a story told of a famous artist, that a friend entering his studio found him in tears. "i have produced a work," he said, "with which i am satisfied, and i shall never produce another." the premonition was true. no later masterpiece was produced. the inspiration of the ideal was gone. that inspiration never forsook miss nightingale in her pursuit of the art of life. in life, as in other arts, what is spontaneous, and perhaps even what is unregenerate, have often more of charm than what is acquired or learnt by discipline. and in the case of miss nightingale, her elemental vigour of mind and force of will, will perhaps to some readers seem more admirable than the philosophy which she applied to her conduct or the acquired graces with which she sought to chasten her character. but however this may be, her constant striving after something which she deemed better, and the unceasing conflict which she waged, now with opposition of outward circumstance and now with undisciplined impulses from within, add savour and poignancy to her life. no man knew her so well for so many years as mr. jowett, and the thought of her life never ceased to excite his admiration. "most persons are engaged," he wrote at christmas-time 1886, "in feasting and holiday-making amid their friends and relatives. you are alone in your room devising plans for the good of the natives of india or of the english soldiers as you have been for the last thirty years, and always deploring your failures as you have been doing for the last thirty years, though you have had a far greater and more real success in life than any other lady of your time." and again: "there are those who respect and love you, not for the halo of glory which surrounded your name in the crimea, but for the patient toil which you have endured since on behalf of every one who is suffering or wretched." to us who are able to enter even more fully than mr. jowett into the inner life of miss nightingale, the respect and admiration may well be yet more enhanced, as we picture the conditions in which the patient toil was done, and remember the struggles of a beautifully sensitive soul in ascending the path towards perfection. * * * * * such is the picture of miss nightingale which this book has endeavoured to draw. as i wrote it i often thought with mr. jowett, that the life of the secluded worker in the solitary bedroom in south street was more impressive even than the better known episodes of santa filomena in the fever-haunted wards of scutari, or of the lady-in-chief giving her orders as she trudged through the snow from hut to hut on the heights of balaclava. but it is miss nightingale herself who, unconsciously, has said the last words on her life and character. in praising one of her fellow-workers, and, next, in giving counsel to some fellow-seekers after good, she used phrases which may well be applied to herself:-"one whose life makes a great difference for all: _all_ are better off than if he had not lived; and this betterness is for always, it does not die with him--that is the true estimate of a great life." "live your life while you have it. life is a splendid gift. there is nothing small in it. for the greatest things grow by god's law out of the smallest. but to live your life, you must discipline it. you must not fritter it away in 'fair purpose, erring act, inconstant will'; but must make your thought, your words, your acts all work to the same end, and that end not self but god. this is what we call character." appendices a. list of writings by miss nightingale. b. list of writings about her. c. list of portraits of her. appendix a list of printed writings, wether published or privately circulated, by miss nightingale, chronologically arranged 1851 (1) _the institution of kaiserswerth on the rhine, for the practical training of deaconesses, under the direction of the rev. pastor fliedner, embracing the support and care of a hospital, infant and industrial schools, and a female penitentiary._ london: printed by the inmates of the london ragged colonial training school, westminster, 1851. octavo, paper wrappers, pp. 32. published anonymously (see vol. i. p. 93). there was another edition (no date), with a different imprint, "london: printed for the benefit of the invalid gentlewomen's establishment, 1 upper harley street." 1854 (2) _letters from egypt. for private circulation only._ london: printed by a. and g. a. spottiswoode, 1854. octavo, pp. 334 + 79. after p. 334, further letters follow with separate pagination. the letters were written in 1849 and 1850 (see vol. i. p. 95). 1855 (3) evidence contained in _report upon the state of the hospitals of the british army in the crimea and scutari, 1855_. this is the report of the commission of three sent out by the duke of newcastle (see vol. i. p. 176). miss nightingale's evidence is at pp. 330-331, 342-343; and there are numerous references to it in the text of the report. 1857 (4) _female nurses in military hospitals._ a "tentative and experimental" memorandum submitted by request to the secretary of state. printed in _the panmure papers_, 1908, vol. ii. pp. 381-384. this memorandum was included, with a few slight modifications, at pp. 15-19 of _subsidiary notes_ (see no. 9). (5) _statements exhibiting the voluntary contributions 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._ london: harrison, 1857. octavo, red-paper wrappers, pp. 68. one of the most important sources for many sides of miss nightingale's work in the east. the pamphlet contains plans, also, of the hospitals at balaclava and scutari. 1858 (6) letter to "the colonists of south australia," dated jan. 28. printed in the _daily news_, august 26, 1858. the letter was a reply to a memorial adopted at a meeting held at adelaide, september 10, 1856, in support of the nightingale fund. (7) _report of the commission appointed to inquire into regulations affecting the sanitary condition of the army, the organization of military hospitals, and the treatment of the sick and wounded._ blue book, 1858. miss nightingale's evidence, supplied in answer to written questions, occupies pp. 361-394. it was reprinted in her _notes on hospitals_ (ed. 1, 1859). appendix lxxii. was also her work (anonymous). the whole report may, in a sense, be included among her "works" (see vol. i. part iii. chapters i. and iv.). (8) _notes on matters affecting the health, efficiency, and hospital administration of the british army founded chiefly on the experience of the late war. presented by request to the secretary of state for war._ london: harrison & sons, 1858. octavo, pp. 567. (9) _subsidiary notes as to the introduction of female nursing into military hospitals in peace and in war. presented by request to the secretary of state for war._ london: harrison & sons, 1858. octavo, pp. 133. with 23 additional pages (separately numbered) of "thoughts submitted as to an eventual nurses' provident fund." these important reports (for which see vol. i. pp. 343, 347) were not issued to the public. 500 copies of each volume were printed at a total cost to miss n. of £501:12s. (10) various articles (unsigned) in the newspapers on the _hospital at netley_. in july and august miss n. organized a vigorous press-campaign on this subject (see vol. i. p. 383), and there is a large collection of cuttings amongst her papers. some of the articles, etc., may have been written by friends. those which are shown by her papers to be hers are: "what is to be done with netley?" in the _examiner_, july 24, and "netley hospital" in the _saturday review_, august 28 (her own title for this latter was "peel's life pills or the elixir vitæ"). other articles, etc., probably hers, appeared in the _builder_, july 24, the _daily news_, july 28 (signed "vigilans"), the _lancet_, aug. 14, and the _leeds mercury_, aug. 21. (11) "sites and construction of hospitals." three articles (unsigned) in the _builder_, august 28, september 11 and 25, 1858. these articles were reprinted in _notes on hospitals_ (1859). (12) "notes on hospitals." two papers read at liverpool. printed in the _transactions of the national association for the promotion of social science, 1858_, pp. 462-482. these papers were also printed separately (brown paper wrapper), 8vo, pp. 22, with plan. they were reprinted in _notes on hospitals_ (1859). (13) _mortality of the british army, at home and abroad, and during the russian war, as compared with the mortality of the civil population in england. illustrated by tables and diagrams. (reprinted from the report of the royal commission appointed to enquire into the regulations affecting the sanitary state of the army.)_ london: printed by harrison & sons, 1858. blue-book size, in stiff lilac paper wrappers, pp. 21. this was a reprint of appendix lxxii. in the royal commission's report, where it is stated that "the tables and diagrams are furnished by dr. farr, f.r.s." they were prepared by him for miss nightingale (see vol. i. p. 376). 1859 (14) _a contribution to the sanitary history of the british army during the late war with russia. illustrated with tables and diagrams._ london: printed by harrison & sons, 1859. large folio, pp. 16 and diagrams. some copies had the imprint of j. w. parker & co. for a notice of this important work, see vol. i. p. 386. 150 copies were printed. (15) _notes on hospitals: being two papers read before the national association for the promotion of social science, at liverpool, in october 1858. with evidence given to the royal commissioners on the state of the army in 1857. by florence nightingale._ london: john w. parker & son, 1859. octavo, pp. 108. for the two papers (pp. 1-22), see vol. i. p. 417. the ms. of them (entitled severally "notes on the health of hospitals" and "sixteen sanitary defects in the construction of hospital wards") is in the liverpool public reference library, bound in a volume with miss nightingale's letter of presentation. for the "evidence" (pp. 23-88), see above, no. 7. in an appendix (pp. 89-108) three articles from the _builder_ are reprinted (see above, no. 11). there was a _second edition_ of _notes on hospitals_ in 1859. for the _third edition_, which was almost a new book, see under 1863. (16) _notes on nursing: what it is and what it is not. by florence nightingale._ london: harrison (1869). octavo, pp. 70. issued at the end of december 1859, at the price of 5s. this book, the most largely distributed of miss nightingale's writings, sold very quickly (15,000 copies within a month of publication), and numerous editions were issued (see vol. i. p. 448). 1860 (17) _notes on nursing: what it is and what it is not. by florence nightingale. new edition, revised and enlarged._ london: harrison, 1860. octavo, pp. 224. price 6s. this edition, with much additional matter, was printed in larger type. simultaneously, a "popular edition" was issued, in limp cloth, price 2s. the publisher also issued a pamphlet (without wrappers), pp. 43, containing _reviews and notices of "notes on nursing."_ the book was reprinted by appleton & co. in new york, and _american editions_ appeared in 1860, 1876, 1879, 1883, 1891, 1901, 1906, 1908, 1909. in england the book was most widely distributed in a cheap form (see 1861). for _foreign translations_, see nos. 22 and 116 (italian), 26 (german), 32 (french). (18) _proceedings of the international statistical congress, fourth session, 1860._ to this congress (second section, sanitary statistics) miss nightingale contributed papers, which were printed in various forms in its _proceedings_, etc. the _programme_ (quarto, pp. 210) contains her paper on "hospital statistics" (p. 63), with an appendix containing her detailed "proposal for an uniform plan of hospital statistics" (pp. 65-71). the _proceedings_ on tuesday, july 17, report (p. 2) the reading of her paper by one of the secretaries, and her suggestions were adopted, subject to some additions to the tabular form. the _proceedings_ of july 18 report further discussion on these additions. the _proceedings_ of july 19 contain (p. 5) a letter from miss nightingale concurring in the additions. the _proceedings_ of july 20 mention that a letter was read from her "on subjects of inquiry for next congress" (see (2) below). the _report_ of the congress (quarto, pp. 548) contains (pp. 173, 174) (1) an account of miss nightingale's papers and of the conclusions of the congress thereon (see vol. i. p. 431); (2) a letter from miss nightingale to lord shaftesbury on subjects of inquiry for the next congress (pp. 177-178). miss nightingale had copies of her papers separately printed, with an abstract of the discussions of the congress thereon. quarto, in blue paper wrappers. (19) _suggestions for thought to the searchers after truth among the artizans of england._ london: eyre & spottiswoode, 1860. 3 vols. octavo, pp. 292, 411, 126. for this book, printed for a very limited private circulation only, see vol. i. pp. 470 _seq._ the second and third volumes have a slightly different title (see vol. i. p. 478), _suggestions for thought to searchers after religious truth_. (20) _note on the new zealand depopulation question._ i am not sure that this note on the aborigines of new zealand has ever been printed; but it may have been. it was written at the request of sir george grey (see vol. ii. p. 78), and the manuscript of it was bequeathed by him with all his other papers to the auckland public library. the collection includes several letters from miss nightingale. the note was the work of miss nightingale in collaboration with dr. sutherland. (21) _note on causes of deterioration of race._ a short paper, printed (probably in 1860), but not, so far as i have traced, published. (22) _cenni sull' assistenza degli ammalati. quello che è assistenza, e quello che non lo è. di florence nightingale. tradotto dall' inglese da sabilla novello._ turin: fratelli bocca, 1860. octavo, pp. 96. price 1 lira 50. miss sabilla novello was sister of clara novello and, like her (see vol. i. p. 500), was devoted to miss nightingale. 1861 (23) _notes on nursing for the labouring classes. by florence nightingale._ london: harrison, 1861. bound in limp red cloth, pp. 96, price 7d. the preface is dated "march 1861." an abridgment of the previous book; but with some additions, and with a supplementary chapter entitled "minding baby" (see vol. i. p. 450). this cheap edition was reprinted in 1865, 1868, 1876, 1883, 1885, 1888, 1890, 1894, 1898. (24) _sidney herbert._ a paper--headed "private and confidential" (no other heading and no title)--on his services to the army. privately printed. blue-book size, pp. 5. the substance of this paper, considerably enlarged, appears in _army sanitary administration_ (1862). the paper is dated "august 2, 1861" (the day of sidney herbert's death); it was written a few days later (see vol. i. p. 408). (25) _miss nightingale on the volunteer movement_, in a letter to sir harry verney. printed on a folio card, intended, no doubt, for exhibition in post offices, halls, etc. the letter, dated october 8 (p.s. oct. 9), 1861, was printed in the _standard_, october 12, and copies were distributed by the non-commissioned officers of the 1st sussex volunteer artillery at the prize distribution soirée at the royal pavilion, brighton, october 18, 1861. (26) _die pflege bei kranken und gesunden_, ... _mit einem vorwort des geh. sanitäts-rath, dr. h. wolff, bonn._ leipzig: brockhaus, 1861. a german translation of _notes on nursing_, arranged for by miss nightingale's friend, fräulein bunsen, "with a very idiotic preface," said f. n., "by a very clever man." (27) "hospital statistics and hospital plans." a paper printed in the _transactions of the national association for the promotion of social science, 1861_, pp. 554-560. reprinted in 1862: see next item. 1862 (28) _hospital statistics and hospital plans. by florence nightingale. reprinted from the transactions of the national association for the promotion of social science (dublin meeting, august 1861)._ london: emily faithfull & co., 1862. a pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 8. this includes the model statistical forms which were approved by the international statistical congress (see above, no. 18). it also gives plans of the "herbert hospital" at woolwich, then being built. (29) _army sanitary administration and its reform under the late lord herbert._ london: m'corquodale & co., 1862. a pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 11. a paper read at the london meeting of the congrès de bienfaisance, june 13, 1862; a revised and enlarged version of the privately printed memorandum of 1861 (no. 24). the paper was also printed as vol. ii. pp. 103-111 of the proceedings of the _congrès de bienfaisance de londres, session de 1862_. london: trübner, 1863. (30) _deaconesses' work in syria. appeal on behalf of the kaiserswerth deaconesses' orphanage at beyrout._ signed "florence nightingale, london, september 19, 1862." on a fly-sheet, folio. (31) _thomas alexander, c.b., director-general army medical department._ a memorial letter by miss nightingale, printed in the _weekly scotsman_, september 13, the _lancet_, september 27, 1862, and many other papers. the letter was read by lord elcho in unveiling a public monument to dr. alexander at prestonpans. "i can truly say," she wrote, "that i have never seen his like for directness of purpose, unflinching moral courage and honesty." (32) _des soins à donner aux malades: ce qu'il faut faire, ce qu'il faut éviter. par miss nightingale. ouvrage traduit de l'anglais avec l'authorisation de l'auteur. précédé d'une lettre de m. guizot et d'une introduction par m. daremberg._ paris: didier. crown 8vo, pp. lxxx. + 301. a translation of _notes on nursing_ (1860). a biographical "notice sur miss florence nightingale" occupies pp. lxi.-lxxvii. for a reference to guizot's letter, see vol. i. p. 82. 1863 (33) _report of the royal commission on the sanitary state of the army in india, 1863._ large-size blue-book, 2 vols. at vol. i. pp. 347-370, "observations by miss nightingale on the evidence contained in the stational returns," dated nov. 21, 1862, with illustrations; pp. 371-462, "abstract of the same reports," headed "prepared by dr. sutherland," in fact prepared by him and miss nightingale. for this report, which was her work in further respects, see vol. ii. pt. v., chaps. ii., iii. the report was issued in three different forms: (1) as above. (2) an octavo abridged edition (july 1863). this edition does not include either miss n.'s "observations" or the "abstract." (3) a revised abridged edition, issued by the war office. this was prepared by miss nightingale and included her "observations" (pp. 297-344), and a new "abstract of the evidence" (pp. 157-297) prepared by her. for the story of these three editions, see vol. ii. pp. 35-38. (34) _observations on the evidence contained in the stational reports submitted to the royal commission on the sanitary state of the army in india. by florence nightingale._ (_reprinted from the report of the royal commission._) london: edward stanford, 1863. octavo, pp. 92, bound in red cloth. price 2s. 6d. this is a reprint of the "observations," with all the illustrations (see no. 33). the publisher said in a prefatory note: "on a subject of the highest interest to the country, it appears desirable that miss nightingale's views should be placed in the hands of the public, both in england and in india. those who have miss nightingale's other volumes will thus be able to add to them a book which is second to none of them in charm of style, and will promote the reform of the sanitary condition of the british army, as well as conduce to the well-being of the natives of india." extracts from the "observations" and from "how people may live and not die in india" (no. 41) were printed in the _soldier's friend_, july 1, 1865. (35) _proposal for improved statistics of surgical operations._ quarto, pp. 7; dated december 1863. the proposal had been submitted to the international statistical congress held at berlin in 1863 (see vol. i. p. 434). the paper was included in the _third_ edition of _notes on hospitals_ (no. 37). (36) _note on the supposed protection afforded against venereal disease by recognizing prostitution and putting it under police regulation._ folio, pp. 8. not signed, and headed "private and confidential." miss n. printed 20 copies only (see vol. ii. p. 75). (37) _notes on hospitals. by florence nightingale. third edition, enlarged and for the most part rewritten._ london: longmans, 1863. quarto, pp. 187. this edition comprised (1) the two papers (rewritten) of the first edition (but not the evidence to the royal commission of 1857); (2) new chapters on improved hospital plans, convalescent hospitals, children's hospitals, indian military hospitals, hospitals for soldiers' wives; (3) hospital statistics, a. general statistics, b. proposal for improved statistics of surgical operations; (4) an appendix "on different systems of hospital nursing." of these contents, (3) a. was substantially a reprint of no. 27; and (3) b. of no. 35. of (4) a separate edition, slightly altered, was issued (see no. 38). the publication of this third edition led to a lively discussion in the medical press. the _lancet_ approved of miss nightingale's statistical method (feb. 27, 1864). the _medical times_ (jan. 30) strongly attacked it. dr. farr defended it (feb. 13), and a correspondence ensued for some weeks which was as heated as professional disputes generally are. the reviews in the general press were very numerous. (38) _note on different systems of nursing._ a pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 5 (printed by harrison & sons). this is reprinted, slight alterations, from the appendix in the _third_ edition of _notes on hospitals_. (39) _transactions of the national association for the promotion of social science, 1863_, containing two papers by f. n.: (1) sanitary statistics of colonial schools, pp. 475-488 (discussion on the paper, p. 557). (2) how men may live and not die in india, pp. 501-510 (discussion, pp. 557-558). for the reprint of (1), see no. 40; of (2), no. 41. (40) _sanitary statistics of native colonial schools and hospitals. by florence nightingale._ london: 1863. a pamphlet (lilac-coloured paper wrappers), pp. 67. 1864 (41) _how people may live and not die in india. by florence nightingale._ (_read at the meeting of the national association for the promotion of social science, held at edinburgh, october 1863._) london: emily faithfull, 1863. a pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 11, in lilac-coloured paper wrappers. this paper, of wide fame in its day, appeared in three forms: (1) in reports of the social science association's meetings (no. 39); also very fully reported in the _scotsman_, october 9, 1863. (2) in the pamphlet, above described, which, though dated 1863, was not issued till jan. 1864. 250 copies were printed for private circulation only. (3) a _second edition_, widely circulated, appeared in november 1864, published by longmans, 8vo, pp. 18 (lilac wrapper), with a new preface (dated august 1864). (42) _suggestions, in regard to sanitary works required for improving indian stations, prepared by the barrack and hospital improvement commission._ blue-book (suggestions, pp. 1-37), issued in 1864. these suggestions are signed by the members of the commission. they were written mainly by miss nightingale. the ms. of the suggestions as first sent to the printers, preserved among her papers, is in her handwriting, with some additions by dr. sutherland. the section (and numerous illustrations in an appendix) dealing with drainage and water-supply was contributed by mr. r. rawlinson. see vol. ii. p. 48. a _revised edition_ was issued in 1882. 1865 (43) _remarks by the barrack and hospital improvement commission on a report by dr. leith on the general sanitary condition of the bombay army._ parliamentary paper, 1865, no. 329. the original draft of this paper was prepared by dr. sutherland and miss nightingale (see vol. ii. p. 54). (44) _suggestions on a system of nursing for hospitals in india._ a letter to the secretary of the sanitary commission for bengal, pp. 18. signed "florence nightingale, london, february 24, 1865." folio, pp. 18. introduction, pp. 1-3; detailed suggestions, pp. 4-18. the introduction (as is shown by a ms. amongst miss nightingale's papers) was written by sir john mcneill. miss nightingale's letter was included, as an appendix, in an indian official paper (simla, aug. 29, 1866) (see vol. ii. p. 55). (45) _nursing association for the diocese of lichfield_.... by e. j. edwards. london: parker, 1865. a pamphlet, with letter from f. n. dated april 13, 1865, on p. 1. (46) _the organization of nursing in a large town_ (an account of the liverpool nurses' training school). with an introduction, and notes, by florence nightingale. liverpool, 1865. octavo, pp. 103. miss nightingale's introduction occupies pp. 9-16. the book also contains (pp. 25-26) a letter from her, dated november 30, 1861, on the "training and employment of women in hospital, district, and private nursing." a swedish translation, by frau engelskau, appeared at stockholm in 1869. (47) _note on the aboriginal races of australia: a paper read at the annual meeting of the national association for the promotion of social science, held at york, september 1864._ london: printed by emily faithfull, 1865. a pamphlet without wrappers, pp. 8. the "note" had previously been printed in the _transactions_ of the national association for the promotion of social science, 1864, pp. 552-558. (48) _death of pastor fliedner, of kaiserswerth._ a quarto circular, pp. 4; three letters, dated oct. 21, nov. 21, dec. 10, 1864. the last letter was an appeal for a fund to support his widow and children. the first two of the letters had already appeared in _evangelical christendom_, new series, vol. v. pp. 535-536 (november), pp. 584-586 (december). 1867 (49) _report of the committee on cubic space of metropolitan workhouses with papers submitted to the committee._ blue-book, 1867. paper xvi. is miss nightingale's "suggestions on the subject of providing, training, and organizing nurses for the sick poor in workhouse infirmaries," pp. 64-79 (dated jan. 19, 1867). for this paper, see vol. ii. pp. 135-6. miss nightingale had copies of it separately printed. folio, pp. 16. subsequently (1868) she issued an abridgment of the paper: _method of improving the nursing service of hospitals_. folio, pp. 8 (some copies have an appendix, pp. 11). some of the contents were again printed in 1874. (50) _workhouse nursing._ a letter to mr. william rathbone, dated feb. 5, 1864, printed at pp. 4-6 of _workhouse nursing: the story of a successful experiment_. macmillan, 1867. for this letter, see vol. ii. p. 125. 1868 (51) "una and the lion." a paper in _good words_, june 1868, pp. 360-366. an account of miss agnes elizabeth jones, "the pioneer of workhouse nursing." it was reprinted, with some slight alterations, as "introduction" to _memorials of agnes elizabeth jones, by her sister_ (1871), a book which ran into many editions (5th, 1872). the use of miss nightingale's paper in that book was unauthorized, and she objected to the memorials as one-sided and morbid, and giving no true account of miss jones's work. for this paper, see vol. ii. p. 140. (52) _memorandum on measures adopted for sanitary improvements in india up to the end of 1867; together with abstracts of the sanitary reports hitherto forwarded from bengal, madras, and bombay._ printed by the order of the secretary of state for india in council, 1868. the memorandum consists of (1) a résumé of the sanitary question from 1859 to 1867; (2) dispatch from sir stafford northcote of april 23, 1868; (3) a review of the situation. of these, (1) was written by f. n.; (2) was drafted by her, (3) was written by her (see vol. ii. p. 154). 1869 (53) "a note on pauperism." an article in _fraser's magazine_, march 1869, pp. 281-290. see vol. ii. p. 164. (54) _report on measures adopted for sanitary improvements in india during the year 1868 and up to the month of june 1869; together with abstracts_, etc. blue-book. the introductory memorandum, pp. 1-8, was mainly written by f. n. (see vol. ii. p. 181). 1870 (55) letter, dated may 25, 1870, to the council of the _bengal social science association_, on being elected an honorary member thereof. printed at pp. xiv., xv. of the _transactions_ of the association (calcutta, 1870). on her indian work for 11 years. (56) _indian sanitation._ printed at pp. 1-9 of the _transactions_ of the bengal social science association (calcutta, 1870). the address was sent with a covering letter, dated june 24, 1870. a note by the president of the association says: "our assistant-secretary, babu nilmoney dey, has undertaken to translate this noble address to the people of india into bengali, and it shall be the care of our council to provide that, before the end of the year, its wise and benevolent monitions shall have free means of access to every native homestead, at least in this presidency of india." (57) _report on measures adopted for sanitary improvements in india from june 1869 to june 1870; together with abstracts_, etc. blue-book. this includes two contributions by f. n., viz.: "paper on sanitary progress in india," contributed by request to the report, pp. 40-46. "letter to the bengal social science association," dated june 1870. reprinted at pp. 288-291 of the same report (see no. 56). in the former of these papers, miss nightingale criticized the introduction of conflicting disease-theories into sanitary reports, as tending to confuse the public mind and impede expenditure on sanitary improvement. dr. maclean, of the netley hospital, took exception to these views in the _lancet_ (oct. 29, 1870), and miss nightingale replied in the issue of november 19, 1870 (p. 725). (58) letter on the franco-german war and red-cross nursing. printed in the _times_, august 5, 1870. see vol. ii. p. 199. (59) _punishment and discipline._ a letter to the national congress on penitentiary and reformatory discipline, cincinnati, 1870. printed in the _transactions_ (albany, 1871), p. 636. the letter dated "november 12, 1870," urges the expediency of making thieves pay by reformatory work for what they steal. 1871 (60) _emigration._ a letter to the rev. horrocks cocks, april 12, 1871. "published by special permission of miss nightingale," on a fly-sheet, pp. 2. (61) _introductory notes on lying-in institutions. together with a proposal for organising an institution for training midwives and midwifery nurses. by florence nightingale._ london: longmans, green & co., 1871. octavo, pp. 110. for this book, see vol. ii. p. 196. 1872 (62) "observations on sanitary progress in india." dated october 11, 1872. contributed by request to the _report on measures adopted for sanitary improvements in india, 1872_, pp. 48-49. (63) _address from miss nightingale to the probationer nurses in the "nightingale fund" school at st. thomas's hospital. printed for private circulation._ dated may 1872. quarto, pp. 8. copies were also lithographed from miss nightingale's ms. an address (or sometimes called a letter) was written in many succeeding years (see below under 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1878, 1879, 1881, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1888, 1897, 1900, 1905). for remarks on the addresses generally, and quotations, see vol. ii. pp. 263-268. 1873 (64) "a 'note' of interrogation." an article in _fraser's magazine_, may 1873, pp. 567-577. (65) "a sub-'note of interrogation.' what will our religion be in 1999?" an article in _fraser's magazine_, july 1873, pp. 25-36. for these papers, see vol. ii. pp. 218-220. (66) _address from miss nightingale to the probationer nurses in the "nightingale fund" school at st. thomas's hospital and the nurses who were formerly trained there. printed for private circulation._ quarto, pp. 12. dated "may 23, 1873." (67) _notes on the new st. thomas's hospital._ [_being simply notes on those things which should be avoided._] headed "private and confidential." folio, pp. 4. (68) _prison discipline._ a letter, dated "september 1, 1873," addressed to the rev. dr. wines and printed in the _hartford courant_ (connecticut). the letter was reprinted in english newspapers, _e.g._ in _the times_ october 11, 1873. (69) _voting reform in charities._ a letter to sir sydney waterlow, dated october 30, printed in _the times_, november 4, 1873. (70) _letter to the nurses of the edinburgh infirmary._ quarto, pp. 5. dated dec. 6, 1873. (71) a letter (lithographed) addressed to specified (nightingale) nurses at the edinburgh infirmary, christmas 1873. 1874 (72) _life or death in india. a paper read at the meeting of the national association for the promotion of social science, norwich, october 1873. with an appendix on "life or death by irrigation."_ london: harrison & sons, 1874. a pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 63, in lilac paper wrappers. for a notice of this pamphlet, see above, p. 181. the paper was printed in several different forms: (1) in the _transactions_ of the association, 1873, pp. 463-474. (2) for private circulation, as a pamphlet (pp. 14, in white paper wrappers) entitled _how some people have lived and not died in india_. london, 1874 (printed by spottiswoode). (3) with the appendix (written in may 1874) as above. some copies are in dark-blue wrappers, and have "spottiswoode & co." in place of "harrison & sons." (4) the paper and appendix were printed at pp. 47-64 of the blue-book, _report on measures adopted for sanitary improvements in india from june 1873 to june 1874_. (73) _address from florence nightingale to the probationer nurses in the "nightingale fund" school at st. thomas's hospital and the nurses who were formerly trained there. july 23, 1874. printed for private use._ quarto, pp. 12. (74) "irrigation and means of transit in india." an article in the _illustrated london news_, august 1, 1874; signed, and dated "july 30, 1874." the article contains an incidental reference to the "india council bill of lord salisbury--that master-workman and born ruler of men." the article was reprinted in the _homeward mail_, august 4, and the _journal of the national indian association_, september (pp. 215-219). (75) _suggestions for improving the nursing service of hospitals and on the method of training nurses for the sick poor._ folio, pp. 18 (dated august 1874). this paper comprises: (1) "method of training nurses at st. thomas's hospital (under the nightingale fund)." (2) "relation of hospital management to efficient nursing." (3) "structural arrangements in hospitals required for efficient nursing." (4) "district nursing." of these contents (1) and (2) and (3) were reprinted with some alterations from no. 49. (76) _letter to the nurses of the edinburgh infirmary_ (dec. 1874). quarto, on a single sheet. (77) _the zemindar, the sun, and the watering pot as affecting life or death in india._ folio, pp. 195; bound up in two parts (pp. 1-84, 85-195). for this work (never issued in any final form), see above, p. 295. proof-copies, among miss nightingale's papers, show many variations in the title, _e.g._ for part i., "the zemindary system as affecting life or death in india," and for part ii., "life or death in india under irrigation." 1875 (78) _address from florence nightingale to the probationer nurses in the "nightingale fund" school at st. thomas's hospital and the nurses who were formerly trained there. may 26, 1875. printed for private use only._ quarto, pp. 12. 1876 (79) _address_ ... [as in no. 78]. _april 28, 1876. printed for private use only._ quarto, pp. 12. (80) _metropolitan and national association for providing trained nurses for the sick poor. on trained nursing for the sick poor. by florence nightingale._ a letter addressed to the _times_ of good friday, april 14, 1876. printed by spottiswoode & co., 1876. a small pamphlet (without wrappers), pp. 12. other copies have the imprint, "printed by cull & son, houghton street, strand." there were articles on miss nightingale's letter in the _saturday review_, april 22, and _punch_, april 29. the pamphlet was reprinted in 1881. (81) the "bulgarian atrocities." a letter, dated september 15, in the _daily news_, september 18. an eloquent appeal for the bulgarian relief fund, addressed to sir john bennett. 1877 (82) "the famine in madras." a letter to the _illustrated london news_, june 29, 1877. the letter, dealing with irrigation as a preventive of famine, was reprinted as an appendix (pp. 25-30) to a pamphlet entitled _the madras famine_, by sir a. cotton. london: simpkin, marshall & co. (83) _in memoriam._ in remembrance of john gerry. a small pamphlet, pp. 14, in mauve paper wrappers. written and privately printed by f. n. john gerry was a young footman who died of smallpox at lea hurst on july 17, 1877. miss nightingale was in the house at the time and had two trained nurses in attendance on him. (84) "the indian famine." a letter to the lord mayor, enclosing a cheque for the mansion house relief fund, printed in the _daily telegraph_, august 20. "the letter would be worth its weight in gold to the fund," said the lord mayor in acknowledging it. it was an earnest appeal for aid to the ryot, than whom "there is not a more industrious being on the face of the earth." (85) _work in brighton; or, woman's mission to women._ by the author of _active service, work among the lost_, etc. [ellice hopkins]. with a preface by florence nightingale. ninth thousand. london: hatchards, 1877. the preface, dated "october 1877," occupies pp. iii., iv., and is an earnest appeal for rescue work. (86) _lettre sur le devoir des femmes de prendre une part active à l'[oe]uvre du relèvement de la moralité publique, et considerations sur les résultats sanitaires de la reglementation dans l'inde anglaise._ read at a congress in geneva in the autumn of 1877. i have not been able to trace where it was printed. (87) _a letter to the nurses of the edinburgh infirmary_, dated "new year's eve, 7 a.m." quarto, pp. 3. 1878 (88) _letter to the matron, home sister, and nurses at st. thomas's hospital._ quarto, pp. 14. lithographed. dated "new year's day, 7 a.m., 1878." this took the place of the usual address. (89) "who is the savage?" an article in _social notes_ (edited by s. c. hall), may 11, 1878, vol. i. no. 10, pp. 145-147. a description of life in the slums of a great city--suggesting an extension of miss octavia hill's work, coffee-houses, co-operative stores, and rescue work. the ms. of this paper was offered for sale by an edinburgh bookseller in 1913. (90) "the united empire and the indian peasant." an article in the _journal of the national indian association_, june 1878, pp. 232-245. (91) st. thomas's hospital. _memorandum for probationers as to finger poisoning_, etc. a fly-sheet, pp. 4. dated "july 1878." drawn up by f. n. in consultation doubtless with the medical officers. (92) "a water arrival in india. by a commissioner." an article, signed "f. n.," in _good words_, july 1878, pp. 493-496. describing, in the language as of a royal progress, the opening of the kana nuddee (blind river) in the hooghly district. (93) _opinions of women on women's suffrage._ a leaflet (8vo, pp. 4, printed by a. ireland & co., manchester); florence nightingale's opinion (dated july 1878) occupies p. 1:- you ask me to give my reasons for wishing for the suffrage for women householders and women ratepayers. i have no reasons. the indian ryot should be represented so that the people may virtually rate themselves according to the surveys of what is wanted, and spend the money locally under certain orders of an elected board. if this is the case: that we wish to give to the indian native, peasant and zemindar alike, such local representation _as we can_ in spending the taxes he pays, is the educated english taxpayer, of _whichever_ sex, to be excluded from a share in electing the imperial representatives? it seems a first principle, an axiom: that _every_ householder or taxpayer should have a voice in electing those who spend the money we pay, including, as this does, interests the most vital to a human being--for instance, education. at the same time i do not expect much from it, for i do not see that, for instance in america, where suffrage is, i suppose, the most extended, there is more (but rather less) of what may truly be called freedom or progress than anywhere else. but there can be no freedom or progress without representation. and we must give women the true education to deserve being represented. _men_ as well as women are not so well endowed with that preparation at present. and if the persons represented are not worth much, of course the representatives will not be worth much. (94) "the people of india." an article in the _nineteenth century_, august 1878, pp. 193-221. for this article, see above, p. 290. 1879 (95) _letter from florence nightingale to the probationer-nurses in the "nightingale fund" school at st. thomas's hospital. easter, 1879. for private use only._ quarto, pp. 4. this letter, dated "easter eve, 1879, 6 _a.m._," was also lithographed in smaller form. (96) st. thomas's hospital: _memorandum of instructions by matron to ward sisters on duties to probationers_. dated "easter, 1879." a pamphlet of 4 pp. signed "s. e. w." (mrs. wardroper, the matron), but written by f. n. (97) "a missionary health officer in india." three articles in _good words_, july, august, september 1879, pp. 492-496, 565-571, 635-640. the first and part of the second article describe indian famine relief. the rest of the second discusses, in connection with agrarian riots in the deccan, the evils caused by the money-lenders (for an extract from this article, see vol. i. p. 87 _n._). the third describes the work of a sanitary commissioner in normal times with special reference to bombay. both the second and the third articles close with panegyrics of lord lawrence. (98) letter on _co-operation in india_. printed at pp. 219-221 of the _journal of the national indian association_, may 1879. (99) "irrigation and water transit in india." three articles in the _illustrated london news_, may 10, 24, 31. (100) _can we educate education in india to educate "men"?_ three articles in the _journal of the national indian association_, august, september, october 1879, pp. 417-430, 478-491, 527-558. 1880 (101) _in memoriam._ a card (pp. 4), "from f. p. v. and f. n." in memory of frances and william edward nightingale (f. n.'s mother and father). the card was composed by f. n., whose choice of texts, etc., was characteristic--_e.g._ "live for him: then come life, come death, we are his." "god help us to use ourselves more entirely for him in our work." (102) "woman slavery in natal." a letter from miss nightingale (dated nov. 22, 1879) to mr. james heywood, printed in the _aborigines' friend_, april 1880. (103) "hospitals and patients." an article put into type for the _nineteenth century_ of september 1880, but not used. 1881 (104) _letter from florence nightingale, may 6, 1881_ [to the nurses at st. thomas's hospital]. lithographed, pp. 16. 1882 (105) "hints and suggestions on thrift." a paper printed in a monthly journal entitled _thrift_, january 1882, p. 4. (106) _training of nurses_ and _nursing the sick_. articles occupying pp. 1038-1043, 1043-1049 of _quain's dictionary of medicine_. copies of miss nightingale's article were separately struck off, as a pamphlet (without wrapper), pp. 12. in later editions of the dictionary the articles were revised by florence nightingale boyd. extracts from the original articles were printed on a card for use in the salisbury infirmary, 1902. (107) _"infection." by sir j. clarke jervoise, bart., with remarks by miss nightingale._ second edition. london: vacher & sons, 1882. pamphlet, in blue paper wrappers, pp. 63. miss nightingale's "remarks," at pp. 62, 63, were on the first edition of the pamphlet (published anonymously in 1867). they are an attack on "the germ hypothesis." 1883 (108) _from florence nightingale to the probationer-nurses in the "nightingale fund" training school at st. thomas's hospital and to the nurses who were formerly trained there._ may 23, 1883. lithographed, pp. 13. (109) _the dumb shall speak, and the deaf shall hear; or, the ryot, the zemindar, and the government._ a paper read at a meeting of the east india association, and printed in its _journal_, july 1883, pp. 163-211. the paper was read by mr. f. verney, sir bartle frere in the chair, on june 1. it was reprinted separately in the same year by the association as a pamphlet (without wrapper, pp. 48). (110) "our indian stewardship." an article in the _nineteenth century_, august 1883, pp. 329-338. a defence of lord ripon's policy. the article was largely the work of sir william wedderburn. "the article is an excellent one," she wrote to him (aug. 1), "if only it had been signed by you, and not by me." (111) "the bengal tenancy bill." an article in the _contemporary review_, october 1883, pp. 587-602. 1884 (112) _letter to the nightingale probationers_, dated july 3, 1884. printed in the _report of the nightingale fund for the year 1883_, which at p. 3 gave a report of the annual meeting (lord houghton in the chair) whereat the letter was read. 1886 (113) _to the probationer-nurses of the nightingale fund school at st. thomas's hospital. florence nightingale. new year's day, 1886._ (_for private use only._) small pamphlet (cream paper wrappers), pp. 16. (114) _florence nightingale to surgeon-major g. j. h. evatt._ a fly-leaf, so entitled, printed in connection with the "woolwich election, 1886." the letter, dated june 24, 1886, commends the candidature of surgeon-major evatt on the ground of his administrative experience and energy in "vital matters of social, sanitary, and general interest." he stood as a liberal and was not elected. 1887 (115) _village sanitation in india._ a letter, dated february 22, 1887, to the joint secretaries of the bombay presidency association. quarto, pp. 3. a similar letter was addressed to the poona sarvajanik sabha. (116) _note sull' assistenza ai malati di miss nightingale tradotto e abbreviate da a. c._ [_comparetti_]. lucca: topografia giusti, 1887. 1888 (117) _to the probationer-nurses in the nightingale fund school at st. thomas's hospital from florence nightingale, may 16, 1888. for private use only._ lithographed, pp. 20 (with yellow wrappers). (118) _sanitation in india._ "letter from miss nightingale," dated "london, july 27, 1888," published in the _journal of the public health society_ [of calcutta], october 1888, vol. iv. pp. 63-65. 1889 (119) _village sanitation in india._ a letter, dated february 20, 1889, to the joint secretaries of the bombay presidency association. quarto, pp. 3. the same letter, similarly printed, was also addressed "to the joint secretaries of the poona sarvajanik sabha." the letter was for the most part a critical exposition of the bombay village sanitation bill; it was noticed in the _bombay gazette summary_, april 5, 1889. 1890 (120) _sketch of the history and progress of district nursing. by william rathbone. with an introduction by florence nightingale._ dedicated by permission to her majesty. london: macmillan, 1890. the introduction occupies pp. ix.-xxii. 1891 (121) message to nurses at liverpool. printed at p. 11 of the _sixty-third annual report of the royal southern hospital_. liverpool: 1904. the message was sent in february 1891 on the occasion of the opening of the nursing home. one of the wards of the hospital is named after miss nightingale. (122) _sanitation in india._ a letter, dated february 16, 1891, to the joint secretaries of the bombay presidency association. quarto, pp. 3. the same letter was also addressed to the poona sarvajanik sabha. (123) _sanitation in india._ a letter, dated december 1891, to rao bahadur vishnu moreshwar bhide, chairman, poona sarvajanik sabha. quarto, pp. 3. these open letters, intended for "distribution to local associations and influential indian gentlemen," attracted much notice in the indian press. a selection of press comments upon them was printed in the _indian spectator_, july 10, 1892. there was also a notice of no. 121 in the _times_ of january 10, 1892, in the weekly review of "indian affairs" by sir w. w. hunter. "miss nightingale's letter forms," he said, "a brief, but practical code of village sanitation." 1892 (124) _village sanitation in india._ letter from miss nightingale to the secretary of state for india (lord cross), dated march 1892, enclosing a memorandum signed by members of the india committee of the international congress on hygiene and demography (1891). printed in _india_, july 15, 1892, pp. 200. see vol. ii. p. 379. (125) introduction to _behramji m. malabari: a biographical sketch_, by dayaram gidumal. london: fisher unwin, 1892. miss nightingale's introduction occupies pp. v.-viii. (126) health at home. letters in the _report of the training of rural health missioners and of their village lecturing and visiting under the bucks county council: 1891-92._ winslow: e. j. french. pamphlet, pp. 50. there are three letters by f. n.: (1) a letter (dated oct. 17, 1891) to mr. frederick verney on the importance of training rural health missioners; (2) a letter, dated october 1892, to "village mothers," pp. 14, 15; (3) a letter, dated november 21, 1892, reporting on the experiment and urging its continuance (see vol. ii. p. 384). (127) _cholera: what we can do?_ by george h. de'ath, medical officer of health for buckingham. buckingham: walford & son. pamphlet, in green paper wrappers, pp. 19. the last pages (18, 19) were contributed by f. n. an appeal to fight against cholera by preventive sanitation; "for if cholera does not come we are winning the day against fever," etc. (128) "hospitals." article in _chambers' encyclopædia_, new edition, revised and partly re-written by f. n. (129) _royal british nurses' association._ "remarks by miss nightingale on a register for nurses." this was part of the case against the royal charter argued before the privy council in november 1892. among miss nightingale's papers are the original ms., a typed copy, and a ms. copy on brief paper made by the solicitors for the opponents. i include it in the bibliography, assuming that it was printed for the privy council. (130) "mrs. wardroper." a memorial notice of the late matron of st. thomas's hospital, printed simultaneously, december 31, 1892, in the _british medical journal_ (under the title "the reform of sick nursing and the late mrs. wardroper") and in the _hospital nursing supplement_ ("a nursing worthy"). for extracts, see vol. i. p. 458. 1893 (131) "sick-nursing and health-nursing." a paper in pp. 184-205 of _woman's mission: a series of congress papers on the philanthropic work of women by eminent writers_. arranged and edited, with a preface and notes, by the baroness burdett-coutts. london: sampson low, marston & co., 1893. a publication issued by the royal british commission, chicago exhibition, 1893. the main part of the paper occupies pp. 184-199. then comes an "addendum" on district nursing, with an account of the bucks "health-nurse training" system and "syllabus of lectures to health missioners." (132) "health lectures for indian villages." a paper printed in _india_, october 1893, pp. 305-306. 1894 (133) "health and local government." an introduction (pp. i.-ii.) to _report of the bucks sanitary conference, october 1894_. aylesbury: poulton & co. miss nightingale's introduction was also separately printed as a small fly-leaf, pp. 2, headed _health and local government, by florence nightingale_. (134) _health teaching in towns and villages. rural hygiene. by florence nightingale._ london: spottiswoode & co., 1894. a pamphlet, pp. 27. reprinted from a paper read at the conference of women workers held at leeds, november 7 to 10, 1893. the paper is also printed in the _official report of the conference_ (leeds, 1894), pp. 46-60. (135) _village sanitation in india._ a paper for the tropical section of the 8th international congress of hygiene and demography at budapest. a pamphlet (without wrappers), pp. 8; signed "florence nightingale. london: august 20th, 1894." the "memorandum" of 1892 (no. 122) was reprinted as an appendix. 1895 (136) _birds._ a letter, dated feb. 4, 1895, to "uncle toby" of the dicky bird society, printed in the _newcastle chronicle's_ weekly supplement, february 16. 1896 (137) "a few lines to workhouse nurses." a supplement (pp. 53-57) to _agnes jones; or, she hath done what she could_. by mrs. roundell, london: bickers & sons, 1896. a few sentences from miss nightingale's supplement are reproduced in facsimile as a frontispiece to this little book. (138) "health missioners for rural india." an article in _india_, december 1896, pp. 359-360. 1897 (139) _to the nurses and probationers trained under the "nightingale fund," june 1897._ octavo, pp. 17 (in plain white wrappers). 1898 (140) _a letter from florence nightingale about the victorian order of nurses in canada._ a small pamphlet, in white paper wrappers, pp. 4. the letter, to lady aberdeen, is dated may 5, 1898. it is stated at the end of the pamphlet, "the original of this letter is written entirely by miss florence nightingale's own hand." there is no imprint. 1899 (141) the soldier in war-time. letter to the balaclava survivors, printed in the _daily graphic_, october 26, 1899. this letter uses some of the phrases quoted at vol. ii. p. 411. 1900 (142) _to all our nurses, may 28, 1900._ lithographed, pp. 12. miss nightingale's hand-writing in this letter shows little sign of age. it is bold and clear. (143) _letter to the lord provost of edinburgh._ printed at p. 26 of an official and illustrated account, compiled by a. a. gordon, of the _edinburgh and east of scotland hospital for south africa_ (blackwood & sons). for the occasion of this letter, see vol. ii. p. 411. 1901 (144) _in memory of robert james baron wantage, v.c., k.c.b._ a privately printed memoir, containing on p. 53 a letter from miss nightingale. the letter, dated june 12, 1901, includes these words: "lord wantage is a great loss, but he has been a great gain. and what he has gained for us can never be lost. it is my experience that such men exist only in england: a man who had everything (to use the common phrase) which this world could give him, but who worked as hard, and to the last, as the poorest able man--and all for others--for the common weal. a man whose life makes a great difference for all: _all_ are better off than if he had not lived; and this betterness is for always, it does not die with him--that is the true estimate of a great life." these words were quoted at the head of an article on lord wantage in the _edinburgh review_, january 1902. (145) _appeal on behalf of the invalid hospital for gentlewomen, harley street._ letter in the _times_, november 12, 1901. reprinted in the annual reports of the institution for 1902, 1903, etc. the letter, though signed florence nightingale, bears no mark of her style, and is not quite accurate in its account of her early association with the hospital (see vol. i. p. 133). the letter is said to have been written for miss nightingale by mrs. dicey. the institution, re-christened "the florence nightingale hospital for gentlewomen," is now in new quarters in lisson-grove. 1905 (146) _new year's message from florence nightingale to the nursing staff of the edinburgh royal infirmary, january 1905._ printed on a card. "i pray with all my heart that god will bless the work abundantly in edinburgh infirmary, and enable the workers to do it for him, in the love which we owe him." (147) _message to the crimean veterans._ printed at p. 47 of a pamphlet entitled _the crimean and indian mutiny veterans' association, bristol_. bristol, 1905. one of the last messages sent by miss nightingale. the anniversaries celebrated by the veterans, she says, "have always been marked days to her also." appendix b list of some writings about miss florence nightingale (_for the limited scope of this list, see the preface_, vol. i. p. viii.) 1854 (1) letter in the _times_, october 24, by "one who has known miss nightingale." (2) "who is 'mrs.' nightingale?" a biographical article in the _examiner_ (reprinted in the _times_, october 30). these two communications fixed the popular idea of miss nightingale. for the article in the _examiner_, see vol. i. p. 164. 1855 (3) bracebridge. "british hospitals in the east." report in the _times_, october 16, 1855, of a lecture given at coventry by mr. c. h. bracebridge, supplemented by a letter from him in the _times_, october 20. for a reference to this lecture, see vol. i. p. 287. the report contains many particulars of miss nightingale's services and difficulties. (4) _the "record" and miss nightingale. remarks on two articles contained in the "record" of february 1, and march 8, 1855._ london: nisbet, 1855. this pamphlet throws light on the _odium theologicum_, see vol. i. part ii. ch. viii. miss n. was denounced as "a semi-romish nun," an "anglican papist." (5) roebuck committee. _reports from the select committee on the army before sebastopol_, march 1, 1853-june 18, 1855. for this report, see vol. i. p. 176. (6) s. g. o. _scutari and its hospitals._ by the hon. and rev. sydney godolphin osborne. london: dickinson brothers, 1855. this contains the best and fullest account by an eye-witness of miss nightingale at work at scutari. 1855-57 (7) _various broadsheets, popular songs, etc._, about miss nightingale (see vol. i. p. 266). a collection of them is preserved amongst her papers. the following is the text of the most popular of the songs:- on a dark lonely night on the crimea's dread shore there had been bloodshed and strife on the morning before; the dead and the dying lay bleeding around, some crying for help--there was none to be found. now god in his mercy he pitied their cries, and the soldiers so cheerful in the morning do arise. _so forward, my lads, may your hearts never fail you are cheered by the presence of a sweet nightingale._ now god sent this woman to succour the brave; some thousands she saved from an untimely grave. her eyes beam with pleasure, she's beauteous and good, the wants of the wounded are by her understood. with fever some brought in, with life almost gone, some with dismantled limbs, some to fragments are torn. _but they keep up their spirits, their hearts never fail, they are cheered by the presence of a sweet nightingale._ her heart it means good, for no bounty she'll take, she'd lay down her life for the poor soldier's sake; she prays for the dying, she gives peace to the brave, she feels that a soldier has a soul to be saved. the wounded they love her as it has been seen, she's the soldier's preserver, they call her their queen. _may god give her strength, and her heart never fail, one of heaven's best gifts is miss nightingale._ the wives of the wounded, how thankful are they! their husbands are cared for by night and by day. whatever her country, this gift god has given, and the soldiers they say she's an angel from heaven. all praise to this woman, and deny it who can that woman was sent as a comfort to man: _let's hope that no more against them you'll rail, treat them well, and they'll prove like miss nightingale._ 1856 (8) _eastern hospitals and english nurses; the narrative of twelve months' experience in the hospitals of koulali and scutari._ by a lady volunteer. 2 vols. 1856; 3rd ed. in one vol. 1857. the author, miss fanny m. taylor, was a member of the second party of nurses, which went out with miss stanley. (9) _sayah; or, the courier to the east._ [by h. byng hall.] london: chapman & hall. contains a general tribute to miss nightingale, from one who visited scutari. (10) mcneill. speech by sir john mcneill at the crimean banquet at edinburgh, reported verbatim in the _daily news_, nov. 3, 1856. an excellent appreciation of miss nightingale, with many particulars of her work at scutari. (11) _the nightingale fund. report of proceedings at a public meeting held in london, on nov. 29, 1855.... offices of the nightingale fund, 5 parliament street._ pamphlet, in yellow wrappers, pp. 36 + 16 + 24. pages 1-36, report of the public meeting; pp. 1-16, "appendix." extracts from leading articles in the london journals, etc.; pp. 1-24, "addenda," report of public meetings in the provinces, 1856, etc. _circ._ 1856 (12) _the prophecy of ada, late countess of lovelace, on her friend miss florence nightingale._ written in the year 1851. music composed by w. h. montgomery. london: g. emery & co. [no date]. the poem--"a portrait: taken from life"--is printed on the back of the song (see vol. i. pp. 38, 142). 1857 (13) davis. _the autobiography of elizabeth davis, a balaclava nurse._ edited by jane williams. 2 vols. hurst & blackett, 1857. davis was one of miss stanley's party. she served as cook in the general hospital at balaclava. though the work of an obviously uneducated and prejudiced woman, the book is useful as illustrating the intrigue against miss nightingale in the crimea, and as reflecting the hostility which her strict discipline excited among some of the nurses. the book is not to be trusted. miss nightingale made very pungent remarks on this old woman's romancing about lord raglan and others. (14) pincoffs. _experiences of a civilian in eastern military hospitals...._ by peter pincoffs, m.d., late civil physician to the scutari hospitals. william & norgate. chapter vii., "the providence of the barrack hospital," gives an account of miss n.'s work. this is one of the most important authorities, being the testimony of an eye-witness and a medical man; but dr. pincoffs was not at scutari till the middle of 1855. (15) _soyer's culinary campaign: being historical reminiscences of the late war._ by alexis soyer. london: g. routledge, 1857. also of much value, as the record of an eye-witness, and a participator in miss nightingale's work. 1860 (16) an unpublished ms., found among miss nightingale's papers, written by "r. r.," a private in the 68th light infantry, giving an account of his attendance upon her. he had been invalided from the crimea, and in january 1855 mr. bracebridge selected him for duty as messenger to miss nightingale: vol. i. p. 256. 1861 (17) "what florence nightingale has done and is doing." an article [by mrs. s. c. hall] in the _st. james's magazine_, april 1861. gives an account, _inter alia_, of the early days of the "nightingale nurses." 1862 (18) _experiences of an english sister of mercy._ by margaret goodman. smith, elder & co., 1862. miss goodman was one of the "sellonites" (see vol. i. p. 159); she gives a somewhat detailed account of the nursing. (19) _statement of the appropriation of the nightingale fund._ reprinted, with slight additions, from a paper read by sir joshua jebb at the meeting of the social science association, 1862. pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 12. various other publications of the kind have been consulted--such as: _deed of trust and other deeds relating to the nightingale fund_ (london: blades, 1878); and the _annual reports of the committee of the council of the nightingale fund_ from 1862 to 1910. (20) _a trip to constantinople ... and miss nightingale at scutari hospital._ by l. dunne. london: j. sheppard. the author was late foreman of h.m. stores at the bosphorus. 1863 (21) hornby. _constantinople during the crimean war._ by lady hornby. with illustrations in chromo-lithography. london: bentley, 1863. contains a few personal impressions of f. n. (see vol. i. pp. 285, 296). lady hornby was wife of sir edmund grimani hornby, h.m. british commissioner to turkey during the crimean war. 1864 (22) _a book of golden deeds._ [by charlotte m. yonge.] macmillan, 1864. this book, which became very widely popular, had on its title-page a reproduction of the statuette of the lady with the lamp, and a reference to miss nightingale in its preface. (23) _a woman's example, and a nation's work: a tribute to florence nightingale._ london: william ridgway, 1864. an account of the work of the united states sanitary commission (1861), inspired by american women. "all that is herein chronicled," says the author in a dedication to florence nightingale, "you have a right to claim as the result of your own work" (see vol. ii. p. 9). 1865 (24) _florence nightingale. a lecture delivered in the theatre of the medical college, november 9, 1865._ by major g. b. malleson. calcutta, 1865. 1874 (25) _thomas grant, first_ [roman catholic] _bishop of southwark._ by grace ramsay [pseudonym of kathleen o'meara]. smith, elder & co., 1874. chapter vii. gives a full account of the mission of the bermondsey nuns under miss nightingale. 1874-80 (26) _life of the prince consort._ by sir theodore martin. 5 vols. smith, elder & co. the references to miss nightingale are in vol. iii. 1880 (27) _the invasion of the crimea._ by a. w. kinglake. vol. vi. "the winter troubles." blackwood & sons, 1880. chapter xi. is mainly devoted to an account of "the lady-in-chief" (miss nightingale). 1881 (28) _narrative of personal experiences and impressions during a residence on the bosphorus throughout the crimean war._ by lady alicia blackwood. london: hatchard, 1881. the narrative of one of miss nightingale's helpers (see vol. i. p. 197). 1886 (29) _life and work of the 7th earl of shaftesbury._ by edwin hodder. 3 vols. (1886), popular ed. 1 vol. (1887). this contains some references to the crimean war, pp. 503 _seq._, and letters from f. n., 505, 581. 1887 (30) mohl. _letters and recollections of julius and mary mohl._ by m. c. m. simpson. kegan, paul & co., 1887. several references to miss nightingale ("f----"); also lady verney's recollections, cited at vol. i. p. 21. 1895 (31) _das rote kreuz_, no. 23, 1895. published at bern. at pp. 206-209 an article by dr. jordy, of bern, on "miss florence nightingale, the first pioneer of the red cross," with a letter from her dated september 4, 1872. the letter was of thanks for a paper read by m. dunant in london on the work of the red cross (see vol. ii. p. 205). (32) _the life and correspondence of sir bartle frere._ by john martineau. 2 vols. john murray, 1895. contains some letters from miss nightingale. (33) _the story of the highland brigade in the crimea._ founded on letters written 1854-56 by lieut.-colonel anthony stirling. remington & co., 1895. the importance of this book for an understanding of miss nightingale's work is pointed out at vol. i. p. 167. 1897 (34) _life and letters of benjamin jowett._ by evelyn abbott and lewis campbell. 2 vols. john murray, 1897. this contains extracts from a large number of mr. jowett's letters to miss nightingale (though not so stated), as well as occasional references to her. 1900 (35) howe. _reminiscences: 1819-1899._ by julia ward howe. quoted, vol. i. pp. 37, 43. 1904 (36) aloysius. _memories of the crimea._ by sister mary aloysius [doyle]. london: burns & oates, 1904. personal recollections by one of the irish nuns, who went out, under mrs. bridgeman, with miss stanley's party. (37) _emma darwin, wife of charles darwin: a century of family letters._ by her daughter, h. e. litchfield. 2 vols. privately printed, 1904. quoted vol. i. pp. 15, 96, 446. (38) tooley. _the life of florence nightingale._ by sarah a. tooley. london: s. h. bousfield & co., 1904. contains several letters, recollections by crimean veterans, etc. 1905 (39) _william rathbone: a memoir._ by eleanor f. rathbone. macmillan, 1905. numerous references to miss nightingale, and accounts of undertakings in which she was concerned with mr. rathbone. 1906 (40) stanmore. _sidney herbert, lord herbert of lea._ a memoir. by lord stanmore. 2 vols. john murray, 1906. important correspondence between sidney herbert and miss nightingale is here given. 1907 (41) _the history of nursing._ by m. adelaide nutting and lavinia l. dock. 2 vols. g. p. putnam's sons, 1907. an excellent account of "the evolution of nursing systems"; with a just appreciation of miss nightingale, and copious extracts from her writings. (42) _the letters of queen victoria, 1837-1861._ edited by a. c. benson and viscount esher. 3 vols. john murray. quoted, or referred to, at vol. i. pp. 217, 274. 1908 (43) panmure. _the panmure papers_.... edited by sir george douglas and sir george dalhousie ramsay. london: hodder & stoughton, 1908. 2 vols. this collection, though it does not throw any light on the most important of miss nightingale's dealings with lord panmure, contains several letters of interest. (44) _st. john's house. a brief record of sixty years' work, 1848-1908._ 12 queen square, bloomsbury, london, w.c. a pamphlet. contains some account of the recruiting of nurses for the crimean war, and two letters from miss nightingale. 1910 (45) bibliography. _an exhibit of some of the writings of florence nightingale in the educational museum of teachers' college, columbia university, may 16 to june 1, 1910._ pamphlet, pp. 8. this catalogue contains (1) a brief "biographical note"; (2) a catalogue of the writings by f. n. exhibited; (3) a short catalogue of "writings about florence nightingale." (46) _exercises in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding by florence nightingale of the first training school. carnegie hall, the city of new york, wednesday, may 18th, 1910._ a pamphlet, pp. 24. a report of various addresses, by mr. choate and others. (47) _florence nightingale: a force in medicine._ address at the graduated exercises of the nurses training school of the johns hopkins hospital, may 19, 1910. by henry m. hurd, m.d., baltimore, 1910. an excellent appreciation of miss nightingale's work as the founder of modern nursing, as sanitarian, and as army reformer. (48) _the letters of john stuart mill._ edited by hugh s. r. elliot. 2 vols. longmans & co., 1910. mill's letters of 1860 (see vol. i. p. 471) are at vol. i. pp. 238-242; his letter of december 31, 1867 (see above, p. 217), is at vol. ii. pp. 100-105. (49) _memoir of the rt. hon. sir john mcneill, g.c.b., and of his second wife, elizabeth wilson._ by their granddaughter. john murray, 1910. this contains some letters from miss nightingale. (50) august 15, and later. _obituary notices_ of miss nightingale in the newspapers. those written with most knowledge were in the _times_ and the _manchester guardian_. (51) "some personal recollections of miss florence nightingale," by "lamorna" [with a series of letters from f. n.]. in the _nursing mirror and midwives' journal_, september 3, 1910, pp. 347-349. (52) "florence nightingale, o.m., r.r.c." by major c. e. pollock, royal army medical corps. reprinted from the _journal of the royal army medical corps_, october 1910. london: john bale, sons & danielsson. contains several official documents (now at the public record office) relating to miss nightingale's crimean mission (see vol. i. p. 188). 1911 (53) _the life and letters of sir john hall, m.d., k.c.b., f.r.c.s._ by s. m. mitra. longmans, green & co., 1911. of considerable interest (see vol. i. p. 169). 1912 (54) _eine heldin unter helden (florence nightingale)._ von j. friz. stuttgart, 1912. verlag der evang. gesellschaft. from this book i have quoted at vol. i. p. 92 _n._ it also contains a few letters from miss nightingale--chiefly to the fliedner family. no date (55) wintle. _the story of florence nightingale._ by w. j. wintle. london: sunday school union. contains some reminiscences by crimean veterans. appendix c list of portraits, photographs, etc., of florence nightingale authentic likenesses of miss nightingale, except in her earlier years, are very few. when she had become famous, she shrank from publicity. she was very seldom photographed, and as a general rule she refused to sit for her portrait. the demand for portraits of her was great, and the demand created a supply. this list includes, however, with one probable exception (no. 5), only such portraits as are authentic. (1) 1820-1. water-colour drawing of f. n. as a baby on the knee of her italian nurse balia. at lea hurst. (2) 1828. water-colour drawing of mrs. nightingale with her two daughters (florence is on her mother's knee). in the possession of mrs. leonard cunliffe, daughter of sir douglas galton. reproduced as frontispiece to vol. i. (3) 1828. water-colour drawing of mrs. nightingale with her two daughters, by a. e. chalon. at claydon. (similar to, but not identical in costume with, the foregoing.) (4) 1839. water-colour portrait, by william white, of florence nightingale (sitting) and her sister, parthenope, standing. in possession of mrs. coltman. (5) _circ._ 1840. small oil portrait by augustus l. egg, r.a. in the national portrait gallery (no. 1578). this picture was bought from mrs. salis schwabe (an admirer of miss nightingale with whom she had a slight acquaintance) by mr. william rathbone, with a view to its presentation to the nation; and was given to the portrait gallery in 1910 by mrs. rathbone in accordance with her husband's desire. in view of these facts, and as the attribution to egg agrees with dates, the trustees accepted the portrait as authentic. miss nightingale's family, however, doubt whether it is so. there is no general resemblance. the face is plump, and all other portraits at that age show a thin face. the narrow ridge of f. n.'s nose is not given. the chestnut colour of the hair in the portrait is not true to life. the eyebrows are unlike. the expression is most uncharacteristic. all other early portraits, even quite slight ones, are remarkable for a peculiarly contained, self-possessed expression. the dress and ornaments are out of character; and miss nightingale never wore ear-rings. if the portrait be indeed of her, and by a practised artist, it can hardly have been made from the life. (6) _c._ 1845. pencil sketch by miss hilary bonham carter. in the possession of miss b. a. clough. reproduced in vol. i. p. 38. (7) _c._ 1850. full-length, standing beside a pedestal, on which stands an owl. engraved by f. holl from a pencil drawing by parthenope nightingale (lady verney). reproduced in the _illustrated times_, february 2, 1856, and as frontispiece to the _victoria miniature almanack and fashionable remembrancer_ for 1857. (8) _c._ 1852. large pencil head, copied about 1880 by j. r. parsons from a drawing by lady eastlake. the original was in bad condition and is believed to have been destroyed. the copy is at lea hurst. (9) _c._ 1852. photograph, three-quarter face, almost profile; three-quarter length, seated, reading. a striped scarf. taken in germany. at claydon. (10) 1854. photograph, seated, looking down, by kilburn, then 222 regent street. taken during miss nightingale's time at harley street. there were two positions as mentioned in the letter of mrs. sutherland noticed under no. 15, "looking down in one, in the other the eyes raised." these are the photographs which some of miss nightingale's family considered the best. (11) 1854. a sketch; seated, reading a book; white flower in her hair; red cross on her neck. "h. m. b. c. del." [miss hilary bonham carter, whose initials, however, were j. h. b. c.] "published november 28, 1854, by p. and d. colnaghi: colnaghi's authentic series." there was also published an uncoloured print of the same drawing, which in turn was adapted in various forms--as in a print published by w. bemrose & sons, lettered "miss florence nightingale, the good samaritan of derbyshire, reading the accounts of the dreadful sufferings of our brave wounded soldiers," etc., etc. (12) 1855. miss florence nightingale and mr. bracebridge on cathcart's hill, may 8, 1855. lithographed by day, and published. this drawing was made up by lady verney and lady anne blunt from a slight sketch by mrs. bracebridge. many other prints, still further removed from life, were published--such as: "florence nightingale in the military hospital at scutari" (a coloured print published, march 16, 1855, by read & co., 10 johnson's court, fleet street); "miss florence nightingale, the soldiers' friend" (drawn by elston, published may 1, 1856, by ellis, 51 jewin street, city); and "the great military hospital at scutari" (published, with a sentimental legend, feb. 24, 1855, by stannard & dixon, 7 poland street). (13) 1856. oil picture of miss nightingale receiving the wounded at scutari, by jerry barratt. engraved as "florence nightingale at scutari, a mission of mercy," by s. bellin. the picture is in the possession of sir percy bates, bart. (14) 1856. photograph, three-quarter length, three-quarter face, standing, by the london stereoscopic co. this photograph was taken at the request of queen victoria, and has often been reproduced. (15) 1856. plaster statuette; standing, with a lamp in the right hand, by miss hilary bonham carter. at lea hurst. there are several replicas, or versions with some differences. one is at st. thomas's hospital; another, in mr. henry bonham carter's possession; another, at claydon. a second version was, by advice of mr. woolner, r.a., made less full in the skirt. a small version, on a reduced scale (about 15 in. high), was also made, and is very widespread. there is a letter to miss nightingale from mrs. sutherland (june 1866), in which she says: "there are photographs of the statuette which (though it seems odd to say so) are more characteristic than the actual portraits, none of which but the 'owl' one [no. 7], which you deprecate, give a real idea of what you were ten years ago." (16) _c._ 1858. photograph, full-length, full face, standing, by goodman. this was generally considered by miss nightingale's family to be the best likeness; reproduced in vol. i. p. 394. (17) 1862. marble bust, by sir john steell. this bust, presented to miss nightingale by the non-commissioned officers and men of the british army, has been placed in the museum of the royal united service institution in accordance with the provisions of her will. there is a replica at lea hurst. (18) 1864. commencement of a head by g. f. watts, r.a. miss nightingale was persuaded by sir harry verney to receive mr. watts on one or two occasions, who made a beginning only of a portrait. it is very slight, and mr. watts regarded it as so far a failure. he hoped to be able to resume the work, but abandoned the idea when sir william richmond made a portrait. the unfinished canvas is at limnerslease. (19) 1887. oil portrait, half-length, by sir w. b. richmond, r.a. at claydon. reproduced as frontispiece to this volume. 1887 was the year of the final sittings; the portrait was begun at an earlier date. (20) _c._ 1890. photograph, side face, in veil, by colonel g. lloyd verney. (21) 1891. photograph, three-quarter length, seated on a couch, full face, by s. g. payne & son, aylesbury. taken at claydon. (22) 1906. two photographs of miss nightingale in her room; by miss e. f. bosanquet. one of these, enlarged, is reproduced above, p. 306. (23) 1907. two water-colour drawings (and a replica), by miss f. amicia de biden footner. one is reproduced above, p. 404. these drawings of miss nightingale in her room at south street are in possession of various members of the family. (24) 1908. chalk-drawing, by countess feodora gleichen. at windsor, made (from life) by command of king edward vii. for a collection of portraits of members of the order of merit. index abercromby, james (lord dunfermline), i. 25 aberdeen, 4th earl of, government of, defeated, i. 217 aberdeen, countess of, ii. 457 aborigines, protection of, ii. 78-80 abu-simbel, i. 85 acland, sir h. w., ii. 318, 357 adams, general, i. 235 adams, john couch, i. 65 administration _versus_ politics, ii. 382, 392 adshead, joseph, i. 423, 424 aeschylus, ii. 229, 390 african exploration, ii. 315 aga khan, ii. 405, 428 agincourt, ii. 201 agrippa, henry cornelius, i. 226 air, curative effects of, i. 419, ii. 118 airey, general sir richard (lord airey), i. 357, 437, ii. 65, 73 aitchison, sir charles, _lord lawrence_, ii. 45 aitken, sir w., m.d., i. 390, 391 albert, prince consort: playing billiards, i. 37; designs jewel for f. n., i. 274; business-like capacity, i. 322; conversations with f. n. at balmoral, i. 324, 326; opinion of f. n., i. 324; letter to f. n. (1858), i. 384; and the queen's proclamation to india (1858), ii. 324; correspondence with f. n., on a lisbon hospital, i. 421, 422; on st. thomas's hospital, i. 425, 426; death of, ii. 10, 26; f. n.'s appreciation of, ii. 10, 91 alcock, sir rutherford, ii. 355 aldershot camp: divisional reading-room, i. 351; exhibition of soldiers' trades, ii. 76; school of cookery, i. 389, 398; soldiers' home, etc., ii. 5, 76; training at, i. 331 alexander, dr. thomas, i. 328, 330, 331, 356, 364, 365, 372, 379, 394, 494, ii. 14, 16, 19, 338, 442; death of, i. 379 alexandra, queen (princess of wales), ii. 347, 348, 420 alexandria, i. 87, 417 alfred, prince (duke of edinburgh), ii. 192 algeria, sanitation in, ii. 110, 111, 158 alice, princess, of hesse-darmstadt, ii. 116, 187 allen, c. h., _life of general gordon_, ii. 351 allen, fanny, i. 15, 96 alma, battle of the, i. 145, 146, 205 aloysius, sister mary, ii. 464 ambler, surgeon-major vincent, ii. 334 america, fame of f. n. in, ii. 419, 421, 451 american civil war: and development of nursing, i. 441; f. n. sends reports, etc., to washington, ii. 8; influence of her crimean example, ii. 8, 9 _n._, 462 ampère, j. j. antoine, i. 19 _amrita bazar patrika_, ii. 27 _n._ anderson, dr., i. 258 anderson, sir h., ii. 152, 153 angels: "ministering," so called, ii. 263; the real, ii. 403, 413; "without hands," i. 246 anglo-russian relations in asia, ii. 156 anglo-saxon character, i. 424 apollo belvedere, i. 70 apothecaries' warrant, ii. 70 appointments boards, ii. 259 argyll, 8th duke of, i. 269 aristotle, ii. 317 army, mortality at home (1857), i. 361, 376; reduced by f. n.'s and s. herbert's reforms, i. 397-8, ii. 174 army hospital service, reorganized 1860, i. 396; subsequent alterations, ii. 336, 338; inquiries into (1880, 1882), ii. 328, 337; reforms in (1883, 1884), ii. 338, 341 army medical department, reorganized (1859), i. 394; question of succession to dr. a. smith, i. 378, 379; threatened with retrenchment, ii. 173; for successive directors-general, _see_ smith (andrew), alexander (t.), muir, crawford army medical school (now royal army medical college): establishment of, urged by f. n., i. 327, 330; promised but delayed, i. 378; established (1859), opened (1860) at chatham, i. 390; f. n. drafts regulations and nominates professors, i. 390; befriends the professors, i. 391; good done by, i. 391-2; f. n. as its founder, i. 392; herbert prize medal at, ii. 8; moved to netley (1863), ii. 67, 73; threatened (1869), ii. 173, (1876) ii. 318-19; present buildings, etc., at millbank, i. 393 army medical service: f. n.'s zeal for, ii. 67, 68; asked to mark a list of officers, ii. 74; medical officers' warrant (1858), i. 394 army medical statistics, i. 389 army sanitary committee. _see_ barrack army temperance association, ii. 369 arnold, sir edwin, _the song celestial_ (from the _mahâbhârata_), ii. 242, 401, 402 arnold, matthew, _literature and dogma_, f. n. on, ii. 219 asceticism, i. 369, ii. 140 ashburton, 1st baron, and lady ashburton, i. 35, 37 ashburton, 2nd baron, i. 422 ashburton, lady (louisa stewart mackenzie, second wife of 2nd baron), i. 35, 422, 499, 502, ii. 300, 301, 306, 314, 324, 391 ashley, lord. _see_ shaftesbury askrigg, ii. 101 aspromonte, ii. 91 association for the improvement of the infirmaries of london workhouses, ii. 124, 134, 137 astley's, ii. 110 athens, f. n. at, i. 87 _seq._ atherstone, warwickshire, ii. 236, 237 atonement, the, i. 486, ii. 234 auckland, lord (bishop of bath and wells), i. 325 auckland (n.z.), f. n. manuscripts at, ii. 440 augusta, queen of prussia, german empress, ii. 187, 314 _n._ aunt hannah. _see_ nicholson, miss aunt mai. _see_ smith, mrs. samuel austen, jane, ii. 317 austria and the austro-prussian war (1866), ii. 104, 106, 119 _autobiography of a balaclava nurse_, ii. 461; referred to, i. 210 _n._, 249 avignon, mill's house at, ii. 221, 222 aylesbury, bucks county infirmary, i. 422 aztecs, ii. 315 babbage, charles, i. 26 bacillus, ii. 400 bacteriology, i. 441 baden, grand duchess (luise) of: founds ladies' society for nursing in baden, i. 447; admiration of f. n. and letters to her, i. 447, 450, ii. 202, 314, 413; on _notes on nursing_, i. 450; nurses the emperor william i., ii. 314 _n._ baker, mr., ii. 34, 35, 36 _n._ baker, sir samuel, ii. 304, 429 baker, general sir w. e., ii. 152, 274 balaclava: battle of, i. 171, 181, ii. 404; an incident of, ii. 66; arrival of wounded from, at scutari, i. 184; british hospitals at, i. 254, 285, 449; memorial cross at, i. 294 balfour, arthur james, ii. 397 balfour, dr. t. graham, secretary of the royal commission (1857), i. 329, 330, 332, 377; works with f. n., i. 372, 435; director of army medical statistics, i. 389 _n._, 432, ii. 74 balliol college, oxford, ii. 333, 398; _see also_ jowett ballot, the, i. 26 balmoral, f. n. at, i. 324, 325, 326 balzac, i. 486, 505, ii. 106 barbauld, mrs., quoted, ii. 235 barlow, sir thomas, ii. 421 barrack and hospital improvement commissions and committees- barrack and hospital improvement commission (a sub-commission to advise on, and carry out, reforms recommended by the royal commission of 1857), i. 363, 381, 383, 388 barracks works committee (appointed june 1861), i. 388-389, 405 barracks (mediterranean station) improvement committee (1862), i. 405, ii. 7 barracks and hospital improvement commission (made a permanent body, 1862), ii. 64-65; reinforced by representatives of the india office, to advise on indian sanitary measures (1863), ii. 33, 42, 45, 46, 48, 51, 150; its name changed to army sanitary committee (1865), ii. 65; various references, ii. 147, 149, 171, 172, 173, 178, 279; threatened, reconstituted (1890), ii. 374-5 barracks, improvements in, i. 381, 388, 405, ii. 374 _n._, 406-7; f. n.'s proposed model, i. 374 barratt, jerry, picture of f. n. at scutari, ii. 468 barrie, georgiana. _see_ gonzaga, sister bathurst, caroline, i. 114 batta, violoncellist, i. 25 baudens, l., i. 204 _n._ bayard, the chevalier, ii. 160 bayard, t. f. (american ambassador), ii. 419 bayuda desert, ii. 350 bazaars, i. 80 beatitudes, the, ii. 120, 261 beaumont, elie de, i. 21 bèche, sir h. de la, i. 38 bedchamber plot, i. 25 begging letters, i. 318, 319, 496, ii. 86 _n._, 106 bence-jones, dr., i. 269, 456 _n._, 457 bengal, plants of, ii. 310 bengal land question, ii. 285, 297 bengal social science association, ii. 178, 446 bentinck, general, i. 235 benton, samuel, ii. 272 _n._ berlin, f. n.'s study of hospitals at, i. 92, 417; victoria training school for nurses, ii. 190 bermondsey, r.c. convent at, nuns from, with f. n. during crimean war, i. 159, 253, 304; subsequent relations with, i. 487 bermuda, yellow fever, ii. 70 bernays, dr., i. 460 best, mr., i. 266, 281 bethune, mr., i. 35 bhownaggree, mr., ii. 378 bible, the, f. n. on selections from, ii. 228, 229; protestant view of, i. 77 birds, f. n.'s fondness for, i. 9, 10, 28, ii. 309 birdwood, sir george, ii. 378 _birkenhead_, loss of the, i. 316 birkenhead hospital, i. 423 bismarck, prince, ii. 105, 315 "bison," the, i. 325; bullyable, i. 335; bullying the, i. 335, 354, ii. 30 blachford, lord. _see_ rogers blackwell, dr. elizabeth, i. 29, 61 blackwood, lady alicia, i. 197, 198, 240; her _experiences of the crimean war_, ii. 463; quoted, i. 247, 260 blackwood, rev. dr. j. s., i. 197 blanchecotte, madame, _impressions de femme_, ii. 315 blue-books, i. 377, 386, 499, 500, ii. 307 board of survey, i. 202 body and soul, ii. 224 boer war, ii. 411 bokhara, king of, ii. 156 bologna, ii. 420 bomba, king ferdinand ii. of naples, ii. 90 bombay: plague, ii. 409; sanitation in, ii. 174, 183, 281; village sanitation bill, ii. 377, 378, 454 bonham carter, charles, ii. 392 bonham carter, miss edith, ii. 389 bonham carter, henry, i. v, 30, 280, ii. 190, 191, 200, 254, 361 _n._, 362, 363, 392, 393, 403, 413 bonham carter, miss hilary, i. 11, 29, 99, 124, 130, 431, 492, 500, 502, ii. 25 _n._; illness and death of, ii. 93, 395; portraits of f. n. by, ii. 468, 469 bonham carter, john (m.p. for portsmouth), i. 29 bonham carter, john ("jack," m.p. for winchester), i. 423 bonham carter, malcolm, ii. 389 bonham carter, norman, ii. 389 books, object of, ii. 233; prefaces to, i. xxiii booth, charles, on f. n., i. 456 bosanquet, miss elizabeth, ii. 416, 469 bossuet, i. 481 boswell's _johnson_, ii. 99 bouffé (french actor), i. 34 bowman, sir william, m.d., i. 137, 141, 456 _n._, 457, 462; letter to f. n., i. 462 boyd, florence nightingale, ii. 452 bracebridge, charles h.: with f. n. in rome (1847-48), i. 69, 75, 79; with f. n. in egypt and greece, etc. (1849-50), i. 84; sidney herbert proposes that mr. and mrs. b. should accompany f. n. to scutari, i. 153, 155; his sojourn at scutari and work there, i. 173, 197, 203, 235, 241, 250, ii. 236; letters from, i. 181, 183, 186, 191, 235; s. herbert's tribute to, i. 269; accompanies f. n. to the crimea, i. 256; returns to england, i. 295; speech on his return, i. 213, 287, ii. 459; joins council of nightingale fund, i. 456 _n._; various references, i. 67, 79, 114, 211, 284, 313, 348, ii. 260; death of, ii. 236; character of, ii. 236, 237 bracebridge, mrs. charles (selina mills): f. n.'s affection for (1846), i. 35; tributes to (1874, etc.), ii. 236, 237, 305; with f. n. in rome (1847-1848), i. 69, 70, 71, 73; with f. n. in egypt, etc. (1849-50), i. 84; accompanies f. n. to scutari and work there, i. 153, 155, 158, 163, 173, 215, 234, 236, 241, 255, 296; goes to the crimea, i. 260; various references, i. 67, 79, 96, 112, 114, 124, 129, 141, 462, 502, ii. 89, 96, 260, 468; death of, ii. 236 bréchard, mère de, ii. 81 bridgeman, mrs. (mother superior of the kinsale nuns), i. 289, 292, 293 bright, john, i. 195 _n._, ii. 293; interview with f. n., ii. 289 brinton, dr. w., i. 460 british army scripture readers, i. 495 british association, meeting, 1847, i. 65; 1861, ii. 4 _n._ _british medical journal_, on nursing, 1854-74, i. 444 british nurses association, ii. 356 _seq._ broadhead, w., and rattening, ii. 149 brougham, lord, i. 26, 428, ii. 396 brown, lieut.-col. clifton, i. 280 brown, general sir george, i. 175, 319 brown, joseph, m.d., i. 330, 332 browning, elizabeth barrett, sees f. n., i. 118 browning, robert, ii. 395; quoted or referred to, _paracelsus_, i. 43, 54, ii. 426; _rabbi ben ezra_, ii. 401, 402; _ring and the book_, ii. 307 bruce, lady augusta (stanley), i. 124, 281, ii. 93 bruce, h. a. (lord aberdare), ii. 212 brussels, f. n.'s study of hospitals at, i. 417 buckingham, duke of, ii. 282 buckingham canal (madras), ii. 288 _n._ buckle, h. t., _history of civilization_, i. 484 buckley, r. b., _irrigation works of india_, ii. 297 _n._ bucks, north, technical education committee, ii. 383, 384 budget, a moral, ii. 218, 219 buenos ayres, ii. 412 buffon, ii. 67 bulgaria, ii. 284 bunsen, baron von, and family, i. 62, 63, 84, 114, ii. 441 burdett, sir henry, ii. 356 _n._ burdett-coutts, lady, i. 151, 499, ii. 418, 456 bureaucracy, evils of, i. 405, 407, ii. 4, 62 burglars, ii. 393 burgoyne, general sir john, i. 410 burial board office, ii. 36 burke, quoted, ii. 1, 18 burlington hotel, london, i. 328, 342, 380, 406, 431, 498; associations with f. n., i. 507; a domestic catastrophe at, i. 506; maids at, i. 507; f. n. leaves (aug. 1861), i. 507; never revisits, ii. 3 burma, annexation of, ii. 372 business-like: roman catholicism, i. 424, 487; unbusiness-likeness, i. 424, 495 butler, mrs. josephine, ii. 75 butterfield, william, i. 423 byron, lady, i. 114, 262, 265, 266 byron, lord, i. 369, ii. 389 byron of the east, the, ii. 178 "cabal," f. n.'s, i. 313, 365 "cabinet," f. n.'s, i. 313, 357, 367, 492, ii. 21 cadmus, i. 32 caird, sir james, ii. 289, 292 _n._, 333 caird, mr., m.p., i. 437 cairo, mosques, ii. 226 calcutta, sanitary condition of, ii. 51, 52, 86, 174, 177, 181, 183, 281, 375 cambridge, duke of, i. 269, 273, 324, 340; f. n.'s estimate of, i. 384-385; letters to f. n., i. 384, ii. 407; opposes general hospital at woolwich, ii. 6; other references, ii. 5, 68; retirement, ii. 407 campbell, sir george, ii. 177, 285, 295, 296, 298; lectures at oxford for f. n., ii. 334; f. n. on, ii. 274 campbell, lewis, ii. 399 canadian expedition (1861), ii. 9, 10 candolle, a. p. de, i. 17 canning, lady, i. 131, 134, 140, 160, 266, 371 cap (dog), i. 13 cardigan, lord, i. 291 "cardinal," the, i. 249, 499 cards and working-men's clubs, ii. 326 cardwell, edward, viscount, ii. 29, 30, 162 _n._, 173, 212, 318 carlyle, mrs., i. 488 carlyle, thomas: on happiness, i. 67; _past and present_, i. 34; on f. n.'s papers in _fraser's magazine_, ii. 165, 220 carpenter, miss, ii. 177, 178 carracci, ii. 294 carter, bonham. _see_ bonham carter cassandra, i. 119, 490 catholics and protestants compared, i. 77. _see also_ roman catholicism cats, i. 499, 504, ii. 17, 392 cautley, sir proby, member of the royal commission on india (1859), ii. 19, 21; of the army sanitary committee, ii. 33 _n._ cavalry barracks, ii. 65 cavour, death and last words of, i. 401, 404, 484 cawnpore, ii. 141 census: of 1861, f. n. and, i. 435-438; of 1861 and 1901 compared, on nurses, i. 445; papers, how to fill in, ii. 206 _century of family letters, a_, i. 15, 96, 446, ii. 464 ceylon, barracks, ii. 70 chadwick, sir edwin, i. 352, 451, 505, ii. 4, 133, 138, 222; introduces f. n. to mill, i. 470; on f. n.'s illness, i. 492, 493 chalon, a. e., ii. 467 chamberlain, joseph, ii. 407 chamberlain, sir neville, ii. 369 chambers, robert, _vestiges of creation_, i. 37 character, f. n. on, ii. 434; seldom deserved, i. xxiii charmouth, i. 80 chartists, i. 80 chateaubriand, i. 20, 21, ii. 16, 425 chatel, madame de, ii. 235 chatham: fort pitt, medical school at, i. 390; f. n.'s inspection of hospitals at, i. 316, 349 chaumont, professor f. de, i. 383 chelsea board, i. 336, 337, 357 _n._ chelsea military hospital, i. 349 chelsea pensioners, reminiscences of f. n., i. 235 chewed food books, i. 486 cheyne, t. k., ii. 229 childers, hugh c. e., ii. 328, 337; queen victoria's letters to (1882), i. 215 _n._ children, f. n.'s interest in, ii. 305 children's bible, ii. 228 china, expeditionary force (1857), i. 340, 398 chisholm, mrs., i. 123 choate, joseph h., ii. 421 cholera, in india, ii. 70, 344, 455; inquiry, 1869, ii. 171; in london (1854), i. 140; as a "visitation of god," i. 479 chorlton union infirmary, i. 423 christ: the cross and, i. 486; his dogmas and those of the church, ii. 392; the first true mystic, ii. 233, 243; italian pictures of, ii. 294; not an ascetic, i. 369; in what sense, ii. 140; prometheus and, ii. 390; renan's, i. 486; as "saviour," i. 485; the son, i. 486, ii. 244; various conceptions of, i. 369 christian, princess, ii. 357, 360, 362, 363, 365, 366, 408 christianity, essence of, ii. 429 christie, miss, i. 11 christison, professor, i. 352, 368 church-going, i. 134, 369, 476 church of england, i. 57, 58, ii. 392 church of rome, i. 57, 58 churchill, lord randolph, ii. 368, 374 cid, the, i. 373 clarendon, lord, i. 278, 325, ii. 92; pressed to join the derby government (1866), ii. 106 clark, sir george, ii. 278 clark, sir james, m.d.: f. n. visits, at birk hall (1852), i. 118, (1856) 321; introduces f. n. to queen victoria, i. 324; serves on the royal commission (1857), i. 328, 330, 331, 332; joins council of nightingale fund, i. 456 _n._, 457; consults with f. n. on china expedition, i. 340; on status of army doctors, ii. 67, 68; on f. n. as founder of army medical school, i. 392; on _notes on nursing_, i. 448; letters to f. n., i. 329, 448; various references, i. 384, 390, 422, ii. 118, 187, 246 clark, sir john (son of the foregoing), i. 327 clark, le gros, i. 460 clark, w., civil engineer, ii. 177, 214, 278, 280, 282 clarke, mary. _see_ mohl clarke, mrs. (matron), i. 130 clarkson, thomas, i. 5 classical literature, ii. 390 claydon, f. n. at, ii. 309, 310, 324, 349, 382, 383, 398, 415; portraits of her at, ii. 467, 468, 469; nightingale nurses at, ii. 268 cleanthes, i. 490 clinton, lord, ii. 152 clive, mrs. archer, i. 66, 67, ii. 89; _paul ferroll_, i. 66, 495, 500 clough, arthur hugh: at oxford, jowett's reminiscences, ii. 12; marries f. n.'s cousin, blanche smith, i. 30, 128; sees f. n. off to scutari, i. 162; friendship with f. n. and service to her, i. 348, 380, 469, 477 _n._, 491, 494, ii. 10, 11, 14; his sympathy, ii. 12, 16; secretary of nightingale fund, i. 457, 494, ii. 11; introduces f. n. to jowett, i. 471; letter to f. n., i. 494; illness, ii. 10, 11; death, ii. 10; f. n.'s grief, ii. 15, 16; character of, ii. 10, 12; jowett on, ii. 12, 399; sir j. mcneill on, ii. 13; poems of, quoted or referred to, i. 468, 481, 484, ii. 355; various references, ii. 63, 151, 194, 216, 223, 388 clown and pantaloon at a theatre fire, ii. 261 clyde, lord, ii. 117 cobden, richard, i. 336 cochrane, miss alice, ii. 416 codrington, general, i. 406 cohn, f., i. 441 coleridge, s. t., ii. 213 colonial hospitals, ii. 78; prisons, ii. 60; schools, ii. 78 colonization, ii. 165, 166 coltman, charlotte, i. 327 _n._ coltman, william, i. 327 _n._, ii. 237 coltman, mrs. william, i. 327 _n._, ii. 467 colvin, sir auckland, i. xxviii combe, andrew, _management of infancy_, i. 392 _n._ combe, dr., i. 360 _n._ combe hurst, i. 30, 342 commissariat, i. 157, 331, ii. 64, 70 commissions, lord salisbury on, ii. 287 committees, art of managing, i. 135 communion, holy, f. n. and, i. 96, 259, 489, ii. 243, 400 constantinople: dogs as scavengers, ii. 283; f. n.'s study of hospitals at, i. 417; views on approaching, i. 171 contagious diseases acts, ii. 74, 75, 212, 408 conviction of sin, i. 49 co-operative movement, ii. 391 corfield, dr., ii. 379 corfu, i. 90 correggio, "reading magdalen," i. 91, 92, 117 cosmogony, the indian, ii. 282, 332, 405 cotton, sir arthur, ii. 284, 285, 295, 296, 299, 450; his _life_, ii. 297 _n._ cousin, victor, i. 21 cousins, marriage of, i. 98 coventry, hospital, i. 423; weavers, i. 424 cowper, mrs. william, ii. 93 cox, colonel and mrs., ii. 202 "coxcombs," i. 376, 379 cranborne, lord. _see_ salisbury, marquis of cranbrook, earl of (mr. gathorne hardy): president of the poor law board (1866), ii. 106; f. n.'s communications with, on london workhouse reform, ii. 115, 134, 135, 137; his metropolitan poor act (1867), ii. 137; f. n.'s communications with, as secretary for war (1876), ii. 318, 319; as secretary for india (1878), ii. 289; letters to f. n., ii. 115, 291 cranworth, lady, i. 134, 300 cranworth, lord chancellor, i. 266 craven, mrs. dacre. _see_ lees crawford, dr. t., ii. 338, 407 creeds, and works, i. 58, 488 crewe, marquis of, speech on indian sanitation (1913), ii. 145 crimea, the: flowers in, i. 285, 450; hospitals in, i. 254; invasion of, i. 145; f. n.'s three visits to, i. 255, 283. _see also_ nightingale, f. (2) crimean veterans, ii. 420, 457, 458 crimean war: heroism of the soldiers, i. 184, 185, 257, 317; popular resentment at hospital and nursing defects, i. 146; nature and causes of these defects, i. 175, 178, 179, 202, 205, 207, 211, 221, 224 _seq._, ii. 10, 43; preventable deaths in, i. 314, 316; the true "relics" of, ii. 409. _see also_ balaclava, chelsea board, nursing, nightingale, scutari, etc., etc. crinolines, i. 454 criticism, irresponsible, ii. 265 crivelli (singing master), i. 24 croft, a. w., ii. 275 croft, j., ii. 247, 248, 386 croker, t. crofton, _fairy legends of the south of ireland_, part iii., cluricaune, i. 97; phooka, i. 132 cromford bridge, i. 125 cropper, j. w., ii. 127 cross, the, i. 486, ii. 120; the way of the cross, ii. 243 cross, lord, f. n.'s negotiations with, ii. 373, 374, 375, 377, 406 crosse, mr., ii. 206 crossland, miss, ii. 248 _n._ crown princess of prussia. _see_ victoria cruiksbanks, dr., i. 273 cubs and bears, i. 184, ii. 58 cuffe, father, i. 248 cumberland infirmary, ii. 256 cunliffe, mrs. leonard, ii. 467. _see also_ galton, e. cunningham, sir henry, ii. 375 cunningham, dr. j. w., ii. 177, 375 curates, high church, ii. 309 curzon, lord, ii. 298 _n._ cypress, ii. 120 _daily news_: attack on f. n. (1854), i. 154 _n._, 245; harriet martineau's articles in, i. 386, 494, ii. 30, 35; quoted or referred to, i. 235, ii. 6, 75, 137 _daily telegraph_, ii. 117 dalhousie, earl of. _see_ panmure daly, timothy, inquest on, ii. 130 dante, i. 317, ii. 245 davis, elizabeth, ii. 461 dawes, dr. r. (dean of hereford), i. 35, 281, 456 _n._ dawson, sir douglas, ii. 418 de'ath, george h., ii. 384, 455 death-beds, i. 449, 455 deccan, usury in the, ii. 290, 291, 451 deeble, mrs., ii. 194, 335 de grey, lord. _see_ ripon, marquis of delane, j. t., i. 157, ii. 38, 134 delhi, insanitary condition of, ii. 281 delphic sibyl, the, i. 71, 72 denison, edward, ii. 219 departmental jealousies and friction, ii. 33, 41, 42, 47, 48 derby, 14th earl of, his administration (1858-59), i. 378, 387; (1866) presses lord clarendon to join him, ii. 106; sympathetic to poor law reform, ii. 134; memorial to, ii. 200 derby, 15th earl of (lord stanley): enthusiasm for f. n. and her work, i. 339; speaks on behalf of the nightingale fund (1855), in london, i. 269; in manchester, eulogium on f. n., i. 271-2, 305; introduced to f. n. (1857), i. 339; agrees to write on report of the royal commission (1857), i. 377; colonial secretary (1858) promises to help f. n., i. 379; transferred to india office, ii. 21; carries east india bill, ii. 105 _n._; agrees with f. n. to appoint indian sanitary commission (1859), ii. 19, 21; succeeds s. herbert as chairman of it, ii. 22, 23, 33, 34; "urged and baited" by f. n., ii. 43; takes various measures in concert with her for securing adoption of the report, ii. 41, 43, 48, 56, 57, 86; replies to indian government's criticism of it (1865), ii. 54; urges appointment of sir j. lawrence as viceroy (1863), ii. 43; arranges interview between him and f. n., ii. 44, 45; foreign secretary (1866), ii. 105, 113; commends f. n. to lord cranborne, ii. 114; on lord mayo, ii. 169; "a splendid worker," ii. 57; temperament of, ii. 41, 57; letters to f. n., ii. 25, 31, 41, 42, 44, 54, 55, 57, 114; various references, ii. 47, 51, 85, 87 derwent, the river, i. 8 des genettes, the abbé, i. 124, 127 devon, earl of, on f. n., ii. 139 _n._ devonshire, 7th duke of, i. 318 devonshire, 8th duke of. _see_ hartington devonshire square, london, nursing institution, i. 158, 159 devotion, the secret of, i. 78 dicey, edward, on cavour, i. 484 dicey, mrs., ii. 458 dickens, charles, i. 443; mrs. gamp, i. 443; mrs. jellyby, i. 496; elijah pogram, ii. 100 digby, s., ii. 378 disappointment, discipline of, i. 59 disease, philosophy of, i. 451-2 disraeli, benjamin: educating his party, ii. 138; "sanitas sanitatum," i. 416; _sybil_, i. 64; various references, ii. 146, 213, 289, 325 dissenters, i. 34, ii. 392 district nursing, mr. rathbone's experiment in liverpool, ii. 124-125; extension of, to london, etc., ii. 143, 252, 355 dock, lavinia l. _see_ nutting dogs, i. 10, ii. 17 dohler (musician), i. 24 "doors _versus_ windows," ii. 149 dorchester house, london, ii. 300, 309 drake, mrs. elizabeth, i. 185, 261 drawing-rooms, i. 498, 499 dresden, pictures at, i. 91, 92, 369 dress, i. 454, ii. 267 drift, lord salisbury on, ii. 298 drunkenness: among nurses, i. 117, 442, 444; in the army, i. 276 _seq._; in the army in india, ii. 28, 280 dublin, hospitals at, i. 118, 416, ii. 393 dufferin, marchioness of, ii. 370 dufferin, marquis of: calls on f. n. before going to india, ii. 343; passes lord ripon's land bills, ii. 297, 343 _n._; sanitary reforms, ii. 370, 373, 376; letters to f. n., ii. 372, 373, 376 dunant, henri, ii. 205, 464 duncannon, lord, i. 26 dunsany, lady, i. 265 dunsany, lord, i. 265 dürer, albert, i. 369 dutton, miss, i. 35 early rising, ii. 312 _eastern hospitals and english nurses_, ii. 460; quoted, i. 174 _n._, 182, 200, 210 _n._, 236 eastern question (1876 _seq._), ii. 292, 293, 319, 449 east india house, ii. 23 eastlake, lady, _memorials of_, i. 260 ebrington, lord, i. 375 _economist_, ii. 35 edinburgh, f. n.'s study of hospitals at, i. 416; royal infirmary, ii. 256, 448, 449, 458 _edinburgh review_, i. 377-8 education: agricultural, for indian civil servants, ii. 333-4, 394; elementary, and nature studies, ii. 310; indian, ii. 331; native races and, ii. 78, 79, 80 edward vii., ii. 378, 418, 471 egg, augustus l., r.a., reputed portrait of f. n., ii. 467 egypt, f. n.'s visit to, i. 85 _seq._, ii. 390; condition of people (1850), i. 87; mythology, etc., i. 38, 85; scenery, i. 87 _n._; tomb paintings, ii. 294 egyptian campaign, 1882, ii. 335, 336 elections, 1880, ii. 325; 1895, ii. 392 elgin, 8th earl of, ii. 35, 43, 44 elgin, 9th earl of, ii. 405, 406 eliot, george, on f. n., i. 118, 491; _middlemarch_, i. 97; _romola_, i. 97 ellenborough, lord, on census bill, 1860, i. 438 ellesmere, lady, i. 134 ellesmere, lord, tribute to f. n. in house of lords, i. 237, 302-3; joins council of nightingale fund, i. 456 _n._ elliot, captain, i. 33 ellis, sir barrow, ii. 287 ellis, r. j., ii. 50, 55, 108, ii. 147 elwin, whitwell, i. 377 ely, lady, ii. 116 embley, i. 9, 16, 27, 29, 64, 422, ii. 119, 237, 258, 309, 415 emerson, r. w., i. 141 endowments, ii. 271 england, unbusiness-like, i. 432 english society, i. 505, 506 enthusiasm, and facts, ii. 408 epitaph, an, i. 490 eternal punishment, ii. 219 eugenics, i. 4, ii. 397 eumenides, grotto of the, i. 91 evangelicalism, ii. 209 evans, aunt, i. 118, 125 evatt, surgeon-major g. j. h., ii. 338, 453 evil, theory of, i. 53, 481, 486-7, ii. 316 ewald, h. g. a. von, ii. 229 _examiner_, i. 164 excuses, i. 506 "extra diet," in crimean war, i. 285, 286 ezekiel, ii. 15, 323 fabiola, i. 440 faraday, michael, on friendship, ii. 222 farnall, h. b., ii. 123, 124 _n._, 131, 134, 135 farquhar, dr., ii. 158 farr, dr. william: friendship and collaboration with f. n. in army and other statistics, etc., i. 325, 328, 329, 332, 352, 365, 372, 376, 382, 383, 389 _n._, 428, 430, 431, 436; on indian sanitary commission (1859-1863), ii. 19, 22, 23, 24, 31, 36, 42, 46, 54; address on s. herbert (1861), ii. 4; retired (1879), ii. 289 _n._; death of, ii. 352; letters, to f. n., i. 435; to dr. sutherland, ii. 26; various references, ii. 14, 119, 397, 400, 443 farrar, f. w., ii. 249 f.a.s., the, i. 129 fauriel, claude, i. 21, 31 fawcett, henry, ii. 289 fenzi, signor camillo, ii. 391 fever tinctures, ii. 70 fife, colonel j. g., ii. 275 filder, commissary-general, i. 157, 437 finlay, sir robert, ii. 362 fisher, miss alice, i. 465 fitz-gerald, david, i. 288, 289, 292, 293 fitz-gerald, edward, ii. 94 fliedner, pastor theodor, i. 62, 109, 111, 255, 440, ii. 249, 445 florence, f. n.'s birthplace, i. 4; f. n.'s visit to, i. 18; congratulations from, ii. 420; memorial to her at, ii. 422 _n._ florence nightingale hospital for gentlewomen, ii. 458. _see_ harley street florences, named after f. n., i. 3, ii. 321, 420 flowers, and the sick, i. 449-50, 499; of the field, as models of dress, ii. 264 footner, miss f. alicia de biden, ii. 469 forester, lady maria, i. 148, 151, 152, 245 forster, john, _life of dickens_, i. 443 fort pitt, chatham (_q.v._), i. 390 founders, ii. 246, 271 fowler, h. h. (lord wolverhampton), ii. 379, 380, 406 fowler, dr. richard, i. 35; mrs., i. 44 fox, f. w., ii. 290 _n._ france and the roman republic, 1848, i. 76 franco-german war (1870), ii. 198, 200-201 _fraser's magazine_, papers by f. n. in, ii. 164, 218, 446, 447 frederick, crown prince (emperor), ii. 118, 204, 277 frederick, j. j., i. 405, ii. 65, 374 _n._, 375, 386, 416 "free gifts," the, i. 208 freeman, miss l., ii. 141 free will, and necessity, i. 70, 71, 469, 481, 482, 484 french military hospitals, i. 228; and nurses, i. 147, 149 frere, sir bartle: returns from bombay to india council, makes f. n.'s acquaintance (1867), ii. 147; value of his co-operation with her, ii. 146; friendship with her and her parents, ii. 148; delivers letter from her to sir s. northcote, ii. 151; appointed chairman of sanitary committee at india office, ii. 153; arranges for lord mayo to see f. n., ii. 167; introduces lord napier of magdala to her, ii. 175; various communications, etc., ii. 158, 171, 176, 178, 179, 180, 274, 276, 285, 296, 334; death of, ii. 352; letters to f. n., ii. 144, 167, 168, 175, 176-7, 181, 281; f. n.'s opinion of, ii. 152, 169, 175; on lord mayo, ii. 167; on lord napier of magdala, ii. 175; on f. n.'s services to india, ii. 45, 158; on her method, ii. 385 friendly societies, i. 437 friendship, jowett on, ii. 84; f. n. on, ii. 222-3, 425 froude, j. a., ii. 164, 219, 220 fry, mrs. elizabeth, i. 62 _n._, 109, 123, 440 fuhrmann, fräulein, ii. 190 further shore, voices from the, ii. 39 future life, i. 373, 483, ii. 94, 319, 402 gale, mrs., f. n.'s nurse, i. 31 galileo, i. 35 galton, captain sir douglas, i. vi; marries f. n.'s cousin (1851), i. 29; serves on various war office commissions, i. 381, 389, 396, 405; his position at the war office (1860, 1861), i. 404, 420, ii. 6; appointed, at f. n.'s instance, assistant under-secretary, ii. 62; memorandum by, on war office organization, ii. 63 _n._; retires from war office (1869), continued on army sanitary committee, ii. 162; suggests to f. n. to see sir b. frere, ii. 147; assumes responsibility for sending official papers to f. n., ii. 149; serves on the aid society (1870-71), ii. 199, 200; death of, ii. 414; on army hospital service, ii. 338 _n._, 340; on sanitary progress in india, 1876, ii. 182 and _n._; on dr. sutherland's services, ii. 173 _n._; helps f. n., i. 494, ii. 332, 338, 371, 377, 406; letters to f. n., ii. 6, 65, 74, 76, 147; f. n.'s tribute to, ii. 414; various references, i. 406, ii. 10, 51, 109, 375, 378, 407 galton, evelina (mrs. l. cunliffe), ii. 391 galton, francis, ii. 397, 400 garcia, pauline, i. 24 gardiner, rev. thory gage, ii. 399-400 garibaldi: f. n.'s sympathy with, i. 501; sees f. n., ii. 90; her impressions, ii. 90-91; his volunteers, ii. 8; jowett on, ii. 90; sir j. lawrence on, ii. 50 gaskell, mrs. (the authoress), visit to lea hurst, i. 139; description of the place, i. 8; on f. n., i. 39, 41, 139, 140, 373; helps f. n. about soldiers' reading-rooms, i. 397; letter to f. n., i. 347; books of: _north and south_, i. 140, 500; _ruth_, i. 500 gaskell, mrs. (_née_ brandreth), i. 55 gaster, miss, ii. 293 gavazzi, father, i. 74 gavin, dr. hector, i. 219, 221 geneva, f. n. at, i. 17 geneva convention (1864), ii. 71 genoa, f. n. at, i. 18 george iv., i. 479 gerry, john, ii. 450 ghose, lalmohun, ii. 332 gibraltar, soldiers' reading-room, i. 397, ii. 76 giffard, rev. j. t., i. 14 gigliucci, contessa. _see_ novello, clara girton college, ii. 390 gladstone, w. e. [(1) relations with f. n.; (2) other references.] (1) _relations with f. n._:- friendship with sidney herbert, i. 387; at his funeral, i. 409; appeals to f. n. to write a memoir of him, i. 408; speaks at his memorial meeting, i. 410; f. n. appeals to, to continue herbert's work, i. 409, ii. 4; later communications with f. n.--on appointment of secretary for war (1863), ii. 30; on army morals, ii. 75; on small ownership (1865), ii. 92, 93; on india (1879), ii. 292, 293; on general gordon, 1881, ii. 329; on india (1884), ii. 345; on appointment of indian secretary (1886), ii. 368; invites f. n. to a review (1882), ii. 336; letters to f. n., i. 409, 410, ii. 292 (2) _other references_:- a riddle about, i. 388; as "the beast," i. 65; as chancellor of the exchequer, i. 387, 404; eastern question and, ii. 284, 320; homer, ii. 61; on the franchise bill (1866), ii. 105; resignation, (1894), ii. 403; various mentions, ii. 16, 68, 69, 92, 102, 104, 173, 212, 213, 304, 307, 308 gladstone, mrs. w. e., ii. 336, 347 glasgow infirmary, i. 421 gleichen, countess feodora, ii. 422 _n._, 469 glover, rev. r., i. 279 god: character and purposes of, i. 117, 469, 479, 480, 486, ii. 222, 223; communion with, i. 489; the "glory" of, ii. 390; a personal, ii. 219; plan of, i. 479, ii. 1; mankind to create mankind, i. 117, 120, ii. 51; "not my private secretary," ii. 414; providence of, i. 486. _see also_ law god's revenge upon murder, i. 377 "going to miss nightingale," i. 348, 350 goldschmidt, madame. _see_ lind gonfalonieri (italian journalist), i. 26, 479 gonzaga, sister (georgiana barrie, the "cardinal"), i. 249, 499, ii. 82 goodman, margaret, ii. 462 gordon, general, introduces himself to f. n. (1880), ii. 327; subsequent movements, and communications with her (1881 _seq._), ii. 328, 329; sends "books of comfort" to her, ii. 328, 330; messages to her from brussels and khartoum, ii. 330; at khartoum, ii. 267; "the last watch," ii. 350; f. n. on his character, ii. 323, 351; distributes _lives_ of him among the soldiers, ii. 351 _n._ gordon boys' home, ii. 330 gordon relief expedition, ii. 346, 350 gordon, miss, ii. 355 gordon, mr. (engineer at scutari), i. 206, 234 goschen, g. j. (viscount): on statistics, i. 428; sees f. n., her estimate of him, ii. 166 gospel of st. john, ii. 366 graham, sir james, i. 34 grant, bishop, _life_ of, ii. 463; quoted, i. 173, 249 grant, sir hope, ii. 65 grant duff, sir mountstuart, ii. 333, 344 granville, earl, ii. 92; _life_ of, quoted, i. 273, 278 grates, varnish for, i. 347 gray, mr. and mrs. hamilton, i. 65 greathed, colonel e. h., ii. 22 great ormond street, hospital of the bermondsey nuns, i. 487 _n._ greece: architecture, i. 88; scenery, i. 89 greek chorus, ii. 26; greek literature, ii. 229 green, mrs. t. h., ii. 398 greg, w. r., ii. 35 greville's _journal_, quoted, i. 145, 176 grey, third earl, i. 354, 436, 438 grey, sir george (governor of new zealand), i. 11, ii. 78, 440 grey, sir george (queen victoria's private secretary), i. 324 grillage, peter, i. 304, ii. 302 grisi, carlotta, i. 19, 24 grosvenor hotel (park street), ii. 91 grote, g., on j. s. mill, ii. 221; _history of greece_, ii. 97 guildford, surrey county hospital, i. 423 guizot, i. 21, 26, 82, 451 guy's hospital, i. 433 haig, colonel f. t., ii. 275, 295 halifax (nova scotia) soldiers' institute, ii. 76 hall, h. byng, ii. 460 hall, sir john, m.d.: inspector-general of hospitals in crimea, i. 288; his mistakes, i. 357; resents requisitions as slurs on his preparations, i. 288; opposition to f. n., i. 213, 288, 291, 297, 386; rebuked by secretary of state, i. 292, 293; evidence to the royal commission (1857), i. 357, 358; s. herbert and f. n. prevent his appointment as director-general, i. 331, 378, ii. 146 _n._; various references to, i. 356, 382, 437; _life_ of, by mitra, interest of, i. 169; quoted or referred to, i. 204 _n._, 213, 291, 292, 293 hall, s. c., i. 269, ii. 450; mrs., i. 462 _n._ hallam, h., i. 65 hannen, lord, ii. 362 happiness, i. 106, ii. 322 harcourt, e. v., archbishop of york, i. 55 hardy, gathorne. _see_ cranbrook hare, a. j. c., _story of two noble lives_, quoted, i. 371 harley street hospital, london, ii. 458; f. n.'s work at, i. 129, 131, 134, 135 _seq._, 140, 141 harrowby, lord, ii. 69 hart, ernest, ii. 124, 137 hartington, lord, ii. 70, 71 hastings, lady flora, i. 25 hastings, warren, ii. 43 hatcher, miss temperance (mrs. grillage), ii. 302 hathaway, dr., ii. 49, 51 hawes, sir benjamin, permanent under secretary for war (1857-62), i. 403, 405, ii. 61; death of, ii. 62 hawthorn, mrs., ii. 327, 337, 342 hawthorne, n., _transformation_, i. 97 hayward, abraham, i. 344 _n._, 408 health missioners, ii. 383-4 heathcote, sir william, i. 37, 422 heaven, ii. 209, 233, 234, 403, 428, 429-30 hell, i. 51 hemans, mrs., i. 10 henley, w. e., _in hospital_, i. 186, ii. 264 henniker, sir brydges, ii. 289 _n._ herbert, sidney (lord herbert of lea). [(1) chronological; (2) character; (3) letters; (4) miscellaneous references.] (1) _chronological_:- secretary-at-war under peel (1845-1846), i. 79; interest in welfare of the soldiers, i. 149; interest in hospitals, nursing, emigration, i. 80, 137, 149; marriage (1846), i. 79; relations with his wife, i. 80, 411; meets f. n. at rome (1847-48), friendship, i. 79; visits her at kaiserswerth (1851), i. 114; secretary-at-war under aberdeen, relieves duke of newcastle of hospital matters, i. 149, 217; asks f. n. to go out to the east (oct. 15, 1854), i. 151-4; settles expedition at interview (oct. 16), i. 155; issues her instructions, i. 155; helps her to select nurses, i. 159; favours a larger number, i. 158; addresses nurses before departure, i. 159; writes to papers saying further nurses will not be sent except on f. n.'s requisition, i. 189; sends out second party of nurses under miss stanley, i. 188; instructs f. n. to communicate freely with him, i. 217; acts on her reports, i. 211; retires from office (1855), transmits f. n.'s subsequent reports to his successor, i. 217; acts as honorary secretary of nightingale fund, i. 269; on the council, i. 456. _n._, 457; speech at public meeting to promote fund, i. 113, 180, 199, 237, 264, 269, 270, 306; begs f. n. to return after her illness in crimea, i. 260; sees f. n. on her return (1856), i. 313; discusses plans of reform with her, i. 321, 325; accepts chairmanship of royal commission on health of the army, i. 334; negotiations with lord panmure in concert with f. n., i. 335; work as chairman of royal commission, assisted by f. n., i. 312, 355 _seq._, 360; holds back report, pending guarantees for reform, i. 363, 364; accepts chairmanship of executive sub-commissions, hard work on them, i. 363, 366, 381, 382; carries motion in support of mcneill and tulloch (1857), i. 338; holiday in ireland (aug. 1857), sees f. n. on his return, i. 364; overstrain (1858), i. 381; accepts chairmanship of indian sanitary commission (1859), i. 398, ii. 19, 21; resigns chairmanship, ii. 22, 23; on becoming secretary for war (1859), i. 387, 400; summary of his sanitary and other reforms, i. 388-99, ii. 174; fortification scheme, i. 398; volunteer (_q.v._) movement, ii. 7; health fails, i. 401; works on indomitably, i. 405, ii. 403; wanted sir j. lawrence as viceroy (1861), ii. 44; interview with f. n. (dec. 1860), i. 401; resigns house of commons, created lord herbert of lea (1860), i. 402; first speech in house of lords, i. 402 _n._; increasing illness, i. 404, 503; resigns office, i. 406; last interview with f. n., i. 406; ordered abroad, i. 406, 503; return home and death, i. 406, 507, ii. 7; dying words about f. n., i. 406; funeral, i. 409; memorial meeting, i. 409-10; memorial to, ii. 6, 8; last official schemes and wishes: desired de grey as his successor, ii. 30; general military hospital at woolwich, ii. 6; his schemes frustrated after his death, ii. 4, 6, 94; had inserted no "mainspring," ii. 5, 144 (2) _character_, ii. 175:- angelic temper, i. 407; as an administrator (mr. gladstone's estimate), i. 409; as army reformer, i. 399; charm, i. 411; chivalry, i. 373; contrasted with f. n., i. 412; conversational powers, i. 411, ii. 223; eclecticism, i. 366; jowett on what he might have been, ii. 98; management of royal commissions, i. 358; not a party man, ii. 176; openness, ii. 169; popularity, i. 149, 409; position in the house of commons, etc., i. 149; quick perception, i. 358, 366, ii. 152; a saviour, i. 412, 485; sympathetic manner, i. 358; unselfish devotion, i. 407, ii. 293. for his relations with f. n., _see_ nightingale, florence (3) (3) _letters_:- to f. n.: (1854, oct. 15) i. 151-154; (1856) i. 290, 313, 321, 325, 327, 329, 331, 332; (1857) i. 312, 348, 356, 357, 358, 360; (1858) i. 378, 379, 380, 381, 382; (1859) i. 387; (1861) i. 404; to commandant at scutari, i. 178; to lord raglan, i. 288; to samuel smith, i. 313; to dr. sutherland, i. 379 (4) _various references_:- i. 245, 332, 359, 370, 371, 374, 376, 377, 378, 382, 394, 468, ii. 11, 13, 26, 38, 63, 81, 152, 171, 173, 213, 214, 260, 373, 385, 396, 404, 409 herbert, mrs. sidney (lady herbert of lea), marriage, i. 79; meets f. n. at rome, i. 79; friendship with f. n., i. 79, 80, 134, 374, 381, 388, 411; helps f. n. at harley street, i. 134; defends f. n. against sectarian attacks, i. 245; intercedes with manning (1867) about bermondsey nuns, i. 487 _n._; her help to her husband, ii. 15; grief at his death, ii. 17; joins church of rome, ii. 89; letters: to f. n., i. 332, 366, 400, 402, ii. 60; to mrs. bracebridge, i. 189, 192, 221; various references, i. 136, 137, 215, 266, 268, 377, ii. 4, 5, 6, 187 hereford, dean of. _see_ dawes "_heroic dead, the_," verses on, i. 263 heroism, i. 317, 484 hewlett, dr., ii. 174, 183, 381 hicks, miss philippa (mrs. large), ii. 252, 348 hicks-beach, sir michael, ii. 361 high church party, ii. 392 highgate infirmary, ii. 192, 272 hill, mr. and mrs., american missionaries, i. 89, 91 hill, miss annie, ii. 272 hill, miss octavia, i. 97, 98, ii. 304, 450 hill stations, india, ii. 28-9 history, philosophy of, i. 484 hobhouse, lord, ii. 362 holland, queen of, ii. 89, 187 holloway (near lea hurst), ii. 326, 392 holyoake, g. j., i. 119, 120 holy writ, ii. 229 homer, i. 13, 47, ii. 43, 229 hong kong, barracks, ii. 407 hook, dr. (vicar of leeds), i. 55 hookham, mr. (bookseller), i. 265 hopkins, miss ellice, ii. 450 hornby, lady, _constantinople during the crimean war_, ii. 462; quoted, i. 285, 297 horner, miss joanna, i. 33 horse guards, the (office), i. 179, 200, 403, ii. 4, 6, 9, 58; a "horse guards letter," i. 437 horses, army, in the crimea, ii. 65; in hansom cabs, ii. 66 hospital hymn, ii. 258 hospitals: anxieties in, i. 137; condition of, in f. n.'s early time, i. 415, 417 _seq._; f. n.'s work in reforming, i. 415-16, _see further_, nightingale, f. (5); greenery for, i. 499; "pavilion" (_q.v._) system, i. 340; scheme for supply in military, i. 227; statistics, i. 430 _seq._ hospitals association, ii. 356 _hospital, the_, ii. 363 houghton, lord. _see_ milnes hougomont, a moral from, ii. 72 house of lords, i. 437 household hygiene, i. 448, 451 housekeeping, i. 42, ii. 302-3 housing of the people, i. 436, 437 howe, dr. and julia ward, i. 37, 43, ii. 315 howitt, william and mary, i. 382 hume, a. o., ii. 332 hume, rev. mr., i. 152 hunter, sir w. guyer, ii. 379 hunter, sir w. wilson, ii. 25 _n._, 380, 455 huntingdon county hospital, ii. 256 hurd, dr. h. m., i. 345 _n._, ii. 466 husson, monsieur, ii. 136 _n._ huxley, professor, ii. 223, 224 hyde park, the treadmill, ii. 300 hygiene in the army, i. 395 hymns: hospital hymn, ii. 258; "i ask no heaven," ii. 209; "o lord, how happy should we be," ii. 421; "the son of god goes forth to war," ii. 142, 423 ignatius loyola, i. 96, ii. 272 ilbert, sir c. p., ii. 333; the "ilbert bill," ii. 331, 339, 343 india: f. n.'s knowledge of, how derived, ii. 25, 27, 273-5; education, ii. 331, 381; land question, ii. 331; local government, ii. 381; lord ripon's reforms, ii. 330 _seq._; proclamation of 1858, ii. 381; towns municipal improvement bill (1865), ii. 56. _see also_ nightingale, f. (6) india office: jealousy of war office, ii. 47, 153; opposition to royal commission's report (1863), ii. 42; loses a dispatch from sir j. lawrence, ii. 108 indian civil service, ii. 333, 392 indian famines, ii. 275 _n._, 277, 284, 289-90, 292, 450 indian irrigation: f. n.'s interest in, and pleas for, ii. 184, 274, 284, 286, 297; lord salisbury's doubts on, ii. 286; conflicting experts on, ii. 289; data required for, ii. 286-288; some irrigation works, ii. 288, 297, 298 indian medical service, ii. 70 indian mutiny, f. n.'s offer to go out, i. 371; the moral drawn by her from, i. 365, ii. 19, 20 indian national congress, ii. 332, 382 indian plague, ii. 412 indian sanitation: india to be "conquered," "civilized," by sanitation, ii. 1, 20, 51, 52, 152, 154, 174; preventable mortality of soldiers in, ii. 18, 19, 32; climate not responsible, ii. 20; presidency sanitary commissions set up (1864), ii. 42, 45, 46, 49; threatened, ii. 372; proposed transference of functions of sanitary commissioners to prison inspectors, ii. 114, 144, 145; appointment of public health officers, ii. 154; sanitary department established at the india office, ii. 150-153; sanitary annuals issued, ii. 57, 145, 174 _n._, 176 _n._, 180, 326; f. n.'s scheme for allocating cesses to, rejected (1894), ii. 378-9; summary of reforms effected (1863-73), ii. 53-6, 181-3; reduced army death-rate, ii. 19, 55, 156, 174, 182, 277, 279; native awakening to advantage of sanitation, ii. 174; answer to objections, ii. 174, 181; village sanitation, ii. 332; costliness of sanitary reforms, ii. 277, 278, 279; other difficulties in the way of, ii. 377, 381; provincial sanitary boards (1888), ii. 376; village inspection books (1895), ii. 406; sanitation the indian "cinderella," i. xxviii; budget provision for (1913), i. xxviii. _see also_ nightingale, florence (6) indian village communities, ii. 391 infant majesty, i. 497-8 inglis, lady, i. 134, 141 inkerman, battle, i. 181, 317 inkerman café, scutari, i. 279 inoculation, i. 393 _n._ international congress, geneva (1864), ii. 71. _see also_ red cross international hygiene congress, 1891, ii. 377 international statistical congress, london, 1860, i. 431; berlin, 1863, i. 434 ionian islands, british occupation, i. 90 irby, miss paulina, ii. 235, 320, 388, 417 irish census, i. 436, 437 italian pictures, i. 47, ii. 310 italy: f. n.'s love of, ii. 393; her fame in, i. 501, ii. 117; politics of, her interest in italian freedom and unity, i. 17, 74-6, ii. 117, 118, 479; scheme for "educating the south," i. 501-2 ithuriel, i. 35 jackson, captain pilkington, ii. 76 jacob omnium, ii. 70 _n._ jameson, mrs., i. 63 jam-making, i. 42 japan and f. n., ii. 419 jebb, sir joshua, i. 36, 352, 374, 456 _n._, 457 jebb, lady amelia, i. 266 jenner, sir william, ii. 192, 318 jesuits, ii. 271-2 jeune, lady, ii. 408 jewitt, ll., _a stroll to lea hurst_, i. 265 joan of arc, i. 265, 286 jocelyn, lady, i. 36 john bull and his church, i. 476 johnson, samuel, definition of religion, ii. 233 johnson, dr. walter, i. 116, 117, 367, ii. 162 jones, miss agnes, ii. 52; nursing apprenticeship and introduction to f. n., ii. 126; a probationer at the nightingale training school, ii. 52, 126; selected by f. n. for liverpool infirmary, ii. 52, 126; her experiment, ii. 127; trials and ultimate success, ii. 128, 129, 140; death, ii. 140, 162, 249; character of, ii. 140-41; her feeling for f. n., ii. 126, 127, 128, 185; inscription to, at liverpool, ii. 206 jones, miss mary, superintendent of st. john's house (_q.v._) which undertook the nursing at king's college hospital (_q.v._), i. 444, 464; friendship with, and admiration for, f. n., i. 159, 447-8, 502; sends nurses to the crimea, i. 159; gives advice on nightingale training school, i. 462 jones, william, i. 256 _n._, 304 joubert, i. 490 journal of the royal army military corps, quoted, i. 187, 188 _n._; statistical society, i. 433 jowett, benjamin. [(1) relations with f. n.; (2) letters to f. n.; (3) various references.] (1) relations with f. n.:- refers to f. n. in _essays and reviews_, i. 471; introduced by clough, f. n. submits her _suggestions for thought_, his correspondence and annotations thereon, i. 471, 472, 475-7, 483, 487, ii. 95; forms friendship with f. n. and her parents (1862), ii. 96; administers sacrament to her, ii. 96; visits her in london, ii. 96, 302, 394; and in the country, ii. 162, 163, 311, 394; admonitions to her, ii. 97, 100, 102; familiar correspondence, ii. 96, 99, 101; promises f. n. not to overwork, ii. 99; f. n. helps him with sermons, ii. 100, 227; persuades f. n. to visit the country, ii. 162, 163; advises her to do literary work, ii. 163, 211, 215, 222, 230, 231; she helps in revising his _plato_, ii. 225, 232; with _the children's bible_, ii. 228; a passing coolness, ii. 240; closer sympathy, ii. 394; introduces lord lansdowne to f. n., ii. 376; illness at south street (1887), ii. 395; proposed "nightingale professorship" at oxford, ii. 397, 398, 400; illness (1891), ii. 398; death (1893), ii. 398, 399; f. n.'s tribute, ii. 400; lord lansdowne's, ii. 400-1; f. n.'s feeling for him, and value of his friendship to her, ii. 101, 103, 401; his feeling for her, and appreciation of her friendship, ii. 100, 321, 398, 399; tributes to her work and character, ii. 102, 238, 273, 296, 314, 321, 352, 425, 433 (2) _letters to f. n._, ii. 61, 101, 249:- (1861) i. 471-2, 475, 476, 477, 478, 500, ii. 12; (1862) ii. 96; (1863) ii. 97; (1864) ii. 101; (1865) i. 477 _n._, ii. 97, 98, 100, 102; (1866) ii. 100, 110 _n._; (1867) ii. 121, 151, 155, 177, 426; (1868) i. 450 _n._, ii. 169; (1870) ii. 211; (1871) ii. 211, 215, 218, 223, 225; (1872) ii. 211, 212, 213, 218, 228 _n._, 230, 231; (1873) ii. 227, 232; (1874) ii. 296; (1876) ii. 317; (1879) ii. 321; (1885) ii. 352; (1886) ii. 401, 433; (1887) ii. 394, 395, 402; (1890) ii. 397; (1891) ii. 398; (1892) ii. 359, 398; (1893) ii. 399; various dates, ii. 99, 100, 374 _n._ (3) _various references_:- his god, ii. 309; his _life_, i. 471; his _letters_, i. 483; madame mohl on, ii. 307; on future life, i. 483; on mysticism, ii. 231, 232; on sir s. northcote, ii. 155; on the preferment he would like, ii. 98; on style, ii. 296; miscellaneous, i. xxiii, 484, ii. 94 _n._, 117, 138, 147, 205, 285, 315 jupiter of the capitol, i. 71 kaiserswerth: f. n.'s interest in, and inquiries about, i. 62, 63, 64, 67; projected visit to (1848), i. 82, 83; first sojourn at (1850), i. 92; entry in album, i. 92 _n._; pamphlet on, i. 93; second sojourn at (1851), i. 108; institutions at, i. 110; life at, i. 112; nursing at, i. 111, 113; origin of, i. 109; spread of, i. 109; various references to, i. 79, 105, 107, 466, ii. 117, 126, 320, 442, 445 k.c.b., i. 288 _n._ keith, mrs., i. 35 kempis, thomas à, ii. 232, 244 kent, duchess of, i. 281 khartoum, fall of, ii. 350 kimberley, earl of, ii. 329, 345, 406 kinglake, a. w.: acquaintance with f. n., her estimate of his book, i. 319; his view of the chelsea board (_q.v._), i. 336; his satire on the males, i. 133, 212; otherwise quoted or referred to, i. 171, 178, 195 _n._, 201 _n._, 220, 232, 238, 241, 242, 319, 431 king's college hospital, f. n. invited to superintend nursing at, i. 141; nightingale fund lying-in wards at, i. 464, ii. 196; various references, i. 433, 444, ii. 16. _see also_ jones, mary king's hospital fund, i. 433 kipling, rudyard, referred to, ii. 18, 27 kirkland, sir john, i. 156, 391 kitchener, lord, ii. 416 knight, miss, ii. 395, 398 knights of st. john of jerusalem, ii. 117 koch, dr., ii. 344 kontaxaki, elizabeth, i. 91 köstritz, princess reuss, i. 18 koulali hospitals, i. 174, 193 kroff, monsieur, i. 34 kumassi expedition (1895), ii. 406 kynsham court, presteigne, i. 9 lablache, louis, i. 19 labour, organization of, ii. 165 lacordaire, i. 43 ladies' association for the relief of sick and wounded (1866), ii. 117 ladies' sanitary association, ii. 407 "lady with the lamp," the, i. 237; the actual lamp, i. 237 _n._ _laisser faire_, ii. 164 lancers, the 12th, i. 279 _lancet_, ii. 124, 443, 447 land question in england, ii. 93 land transport corps, i. 283, 294 lansdowne, 4th marquis of, i. 269 lansdowne, 5th marquis of, viceroy, communications with f. n., etc., ii. 376-7, 394, 406; secretary for war, ii. 406; letters to f. n., on jowett, ii. 400, 401 large, mrs. _see_ hicks law, as the thought, the voice, the will of god, i. xxvii, 480, 489, 490, ii. 218, 396 lawfield, mrs., i. 183, 186 lawrence, sir henry, ii. 28 lawrence, sir john, lord: [(1) relations with f. n., chronological; (2) general.] (1) _chronological_:- sees f. n. (1861), i. 492, ii. 24; corresponds with her on her indian _observations_ (1862), ii. 26; appointment as viceroy urged by f. n., ii. 43; appointed (nov. 30, 1863), ii. 44; interview with f. n. (dec. 4), ii. 45, 50; asks f. n. to draft sanitary _suggestions_, ii. 45, 46; sets up sanitary commissions (jan. 1864), ii. 46; reports to and consults f. n. on sanitary measures, ii. 49, 50, 56; asks her to draft scheme for female nursing, ii. 55; rejects it, ii. 157; sends dispatch on sanitary organization, which is lost (jan. 1866), ii. 106, 107, 108, 109; proposes reconstruction of sanitary commissions, ii. 108; communications with f. n., ii. 146, 149, 150, 153; declines to institute a sanitary executive, ii. 159; faltering, ii. 156; returns to england, calls on f. n. (1869), ii. 159; work on the london school board, ii. 293-294; communications with f. n., ii. 287, 294, 297; last days, ii. 294; death, ii. 293; letters to f. n., ii. 46, 50, 106, 156, 158, 159 (2) _general_:- character, ii. 293-5; f. n.'s admiration of, ii. 43, 44, 50, 56, 147, 152, 159-60, 175, 452; importance of his co-operation with her, ii. 45, 58; his influence on india, ii. 28; his opinion of garibaldi, ii. 50; "puppies" and, ii. 58; various references, ii. 22, 34, 89, 168, 260, 291, 370, 404 lawrence, lady, ii. 52, 294 lawson, dr., i. 273 lea hurst, i. 7, 8, 53, 304, 504, ii. 237, 303, 309, 310, 311, 392, 415; f. n.'s interest in the poor near, ii. 312, 326; school near, i. 14, 504 leeds, consecration of church (1841), i. 55; infirmary, i. 423, ii. 256 lees, miss florence (mrs. dacre craven), ii. 203, 253, 314 _n._ lefevre, charles shaw (lord eversley), i. 25, 36 lefroy, colonel sir john henry, scientific adviser to secretary for war, i. 297; mission to the crimea (1855), i. 297; high opinion of f. n.'s work, i. 297; character and abilities, i. 322, 351, 491, ii. 427; supports her at the war office (1856), i. 297; co-operates with f. n. for soldiers' reading-rooms, etc., i. 330, 331, 350, 396; letters to f. n., i. 322, 351, 491 lehzen, baroness, i. 25 leith, dr., ii. 54, 55 _n._ lentils, ii. 390 leonardo da vinci, ii. 294 leslie, c. r., _autobiographical recollections_, i. 454 _n._ levée, thoughts on a, ii. 83 leverrier, urbain j. j., i. 65 lewis, sir george cornewall, home secretary (1860), declines extend scope of census, i. 436, 437; secretary for war (1861-63), i. 406, 409, ii. 5, 6, 61, 63; death (1863), question of his successor, ii. 29; character of, i. 406, ii. 5; his _jeux d'esprit_, ii. 61; f. n.'s opinion of, i. 436, ii. 61 liberty, florentine, and english, ii. 391 liddell, sir john, i. 348 life, an art, ii. 430; a splendid gift, ii. 404, 434 light, and disease, i. 419 lilac, i. 429 lincoln, abraham, ii. 91 lincoln county hospital, ii. 256 lind, jenny, i. 65, 273 lindsay, general, ii. 76 linton, dr., i. 273 lisbon, children's hospital, i. 421 lister, lord, i. 439, 441 litany, the, i. 476, 479 liverpool, library, f. n. ms. at, i. 383, ii. 439; royal infirmary, nurses training school, ii. 125, 256 (_see also_ rathbone); southern hospital, ii. 256, 454; workhouse infirmary, ii. 125 _seq._, 256. _see also_ jones (agnes) livingstone, dr., ii. 267, 315 loch, miss c. g., ii. 370 lock hospitals, i. 421 locke, john, ii. 331 london hospital, the, i. 433, ii. 360, 361 london school board, ii. 293 london skies, ii. 310 longfellow, h. w., poem on f. n., i. xxiv, xxxvi, 3, 237, ii. 142, 240, 313, 351 longmore, dr. t., i. 392, ii. 71, 118 louis, prince, of hesse-darmstadt, ii. 116 love, i. 99, 489, ii. 225-6 lovelace, ada, lady, friendship with f. n., i. 38, 65; poem on her, i. 65, ii. 461; prophecy, i. 142 lowe, robert (lord sherbrooke), i. 349, 436, ii. 104, 113, 212, 218; on f. n., ii. 149 lowell, j. r., quoted, i. 59 loyd lindsay, colonel. _see_ wantage lückes, miss eva, ii. 360, 361 _n._ lugard, sir e., ii. 62, 72 luise. _see_ baden, grand duchess of lumsden, sir peter, ii. 369 luther, martin, ii. 346 lying-in hospitals, ii. 189. _see also_ king's college hospital lyons, f. n.'s study of hospitals at, i. 417 lytton, e. bulwer, novels, ii. 95 lytton, earl of, viceroy, ii. 289, 291, 325 macaulay, lord, i. 25, 26, ii. 223;_lays of ancient rome_, ii. 95, 105 macdonald, mr. (_times_ almoner in crimea), i. 157, 195, 199, 204, 236, 241 mcgrigor, dr., i. 206, 228 machin, miss, ii. 256 mackenzie, miss louisa stewart. _see_ ashburton, lady mackintosh, sir james, i. 63 mclachlan, dr., i. 330, 332, 349 _macmillan's magazine_, ii. 35, 269 _n._ mcmurdo, general sir william, i. 284 mcneill, sir john, mission to the crimea, with colonel tulloch (1855), i. 257; f. n. visits at edinburgh (1856), i. 321, 328 (1857), 342; one of her constant counsellors, i. 326, 357, 358, 456 _n._, 457, 459; his high opinion of her ability, i. 339 _n._; his tributes to her services, i. 362, 367, ii. 13; made a privy councillor, i. 338; collaborates with f. n. in scheme for indian nursing (1865), ii. 55, 157; last communications with her, death, ii. 352; various references, i. 374, 395, 405, ii. 14, 461; letters to f. n.:--(1856) i. 325, 335; (1857) i. 360, 366; (1858) i. 344, 346, 375, 387, 474; (1859) i. 399; (1860) i. 334; (1861) i. 405, ii. 13; (1862) ii. 26; (1867) ii. 157 mcneill-tulloch report, and subsequent events, i. 316, 319, 321, 336, 337, 339 _n._ madras, sanitation in, ii. 169, 170, 171, 183, 281, 282, 283 madre sta. colomba, i. 78 "magazining," ii. 220, 221 magnificat, the, i. 94, 306, ii. 120 mahâbhârata. _see_ arnold, edwin mahomet's mother, i. 496 mahommedans and art, ii. 226 maistre, xavier de, i. 369 maitland, edward, ii. 220 majorities, ii. 392 majuba, ii. 335 malabari, behramji m., ii. 406, 455 malibran, m. f. g., i. 24 mallet, sir louis, ii. 274, 288, 292 _n._ malta, hospital for incurables, i. 423; military hospital, ii. 65; sir h. storks and, ii. 77 malvern, f. n. at, i. 82, 118, 380, 381, ii. 162 manchester, mr. adshead and, i. 424; art treasures exhibition (1857), i. 372; royal infirmary, i. 425 manin, daniele, ii. 118 manning, cardinal, meets f. n. at rome (1847-48), i. 80; gives her introductions in paris, i. 124, 127; friendship with, i. 266, 491, 502; dispute with, i. 487 _n._; letter to f. n., i. 161; and the nightingale fund, i. 250 _n._ manochjee cursetjee, ii. 178 marriage, f. n.'s view of, i. 66, 380-381, 505; nurses and, ii. 193; plato and, ii. 224 marshall, professor alfred, ii. 397 marston, dr. j., ii. 375 martin, james, i. 469 martin, sir james ranald, i. 328, 332, 360, 365, ii. 14, 19, 33 _n._, 296 martin, sir theodore, _life of the prince consort_, i. 257, 324, 338 _n._ martineau, harriet, friendship with f. n., i. 386; correspondence and co-operation with, i. 385, 448, 494, ii. 6, 30, 35, 75; _england and her soldiers_, i. 386. _see also_ daily news marylebone infirmary, ii. 256, 326 masses, the, ii. 219 massey, w. n., ii. 56 maurice, rev. f. d., i. 266 mayo, earl of, viceroy, sees f. n. and corresponds with her (1868), ii. 168; indian administration, ii. 169; assassinated, ii. 213; his statistical survey, ii. 25; f. n. on, ii. 168; sir b. frere on, ii. 167; lord stanley on, ii. 169 mayo, lady, ii. 168 medical profession, opposition to f. n.'s nurse training school, i. 462, 466, 467; prejudice against female war nurses (1854), i. 168-9 medical staff corps scheme (1855), i. 229 mehemet ali, i. 87 melbourne, lord, i. 25, 26, 336, 454 memphis, i. 369 menzies, dr., i. 156, 202, 247 mesmerism, i. 37 metropolitan asylum district, ii. 139 metropolitan common poor law fund, ii. 139 metropolitan local government select committee, ii. 106, 133 metropolitan nursing association, ii. 253, 256, 355 metropolitan poor act (1867), ii. 124, 139 meyer, dr., i. 192 mhow court-martial, ii. 70 michael angelo, i. 71, 72, 73, 76, ii. 294, 306, 313 microbes, ii. 452 middlesex hospital, i. 140, 433 midleton, lord, i. xxviii _n._ midwives, training of, i. 464; career for women, ii. 197 mignet, f. a. m., i. 21, 26 mill, john stuart: admiration for f. n., i. 470; reads and annotates her _suggestions for thought_, i. 470, 471, 472, 473, 475, 477 _n._; asks her to join woman's suffrage society (1867), ii. 215; appeals to her to come out into the open, ii. 215, 217-18; her desire to please him, ii. 221; death of, ii. 221, 222; her appreciation of, ii. 221; letters to f. n., i. 471, 472, 473, 478, 481, ii. 26, 215, 217; works of:- _autobiography_, ii. 316; _logic_, i. 469; _subjection of women_, i. 471 _n._, ii. 221; indian sanitation and, ii. 22, 217, 316; metropolitan local government and, ii. 106; poor law reform and, ii. 133, 138 millbank, i. 392 milman, dean, i. 385 milnes, r. monckton (lord houghton): friend of the nightingale family, i. 34, 141; speech at meeting of nightingale fund (1855), i. 269, 270; on f. n. at scutari, i. 181, 238; introduces her to lord stanley (1857), i. 339; letters to f. n., i. 121, 339, 454 _n._, ii. 5; various references, i. 58, 62, 65, 338, 484, ii. 69, 76, 166, 235, 289; _life of_, by t. w. reid, quoted, i. 58, 62, 141, 238 milnes, mrs. r. m., i. 280 milton, john, i. 351, 479, 481, ii. 426; quoted, ii. 294, 300, 319 milton, mr. (war office), i. 330 "minding baby," i. 456 ministers, and their permanent officials, i. 354 miracles, i. 407 mitchelson, miss, ii. 260 mitra, s. m., _life and letters of sir john hall_, i. 169. _see also_ hall moffat, dr., ii. 304 mohl, julius, friendship and marriage (1847) with mary clarke, i. 21; friendship with f. n., i. 132, 133, ii. 317, 319; letter to f. n., ii. 236-237; death, f. n.'s appreciation of, ii. 317, 319; on mr. and mrs. bracebridge, ii. 236; on mr. nightingale, ii. 235; on omar khayyám, ii. 95; various references, i. 433, 478, 489, 506, ii. 89, 96, 296, 390 mohl, madame (mary clarke), character of, i. 19-20; meets f. n. (1838-39), i. 20; friendship with her and the nightingale family, i. 20; marriage of, i. 21, 66; death, ii. 352; letters: to f. n., ii. 312; to her husband, ii. 307; her _madame récamier_, ii. 13, 14, 15, 16; various references, i. 81, 124, 128, 486, 499, 505, ii. 301 mohl, robert, i. 66 molière, ii. 317 monson, lord, ii. 362 montagu, hon. e. s., i. xxviii monteagle, thomas spring rice, 1st lord, i. 25 monteagle, lady, i. 134, 140 monteagle, 2nd lord, and lady, ii. 412 montreal, soldiers' institute, i. 397, ii. 76; general hospital, ii. 256 moonrise upon the spiritual world, i. 49 moore, mrs. georgiana (mother superior of the bermondsey nuns), her service in the crimean war, i. 248, 253, 294, 299; f. n.'s affection and admiration for, i. 299; lends f. n. religious books, ii. 81, 231 moore, sir william, ii. 378 moore, mrs. willoughby, i. 174 moral law, i. 56 morant, sir robert, ii. 386 morley, earl of, ii. 337 morley, john, viscount, _popular culture_, ii. 317 morpeth, lord, ii. 317 "muddling through," i. 311, 431, 432 "muff," the, i. 436; the muffs, ii. 4 muir, sir william, ii. 253, 279 münster, friederike (frau fliedner), i. 109 murray, lady caroline, i. 134 "mysterious," f. n. on the word, i. 484 mysticism, mystics, f. n. on, ii. 231, 232-5, 366; jowett on, ii. 231, 232 naoroji, dadabhai, ii. 332 napier and ettrick, lord, secretary, british embassy, constantinople, sees f. n. at scutari, ii. 112, 169, 170; governor of madras (1866), ii. 112; sees f. n. before going out, ii. 112; interest in sanitary reforms, ii. 169; communications on, with f. n., ii. 274, 299; f. n. inscribes a book to, ii. 171 _n._; on f. n.'s house, ii. 300; letters to f. n., ii. 112, 169, 170 napier and ettrick, lady, ii. 170 napier of magdala, lord, sees f. n. before going out to india as commander-in-chief, ii. 175, 176; communications from india with her, ii. 276; his sanitary reforms, ii. 277, 279, 280; f. n. on, ii. 175; sir b. frere on, ii. 175 napoleon i., i. 374 napoleon iii., i. 18, ii. 92 nash, mrs. vaughan, i. viii natal, hospitals in, ii. 337, 342 national aid society, ii. 347 _national review_ (1863), ii. 35 national training school for cookery, ii. 326 naughtiness, pleasures of, i. 11 _nazione_, ii. 116 neander, ii. 12 necessity, i. 482. _see also_ free will needle gun, ii. 105 netley hospital, plans of, submitted to f. n. (1856, 1857), i. 327, 331; her fight for the "pavilion" system, i. 340; appeal to lord palmerston, i. 341; partial alterations, i. 342; second fight for the pavilion (1858), i. 383; female nurses at, ii. 66, 186, 256; staff appointments, ii. 70; army medical school (_q.v._) at, i. 392 neurasthenia, i. 493 newcastle, duke of (secretary for war, 1854-55), i. 149, 155, 217; issues commission to visit war hospitals, i. 176, 201, 202; secretary for colonies (1860), issues circulars for f. n., ii. 78 newcastle-on-tyne, address to f. n. from (1856), i. 320; barracks, ii. 406-7 newport, lady, i. 372 new zealand, contribution to f. n.'s crimean fund, i. 270; depopulation, ii. 440; sanitary instructions for, ii. 70 nicholson, g. t., i. 29 nicholson, hannah, i. 29, 46, 47, 53 nicholson, general sir lothian, i. 261, 371 nicholson, marianne (lady galton), i. 24, 25, 29 nightingale, florence. [(1) chronological, movements, incidents, etc.; (2) work during the crimean war; (3) relations with sidney herbert; (4) work for the army; (5) work for hospitals and nursing; (6) work for india; (7) character; (8) _personalia_; (9) religious views; (10) miscellaneous; (11) letters; (12) printed writings.] (1) _chronological_, movements, incidents, etc.:- ancestry, parentage, name, i. 3, 4-7; relations, the family circle, i. 10, 29 1820: birth at florence, christening, i. 4 1820-37: childhood and education:--early homes: kynsham court (hereford), i. 9; lea hurst (derby), i. 9; embley (hants), i. 9; nursing dolls, childish prescription, i. 14; country life, i. 10; early letters, visit to london (1830), i. 10; a morbid child, i. 11; given to dreaming, i. 14, 16; her first governess, i. 11; shyness, i. 12; education by her father, history, classics, etc., i. 12, 13; first aid to a wounded dog (1836), i. 14; sense of a call (1826), i. 15; a call from god (1837), i. 15 1837-39: sojourn abroad, i. 16-22; itinerary, i. 16; gaieties in italy, i. 19; visit to florence, i. 18; interests at geneva, i. 17-18; winter in paris, miss clarke's _salon_, i. 19-22 1839: the london season, i. 24; the charm of embley, i. 27 1839-47: home life, i. 23-45, 59 _seq._; social pleasures, i. 23; "emergency man," i. 31; desire to shine in society, i. 39; social attractiveness, i. 37, 39; intellectual interests, i. 43; discontent with restricted home life, i. 40-45, 63-4 1841: private theatricals at waverley abbey, i. 32; consecration of leeds church, i. 55 1843: occupations in london, i. 34; company at embley, i. 36; dinner parties, i. 38; illness and spiritual crisis, friendship with miss h. nicholson, i. 46 _seq._ 1844: visit from dr. and mrs. howe at embley, i. 37; nursing schemes, i. 29, 43 1845: nursing her father's mother, i. 31, 49; death of her nurse, i. 31; country-house visits, i. 36; housekeeping, i. 42; nursing plan disallowed, i. 44; bitter disappointment, i. 59; increasing sense of a vocation, i. 60, 68 1846: friends, i. 35; happy time at lea hurst, i. 53, 64; inquiries about nursing sisterhoods, i. 63; hears of kaiserswerth, i. 63 1847: london amusements, i. 65; visit to oxford, i. 65; country-house visits, i. 65 1847-48: winter in rome, i. 69, 70, 105; michael angelo in the sistine, i. 71; interest in italian politics, i. 74-6; studies in the convent of the trinità de' monti, i. 77-9; friendship with sidney herbert and his wife, i. 79; acquaintance with manning, i. 80 1848: the london season, i. 80; distaste for society, i. 81; plan to visit kaiserswerth disappointed, i. 82; the cure at malvern, i. 82, 118 1849: ragged school work, i. 82; parental restrictions, i. 83 1849-50: winter in egypt, i. 84-6; with the french sisters at alexandria, i. 87; spring at athens, i. 87-9; interest in greek politics, i. 89-90; with american missionaries, i. 91; visit to corfu, i. 90; dresden and berlin, study of hospitals, i. 91-2; first visit to kaiserswerth, i. 92-3, 105; literary temptation resisted, i. 93-4; self-devotion to the sick, i. 93, 95; opportunities of marriage, devotion to the single life, i. 96-103 1851: increasing dissatisfaction with home life, i. 104-7; sense of vocation, i. 106; resolve to declare her independence, i. 107; second visit to kaiserswerth, i. 108-15 1852: the water-cure at umberslade, i. 116-17; meets george eliot and mrs. browning, i. 118; visit to ireland, study of hospitals, i. 118; to sir james clark, i. 118; nurses her "aunt evans," i. 118; occupied in writing _suggestions for thought_, i. 119-22; "call to be a saviour" (may 7), i. 43; recasts her beliefs, i. 469, 488; plan for hospital-study in paris, delayed by her parents, i. 122-126 1853: visit to paris (feb.), study in hospitals, i. 127; return to england to nurse her grandmother, i. 128; negotiations with committee of the harley street hospital for gentlewomen, i. 129-130; return to paris (may), enters a maison de la providence, i. 131; attack of measles, i. 132; return to london, enters harley street hospital as superintendent, i. 133 1853 (aug. 12)-1854 (oct.): work in harley street, i. 133-139; a holiday at lea hurst (aug. 1854), meets mrs. gaskell, i. 139; return to nurse cholera cases at middlesex hospital, i. 140; resumes work in harley street, i. 140; negotiations with king's college hospital, i. 141 1854: battle of the alma (sept. 20), i. 145; attention called to nursing deficiencies (oct. 9), i. 146; f. n. informs sidney herbert of her scheme for going out with a party of nurses (oct. 14), i. 150; letter from him, crossing, asking her to go for the government (oct. 15), i. 151; expedition arranged (oct. 16), i. 155; official appointment and instructions (oct. 19), i. 155; preparations, i. 158-60; expedition leaves london (oct. 21), i. 162; journey through france, i. 162-3; f. n. lays in stores at marseilles, i. 162, 205; sails for constantinople (oct. 27), i. 164, 166 _seq._ 1854 (nov.)-1855 (may): scutari:--arrival at constantinople (nov. 4), i. 171; arrival at scutari (nov. 4), i. 181; work in receiving and tending the sick and wounded, i. 181-8; arrival of second party of nurses under miss stanley (dec.), i. 188 1855: first visit to the crimea:--leaves scutari (may 2), i. 254, 255; arrival at balaclava (may 5), i. 251; visit to the front, i. 257; work in the hospitals, i. 258; attack of fever, i. 258, 371; out of danger (may 24), i. 259; public anxiety and sympathy, i. 264; visit from lord raglan, i. 259; returns to scutari, convalescence at therapia, i. 260; at scutari, evening walks, i. 262 1855 (aug.-oct.): resumes work at scutari (aug.), i. 261, 262 1855 (oct.-nov.): second visit to the crimea:--leaves scutari for balaclava (oct. 9), i. 283 1855 (nov.)-1856 (march): resumes work at scutari, cholera patients, i. 283; christmas at the embassy, i. 296 1856 (march-july): third visit to the crimea:--leaves scutari for balaclava (march 21), i. 283 1856: return to scutari (july), i. 283; leaves scutari for england (july 28), i. 283; declines offer of man-of-war, i. 302; travels incognito, i. 303; her spoils of war, i. 304; night in paris (aug. 4), 1. 303; arrival in london (aug. 5), i. 303; visit to the bermondsey convent, i. 304; arrives unobserved at lea hurst (aug. 7), i. 304; sojourn there, i. 307, 318-20; meets s. herbert at atherstone (sept.), i. 313; resolve to devote herself to reforms for the health of the army, i. 313-18; invited to balmoral (aug. 23), i. 321; plans for interview with the queen and prince, resolve to obtain a royal commission, i. 321-3; confers with sir j. mcneill at edinburgh (sept. 15), inspects hospitals, i. 321; reaches sir j. clark's house, birk hall (sept. 19), i. 324; introduced to queen victoria at balmoral (sept. 21), i. 324; visited by the queen at birk hall (sept. 23), i. 324; conversations with the queen and prince, i. 324-325; requested by the queen to stay to meet lord panmure, i. 325; command visit to balmoral (oct.), i. 326; conversations and negotiations with lord panmure, i. 327; confers again with sir j. mcneill at edinburgh, i. 328; return to lea hurst (oct. 15), i. 328; settles at burlington hotel, london (nov. 2), i. 328; scheme for the royal commission, i. 328; interview with lord panmure (nov. 16), i. 329; delays, further interview with lord panmure (dec.), i. 335 1857: living at the burlington, i. 372; inspects haslar hospital (jan.), i. 348; inspects hospitals at chatham (april), i. 349; inspects london hospitals, i. 350; working at _notes on the army_, i. 342; visits sir j. mcneill at edinburgh (april), i. 342; lord panmure calls to settle royal commission (april 27), i. 354; work for the royal commission, i. 355 _seq._; gives evidence to royal commission, i. 359; work for the sub-commissions, i. 365, 366; over-work, refuses rest, i. 364; offers to go to india, i. 371; ill at malvern (aug., sept., dec.), i. 366, 367, 369, 371; courted in counterfeit at manchester, i. 372 1858: health, movements, i. 380, 381; elected to the statistical society, i. 387; asks to be relieved of nightingale fund (march), i. 457; issues _notes on the army_, i. 384; and _a contribution_, etc., i. 386; work on london barracks, i. 381 1859: continued illness, expectation of early death, i. 491; devises scheme for nightingale school, i. 457; publishes _notes on hospitals_, i. 417; _notes on nursing_, i. 448; work on hospital statistics, i. 430; revises _suggestions for thought_, i. 469, 470; secures royal commission for india and works for it, ii. 21, 22, 23 1860: correspondence on census bill, i. 435-8; interest in international statistical congress, i. 431, 432; work for nightingale school, i. 462 _seq._; visit from clara novello, i. 500 1861: work on surgical statistics, i. 434; correspondence with jowett, i. 477; correspondence with mr. rathbone on district nursing, ii. 124; death of sidney herbert (aug. 2), grief and seclusion, i. 406, ii. 3, 4; retires to hampstead (aug.-oct.), ii. 3; writes memoir of him, i. 408; secures some of his intended reforms, ii. 5, 6, 7; returns to london (nov.), ii. 8; work in connection with american civil war, ii. 8, 9, 10; grief at death of a. h. clough, ii. 11; serious illness (1861-62), ii. 16, 17 1862: residences, ii. 24; friendship with jowett, ii. 96; work for the indian commission, ii. 24, 25, 31; work for the war office, ii. 76; writes on c.d.a., ii. 74 1863: ill-health, ii. 81; writes on native races, ii. 79; work for the war office, ii. 65, 66, 67, 73, 76; work on report of indian commission, ii. 32, 41, 81; replies to criticisms of its report, ii. 54; sends indian paper to social science congress, ii. 53; sees sir john lawrence, dec. 4, ii. 44, 45; drafts indian sanitary code, i. 42, 46 1864: writes instructions for her death, ii. 103; sees garibaldi, ii. 90; writes on native races, ii. 79; work for war office, ii. 68, 70, 71; interposes to secure advance in indian sanitary reform, ii. 48; work for mr. rathbone and liverpool nursing, ii. 125-6; approaches mr. villiers on poor law reform, ii. 130 1865: ill-health, ii. 89; organizes defence of herbert against panmure, ii. 68; writes scheme for small ownership, ii. 92; writes scheme for nursing in india, ii. 55; writes memorandum on indian municipalities, ii. 56; distributes pamphlet on water-tests for india, ii. 56; various indian sanitary work, ii. 55-6; work for poor law reform, ii. 131, 132 1866: ill-health, ii. 106, 112; work for the war office, ii. 71; a double disappointment, ii. 106; indian sanitary business: story of a lost dispatch, ii. 108, 109; sees lord napier, ii. 112; approaches lord cranborne on india and mr. hardy on poor law reform, ii. 114, 115; negotiation on the latter with mr. villiers, ii. 135; consulted in austro-prussian war, ii. 106, 116-19; aug.-nov. embley, holiday tasks at, ii. 119 1867: sees princess alice and queen augusta, ii. 187; determines to advance sanitary organization in india, ii. 147; makes acquaintance of sir bartle frere, ii. 147; opens communications with sir stafford northcote, ii. 150; interviews and negotiations with him, ii. 151 _seq._; goes (dec.) to malvern, ii. 162 1868: sees queen of holland, ii. 187; anxiety to find a successor to agnes jones, ii. 141; highgate infirmary nursing, ii. 192; work for the india office, ii. 162; interview with lord mayo, ii. 167, 168; visit to lea hurst, ii. 162; resolves to give an hour a day to writing, ii. 163 1869: writes on poor law in _fraser_, ii. 164; sees mr. goschen, ii. 166; intervenes to save army sanitary committee, etc., ii. 173; writes memorandum for lord de grey, ii. 174; work for the india office, ii. 181; suggests indian cholera inquiry, ii. 172; interviews and negotiations with lord napier of magdala, ii. 174, 176; sees netley nurses, ii. 194 1870: work in connexion with franco-german war, ii. 198 _seq._; sees the crown princess of prussia, ii. 203; sees the queen of holland, ii. 187; letters to bengal social science association, ii. 178; visits embley and lea hurst, ii. 163 1871: draws up code for infirmary nursing, ii. 186; issues _notes on lying-in institutions_, ii. 196; visits embley and lea hurst, ii. 163 1872: out of office, ii. 212, 221, 241; proposes to enter st. thomas's hospital, ii. 211; literary work for jowett, ii. 225 _seq._; visits embley, ii. 163; sees w. clark on indian sanitation, ii. 177; interviewing nurses, etc., ii. 249 _seq._ 1873: work on the mystics, ii. 232; interviewing nurses, ii. 257; writes papers in _fraser_, ii. 219; sends paper on "life or death in india" to social science congress, ii. 181; with madame mohl and jowett at lea hurst, ii. 307 1874: work on the mystics, ii. 232; interrupted by death of her father, ii. 235, 237-8, 260; indian work, ii. 276 _seq._, 295; at claydon and lea hurst with her mother, ii. 310 1875: work on indian irrigation, ii. 286, 287; at norwood with her mother, ii. 310-11; at lea hurst, ii. 311 1876: writes on district nursing, ii. 253; intervenes to save the army medical school, ii. 318, 319 1877: letters on indian famine, ii. 284, 449; at lea hurst, ii. 450 1878: consulted on possible war with russia, ii. 253; sees mr. stanhope, ii. 289; writes paper on social work, ii. 450; various writings on india, ii. 290, 451; correspondence with lord cranbrook, ii. 291 1879: communications on india with mr. gladstone, ii. 292, 293; various writings on india, ii. 451-2 1880: death of her mother, ii. 323; at ramsgate and seaton, ii. 324; interest in the elections, ii. 325; writes to the queen on india, ii. 324-325; makes general gordon's acquaintance, ii. 327; appeals to mr. childers about military nursing, ii. 328; at claydon, ii. 324 1881: at seaford, ii. 324 _n._; seeing nurses, ii. 326; communications with general gordon, ii. 328, 329; indian work, ii. 330; sees lord roberts and sir m. grant-duff, ii. 333 1882: visits st. thomas's hospital, ii. 326; sees nurses on war-service, ii. 335; obtains committee on army hospital service, ii. 337; indian work, ii. 330; correspondence with arnold toynbee, ii. 333-334; sees return of the guards, ii. 335; attends a review and opening of the law courts, ii. 336 1883: army hospital service work, ii. 338; royal red cross conferred, correspondence with queen victoria, ii. 339; indian work, ii. 342 1884: sees lord dufferin, ii. 343; communicates with mr. gladstone on india, ii. 345 1885: sees soudan nurses, ii. 347 _seq._; sees lord reay, lord roberts, and others, ii. 369; work for "lady dufferin's fund," ii. 370 1886: sees lord cross and mr. w. h. smith, ii. 368, 373; appeals to lord dufferin on indian sanitary commissions, ii. 372; sees lord ripon, ii. 369 1887: her "jubilee" year, ii. 353; consulted on "jubilee nursing institute," ii. 355; on nurses for india, ii. 370; selection of new matron at st. thomas's, ii. 353, 354; eyesight troubling her, ii. 415; jowett ill at south street, ii. 394-5; indian work, ii. 375, 377 1888: indian work, ii. 377; sees lord lansdowne, ii. 376-7 1889: a new year's greeting, ii. 393; the nurses' battle, ii. 360; writes retrospect of her indian work, ii. 380 1890: death of her sister, ii. 382; proposed statistical professorship, ii. 395 1891: the nurses' battle, ii. 361; organizes indian representation at international health congress, ii. 378; interest in siamese affairs, i. 386 1892: the nurses' battle, ii. 361-362; letter to lord cross on a scheme of indian sanitation, ii. 379; organizes health lectures, etc., in bucks, ii. 384 1893: the nurses' battle, ii. 364; sees the empress frederick, ii. 357 1894: sees lord elgin's private secretary, ii. 405; death of sir h. verney and mr. shore smith, ii. 399 1895: full of work, ii. 404; memory begins to fail, ii. 415; nurses' registration question, ii. 411-12; interest in army matters, ii. 406; writes to duke of cambridge on his retirement, ii. 407 1896: makes her will, i. v; thoughts on all souls day, ii. 414; nursing correspondence, ii. 412; appeals to mr. chamberlain about hong kong barracks, ii. 407 1897: "soaked in work," ii. 404; nursing correspondence, ii. 412; c.d.a. appeal, ii. 408; writes to crimean veterans, ii. 404; makes a codicil, records her indian negotiations, i. v old age: vigorous, ii. 404-5; gradual failure of powers, ii. 416; greater acquiescence, ii. 405, 414; interest in the army, i. 282; bent on improvements, ii. 272, 418 1898: nursing work, ii. 412; thoughts on waterloo day, ii. 410; sees aga khan, ii. 405 1899: thoughts on the boer war, ii. 411 1900: congratulatory addresses, etc., ii. 419 1902: has a companion, ii. 416 1907: receives order of merit, ii. 418 1908: receives freedom of the city, ii. 418 1910: death and burial, ii. 422; memorials, ii. 422 _n._ (2) _work during the crimean war_:- _generally_: amount and power of work, i. 234, 240, 295; attendance on sick and wounded, i. 183, 235, 236, 237, 238, ii. 334, 408; barrack-mistress and nurse, i. 184; care for nurses' families, i. 198; demeanour, i. 230, 295; "going to miss nightingale," i. 231, 232; idolized by the men, i. 237, 238; letters to and from their relatives, i. 238-40; medical obstruction, i. 182; midnight rounds, i. 236, 237; on good conduct of the men, i. 242; quarters, i. 200, 234; religious bickerings, i. 245; respect for rules, i. 210; strict disciplinarian, i. 210; tributes to her, i. 186; visit from the duke of cambridge, i. 385; woman's insight, i. 198 _as administrator_: assumes initiative and responsibility, i. 171, 211, 212, 232; establishes extra-diet kitchens, i. 196; gives supplies to the allies, i. 204; improves laundry arrangements, i. 195; orders building operations, i. 206-207; purveys for the hospitals, i. 199; on medical requisition only, i. 209; supplies clothing, i. 205; supplies extra diets, i. 201; unties red tape, i. 203, ii. 276 _as reformer_: begs for stores, i. 219; suggests additional clothing, i. 222; medical school, i. 229; reform in stoppages, i. 222-3; scheme of reorganization, i. 224, 226-9; sending out carpenters, i. 219; store depôts, etc., i. 221, 222; urges sanitary reforms, i. 219 _as the soldiers' friend_: accused of "spoiling the brutes," i. 277; arranges reading-rooms, i. 280-282; care of women camp-followers, i. 197; establishes system of money-orders, i. 278; influence over the men, i. 277, 279; letter-writing for the soldiers, i. 242; organizes a café, i. 279 _in the crimea_: ambiguity in her instructions, i. 255, 286; appeals to the war office for support, i. 290; authority confirmed in general orders, i. 293; carriage, i. 284, ii. 409, 410; deprived of provisions, i. 291; hardness of the life, i. 284, 291; medical and military obstruction, i. 255, 286, 291, ii. 195 _results_: an episode, not the end, of her career, i. xxiv, 305; f. n. as popular heroine, i. 264 _seq._, 373, 446, 447, ii. 420, 460; step in the emancipation of women, i. xxv, 305, 306; female nursing in military hospitals, i. 305, ii. 410; and _see_ red cross (3) _relations with sidney herbert_:- first meeting with, i. 79; his sending her to the crimea, i. 373; close co-operation and almost daily companionship, 1856-61, i. 312, 332, 355, 356, 357, 366, 372, 380, 382, 391, 399, 400, 502, ii. 14, 16; "last letter" to him, i. 373; grief at his death, i. 406, ii. 7, 15, 16; and remorse, i. 407; keeps his death-day (aug. 2), ii. 89, 94, 199 _n._, 319, 378, 392 _n._; thoughts on reunion, ii. 94; his "official legatee," ii. 30, 60, 68, 72; finishing his work, ii. 39, 98; using his name as a lever, ii. 41; left in charge by her captain, ii. 59; "my dear master," i. 407, ii. 4, 9; a fellowship in work, ii. 223, 426; general remarks on, i. 411-412; by f. n., ii. 12; jowett on, ii. 426 (4) _work for the army_ and in connection with the war office:- reasons of her influence and employment in this way, i. 312-18, ii. 59-62; the royal commission on the health of the army (1857), i. 323-61; the sub-commissions for carrying out its recommendations, i. 362-74, 387 _seq._; "advisory council to the war office" (1862-65), ii. 64-78; f. n. and war office patronage, ii. 73, 74, 408; tributes to her services, i. 375, ii. 77. _see also_ army medical school, army medical service (5) _work for hospitals_ (q.v.) _and nursing_ (q.v.):- her hospital experience, i. 416-17, ii. 267-8; call to hospital work, army work a diversion, i. 416, ii. 82, 103; consulted on hospital construction, etc., i. 420-7, ii. 185-6, 326; suggestions for hospital statistics, i. 429-34; position as a sanitarian, i. 416, 419-20, 448; force of her nursing example, i. 446, ii. 126; consulted on nursing, the founder of modern nursing, i. 439 _seq._, ii. 186 _seq._; work in connection with the nightingale training school (_q.v._), i. 456-67, ii. 190-197, 246-72; extent of her correspondence, ii. 262, 326, 335, 350 _n._, 370, 412; personal relations with the nurses, ii. 192-5, 249-52, 254, 257-62 (6) _work in connection with india_:- origin of her interest in india, ii. 19-20, 381; sources of information and study, ii. 27, 273-5; reputed visit to india, ii. 27 _n._; the royal commission on the health of the army in india (1859-63), ii. 21 _seq._; measures for carrying out its recommendations, ii. 40 _seq._; organization of health service suggested, and, to a large extent, carried by her, her three points, ii. 108, 145, 150: (1) distinct sanitary authority in india, ii. 145, 152, 154, 158, 159, 161; (2) sanitary department at india office, ii. 145, 150, 152, 153, 161; (3) publication of annual reports, ii. 145, 150, 155; her subsequent work as health missioner for india: (1) communications with officials, ii. 50, 56, 158, 159, 167-78, 276-83, 333, 369; (2) with indians, ii. 178-9, 405-6, 382; (3) work for the india office sanitary committee, ii. 179 _seq._; extension of her interest from sanitation to other reforms, ii. 284 _seq._; special interest in lord ripon's viceroyalty, ii. 330 _seq._; effort to obtain increased financial provision for sanitation (1891), ii. 378 _seq._; her retrospect (1889), ii. 381; her record of dealings with viceroys, etc., i. v; estimates of her services, ii. 18, 57, 58, 107, 160, 61, 184, 380 (7) _characteristics, personal traits_, etc.:- general remarks on, ii. 424-34; administrative genius, i. 180, 412, ii. 382; adored by women, ii. 14, 314; application, intense power of, i. 347; army, soldiers, attachment to, i. 282, 295, 373, 374, ii. 336; business-like (_q.v._), methodical, i. 473, ii. 385; calmness of demeanour, i. 160, 320; combination of gifts, i. 372, 453, 478; conversation, i. 38, ii. 305, 307, 308; considerateness, ii. 388; craving for sympathy, i. 113, ii. 13, 16; craving for work, ii. 209, 214, 404; critical, ii. 120; compared with her sister, i. 28; dreaming, i. 40, 91, 92; exacting, a "vampyre," ii. 11, 208, 427; exaggeration, over-emphasis, ii. 238; forgiveness, not prone to, i. 192; gush, dislike of, i. 496; humour, i. 140, 230, 237, 421, 495, 496, 506, ii. 251, 309; impatience of opposition, i. 192; influence upon men, ii. 14, 148, 385-6; intellectual power, i. xxxi, 339 _n._, 372, ii. 130, 308, 327; kindness, tenderness, i. 137, 236, ii. 257 _seq._, 308, 348, 417; "like a man," ii. 15; literary art, impatient of, i. 93-4, 474, ii. 167; literary style, i. 408, ii. 25, 27; many-sided, i. xxx, ii. 239; morbid, i. 50, 81, ii. 11, 241, 243; music, love of, i. 19, 24, 64, 65, 500; pungency of expression, i. 192, 453; pursuing the path to perfection, i. 467, ii. 184, 244, 272, 433; riding, fond of, in youth, i. 64, 257; sarcasm, i. 288, 346; secretive, influence behind the scenes, i. 372, 408; self-abasement, self-accusation, self-examination, i. 49, 81, ii. 120, 240; self-expression and realization, instinct for, i. 43, 64, 82, 100, 468, 485; shrinking from publicity, i. 52, 303; speculative inquiry, taste for, i. 500; statistics (_q.v._), love of, i. 129, 428, 435; sympathy, i. 453, ii. 15, 385, 387; "things," independent of, i. 498; tower of strength to her friends, ii. 314 (8) _personalia_:- allowance from her father, etc., i. 165, 504; books, reading, ii. 82, 94, 95, 417, 426; cats, i. 499, ii. 17, 240, 305; charities, i. 497, 504, ii. 312; communication with friends by notes, ii. 87; dress, i. 39, 296, ii. 305; flowers, i. 499, ii. 306, 388; handwriting, facsimile of, ii. 216; remarks on, ii. 415-16, 457; health, i. 371, 491 _seq._, ii. 38, 39; honours, decorations, etc., i. 274, 302, ii. 119, 202, 339, 418, 420; late rising, i. 106; personal appearance:--mrs. howe on, i. 37; lady lovelace's poem on, i. 38; mrs. gaskell's description of, i. 39; at scutari, described, i. 230, 234, 296; in old age, ii. 304-5, 307, 349; pictures, ii. 43, 306; places of residence:- i. 342, 382, 493-4, 497, ii. 24, 84; her room at lea hurst, ii. 309; her house in south street (1865-1910), ii. 300 _seq._ (_see also_ claydon, embley, lea hurst); portraits, list of, ii. 467-469; secluded rule of life, i. 492, 502, 503, ii. 88, 89, 187, 241, 243; seldom out of doors, ii. 309; servants and housekeeping, ii. 302-303; commissionaire, ii. 258, 302; voice, i. 38, 186, 335, 493, ii. 417; will and earlier testamentary dispositions: (1856) i. 294, (1857) i. 374, (1862) i. 477 _n._, (1864) ii. 103, (1896) i. v, xxviii, 237, 297, 306, 400 (9) _religious views_:- development of her views, i. 47 _seq._, 478 _seq._; conformed to church of england, i. 54, 57; desire to found a religion, i. 119, 469, ii. 366; her god, i. 246; kingdom of heaven (_q.v._) within us, i. 307; meditations, ii. 239, 243, 244-5, 352, 415, 429; mysticism (_q.v._), ii. 239, 241, 366; relation to positivism, ii. 218-19; religion and practice, i. 488; spiritual fervour, i. 489, ii. 239; statements of her creed, i. 307, ii. 243-244; how adjusted to current ideas, i. 485 _seq._ (10) _miscellaneous_:- a myth in her life-time, ii. 198, 321; the legendary f. n., i. xxiv; reputed to be living in st. thomas's hospital, ii. 404; an obituary sermon on, i. xxx; august, her fateful month, ii. 353; her helpers, i. 353, ii. 14, 85 _seq._; her pupils, i. 424; her use of the plural "we," i. 373, ii. 85; her "widows' caps" for three great friends, ii. 15, 223 (11) _letters from florence nightingale to_:- sir henry acland, ii. 318 dr. t. graham balfour, i. 354, 377, 432 a bereaved mother (crimea), i. 239 henry bonham carter, ii. 247, 356, 403, 404 mrs. henry bonham carter, ii. 66 miss hilary bonham carter, i. 28, 31, 36, 42, 44, 46, 63, 69, 75, 99, 121, 506 norman bonham carter, ii. 391, 392 sir william bowman, i. 183 c. h. bracebridge, i. 287, 307 mrs. bracebridge, i. 300, ii. 103 lady canning, i. 251, 257 edwin chadwick, i. 319, ii. 284 sir james clark, ii. 67, 68 mrs. clough, i. 497, ii. 11, 389, 399 lord cranbrook, ii. 291 lady cranworth, i. 300 crimean veterans, ii. 404 dr. william farr, i. 433, 435, ii. 4, 8, 23, 45, 92, 94, 111, 112, 238 florence committee for wounded (1866), ii. 106, 116 sir bartle frere, ii. 151, 213, 299 captain (sir douglas) galton:--(1858) i. 382; (1861) i. 421, 423, ii. 10; (1862) i. 231, ii. 64, 72; (1863) ii. 66, 67, 72, 73; (1864) ii. 47, 48, 49, 53, 58; (1865) ii. 86; (1866) ii. 110, 113, 136; (1867) ii. 147, 149, 150, 152, 153, 155; (1870) ii. 200; (1880) ii. 328; (1883) ii. 338; (1886) ii. 374; (1887) ii. 371; (1889) ii. 371; (1891) ii. 378; (1895) ii. 406; (1897) ii. 404 w. e. gladstone, ii. 293 rev. r. glover, i. 314 mrs. hawthorn, ii. 335 sidney herbert:--(1854) i. 150 (to mrs. herbert, but intended for him), 188, 190, 191, 203, 207, 208, 215, 217-18, 247, 248; (1855) i. 196, 224, 226, 234, 246, 249, 250, 253; (1856) i. 271, 290, 291; (1857) i. 336; (1859) i. 403; a last letter, i. 373 mrs. herbert, i. 150, 286, 287 benjamin jowett, ii. 222, 224, 245, 359, 365, 366, 396 sir john (lord) lawrence, ii. 44, 50, 157 colonel lefroy, i. 219 robert lowe, i. 437 sir john mcneill:--(1856) i. 324; (1857) i. 316, 338, 357, 360, 365, 377; (1859) ii. 22; (1860) i. 119, 120; (1861) i. 404, 405, ii. 12; (1868) ii. 188 lady mcneill, i. 380 cardinal manning, i. 491 harriet martineau, i. 385, 407, 412, ii. 7, 19, 30 (telegram), 33, 43, 90, 105, 198, 203 master of st. john's house, i. 261 matrons, sisters, nurses, ii. 195, 250, 259, 261, 262, 342 john stuart mill, ii. 216 r. monckton milnes, i. 121, ii. 284 julius mohl, ii. 13, 26, 59, 94, 105, 161, 174, 178, 187, 194, 221, 236, 257, 274, 315 madame mohl (mary clarke), (1839) i. 24, 26; (1841) i. 55; (1843) i. 36, 38; (1844) i. 31, 93; (1846) i. 47; (1847) i. 42, 66, 75; (1848) i. 82; (1851) i. 56; (1853) i. 129, 131, 134, 138; (1859) i. 505; (1861) i. 450, ii. 9; (1864) ii. 89; (1865) ii. 56, 84, 89, 93, 95; (1866) ii. 119; (1868) ii. 126, 141, 162, 425, 426, 430; (1869) ii. 160, 166, 281; (1871) i. xxiii; (1873) ii. 316; (1874) ii. 236; (1875) ii. 311, 316; (1876) ii. 319; (1878) ii. 319; (1881) ii. 326; various dates, i. 412, 473 mrs. moore, i. 299, ii. 76, 81, 126, 139 mrs. vaughan nash, ii. 391 miss hannah nicholson, i. 40, 44, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 64, 137 "nieces," ii. 390 w. e. nightingale, i. 61 _n._, 117, 135, 136, 307, 406, 481, 482, 484, 486, 503, ii. 62, 209, 300 mrs. nightingale, i. 112, 113, 114, ii. 16, 82 mr. and mrs. nightingale, i. 255, 268, 269, 276 louis shore nightingale, ii. 392, 393, 410 sir stafford northcote, ii. 151 lord panmure, i. 347 miss pringle, ii. 323, 324, 346, 347 william rathbone, ii. 359, 364 on miss sarah robinson's work, ii. 77 mrs. roundell, i. 111 lord salisbury (lord cranborne), ii. 114, 277 miss julia smith, i. 34 samuel smith, i. 324, 401, 424, 495-497, ii. 11, 22 mrs. samuel smith, ii. 353 mrs. shore smith, ii. 388 dean stanley, i. 57 sir henry storks, i. 294 lord stratford de redcliffe, i. 194 dr. john sutherland (notes and letters), i. 368, ii. 87, 88, 152, 153, 159, 164, 165, 168, 171, 172, 188, 200, 205, 206, 207, 343, 369 arnold toynbee, ii. 333 lady tulloch, i. 338, 338 _n._ sir harry verney, ii. 45, 362 lady verney, i. 85, 125, 277, 374, ii. 430 queen victoria, ii. 339, 340 crown princess victoria, ii. 117, 188, 201 war office, i. 290 sir william wedderburn, ii. 404, 453 miss rachel williams, ii. 254, 255, 350 various, ii. 242, 399 (12) _printed writings_:--chronological list of, ii. 437-58; particular pieces:- _addresses to probationers_ (1872 _seq._), ii. 447; general account of, ii. 263-8; quoted or referred to, i. 5 _n._, ii. 202, 247 _n._, 248, 257, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267 _army reform ... under the late lord herbert_ (1862), ii. 441, 442; how written, i. 408; mr. gladstone on, i. 409, 410; quoted or referred to, i. 312, 388 _seq._, 402, 408, 412, ii. 26 _british medical journal_ (1892), account of mrs. wardroper, ii. 455; quoted, i. 459, 460 _birds_ (1895), ii. 309, 456 _can we educate education in india?_ (1879), ii. 331, 452 _contribution to sanitary history of the british army_ (1859), i. 386, 429, ii. 439 _district nursing_ (1890), by w. rathbone, introduction by f. n., ii. 356, 454 _franco-german war_, letter on the (1870), ii. 199, 447 _health at home, health and local government_, etc. (1892, 1894), ii. 384, 455, 456 _health missioners for rural india_ (1896), ii. 405, 457 _hospital statistics and hospital plans_ (1862), ii. 441; quoted and referred to, i. 412, 433 _how people may live and not die in india_ (1863), ii. 444; quoted or referred to, ii. 1, 53, 444 _in memoriam: john gerry_ (1877), ii. 311, 450 _institution of kaiserswerth on the rhine_ (1851), i. 92-3, ii. 437; quoted or referred to, i. 109, 441, 442 _introductory notes on lying-in institutions_ (1871), ii. 447; general account of, ii. 196; dedication in, ii. 197, 221; quoted or referred to, ii. 167 _n._, 171 _irrigation and water transit in india_ (1879), ii. 288 _n._, 452 _life or death in india_ (1874), ii. 448; quoted or referred to, ii. 181-4, 277 _letters from egypt_ (1854), i. 95, ii. 437; quoted or referred to, i. 85, 86, 369 _n._ _mortality of the british army_ (1858), i. 376, ii. 439 _note of interrogation_, etc. (1873), ii. 447; quoted or referred to, i. 97, 477, ii. 218-21 _memorandum on ... sanitary improvements in india up to the end of 1867_ (1868), ii. 34 _n._, 110, 155, 446 _note on the aboriginal races of australia_ (1865), ii. 79, 445 _notes on ... the british army_ (1858), bibliography, ii. 438; origin of, why never published, i. 343; written 1857, i. 342; issued 1858, i. 384; appreciations of, by:--duke of cambridge, i. 384; dr. farr, i. 352; lord grey, i. 354; dr. hurd, i. 345 _n._; kinglake, i. 343; sir j. mcneill, i. 344, 346, 474; harriet martineau, i. 386; dean milman, i. 385; leading principles of, i. 345; scope of, i. 346; analysis of official documents in, i. 346; style of, i. 344, 474; a _tour de force_, i. 347; a landmark in army reform, i. 344; expert advice embodied in, i. 348, 353; quoted or referred to, i. 173, 176, 177, 183, 243, 288, 294, 315, 317, 357 _n._, ii. 20 _notes on hospitals_ (1859), ii. 439, 443; scope and influence of, i. 417 _seq._; quoted or referred to, i. 383, 413, 419 _notes on nursing_ (1859-60), ii. 439-440, 441; general account of, i. 448 _seq._; appreciations of, i. 448; characteristic of f. n., i. 451 _seq._; influence of, i. 448, 451, 452; j. s. mill and, i. 470; popularity of, i. 449, 450, 451; profits of, i. 504; recollections of crimea in, i. 449, 450; quoted or referred to, i. 10, 499, 500, ii. 416, 417 _notes on nursing for the labouring classes_ (1861), i. 450, ii. 441 _note on pauperism_ (1869), ii. 164, 446 _note on the supposed protection against venereal diseases ..._ (1863), ii. 74, 75, 443 _observations on the ... stational reports ... in india_ (1863), ii. 442-3; history of, ii. 25, 26, 27, 34, 35, 36; influence of, ii. 158; scope, ii. 27; style, ii. 25, 27, 443; wide circulation, ii. 38 _people of india, the_ (1878), ii. 290, 291, 451 _proposal for improved statistics of surgical operations_ (1863), i. 434, ii. 443 _report of the royal commission on the army_ (1857), f. n.'s evidence, ii. 438; quoted or referred to, i. 220, 240, 359, 360 _sanitary statistics of native colonial schools and hospitals_ (1813), ii. 79, 444 _sanitation in india_, various articles on, ii. 377, 379, 380, 406, 453 _seq._ _sick nursing and health nursing_ (1893), ii. 365, 456 _statements exhibiting the voluntary contributions_, etc. (1857), i. 348, ii. 438; quoted or referred to, i. 165, 167, 182, 201, 208, 210, 222, 279 _subsidiary notes as to the introduction of female nursing_ (1858), ii. 438; scope of, i. 347; quoted or referred to, i. 293, ii. 204 _n._, 269 _n._ _suggestions for improving the nursing system ..._ (1874), ii. 253, 449 _suggestions for thought_ (1860), ii. 440; addressed to "artisans," i. 478; general account and argument of, i. 478 _seq._; help of mrs. s. smith in, i. 120; literary defects in, i. 472, 473, 474; opinions on, of:--jowett, i. 471 _seq._; mill, i. 471, 473; julius mohl, i. 478, 489; w. e. nightingale, i. 503; origin of, i. 117, 119, 477; printed (1860), i. 470; submitted to mill and jowett, i. 471; publication abandoned, i. 477; posthumous publication desired, i. 477 _n._; spiritual fervour of, i. 489; tone of, i. 475, 476; quoted or referred to, i. 42, 96, 100, 471 _n._, 476, 478, 480, 485, 486, 489, 490, 504, ii. 84, 428 _suggestions in regard to ... indian stations_ (1864), ii. 444; origin of, ii. 42; issue of, ii. 46, 48, 49; sir stafford northcote on, ii. 155 _suggestions on ... nursing for hospitals in india_ (1865), ii. 55, 157, 444 _suggestions on providing ... nurses for the sick poor ..._ (1867), ii. 445; account of, ii. 135, 136, 186 _the dumb shall speak_ ... (1883), ii. 334, 453 _trained nursing for the sick poor_ (1876), ii. 253, 449 _una and the lion_ (1868), ii. 445; colported by the crown princess, ii. 190; influence of, ii. 142, 194; lord napier on, ii. 170; quoted, ii. 126, 128, 140-1, 142 _volunteer movement_, letter on the (1861), ii. 441; quoted or referred to, i. 284 _n._, 496, ii. 7, 8 _water arrival in india, a_ (1878), ii. 289, 451 _zemindar, the sun and the watering-pot_ (1874), ii. 449; general account of, ii. 295; maps for, ii. 289, 296, 297 nightingale, frances parthenope._see_ verney, lady nightingale, louis shore, ii. 392 nightingale, peter, of lea, i. 3 nightingale, william edward (father of f. n.): changes his name from shore to nightingale (1815), i. 3; education, i. 12; marries frances smith (1818), i. 3; circumstances, i. 7; character, temperament, and views, i. 5, 6, 40, 41, ii. 235, 236; educates his daughters, i. 12, 13; makes inquiries about nursing, i. 60; gives f. n. a separate allowance (1853), i. 130; inclines to give her freedom, i. 123; but is overborne, i. 125; accompanies f. n. to scotland (1856), i. 324; visits her in london, i. 503; with f. n. at malvern, i. 380; provides her with a london house, ii. 16; affection and admiration for f. n., i. 123, 138, 503; interest in f. n.'s religious speculations, i. 480, 481, 482, 483, ii. 235-236; friendship with jowett, ii. 96; death of, ii. 235, 452; letters:--to f. n., i. 138, 260, 380, 483, 503; to others, i. 36, 270, 492-3; various references, i. 20, 499, 506, ii. 88, 116, 303, 391 nightingale, mrs. w. e. (frances smith), her father, i. 4; brothers and sisters, i. 4, 29; opposes f. n.'s schemes for hospital life, i. 44, 114, 115, 125, 130, 141; "has hatched a wild swan," i. 139; f. n. sees little of (1857 _seq._), i. 380, 503; f. n. spends some months with (1866), ii. 119; (1868) ii. 163; (1874-80) ii. 311, 313; death, ii. 323, 452; character, i. 41, 105, ii. 119; letters: to f. n., i. 161, 269; to a friend, i. 198 nightingale fund, the, origin of, i. 268; meeting at willis's rooms in aid of (1855), i. 269 _seq._; subscriptions invited in general orders, i. 273; controversy on, i. 443; the fund invested, i. 456; scheme for utilizing it adopted (1859), i. 457, 459; purposes to which it was applied:--(1) school at st. thomas's hospital, i. 458 _seq._ (_see further_ nightingale training school); (2) midwifery training, king's college hospital (_q.v._), i. 464; (3) support of district nursing in london, ii. 355; reports of, bibliography, ii. 461, 462, quoted or referred to, i. 271, 463, 465, ii. 248 _n._, 256 "nightingale in the east," the, i. 266, ii. 460 "nightingale power," the, i. 214, 332 nightingale training school, st. thomas's hospital, opened (1860), i. 456, 459; impressions of (1860), i. 462; first year's results, i. 463; novelty of the scheme and medical opposition, i. 466, 467; principles of, i. 460 _seq._:--(1) to give technical training: examination and reports, i. 460, 463, ii. 248; probationers' diaries, 463, ii. 251; cookery lessons, 326; (2) to give moral influence: to be a "home," i. 461, ii. 247; _esprit de corps_, ii. 259; (3) to train nurses who would introduce improved methods elsewhere and train others, i. 461, 463, 466; wide influence of the school in this respect, 465, 466, ii. 125, 190, 192, 194, 254, 256, 326, 335; home sister appointed (1874), ii. 248; 50th anniversary, i. 456 _n._, celebrated in america, ii. 421; f. n.'s personal concern in the school, interviews with nurses, etc., i. 463, ii. 246 _seq._, 326, 412. for successive matrons, _see_ wardroper, pringle, gordon _nineteenth century_, ii. 269 _n._, 290 nobiling, attempt on emperor william i., ii. 314 _n._ noel, gerard, i. 38 noise, i. 453 "no popery" agitation, i. 56, 244 north london district nursing association, ii. 256 north staffordshire infirmary, i. 423 northbrook, lord, viceroy of india 1872, does not call on f. n., ii. 213; letter to her, ii. 214; report on sanitary progress to f. n. through lord salisbury, ii. 279; communications with her, ii. 290 northcote, sir stafford (lord iddesleigh), succeeds lord cranborne as indian secretary (1867), ii. 146; calls on f. n., ii. 151-2, 153; commissions her to draft various sanitary papers, ii. 154; letters to f. n., ii. 151, 184; f. n. on, ii. 152, 153; jowett on, ii. 155; recommends dr. farr for "c.b.," ii. 289 _n._ norwood, a villa at, ii. 311 novello, clara (contessa gigliucci), i. 447, 500, 501; sabilla, ii. 441 novels, ii. 425 "nuisances removal act," f. n. as, ii. 169 _nunc dimittis_, i. 492 nuremberg, a. dürer at, i. 369 nurses, nursing: a calling, not a profession, ii. 365, 366; a fine art, 455; a progressive art, ii. 264, 367; as occupation for gentlewomen, i. 117; development of trained, ii. 186; drinking among, i. 117, 442, 444; hints to, i. 453; history of, i. 439-40; f. n.'s place in, i. 440 _seq._; progress of, since her reforms, i. 456; ideal of, in shakespeare, i. 455; jubilee institute, ii. 355; moral influence of, ii. 264; national pension scheme, ii. 356; "nursing the well," i. 452; old style of, i. 454; popular qualifications for, i. 454; registration controversy ("the nurses' battle"), ii. 269, 356 _seq._; scope and motives in, ii. 263, 269, 271; state of (1850), i. 61, 442 _seq._ nurses, nursing, female, in the crimean war: affection for f. n. among the first party, i. 163, 261; "angels without hands" among, i. 246; composition of the first party, i. 158; deaths among, i. 239, 261; difficulty of obtaining suitable women, i. 158, 252; difficulty of maintaining discipline, i. 185, 187; hostility among some of the second party, i. 289; "mainstays" among, i. 299-301; marriage of some, i. 247; no disciple of f. n. among, ii. 14; proselytizing among, i. 249-50; rules and regulations for, i. 187, 188; uniform of, i. 183, 186, 187 nurses, nursing, female, in military hospitals: introduction of, after crimean war, i. 194, 347, 373, 392-393; in egypt, ii. 335, 337, 341-2, 346-52; in india, ii. 55, 369, 407; military prejudice against, i. 149, 167-8; lord wolseley in favour of, ii. 341-2; regulations for, ii. 66, 194; war nursing reserve, ii. 365 _nursing record_, ii. 363 nutting and dock, _history of nursing_, i. 416, 466, ii. 465 o'connell, daniel, ii. 167 official dilatoriness, ii. 34, 48-9, 147 old age, last years of life the best, ii. 398, 399, 402, 403, 404 omar khayyám, ii. 94, 95 omar pacha, i. 231 _n._ ommanney, lieut. w. f., ii. 185 _once a week_, ii. 35 opera, f. n.'s love of the, i. 19, 24 opium, injections of, ii. 106 order of merit, conferred on f. n., ii. 418, 420, 469 orderlies, in hospitals, i. 219, 225, 226, ii. 328, 337, 342, 350, 370, 393 orders, religious sisterhoods, etc., i. 57, 62, 424, 425, 432 osborne, rev. and hon. (afterwards lord) sydney godolphin, assists f. n. at scutari, i. 241; his _scutari and its hospitals_, ii. 459; quoted, on f. n., i. 183, 201, 230, 231, 235, 245 osburn, miss, ii. 192 osiris, i. 85, ii. 390 ossory, the lord of, ii. 319 overcrowding, "convenient," ii. 28 owl, f. n.'s pet, i. 89, 160, 369 oxford, agricultural education at, ii. 333-4, 394; college meetings, ii. 99; hebdomadal council, ii. 99; greats school subjects, ii. 316; jowett (_q.v._) and, ii. 322; f. n.'s visit to, i. 65 pacifico crisis, 1850, i. 89-90 paddington district nursing association, ii. 256 "padgett, m.p.," ii. 27 paget, sir james, on _notes on hospitals_, i. 417; on _notes on nursing_, i. 448; on nursing reform, i. 444; co-operates with f. n. on hospital statistics, i. 430, 434; letters to f. n., i. 417, 434, 448, 464; otherwise referred to, i. 499, ii. 355, 363 pains of hell, i. 50 pakington, sir j., i. 269 _pall mall gazette_, ii. 137, 346 _n._ palmer, sir roundell, ii. 93 palmerston, lady, i. 272, 443 palmerston, lord, friend and neighbour of the nightingales at embley, i. 35, 36, 37; don pacifico crisis (1850), i. 90; supports f. n.'s offer to go to the east (1854), i. 151; becomes prime minister (1855), i. 217; supports her appeal about drinking in the army (1855), i. 278; asks her to report on her experiences (1856), i. 327; f. n. visits, at broadlands (1856), i. 341; urges adoption of her views about netley on lord panmure, i. 340, 341; speech on air and sanitation (1858), i. 419; refers to f. n. in speech at herbert memorial meeting (1861), i. 410; receives letter from f. n. about lord de grey and reads it to the queen (1863), ii. 30, 31; appoints captain galton to war office at f. n.'s instance (1862), ii. 62, 73; death of, f. n.'s appreciation, ii. 92; "a powerful protector to me," ii. 92; various references, i. 6, 338, 378, ii. 29, 43 panmure, lord (afterwards, 1860, earl of dalhousie), becomes secretary for war (1855), i. 217; f. n.'s correspondence with, during crimean war, i. 222; sends dispatch on religious difficulties, i. 251; discusses her views on drinking in army, i. 278, 279; supports her authority in crimea, i. 292, 297; thanks her for her services, i. 301; f. n. commanded to meet, at balmoral (1856), i. 325; negotiations with him there, i. 326, 327; interview with f. n. to settle royal commission, etc. (nov. 1856), i. 329-31; delays appointment of r. c. for six months, i. 331, 334, 335; delays official instructions for her report for three months, i. 335, 343; issues instructions for _subsidiary notes_, i. 346-7; action towards sir j. mcneill and colonel tulloch (1857), i. 337; controversy with f. n. about netley (1856-57), i. 340-2; calls on f. n. to announce appointment of royal commission (1857), i. 354; negotiations with sidney herbert for enforcing r. c.'s report, i. 363; delays appointment of executive sub-commissions, i. 364; mentioned as possible successor to sir g. lewis (1863), ii. 29; objects to f. n. giving all credit for reform to herbert, ii. 69; attacks herbert hospital (1865), ii. 68, 69; character of, slow to move, etc., i. 322, 330, 378, 386; called "the bison," i. 325, 365; calls f. n. "a turbulent fellow," i. 378; various references, i. 323, 328, 335, 365 _panmure papers_, ii. 465; quoted or referred to, i. 259, 279, 302, 325, 341, 347 papal infallibility, ii. 315 paris, f. n.'s sojourns at, (1838-39), i. 19; (1853) feb., i. 127-8, june, i. 131; (1854) oct., i. 162; assistance publique, ii. 136; hospital relief at police stations, ii. 51; maternité hospital, i. 61. _see also_ sisters parkes, dr. e. a., i. 174, 390, 441, ii. 56; last letter to f. n., ii. 317; death, her appreciation of him, ii. 318 parkes, sir henry, ii. 191, 192 parnell, c. s., ii. 304 parthe. _see_ verney, lady pascal, _provinciales_, ii. 316 _passages from the life of a daughter at home_, i. 63, 94 passivity in action, ii. 102, 241 paulet, lord william, i. 279, ii. 73 pavilion system of hospital construction, i. 340, 342, 419, 427, ii. 69 payne, surgeon-general arthur, ii. 370, 378 "pearl," the, ii. 254, 255 pedro v., king of portugal, i. 421, 422 peel, general, secretary for war (1858-1859), i. 378, 379, 381, 383, 394, ii. 21, 47, 113 peel, hon. george, _the future of england_, i. xxviii peel, sir robert, i. 25, 148, ii. 97, 213; the school of, ii. 392, 403 percy, jocelyne, i. 192, 193, 241 perfectibility, f. n.'s theory of, i. 467, 481, 483, 503, ii. 244, 332, 429 perry, sir e., ii. 152 persiani, fanny, i. 24, 25 perugino, devil of, i. 130 peshawur, ii. 278 peter of alcantara, ii. 235 peter. _see_ grillage philadelphia, blockley hospital, i. 465 philippa, sister. _see_ hicks phillips, sir t., i. 332 phipps, colonel sir charles, i. 421, 498 physiology, ii. 390 pictures, old italian, i. 47, ii. 310 pilgrim fathers, the, ii. 9 _n._ pills for wooden legs, i. 495 pincoffs, dr. peter, _eastern military hospitals_, ii. 461; quoted or referred to, i. 182, 204, 211, 230, 236 pio nono as patriot hero, i. 75 pioneers, honour of, ii. 273 plants, law of the flowering of, i. 429 plato, ii. 91, 317, 390; f. n.'s early study of, i. 13; _gorgias_, ii. 226; _phaedrus_, ii. 227, 232; _republic_, ii. 223, 224; _theaetetus_, ii. 197 plowden, c. c., ii. 180 plunkett, mr. and mrs., i. 65, 114 poems on f. n., i. 263, 266, 267, 496, ii. 460. _see also_ longfellow, lovelace police, the london, ii. 393 political economy, i. 42, 81, ii. 164, 166 pollock, major c. e., ii. 466 ponsonby, sir henry, ii. 340 poor law reform, f. n.'s advocacy of (1864-67), ii. 92, 105, 123 _seq._; her article on (1869), ii. 164; her abc of, ii. 133, 136; parliamentary tributes to her, ii. 132, 239 poore, dr., ii. 379 port royalists, i. 487, ii. 231 portsmouth, soldiers' institute, ii. 77 positivism, ii. 218 pragmatism, i. 488 prayer, i. 469, 478, 479, 482, ii. 234; the best, ii. 232 predestination, ii. 234 press, the, i. 377, 383, ii. 34, 137 _prince_, wreck of the, i. 221 pringle, miss, i. vi, ii. 254, 255, 256, 268, 354, 421 prinsep, edward, ii. 288 prometheus, ii. 390 prospectuses, i. 110 protestantism and catholicism compared, i. 77 "providence of the english army," i. 431, ii. 19 providence of god, i. 486 prussia, war hospitals (1866), ii. 116, 117, 118; (1870) ii. 204; politics of (1872), ii. 315 public opinion, ii. 105 _punch_, quoted or referred to, i. 267, 428, 454 punishment, ii. 447, 448 purcell's _life of manning_, i. 250 _n._ pure literature society, ii. 310 purveying system, in crimean war, i. 199-205, 224 _seq._; new warrant (1861), i. 395; department abolished, ii. 338, 341 pusey, dr., ii. 321 puseyism, i. 55, 56, 129 putney hospital for incurables, i. 423, ii. 256 pyne, miss, ii. 256, 260 quacks, i. 495 _quarterly review_, i. 266 _n._, 377, 484 queen alexandra imperial military nursing service, i. 187 quetelet, a., _physique sociale_, i. 429, 480, ii. 315, 397, 400; f. n.'s admiration of, i. 480, ii. 238 quinet, e., _histoire de mes idées_, i. 469 raglan, lord, dispatch on battle of the alma, i. 145; welcomes f. n. on her arrival in the east, i. 181; supports her throughout, her feeling for, i. 181-2, 286, 319; f. n. visits at the front, i. 256; his visit to her in illness, i. 259; kinglake and, i. 319; contrasted with the duke of wellington, ii. 410; various references, i. 437, 447 rameses ii., i. 369, ii. 260 ramsgate, f. n. at, ii. 324 ranke, leopold von, i. 36 raphael, sistine madonna, i. 91, 92 rathbone, william, corresponds with f. n. on nursing reform (1861), ii. 124; founds training school for nurses in liverpool, ii. 52, 125; institutes district nursing there, ii. 125; starts trained nursing in the workhouse infirmary there, ii. 125; in consultation with f. n., ii. 125, 129; co-operates with her in opposing registration of nurses, ii. 357, 361; gives reputed portrait to nation, ii. 467; letters to f. n., ii. 127, 413; tributes to f. n., ii. 127; sends her flowers weekly, ii. 127, 306; f. n.'s tribute to, ii. 124; _memoir_ of, ii. 125; _organization of nursing in a large town_, ii. 125; _workhouse nursing_, ii. 125 rations, soldiers', ii. 70 rats, i. 173 rawalpindi, ii. 369 rawlinson, sir robert, sanitary commissioner in the crimean war, i. 220, 221; subsequent co-operation with f. n.:--about hospitals, etc., i. 352, 420, 421, 422; indian sanitation, ii. 33, 46, 269; death, ii. 414; admiration for f. n., i. 352-3; letter to f. n., ii. 165 reading aloud, i. 41 reay, lord, ii. 369, 377 récamier, madame, i. 20, ii. 13, 15, 16, 425 red cross movement, i. xxvi, 441, ii. 71, 119, 199, 205, 421 red tape, i. 506, ii. 58, 131, 276 reeve, henry, i. 157, 377, ii. 85 registration. _see_ nurses _rejected addresses_, ii. 270 religion, essence of, ii. 233; external forms, ii. 366 religious difficulty, the, in crimean war nursing, i. 156, 158, 159, 169, 244 _seq._, 289 rembrandt, i. 37 renan, ernest, _vie de jésus_, i. 486 renkioi, hospital at, i. 174 reports not self-executive, i. 362, ii. 33, 40 republicanism, i. 75, 88 requisitioning, system of, in military hospitals, i. 204-5, 210, 211 rhododendrons, i. 9, ii. 258, 309 rice. _see_ monteagle rich, mr., i. 114 rich, the, i. 9, 15 richards, miss linda, i. 465 richelieu, "self-multiplication," ii. 191 richmond, sir w. b., portrait of f. n., ii. 469 righteousness, i. 52 rigoleuc, father, ii. 235 ripon, marquis of (lord de grey), under-secretary for war under sidney herbert, i. 403, 404, 406; under sir george lewis, ii. 5, 62; a sanitarist, ii. 41; offers to help f. n. after herbert's death, ii. 5; insists on general military hospital at woolwich, ii. 6; secures redefinition of captain galton's duties, ii. 6; consults f. n. about canadian expedition, ii. 9; hopes to reorganize war office, ii. 63; adopts f. n.'s scheme for army sanitary committee, ii. 65; consults her about army medical school, ii. 67; about soldiers' reading-rooms, ii. 76; f. n. agitates for his appointment as secretary of state for war (1863), ii. 29-31; interview with her, ii. 41; confers with her on report of indian sanitary commission, ii. 37, 38, 46, 47; consults her on a woolwich appointment, ii. 73; defends herbert hospital against panmure (1865), ii. 69; becomes indian secretary (1866), ii. 108; finds a missing dispatch from sir t. lawrence, ii. 109; asks f. n.'s views on it, ii. 109; leaves a minute upon it, ii. 110, 114; attitude on leaving office (1866), ii. 105; intervenes to save army sanitary committee (1869), ii. 173; viceroy of india (1880), ii. 325; f. n.'s sympathy with his reforms and hopes from them, ii. 323, 330, 331; communications with her, ii. 325, 332, 338, 343; her support of his policy, ii. 332, 333, 334, 339, 453; resignation, her expostulation, ii. 343; her attempts to celebrate his return, ii. 345, 346; suggests his appointment as indian secretary (1885-86), ii. 368; sits in the privy council to decide "nurses' battle," ii. 362; communications with f. n. on india, ii. 369, 372; f. n. on, ii. 152; various references, ii. 73, 74, 162 _n._, 297, 299 roberts, lord, i. 315; sees f. n., ii. 333, 369; his reforms in india, ii. 369; letters to f. n., ii. 369, 420 roberts, mrs. (crimean war nurse), i. 185, 259, 294, 301, 458 robertson, dr., i. 273 robertson, r. w., ii. 333 robinson, miss sarah, ii. 77 robinson, robert, i. 256 roden, lord, i. 152 roebuck committee (1855), i. 176, 179, 195 _n._, 198, 200, 203, 214, 217 rogers, frederick (lord blachford), ii. 80 _n._, 166 rogers, rev. william, ii. 228 roland, madame, ii. 95 rolfe, baron, i. 36 roman catholicism: f. n.'s studies in, i. 77; her sympathy with, i. 487 rome, f. n.'s winter at, i. 69-80; happiness at, i. 69, 105; house where she stayed, i. 70; impressions of, i. 74; castle of st. angelo, statue of st. michael, i. 74, 76; st. peter's, i. 73; sistine chapel, i. 71, 72, ii. 306, 313; study of hospitals at, i. 417; trinità de' monti, i. 77; convent of dames du sacré c[oe]ur, i. 78, ii. 231; villa mellini, i. 73, 76 romsey, health of, ii. 119; volunteers, ii. 336 roosevelt, theodore, _the strenuous life_, ii. 417 rorke's drift, ii. 267 rose, sir hugh (lord strathnairn), ii. 52-4 rosebery, lady, ii. 347, 395 rosebery, lord, i. 500, ii. 395 roulin, f. d., i. 21 roundell, mrs., i. 111, ii. 456 royal alexandra hospital, i. 392 royal college of surgeons, i. 434 royal commission on health of the army (1857): f. n. decides to ask queen and ministers for, i. 323; agreed to "in principle" at balmoral (oct. 1856), i. 327; personnel, etc., discussed with lord panmure (nov. 1856), i. 329; delays in appointing, i. 334 _seq._; royal warrant issued (may 1857), i. 334, 354, 355; f. n.'s work for, i. 355-60; report of, ready august 1857, why kept back, i. 360, 361, 363; issued feb. 1858, i. 377; salient feature of, i. 360; endorsed by house of commons, i. 375-6 royal commission on health of the army in india (1859-63), ii. 22; f. n. "importunate-widows" for, ii. 19, 21; personnel of, ii. 21, 22; f. n. drafts circular of inquiry for, ii. 22; collects statistics, ii. 23; sees witnesses, ii. 24; analyses the stational reports, ii. 25; writes and circulates _observations_ on them, ii. 25, 26; writes much of the report, ii. 31; report of, ii. 33, its bulk, ii. 24, 34, 35, 37; measures for reform recommended, ii. 33; f. n. devises measures for securing adoption of its recommendations, ii. 32; works press for notices, ii. 34; small official edition of, omitting f. n.'s _observations_, ii. 35, 36, 37; amended edition with the _observations_, ii. 37, 38; the report criticised by indian government, etc., ii. 54, 55; f. n asked to write _suggestions_ for carrying out its reforms, ii. 42 royal commission on the poor law, report (1909), ii. 124 _n._, 139 _n._, 143 royal engineers, officers of, in india, ii. 152, 155 royalty, ii. 336 rubini, j. b., i. 19 rundall, general, ii. 274, 295 ruskin, quoted, i. xxx, 474, ii. 385, 393 russell, lord john, i. 26, 437, ii. 92; defeat of his government (1866), ii. 104, 109; anecdote of, ii. 110 _n._ russell, sir w. h., i. 146; _life of_, quoted, i. 175 russia and turkey, 1878, ii. 319, 320 rutherford, dr., ii. 71 ryots, ii. 285, 295, 451 sabin, rev. j. e., chaplain at scutari, i. 185, 235, 281 _n._; at aldershot, i. 351 sacrament. _see_ communion sacrifice, i. 139 sailors' homes, ii. 52 saint angela of foligno, ii. 235 st. bartholomew's hospital, i. 430, 433, 434, 465 _n._, 499, ii. 256 st. catherine of genoa, ii. 81 st. catherine of siena, ii. 82, 240 st. clara, i. 439, 440 st. francis of assisi, i. 96, ii. 235; _fioretti_, ii. 219 _n._, 232 st. francis de sales, ii. 82 st. francis xavier, ii. 82, 235 st. george's hospital, i. 433 st. hilaire, barthélemy, i. 21 st. ignatius loyola, i. 96, ii. 272 _st. james's magazine_, i. 462 _n._ st. jean de la croix, ii. 81, 232, 235 st. jerome, i. 440 st. john's house, i. 158, 159, 186, 440, 444, 464 st. mary's hospital, i. 430, 433, ii. 256 st. paul, i. 47 st. teresa, i. 439, 440, ii. 82, 231, 235 st. thomas's hospital, question of its removal from the borough (1859-1860), i. 425-6; temporary quarters in surrey gardens, i. 266 _n._, 427; new buildings on the embankment, queen victoria and, ii. 246; "pavilion" construction, i. 340, 427; selected for the nightingale training school, i. 374, 458 (_see further_ that title); f. n.'s desire to die in, ii. 103; f. n.'s proposal to enter, ii. 211; her reputed sojourn in, ii. 404; her "visitation" of, ii. 247; her actual visit to (1882), ii. 326; various references, i. 430, 433, 499; ii. 303 st. vincent de paul, ii. 272 salève, ascent of the, i. 17 salisbury infirmary, ii. 256, 452 salisbury, marquis of (lord cranborne), f. n. introduced to, by lord stanley (1866), ii. 114; promises to consult her on indian sanitation, ii. 115; resigns office (1867), ii. 146; on little public interest in india, ii. 281; returns to india office (1874), ii. 276; expectations of what he would do there, ii. 285, 295; f. n. corresponds with, on indian sanitation and irrigation, ii. 108, 277, 279, 282, 283, 286, 287, 288; a master workman, ii. 295, 448; on drift, ii. 298; success in the elections (1895), ii. 392; letters to f. n., ii. 115, 278, 282, 283, 286, 287 salisbury, lady, ii. 347 salvage, madame, ii. 16 salvation, i. 488 sanitary commission (crimea), 1855, i. 177 _n._, 219, 220 sappho's leap, i. 66 sardinian army in the crimea, i. 204, ii. 117 _saturday review_, i. 449 _saul_, dead march in, ii. 83 saviours, meaning of, i. 485 savonarola, i. 97, ii. 391 scharlieb, mrs., ii. 333 schulz (musician), i. 24 schwabe, mrs. salis, ii. 467 scott, sir walter, quoted, i. 233; novels of, ii. 95 scottish hospital in south africa, ii. 411 "scratting," i. 28, 49 scutari, situation and view, i. 173, 262; hospitals at, during crimean war:--barrack h., i. 172, 175; atmosphere of, i. 177; f. n.'s quarters in, i. 173, 184; general h., i. 172, 175; palace h., i. 174, 224; hospitals at, generally:--deficiencies, i. 177, 225; doctors in, i. 184, 185; improvement, by sanitary commission, etc., i. 220, 254; mortality in, i. 178; open sewers, i. 177; overcrowding, i. 177, 184; statistics, inaccurate, i. 429 sebastopol, siege of, heroism of the men, i. 257, 258, 317; fall of, i. 283, 447 self-control, ii. 266 self-sufficiency, ii. 264 sellon, miss, i. 159, 424 service of man, as service of god, i. 53 shaftesbury, lord, f. n.'s acquaintance with, i. 81; chartists and, i. 80-81; urges sanitary commission (1855) i. 220; president, social science congress (1858), i. 383; census bill (1860), i. 436, 438; international statistical congress (1861), i. 435; indian sanitary commission (1863), ii. 36; herbert hospital (1865), ii. 69; on f. n.'s work, ii. 36 shakespeare, i. 458, ii. 426; quoted:--_cymbeline_, ideal of a nurse, i. 458; _hamlet_, "most deject and wretched," i. 407; ghost in, ii. 390; character of hamlet, ii. 426; _king john_, "grief fills the room," i. 407; _measure for measure_, "aves vehement," i. 299 sheffield cutlery presented to f. n., i. 320 sherborne, lord, i. 65 shore, mary. _see_ smith, mrs. samuel shore, mrs. (mother of w. e. nightingale), i. 31, 49, 128 shore, william (father of w. e. nightingale), i. 5 shore, william, i. 241 shore, william edward. _see_ nightingale, w. e. siam, ii. 386 sidney, sir philip, ii. 160 simpson, sir j. y., i. 439 simpson, m. c. m., _julius and mary mohl_, ii. 463; quoted, i. 21, ii. 307 single life, the, i. 101 sismondi, i. 17, ii. 391 sisterhoods and nursing, i. 44, 62, 63, ii. 270, 272. _see also_ orders sisters of charity, paris, i. 127, 162, 432 sisters, hospital, i. 440 sisters' tower, the, at scutari, i. 184, 200 small ownership, f. n.'s scheme for, ii. 92-3, 167 _n._ smith, dr. (afterwards sir) andrew, director-general of the army medical department (1853-58), presumably responsible for deficiencies in war hospitals, i. 354; his excuse, i. 179; authorizes f. n. to offer to go out (1854), i. 151; evidence before roebuck committee (1855), i. 176, 179, 198; a member of the royal commission (1857), i. 332; "slips into current of reform," i. 358; "swallows pavilions," i. 342; opposes reform, ascendancy over lord panmure, i. 354, 355, 364; objects to f. n. visiting chatham, i. 349; retires, i. 378, 379; various references, i. 152, 213, 330, 340, 437 smith, beatrice shore (lady lushington), i. 499, 502, 504, ii. 4, 11 smith, bertha shore (mrs. w. coltman), i. 327 _n._ smith, blanche shore (mrs. clough), i. 30, 128 smith, deputy commissary-general, i. 157 smith, frederick, i. 11 smith, sir henry babington, ii. 405 smith, julia, i. 34, 66 smith, octavius, i. 10, 506 smith, colonel philip, ii. 335 smith, robert angus, i. 78, ii. 56, 134 smith, samuel (f. n.'s "uncle sam"), mrs. nightingale's brother, married to mr. nightingale's sister, i. 30; gets consent of her parents to f. n.'s crimean mission, i. 151, 154; accompanies her to marseilles, i. 162, 163; manages soldiers' money orders for her, i. 278; f. n. stays with (1857), i. 342; acts as her private secretary, i. 495-7, ii. 86; death, ii. 387; various references, i. 114, 506, ii. 21, 96 smith, mrs. samuel (mary shore, f. n.'s "aunt mai"), close association with f. n., ii. 15; her "true mother," i. 367; "as two lovers," i. 495, ii. 223; collaborates with her in _suggestions for thought_, i. 120, 482; appeals to her parents to grant f. n. her independence, i. 122, 123; takes rooms for her in pall mall (1853), i. 133; replaces mrs. bracebridge at scutari, i. 295; accompanies f. n. to london (1856), i. 303; subsequently "mothers" f. n. at malvern, i. 371, and in london, i. 372, 380, 502; advises her parents to leave burlington hotel, i. 503; f. n.'s estrangement from, ii. 15; reconciliation, ii. 15 _n._, 387-8; death, ii. 387; various references, i. 141, 368, ii. 96 smith, william, m.p., of parndon, i. 4, 5 smith, william adams, i. 33 smith, rt. hon. william henry, ii. 373, 374, 396 smith, william shore, son of mr. and mrs. samuel smith, f. n.'s affection for him, i. 30, 44, 50, ii. 237; marriage of, i. 505; care of mrs. nightingale, ii. 311; assumes the name nightingale, ii. 392 _n._; death, ii. 399 smythe, warrenton, i. 38 snodgrass, sister, ii. 393 social reform, ii. 219 social science congress, papers by f. n. read at:--1858, liverpool, hospital construction, etc., i. 383, ii. 439; 1861, dublin, hospital statistics, i. 433, ii. 441; 1863, edinburgh, aboriginal races, ii. 79, 444; indian sanitation, ii. 53, 181, 444; 1864, york, aboriginal races, ii. 79, 445; 1873, norwich, indian sanitation, ii. 181, 448 socrates, i. 90 soldiers, employment for, in peace, ii. 411; institutes, reading-rooms, etc., i. 280 _seq._, 396, 399, ii. 76, 77, 280, 369; morals of, i. 277, ii. 77; trades, ii. 54, 76; wives:--hospitals for, ii. 70; men's pay and, ii. 27 soldiers' home, aldershot, ii. 5 solitude, inspiration of, ii. 13, 39 sophie, queen of holland, ii. 89, 187 sophocles, ii. 229 sorabji, miss cornelia, ii. 394 south, sir james, i. 35 south, j. f., president of the college of surgeons, opposition to the training of nurses, i. 443, 444, 445, 466, 467 southey, ii. 213; _colloquies_, quoted, 439, 440 soyer, alexis, _chef_, goes out to scutari, helps f. n., i. 196; accompanies her to the crimea, i. 256; helps her there, i. 258, 285, 303; his _culinary campaign_, ii. 461; quoted, i. 257, 283-284; helps her in london barracks, i. 381; death of (1858), f. n.'s tribute to, i. 382 _spectator_, i. 267, ii. 35 spencer, miss, ii. 411 spenser's _faerie queene_, ii. 128 spielberg, i. 479 spiritualism, ii. 425 spitalfields weavers, i. 424 spottiswoode, william, ii. 34 spring, the, ii. 17 spring-rice, thomas. _see_ monteagle spurgeon, rev. c. h., ii. 249 staël madame de, i. 21, 36 stafford, augustus, m.p., goes out to scutari, helps f. n., i. 242; on his return describes state of hospitals, in house of commons, i. 177 _n._; gives evidence to roebuck committee, i. 242; on f. n.'s work at scutari, i. 180, 231 _n._, 279; a member of the royal commission (1857), i. 332; presses f. n. to give evidence, i. 359 stagnant women, ii. 247 _n._ stanhope, edward, ii. 289, 374, 375 stanley, dean, i. 57, 124, 180, 194; _life and letters of_, quoted, i. 250 stanley, h. m., ii. 304; _how i found livingstone_, ii. 315 stanley, lord. _see_ derby stanley, miss mary, assists in selection of crimean nurses (1854), i. 158, 166; conducts a second party of nurses to the east, unsolicited by f. n., i. 188-92, 247; breach in friendship with f. n., i. 192; takes charge of koulali hospital, i. 193; describes f. n. at work, i. 234; her _hospitals and sisterhoods_ quoted, i. 443 stanmore, lord, _memoir of sidney herbert_, ii. 465; quoted or referred to, i. 149, 158, 159, 189, 201 _n._, 212, 217, 235, 288, 290, 297 _n._, 328, 331, 334, 364, 390 stansfeld, james, ii. 186 statistical society, i. 387 statistics, lord brougham on, i. 428; lord goschen on, i. 428; governments and, i. 435; graphic method in, i. 352; importance of political education in, ii. 396; f. n.'s devotion to, i. 16, 129, 397, 428 _seq._, ii. 219; her conception of them as religious, i. 435, 480, ii. 396; scheme for founding a professorship of, ii. 395-7, 400; lord panmure on, i. 331. _see also_ hospitals, international statistical congress steell, sir j., bust of f. n., ii. 409, 469 stephanie of hohenzollern, princess, i. 421 stephen, sir james, _essays in ecclesiastical biography_, i. 4, 5 sterling, colonel sir anthony, his _highland brigade in the crimea_, ii. 464; quoted or referred to, as illustrating military prejudice against f. n., i. 167, 168, 206-7, 214, 287, 466 stewart, mrs. shaw, one of f. n.'s mainstays in the crimea, i. 300; memorial cross at balaclava and, i. 294 _n._; proposed by f. n. as superintendent of army nurses at woolwich, i. 373, 405; at netley, ii. 66; appointed by sidney herbert, i. 395, 406 stockmar, baron, ii. 97 storks, general sir henry, succeeds lord w. paulet as commandant at scutari, i. 279; "served with f. n." there, in measures for promoting welfare of the men, i. 279, 281, 294, ii. 77; f. n.'s "last letter" to him, i. 294; his farewell to f. n., i. 301-2; subsequent co-operation with her, i. 350; a member of the royal commission (1857), i. 328, 331, 332; influenced by her, ii. 14; appointed to malta (1864), ii. 77; other mentions, ii. 73, 162 stovin, general sir f., i. 26 strachey, sir john, ii. 50, 147, 159, 287 stratford de redcliffe, lord, i. 151, 156, 199, 206, ii. 170 stratford, lady, i. 206, 296 strathnairn, lord. _see_ rose strutt, e., i. 26, 34 strzelechi, count, i. 410, ii. 38 stubbs, bishop c. w., _the mythe of life_, ii. 430 _n._ "stuff," the, i. 471 style, jowett on, ii. 296 sub-commissions on army reform (1857), i. 363 sultan of turkey, abdul mejid, gives f. n. a bracelet, i. 302 surgical operations, statistics of, i. 434 surin, father, ii. 235 sutherland, dr. john [(1) chronological; (2) characteristics, personal relations with f. n., etc.; (3) letters to her; (4) miscellaneous references.] (1) _chronological_:- earlier career, i. 355; head of the sanitary commission sent to the east (1855), i. 220; friendship with f. n., acts as her physician, i. 221; on her return to england, becomes closely associated with her in work for army reform, i. 220, 355, 356; member of the royal commission (1857) and in its inner circle, i. 329, 331, 332, 355; one of the herbert-nightingale "cabal," i. 365; member of the barrack and hospital commission (1857), i. 381 _n._; and paid member of the permanent army sanitary committee (1862-88), ii. 65; instructed to report with f. n. on netley hospital, i. 331, 341; member of committee on soldiers' reading-rooms (1861), i. 396; drafts scheme with f. n. for war office reorganization (1861), i. 403; member of commission on mediterranean barracks (1861), i. 405.--1856-61 generally, constant, almost daily, work with f. n. on all her subjects, i. 372, 382, 391, 420, 421, 422, 494, 502, ii. 9; acts as her physician, i. 492, ii. 17; remonstrates with her on over-working, i. 368; visits her at malvern, i. 370.--1859-63, as member of royal commission on india collaborates with f. n. in its work and subsequent developments, ii. 19, 22, 24, 31, 36, 42 _n._, 46, 54, 56, 109.--1862-66, collaborates with her in various war office business, ii. 63, 65, 74, 75.--(1865) appointed to report on cholera at mediterranean stations, ii. 86; visits algiers, ii. 110; moves to norwood, ii. 88; questions in the house about his pay, ii. 70;--(1866) visits f. n. at embley, ii. 119.--later years: collaboration with f. n. on poor law reform, hospitals, and nursing, ii. 125, 129, 131, 133, 137, 186, 188, 195, 247, 254, 338; on indian business, ii. 168, 171, 176, 178, 180, 276, 283, 332, 344, 369; in her books, ii. 164, 166, 167 _n._, 196; his position at the war office threatened (1869), ii. 173; reports on aid society (1871), ii. 200, 203; anxious to retire (1886), ii. 368; f. n.'s anxiety on the "sutherland succession," ii. 368, 371, 372; resigns (1888), ii. 375; death (1891), ii. 387 (2) _characteristics, personal relations with f. n._, etc.:--called "the baby" by f. n. and his wife, i. 370, 383, ii. 86; continual help to f. n., ii. 85, 86; deafness, ii. 87; extent of his collaboration, ii. 205-8; value of it, ii. 85; communications between them by notes, ii. 87, 88; one of her "wives," i. 383; his estimate of f. n., i. 372; on f. n.'s illness (1861), i. 492; on sir john lawrence, ii. 146; a tiff, i. 382; thought unbusiness-like by f. n., i. 382, ii. 87; scolded by her, ii. 110, 146 _n._, 148, 344; value of his public services, ii. 173 _n._, 372 (3) _letters to f. n._:--i. 328, 356, 364, 369, 383, ii. 111, 129, 161, 179, 197 (4) _miscellaneous references_:--i. 373, 374, 400, 505, ii. 24, 51, 89, 113, 116, 117, 149, 263, 302 sutherland, mrs. john, i. 370, 382, ii. 24, 86, 89, 103, 111, 302, 469 swansea infirmary, i. 423 swinburne, a. c., _atalanta in calydon_, ii. 95; _the children's bible_, ii. 228 sydney (n.s.w.) infirmary, ii. 181, 191-192, 256 sympathy, i. 96, 105, ii. 13, 14, 84 tacitus, _agricola_, i. 503 talleyrand, i. 26 tamburini, i. 19, 25 tapton, i. 49 tastu, madame, i. 21 taylor, fanny m., ii. 460 tel-el-kebir, ii. 267 temple, sir richard, ii. 274, 332 tennyson, alfred, lord, ii. 94 _n._, 426; quoted, ii. 272 territorial force, the, ii. 8 terrot, miss, i. 463 thalberg, s., i. 25 thames bank, i. 10 thebes (egypt), i. 86 thermopylæ, i. 317 "they are not here," i. 263, 374 thiers, i. 21 "thirty years on," ii. 266 thomas (drummer boy), i. 256 thorne, dr. may, ii. 421 thornton, w. t., ii. 274, 287 thucydides, ii. 390 ticknor, g., i. 20 _times_ calls attention to hospital and nursing defects, crimean war, i. 146, 147, 151; organizes fund and co-operates with f. n., i. 165, 196, 199, 201; attacks chelsea board (1857), i. 337; advocates the c.d.a., ii. 75; supports indian sanitary reform, ii. 38, 380; quoted or referred to, on:--f. n. in the crimean war, i. 162, 164, 213, 269, ii. 455; austro-prussian war, ii. 105; hospital nurses (1857), i. 443, 445; in various connections, ii. 4 _n._, 86 _n._, 90 _n._, 165, 253, 298 _n._, 455 titian, "tribute money" (dresden), i. 369, ii. 294 tocqueville, a. de, i. 21, 484 torrance, miss elizabeth (mrs. dowse), ii. 192 toynbee, arnold, ii. 333, 334 tractarian movement, i. 244 tracts, f. n.'s "distribution" of, i. 496 transports, victualling on, ii. 70 treasury, the, ii. 25 tremenheere, mr., i. 114 trench, archbishop, "alma," i. 145 _trent_ affair, ii. 9 trevelyan, sir charles, i. 157, 225, ii. 23, 26, 27, 56, 63; letters to f. n., i. 423, ii. 18, 26, 40 trevelyan, sir george, ii. 304 trevelyan, g. m., _life of john bright_, i. 195 _n._ trevor, rev. dr., i. 4 trinity, the, i. 486 "triumvirate," the, ii. 254 truelove, edward and mrs., i. 119, 120 truth, "not what one troweth," i. 481 tulloch, general sir a. m.: commissioner with sir j. mcneill (_q.v._) in crimea, i. 257; subsequent co-operation with f. n., i. 315, 321, 328, 389 _n._; controversy about chelsea board (_q.v._), i. 337, ii. 352; made k.c.b., i. 331, 338; influenced by f. n., ii. 14; death of, appreciation by f. n., ii. 94 tulloch, captain h., ii. 169 tulloch, lady, i. 315, 338, 377 turnbull, sister bertha, i. 294 twining, miss louisa, i. 141 twiss, sir travers, ii. 228 _n._ umballa, ii. 369 umberslade, i. 116, 118 undine, ii. 14 united service institution, museum, memorials of f. n. in, i. 274 _n._, 306 _n._, 469 university college hospital, i. 430 unseen world, reality of the, i. 47 upholsterer, an, and f. n., i. 494 vegetarianism, ii. 390 venice, ii. 104, 117, 118 verney, miss emily, ii. 199 verney, frederick, ii. 334, 346 _n._, 383, 389, 455 verney, sir harry, marries f. n.'s sister (june 1858), i. 380; bucks county infirmary and, i. 422; keeps f. n. _au fait_ with affairs, ii. 29; interview with lord palmerston on f. n.'s behalf (1863), ii. 30; other missions, etc., for her, ii. 69, 76; lends f. n. his london house, ii. 81, 84 _n._; poor law bill (1867), ii. 138; on committee of aid society (1870-1871), ii. 199; chairman of council of nightingale fund, ii. 190, 268; entertains nurses for f. n., ii. 304; interview with mr. g. hardy on f. n.'s behalf (1876), ii. 318; stands for parliament again in his 79th year, ii. 325; interviews with mr. childers (1880, 1882), ii. 328, 337; takes f. n. to see return of the guards (1882), ii. 335; accompanies her to the law courts, ii. 339; writes to mr. gladstone about general gordon, ii. 329; friendship with gordon, ii. 329, 330; interviews sir m. hicks-beach for f. n. (1891), ii. 361; f. n.'s affection for, ii. 82; morning visits to f. n., ii. 301; walks with f. n. in the park, ii. 309; devotion to f. n., ii. 383; vigorous old age, ii. 403; death, f. n.'s tribute to, ii. 399; letters to f. n., ii. 30, 326, 382; various references, i. 498, 506, ii. 8, 24, 164, 235, 324, 339, 350, 357, 373, 375, 421 verney, frances parthenope, lady [(1) _general_; (2) _letters_.] (1) _general_:- elder daughter of mr. and mrs. w. e. nightingale, i. 3-4; birthplace, i. 4; birthday, i. 429; f. n.'s early letter to, i. 10, 11; a quick pupil, i. 13; on a winter in paris with f. n. (1838-39), i. 20; temperament of, contrasted with f. n.'s, i. 28, 29; character of, i. 105; attitude to f. n. and her aspirations, i. 69, 84, 104, 105, 114, 115, 125, 126, 138, 141; marries sir h. verney (june 1858), i. 380; collects and receives gifts and offers of nurses for f. n. at scutari, i. 166, 264-6; writes _life and death of athena, an owl_, i. 160; lives near her sister in south street, ii. 301; entertains nurses for her, ii. 304; on f. n.'s indian work, ii. 273; on her sister as "like a man," ii. 15; on her interesting life, ii. 321; affection for her, ii. 382; illness, ii. 324; death, ii. 382; portraits of f. n. by, ii. 468; various references, i. 33, 148, 163, 369, ii. 82, 164, 235 (2) _letters of_:- to madame mohl, i. 33, 166, 371, 499; to f. n., i. 265, 274, 280, 306, 372; to various friends, i. 62, 154, 155, 159, 198, 252, 259, 261, 264, 280, 304, 305, 320 verney, margaret, lady, ii. 389 victoria, queen, accession of, i. 479; the bedchamber plot, i. 25; lord melbourne and, i. 26; visit t o strathfieldsaye (1845), i. 37; desires f. n.'s letters from the east to be sent to her (dec. 6, 1854), i. 215; her letter read in scutari hospitals, i. 215; and, published in the press, checks sectarian outcry against f. n., i. 245-6; commissions f. n. as almoner of the royal gifts to sick and wounded (dec. 14, 1854), i. 216; sends presents to the nurses, i. 216; writes to ministers on f. n.'s letters, i. 216; consults f. n. as to what help her majesty could render to the soldiers, i. 223; writes to ministers about scutari cemetery, i. 223; has bulletins of f. n.'s crimean fever, i. 259; presents f. n. with a jewel (nov. 1855), i. 274, 294, 296; sends print for f. n.'s inkermann café (nov. 1855), i. 281; sends f. n.'s letter to the cabinet (dec. 1855), i. 278; f. n.'s expression of help rendered by her majesty, i. 294; approves sir j. clark's invitation to f. n. to come to ballater (aug. 1856), i. 321; f. n. introduced to, at balmoral (sept. 21, 1856), i. 324; calls on f. n. (sept. 26), i. 324; requests f. n. to stay to meet lord panmure, i. 325; writes to lord panmure about f. n., i. 325; commands f. n. to balmoral (oct.), i. 326; her opinion of f. n., i. xxvi, 213, 324, 325; proclamation to people of india (1858), ii. 324, 331, 340, 381; acknowledges _notes on nursing_, i. 450; places hospital beds at f. n.'s disposal, i. 497; the royal commission on india (1859), ii. 21; offers rooms in kensington palace (1861), i. 498; death of the prince consort, ii. 26; reads f. n.'s _observations_ on india (1862), ii. 26; appointment of lord de grey (1863), ii. 29; sends f. n. prince albert's speeches, inscribed, ii. 26; choice of prime minister after palmerston, ii. 92; asks f. n. to see queen of prussia (1867), ii. 187; sends message to f. n. (1868), ii. 192; lays stone of, and opens, st. thomas's hospital, ii. 246; sends message on death of f. n.'s mother (1880), f. n.'s reply, ii. 323; sends f. n. _life of prince consort_, ii. 324; sends message to f. n. at opening of the law courts (1882), ii. 336; invites f. n. to windsor to receive royal red cross (1883), ii. 339; subsequent communications on army and india, ii. 339-40; devotes women's jubilee gift to nursing, ii. 355; invites f. n. to witness diamond jubilee procession, ii. 412; letters to f. n., i. 216, 274, ii. 340; various references, i. 21, 215, 330, 493 victoria, the crown princess (empress frederick), sends message to f. n. (1858), i. 384; consults f. n. on austro-prussian war (1866) nursing, ii. 116, 117; on franco-german war, ii. 200, 203, 204; sees f. n. (1868, 1870), ii. 188 _seq._, 203; founds nursing school in berlin, ii. 204; lunches at f. n.'s house, ii. 303; later visits, ii. 357, 413; f. n. on, ii. 187, 188; letters to f. n., ii. 118, 189, 204 victorian era exhibition, ii. 408 village sanitation, in england, ii. 383, 384; in india, ii. 377 (_see also_ indian sanitation) villiers, c. p., and f. n.'s scheme of small ownership (1865), ii. 93; communications with f. n. on poor law reform (1864-67), ii. 130 _seq._; adopts her scheme, ii. 105, 134; abandons idea of a bill, ii. 105, 134; attitude to mr. hardy's bill (1867), ii. 135, 138; on f. n., ii. 130, 139 _n._ vincent, miss, ii. 256 virgil, a boy's translation of, i. 129 virtue, "a second-rate virtue," ii. 95 vivian, sir r., ii. 19, 21, 22 voltaire, ii. 317 volunteers, f. n. on the, i. 496, ii. 7, 8, 336 voysey defence fund, ii. 200 vulgarity, i. 424 waddington, mr., i. 437 wady halfa, ii. 346 walker, dr. j. p., ii. 50 wantage, lord (colonel loyd lindsay), ii. 199, 337, 434, 457 wantage, lady, ii. 409 war, ii. 411 ward, sir henry, i. 90 ward island emigrant hospital, f. n.'s gift to, ii. 9 _n._ ward, lord, i. 260 wardroper, mrs., matron, st. thomas's hospital, i. 458; f. n.'s character-sketch of, i. 458; nightingale training school and, i. 459, 461, 462, 463, ii. 190, 193, 194, 247, 248, 254, 268, 302, 326; on agnes jones, ii. 126; retires, ii. 354 war office, organization of (1854), i. 248, 249; reorganization of, attempted (1860-61), i. 403, 404; partial, (1862) ii. 62; (1868) ii. 161; obstruction to various reforms, i. 380, 390, 394, 405; after s. herbert's death undermining his work, ii. 4, 9, 94; f. n.'s sarcasm on, ii. 72; principles of reform, ii. 63-4; f. n. as adviser to (1862-66), ii. 59 _seq._ washington, george, ii. 91 water cure, i. 118 waterloo, battle of, ii. 404, 410 watts, g. f., portrait of sir john. lawrence, ii. 43; of f. n. (unfinished), ii. 469 waverley abbey, i. 29, 32 webster, sir r. (lord alverstone), ii. 362, 363 wedderburn, sir william, ii. 332, 371, 378, 379, 404, 453 wellington, duke of, ii. 404, 410 wellow, f. n.'s reply to parishioners of, i. 309 wensleydale, ii. 101 werckner, madame, ii. 202 west indian colonies, staff-surgeons, ii. 70 westminster, duke of, ii. 355, 364 westminster hospital, ii. 256 westminster ragged schools, i. 82, 93 _westminster review_, i. 377 wheatstone, sir charles, i. 65 white, blanco, ii. 12 whitfield, r. g., resident medical officer st. thomas's hospital, i. 185, 458; corresponds with f. n. on removal of the hospital, i. 425, 426; nightingale training school and, i. 458, 459, 460; retires, ii. 247 whybron, thomas, i. 279 widows' caps, f. n.'s, ii. 15 wilberforce, william, i. 5 wilbraham, colonel, i. 405 william i., german emperor, ii. 314 _n._ william ii., german emperor, ii. 420 william iv., i. 479 "william." _see_ jones williams, dr., ii. 17 williams, mrs. margaret, i. 234 williams, miss rachel (mrs. d. morris), ii. 255, 256, 260, 347 wilton house, ii. 4 winchester county hospital, i. 422, 423; health of, ii. 119 wintle, w. j., _the story of florence nightingale_, ii. 466; quoted or referred to, i. 236, 237 "wiping" sub-commission, i. 364, 366, 394 wiseman, cardinal, i. 250 _n._, 253 "wives," f. n.'s, i. 383 wives and mothers, selfishness of, ii. 15 wolff, dr. h., ii. 441 wolseley, lord, and the soldiers' institute, portsmouth, ii. 77; on female nurses in military hospitals, ii. 341, 342; on hospital deficiencies, egypt, 1882, ii. 338 _n._ woman, women, as "handmaids of the lord," ii. 366; as health missioners, ii. 353; attitude of, to women, ii. 315; better life for, sought by f. n., i. 102, 442, ii. 366; business-like efficiency in religious orders, i. 432; the churches and work for, i. 57; crave for being loved, not for loving, ii. 15; have only odds and ends of time, i. 116, ii. 238; in the bible and greek literature, ii. 229; inaccuracy of, ii. 15; influence of, i. 332; "inspiration" of, ii. 316; lack power of attention, ii. 14; lack power of sympathy, ii. 14; midwifery as a career for, ii. 197; new sphere for, opened by f. n.'s crimean mission, i. 305, 306, 448; f. n.'s knowledge of, ii. 14; the _respublica_ and, ii. 95; regulations and, ii. 195; "woman's movement," i. 385, 441, ii. 14, 142 woman's suffrage, i. 332, ii. 215, 216, 217; f. n. on, ii. 451 wombwell's menagerie, ii. 110 wood, sir charles (viscount halifax), indian secretary, ii. 33, 36, 38, 41, 42, 43, 47, 48, 57; resigns 1866, ii. 108 wood, sir evelyn, ii. 337, 407 woolner, t., r.a., ii. 469 woolwich, herbert (general military) hospital, i. 340, 395, 405, 420, ii. 6, 73, 88; naval hospital, i. 348 work, blessedness of, i. 34, ii. 209, 214, 430 workhouses, workhouse infirmaries, condition of (1864-66), ii. 52, 123, 124, 125; nursing in, ii. 52, 125, 128; reforms in, ii. 143; irish, ii. 412 works _versus_ doctrines, i. 58 wreford, mr., purveyor-general, i. 157, 225 wright, r. s., ii. 60 and _n._, 399 writing, doing and, i. 94; f. n.'s attitude towards, i. 93-4, 474 würstenberger, mdlle., i. 110 wyatt, sir william, ii. 192 wyse, sir thomas, i. 90 yonge, miss, _book of golden deeds_, i. xxiv, ii. 462 young, colonel, ii. 25 _n._, 28 young, "ubiquity," i. 26 yule, colonel sir henry, succeeds sir b. frere on india office sanitary committee, ii. 274; collaborates with f. n., ii. 375; death, ii. 387; on f. n., ii. 308, 386; _memoir of sir w. e. baker_, ii. 274 _n._ zambesi mission, ii. 194 zemindars, ii. 285, 295, 451 zenana mission, ii. 333 zoroaster, ii. 222 the end * * * * * transcriber's notes: the original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained. inconsistent hyphenation is as in the original. the ligature oe and has been marked as [oe]. text in italics has been marked with underscores (_text_). the sign ^ has been used as a superscript. the table below lists all corrections applied to the original text. p 14: and prussian bauerinnen -> bäuerinnen p 69: attention to "hygeists -> "hygienists p 69: of consulting hygeists -> hygienists p 75: [54] below, p -> p. p 78: be a "saviour" of men -> men. p 89: (_oct._ 4 [1865] -> [1865]) p 112: 24 princes gate, feb. -> _feb._ p 128: far more untameable -> untamable p 145: consigning sanitary adminisstration -> administration p 151: this was on july 27 -> 27. p 154: civilization of india" -> civilization of india") p 184: pp. 519-534. -> 534.) p 190: princess sent fraülein -> fräulein p 235: childlikeness of wisdom -> wisdom. p 237: und stiller auf -> auf p 248: or ward sisters -> sisters. p 284: in 1874, 37.1 -> 37.1. p 285: others, for over-emphasis -> over-emphasis. p 285: was not the -> was p 288: told her drily -> dryly p 304: "but these pleasures -> but p 328: august 21, 1880 -> 1880. p 369: can be expected." she -> expected," she p 384: nos. 126, 133 -> 133, p 388: the thing was very characteristic -> characteristic. p 389: ever your loving f. n." -> n. p 390: was "aunt florence -> florence" p 401: in all that befel -> befell p 428: are letters to mr., -> mr. p 441: des geh. sanitäts -> sanitäts-rath p 447: discipline, cincinatti -> cincinnati p 455: by george h. de' ath -> de'ath p 471: i. 361, 376, -> 376; p 477: de' ath -> de'ath p 483: ii. 117, -> ii. 117; p 486: see also _daily news_ -> _see also_ daily news p 488: (1) chronological -> [(1) p 489: (oct. 16) -> (oct. 16), i. 155 p 495: 261, 262, 142 -> 342 p 506: (1866) visits f. n. -> --(1866) visits f. n. 