THE LIFE OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
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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."