THE name of Florence Nightingale lives in the memory of the world by
virtue of the lurid and heroic adventure of the Crimea. Had she died--as
she nearly did--upon her return to England, her reputation would hardly
have been different; her legend would have come down to us almost as we
know it today--that gentle vision of female virtue which first took
shape before the adoring eyes of the sick soldiers at Scutari. Yet, as a
matter of fact, she lived for more than half a century after the Crimean
War; and during the greater part of that long period, all the energy and
all the devotion of her extraordinary nature were working at their
highest pitch. What she accomplished in those years of unknown labour
could, indeed, hardly have been more glorious than her Crimean triumphs,
but it was certainly more important. The true history was far stranger
even than the myth. In Miss Nightingale's own eyes the adventure of the
Crimea was a mere incident--scarcely more than a useful stepping-stone
in her career. It was the fulcrum with which she hoped to move the
world; but it was only the fulcrum. For more than a generation she was
to sit in secret, working her lever: and her real "life" began at the
very moment when, in the popular imagination, it had ended.
She arrived in England in a shattered state of health. The hardships and
the ceaseless effort of the last two years had undermined her nervous
system; her heart was pronounced to be affected; she suffered constantly
from fainting-fits and terrible attacks of utter physical prostration.
The doctors declared that one thing alone would save her--a complete and
prolonged rest. But that was also the one thing with which she would
have nothing to do. She had never been in the habit of resting; why
should she begin now? Now, when her opportunity had come at last; now,
when the iron was hot, and it was time to strike? No; she had work to
do; and, come what might, she would do it. The doctors protested in
vain; in vain her family lamented and entreated; in vain her friends
pointed out to her the madness of such a course. Madness?
Mad--possessed--perhaps she was. A demoniac frenzy had seized upon her.
As she lay upon her sofa, gasping, she devoured blue-books, dictated
letters, and, in the intervals of her palpitations, cracked her febrile
jokes. For months at a stretch she never left her bed. For years she was
in daily expectation of death. But she would not rest. At this rate, the
doctors assured her, even if she did not die, she would, become an
invalid for life. She could not help that; there was the work to be
done; and, as for rest, very likely she might rest ... when she had done
it.
Wherever she went, in London or in the country, in the hills of
Derbyshire, or among the rhododendrons at Embley, she was haunted by a
ghost. It was the spectre of Scutari--the hideous vision of the
organisation of a military hospital. She would lay that phantom, or she
would perish. The whole system of the Army Medical Department, the
education of the Medical Officer, the regulations of hospital procedure
... REST? How could she rest while these things were as they were,
while, if the like necessity were to arise again, the like results would
follow? And, even in peace and at home, what was the sanitary condition
of the Army? The mortality in the barracks was, she found, nearly double
the mortality in civil life. 'You might as well take 1,100 men every
year out upon Salisbury Plain and shoot them,' she said. After
inspecting the hospitals at Chatham, she smiled grimly. 'Yes, this is
one more symptom of the system which, in the Crimea, put to death 16,000
men.' Scutari had given her knowledge; and it had given her power too:
her enormous reputation was at her back--an incalculable force. Other
work, other duties, might lie before her; but the most urgent, the most
obvious of all, was to look to the health of the Army.
One of her very first steps was to take advantage of the invitation
which Queen Victoria had sent her to the Crimea, together with the
commemorative brooch. Within a few weeks of her return she visited
Balmoral, and had several interviews with both the Queen and the Prince,
Consort. 'She put before us,' wrote the Prince in his diary, 'all the
defects of our present military hospital system, and the reforms that
are needed.' She related 'the whole story' of her experiences in the
East; and, in addition, she managed to have some long and confidential
talks with His Royal Highness on metaphysics and religion. The
impression which she created was excellent. 'Sie gefallt uns sehr,'
noted the Prince, 'ist sehr bescheiden.' Her Majesty's comment was
different--'Such a HEAD! I wish we had her at the War Office.'
But Miss Nightingale was not at the War Office, and for a very simple
reason: she was a woman. Lord Panmure, however, was (though indeed the
reason for that was not quite so simple); and it was upon Lord Panmure
that the issue of Miss Nightingale's efforts for reform must primarily
depend. That burly Scottish nobleman had not, in spite of his most
earnest endeavours, had a very easy time of it as Secretary of State for
War. He had come into office in the middle of the Sebastopol Campaign,
and had felt himself very well fitted for the position, since he had
acquired in former days an inside knowledge of the Army--as a Captain of
Hussars. It was this inside knowledge which had enabled him to inform
Miss Nightingale with such authority that 'the British soldier is not a
remitting animal'. And perhaps it was this same consciousness of a
command of his subject which had impelled him to write a dispatch to
Lord Raglan, blandly informing the Commander-in-Chief in the Field just
how he was neglecting his duties, and pointing out to him that if he
would only try he really might do a little better next time.
Lord Raglan's reply, calculated as it was to make its recipient sink
into the earth, did not quite have that effect upon Lord Panmure, who,
whatever might have been his faults, had never been accused of being
supersensitive. However, he allowed the matter to drop; and a little
later Lord Raglan died--worn out, some people said, by work and anxiety.
He was succeeded by an excellent red-nosed old gentleman, General
Simpson, whom nobody has ever heard of, and who took Sebastopol. But
Lord Panmure's relations with him were hardly more satisfactory than his
relations with Lord Raglan; for, while Lord Raglan had been too
independent, poor General Simpson erred in the opposite direction,
perpetually asked advice, suffered from lumbago, doubted (his nose
growing redder and redder daily) whether he was fit for his post, and, by
alternate mails, sent in and withdrew his resignation. Then, too, both
the General and the Minister suffered acutely from that distressingly
useful new invention, the electric telegraph. On one occasion General
Simpson felt obliged actually to expostulate. 'I think, my Lord,' he
wrote, 'that some telegraphic messages reach us that cannot be sent
under due authority, and are perhaps unknown to you, although under the
protection of your Lordship's name.
For instance, I was called up last night, a dragoon having come express
with a telegraphic message in these words, "Lord Panmure to General
Simpson--Captain Jarvis has been bitten by a centipede. How is he now?"'
General Simpson might have put up with this, though to be sure it did
seem 'rather too trifling an affair to call for a dragoon to ride a
couple of miles in the dark that he may knock up the Commander of the
Army out of the very small allowance of sleep permitted; but what was
really more than he could bear was to find 'upon sending in the morning
another mounted dragoon to inquire after Captain Jarvis, four miles off,
that he never has been bitten at all, but has had a boil, from which he
is fast recovering'. But Lord Panmure had troubles of his own. His
favourite nephew, Captain Dowbiggin, was at the front, and to one of his
telegrams to the Commander-in-Chief the Minister had taken occasion to
append the following carefully qualified sentence--'I recommend
Dowbiggin to your notice, should you have a vacancy, and if he is fit'.
Unfortunately, in those early days, it was left to the discretion of the
telegraphist to compress the messages which passed through his hands; so
that the result was that Lord Panmure's delicate appeal reached its
destination in the laconic form of 'Look after Dowb'. The Headquarters
Staff were at first extremely puzzled; they were at last extremely
amused. The story spread; and 'Look after Dowb' remained for many years
the familiar formula for describing official hints in favour of
deserving nephews.
And now that all this was over, now that Sebastopol had been, somehow or
another, taken; now that peace was, somehow or another, made; now that
the troubles of office might surely be expected to be at an end at
last--here was Miss Nightingale breaking in upon the scene with her talk
about the state of the hospitals and the necessity for sanitary reform.
It was most irksome; and Lord Panmure almost began to wish that he was
engaged upon some more congenial occupation--discussing, perhaps, the
constitution of the Free Church of Scotland--a question in which he was
profoundly interested. But no; duty was paramount; and he set himself,
with a sigh of resignation, to the task of doing as little of it as he
possibly could.
'The Bison' his friends called him; and the name fitted both his
physical demeanour and his habit of mind. That large low head seemed to
have been created for butting rather than for anything else. There he
stood, four-square and menacing in the doorway of reform; and it
remained to be seen whether, the bulky mass, upon whose solid hide even
the barbed arrows of Lord Raglan's scorn had made no mark, would prove
amenable to the pressure of Miss Nightingale. Nor was he alone in the
doorway. There loomed behind him the whole phalanx of professional
conservatism, the stubborn supporters of the out-of-date, the
worshippers and the victims of War Office routine. Among these it was
only natural that Dr. Andrew Smith, the head of the Army Medical
Department, should have been pre-eminent--Dr. Andrew Smith, who had
assured Miss Nightingale before she left England that 'nothing was
wanted at Scutari'. Such were her opponents; but she too was not without
allies. She had gained the ear of Royalty--which was something; at any
moment that she pleased she could gain the ear of the public--which was
a great deal. She had a host of admirers and friends; and--to say
nothing of her personal qualities--her knowledge, her tenacity, her
tact--she possessed, too, one advantage which then, far more even than
now, carried an immense weight--she belonged to the highest circle of
society. She moved naturally among Peers and Cabinet Ministers--she was
one of their own set; and in those days their set was a very narrow one.
What kind of attention would such persons have paid to some middle-class
woman with whom they were not acquainted, who possessed great experience
of Army nursing and had decided views upon hospital reform? They would
have politely ignored her; but it was impossible to ignore Flo
Nightingale. When she spoke, they were obliged to listen; and, when they
had once begun to do that--what might not follow? She knew her power,
and she used it. She supported her weightiest minutes with familiar
witty little notes. The Bison began to look grave. It might be
difficult--it might be damned difficult--to put down one's head against
the white hand of a lady ...
Of Miss Nightingale's friends, the most important was Sidney Herbert. He
was a man upon whom the good fairies seemed to have showered, as he lay
in his cradle, all their most enviable goods. Well born, handsome, rich,
the master of Wilton--one of those great country-houses, clothed with
the glamour of a historic past, which are the peculiar glory of
England--he possessed--besides all these advantages: so charming, so
lively, so gentle a disposition that no one who had once come near him
could ever be his enemy.
He was, in fact, a man of whom it was difficult not to say that he was a
perfect English gentleman. For his virtues were equal even to his good
fortune. He was religious, deeply religious. 'I am more and more
convinced every day,' he wrote, when he had been for some years a
Cabinet Minister, 'that in politics, as in everything else, nothing can
be right which is not in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel.' No
one was more unselfish; he was charitable and benevolent to a remarkable
degree; and he devoted the whole of his life, with an unwavering
conscientiousness, to the public service. With such a character, with
such opportunities, what high hopes must have danced before him, what
radiant visions of accomplished duties, of ever-increasing usefulness,
of beneficent power, of the consciousness of disinterested success! Some
of those hopes and visions were, indeed, realised; but, in the end, the
career of Sidney Herbert seemed to show that, with all their generosity,
there was some gift or other--what was it?--some essential gift--which
the good fairies had withheld, and that even the qualities of a perfect
English gentleman may be no safeguard against anguish, humiliation, and
defeat.
That career would certainly have been very different if he had never
known Miss Nightingale. The alliance between them which had begun with
her appointment to Scutari, which had grown closer and closer while the
war lasted, developed, after her return, into one of the most
extraordinary friendships. It was the friendship of a man and a woman
intimately bound together by their devotion to a public cause; mutual
affection, of course, played a part in it, but it was an incidental
part; the whole soul of the relationship was a community of work.
Perhaps out of England such an intimacy could hardly have existed--an
intimacy so utterly untinctured not only by passion itself but by the
suspicion of it. For years Sidney Herbert saw Miss Nightingale almost
daily, for long hours together, corresponding with her incessantly when
they were apart; and the tongue of scandal was silent; and one of the
most devoted of her admirers was his wife. But what made the connection
still more remarkable was the way in which the parts that were played in
it were divided between the two. The man who acts, decides, and
achieves; the woman who encourages, applauds, and--from a
distance--inspires: the combination is common enough; but Miss
Nightingale was neither an Aspasia nor an Egeria. In her case it is
almost true to say that the roles were reversed; the qualities of
pliancy and sympathy fell to the man, those of command and initiative to
the woman.
There was one thing only which Miss Nightingale lacked in her equipment
for public life; she had not--she never could have--the public power and
authority which belonged to the successful politician. That power and
authority Sidney Herbert possessed; that fact was obvious, and the
conclusions no less so: it was through the man that the woman must work
her will. She took hold of him, taught him, shaped him, absorbed him,
dominated him through and through. He did not resist--he did not wish to
resist; his natural inclination lay along the same path as hers; only
that terrific personality swept him forward at her own fierce pace and
with her own relentless stride. Swept him--where to? Ah! Why had he ever
known Miss Nightingale? If Lord Panmure was a bison, Sidney Herbert, no
doubt, was a stag--a comely, gallant creature springing through the
forest; but the forest is a dangerous place. One has the image of those
wide eyes fascinated suddenly by something feline, something strong;
there is a pause; and then the tigress has her claws in the quivering
haunches; and then--!
Besides Sidney Herbert, she had other friends who, in a more restricted
sphere, were hardly less essential to her. If, in her condition of
bodily collapse, she were to accomplish what she was determined that she
should accomplish, the attentions and the services of others would be
absolutely indispensable. Helpers and servers she must have; and
accordingly there was soon formed about her a little group of devoted
disciples upon whose affections and energies she could implicitly rely.
Devoted, indeed, these disciples were, in no ordinary sense of the term;
for certainly she was no light taskmistress, and he who set out to be of
use to Miss Nightingale was apt to find, before he had gone very far,
that he was in truth being made use of in good earnest to the very limit
of his endurance and his capacity. Perhaps, even beyond those limits;
why not? Was she asking of others more than she was giving herself? Let
them look at her lying there pale and breathless on the couch; could it
be said that she spared herself? Why, then, should she spare others? And
it was not for her own sake that she made these claims. For her own
sake, indeed! No! They all knew it! it was for the sake of the work. And
so the little band, bound body and soul in that strange servitude,
laboured on ungrudgingly.
Among the most faithful was her 'Aunt Mai', her father's sister, who
from the earliest days had stood beside her, who had helped her to
escape from the thraldom of family life, who had been with her at
Scutari, and who now acted almost the part of a mother to her, watching
over her with infinite care in all the movements and uncertainties which
her state of health involved. Another constant attendant was her
brother-in-law, Sir Harry Verney, whom she found particularly valuable
in parliamentary affairs. Arthur Clough, the poet, also a connection by
marriage, she used in other ways. Ever since he had lost his faith at
the time of the Oxford Movement, Clough had passed his life in a
condition of considerable uneasiness, which was increased rather than
diminished by the practice of poetry. Unable to decide upon the purpose
of an existence whose savour had fled together with his belief in the
Resurrection, his spirits lowered still further by ill-health, and his
income not all that it should be, he had determined to seek the solution
of his difficulties in the United States of America. But, even there,
the solution was not forthcoming; and, when, a little later, he was
offered a post in a government department at home, he accepted it, came
to live in London, and immediately fell under the influence of Miss
Nightingale. Though the purpose of existence might be still uncertain
and its nature still unsavoury, here, at any rate, under the eye of this
inspired woman, was something real, something earnest: his only doubt
was--could he be of any use? Certainly he could. There were a great
number of miscellaneous little jobs which there was nobody handy to do.
For instance, when Miss Nightingale was travelling, there were the
railway-tickets to be taken; and there were proof-sheets to be
corrected; and then there were parcels to be done up in brown paper, and
carried to the post. Certainly he could be useful. And so, upon such
occupations as these, Arthur Clough was set to work. 'This that I see,
is not all,' he comforted himself by reflecting, 'and this that I do is
but little; nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it.' As
time went on, her 'Cabinet', as she called it, grew larger. Officials
with whom her work brought her into touch and who sympathised with her
objects, were pressed into her service; and old friends of the Crimean
days gathered around her when they returned to England. Among these the
most indefatigable was Dr. Sutherland, a sanitary expert, who for more
than thirty years acted as her confidential private secretary, and
surrendered to her purposes literally the whole of his life. Thus
sustained and assisted, thus slaved for and adored, she prepared to
beard the Bison.
Two facts soon emerged, and all that followed turned upon them. It
became clear, in the first place, that that imposing mass was not
immovable, and, in the second, that its movement, when it did move,
would be exceeding slow. The Bison was no match for the Lady. It was in
vain that he put down his head and planted his feet in the earth; he
could not withstand her; the white hand forced him back. But the process
was an extraordinarily gradual one. Dr. Andrew Smith and all his War
Office phalanx stood behind, blocking the way; the poor Bison groaned
inwardly, and cast a wistful eye towards the happy pastures of the Free
Church of Scotland; then slowly, with infinite reluctance, step by step,
he retreated, disputing every inch of the ground.
The first great measure, which, supported as it was by the Queen, the
Cabinet, and the united opinion of the country, it was impossible to
resist, was the appointment of a Royal Commission to report upon the
health of the Army. The question of the composition of the Commission
then immediately arose; and it was over this matter that the first
hand-to-hand encounter between Lord Panmure and Miss Nightingale took
place. They met, and Miss Nightingale was victorious; Sidney Herbert was
appointed Chairman; and, in the end, the only member of the Commission
opposed to her views was Dr. Andrew Smith. During the interview, Miss
Nightingale made an important discovery: she found that 'the Bison was
bullyable'--the hide was the hide of a Mexican buffalo, but the spirit
was the spirit of an Alderney calf. And there was one thing above all
others which the huge creature dreaded--an appeal to public opinion. The
faintest hint of such a terrible eventuality made his heart dissolve
within him; he would agree to anything--he would cut short his
grouse-shooting--he would make a speech in the House of Lords, he would
even overrule Dr. Andrew Smith--rather than that. Miss Nightingale held
the fearful threat in reserve--she would speak out what she knew; she
would publish the truth to the whole world, and let the whole world
judge between them. With supreme skill, she kept this sword of Damocles
poised above the Bison's head, and more than once she was actually on
the point of really dropping it--for his recalcitrancy grew and grew.
The personnel of the Commission once determined upon, there was a
struggle, which lasted for six months, over the nature of its powers.
Was it to be an efficient body, armed with the right of full inquiry and
wide examination, or was it to be a polite official contrivance for
exonerating Dr. Andrew Smith? The War Office phalanx closed its ranks,
and fought tooth and nail; but it was defeated: the Bison was bullyable.
'Three months from this day,' Miss Nightingale had written at last, 'I
publish my experience of the Crimean Campaign, and my suggestions for
improvement, unless there has been a fair and tangible pledge by that
time for reform.'
Who could face that?
And, if the need came, she meant to be as good as her word. For she had
now determined, whatever might be the fate of the Commission, to draw up
her own report upon the questions at issue. The labour involved was
enormous; her health was almost desperate; but she did not flinch, and
after six months of incredible industry she had put together and written
with her own hand her Notes affecting the Health, Efficiency, and
Hospital Administration of the British Army. This extraordinary
composition, filling more than 800 closely printed pages, laying down
vast principles of far-reaching reform, discussing the minutest details
of a multitude of controversial subjects, containing an enormous mass of
information of the most varied kinds--military, statistical, sanitary,
architectural--was never given to the public, for the need never came;
but it formed the basis of the Report of the Royal Commission; and it
remains to this day the leading authority on the medical administration
of armies.
Before it had been completed, the struggle over the powers of the
Commission had been brought to a victorious close. Lord Panmure had
given way once more; he had immediately hurried to the Queen to obtain
her consent; and only then, when Her Majesty's initials had been
irrevocably affixed to the fatal document, did he dare to tell Dr.
Andrew Smith what he had done. The Commission met, and another immense
load fell upon Miss Nightingale's shoulders. Today she would, of course,
have been one of the Commission herself; but at that time the idea of a
woman appearing in such a capacity was unheard of; and no one even
suggested the possibility of Miss Nightingale's doing so. The result was
that she was obliged to remain behind the scenes throughout, to coach
Sidney Herbert in private at every important juncture, and to convey to
him and to her other friends upon the Commission the vast funds of her
expert knowledge--so essential in the examination of witnesses--by means
of innumerable consultations, letters, and memoranda. It was even
doubtful whether the proprieties would admit of her giving evidence; and
at last, as a compromise, her modesty only allowed her to do so in the
form of written answers to written questions. At length, the grand
affair was finished. The Commission's Report, embodying almost word for
word the suggestions of Miss Nightingale, was drawn up by Sidney
Herbert. Only one question remained to be answered--would anything,
after all, be done? Or would the Royal Commission, like so many other
Royal Commissions before and since, turn out to have achieved nothing
but the concoction of a very fat bluebook on a very high shelf?
And so the last and the deadliest struggle with the Bison began. Six
months had been spent in coercing him into granting the Commission
effective powers; six more months were occupied by the work of the
Commission; and now yet another six were to pass in extorting from him
the means whereby the recommendations of the Commission might be
actually carried out. But, in the end, the thing was done. Miss
Nightingale seemed, indeed, during these months, to be upon the very
brink of death. Accompanied by the faithful Aunt Mai, she moved from
place to place--to Hampstead, to Highgate, to Derbyshire, to Malvern--in
what appeared to be a last desperate effort to find health somewhere;
but she carried that with her which made health impossible. Her desire
for work could now scarcely be distinguished from mania. At one moment
she was writing a 'last letter' to Sidney Herbert; at the next she was
offering to go out to India to nurse the sufferers in the Mutiny. When
Dr. Sutherland wrote, imploring her to take a holiday, she raved.
Rest!--
'I am lying without my head, without my claws, and you all peck at me.
It is de rigueur, d'obligation, like the saying something to one's hat,
when one goes into church, to say to me all that has been said to me 110
times a day during the last three months. It is the obbligato on the
violin, and the twelve violins all practise it together, like the clocks
striking twelve o'clock at night all over London, till I say like Xavier
de Maistre, Assez, je sais, je ne le sais que trop. I am not a penitent;
but you are like the R.C. confessor, who says what is de rigueur....'
Her wits began to turn, and there was no holding her. She worked like a
slave in a mine. She began to believe, as she had begun to believe at
Scutari, that none of her fellow-workers had their hearts in the
business; if they had, why did they not work as she did? She could only
see slackness and stupidity around her. Dr. Sutherland, of course, was
grotesquely muddle-headed; and Arthur Clough incurably lazy. Even Sidney
Herbert ... oh yes, he had simplicity and candour and quickness of
perception, no doubt; but he was an eclectic; and what could one hope
for from a man who went away to fish in Ireland just when the Bison most
needed bullying? As for the Bison himself, he had fled to Scotland where
he remained buried for many months. The fate of the vital recommendation
in the Commission's Report--the appointment of four Sub-Commissions
charged with the duty of determining upon the details of the proposed
reforms and of putting them into execution--still hung in the balance.
The Bison consented to everything; and then, on a flying visit to
London, withdrew his consent and hastily returned to Scotland. Then for
many weeks all business was suspended; he had gout--gout in the
hands--so that he could not write. 'His gout was always handy,' remarked
Miss Nightingale. But eventually it was clear even to the Bison that the
game was up, and the inevitable surrender came.
There was, however, one point in which he triumphed over Miss
Nightingale: the building of Netley Hospital had been begun under his
orders, before her return to England. Soon after her arrival she
examined the plans, and found that they reproduced all the worst faults
of an out-of-date and mischievous system of hospital construction. She
therefore urged that the matter should be reconsidered, and in the
meantime the building stopped. But the Bison was obdurate; it would be
very expensive, and in any case it was too late. Unable to make any
impression on him, and convinced of the extreme importance of the
question, she determined to appeal to a higher authority. Lord
Palmerston was Prime Minister; she had known him from her childhood; he
was a near neighbour of her father's in the New Forest. She went down to
the New Forest, armed with the plan of the proposed hospital and all the
relevant information, stayed the night at Lord Palmerston's house, and
convinced him of the necessity of rebuilding Netley.
'It seems to me,' Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Panmure, 'that at Netley
all consideration of what would best tend to the comfort and recovery of
the patients has been sacrificed to the vanity of the architect, whose
sole object has been to make a building which should cut a dash when
looked at from the Southampton river ... Pray, therefore, stop all
further progress in the work until the matter can be duly considered.'
But the Bison was not to be moved by one peremptory letter, even if it
was from the Prime Minister. He put forth all his powers of
procrastination, Lord Palmerston lost interest in the subject, and so
the chief military hospital in England was triumphantly completed on
insanitary principles, with unventilated rooms, and with all the
patients' windows facing northeast.
But now the time had come when the Bison was to trouble and to be
troubled no more. A vote in the House of Commons brought about the fall
of Lord Palmerston's Government, and, Lord Panmure found himself at
liberty to devote the rest of his life to the Free Church of Scotland.
After a brief interval, Sidney Herbert became Secretary of State for
War. Great was the jubilation in the Nightingale Cabinet: the day of
achievement had dawned at last. The next two and a half years (1859-61)
saw the introduction of the whole system of reforms for which Miss
Nightingale had been struggling so fiercely--reforms which make Sidney
Herbert's tenure of power at the War Office an important epoch in the
history of the British Army. The four Sub-Commissions, firmly
established under the immediate control of the Minister, and urged
forward by the relentless perseverance of Miss Nightingale, set to work
with a will. The barracks and the hospitals were remodelled; they were
properly ventilated and warmed and lighted for the first time; they were
given a water supply which actually supplied water, and kitchens where,
strange to say, it was possible to cook. Then the great question of the
Purveyor--that portentous functionary whose powers and whose lack of
powers had weighed like a nightmare upon Scutari--was taken in hand, and
new regulations were laid down, accurately defining his responsibilities
and his duties. One Sub-Commission reorganised the medical statistics of
the Army; another established in spite of the last convulsive efforts of
the Department an Army Medical School. Finally, the Army Medical
Department itself was completely reorganised; an administrative code was
drawn up; and the great and novel principle was established that it was
as much a part of the duty of the authorities to look after the
soldier's health as to look after his sickness. Besides this, it was at
last officially admitted that he had a moral and intellectual side.
Coffee-rooms and reading-rooms, gymnasiums and workshops were
instituted. A new era did in truth appear to have begun. Already by 1861
the mortality in the Army had decreased by one-half since the days of
the Crimea. It was no wonder that even vaster possibilities began now to
open out before Miss Nightingale. One thing was still needed to complete
and to assure her triumphs. The Army Medical Department was indeed
reorganised; but the great central machine was still untouched. The War
Office itself--! If she could remould that nearer to her heart's
desire--there indeed would be a victory! And until that final act was
accomplished, how could she be certain that all the rest of her
achievements might not, by some capricious turn of Fortune's wheel--a
change of Ministry, perhaps, replacing Sidney Herbert by some puppet of
the permanent official gang--be swept to limbo in a moment?
Meanwhile, still ravenous for yet more and more work, her activities had
branched out into new directions. The Army in India claimed her
attention. A Sanitary Commission, appointed at her suggestion, and
working under her auspices, did for our troops there what the four
Sub-Commissions were doing for those at home. At the same time, these
very years which saw her laying the foundations of the whole modern
system of medical work in the Army, saw her also beginning to bring her
knowledge, her influence, and her activity into the service of the
country at large. Her "Notes on Hospitals" (1859) revolutionised the
theory of hospital construction and hospital management. She was
immediately recognised as the leading expert upon all the questions
involved; her advice flowed unceasingly and in all directions, so that
there is no great hospital today which does not bear upon it the impress
of her mind. Nor was this all. With the opening of the Nightingale
Training School for Nurses at St. Thomas's Hospital (1860), she became
the founder of modern nursing.
But a terrible crisis was now fast approaching. Sidney Herbert had
consented to undertake the root and branch reform of the War Office. He
had sallied forth into that tropical jungle of festooned
obstructiveness, of intertwisted irresponsibilities, of crouching
prejudices, of abuses grown stiff and rigid with antiquity, which for so
many years to come was destined to lure reforming Ministers to their
doom.
'The War Office,' said Miss Nightingale, 'is a very slow office, an
enormously expensive office, and one in which the Minister's intentions
can be entirely negated by all his sub-departments, and those of each of
the sub-departments by every other.'
It was true; and of course, at the, first rumour of a change, the old
phalanx of reaction was bristling with its accustomed spears. At its
head stood no longer Dr. Andrew Smith, who, some time since, had
followed the Bison into outer darkness, but a yet more formidable
figure, the Permanent Under-Secretary himself, Sir Benjamin Hawes--Ben
Hawes the Nightingale Cabinet irreverently dubbed him 'a man remarkable
even among civil servants for adroitness in baffling inconvenient
inquiries, resource in raising false issues, and, in, short, a
consummate command of all the arts of officially sticking in the mud'.
'Our scheme will probably result in Ben Hawes's resignation,' Miss
Nightingale said; 'and that is another of its advantages.' Ben Hawes
himself, however, did not quite see it in that light. He set himself to
resist the wishes of the Minister by every means in his power. The
struggle was long, and desperate; and, as it proceeded, it gradually
became evident to Miss Nightingale that something was the matter with
Sidney Herbert. What was it? His health, never very strong, was, he
said, in danger of collapsing under the strain of his work. But, after
all, what is illness, when there is a War Office to be reorganised? Then
he began to talk of retiring altogether from public life. The doctors
were consulted, and declared that, above all things, what was necessary
was rest. Rest! She grew seriously alarmed. Was it possible that, at the
last moment, the crowning wreath of victory was to be snatched from her
grasp? She was not to be put aside by doctors; they were talking
nonsense; the necessary thing was not rest, but the reform of the War
Office; and, besides, she knew very well from her own case what one
could do even when one was on the point of death.
She expostulated vehemently, passionately; the goal was so near, so very
near; he could not turn back now! At any rate, he could not resist Miss
Nightingale. A compromise was arranged. Very reluctantly, he exchanged
the turmoil of the House of Commons for the dignity of the House of
Lords, and he remained at the War Office. She was delighted. 'One fight
more, the best and the last,' she said.
For several more months the fight did indeed go on. But the strain upon
him was greater even than she perhaps could realise. Besides the
intestine war in his office, he had to face a constant battle in the
Cabinet with Mr. Gladstone--a more redoubtable antagonist even than Ben
Hawes--over the estimates. His health grew worse and worse. He was
attacked by fainting-fits; and there were some days when he could only
just keep himself going by gulps of brandy. Miss Nightingale spurred him
forward with her encouragements and her admonitions, her zeal and her
example. But at last his spirit began to sink as well as his body. He
could no longer hope; he could no longer desire; it was useless, all
useless; it was utterly impossible. He had failed. The dreadful moment
came when the truth was forced upon him: he would never be able to
reform the War Office. But a yet more dreadful moment lay behind; he
must go to Miss Nightingale and tell her that he was a failure, a beaten
man.
'Blessed are the merciful!' What strange ironic prescience had led
Prince Albert, in the simplicity of his heart, to choose that motto for
the Crimean brooch? The words hold a double lesson; and, alas! when she
brought herself to realise at length what was indeed the fact and what
there was no helping, it was not in mercy that she turned upon her old
friend.
'Beaten!' she exclaimed. 'Can't you see that you've simply thrown away
the game? And with all the winning cards in your hands! And so noble a
game! Sidney Herbert beaten! And beaten by Ben Hawes! It is a worse
disgrace ...' her full rage burst out at last, '... a worse disgrace
than the hospitals at Scutari.'
He dragged himself away from her, dragged himself to Spa, hoping vainly
for a return to health, and then, despairing, back again to England, to
Wilton, to the majestic house standing there resplendent in the summer
sunshine, among the great cedars which had lent their shade to Sir
Philip Sidney, and all those familiar, darling haunts of beauty which he
loved, each one of them, 'as if they were persons'; and at, Wilton he
died. After having received the Eucharist, he had become perfectly calm;
then, almost unconscious, his lips were seen to be moving. Those about
him bent down. 'Poor Florence! Poor Florence!' they just caught.' ...
Our joint work ... unfinished ... tried to do ...' and they could hear
no more.
When the onward rush of a powerful spirit sweeps a weaker one to its
destruction, the commonplaces of the moral judgment are better left
unmade. If Miss Nightingale had been less ruthless, Sidney Herbert would
not have perished; but then, she would not have been Miss Nightingale.
The force that created was the force that destroyed. It was her Demon
that was responsible. When the fatal news reached her, she was overcome
by agony. In the revulsion of her feelings, she made a worship of the
dead man's memory; and the facile instrument which had broken in her
hand she spoke of forever after as her 'Master'. Then, almost at the
same moment, another blow fell on her. Arthur Clough, worn out by
labours very different from those of Sidney Herbert, died too: never
more would he tie up her parcels. And yet a third disaster followed. The
faithful Aunt Mai did not, to be sure, die; no, she did something almost
worse: she left Miss Nightingale. She was growing old, and she felt that
she had closer and more imperative duties with her own family. Her niece
could hardly forgive her. She poured out, in one of her enormous
letters, a passionate diatribe upon the faithlessness, the lack of
sympathy, the stupidity, the ineptitude of women. Her doctrines had
taken no hold among them; she had never known one who had appris a
apprendre; she could not even get a woman secretary; 'they don't know
the names of the Cabinet Ministers--they don't know which of the
Churches has Bishops and which not'. As for the spirit of
self-sacrifice, well--Sidney Herbert and Arthur Clough were men, and
they indeed had shown their devotion; but women--! She would mount three
widow's caps 'for a sign'. The first two would be for Clough and for her
Master; but the third--'the biggest widow's cap of all'--would be for
Aunt Mai. She did well to be angry; she was deserted in her hour of
need; and after all, could she be sure that even the male sex was so
impeccable? There was Dr. Sutherland, bungling as usual. Perhaps even he
intended to go off one of these days, too? She gave him a look, and he
shivered in his shoes. No!--she grinned sardonically; she would always
have Dr. Sutherland. And then she reflected that there was one thing
more that she would always have--her work.