as she generally had more than one string to her bow, as the saying is,
it is no wonder that she sometimes needed the help of an older and wiser
woman than herself, to get her out of the difficulties in which she
found herself. Much of Mary’s own character comes out in the advice she
gives her friend. She speaks in one place of her power of valuing people
for what they are, without demanding or expecting perfection. It is a
“knack I know I have, of looking into people’s real character, and never
expecting them to act out of it—never expecting another to do as I would
in the same case.” How much practical wisdom there is in this, and what
misunderstandings and heart-burnings would be saved if it were more
common not to expect people to act out of their own characters! There is
a funny little bit in another letter to the effect that women should not
be constantly admonishing men as to the right line of thought and
conduct. “I make it a point of conscience never to interfere or cross my
brother in the humour he happens to be in. It always appears to me a
vexatious kind of tyranny, that women have no business to exercise over
men, which merely because, _they having a better judgment_, they have
power to do. Let _men_ alone, and at last we find they come round to the
right way which _we_, by a kind of intuition, perceive at once. But
better, far better, that we should let them often do wrong than that
they should have the torment of a monitor always at their elbows.”
To begin quoting from the letters of Charles and Mary Lamb is such an
enticing task that it would be easy to fill more pages than this little
book contains. One more only shall be quoted from each. The most
beautiful of Mary’s letters is perhaps that which she wrote to Dorothy
Wordsworth, soon after the death by drowning of Wordsworth’s brother
John. The beautiful poem by Wordsworth, “The Happy Warrior,” is supposed
to have been written partly in reference to this brother, and partly in
reference to Nelson, whose death took place the same year (1805). “I
thank you,” Mary wrote, “my kind friend, for your most comfortable
letter; till I saw your own handwriting I could not persuade myself that
I should do well to write to you, though I have often attempted it.... I
wished to tell you that you would one day feel the kind of peaceful
state of mind and sweet memory of the dead which you so happily describe
as now almost begun; but I felt that it was improper, and most grating
to the feelings of the afflicted, to say to them that the memory of
their affliction would in time become a constant part, not only of their
dream, but of their most wakeful sense of happiness. That you would see
every object with, and through, your lost brother, and that that would
at last become a real and everlasting source of comfort to you, I felt
and well knew from my own experience in sorrow; but till you yourself
began to feel this I didn’t dare tell you so.”
How terrible that the mind and heart which could dictate such words as
these were weighed down by the lifelong burden of insanity! Before Miss
Wordsworth’s reply reached her, she was again attacked, and Charles
wrote in her place: “I have every reason to suppose that this illness,
like all the former ones, will be but temporary; but I cannot always
feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. All my strength
is gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her co-operation. I dare not
think, lest I should think wrong, so used am I to look up to her in the
least as in the biggest perplexity. To say all that I know of her would
be more than I think anybody could believe, or even understand; and when
I hope to have her well again with me, it would be sinning against her
feelings to go about praising her, for I can conceal nothing that I do
from her. She is older and wiser and better than I, and all my wretched
imperfections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness.
She would share life and death, heaven and hell, with me. She lives but
for me; and I know I have been wasting and teasing her life for five
years past incessantly, with my cursed drinking and ways of going on.
But even in thus upbraiding myself I am offending against her, for I
know that she has clung to me for better, for worse; and if the balance
has been against her hitherto it was a noble trade.”
Great, noble spirits they both were, even in their weaknesses and
imperfections, showing an example of devoted unselfishness, tenderness,
and generosity that many who “tithe mint and anise and cummin” might
envy. Mary Lamb survived to old age, dying in May 1847, aged
seventy-three. She was buried by her brother’s side in the churchyard at
Edmonton.
X
AGNES ELIZABETH JONES
“Count not that man’s life short who has had time to do noble
deeds.”—From CICERO.
THERE is something very interesting in tracing, as we are sometimes able
to do, the connection of one piece of good work with another. The
energy, devotion, and success of one worker stimulates the enthusiasm of
others; this enthusiasm does not always show itself in carrying on or
developing what has been already begun, but sometimes manifests itself
in the more difficult task of breaking new ground; and thus one good
work becomes the parent of another. An example of what is here referred
to is to be found in the work of Mrs. Fry. To her initiative may be
traced not only the kindred labours of Mary Carpenter in reformatory and
industrial schools, and the still more modern efforts for the better
care of neglected children by the boarding-out system, and by such
societies as the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young
Servants, but to her also may indirectly be traced the success with
which women have devoted themselves to the art of sick nursing, and from
this again has spread or grown out the movement for extending to women a
thorough medical education and training.
Mrs. Fry’s connection with the art of sick nursing came about in this
way. In the first quarter of this century a young German named Fliedner
was appointed pastor to the little weaving village of Kaiserswerth on
the Rhine. He endeared himself to his people by his devotion to them;
but the time came when he was forced to leave them. The whole village
was involved in ruin because of the failure of the industry on which its
inhabitants depended. The people not only could not support their
pastor, but were themselves reduced to the greatest straits of actual
want. He left them in order to seek in wealthier places, not maintenance
for himself, but help for them. After travelling for some time in
Germany, he came to England, and while here, still intent on making
known the wants of Kaiserswerth, he met with Mrs. Fry, and was deeply
interested in all she was doing for the benefit of prisoners. Not long
after this he returned to Kaiserswerth, bearing with him the gifts he
had collected to relieve the pressing wants of his people; but his mind
was now full of Mrs. Fry, and of what was being done in England by and
for women. He and his wife resolved to begin similar work in Germany.
They began with two young women just discharged from a neighbouring
prison, whose relations refused to receive them or have anything further
to do with them. Soon the number of discharged prisoners increased, and
the pastor and his wife felt that they must have help; a friend
therefore came to join them in their work. In this way and from this
small beginning grew in time a very large institution, comprising not
only an organisation to enable discharged prisoners to get work and
regain their character, but a home and school for orphans, a hospital
for the sick, and an asylum for lunatics. The whole of the work of this
institution, which occupied several houses and comprised more than 300
persons, was done by carefully-trained women, called deaconesses.
Kaiserswerth was the parent of all the other deaconesses’ institutions
which now exist in almost every part of the world. The predominating
spirit at Kaiserswerth, after that of religious self-devotion, to which
a first place was given, was that the work of caring for the poor, the
sick, and the afflicted can only be rightly undertaken after a long
course of special preparation and training. It was a Protestant
sisterhood; those who entered were first called novices; in time the
novices became deaconesses, and the deaconesses were expected to bind
themselves to remain in the institution five years. They were, however,
bound by no vows, and could always leave if other duties seemed to
require that they should do so. In this institution the art of sick
nursing acquired a perfection at that time unknown in any other part of
Europe. It was here, mainly, that Florence Nightingale received the
training which enabled her to save the lives of so many of our soldiers
in the Crimea, and to introduce into England a new era in the history of
nursing. Here too Agnes Elizabeth Jones was trained.
Miss Nightingale’s often-repeated lesson on the subject of the necessity
of long and careful training was not lost upon Agnes Jones. When she
left Kaiserswerth, she knew, as Miss Nightingale said, “more than most
hospital matrons know when they undertake matronship.” But she was not
content with this. After working for a time with the London Bible
Women’s Mission, she applied to the training-school for nurses at St.
Thomas’s Hospital for another year’s training. She entered the hospital
as a “Nightingale probationer.” She went through, while she was there,
the whole training of a nurse. To quote Miss Nightingale again,
referring to this period, “Her reports of cases were admirable as to
nursing details. She was our best pupil; _she went through all the work
of a soldier, and she thereby fitted herself for being the best general
we ever had_.”
Before referring to Agnes Jones’s crowning work in reorganising the
nursing staff of the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary, it will be well to
recall the story of her life. There are few incidents in it, none at all
of a sensational character; but perhaps this makes the lesson to be
learnt from it all the more plain and simple.
She was born at Cambridge, of Irish parents, in 1832. Her father was a
colonel in the 12th Regiment, and her descent was from the north Irish
stock that has furnished so many great names to the roll-call of the
worthies of our nation. She was a Protestant evangelical, of the type
which northern Ireland produces. It is easy to label the religious sect
to which she belonged as narrow and unattractive; but however this may
be, as exemplified in her personally, her religion was too intense a
reality to be unattractive. It permeated her whole life, from the time
when as a child of seven her dream was to become a missionary, to the
hour when she died of typhus taken from a patient in the Liverpool
Infirmary to whom she had given up her own room and bed. Another deep
and permanent influence on her mind and character was her love for
Ireland. Over and over again in her letters we come across expressions
which show how close to her heart lay her country’s good. The training
at Kaiserswerth was intended to be utilised for the good of Ireland. “I
have no desire,” she wrote, “to become a deaconess; that would not, I
think, be the place I should be called upon to occupy. No, my own
Ireland first. It was for Ireland’s good that my first desire to be used
as a blessed instrument in God’s hand was breathed, ... and in Ireland
is it my heart’s desire to labour....”
In another letter she refers to the time when she “then and there”
dedicated herself to do what she could for Ireland, in its workhouses,
infirmaries, and hospitals. In another place she speaks of being
retained in England for another year’s training, and exclaims, “My last
English sojourn, I hope, as Ireland is ever my bourn!” And again, “My
heart is ever in Ireland, where I hope ultimately to work.” Her heart’s
desire was never gratified; she laid down her life, at the age of
thirty-five, in the Liverpool Workhouse, before she had had an
opportunity of giving to her own dear land the benefit of all she had
learned by the patient years of training at Kaiserswerth and in London.
Ulster Protestant as she was to the backbone, and a member of the Church
of England, she was a true patriot, and showed her patriotism by
labouring with self-denying earnestness to fit herself to lift up to a
higher level an important branch of the social life of her country.
She was very much stimulated, as so many women were, by the heroism of
the Nightingale band of nurses who left England for the Crimea in 1854.
She listened with vehement inward dissent to those who cast contempt and
blame on them, and, in her own words, “almost worshipped” their brave
leader.
She had paid a visit of a week to Kaiserswerth in 1853, but home duties,
especially the care of a widowed sister, at that time and for some years
prevented her from fulfilling her strong desire for a course of thorough
training in the art of nursing. It was not till 1860 that she returned
to Kaiserswerth for this purpose. Very soon after her year of
preparation there, she received, through Miss Nightingale, an invitation
from Mr. W. Rathbone to undertake the superintendence of the Liverpool
Training School for Nurses of the Poor. She was overwhelmed by a genuine
sense of her inadequacy to the task. She was a sincerely humble-minded
woman, and not only craved more training in the mechanical difficulties
of nursing, but doubted her own powers of organising, directing, and
superintending. She hesitated, and while hesitating, joined Mrs. Ranyard
in her London Biblewoman’s Mission. Her work here was interrupted by a
telegram summoning her to Rome to nurse a sick sister. As soon as the
sister recovered, another invalid relative claimed her. By their
bedsides she felt, to a certain extent, her own power, and the question
often arose in her mind, “Could I govern and teach others?” As soon as
these private cares were over, she visited nursing institutions in
Switzerland, France, and Germany, and before she returned to England she
determined to go for another year’s training to St. Thomas’s Hospital,
and then to offer herself for the difficult post at Liverpool. “I
determined,” she writes, “at least to try.... If every one shrinks back
because incompetent, who will ever do anything? ‘Lord, here am I; send
me.’”
She did not on leaving St. Thomas’s immediately commence her work at
Liverpool. She was for a short time superintendent of a small hospital
in Bolsover Street, and later she filled a similar post at the Great
Northern Hospital. It was not till the spring of 1865 that she took the
place at Liverpool with which her name is chiefly connected.
The old system in pauper infirmaries was to allow the patients to be
“nursed” by old inmates of the workhouse. Among those to whom the care
of the sick was confided were “worn-out old thieves, worn-out old
drunkards,” and worse. Mr. W. Rathbone, of Liverpool, strongly urged on
the guardians of that place to do away with this wretched system, and to
substitute in the place of these ignorant, and often vicious, women a
staff of trained paid nurses. He generously undertook to defray the
whole cost of the new scheme for three years, by which time he believed
the improvement effected would be so great that no one would for a
moment dream of going back to the old plan. It was to the post of
superintendent of the band of trained nurses that Agnes Jones was called
in the spring of 1865.
It was no light task for a young woman of thirty-three. She had under
her about 50 nurses, 150 pauper “scourers,” and from 1220 to 1350
patients. The winters of 1865 and 1866 will long be remembered as the
terrible period of the cotton famine in Lancashire. The workhouse
infirmary at Liverpool was not only full, but overflowing; a number of
patients often arrived when every bed was full. Then the gentle
authority of Sister Agnes, as she was called, had to be exercised to
induce the wild, rough patients to make way for one another. Sometimes
she had to persuade them to let her put the beds together and place
three or even four in two beds. The children had to be packed together,
some at the head and some at the foot of the bed. She speaks of them as
“nests of children,” and mentions that forty under twelve were sent in
one day. This over-filling of the workhouse was of course no ordinary
occurrence, and was due to the exceptional distress in Lancashire at
that time. The number of deaths that took place, for the same reason,
was unusually large. Sister Agnes speaks in one of her letters of seven
deaths having occurred between Sunday night and Tuesday morning.
The dreadful melancholy of the place bore upon her with terrible weight.
There was not only the depressing thought that most of the inmates were
there in consequence of their own wickedness or folly, but added to this
the patients were isolated from friends and relatives whose visits do so
much to cheer an ordinary hospital. There were patients with _delirium
tremens_ wandering about the wards in their shirts; there were little
children, some not more than seven, steeped in every kind of vice and
infamy. “I sometimes wonder,” she wrote, in a moment of despair, “if
there is a worse place on earth than Liverpool, and I am sure its
workhouse is burdened with a large proportion of its vilest.”
Some of the best and most deeply-rooted instincts of human nature seemed
to turn into cruelty and gall in this terrible place. One of the
difficulties of the nurses was to prevent the mothers of the babies, who
were still at the breast, from fighting and stealing one another’s food.
They had nothing to do but nurse their babies, and they would hardly do
that. The noise, quarrelling, and dirt prevailing in their neighbourhood
was a constant source of trouble and anxiety. Another trouble was the
mixture among the patients of criminal cases, necessitating the presence
of policemen constantly on the premises. The ex-pauper women, too, whom
Sister Agnes was endeavouring to train as assistant nurses, were a great
anxiety. One morning, after they had been paid their wages, five arrived
at the hospital tipsy; after some months of constant effort and constant
disappointment, the attempt to train these women was given up. Besides
the strain on nerves, temper, and spirit arising from all these causes,
the physical work of Agnes Jones’s post was no light matter. Her day
began at 5.30 A.M. and ended after 11; added to this, if there was any
case about which she was specially anxious, or any nurse about whose
competence she did not feel fully assured, she would be up two or three
times in the night to satisfy herself that all was going well. Her
nurses were devoted to her, and, as a rule, gave her no anxiety or
discomfort which could be avoided. Her only distress on their account
arose from a severe outbreak of fever and small-pox among them, which
was a source of much painful anxiety to her. Miss Nightingale said of
her that “she had a greater power of carrying her followers with her
than any woman (or man) I ever knew.” “Her influence with her nurses was
unbounded. They would have died for her.”
All witnesses concur in speaking of her wonderful personal influence and
the effect it produced. The infirmary began to show the results of her
presence within a month of her arrival. In the three years she spent
there, she completely changed the whole place. At first the police, to
whose presence reference has already been made, were astonished that it
was safe for a number of young women to be about in the men’s wards, for
they well knew what a rough lot some of the patients were; but “in less
than three years she had reduced one of the most disorderly hospital
populations in the world to something like Christian discipline, such as
the police themselves wondered at. She had led, so as to be of one mind
and one heart with her, upwards of fifty nurses and probationers.... She
had converted a vestry to the conviction of the economy as well as the
humanity of nursing pauper sick by trained nurses.... She had converted
the Poor Law Board to the same view, and she had disarmed all
opposition, all sectarian zealotism; so that Roman Catholic and
Unitarian, High Church and Low Church, all literally rose up and called
her blessed.”
The manner of her death has been already referred to. It was in unison
with her unselfish, devoted life. She died on the 19th February 1868,
and her body was committed to the earth of her beloved Ireland, at
Fahan, on Lough Swilly, the home of her early years.
XI
CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTË
IN the quiet Yorkshire village of Haworth, on the bleak moorland
hillside above Keighley, were born two of the greatest imaginative
writers of the present century, Charlotte and Emily Brontë. The
wonderful gifts of the Brontë family, the grief and tragedy that
overshadowed their lives, and their early deaths, will always cast about
their story a peculiarly touching interest. Their father, the Rev.
Patrick Brontë, was of Irish birth. He was born in the County Down, of a
Protestant family—one that had migrated from the south to the north of
Ireland. His character was that which we are more accustomed to
associate with Scotland than with Ireland. Resolute, stern, independent,
and self-denying, he had the virtues of an old Covenanter rather than
the facile graces which so often distinguish those of Celtic blood. His
father was a farmer, but Patrick Brontë had no desire to live by
agricultural industry. At sixteen years of age he separated himself from
his family and opened a school. What amount of success he had in this
undertaking does not appear, but it is evident that he had a distinct
object in view, namely, to obtain money enough to complete his own
education; in this he was successful, for after nine years’ labour in
instructing others, he entered as a student in St. John’s College,
Cambridge, remained there four years, obtained the B.A. degree of the
University, and was ordained as a clergyman of the Church of England. He
kept up no intercourse with his family, and showed no trace of his Irish
blood, either in speech or character. He loved and married Miss
Branwell, of Penzance, a lady of much sweetness and refinement. Their
six children were destined, through the writings of two of them, to be
known wherever the English language is spoken, all over the world. After
holding livings in Essex and at Thornton, in Yorkshire, Mr. Brontë was
appointed to the Rectory of Haworth, which is now so often visited on
account of its association with the authors of _Jane Eyre_ and
_Wuthering Heights_.
Mrs. Brontë’s six children were born in rapid succession, and her
naturally delicate constitution was further tried by the constant labour
and anxiety involved in providing, on very limited means, for the wants
of the little brood. Mrs. Gaskell, in her _Life of Charlotte Brontë_,
appears to imply that, more than is even usually the case, the weight of
family cares and anxieties fell upon the mother rather than the father.
“Mr. Brontë,” she says, “was, of course, much engaged in his study, and
besides, he was not naturally fond of children, and felt their frequent
appearance upon the scene as a drag both on his wife’s strength and as
an interruption to the comfort of the household.” One feels disposed to
comment on this by saying that children ought never to be born if either
of their parents inclines to regard them “as an interruption to the
comfort of the household.” To give life and grudge it at the same time
is not an attractive combination of qualities. Though not much helped by
her husband, Mrs. Brontë was, however, not alone in her domestic cares
and duties; the eldest of the “interruptions to the comfort of the
household,” Maria, was a child of wonderfully precocious intellect and
heart. Her remarkable character was described in after years by her
sister Charlotte as the Helen Burns of _Jane Eyre_. In her, her mother
found a sympathising companion and a helper in her domestic cares. The
time was rapidly approaching when the mother’s place in the household
would be vacant, and when many of its duties and responsibilities would
be discharged by Maria.
The little Brontës were from their birth unlike other children. The room
dedicated to their use was not, even in their babyhood, called their
nursery; it was their “study.” Little Maria at seven years old would
shut herself up in this study with the newspaper, and be able to
converse with her father on all the public events of the day, and
instruct the other children as to current politics, and upon the
characters of the chief personages of the political world.