HOME LIFE IN SOUTH STREET AND THE COUNTRY
Life made strait
On purpose to make sweet the life at large.
BROWNING.
"You live," said Lord Napier and Ettrick, in calling upon Miss
Nightingale one day, "between a Palace and a Park, and have one of the
best views in London." A pilgrim who makes his way to No. 10 South
Street and looks up to the tall, unpretentious house, now marked by a
tablet recording the residence of Florence Nightingale in it, will not
see the Palace, and may wonder how she can have had any view at all. The
principal rooms, however, are at the back of the house, and on the upper
floors command a view of the Park, across the grounds of Dorchester
House--the finest of London's Italian "palaces." Miss Nightingale was
fond of the view, especially in spring mornings, but in the afternoons
she moralized her landscape. In a letter to her father from South Street
she quoted _Samson Agonistes_: "_Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with
slaves._ Since I have lived looking on the Park, and seen those people
making their trivial round, or rather their treadmill round, blind
slaves to it, I have scarce ever had that line out of my head. It will
be a material alleviation to me if I have to spend September in London
that the 'mill' is gone. Also, tho' my whole life is laid out to secure
it against interruptions, no one could believe how much it is
interrupted. And September diminishes this. The _beggars_ are out of
town." How strict was Miss Nightingale's rule against interruption, even
from her best friends, is shown amusingly in some notes of this date
from Lady Ashburton and her daughter. "I wish," wrote Lady Ashburton,
"that you would let me sit like a poor old rat in the corner, while you
are at dinner; it is much wholesomer not to eat in solitude; but I know
I shan't get in, so I can only leave this at the door." "Mother bids me
add a P.S. to my letter and ask with her dear love if you could see her
any time to-day; she will talk through the keyhole and not detain you
five minutes."
"The nicest little house in London," No. 10 was called by Lady Verney,
whose own house was only a few doors off. The proximity did not
altogether facilitate Florence's measures for security against
interruption. There was underlying affection between the sisters, but at
times each was acutely conscious of the other's shortcomings. Also each
thought that the proximity was more valuable to the other than to
herself. No. 10 had been taken by Mr. Nightingale on the advice of Sir
Harry and Lady Verney, who thought it would be well for Florence to be
near them. Florence, on her part, felt that she was often very useful to
her sister. Their common friend, Madame Mohl, was sometimes in
perplexity to decide which sister's hospitality to accept. "Go to the
Verneys, if you prefer," wrote Florence on one occasion; "but _we_ shall
have to do for you all the same. You know what her housekeeping is. _We_
shall have to send in clean sheets, and food, and scrub down the
floors." In one respect, the proximity of the two houses was certainly
convenient to Florence. Sir Harry and Lady Verney took a willing share,
as we shall hear presently, in the entertainment of Florence's nursing
friends; and Sir Harry, the chairman of the Council of her Training
School, was within easy call. She was not, however, accessible at all
times in person, either to her sister or to her brother-in-law, any more
than to others; much of the communication between them was by letter or
message. In later years, however, a morning visit from Sir Harry was
part of the day's routine. When still in full health, he was one of her
chief links with the great world, bringing her its news and carrying out
her behests with pride and alacrity. He was her senior by nineteen
years, and he lived to be ninety-three. In his old age one of his great
consolations was a morning call upon his sister-in-law, during which
they read together in some religious book of his choosing. He was of
the old evangelical school, but in such matters except in opinion they
did not disagree.
II
Miss Nightingale's manner of life made her messenger an important member
of the South Street staff. She had taken a great and liberal interest in
the Corps of Commissionaires established in 1859, and a Commissionaire
was in her regular service, acting both as Cerberus and Mercury. Miss
Nightingale's messenger must have been a familiar figure, with his notes
for Dr. Sutherland, at the War Office, and, for the Matron, at St.
Thomas's Hospital. For the rest, Miss Nightingale kept a staff of
maidservants. Her own particular maid for many years was Temperance
Hatcher; but at the time with which we are now concerned she had married
one of Miss Nightingale's Crimean protégés, Peter Grillage,[182] who for
some years had been a manservant at Embley. Miss Nightingale was much
attached to this exemplary pair, constantly sent presents to them and
their children, corresponded with them almost to the end of her life,
and remembered them in her Will. At an earlier date Mr. Jowett in
letters written after visits to Miss Nightingale--letters known as
"roofers" by "the younger gown"--refers gratefully to the care of
neat-handed Temperance. Miss Nightingale took infinite pains in the
selection of her maids. Kind Mrs. Sutherland did much of the work in
this sort for her, and when she was away in the country Mrs. Sutherland
was often asked to keep an eye on South Street. Miss Nightingale's love
of method and precision, her fondness for having everything in black and
white, appear in many a formidable schedule of duties and requirements
which she drew up for the information of applicants. Perhaps these had
the effect of weeding out the unfit; for, with some exceptions, Miss
Nightingale was well served: as was meet and right, for good mistresses
make good servants, and she was solicitous of their comfort and welfare.
She was an excellent housekeeper; and here again she brought into play
the methodical and critical habits which she had practised in larger
spheres. I have seen a book in which a young cook entered the day's
_menu_ and, on the following morning, the mistress wrote comments on
each course--for the most part kindly and encouraging, but sometimes
trenchant; as in this note upon _stewed cutlets_, "Why was the glue-pot
used?"; or this upon a dish of _minced veal_, "Meat hard, and remember
that mincing makes hard meat harder." Miss Nightingale was a small,
though delicate, eater; it was for her visitors that she took most
pains. Cakes of different kinds, fresh eggs, and coffee used to be sent
regularly to St. Thomas's Hospital, to two wards every week; and meat
soufflées and jelly were sent weekly to two invalids at Lea Hurst and
one at Liverpool. If a nursing friend was coming to South Street, who
was likely to want "feeding up," or, suffering from overwork, would
require to have her appetite coaxed, Miss Nightingale would draw up the
_menu_ herself, and write out her own _recipes_ for particular dishes.
She had not served in the East with the great Soyer in vain. Her father,
after his first visit to South Street, pronounced "Florence's maids and
dinner perfect"; and the Crown Princess, going down to lunch by herself
after seeing Miss Nightingale, sent word that the luncheon was "a work
of art."
[182] See Vol. I. p. 304.
III
Of Miss Nightingale as a hostess, and of the pleasures of South Street
to her nursing visitors, one of her pupils who was often invited gives
this account:--"Early tea, if you would accept it, was brought to you;
and following close upon the housemaid, came Miss Nightingale's own maid
to inquire how you had slept; and then to ask if you had any plans for
the day or would like any visitor invited to lunch or otherwise. When
this had been ascertained there came, by note or message, proposals for
the vacant time; and an hour was appointed for your visit to her: that
is, for the visit in chief, for you might have other glimpses of her
during the day. She was always on the look-out to make your visit not
only restful and restoring by all manner of material comfort, but to
make it interesting and brightening as well. If the Verneys were in
residence at No. 4, Miss Nightingale laid them under contribution for
our entertainment, and right kindly did they both respond. Sometimes the
guest went there to dinner, dining alone with Sir Harry and spending the
time before and after with Lady Verney, then in some degree an invalid,
in the drawing-room. The conversation there was amusing, relating to a
world not centred in hospitals, for Sir Harry loved to talk of his early
days in France and Spain. Lady Verney would sometimes take you driving
with her, and as she was of the great world you were likely to have a
peep at its attractions. Perhaps the carriage would be stopped while she
chatted with Dean Stanley; or it would pause to allow of cards being
left at some great house. Then Lady Verney would turn and tease her
guest from the hospital about coming to town in the season and leaving
cards at the French Embassy. Or Sir Harry would include you in his
party, going to visit Miss Octavia Hill in _her_ London Courts, and
houses not at all resembling the Embassy. Or he would take you to the
House of Commons when the Irish members were lively, and you would see
Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Trevelyan and Mr. Parnell, and have an exciting story
to bring home to the Chief. Or it might be that you were taken to a
meeting of the Royal Geographical Society where Stanley, surrounded by
Dr. Moffat, Sir Samuel Baker, and other great travellers, was telling a
crowded audience amid breathless silence how he crossed the Dark
Continent.
But these pleasures which Miss Nightingale lavished on her workers
and in which she shared only by sympathy, were not the event of the day
to her visitor. The chief privilege was always the interview with
herself. It was usually arranged to begin at half-past four and often
lasted through several hours; sometimes with a short interval. At times
Miss Nightingale was well enough to come down to the drawing-room and
rest on a couch there while she received her guests. Couch or bed was
always strewn with letters and papers, and a pencil was ever at hand. It
was cheerful to find her on the couch, relieved from the imprisonment of
the bed. She was dressed then in soft black silk with a shawl over her
feet; always the transparent white kerchief laid over her hair and tied
under the chin. [The 'transparent white kerchief' was an exquisite
little curtain of fine net, edged with real lace, often very fine; for
Miss Nightingale was of the old-fashioned persuasion that a gentlewoman
cannot wear imitation lace. Some of her lace was Buckinghamshire, made
in cottages near Claydon.] Whether sad or glad, there was a bright smile
of welcome. Once or twice I found her with her Persian kittens about,
but they were soon dismissed. If you had come only for the interview on
business, that might occupy all the time; though even on such occasions,
business might be dispatched in time for other pleasant talk. But if you
were staying in the house, though business was discussed and counsel
given, a wide range was allowed to other conversation. Naturally you
gave her an account of the day's doings; she entered into them with zest
and was led on to other subjects. Sometimes she would speak of India and
the Ryots; sometimes of Egypt and the Fellaheen; it was rare for her to
touch upon the Crimean episode: if she did so, it was generally to speak
with affectionate remembrance of Mrs. Bracebridge. Miss Nightingale
encouraged her pupils to speak at these interviews, and it was a common
matter of self-reproach with me that whereas I went desirous and
resolved to listen, I had occupied too much of the time talking. However
it was perhaps her design and gave her the best opportunities of helping
her pupils. She listened to all one said with an open mind and made much
of any point of which she approved. But now and again she flashed out a
dissent, in a tone of maternal authority, and gave you a forcible
exposition from the point of view of her powerful intellect and wide
outlook. She was enthusiastic, but she was not a prey to illusions.
Sometimes when there was not a clear contradiction, there was a quiet
questioning. Indeed many of her lessons were given in the form of
questions. Among our happiest subjects of conversation were the children
in the hospitals. Miss Nightingale seemed never to weary of hearing of
them; of their sufferings, their home circumstances, their pathetic
knowledge of life, their heroic patience, their quaint sayings, their
brave fun in intervals of ease, their interest in one another, their
thousand sweetnesses. Not the less was her sympathy given to the older
patients, while the Nurses had, if possible, a still larger place in her
regard."
IV
The room in which these treasured interviews took place was either the
drawing-room, or Miss Nightingale's bedroom on the second floor--both at
the back of the house. The bedroom had a crescent-shaped outer wall with
pleasant French windows and flower-balconies. The bed stood between the
windows and the door, with its foot facing the fireplace, and behind the
bed was a long shelf conveniently placed for books and papers. There
were always flowers in the room. Those in pots on a stand were provided
by Mr. Rathbone (as already related) until his death; and a box of cut
flowers was sent every week from Melchet Court by Lady Ashburton. The
walls were white and there were no blinds or curtains; the room seemed
full of light and flowers. What impressed visitors was the exquisite
cleanliness and daintiness of all the appointments which served as the
frame to their mistress. "It always seemed a beautiful room," says one
visitor, "but there was very little in it beside the necessary
furniture, which was neat, but cheap and simple, except a few pieces
which had come from Embley and Lea Hurst. A large arm-chair, in which
Miss Nightingale would sometimes sit, stood between two of the three
windows. There were few pictures on the walls--a photograph of Lord
Lawrence's portrait, a water-colour of an Egyptian sunset, and one or
two other gifts. The two things of most meaning were a long
chromolithograph of 'the ground about Sebastopol,' as she called it in
her Will[183]--this was opposite her on the right; and, on the
mantelpiece, exactly facing her bed, a framed chromolithographed text,
'It is I. Be not afraid.' The drawing-room was loftier and more severe,
and on the walls were some fine engravings and photographs of the
Sistine ceiling. There were many bookcases in the drawing-room, the back
drawing-room, and the dining-room, mostly full of Blue-books. As a
little girl, I spent many hours in the dining-room while my mother was
upstairs, and can bear witness that except Blue-books the only reading
was _The Ring and the Book_."
[183] She directed her executors to place it, with other Crimean
memorials, "where soldiers may see them."
[Illustration: _Florence Nightingale in her room in South Street from a
photograph by Miss Bosanquet, 1906_]
Occasionally Miss Nightingale would be seen standing or moving about in
her room; what was then remarked was the grace and dignity of her
bearing, though the "willowy figure" which distinguished her in earlier
years had now become large. More often she received her visitors in bed
or on her couch. What they then observed was the head, the face, the
hands. Her head, in girlhood and early womanhood, had been remarked as
small. Possibly it had grown somewhat, and something must be put down to
the increased size of the face as affecting the appearance; but at any
rate her head in later years was certainly large. An Army Surgeon who
visited Miss Nightingale frequently in the 'eighties and 'nineties tells
me that he was always struck by the massiveness of the head, comparable,
he thought, to Mr. Gladstone's. There was an unusually fine rounded form
of the fore-part of the head just above where the hair begins. The eyes
were not specially remarkable, though there was a suggestion of
intellectual keenness in them. The nose was fine and rather prominent;
the mouth, small and firm. The hands were small and refined. Every one
who saw her felt that he was in the presence of a woman of
personality--of marked character, energy, and capacity. As her visitor
entered, Miss Nightingale would bend forward from her bed or couch with
a smile of welcome; the visitor would be invited to an easy chair beside
her, and talk would begin.
In her youth Miss Nightingale was a brilliant talker, as witnesses cited
in an earlier chapter have told us. In later years, too, she had flashes
of brilliance. Madame Mohl, whose standard was high, wrote to her
husband from Lea Hurst in 1873: "Mr. Jowett spent three days here. He is
a man of mind; I think he would suit you. He is very fond of Flo, which
also would suit you. She is here, and her conversation is most
nourishing. I would give a great deal for you to be here to enjoy it.
She is really eloquent. Yesterday she quite surprised me."[184] But for
the most part Miss Nightingale's talk was rather earnest, inquiring,
sometimes searching, than sparkling or eloquent. "She is worse than a
Royal Commission to answer," said Colonel Yule; "and, in the most
gracious, charming manner possible, immediately finds out all I don't
know."[185] Younger visitors sometimes felt in awe of her; she could
flash out a searching question upon a rash generalization as formidably
as Mr. Gladstone himself. She was interested in everything except what
was trivial. Her intellectual vitality was remarkable; visitors who knew
nothing of her special interests or pursuits were yet delighted by the
stimulating freshness of her talk. She liked to keep herself _au
courant_ with all that was going on in the political and learned worlds.
The letters to her from more than one Indian Viceroy show that the
pleasant gossip from the lobbies or the Universities, with which she
relieved her discourses on drains, was keenly appreciated. If the
visitor talked of matters which appealed to her, she was instantly
curious of detail. "Yes," she would say, leaning forward, "and what
about this or that? and have you thought of doing so and so?" Or if some
difficulty were propounded, "I wonder if I could help you at all? The
person to speak to is Mr. A. or Mr. B. Do you think that he would be so
good as to come and see me?" "I am sure he would feel honoured." "Then
do you think I might write to him? or you will ask him? Very well, then
we will see what can be done." And so a new network of helpful influence
would be made. To younger visitors--a London clergyman, it may be, or a
student, or a budding official--she would show something of the maternal
solicitude that was conspicuous in her intercourse with nursing
"daughters." "But you are not looking well to-day. You have been sitting
up too late? Yes? Then you must promise me to take better care of
yourself." Or, "Are you careful to take regular meals? No? Then you must
let an old nurse give you some good advice." The humour which was
characteristic of Miss Nightingale came more readily perhaps to
her pen than to her tongue; but she always enjoyed a joke in
conversation--even, as we have heard already from one of her nursing
friends, at her own expense. Sometimes she was teasing. A High Church
young lady once went to South Street. She was delighted with her
interview, but Miss Nightingale, she said, "laughed at High Church
curates a good deal: she said they had no foreheads." She sometimes
quizzed even her greatest friends. She used to talk with humorous
indignation of Mr. Jowett's God as a "man-jelly," in contrast with the
future life of work which _she_ looked forward to.
[184] _Julius and Mary Mohl_, p. 342.
[185] Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, by his Daughter, prefixed to the
3rd ed. (1903) of his translation of _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_,
p. 65.
It was in the bedroom above described, or in the smaller room in front
with which it communicated, that the greater part of Miss Nightingale's
life for forty-five years was passed. She seldom went out of doors in
London. It was believed that occasionally, at times when her heart and
nerves were giving her less than the usual sense of weakness, she went
out on foot into the Park; but the belief was only whispered: it was a
point of honour amongst her circle to respect her house-ridden
seclusion. The secret may now be divulged, on the authority of many
notes from Sir Harry Verney, that he lured her out now and then for a
morning drive and stroll in the Park, especially in rhododendron-time,
"to remind her of Embley," as aforesaid. Miss Nightingale, except in the
few travel-years of her youth, had little enjoyment from nature in its
grander or larger aspects, but she knew how to find pleasure in the
commoner sights and sounds; in flowers and birds, and in London skies.
There was a tree in the garden of Dorchester House where the birds used
to gather, and from which they flew to be fed at Miss Nightingale's
window. She had studied the dietary of birds as carefully as of hospital
patients, and imparted the rudiments of such lore to the "Dicky-Bird
Society."[186] In the country she liked to have a view from her bedroom
of trees and flowers, and often in the early morning watches she wrote
down her observations. Her balcony at Lea Hurst gave her a great deal of
pleasure. It is large, being the top of the drawing-room bow; you see a
wide stretch of sky from it, and it commands the view described by
Mrs. Gaskell.[187] At Claydon she had her pet birds and squirrels, and
used to write about them to Sir Harry's grandchildren. She took a great
interest in elementary education, and insisted almost as much upon the
importance of simple nature studies as upon that of physical training.
"On very fine noondays in London," she wrote (Dec. 1888), "when there is
nearly as much light as there is in a country dusk, the storm-like
effects of the sun peeping out are more like the light streaming from
the Glory in Heaven of the old Italian Masters than anything I know. And
I wonder whether the poor people see it. And in old days when I walked
out of doors, the murky effect at the end of the perspective of a long
dull street running E. and W. was a real peep into heaven. I should
teach these things in Board Schools to children condemned to live their
lives in the streets of London, as I would teach the botany of leaves
and trees and flowers to country children." Cheap popular books were
much wanted giving account of "the habits, structure, and characters
(what they are about, not classification) of plants as living beings";
and of birds treated in like fashion, and not from the point of view of
ornithological classification. "I had a lovely little popular book with
woodcuts, published in Calcutta," she wrote,[188] "on the plants of
Bengal. The author, an Englishman, offered me to write one on English
plants in the same fashion; but one of the most popular and enterprising
of all our publishers refused on the ground that it would not tell in
Board School examinations and therefore would not pay."
[186] Bibliography A, No. 136.
[187] See Vol. I. p. 8.
[188] Letter to the secretary of the Pure Literature Society, March 30,
1891.
V
During the years following her father's death (1874), Miss Nightingale
devoted much time to the society of her mother, and this took her for a
considerable part of each year out of London. In 1874 she and her mother
spent a month at Claydon (Aug.-Sept.), and then two months at Lea Hurst.
In 1875 the experiment was tried of taking a house at Upper Norwood, and
there Miss Nightingale lived with her mother for some weeks
(June-July). "I am out of humanity's reach," wrote Florence to Madame
Mohl (June 18): "in a red villa like a monster lobster: a place which
has no _raison d'être_ except the _raison d'être_ of lobsters or
crabs--viz. to go backward and to feed and be fed upon. Stranger
vicissitudes than mine in life few men have had--vicissitudes from
slavery to power, and from power to slavery again. It does not seem like
a vicissitude: a red villa at Norwood: yet it is the strangest I yet
have had. It is the only time for 22 years that my work has not been the
first cause for where I should live and how I should live. Here it is
the last. It is the caricature of a life." The lobster-like villa was,
however, soon given up. Mrs. Nightingale longed to be taken to her
home--though, strictly, hers no longer, and from July to October she and
Florence were at Lea Hurst. The year's routine now became fixed. The
care of Mrs. Nightingale in London was undertaken by her nephew,
Mr. Shore Smith, and his wife. She lived with them in their house in
York Place, and from July or August in each year to November or December
the Shore Smith family, with Mrs. Nightingale and her companion, moved
to Lea Hurst, and there also Florence went--sometimes going to Lea Hurst
before the others arrived, and sometimes staying there when they were
absent.[189] Mr. Shore Smith was "more than son and daughter to her,"
Mrs. Nightingale said; and Florence, during her residence at Lea Hurst,
devoted a stated number of hours each day--generally two or three in the
morning--to companionship with her mother. In the country, as in South
Street, Miss Nightingale constantly had nursing friends to stay with
her. "At Lea Hurst," writes the friend already quoted, "she was as good
to us as in London. I remember being there once with another of her
pupils, and she told us that the rooms assigned to us had been the
nurseries of her childhood. Long drives were contrived for us; luncheon
was packed in the waggonette, and excursions were mapped out. During our
visit Mr. Jowett came for a few days; he was very pleasant to us and
full of kindness. I remember his speaking of a quality in our hostess
which always struck us; I mean the thoroughness in all details of her
hospitality, even to putting flowers in our rooms, gathered by herself
in the garden. Miss Nightingale thought one of us was tired, and said
she was not to get up too early in the morning. Mr. Jowett reminded us
in this connection of the man who made a virtue of always rising very
early and who was 'conceited all the morning and cross all the
afternoon.'"
[189] As on one occasion when a case of smallpox occurred among the
servants at Lea Hurst. Miss Nightingale went immediately to
superintend the nursing of the case, and would let no one else
come. See Bibliography A, No. 83.
At Lea Hurst, during these years, Miss Nightingale devoted herself to
her poorer neighbours, and threw into the task the thoroughness and
system which characterized all her doings. She took a part in
establishing a village coffee-room and a village library, and in
organizing mothers' meetings. She gave doles to all deserving families.
The _dossiers_ which she kept of their characters and circumstances were
as careful as those referring to the Nightingale Probationers. There are
sheets and sheets amongst her papers, on which she entered the
quantities of each kind of provision supplied to each family, as
elaborate as the purveying accounts which she kept at Scutari. She was a
sort of National Health Insurance scheme (non-contributory) for the
neighbourhood; for she employed a doctor to attend the sick and infirm
at her expense, and to report fully to her on all the cases. There are
fifty letters from him in this sort during a single year, and as many of
a like kind from the village schoolmaster, whom she commissioned to give
extra tuition to promising pupils. There were those who thought that
Miss Nightingale wasted on these rustic cares energies that might swell
the great wave of the world. Among the number was her old friend, Madame
Mohl. "Now, my own Flo," she wrote (Oct. 16, 1879), "you believe me, I
am sure, to love you truly; therefore you will bear what I say, and also
you believe me to have common sense: you can't help believing it, I defy
you! Now I declare that if you don't leave that absurd place, Lea Hurst,
immediately, you must be a little insane--partially, not entirely; and
that if you saw another person knowingly risking a life that might be
useful _dans les grandes choses d'ensemble_ to potter after sick
individuals, and if you were in a lucid moment you would say, 'That
person is not quite sane or she has not the strength of will to follow
her judgment in her actions.'" Miss Nightingale was not well pleased by
this letter. She felt something of the sort herself; but it is one thing
to doubt our own wisdom, and quite another to hear it doubted even by
our oldest friends. Miss Nightingale replied that she was doing her
duty, which was a duty of affection, to her mother, and Madame Mohl,
with ready tact, explained her letter away by saying that the real
reason of it was only a selfish impatience to see her dear "Flochen" in
London.
Miss Nightingale's mother was now very old; her mind was barely
coherent; and it would perhaps have been much the same to her if
Florence had not been by her side. Yet the actual presence was a great
comfort; and Miss Nightingale, whose calls in earlier life had estranged
her somewhat from her mother, was the more anxious to be with her now.
There were gleams of brightness in the mother's manner which touched the
daughter deeply. "Her mind," she afterwards wrote, "was like the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel--darkened, blotted, effaced, and with great gaps;
but if you looked and looked and accustomed your eye to the dimness and
the broken lights, there were the noble forms transparent through the
darkness."[190] Mother and daughter had much converse on spiritual
things. At other times, pride and pleasure in her famous daughter were
mixed in the mother's mind with the regrets of earlier years. "Where is
Florence?" she once asked, in the daughter's absence; "is she still in
her hospital? I suppose she will never marry now." She loved to have
Longfellow's poem read to her; "it is all true," she would say, "all
real." When Florence came, the mother loved her presence dearly. "Who
are you? Oh, yes, I see you are Florence. Stay with me. Do not leave me.
It makes me so happy to see you sitting by me. You come down to teach us
to love; but you have so much that is important to do, you must not stay
with me." "Oh, are you my dearest Florence? I ought to kiss your hand, I
am sure." The daughter's wit cheered her mother. "You have a right to
laugh," she said; "so few of us have. You are so good--so much better
than the rest of us. You do me so much good."
[190] Letter to "Aunt Mai," Feb. 5, 1880.
Something of the same impression was made by Miss Nightingale upon all
who visited her, whether at Lea Hurst or in her upper room at South
Street. She was often lonely and despondent, and accounted herself, as
we have heard, the weakest of human vessels, the lowest of God's
servants. To those who knew her well, she was a tower of strength.
Mr. Jowett used to say that he never saw Miss Nightingale or received a
letter from her without feeling strengthened for his duties. The thought
of her working in solitude was constantly with him. "I think no day
passes," he wrote to her, "in which I do not think of you and your work
with pride and affection." If men admired Miss Nightingale, women
worshipped her. To many a devoted woman, who had learnt from her example
and who was inspired by her friendship, she was "My Mistress and Queen,"
or "My Hero Saint." Women of the great world laid at her feet an almost
equal adoration, and young girls had something of the same feeling. "I
used at first to be shy with her," says one of them, "but when I was
older and talked more freely, I found her the most charming person to
talk to. She always seemed interested and glad to see one. I always used
to come away with a sort of buoyant feeling. She seemed to raise one
into a different atmosphere." "I shall ever remember my visit to you,"
wrote her "ever affectionate Luise" (the Grand Duchess of Baden) in
1879, "as one of those moments coming directly out of God's hand and
leading men's hearts up to Him in thankfulness. It belongs to those
things which are in themselves a sanctuary."[191] And Lady Ashburton,
who still came sometimes to see the friend of earlier days, her "Beloved
Zoë," wrote: "I like to think of you in your tower--so high up above us
all"; and, again, "I am humbled in the dust when I think of what you say
of me--poor, wretched, profitableless me, and yourself the guiding-star
to so many of our lives."
[191] The Grand Duchess's knowledge as a nurse proved useful when her
father, the Emperor William, was wounded in the attempt made upon
his life by Nobiling in 1878. The Empress Augusta sent, through
Miss Lees, her kindest remembrances to Miss Nightingale with one
of the bandages made for the Emperor by the Grand Duchess.
VI
The friends to whom Miss Nightingale wrote most regularly on matters
other than business, and in whose visits she took the greatest
intellectual pleasure, were, next to Mr. Jowett, Monsieur and Madame
Mohl. Her letters to them show some of her more general interests:--
(_To M. Mohl._) _Feb._ 16 [1868].... I see Mad. Blanchecotte is
publishing her _Impressions de Femme_--what is that? Do men publish
their _Impressions d'Homme_? I think it is a pity that women should
always look upon themselves (and men look upon them) as a great
curiosity--a peculiar strange race, like the Aztecs; or rather like
Dr. Howe's Idiots, whom, after the "unremitting exertions of two
years," he "actually taught to eat with a spoon."
(_To M. Mohl._) SOUTH ST., _Nov._ 24 [1872].... Insensible, cruel,
aggravating man! you break off just where I want to hear. The only
thing that amuses me is Papal Infallibility. The only thing that
interests me not painfully (out of my Chaos)--always excepting
Livingstone, East African Slave-trade, Central African
exploration--is Prussian Politics. Not that I suppose you to be
very well satisfied with them, but I want to _know_ about the
doings--Bismarck, Old Catholics, Infallibilists--this extraordinary
conflict between the old man at Rome and the
Junker-Devil-statesman, Bismarck; also about the struggle with the
Upper House and the de-feudalizing Bill. I am athirst to know
_your_ mind about these things.... Have you seen Stanley's _How I
found Livingstone_? I have desired the publisher to send you a
copy. It is, without exception, the very worst book on the very
best subject I ever saw in all my life.... Still I can't help
devouring the book to the end, though it tells little more of
Livingstone than what Livingstone in the despatches has told
himself already. But then Stanley and his newspaper have discovered
and relieved Livingstone, when all our Government, all our
Societies, all our Subscriptions, all the Queen's men could not set
Livingstone up again!... Quetelet has sent me his last
books--_Anthropométrie_ and _Physique Sociale_--with a charming
letter. I answered by a violent and vehement exhortation to him to
prepare his second edition at once--the first (1869) of the
_Physique Sociale_ being entirely exhausted.[192] Did I tell you
that when Mr. Jowett was elected chairman for the subjects of
Final Examination at Oxford, I insisted on Social Physics being
one?
[192] The actually first edition had been issued in 1835, when the title
of the book was _Sur l'Homme et le Développement de ses Facultés,
ou Essai de Physique Sociale_. In 1869 it was much enlarged, and
Miss Nightingale treats it as a new book.
(_To Madame Mohl._) SOUTH ST., _Dec._ 19 [1873].... You asked me
what Mill's _Autobiography_ was like: and as it is a book
impossible to describe, I send it to you. I think it almost the
most curious and interesting of modern books I ever read; but
curious just as much for its nonsense as for its sense. I should
think the account he gives of his intellectual and moral growth
from the age of three quite unique: quite as singular as if a man
were able to describe all his anatomy and physiology in a state of
growth from the time he was three. But quite, quite as
extraordinary as this is his own stupidity in not seeing that very
many of his moral and intellectual, and especially of his
religious, opinions were fixed inalterably for him by the process
he underwent, so that all his reasoning afterwards upon them was
_un_reasoning: fixed as much beyond his power to change, or even to
see that a change was desirable or possible, as the eyes of a man
who becomes stone-blind in his youth, or the right arm of a man who
is paralysed on that side, or &c., &c., &c. He has written me pages
and pages, which I never could understand--from a man so able--till
I read his _Autobiography_: that--there being Laws was no proof of
there being a Law-giver; that--if evil were to produce good, there
ought to be _more_ of it! Then, you see he says in his book that
his wife was to be applauded, because she had thrown aside the
"monstrous superstition" that this world _could_ be made on the
best possible design for perfecting Good thro' Evil!... And I still
think the _Autobiography_, its high tone, its disinterested
nobility of feeling and love of mankind, one of the most inspiring
(modern) books I know. But then please to remember: when Mill left
the India Office he might most materially have helped all my
Sanitary Commissions, Irrigation and Civilizing Schemes for India.
He did nothing. He was quite incapable of understanding anything
but schemes on paper, correspondence, the literary Office aspect in
short, for India. As for that jargon about the "Inspiration" coming
from "woman," I really am incapable of conceiving its meaning: if
it has any at all. I am sure that my part in Administration has
been the very reverse of "Inspiration": it has been the fruit of
dogged work, of hard experience and observation, such as few men
have undergone: correcting by close detail work the errors of men
which came from what I suppose is called their "inspiration": what
_I_ should call their Theory without Practical knowledge or patient
personal experience.
(_To Madame Mohl._) SOUTH ST., _Feb._ 27 [1875].... Do read
Pascal's _Provinciales_. There is nothing like it in the world; it
is as witty as Molière; it is as closely reasoned as Aristotle; it
has a style transparent like Plato. You said you had not read it. I
have a great mind to send it you. I read it every year (as Lord
Morpeth said he did Miss Austen's novels) for the pure pleasure it
gives my imagination. Voltaire said, did he not? that tho' Pascal
was "fou," he fixed the language.
Nothing that she read in these years pleased her more than Mr. John
Morley's fine address on "Popular Culture," now included in his
_Miscellanies_, which first appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ for
November 1876. She wrote to him to express her grateful admiration and
to ask if she might be allowed to distribute copies of the paper.
Mr. Morley, who had already arranged for a cheap reprint, sent her
several copies.
In January 1876 came the death of M. Mohl--to Madame Mohl an irreparable
loss; she was never the same woman after it; to Miss Nightingale also a
heavy loss. "I am grieved to see," wrote Mr. Jowett to her (Jan. 7),
"that you have lost a friend, one of the best and truest you ever had.
His death must bring back many old recollections. Your father told me of
his fetching you away from the Convent when you were ill, and, as he
thought, saving your life." But it was not only that his death revived
affectionate recollections. M. Mohl had a great admiration for Miss
Nightingale's intellectual powers. He loved to talk and correspond with
her on politics, literature, and philosophy, and she regarded his
studies in Eastern religion as a real contribution to "theodikë," one of
her principal preoccupations.
Miss Nightingale lost another friend a few weeks later, whose death
greatly moved her:--
(_Dr. E. A. Parkes to Miss Nightingale._) SOUTHAMPTON, _March 9_
(dictated). Your letter reached me on what must be, I believe, my
deathbed. Perhaps before you receive this I shall be summoned to my
account. For what you say I thank and bless you. About two months
hence the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge will publish a
little book on "the personal care of health." A copy will be sent
to you. I had small space, only 26 pages, but I put in as much
sanitary information as I could, of a very simple kind. I hope it
may be a little useful to you. It is addressed entirely to the
poor. And now thank you and bless you for all the support you have
always given me. Believe me, very gratefully, (signed) E. A. PARKES.
(_Miss Nightingale to Dr. H. W. Acland._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _March
17 [1876]_. The death of our dear friend, Dr. Parkes, fills me with
grief: and also with anxiety for the future of the Army Medical
School at Netley. He was a man of most rare modesty: of singular
gifts. His influence at the School--there was not a man who did not
leave the better for having been under him--is irreplaceable. But
the knowledge and instruction he has diffused from the School as a
centre has extended and will extend wherever the English language
is spoken, and beyond. Dr. Parkes died like a true Christian hero
"at his post," and with the simplicity of one. I think I have never
known such disinterestedness, such self-abnegation, such
forgetfulness of self. His death was like a resurrection. When he
was dying, he dictated letters or gave messages to everybody: _all_
about what ought to be done _for the School_, for the spread of
hygienic knowledge, for other useful and Army purposes: _none_
about himself.... On March 9, when it was evident he could not last
many days, he commended _the School_ to Sir William Jenner and
dictated a letter to me about hygienic interests, merely saying of
himself that he might be "summoned to his last account" before I
received it. On March 13 he rallied. I was allowed to send down a
Trained Nurse. On March 15 he died.... Let us, as he went to the
sacrifice of himself (he was only 56) with joy and praise--as the
heroes of old--so part with him. But let us try to save what he
would have saved....
The Professors at the Army Medical School had written to Miss
Nightingale in alarm at a report in the newspapers that the institution
was once more threatened. She begged Dr. Acland, who was a friend of the
War Secretary (Mr. Gathorne Hardy), to do what he could; and meanwhile
she took direct action herself. She drew up for Mr. Hardy, as she had
done years before for Mr. Cardwell, the case for the defence of the
School; she added personal entreaties of her own; and she sent Sir Harry
Verney to present the documents to the minister in person. "Mr. Hardy
listened attentively while I read your papers," reported Sir Harry. "I
emphasised passages underlined by you, indeed showing him your marks and
initials. He said that he had not decided the matter, and I replied,
'And Miss Nightingale wants to get hold of you before you do.' I shall
congratulate you most earnestly, my dearest Florence, if your
representations save the School, for I know that such success cheers
you more than anything else." Three weeks later, the minister returned
the papers to Sir Harry, announced that the School would not be touched,
and said he might tell Miss Nightingale that he would make the
appointments she had suggested.
Some unfinished letters from M. Mohl, found in his blotter after his
death, were sent to Miss Nightingale by Madame Mohl, who leaned much on
her "Flochen's" sympathy in her loss:--
(_To Madame Mohl._) LEA HURST, _August_ 6 [1876]. DEAREST VERY
DEAREST FRIEND--Indeed I do think I was worthy of him if always
thinking of him, rejoicing in his progress in perfection and
(formerly) grieving with his troubles and cares (but now he has
_none_, now he is _always_ making glorious progress, else this world
is a nonsense), made me so. But why do you distress yourself (your
loss is great enough, immeasurable, irreparable, for this world) with
saying such things about not having made the most of him while you had
him? _He_ would not have said so. You found him a melancholy man: you
made him a happy one. You gave zest to his life: all that it wanted.
He always felt this himself: he could not bear to be without you. O
thank God and say (like the Lord of Ossory about his son): I had
rather have my dead son than any one else's living one. Who has been
so blest as you? Where will you find so perfect a man? And you felt
it, I know you did. And he felt your feeling it.... For M. Mohl's
glorious life on earth I thank God: but I thank Him yet more,
because this was only a beginning of life infinitely more
glorious--as Milton says: "death, called life, which us _from life_
doth sever." Fare you well. May God be with us all. Your old Flo.
It is 20 years to-day since I came back from the Crimea. It is 15
since I lost Sidney Herbert.
(_To the same._) SOUTH ST., _Feb._ 7 [1878]. DEAREST FRIEND, EVER
DEAREST--Indeed I do: I think daily and nightly of him and of you: the
world is darker every year to me, and darker without him: for it seems
as if a great light were gone out of it. And the people who survive
seem so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable compared with those I
knew once, loved once.... No: we shan't give a doit to help the Turks.
What! crush all those struggling young peoples, Sclav and Greek,
back under the hideous massacres and oppression and corruption of
the Turk? We could not if we would. I don't feel very hopeful: for
the worst Eurasian Government, we are allowing the worst European
Government to substitute itself. Turkey was falling to pieces
anyhow by its own bad weight; and we should not have let Russia act
alone in the coming freedom. May God give liberty to the Christian
provinces to work out _their own_ salvation!
Miss Nightingale's interest in the Eastern Question, moved by the
Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, had been heightened by her close
friendship with Miss Paulina Irby. Of the women friends whom Miss
Nightingale saw frequently, and with whom she corresponded regularly,
Miss Irby was one of the few who could in any intellectual and spiritual
sense be called her equal. Miss Irby was a woman of the highest
cultivation, an excellent scholar; a woman of most generous kindliness
and simplicity of mind who truly thought no evil.[193] There was a sort
of innocence in her that seemed to disperse difficulties of itself, and
Miss Nightingale's papers contain references to occasions on which Miss
Irby's friendly offices resolved many worries. She was a friend of
Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale, and Florence had first met her at Embley in
1869. She was one of the many women who revered the name of Florence
Nightingale, and she had spent some months at Kaiserswerth. She was
enraptured by making the personal acquaintance of her heroine, and was
used to say henceforth that any good she was able to do was owing to
Miss Nightingale's example and sympathy. The good that Miss Irby did was
great; in promoting education among the Sclavonic Christians of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, and in relieving the distress among orphans and
refugees. During the years 1874-79 Miss Irby was often in England, to
collect funds and for other purposes connected with her work in the
East. Miss Nightingale helped her much therein, and thus became very
familiar with some aspects of the Eastern Question. This interest,
combined with her detestation of the forward policy on the Indian
frontier, formed a link of sympathy with Mr. Gladstone.
[193] It is unfortunate that no record of this admirable woman exists
except a slight article in one of the Reviews. Her letters were, I
am told, destroyed at her death in 1912; those from Miss
Nightingale among the rest. A very large number of letters from
Miss Irby is preserved among Miss Nightingale's papers.
VII
Was Miss Nightingale's life happy or unhappy? Her sister used to say to
her, thinking of her many political acquaintances: "You lead such an
interesting life." Mr. Jowett told her that her life was a blessed one,
and that she ought so to think it. He always sent her a New Year's
letter, and on the last day of 1879 he wrote to her thus:--
(_Benjamin Jowett to Miss Nightingale._) I cannot let the new year
begin without sending my best and kindest wishes for you and for
your work: I can only desire that you should go on as you are
doing, in your own way. Lessening human suffering and speaking for
those who cannot make their voices heard, with less of suffering to
yourself, if this, as I fear, be not a necessary condition of the
life you have chosen. There was a great deal of romantic feeling
about you 23 years ago when you came home from the Crimea (I really
believe that you might have been a Duchess if you had played your
cards better!). And now you work on in silence, and nobody knows
how many lives are saved by your nurses in hospitals (you have
introduced a new era in nursing); how many thousand soldiers who
would have fallen victims to bad air, bad water, bad drainage and
ventilation, are now alive owing to your forethought and diligence;
how many natives of India (they might be counted probably by
hundreds of thousands) in this generation and in generations to
come have been preserved from famine and oppression and the load of
debt by the energy of a sick lady who can scarcely rise from her
bed. The world does not know all this or think about it. But I know
it and often think about it, and I want you to, so that in the
later years of your course you may see (with a side of sorrow) what
a blessed life yours is and has been. Is there anything which you
could do, or would wish to do, other than you are doing? though you
are overtaxed and have a feeling of oppression at the load which
rests upon you. I think that the romance, too, which is with the
past, did a great deal of good. Like Dr. Pusey, you are a Myth in
your own life-time. Do you know that there are thousands of girls
about the ages of 18 to 23 named after you? As you once said to me
"the world has not been unkind." Everybody has heard of you and has
a sweet association with your name. It is about 17 years since we
first became friends. How can I thank you properly for all your
kindness and sympathy--never failing--when you had so many other
things to occupy your mind? I have not been able to do so much as
you expected of me, and probably never shall be, though I do not
give up ambition. But I have been too much distracted by many
things; and not strong enough for the place. I shall go on as
quietly and industriously as I can. If I ever do much more, it will
be chiefly owing to you: your friendship has strengthened and
helped me, and never been a source of the least pain or regret.
Farewell. May the later years of your life be clearer and happier
and more useful than the earlier! If you will believe it, this may
be so.
In Mr. Jowett's example, his friend found strength and help, even as he
did in hers. "He offers himself up to Oxford," she used to say of him
with admiration; and she offered up all her powers to the causes she had
espoused. There were still to be many years during which she was able to
work unceasingly for them. Her life was to be not less useful than
before, and perhaps, as increasing years brought greater calm, her life
was also clearer. But happiness, as the world accounts it, she neither
attained nor desired. She had a friend who was losing his devotion to
high ideals, as she thought, in domestic contentment. "O Happiness," she
said of him, "like the bread-tree fruit, what a corrupter and paralyser
of human nature thou art!"