MR. JOWETT AND OTHER FRIENDS
Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and
every setting sun be to you as its close--then let every one of
these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done
for others.--RUSKIN.
The last chapter was largely concerned with Miss Nightingale's activity
in public affairs and with acquaintanceships which she formed in
connection with them. In such affairs she was forcible, clear-sighted,
methodical. Sir Bartle Frere, on first making her acquaintance, had said
to a friend that it was "a great pleasure to meet such a good man of
business as Miss Nightingale." But she was many-sided, and even in her
converse with men or women on public affairs she was generally something
more than a good "man of business." Much of her influence was due to the
fact that so many of those who first saw her as a matter of affairs
became her friends, and that to the qualities of a good man of business
she added those of a richly sympathetic nature.
This aspect of Miss Nightingale's life and character has already been
illustrated sufficiently in the case of her relations with Matrons,
Superintendents, and Nurses. It may be discerned clearly enough, too, in
the account of her official work with Sidney Herbert and other of her
earlier allies. But it was as marked in her later as in her earlier
years, and in relation to the men as to the women with whom she was
brought into touch. In reading her collection of letters from various
doctors and officials of all sorts, I have been struck many times with a
quick change of atmosphere. The correspondence begins on a formal note.
Her correspondent will be "pleased to make the acquaintance of a lady so
justly esteemed," etc., etc. The interview has taken place, or a few
letters have passed, and then the note alters. Wives or sons or
daughters have been to see her, or kindly inquiries and messages have
been sent, and the correspondence becomes as between old family friends.
Young and old alike felt the sympathetic touch of Miss Nightingale's
manner. The name of Mr. J. J. Frederick has been mentioned in earlier
pages. He was a junior clerk in the War Office when Miss Nightingale
first made his acquaintance. Not many months had passed before she was
helpfully interested both in his family and in various good works to
which he devoted his spare time. There is much correspondence, during
the years with which we were concerned in the last chapter, with
Mr. (now Sir Robert) Morant, at that time tutor in the Royal Family of
Siam. Miss Nightingale had made his acquaintance before he left for
Siam; and he came to see her when he was on leave in England, "leave
apparently meaning," she wrote (Sept. 24, 1891), "working on his Siamese
subjects 23 hours out of the 24." She became almost as much interested
in Siamese affairs as in those of India itself; but the letters show
that the public interest was combined with a personal, and almost
motherly, affection. Mr. J. Croft, on the staff at St. Thomas's, who had
for many years been medical instructor to the Nightingale Probationers,
resigned that post in 1892, and in returning thanks for a testimonial
described the pleasure he had found in working under "so lovable and
adorable a leader as Miss Nightingale." Colonel Yule had first made Miss
Nightingale's acquaintance in an official capacity as the member of the
India Council charged with sanitary affairs, but he soon came to love
her as a friend. In 1889 he was ill, and wrote her a valedictory letter
(May 2), in which, after giving advice about some official matters, he
said: "As long as I live, but I am not counting on that as a long
period, it will be a happiness to think that I was brought into
communication with you--useless as I fear I have been in your great
task: in fact my strength had already begun to fail. And so, dear Miss
Nightingale, I take my leave: let it be with the words of the 4th Book
of Moses, ch. vi., and those that come after us will put in your mouth
those of Job, xxix."[238] His strength failed more rapidly; and in his
last illness he craved to know that Miss Nightingale had not forgotten
him. She sent him a message of fervent gratitude. "I will look at it not
as misapplied to myself," he answered (Dec. 17, a few days before his
death), "but as part of the large and generous nature which you are
ready to apply to others who little deserve it. I praise God for the
privilege of having known you. I am sunk very low in strength, and
cannot write with my own hand, so use that of one of my oldest and
dearest friends. God bless and keep you to the end, as you have been for
so many years, a pillar in Christ's Kingdom of Love and of this state of
England. Ever, with the deepest affection and veneration, your faithful
servant, H. Yule." The strength of her older friend and fellow-worker,
Dr. Sutherland, ebbed rapidly, and he did not long survive his
retirement. He died in July 1891. He was in great weakness at the end,
and was hardly able to read or to speak; but his wife said that she had
received a letter from Miss Nightingale with messages for him. To her
surprise he roused himself once more, read the letter through, and said,
"Give her my love and blessing." They were almost his last words.
[238] Numbers vi. 24-26: "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," etc. Job
xxxi. 11-16: "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me," etc.
II
The affectionate sympathy which Miss Nightingale gave to her friends was
not lacking to her relations. In 1889 one of the dearest of them, her
"Aunt Mai," had died at the age of 91. Her husband, the "Uncle Sam" of
earlier chapters, had died eight years before; and the widow's
bereavement seems to have done away with such estrangement as there had
been between her and her niece. They resumed their former affectionate
correspondence on religious matters, and Miss Nightingale was again the
"loving Flo" of earlier years. "Dearest friend," she wrote on the card
sent with flowers when her aunt died; "lovely, loving soul; humble mind
of high and holy thought."
Miss Nightingale was not one of those persons who keep their tact and
kindly consideration for the outside world and think indolent
indifference or rough candour good enough for the family circle. I have
been told a little anecdote which is instructive in this connection.
Miss Irby came into the garden hall at Lea Hurst one day, fresh from an
interview with Miss Nightingale. "I must tell you," she said, laughing,
to one of Miss Nightingale's younger cousins, "what Florence has just
said; it's so like her. She said to me, 'I wonder whether R. remembered
to have that branch taken away that fell across the south drive.' I
said, 'I will ask her.' 'Oh, no,' said Florence, 'don't ask her that.
Ask her _whom_ she asked to take the branch away.'" This is only a
trifle; but the method of the thing was very characteristic. Miss
Nightingale was a diplomatist in small affairs as in great. She was
careful not to run a risk of making mischief through intermediaries. She
took real trouble to that end, and never seemed to find anything in this
sort too much to do. Her influence with every member of her family was
used to make relations between them better and more affectionate. With
many of the younger generation of her cousins and other kinsfolk she
maintained affectionate relations. She regulated her hours very
strictly, as we have heard, but she found time, especially in her later
years, to see some of these young friends repeatedly. When she did not
see them, she liked to be informed of their comings and goings, their
doings and prospects, their marriages and belongings. She held in deep
affection the memory of Arthur Hugh Clough, and she loved tenderly her
cousin, Mr. Shore Smith. She entertained a generous solicitude for Mr.
Clough's family; and the family of her cousin, Shore, were especially
close to her. A little note to Mrs. Shore Smith--one of
hundreds--illustrates incidentally Miss Nightingale's love of flowers
and their insect friends:--
10 SOUTH STREET, _April_ 24, 1894. Dearest, I feel so anxious to
know how you are. Thank you so much for your beautiful Azaleas
which have come out splendidly, and the yellow tulips. The smell
of the Azaleas reminds me so of Embley. On a tulip sat a poor
little tiny, tiny, pretty little snail of a sort unknown to me. He
said: "I was so happy in my garden on my tulip, and I was kidnapped
into that horrid box. And whatever am I to do?" So we carried him
out and carefully put him among the shrubs in the boxes on the
leads (lilacs). But my opinion is that he is very particular about
his diet and that his opinion was that he could find nothing worthy
of his acceptance there. He must either have been drowned in the
water-spout, or dree'd the penalty of being particular. Now I
return to our brutality in letting you go without even partaking of
"Baby's bottle." My kindest regards to Baby and its Mama. Ever your
loving F. N.
Miss Nightingale was godmother to Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Bonham Carter's son,
Malcolm. With Norman, an Indian Civilian, a younger son of Mr. Henry
Bonham Carter, she kept up a correspondence. She was much attached to
Miss Edith Bonham Carter,[239] who had taken up nursing, and there were
several other relations who saw her and in whom she was much interested.
The number of family letters which she preserved is very large; and
among them those relating to the family into which her sister had
married are almost as numerous as those relating to her own kith and
kin. For Margaret Lady Verney, in particular, Miss Nightingale
entertained a deep admiration and a most tender affection. She was
attached also to Sir Harry's younger son, Mr. Frederick Verney, who in
these later years helped her in many of her undertakings, and whom she
in turn helped greatly in his. A few of her own family letters, covering
a large space of time, will best show the pleasantly affectionate terms,
now grave, now gay, on which she placed herself with her relations:--
(_To Mrs. Clough._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _Jan._ 2 [1873]. I lit upon
the edition of Byron (without _Don Juan_) which we wished for.
There are two vols. more than in our edition, which may be trash.
But _Childe Harold_,--the descriptions of Greece in the Tale:
Poems,--Chillon,--but above all _Manfred_: there is nothing like it
in the world, especially the last scene. The Spirit there is really
a spirit--the only spirit out of Job and Saul. The Ghost in
_Hamlet_ is surely a very gross unpleasant dead-alive unburied man,
with the most vulgar full-bodied sentiments, clamouring for
vengeance on his murderer (not even so spirit-like as a dying man),
quite unlike what his son describes him--a Thief and Impostor, I am
sure, going to take the spoons. _Manfred_, to my mind, stands
alone, and is the most spiritual view of immortality, of what hell
and heaven really are, of any poetry in the world. One only wonders
how Byron ever wrote it.
(_To a niece_,[240] _who was going to College._) 10 SOUTH STREET,
_August_ 22 [1881]. MY VERY DEAREST R.--Aunt Florence is filled
with you and your going to Girton. I can say nothing I would and,
saying nothing, I would ask those greatest of the
"heathens"--Plato, Aeschylus, Thucydides--to say much to you.
Aeschylus, whose _Prometheus_ is evidently a foreshadowing of, or,
if you like it better, the same type (with Osiris of Egypt) as,
Christ: the one who brought "gifts to men," who defied "the powers
that be" (the "principalities" and "powers" of evil), who suffered
for men in bringing them the "best gifts" (the "fire from heaven"),
who _could_ only give by suffering himself, and who finally "led
captivity captive." It seems to me that I see in nothing so much
the _history of God_--in the religions of the world which M. Mohl
learnt Oriental languages to write--as in these great
"heathens"--Persian, Chinese, Indian, Greek also, and Latin too,
but specially Aeschylus and Plato; and perhaps, too, in
Physiology--the _greatness_ of His work, the silence of His work,
what spirit He is of. His "glory" and poorness of spirit--and that
to be "poor of spirit" constitutes His glory, if to be poor of
spirit means utter unselfishness, perfect freedom from self and
from the very thought of self, and from affectations and from
"_vain_ glory." My very dearest child, fare you very well--very,
very well is the deepest prayer of AUNT FLORENCE.
(_To a niece who had taken up vegetarianism._) 10 SOUTH STREET,
_Nov._ 8 [1887]. DEAREST--I send you two "vegetables" in their
shells. We shall have some more fresh ones to-morrow. A new potato
is, I assure you, _not_ a vegetable. It is a mare's egg, laid by
her, you know, in a "mare's nest." No vegetarian would eat it. I
send you some Egyptian lentils. I have them every night for supper,
done in milk, which I am not very fond of. The delicious thing is
lentil soup, as made every day by an Arab cook in Egypt, over a
handful of fire not big enough to roast a mosquito.... Ever your
loving AUNT FLORENCE.
(_To a niece, who was full of the co-operative movement._) 10
SOUTH STREET, _July_ 14 [1888]. DEAREST--Your co-operative
usefulness is delightful. If it is not in the lowest degree vulgar,
I should ask if I might give them some books. But I suppose this is
contrary to all Co-operative principle. Lady Ashburton is gone to
Marienbad, to distribute Bibles and Tracts in Czech-ish. There is a
very large Co-operative Estate about 20 miles distant on the
borders of the Forest, which she has seen and believes to be
entirely successful. And I have charged her to send me home (for
you) details--and of course to prove its success. You see how my
manners and principles have been corrupted by you, the youthful
prophet. If you observe aberration, do not lay it at my door. It is
sad how youth corrupts old age. Your faithful and loving old
(co-operative) Aunt, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.
(_To Mrs. Vaughan Nash._) CLAYDON HOUSE, _Jan._ 3 [1895]. I have
never thanked you, except in my heart, which is always, for my
beautiful book--Villari's _History of Florence_: its first two
centuries. It does look so interesting, and I have always been
interested in Florentine history above all others. I think it was
from studying Sismondi's _Républiques Italiennes_ when I was a
young girl (book now despised--you rascal!) and from knowing
Sismondi himself afterwards at Geneva. The end of this Villari does
look so very enthralling, where he traces the causes of the decline
and fall of the Florentine Republic--its very wealth and commerce
assisting its ruin, and shows how its "Commune" could not develop
into a "State" (that may help some reflections on Indian Village
Communities). But I do not see that he shows--tho' as I am reading
backwards, like the Devil, I may come to it--how different were the
Florentine ideas of Liberty from ours. With them it was that
everybody should have a share in governing everybody else; with us,
that everybody should have the power of self-development without
hurting anybody else. I remember Villari's _Savonarola_ well: it
must have been published 30 or 40 years ago. (I always had an
enthusiasm for Savonarola.) It was heavy, learned, impartial,
exhaustive. It was my father's book: he read it much. I think I
told you that I possess copies of the last things that Savonarola
ever wrote--Commentaries on two Psalms--not a word against his
enemies and persecutions, or any mention of them, or indeed any
lamentation at all, but all one long and fervent aspiration after a
perfect re-union with the Father of light and love. Good Fenzi,
Evelina Galton's husband, had these copies made for me from the
originals in the Palazzo Vecchio.
(_To Norman Bonham Carter._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _August_ 2 [1895]....
You will see by the accounts of the General Election how the
Conservatives have got in by an enormous majority, and the Liberals
are discomfited. But I am an old fogey, and have been at this work
for 40 years. And I have always found that the man who has the
genius to know how to find details, and the still greater genius of
knowing how to apply them will win, and party does not signify at
all. My masters[241]--that is, Sir Robert Peel's school, never
cared for place, but always worked for both sides alike. I learn
the lesson of life from a little kitten of mine, one of two. The
old cat comes in and says, very cross, "I didn't ask you in here, I
like to have my Missis to myself!" And he runs at them. The bigger
and handsomer kitten runs away, but the littler one _stands her
ground_, and when the old enemy comes near enough kisses his nose,
and makes the peace. That is the lesson of life, to kiss one's
enemy's nose, always standing one's ground. I am rather sorry for
Lord Salisbury. A majority is always in the wrong.
(_To Louis Shore Nightingale._[242]) 10 SOUTH STREET, _Dec._ 21
[1896]. I have been thinking a great deal of what you said on both
sides about a Church at Lea. I wish you could consult some one, not
Church-y, like Harry B. C., upon it. What you say that, if the
Church is to be done, the proprietors and trustees of Lea Hurst
should not set themselves against it is true. The Church is like
the Wesleyans, another Christian sect--not to be put down. On the
other hand, the Church is now more like the Scribes and Pharisees
than like Christ. The Bishops and the High Church look upon work
among Dissenters as work among the heathen. They would upset all
the present work in Lea and Holloway if they could. Christ would
have laughed at the "Validity of Orders" difficulty of the present
day. He would have no dogma. His Dogmas were, He tells us
distinctly, Unselfishness, Love to God and our neighbour. He takes
the Ten Commandments to pieces and shows us the spirit of them
(without which they are nothing) in the Sermon on the Mount. He
even ridicules Sabbath observance. What are now called the
"essential doctrines" of the Christian religion He does not even
mention. A High Churchman and especially a H. Ch.'s wife would
upset everything.... Ever your loving AUNT F.
(_To Norman Bonham Carter._) _August_ 27 [1897].... I wish you
God-speed, my dear friend. India is a glorious field, provided you
keep out of "little wars." As you are not a military man, there is
just a chance that you may not have perverse views on this subject.
I see Charlie sometimes. He is a very good fellow, tho' a military
man. But then his mind is not warped by "Frontier Wars." And I know
at Dublin he did a good deal for the men. One of our nurses, Sister
Snodgrass, who died just after she had gone out to foreign service,
was some years in Dublin military fever wards. She did so much for
them, and got many of her orderlies to reform their lives. When
they heard of her death, they cried like children. I know how hard
worked you are. So am I. But your Father helps me with his
excellent judgment. God bless you.
(_To Louis Shore Nightingale._) 10 SOUTH ST., _Dec._ 23 [1898]. I
send a small contribution to your journey. I approve of
Switzerland, but wish you could prick on to Italy. I always do. If
you make a bother about this bit of paper, you will find that, in
the words of the immortal Shakespeare, "Ravens shall pick out your
eyes and eagles eat the same." I have the Doctor coming this
afternoon, whom I dare not put off, from considerations of the same
nature. If you are so good as to come, please come at 5--for only
half an hour, that is till 5.30.
[239] Daughter of Mr. John Bonham Carter (see Vol. I. p. 29).
[240] Not really a niece, but Miss Nightingale was "Aunt Florence" to all
her cousins in the second generation; as also to the children of
some old friends.
[241] She was writing, it will be observed, on the anniversary of Sidney
Herbert's death.
[242] Younger son of Mr. Shore Smith, who had assumed the name of
Nightingale in 1893.
Multiply such letters largely; add to them letters of a like kind,
_mutatis mutandis_, addressed to her "children" in the nursing world;
bring further into count her solicitude for servants and dependents: and
it will be seen how faithfully Miss Nightingale followed the words
placed at the head of this chapter--words which she had copied out as "A
New Year's Greeting" for 1889. She had a soft place in her heart even
for criminals who despitefully used her. In July 1892 burglary was
committed in her house in South Street. It was in the early morning, and
she espied the burglar resting for a moment with his spoils (some of her
plate and her maid's money) in a hiding-place behind the house. If her
maids or the police or both had been more alert, the malefactor would
have been arrested. Her sense for efficiency was outraged, but she
relented when the Inspector came to see her. "Perhaps it was just as
well that you didn't catch the man," she said with a twinkle, "for I am
afraid you don't do them much good when you lock them up." She was fond
of the police, and during the Jubilee year admired from her window their
handling of the crowds. She noted the long hours; made friends with the
Inspector at Grosvenor Gate, and sent supplies of hot tea and cakes for
his men.
III
There was a time, as we have heard, when Miss Nightingale's friendship
with Mr. Jowett, though it did not diminish, yet became sensible, on her
side at least, of a certain discomfort;[243] but that time was short.
Later years brought occasion for a renewal of more effective sympathy;
and as old age began to steal upon them, the friends held closer
together. Mr. Jowett was deeply interested in many of Miss Nightingale's
later Indian interests--especially in those that related to education,
whether in India itself or of Indians and Indian civil servants in this
country. He introduced to her Miss Cornelia Sorabji, whom he befriended
at Oxford. He talked and corresponded much with Miss Nightingale about
University courses in relation to India. "I want to prove to you," he
wrote (Oct. 14, 1887), "that your words do sometimes affect my flighty
or stony heart and are not altogether cast to the winds. Therefore I
send you the last report of the Indian Students, in which you will
perceive that agricultural chemistry has become a reality; and that,
owing to YOU (though I fear that, like so many other of your good deeds,
this will never be known to men), Indian Students are reading about
agriculture, and that therefore Indian Ryots may have a chance of being
somewhat better fed than hitherto." When Lord Lansdowne had settled down
in India, Mr. Jowett thought that he might without impertinence write to
his friend and tell him what he should do to become "a really great
Viceroy." What should be suggested? Perhaps Miss Nightingale would
consider? She took the hint most seriously: the education of Viceroys
was a favourite occupation with her. Without disclosing the particular
occasion, she took many advisers into council, and discussed with them
what reforms might most usefully be introduced. She forwarded her views
to Oxford, and they filtered through Mr. Jowett to Simla. Mr. Jowett
continued throughout these years to see Miss Nightingale frequently, and
generally stayed with her once or twice a year--either in London or at
Claydon. In 1887 he was staying in South Street when he was taken ill.
Miss Nightingale found him "a very wilful patient"; he would not take
the complete rest which she and the doctor considered essential; and she
had to enter into a secret plot with Robert Browning to keep him from
the excitement of seeing friends. "I am greatly ashamed," he wrote on
his return to Oxford (Oct. 13), "at the trouble and interference to your
work which I caused. The recollection of your infinite kindness will
never fade from my mind." She sent him elaborate instructions for the
better care of his "Brother Ass," the body. "How can I thank you enough
for your never ending kindness to me? May God bless you 1000 times in
your life and in your work. I sometimes think I gossip to you too much.
It is due to your kindness and sympathy, and you know that I have no one
else to gossip to." From this time forward Miss Nightingale was
constantly solicitous about her friend's health, and entered into
regular correspondence with his housekeeper, Miss Knight, who was
grateful for being allowed to share her anxieties with so high an
authority on matters of health. During Mr. Jowett's illnesses, Miss
Nightingale had daily letters or telegrams sent to her reporting the
patient's condition in much detail. This was her regular practice in the
case of relations or friends for whom she was solicitous. Such bulletins
were especially numerous during the fatal illness of her cousin, Miss
Hilary Bonham Carter. Miss Nightingale thought, no doubt, that her
request for daily particulars would keep the nurses up to the mark; and
sometimes it was that she had herself recommended the nurse. There were
bulletins of the kind sent to her about Lady Rosebery, whose
acquaintance she had made, as already related, in 1882. Lord Rosebery
was during some years an occasional caller at South Street.
[243] See above, p. 240.
The friendship of Miss Nightingale and Mr. Jowett was to have been
commemorated between themselves in an interesting way, for Mr. Jowett
desired to contribute towards a scheme which occupied much of Miss
Nightingale's time during 1890 and 1891. It was connected with one of
the ruling thoughts of her life. She was, as I have said, a Passionate
Statistician. Statistics were to her almost a religious exercise. The
true function of theology was to ascertain "the character of God." Law
was "the thought of God." It was by the aid of statistics that law in
the social sphere might be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects
of "the character of God" thereby revealed. The study of statistics was
thus a religious service. In the sphere of immediate application, she
had pointed out thirty years before[244] that there were enormous masses
of statistical data, already pigeon-holed in government offices or
easily procurable by government action, of which little or no use was
made. Statistics, said Lord Brougham, in a passage already quoted, were
to the legislator as the compass or the lead to the navigator; but the
actual course of legislation was too often conducted without any such
compass or lead at all. "The Cabinet Ministers," she now wrote,[245]
"the army of their subordinates, the Houses of Parliament have for the
most part received a University education, but no education in
statistical method." The result was that legislation is "not
progressive, but see-saw-y." "We legislate without knowing what we are
doing. The War Office has on some subjects the finest statistics in the
world. What comes of them? Little or nothing. Why? Because the Heads
don't know how to make anything of them (with the two exceptions of
Sidney Herbert and W. H. Smith). Our Indian statistics are really better
on some subjects than those of England. Of these no use is made in
administration. What we want is not so much (or at least not at present)
an accumulation of facts as to teach the men who are to govern the
country the use of statistical facts." She gave particular instances of
the kind of questions which she desired to see thoroughly explored by
the statistical method. What had been the result of twenty years of
compulsory education? What proportion of children forget all that they
learnt at school? What result has the school-teaching on the life and
conduct of those who do not forget it? Or, again, what is the effect of
town life on offspring, in number and in health? What are the
contributions of the several classes (as to social position and
residence) to the population of the next generation? Some of the
questions which she hoped to see solved by the statistical method came
near to those with which a later generation is familiar under the name
of Eugenics. Her friend M. Quetelet had made a beginning in the science
of "Social Physics." Both he and Dr. Farr had hoped that she would carry
on the work. She had often talked with Mr. Jowett on the subject, and
now a scheme was suggested. She would give a sum of money, and he a like
amount, and between them they would found at Oxford a Professorship or
Lectureship in Applied Statistics. They agreed first to consult various
friends and experts. Mr. Jowett seems to have discussed the matter with
Mr. Arthur Balfour and Professor Alfred Marshall. Of Mr. Balfour, he
wrote (Dec. 4, 1890) that "he has more head and power of thinking than
any statesman whom I have ever known." Miss Nightingale on her side
called into council Mr. Francis Galton, who took up the idea warmly and
elaborated a detailed scheme. He raised, however, a preliminary
objection. A Professor at Oxford or Cambridge of any subject which is
not a principal element in an examination "School" is a Professor
without a class, and often sinks into somnolence. He suggested that the
Professorship would be more useful if attached to the Royal Institution.
Mr. Jowett, who had perhaps entered into the scheme from interest rather
in Miss Nightingale than in the subject, was not very helpful in matters
of detail, but he was ready to acquiesce in any scheme which Miss
Nightingale adopted. He made only two conditions; first, that he should
be allowed to contribute; and next, that the Professorship should be
called by her name. Mr. Galton went on with his plans which, as they
were developed, were found to require a very large sum of money. Miss
Nightingale, whose resources were in great part tied up by settlements,
consulted her trustees. They did not deny that she could put down
£4000,--the sum which Mr. Galton's scheme seemed to require as her
contribution,--but they were not passionate statisticians and did not
underrate the objections to such a gift. Meanwhile time was passing;
Mr. Galton was busy with other things, and Miss Nightingale herself,
being much occupied during this year (1891) with other affairs, laid the
scheme aside.
[244] See Vol. I. p. 435.
[245] In a letter of 1891 to Mr. Jowett.
Mr. Jowett, moreover, was very ill in the same year--having a serious
heart attack, from which he barely recovered and which was premonitory
of the end. At the beginning of October he spent a few days at Claydon
with Sir Harry Verney and Miss Nightingale. On returning to Oxford he
was worse. "You will be tired of hearing from me," he said to her in a
dictated letter of farewell (Oct. 16), "and I begin to think that I may
as well cease. Many interesting things have been revealed to me in my
illness, of which I should like to talk to you. I never had an idea of
what death was, or of what the human body was before, and am very far
from knowing now. I am always thankful for having known you. I try to go
on to the end as I was. I hope you will do so too; it is best. I hope
that you may continue many years, and that you may do endless kindnesses
to others. Will you cast a look sometimes on my old friends, Miss Knight
and Mrs. [T. H.] Green, and my two young friends, F. and J.? It would
please me if you could say a word to them from time to time. But perhaps
it is rather drivelling to try and make things permanent which are
already passing away. Ever yours affectionately, B. J." He thought that
he was on the point of death, and in a will made at this time he
bequeathed "£2000 to Miss Nightingale for certain purposes." It was the
sum which he had meant to contribute to the "Nightingale Professorship
of Statistics." He rallied, however, and begged her to do as she had
offered, and come over from Claydon to see him. "I am delighted to
hear," he wrote (Nov. 18), "that you will do me the honour to come to
Balliol to see me. Acland will send his carriage for you to the station.
It will be a great event for me to have a visit from you." Mr. Jowett
was spared for nearly two years, and he still came from time to time to
see her. "I want to hold fast to you, dear friend," he wrote (May 26,
1892), "as I go down the hill. You and I are agreed that the last years
of life are in a sense the best, and that the most may be made of them
even at a time when health and strength may seem to be failing." In
August 1893 Mr. Jowett was again very ill. He dictated a letter to Miss
Nightingale, commending some of his friends to her once more. He rallied
a little and came up to London to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Lewis
Campbell. On September 18 he dictated his last letter to Miss
Nightingale: "We called upon you yesterday in South Street, but finding
no one at home supposed you had migrated to Claydon. Fare you well! How
greatly am I indebted to you for all your affection. How large a part
has your life been of my life. There is only time I think for a few
words." On October 1 he died at the house of Mr. Justice Wright in
Hampshire, to which he had gone a few days before. "Do you know," wrote
Miss Nightingale to Mrs. Clough (Nov. 7), "that he sometimes felt glad
in the society of 'Clough' during his last illness? He was in London at
the house of those dear Lewis Campbells for doctoring and nursing from
September 16 to 23rd. He was lying in the way he liked--silent, with
Mr. Lewis Campbell sitting beside him--when suddenly he opened his eyes
and said, 'Oh, is it you? I thought it was Clough.'" Pinned to Miss
Nightingale's letter, there is one which Mr. Jowett had written,
thirty-two years before, to Mrs. Clough on the death of his friend, her
husband. In it he had said: "I loved him and think of him daily. I
should like to have the memory of him, and also of Miss Nightingale,
present with me in death, as of the two persons whose example I value
most, as having 'walked by faith.'"
Miss Nightingale had other bereavements at this time. "I have lost," she
wrote, "the three nearest to me in twelve months" (1893-94). In February
1894, Sir Harry Verney died, and she felt the loss of "his courage, his
courtesy, his kindness." In August, her cousin, Mr. Shore Smith,
died--"her boy" of the old days, whom throughout his life she had
regarded with something of a mother's love; nor had she ever forgotten
the fond and dutiful affection which he had shown towards her own
mother. Miss Nightingale felt the three losses deeply, but a note of
serenity marked her old age. "This is a sad birthday, dearest," she
wrote a little later; "but let me send a few roses to say what words
cannot say. There is so much to live for. I have lost much in failures
and disappointment, as well as in grief; but, do you know, life is more
precious to me now in my old age." The place left vacant by Mr. Jowett's
death was in some respects filled henceforth by the Rev. Thory Gage
Gardiner, who from time to time administered the Sacrament to Miss
Nightingale in her room, and in whose work in South London she came to
take a lively interest.
The Professorship which Mr. Jowett and Miss Nightingale were to have
founded was never realized. Miss Nightingale had laid the scheme aside
at the end of 1891--"with a sore heart," she said, for it had been "an
object of a lifetime." Mr. Jowett, knowing that she had abandoned the
scheme, had omitted his bequest in a new will made during his last
illness. But when three years later she in turn came to make her will
she still had the scheme in mind. It was a trust, she used to say,
committed to her by M. Quetelet and Dr. Farr, and it was connected with
memories of Mr. Jowett. She gave accordingly "to Francis Galton £2000
for certain purposes," and declared that "the same shall be paid in
priority to all other bequests given by her Will for charitable and
other purposes." Her hope was that the £2000 would suffice for some
_educational_ work in the use of Statistics, but Mr. Galton differed,
and in the following year she revoked the bequest by Codicil. A
pencilled note found among her Papers gives the reason: "I recall or
revoke the legacy of £2000 to Mr. Francis Galton because he does not
think it sufficient for the purpose I wished and proposes a small
Endowment for _Research_, which I believe will only end in endowing some
bacillus or microbe, and I do not wish that."
IV
Miss Nightingale's life, said Mr. Jowett, had been a large part of his.
That his life had also been a large part of hers, this Memoir will have
shown. Few men or women had known him so well, and into the inscription
which she sent with her flowers she distilled her memories: "In loving
remembrance of Professor Jowett, the Genius of Friendship, above all the
Friend of God." Among the many letters which she received about his
death none touched or interested her so much as those of Lord
Lansdowne:--
SIMLA, _October_ 11. Our dear old friend is, as far as his bodily
presence in our midst is concerned, lost to us. It is a real sorrow
to me. I had no more constant friend, and I cannot express the
gratitude with which I look back to his unfailing interest in all
that befell me and to his help and guidance at times when they were
most needed. His saying that he meant to get better "because he had
yet so much to do" is touching and characteristic. He was one who
would never have sate down and said that his task was done, or that
he was entitled to rest from toil for the remainder of his days. It
would, however, be very far from the truth to think that his work was
at an end because he is no longer here to carry it on with his own
hands.
SIMLA, _October_ 25. Of all the true and appreciative words which
you have written of him, none seem to me truer than those in which
you speak almost impatiently of the shallow fools who thought that
he had "no religion." His religion always seemed to me nearer to
that which _The_ Master taught his followers than that of any other
man or woman whom I have met, and I doubt whether any one of our
time has done so much to spread true religion and Christianity in
the best sense of the word.
All this was precisely and profoundly what Miss Nightingale felt about
her friend. Of all men whom she had known, none seemed to her to have
led a Christian life more consistently than Mr. Jowett. In her thoughts
about him she had only one regret. It was that their friendship had
never resulted in any formal re-statement of religious doctrine. She had
not been able to put into any such form as satisfied him the scheme of
Theodicy which they had discussed during thirty years, and he had
devoted too much time, she thought, to criticism and too little to
reconstruction. But in religious practice, how rich was his legacy--both
in precept and in example! In letters of his later years, no thought had
been more often expressed by Mr. Jowett than that of Browning's _Rabbi
Ben Ezra_--a poem which he was constantly recommending to Miss
Nightingale. And there was another poem which he sent her: _The Song
Celestial_, translated from the Mahâbhârata by Sir Edwin Arnold. "I
think," he wrote (Nov. 6, 1886), "it expresses some of the deepest
thoughts of the human heart." These two poems which Miss Nightingale
read, marked, and learnt, were to set the note of her last years.