CHAPTER IX

OLD AGE--DEATH

(1894-1910)

The truer, the safer, the better years of life are the later ones.

We must find new ways of using them, doing not so much, but in a

better manner--economising because economy has become necessary,

for bodily strength obviously grows less: that is the will of God

and cannot be escaped or denied.--BENJAMIN JOWETT (_Letter to Miss

Nightingale_, Dec. 30, 1887).

Let fruits of labour go,

Renouncing hope for Me, with lowliest heart,

So shalt thou come; for tho' to know is more

Than diligence, yet worship better is

Than knowing, and renouncing better still.

Near to renunciation--very near--

Dwelleth Eternal Peace.

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD: _The Song Celestial_.

It was in the spirit of Rabbi Ben Ezra that Miss Nightingale faced old

age, and for a few years after she had passed her 75th birthday she was

able to enjoy "the last of life" with full zest. Something of her former

vigour was lost, but something of tenderness and acquiescence was

gained. Then her powers gradually failed; she was still in this world,

but hardly any longer of it. The time for renunciation was come. There

were several years of pensive evening; and then, the end--or, as Miss

Nightingale believed with passionate intensity, the beginning of new

work in another world. In her later years, a young cousin, in speaking

to her of the death of a relation whom they both loved, said that now at

any rate he was at rest and in peace. Miss Nightingale, who had been

lying back on her pillows, sat up on the instant and said with full fire

and vigour, "Oh _no_, I am _sure_ it is an immense activity."

Miss Nightingale's fervour in preaching the gospel that a man's latter

years should be his best appears in a series of letters which touch

successively on three of the main interests of her life. The first is to

the cousin who now for thirty-five years had been her right-hand man in

all that concerned the Nightingale School; the second is to a politician

with whose aspirations for a new era in India she had sympathized; and

the third, to her old comrades in the British Army:--

(_To Henry Bonham Carter._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _March_ 4 [1894]. MY

DEAR HARRY--F. N. did not know or did not remember--more abominable

me!--that your birthday, a day we must all bless--was on Feb. 15.

And don't say "alas!" when you say "it completes my 67th year."

Your sun is still in the meridian, thank God! Mr. Jowett always

said that the last years of life were and ought to be the best--and

of himself he said (tho' he had, I fear, plenty of suffering in the

last two years, and some ingratitude among those whom he had really

created), that these years were his happiest--his energy never

flagged. Sir Harry, an extraordinarily different man, has often

told me that the last two or three were the happiest. And his

energy, fitful as it always was, never flagged till the very last

week of his life. Sidney Herbert worked till his last fortnight.

And Mr. Gladstone--for this is like his death[246]--will be

lamented not because he worked at Home Rule to his last moment, but

because to his last moment he maintained the House of Commons at

what it was in the years I so well remember, its palmy days under

the School of Sir Robert Peel, of whom he is the last. Now, haven't

we cause to rejoice in your life ever more and more every year, and

to thank you more and more, and to sing not the Dies Iræ but the Te

Deum for your life. And a great many more besides us. Hoot, hoot,

laddie! you are one of those who "open the Kingdom of heaven"--that

which is "within" and here--"to all believers"; and _not_ one of

those who leap from a pinnacle of the temple knowing nothing, but

just thinking that the "angels will bear them up"--like some I

could name but refrain. And one at least of the "angels" is always

a vulgar wretch. And the real "angels" who are working hard, and in

detail entirely repudiate the "bearing up" of the leaper from the

pinnacle.... Believe me, ever yours gratefully and affectionately,

F. N.

(_To Sir William Wedderburn._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _August_ 13

[1896].... You have no business to be low-spirited about the

future. There is Providence still. It is 40 years this month since

I came back from the Crimea. See how poor I have been helped,

though I have lost all my friends among Ministers. When I am

low-spirited I read about the Duke of Wellington in the Battle of

Waterloo or the Peninsular War. And I see how he held on. Alone he

did it. And what was the end? He saved Europe. So it will be with

you. You will save India.

[246] He had resigned the Prime Ministership on March 3, and made his

last speech in the House of Commons on March 1. He was then 85.

(_To the Crimean Veterans._) _October_ 25 [1897]. MY DEAR OLD

COMRADES--I think of you on Balaclava Day and many days besides. In

peace as in war, I wish you the best wish: Quit ye like men! God,

from whom the soldiers take their orders, has as much work for us to

do for Him in peace as in war--thank His Love and Wisdom!--and to the

last years of our lives which ought to be the best years of our lives.

Never say "_poor_ lives." Life is a splendid gift if we will but

let Him make it so, here and hereafter, for Himself. God bless you

all.

A few weeks before the date of her letter to the Crimean veterans, she

had thanked God in her meditations for all he had given her--"work,

constant work, work with Sidney Herbert, work with Lord Lawrence, and

never out of work still." "I am soaked in work," she wrote to Sir

Douglas Galton (Jan. 1897). "You see," she said to Mr. Bonham Carter

(Sept. 1895), "I have my hands full, and am not idle, though people

naturally think that I have gone to sleep or am dead." Once or twice,

her death had been reported. On another occasion, a paragraph went the

round of the religious press stating that Miss Nightingale having

contracted a spinal complaint from her long hours of standing in the

Crimea, had "now for some years been an in-patient at St. Thomas's

Hospital." The paragraph brought a sheaf of letters from persons with

"sure remedies" for spinal disease, from faith-healers, from mothers who

had daughters similarly affected; and to the Hospital, many flowers and

letters of consolation. "They know nothing," she wrote to Mr. Bonham

Carter (July 6, 1897), "of what a press my life is, and often a hopeless

press but for you." It was a busy life, and, until near its end, it was

less subject to ill-health than in earlier years. She had outgrown the

weakness of heart and nerves which had often been distressing in middle

life, and though she still kept to her room, the impression which she

now made upon all who saw her was of robust and vigorous old age.

II

All the active interests of her life still occupied her. She interested

herself closely in the progress of sanitary reform in India, and it was

not till 1906 that her secretary had to inform the India Office that

Sanitary Papers could no longer usefully be forwarded to her. Lord

Elgin, who succeeded Lord Lansdowne as Viceroy in 1894, had sent his

private secretary, Sir Henry Babington Smith, to call upon her, and

through him she had still corresponded with the Governor-General. Her

days of vigorous campaigning were over; she became more reconciled, as

she grew older, to those "periods of Indian cosmogony" of which Lord

Salisbury, in the years of her impatience, had reminded her. She

realized more fully than before that in India the progress of sanitary

education must be slow. In 1898 she received the Aga Khan. "A most

interesting man," she said in her note of the interview; "but you could

never teach him sanitation. I never understood before how really

impossible it is for an Eastern to care for material things. I told him

as well as I could all the differences both in town and in country

during my life. Do you think you are improving? he asked. By improving

he meant Believing more in God. To him sanitation is unreal and

superstitious; religion, spirituality, is the only real thing." And,

besides, Miss Nightingale had now to accept limitations in what she

could any longer hope to effect. These limitations, and the work within

them which she still was able to do, are touched upon in a piece from

her pen in 1896.[247] "I am painfully aware how difficult, how almost

impossible, it is for any one at a great distance to do anything to help

forward a movement requiring unremitting labour and supervision on the

spot. But it is my privilege to meet in England from time to time Indian

friends who are heartily desirous of obtaining for their poorer

fellow-countrymen the benefits which, through sanitary science, are

gradually being extended to the masses here, both in town and country,

and which are doing so much to promote their health and happiness. So I

never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however

small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed

germinates and roots itself." And she went on to describe the steps

which her friend Mr. Malabari was taking to promote sanitary education,

and even to institute Health Missionaries, in selected districts of

Rural India. The Government of India was co-operating to some extent in

such work. In a Paper written in 1894[248] she tendered "cordial

acknowledgments to Lord Cross, Lord Kimberley, and Mr. Fowler, the

successive Secretaries of State for India, also to Lord Lansdowne and

Lord Elgin, the Viceroys, for the personal interest they have shown" in

the matter of Village Sanitation. She especially commended the practical

and helpful spirit shown in the Government of India's Dispatch of March

1895 instituting "Village Sanitary Inspection Books."

[247] Bibliography A, No. 138.

[248] Bibliography A, No. 135.

III

In the Army, too, Miss Nightingale continued to take a lively interest,

and Sir Douglas Galton was still within--not always instant--call to

give her information or advice:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Sir Douglas Galton._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _Nov._

24 [1895]. Oh you Turk, oh you rascal, Sir Douglas, not to tell me

that you were in London, not to reward me for my good resolution in

not troubling you. I would have asked but few questions, but these

called for haste. (i.) Most important: How the troops for Kumassi

are to be supplied with water, day and night, fit to drink? Spirit

ration only as medicine? Are they to have salt pork and beef? Then

about their shoes, stockings, and boots? Are these things now

recognized at Head Quarters? Probably I am disquieting myself in

vain. Lord Lansdowne is so overwhelmed with amateur schemes for W.

O. reform--not that I am in that line of business now at all; but I

do not like to write to him just now. (ii.) Barracks at

Newcastle-on-Tyne, depot where 5th Fusiliers are quartered, said to

be in an awful state of bad drainage: not denied, but remedy

"would cost too much." I know nothing of it personally. "Ladies

Sanitary Association" dying to interfere. Sir Thomas Crawford dead,

or I should have asked _his_ advice. (iii.) We have another Nurse

(a Sister of St. Thomas's) going out to India to join the Army

Nursing Staff. Three are going out in three ships--they don't know

where--each goes alone. (The I.O. sends them out like the famous

_pair_ of Painted Marmots who came over in _three_ ships, on the

crust of a twopenny loaf which served them for provisions during

the voyage.) Mine asks me for an Army Medical Book. Don't

misunderstand: the Nurses must not know anything about anything, to

be looked well on by the Doctors, whose treatment is, I believe,

what it was 40 years ago. But if there is a book which could put

her up to things, not excepting the terrible increase of the

vicious disease, do recommend it me if you can.

In 1895 came the reluctant retirement of the Duke of Cambridge from the

post of Commander-in-Chief which he had held for nearly fifty years, and

Sir Douglas suggested to Miss Nightingale that the old soldier might be

pleased by a letter from her. "I should never have thought that myself,"

she said; but she had a soft place in her heart for the Duke, as we have

seen,[249] and she took kindly to the suggestion. She sent a sympathetic

letter in which, as an old servant of the soldiers herself, she ventured

to thank the Duke for his many services to the British Army. "I have had

such a very nice answer," she told Sir Douglas. The terms in which the

Duke replied (Oct. 1) show that Miss Nightingale's kindly compliments

had brought some balm to him in his "great grief and sorrow."

[249] Vol. I. p. 385.

One of Miss Nightingale's latest interventions in administrative affairs

was an urgent plea for improvement in the barracks at Hong-Kong, about

which she had received private information in connection with the

outbreak of bubonic plague in 1896. She prepared a careful summary of

the case, and through Sir Douglas Galton made representations both to

the War Office (Sir Evelyn Wood) and to the Colonial Office

(Mr. Chamberlain). Sir Evelyn Wood, I feel sure, must at any rate have

listened attentively to what she had to say. In 1898 he gave an

appointment to a godson of hers[250] and told her with what pleasure he

had done so "as a patient of yours in 1856." As for the Colonial Office,

she noted a wise saw which some one told her: "If you get a private

reply, the thing is done; if an official reply, all is up." Her reply

was official, but nevertheless something was done; though not, I think,

all that she wanted. Another matter which much occupied Miss

Nightingale's mind at this time was the effect of the repeal of the

Contagious Diseases Act, especially in connection with India. In 1896-97

a Departmental Committee was appointed to report upon the facts, and

there was much discussion. Miss Nightingale was besieged by both sides

for her opinion. She had found reason in the facts for some modification

of her former opinions.[251] She was still opposed to the complete

reintroduction of the old system, but she thought, on close examination

of the facts, that the balance of advantage, moral and physical, lay

with some amount of sanitary precaution. She signed, with a

reservation,[252] a memorial promoted by Princess Christian, Lady Jeune,

and others, "expressing our anxious hope that effectual measures will be

taken to check the spread of contagious diseases among our soldiers,

especially in India." There was much abuse of Miss Nightingale, and some

praying over her for such "backsliding." It was in connection with this

matter that she wrote a characteristic comment upon one of her friends:

"She does not want to hear facts; she wants to be enthusiastic."

[250] In later years Miss Nightingale was not quite so strict as

formerly (see above, p. 73) in abstaining from asking such favours.

[251] See above, p. 75.

[252] Miss Nightingale's signature was "subject to the addition of a

request that an independent inquiry be at the same time set on foot

at the several stations in India as recommended by the

Governor-General in Council on Nov. 4, 1896."

Study of the facts, forethought, good administration: these were the

things which constantly occupied Miss Nightingale's mind in relation to

military, as to other, affairs. They were the things which had been

indelibly impressed upon her by the Crimean War. In the year of the

Diamond Jubilee, the enterprising Mr. Kiralfy bethought himself of a

Victorian Era Exhibition, in which one section should be devoted to

Nursing. Great ladies took up the idea, and Miss Nightingale was

besieged from many quarters to let herself be "represented" by

photographs, busts, autographs, and "relics of the Crimean War." Miss

Nightingale at the first attack was in her most withering vein. "Oh the

absurdity of people," she wrote, "and the vulgarity! The 'relics,' the

'representations' of the Crimean War! What are they? They are, first,

the tremendous lessons we have had to learn from its tremendous blunders

and ignorances. And next they are Trained Nurses and the progress of

Hygiene. These are the 'representations' of the Crimean War. And I will

not give my foolish Portrait (which I have not got) or anything else as

'relics' of the Crimea. It is too ridiculous. You don't judge even of

the victuals inside a public-house by the sign outside. I won't be made

a _sign_ at an Exhibition. Think of Sidney Herbert's splendid Royal

Commissions which struck the keynote of progress in the British Army!

Think of the unwearied toil of the Sanitarians! And you ask me for the

photograph of a rat! and at the moment too when there is the Plague at

Bombay!" But having delivered her mind in some letters to this effect,

Miss Nightingale let her heart be persuaded. Lady Wantage, whom she held

in affectionate admiration, climbed the stairs in South Street to press

the suit in person, and Miss Nightingale surrendered. "Lady Wantage was

so charming," she wrote, half-ashamed of the surrender, "and she

wouldn't 'take' when I went off upon Royal Commissions _et id genus

omne_, and she stuck to her point and she was so gracious and she is

such a very good woman." So the "bust of Florence Nightingale" was lent,

and her old "Crimean carriage," brought down from a loft in the country,

was patched up to serve as a "relic." A distinguished writer (but he was

a humorist) has averred that he once saw an Italian organ-grinder on his

knees before a shop-window in St. Martin's Lane, having taken a

dentist's showcase for relics of the saints. That was perhaps pushing

things a little far; but "hope in the hem of the garment" is deeply

rooted in men's hearts. "We want something to love," said one of Miss

Nightingale's friends in supporting Lady Wantage's petition, "and one

cannot love Royal Commissions." The Crimean relic served. At the

Exhibition an old soldier was seen to go up to the carriage and kiss it.

The bust was also bedecked. "Now I must ask you," wrote Miss Nightingale

to her cousin Louis (Oct. 16, 1897), when the Exhibition was to be

closed, "about my bust. (Here I stop to utter a great many bad words,

not fit to put on paper. I also utter a pious wish that the bust may be

smashed.) I should not have remembered it, but that I am told somebody

came every day to dress it with fresh flowers. I utter a pious wish that

that person may be saved. You (for I know not what sins), it appears,

are my 'man of business.' What _is_ to be done about that bust?" Miss

Nightingale's private meditations were the more earnest for her

compliance in what she regarded as a mere triviality. The Exhibition was

to her an occasion for giving thanks to God. "How inefficient I was in

the Crimea! Yet He has raised up Trained Nursing from it!"

Memories of the Crimea were much in Miss Nightingale's mind during these

years. On Waterloo Day, 1898, she made an interesting note:--

What an administrator was the Duke! He chose the ground for the

battle--he, not the enemy. By his constructive arrangements, having

forced them to accept the ground _he_ chose, he, who had no staff

fit to help him, supervised everything himself. He made each Corps

lie down on the ground he had chosen for it the next day; the

ammunition each would require was conveyed to it under _his own_

orders (how many a battle has been lost from want of ammunition!);

he provided for every possible contingency. Nothing was neglected,

nothing lost, nothing failed. And so he delivered Europe from the

greatest military genius the world has seen. How different was the

Duke from Lord Raglan, excepting that both were honourable

gentlemen! Lord Raglan was told in a letter by a chance Doctor, a

volunteer, a civilian, a man whom nobody had ever heard of, that if

the men were not better hutted, better fed, better clothed, in a

few weeks he would have no army at all. Lord Raglan rode down at

once alone with the exception of a single Orderly, and got off his

horse and went into his informant's tent and said, "You know I

could try you by Court Martial for this letter." He answered, "My

Lord, that is just what I want. Then the truth will come out. What

signifies what becomes of me? But will you ride round first alone

just as you are now at once and see whether what I have said is

true?" Lord Raglan did so, and found that it was within the truth.

And so the Army was saved. The men were dying of scurvy from salt

meat; but the shores of the Euxine were crowded with cattle.

The outbreak of war in South Africa led her thoughts to another interest

which had much occupied her at Scutari--the better employment of the

soldier in peace:--

"London is full," she noted (October 1899), "of rumours of war with

the Boers. I cannot say these rumours are frightful in my ears. Few

men and fewer women have seen so much of the horrors of war as I

have. Yet I cannot say that war seems to me an unmitigated evil.

The soldier in war is a _man_: devoted to his duty, giving his life

for his comrade, his country, his God. I cannot bear to say:

Compare him with the soldier in peace in barracks; for you will

say, Then would you always have war? Well, I have nothing to do

with the making of war or peace. I can only say that you must see

the man in war to know what he is capable of. If you drive past a

barrack, you will see two heads idling and lolling out of every

window. And the only creature who is doing anything is the dog who

is carrying victuals to his wife who has puppies. And the moral is:

Provide the soldier with active employment."

IV

She was unable to take any active part in connection with sending out

nurses to South Africa; though many inquiries were addressed to her, and

many nurses wrote to her from the scene of war. To the "Scottish

Hospital in South Africa," she contributed £100--a gift which was partly

inspired by affection for her "grateful and loving child," Miss Spencer,

matron of the Edinburgh Infirmary, who was much interested in the

scheme.

Miss Nightingale's interest in the work of her old pupils all over the

country, in the education of her Probationers at St. Thomas's, and in

the affairs of the nursing world in general, was unabated during the

closing years of the century. The "Nurses' Battle" about registration

was still active, and from time to time she was appealed to for aid. In

1895 certain overtures were made. "Shall I royally discard it," she

asked, "or give them a buster?" She chose the latter course. A little

later, one of her allies was thought to be weakening. "I did my

'spiriting,'" she reported, "with that gentleness for which I am so

remarkable! He gives in. He is a very striking man, and of great

presence of mind; masterful too, but he is staggered by Princesses." She

was hard at work, too, with advising on appointments. There was one part

of the world, however--Buenos Ayres--of which Miss Nightingale began to

wash her hands. "Of the last party, all were married within a year; what

is the use of sending out any more?" At home there were "four successors

wanted," she wrote (1896), "and four staffs howling." A matron in a

country hospital was about to resign: "I had two letters and four

telegrams from her on Tuesday and other days in proportion." The volume

of her nursing correspondence during 1896-97 is, indeed, as great as at

any previous time, and she still received regular visits from matrons,

sisters, and nurses. "After looking over a mass of Sisters' Records,

Probationers' examination-papers, case-books, and diaries, and having

had the pleasure of many afternoons with Probationers and

ex-Probationers," she found "much cause for thankfulness" in her School;

but "as we are always trying to make progress," she went on to propose

to her Council a series of detailed suggestions for reform. For some

years, too, she was much occupied in advising Lord and Lady Monteagle in

a matter which they were promoting--the training of nurses for Irish

Workhouses. Her affectionate concern in her nursing friends was

constant. In the year of the Jubilee (1897) Queen Victoria invited her

to come in a bath-chair to the forecourt of Buckingham Palace to witness

the procession. She was unable to leave her room, but she remembered the

nurses and purchased a number of seats for distribution among them. She

was deeply interested in a nurse who volunteered for plague-service in

India: "The deepest, quietest, most striking person I have seen from our

present staff, and so pretty. Not enthusiastic except in the good old

original sense: God in us. She is firmly and cautiously determined to go

to the Plague." After a series of interviews with nurses and letters

from them (1898), Miss Nightingale noted some impressions of types. She

valued efficiency, but she deplored a tendency which she detected to

substitute professionalism for heart. Who are the "ministering angels"?

she asked. "The Angels are _not_ they who go about scattering flowers:

any naughty child would like to do that, even any rascal. The Angels are

they who, like Nurse or Ward-maid or Scavenger, do disgusting work,

removing injury to health or obstacles to recovery, emptying slops,

washing patients, etc., for all of which they receive no thanks. These

are the Angels. They speak kind words too, and give sympathy. The drabby

Nurse, crying as if her heart would break, with apron over her head,

because a poor little peevish thing who has never given her anything but

trouble is dead--is an Angel; while the nurse who coolly walks down a

Ward noting how many children are dead who were alive when she last made

her round, is by no means an Angel."

In such thoughts Miss Nightingale had a constant sympathizer in the

Grand Duchess of Baden, who wrote to her year by year, in terms of warm

affection, reporting progress in German nursing--reports which told of

professional improvement, but also, as the Grand Duchess thought, of

some lack of high ideal. The Empress Frederick, too, continued to see

Miss Nightingale from year to year, and their talk was very sympathetic.

Of her allies at home, Mr. Bonham Carter was helpful, not only in the

conduct of the Nightingale School but in the management of her private

affairs. Mr. Rathbone retained to the last his devotion to her as the

founder of modern nursing. "To have been allowed," he wrote (Dec. 27,

1897), "to work with your inspiration and wise counsels for more than 35

years as one of your agents in your great work is a thing I am deeply

grateful for. I remain while life lasts your devoted friend, and in

effort at least your faithful servant." "From the confinement of your

room," he added, "you have done more to spread reform than you could

have done with the most perfect health and strength." That was not the

opinion of Miss Nightingale; she could only direct or advise; she had

for many years been forced to leave action to others. The sense of this

disability did not grow less, but as years passed, it was felt to be the

common lot of the old. She was not well pleased with all that she saw,

but she was, of necessity and by discipline of character, less

impatient. She could now regard with affectionate tolerance a wedding in

her family of nurses. To one "child" she sent a present "With the very

best marriage wishes of F. N., though sorry to lose you. Come and see

me." She even forgave an old friend whose marriage many years before she

had resented as "desertion." She saw much around her to criticize, but

she was content to uphold her own ideals and her criticisms became less

censorious. "Remember," she said to herself in her meditations, "God is

not my Private Secretary." As old friends disappeared, she looked the

more earnestly to the younger generation. Sir Robert Rawlinson, who for

more than forty years had corresponded with her on sanitary affairs,

died in 1898; Sir Douglas Galton, in 1899; Mr. Rathbone, in 1902.[253]

She was anxious that Sir Douglas Galton's services should be rightly

appreciated in the press, and took some measures to that end. "The man

whom we have lost," she wrote privately (March 12, 1899), "Sir Douglas

Galton, was the first Royal Engineer who put any _sanitary_ work into R.

Engineering. The head of these men at the War Office, the R. Engineers,

himself said to me: 'our business is to make roads and to build

bridges--we have nothing to do with health and that kind of Doctor's

work,' or words to that effect. Sir D. G. opened his own ears and his

heart and his mind, and put all his powers into saving life while

working in his profession." "One does feel," she had written on All

Souls' Day, 1896, "the passing away of so many who seemed essential to

the world. I have no one now to whom I could speak of those who are

gone. But all the more I am eager to see successors. What is that

verse--that the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the

manifestation of the sons (and daughters) of God. And I am thankful for

the many noble souls I have known."

[253] For Miss Nightingale's tribute to his memory, see above, p. 124.

V

Gradually Miss Nightingale's powers failed. For the last fifteen years

of her life she seldom left her room in South Street. Her last visit to

Embley had been in August 1891. The property there was sold in 1896,

"and I don't like being turned out of Hampshire," she said. Her last

visit to Claydon was in 1894-95. To Lea Hurst, which had been let for 10

years in 1883, she never went after her mother's death, though she

retained her interest in local affairs there to the end. Already in 1887

she had talked of herself as "almost blind"; and in 1895, in a note of

symptoms about which to ask her doctor, she had included "want of

memory." The loss at first was only of dates and names, but after a few

years it became more general. Her eyesight, which had troubled her for

some time, now failed. The long series of pencilled meditations

ceased. In the later years of them though there was still much

self-condemnation, there was more of peace and hope. "November 3-4,

1893. Thirty-nine years ago arrival at Scutari. The immense blessings I

have had--the longings of my heart accomplished--and now drawn to Thee

by difficulties and disappointments." "Homeward bound." "I have entered

in."

Owing to her eyesight being the first among her powers to fail, there is

one exception to the general statement that the failure was gradual. Her

power of writing failed all at once. Miss Nightingale's handwriting, of

which a facsimile has already been given, was very characteristic:

clear, bold, and careful. She was possessed with the idea of doing

everything that she undertook as perfectly as pains could enable her. In

her handwriting every letter is well formed, every word has its clear

space: paragraphs, insets, and intervals are arranged carefully to help

the reader to the sense; yet all is done with an air of freedom and

distinction. There is artistic feeling about the script; the distinctive

formation of the _F_ in her signature may be instanced. Few persons, I

imagine, have ever written so much as Miss Nightingale did with her own

hand, and the writing never deteriorated. Some of her best friends and

helpers--Sidney Herbert, for instance, and Douglas Galton--wrote, when

hurried, the worst hands; and she would often pencil, over their almost

indecipherable scrawls, a fair copy of what she conjectured the words to

be. Many of her own letters were in pencil, for she wrote much in bed;

but she used a particular brand--procured by her friend Mr. Frederick,

of the War Office--hard, and not easily delible, and her handwriting is

as good in pencil as with the pen. There were some variations in its

manner. In middle life, as some one said of it, her writing "galloped

across the page tossing its mane." In youth and in age, it was extremely

careful. The very latest examples which I have seen show only a slight

quaver in the lines; the formation of the letters and the spacing are as

exact as ever. Then the sight failed, and the writing almost ceased.

From about 1901 or 1902 onwards she could neither read nor write except

with the greatest difficulty. There were no longer papers on the bed.

The hands were quiet. Her eyes rested on her friends with even more than

the old kindness, but not with the old penetrating clearness. In 1902

Miss Nightingale was persuaded to accept the services of a companion,

Miss Cochrane; who, on leaving to be married, was succeeded in 1904 by

Miss Elizabeth Bosanquet. Some diplomacy was necessary, and at first it

was agreed that the post should be called that of "lady housekeeper." In

reality it was that of private secretary, with large initiative. Miss

Nightingale did not easily yield to her infirmities; she concealed them,

too, so cleverly as sometimes to mislead visitors, who took a kindly

"yes, dear" to express more intellectual apprehension and assent than

really lay behind it. Lord Kitchener, who paid her a visit, remarked to

Miss Cochrane after the interview how closely Miss Nightingale in her

old age followed what was going on; but she had known that Lord

Kitchener was coming and had prepared herself by questioning Miss

Cochrane fully and impressing on her own memory what her visitor had

lately been doing. For some years she liked to feel that she was still

in the movement of the world, and to have the daily newspaper read to

her--thus submitting in old age to an exercise which had caused her much

impatient disgust in youth. Her _Notes on Nursing_, written nearly half

a century before, proved true in some respects of her own case, though

not in others. She was indifferent to some of her maxims, and in the

last years paid little attention to the gospel of the open window. But

what she had observed in sickrooms about the tastes of others was

recognized as true by those in attendance upon her. So long as she could

see at all, she greatly loved to have flowers about her. Then, again,

she had written that what those like who are past the power of action

themselves is "to hear of good practical action by others." And that was

what she found in her old age. She liked to have biographies read to

her, and essays which recounted or commended vigorous doing. She was

never tired of some pages in Mr. Roosevelt's _Strenuous Life_, and would

signify approval by rapping energetically on the table beside her. For

several years her bodily strength was well maintained, and she suffered

little, except from occasional rheumatism. She was rather a difficult

patient, for she could not bring herself to believe that she needed

care. She did not take kindly to the introduction of a nurse. The ruling

passion of her life was strong; and when the nurse had tucked her up for

the night, she would often reverse the parts, get out of bed and go into

the adjoining room to tuck up the nurse. She could not realize that her

secretary lived with her night and day; and when good-night was said,

she would reply, "And now, my dear, how are you going home? do let me

send for a cab." Her voice still retained its quality. In extreme old

age she used to recite Milton and Shelley and pieces of Italian and

French in rich, full tones. Sometimes she would sing, still in a sweet

and gay voice, a snatch of an Italian song. Her voice seemed, says one

who was much with her, to fill the room. "One day," says a cousin, "she

was objecting to being helped in dressing, and I was summoned from the

bottom to the top of the house by splendid easy shouts." But there was

only occasional revolt. The abiding impression made upon all who served

her was of an unfailing kindness and consideration.

She still received many visitors, in addition to her cousins and other

kinsfolk. Among old friends, Miss Paulina Irby saw her the most

frequently. Sometimes the visit was from a stranger, to whom the

occasion had almost an hieratic impressiveness. Miss Nightingale liked

best those visitors who had an abundant flow of vigorous talk. A pause

in the conversation, which she might be expected to fill by starting a

new topic, was a strain to her. The visits which tired her least were

those of Matrons and nursing Sisters. She loved to hear of their work,

their patients, and especially of suggestions they made for

improvements. One of her nursing friends paused in the talk to ask, "But

am I not tiring you?" "Oh, no," replied Miss Nightingale quickly, "you

give me new life." To dictate any message on her own part was now beyond

her. Of the messages sent to her, those which she longest retained the

power of apprehending were from Crimean veterans.

VI

Memory, sight, and mental apprehension were rapidly failing when the

crowning honours of her life (as the world counts them) were conferred

upon her. On November 28, 1907, King Edward wrote with "much pleasure,"

to offer the Order of Merit "in recognition of invaluable services to

the country and to humanity." A suitable reply was framed for her, and

on December 5, Sir Douglas Dawson, on the King's behalf, brought the

Order--then for the first time bestowed upon a woman--to South Street.

Miss Nightingale understood that some kindness had been done to her, but

hardly more. "Too kind, too kind," she said. On March 16, 1908, the

Freedom of the City of London was conferred upon her--hitherto conferred

on only one woman, Lady Burdett-Coutts. Miss Nightingale was able with

great difficulty to sign from her bed her initials upon the City's roll

of honour, but it is doubtful if she understood what she was being asked

to sign. Perhaps it was better so. In the years of her strength she had

ever a dread and a misgiving of the world's praises. In the days of her

weakness, when power of work in this world had gone from her, she would

have regarded such honours, had she understood them, as coming too late.

She sought no glory-crown but the opportunity of doing New Work.

[Illustration: Florence Nightingale

1907

from a water-colour drawing by Miss F. Alicia de Biden Footner]

But the prizes of the world may be of real value to others than those

who receive them. The signal honour conferred by the Crown upon Miss

Nightingale had the effect of calling fresh attention to her work and

her example. Not, indeed, that these depended on adventitious aids to

remembrance. To some men and women whose years are many it is fated that

they should outlive their fame. It was not so with Miss Nightingale. To

her it was given to become in her lifetime a tradition and almost an

institution; and the longer she lived, the greater, the more widespread

was her fame. Already on her 80th birthday (1900), Miss Nightingale had

been the recipient of congratulations from Queens and Royal Highnesses,

from schools and societies, and from nurses and nursing associations in

all parts of the world. In the United States the name of Florence

Nightingale was even more widely known and loved than in Great Britain,

and already in 1895 the American Ambassador (Mr. Bayard) had begged the

honour of an interview in order to tell her "how much revered she is in

the United States." Perhaps the congratulations which might have pleased

Miss Nightingale most--for she loved efficiency and had read _The Soul

of a People_--were those which came from the Far East. From Tokio, on

November 28, 1900, the Princess Imperial sent this letter: "The

Committee of the Ladies of the Red Cross Society of Japan have the

pleasure of presenting to you their hearty congratulation on the

occasion of your 80th birthday. That the Address reaches you late in

time is due to the great distance which separates your land from ours.

But far as our country is from yours, the example of your noble efforts,

now become historic, has not affected its inhabitants the less; for it

is due to the impulse you have given to the humane work of nursing sick

and wounded soldiers that the trained nurses of our Society, amounting

to more than 1500 in number, as well as the members of our Committee,

are applying themselves with eager zeal to the study and practice

necessary for complete efficiency in the hour of need. May your day

still be long that you may see the lasting influence of your work expand

by its own virtue more and more in all the lands of the earth."

Miss Nightingale had thus not been forgotten when the Sovereign bestowed

the Order of Merit; but the public honour set up a fresh cult of her

name and work. Among the private congratulations sent to her, there was

one which if she were able to realize it, must have warmed the

soldier's heart in her. It was from Lord Roberts: "Allow me to offer you

on behalf of Lady Roberts and myself sincerest congratulations on the

honour the King has been graciously pleased to confer upon you. It is

indeed an honour conferred upon the Order of Merit; all the members of

which must feel proud to have the name of Florence Nightingale added to

the list." The German Emperor, a little later, had a kindly thought. He

had been staying in the New Forest. "His Majesty," wrote the German

Ambassador (Dec. 10), "having just brought to a close a most enjoyable

stay in the beautiful neighbourhood of your old home near Romsey, has

commanded me to present you with some flowers as a token of his esteem."

The Mayor of her native city, Florence, sent congratulations; the

Patriotic Society of Bologna made her a Companion of Honour. From all

parts of Great Britain, from the Dominions, from the United States,

messages poured in. It was the story of "The Popular Heroine" repeated

after fifty years. The beggars and autograph-hunters were insistent; the

poetasters, industrious. A great tribe of Florences, named after the

heroine of the Crimea, sent messages. Flowers, needlework, illuminated

cards were offered. Companies of girl-scouts called themselves "The

Nightingales." There were "Florence Nightingale Societies" in America.

"Birthday letters to Florence Nightingale" became a favourite

school-exercise. There were Crimean veterans who sent flowers or

messages recalling stirring times in which they had "served with her,"

or who "in old age and suffering" desired to let Miss Florence

Nightingale know that they held her "in lively and grateful

remembrance."

In June 1907 there was an International Conference of Red Cross

Societies in London. Queen Alexandra sent a message referring to "the

pioneer of the first Red Cross movement, Miss Florence Nightingale,

whose heroic efforts on behalf of suffering humanity will be recognized

and admired by all ages as long as the world shall last." The

Conference, on the initiative of the Hungarian delegates, resolved

unanimously that "the great and incomparable name of Miss Florence

Nightingale, whose merits in the field of humanity are never to be

forgotten, and who raised the care of the sick to the position of a

charitable art, imposes on the Eighth International Conference of Red

Cross Societies the noble duty of rendering homage to her merits by

expressing warmly its high veneration."

In May 1910 there was a large gathering in the Carnegie Hall in New

York, at which the public orator of America, Mr. Choate, delivered an

eulogium, "testifying to the admiration of the entire American people

for Florence Nightingale's great record and noble life." The meeting,

assembled in honour of the Jubilee of the Nightingale Training School,

was eloquent of the spread of her work, being representative of a

thousand Nurse Training Schools in that country.

VII

The subject of these friendly manifestations was already passing beyond

reach of the hubbub. Her sight was gone. Her understanding had grown

more feeble. Her regular medical attendant was now Dr. May Thorne, whose

skill and unremitting care did much to alleviate the last bed-ridden

years. Sir Thomas Barlow was called in for consultations periodically.

Visitors had now been restricted to two or three a week. Visits were

found tiring, for she could not realize when the visitors were gone that

they were no longer in the room. Nor did she always remember which of

her old friends were still alive. She did not realize that Sir Harry

Verney was dead, she would sometimes ask for him, and wonder why he did

not come. Besides her own "nieces," she still saw Sisters from St

Thomas's or other nursing friends, and occasionally was able by a

question or two to show interest in what they said. One of the last to

see her outside the immediate circle was Miss Pringle, her dear friend,

the Pearl of an earlier chapter. "She was sitting up by the fire in the

familiar room, her mind evidently busy with happy thoughts, and once or

twice she spoke in a tone of satisfaction." This was in February 1910.

She could no longer follow sustained reading, but still liked to hear

familiar hymns. A favourite, if one may judge by the frequency with

which verses from it appear in her latest written meditations, was "O

Lord, how happy should we be, If we could cast our care on Thee, If we

from self could rest." Once, the expression of an aspiration; now

perhaps, of attainment. The end came very peacefully. At the beginning

of August, 1910, she had some ailment, but there seemed no cause for

immediate apprehension. On August 13, she fell asleep at noon, and did

not wake again. She died at about half-past two in the afternoon. She

had lived 90 years and three months.

* * * * *

The offer of burial in Westminster Abbey was declined by her relatives.

She had left directions that her funeral should be of the simplest

possible kind, and that her body should be accompanied to the grave by

not more than two persons. She was buried beside her father and mother

in the churchyard of East Wellow, near her old home in Hampshire. The

body was borne to the grave by six of her "children" of the British

Army--sergeants drawn from the several regiments of the Guards. Her

desire that only two persons should follow the coffin could not be

fulfilled. The funeral arrangements were kept as private as was

possible; but there was a wealth of flowers from people of every kind,

age, and degree, and the lane and churchyard were filled with a great

crowd of men, women, and children, most of them poorly dressed.

The family grave is marked by a four-sided stone monument. On two of the

sides are inscriptions, composed by Miss Nightingale, recording the

burial there of her father and mother; on the third, is an inscription

in memorial of their elder daughter, Lady Verney, who is buried at

Claydon. On the fourth side is a small cross with the letters "F. N.,"

and the words "Born 1820. Died 1910." The family, as she desired, set

up no other memorial.[254] The hymn sung over her grave was Bishop

Heber's. She had never tired of quoting it in messages to her nurses and

her soldiers, and those who had been about her in the closing years were

often thrilled by the fire which she still put into her recital of the

lines:

The Son of God goes forth to _war_,

A kingly crown to gain,

His blood-red banner streams afar:

_Who follows in his train?_

[254] Memorial services were held in St. Paul's Cathedral, in Liverpool

Cathedral, and in many other places of worship. The English

community in Florence have set up a symbolical memorial--designed

by Mr. W. Sargant--in the Cloisters of Santa Croce. In this country

there are to be several memorials. The Army Nurses have put up a

memorial window in the chapel of the Military Hospital at Millbank.

In Derby a statue (by Countess Feodora Gleichen) is to be set up;

any balance that there may be from the Memorial Fund is to be given

to District Nursing in the county. A "National Memorial Fund" is to

be devoted, in the first instance, to a statue (by Mr. Arthur

G. Walker) in some public place in London and, then, to the Nurses'

Pension Fund.

CONCLUSION

The character and the life described in this book had many sides; and

though the essential truth consists in the blending of them all, it is

necessary in the medium of recital in prose to depict first one side and

then another. The artist on canvas exhibits the blended tints at one

time. That is why the portrait by a great painter sometimes tells us

more of a character at a glance than is gathered from volumes of written

biography. But no artist painted a portrait of Miss Nightingale in her

prime, and I must do as best I may with my blotching prose in an

endeavour to collect into some general impression what has been told in

these volumes. I begin with recalling some of the stronger traits; they

will presently be softened when I turn to other sides of the character

which has been illustrated in this Memoir.

Florence Nightingale was by no means a Plaster Saint. She was a woman of

strong passions--not over-given to praise, not quick to forgive;

somewhat prone to be censorious, not apt to forget. She was not only a

gentle angel of compassion; she was more of a logician than a

sentimentalist; she knew that to do good work requires a hard head as

well as a soft heart. It was said by Miss Nightingale of a certain great

lady that "with the utmost kindness and benevolent intentions she is in

consequence of want of practical habits of business nothing but good and

bustling, a time-waster and an impediment." Miss Nightingale knew hardly

any fault which seemed worse to her in a man than to be unbusiness-like;

in a woman, than to be "only enthusiastic." She found no use for "angels

without hands." She was essentially a "man of facts" and a "man of

action." She had an equal contempt for those who act without knowledge,

and for those whose knowledge leads to no useful action. She was

herself laborious of detail and scrupulously careful of her premises.

"Though I write positively," she once said, "I do not think positively."

She weighed every consideration; she sought much competent advice; but

when once her decision was taken, she was resolute and masterful--not

lightly turned from her course, impatient of delay, not very tolerant of

opposition.

Something of this spirit appears in her view of friendship and in the

conduct of her affections. Men and women are placed in the world in

order, she thought, to work for the betterment of the human race, and

their work should be the supreme consideration. Mr. Jowett said of Miss

Nightingale that she was the only woman he had ever known who put public

duty before private. Whosoever did the will of the Father, the same was

her brother, and sister, and mother. "_The_ thing wanted in England,"

she wrote to Madame Mohl (April 30, 1868), "to raise women (and to raise

men too) is: these friendships without love between men and women. And

if between married men and married women all the better.... I think a

woman who cares for a man because of his convictions, and who ceases to

care for him if he alters those convictions, is worthy of the highest

reverence. The novels--all novels, the best--which represent women as in

love with men without any reason at all, and ready to leave their

highest occupations for love--are to me utterly wearisome--as wearisome

as a juggler's trick--or Table-turning--or Spiritual rapping, when the

spirit says Aw! and that is so sublime that all the women are

subjugated. Madame Récamier's going to Rome when M. de Chateaubriand was

made Minister is exactly to me as a soldier deserting on the eve of a

battle." The occasion of this letter was some gossip of the day about a

great lady whose friendship with a politician was supposed to have

cooled owing to some intellectual or political disagreement. "I have the

greatest reverence for----; and I think hers was one of the best

friendships that ever was--and for the oddest reason--what do you

think?--Because she has broken it." What she said about Chateaubriand

reflected, from a different point of view, something that Mr. Jowett had

written to her in the previous year. "I am not at all tired," he had

said (Sept. 1867), "of hearing about Lord Herbert. That was one of the

best friendships which there ever was upon earth. Shall I tell you why I

say this? Because you were willing to have gone to India in 1857."

Devotion to a common purpose in active life and equal zeal in the

co-operative prosecution of it: these were the conditions which Miss

Nightingale required in friendship. They were realized the most fully in

the case of five years of her friendship with Sidney Herbert--a period

of which she used to speak, accordingly, as her "heaven upon earth." It

was the work with him, more than the charm of his conversation and

manner (though he had both and though she was susceptible to both), that

was the essence of her pleasure. She had as little taste for

conversation as for knowledge that led nowhither. "There is nothing so

fatiguing," she said, "as a companion who is always _effleurant_ the

deepest subjects--never going below the surface; as a person who is

always inquiring and never coming to any solution or decision. I don't

know whether Hamlet was mad. But certainly he would have driven me mad."

The same positive and purposeful spirit, attuned rather to the

intellectual and active sides of human nature than to the emotional,

coloured Miss Nightingale's preferences in literature--as in this letter

to Madame Mohl (May 20, 1868): "'What does it pruv?' said the old

Scotchwoman of _Paradise Lost_, and was abused for saying it. I say the

same thing. _Paradise Lost_ pruvs nothing. _Samson Agonistes_ pruvs a

great deal. Tennyson never pruvs anything. Browning's _Paracelsus_ pruvs

something. Shakespeare, in whatever he writes--in the deepest, highest

tragedies, like 'King Lear' or 'Hamlet'--pruvs everything and does most

explain the ordinary life of every one of us." She was a great reader,

but she preferred the literature of fact to that of imagination.

"Wondering," she said, "is like yawning, and leaves the same sensation

behind it, and should never be allowed except when people are very much

exhausted."

There followed from all this a certain severity in Miss Nightingale's

dealings with her friends; a certain inability to show tolerance or

understanding for other points of view than her own. There was a lady,

once a fellow-worker, who accused Miss Nightingale roundly of having

"no idea of friendship." The accusation was not true, but one can see

what the lady meant. Miss Nightingale was apt to be a little

over-exacting, and to drive her friends rather hard. Also she did not

relish independence or opposition. "I like being under obedience to

you," wrote one of her nursing friends, always very dear to her. Not

indeed that Miss Nightingale had any weakness for gush--no one had less;

but if a friend was otherwise admirable to her--by good sense and zeal,

and so forth, the fact of the "obedience" was not other than an

additional recommendation. She was inclined to resent any diversion on

the part of her friends to other interests as desertion.

All this will, I think, sometimes be felt to be true by those who read

the present Memoir. Yet it is only part of the truth; and because the

final truth resides in the whole it is in a sense not true at all. The

greatness of Miss Nightingale's character, and the secret of her life's

work, consist in the union of qualities not often found in the same man

or woman. She was not a sentimentalist; yet she was possessed by an

infinite compassion. Pity for the sick and sorrowful,--a passionate

desire to serve them,--devotion to her "children," the common

soldiers--sympathy with the voiceless peasants of India: these were

ruling motives of her life. She scorned those who were "only

enthusiasts"; but there was no height of devotion to which a considered

enthusiasm would not lead her. She had in equal measure cleverness and

charm. She had a pungent wit, but also a loving heart. The sharpness

often prominent in her letters was not always the expression of her real

mind or manner. She shunned "the broad way and the green"; but Colonel

Lefroy applied to her no less the later words: "they that overween, No

anger find in thee, but pity and truth." She combined in a rare degree

strength and tenderness. Masterful in action, she was humble, even to

the verge of morbid abasement, in thought. She was at once Positive and

Mystic. All this also will, as I hope, be found proven in the Memoir.

A curious, and a larger, question is raised by some of the apparent

contradictions in Miss Nightingale's aim, thoughts, and character. She

was intensely spiritual; she sought continually for the Kingdom of

Heaven, and she conceived of it as a kingdom of the soul. Yet her aim

may seem material; what she sought was a kingdom of more airy hospitals,

more scientific nursing, brighter barracks, cleaner homes, better laid

drains. It was after all a searching question which Aga Khan put to her,

as he listened to the tale of sanitary improvement during the fifty

years of her active life. "But are your people better?" Are there more

of them, we may conceive him as saying, who have attained to the kingdom

of heaven in their souls? And unless you can show me that such has been

the case, why have you, with your great influence and powers, devoted

your life to this service of tables?

What reply she made to the Prince I do not know. The answer in her mind

may be gathered from the course of her life, the nature of her

speculations, and the bent of her character. At recurrent intervals she

had formed thoughts for the main purposes of her life other than those

which in fact she fulfilled. We have heard of her desire "to find a new

religion for the artizans," and there are letters to Mr. Jowett in which

she speaks of this desire--of the hope to establish on some sure

foundation an organized creed and church--as the longing of her life.

She had to abandon it, but never, in the most prosaic or material of her

undertakings did she forget her spiritual ideals. She held, as her ideal

of nursing shows, that "it takes a soul to raise a body even to a

cleaner sty." She held also that the cleaner sty, though it might be the

first thing needful, was not the end, but a means. "We must beware," she

wrote, "both of thinking that we can maintain the 'Kingdom of Heaven

within' under all circumstances,--because there are circumstances under

which the human being cannot be good,--and also of thinking that the

Kingdom of Heaven _without_ will produce the Kingdom of Heaven

within."[255]

[255] _Suggestions for Thought_, vol. ii. p. 205.

Miss Nightingale's own peculiar genius was for administration and order;

and she had to employ her genius within the fields of opportunity which

her sex and her circumstances offered. She was fond of quoting a passage

which she found in one of Sir Samuel Baker's books of travel. "I, being

unfortunately dependent on their movements, am more like a donkey than

an explorer--that is, saddled and ridden away at a moment's notice." "I

never did anything," she once said to a young friend, "except when I was

asked." It will be agreed by all who have read this Memoir that Miss

Nightingale interpreted her mandates in a spacious sense admitting of

much initiative. Yet it is true in large measure that her work was the

creation of circumstances, and was, in some fields, dependent on what

she and Mr. Jowett used to call "temples of friendship" with political

administrators.

Miss Nightingale's scope of action was thus limited; but the limits did

not prevent the application of her fundamental ideas. "Perhaps," she

wrote in one of her meditations (1868), "it is what I have seen of the

misery and worthlessness of human life (few have seen more), together

with the extraordinary power which God has put into the hands of quite

ordinary people (if they would but use it) for raising mankind out of

this misery and worthlessness, which has given me this intense and ever

present feeling of an Eternal Life leading to perfection for each and

for every one of us, by God's laws." Miss Nightingale did not suppose

that human perfectibility, that the final union of man with God, was to

be attained only by better sanitation. But she saw that this was the

field open to her, and that it admitted of tilling by methods, which if

applied to all departments of life would, as she conceived, lead to the

one far-off Divine event. "Christianity," she wrote, "is to see God in

everything, to find Him out in everything, in the order or laws as of

His moral or spiritual, so of His political or social, and so of His

physical worlds.... To Christ God was everything--to us He seems

nothing, almost if not quite nothing, or if He is anything, He is only

the God of Sundays, and only the God of Sundays as far as going to what

we call our prayers, not the God of our week-days, our business, and our

play, our politics and our science, our home life and our social life;

our House of Commons, our Government, our post-office and

correspondence--such an enormous item in these days--our Foreign Office,

and our Indian Office.... The Kingdom of Heaven is within, but we must

also make it so without. There is no public opinion yet, it has to be

created, as to not committing blunders for want of knowledge; good

intentions are supposed enough; yet blunders--organized blunders--do

more mischief than crimes.... To study how to do good work, as a matter

of life or death; to 'agonise' so as to obtain practical wisdom to do

it, there is little or no public opinion enforcing this--condemning the

want of it. Until you can create such a public opinion little good will

be done, except by accident or by accidental individuals. But when we

have such a public opinion, we shall not be far from having a Kingdom of

Heaven externally, even here."[256] "I never despair," she had written

some years before, "that, in God's good time, every one of us will reap

the common benefit of obeying all the laws which He has given us for our

well-being." And towards that end, it was the duty of each and all,

according to their several opportunities, to "work, work, work."[257]

[256] _The Mythe of Life: Four Sermons on the Social Mission of the

Church._ By C. W. Stubbs, 1880, pp. 86, 98. Mr. Stubbs (afterwards

Bishop of Truro) quoted these passages from a letter written by

Miss Nightingale to her sister.

[257] Letter to Sir Bartle Frere, June 27, 1868.

Having found her appointed corner in the vineyard, Miss Nightingale

devoted her life to it; in equal measure, with careful adjustment of

means to ends, and with intense devotion. "To make an art of _Life_!"

she wrote to Madame Mohl (May 20, 1868). "That is the finest art of all

the Fine Arts. And few there be that find it. It was the 'one thing

wanting' to dear----. She had the finest moral nature I ever knew. Yet

she never did any good to herself or to any one else. Because she never

could make Life an Art. I used sometimes to say to her:--_Do_ you mean

to go on in that way for twenty years?--packing everybody's carpet-bag.

She always said she didn't. But she always did. And if she did not go on

for twenty years, it was only because Death came. I am _obliged_ (by my

ill-health) to make Life an Art--to be always thinking of it. Because

otherwise I should do _nothing_. (I have so little life and strength.)"

Miss Nightingale had come back from the Crimea full of honour. But she

returned also seriously injured in health. How naturally might a woman

of less resolute character have rested on her laurels, and sunk into a

life of gracious repose or valetudinarian indolence! She chose,

however, the better and the rougher path. She framed a regimen which

shut her off from many of the common enjoyments of life, which to some

degree impaired the flow of her domestic affections, but which enabled

her, through nearly fifty years of recurrent weakness, to follow her

highest ideals and to devote herself to work of public beneficence.

The circumstances of her life as they were ordered for her, the manner

of her life as she framed it to meet them, led to some other traits of

character which, again, present at first sight a curious contrariety.

"She is extremely modest," said the Prince Consort and Queen Victoria

when they met her, and she made the same impression on all who came in

contact with her whether in the region of public affairs or in that of

nursing. She had a consistent and a perfectly sincere shrinking from

every form of popular glare and glory. There are passages, however, in

letters to her intimate friends which leave, on a first reading, a

somewhat different impression. She craved for a full and understanding

sympathy with her mission and her work. She was fully conscious, it

would seem, of her great powers; she did not always care, in private

letters, to hide or to under-rate the extent of her influence upon men

and affairs. She objected, in one letter to a friend, that Kinglake's

chapter was intolerable because it posed her as "a Tragedy Queen"; but

there are other letters in which she dramatizes herself somewhat; there

is self-pity in them, and there is other self-consciousness. All this,

which on a superficial glance may seem to present some difficult

inconsistency, admits, I think, of easy explanation when the conditions

of her life are remembered. She was intensely conscious of a special

destiny, and the tenacity with which in the face of many obstacles she

clung to her sense of a vocation enabled her to fulfil it. The sphere of

women's work and opportunities has been so much widened in the present

day, that readers of a generation later than Florence Nightingale's may

require, perhaps, to make some effort of sympathetic imagination in

order to realize how much of a pioneer she was.[258] In her earlier

years it was a daring novelty for a young woman to put her hand to any

solid work in political administration or other organizing business. She

knew all this by hard experience, and it emphasized her sense of special

destiny. The manner of her life threw her at the same time, at each

stage, though in different ways, in upon herself. During the thwarted

years of her youth, she found little outlet except, as she said, in

"dreaming"; in dreaming, that is, of the things she might do, in

imagining herself in this position of influence or in that. When the

opportunity came to her of doing great things, not dreaming them, her

youth and early womanhood were already past. Miss Nightingale was

thirty-four when she went out to the Crimean war. In the later years,

the conditions in which she lived again encouraged, almost of necessity,

a habit of introspection: a habit which was also confirmed by her

mystical view of the duty of living an inner life of conscious

self-realization. Returning from the East in a state of nervous

exhaustion, she was absorbed in work which could not wait. She was

haunted for many years by threats of early death. There were such things

to be, such things to do. But she did them for the most part in

loneliness and without any habitual companionship. Except during the

five years of almost daily converse with Sidney Herbert, she enjoyed

none of that influence, at once sobering and fortifying, which comes

from the equal clash of mind with mind. The result was a strain of

morbidness which found occasional expression in notes of excessive

self-consciousness.

[258] Some passages which I have quoted from Lord Derby's _Speeches_ may

assist in such an effort. See Vol. I. pp. 272, 305.

There was, however, a more constant note. The nobility of Miss

Nightingale's character and the worth of her life as an example are to

be found, not least in the fundamental humility of temper and sanity of

self-judgment which caused her to aim with consistent purpose, not only

at great deeds, but at the doing of them from the highest motives. She

never felt that she had done anything which might not have been done

better; and, though she must have been conscious that she had done great

things, she was for ever examining her motives and finding them fall

short of her highest ideals. There is a story told of a famous artist,

that a friend entering his studio found him in tears. "I have produced

a work," he said, "with which I am satisfied, and I shall never produce

another." The premonition was true. No later masterpiece was produced.

The inspiration of the ideal was gone. That inspiration never forsook

Miss Nightingale in her pursuit of the art of life.

In life, as in other arts, what is spontaneous, and perhaps even what is

unregenerate, have often more of charm than what is acquired or learnt

by discipline. And in the case of Miss Nightingale, her elemental vigour

of mind and force of will, will perhaps to some readers seem more

admirable than the philosophy which she applied to her conduct or the

acquired graces with which she sought to chasten her character. But

however this may be, her constant striving after something which she

deemed better, and the unceasing conflict which she waged, now with

opposition of outward circumstance and now with undisciplined impulses

from within, add savour and poignancy to her life.

No man knew her so well for so many years as Mr. Jowett, and the thought

of her life never ceased to excite his admiration. "Most persons are

engaged," he wrote at Christmas-time 1886, "in feasting and

holiday-making amid their friends and relatives. You are alone in your

room devising plans for the good of the natives of India or of the

English soldiers as you have been for the last thirty years, and always

deploring your failures as you have been doing for the last thirty

years, though you have had a far greater and more real success in life

than any other lady of your time." And again: "There are those who

respect and love you, not for the halo of glory which surrounded your

name in the Crimea, but for the patient toil which you have endured

since on behalf of every one who is suffering or wretched." To us who

are able to enter even more fully than Mr. Jowett into the inner life of

Miss Nightingale, the respect and admiration may well be yet more

enhanced, as we picture the conditions in which the patient toil was

done, and remember the struggles of a beautifully sensitive soul in

ascending the path towards perfection.

* * * * *

Such is the picture of Miss Nightingale which this Book has endeavoured

to draw. As I wrote it I often thought with Mr. Jowett, that the life

of the secluded worker in the solitary bedroom in South Street was more

impressive even than the better known episodes of Santa Filomena in the

fever-haunted wards of Scutari, or of the Lady-in-Chief giving her

orders as she trudged through the snow from hut to hut on the heights of

Balaclava. But it is Miss Nightingale herself who, unconsciously, has

said the last words on her Life and Character. In praising one of her

fellow-workers, and, next, in giving counsel to some fellow-seekers

after good, she used phrases which may well be applied to herself:--

"One whose life makes a great difference for all: _all_ are better off

than if he had not lived; and this betterness is for always, it does not

die with him--that is the true estimate of a great LIFE."

"Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is

nothing small in it. For the greatest things grow by God's law out of

the smallest. But to live your life, you must discipline it. You must

not fritter it away in 'fair purpose, erring act, inconstant will'; but

must make your thought, your words, your acts all work to the same end,

and that end not self but God. This is what we call CHARACTER."

APPENDICES

A. LIST OF WRITINGS BY MISS NIGHTINGALE.

B. LIST OF WRITINGS ABOUT HER.

C. LIST OF PORTRAITS OF HER.

APPENDIX A

LIST OF PRINTED WRITINGS, WETHER PUBLISHED OR PRIVATELY CIRCULATED, BY

MISS NIGHTINGALE, CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED

1851

(1) _The Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, for the Practical

Training of Deaconesses, under the direction of the Rev. Pastor

Fliedner, embracing the support and care of a Hospital, Infant and

Industrial Schools, and a Female Penitentiary._ London: Printed by

the inmates of the London Ragged Colonial Training School, Westminster,

1851. Octavo, paper wrappers, pp. 32.

Published anonymously (see Vol. I. p. 93). There was another

edition (no date), with a different imprint, "London: Printed for the

benefit of the Invalid Gentlewomen's Establishment, 1 Upper Harley

Street."

1854

(2) _Letters from Egypt. For Private Circulation only._ London: Printed by

A. and G. A. Spottiswoode, 1854. Octavo, pp. 334 + 79.

After p. 334, further letters follow with separate pagination. The

letters were written in 1849 and 1850 (see Vol. I. p. 95).

1855

(3) Evidence contained in _Report upon the State of the Hospitals of the

British Army in the Crimea and Scutari, 1855_.

This is the Report of the Commission of Three sent out by the Duke of

Newcastle (see Vol. I. p. 176). Miss Nightingale's evidence is at pp.

330-331, 342-343; and there are numerous references to it in the text

of the Report.

1857

(4) _Female Nurses in Military Hospitals._ A "tentative and experimental"

Memorandum submitted by request to the Secretary of State. Printed in

_The Panmure Papers_, 1908, vol. ii. pp. 381-384.

This Memorandum was included, with a few slight modifications, at

pp. 15-19 of _Subsidiary Notes_ (see No. 9).

(5) _Statements exhibiting the Voluntary Contributions received by Miss

Nightingale for the use of the British War Hospitals in the East, with the

Mode of their Distribution, in 1854, 1855, 1856._ London:

Harrison, 1857. Octavo, red-paper wrappers, pp. 68.

One of the most important sources for many sides of Miss Nightingale's

work in the East. The pamphlet contains plans, also, of the Hospitals

at Balaclava and Scutari.

1858

(6) Letter to "the Colonists of South Australia," dated Jan. 28. Printed

in the _Daily News_, August 26, 1858.

The letter was a reply to a Memorial adopted at a Meeting held at

Adelaide, September 10, 1856, in support of the Nightingale Fund.

(7) _Report of the Commission appointed to inquire into Regulations

affecting the Sanitary Condition of the Army, the Organization of

Military Hospitals, and the Treatment of the Sick and Wounded._ Blue

book, 1858.

Miss Nightingale's evidence, supplied in answer to written questions,

occupies pp. 361-394. It was reprinted in her _Notes on Hospitals_

(ed. 1, 1859). Appendix LXXII. was also her work (anonymous). The

whole Report may, in a sense, be included among her "Works" (see

Vol. I. Part III. Chapters I. and IV.).

(8) _Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital

Administration of the British Army founded chiefly on the Experience of

the late War. Presented by request to the Secretary of State for War._

London: Harrison & Sons, 1858. Octavo, pp. 567.

(9) _Subsidiary Notes as to the Introduction of Female Nursing into

Military Hospitals in Peace and in War. Presented by request to the

Secretary of State for War._ London: Harrison & Sons, 1858. Octavo,

pp. 133. With 23 additional pages (separately numbered) of "Thoughts

submitted as to an Eventual Nurses' Provident Fund."

These important reports (for which see Vol. I. pp. 343, 347) were

not issued to the public. 500 copies of each volume were printed at a

total cost to Miss N. of £501:12s.

(10) Various articles (unsigned) in the newspapers on the _Hospital at

Netley_.

In July and August Miss N. organized a vigorous press-campaign on this

subject (see Vol. I. p. 383), and there is a large collection of

cuttings amongst her papers. Some of the articles, etc., may have been

written by friends. Those which are shown by her Papers to be hers

are: "What is to be done with Netley?" in the _Examiner_, July 24, and

"Netley Hospital" in the _Saturday Review_, August 28 (her own title

for this latter was "Peel's Life Pills or the Elixir Vitæ"). Other

articles, etc., probably hers, appeared in the _Builder_, July 24, the

_Daily News_, July 28 (signed "Vigilans"), the _Lancet_, Aug. 14, and

the _Leeds Mercury_, Aug. 21.

(11) "Sites and Construction of Hospitals." Three articles (unsigned) in

the _Builder_, August 28, September 11 and 25, 1858.

These articles were reprinted in _Notes on Hospitals_ (1859).

(12) "Notes on Hospitals." Two Papers read at Liverpool. Printed in the

_Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social

Science, 1858_, pp. 462-482.

These papers were also printed separately (brown paper wrapper), 8vo,

pp. 22, with plan. They were reprinted in _Notes on Hospitals_ (1859).

(13) _Mortality of the British Army, at Home and Abroad, and during the

Russian War, as compared with the Mortality of the Civil Population in

England. Illustrated by Tables and Diagrams. (Reprinted from the Report

of the Royal Commission appointed to enquire into the Regulations

affecting the Sanitary State of the Army.)_ London: Printed by Harrison

& Sons, 1858. Blue-book size, in stiff lilac paper wrappers, pp. 21.

This was a reprint of Appendix LXXII. in the Royal Commission's

Report, where it is stated that "The Tables and Diagrams are furnished

by Dr. Farr, F.R.S." They were prepared by him for Miss Nightingale

(see Vol. I. p. 376).

1859

(14) _A Contribution to the Sanitary History of the British Army during

the late War with Russia. Illustrated with Tables and Diagrams._ London:

Printed by Harrison & Sons, 1859. Large folio, pp. 16 and diagrams.

Some copies had the imprint of J. W. Parker & Co. For a notice of

this important work, see Vol. I. p. 386. 150 copies were printed.

(15) _Notes on Hospitals: being two Papers read before the National

Association for the Promotion of Social Science, at Liverpool, in

October 1858. With Evidence given to the Royal Commissioners on the

State of the Army in 1857. By Florence Nightingale._ London: John W.

Parker & Son, 1859. Octavo, pp. 108.

For the two Papers (pp. 1-22), see Vol. I. p. 417. The MS. of them

(entitled severally "Notes on the Health of Hospitals" and "Sixteen

Sanitary Defects in the Construction of Hospital Wards") is in the

Liverpool Public Reference Library, bound in a volume with Miss

Nightingale's letter of presentation. For the "Evidence" (pp. 23-88),

see above, No. 7. In an appendix (pp. 89-108) three articles from the

_Builder_ are reprinted (see above, No. 11). There was a _second

edition_ of _Notes on Hospitals_ in 1859. For the _third edition_,

which was almost a new book, see under 1863.

(16) _Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not. By Florence

Nightingale._ London: Harrison (1869). Octavo, pp. 70.

Issued at the end of December 1859, at the price of 5s. This book,

the most largely distributed of Miss Nightingale's writings, sold very

quickly (15,000 copies within a month of publication), and numerous

editions were issued (see Vol. I. p. 448).

1860

(17) _Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not. By Florence

Nightingale. New edition, revised and enlarged._ London: Harrison, 1860.

Octavo, pp. 224. Price 6s.

This edition, with much additional matter, was printed in larger type.

Simultaneously, a "Popular Edition" was issued, in limp cloth,

price 2s.

The publisher also issued a pamphlet (without wrappers), pp. 43,

containing _Reviews and Notices of "Notes on Nursing."_

The book was reprinted by Appleton & Co. in New York, and _American

editions_ appeared in 1860, 1876, 1879, 1883, 1891, 1901, 1906, 1908,

1909.

In England the book was most widely distributed in a cheap form

(see 1861).

For _foreign translations_, see Nos. 22 and 116 (Italian), 26

(German), 32 (French).

(18) _Proceedings of the International Statistical Congress, Fourth

Session, 1860._ To this Congress (Second Section, Sanitary Statistics)

Miss Nightingale contributed Papers, which were printed in various forms

in its _Proceedings_, etc.

The _Programme_ (quarto, pp. 210) contains her Paper on "Hospital

Statistics" (p. 63), with an appendix containing her detailed

"Proposal for an Uniform Plan of Hospital Statistics" (pp. 65-71).

The _Proceedings_ on Tuesday, July 17, report (p. 2) the reading of

her paper by one of the secretaries, and her suggestions were adopted,

subject to some additions to the tabular form. The _Proceedings_ of

July 18 report further discussion on these additions. The

_Proceedings_ of July 19 contain (p. 5) a letter from Miss Nightingale

concurring in the additions. The _Proceedings_ of July 20 mention that

a letter was read from her "on subjects of inquiry for next Congress"

(see (2) below).

The _Report_ of the Congress (quarto, pp. 548) contains (pp. 173, 174)

(1) an account of Miss Nightingale's Papers and of the conclusions of

the Congress thereon (see Vol. I. p. 431); (2) a letter from Miss

Nightingale to Lord Shaftesbury on subjects of inquiry for the next

Congress (pp. 177-178).

Miss Nightingale had copies of her Papers separately printed, with an

abstract of the discussions of the Congress thereon. Quarto, in blue

paper wrappers.

(19) _Suggestions for Thought to the Searchers after Truth among the

Artizans of England._ London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1860. 3 vols. Octavo,

pp. 292, 411, 126.

For this book, printed for a very limited private circulation only,

see Vol. I. pp. 470 _seq._ The second and third volumes have a

slightly different title (see Vol. I. p. 478), _Suggestions for

Thought to Searchers after Religious Truth_.

(20) _Note on the New Zealand Depopulation Question._

I am not sure that this Note on the Aborigines of New Zealand has ever

been printed; but it may have been. It was written at the request of

Sir George Grey (see Vol. II. p. 78), and the manuscript of it was

bequeathed by him with all his other papers to the Auckland Public

Library. The collection includes several letters from Miss

Nightingale. The Note was the work of Miss Nightingale in

collaboration with Dr. Sutherland.

(21) _Note on Causes of Deterioration of Race._ A short paper, printed

(probably in 1860), but not, so far as I have traced, published.

(22) _Cenni sull' Assistenza degli Ammalati. Quello che è assistenza, e

quello che non lo è. Di Florence Nightingale. Tradotto dall' inglese da

Sabilla Novello._ Turin: Fratelli Bocca, 1860. Octavo, pp. 96. Price 1

lira 50.

Miss Sabilla Novello was sister of Clara Novello and, like her (see

Vol. I. p. 500), was devoted to Miss Nightingale.

1861

(23) _Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes. By Florence

Nightingale._ London: Harrison, 1861.

Bound in limp red cloth, pp. 96, price 7d. The preface is dated "March

1861." An abridgment of the previous book; but with some additions,

and with a supplementary chapter entitled "Minding Baby" (see Vol. I.

p. 450). This cheap edition was reprinted in 1865, 1868, 1876, 1883,

1885, 1888, 1890, 1894, 1898.

(24) _Sidney Herbert._ A Paper--headed "Private and Confidential" (no

other heading and no title)--on his Services to the Army. Privately

printed. Blue-book size, pp. 5.

The substance of this Paper, considerably enlarged, appears in _Army

Sanitary Administration_ (1862). The Paper is dated "August 2, 1861"

(the day of Sidney Herbert's death); it was written a few days later

(see Vol. I. p. 408).

(25) _Miss Nightingale on the Volunteer Movement_, in a letter to Sir

Harry Verney. Printed on a folio card, intended, no doubt, for

exhibition in post offices, halls, etc.

The letter, dated October 8 (P.S. Oct. 9), 1861, was printed in the

_Standard_, October 12, and copies were distributed by the

Non-Commissioned Officers of the 1st Sussex Volunteer Artillery at the

Prize Distribution Soirée at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton,

October 18, 1861.

(26) _Die Pflege bei Kranken und Gesunden_, ... _mit einem Vorwort des

Geh. Sanitäts-Rath, Dr. H. Wolff, Bonn._ Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1861.

A German translation of _Notes on Nursing_, arranged for by Miss

Nightingale's friend, Fräulein Bunsen, "with a very idiotic Preface,"

said F. N., "by a very clever man."

(27) "Hospital Statistics and Hospital Plans." A paper printed in the

_Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social

Science, 1861_, pp. 554-560.

Reprinted in 1862: see next item.

1862

(28) _Hospital Statistics and Hospital Plans. By Florence Nightingale.

Reprinted from the Transactions of the National Association for the

Promotion of Social Science (Dublin Meeting, August 1861)._ London:

Emily Faithfull & Co., 1862. A pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 8.

This includes the Model Statistical Forms which were approved by the

International Statistical Congress (see above, No. 18). It also gives

plans of the "Herbert Hospital" at Woolwich, then being built.

(29) _Army Sanitary Administration and its Reform under the late Lord

Herbert._ London: M'Corquodale & Co., 1862. A pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 11.

A paper read at the London meeting of the Congrès de Bienfaisance,

June 13, 1862; a revised and enlarged version of the Privately Printed

Memorandum of 1861 (No. 24). The Paper was also printed as vol. ii.

pp. 103-111 of the Proceedings of the _Congrès de Bienfaisance de

Londres, Session de 1862_. London: Trübner, 1863.

(30) _Deaconesses' Work in Syria. Appeal on Behalf of the Kaiserswerth

Deaconesses' Orphanage at Beyrout._ Signed "Florence Nightingale,

London, September 19, 1862." On a fly-sheet, folio.

(31) _Thomas Alexander, C.B., Director-General Army Medical Department._

A Memorial Letter by Miss Nightingale, printed in the _Weekly Scotsman_,

September 13, the _Lancet_, September 27, 1862, and many other papers.

The letter was read by Lord Elcho in unveiling a public monument to

Dr. Alexander at Prestonpans. "I can truly say," she wrote, "that I

have never seen his like for directness of purpose, unflinching moral

courage and honesty."

(32) _Des Soins à donner aux Malades: ce qu'il faut faire, ce qu'il faut

éviter. Par Miss Nightingale. Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglais avec

l'authorisation de l'auteur. Précédé d'une Lettre de M. Guizot et d'une

Introduction par M. Daremberg._ Paris: Didier. Crown 8vo,

pp. lxxx. + 301.

A translation of _Notes on Nursing_ (1860). A biographical "Notice

sur Miss Florence Nightingale" occupies pp. lxi.-lxxvii. For a

reference to Guizot's letter, see Vol. I. p. 82.

1863

(33) _Report of the Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army

in India, 1863._ Large-size Blue-book, 2 vols. At vol. i. pp. 347-370,

"Observations by Miss Nightingale on the Evidence contained in the

Stational Returns," dated Nov. 21, 1862, with illustrations; pp.

371-462, "Abstract of the same Reports," headed "Prepared by Dr.

Sutherland," in fact prepared by him and Miss Nightingale.

For this Report, which was her work in further respects, see Vol. II.

Pt. V., Chaps. II., III. The Report was issued in three different

forms:

(1) As above.

(2) An octavo abridged edition (July 1863). This edition does not

include either Miss N.'s "Observations" or the "Abstract."

(3) A revised abridged edition, issued by the War Office. This was

prepared by Miss Nightingale and included her "Observations" (pp.

297-344), and a new "Abstract of the Evidence" (pp. 157-297)

prepared by her. For the story of these three editions, see Vol. II.

pp. 35-38.

(34) _Observations on the Evidence contained in the Stational Reports

submitted to the Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army in

India. By Florence Nightingale._ (_Reprinted from the Report of the

Royal Commission._) London: Edward Stanford, 1863. Octavo, pp. 92, bound

in red cloth. Price 2s. 6d.

This is a reprint of the "Observations," with all the illustrations

(see No. 33). The Publisher said in a prefatory note: "On a subject

of the highest interest to the country, it appears desirable that

Miss Nightingale's views should be placed in the hands of the public,

both in England and in India. Those who have Miss Nightingale's other

volumes will thus be able to add to them a book which is second to

none of them in charm of style, and will promote the reform of the

sanitary condition of the British Army, as well as conduce to the

well-being of the natives of India."

Extracts from the "Observations" and from "How People may live and not

die in India" (No. 41) were printed in the _Soldier's Friend_,

July 1, 1865.

(35) _Proposal for Improved Statistics of Surgical Operations._ Quarto,

pp. 7; dated December 1863.

The proposal had been submitted to the International Statistical

Congress held at Berlin in 1863 (see Vol. I. p. 434). The Paper was

included in the _third_ edition of _Notes on Hospitals_ (No. 37).

(36) _Note on the Supposed Protection afforded against Venereal Disease

by recognizing Prostitution and putting it under Police Regulation._

Folio, pp. 8.

Not signed, and headed "Private and Confidential." Miss N. printed

20 copies only (see Vol. II. p. 75).

(37) _Notes on Hospitals. By Florence Nightingale. Third edition,

enlarged and for the most part rewritten._ London: Longmans, 1863.

Quarto, pp. 187.

This edition comprised (1) the two Papers (rewritten) of the first

edition (but not the evidence to the Royal Commission of 1857); (2)

new chapters on Improved Hospital Plans, Convalescent Hospitals,

Children's Hospitals, Indian Military Hospitals, Hospitals for

Soldiers' Wives; (3) Hospital Statistics, A. General Statistics,

B. Proposal for Improved Statistics of Surgical Operations; (4) an

appendix "On Different Systems of Hospital Nursing."

Of these contents, (3) A. was substantially a reprint of No. 27; and

(3) B. of No. 35.

Of (4) a separate edition, slightly altered, was issued (see No. 38).

The publication of this third edition led to a lively discussion in

the medical press. The _Lancet_ approved of Miss Nightingale's

statistical method (Feb. 27, 1864). The _Medical Times_ (Jan. 30)

strongly attacked it. Dr. Farr defended it (Feb. 13), and a

correspondence ensued for some weeks which was as heated as

professional disputes generally are. The reviews in the general press

were very numerous.

(38) _Note on Different Systems of Nursing._ A pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 5

(printed by Harrison & Sons).

This is reprinted, slight alterations, from the appendix in the

_third_ edition of _Notes on Hospitals_.

(39) _Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of

Social Science, 1863_, containing two Papers by F. N.: (1) Sanitary

Statistics of Colonial Schools, pp. 475-488 (discussion on the paper,

p. 557). (2) How Men may live and not die in India, pp. 501-510

(discussion, pp. 557-558).

For the reprint of (1), see No. 40; of (2), No. 41.

(40) _Sanitary Statistics of Native Colonial Schools and Hospitals. By

Florence Nightingale._ London: 1863. A pamphlet (lilac-coloured paper

wrappers), pp. 67.

1864

(41) _How People may live and not die in India. By Florence

Nightingale._ (_Read at the Meeting of the National Association for the

Promotion of Social Science, held at Edinburgh, October 1863._) London:

Emily Faithfull, 1863. A pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 11, in lilac-coloured paper

wrappers.

This Paper, of wide fame in its day, appeared in three forms: (1) In

reports of the Social Science Association's Meetings (No. 39); also

very fully reported in the _Scotsman_, October 9, 1863.

(2) In the pamphlet, above described, which, though dated 1863, was

not issued till Jan. 1864. 250 copies were printed for private

circulation only.

(3) A _second edition_, widely circulated, appeared in November 1864,

published by Longmans, 8vo, pp. 18 (lilac wrapper), with a new Preface

(dated August 1864).

(42) _Suggestions, in Regard to Sanitary Works required for Improving

Indian Stations, prepared by the Barrack and Hospital Improvement

Commission._ Blue-book (Suggestions, pp. 1-37), issued in 1864.

These Suggestions are signed by the members of the Commission. They

were written mainly by Miss Nightingale. The MS. of the Suggestions as

first sent to the printers, preserved among her papers, is in her

handwriting, with some additions by Dr. Sutherland. The section (and

numerous illustrations in an appendix) dealing with drainage and

water-supply was contributed by Mr. R. Rawlinson. See Vol. II. p. 48.

A _revised edition_ was issued in 1882.

1865

(43) _Remarks by the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission on a

Report by Dr. Leith on the General Sanitary Condition of the Bombay

Army._ Parliamentary Paper, 1865, No. 329.

The original draft of this Paper was prepared by Dr. Sutherland and

Miss Nightingale (see Vol. II. p. 54).

(44) _Suggestions on a System of Nursing for Hospitals in India._ A

letter to the Secretary of the Sanitary Commission for Bengal, pp. 18.

Signed "Florence Nightingale, London, February 24, 1865." Folio, pp. 18.

Introduction, pp. 1-3; detailed Suggestions, pp. 4-18. The

Introduction (as is shown by a MS. amongst Miss Nightingale's Papers)

was written by Sir John McNeill. Miss Nightingale's letter was

included, as an appendix, in an Indian Official Paper (Simla,

Aug. 29, 1866) (see Vol. II. p. 55).

(45) _Nursing Association for the Diocese of Lichfield_.... By E. J.

Edwards. London: Parker, 1865. A pamphlet, with letter from F. N. dated

April 13, 1865, on p. 1.

(46) _The Organization of Nursing in a Large Town_ (an account of the

Liverpool Nurses' Training School). With an Introduction, and Notes, by

Florence Nightingale. Liverpool, 1865. Octavo, pp. 103.

Miss Nightingale's Introduction occupies pp. 9-16. The book also

contains (pp. 25-26) a letter from her, dated November 30, 1861, on

the "Training and Employment of Women in Hospital, District, and

Private Nursing."

A Swedish translation, by Frau Engelskau, appeared at Stockholm in

1869.

(47) _Note on the Aboriginal Races of Australia: a Paper read at the

Annual Meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social

Science, held at York, September 1864._ London: Printed by Emily

Faithfull, 1865. A pamphlet without wrappers, pp. 8.

The "Note" had previously been printed in the _Transactions_ of the

National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 1864,

pp. 552-558.

(48) _Death of Pastor Fliedner, of Kaiserswerth._ A quarto circular,

pp. 4; three letters, dated Oct. 21, Nov. 21, Dec. 10, 1864.

The last letter was an appeal for a Fund to support his widow and

children. The first two of the letters had already appeared in

_Evangelical Christendom_, New Series, vol. v. pp. 535-536 (November),

pp. 584-586 (December).

1867

(49) _Report of the Committee on Cubic Space of Metropolitan Workhouses

with Papers submitted to the Committee._ Blue-book, 1867. Paper xvi. is

Miss Nightingale's "Suggestions on the Subject of Providing, Training,

and Organizing Nurses for the Sick Poor in Workhouse Infirmaries," pp.

64-79 (dated Jan. 19, 1867).

For this Paper, see Vol. II. pp. 135-6. Miss Nightingale had copies of

it separately printed. Folio, pp. 16. Subsequently (1868) she issued

an abridgment of the Paper: _Method of Improving the Nursing Service

of Hospitals_. Folio, pp. 8 (some copies have an appendix, pp. 11).

Some of the contents were again printed in 1874.

(50) _Workhouse Nursing._ A letter to Mr. William Rathbone, dated Feb. 5,

1864, printed at pp. 4-6 of _Workhouse Nursing: the Story of a Successful

Experiment_. Macmillan, 1867.

For this letter, see Vol. II. p. 125.

1868

(51) "Una and the Lion." A paper in _Good Words_, June 1868, pp. 360-366.

An account of Miss Agnes Elizabeth Jones, "the pioneer of workhouse

nursing." It was reprinted, with some slight alterations, as

"Introduction" to _Memorials of Agnes Elizabeth Jones, by her Sister_

(1871), a book which ran into many editions (5th, 1872). The use of

Miss Nightingale's Paper in that book was unauthorized, and she

objected to the Memorials as one-sided and morbid, and giving no true

account of Miss Jones's work. For this paper, see Vol. II. p. 140.

(52) _Memorandum on Measures adopted for Sanitary Improvements in India

up to the end of 1867; together with Abstracts of the Sanitary Reports

hitherto forwarded from Bengal, Madras, and Bombay._ Printed by the

order of the Secretary of State for India in Council, 1868.

The Memorandum consists of (1) a résumé of the Sanitary Question from

1859 to 1867; (2) dispatch from Sir Stafford Northcote of April 23,

1868; (3) a review of the situation. Of these, (1) was written by

F. N.; (2) was drafted by her, (3) was written by her (see Vol. II.

p. 154).

1869

(53) "A Note on Pauperism." An article in _Fraser's Magazine_, March

1869, pp. 281-290.

See Vol. II. p. 164.

(54) _Report on Measures adopted for Sanitary Improvements in India

during the year 1868 and up to the month of June 1869; together with

Abstracts_, etc. Blue-book.

The Introductory Memorandum, pp. 1-8, was mainly written by F. N.

(see Vol. II. p. 181).

1870

(55) Letter, dated May 25, 1870, to the Council of the _Bengal Social

Science Association_, on being elected an Honorary Member thereof.

Printed at pp. xiv., xv. of the _Transactions_ of the Association

(Calcutta, 1870).

On her Indian work for 11 years.

(56) _Indian Sanitation._ Printed at pp. 1-9 of the _Transactions_ of

the Bengal Social Science Association (Calcutta, 1870).

The address was sent with a covering letter, dated June 24, 1870.

A note by the President of the Association says: "Our

assistant-secretary, Babu Nilmoney Dey, has undertaken to translate

this noble address to the People of India into Bengali, and it shall

be the care of our Council to provide that, before the end of the

year, its wise and benevolent monitions shall have free means of

access to every native homestead, at least in this Presidency of

India."

(57) _Report on Measures adopted for Sanitary Improvements in India from

June 1869 to June 1870; together with Abstracts_, etc. Blue-book.

This includes two contributions by F. N., viz.:

"Paper on Sanitary Progress in India," contributed by request to the

Report, pp. 40-46. "Letter to the Bengal Social Science Association,"

dated June 1870. Reprinted at pp. 288-291 of the same Report (see

No. 56).

In the former of these Papers, Miss Nightingale criticized the

introduction of conflicting disease-theories into sanitary reports,

as tending to confuse the public mind and impede expenditure on

sanitary improvement. Dr. Maclean, of the Netley Hospital, took

exception to these views in the _Lancet_ (Oct. 29, 1870), and Miss

Nightingale replied in the issue of November 19, 1870 (p. 725).

(58) Letter on the Franco-German War and Red-Cross Nursing. Printed in

the _Times_, August 5, 1870.

See Vol. II. p. 199.

(59) _Punishment and Discipline._ A letter to the National Congress on

Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline, Cincinnati, 1870. Printed in

the _Transactions_ (Albany, 1871), p. 636.

The letter dated "November 12, 1870," urges the expediency of making

thieves pay by reformatory work for what they steal.

1871

(60) _Emigration._ A letter to the Rev. Horrocks Cocks, April 12, 1871.

"Published by special permission of Miss Nightingale," on a fly-sheet,

pp. 2.

(61) _Introductory Notes on Lying-in Institutions. Together with a

Proposal for Organising an Institution for Training Midwives and

Midwifery Nurses. By Florence Nightingale._ London: Longmans,

Green & Co., 1871. Octavo, pp. 110.

For this book, see Vol. II. p. 196.

1872

(62) "Observations on Sanitary Progress in India." Dated October 11,

1872. Contributed by request to the _Report on Measures adopted for

Sanitary Improvements in India, 1872_, pp. 48-49.

(63) _Address from Miss Nightingale to the Probationer Nurses in the

"Nightingale Fund" School at St. Thomas's Hospital. Printed for Private

Circulation._ Dated May 1872. Quarto, pp. 8.

Copies were also lithographed from Miss Nightingale's MS. An address

(or sometimes called a letter) was written in many succeeding years

(see below under 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1878, 1879, 1881, 1883, 1884,

1886, 1888, 1897, 1900, 1905). For remarks on the addresses generally,

and quotations, see Vol. II. pp. 263-268.

1873

(64) "A 'Note' of Interrogation." An article in _Fraser's Magazine_, May

1873, pp. 567-577.

(65) "A Sub-'Note of Interrogation.' What will our Religion be in 1999?"

An article in _Fraser's Magazine_, July 1873, pp. 25-36.

For these papers, see Vol. II. pp. 218-220.

(66) _Address from Miss Nightingale to the Probationer Nurses in the

"Nightingale Fund" School at St. Thomas's Hospital and the Nurses who

were formerly trained there. Printed for Private Circulation._ Quarto,

pp. 12. Dated "May 23, 1873."

(67) _Notes on the New St. Thomas's Hospital._ [_Being simply Notes on

those things which should be avoided._] Headed "Private and

Confidential." Folio, pp. 4.

(68) _Prison Discipline._ A letter, dated "September 1, 1873," addressed

to the Rev. Dr. Wines and printed in the _Hartford Courant_

(Connecticut).

The letter was reprinted in English newspapers, _e.g._ in _The Times_

October 11, 1873.

(69) _Voting Reform in Charities._ A letter to Sir Sydney Waterlow,

dated October 30, printed in _The Times_, November 4, 1873.

(70) _Letter to the Nurses of the Edinburgh Infirmary._ Quarto, pp. 5.

Dated Dec. 6, 1873.

(71) A letter (lithographed) addressed to specified (Nightingale) Nurses

at the Edinburgh Infirmary, Christmas 1873.

1874

(72) _Life or Death in India. A Paper read at the Meeting of the

National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, Norwich,

October 1873. With an appendix on "Life or Death by Irrigation."_

London: Harrison & Sons, 1874. A pamphlet, 8vo, pp. 63, in lilac paper

wrappers.

For a notice of this pamphlet, see above, p. 181. The Paper was

printed in several different forms:

(1) In the _Transactions_ of the Association, 1873, pp. 463-474.

(2) For private circulation, as a pamphlet (pp. 14, in white paper

wrappers) entitled _How Some People have lived and not died in India_.

London, 1874 (printed by Spottiswoode).

(3) With the appendix (written in May 1874) as above. Some copies are

in dark-blue wrappers, and have "Spottiswoode & Co." in place of

"Harrison & Sons."

(4) The Paper and appendix were printed at pp. 47-64 of the Blue-book,

_Report on Measures adopted for Sanitary Improvements in India from

June 1873 to June 1874_.

(73) _Address from Florence Nightingale to the Probationer Nurses in the

"Nightingale Fund" School at St. Thomas's Hospital and the Nurses who

were formerly trained there. July 23, 1874. Printed for Private Use._

Quarto, pp. 12.

(74) "Irrigation and Means of Transit in India." An article in the

_Illustrated London News_, August 1, 1874; signed, and dated "July 30,

1874."

The article contains an incidental reference to the "India Council

Bill of Lord Salisbury--that master-workman and born ruler of men."

The article was reprinted in the _Homeward Mail_, August 4, and the

_Journal of the National Indian Association_, September (pp. 215-219).

(75) _Suggestions for Improving the Nursing Service of Hospitals and on

the Method of Training Nurses for the Sick Poor._ Folio, pp. 18 (dated

August 1874).

This Paper comprises: (1) "Method of Training Nurses at St. Thomas's

Hospital (under the Nightingale Fund)." (2) "Relation of Hospital

Management to Efficient Nursing." (3) "Structural Arrangements in

Hospitals required for Efficient Nursing." (4) "District Nursing." Of

these contents (1) and (2) and (3) were reprinted with some

alterations from No. 49.

(76) _Letter to the Nurses of the Edinburgh Infirmary_ (Dec. 1874).

Quarto, on a single sheet.

(77) _The Zemindar, the Sun, and the Watering Pot as affecting Life or

Death in India._ Folio, pp. 195; bound up in two Parts (pp. 1-84,

85-195).

For this work (never issued in any final form), see above, p. 295.

Proof-copies, among Miss Nightingale's papers, show many variations in

the title, _e.g._ for Part I., "The Zemindary System as affecting Life

or Death in India," and for Part II., "Life or Death in India under

Irrigation."

1875

(78) _Address from Florence Nightingale to the Probationer Nurses in the

"Nightingale Fund" School at St. Thomas's Hospital and the Nurses who

were formerly trained there. May 26, 1875. Printed for Private Use

only._ Quarto, pp. 12.

1876

(79) _Address_ ... [as in No. 78]. _April 28, 1876. Printed for Private

Use only._ Quarto, pp. 12.

(80) _Metropolitan and National Association for Providing Trained Nurses

for the Sick Poor. On Trained Nursing for the Sick Poor. By Florence

Nightingale._ A letter addressed to the _Times_ of Good Friday, April

14, 1876. Printed by Spottiswoode & Co., 1876. A small pamphlet (without

wrappers), pp. 12.

Other copies have the imprint, "Printed by Cull & Son, Houghton

Street, Strand." There were articles on Miss Nightingale's letter in

the _Saturday Review_, April 22, and _Punch_, April 29. The pamphlet

was reprinted in 1881.

(81) The "Bulgarian Atrocities." A letter, dated September 15, in the

_Daily News_, September 18.

An eloquent appeal for the Bulgarian Relief Fund, addressed to Sir

John Bennett.

1877

(82) "The Famine in Madras." A letter to the _Illustrated London News_,

June 29, 1877.

The letter, dealing with irrigation as a preventive of famine, was

reprinted as an appendix (pp. 25-30) to a pamphlet entitled _The

Madras Famine_, by Sir A. Cotton. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.

(83) _In Memoriam._ In remembrance of John Gerry. A small pamphlet, pp.

14, in mauve paper wrappers. Written and privately printed by F. N.

John Gerry was a young footman who died of smallpox at Lea Hurst on

July 17, 1877. Miss Nightingale was in the house at the time and had

two trained nurses in attendance on him.

(84) "The Indian Famine." A letter to the Lord Mayor, enclosing a cheque

for the Mansion House Relief Fund, printed in the _Daily Telegraph_,

August 20.

"The letter would be worth its weight in gold to the Fund," said the

Lord Mayor in acknowledging it. It was an earnest appeal for aid to

the ryot, than whom "there is not a more industrious being on the face

of the earth."

(85) _Work in Brighton; or, Woman's Mission to Women._ By the Author of

_Active Service, Work among the Lost_, etc. [Ellice Hopkins]. With a

Preface by Florence Nightingale. Ninth Thousand. London: Hatchards,

1877.

The Preface, dated "October 1877," occupies pp. iii., iv., and is an

earnest appeal for Rescue Work.

(86) _Lettre sur le devoir des Femmes de prendre une part active à

l'[oe]uvre du relèvement de la moralité publique, et considerations sur

les résultats sanitaires de la reglementation dans l'Inde Anglaise._

Read at a Congress in Geneva in the autumn of 1877. I have not been

able to trace where it was printed.

(87) _A Letter to the Nurses of the Edinburgh Infirmary_, dated "New

Year's Eve, 7 A.M." Quarto, pp. 3.

1878

(88) _Letter to the Matron, Home Sister, and Nurses at St. Thomas's

Hospital._ Quarto, pp. 14.

Lithographed. Dated "New Year's Day, 7 A.M., 1878." This took the

place of the usual address.

(89) "Who is the Savage?" An article in _Social Notes_ (edited by

S. C. Hall), May 11, 1878, vol. i. No. 10, pp. 145-147.

A description of life in the slums of a great city--suggesting an

extension of Miss Octavia Hill's work, coffee-houses, co-operative

stores, and rescue work. The MS. of this paper was offered for sale

by an Edinburgh bookseller in 1913.

(90) "The United Empire and the Indian Peasant." An article in the

_Journal of the National Indian Association_, June 1878, pp. 232-245.

(91) St. Thomas's Hospital. _Memorandum for Probationers as to Finger

Poisoning_, etc. A fly-sheet, pp. 4. Dated "July 1878."

Drawn up by F. N. in consultation doubtless with the medical officers.

(92) "A Water Arrival in India. By a Commissioner." An article, signed

"F. N.," in _Good Words_, July 1878, pp. 493-496.

Describing, in the language as of a Royal Progress, the opening of the

Kana Nuddee (Blind River) in the Hooghly District.

(93) _Opinions of Women on Women's Suffrage._ A leaflet (8vo, pp. 4,

printed by A. Ireland & Co., Manchester); Florence Nightingale's opinion

(dated July 1878) occupies p. 1:--

You ask me to give my reasons for wishing for the suffrage for women

householders and women ratepayers. I have no reasons. The Indian ryot

should be represented so that the people may virtually rate themselves

according to the surveys of what is wanted, and spend the money

locally under certain orders of an elected board. If this is the case:

that we wish to give to the Indian native, peasant and Zemindar alike,

such local representation _as we can_ in spending the taxes he pays,

is the educated English taxpayer, of _whichever_ sex, to be excluded

from a share in electing the Imperial representatives? It seems a

first principle, an axiom: that _every_ householder or taxpayer should

have a voice in electing those who spend the money we pay, including,

as this does, interests the most vital to a human being--for instance,

education. At the same time I do not expect much from it, for I do not

see that, for instance in America, where suffrage is, I suppose, the

most extended, there is more (but rather less) of what may truly be

called freedom or progress than anywhere else. But there can be no

freedom or progress without representation. And we must give women the

true education to deserve being represented. _Men_ as well as women

are not so well endowed with that preparation at present. And if the

persons represented are not worth much, of course the representatives

will not be worth much.

(94) "The People of India." An article in the _Nineteenth Century_,

August 1878, pp. 193-221.

For this article, see above, p. 290.

1879

(95) _Letter from Florence Nightingale to the Probationer-Nurses in the

"Nightingale Fund" School at St. Thomas's Hospital. Easter, 1879. For

Private Use only._ Quarto, pp. 4.

This letter, dated "Easter Eve, 1879, 6 _A.M._," was also lithographed

in smaller form.

(96) St. Thomas's Hospital: _Memorandum of Instructions by Matron to

Ward Sisters on Duties to Probationers_. Dated "Easter, 1879." A

pamphlet of 4 pp.

Signed "S. E. W." (Mrs. Wardroper, the Matron), but written by F. N.

(97) "A Missionary Health Officer in India." Three articles in _Good

Words_, July, August, September 1879, pp. 492-496, 565-571, 635-640.

The first and part of the second article describe Indian Famine

relief. The rest of the second discusses, in connection with agrarian

riots in the Deccan, the evils caused by the money-lenders (for an

extract from this article, see Vol. I. p. 87 _n._). The third

describes the work of a Sanitary Commissioner in normal times with

special reference to Bombay. Both the second and the third articles

close with panegyrics of Lord Lawrence.