_The activities of girlhood—Elizabeth Fry—Felicia Skene again._
But we are wandering away from Embley and from the two daughters of the
squire, who were already the delight of the village.
Cap was by no means the only animal who owed much to Florence, and Peggy,
a favourite old pony, now holiday-making in the paddock, looked for
frequent visits and much sport between lesson hours.
“Poor old Peggy, then; would she like a carrot?”
“Well, where is it, then? See if you can find it, Peggy.”
And then a little game followed, to which the beloved pony was quite
accustomed—snuffing round her young mistress and being teased and
tantalized for a minute or two, just to heighten the coming pleasure,
until at last the pocket was found where the precious delicacy was
hidden, and the daily feast began, a feast not of carrots only, for
caresses were of course a part of the ritual.
Florence had much good fellowship also with the wild squirrels of the
neighbourhood, especially in one long avenue that was their favourite
abode. They were not in the least afraid of her, and would come leaping
down after the nuts that she dropped for them as she walked along.
Sometimes she would turn sharp round and startle them back into their
homes, but it was easy to tempt them down again. She was quick at finding
and guarding the nests of brooding birds, and suffered very keenly as a
child when the young ones were taken away from their mothers.
Lambs and calves soon learned that she was fond of them, and the
affection was not on her side only. But among the pets that the two girls
were allowed to have, the ailing ones were always the most interesting to
the future nurse.
It cannot, however, be too strongly stated that there was nothing
sentimental or lackadaisical in the very vigorous and hard-working life
that she led. It was not by any means all songs and roses, though it
was full of the happiness of a well-ordered and loving existence. Her
father was a rigid disciplinarian, and nothing casual or easygoing was
allowed in the Embley schoolroom. For any work carelessly done there was
punishment as well as reproof, and no shamming of any sort was allowed.
Hours must be punctually kept, and, whether the lesson for the moment was
Latin, Greek, or mathematics, or the sewing of a fine and exquisite seam,
it must come up to the necessary standard and be satisfactorily done. The
master-mind that so swiftly transformed the filthy horrors of Scutari
into a well-ordered hospital, and could dare to walk through minor
difficulties and objections as though they did not exist, was educated
in a severe and early school; and the striking modesty and gentleness of
Florence Nightingale’s girlhood was the deeper for having grappled with
enough real knowledge to know its own ignorances and limitations, and
treat the personality of others with a deference which was a part of her
charm.
And if study was made a serious business, the sisters enjoyed to the
full the healthy advantages of country life. They scampered about the
park with their dogs, rode their ponies over hill and dale, spent long
days in the woods among the bluebells and primroses, and in summer
tumbled about in the sweet-scented hay. “During the summer at Lea Hurst,
lessons were a little relaxed in favour of outdoor life; but on the
return to Embley for the winter, schoolroom routine was again enforced on
very strict lines.”[3]
In Florence Nightingale’s Derbyshire home the experiments in methods of
healing which dispensed with drugs could not fail to arouse attention
and discussion, for Mr. John Smedley’s newly-built cure-house stood at
the foot of the hill below Lea Hurst, and before Florence Nightingale
was twenty she had already begun to turn her attention definitely in the
direction of nursing. Everything tended to deepen this idea. She was
already able to do much for the villagers, and in any case of illness
they were always eager to let her know. The consumptive girl whose room
she gladdened with flowers was but one of the many ailing folk who found
comfort and joy in her presence. “Miss Florence had a way with her that
made them feel better,” they said.
In those days nursing as a profession did not exist. When it was not done
wholly for love by the unselfish maiden aunt or sister, who was supposed,
as a matter of course, to be always at the disposal of the sick people
among her kinsfolk, it had come to be too often a mere callous trade,
carried on by ignorant and grasping women, who were not even clean or
of good character. The turning of a Scutari hell into a hospital that
seemed heaven by comparison, was a smaller miracle than that which Miss
Nightingale’s influence was destined later to achieve in changing a
despised and brutalized occupation throughout a whole empire into a noble
and distinguished art.
Of course it must never be forgotten that through all the centuries since
the Christian Church was founded, there had been Catholic sisterhoods
with whom the real and the ideal were one—Sisters of Mercy, who were
not only refined and cultivated gentlewomen, but the most devoted and
self-sacrificing of human souls.
And now in England, in that Society of Friends, which among Christian
communities might seem outwardly farthest away from a communion valuing
as its very language the ancient symbols and ritual of the Catholic
Church, yet was perhaps by its obedience to the inward voice more in
sympathy with the sisterhoods of that Church than were many other
religious groups, there had been lifted up by Elizabeth Fry a new
standard of duty in this matter, which in her hands became a new standard
of nursing, to be passed on in old age by her saintly hands into the
young and powerful grasp of the brilliant girl who is the heroine of
our story. The name of Elizabeth Fry is associated with the reform of
our prisons, but it is less commonly known that she was also a pioneer
of decent nursing. She understood with entire simplicity the words, “I
was sick and in prison, and ye visited me.” Perhaps it was not mere
coincidence that the words occur in the “lesson” appointed for the 15th
of February—the day noted in Elizabeth Fry’s journal as the date of that
visit to Newgate, when the poor felons she was yearning to help fell on
their knees and prayed to a divine unseen Presence. In a recent number of
the _Times_ which celebrates her centenary a quotation from her diary is
given which tells in her own words:—
“I heard weeping, and I thought they appeared much tendered;
a very solemn quiet was observed; it was a striking scene,
the poor people on their knees around us, in their deplorable
condition.”
And the _Times_ goes on to say, “nothing appears but those qualities of
helpfulness, sympathy, and love which could tame the most savage natures,
silence the voice of profanity and blasphemy, and subdue all around her
by a sense of her common sisterhood even with the vilest of them in the
love of God and the service of man.... But the deepest note of her nature
was an intense enthusiasm of humanity. It was this which inspired and
sustained all her efforts from first to last—even in her earlier and more
frivolous days—for the welfare and uplifting of her fellow-creatures;
and it is only right to add that it was itself sustained by her deep and
abiding conviction that it is only by the love of God that the service
of man can be sanctified and made to prosper.” A letter followed next
day from Mr. Julian Hill, who actually remembers her, and tells how the
Institution of Nursing Sisters which she organized grew out of her deep
pity for the victims of Sairey Gamp and her kind.
All this was preparing the way for the wider and more successful nursing
crusade in which her memory and influence were to inspire the brave young
soul of Florence Nightingale. Speaking of all the difficulties that a
blindly conventional world is always ready to throw in the way of any
such new path, her old friend writes: “Such difficulties Mrs. Fry and
Miss Nightingale brushed contemptuously aside.”
But in our story Miss Nightingale is as yet only lately out of the
schoolroom. And Elizabeth Fry’s life was by no means alone, as we have
seen, in its preparation of her appointed path, for about the time that
Florence Nightingale was taking her place in the brilliant society that
met about her father’s board, and Felicia Skene was “coming out,” a new
experiment was being made by a devout member of the Lutheran Church, an
experiment which was to play an important part in the world’s history,
though so quietly and unobtrusively carried out.
We must not anticipate—we shall read of that in a later chapter.