_A brief summing up._
Those who write of Florence Nightingale sentimentally, as though she
spent herself in a blind, caressing tenderness, would have earned her
secret scorn, not unflavoured by a jest; for she stood always at the
opposite pole from the sentimentalists, and perhaps had a little of her
father in her—that father who, when he was _giving_ right and left, would
say to some plausible beggar of society who came to him for wholesale
subscriptions, “You see, I was not born generous,” well knowing that his
ideas of generosity and theirs differed by a whole heaven, and that his
were the wider and the more generous of the two.
She had a will of iron. That is what one of her greatest admirers has
more than once said to me—and he knew her well. No doubt it was true.
Only a will of iron could have enabled a delicate woman to serve, for
twenty hours at a time, with unwearying tenderness and courage among
the wounded and the dying. Even her iron resolution and absolute
fearlessness could not prevent her from taking Crimean fever when she
insisted on visiting a second time the lonely typhus patient outside
Balaclava, at a moment when she was worn out with six months of nursing
and administration combined. But it did enable her to go back to her post
when barely recovered, and, later in life, even when a prisoner within
four walls, who seldom left her bed, that will of iron did enable her to
go on labouring till the age of ninety, and to fulfil for the good of
mankind the dearest purpose of her heart. Nothing is harder than iron,
and that which is made of it after it has been through the furnace has
long been the very symbol of loyalty and uprightness when we say of a man
that he is “true as steel.”
Yes, iron is hard and makes a pillar of strength in time of need. But
he who forges out of it weapons and tools that are at once delicate
and resistless, knows that it will humbly shoe the feet of horses, and
cut the household bread, and will make for others besides Lombardy a
kingly crown. And when iron is truly on fire, nothing commoner or softer
nor anything more yielding—not even gold itself—can glow with a more
steadfast and fervent heat to warm the hands and hearts of men.
The picture of Miss Nightingale that dwells in the popular mind no
doubt owes its outline to the memories of the men she nursed with such
tenderness and skill. And it is a true picture. Like all good workmen,
she loved her work, and nursing was her chosen work so long as her
strength remained. None can read her writing, and especially her _Nursing
Notes_ and her pamphlet on nursing among the sick poor, without feeling
how much she cared for every minutest detail, and how sensitively she
felt with, and for, her patients.
But such a picture, as will have been made clear by this time, shows only
one aspect of her life-work. One of her nearest intimates writes to me of
her difficulties in reforming military hospitals, and her determination
therefore to give herself later in life to the reform of civilian
nursing; but in reality she did both, for through the one she indirectly
influenced the other, and began what has been widening and unfolding in
every direction ever since.
Those who knew her best speak almost with awe of her constructive and
organizing power. She was indeed a pioneer and a leader, and girt about
with the modesty of all true greatness.
Like Joan of Arc, she heeded not the outward voices, but, through all
faults and sorrows, sought to follow always and only the voice of the
Divine One. This gave her life unity and power. And when she passed on
into the life beyond, the door opened and closed again very quietly,
leaving the whole world the better for her ninety years in our midst.
“When I have done with this old suit,” says George Meredith, “so much in
need of mending;” but hers, like his, was a very charming suit to the
last, and even to the end of her ninety years the colouring was clear and
fresh as a girl’s.
Like all strong, true, disinterested people, she made enemies—where is
there any sanitary reformer who does not?—yet seldom indeed has any one,
man or woman, won deeper and more world-wide love. But that was not her
aim; her aim was to do the will of her Commander and leave the world
better than she found it.
Seldom has there been a moment when women have more needed the counsel
given in one of the letters here published for the first time, when
she begs of a dear friend that her name may be that “of one who obeys
authority, however unreasonable, in the name of Him who is above all, and
who is Reason itself.”
And as we think of the debt the world owes to Florence Nightingale and of
all she did for England, for India, and not only for the British Empire,
but for the world, we may well pause for a moment on the words that
closed our opening chapter, in which she begs her fellow-workers to give
up considering their actions in any light of rivalry as between men and
women, and ends with an entreaty:—
“It does not make a thing good, that it is remarkable that a
woman should have been able to do it. Neither does it make a
thing bad, which would have been good had a man done it, that
it has been done by a woman.
“Oh, leave these jargons, and go your way straight to God’s
work, in simplicity and singleness of heart.”
The well-remembered words of Ruskin’s appeal to girls in “Sesame and
Lilies,” published but a few years earlier, were evidently in Miss
Nightingale’s mind when she wrote the closing sentences of her tribute
to Agnes Jones—sentences which set their seal upon this volume, and will
echo long after it is forgotten.
“Let us,” she writes, “add living flowers to her grave, ‘lilies
with full hands,’ not fleeting primroses, nor dying flowers.
Let us bring the work of our hands and our heads and our
hearts to finish her work which God has so blessed. Let us not
merely rest in peace, but let hers be the life which stirs up
to fight the good fight against vice and sin and misery and
wretchedness, as she did—the call to arms which she was ever
obeying:—
‘The Son of God goes forth to war—
Who follows in His train?’
“O daughters of God, are there so few to answer?”
APPENDIX.
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS BY FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.
Letter (on the Madras Famine): The Great Lesson of the Indian Famine,
etc. 1877.
Life or Death in India. A Paper read at the Meeting of the National
Association for the Promotion of Social Science, Norwich, 1873, with an
Appendix on Life or Death by Irrigation. 1874.
Notes on Hospitals: being two Papers read before the National Association
for the Promotion of Science ... 1858, with the evidence given to the
Royal Commissioners on the state of the Army in 1857 (Appendix, Sites and
Construction of Hospitals, etc.).
Do., 3rd Edition, enlarged, and for the most part rewritten. 1863.
Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital
Administration of the British Army, founded chiefly on the experience of
the late war. 1858.
Notes on Nursing: What it is, and what it is not. 1860.
New Edition, revised and enlarged, 1860; another Edition, 1876.
Miss Florence Nightingale ovy knitra o oŝctr̂ování nemocnŷch. z
anglického pr̂eloẑila. Králova, 1872.
Des Soins à donner aux malades ce qu’il faut faire, ce qu’il faut eviter.
Ouvrage traduit de l’Anglais. 1862.
Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes, with a Chapter on Children.
1861.
Do., New Edition, 1868 and 1876.
Observations on the ... Sanitary State of the Army in India. Reprinted
from the Report of the Royal Commission. 1863.
On Trained Nursing for the Sick Poor.... A Letter ... to _The Times_ ...
April 14, 1876.
Sanitary Statistics of Native Nursing Schools and Hospitals. 1863.
Reproduction of a printed Report originally submitted to the Bucks
County Council in the year 1892, containing Letters from Miss Florence
Nightingale on Health Visiting in Rural Districts. 1911.
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. Published, London,
1857.
A LIST OF SOME OF THE BOOKS CONSULTED
In case any of my readers wish to read further for themselves:—
Kinglake’s _Invasion of the Crimea_. (William Blackwood.)
_Memoir of Sidney Herbert_, by Lord Stanmore. (John Murray.)
_Life of Sir Bartle Frere_, by John Martineau. (John Murray.)
_Letters of John Stuart Mill_, edited by John Elliot. (Longmans.)
_William Rathbone_, a Memoir by Eleanor F. Rathbone. (Macmillan.)
_The Life of Florence Nightingale_, by Sarah Tooley. (Cassell.)
_Felicia Skene of Oxford_, by E. C. Rickards. (John Murray.)
_Memoir of Sir John MacNeill, G.C.B._, by his Granddaughter. (John
Murray.)
_Agnes Elizabeth Jones_, by her Sister. (Alexander Strahan.)
_A History of Nursing_, by M. Adelaide Nutting, R.N., and Lavinia L.
Dock, R.N. (G. P. Putnam and Sons.)
_A Sister of Mercy’s Memories of the Crimea_, by Sister Aloysius. (Burns
and Oates.)
_The Story of Florence Nightingale_, by W. I. W. (Pilgrim Press.)
_Soyer’s Culinary Campaign_, by Alexis Soyer. (Routledge.)
_Kaiserswerth_, by Florence Nightingale.
_Florence Nightingale_, a Cameo Life-Sketch by Marion Holmes. (Women’s
Freedom League.)
_Paterson’s Roads_, edited by Edward Mogg. (Longmans, Green, Orme.)
_The London Library_, No. 3, vol. of _The Times_ for 1910.
_Nursing Notes_, by Florence Nightingale, and other writings of Miss
Nightingale included in the foregoing list.
A BRIEF SKETCH OF GENERAL EVATT’S CAREER.
[As given in _Who’s Who_.]
EVATT, SURGEON-GENERAL GEORGE JOSEPH HAMILTON, C.B., 1903; M.D.,
R.A.M.C.; retired; Member, Council British Medical Association, 1904;
born, 11th Nov. 1843; son of Captain George Evatt, 70th Foot; married,
1877, Sophie Mary Frances, daughter of William Walter Raleigh Kerr,
Treasurer of Mauritius, and granddaughter of Lord Robert Kerr; one son,
one daughter. Educated, Royal College of Surgeons, and Trinity College,
Dublin. Entered Army Medical Service, 1865; joined 25th (K.O.S.B.)
Regiment, 1866; Surgeon-Major, 1877; Lieutenant-Colonel, R.A.M.C., 1885;
Colonel, 1896; Surgeon-General, 1899; served Perak Expedition with Sir
H. Ross’s Bengal Column, 1876 (medal and clasp); Afghan War, 1878-80;
capture of Ali Musjid (despatches); action in Bazaar Valley, with General
Tytler’s Column (despatches); advance on Gundamak, and return in “Death
March,” 1879 (specially thanked in General Orders by Viceroy of India in
Council and Commander-in-Chief in India for services); commanded Field
Hospital in second campaign, including advance to relief of Cabul under
General Sir Charles Gough, 1879; action on the Ghuzni Road; return to
India, 1880 (medal and two clasps); Suakin Expedition, 1885, including
actions at Handoub, Tamai, and removal of wounded from MacNeill’s zareba
(despatches, medal and clasp, Khedive’s Star); Zhob Valley Expedition,
1890; commanded a Field Hospital (despatches); Medical Officer, Royal
Military Academy, Woolwich, 1880-96; Senior Medical Officer, Quetta
Garrison, Baluchistan, 1887-91; Sanitary Officer, Woolwich Garrison,
1892-94; Secretary, Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, 1894-96; P.M.O.,
China, 1896-99; P.M.O., Western District, 1899-1902; Surgeon-General,
2nd Army Corps, Salisbury, 1902-3; raised with Mr. Cantlie R.A.M.C.
Volunteers, 1883; founded, 1884, Medical Officers of Schools Association,
London; and, 1886, drew up scheme for Army Nursing Service Reserve;
Member, Committee International Health Exhibition, 1884; Member of
Council, Royal Army Temperance Association, 1903; President, Poor Law
Medical Officers’ Association; contested (L.) Woolwich, 1886, Fareham
Division, Hampshire, 1906, and Brighton, 1910; Honorary Colonel,
Home Counties Division, R.A.M.C., Territorial Force, 1908; received
Distinguished Service Reward, 1910. _Publications_: Travels in the
Euphrates Valley and Mesopotamia, 1873; and many publications on military
and medical subjects.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] I wrote to the author of the charming sketch of Florence Nightingale
in which I found it quoted, but he has quite forgotten who was the writer.
[2] Her full name was Frances Parthenope Nightingale.
[3] Mrs. Tooley, p. 37.
[4] For a charming sketch of Fliedner’s first wife, a woman of rare
excellence, my readers are referred to “A History of Nursing,” by M.
Adelaide Nutting, R.N., and Lavinia P. Dock, R.N. (G. P. Putnam and Sons.)
[5] The reference here is not to Miss Nightingale’s book, but to the
periodical which at present bears that name.
[6] “Memoir of Sidney Herbert,” by Lord Stanmore. (John Murray.)
[7] “Felicia Skene of Oxford,” by E. C. Rickards.
[8] Kinglake’s “Invasion of the Crimea,” vol. vi. (William Blackwood and
Sons.)
[9] Kinglake’s “Invasion of the Crimea,” vol. vi. p. 426.
[10] Kinglake’s “Invasion of the Crimea,” vol. vi.
[11] “The Life of Florence Nightingale,” by Sarah Tooley.
[12] Stafford O’Brien.
[13] Kinglake’s “Invasion of Crimea.”
[14] “Memories of the Crimea,” by Sister Mary Aloysius. (Burns and Oates.)
[15] “Soyer’s Culinary Campaign,” Alexis Soyer. (Routledge, 1857.)
[16] I know not whether this was the man whose arm she had saved;
probably many others echoed his feeling, and he was not by any means the
only soldier who thus reverently greeted her passing presence.
[17] “Introduction to Memorials of Agnes Elizabeth Jones.” Reprinted from
_Good Words_ for June 1868. Florence Nightingale.
[18] The italics are added.
[19] A complete list is subjoined in the Appendix.
[20] Sir Harry Verney died four years later, and Claydon then passed to
Sir Edmund Hope Verney, the son of his first marriage.
[21] “Life of Florence Nightingale,” by Sarah Tooley, p. 295.
[22] See “Life of Florence Nightingale,” by Sarah Tooley, p. 268.
[23] “Florence Nightingale,” a Cameo Life-Sketch by Marion Holmes.
[24] “Life of Sir Bartle Frere,” by John Martineau. (John Murray.)
[25] “Life of Sir Bartle Frere,” by John Martineau. (John Murray.)
[26] “The Lady of the Lamp,” by F. S., reprinted from the _Evening News_
of August 16, 1910, in _Nursing Notes_ of September 1, 1910.